‘Has it been so long? You are right. Mairi’s child is nearly old enough to be wed, and Gawen is eleven winters old.”
Eilan nodded, remembering with sudden vividness how Caillean? I visited her in her exile in the hut in the forest, and how the
woman had held her hands and sponged her brow while the child was being born. She had thought those memories would never fade or dim; now they were like a dream long gone by. The work that she and Caillean were doing in the Forest House seemed far more vivid now.
“And now we have two of Brigitta’s daughters within the House,” Caillean said thoughtfully. “But within a year they will go to the Romans to be fostered.”
Eilan said, sighing, “I hate to think Brigitta should lose her children.”
“I would waste no sympathy on her,” Caillean answered her. “I doubt she lost any sleep over what it would do to her children when she let Cynric persuade her into plotting rebellion.”
Eilan knew this was most likely true; but as a mother she remembered her anguish when Ardanos had taken Gawen away. “Why do you speak of these things now?” she asked. “I cannot believe you have waited here all morning just to count over old memories as a Roman moneylender counts his gold!”
Caillean sighed. “There is something I must say to you, and I know not how to say it. So I speak of all manner of meaningless things. Eilan, I have had such warning as they say comes to each priestess before her death. No, I cannot explain —”
Eilan felt cold congealing around her heart, despite the warmth of the sun. “What do you mean, a warning? Are you in pain? Perhaps Miellyn knows some herbs —”
Caillean returned quietly. “I have had a dream, and I think it means that this life will soon end.”
Caillean, dying? Stunned, all Eilan could find to say aloud was, “But how?”
Caillean replied quietly, “Truly, I know not how to tell you; perhaps it is something one can understand only when it comes.”
Oh aye, Eilan thought. It is true: I too am a priestess, even if not a very good one. In Caillean’s presence she remembered that, though she often doubted it at other times. Since her last meeting with Cynric she had been most aware of herself as a pawn in his combat with the Romans, as with Ardanos she was aware above all else of the way he wished to use her to keep the peace with Rome. For the past few seasons the tribes had been quiet, but she heard tales of troubles among the Romans. Cynric would be quick to take advantage of any weakness if the Romans should rebel against their Emperor. Would Gaius join such a rebellion? Had he ever cared for her for her own sake?
But with Caillean, from the first moment she had met her, Eilan was above all and only a priestess. When she was with her, Eilan felt that the Goddess might still have some use for her. As deeply as she had loved Gaius she could not help remembering that he had not stood by her. But Caillean had always been there.
She looked at her sister-priestess helplessly, and thought suddenly, We have been through this before, and I watched her die in pain.
Suddenly Eilan was angry. If she could do nothing about it, why did Caillean want to harrow her feelings by telling her? She looked at the other woman almost with hostility, and saw a flicker of emotion in Caillean’s dark eyes, like a hidden current in a pool. Knowledge came to her suddenly. She too is afraid.
She took a deep breath, and the power of the Goddess that Caillean could awaken in her stirred suddenly.
“As High Priestess of Vernemeton, I command you – tell me your dream!”
Caillean’s eyes widened, but in a few moments the tale was spilling out of her. Eilan listened with eyes closed, seeing the images as Caillean described them. And soon it seemed to her as if she could see them before the other woman spoke, as if it were her own dream that Caillean was telling, and when Caillean fell silent, she herself continued with the story of her own dream of the swans.