“My father always said to hide in the woods if raiders came —”
“That is no good to us now, with this rain, and Mairi still weak from childbirth,” Caillean murmured. “Wait.”
The door groaned as someone thrust more strongly, and Mairi woke, muttering. But Caillean, fully dressed now, had her hand over her lips. “Be silent, as you value your life and your child’s,” she whispered. Mairi subsided with a gasp, and the baby, luckily, slept on.
“Shall we hide in the storage pit?” Eilan whispered as the door shook again. Whoever was outside was determined to force his way in.
Caillean said softly, “Stay here, and whatever happens do not scream,” and went to the door. Mairi cried out as Caillean began to lift the bar. The priestess said fiercely, “Do you want to put this door back together after they break it down? I do not.”
As she drew back the bar, the door banged open. A dozen men burst through it as if blown by the wind and stopped short as Caillean cried out a single word that sounded like a command. They were big men with wild and untrimmed hair streaming over their shoulders, swathed in skins and hairy cloaks of heavy wool over tunics even more brightly checked than those the Britons wore. Caillean seemed slender as a willow wand before them. Her dark hair flowed to her waist over her ungirt blue robe, lifting a little as the wind blew through the door. It was the only thing about her that moved.
Mairi dived beneath the covers, clutching her child. One of the men laughed and said something just audible, and Eilan shuddered. She felt like following Mairi, but was too paralyzed to move.
Caillean cried out again in a ringing voice and took a step backwards to the hearth. The men seemed mesmerized by her gaze. They stood, staring, as she knelt and plunged her hands into the embers. Then suddenly she was rising, casting the coals at the intruders with both hands. She shouted again and the strange warriors gasped and recoiled; then they were gone, surging back over the doorsill, cursing in an odd sort of British and another tongue she did not know, knocking each other off their feet as they struggled to get away.
The priestess followed them to the door, laughing, and cried out something in a high voice, like the cry of a falcon. Then she slammed out the surging wind and all was still once more.
When they had gone, Caillean sank down on the settle by the hearth and Eilan, who was shaking to her very toenails, went to her. “Who were they?”
“Raiders, a mixed band, I think, from the North and from my country,” Caillean said. “More shame to me, for I am a woman of Eriu, brought here by Lhiannon.” She stood up and began to mop up the rain water that had come in.
Eilan quavered, “And what did you say?”
“I told them I was a bean-drui, a she-Druid, and if they laid a hand on me or on either of my sisters I would curse them by fire and water; and I showed them that I had that power.” Caillean stretched out her hands. The slim fingers that Eilan had seen her thrust into the coals were white and unharmed. Was this all a dream?
Eilan, remembering what Caillean had cried out after them, said hesitatingly, “Sisters?”
“By the vows I have taken, all women are my sisters.” Her lips twisted. “And I said if they went away and left us in peace I would lay a blessing on them —”
“And did you bless them then?”
“I did not; they are wild wolves of the forest, or worse,” Caillean said defiantly. “Bless them? As soon bless a wolf and his teeth in my throat.”
Eilan’s gaze returned to Caillean’s fingers. “How did you do that? Was that a Druid’s illusion, or did you really take fire in your hands.” Already she was beginning to wonder if her eyes had deceived her.
“Oh, that was real enough.” Caillean gave a short laugh. “Anyone with my training could have done it.”