There was a long silence. She could see Eilan trying to imagine what it would be like to grow up without a family. Caillean could see that Mairi’s bossiness had held affection, and, from what Dieda had told her, she had been like Eilan’s twin. And yet, she realized suddenly, just as she herself had never unburdened her heart to her fellow priestesses, never could Eilan have talked to any of her family as she was speaking with Caillean now.
It is like talking to myself, to say these things to her, Caillean thought ruefully, or perhaps it is like talking to the self I should have been, forever innocent and pure.
"The darkness and the fire glow here remind me of my earliest years,” the priestess said at last, and as she spoke the dull light captured her vision and she was falling down the tunnel of the years, the words pouring out of her as if she were under some spell.
"All I truly recall of the hut is that it was dark and always smoky. It hurt my throat, so I was always running alone down to the seashore. Mostly I remember the crying of the seagulls; they were about the tower too, so that when I came here to the Forest House many seasons ago, for more than a year I could hardly sleep for being out of the sound of the sea. I loved the ocean. My memories of my…home…” she continued hesitantly, "are all of children, always a baby at my mother’s breast, always the whimpering and squalling, and tugging at her skirts and at mine when I could not escape them. But even beatings could not keep me within the house to pound barley, or to be pulled around by the whimpering naked brats. It is surprising I can endure babes,” she added, "but I have no dislike for such as Mairi’s who come where they are much longed for and are well cared for once they are born.
"I must have had a father, but even when I was very small, I knew he did nothing for my mother except to make sure that there was always a new baby at the breast.” She hesitated. "I dare say Lhiannon pitied me as a starveling.”
Caillean heard her own words, surprised that they held no bitterness; as if she had accepted all this too long ago.
"So I do not even know how old I am, not really. It was about a year or so after Lhiannon took me away before my body showed the first signs of womanhood. I think I was about twelve then.” She broke off suddenly, and Eilan looked at her in amazement.
I am a woman, a priestess, Caillean told herself, a sorceress who can frighten armed men! But the fire trance had taken her too far into memory, and she felt like a terrified child. Which was the truth? Or was the deception only in the flickering of the fire?
"I must be more shaken than I knew,” she said in a stifled voice, "or perhaps it is the hour, and the darkness, as if we had stepped outside time.” She looked at Eilan, forcing herself to honesty, "Or it may be because I am talking to you…”
Eilan swallowed, and steeled herself to meet the other woman’s gaze. Truth…tell me the truth—Caillean heard the thought as if it had been her own, and could not tell which of them had a greater need for it…
"I never told Lhiannon, and the Goddess has not struck me down…” She felt the words dragged out of her. "But after all these years it seems to me that perhaps someone should know.”
Eilan reached out to her, and Caillean’s fingers closed hard on her hand.
"It was the sight and sound of those raiders that made me remember. In my old home there was a man I sometimes saw on the shore. He was, I suspect, one who lived there apart from other men, an outlaw driven from his clan. I would not wonder at that,” she added bitterly. "At first I trusted him; he gave me small gifts, pretty things he had found on the shore, shells, bright feathers.” She hesitated. "More fool I for thinking him harmless; but how would I have known better? Who had there ever been to teach me?”
She stared blindly towards the fire, but there had been no light in the hut, and no light could reach her now in this place of memory. "I suspected nothing, I never knew what he wanted when he dragged me into his hut one day—” She shuddered, racked by memories for which, even now, she had no words.