The Forest House by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Diana L. Paxson Read Free Book Online Page B

think it is blasphemous to try to compel the Goddess to speak that way! What would Lhiannon say?"

    "Does anyone here care?" Dieda asked with a strange hard little smile. "We all know she says nothing unless it is given her by the priests."

    "Your father cares," Cynric said soberly.

    "True, he does," Dieda said, "and so I suppose you must care too."

    Senara turned to her. "Tell me what you saw in the water, Dieda," she demanded shrilly.
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    "Me," said Cynric, "or at least I hope so."

    "You would really be our brother, then," Senara smiled at him.

    "Why do you think I want to marry her?" Cynric grinned. "But we have yet to speak to your father."

    "Do you think he will oppose it?" Dieda seemed suddenly anxious, and it occurred to Gaius that being the Arch-Druid's daughter might be even more constricting than being a Prefect's son. "Surely if he had pledged me elsewhere, he would have told me of it before now!"

    "And who will you marry, Eilan?" Senara asked. Gaius leaned forward, his attention abruptly focusing.

    "I had not thought of it," Eilan said, coloring. "Sometimes it seems to me that I hear the Goddess -
    perhaps I should enter the Forest House as one of the maidens of the Oracle."

    "Rather you than me," Dieda said. "I would never grudge you that life."

    "Ugh!" Senara shook her head. "Would you really want to live all alone?"

    "That would be a shameful waste." Gaius said. "Is there no man you wish to marry?"

    Eilan looked up at him and was silent a moment before speaking, then she said slowly, "None to whom my parents would be likely to give me. And life in the Forest House can be very rewarding. The holy women learn all manner of wisdom and the healing arts."

    So, Gaius thought, she would like to be a healer-priestess. As he had said to Senara, he thought that would be a great waste of one who brought such beauty to the world. Eilan was quite different from everything he had heard of British girls, whom he had thought were like Clotinus's daughter. His father had sometimes spoken of pledging him in marriage to the daughter of an old friend, a high official in Page 39
    Londinium, but he had never seen the girl.

    Now it occurred to him that it might be more useful for him to marry someone like Eilan. After all, his own mother had been a British tribeswoman. He looked at Eilan so long that she grew uneasy.

    "Is there a spot on my face?" she asked. "We should get started on our festival garlands." Suddenly she jumped up and started across the meadow, which was liberally starred with blue, purple and yellow flowers. "No, not the bluebells," she said to Senara, who had followed her. "They will fade far too soon."

    "Show me which ones I should use, then," Senara demanded. "I like these purple orchids - last year I saw the priestesses wearing them."

    "I think their stems are too stiff to braid, but I will try," Eilan said, taking the handful of flowers from Senara. "No. I cannot do it; no doubt Lhiannon's maidens know some skill I do not," Eilan declared.
    "Let's try the primroses."

    "They are as common as weeds," Senara complained, and Eilan frowned.

    "What happens at the festival?" Gaius asked to distract her.

    "They drive the cattle between the fires, and Lhiannon calls down the Goddess to deliver the Oracles,"
    Eilan declared, her hands full of flowers.

    "And lovers meet at the fires," said Cynric, looking at Dieda, "And pledged couples make known their vows. Here, Senara, try these."

    "They are the ones I was trying to weave," Eilan complained, "but their stems are too stiff. Dieda, will those blossoms work?"

    The older girl was kneeling before a hawthorn bush in full, starry bloom. At the question she turned and pricked her finger on a thorn. Cynric came over to her and kissed it, and she blushed and asked quickly, Page 40
    "Shall I make you a wreath, Cynric?"

    "As you wish." Then a raven cawed from somewhere in the trees and his face changed. "What am I saying? I should not be thinking of