Ravens of Avalon (10 page)

Lhiannon had been given the title of Mistress of the House of Maidens, and now, as if even that much recognition was a threat to her, Helve had assigned her rival to go with Ardanos and the other Druids who were being sent to Durovernon to support Caratac with battle-magic if this ritual should fail.

Boudica jerked back to attention as the murmur of invocation ceased, a shiver of mingled anticipation and apprehension chilling her spine. At the equinox the world hung balanced between the old season and the new. What was done at this moment would push the luck of the new season in one direction or another. But did they really want to involve the gods? It was one thing to discuss the Lady of Ravens in a teaching circle at noon, and something else entirely to call on her as darkness swept across the land.

The Arch-Druid touched one of the torches to the seasoned wood laid ready on the altar and it exploded into flame.

“Raven of Battle …” the High Priestess cried, and like a sigh the priestesses echoed her. “Hear us!”

“Virgin, hag, and lover— Lady of the twisted mouth— Lady of the open thighs— Bone-witch, bride of shadow— Truth-teller, Nightmare rider— Great queen who gives victory— Great queen who gives death—”

“Cathubodva! Great Queen! Hear us!” The response grew ever louder, male and female choruses clashing as they drove each other to greater intensity. “Your meat is death, your drink, life’s blood! Here is food for your ravens, Lady—receive our offering!”

Two of the younger Druids came forward, carrying some small furred creature that jerked and struggled in their hands—a hare. Boudica suppressed a pulse of superstitious terror. The hare that rose reborn from beneath the scythe was sacred. It was never eaten—this sacrifice would not be shared, but taken to some lonely spot and given to the Goddess entire.

One man grasped the creature by its long ears, holding it stretched. Steel flashed red in the firelight as Helve slashed the hare’s throat. A deeper crimson stained her hands as its blood spurted sizzling into the fire. The air above the flames shimmered—with smoke, or was she seeing the life energy of the animal? Boudica’s nostrils flared at the burnt meat smell as the emptied carcass was set aside.

“You shall take from our foes the blood of their hearts and the kidneys of their valor!” More pungent clouds billowed upward as the High Priestess cast a handful of herbs onto the fire. “Upon our foes you shall cast the shadow of fear and loathing, the shadow in the ocean, the shadow in the forest, the shadow in the spirit … When they turn toward Britannia, every night terror, every noonday fear their hearts hold shall rise up to haunt them!”

Helve turned, arms outstretched, but no one moved. It was not their bodies she was calling, but their souls. From two dozen throats came a cry, bearing with it the power of those who shouted, and the priestess bound it into the roil of energy above the fire.

Above the circle the smoke was forming itself into a shape alternately seductive and monstrous. One of the priestesses had fainted, and Boudica saw a white huddle where a priest clutched the grass in fear, but the others, pale as she knew that she herself must be, continued to sing. Helve’s eyes were white-rimmed, teeth drawn back over lips in an ecstatic smile.

“It is I, Helve, who conjure you, I who command you! Hearken to my will!”

Should she be saying that? Surely the place of a mortal was to entreat, not to command … For a moment Boudica felt a different kind of fear.

“Cry out upon the Romans that they shall not come against us! Crush their courage! They shall not come!”

Once more her arms swept upward, and she screamed. Boudica cowered beneath the gaze of eyes black as a night without stars.

I am fury …
said a voice in her soul.
I am fear… Which will you choose?
An oak tree split asunder as power descended, and sleeping birds exploded in screeching flocks from the grove.
With blood you have called me, and blood will flow until I am satisfied!

Boudica s creamed—they were all screaming as the shadow swept over them and was borne south and east upon a wave of sound.

cross Britannia it blew, a nightmare wind that set dogs to barking and babies to crying as it galloped through men’s dreams, over Britannia, and across the heaving gray waves of the narrow sea to a place called Gesoriacum on the coast of Gallia. It struck the close-ranked leather tents like a thousand furies, snapping guy ropes and flinging poles through the air. And the men of the legions woke gibbering with fear.

