Ravens of Avalon (46 page)

Boudica knew that her body lay in the great bed, but her spirit was awake, with senses it did not normally own.

“In the duns the smiths are forging swords and sharpening spears,” answered another.

“Soon the Lady will give us man-meat to eat …” crowed the third.

In her present state, it seemed to Boudica only right and proper that the ravens should have their food.

“Do you think so, My child?” came another voice, honey sweet, with an undertone of bitter laughter. “That is well, for we have work to do.”

This was no raven. Boudica tried to open her eyes and found she could not move. “Where are you?”

“I am as close to you as your own heartbeat,” the Other replied.

“Who are you?” Boudica whispered, though her lips were still.

“I am Rage,” the Voice resounded through her soul. “I am Destruction, I am the Raven of Battle—”

“You are the Morrigan,” Boudica replied. “You avenged my girls!”

“But who will take vengeance for your people?” the goddess asked, and Boudica could find no answer.

Pollio had been right—the peace of Prasutagos was ended. Their only choice now was between slavery and rebellion. The one would be a living death. The other might lead to death—but there would be glory.

“If you will give Me a form to wear,” the goddess said then, “I will give you power …”

“Will You punish the Romans for all they have done to us?” she asked. The men who had attacked her daughters might be dead, but those who had sent them still ruled. If they were not punished, how many more mothers would weep for the lost innocence of their little girls?

“They will wail in terror and call in vain upon their gods …”

“And we will have victory?”

“You
are
Victory, and your name will live!”

She had had to make this decision before, when she came to Pra-sutagos as the White Mare. Then she had assented with joy. She surrendered now in grief, but from an equal need.

“Then I give myself to You as horse to rider,” said Boudica. “Use me as You will!”

“A fractious, willful mare you are,” came the response, “but strong. Sleep now, My child, and heal.” The laughter that Boudica heard was gentle as she slid down into the dark.

oudica sat in the darkened roundhouse with Argantilla in her arms, watching Rigana pace. She would have held her as well, but the girl was strung as tight as a war bow and flinched from any touch. Ar-gantilla simply trembled, her eyes welling with soundless tears. Boudica bit her lip and hugged the younger girl more tightly. The wounds on her back did not hurt her half as much as her children’s pain.

Outside the Women’s House, the voice of the crowd rose and fell like the wind. “I will have to go out and speak to them soon,” she said softly. “Will you come with me?”

Argantilla shuddered and buried her face against her mother’s shoulder. Rigana turned, breathing hard.

“How can you ask that of us? They are men! They will look at us and they will
know
…”

“They will look at you and see their own daughters,” replied Boudica. “They will look at me and see their wives. They will feel the shame I felt when I could not protect you, that you felt when you could not help me, and they will want revenge …”

“More than you have already taken?” Rigana’s gaze sharpened. “I saw your face when you pulled that animal off me—but it wasn’t you, was it, Mother?”

“It was … the Morrigan.” Boudica’s breath caught. Even to speak that name woke awareness of the Presence within.

“Will She come again? Will She lead us against Rome?” Rigana stopped finally, gazing at her mother with avid eyes. Argantilla stiffened and ceased her weeping.

“She will come …” Boudica heard her own voice deepen. “She is here …” The healing wounds on her back tingled with cool fire as her awareness was pushed gently aside.
Soon,
came the thought,
they will turn into wings
…

She felt that prickle of Otherness flow across her skull and down into her body, stretching and twisting as the goddess mastered it. Just so, she thought with inner amusement, she herself would test a new mount until she was certain it would obey. Bogle, who had been lying across the door, stood suddenly, hackles lifting, dark eyes intent.

“Will you come with Me?” She stood up, lifting Argantilla easily, and stretched out Her hand. As Rigana stepped into the shelter of Her other arm, Boudica felt only gratitude that the goddess could give her girls comfort where she had failed. “You shall be My attendants, and you—” the goddess snapped Her fingers and Bogle fawned at her feet, “—shall be My hound.”

