"But why do men fear old women?” Eilidh asked. "They do not feel that way about old men!”
"The old man becomes a sage, something for a man to aspire to,” Caillean told them. "They fear the hag because she is beyond their power. With the coming of her moonblood a girl becomes a woman. She needs a man to become a mother, and a mother needs a man to protect her children. But the old woman knows all the secrets of birth and death; she has rebirthed herself and needs nothing. So of course the man, who knows only the first change that brings him to manhood, is afraid.”
Lhiannon’s name was sacred even when the younger girls giggled about their elders late at night in the Hall of Maidens, but Eilan could not help wondering if the High Priestess had gone through the rebirth Caillean had described. Old as she was, one could not imagine that any human grief or passion had ever touched her. She had lain with no man, borne no child; she drifted through the Forest House in a cloud of lavender scent and trailing draperies, her smile sweet and vague and distant as if she moved through her own private reality.
And yet Caillean loved her. Eilan could not allow herself to forget that the older priestess, with whom that night of Mairi’s childbirth had given her so deep a bond, saw something in the High Priestess that she herself had not seen; but she would take it on faith that it was there.
When they began to teach the girls the disciplines that would give them access to the inner planes, Eilan applied herself with diligence. Such things—dreams and intuitions—had always come to her easily and without warning. Now she learned to bring the visions at will, and when it was necessary, to wall them away.
She learned the work of seeing visions in a bowl of water and the use of spells for far-seeing. One of the first things she saw through her scrying was the battle with the raiders who had destroyed her home.
"A blessing on the Lady of Vernemeton, if it is she who has sent this wind!” said Cynric, sniffing the mist that was blowing past him, heavy with the scent of the sea.
"She was as good as her word,” answered Bendeigid beside him. "Since the third day after they burned my hall this wind has blown. When the scattered bands came back to load their curraghs with their spoils they found the breeze dead against them.” He grinned mirthlessly. "We shall pin them between the strand and the sea!”
From near by came a hard-edged order, and the rhythmic tramp of hobnailed sandals came to a halt. Cynric grimaced, glad the wind had not carried the sound to the enemy. As well to go in with clarions shrilling than to let the raiders hear that ominous tread. The Britons were not nearly so orderly, but a great deal quieter.
He still found himself stiffening whenever the crest of a Roman helmet appeared through the mist. He had never expected to be fighting side by side with his enemy. But if, for the sake of a greater good, even Bendeigid could suspend his hatred, he supposed he could do the same.
Then Bendeigid laid a hand on his sleeve and Cynric halted, peering through the fringe of scrubby alders that stretched between them and the shore. He could smell woodsmoke and the rank odor of the privy trench—not very well tended. It was true, one could track vermin from the smell. He eased his shield down from his shoulder and got a better grip on his spear.
Cynric’s heart was pounding oddly and his mouth was dry. You longed for real battle, how can you be afraid? he asked himself. Would you have hidden behind Rheis’s skirts if you had been there when they attacked the hall? At the thought, his panic changed to fury.
Then the Roman trumpets blared. Bendeigid gave tongue with a guttural roar and Cynric found his own throat opening. Howling, the Britons ran forward. Cynric pushed through the trees, spear ready, and heard the Roman charge beating out an accompaniment to the British cries.
As the Romans drove down upon the foe the Britons fell upon their rear. A warrior turned, his form distorted by the mist to that of a monster. He was a monster! Cynric’s training took over and he jabbed upward; he felt the shock and heard the cry as the blade went in. But he had no time to react, for another man was coming at him. A sword-stroke clattered on his shield. Side-vision showed him the Roman troopers, cutting through the foe with mechanical efficiency. Cynric jerked the spear free and swung, seeing in each contorted face his enemy.