And in the morning they looked upon the sea and saw in each wave a face of terror, and they turned in their ranks to face their officers and said, “We will not go …”

FIVE

hiannon twitched as the smith’s hammer clanged on the glowing bar. After a month in Durovernon she should have grown accustomed to the clamor, but each stroke jarred all the way up her spine. She looked at the piles of iron swords and spear points, bronze harness fittings and helms and shield bosses and remembered the offerings the princes had given to the sacred pool. How many of the weapons the smiths were beating out now would end up in the water, and who would throw them there?

Since the equinox three weeks had passed. The Romans had not come, but clearly the narrow sea that had once made Caesar’s landings so hazardous was kinder to the traders who fared back and forth between the Celtic tribes of Gallia and Britannia, for through the gate of the dun a wagon driven by a swarthy Greek was creaking, full of southern luxuries. As the trader began to unload, men gathered around him. Lhiannon drew closer, followed by the other Druids, with Bendeigid close behind. A few moments later they were joined by Caratac and some of his chieftains.

“You warriors go home now.” White teeth gleamed in a black beard as the trader grinned. “Those Romans, they all afraid! They call the Middle Sea ‘Our Sea,’ but these waves—” he gestured eastward, “—that’s
Ocean
—full of monsters to eat ‘em if they go that way. And here—” he waved vaguely around him, “—this be the end of the world.”

“They mutinied?” snapped Caratac.

“That they did—just after the equinox!” the trader grinned again. “All of ‘em woke up screaming. When the officers lined ‘em up they say Britannia no place for civilized men an’ they won’t go!”

There was a whoop of triumph from one of the men, and another went dashing off to spread the news.

“The Turning of Spring …” echoed Ardanos. “They did it, then— the Calling …” Before he and Lhiannon and the others left Mona there had been a great deal of discussion regarding what role Druid magic might play in the struggle to come and what form of magic might best serve their cause. The glance he exchanged with Lhiannon communicated what he could not in this company say aloud—
So Helve is good for something after all …

“But we knew that already,” Lhiannon said softly. “The night of the equinox we felt the power pass.”

“And now we know it worked!” said Cunitor. “May it work according to our will!”

Caratac raised one eyebrow. “That night of terror was the work of the Druids? I wish you had told us at the time.”

Cunitor had the grace to look ashamed, but in truth it had not occurred to any of them to share what they knew with those who were not Druid oathed and trained.

“That was the Lady of Ravens who screamed through our dreams,” explained Ardanos.

And she is a force that once invoked may be hard to banish,
thought Lhi-annon, but that was not something that Caratac needed to know.

Belina bent to murmur in Lhiannon’s ear, “Did you really think Helve would choose any lesser working when she could call on so spectacular a power?” Lhiannon nodded, but said nothing. Belina, who had never been in the running for High Priestess, could afford to express herself without being suspected ofjealousy.

“Well, whatever you accomplished, my warriors seem to be convinced you worked a miracle. Good for your reputation, not so good if I want to keep an army.” Caratac pointed toward the encampment that had sprung up outside the dun, buzzing now like an overturned hive. Already some were packing up their gear.

Bendeigid watched them wistfully. In the last year he had grown gangly with the approach of manhood. Since they arrived at Durover-non he had spent most of his time badgering the warriors to teach him sword and shield. There had been times when the hardships of the journey had made Lhiannon painfully aware ofjust how easy her life at Lys Deru had been. But bruised feet and aching muscles were a small price to pay to be with Ardanos instead of wondering how he fared.

“How many do you think will stay?” Ardanos was asking now.

“Half of Britannia already believes that this gathering is a ploy to make Togodumnos High King over all the tribes,” Caratac said bitterly. “And those who did answer my call will be wanting to get home to sow their fields.”

