“Coventa!” she paused as she recognized Belina and Helve, of all
people, behind her, and slowed her progress to something more befi t-
ting a queen.
“My lady!” Her nod was carefully calculated to imply equality. “You
honor us!” As she gave orders for food and drink she eyed them covertly,
seeing Coventa grown tall, and Helve a little more matronly. The High
Priestess was still beautiful, but she had some lines in her face that had
not been there before. And that’s no wonder, Boudica thought silently, the
past few years have not been easy on anyone. She smiled again as their escort
proved to be Rianor. Like the others he wore ordinary clothes.
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“You’ll be wondering what we’re doing here,” said Belina as they sat
down to a plate of bannocks and a flagon of Roman wine. “With the
Romans busy building new forts near the Sabrina, the roads seemed safe
enough for Coventa’s womanhood ceremony at Avalon.”
Boudica nodded, remembering her initiation at Lhiannon’s hands.
She wondered if Helve could bring through the same magic, but then
Coventa had enough magic herself for two.
“And now we are going to visit her kinfolk in the Brigante lands
before she takes her vows,” said Helve. “It has been an interesting
journey.”
And you have been picking up information everywhere you passed, Boudica
observed. It would appear that the kind of thinking required to be a
high priestess was not so diff erent from that of a queen.
“I told them it didn’t matter,” said Coventa. “No one has proposed
a great marriage for me, and I would refuse it if they tried—though
your little girls are sweet enough to make me think again about mother-
hood!”
Boudica smiled. “Sweet” was not a term she would have used for
Rigana, but the two children had been on their best behavior to meet
the priestesses, and she could see how they might be deceived.
“We plan to save some travel time by taking a ship from the north
coast of your lands,” Helve put in. “We will be staying with Queen
Cartimandua in Briga for a while before heading home. I thought that
if your husband permits it, you might wish to go with us.”
“Oh please do, Boudica!” begged Coventa. “We can only stay here
one night, and that is not nearly time enough for all I have to tell you!”
“I don’t know,” Boudica said uncertainly. The baby was weaned,
and the girls surely did not lack for protectors, but she had not slept apart
from Prasutagos for more than a night since he became High King, ex-
cept when she gave birth to Argantilla, and for a week when he had a
fever. Without him in the bed beside her she did not sleep well.
In the end it was Prasutagos who counseled her to go, although
she could see that he liked the prospect of separation no more than she.
But they had not spoken with Cartimandua for some time, and since
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the western Brigantes had rebelled the year before it had become
important to know where she and her husband stood with regard to
Rome.
“Cartimandua seemed to have a kindness for you at the wedding,”
the king observed dryly. Boudica realized for the first time that he was
aware that the Brigante queen had encouraged her to ride away. “She is
a wily one, but perhaps if you are together for a time she will speak
freely.”
It was only after they had been on the road for some days that it oc-
curred to Boudica that the reason Helve had invited her was the same.
Three days’ journey brought them to the small port on the Wash,
on the north coast of the Iceni lands. There they found two wide-
bottomed boats that could take the women and their escort four days’
sail up the coast and into a great estuary. At the landing they bought
rough-coated ponies to carry them upriver until they came to Lys Udra,
where Queen Cartimandua made her home.
One sympathizes with Caratac, of course,” said the queen.
She was still the sleek, wry-tongued creature Boudica remembered,
with her black hair shining in the morning sun. Coventa was spending
the week with her brother’s family, leaving the Brigante queen to enter-
tain her unexpected guests at her hall by the river. The land here was
good for farming, but to the west rose moors and mountains where only
shepherds could make a living.
“He and his brother were in a fair way to unite most of the south,
had the Romans not come.” She poured wine into cups of ruddy Samian
ware and passed them to her guests. “He is a fi ne-looking man, too,
though depressingly faithful to that Ordovice woman he wed.” She
smiled.
Boudica raised an eyebrow. Did you try him, then, and get turned
down? Cartimandua was known to have an eye for a handsome male.
Her husband did not object, but then Briga was a wild land, where folk
held to older ways than those of the Celts of Gallia who had conquered
them. King Venutios was spending the summer at Rigodunon, near the
Salmaes firth on the northwestern coast. Clearly his relationship with
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Cartimandua was very different from the union she and Prasutagos had
finally found. Boudica wondered if he had played any role in the rising
there.
“They say that Caratac has taken his war band back to the Ordovice
lands,” said Helve.
“He may take them anywhere he likes, so long as they stay out of
Briga,” Cartimandua said with sudden venom. “I’ll not have him per-
suading any more of our clans into a rising that could only be put down
by bringing the Legions in.”
