Ravens of Avalon (18 page)

“With Dubi a hostage, our family needs a firm alliance with the other Iceni royal line. At Mona, I would never be more than a minor priestess. I may be able to help our people as a queen.”

They walked on in silence, and found that their steps had brought them onto the droveway that led to Camulodunon. The friendly darkness hid the worst of the destruction, but even at night the dun had never been so utterly still.

“And will he love you?” Lhiannon asked softly after a time.

“Does that matter?” Boudica snapped back. “Ardanos loves
you,
but it has not made either of you happier, that I can see!”

Lhiannon stopped, desolation tightening her throat as she admitted that what Boudica had said was true. She stumbled forward and sat down on a broken wagon.

“Ah, now I have hurt you again!” There were tears in Boudica’s voice as well. “But you have to understand—the last time I stood here, this was a great king’s home. I don’t want this to happen to my father’s dun!”

When Lhiannon said nothing, she eased down beside her. “I trust Prasutagos to work for our people. I am making an alliance. But it will be easier if I know that you still love me …”

“I will pray to the Goddess that you find joy in your duty,” whispered Lhiannon.
Even though She has given me little enough in mine …
She could feel Boudica nodding as they wept in each other’s arms.

NINE

iving in the closed community of Lys Deru, Boudica had forgotten what it was like to gallop across the open heath beneath an endless sky. Just now she needed the escape as never before. Even Helve at her worst had not been as annoying as Anaveistl’s endless nattering about the astonishing array of goods and gear Boudica was expected to take with her to her new home. Tomorrow they would journey to Dun Garo on the River of Eels. King Antedios had claimed the honor of hosting the marriage between his most important subking and the daughter of his heir.

Will Prasutagos let his wife gallop over the hills?
His clan-hold was in the north near the sea. Going there would be like being a newcomer at the Druids’ Isle all over again, but this move would be lifelong.

Boudica’s lips twisted wryly as she realized what was really bothering her. Her people bred horses, and she knew, more or less, what human breeding involved. A few exploratory fumblings with Rianor had even shown her why one might enjoy it. She realized then that it was not so much the act that she feared as the idea of submitting to a stranger.

Her old dun pony tossed its head and juttered to a stop as a gray hare, startled from its form in the heather, dashed across the moor. Boudica caught her breath and made a sign of reverence as it disappeared.

For generations the Clan of the Hare had grazed sheep and horses on this undulating land where the sandy soil retained only enough water for grasses to fill in the spaces between the clumps of gorse and heather, though more recently her father had taken advantage of their position where the ancient trackway forded two rivers to set up a weavers’ center where the thread the women spun could be made into cloth.

As the season of harvest drew to a close the heathlands glowed with the purple of heather and the gorse’s rich gold. The trees that flourished along the rivers that drained westward into the fen country shaded from green to all the autumn colors. There lay the sacred grove that sheltered the shrine of Andraste, who had been honored here since before the Belgic princes came from across the sea.

Boudica kneed her mount into motion again and they trotted down the path that wandered amid the old barrows. She slid down and tied the rein to a blackthorn bush where the horse could nose at the dry grass.

The Turning of Autumn was just past. On one of the mounds a des-sicated bouquet of heather and asters lay. That would be old Nessa’s doing—she was the one who knew all the old tales. Boudica began to walk the pattern around the barrows as the old woman had taught her, finishing at the mound in the middle—the only one it was per-missable to climb.

Four miles to the northwest she could see the roundhouses of Teu-todunon, overlooking the ford where the river was crossed by the ancient track. Her mother’s garden lay behind the chieftain’s house, the pens for sheep and horses and the weaving shed beyond. It looked deceptively peaceful from here.

Tomorrow they would set out for Antedios’s dun and her wedding, and when would she see her home again? She had agreed to the marriage, but just now she felt like the sacrificial hare that had struggled in Helve’s hands.

She found a piece of oatcake in her bag and placed it in a crevice between two stones on top of the mound.

“Old one, your earth and water built my blood and bones. Accept this offering. Guard this place as you have done for so many years, and though I must leave you, remember me …”

Gradually, her panic eased. Coventa, she thought wistfully, would have heard an answer. For Boudica there was only a sense of peace, until the light began to fade and she knew it was time to go home.

he mare shook her head, a shrill neigh expressing her disdain for the lad who clung to her leadrope. Her coat shone richly chestnut as the sun broke through the clouds, a shade deeper than Boudica’s hair. The boy set his heels to hold her, but it had rained that morning, and he was pulled through the mud instead.

“I don’t think that filly wants to be saddled,” said one of King An-tedios’s warriors.

“Take a good man to ride her,” answered his companion.

“Prasutagos has good hands for a horse, they say …”

Boudica flushed as the men glanced at her and laughed. But it was indeed a beautiful horse, and it was hers, a wedding gift from her prospective husband.

Her mother tugged at her elbow, and she allowed herself to be led toward the roundhouse. Draped and jeweled in the red gown and plaid cloak she had worn at Camulodunon, she moved carefully, afraid of disturbing the elaborate braids in which her mother’s maids had done her hair. A wreath of golden gorse and wheat heads crowned the arrangement over a gauzy crimson veil.

Since waking she had been in a strange, suspended state, allowing the women to dress and adorn her as if she were the image of a god. And that, she thought distantly, was almost true. Today she was the Bride, not Boudica. This ceremony would celebrate the union of two royal kindreds that strengthened the tribe, the union of male and female that renewed the world. The symbolism was there in any wedding, but kings and queens carried the luck of the tribe. She had been caught up in the surge of emotion that flowed from people to the king when her father performed the rites at planting and harvest. The Druids had given her the background to understand what was happening. But now it was she who must carry that power. It felt different from inside.

