Ravens of Avalon: Avalon

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Ravens of Avalon: Avalon Page 18

by Marion Zimmer Bradley


  Hair and mustache were neatly combed, even the silver strands glinting

  gold in the morning sun. He was dressed in sturdy trews and a tunic of

  dull green, appropriate for the road. And he was clean.

  “I should hope so.” She picked a wisp of grass from her hair.

  “You were not difficult to follow. The countryside is full of rumors

  of a red woman on a red horse, though report disagrees as to whether

  she is one of the goddesses or some refugee from the Roman wars, and

  whether this is a good omen or a portent of doom.”

  Boudica could feel the blush heating her skin beneath the dust and

  grime. She cleared her throat.

  “And which view is yours?”

  “I think she is an autumnal deity,” he answered dryly. “I promised

  to find her, and assured them that the magic of the king was suffi

  cient to

  counter any spell.” He lifted the sausages from the fire and stuck the

  ends of the sticks on which they had been toasting into the soft ground.

  “Excuse me,” she said with what dignity she could muster. “I am

  going to the stream to wash.”

  “Excellent idea. In the pack by the willow tree you will fi nd clean

  clothes,” he said gravely. “Don’t run from me again. I don’t think my

  reputation could survive losing my bride a second time . . .”

  Boudica followed her new husband through the golden autumn

  afternoon. In the pack he had brought for her she had found a sleeved

  tunic of a light wool the color of the harvested fields. She suspected it

  would be a long time before she dared to wear crimson again in Pra-

  sutagos’s land. He had also brought the trews she wore for riding, very

  welcome to her chafed legs after two days with no protection but the

  folds of the linen gown.

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  D i ana L . Pax s on

  The king’s big bay had a longer pace than the mare’s, and she found

  herself always a little behind him. She wondered how he had managed

  to escape from his household. But then, as a younger son he had never

  expected to inherit a war band, and perhaps he was accustomed to rid-

  ing about this countryside alone. Certainly the folk at the steading

  where they paused for a rest and a drink of milk fresh from the cow did

  not seem surprised to see their king wandering the roads with his new

  bride.

  Prasutagos was accustomed to being alone, she thought as the miles

  passed. Despite the morning’s embarassment, she had hoped that the

  constraint between them would disappear. But she suspected now that

  at the feast he had been quiet from habit, not from inhibition.

  If Coventa had been here, she would have filled the emptiness with

  her chattering. Boudica had never needed to do that, and just now she

  hardly dared.

  “Where will we spend the night?” she asked after an hour without a

  word had gone by. “Or do you mean to ride straight on to your dun?”

  “The horses need rest,” he said, reining in to answer her. “A little up

  the road there is a holy well where folk come to pray to the Goddess for

  healing and the granting of desires. I give the people at the farmstead

  some support so that they may feed travelers. We will stay there.”

  They came to the Lady’s well just as the first stars were kindling in

  the sky. The water that flowed from the spring chuckled through a shal-

  low valley between wooded hills. But the path was well marked, the

  area below the spring had been cleared, and the grass was still green.

  Thatched shelters used by earlier pilgrims stood among the trees. No

  one else was here so late in the year, but clearly this was a popu lar

  shrine.

  Prasutagos left Boudica to arrange their bedding while he went up

  to the farm for food. She wondered if that division of labor had been

  tact, to allow her to choose whether or not to consummate their

  marriage now. If he had pressed her, she thought wryly, she might have

  resisted, but she had to face the fact that his remoteness was a challenge,

  and the binding that had been set upon them in the sacred circle demanded

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  completion. She laid out both sets of blankets full width, one atop the

  other.

  When her husband still had not returned by the time she was fi n-

  ished, she picked up their waterskins and one of her remaining ribands

  and took the path to the sacred spring. A pool had been dug out to catch

  the water that welled from the slope of a little hill. The fading light was

  just enough for her to see the fluttering bits of fabric tied to the hazel

  tree whose branches shaded it. At its base a piece of wood had been

  thrust into the ground, carved with staring eyes and the hollow of a

  woman’s vulva below. Smiling, she tied her own ribbon to a twig with

  the rest and knelt at the edge.

  “Lady,” she whispered, “by whatever name you favor in this land

  I honor you. Help me to be a good wife to Prasutagos and bear him

  children . . .” And then, more softly, “Help me to win his love . . .” She

  scooped up water in her hands and drank, then set the waterskins at the

  edge to fi ll.

  She sat back on her heels, sweeping the distracting thoughts from her

  mind one by one as she had been taught on the Druids’ Isle, until pres-

  ently there was only the sweet music of the spring. But from that simple

  melody came an awareness that remained in her memory as words.

