Ravens of Avalon (51 page)

Some of the other men were agreeing. Ardanos looked at Lhiannon as if about to speak, but she shook her head. In time she might regret allowing the priests to claim so much power, but just now she found it hard to care. Could they not see that everything depended on the Iceni rebellion? She understood Coventa’s vision now. Boudica bore the power of the Morrigan. If she succeeded, no one would question the power of the priestesses. And there might be no hope for any of them if she failed.

TWENTY
-
SIX

oudica laughed and grabbed for the rail as the chariot bounced beneath her, the javelin swinging wildly in her other hand. It was ancient, one of several that had been brought in after the attack on Colo-nia. Its leather fittings were much in need of repair, but an inspiring reminder of the glories of the past.

Tascio, her driver, ducked with an oath, wrenching the ponies’ heads around to avoid Rigana’s chariot and throwing Boudica to the other side. Footing was tricky—with Tascio seated on the platform before her and her shield and spears attached to the wicker sides, there was scarcely room left to stand.

As they cantered around again the people cheered. The sight of a war cart evoked ancient glories—reason enough to shrink new iron rims to wooden wheels and replace the leather fittings. For Boudica to appear in a chariot confirmed her role as leader. She had given one of the restored vehicles to her older daughter on the understanding that Calgac, who was driving it, would get her away at the first sign of real danger. But unless they could learn to use them properly, no one was going to take the chariots into battle at all.

Boudica had a moment to envy Rigana’s resilience as they sped by. Constant walking and riding had kept her fit, but she could not match a fifteen-year-old’s flexibility.

“Balance! Don’t hold on!” called Tingetorix. His bad leg kept him on horseback, but if he could not set an example, he could certainly tell the rest of them what they were doing wrong.

The leather straps that suspended the bouncing wooden platform creaked as the wheels skittered over the rough ground. Boudica had thought the heaving deck of a ship unsteady; this was like trying to stand on a quaking bog. As another turn flung her against the rail she could feel Cathubodva laughing. The goddess danced on chaos as Her ravens danced on the wind. For humans, the stability of the ground was the only certainty. But tempting as it was to let the goddess take over, Boudica had schooled enough horses to know that the more reflexes she trained into her muscles, the less her rider would have to do.

As a tiny girl she had loved watching her older brothers practicing with the chariots. Dubi had been able to run out along the shaft to the yoke that linked the two ponies, fling a javelin, and get back again. He usually hit the target as well. That would not be a problem in battle—as long as you launched a projectile in the right direction it was bound to hit somebody.

Tascio brought the chariot around and for a moment she had it, balancing on the balls of her feet to keep the same relationship to the earth no matter which way the platform was jumping. Then the ache in her leg became a sudden cramp.

“Whoa …” she gasped as she slid the javelin into its rest and bent to massage the limb.

When she could stand again, she saw Rigana’s chariot thundering toward her. As they passed the girl let out a skull-splitting screech and flourished her javelin with a grin that had been absent for far too long. Boudica waved back, then turned as someone called.

“That will be enough for now, Tascio—bring us in.” She straightened as he turned the ponies toward the knot of people who had gathered at the edge of the crowd, doing her best to support the image of a bold warrior queen without revealing how grateful she was for an excuse to stand still.

From the chariot Boudica could see much of the camp, which since the fall of Colonia had come to resemble a gathering of clans for the Lughnasa fair. Warriors were still arriving, but now they were bringing their families, and bards and merchants were arriving as well. Anywhere you walked you might hear singing, or find some impromptu contest of strength or skill. A giddy, holiday atmosphere filled the air.

But the men who awaited her were not in a festive mood.

“Have the scouts returned?” she asked, looking down at them. After the defeat of the Ninth Legion she had sent men to watch all the Roman forts, especially in the east, where the governor had posted the Twentieth and Fourth, and the southeast, where he’d placed the Second Legion. A host the size of her impromptu army could not move unnoticed—she was surprised that there had been no other response from the Romans by now.

The group parted to let a weary man step forward. “I rode east, my lady, as you ordered. Didn’t have to go farther than that new fort they call Letocetum, on the Great Road. There was plenty of news in the wineshop there.”

“Is the Twentieth coming?”

“Aye, with the Fourth right behind them, but they’ll be on the road awhile. They were on Mona, my lady! They burned the sanctuary to the ground and killed every Druid they could find!”

“Sacrilege!” came the cry. “The gods will strike them—”

Boudica closed her eyes, clutching at the rail of the chariot as a murmur of horror spread through the crowd. She had just seen the devastation fire could wreak on a city. Her imagination pictured only too vividly flames rising from the house circle at Lys Deru and the Sacred Grove. What had happened to Belina and Coventa, and the others whom she had loved? She prayed to the gods that Lhiannon was still safe in Eriu.

“The gods will strike them indeed,” she echoed, dashing tears from her eyes. She jerked her javelin from its rest and held it high. “My arm is their weapon! And yours—” She swung the spear above the crowd. “Every fist that can hold a blade is the hand of the gods. And we will avenge!” She felt her face flush at the roar of fury that answered her.

“The Twentieth will be some weeks on the road,” the messenger went on. “My news is from the cavalry troop that rode in with Governor Paulinus three days ago. They barely took time to eat and sleep before they were on fresh horses heading south to Londinium.”

“Will he try to hold the city? What will he do for men?” came the questions.

Boudica had been undecided which way to lead her forces. This was the news she had needed.

