Caillean still looked dubious, but the life had returned to her eyes. “Ardanos will never allow it. He is the Arch-Druid, and he wants all the priestesses here at Vernemeton, under his eye!”
Eilan looked at her and smiled. “But I am Priestess of the Oracle. Leave Ardanos to me!”
On Midsummer morning, the maidens of the Forest House went at dawn to gather dew from the summer flowers. The dew had many powers, both in increasing beauty and bestowing magic. It was said that on that day any maiden who washed her face with the morning dew and then looked into a clear stream could see the face of him who loved her best.
Eilan found herself wondering why the priestesses, who after all were all under vows of chastity or intending to be so, should wish to know such things. Did most of them cherish memories of sweethearts in the lives they had left? She had done worse than dream about her lover. But she hoped that the others who served the Goddess could be more single-minded than she.
Eilan heard the girls laughing as they returned from the forest, but she did not go out to see them. As time went on, she was increasingly aware of the need for ritual seclusion before the great festivals. She had thought it would grow easier with time, but it seemed to her that keeping the balance between all the forces that sought the Power of the Goddess grew harder each year.
Each time Ardanos came to whisper his instructions into her ear, she remembered that by keeping the peace she, no less than the Arch-Druid, was serving the Romans; and she wondered if the fact that they both worked for what they considered to be the good of Britain could ever justify that alliance.
The door opened and Caillean came in. Even she had a wreath of red poppies to celebrate the day. Her cheeks were flushed from the sun and she looked healthier than she had for some time. “You are alone?”
“Who would be with me today? All of the girls in the house have gone out to pick the Midsummer flowers and Lia has taken Gawen to visit Mairi,” Eilan answered.
“That is well.” Caillean sat down on a three-legged stool. “We must speak of tonight’s Oracle.”
“I have been thinking of little else since I awakened!” Eilan said bitterly. “I wish it was you who must sit here in the dark, preparing. You would have made so much better a High Priestess than I!”
“Gods forbid; I am not such a one as could obediently do Ardanos’s will.”
Suddenly furious, Eilan said wrathfully, “If I am no more than a creature of the priests, you know best who made me so.”
Caillean sighed. “I thought not to criticize you, mo chridhe.” The endearment defused Eilan’s anger. Caillean went on, “We are all in Her hands and do Her will as best we can, I no less than you. You should not be angry with me.”
“I am not angry,” Eilan said, not altogether truthfully, but unwilling to quarrel with the woman to whom she owed so much. Sometimes she felt that the weight of her debt to Caillean should crush her. “I am afraid,” she went on, “but I will tell you a thing that no one else knows. The sacred drink that is intended to drug me is not the same as it was in Lhiannon’s day. I have altered it so that the trance is not total. I know what Ardanos is telling me to say—”
“But he always seems quite content with your words,” Caillean said, frowning. “Are you still so in love with your Gaius that you intentionally serve Rome?”
“I serve peace!” Eilan exclaimed. “It has never occurred to Ardanos that I would disobey him, and when my answers are somewhat different from the words I was given he thinks only that I am an imperfect vessel. But the words of peace are not my decision. When I offered myself to the Goddess I was not lying! Do you think the rites we do here at the Forest House are a lie?”
Caillean shook her head. “I have felt the Goddess, too, strongly—but—”
“Do you remember Midsummer seven years ago, when Cynric came?”