Ravens of Avalon (9 page)

As Rianor surged upright to face him Ardanos appeared suddenly behind them, gripping each boy’s shoulder in a strong hand.

“What are you thinking?” he hissed, his ginger hair appearing to stand on end. “Your quarrel profanes the festival! Thank the Goddess, the High Priestess and the Arch-Druid have departed already.”

They gaped at him. How much had Ardanos overheard? Boudica knew that the Druids were having the same arguments as the young people they trained. But not, she had to admit, in front of the whole community at a festival.

Ardanos let the boys go. “If you can fight, you can work! The feast is over. Get busy cleaning up the hall.”

re the gods many, or are there only two, or one?” Lugovalos leaned forward, his white beard glistening in the light of the spring day. Boudica rubbed her eyes and tried to pay attention. She had recently passed her sixteenth birthday, and her long limbs were finding a new harmony. She would so much rather have been chasing sheep or gathering spring greens for the pot, or any kind of labor if it let her
move.

“Lhiannon teaches us that all of those are true,” said Brenna with a grin for their mentor. “All the goddesses, all that we see as womanly and divine, we call the Goddess. But when we pray, She wears one face or another—Maiden or Mother or Wisewoman, or Brigantia or Cathu-bodva.”

And none of them,
thought Boudica,
seem to want to talk to me.

“All that is divine and male we call the God. We call on them as Lord and Lady at Beltane …” Brenna blushed. She had just returned from her womanhood ceremonies on the Isle of Avalon and was making sure everyone knew that she planned to seek a lover at the Beltane fires.

“Your teacher has taught you well,” said the Arch-Druid. Lhiannon bowed her head, but she did not look as if the praise had made her very happy. Or perhaps it was the reference to Beltane. Would she go to meet Ardanos this year?

“So,” said Lugovalos, “you understand that the gods are both one and many. We honor the One, but there are few indeed who can bear the touch of that power.” For a moment he paused, his upturned face illuminated, and Boudica was abruptly certain that he was one who had been in the presence of the Source of All. Then he smiled and turned to them again.

“Perhaps we know more while we are between lives, but as long as we are in human bodies with human senses, it is to the many that we make our prayers and our offerings.”

Rianor raised his hand. “My lord, which god should we be praying to now, when we face war?”

“How do you name that power in your own land?”

“The Trinovantes offer to Camulos,” came the proud answer. “Camulodunon is the war god’s dun.”

Boudica nodded, remembering the stately circle of oaks in the meadow to the north of the dun. It housed a slab of stone where the god had been carved standing between two trees, wearing an oak-leaf crown.

Other students were offering additional names—red Cocidios in the north, Teutates among the Catuvellauni, and Lenos of the Silures. The Belgae sacrificed to Olloudios and the Brigantes to Belutacadros. Among her own people, Coroticos was the name they called when they went to war, but like many among the tribes, it was a goddess, Andraste, to whom they prayed for the battle fervor that would bring victory.

“When the tribes join together, which god or goddess should lead them?” Bendeigid asked.

“I will ask you a question,” the Arch-Druid replied. “What is the difference between an army and a warrior?”

“A warrior is one man and an army is many,” the boy replied. He was not the only one to look confused.

“But the army is more than a collection of fighters. When you say ‘a Druid,’ you could mean me, or Cunitor, or Mearan. But when you say ‘the Druids,’ you are talking about a greater entity that includes all of our powers and our traditions.”

“People are like that, too,” said Coventa suddenly. “A woman can be a daughter, and a mother, and a priestess, but people talk to you as only one of those things at a time.”

The Arch-Druid nodded. “An army is also more than the sum of its warriors. It has a spirit, a mind of its own. And so it is with the gods. When the fighters in an army call the war god by different names they call into being a greater power that includes them all.”

“Not all of them …” someone said quietly. Ardanos was standing at the edge of the circle, looking grave. “The god of the Atrebates will not fight with us. Caratac has driven Veric from his land.”

