“Aelia… and Eilan—” she ground out the names, “—will come with me.” Her gaze turned to Constantius. “My lord, the Druids wait to attend you.”
His grip on me tightened. “You will not harm her!”
Ganeda’s face darkened further as she realized just how much I must have told him.
“Do you think we are barbarians?” she snapped, and he responded to the note of command and let me go, though in truth that was no answer at all.
“It will be all right,” I said in a low voice, though my gut was still knotting in apprehension.
“I will not lose you!” Constantius replied, and it occurred to me that not only had I not anticipated how this night would bind me to him, I had not even imagined how it might affect his feelings for me.
I helped Aelia to rise, and putting my arm around her, started towards my reckoning.
“Why does it matter?” I exclaimed. “Both of your purposes have been accomplished. You wanted a man of destiny for the Great Rite, and you wanted to win his friendship for Avalon.”
The sun was nearing noon, and we were still arguing. By now, my belly was cramping not from fear but from hunger.
“You forget the third reason, and that was the most important of all,” Ganeda said grimly. “Constantius was to engender the Child of Prophecy!”
“And so he shall, with me! In my womanhood vision I saw myself with his child!”
“But not the child of the Great Rite—” the High Priestess said grimly. “Why do you think Aelia was intended as his consort in the ritual?”
“Because you could bend her to your will!”
“You little fool—she was chosen, indeed, but not for that reason. In your arrogance you thought you knew better than the Council of Avalon, but you were an untried maiden, ignorant of the Mother’s Mysteries. Last night Aelia was at the height of her fertile time. If the Roman had lain with her she would have come away pregnant, and the child would have been born here in Avalon.”
“How do you know I am not?”
“Your moontime is barely three days past,” she answered me, “and I have examined you. There is no spark of new life in your womb.”
“There will be. Destiny cannot be denied—” I answered, but the first breath of doubt stole the force from my words. “Constantius has pledged his faith to me—a priestess will bear his son!”
“But when? Even now do you not understand? A child begotten last night would have preserved the Mysteries for a thousand years. Even if your fantasies were true, what stars will rule the fate of the babe you finally bear?”
“He will be my son,” I muttered. “I will raise him to serve the gods.”
Ganeda shook her head in disgust. “I should have sent you back to your father long since. You have been a trouble-maker since the first day you arrived!”
“You missed your chance!” I hissed, touching the crescent on my brow. “He is dead, and I am a priestess now.”
“And, I am the Lady of Avalon!” she snapped in return, “and your life is in my hand!”
“All your anger, Ganeda, cannot change what has been done,” I said wearily. “At least I have won Constantius’s friendship for Avalon.”
“And what about that which was undone? Do you think the man will come back every Beltane like a stallion to stud until he gets you with child?”
Some tension eased within me. I had feared she would forbid me ever to see him again. Surely he would come back, I told myself, and somehow I would endure until that day.
“So, what is my punishment?”
“Punishment?” There was venom in her smile. “Did I not promise the Roman I would do you no harm? You have chosen your own condemnation, Helena. When Constantius leaves, you shall go with him…’
“Leave… Avalon?” I whispered.
“That is what he is demanding—be grateful you are not being turned out like a beggar to wander the world!”
“But what about my vows?”
“You should have thought about your vows last night, before they were broken! In the old days you would have burned for that crime.” In her lined face, a sour satisfaction was replacing the fury.