Eilan had put on a long loose gown woven in crossed squares of pale golds and browns and a color like budding leaves over an undertunic of pale green. Her hair lay in a shining cape across her shoulders, brighter than the gold of her brooches and bracelets. It seemed to him that in all that glowing world she was the fairest thing of all.
He paid little attention to their chatter about the festival. He had seen a few celebrations among his mother’s people when he was a child, and he supposed this one would be much the same. He heard the noise of the festival before they got there, for the great Celtic festivals were generally combined with a market fair. The festivities had actually begun some days before, and would go on for some time after, but this—the eve of Beltane—was the focus of the festival. It was at dusk that the Priestess of the Oracle would appear.
The woods had blossomed with tents and bothies of woven branches, for the festival had attracted folk from many days’ journey away. Most of the people here were Cornovii, but Gaius recognized the tribal tattooing of Dobunni and Ordovices and even some Deceangli from up near Deva. After two weeks in the house of Bendeigid, the British speech of his birth came easily to his tongue, and Deva and the Legion were beginning to seem dim and far away.
Around the base of the old hillfort were clustered stalls selling dishes and small wares, some looking as if they had been made by local peasantry, and some which could have been sold in Rome itself. Perhaps they were of Roman make, for there was a growing trade between Britain and Rome, and the Greek and Gaulish traders went everywhere. There were stalls of apples and sweets, markets where people were trading horses, and a hiring fair where you could find anything, so Cynric said, from a swineherd to a wet nurse.
But when Gaius reached the flattened top of the hill that lifted like an island above the sea of forest, his eyes widened. The fair occupied the grounds of a great cleared earthwork, too full of booths and folk for the perimeter to be visible. But at the far end of the main aisle rose a great earthen barrow, whose entrance was of stone. Cynric made a sign of reverence as they crossed the road.
Gaius asked, "Is that your temple, then?”
Cynric gave him a curious look, but said only, "It is the burial place of a great chief among our forefathers. Unless some of the older bards know who he was, his name is lost, and if there was ever a song about him I have forgotten it, or never learned.”
Another, longer avenue led to a building like a small square tower surrounded by a thatched portico, and Gaius gave it a curious glance. Eilan whispered, "That is the shrine where they keep the holy things.”
"It looks like a temple,” he said in a low voice, and she stared at him.
"Surely you know that the gods cannot be worshipped in any house made with human hands, but only under the open sky?” She added after a moment, "On some of the western islands, where no trees grow, they hold the rites in forests of stone; but my father says that the secrets of the great ancient rings of stone here in the South were lost with the senior Druids who were killed when the Romans came.”
A booth where they were selling bangles of Greek glass caught her eye and she stopped talking. Gaius sighed. Better not ask any more questions, he thought, lest he betray himself further. There were some things they would certainly expect even a Silure tribesman to know.
There were stalls of brooms and mops, and pretty girls selling garlands—almost everyone wore a garland—flowers and a good many other things, some too alien for Gaius to recognize. The young people wandered among the booths, casually looking at their wares. Cynric inquired for a swineherd but said that they all demanded too much for their labor.
"The accursed Romans have taken so many men in their levies that we must hire men to tend our beasts and till our fields,” he said. "But so many folk have been driven from their lands that we can sometimes find men who will come for shelter and food alone. I suppose if I were a farmer I would be glad of that. But may the gods save me from tilling the land!”
At noon Rheis gathered her family together beneath a spreading oak tree at the base of the hill for some cold meat and bread. The old hillfort was the focus for many pathways. From here they could see a broad and well-tended way that ran westward, lined with stately oak trees. At its very end the thatched roofs of the Forest House and its outbuildings showed pale against the deep green of the Sacred Grove.