people around you is always a useful thing. Indeed, I have been think-
ing that it would be well to have someone here who could teach the
Latin tongue.”
“You are wise. If you are to become citizens of the Empire you will
need to speak its language, although to be sure there are many who still
hold that Greek is the only civilized speech.”
Boudica resented the unconscious superiority she sensed beneath
Pollio’s words. But now she could see horsemen on the road. Even at
such a distance there was something in the relaxed balance with which
the first rider sat his mount that she recognized. It is less than a year, she
thought in wonder. Have I become so linked to him already? Perhaps she
ought to have expected it, even though he was for the most part as silent
as ever. Perhaps it was because she was carrying his child.
She stretched and waved as Prasutagos cantered toward them, as
grateful for rescue as if she had been beseiged.
E L E V E N
L hiannon faced Ardanos across the fi re, their voices twining in the
chant as the column of smoke twisted toward the sky. The earthen ram-
parts that protected the barrows of the ancient dead were covered by
grass and eroded by the years. It was the hilltop across the valley to the
south that would be Caratac’s refuge. Even now, Durotrige tribesmen
were toiling up the slopes with hods filled with earth and stone to rein-
force defenses built by people whose names were lost from the land.
In the days of peace the Turning of Spring had been a time to work
for a bountiful growing season. But this year the blood of men would
fertilize the fields. Through the heat-haze she saw Ardanos’s features
exalted and intent as always during ritual. He would look like that while
making love . . . She tried to banish the image, but these days they were
so linked that he felt her thought, and when his eyes met hers her whole
body flushed with desire. Her first instinct was to suppress it, but this,
too, could be an off ering.
As the circle began to move sunwise she allowed that energy to
grow, flowing out through her left hand through the circle to the Dru-
ids and village priests who had joined them for the rite.
“Equality of day and night,
Balance point of dark and light—
This is the day, and this the hour,
To choose the purpose, raise the power—”
Since the submission of the tribes in the south and east the previous
summer she and Ardanos had been moving steadily ahead of the Roman
advance westward, always together, but never alone. King Veric had
died shortly after the Roman emperor left Britannia. While General
Vespasian was busy putting down the last of Caratac’s supporters on the
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Isle of Vectis and establishing Cogidubnos in his grandfather’s place,
Lhiannon and Ardanos had gone to King Tancoric. The Durotrige
lands were rich in hillforts built in ancient days and rebuilt during the
west country’s endless intertribal wars. Surely the Romans would not be
able to capture them all . . .
Wind gusted across the hilltop and the fire flared suddenly, sparking
along the juniper boughs that had been twined among the the oak logs
in sigils of fl ame. Now the pine branches caught with a crackle of resin,
adding their spicy scent to the smoke that was being blown eastward by
the ever- present wind. Eastward . . . toward the advancing enemy.
The fire flared and hissed as now one, and now another dancer
would dart forward to throw an off ering of oil or mead or blood on the
flames. The smoke grew thicker, billowing above the hill. Lhiannon
could feel power building within the circle as they danced.
“By our words and by our will,
Here upon the holy hill,
A blessing bid on all we see,
A spell we cast for victory!”
Wind gusted again, blowing the hair she had left unbound for the
ritual across her face. She shook her head to dislodge the fine strands and
her smile faded as she realized that the wind had changed. Ardanos
pulled his side of the circle forward, arms lifting to release the power,
and rather raggedly the others followed. The column of smoke that had
flowed eastward to threaten their foes was now drifting north, toward
the hill of stones.
L hiannon sat down on the bench and drew up one foot, drying it
with her cloak of heavy, oily wool. The skin was pale and waterlogged,
the flesh cut and bruised from going barefoot in the mud. At least when
your refuge was a hillfort, most of the rainwater that did not go into the
cistern ran downhill. The folk of the fens around Avalon were said to
have webbed feet. She wished that she did. She wished she were on the
Isle of Avalon and not beseiged on this hill. She peered upward, hoping
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that the fine mist that had begun to fall meant a possible break in the
clouds, but all she could see was gray.
The omen at the equinox ritual had proved a true one—the Roman
advance had caught up with Caratac’s forces a week later and dug their
own bank and ditch all around the base of the hill. With them came the
rain. Lhiannon looked up as a dark-haired warrior scrambled down from
the rampart and over to the pile of stones to scoop more ammunition for
his sling into the bag hung from his belt, and she gave him what she
hoped was a cheery smile. The defenders of the hillfort had laid in sup-
plies enough for a lengthy siege, but construction had focused on
strengthening the ramparts and deepening the ditch between, not the
buildings within. Yet though comfort might be lacking, they had plenty
of water, and plenty of stones.
