Ravens of Avalon (17 page)

“Lhiannon, by all that’s holy! You always did find out everything the great ones were doing. I ought to have known you would be here.”

Lhiannon found herself enveloped in a scented embrace, then held away as the women conducted a mutual inspection.

“You’ve kept your figure, I see,” said the queen. “Is it any use to you, or are you still fighting Helve for the right to sit in the Oracle’s chair?”

Lhiannon felt herself blushing in spite of herself. Clearly Cartiman-dua’s speech had grown no less frank since she had become a queen.

“Lady Mearan died earlier this summer. Helve is High Priestess now.”

“Oh ho—and I’ll wager she loves it! Do you remember the summer we plagued her with frogs? Frogs in her bed and frogs in her shoes and everywhere. I don’t think she ever did figure out which of us holy maidens was responsible. So she rules now, and you and Ardanos are in exile, eh?”

“We were sent to assist Caratac,” Lhiannon said, a little stiffly.

“Ah, that was a bad business.” Cartimandua’s mood shifted and she sighed. “So many beautiful men lost. But it does no good to fight the tide. The Romans are too strong, and we must make the best peace we can.”

“So you and Venutios mean to surrender?”

“To become a client-kingdom, if we can,” the queen corrected. “We’ll pay for it, but we will keep some freedom. And there will be favors from the Romans as well.” She laughed suddenly. “I can live with such a bargain. It’s the same I made with Venutios, after all!”

Lhiannon blinked. “Does your husband love you?”

Cartimandua lifted a dark eyebrow. “Love is not a word often used between princes. He is brisk in bed, when the situation requires. The rest of the time … he respects me.”

She has lovers,
thought Lhiannon. But surely that was no surprise. At Lys Deru, Cartimandua had taken any lad who pleased her to her bed even before she was officially of an age to go to the Beltane fires. It had been something of a scandal at the time, but everyone knew that the Brigantes had their own ways, and some of their clans still counted royal descent through their queens. She suspected that Cartimandua would have been a law unto herself in any land.

“And what are you doing here? Do you have Caratac tucked away somewhere disguised as a groom? Not that I wouldn’t like to see him again, but I don’t think the Romans would welcome him.”

A sudden caution stopped Lhiannon from telling Cartimandua where the Cantiaci king was now. Instead she began to talk about Boudica and their journey from Avalon.

“No doubt I will see her at the feasting,” said the queen. “Poor child. With two sons killed, Dubrac will use her to buy an alliance somewhere. Prasutagos’s wife died three years ago. My guess is that they will marry him to Boudica to unite the northern and southern royal lines.”

am seeing the last riding of free Britannia,
thought Boudica as her father led his little cavalcade out to join those of the other kings. Until now the reality of their situation had not truly touched her. Fighting a surge of panic, she gripped the side of the wagon as it jolted along the road.

The Romans had built their camp between the old protecting dike and a new triple ditch and bank extending straight as a spear to the river, making no concession to the lay of the land. For the first time she began to understand the sheer size of an empire that could permanently dedicate so many men to such a purpose. And this was only one of Rome’s armies.

Only a few poles with standards could be seen above the dikes, but she could hear the noise of the Roman camp, like the humming of an enormous hive. And then they came to the gate in its center, lined with legionaries whose armor blazed in the summer sun. They watched the Britons with narrowed eyes. From the goat-fish painted on their battered shields she knew them for the legion led by general Vespasian, who at the battle on the Medu had been responsible for the victory.

Be easy,
she thought grimly.
We have not come to fight you, but to pass beneath the yoke of Rome.

Boudica turned away as her father and brother unbelted their swords and gave them to a bemedaled centurion. Then, teeth drawn, each group of native princes was escorted within. This camp held thirty thousand men. Only now, seeing the precise ranks of leather tents stretching away to either side, did she begin to comprehend what that number must mean. If they could ever be gathered, the Britons would have more warriors, but she could not imagine a Celtic army ever achieving such discipline. Her own response to a challenge had always been to fight, but this enemy was overwhelming.
The Romans cannot be defeated,
she thought with a sinking heart.
Each tribe must seek the best terms of surrender it can.

They were being marched straight down the main avenue toward a pavilion as large as Cunobelin’s feasting hall, of sturdy fabric dyed a deep purple and trimmed with glittering gold. The area before it was fenced with tall soldiers whose armor was ornamented with gold, and whose expressions showed less hatred but greater pride. These dark blue shields had never seen battle. The gold thunderbolts extending from the silver wings above and below the boss and the silver stars and moons in their corners were unmarred.

“The Praetorian Guard …” murmured her brother Dubnocoveros. “They murdered Claudius’s predecessor, Caligula. They are the only ones allowed to kill an emperor, it would seem …”

A glare from one of the officers silenced him, whether because the man spoke Celtic or because no speech was allowed. The former was possible, she supposed—the man looked like a Gaul.

One by one the little groups of royalty were led in to make their submission to the emperor. Queen Cartimandua, resplendent in an embroidered green gown that made Boudica feel underdressed, marched in with her husband, heavily jowled and dour, by her side. Did the Romans understand that the Brigante rulers could speak only for the clans of that vast northern region that in the shifting web of Brigante alliances were for the moment on their side? Or was Cartimandua depending on Roman help to tip the balance of power and bring them all under her rule?

Bodovoc of the Northern Dobunni stood apart from the others, smugly aware of his advantage in having submitted to the Romans
before
they conquered. He would have to keep peace with his southern cousin Corio now. The other early collaborator, King Veric, had already been presented. He and his toga-clad heir, Cogidubnos, had the privilege of standing with the senators and watching the humiliation of their fellow kings. No one waited here to make submission for the Cantiaci, the Tri-novantes, or the Catuvellauni. They were conquered peoples, and their lands would be administered directly by the Roman governor.

