Ravens of Avalon: Avalon

  No doubt Lhiannon was already back at the roundhouse, getting

  dinner ready and wondering when Boudica would get there. The other

  woman had not passed her going down, but she must have done so, per-

  haps when Boudica was on the long loop on the other side of the hill.

  When she reached the top she had looked in every direction, and Lhian-

  non was nowhere to be seen. She was a little surprised—no, in truth, she

  was a little hurt—that her companion had not troubled to let her know

  she was leaving. They had seemed so close, after that morning in the

  pool. But Lhiannon had said this climb was supposed to be a solitary

  meditation. Perhaps she had left Boudica alone so that she could make

  up her mind.

  “I don’t want to decide!” she observed rebelliously.

  “What do you want?”

  Boudica stared. A moment ago she had been looking across the cir-

  cle at the stones, and now Lhiannon was in front of her. If it was Lhian-

  non. The priestess had always been fair, but now her face shone.

  “Where have you been?” Boudica found herself on her feet without

  quite knowing how she got there.

  “I found the other road . . . I found the way within,” the priestess

  said exultantly. “I found the way to Faerie . . .” She looked around her

  with mingled disappointment and wonder and Boudica believed her.

  “About halfway through the maze it began to change. Did you see

  nothing? I hoped that you would follow me . . .”

  “I saw nothing but the green earth and the sky above.”

  In Lhiannon’s eyes the light of the Otherworld still glowed. Boudica

  realized the gulf between them. Lhiannon is half a spirit herself— no wonder

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  she found the way to their world, she realized. If I had gone it would only have

  been because she was there. She longs for the Unseen— but the sunset that gilds

  the green grass on this hill is magic enough for me. With mingled relief and

  regret she realized that her decision had been made.

  “I am not a priestess. This world is enough for me.”

  Their eyes met, and in Lhiannon’s she saw sorrow that faded gradu-

  ally to accep tance, and something else that she could only identify as

  love.

  “Then I am glad that I am still in it . . .” said the priestess, and

  smiled.

  Boudica’s heart lifted. If she was not to be a priestess, she must

  marry, but whatever the future might hold, the link between her and

  Lhiannon would remain.

  E I G H T

  In the name of all the powers of earth, sky, and sea, what is that?”

  Boudica turned at Lhiannon’s exclamation, eyes widening as she

  glimpsed what appeared to be a haystack on four stumpy gray legs,

  moving slowly across the field. As they watched, a snakelike appendage

  reached up and plucked some of the hay.

  “I think . . . it’s some kind of animal.” She shaded her eyes with one

  hand.

  As the wind shifted their ponies began to snort and plunge. “Defi -

  nitely an animal,” Lhiannon agreed in a shaken voice. “This must be

  one of those strange creatures we heard about last night—the elephanti

  the Romans brought with them across the sea.”

  They judged the animal to stand at least twice the height of a tall

  man. The brass caps on its ivory tusks glinted in the afternoon sunlight.

  Her mind boggled at the idea that such a thing could be carried on any

  kind of oceangoing craft. No doubt the emperor had brought the beasts

  to terrify the natives—it was certainly spooking the horses, but the sheer

  unlikeliness of the creature made Boudica want to laugh.

  “It’s no concern of ours,” Leucu growled. “If we are to reach your

  father’s tent before the eve ning meal we must move on.”

  He wrenched his horse’s head around and booted it forward along the

  track that led to what had once been Cunobelin’s dun. The Romans had

  burned the buildings in which the old king had taken so much pride—

  after first looting them, of course. The tribal leaders who had come to

  make peace with the emperor were camped in Camulodunon’s fi elds.

  No doubt Leucu would be glad to relinquish responsibility for his

  chieftain’s daughter. He had spent much of their three-week journey

  across Britannia in a state of nerves that shortened both his sleep and his

  temper. But it was only in the previous days that they had encountered

  Roman patrols, the last of them at the gap in the dikes that had not, in

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  the end, protected Camulodunon. Two women and an old man seemed

  unlikely to threaten the legions that surrounded the emperor, and they

  had been allowed to pass.

  “I still don’t like this,” said Boudica as they rode across the pasture.

  “What, are you afraid of the elephants?” asked Lhiannon.

  Boudica snorted. “No—it’s just that I thought I was going home!”

  As they journeyed across Britannia and her limbs remembered the joy of

  riding, she had begun to dream of the rolling pastures where the Iceni

  bred their horses. “But it is an evil homecoming when I arrive just in

  time to see my father submit to Rome!”

  The Roman troops in Camulodunon were a spear aimed at the

  heart of all the lands that had once been under Cunobelin’s sway. But

  would the conquerors be content with submission, or would she soon

  fi nd herself in chains on a ship bound for Rome? However constricting

  life with the Druids had been, at least it was free. She had tried to con-

  vince the priestess to leave them, but Lhiannon seemed serenely confi -

  dent. Or perhaps she was so determined to go to Camulodunon because

  Ardanos was still there.

