Ravens of Avalon: Avalon

  others down.

  They stood, breathing hard, listening to distant shouts and a moan

  as the last of their assailants died. Slowly, as if she were rising up through

  deep water, Boudica came to herself. Her arm trembled like a bowstring

  after the arrow has gone. Her blade dripped red. Thank you . . . she

  thought numbly, bending to wipe off the blood on the tunic of one of

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  the men she had killed, and felt the approval of the goddess within. Tas-

  cio and the others were staring at her with wide eyes. She did not feel

  like explaining that the week of training had strengthened her muscles,

  but it was the goddess who had used them.

  “Good work,” she said steadily. “Now let us be moving on . . .”

  They dodged as burning debris from another house showered down,

  and came out into a crossroads. Men had got ropes around the great

  bronze statue of the emperor Claudius on a horse that stood there. Hav-

  ing met the emperor, Boudica doubted that he had ever ridden such a

  horse in his life, certainly not in full parade armor. Everything about

  this image but the protruding ears was another Roman lie. She smiled

  in grim satisfaction as men began to heave on the lines. The piece was

  solidly built, but no match for their rage, especially after they found a

  smith to knock free the bolts that held it to the pedestal.

  Boudica jumped back as the thing crashed down. Screeching trium-

  phantly, someone swung an ax, and in another moment they had gotten

  the severed head on a pole, still surveying the scene with a gentle frown.

  As they admired it, Tascio came around a corner, saw her, and grinned.

  “We’ve found them,” he cried. “The soldiers and the rest of the

  people have holed up in the Temple of Claudius. It’s going to take a

  while to winkle them out—the thing is made of stone.”

  “Secure the rest of the city,” she answered him. “Let them sit there

  and stew for another day, hoping the legions will come to save them . . . and

  imagining what will happen if no one does,” she said, baring her teeth

  in a smile.

  T W E N T Y- F I V E

  L ys Deru was burning. Flames billowed skyward, filling the sky

  with lurid light, as if the fires had consumed the stars. Below, sparks

  moved across the meadows as legionaries with torches scoured the land.

  Their commander had sent several detachments out to form a perimeter

  and work inward, driving fugitives before them as men might drive

  game.

  Lhiannon lay in a hollow beneath a thorn hedge where a badger’s

  burrow had fallen in. From time to time she heard cries and knew an-

  other fugitive had been found. Sometimes it was a woman, and then the

  screams continued. As long as night lasted her dark robes would hide

  her—it would be another matter when the sun rose. It was all very well

  for Ardanos to tell her to save herself, she thought grimly. If he had

  wanted her to stay safe, he should not have allowed her to stay at all.

  But there might be no safety for a Druid priestess anywhere on Mona.

  The Romans went about their work in an appallingly methodical way.

  When they had finished scouring the area around Lys Deru, no doubt

  they would search the island. By now they must know what it meant

  when a woman bore a blue crescent on her brow. The tattoo would

  mark her as a priestess even if she got rid of the blue robe.

  Sweet Goddess, watch over Caillean, she prayed. If I cannot return to Eriu

  to claim her, keep her safe— keep her free! She would have thrown herself

  back into the fray and sought a quick ending if it had not been for the

  child.

  She had seen Cunitor struck down as she fled the shore, and glimpsed

  Brenna being dragged away. It seemed unlikely that Ardanos could have

  survived. So many men and women she had known were dead, and if

  she had not liked them all, they still compelled her loyalty. But it would

  be time enough to feel guilt for having survived them if she lived to see

  another dawn.

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  She heard the tramp of hobnailed sandals and a mutter of Latin

  and grew even more still. I am night . . . I am shadow . . . she thought,

  slowing her breathing, fighting to quiet her soul. You see nothing here—

  move on . . .

  She heard two sets of footsteps, and a regular whisper and thump

  she could not identify. Closer they came. Through the grass stems she

  glimpsed a metallic gleam and knew it for a spearpoint an instant before

  it stabbed past her head.

  Even Druid training could not prevent a gasp. One of the Romans

  swore and turned, and in the next moment a hare burst from the

  hedge and leaped across the grass. The other man laughed, and the

  pair moved on.

  Holy Andraste! thought Lhiannon, remembering the goddess and

  totem of Boudica’s clan. If I survive this, I owe you an offering!

  It was a long time before she dared to move again. When she raised

  her head at last, the fires of Lys Deru were burning low. But a little to

  the east new flames were rising. With a sinking heart she realized that

  they had set fire to the Sacred Grove. For some reason the sight of the

  burning trees pierced her heart with a pain she had not yet allowed her-

  self to feel for her fellow men. Weeping silently, she watched the flames

  and waited for the dawn.