“I, on the other hand, can only be thankful they did. That rebellion
saved Mona,” observed Helve.
“Do you expect me to say that you’re welcome?” Cartimandua an-
swered her unspoken question. “I have no quarrel with your Order, but I
like the Romans much better when their tax collectors, annoying as they
may be, are the only representatives they need to send into my land.”
Helve’s lips tightened, but even she could hardly object to the
queen’s words while she was drinking her wine. It was good for the
High Priestess to have to be polite to a fellow sovereign, thought Boudica.
She wished that Lhiannon had been here to see.
“They say that Caratac has a priestess of your Order with him, a
White Lady with magic powers,” added Cartimandua, as if Boudica had
spoken her thought aloud. Coventa had told her that Lhiannon had gone
to help the rebels. She was glad to have confirmation for her dream.
“Indeed?” Helve said stiffl
y.
“No doubt the Romans have heard this also. It will not make them
more tolerant of your power.” Cartimandua sat back and signaled to one
of her women to bring more wine.
“If we do not stand up to them we will have no power,” said Helve
with more honesty than Boudica had expected.
“Ah well, we eac
h play the game in a different way,” said Cartiman-
dua, smiling. “It will be interesting to see who wins . . .”
The eve ning before they were to leave Lys Udra, the Brigante queen
held Boudica back as the others were seeking their beds after dinner in
the great roundhouse that was the royal hall.
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“What did she want?” Coventa asked when Boudica returned.
“To warn me against you!” Boudica tried to laugh. “She believes
that the Romans will seek to destroy the Druids as soon as they have
pacifi ed the tribes.”
“I know that you cannot do much to help us, placed as you are,”
Coventa said seriously, “but it will be a comfort to know that you still
hold me in your heart . . .”
“Oh my dear one, how could I not?” exclaimed Boudica. “But will
you not rethink your own decision? I believe you will be safer with me
than with Helve.”
Coventa shook her head with her usual sweet smile. “I know you do
not like her, but indeed she does desire to serve the people and the gods.
And she has been kind to me.”
She has used you, thought Boudica, but it would do no good to say so
aloud.
“This journey has shown me how unhappy I would be if I had to
live among people who see and hear only with their ears and eyes. Safe
or not, being a priestess on Mona is the only thing I am fi t for,” said
Coventa.
“Then do it, and be happy—” Boudica hugged the thin shoulders— for
as long as you can. But in truth could she, could anyone, hope for more?
Harvest was the most hopeful time of the year. In the old days,
warfare ended when it was time to get the crops in. But now, except
when it was necessary to pursue an occasional cow that somehow ended
up on the other side of a tribal border, they no longer had to worry
about fighting—perhaps the only one of Rome’s promised benefi ts that
had actually been welcome. When the grain turned golden, everyone,
high or low, turned out to help in the fi elds.
Boudica bent, scooped up the piled stalks before her, and added
them to the bunch in the crook of her arm. Ahead, the line of reapers
moved in rhythm to the beat of the harvest drum, grasping, cutting, and
casting aside the stalks of grain. She squatted down to gather more into
her armful, bound what she held with a twist of straw, and started the
process all over again.
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So much of the Iceni country was pasture or fenland. The places
where grain would grow well were doubly precious, and the best were
to be found in the high rolling land around Danatobrigos. Boudica had
come here after her visit to Cartimandua, and the king had brought the
girls up to join her while he traveled around his kingdom. They would
all go back to Teutodunon when the harvest was done.
She always looked forward to the season and its festivities, but just at
this moment she wished they were over. The sun burned bright, and
sweat was running down her back, sticking the linen of the old tunic to
her skin and itching where the omnipresent chaff had gotten in. Long
sleeves protected her arms from the sun, but by tonight her face would
be red and tender despite the oil she had slathered on it before she began
and the broad straw hat she wore.
But they could not stop now. Clouds were building over the waters of
the Wash, and they would lose most of the wheat if it rained. The families
whose farms were near the Horse Shrine harvested together, moving from
one steading to another as the fields ripened. Today they were at Palos and
Shanda’s place. Earlier in the summer Palos had been ill, but he looked
healthy now, his skin darkened and his brown hair bleached by the sun.
Next to him, Prasutagos cut and cast another handful aside. The
king had stripped off his tunic. For a moment Boudica paused, appreci-
ating the ripple of muscle across his back as he reached again, then took
up the stalks he had cut and tied off another sheaf of grain.