  They crossed the pasture and turned onto the droveway that led

  between the fields. The growing wheat lay trampled, with only a few

  clumps left to be harvested by the birds. The cattle, too, were gone. No

  doubt they had served the soldiers for a feast to celebrate their victory.

  Another ditch, its rim crowned with hawthorn, surrounded the

  compound, but the roundhouses whose pointed roofs should have showed

  above the hedge were gone. It had been a month since the Romans

  burned them, but the acrid reek of smoke still hung in the air. And yet

  the pasture beyond the compound bore a bright harvest of tents, as if

  this were a belated Lugos festival. The chieftains who had not marched

  in time to defend Camulodunon had come to make submission to their

  conquerors.

  After listening for four years to Druid diatribes, Boudica found it

  unsettling to see her own people baring their throats to the foe. She had

  known she would be returning to the bondage of marriage. Indeed, she

  and Lhiannon had spent much of the journey speculating on who her

  husband would be. She fought down anger as she realized that her tribe

  was to be bound as well.

  96 D i ana L . Pax s on

  As they rode into the camp, people emerged from tents to see who

  had arrived. Abruptly Boudica was aware of how she must look to
them—

  a leggy, freckled young woman with a tangle of red-gold hair, dressed in

  an undyed linen tunica grimed by weeks of travel and grown ragged at

  the hem. Looking like a slattern had been a good guise for a traveler, but

  it was less so here, where men read who you were in what you wore.

  The clusters of tents

  were marked by poles with standards. She

  peered upward, looking for the russet banner with the leaping white

  hare of her own clan. Perhaps my parents will not recognize me, she thought

  glumly. Then I will have no choice but to return to Mona with Lhiannon . . .

  Surrounded by so many brightly clad people, she had to stifle an im-

  pulse to turn around and ride back down the road.

  Lhiannon saw her putting her hands over her ears and shook her

  head. “You cannot go through life like that, child—think for yourself a

  veil that only those sounds you want to hear can get through.”

  Boudica shut her eyes for a moment and was rewarded when the

  sound level dimmed. When she opened them, she realized it was be-

  cause her father had come out to meet her, with her mother scurrying to

  catch up as usual. He looked even more dour than she remembered, and

  there was entirely too much gray in his hair. Her mother, too, was

  silver-headed now. When had her parents become so old?

  “So you are here at last. You appear to have taken your time . . .”

  He looked his daughter up and down, but his expression did not change.

  Boudica bit her lip. Surely whatever time they had lost at Avalon

  they had saved by making part of the journey by sea. But Leucu was

  mumbling something about delays to avoid the Romans, and she re-

  laxed again.

  “Never mind, man,” Dubrac said at last. “Go take some rest. I’m

  sure you’ve earned it. At least you got her here . . .” He turned to his

  wife. “Get her cleaned up, Ana. She must be fit to show to the princes

  by the eve ning meal.” He turned away.

  “Is it a feast or a cattle market I’m going to?” Boudica muttered as

  she swung a leg over the pony’s back and slid down. She sent a beseech-

  ing glance to Lhiannon, but the priestess only smiled.

  Then her mother was hugging her, stepping back to look up into

  her face, and embracing her again.

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  “Oh my darling, how you’ve grown! But you’re as brown as a berry,

  child, or is that dirt from the road? Never mind, never mind—oh how

  I’ve missed you! I have dreamed of this day.”

  I haven’t, Boudica realized with a stab of guilt. But it was curiously

  comforting to be clucked over as if she were eight, not eighteen years

  old, and for all her questions, her mother did not seem to expect much

  in the way of a reply.

  “And to you, my lady, all my gratitude for your care.” Ana turned as

  Lhiannon also dismounted, ducking her head in a sort of truncated

  obeisance.

  The priestess’s blue robes were a little dusty, but she appeared other-

  wise untouched by the stains of travel. As if, thought Boudica with a

  familiar exasperated wonder, she used some Druid magic that directed all the

  dirt to me!

  “My women have prepared a place for you.” Ana gestured vaguely

  toward the other tents as a serving girl came forward. “Whatever you

  need for your comfort, you have only to ask . . .”

  Boudica had scarcely the time for a nod of farewell before her mother

  drew her into one of the tents, a roomy affair made by stretching a cover

  of oiled wool above wickerwork walls. Sighing, she allowed Ana to feed

  her oatcakes and mint tea, to cluck over her hair and her skin and dis-

  cuss what she should wear. It had been like this, she remembered, when

  she was a little girl. As her husband took over the training of each son,

  all Ana’s motherly instincts had focused on this one surviving daughter,

  who in turn only wanted to prove herself a better boy than any of her

  brothers. But Boudica realized that among other things, her time with

  the Druids had shown her that there was more than one way to be a

  woman, and more ways than one to be a woman of power.