  The embers of Colonia were smoldering. From time to time a

  charred roof-beam would fall in, or a last bit of wicker fencing would

  burst into flame. It had taken nearly twenty years to turn this Trinov-

  ante hilltop into a crude imitation of Rome. The Britons had destroyed

  it in two days. Colonia Victricensis was victorious no more, except for

  this final symbol of imperialism, this ultimate hubris, the temple of the

  deified Claudius, that stood surrounded by devastation, stone columns

  glowing as men held their torches high.

  Boudica felt a flicker of amusement from the goddess within as she

  reflected that she was the last person to deny that a human could be a

  vehicle for divinity, or even that each human soul held some spark of the

  divine. But it was the god that ought to be worshipped, not the man.

  Even the ancestors at whose barrows her people left offerings took time

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  to grow into their godhood. Let the Romans pay their honors to the

  Deified Claudius at his own tomb and build him a temple there if their

  prayers were answered. To worship him here was an insult and a blas-

  phemy.

  The building was unscathed except for the scars on the bronze doors

  where the battering ram had failed. In a detached way Boudica could

  appreciate the elegance of its proportions. She supposed that Prasutagos

  would have wept at the thought of destroying it—one more thing she

  could be glad he was not here to see. She herself had no such compunc-

  tions. The only way to get to the meat of an egg was to crack the shell,

  and this shell still sheltered half the populati
on of Colonia—men, women,

  children, the soldiers from the fort, and the paltry two hundred the

  procurator had sent them from Londinium.

  “There’s no way to burn it from the outside, see,” said a gnarled little

  man with a missing front tooth who had been forced to help build the

  temple. Boudica turned to look at him, vaguely aware that he had been

  talking to her for some time. “Outside’s all faced with stone, aye? And

  bronze all over the doors. But the roof, now—” he glowered upward,

  “—over the roof-beams there’s just tiles. I should know, Lady, half broke

  my back helping to put ’em there. Tear those loose and you’ve fi ne stout

  wooden beams to burn. We can smoke ’em out, just like putting fi re

  down a badger’s hole. They’ll open the doors themselves and come out

  when it’s a choice between facing us and not breathing!”

  The men around them were nodding. Boudica sensed anticipation

  from Cathubodva. A raven called, settling atop the bronze eagle at-

  tached to the peak of the temple’s roof as if to show them the way.

  “I hear you,” she murmured, then turned to the men around her.

  “Yes—do it now!” As men dragged out the ladders they had been building

  and swarmed up the side of the building she told herself there was no work

  of man that other men, with sufficient motivation, could not destroy. Tiles

  clinked as men hammered to loosen them and then began to pitch them

  down, nibbling at the expanse of terra-cotta until the roof began to look

  like a moth-eaten wool cloak. Soon she saw the long beams laid bare.

  Shouts echoed from within as some of the men began to shoot

  through the openings. But now men were hauling up jars of olive oil

  and pouring it over the wood, hammering stakes smeared with pitch

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  and flax into the beams and setting them alight. They dropped the re-

  maining jars through holes and followed them with flaming arrows as

  a promise of what was to come.

  The attackers scuttled down the ladders as tendrils of white smoke

  changed to black, followed by tongues of flame.

  “Burn, Claudius,” whispered Boudica, “for surely your own people

  never made you such a noble pyre or gave you so many off erings!” This

  was a midsummer bonfire such as Britannia had never seen.

  Above the mutter of the flames she could hear screaming.

  “Not long now,” said one of the men.

  Inside it would be getting hot and dangerous, as flaming fragments

  of roof began to shower down. Black smoke billowed through the roof,

  but as much again must be swirling inside as fire worked its way along

  the undersides of beams. Those who died from lack of air would be the

  lucky ones.

  A shout brought her attention back to the front of the temple. The

  bronze doors were opening.

  “At last!” exclaimed Bituitos, striding forward. “They will come out

  to die like men!”

  Soldiers appeared in the doorway, each man’s shield protecting half

  his body and the sword arm of his neighbor. Their blades flickered in

  and out like an adder’s tongue. For a few moments they held off the at-

  tackers, but the pressure of people behind them was pushing them for-

  ward. Now she could see space behind them, and in the next moment

  the Britons had fl owed around to attack them from in back and by sheer

  weight bore them down. Others tore into the massed bodies behind

  them. Some tried to retreat, trampling those behind them, only to be

  thrust out again.

  “Pull back,” cried someone. “We can’t kill them unless we give

  them room!”

  Clouds blazed in the light of the setting sun as if the heavens, too,

  were aflame. Even at the edge of the square Boudica could feel the heat

  as the flames rose higher. The attackers began to edge away, leaving

  a tangle of bodies behind. The blood that covered the temple steps

  glowed an even more vivid crimson in the light of the fire. A few more

  Romans emerged from the doorway. For a moment a woman with a

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  child in her arms stood silhouetted against the flames, then turned back

  again.

