“The Druids teach this also,” she said quietly. “The greatest of our priests have been many lifetimes upon this earth, living as stags and salmon and boars so that they may understand all that lives; and heroes whose lives are cut short are often born again. But as for me and you . . .” She frowned, and he found it hard to meet her clear gaze.
“I looked in a pool once and saw myself with a different face, and yet it was me. I think that then I was a priestess. Now I look at you, and I do not see a Roman or a Briton either. My heart tells me that you were a great man among your people – like a king.”
Gaius flushed. This kind of talk always made him uncomfortable. “I am not a king now,” he said gruffly, “and you are not a priestess. I want you in this life, Eilan!” He took her hand. “I want to see you in the morning when I wake and sleep with you in my arms. I feel as if all my life something has been missing and you make me whole! Can you understand?” It seemed impossible that tomorrow he would be going back to the Legions, impossible that he might not see her again.
For a time she gazed into the fire, then she turned back to him. “Before I met you I dreamed of you,” she said softly. “Many of my family are second-sighted, and I see true things sometimes in my dreams. But this I have told no one. You are in the center of my heart already. I do not know what power is drawing us together, but I think that I have loved you before.”
He bent to kiss the palm of her hand and she gave a tremulous sigh.
“I love you, Gaius. There is a bond between us. But how we can be together, that I cannot see . . .”
I should take her now, thought Gaius, then they would have to let us marry! He was about to pull her closer when a shape passed between them and the light. The space around the bonfires was filling with people. A glance at the stars told him that it was near midnight, and the moon was high. Where had the hours gone? Eilan exclaimed softly and started to get to her feet.
“What is it?” he asked. “What is going on?” In the distance he could hear rowdy shouts and laughter, but the mood of the people here was both subdued and joyous. The sense of expectation around him set his skin prickling.
“Hush!” Eilan whispered as he stood up beside her. “The Goddess comes . . .”
Somewhere beyond the circle of firelight flutes twittered, and Eilan went still. In the sudden silence, the hiss of the fire came clearly. The flames had burned down to brands that lit the space with a steady glow, cooled by the moonlight to a pale golden radiance like no light he had ever known.
Something glimmered beyond the circle of light. Druids in white robes were coming; men with flowing beards crowned with oak leaves, and with golden torques about their throats. Sunwise they circled the fires and halted, waiting. Their circle was as evenly spaced as guards around a camp perimeter, but their movement had none of the military precision which Gaius had learned. They simply came to rest where they ought to be, like the stars.
Silver bells shivered sweetly and the tension in the circle grew. Gaius blinked, but he could see nothing, and yet there was something moving, a mass of shadow that swept towards them. Abruptly he realized that he was seeing women’s shapes swathed in draperies of a blue like midnight. They flowed into the circle and around it, silver ornaments jingling faintly, faces a pale blur beneath the veils.
Suddenly he understood. These were the priestesses of the Forest House, the sacred women who had escaped the rape of Mona. To see so many Druids together raised his hackles, and when he looked upon the shadow shapes of the priestesses he felt terror, and a sudden sense of destiny. Was his fate somehow entangled with that of the priestesses of the Forest House? The thought made his blood run cold and his grip tightened on Eilan’s hand.