Ravens of Avalon (2 page)

These girls have grown up in the shadow of Rome. How can I show them the glory of that world in which we lived before the Legions came? I suppose it was no more perfect than any other society of humans, but it was our own. The Druids of Lys Deru preserved a noble tradition which we can practice only in pale imitation here.

Ardanos says that to survive we must bow our heads, conceal our powers, compromise. I do not gainsay him—what use would it be? But sometimes I wish that we could make these young ones understand why we fought to stay free. They say that the Society of Ravens is rising again. Will they call upon the Lady of Ravens to lead them? Boudica did, and nearly brought Rome to her knees.

In those days we loved deeply and dared greatly. Now all we can do is endure. It is the turn of Ardanos’s granddaughter Eilan to serve me. Perhaps this evening, when we wait for the procession of spirits to come to my door, I will try to tell her the tale …

ONE

hey had come to the Druids’ Isle just before sunset, Boudica sitting very straight in the saddle so that no one would know she was afraid. She blinked back memories of blue waters hazed with magic and conical thatched roofs against a fading sky, a crowd of bearded men in white robes and veiled women with eyes full of secrets, and the little shock as they passed between the carved and painted gateposts that warded Lys Deru—the court of the oaks.

They had taken her to the House of Maidens. Eight girls of varying ages, from nine or ten to fourteen, her own age, stared back at her.

“Is it always cold here?” Boudica asked. She did not know whether she was shivering from exhaustion or from magic.

“Cold?” answered a dark-haired girl who had been introduced as Brenna. “In the winter surely, but now it is spring!” She was dressed in the simple sleeveless tunica of undyed linen that all the girls wore, pinned at the shoulders with bronze fibulae and girded with green.

“You will learn how to keep your inner fire burning so that you are not cold,” Brenna went on. “But for now, let us see if we can make it warmer in here …” She frowned in concentration, then gestured, and the sticks on the central hearth burst suddenly into flame. From Brenna’s smile, Boudica thought that she had only lately learned this skill herself. She smiled back, trying not to show how much the feat had impressed her. She might be a novice to magic, but she came of royal kin and had been fostered in the household of the great king Cunobelin.

Boudica was very aware of having lived in the woolen tunica and breeches she wore beneath it for the past month ofjourneying, but the simple garments the other girls were wearing seemed a poor alternative. And as for a wash—the Druids probably bathed in the chill waters of the stream. She straightened and stroked the fox fur edging of her cloak, which was so near in color to her hair. Better they should think her vain than weak. She had wept the first few nights of this journey across Britannia, huddled in cloak and blankets upon the hard ground, but she would not do so now.

“You are from the Iceni country, are you not? Let me introduce you to the rest of our company. This is Coventa—” Brenna put her arm around a small fair-haired girl. “She comes from the Brigante lands, like me. And that’s Mandua, of the Atrebates—” She pointed to an older girl with a discontented face. As the names flowed by, Boudica saw curiosity and judgment in their eyes.

Clad, as they were, all alike, she could not tell which ones were the daughters of chieftains and which were the daughters of farmers. That was probably the intention. It was customary to give the children of good families a season or two among the Druids so that they might have a grounding in the deeper philosophy behind the superstitions of the common folk. But the peasant children chosen by the priests for their talent might well look down on those whose birth was their only qualification for being here. Boudica had already sworn they would have no cause to look down on
her.

“But the Isle of Mona belongs to no tribe,” Brenna finished. “That is why the School of the Mysteries was established here at Lys Deru.”

“Truly?” asked Mandua. “I thought we settled out here at the end of the world to stay beyond the reach of Rome.”

Boudica sat down on the bed, remembering the sheer mass and might of the mountains they had passed. And yet the road, however difficult, had brought her here. In Camulodunon it had seemed that nothing was beyond Rome’s reach. But here, so far from everything she had ever known, she was not so sure. She summoned up a bright smile for the other girls.

