The Forest House Read Free Page A

as she stared into the water, the face that stared back at her changed. She saw an older woman with even paler skin, and dusky curls in which red highlights glinted like sparks of flame, though the eyes were the same.
    "Eilan!”
    As Dieda spoke, Eilan blinked, and the face looking back at her from the water was her own once more. Her kinswoman was shivering, and suddenly Eilan felt cold as well. Hastily, they pulled on their clothes. Then Dieda reached for the basket of cakes, and her voice soared, rich and true, in the song.
    "Lady of the sacred spring,
    To thee these offerings I bring;
    For life and luck and love I pray,
    Goddess, accept these gifts today.”
    In the Forest House, thought Eilan, there would be a chorus of priestesses to sing the song. Her own voice, thin and a little wavering, blended with Dieda’s in an oddly pleasing harmony.
    "Bless now the forest and the field,
    That they their bounty to us yield;
    May kin and kine be hale and whole,
    Safeguard the body and the soul!”
    Eilan poured mead from the flask into the water while Dieda crumbled the cakes and cast them into the pool. The current swirled them away, and for a moment it seemed to Eilan that its sound had grown louder. The two girls leaned over the water, letting drop the coins they had brought.
    As the ripples stilled, Eilan saw their two faces, so alike, mirrored together. She stiffened, fearing to see the stranger there once more, but as her sight darkened, this time there was only one face, with eyes that shone in the water like stars in the dark sea of heaven.
    "Lady, are you the spirit of the pool? What do you want from me?” her heart asked. And it seemed to her that words came in reply:
    "My life flows through all waters, as it flows through your veins. I am the River of Time and the Sea of Space. Through many lives you have been mine. Adsartha, my daughter, when will you fulfill your vows to Me?”
    It seemed to her then that from the Lady’s eyes flashed brightness that illuminated her soul, or perhaps it was sunlight, for when she came to herself she was blinking into the radiance that flared through the trees.
    "Eilan!” Dieda said in the tone of one who is repeating a summons for the second time. "What is wrong with you today?”
    "Dieda!” Eilan exclaimed. "Didn’t you see Her? Didn’t you see the Lady in the pool?”
    Dieda shook her head. "You sound like one of those holy bitches at Vernemeton, babbling of visions!”
    "How can you say that? You’re the Arch-Druid’s daughter—at the Forest House you could be trained as a bard!”
    Dieda frowned. "A female bard? Ardanos would never allow it, nor would I want to spend my life mewed up with a gaggle of women. I’d rather join the Ravens with your foster brother Cynric and fight Rome!”
    "Hush!” Eilan looked around her as if the trees had ears. "Don’t you know better than to speak of that, even here? Besides, it’s not fighting you want to do at Cynric’s side, but to lie there—I’ve seen how you look at him!” She grinned.
    Now Dieda was blushing. "You know nothing about it!” she exclaimed. "But your time will come, and when you grow foolish over some man it will be my turn to laugh.” She began to fold up the cloth.
    "I never will,” said Eilan. "I want to serve the Goddess!” And for a moment then her sight darkened and the murmur of the water seemed to grow louder, as if the Lady had heard. Then Dieda was thrusting the basket into her hands.
    "Let’s go home.” She started up the path. But Eilan hesitated, for it seemed to her that she had heard something that was not the sound of the spring.
    "Wait! Do you hear that? From over by the old boar pit—”
    Dieda stopped, her head turning, and they heard it again, fainter now, like an animal in pain.
    "We’d best go and see,” she said finally, "though it will make us late getting home. But if