of the invoking priestess, but the Oracle prophesying doom. She had
forgotten Lhiannon’s training. Perhaps the priestess had forgotten it
herself.
“What does the High King say?” she asked.
Prasutagos shook his head. “Antedios is an old man, and ill. We
have no war leader to match Caratac. The king is without a son, and
your father, who is his tanist, is also old. The High King has ordered
that we comply.”
“You are not old,” growled Lhiannon.
“Would you have me rebel against my king and the Romans, too?
We would be as divided as the southern clans.”
“Shall I summon Caratac here to lead you?” she spat. “You are all
old women, and you will be sorry you did not heed my words!” She
stalked out the door.
Boudica stifled a burst of hysterical laughter at the image of Caratac
manifesting here by the fire. Lhiannon could probably do it, given the
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mood she was in just now. Boudica could almost hear the fi ery speeches
and the fury of the mob’s reply.
“Perhaps . . .” murmured Prasutagos, “but I am a king for peace,
and what is needed now is a leader of war . . .”
I cannot stay here . . . thought Lhiannon.
She sat by the cauldron in the roundhouse, a veil bound across the
betraying sigil on her forehead and a shawl around her shoulders, stirring
the soup in the cauldron that hung above the fi re. The first of the spring
greens had gone into it—tender new nettles and dandelion to eke out the
salted beef from their dwindling stores. But it was still winter in her soul.
She could hear the tramp of hobnailed sandals and men’s deep voices
outside, and the clatter of steel and bronze as swords and shields and
spearheads were cast upon the pile.
I came here to get away from warfare, but this is not peace, it is death . . .
Boudica sat across from her, nursing the child. Rigana was mostly
weaned, but when she was anxious she still sought her mother’s breast.
They winced at each clash of metal, but Lhiannon’s slow fury boiled
beneath a layer of ice. Prasutagos had no choice but to watch the confi s-
cations, if only to control the fury of his men. She hoped that each
sword struck him to the heart as it fell.
She started as the heavy hide that hung across the doorway was
pulled aside. Light shafted across the center of the roundhouse as the
Roman agent Pollio came in, backed by a legionary in a cuirass of over-
lapping plates like a centipede who held a round helmet with a flared
neck-guard under his arm.
“I beg pardon, ladies,” he said in surprisingly good British, “but my
orders require me to search the house as well—”
Boudica rose to her feet, the sleeping child still in her arms. “I un-
derstand,” she said sweetly, but there was a dangerous glitter in her eyes.
It was just as well they had tied Bogle securely by the horse pen. He was
as dangerous as any steel, if the Romans had only known.
Pollio gestured, and the soldier moved hesitantly around the hearth,
lifting covers and looking under chests. Lhiannon continued to stir the
stew, drawing anonymity around her like a veil.
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When he touched the curtains around the bed- place, Boudica stiff -
ened. “Don’t forget the mattress! We Celts are such hardy barbarians,
we sleep on spears. And why confine yourselves to the furniture,” she
added. “Search here in my bosom! I might be hiding a dagger.” She
pulled down the front of her wrap, still unpinned from nursing, to bare
a white breast. The soldier gaped and turned his back, and Pollio col-
ored up to his hairline. “Or perhaps you would like to look in my baby’s
clouts to see if we have concealed a spearhead inside!”
“No, my lady, I know that you and your husband are friends to
Rome,” said Pollio. He muttered something to the soldier, who turned,
looking relieved.
He would have seen nothing in the bed, thought Lhiannon. Were
they really so naïve as to think weapons would be hidden where they
could so easily be found? The legionary would not discover Prasuta-
gos’s sword unless he could handle coals as she had learned to do on
Mona. They had wrapped the heirloom weapons in oiled leather and
buried them deep beneath the hearth. Let the goddess who guarded
the family fire keep them until the time came to use them once
more.
And that day will come. As Pollio and his minion retreated Lhiannon
glared at their backs. Those swords will drink Roman blood as now we drink
Roman wine . . .
She had believed she was done with war. She had thought herself
cut off from prophecy. Awareness of both stirred in her now.
I have stayed here too long . . .
The strangers came limping up the track just as the sun was rising.
By the time they reached the gate, Bogle’s flurry of barking had awak-
ened the entire steading. Boudica pulled a shawl over her shift and
stumbled sleepily to the door, gripping the dog’s collar. At her word, his
barking modulated to a subliminal growl.
There were three of them, with young bodies and faces prematurely
old. One had his arm in a sling. Another had a stained cloth around his
head. Together they were supporting the third, whose leg bore bloody
bandages from ankle to thigh.