  After that, no more appeared. Boudica fought to clear her mind of the

  image—they were Romans! They deserved to die. The shifting wind

  brought her the reek of the smoke and the choking scent of burnt fl esh;

  she pulled her cloak across her face to filter it, and for one horrible mo-

  ment she was back at Dun Garo, watching Prasutagos burn on his pyre.

  The men and women inside the temple were wives and husbands . . . they

  were Romans . . . anguish seized her, but in the commotion no one heard

  her moan.

  A cheering crowd surrounded her. She could not run away. “Help

  me,” she whispered, but even Eoc, who stood beside her, could not hear.

  Only the goddess, rising like a dark tide within her, recognized her

  agony, and shared it, and absorbed it, drawing a soft veil between Boudica

  and the world. As one who watches from a far distance she saw slabs of

  stone crack and pop outward from the walls, leaving a skeleton of burn-

  ing uprights within. And then even that was gone, and she was in a

  golden country watching Prasutagos building a wall.

  In Colonia, Cathubodva watched the Temple of Claudius burn.

  Now only the building’s facade was still standing. Men began to cheer as

  it wavered. For another moment the eagle on the rooftree showed stark

  against the flames, then a gout of smoke swirled around it and it fell.

  Celtic horns blared in triumph, but their music was overwhelmed

  by the shouts of the crowd. Standing in the midst of them, the goddess

  wept Boudica’s tears.

  L hiannon woke with a start. She still lay beneath the thorn hedge.

  Heart pounding, she tried to identify what new danger had startled her.

  It was day, but the sun had not yet lifted above the mountains on the

  mainland. From the direction of Lys Deru she heard shouting, and then

  the harsh music of a Roman trumpet. Again and again it blew. Wincing

  as the movement woke a host of pains, she peered through the leaves.

  Black smoke still drifted from Lys Deru and the Sacred Grove. On

  the students’ playing field legionaries were gathering, more and more of

  them as the trumpets continued to call. Lhiannon shrank back into her

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  hole as a pair of soldiers jingled by at a swift march, perhaps the same

  two who had nearly found her the night before. They were not hunting

  now. From the sound of their muttering they were as puzzled as she.

  There was a disturbing beauty in the speed with which the confu-

  sion of men settled into orderly ranks. You would never see Britons

  bracing to attention like so many images as an officer came by. As she

  watched, men continued to arrive. They must be pulling in the perim-

  eter guards as well. But why? Surely they would want to do another

  sweep for fugitives in the light of day.

  Lhiannon watched throughout the morning, bu
t no more soldiers

  came near. A little before noon the trumpets blew once more, and still

  in their precise formations, the Romans marched back to the shore. As

  the last of them disappeared, Lhiannon began to weep, releasing all the

  tears that through that long and terrible night she had locked within.

  And when she was done, she wriggled out of her refuge and started

  across the fi elds toward what remained of the Druids’ sanctuary.

  The reek of charred thatch lay heavy on the air. Lhiannon tied her

  veil across her face, but it did little good. As she got closer she could

  smell a sickening hint of burned flesh and the iron tang of blood. The

  timbers of the gatepost lay charred, but before they burned, someone

  had hacked at the swirling sigils that had given them magic. The devas-

  tation beyond made a mockery of the bright day.

  Sweet Goddess have mercy, she thought numbly, am I the only one who

  survived? She stiffened as something moved, but it was only a raven lift-

  ing from the corpse of one of the community’s dogs with a flick of black

  wings.

  As she let out her breath, something stirred in what she had taken

  for a pile of rags. It was Belina. Slowly the older priestess focused on

  Lhiannon, and humanity came back into her eyes. There was a bruise

  on her cheek and the livid marks of fingers on her arms.

  “Lhiannon . . . you are alive . . .” Her lips twisted in what was in-

  tended to be a smile.

  “How is it with you?” Lhiannon knelt at her side.

  “No worse than one might expect, save for a knock on the head.”

  Belina winced as Lhiannon helped her to stand. “Help me to wash their

  filth away. Thank the Goddess I was no virgin.”

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  And what of those who had been? wondered Lhiannon. Was a quick

  death the best fate she could hope for them?

  A dead cow lay half in and half out of the stream, but the water

  above it ran cold and clear. Both women felt better when they had

  washed and drunk. Lhiannon was even beginning to wonder if any food

  had been left unfouled. They returned to the houses and began the grim

  work of identifying the dead. Some of the older Druids had chosen to

  burn in the houses. Elin had died beside the hut where she kept her

  herbs. Mandua seemed to have found a knife and killed herself after the