“I bless the hour of our meeting. I am sure you will all have many things to tell me …”

“It is Lhiannon you have to listen to,” said little Coventa with a laugh. “Helve has the title Mistress of the House of Maidens, but Lhiannon does the work—” She broke off at Brenna’s frown. “Well, it’s
true,
and is not truth what we are seeking here?”

Boudica lifted an eyebrow. “If it is, then the Druids are different from any other group of people I ever knew,” she said dryly.

“Do you think you know so much more because you were fostered in a king’s dun?” objected Brenna. “Here we serve the gods!”

“But you are not yet gods yourselves.” Boudica shrugged. “The Druids who served King Cunobelin were as avid for power as any of his chieftains.”

Coventa frowned. “Perhaps living in the world corrupted them.”

“Well, we must not quarrel about it on your first night here,” Brenna said peaceably. “What was it like in Camulodunon? Does Cuno-belin’s dun really have golden thatching and marble walls?”

Boudica laughed. “Only the gold of wheatstraw, but it is cut in layered patterns, and the outer walls are whitewashed and painted in spirals of color.”

“It sounds like a dwelling of the gods,” sighed Brenna.

“It was …” said Boudica, eyes prickling with a sudden surge of longing for the place that had been her home since she was seven years old. But the great king was dead, his household dispersed, and her father had sent her here to the end of the world.

“We are not gods here, but we will not let you starve—” came a voice from the doorway.

Looking up, Boudica saw a slim young woman in the blue robe of a full priestess whose fair hair fell halfway down her back beneath a dark veil. As she came into the roundhouse, the other girls straightened and bowed.

Boudica cast her a swift look, wondering how much she had heard. If the woman was a power in this place, she would have to treat her carefully. She looked again and found her glance held by eyes of a blue so light they seemed luminous. The blue crescent of the Goddess was tattooed between pale brows.

“My name is Lhiannon,” the woman said then. As she smiled her lashes veiled that blue gaze, and Boudica was able to look away. “I will be your teacher.”

he current in the stream was running fast and strong. Overhead, three ravens called as they danced on the wind.

Boudica had been glad for a break from lessons, but fighting the water was not her idea of fun. She waded carefully toward the middle of the stream, where brown waters were frothing around a tangle of branches. The stream was said to be sacred to the goddess Brigantia, but if so, she was an angry goddess now.

The priests had set all the young ones to clearing the course of the creek that flowed behind Lys Deru, swollen now with water from the spring rains. The flood had brought down quantities of debris that choked the watercourse and threatened to flood the roundhouses, and the ditch that kept cattle from wandering into the village was not deep enough to carry the overflow. As Lhiannon pointed out, they always needed firewood. It would have been ungrateful to waste the bounty.

The young priest Ardanos, who the girls said was courting Lhian-non, had told them that clearing the stream would be a service to the spirit who lived there. Boudica hoped so. She got a good grip on the nearest branch and began to pull, swore as her fingers slipped on the wet bark, and pulled again. Something gave way, then snagged. A twig had hooked under another branch and was holding it there. Clearly, this task needed more hands. She turned, eyes narrowing as she looked for the others. More clouds were piling up overhead. The rocky coast that fronted the sea of Eriu would take the worst of any storm, but the rain would sweep across the island.

“Mandua!” she called, recognizing the girl’s brown braid. “Mandua— lift that branch for me so I can get this one free!” The other girl turned in surprise, then tossed the stick she held toward the bank and began to splash downstream.

It had been a good idea, Boudica thought as the wood came free. A branch this size would keep a fire going for hours. And the pile was full of more just like it. It seemed a pity to waste time hauling the branch she had all the way back to the bank. She glanced at the other muddy forms.

“Senora! Coventa! Come here. We can pull this wood in ever so much faster if we pass it hand to hand! The boys won’t get nearly so much.” As they looked at her doubtfully she pointed downstream, where the lads were working. “They promised that those who made the biggest pile of firewood would get honeycakes tonight.”