For a moment silence held them all. The news was not unexpected, but to hear it suddenly, and in this context, was startling, as if by talking about the god of war they had summoned him. In the faces around her Boudica could see the shock of that awareness.

“Curse you all!” Cloto jumped to his feet, glaring around him. “And you most of all!” He spat at the Arch-Druid’s feet. “The Catuvel-launi have always lusted after our lands, but without your support they would not have dared to take them!”

Cunitor laid a hand on the boy’s arm. “Come, Cloto, here we are no longer Atrebate or Trinovante, but Druids. Lugovalos has done what he thought best for the whole of Britannia.”

“He has brought doom on our people!” Cloto wrenched his arm from Cunitor’s grasp and stood with clenched fists, defying them all. Lugovalos could have immobilized him with a word, but the Arch-Druid only gazed at the boy, sorrow in his eyes.

“You think you are so wise!” Cloto spat. “Do you not see that you will bring upon us the very thing you fear? Caratac has driven Veric into the arms of the Romans. Their treaty requires them to help him, and this will be all the excuse they need!”

“But Helve
saw
them invading,” said Coventa, holding out her hands in appeal. “Don’t you understand that to unite against them is our only chance to survive?”

For a moment they stared with locked gaze, the furious boy and the fey girl. Who had the right of it? Was fate fixed, as it had been in the stories Cunobelin’s old Greek slave used to tell?

“Curse you! I curse you all!” Cloto screamed. “When this island runs with blood you will remember, and wish you had lis—”

And now, at last, Lugovalos lifted his hand, and though the boy’s lips continued to move, no sound came. In the sudden silence someone giggled nervously, then gulped and was still.

“Enough,” the Arch-Druid said. “If you will not stand with us, you are no longer one of our company. You will gather your things and go to the landing. A boat will be waiting for you there.”

Speechless, they watched Cloto stalk away. Lugovalos had silenced him, but even the Arch-Druid could not wipe those words from everyone’s memory. What if Cloto was right? Was it better to fight for the right reason, even if you failed, or to surrender for the sake of safety? The Druids had no choice. And if they were doomed, at least the bards could sing about how valiantly they had tried.

hat summer brought rumors of war on every wind. Some said that King Veric had been killed, others, that he had fled across the sea to hold the emperor to their treaty and would return with a Roman army to win back his land. If so, thought Lhiannon grimly, Lugovalos’s efforts to create a defensive alliance were creating an excuse for the attack the Britons feared. But as spring gave way to summer, she found it hard to care, for Lady Mearan was dying.

As Lhiannon came up the path to the roundhouse where the High Priestess lived she saw Boudica push through the cloth that hung across the door, a wooden basin in her arms.

“How is she?”

“The Lady has kept nothing down today,” Boudica exclaimed. “She has grown so thin, Lhiannon! I think that only the strength of her spirit is keeping her alive!”

“She always had courage,” murmured the priestess.

“I saw King Cunobelin die. He drifted between sleep and waking until finally he woke no more. But Mearan is awake. Is there nothing you can do for her, Lhiannon?”

“If she cannot take the infusions, we cannot help her with medicines, but I may be able to help her detach her mind from the body’s pain.”

Boudica nodded and carried the bowl off to empty it. Lhiannon took a last breath of the hay-scented air and went inside. As she noted the waxy pallor of Mearan’s skin, she had a sinking feeling that the battle being waged here was one that they were going to lose.

“My lady, how fare you? Are you in pain?” she asked softly, kneeling beside Coventa at Mearan’s side.

Slowly the bruised eyelids opened. “Not now. I feel … light …”

And well she might, thought Lhiannon. It seemed to her that the strong bones of the older woman’s face poked through the skin even more sharply than they had the day before.

“I think that soon I will float away.” Mearan paused, then drew breath again. “It is not by my will that I leave you, but some good may come from this. Between the worlds, I can
see
…”

“You must not tire yourself.” Lhiannon heard herself say the denying words even as she realized that Mearan was right. It was said that the final vision of an adept had great power.