“I don’t know what
he’ll
do,” she said viciously, “but what
we
must do is clear! Cry the word through the camp, all of you! Give your beasts a good feed and pack up your wagons. Tomorrow we march on Lon-dinium, and if we are very lucky, we’ll catch the butcher of Mona there!”

he ship rolled and lifted and dipped once more as a fair wind drove her toward the Summer Country. Since the funerals, three days had passed, and it was not until they got out into the strait that the brisk sea wind drove the last taint of burning from the air. Only then did Lhiannon realize how accustomed to that reek she had become. Even Cov-enta, though she had been sick that morning, seemed to be reviving.

But was she herself any better off? The piled purple mountains beyond the shoreline slid by like a dream. The sea glittered in the bright air, and the sky was a beneficent blue. In the old days, Lhiannon would have said that the sea gods had blessed their journey, but just now she found it hard to believe that they cared.

“I wish that we could stay forever on the sea,” murmured Coventa, “between the worlds.” She was still quiet and pale, but the visions only came at night now, as dreams. “No one knows where we are … no one can tell us what to do. I thought you were an exile, and was sorry that you could not stay safe with us. But I begin to see why you spent so much time away.”

“It was not all a holiday,” Lhiannon observed reminiscently. “When I was with Caratac I was often hungry or cold or in danger, but it is true that I did not have the Druids telling me what to do every time I turned around.”

“I have been very naive,” Coventa said quietly. “I am like some wild bird that has been bred up captive in a cage, and when the door to freedom is opened I do not know how to fly. I am not fit for this new world we have been forced into. But you are, Lhiannon. I hope you will not let Ardanos put you into a cage. He is so afraid—and perhaps he is right— the world is more terrible than I could have imagined. If there is ever a place where our priestesses can live all together again, I think he will try to make it a fortress.”

Ardanos would never …
the thought faltered. The Ardanos she had loved would not have tried to rule with so heavy a hand, but the Romans had done something to his soul.

“The world goes as it will, not as we would have it,” Coventa continued, “and all we can do is to try to serve the gods.”

“The gods! If I believed that all this was their will I would curse them—” Lhiannon stopped short, realizing only now how long she had been refusing to face her despair. “As it is, either they hate us, or they have no power. Everything we have done to propitiate them has only made things worse, so far as I can see …”

She had spoken softly, but Coventa was looking at her in shocked surprise.
I am a priestess,
she told herself.
For her sake I should pretend to believe …
That was what she had done ever since the crescent of the Goddess was placed between her brows.

“What do you want me to say?” she burst out suddenly. “Do you want me to tell you that everything will be all right? It won’t! It’s
not
…”

Her throat ached too fiercely to say more. Through war and disaster she had been kept too busy dealing with crises to consider their implications … but on this sunlit, smiling sea she had let down her defenses and now she was lost. She held her hands over her face, shaking with sobs.

After what seemed a long time she felt soft arms around her. Cov-enta was holding her, rocking her as the ship was rocked by the sea. And presently she came to the end of her tears.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ve stopped now.” She hugged Cov-enta back and saw the younger woman relax, but for her the brightness had gone out of the day.

Lhiannon understood now why some Druids retreated to the wilderness to live out their days in a cave by a sacred spring. Though the changing seasons held their own disasters, in nature there was an underlying order in which one might find some certainty. But she could see no such hope in the world of humankind.

rom the next street over Boudica could hear a howling that sounded more like beasts than men. The white mare danced beneath her, ears flicking nervously, and Bogle growled a warning as another band trotted by. Two men were carrying Roman heads on their spears. The others bore bags of loot and supplies. The tangle of homes and shops and warehouses that had sprung up on the north bank of the

Tamesa seemed to huddle beneath a lowering sky. One could trace the progress of the attacking Britons by the ravens that followed them through the town.

Londinium, like Colonia, was undefended. Decianus Catus had fled to Gallia when Colonia fell, and his staff, including Cloto, had gone with him. They had missed the governor by two days. Paulinus had at least made an attempt to evacuate the city, but those inhabitants who were stubbornly determined to protect their property or too old or infirm to flee remained, and were dying in the place of those more deserving of killing as the Britons swept from one street to the next.

Boudica had given orders that the city not be burned until they had stripped it of everything of value. Most of those who had joined her had brought food, but they could not risk running short before they caught up with the governor. And much of what these warehouses held had been taken as Roman taxes. She found a grim satisfaction in the symmetry of taking it back again.

As they turned a corner the shouting grew louder. Boudica’s escort drew in protectively as they sighted a knot of struggling men. A woman’s scream pierced the babble like a blade to the heart. Unthinking, Boudica urged the mare forward. She saw blades flash as the attackers scrambled out of the way. Their features were those of men she knew, but in this moment their faces were stamped with a single identity.

A Roman stood behind the splintered door of his house, holding up a table as a shield. A Briton with an ax hewed at it, making chunks fly like kindling, while others jabbed with spears. Boudica recognized the ax man. He had been a small farmer who got into debt and fought back when the Romans came to seize his land. In the struggle he had escaped, but his wife had been captured and sold into slavery.

The man lurched as one of the spears pierced his leg; the next blow of the ax sent the battered table spinning. Many hands pulled him out into the street and the red blades rose and fell. With a rending of wood others knocked the remains of the door away and pushed inside. The woman began to scream once more.

A little boy burst through the doorway, his thin wail abruptly silenced as someone clubbed him and tossed the body aside. Then men were dragging his mother into the street, tearing at her tunica and forcing her down. Boudica saw her desperate eyes white-rimmed above a muffling hand.

“If you try to stop them they will turn on you,”
came the voice of the goddess within as she opened her lips to protest. The white limbs thrashing before her merged with the image of Argantilla’s body as the Roman had dragged her down.