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“Lhiannon,” she said over her shoulder, “come quickly. We have
wounded men.”
“Lady . . .” said the one with the hurt arm, “of your mercy, do you
have any food, and is there a hidden place we could lie? We would not
bring trouble upon you—with sunset we will be on our way—”
“That you will not!” exclaimed Boudica. “You are no more fi t to
travel than my little girl. Come into the house—none here would betray
you, but there’s no telling who may be about—you are not the fi rst refu-
gees to come this way.” Since the order to disarm had been announced
some had chosen to leave their homes rather than give in.
But these were not merely refugees fleeing a Roman advance, she
thought with a sinking heart as she helped them inside. These men had
seen battle, and that not long ago.
The man with the broken arm was called Mandos. He came from a
small farm not far from the dun where Boudica had been born. Of his
companions, the one with the knock on the head was Trinovante and
the man with the wounded leg from near the coast somewhere. They
had not known each other before the battle, he said. They had ended up
hiding in the same thicket and had been together since then.
By the time the three were fed and washed, Prasutagos had arrived.
Lhiannon was tending the man with the wounded leg, who was fevered,
but the others seemed recovered enough to tell their story.
“I am glad you are here, sir,” said Mandos. “The gods know what
stories are going around. I know you did not think we could win, and
perhaps you we
re right . . .” With the grime washed off, he looked
barely eighteen, two years older than Boudica’s younger brother, whom
she prayed her father had kept out of the rebellion.
“Perhaps,” said Prasutagos quietly. “But it may be that you were
right to try. What happened?”
“It should have worked!” his companion put in. “Our war leader
was a man of the fens who knew the way to an old earthwork on a islet
of raised land there. He figured we could lead the Romans there, where
the ground would be no good for their cavalry, and wear them out as
they attacked us.”
Mandos nodded agreement. “But the Roman commander was a
fox, too. He dismounted his men and they rushed us. The ramparts
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turned into a trap once the Romans were inside. We were trampling
over each other, trying to get out. Some of the local people had taken
refuge with us. There were old men . . . children . . . they slaughtered
them all. That was four days ago.” He took another drink of nettle
broth. “We could only travel at night. By day the Roman patrols were
hunting those who got away.”
“You are safe here,” said the king. “We will fi nd households where
you can stay.”
Mandos shook his head, his young face grim beyond its years. “I
thank you, lord. Our friend with the bad leg must certainly bide. But
this Trinovante fool and I will go on until we reach a land where we are
allowed to wear our swords!” He caressed the battered blade at his side.
“Perhaps there will be others from the Society of Ravens there.”
Boudica saw her husband wince, and this time it was she who could
find no words.
Three days after the two young warriors had left, the third man
died. At sunset they buried him near the Horse Shrine with his cher-
ished sword in his hand. As they were walking back to the farmstead, a
horseman came over the hill. He bore no signs of battle, but his face was
grim.
“My lord Prasutagos, you are summoned to Dun Garo.”
“Has the king called another council? I thought I had already made
my opinion clear!”
“My lord, King Antedios is dead. It is the Roman governor who has
summoned you and all the surviving chieftains of the Iceni clans.”
“I suppose he died of a broken heart,” said Boudica when the mes-
senger had been sent to Palos’s farm for food and rest. She started up the
track to Danatobrigos and Prasutagos, who had been silent since he
heard the news, followed her. “Antedios will have known most of those
who fell. I probably played with some of them when I was a child.” De-
spite Lhiannon’s tales of the war in the south, it was hard to imagine that
young men who should be riding horses and siring children could so
easily die.
For a few minutes they walked in silence, but in the king’s eyes she
glimpsed the glitter of tears. “Well, don’t you think so? Say something!
Don’t you dare turn into a stone again!”
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“Don’t you think my heart is wounded, too?” Prasutagos burst out
suddenly. “Ever since those young men came through our gate, I’ve
been wondering if I should have joined the rebellion, if it might have
gone differently with a few wiser heads to lead them, or at least with a
few more swords!”
“And it might be you lying dead in the fens if you had gone,” she
responded. “And then what would we do?”
He stopped in the path, his gaze following a scattering of crows as
they winged across the fields. “You got along without me quite well last
year and the year before,” he said softly, still watching the birds. “I
know that you tolerate my presence only for the sake of the child . . .”