  L hiannon, having left Boudica to her fate, set out to fi nd Ardanos.

  A few discreet inquiries brought her presently to a group of tents over

  which the boar banner of the Southern Iceni fl ew.

  She found him sitting cross-legged, carving a piece of wood, and

  paused to taste the pleasure of simply seeing him there, alive and well.

  He had enjoyed carving when he was a boy. Was it a sign of contentment

  98 D i ana L . Pax s on

  that he should do it now, or was he so frustrated by the situation that he

  could think of nothing else to do? Frustration, probably, she thought as

  she moved closer. He was carving birds.

  “And when you have made them, where will they fly?” she asked

  softly.

  For a moment he was utterly still, but she saw his knuckles whiten

  on the handle of the knife. Very carefully, he loosened his fi ngers and

  set down the blade. Only then did he look up at her.

  What, my beloved, did you not want me to see in your eyes? she won-

  dered. They glimmered with water he was too proud to wipe away. She

  knelt beside him and picked up one of the birds.

  “King Antedios has a little daughter,” he said, almost steadily. “They

  are water birds, and she will set them in the stream . . .”

  “And from the stream to the river, and then they will float to the

  sea, and from there they may come at last to the Blessed Isles. I under-

  stand.”

  “All went well?” Ardanos reached up to pluck a leaf that had at-

  tached itself to her veil; the touch became a caress that brushed a strand

  of hair back from her brow and lingered there.

  “Very well, both for Boudica and for me, even though—maybe

  because—we were alone. Ardanos, this time when I climbed the Tor, I

  went inward! I have to tell you—”

  “Not here!” he said harshly. “It would profane the memory. When

  we are on the road. Now that you have come, we can get out of here.”

  “Ardanos!” she exclaimed, torn between annoyance and laughter. “I

  have been riding for three weeks. Boudica was born on a horse, I think,

  and has recovered all her old skill, but I was not, and not even for you

  will I sit on a saddle again until the bruises on my backside have healed.

  Besides, I must wait until Boudica—”

  “Damn Boudica! I want to get you safely out of here!” He shook his

  head. “At least wear a band across your brow to hide that blue crescent

  while you are here!”

  Lhiannon frowned. “That mark is borne only by those of our order

  who have been initiated on Avalon. The Romans will not know what it

  means.”

  “Unless someone tells them . . .” His face was grim. “There are far

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  too many here who would curry favor with those who bestow the luxu-

  ries of Rome. Wear a headband or a veil.”

  “And what about you?” she said wryly. ?
??It is certain they will know

  you for a Druid if they see that shaven brow.”

  “Everyone already knows who I am,” he shrugged. “When there

  are Romans about I have a cap that I can wear.”

  “See that you wear it, then.” She eased down beside him. “And

  since we must stay here for a time, suppose you tell me who has come to

  this disaster, and what you think will happen now.”

  The festival of Lugos had always included a cattle fair, where folk

  sold off superfluous animals and bought beasts whose breeding might

  improve their own herds. To Boudica, standing in the middle of her

  parents’ tent while her mother directed a covey of clucking maids to

  scrub, oil, comb, and adorn her, the comparison seemed uncomfortably

  appropriate. All that kept her from bolting was the knowledge that if she

  should decide for Mona, Lhiannon and Ardanos were quite capable of

  spiriting her away.

  “There now, my darling.” Her mother stood back, inspecting her.

  “Now you look like a woman of the royal kindred.” She held out her

  bronze mirror, its back incised with graceful whorls and tendrils, so that

  Boudica could see.

  Admittedly the closest thing to a mirror on Mona was a still pool,

  but the face that looked back at her belonged to no one she knew. They

  had braided her hair back from her temples with scarlet ribands and al-

  lowed the rest of the mane to flow down her back in waves of copper

  and gold. An artful application of Roman cosmetics reddened her lips

  and defined her brows.

  Her tunica was of thin linen that followed the lines of her body and fell

  in graceful folds, pinned at the shoulders with fibulae of gilded bronze and

  girdled with gold, and dyed as deep a red as the root of the madder would

  allow. Golden earrings and a necklet of twisted gold completed the en-

  semble, with a mantle woven in the reds and tans and yellows of her tribe.

  “It will be too warm for this,” she said, and tried to hand back the

  wool.

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  D i ana L . Pax s on

  “You can sit on it when you are not bearing around the pitcher of

  wine,” her mother replied tartly.

  “I am honored,” Boudica said dryly, remembering the last time she

  had served kings. Of the rulers who had come to plot the defense of Bri-

  tannia in answer to the Arch-Druid’s call, Togodumnos was dead and