Cynric and Gaius had gone off to look at horses, and Rheis had drifted away to speak to an acquaintance. The girls were packing up the food, when Eilan froze and whispered, "Look, there is Lhiannon.”
The High Priestess, with a few of her attendants, was coming along the Sacred Way between the long line of trees. Her slight figure glimmered in the dappling of sunlight that sifted through the branches, and she moved with the gliding pace of a trained priestess, so that she did not seem quite like a human being at all as she drew near. Lhiannon stopped as if to wish them a joyous festival, and her eyes fell on the girls. "You are the kinswomen of Bendeigid,” she said. Her gaze fixed on Dieda. "How old are you, my child?”
"Fifteen,” whispered the girl.
"Are you yet married?” Lhiannon asked. Eilan felt her heart begin to thud heavily in her breast. This was the face of the High Priestess as she had seen it in her dream.
"I am not,” Dieda said in a still voice. She was staring at the Priestess as if entranced by that clear gaze.
"Nor pledged in marriage?”
"Not…yet, although I have thought…” her voice faltered.
Tell her, thought Eilan. You are pledged to Cynric! You have to tell her now! But though her lips worked, Dieda stood frozen, like a young hare when the falcon’s shadow falls.
Lhiannon unfastened the heavy blue cloak that hung from her shoulders. "Then I claim you for the Goddess; henceforth you shall serve Her whom I serve and no other…” The cloak opened like a dark wing as the Priestess swung it round, and light flared as the branches moved in a sudden wind.
Eilan blinked. Surely it was only sunlight—but in the dazzle, for a moment she thought that the opening of the cloak had revealed a radiant figure. She closed her eyes, but imprinted upon her inner sight she saw still a Face with a mother’s tender smile and a bird of prey’s fierce eyes, and it seemed to her that it was she, not Dieda, who was fixed by that gaze. But Lhiannon had not spoken to her, nor seemed to see her at all.
"From henceforward, you shall dwell with us in the Forest House, my child. Come to us there—well, tomorrow will be time enough.” Lhiannon’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. "So be it.”
Eilan opened her eyes once more and saw the shadow fall as the cloak settled across Dieda’s slim shoulders.
The women who followed Lhiannon intoned, "She is the beloved of the Goddess; Her choice has fallen. So be it.”
Lhiannon took the cloak from the girl’s shoulders and her attendants helped her to fasten it again. Then she moved away from them, towards the festival.
Eilan’s eyes were still fixed on her. "The choice of the Goddess…you are to be one of them…What is the matter with you?” She came back to herself and saw that Dieda’s face was deathly white, her hands locked together.
Dieda shook her head, shivering, "Why couldn’t I speak? Why couldn’t I tell her? I cannot go to the Forest House—I am pledged to Cynric!”
"But you aren’t, not yet, not formally,” said Eilan, still dazzled by what she had seen. "Private promises aren’t binding, and nothing has gone so far that it cannot be undone. I should think that anyone would rather be a priestess than marry my brother—”
"You should think—” said Dieda furiously. "Yes, you really should think, sometime—it would be a new experience for you, I dare say—” She broke off in something like despair. "You’re such a child, Eilan!”
Eilan stared at her, realizing that the other girl did not share her excitement. "Dieda, are you saying that you don’t want to be a priestess?”
"What a pity her choice did not fall upon you,” said Dieda helplessly. "Maybe we should say it was you. Maybe, like Father, she mistook us. Maybe it was really you she meant—”