“That isn’t true!” Boudica exclaimed, and wondered suddenly when
her feelings had changed. Prasutagos stood very still, head bowed, and
she did not dare to break his silence. She crossed her arms across her
breasts, feeling a little cold.
After a few moments, he began to walk again. “I think that if I had
been there,” he said in a low voice, “I might have helped them to win
the battle, but we would still have lost the war. Caratac was right—the
time for the tribes to unite was four years ago, before the Roman eagles
had sunk their talons into this land. All we can do now is to make the
best accomodation we can.”
Now he stopped and faced her, a silhouette against the fading sky.
“My lady, do you agree with me?”
Boudica looked at him in confusion. Why did it matter what she
thought about anything? No doubt Lhiannon would say they should
keep fighting, but she still remembered the agony in the face of that
poor boy as he died. Wasn’t peace, even with attendant inconveniences,
better than that waste of men?
“Yes, my lord, I do.”
“I must go down to Dun Garo,” he said soberly. “Your father was
Antedios’s tanist, but he is old. Of the royal kindred I am next in blood,
and I think they will try to make me king of the united tribe. The Ro-
mans will allow it only if they trust my commitment to them. I don’t
want this, but it may be the only way to keep what inde pendence we
have.”
Isolated on the farm, until the order to disarm, Boudica had been
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able to pretend that it was possible to live without being troubled by
Rome. But Prasutagos had not had that luxury.
“When I leave, will you come with me, Boudica?”
She could not see his eyes. She reached out to reassure herself that
the words came not from a shadow but from a living man, and felt the
hard muscle of his forearm quiver beneath her hand.
“I will, my husband. I promise you.”
L hiannon untied the roll of bedding and laid it out next to Boudi-
ca’s. The roundhouse assigned to the queen and her women was barely
large enough for them all, and none too clean, but she and Temella had
managed to make it habitable. Whoever became High King, they would
have to stay at least until Beltane was past.
She looked up as a shadow fell across the open doorway.
“It is you!” said a voice she ought to know. “Someone said you had
been seen—I can hardly believe it’s true!”
As Lhiannon got to her feet she recognized Belina, with the same
comfortable figure, though there were new strands of gray in her
hair.
“We’ve counted you lost these three years after Rianor reported that
you had disappeared from Avalon,” said the priestess. “We set a place for
you at Samhain, child. We thought you dead, or gone into Faerie—
don’t look so surprised—you’re not the first to have met the queen of
that land.”
“I’ve been serving the queen of this one.” Lhiannon found her voice
at last.
Belina laughed. “Come out of those shadows and let me see you,
darling! Still thin as a wraith—don’
t they feed you in those fens? But
you look healthy, Goddess bless.”
Lhiannon blinked as she emerged into the light. Dun Garo buzzed
like a hive as the clans continued to come in. Men were dragging in logs
to build the great Beltane fire in the meadow. Tents had sprouted in
colorful disarray all over the farther pastures. On the other side of the
river a palisade enclosed the neat rows of leather tents that housed the
Roman governor and his men, a mute but eloquent reminder that
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although the clan fathers might elect their new High King, they had
better not acclaim anyone not approved by Rome.
“But you don’t need to wear that band across your brow.” Belina
plucked at the scarf Lhiannon had tied to cover the crescent of Avalon.
“Even if they knew what it means, the Roman pigs don’t care what
women do. And so far, no one has tried to enforce the ban on the Druid
Order here.”
Lhiannon wondered if Belina had always chattered so, or did she need
the words to cover her emotion at this unexpected reunion?
“We should have expected that you would go to Boudica,” the other
woman went on. “She was always your pet when she was at the school.”
“What are you doing here?” Lhiannon got a word in at last. “Who
else has come? Is Helve—”
“Oh no! Surely you don’t think our beloved High Priestess would risk
herself among the enemy, though she is willing enough to send the rest of
us out to foment rebellion here—the other senior priestesses, that is.”
Lhiannon laughed. It sounded as if little had changed. “Is that what
you are here for? You’ll have no luck among the Iceni—their teeth are
well and truly drawn, and Prasutagos is not a man to risk what he still
has,” she added bitterly. The king had not listened when her arguments
might still have done some good. Now they did not speak at all.
“Does he cling so to power?” asked Belina.
“Not to power,” Lhiannon answered honestly. “To peace. Boudica
would make a better war leader than he would, had she been a man.”
Belina nodded. “But will she make a queen? There is more to con-
ferring kingship than an election. The transfer of sovereignty is women’s
business. It is best if the queen can do the rite, but we did not know if
Boudica would be able. How much does she remember of what she was