It was hard to face Macellius, knowing the answer to the question he did not quite dare to ask me, and realizing that I could never tell him how his boy had died. By now the most amazing rumors were flying about the countryside. Gaius had died as a
British Year-King, and though some thought he was a Roman, the only people who knew his name had a powerful reason for keeping silence.
Disorganized the Romans might be, but they still had the force to drown the countryside in blood if they found proof that a Roman officer had been sacrificed on that hill. But of course there was no body, only a pile of ashes mingled with the embers of the Samaine fire.
As they were leaving, Macellius turned to me, and I saw that hope was not quite dead in his eyes. “There was a boy living in the Forest House,” he said. “They called him Gawen. I believe he is . . . my grandson. Can you tell me where he is now?”
This time, at least, I could answer truthfully that I did not know, for Gawen had not been seen since Samaine Eve, the day that his nurse and Senara had also disappeared.
For it was not until the third day afterward that Senara came creeping back, her young face haggard with tears, followed by a lanky lad who looked about him with troubled eyes.
“She died for my sake,” Senara sobbed when we told her what had happened to Eilan. “She condemned herself to save me – and her child.”
My throat was aching, but I forced myself to speak calmly. “Then her sacrifice must not be wasted. Will you take the vows and serve the Goddess in her place, now that she is gone?”
“I cannot, I cannot,” wailed Senara. “It would be a sin, for I am a Nazarene. Father Petros is moving into Deva. He will let me stay in his hermitage, and I will spend the rest of my days in prayer!”
I blinked, for suddenly it seemed to me that I could see that small house in the forest surrounded by many others. In time, I thought, more female hermits would gather around her. And what I saw then has indeed come to pass, for this was one of the first of the pious sisterhoods that now serve the people as the Forest House did then; but that was many years in the future. Did Eilan foresee it? Either way, the younger woman had played her part. Senara might refuse to become High Priestess of Vernemeton, but in a sense she was still Eilan’s heir.
“Will you take Gawen to his grandfather?” Senara asked. “I cannot keep him with me once I have taken Christian vows.”
Which one? I wondered wryly, and then I realized that I was unwilling to surrender the boy to either of those old men, both still prisoned by the hatred of a dying past.
“Gawen . . .” I looked at him, and saw a creature neither Roman nor Briton, neither boy nor man, standing on the threshold of possibility. In the end, Eilan had died so that this child might live in a new world. “I am going back to the Summer Country, where the mists roll around the vale that they call Afallon. Will you come with me?”
“Is that the Summerland?” he asked. “They tell me my mother has gone there.”
“Not quite.” My eyes filled. “But close to it, some would say.”
He looked around him and shivered, and I thought how hard it must be for him, not yet really knowing what he had lost. Almost as hard as it was for me, who understood all too well.
Then he looked up at me, and I saw a spirit that resembled neither grandfather, nor his parents either, looking out of his eyes.
“Very well. I will come with you to Afallon.”
Here at the heart of the Summer Country I sometimes wonder why of all who played such a part in this story, I alone have been spared. I know that I am only beginning to see the great design in all of this. Can it be that Eilan’s child, who represents two great strains which have gone into the making of our people, will be the founder of a line from which their savior shall one day spring?