“Here’s water, Mother,” said Rigana. Boudica stretched to relieve
the ache in her back, then took the full skin. It tasted better than Ro-
man wine. At least this was the last field. From the farm came the scent
of cooking food—they would be feasting soon.
Very soon, she realized, for the reapers were approaching the end of
the field. A ripple of anticipation swept through the onlookers. Sickles
flashed as the men raced to finish, then halted, drawing away from Pra-
sutagos, who was reaching for the only clump still standing in the fi eld.
Hearing the silence, he stopped, realized he was the last, and looked
around him with a rueful laugh.
“The Old Woman!” “The Corn Mother!” “Watch out, she’ll get
you!” came the cries.
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“Palos, this is your field—I’ll let you do the honors,” the king said
hopefully, holding out the sickle to the other man.
“No, my lord.” Palos grinned. “It’s you she’s been waiting for. I’ll
not stand in your way!” His golden-haired wife took his arm as if to
make sure of it.
Prasutagos gave a dramatic sigh. “Well, you’ve been sick, so I’ll take
her on—” Drawing himself up, he took a stride forward, grasped the
stalks in his left hand, and with a swift slash cut them free. As he stepped
back something brown and swift burst from the stubble and went
bounding across the fi eld.
“A hare!” whispered someone, making the sign of warding. Boudica
felt her arms prickle. Suddenly the king’s laughing offer to protect the
farmer from the Corn Mother’s resentment at being cut down had a
deeper meaning. Hares were uncanny beasts, sacred to the Goddess and
not to be harmed. His gaze met that of the farmer, who had gone a little
pale.
“ ’Tis the duty of the king to stand between his folk and danger,”
Prasutagos said gently, and smiled.
“A neck! A neck! He has the Old Woman!” the others were shout-
ing now.
Prasutagos handed the sheaf to Shanda, who set swiftly to work to
tie off sections into limbs and braid the figure a girdle and crown. As
soon as she had the grain the other women seized the king, sticking
straws through his clothing and into his hair. Then they hustled him
down to the river and pushed him in.
When times were truly evil, thought Boudica a little grimly, the
ruler, or his substitute, would die for his land in truth and not in play.
Would that be required of Caratac? But despite his ambitions, he had
never been king for all Britannia. The ac cep tance must come before the
sacrifi ce.
Now they were pulling Prasutagos out again. Across the tops of
their heads his laughing gaze met hers. They will take him back to the farm
for the feasting, she thought as she managed an answering smile, and make
him dance with the Corn Mother, and eat as much food as Devodaglos, and
r /> promise everyone more beer. That’s not so great a sacrifice . . .
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“Way-yen, way-yen . . .” As the Corn Mother was borne back to
the farm the call echoed triumphantly across the land.
As Boudica followed the crowd it occurred to her that the rough
treatment given to the reaper was only a symbol, but each spring, the
Corn Goddess, in the grain that made up last harvest’s image, was dis-
membered and scattered to bless the fi elds.
E I G H T E E N
It had been a long war. From the doorway of the command tent,
Lhiannon watched the campfires flickering in the meadows that edged
the river, where the men of the great co alition Caratac had forged had
sunk their own past rivalries in hatred of a greater foe. Silures who were
veterans of the southern fi ghting of two years ago and Durotrige survi-
vors from Vespasian’s campaign lay by Ordovices and Deceangli who
had borne the brunt of the more recent battles, along with a scattering
of men from other tribes. The last time so great a British host had been
assembled had been on the banks of the Tamesa.
Behind her, Caratac sat with the war leaders, drawing maps in the
dirt. Brangenos had settled in the shadows beyond, playing something
sweet and meandering that eased the soul without requiring attention.
“They say that the governor was a sick man when he got here, and
I don’t think his health has been improved by hunting me all around the
hills. By all the gods, I am as tired of running as he is of chasing me!”
“So you mean to face him?” asked Tingetorix, an Iceni champion
Lhiannon had known when she lived with Boudica.
“I mean to off er battle—at a place of my own choosing.” Caratac
bared his teeth in a grin. “I doubt he will be able to resist the invita-
tion.” Eight years of warfare had transformed the fox of the Cantiaci to
an old wolf, the red hair gone brindled roan, his weatherbeaten skin
seamed with scars. But the fire in his eyes burned as hot as ever.
Did Lhiannon’s? She, too, had left her first youth in these moun-
tains. To the men of Caratac’s army, whom she had nursed and com-
forted through illness and wounds, she was the White Lady. These days
she wore undyed homespun. Her robe of priestess-blue had worn out
long ago. But her true appearance no longer mattered—although she