Ravens of Avalon (29 page)

“The Romans have taken our land, our grain, and our gold. Now they are taking our swords!” He saw the confusion in their faces and laughed without humor. “They want us to disarm. This governor fears that if we have weapons we will join Caratac. He has ordered everyone on this side of the border they call the
limes
to give up all weapons of war—the conquered tribes and the allied tribes as well.”

“They can’t,” exclaimed Boudica. “We have a treaty. How can we be their allies if we cannot fight at need?”

“They can …” Prasutagos spoke at last. “Cohorts are already going through the Trinovante steadings, commanding men to bring out their weapons, and if they are not convinced by what is put on the pile they tear up the thatching and stab their spears into the stored grain. They will be here before the Turning of Spring.”

“The soldiers who are building the fort have conscripted the local farmers as laborers to build their walls. Some of the Trinovantes are already planning rebellion. Many of our southern chieftains and princes want to join them,” Eoc said fiercely. “Some are banding together in a secret group to plan resistance—they call it the Society of Ravens.”

Boudica shivered, remembering how the Lady of Ravens had spoken though her long ago. If they wanted
her
as their patroness, they must be desperate indeed.

“Are we going to fight?” Temella’s eyes had grown very round.

The king looked at her and tried to smile. “Whether to resist or comply is what we were discussing for so long …”

“You cannot give up your father’s sword,” Boudica exclaimed. The sword that had come down to Boudica’s father had been lost with her oldest brother at the Tamesa. With it not only his son, but the symbol of his family’s honor, had gone.

“No … but I see no hope in fighting Rome. We will have to give them enough to be convincing, but we will save the weapons that have been blessed by the gods.”

“You will give in?” cried Lhiannon. “Don’t you see that this is our chance to take back what we have lost?”

Boudica stared at her. They had lived here in peace for so l ong— these days Lhiannon no longer even wore blue. She had assumed that like the rest of them the priestess had become resigned to living under the yoke of Rome. But even now, Lhiannon would sometimes wake screaming from nightmares of the war in the south.

“This Roman pig is right to fear! While Caratac hits them in the west, the south and east may rise. Only when something that outrages all our people equally happens will they forget old enmities! If we had been able to get all our people fighting on the same side we would not have lost four years ago.”

Lhiannon’s eyes were white-rimmed, her fair hair stood on end. This was not the beloved friend but some avenging spirit that stood shrieking above the fire. The blood pulsed in Boudica’s ears.

“I fear to imagine what further disaster would be required to arouse our spirit if we let this opportunity pass us by,” Lhiannon added. “And if that should come to pass, what could we do? We will have no weapons to fight with, no young warriors trained to the use of arms! There will be blood! I see blood and ruin if you do not seize this chance!”

Boudica’s gut clenched as she realized that this was not the mask of the invoking priestess, but the Oracle prophesying doom. She had forgotten Lhiannon’s training. Perhaps the priestess had forgotten it herself.

“What does the High King say?” she asked.

Prasutagos shook his head. “Antedios is an old man, and ill. We have no war leader to match Caratac. The king is without a son, and your father, who is his tanist, is also old. The High King has ordered that we comply.”

“You are not old,” growled Lhiannon.

“Would you have me rebel against my king and the Romans, too? We would be as divided as the southern clans.”

“Shall I summon Caratac here to lead you?” she spat. “You are all old women, and you will be sorry you did not heed my words!” She stalked out the door.

Boudica stifled a burst of hysterical laughter at the image of Caratac manifesting here by the fire. Lhiannon could probably do it, given the mood she was in just now. Boudica could almost hear the fiery speeches and the fury of the mob’s reply.

“Perhaps …” murmured Prasutagos, “but I am a king for peace, and what is needed now is a leader of war …”

cannot stay here
… thought Lhiannon.

She sat by the cauldron in the roundhouse, a veil bound across the betraying sigil on her forehead and a shawl around her shoulders, stirring the soup in the cauldron that hung above the fire. The first of the spring greens had gone into it—tender new nettles and dandelion to eke out the salted beef from their dwindling stores. But it was still winter in her soul.

She could hear the tramp of hobnailed sandals and men’s deep voices outside, and the clatter of steel and bronze as swords and shields and spearheads were cast upon the pile.

I came here to get away from warfare, but this is not peace, it is death …

Boudica sat across from her, nursing the child. Rigana was mostly weaned, but when she was anxious she still sought her mother’s breast. They winced at each clash of metal, but Lhiannon’s slow fury boiled beneath a layer of ice. Prasutagos had no choice but to watch the confiscations, if only to control the fury of his men. She hoped that each sword struck him to the heart as it fell.

She started as the heavy hide that hung across the doorway was pulled aside. Light shafted across the center of the roundhouse as the Roman agent Pollio came in, backed by a legionary in a cuirass of overlapping plates like a centipede who held a round helmet with a flared neck-guard under his arm.

“I beg pardon, ladies,” he said in surprisingly good British, “but my orders require me to search the house as well—”

Boudica rose to her feet, the sleeping child still in her arms. “I understand,” she said sweetly, but there was a dangerous glitter in her eyes. It was just as well they had tied Bogle securely by the horse pen. He was as dangerous as any steel, if the Romans had only known.

Pollio gestured, and the soldier moved hesitantly around the hearth, lifting covers and looking under chests. Lhiannon continued to stir the stew, drawing anonymity around her like a veil.

When he touched the curtains around the bed-place, Boudica stiffened. “Don’t forget the mattress! We Celts are such hardy barbarians, we sleep on spears. And why confine yourselves to the furniture,” she added. “Search here in my bosom! I might be hiding a dagger.” She pulled down the front of her wrap, still unpinned from nursing, to bare a white breast. The soldier gaped and turned his back, and Pollio colored up to his hairline. “Or perhaps you would like to look in my baby’s clouts to see if we have concealed a spearhead inside!”