The Druids nodded. All men knew that the time for fighting was summer, between planting and harvest. It was only the Romans who had made war a way of life and could field an army at any time of the year.

“The question is whether the Romans are truly discouraged, or only waiting,” observed Cunitor. “They will not have forgotten how Caesar’s ships were savaged by our storms. Surely they will not board ship before summer, if indeed they come.”

“I would just as soon they came now, while I still have an army,” muttered Caratac. Frowning, he turned to Lhiannon. “I know that some among your order are trained as oracles. Lady, if you are such a one, will you seek to see what is going on? Surely you understand why I wish to know!”

“So do we all …” murmured Lhiannon.

“She will try, but not until the eve of Beltane.” Ardanos’s words cut across her own. “In three weeks, the energies will be stronger, and she must have time to prepare.”

There was an edge to his words that only Lhiannon could understand. Helve’s accession as High Priestess had changed many things about Lhiannon’s relationship to the community at Mona. It was not yet clear whether her relationship to Ardanos had been among them. At night, on their journey here, she had been acutely aware that he was sleeping on the other side of the fire. What would it be like to sleep
beside
him, with the length of his body curled against hers, the little snorting sounds he made as he slept tickling her ear? Sometimes he would wake, and she would feel his gaze like a touch upon her soul, and know that he was wondering, too.

But their journey, which might have offered so many opportunities, had been quite lacking in the privacy to take advantage of them. And if she was needed to serve Caratac as a seeress, there was a reason to preserve her virginity after all. Helve would probably prefer that she be the only one to serve as Oracle, but was not this one of the Druidic skills that they had been sent to Caratac to provide?

Now Ardanos was looking at her, and she understood both the pain and the resolve in his eyes.
He knows that this means that he will not lie with me this Beltane … and we would make the same decision again.
She felt an odd pain somewhere near her heart at she realized that they would always choose duty above their desires.

n the days that followed Beltane, it occurred to Lhiannon that when most people thought about oracles, they had it the wrong way around. Seeing visions was easy. The hard part was understanding what you had seen. They had gone to one of the mounds the ancient ones had raised for their dead for the ritual. She had seen an eagle fight with a raven, and a white narcissuss blossom that towered over all. And the eagle had become three flocks that flew toward Britannia.

But they were not left long to wonder what the vision might mean. Before a week had passed, a light craft came skimming over the waves from Gallia with news. The mutiny was over. One of the emperor’s secretaries, a freedman named Narcissus, had halted it, haranguing the soldiers from the general’s podium, and after the first shock, appealing to a sense of humor one would not have suspected the legionnaries had. And now the fleet that had waited for so long was being loaded with supplies and men. Three fleets there were, as Lhiannon had seen—one to return Veric to his country and the two others to seek Caesar’s route to the Cantiaci lands.

The Druids joined their energies to send out a psychic warning to any who could hear. Those of their order who served as priests in the villages would alert their warriors—if anyone believed them. And Caratac had sent runners to summon those who had so recently returned to their homes and who were now in the midst of work in the fields. They came, but slowly, and the king had gathered scarcely half his force by the time the Roman general Aulus Plautius beached his prows on Britannic soil.

The Romans had made their landing on the coast to the east of Du-rovernon where the river flowed into the sea. Black ships in the hundreds lay in rows on the shelving sands like some unseasonable migration of waterfowl. The scouts Caratac had sent to observe them reported that they had marched a short way inland and raised some simple defenses on a low hill. They must have wondered why no one was there to meet them, but the king’s orders had sent even the farmers fleeing from their path.

Soon the Roman horde was marching westward, harried by anyone who could throw a spear or shoot a bow. And still Caratac waited, as in ones and twos and tens the men of the Cantiaci and Trinovante warriors from across the Tamesa came in, until in the final days of Beltane month the Romans neared Durovernon, and Caratac must choose whether to surrender his dun or make a stand.