In a few minutes she had Brenna and Kea tackling the next log pile, with the smaller girls helping them. Boudica hauled at the wet wood, lips pulled back in a fierce grin. It no longer mattered that this was no fit labor for a royal woman of the Iceni. So many of the Druid ways were strange to her, it was a relief to tackle something that she could really
do
!

Lost in the rhythm of the work, she had no attention for anything but the tangles of wood before her. It was only when there were no hands ready to take the next log that she focused once more on her surroundings.

“I can’t hold it, Boudica—my hands are numb!” Senora held them up.

“Trade places with Coventa and put your hands in your armpits while you wait for her to hand you the next one,” she ordered. “Come, Coventa—no, it’s not too deep. Here, take this end of the stick and pass it along.”

Coventa looked almost as pale as Senora, but she obeyed. Now the others were whining as well. Boudica was cold and wet, too, but that must not be allowed to matter. They were making good progress. The brown water ran swiftly where they had cleared the channel, and the pile of branches on the bank was higher than Coventa.

“Haven’t we done enough?” asked Mandua, shouting above the rush of the stream. “I can’t feel my feet anymore!”

“Not until we
are
done,” called Boudica. “Look, there is only this last pile and our part of the stream will be clear.”

The light was fading, but she could see where to grip the next piece of wood. She inched her way toward it, bracing herself against the current, which had grown stronger as the obstructions were taken away. As she touched the bark she heard a scream.

“Coventa! Coventa fell!” Senora was waving wildly, pointing downstream.

Boudica caught sight of a pale bubble of cloth bobbing past and launched herself in a low dive. Her hands, colder than she had allowed herself to realize, tried to close on the cloth and failed. She went down, got her feet under her, lunged, and caught the other girl by one arm. Coventa’s cold flesh was slippery, but Boudica held on. Now both went under. Was it a waterlogged branch that was tangling in her tunica or cold hands that sought to drag her down? Once more she struggled upright, grabbing Coventa around the body. Brenna splashed toward her with the others behind her. Hand to hand they passed the girl to the shore, and then Brenna was helping Boudica up the bank, where she sat, teeth chattering as much with shock as with cold.

Presently Ardanos lifted her to her feet and she was hustled back to the House of Maidens. Coventa had been taken to the healers, but no one seemed to care that Boudica, too, was wet and chilled to the bone. She rubbed herself dry as best she could and pulled on a wool tunica and her fur-trimmed cloak, then sat by the little fire with only the stone head of the house spirit in its niche by the threshold for company.

Were they going to send her home? Boudica did not know whether to hope or to fear. To go home in defeat would gall her soul. She would rather stay the year, and when the tribesmen came with next year’s offerings she could choose to leave with them.

Her hair had dried from wet auburn to its usual curling red-gold when the hide that covered the door rustled. Boudica looked up and recognized Lhiannon’s slender silhouette in the gloom.

“Why are you sitting here? Dinner is ready and I saw you were not there. Aren’t you hungry?”

Boudica nodded. “No one came. I thought I was being punished.”

“Ah …” Lhiannon poked at the coals and a spurt of flame gleamed on her fair hair. With a sigh she sat down on the other side of the fire. “Do you think that you should be?”

“No!” the answer burst out. “It was an accident! The river was running fast—anyone could have fallen! And … I think the stream spirit wants an offering.”

“That has been attended to,” Lhiannon replied. She waited, holding Boudica in that calm blue gaze until the girl had gotten her breathing under control once more.

“Is Coventa all right?” Boudica swallowed, remembering how limp the other girl had been in her arms.

“Well,” said Lhiannon, “if that was not the first thing you said, at least you asked … We think Coventa knocked her head on a stone when she went down. But she is awake now, and asking for food. The healers will keep her for a time to make sure the water she swallowed has done her no harm, but she should recover well.”