  “You may call me Holy Mother, for the milk from my breasts is always well-

  ing, always flowing, always poured out for my children in eternal love. Go in

  peace. In your joy and in your sorrow, I am here . . .”

  Boudica dipped up more water and touched it to the hollow in the

  image, feeling an answering throb of anticipation between her own

  thighs.

  In peace she rose and took the skins she had filled. When she re-

  turned to the shelter Prasutagos had a fire going, and by the hearth

  there was fruit and new bread. Still entranced by the stillness of the

  spring, Boudica found herself at ease with his silence. When he excused

  himself after the meal she stripped off her clothes and slid between the

  blankets.

  He was gone for what seemed a long time, and when he returned he

  brought with him the cool breath of the holy well. She wondered if they

  had both prayed for the same thing. But it was a condition of such mir-

  acles that they never be spoken aloud.

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  The fire had burned low, and once more she saw him as a dark shape

  outlined in gold. She tensed as he inserted himself into the blankets be-

  side her. He raised himself on one elbow and with his other hand lifted

  a lock of her hair and he murmured something soothing that she could

  not quite make out.

  She wanted to tell him she was not afraid, but he was still whisper-

  ing, still stroking her hair, and she could not find the words. She re-

  membered how he had gentled the white stallion at the off ering pool. It

  was horse magic, she thought, to tame the red mare . . .

  Prasutag
os bent to kiss her, and this time his lips were warm. His

  hands moved across her body, caressing, commanding, until she lay open

  and accepting, her whole being flowing to enfold him, welcoming as

  the waters of the sacred spring.

  Boudica!” Nessa’s voice came from across the yard. “Come now,

  lovey—your lord has said you must not lift anything so heavy—do come

  away!”

  Boudica sighed and set down the armful of wood she had been

  about to bring into the roundhouse. Soon after she and Prasutagos

  reached Eponadunon, a caravan of wagons bearing all the gifts from the

  wedding had arrived and with them old Nessa, sent by her mother to be

  her servant in her new home. Or perhaps her guardian—by the begin-

  ning of the new year it was clear that Boudica was pregnant, and since

  then Nessa and Prasutagos had conspired to treat her as if she were made

  of Roman glass. That had been all very well during the winter, when

  freezing rain kept everyone inside the roundhouses, but the Turning of

  Spring was nigh, and the fair weather urged everyone outdoors. In ret-

  rospect, she supposed she ought to be grateful her mother had not sent

  the old woman with her to Mona, although the image of Nessa facing

  off against Lhiannon made her smile.

  She missed Lhiannon, whose calm good sense would have been so

  helpful as she settled into her new home. Eponadunon lay in a bend of

  a small river half a day’s ride from the sea, or rather the marshes, for the

  northern coast edged out gradually in bands of salt marsh and mudflat,

  with a narrow channel where boats might come in to shore. To the

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  south, another half day of riding would take them to the sacred spring,

  though since she arrived she had been too busy to visit it again. She

  would have liked to show it to Lhiannon.

  “Come in now, dearie, into the house.” Nessa appeared at her

  elbow.

  Boudica turned on her. “I am young, healthy, and I never felt better

  in my life! Nor will I melt in the spring sun!”

  “One of the lads who watch the cattle has come in. He saw riders on

  the road—you had better change out of that old gown.”

  As Boudica sighed defeat and followed Nessa into the largest of the

  three roundhouses she was aware of a prickle of excitement. Eponadu-

  non was nearly as remote as Mona, and Prasutagos did not have the

  Arch-Druid’s network of informants to keep him apprised of the news,

  although now that the first shock of the Roman conquest was over, ped-

  dlers and tradesmen were beginning to reappear.

  And from time to time there was gossip. When Claudius returned

  to Rome, it was boasted that he had received the submission of eleven

  kings. Of course they said that his Triumph had also portrayed the con-

  quest of Camulodunon as the capture of a walled city. Closer to home,

  men said that the legion left to hold down the Trinovantes was building

  a fortress on the hill above the ruins of the dun.

  But the newcomers were no tradesmen. As Boudica was pinning her

  tunica, one of the girls who had been washing clothes at the stream

  came rushing up to inform them that a party of Romans was coming up

  the road.

  “The king rode off to the new dun on the shore this morning—we

  can send one of the lads to find him, but we’ll have to entertain these

  people until he arrives,” she told the girl. “Our bread is still baking.

  Girl, when you’ve sent the message run over to the nearest farmsteads to

  see what they have on hand. In the meantime our guests will have to be

  content with meat and cheese.”

  As the dun exploded into activity around her, she reached for her

  jewel box to add necklace and bracelets to her attire. The king lived

  simply here, and the dun would not impress their visitors, but at least she

  could look like a queen.