A twitter of women’s voices from ahead told her that the women’s procession was forming. Boudica was surprised to see the Brigante queen Cartimandua among them. She wished that Lhiannon and Cov-enta could have been there.

Her mother chivvied the others into some kind of order as a harper began to strike rhythmic chords. Anaveistl set a sheaf of grain in Boudi-ca’s arms and pushed her into place behind the chattering girls with their baskets of herbs and late flowers. The rest fell into place behind them as they started along the path through the fields.

Somewhere a drum was beating, a deep vibration that she felt as much as heard. Or perhaps it was her own heartbeat. Harp and drum fell silent as the men’s procession approached from the woods to the northeast, led by boys carrying green branches and a youth with a burning torch. They circled an ancient earthen ring about the height of a man and defined by shallow ditches to meet the bride’s party at the entrance.

As her mother led Boudica forward, the boys began to sing—

“You are the moon among the stars, You are the foam upon the wave, You are the lily among the flowers, You are the spark that starts the flame, You are the beloved.”

Prasutagos, dressed in a splendid fringed cloak checkered in seven colors over a blue tunic and braes striped in blue and red, emerged from the crowd of men to stand beside her as the maidens who had escorted Boudica replied—

“You are the sun above the clouds, You are the wave that strikes the shore, You are the oak within the wood, You are the torch that lights the hall, You are the beloved.”

Inside the ring King Antedios and his queen, his Druid, and Boudica’s father were waiting. As she passed through the gap Boudica had the odd sense that the earth had shifted. Prasutagos steadied her as she stumbled and she took a deep breath, staring around her. Here were no ancient stones to bear witness to the past, but earth was older still. For how many lives of men had this earthen embankment defined sacred ground?

Among the Druids she had thought herself head-blind, but moving around the fire that burned in the circle’s center, she knew that her time on the isle had changed her. She had sensed nothing different about this place when she had visited as a child, but now, when she looked through the gap that framed the pointed roofs of the dun and a low hill across the river beyond, she could feel the current of power that linked them. Everything outside the embankment seemed blurred, as if seen through the heated air above a fire. She wondered if this was how Lhiannon had felt when she was in the Faerie world. For a moment she had a sense that all times were simultaneous, as if by simply shifting her focus she could
see.

Did Prasutagos feel it, she wondered as they halted before the fire. His usually pleasant features looked stern, his gaze a little inward. Or perhaps he was remembering his first wife and mourning the necessity that required him to marry Boudica.

The Druid, robed in more colors than even Prasutagos wore, turned to the others. His white beard flowed down his chest like carded wool, stirring a little in the wind.

“Of what blood do this man and this woman come?”

“I stand for Prasutagos, since his father is no longer living,” said Antedios. “Of the People of the Ram he is chieftain. Let him be married to this woman with the blessing of his kin.”

“I stand for Boudica of the People of the Hare,” her father spoke then. “I release my daughter from clan-bond and clan-right that she may become part of her husband’s family. Let her be married to this man with the blessing of her kin.”

The Druid moved around the fire, a length of braid in his hand. He was a small man, a little bent with age, but there was a light in his eye that reminded her of Lugovalos. “Prasutagos and Boudica, you have come here with the blessing of your families to be joined before the people, the ancestors, and the gods. In flesh and in spirit you shall be mated. Do you both consent to this binding?”

What would happen if I said no?
she thought wildly. She heard the man’s murmured assent joining her own as the priest draped the cord around their wrists. But she had committed herself already when she told Lhiannon she would not return to the Druids’ Isle.

“By what vows will you be bound?”

Prasutagos looked at her fully for the first time since they had entered the circle. His eyes were gray, but around the iris she saw flecks of gold.
In time,
she thought,
I will know everything about this man,
and then, with a tremor,
and he will know everything about me …

“I, Prasutagos, do pledge you, Boudica, to live as your husband.”

She took a deep breath and replied, “I, Boudica, do pledge you, Prasutagos, to live as your wife.”

Together they continued the vows.

“Your hearth shall be my hearth, your bed shall be my bed. For your loyalty I shall return love, and for your love grant you my loyalty. Upon the circle of life I swear it, by earth and fire, by wind and water, and before the holy gods.”

“I am your staff and your sword,” said Prasutagos.

And Boudica replied, “I am your shield and your cauldron.”

The queen held out a loaf made from grain that had been grown at the House of the Hare mixed with some from Prasutagos’s lands.

“From the earth that bore you this bread was made,” the Druid proclaimed, “many seeds ground together to become one loaf. May your union be fruitful; and may that bounty extend to field and forest, to plowland and pasture, and all the land you rule.” Despite his age, his voice was full and strong.

Boudica broke off a corner, dropped a few crumbs on the ground and into the fire, and fed the rest to Prasutagos.

“As I break this bread, so I offer my life to nourish you,” she said.

“As I take it, my body shall become one with yours,” he replied.

The bread was given to Prasutagos, who did the same. As Boudica swallowed the coarse grains she found herself suddenly aware of his physical presence.

The Druid took the rest of the cake and crumbled it over their heads. It seemed to her that she could feel each grain.

The king came forward with a bowl of carved jet filled with water.

“This water is the blood of the earth, drawn from two sacred springs,” the Druid said then. “As these waters have become one, may your spirits blend, and may the springs that water your land run ever pure and clear.”