Now, of course, they could not forage for thatching straw or white-
wash to protect the wattle-and-daub walls. The circles of hastily erected
roundhouses clustered on the muddy turf of the hilltop were less secure
than the buildings in which folk kept their cows at home, and there were
no withies with which to mend the fencing that kept the cattle they had
brought here penned. The food had been moved to the best shelter, and
even then, some of it had spoiled. Humans were expected to be more
resilient. With a sigh she picked up her other foot, grimacing at the touch
of cold mud when she put the first one back down.
The reason she had refused to stay with Boudica was standing on
the rampart, peering between two of the pointed logs that formed the
palisade. Ardanos’s white robe was mud-colored now, but then so was
Lhiannon’s priestess-blue gown. What was needed here was a nice, neu-
tral gray. But new clothing was another thing they were going to have
to do without for a while.
Someone shouted and she squinted upward, following the flight of
the incoming stone with wary gaze. The Roman catapults were quite
powerful, but the area protected by the double rampart that surrounded
an extended square atop the hill was extensive enough that apart from
the wear and t
ear on everyone’s nerves, they rarely did any harm. The
boulders that struck the palisade were another matter, but they still had
logs enough to replace by night what was smashed during the day, bol-
stered by the stones with which the enemy had gifted them.
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Why was it that the epics the bards were so fond of reciting never
mentioned the sheer misery of standing seige in the rain? She hoped the
Romans were equally uncomfortable. She hoped that their iron breast-
and backplates were rusting together, the laminated arms of their bal-
listas becoming unglued, their leather tents rotting away.
Lhiannon stood up with a sigh and pulled the cloak over her hair
as the rain intensifi ed once more.
W e have held this place longer than any of the others,” said Caratac,
coughing as a draft set the smoke from the hearthfire swirling around the
roundhouse where the chieftains had gathered. Lhiannon shielded her
face with her veil and dipped up more herb tea from the cauldron. The
rain on the thatching made a dull patter beneath the whisper of the
fire, so familiar that it was only at moments like this, when everyone
fell silent, waiting for the smoke to clear, that she even noticed the
sound.
“Nearly two moons . . .” said Antebrogios, the chieftain Tancoric
had put in charge of the defenses. “But longer is not forever.” He
coughed, either from the smoke or from the catarrh that affl
icted most
of those
here. “Our supplies are getting low and we have sickness
among the men.”
“So do the Romans,” muttered one of the others. “At night you can
hear them coughing in their tents. They curse the climate of Britannia,
and they curse the emperor who sent them here.”
“Then let them go home to sunny Italia,” muttered someone. “If
this rain keeps up much longer I’ll be wishing I could go, too.”
“If they run out of food or men they can ask for replacements,”
pointed out his chieftain. “We cannot.”
“Are you saying we should give up?” challenged Caratac. He held
out his beaker for Lhiannon to refill. Like the rest of them, he was gaunt
and grimy, honed down by hardship to muscle and bone. If he had fore-
seen this day at the council on Mona, would he have spoken so boldly? she won-
dered as she handed the cup back to him. Would any of them?
Her gaze met that of Ardanos, sitting in the shadows near the door,
and she thought he was wondering, too. He had grown thin in the past
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weeks, with hollow cheeks and haunted eyes. Always before he had had
a wry comment or a cheerful word, but in the past weeks he had been
uncharacteristically quiet. They had not been tempted to dance together
at Beltane, for the defenders had not had wood enough for a bonfi re. He
no longer tried to persuade her to his bed, and that was the most dis-
turbing sign of all. But she had grown silent, too.
She looked away. If we speak, we are afraid we will have to admit that
there is no hope of victory . . .
“The Romans out there outnumber us,” Caratac said with quiet
intensity. “Their legions outnumber the Durotriges as they did the Tri-
novantes when we fought on the Tamesa. But they do not outnumber
the Britons of Britannia! If we do not give up, if we make them bleed
for every hillfort, every river crossing, every foot of ground, there will
come a time when the gold and grain they can seize from us cease to be
enough to pay for the lives of their men. That is why we must hold out
as long as we can, and if we are driven from this stronghold we will re-
treat to another. We can outlast them. This is our land!”
Perhaps even Caratac would have quailed, a year ago, if he had
known what was to come, but it was clear to Lhiannon that he could
not do so now. The others might surrender, but he must continue. He
had paid too much already to give in.
