Ravens of Avalon (6 page)

“I have heard there is an oracle in Delphi. Is she a virgin?”

“That is what they say. The pythia is an untried maiden, though in other times they chose older women who had already raised their families.”

“But no one who has a husband or a lover …” observed Boudica.

Lhiannon sighed. “There are other kinds of divination a married woman can do. To read omens does not require the same level of trance. Or even to prophesy on the fingers’ ends or in answer to a sudden question, as they do in Eriu. But the rite of the bull-sleep in which the Druid divines the name of the rightful king requires the priest to prepare with prayer and fasting, and to sit on the tripod involves an even deeper surrender, for which all the channels must be clear.” She sighed.

“And you want to do that,” Boudica said.

“Yes. The visions call me as they called Coventa, but I know I must resist them.”

Above the crackling of the fire they could hear the skirling of pipes and a sudden shout as some lucky pair leaped over the flames. Lhiannon turned, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

“I must resist them,” she said. “Helve is the priests’ darling, and I will never sit in the high seat while she is here.”

“Then go after what you
can
have,” Boudica told her. “Coventa needs only a guardian. If someone is waiting for you,” she said tactfully, “go to the fires—I can keep watch here.”

“There was someone, but I don’t suppose he is still waiting now,” the priestess said softly, head bowed so that her face was hidden by the shining fall of pale hair. “Once I thought that the Goddess had called me to serve as an oracle, but now the way seems blocked. I am halted, whichever way I turn!”

Boudica stared, shaken to find that even a sworn priestess could be as tormented by doubt as she herself had been.

“How do you know the Lady’s will?” she exclaimed. “Does She speak to you?”

Lhiannon looked up at her with a shuddering sigh. “Sometimes … though I am usually too fixed on my own pain to listen at those times when I most want to hear.”

Such as now …
thought Boudica.

“Sometimes She speaks to me through the lips of others,” Lhiannon managed a wry smile, “as I think She is speaking through you now. Once or twice She has spoken to me aloud, when she occupied Lady Mearan’s body during a ritual, and sometimes I have heard Her speaking in the stillness of my soul. But sometimes we know what our choices were only after we have made them. I thought that to gain love I would have to relinquish power, but instead I appear to have traded love for duty.”

“Or perhaps for friendship?” asked Boudica, only now, when she found herself letting down the barriers that had kept her solitary here, realizing how lonely she had been.

“Yes, little lister—perhaps that is what I have done.” Lhiannon managed a smile.

THREE

n a hot afternoon just before the feast of Lugos, the blare of the bronze carynx horn echoed across the fields. After the Beltane Oracle the Arch-Druid had summoned the kings to take counsel for the fate of Britannia, and they were coming at last. Boudica ran for the House of Maidens to change her clothing. For more than a year her world had been limited to the community here on the isle. What could she say to them? Would any of those she had met at Camulodunon remember her?

Her second summer at the Druids’ Isle had been as bountiful as Helve had promised. By midsummer the barley hung heavy on the stalk and the lambs grew fat on the rich grass. But for those who had heard the Oracle’s predictions, the blessings of the season were an evil omen, for if Helve was right about the harvest, she might be right about the Roman invasion as well.

Swiftly Boudica pulled the white gown over her head and jerked the comb through her thick hair. Brenna and Morfad were already settling wreaths of summer asters on their heads. She snatched up her own wreath and hurried after the others down the road that led from Lys Deru to the shore.

The chorus of youths and maidens formed behind the senior Druids and priestesses. At the narrowest part of the strait the cliffs were steep on both sides of the water. Boats made their landing farther down, where between the cliffs and the sandbanks there was a narrow beach. A barge was angling toward them across the blue waves. There was a haze upon the water, and all Boudica could make out within were the bright blurs of clothing and a glitter of gold. Another craft followed; she glimpsed the shapes of horses. No doubt the rest of their retinue had been left to camp upon the far shore.

The Arch-Druid had sent out his summons to all the southern tribes. No one at Lys Deru seemed to doubt they would obey, but if Cunobelin, with all his devious skill, had only been able to bring the Trinovantes and the Catuvellauni under his yoke, would even Lugov-alos be able to impose unity on tribes that had been enemies since their fathers came into this land?

As the barge reached the midpoint of the strait it seemed to lose way. Boudica remembered that moment from her own arrival, when even untrained and exhausted as she was then, she had felt the pressure of the invisible wall that protected Mona.

“Who approaches the holy isle?” Lugovalos’s voice rang out across the water.

“Kings of Britannia, come to take counsel with the Wise,” came the answer, blurred by something more than distance.

“Pass, then, by the will of the mighty gods,” cried the Arch-Druid, and the priests and priestesses behind him began to sing. There had been no chorus of Druids to welcome the pack-train that brought Boudica, only two priests and a priestess. But she had felt an odd tingle when their voices joined in the spell. There were twelve here now, and the thirteenth was the Arch-Druid standing before them. Their chanting vibrated through her bones.

The Druids were reshaping the relationship between sky and sea. For a moment that vibration matched her own; Boudica saw each particle shimmering and understood what her teachers meant by the harmony of all things. When she could focus again, she saw the two barges and their passengers clearly. But the far shore behind them was still veiled by a golden haze. Their guests had passed the barrier.

Boudica recognized Cunobelin’s two sons immediately; wiry, red-haired Caratac, who had taken over the Cantiaci kingdom, and Togo-dumnos, grown more portly already as he settled into his father’s dignities. With them were two more whom she did not know. Behind Togodumnos she glimpsed another man, tall with fair hair and mustache. She raised one eyebrow as she realized it was Prasutagos, brother of the Northern Iceni king.

