Eilan’s thin shoulders quivered. “Not I, not I. It was the Goddess speaking through me, and I know we must do Her will. But oh, Caillean, now that the time comes, it is hard!”
“Hard indeed!” Caillean spat back at her. “But it is I who must leave you and everything that I have loved. Are you sure it was the Goddess speaking and not Ardanos whispering in your ear? He has wanted to separate us ever since I made him let you keep your son!”
“I suppose this does please him,” whispered Eilan, “but do you truly believe it was his doing? Is everything I have tried to do here a lie?”
Caillean heard her pain and could maintain her own anger no longer. “My dear one—my little one.” She laid a hand on Eilan’s shoulder and the other woman turned into her arms. She made no sound, but her cheeks were streaked with tears. “We must not fight like children when there is so little time! There are moments when the power of the gods burns like the sun, and then it grows dark and the light seems only a dream. It has always been so. But I believe in you, my love.”
“Your belief has sustained me,” Eilan murmured.
“Listen,” said Caillean. “This is not forever. One day, when we are old women together, we will laugh at our fears.”
“I know that we will be together,” said Eilan slowly, “but whether it is in this life or another, that I cannot see.”
“My Lady.” Huw spoke from the gate. “The bearers are waiting.”
“Now you must go.” Eilan straightened, becoming the High Priestess again. “We must both serve the Lady in the places where She has called us, no matter what we feel.”
“It is all right. I will return, you’ll see,” Caillean said gruffly, giving her a last, swift hug and releasing her.
She went away then, knowing that if she looked back at Eilan she would weep herself, and she must not, not before the young priestesses and the men. It was not until the curtains of the litter closed around her that she gave way to her tears.
She spent most of the rainy, dismal journey to the Summer Country brooding. Her mood was not improved by the fact that they had to travel by litter, a form of transportation that she detested.
She was accompanied by the priestesses chosen for the new establishment. They were mostly young, and all virtual newcomers to the Forest House who were too awed even to address her in anything but the barest commonplaces. Caillean had little to do except to nurse her rage.
It was nearing dusk when the little procession wound through the gap in the hills and transferred to barges to cross the shallow marshes that surrounded the Tor. It stood stark against the fading sky, crowned with a circle of stones, and even from here she could feel its power. The roundhouses of the Druids clustered on its lower slopes. In the hollow beyond, she could just make out a scattering of smaller beehive huts that must belong to the Christians Ardanos had allowed to settle here. A fragrance of some scented wood, perhaps apple, hung in the air.
They were met at the foot of the hill by the young priests set to watch there, who greeted her with many expressions of deference and good will, although they appeared somewhat uncertain about why she had come. Despite her anger she found herself amused by their confusion, and began reluctantly to come to terms with the inevitable. For better or worse, the Druid priesthood had sent her here, and even they were only instruments of the Goddess, who had commanded her presence here in no uncertain terms.
When they reached the shrine itself, it was full dark. The priests greeted them politely, if not cordially—but, then, Caillean had hardly expected to be welcomed. If this was exile, at least it was an honorable exile, and since she could not alter it, she might as well make the best of it.
After the ceremonial greetings, she found her women huddled in wide-eyed confusion by the bonfire. One of the young priests conducted them to a low, thatched-roof dwelling that, as they said apologetically, was not in any way suitable for the housing of a priestess, let alone one of her status. Still, where to put women was not a problem they had had to deal with until now. Since the Arch-Druid had commanded it, however, they were swift to assure her that a suitable house would be built for their use as soon as she made their requirements known, and such attendance as she and her women desired should be secured for them.