I dared not ask more, lest my voice be recognized, and then I heard a change in the drumming and my throat began to ache so with tension that I could not have spoken if I had tried.
The Druids were coming in, their white robes washed with gold by the firelight, wreaths of oak leaves upon their hair. But as I watched I caught a glimpse of brighter gold among them. The people were cheering; the air throbbed with wave upon wave of sound. Dizzied, I shut my eyes, and when I opened them again I blinked, dazzled by the golden figure who stood before the fire.
As my sight adjusted I saw that it was only a saffron tunic to which the light had added a deeper gold, but the wreath that crowned Constantius was fashioned of the true metal, like that of an emperor. I realized that when I had last seen him, splashed with mud and worn out by our battle with the storm, Constantius had not been at his best either. Now, his skin glowed against the tunic, and his fair hair was as bright as the wreath of gold.
“He is Lugos come among us,” breathed Heron.
“And Apollo,” whispered Aelia.
“And Mithras of the Soldiers,” added Wren.
He stood like the sun god in the midst of the Druid oaks. If I had not loved him already, in that moment I would have adored him, for the body of the man had become a clear vessel through which shone the light of the god within.
If I had watched for much longer, I think I might have passed into an ecstasy that precluded movement, but now the drumming was giving way to the music of bells and harpstrings. The maidens beside me assisted me to my feet as the screen of branches was lifted away. The noise of the crowd became a hush of awe, and there was only the music.
Constantius turned as we came forward, and his exalted expression focused suddenly, as if he could see past the veil to the woman, or the goddess within. Wren scattered flowers before me, Aelia and Heron walked to either side, and then they too fell back and I went on alone. Constantius and I faced one another, priest to priestess, across a little table that bore a loaf of bread, a dish of salt, and a cup and flagon filled with water from the sacred spring.
“My lord, the gifts of the earth I offer you. Eat, and be strengthened.” I broke off a piece of bread, dipped it in the salt and offered it to him.
“You are the fertile earth. I accept your bounty,” Constantius replied. He ate the piece of bread, tore off another and held it out to me. “And I shall spend my strength to care for the sacred soil.”
When I had eaten, he picked up the flagon, poured some of the water into the cup and held it out to me. “I am poured out for you like water. Drink, and be renewed.”
“You are the rain that falls from heaven. I receive your blessing.” I sipped from the cup, then offered it back to him. “But all waters are at last reborn from the sea.”
He took the cup from my hand and drank.
The drum began to beat once more. I took a step backwards, beckoning, and he followed me. The music moved faster, and I began to dance.
My feet no longer seemed to belong to me; my body had become an instrument to express the music as I bent and swayed in the sinuous spirals of the sacred dance. My garment, of a linen almost as fine as the veils that hid my face, clung and flared as I whirled. But always as I circled, Constantius was my centre, to whom I turned as a flower to the sun.
First he swayed, and then, as the music broke through the last of his Roman conditioning, he began to move, a stamping, vigorous kind of dance, as if he marched to music. Closer and closer we came, mirroring each other’s movements, until he caught me in his arms. For a moment we stood breast to breast. I could feel his heart beating as if it were my own.