But what if the Romans felt the same way? What if every legionary
who fed the Morrigan’s ravens strengthened General Vespasian’s resolve
to destroy those who had brought him down?
Outside someone raised the alarm. Cursing, the chieftains snatched
up their swords and crowded through the door. Slipping and sliding in
the mud, one hand holding their shields up in a linked mass to repell
missiles from above while the other gripped a sword, the Romans were
assaulting the ramparts yet again.
It was not until midsummer that the rain let up at last.
Great shining fortresses of cloud drifted slowly eastward, having sur-
rendered all their store of rain, leaving the sun as victor on a field of blue.
At the Dun of Stones, besieged and besiegers alike paused a moment in
their labors, turning toward the light like flowers as the strengthening
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sun drew moisture from the soaked ground of the dun in curls of steam.
The humid air lay heavy in Lhiannon’s lungs, but it would dry, and the
mud on the slopes of the dun would dry, and the Romans would attack
again.
Overhead ravens were circling, dark and bright in turn as their glossy
wings caught the light of the sun. Be patient, she thought. Soon you will
feed!
She stripped down to her linen undertunic and draped her blue robe
over the thatch of her roundhouse, then began to undo her braids.
“Your hair is like spun sunlight . . .”
She felt a touch and turned almost into Ardanos’s arms.
“And you like a faerie child in your pale gown, with your white
arms gleaming in the sun.” Smiling a little, he began to work at the
tangles with which she had been struggling.
“Mud-colored around the hem, though it is kind of you to say so . . .”
she answered as steadily as she could. “But if death is coming, at least I
will face it in dry clothes.”
“Probably . . . almost certainly, I would say,” he answered with an
attempt at his old sardonic detachment. “When I looked over the pali-
sade there seemed to be a lot of activity down the hill. The Romans are
moving the ballistas into position for an assault, with no attempt to do
so unobserved. And why should they? Whenever they choose to assault
us we can only meet the attack with what we have. Which is not much.
We have almost no arrows, and even the supply of slinging stones is get-
ting low.”
“And a fortress cannot run away,” she agreed. Nor can those trapped
inside it. But there was no need to say that aloud.
He finished working on the second braid, combing the strands
out with his fingers so that they lay soft upon her shoulders, shining
in the sun.
“How is it that lack of food only makes you more beautiful?” he said
then. “You were almost too thin before, but now your spirit shines like
a lamp through your skin . . .” For the last week the food ration, never
ample, had been cut. The Romans might not have expected them to
hold out for so long, but An
tebrogios had never expected the Romans
would have the patience for so long a siege.
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Ardanos had grown gaunt as well. She saw now how he would look
when he was old, if indeed either of them survived to see old age. At this
moment it hardly mattered. To hear that gentle note in his voice, to see
that light in his eye, was what she needed now. If he was fey, then so was
she. It was not only hunger that made her lightheaded as she moved into
the circle of his arms.
The activity in the Roman camp continued all afternoon. In the
dun, the eve ning meal was quiet, but the cooks served out the best of
the food that remained. There was only water to drink, but the chief-
tains pledged each other as if it had been wine.
“If this night we are fated to fall, we should go rejoicing,” said Ar-
danos as the horn came to him. “The Romans we kill may go down to
gloomy Hades, but for us the Blessed Isles are waiting, until it is time to
enter the Cauldron and be born anew.”
The Isles of the Blessed, or the Otherworld the faerie woman showed me . . .
thought Lhiannon. If that lady should open such a gateway here and now
would she go through it? Not alone, she thought, looking at Ardanos.
Never, if she had to take that road alone.
“By all the gods, you men of the Durotriges will surely feast among
the heroes,” exclaimed Caratac. “None ever fought more bravely, or
endured so well.”
“None ever had such noble chieftains to lead them,” came the re-
sponse from the men.
When the meal was over, Lhiannon and Ardanos wandered out past
the empty livestock pens, looking up at the stars. The men who walked
the ramparts were singing. When they paused, one could hear a mur-
mur like distant thunder from below. But here on the pile of straw
where Ardanos had spread his cloak, it seemed very still.
Lhiannon rested her head upon his shoulder. They were both still
fully clothed, and he had made no move to change that. She could feel
a regular quiver beneath her palm, as if she held his heart in her hand.
“I never thought it would be in such a time and place when I fi nally lay
with you in my arms,” Ardanos said at last. “Or that it would be enough to
simply hold you, and know that this is where you chose to be.”
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