As the barge approached the shore, the youths and maidens began to sing:

“It is to the land of gifted men that you have come, It is to the land of wise women that you have come, It is to the land of fair harvests that you have come, And to the land of song. You who sit in the seat of the hero, You who sit in the seat of the king, You who give ear to good counsel, Be you welcome here …”

f both Helve and Lady Mearan have foreseen a Roman victory, why have you called us here?” said King Togodumnos. Unusual among the younger men, he wore a short beard. “Are you counseling us to bare our throats to the Roman wolf without a fight?”

There was a growl from the other leaders, and Boudica, who was refilling the golden drinking bowl, stopped with it in her hand. The kings had spent half a day already debating whether the visions should be believed. At this rate, deciding what to do about them might take till the next full moon.

“I am willing to go down fighting,” added Caratac, “but I would rather not know that I am doomed before I begin!” As he leaned forward the firelight kindled a new flame in his russet hair. He was not so kingly a figure as his older brother, but though he always spoke to and of Togodumnos with respect, Boudica judged that of the two he had, if not the greater intelligence, certainly more energy.

To house their guests the Druids had repaired the huts in the meadow where they held the festivals and removed the wicker sides from the long feasting hall to admit air and light for their deliberations. In the central trench a fire was kept burning, providing light and warmth and a witness to oaths as well. Several stave buckets bound in bronze and filled with ale served to lubricate the deliberations. Boudica, who had lived in a royal household, was an obvious choice to bear around the drinking bowl. She was not sure whether or not to consider it a privilege, but at least her duties were clear.

“If doom was certain do you think I would have called you here?” the Arch-Druid replied. “What we foresee is what might be if matters continue as they have begun. But fate is like a river, constantly changing. The addition of a new stream can turn it to a flood; a pebble—or six—” he surveyed the men before him with a wry smile, “—can alter the flow. We are not foredoomed, but forewarned.”

“The easiest way to avoid bloodshed would be to welcome the Romans when they come,” observed Tancoric of the Durotriges. His lands, Boudica recalled, included the Summer Country and the Isle of Avalon.

“If we make treaties,” he went on, “they will not need to conquer us. Let the emperor call us client-kings. He will be in Rome and we will be here, enjoying the benefits of Roman trade.”

“And paying Roman taxes, and sending our warriors to the ends of the earth to fight his wars,” snapped Caratac.

“Roman trade may be as great a danger as Roman armies,” King Togodumnos said slowly. “My father kept his freedom, but by the time he died he was more Roman than Catuvellauni. I, too, have grown accustomed to their luxuries, but I am beginning to fear them. If we continue to trade with them we will still change, but slowly. If they rule us, the next generation of Britons will be speaking Latin and making their offerings to the Roman gods.”

And the Druids and their wisdom will be gone from this land …
thought Boudica.

“If we do choose to fight, do you truly think that we can win?” King Maglorios of the Belgae said then. He was an older man, going bald now but still strong, whose lands lay between those of the Du-rotriges and the Atrebates. He gestured and Boudica came forward to offer him the drinking bowl with the elegance she had learned in Cu-nobelin’s hall. He gave her an appreciative look, and she dodged a more-than-appreciative pat as she took the bowl back to fill it again.

“If you join together,” answered the High Priestess, “I believe you can make them retreat, just as Caesar, despite his boasts of conquest, did a hundred years ago.” She looked tired. Boudica had heard that when the Druids had performed a second, private ritual, Mearan had seen even more bloodshed than Helve.

“I will gladly clasp hands with all those who are here,” said Tancoric, “but what about those who are not? I notice that the Regni refused your invitation.”

“There may be more than one reason for that,” said Mearan.

“Perhaps they heard that the sons of Cunobelin were going to be here,” said Maglorios, and the others laughed. The Regni lands were bordered on the north by the territory ruled by Togodumnos and on the east by the Cantiaci country, where Caratac was now king.

“And perhaps the Atrebates heard that
you
would be here!” retorted Togodumnos. “They are your neighbors, after all.”

The Arch-Druid shook his head. “I did not invite them. King Veric has a treaty with the Romans. He sent his grandson Cogidumnus to be fostered by the emperor, and would not dare to turn against them even if he desired.”

“The Isle of Vectis has a tempting harbor. The Romans could march straight up the middle of Britannia through the Atrebate lands. We will have to do something about Veric …” Caratac said slowly. He looked at his brother and Boudica shivered. Cunobelin’s sons had inherited his ambition to unite Britannia. The threat of Roman conquest might be what they needed in order to succeed.

“And will the men of art fight with us?” came a new voice. The others turned as Prince Prasutagos leaned forward. He had not spoken often in this council, but when he did, men listened to his words.

“Indeed,” said the Arch-Druid with a wintry smile. “The Romans will not give
us
the option of surrender. Our magic is perhaps not all that legend makes it, but we have some power over wind and weather, and the reading of omens. We shall send our most talented priests and priestesses to march with you when the time for battle comes.”

The prince nodded, and Boudica came forward to offer him the drinking bowl. When he looked up to take it, there was sadness behind his smile. The servants said that the prince had recently lost his wife in childbirth. It was too bad. He had a good face, and she thought he would have made a kindly father to little ones.

“Then I hope your seers can tell us when the invasion will come. It will be hard to gather an army, and even harder to keep it together,” said King Maglorios.

Boudica carried the drinking bowl around the circle, and the discussion of warriors and supplies and strategies went on.

uch as Lhiannon loved Lys Deru, at times its atmosphere of focused dedication could become constricting, especially now, when the presence of the royal strangers reminded them so forcibly that there was another world beyond the Druids’ Isle. She had been honored to accompany the kings to make their offerings at the Lake of Little Stones, although she was still not certain whether Mearan wanted her assistance as a priestess or as a chaperone for Boudica, who was striding along ahead of her.