Boudica’s awareness came and went as they left the Women’s House and passed through the forecourt. Night had fallen, and torches flickered around the enclosure. Beyond the bank the lines of tree trunks brooded like a protecting forest, stark against the stars.

Before the Council Hall men had raised a platform flanked by a line of poles. Bogle growled as they passed the first, and she realized that the dark thing at the top was Pollio’s head. His legionaries grinned from other poles beside him. Brangenos had not told Boudica that they took the heads before burying them. Perhaps he had not known. Most of them were missing their eyes already—it gave her a grim satisfaction to know that the ravens had gotten their feast after all.

As they mounted the platform the murmuring crowd grew still. Pra-sutagos had designed the enclosure for just such assemblies, but thank the gods he could never have imagined what its first use would be. In the flickering torchlight familiar faces appeared and disappeared—Brocagnos and Drostac and old Morigenos. She saw Rianor, who had arrived just after the king’s funeral, with Brangenos. They had been out tending a sick child when the Romans came. Tingetorix, who had fought under Caratac, was standing with Carvilios and Taximagulos. She recognized with some surprise the faces of Segovax and his sons Beric and Tascio. He was one of the richest of the Iceni, and she would have expected him to support the Romans—but she did recall hearing that his wealth was based on Roman subsidies. Catus must have tried to collect on the loans.

“Men of the Iceni …” The voice that rang out through the night was Boudica’s, but men stiffened, staring, as they felt its power. “Sons of Epona—you chose me as your queen, as your priestess before the gods, to guide and guard this land!” She had dressed carefully, coiling her red-gold hair high on her head and confining it with golden pins. Gold drops hung from her ears, and from her neck gleamed the great golden torque that Caratac had left in her keeping ten years before. “I swore to uphold the laws the good king Prasutagos made, and to keep the oaths he swore to the Emperor of Rome.

“But see how the Romans have betrayed their honor! Many among you have already suffered from their greed—Drostac, they have taken your livestock—Brocagnos and Taximagulos, they have seized your farms! They have taken away the weapons that marked you as men! Goods and gear they have stolen, they have marched our young men away to die far from their homeland, they have sold our women as slaves. But now they progress from greed to blasphemy!” She turned and pointed to Rigana, who stared defiantly, sheltering her sister in her arms.

“They have defiled the daughters of the king, the flower of this land, and they have treated your queen as if she were a slave.” Men flinched as they felt the anger in Her gaze. “Behold!”

She unpinned the great golden brooch that held the cloak and let it fall. She wore a skirt, but no tunic. Boudica would have flinched to bare herself before so many eyes, but Cathubodva displayed Her breasts, still high and full even though Boudica was now thirty-four, with pride. She heard the intake of breath from the men below, and then, as She turned to reveal the ruin of Her back, a whisper of horror that rushed through the crowd like the sighing of trees before the storm.

Boudica felt consciousness receding as the Morrigan turned back to face the tribe. “Too long,” She cried, “have the Romans defiled our land! We must cast them forth! Their soldiers we must slay; their cities burn!”

Shouts echoed Her words, but others were objecting that the Romans had defeated them thirteen years before, and why would they do better against them now?

“If your arms have forgotten the weight of a sword, they can learn once more!” She cried. “Your hearts are strong! If the Iceni are not enough to drive the Romans into the sea we must call on all Britannia!” She touched the torque that gleamed from Her neck. “This is the torque of King Cunobelin that Caratac took from the body of Togodumnos his brother and wore when he raised the tribes!”

“Even for him they would not all come,” called Segovax. “Why should they rise for you?”

“Because I am the Great Queen! I am the Raven of Battle, and I shall lead you!” She shook her head and pins flew like sparks as Her hair flamed free. “Because I am Victory!”

“What shall we do? Where shall we go?” came the cries.