“No, my lady, I know that you and your husband are friends to Rome,” said Pollio. He muttered something to the soldier, who turned, looking relieved.

He would have seen nothing in the bed, thought Lhiannon. Were they really so naive as to think weapons would be hidden where they could so easily be found? The legionary would not discover Prasuta-gos’s sword unless he could handle coals as she had learned to do on Mona. They had wrapped the heirloom weapons in oiled leather and buried them deep beneath the hearth. Let the goddess who guarded the family fire keep them until the time came to use them once more.

And that day will come.
As Pollio and his minion retreated Lhiannon glared at their backs.
Those swords will drink Roman blood as now we drink Roman wine …

She had believed she was done with war. She had thought herself cut off from prophecy. Awareness of both stirred in her now.

I have stayed here too long …

he strangers came limping up the track just as the sun was rising. By the time they reached the gate, Bogle’s flurry of barking had awakened the entire steading. Boudica pulled a shawl over her shift and stumbled sleepily to the door, gripping the dog’s collar. At her word, his barking modulated to a subliminal growl.

There were three of them, with young bodies and faces prematurely old. One had his arm in a sling. Another had a stained cloth around his head. Together they were supporting the third, whose leg bore bloody bandages from ankle to thigh.

“Lhiannon,” she said over her shoulder, “come quickly. We have wounded men.”

“Lady …” said the one with the hurt arm, “of your mercy, do you have any food, and is there a hidden place we could lie? We would not bring trouble upon you—with sunset we will be on our way—”

“That you will not!” exclaimed Boudica. “You are no more fit to travel than my little girl. Come into the house—none here would betray you, but there’s no telling who may be about—you are not the first refugees to come this way.” Since the order to disarm had been announced some had chosen to leave their homes rather than give in.

But these were not merely refugees fleeing a Roman advance, she thought with a sinking heart as she helped them inside. These men had seen battle, and that not long ago.

The man with the broken arm was called Mandos. He came from a small farm not far from the dun where Boudica had been born. Of his companions, the one with the knock on the head was Trinovante and the man with the wounded leg from near the coast somewhere. They had not known each other before the battle, he said. They had ended up hiding in the same thicket and had been together since then.

By the time the three were fed and washed, Prasutagos had arrived. Lhiannon was tending the man with the wounded leg, who was fevered, but the others seemed recovered enough to tell their story.

“I am glad you are here, sir,” said Mandos. “The gods know what stories are going around. I know you did not think we could win, and perhaps you were right …” With the grime washed off, he looked barely eighteen, two years older than Boudica’s younger brother, whom she prayed her father had kept out of the rebellion.

“Perhaps,” said Prasutagos quietly. “But it may be that you were right to try. What happened?”

“It should have worked!” his companion put in. “Our war leader was a man of the fens who knew the way to an old earthwork on a islet of raised land there. He figured we could lead the Romans there, where the ground would be no good for their cavalry, and wear them out as they attacked us.”

Mandos nodded agreement. “But the Roman commander was a fox, too. He dismounted his men and they rushed us. The ramparts turned into a trap once the Romans were inside. We were trampling over each other, trying to get out. Some of the local people had taken refuge with us. There were old men … children … they slaughtered them all. That was four days ago.” He took another drink of nettle broth. “We could only travel at night. By day the Roman patrols were hunting those who got away.”

“You are safe here,” said the king. “We will find households where you can stay.”

Mandos shook his head, his young face grim beyond its years. “I thank you, lord. Our friend with the bad leg must certainly bide. But this Trinovante fool and I will go on until we reach a land where we are allowed to wear our swords!” He caressed the battered blade at his side. “Perhaps there will be others from the Society of Ravens there.”

Boudica saw her husband wince, and this time it was she who could find no words.

Three days after the two young warriors had left, the third man died. At sunset they buried him near the Horse Shrine with his cherished sword in his hand. As they were walking back to the farmstead, a horseman came over the hill. He bore no signs of battle, but his face was grim.

“My lord Prasutagos, you are summoned to Dun Garo.”

“Has the king called another council? I thought I had already made my opinion clear!”

“My lord, King Antedios is dead. It is the Roman governor who has summoned you and all the surviving chieftains of the Iceni clans.”

“I suppose he died of a broken heart,” said Boudica when the messenger had been sent to Palos’s farm for food and rest. She started up the track to Danatobrigos and Prasutagos, who had been silent since he heard the news, followed her. “Antedios will have known most of those who fell. I probably played with some of them when I was a child.” Despite Lhiannon’s tales of the war in the south, it was hard to imagine that young men who should be riding horses and siring children could so easily die.

For a few minutes they walked in silence, but in the king’s eyes she glimpsed the glitter of tears. “Well, don’t you think so? Say something! Don’t you dare turn into a stone again!”

“Don’t you think my heart is wounded, too?” Prasutagos burst out suddenly. “Ever since those young men came through our gate, I’ve been wondering if I should have joined the rebellion, if it might have gone differently with a few wiser heads to lead them, or at least with a few more swords!”

“And it might be you lying dead in the fens if you had gone,” she responded. “And then what would we do?”

He stopped in the path, his gaze following a scattering of crows as they winged across the fields. “You got along without me quite well last year and the year before,” he said softly, still watching the birds. “I know that you tolerate my presence only for the sake of the child …”

“That isn’t true!” Boudica exclaimed, and wondered suddenly when her feelings had changed. Prasutagos stood very still, head bowed, and she did not dare to break his silence. She crossed her arms across her breasts, feeling a little cold.