If anyone except a girl as pretty as this one had brought up such a subject to Gaius, he probably would have laughed in her face. Julia’s talk of such things bored him almost to tears. Instead he answered more gently, “If you have a care for my soul you will simply have to help me save it.”
She said doubtfully, “I think Father Petros could help you a good deal better than I can.” They had reached the entrance to the avenue of oaks that led to the Forest House, and she stopped, frowning. “I can find my way from here; and you should certainly not come any closer. You might be seen, and then I too would be caught and punished.”
He seized her shoulders and said, half jocularly, half pleading, “Will you let me go with my soul unsaved, then? We must meet again.”
She looked troubled. “I should not say this,” she said abruptly.
“But I take food to Father Petros’s hermitage at noon of every day. If you happened to be there . . . I suppose . . .we could talk then.”
“Then you shall certainly save my soul, if it can be saved,” Gaius replied. He did not care a pin about his suppositious soul; but he knew he wanted to see Senara again.
“I will never see you again —” Eilan turned abruptly away from Caillean and stared into the garden.
“That is foolish!” exclaimed Caillean, the stab of fear those words gave her turning to anger. “Now it is you who are having the foolish premonitions. It was you yourself who wanted me to go!”
Eilan’s thin shoulders quivered. “Not I, not I. It was the Goddess speaking through me, and I know we must do Her will. But oh, Caillean, now that the time conies, it is hard!”
“Hard indeed!” Caillean spat back at her. “But it is I who must leave you and everything that I have loved. Are you sure it was the Goddess speaking and not Ardanos whispering in your ear? He has wanted to separate us ever since I made him let you keep your son!”
“I suppose this does please him,” whispered Eilan, “but do you truly believe it was his doing? Is everything I have tried to do here a lie?”
Caillean heard her pain and could maintain her own anger no longer. “My dear one – my little one.” She laid a hand on Eilan’s shoulder and the other woman turned into her arms. She made no sound, but her cheeks were streaked with tears. “We must not fight like children when there is so little time! There are moments when the power of the gods burns like the sun, and then it grows dark and the light seems only a dream. It has always been so. But I believe in you, my love.”
“Your belief has sustained me,” Eilan murmured.
“Listen,” said Caillean. “This is not for ever. One day, when we are old women together, we will laugh at our fears.”
“I know that we will be together,” said Eilan slowly, “but whether it is in this life or another, that I cannot see.”
“My Lady,” Huw spoke from the gate, “the bearers are waiting.”
“Now you must go.” Eilan straightened, becoming the High Priestess again. “We must both serve the Lady in the places where She has called us, no matter what we feel.”
“It is all right. I will return, you’ll see,” Caillean said gruffly, giving her a last, swift hug and releasing her.
She went away then, knowing that if she looked back at Eilan she would weep herself, and she must not, not before the young priestesses and the men. It was not until the curtains of the litter closed around her that she gave way to her tears.
She spent most of the rainy, dismal journey to the Summer Country brooding. Her mood was not improved by the fact that they had to travel by litter, a form of transportation that she detested.
She was accompanied by the priestesses chosen for the new establishment. They were mostly young, and all virtual newcomers to the Forest House who were too awed even to address her in anything but the barest commonplaces. Caillean had little to do except to nurse her rage.