A month passed, and Caillean presided over the full moon rituals. Now it was obvious, nurse and care for her as they might, that Lhiannon was dying. Her feet swelled so that she could no longer even stagger to the privy. Caillean nursed her tenderly; no mother ever had a more devoted daughter. But still the fluid filled her body.
Caillean fed her herb brews and spoke of dropsy, and once they went far afield to find the purple flowers of the foxglove, which Caillean said were sovereign for an ailing heart. Eilan cautiously tasted the brew Caillean made of them, and found it bitter as sorrow.
But in spite of all their care, day by day Lhiannon grew weaker and more swollen and pale.
“Caillean—”
For a moment she doubted she had heard it; the call was like a breath drawn by the wind. Then the bed creaked. Wearily, Caillean turned. Lhiannon’s eyes were open. Caillean rubbed the sleep from her own and made herself smile. Illness had consumed the flesh from the older woman’s face so that the good bones showed with a terrible clarity. It is almost over. The unwelcome knowledge came to her. Soon only the essentials will remain.
“Are you thirsty? Here’s cool water, or I can stir up the fire and give you some tea…”
“Something hot…would ease me…” Lhiannon drew breath. “You are too good to me, Caillean.”
Caillean shook her head. When she was ten years old and halfway to death with the fever, Lhiannon had nursed her back again, more than her mother or father would have done. Her feelings for the older woman went beyond love or hatred. How could you put that into words? If Lhiannon could not sense them in the taste of an infusion or the touch of a cool cloth on her brow, she would never know.
“I suppose there are those who think you are doing this so that I will make you my heir…Women cooped up together can be very petty, and it is true, you are a greater priestess than all of them put together…but you know better, do you not?”
“I know.” Caillean managed a smile. “I am destined to live for ever in the shadows, but I will support whoever rules. Please the Goddess, it will not be for yet a while.”
And who knows how long I will live after you? she thought then. Her strange bleeding had ceased at last, but fatigue dragged at her limbs as if they had been cast of lead from the Mendip mines.
“Perhaps…Do not be so sure you know everything, my child. Despite what people think, my Sight comes not always at the Druids’ bidding. And I have seen you with the ornaments of a High Priestess and a mist that is not of this world blowing around you. A life path may have strange twists and turnings, and we do not always end up where we intend to go…”
Boiling water hissed in the little cauldron, and Caillean spooned in the mixture of yarrow and chamomile and white willow, and set it to steep beside the flame.
“Goddess knows I have not done so!” Lhiannon burst out suddenly. “We had such dreams when we were young, Ardanos and I—but he grew greedy for power…and I had none!”
You could have stood against him, thought Caillean. You were the Voice of the Goddess, and for twenty years the people have lived by your words. And you don’t even know what you have been saying! If you had ever allowed yourself to know, you would have had to act, for then it would have been real…
But she bit back the words, for Lhiannon had given more hope to the people unknowing than Caillean with all her conscious wisdom, and that outweighed all her failings, whatever cynics like Dieda might say.
With a little honey to take away the bitterness, the tea was ready. Caillean slid her arm around Lhiannon’s fragile shoulders and held the spoon to her lips. The sick woman’s head turned fretfully, and her cheeks glistened with tears. “I am tired, Caillean…” she whispered, “so very tired, and afraid…”
“There, there, my dear; you are surrounded by those who love you,” she whispered. “Drink this now, it will give you ease.” Lhiannon swallowed a little of the bittersweet brew, and sighed.