And then it was the turn of the Iceni. The high king Antedios, graying at the temples and gaunted by recent anxiety, stepped forward, followed by Dubrac, who was now his closest male relation, and Prasutagos, whose brother’s death had left him lord of the Northern Iceni clans.

My possible future husband …
she thought, considering him with new eyes. Although in theory she had the right to refuse, her father had made his preference clear. At least she had met Prasutagos already, and supposed him to be kind. She remembered him as a man of few words. Just now he was so quiet he seemed hardly present at all. As they passed into the Imperial tent their eyes met, and Boudica knew he must be remembering all their proud boasts on Mona.

Yet here we both are, and you will not tell them I was trained by the Druids, and I will not say that you were Caratac’s ally.
Perhaps they ought to marry to ensure each other’s silence. But first they had to survive the next hour.

A dim illumination, purple as a winter dusk, filtered through the heavy cloth. As her eyes adjusted, she began to pick out the grim, weathered profiles of the guards, the clean-shaven faces of the senators, calculating or bored, and the emperor, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus himself, draped in an an embroidered silk garment the same purple as the tent, so that his face seemed to float above it like the apparition of a god.

He was a tense, tired, god, she thought, with a lined face and ears that stood out from a head that seemed too big for its neck. The physical infirmities of which she had heard were hidden by the flowing robe. But his eyes seemed unexpectedly kind. How comforting, she thought, to know that whatever he ordered done to them would not be out of spite, but from policy.

She knelt with the others, grateful for the rich carpet that covered the floor. If they must abase themselves, at least it would be in luxury.

One of the emperor’s servants began to declaim something in which she recognized the Iceni names, translated into Celtic phrase by phrase by the interpreter.

“You are here to submit to the Senate and People of Rome, to offer yourselves and your families, your tribesmen, and your servants as willing and obedient subjects of the Empire. Do you agree to this bond?”

Antedios, Dubrac, and Prasutagos set the palms of their hands upon the floor. “May the earth open to swallow us, may the sea wash over us, may the sky fall upon us, if we fail to keep faith with the High King of the Roman tribes.”

The translator spoke again. “This is Lucius Junius Pollio.” One of the Romans, draped in a toga but without the purple stripe of a senator, stepped forward. Lean and dark-featured, he looked military, despite his flowing garb. “He will collect your taxes under the procurator, but you will keep your own laws and govern your people as our clients, so long as those laws and governance are not in violation of the laws of Rome. Our allies will be your allies, and your enemies our enemies.”

The emperor bent to whisper something to one of his advisors, who spoke to the translator in turn.

“The emperor asks whether you have heirs.”

“King Prasutagos is newly come to lordship and has neither wife nor child,” came the answer. “King Antedios is his overking, and his next heir is Dubrac, whose son Dubnocoveros kneels at his side.”

Boudica saw her brother stiffen as the emperor spoke again.

“Your people cannot become good subjects of the Empire until they understand Rome. It is therefore our policy to educate royal heirs in our own court, as we did Prince Cogidubnos. Dubnocoverus filius Dubraci will go with us along with the other young men of good family when we return.”

Dubi’s convulsive twitch was stilled by his father’s hand. This had not been discussed, but taking hostages was Roman policy. She saw now why the kings had been instructed to bring their families. The governor’s man, Pollio, was staring at her as if he wished
she
had been the hostage. She willed herself to invisibility, grateful the decision was not in his hands.

“Rise, allies of Rome!”

First Antedios and then Prasutagos received a golden chain with a medallion showing the face of the emperor. One by one they were allowed to kiss the imperial hand. And then they were being ushered out into a day that seemed robbed of warmth, as if the Romans had taken the sunlight along with their freedom.

hey have even stolen the stars,” said Boudica.

Lhiannon looked up, startled by the bitterness in the younger woman’s tone. No need to ask who
they
might be. Above the Roman camp the sky was red with the light of a thousand fires. She knew the clouds were reflecting the light, but there was something unnerving about that bloody glow. They had walked out into the fields beyond the Iceni encampment to talk, but there was no peace here.

“Beyond the clouds the stars still shine,” she said bracingly. “And we will see them again one day.”

“Is that some Druid prophecy? Your fore tellings have proven true enough—you should have listened to them.” Boudica’s voice shook with pain.

“The situation looks grim, but the Romans only hold one corner of Britannia. If Caratac can rally the other tribes—”

“He will fight with greater hope if you don’t let him hear the Oracle’s predictions,” Boudica replied. “You haven’t seen the Roman camp, row upon row of metal-clad men. How can anyone stand against them?”

Lhiannon winced, remembering how beautiful the Trinovante warriors had looked as they ran forward to dash their naked bodies against the Roman steel.

“Come back with me to Mona. You will be safe on the Druids’ Isle.” The path led them alongside a thorn hedge. As they passed, a hare leaped out from its shadows and went bounding across the grass.

“Do you really believe that? We both heard Lady Mearan’s words. The Romans know that until they eliminate the Druids, their hold on Britannia will never be secure. They will find Mona. It is only a matter of time.”

Lhiannon moved a little away, instinctively raising mental shields against the younger woman’s despair. “I have to believe there is hope,” she said in a low voice. “Even if I am wrong. I cannot betray the men I saw die at the Tamesa by giving up now.”

“Ah, I am sorry! I did not mean to hurt you!” Boudica reached out to hug her. “When I first got here I despised my father for surrendering so easily. But now I think that he is right. To cooperate is the only way we can retain any independence at all!”

“And so you will stay, and marry Prasutagos, as you tell me your father desires?”