So the Goddess struck me down after all, Eilan thought with an odd clarity. But it was Her mercy, not Her wrath!
Far below she could see people bending over her motionless body. This was the ending that had awaited her since she had lain in Gaius’s arms, but she had delayed it long enough to build a bridge between her people and his. Two of the Druids were holding her father upright; he was still shouting, but the people were turning from him with frightened faces, beginning to stream away down the hill.
She saw the priests lifting the flesh she had abandoned and carrying it to the pyre on which Gaius was already burning. Then she turned away from that lesser light to the radiance that was opening before her, brighter than the fire, more lovely than the moon.
EPILOGUE
CAILLEAN SPEAKS
When I arrived at the Forest House the following evening, all the Samaine fires had burned out and only ashes remained. It took some time to find anyone who could give me a coherent account of what had happened. Miellyn had not been seen; some people thought she had died trying to shield Eilan. Eilidh had been killed in the fighting that followed the sacrifice. Dieda was dead also; she lay in the sanctuary, and it was clear that she had fallen by her own hand.
There was certainly no sense to be got from Bendeigid and, except for those Druids who had stayed to tend him, the priesthood had scattered. So, thank the gods, had the warriors who had gathered for the festival. But I found that the folk who remained were eager to obey me, for I was the closest thing they had to a High Priestess now.
I moved through the tumult, giving orders with a calm that astonished me, for I dared not give way to a grief that might prove measureless. Yet there had to be some meaning to all this; a life—or a death—must not be wasted.
The following day I was awakened by the news that a party of Romans had requested an interview with the High Priestess. I went out and saw Macellius Severus with his secretary behind him and another man whom they said was the father of Gaius’s Roman wife, sitting their horses under a weeping autumn sky. I was impressed by the fact that he had come here without a detachment of soldiers to back him. But, then, his son had been brave enough too, at the end.
It was hard to face Macellius, knowing the answer to the question he did not quite dare to ask me, and realizing that I could never tell him how his boy had died. By now the most amazing rumors were flying about the countryside. Gaius had died as a British Year-King, and though some thought he was a Roman, the only people who knew his name had a powerful reason for keeping silence.
Disorganized the Romans might be, but they still had the force to drown the countryside in blood if they found proof that a Roman officer had been sacrificed on that hill. But of course there was no body, only a pile of ashes mingled with the embers of the Samaine fire.
As they were leaving, Macellius turned to me, and I saw that hope was not quite dead in his eyes. “There was a boy living in the Forest House,” he said. “They called him Gawen. I believe he is…my grandson. Can you tell me where he is now?”
This time, at least, I could answer truthfully that I did not know, for Gawen had not been seen since Samaine Eve, the day that his nurse and Senara had also disappeared.
For it was not until the third day afterward that Senara came creeping back, her young face haggard with tears, followed by a lanky lad who looked about him with troubled eyes.
“She died for my sake,” Senara sobbed when we told her what had happened to Eilan. “She condemned herself to save me—and her child.”
My throat was aching, but I forced myself to speak calmly. “Then her sacrifice must not be wasted. Will you take the vows and serve the Goddess in her place, now that she is gone?”
“I cannot, I cannot,” wailed Senara. “It would be a sin, for I am a Nazarene. Father Petros is moving into Deva. He will let me stay in his hermitage, and I will spend the rest of my days in prayer!”
I blinked, for suddenly it seemed to me that I could see that small house in the forest surrounded by many others. In time, I thought, more female hermits would gather around her. And what I saw then has indeed come to pass, for this was one of the first of the pious sisterhoods that now serve the people as the Forest House did then; but that was many years in the future. Did Eilan foresee it? Either way, the younger woman had played her part. Senara might refuse to become High Priestess of Vernemeton, but in a sense she was still Eilan’s heir.