She nodded, standing stiffly in his embrace, feeling a world away. He had said that a raven would peck at her heart if she married Gaius, and she had thought it only a poetic way of speaking. But now she realized that he had spoken sober truth, for the pain in her heart was as sharp, as if indeed a raven’s beak were stabbing her.
Feeling her resistance, her father said irritably, “Your mother spoke truth when she said you were too long unmarried. This winter I will seek out a husband for you, one of our own.”
Eilan tore herself from his arms, her eyes blazing. “I have no choice but to obey you,” she said bitterly, “but if I am not to marry at my own will, I will marry no man upon the face of this earth.”
“As you will,” he said bitterly. “I will never seek to force you. But Senara I will pledge before she binds on her maiden’s girdle. I will not have this sort of struggle with a daughter again!”
The rain continued to fall for many days, swelling rivers and streams and drowning fields, roads and paths. It was very near the time when Mairi should be delivered, and still her husband’s fate was unknown. She had admitted that she would perhaps have done better to remain under her father’s roof until her child was delivered, but in such weather it would have been more risky for her to travel than to stay at home. It was Eilan, therefore, who traveled to her sister’s steading, escorted by two of her father’s men.
Although she still wept at night when she thought of Gaius, Eilan found herself glad that she had come. She was useful here; her sister needed someone to talk to, and her little nephew was fretful and confused because his mother had ceased to suckle him and his father had disappeared. Mairi was too clumsy now to pay him much heed; but Eilan had the patience to sit for hours feeding him with a horn spoon, and he recovered some of his laughter when she played with him.
As the rain continued to fall, there were times when Eilan wondered if she would be left alone to deliver her sister’s second child. But Mairi had arranged for a priestess to come. “All the women of the Forest House are trained in such matters, Sister,” Mairi told her, rubbing her back which ached constantly now. “You’ve no need to fear.” It was the evening of her fourth day with her sister, and Eilan was beginning to feel at home.
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were to send Dieda to us?”
“She is new come to the Forest House and may not go outside during her first year. They have promised to send one of Lhiannon’s attendants, a woman of Hibernia called Caillean.” She spoke so dryly that Eilan wondered if Mairi disliked the woman, but thought it better not to ask.
Three days later, Caillean herself arrived: a tall woman, bundled in shawls and scarves that left only her eyes and heavy dark hair visible. Against the blackness of her hair and brows her skin looked milk-pale, but her eyes were blue. As she unwrapped herself, a shift in the wind brought gusts of smoke from the hearth, and the priestess began to cough. Eilan hurried to fill a mug of ale and offered it to her silently.
The priestess said in a low voice, “I thank you, child, but I am not allowed; if I might have some water . . .”
“Of course,” Eilan murmured, blushing, and hastened to fill a drinking cup at the cask by the door. “Or I could draw it freshly from the well —”
“No, this will do very well,” the priestess said, taking the cup from her hand and draining it. “I thank you. But who is the woman with child? You are not much more than a child yourself.”
“It is Mairi who is having the baby,” Eilan murmured. “I am Eilan, Bendeigid’s middle daughter. And there is another, Senara, who is only nine.”
“My name is Caillean.”
“I saw you at Beltane, but I did not know your name. I thought surely that Lhiannon’s assistant would be —” She stopped bashfully.