  By the time the strangers rode through the wooden gate, the house

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  D i ana L . Pax s on

  had been swept and the worst of the clutter tidied away. Boudica stood

  waiting with a drinking horn filled with last of the wine from the wed-

  ding in her hands. In times of peace Prasutagos kept no more than a

  half- dozen warriors at the dun. Calgac, a lanky young warrior who had

  been assigned her escort, stood with the three who had not gone with

  the king as the Romans rode in.

  Automatically she counted them—a contubernia of ten soldiers, es-

  corting three men in civilian tunics and knee-length riding breeches

  and one in checkered trews who must be their guide.

  “Salutatio.” She offered the beaker to the best dressed of the riders,

  eyes widening as she recognized the big nose and dark eyes she had last

  seen in the purple shade of the emperor’s pavilion. Surely the taxes they

  were supposed to pay the Romans were not already due! Her smile grew

  a little stiff as she continued. “Lucius Junius Pollio, salve!” That was all

  the Latin she remembered from her years at King Cunobelin’s dun.

  “Greetings,” Pollio replied in her own language. “I drink to you,

  my queen . . .” He had an Atrebate accent.

  Boudica lifted an eyebrow. She had not expected that the Romans

  would have the sense to send a man who spoke the British tongue.

  The next few minutes were occupied with getting everyone dis-

  mounted and arranging where to put horses and men. She directed

  a quelling gaze at the younger of her warriors. Some of them were

  new to the king’s service, replacements for men who had fallen at the

  Tamesa, and they glowered at the Roman legionaries. By the time she

  had everyone settled and fed Prasutagos had still not returned. Rather

  than sit staring at Pollio across the fire, she suggested a tour around

  the dun.

  Steps had been cut into the inside of the grass-covered earthen em-

  bankment that surrounded it. On the outside, the bank was faced by a

  palisade. “My husband’s family has held this dun since his great-great-

  grandfather’s days,” she said as they gained the top, “but the clans here

  have been at peace for many years.”

  “Yet King Prasutagos is building a new place.” It was not quite a

  question. “A new dun to guard the harbor where the ships that cross the

  Wash come to shore?”

  “I think he likes to build things.” She shrugged. She had ridden out

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  once to view the massive rampart faced with blocks of chalk, but work-

  men’s huts were the only lodging, and the king had been too focused on

  the work to notice whether she was there or not, so she had not stayed.

  “He does indeed . . .” Pollio agreed. His gaze moved briefly to the

  swell of her belly and then away. “The bank gives you a fi ne vantage

  point.”

  She smiled a little, as she always did when she stood here and looked

  across the fields. At this season the country was richly green with new

  grass, broken by the corrugated brown of newly plowed and seeded

  fields. A flock of c
rows had settled on the nearest, pecking for grain. A

  child ran across the field shouting, followed by a barking dog, and the

  crows exploded upward in a yammering cloud.

  Cathubodva, take your chickens away, she prayed. There is neither meat

  nor mast for you here! Although she would rather share with the goddess

  than with the Romans, she thought, glancing sidelong at the man beside

  her. Disconcertingly, he was looking at her, not at the fi elds.

  “It is true that we have no steep hills on which to build our forts as

  they do in the Durotrige lands,” she said blandly. Even out here they

  had heard that the Roman campaign in the southwest had slowed to a

  crawl as General Vespasian beseiged each hillfort in turn.

  If that had stung him, he gave no sign. “You grow barley here, and

  cattle?” His dark gaze fl icked away.

  “And spelt, and sheep on the heaths,” she added, putting a little

  distance between them. “Our fields are not so rich as those in the Tri-

  novante lands but we feed our people, most years. In a bad winter there

  are floods, and we are lucky to get a crop at all.”

  “I understand,” he said smoothly. “But that is where you benefi t

  from being part of the Empire. In such years we can make loans to tide

  you over, and when you have a surplus you can repay. Nor do you need

  to fear that some other tribe whose crops have failed will try to take

  yours. Our general Vespasian has already taken many hillforts,” he went

  on. “Soon all the west will be conquered as well.”

  She would have liked to wipe away that smug smile, but unfortunately

  what he had said was true. Goddess keep Lhiannon from harm! she thought

  then. But surely they would keep the priestesses out of the war. She

  made her way along the bank and he followed her.

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  D i ana L . Pax s on

  “You speak our language well,” she commented as they reached the

  strong timbers that supported the gate.

  “The emperor assigned me to be a companion to young Cogidub-

  nos when he came to Rome and to learn his tongue as I taught him

  ours. Claudius, of course, knows the language from his youth in Gal-

  lia,” he replied.

  How long had the emperor been thinking about the conquest of Britannia?

  she wondered wildly. Had all their struggles to prevent the attack mat-

  tered at all? She took a deep breath. “To speak the language of the

 

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