That was when she learned the price Lhiannon paid for the great reverence in which she was held. For the delivery of the word of the gods there was a heavy reckoning. Vague and forgetful as Lhiannon, in her own person, might sometimes be, when she assumed the ornaments of the Oracle another power came upon her. She had been chosen, Eilan realized, not so much for force of will or wisdom, but because when it was needful, she was able to let her own personality go.
It was then, when the human identity had been put off with her ordinary clothes, that Lhiannon opened herself so that the Goddess might speak through her. And in those moments, she was a great priestess indeed — almost, Eilan thought, more than human. The price of becoming the vehicle for so great a power was both physical and mental, and Eilan’s respect for the older priestess grew as she saw Lhiannon pay it without grudging the cost, or at least without complaint.
When Eilan left the Forest House and the woods around for the first time she was accompanying Lhiannon. It was then that she realized how the preceding weeks had changed her. Even the House of Maidens seemed remote and strange. When the newest novices scurried out of her way she scarcely noticed, and only afterwards realized that they had seen in her the same unearthly serenity she associated with Lhiannon.
It was, she supposed, a fairly ordinary Midsummer Festival. She had seen the Games and the market and the lighting of the big sun-fire many times before, but after her months of seclusion in the Forest House, the yammering of so many people was painful, and she shrank from the strong scents of humans and horses. Even the bright cloths the merchants had put up to shade their wares assaulted her senses.
Midsummer was a time when men put forth their strength in competitions, to entertain the gods and the people, and to strengthen the crops as they grew. But as Eilan watched the footraces and the wrestling it was the sweating bodies of the competitors that seemed the most gross and distorted of all. She could not imagine why she had ever wanted to lie with a man.
The winner of the Games was garlanded with summer flowers and escorted to preside over the ceremonies. Remembering what she had learned of the Mysteries, Eilan watched with a new appreciation. In time of need, or in some tribes every seven years, the new Year-King would have watched his predecessor burn, and even now some of the old sacredness attached to him. The Empire had killed or Romanized the heirs of the British princes, but so long as men were willing to offer their lives for the people, they could not eradicate the Sacred Kings, who each year stood surety for those who no longer understood their role.
If there were some great disaster, and a sacrifice were needed during the coming year, despite the Romans’ prohibitions it was on this young man that the blow would fall. And, in recognition of his risk, he alone of all men was allowed to lie with whichever woman took his fancy – even a maiden from the Forest House if it was there that his eye should fall.
Eilan kept close to Lhiannon, watching as the warriors snatched brands from the great bonfire and vied to throw them high to make the crops grow. The people had grown rowdy with drink and the release of the festival. But no one would trouble her while she was with the High Priestess. Even the Year-King had never been known to push his rights that far.
She sat with Caillean and Dieda, glad of the protection of Lhiannon’s presence and the hulking strength of her bodyguard Huw behind them, and hoped that the other priestesses who had come with them to the festival had fared as well.
It was not until several weeks had passed that she learned why her friend Miellyn had come away from the festivities so pale and thoughtful, and why she was so often ill. It was Eilidh who told her, one day when Miellyn was nowhere to be found, but by then everyone in the Forest House was buzzing with the news.