Read Online The Forest House by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Free Book Online

headcloth, as most matrons and older women did, except when her hair was unbound for ritual. And yet, Ardanos reflected, for twenty years—and he had known her for most of them—this woman’s face and form had been central to their faith, and through her lips had come, if not the literal word of the gods, then that word as it was interpreted by the priests of the Oracle.
    And so perhaps there was something of divinity in the aging woman’s face after all, a divinity that clung like a fragrance. Perhaps it was something invested there by the multitudes for whom this woman appeared as the Goddess herself; not, for them, a mere symbol of their faith, but in their literal child-minds, the Goddess-self—the great Virgin Mother of the Tribes, Lady of the Land in living form.
    Lhiannon raised her head. "Ardanos, you have been staring at me for long enough to milk a cow! Did you come here to tell me something, or to ask? Out with it, man! The worst I can do is to refuse. And when have I ever been able to say no to you?”
    And these were the words of divinity, thought Ardanos, glad to pull a mantle of cynicism over a mood that was becoming oppressive.
    "Forgive me, Lady of Holiness,” he said mildly. "My thoughts were elsewhere.”
    He saw her surprise as he rose again, paced restlessly a few steps, then said abruptly, "Lhiannon, I’m worried; I heard a rumor in Deva, and it was repeated by no less a person than the son of the Prefect: Rome may withdraw the Legions. It’s the third time that I have heard it spoken, and granted there is always a faction howling, ‘Down with Rome’, but—”
    "And too many of those who pass rumors on and howl, are expecting—or at least hoping—that we will get up and howl along with them. I do not believe your rumor,” said Lhiannon bluntly. "But if it should be so, I am sure we could live without them. Is that not what we have been praying for since Caractacus walked the streets of Rome in chains?”
    "Have you any idea what chaos that would create?” Ardanos asked. "The very same faction howling, ‘Down with Rome’—” He was still pleased with the metaphor…
    "—certainly do not understand what will happen if they get their wish,” said Lhiannon.
    Ardanos thought, She knows me very well; even now, we finish one another’s thoughts. But he did not wish to finish that train of thought.
    "Granted that there has been such a faction since Caesar won the fame he needed to rule Rome by invading Britannia! Even now, they will expect those of us from the Sacred Grove to join in their cries,” Ardanos said, "and will not understand when we are silent. Just now I am worried that it will erupt into rioting at Beltane—”
    "No, I think Beltane is safe enough,” Lhiannon said. "People come for the games, the fires and feasting, and all the rest. If it were Samaine, now—”
    "These last levies have made things worse,” said Ardanos. "They took thirty of Bendeigid’s men, all the slaves set free when he was proscribed, and his own sworn man. Proscribed!” He laughed mirthlessly. "He doesn’t know how lucky he was; only forbidden to live within twenty miles of Deva! And even so he hasn’t found out about all the levies yet, but when he does—well, he’s called me worse things than traitor before; his name-calling doesn’t bother me.
    "I have permission to hold the Beltane gathering—I went to Macellius Severus himself and asked him for leave to hold a peaceful festival—as it’s been this last seven or eight years—in the name of Ceres, and it’s because he knows and trusts me that they didn’t send along a few legionaries to make sure they don’t get out of order and—shall we say—decide to worship Mars instead.”
    Lhiannon sighed, and he knew that she was remembering those days of blood and fire when Boudicca had