“You
must not delude yourself …” The High Priestess echoed wryly. “I know that I am dying.”

Lhiannon sat back on her heels as Boudica came in with the emptied bowl and a pitcher.

“My lady, here is cool water from the sacred spring,” said the girl. “It will ease you.” Lhiannon helped the sick woman to sit upright so that she could drink and then laid her back upon the pillows once more.

“Thank you …” Mearan closed her eyes. For a few moments her labored breathing was the only sound. “Hear me. This morning I lay in a waking dream …” she said. Lhiannon straightened, attention narrowing to the focus in which all she heard would be remembered, as she had been trained to do.

“I saw you, Lhiannon—only you were old. Older, I think, than I will ever be.”

“Is that who it was!” exclaimed Coventa. She flushed as she caught Lhiannon’s disapproving glare. “I know I should not, mistress, but truly I could not help it. I was half asleep, and sitting right beside her, so I saw …”

Lhiannon sighed. If the child picked up the visions of a seeress in the chair, it was no surprise that she should share Mearan’s visions now. For her own good, Coventa should be given other duties, but if Lhiannon suggested it, Helve would no doubt disagree.

“Never mind, child,” she murmured. “Lady—what else did you see?

“You were in a house surrounded by forest, some place I have never been. You wore the ornaments of a high priestess.” Eyes still closed, she smiled.

Lhiannon stiffened in shock, looking at the two girls to see if they had heard. “Mearan,” she whispered, “what do you mean? Am I to be High Priestess after you?” It was the privilege of the High Priestess to choose her successor, though the Druids could decide whether to accept that choice. And Helve had been so sure …

“High Priestess …” the sick woman’s voice strengthened. “Yes … that you will be, but not now, my daughter. And not here …” She coughed. “Between that time and this there is a void. There is something there— fire—blood …” Her head rolled fretfully on the pillow. “I cannot see …” she moaned. “I have to see!” The words were cut off as she retched into the bowl that Boudica held.

“Mearan! Drink this! Don’t try to talk, dear—I don’t need to know!”

“To know …” The sick woman gasped. For a few moments her labored breathing was the only sound in the room. “Not here …” she whispered at last. “Take me to the Sacred Grove. There … I will see.” Lhiannon eased the priestess back on the pillow where she lay with eyes closed, breathing carefully. She did not speak again.

earan died just after the Feast of Lughnasa, having delivered with her dying breath a prophecy whose details only the senior priesthood knew. But when her body was released to the fire, it was Helve who presided as High Priestess, not Lhiannon. Boudica recalled only too clearly Mearan’s hoarse whisper when she spoke of
seeing
Lhiannon with the ornaments of the High Priestess on her brow. None of the students had been present at Mearan’s final ritual, but through the autumn and winter that followed, the school had been full of wild rumors about what the dying woman had said. Had she changed her mind, or had the senior Druids refused her selection for some reason of their own?

Tonight those questions seemed trivial. Winter had given way to a stormy spring, and across the narrow sea Roman armies were gathering. Caratac and the Cantiaci were preparing to resist their landing, but Helve had sworn that they should not come at all and summoned Druids and students alike to join their powers in ritual.

As darkness fell the wind that whipped the flames of the torches felt as if had come directly from the peaks of the mountains across the strait, where snow clung still. Helve stood as High Priestess before the altar, dark robes falling away like black wings as she lifted her arms. On her wrists golden bracelets gleamed in the torchlight; a golden torque weighted her neck. Had those ornaments belonged to Mearan? Boudica could not remember if she had seen the old High Priestess wear them. When Mearan led the rites you remembered what she
was,
not what she wore …

The new High Priestess had settled into her role with less disturbance than some might have expected, or perhaps it was only that she spent much of her time with the senior Druids in conference and they saw little of her. But she was like a high-bred mare that Boudica’s father had once owned, strong and beautiful and as likely to bite as to bear you.