Here, in a wide open pasture edged with poplar and alder, the sheep that cropped the grass and kept the College in tasty lamb and mutton had been corralled into makeshift pens, while what appeared to be the entire male labour force had been put to work erecting daises for the priestesses and rigging up canopies to shield the crowd from the ferocious noonday sun. Dressed in his customary green shirt and pantaloons, Gurdo scribbled chalk marks on the grass as indicators for siting casks of healing spring water, while under the watchful eye of their plump, brown-robed general, novices in headdresses made from gilded acorns practised their routines. The older girls glided back and forth with graceful precision. The plates in the hands of the younger ones wobbled with nerves.
'No, no, no, Aridella.'
Dora's voice boomed out even over the sawing of timbers, the knocking of nails and initiates rehearsing the Oak Song.
'Good heavens, child, the flames you're supposed to be carrying will either have blown right out or set the whole congregation alight. Like this, dear.'
For her size, she was remarkably nimble and, as she balanced the dish high on splayed fingertips, Claudia caught a glimpse of the stunning sylph Dora once was.
'Try again, Aridella.' She handed the bowl back and watched the little novice imitate her actions. 'Excellent, absolutely perfect,' she said, even though there was little discernible difference. 'Now you try, Vanessia. Good girl!'
On the far side of the meadow, Claudia could see Orbilio and Manion, wordlessly engaged in the business of bonfire construction, aided by the youth she'd seen with Swarbric earlier. Though the sky was still mostly covered by cloud, the temperature had started to soar and all three had removed their shirts to cope with the heat, their bodies glistening with sweat. Connal's face was dark with something more than concentration on his task, though, and she wondered whether, like Pod and Sarra, he and Elusa were also planning to use these preparations as a cover for their illicit activities. How far would they get? she wondered dully. Connal was a foreigner and Elusa had never left the College grounds. Neither had a clue what lay beyond the vista they could see and frankly Claudia doubted they'd cover five miles before the guards tracked them down. Watching Connal's scowl deepen with every branch he threw on, she knew that either way the lovers were heading for tragedy.
But Pod's tryst had given her an idea and she, too, had decided to exploit this surge of activity by taking a peep inside the other cave — and in any case relief from this heat would be bliss. With the advent of cloud cover, the breeze had dropped, trapping the heat and generating humidity, and despite changing her robe for a fresh lilac one, the cotton was already sticking like skin to her back.
'Sarra, isn't it?'
The Willow Priestess's daughter was sitting on Clytie's stone, her knees drawn up to her chin, and from the red rims round her eyes and the puffiness to her cheeks it was clear she had been crying.
'Do you want to talk about it?' Claudia asked softly.
Sarra wrinkled her nose. 'Thank you, but I'm fine.'
'You look it.'
The girl smiled, and though she made no effort to respond, she didn't get up and walk away either. Encouraged, Claudia settled herself on the flat rock while swallows shrieked low over the meadow in search of flies.
'I suppose it must be a terrible blow, not to be admitted to the fifty elite?' she began.
Sarra blew her nose. 'It's not that,' she said, as indeed Claudia knew fine well. 'Beth called me in five years ago and told me I wouldn't qualify for Initiatehood. I don't have the necessary dedication to be a priestess, she said, but told me I'd make a wonderful supervisor for the middle novices, and do you know, she was right. I love it!'
'I've met three of your charges. Aridella, Vanessia and Lin. Spirited little fillies, wouldn't you say?'
Sarra pushed her long silky hair back from her face. 'Sometimes you'd think they were boys, the way they carry on, but don't be fooled by that rough-and-tumble. Those games stimulate their sharp little brains and believe me, they're clever, those girls. Vanessia's already qualified for Initiatehood, and without any shadow of doubt, the others will follow.' She sighed. 'Those three have the dedication and determination I never had, that's for sure.'
Dedication to duty and determination to succeed were not necessarily virtuous traits, Claudia mused, studying the girl who didn't meet the criteria yet was totally fulfilled in her work. But then again, only in her work. She looked at her, blonde and ethereal, the fairy in love with the elf. Come to think of it, didn't the Gauls call the elder the Elf King, believing that to wear clothes dyed from the juice of the tree would invoke the protection of the benevolent spirits that lived in the forests? Interestingly, it was the very dye Gurdo clad himself in 'So if it's not your career,' she said, carefully mirroring Sarra's pose, 'it must be love that's making you miserable.'
Without mentioning the pregnant Aquitani girl, she confessed to having been behind a boulder when Sarra met Pod the day before and to overhearing their conversation. Far from being indignant, though, the fairy seemed more relieved that she was at last free to talk about her dilemma and with someone objective who came from outside the
College, instead of keeping her feelings bottled inside. Thus for the next twenty minutes Claudia was treated to a comprehensive list of Pod's breathtaking features, his fine upstanding character and let's not forget all his other wonderful attributes. Dear me, if she hadn't already met the boy, she would have hated that young man on sight!
'I gather you don't find him physically unattractive, either,' she murmured. 'Though you might want to wash those grass stains off the back of your pretty pink robe before you go back.'
Sarra squealed in alarm, at least sparing Claudia further nauseous Pod-praising since the next twenty minutes were dedicated to the removal of stains which, though stubborn, were no match for four determined hands.
'These marks,' Claudia puffed, pummelling the pink robe against a boulder in the stream, 'and the fact that a girl who went out with the express intention of collecting mallow returned with only two dog-eared stems suggest to me that you two lovebirds didn't spend your afternoon quarrelling. So why were you crying?'
Sarra's face crumpled as she reached for a stick. 'It's this, don't you see?'
'Urn. Actually, Sarra, I don't.'
A stick is a stick is a stick. And unless it pokes you in the eye, Claudia couldn't see how it was remotely likely to make someone's eyes water.
'Look at these,' Sarra said, and suddenly the stick was no longer a stick, it was a document. Notches had been carved along the length. 'The College uses sign language as a sort of shorthand to communicate and for when we're conducting rituals and ceremonies, but since we have no written language, records are kept by the scoring of twigs.'
Similar, Claudia realized, to the memory aids employed by the Druids. 'So this is… what? The equivalent of a page that's been removed from a file?'
'It's a message.' One slim finger traced the notches. 'Ill seed begets ill reed, it says, and it's not the only one I've found on my pillow.'
Claudia thought of the writing tablet laid open beside her bed. It was the first thing she saw when she opened her door
(well, all right not the first, that was the headless corpse of a baby robin, a thank-you-for-bringing-me-back-to-Gaul present from Drusilla). But, having disposed of mangled remains, she noticed the message, especially the stylus laid elegantly across the tablet, almost like a signature.
No secret can ever be safe. That's what it said. No secret can ever be safe.
'Someone knows I'm meeting Pod,' Sarra was saying, as tears began to flow again. 'Oh, Claudia, if Beth finds out, the Hundred-Handed'11 vote him invisible, I'll never see him again, and then I'll be punished by being put to work in the kitchens instead of being responsible for the middle novices like I am now, and I'll be forbidden from even setting foot beyond the precinct.'