“This is the clanhold of the Hare—let Andraste’s holy animal show us the way!” She leaped down from the platform.

Men fell back before Her as She strode toward the carved gates, falling in behind in a swirling, shouting mob. Bituitos was close behind Her, holding a bag where something struggled and squirmed. They passed under the lintel and between the fences that lined the way to the road. She waited for the crowd to pour through the opening behind Her, falling silent as they spread out to either side. And when there were sufficient witnesses, She reached into the bag and drew forth the hare, which lay limp and trembling in Her predator hands.

“Fear not, little one,” She murmured, stroking the gray pelt. “This is not the night when thou shalt die …”

The land lay quiet around them, rolling away beyond the rise that held the dun in long swaths of heathland and pasture, dotted with the huddled shapes of trees. She tipped her head, feeling the tension return to the animal’s muscles as its fur bristled with energy.

“Andraste! Andraste! Sister, I call You, Lady of this Land! Show us the way, Lady! Lead us to victory!” She cradled the hare against Her breast and whispered in its long ear: “Run now, and show us our road, run fast and free!”

She bent, placed the hare on the ground, and opened Her hands. For a moment the little beast crouched, quivering. Then with a mighty leap it sped down the road—southward—toward Colonia.

The great cry of the Iceni bore the hare forward on a wave of sound. Men brought up horses, tucking the r ed-painted war arrows through their belts and grasping torches in their hands. At Her word they sped outward, racing like shooting stars through the night to bear word to the people of every tribe that the Britons were marching to reclaim their native land.

TWENTY
-
FOUR

“The Great Queen rides a good gray mare, Above her, ravens fly. Where she fares, the eagles fear, Where she goes, men die!”

he mare shook her head and snorted as Boudica reined her in. Behind her streamed an irregular, relentless tide of people and horses and wagons, beginning to slow and eddy now as they moved off the road to set up camp for the night. Bogle, who had trotted at the mare’s heels, lay down with a sigh and the other dogs, footsore with the day’s march, settled beside him.

The Iceni had started south on the second day after the gathering, and Brangenos had started the song to cheer their march. The ravens flew with them, black specks circling above the dust, calling in harsh descant to the clatter of hooves and the rumble of wagon wheels.

“Ho—Tingetorix!” she called as a grizzled warrior on a spotted pony came into view. He walked with a limp got in Caratac’s wars, but he could still outride most of the younger men. “How many swords did they send us today?”

Back at Teutodunon, the smiths were still hard at work beating out new weapons and repairing the old. Every day a rider would catch up to the column and unload a bag or two more.

“A dozen—” he brought his pony alongside her, “—and as many spearheads.”

“That’s a dozen more lads who can stop using sticks to practice with, and turn their staffs into spears,” she said with satisfaction.

Prasutagos was not the only one to have hidden weapons. Some had come to Teutodunon with supplies and such weapons as had survived the Roman confiscations, but many more had only their bows and slings, or perhaps a hunting spear. The main force was constrained to the pace of the ox-drawn wagons, and there was more than enough time for a horseman to gallop home and retrieve a sword or a shield and helm that his fathers had borne to war, and persuade his neighbors to join him while he was there.

“Brangenos says my back is healed enough to start sword work,” Boudica told him. She had always been strong and active, but she had never needed to develop the specific muscles required to use sword and shield. Even men whose upper bodies had been hardened by years of farm work found themselves aching in unexpected places when they began to train.

“Did he now?” said the warrior. “I shall see you, then, after the evening meal.”

Boudica laughed. The flex and sway of riding had left her back sore, but could not sour her spirits. “Then you had better summon the chieftains to meet with me now. We must send someone to the city.” She heard her voice deepen and closed her eyes for a moment as she felt the dizzy lurch that meant the Morrigan was moving to the fore. “We need to find out if they know we are coming, what defense they have, and whether they have called for aid.”