Free Lady of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Diana L. Paxson Page B

forward to stand before Caillean, head bowed. The firelight glinted on her fair hair.
    “I know that you are here with the consent of your kin. But have you come among us of your own free will, without threats or coercion of any sort?” asked Caillean.
    “I have, Lady,” came the answer, spoken in a low voice, but clearly, though she must know that everyone was staring at her.
    “Do you promise that you will live at peace with all the women of this temple and treat each of them as mother, or sister born of your own blood?”
    For a moment Sianna glanced up. For the most part her looks were those of her unknown father, but she had her mother’s deep gaze. “The Goddess helping me, I will.”
    “For the term of their learning the maidens we train here belong to the Lady, and may not give themselves to any man except as the Goddess shall require. Will you abide by that rule?”
    “I will.” Sianna smiled shyly and looked down at the floor.
    “Then I welcome you among our maidens. When you are grown, you may, if the Goddess calls you, take on the obligations of a priestess among us, but for now these are the only pledges by which we may bind you.” She opened her arms, and gathered the child into her embrace, dizzied for a moment by the sweet scent of that bright hair.
    Then she stepped away, and one by one the others came up to welcome their new sister, doubt vanishing and frowns fading, even Eiluned’s, as they touched the maiden. Caillean glanced over at her mother, and glimpsed a smile lurking in the fairy woman’s dark eyes.
    She has laid a glamour upon the girl so that we will accept her, thought Caillean. That will have to end. Sianna must earn her place here or we will be no good to her. But there would be problems enough facing the child, who must learn to deal with the temples discipline as well as the strangeness of the human world. A small spell to get her started off successfully was surely no great wrong.
    “This is Dica, and this Lysanda,” she introduced the last in line to Sianna. “You three will share the little hut by the cooksheds. Your bed there is waiting, and they will show you where to put your things.” She surveyed Sianna’s tunic, of natural wool embroidered with a profusion of leaves and flowers, and smiled. “Go now and get something to eat. In the morning we will find you a garment such as the other maidens wear.”
    She made a little shooing motion, and Lysanda, always the bolder, reached out to take Sianna’s hand. The three girls moved off. In a moment Caillean heard the murmur of Dica’s voice and a ripple of laughter from Sianna in reply.
    “Treat her well, and she will be a blessing to you. You have won my gratitude this day…”
    Caillean only realized those words had not been spoken aloud when she turned, and saw that the Faerie Queen was gone. Suddenly the room was full of talk and laughter, as people who had been fasting all day attacked the feast spread out on the boards. To the Romans it would have seemed plain fare, but to the folk of the temple, accustomed to the simplest of boiled grains and greens and cheese, the cakes sweetened with fruit and honey, the stewed hares and roasted venison were almost overwhelming.
    “So that is the daughter of the Lady of the Elder Folk, of whom Gawen has told me?” asked Father Joseph, coming to her side.
    “It is.”
    “And you are pleased by her arrival?”
    “If I were not, I would never have let her take vows here.”
    “She is not one of your flock-”
    “Nor,” Caillean said slowly, “one of yours, Father. Make no mistake about that.” She took an apple from the basket and bit into it.
    Father Joseph nodded. “That was why I marveled to see her mother here. She is one of the people who were here before the Britons-some say before humankind. Certainly they were here when the People of Wisdom first came from the Drowned Lands to these shores.”
    “I do not know for certain who or what the Lady of the Forest Folk