Ravens of Avalon (60 page)

He lifted Her and She swung up Her leg to hold Him, giving and taking, Her passion arousing His power, His peace transmuting Her anger to love, until they shuddered at last to equilibrium.

And as the waters of the sacred spring bore the queen’s blood to the earth of Britannia, the power that flowed from Avalon began its healing.

EPILOGUE

Lhiannon Speaks

arkness has fallen, and the wind whines in bare branches like Boudica’s hounds. At this season the Morrigan rides, but I do not welcome Her. Since our community was established at Vernemeton the Goddess has spoken through me many times, but never again have I opened my soul to the Lady of Ravens.

And yet She spoke truly. After Boudica died, I sent to bring Cail-lean from Eriu. We lived for a time in a stone tower on the northern coast, but even in that lonely place I heard rumors of the terror that followed the battle at Manduessedum. Governor Paulinus sought to restore his lost honor with fire and sword, and by the next summer scarcely a farmstead was left standing in the Iceni lands. But the procurator who replaced Decianus Catus understood that Roman crimes had driven the people to desperation, and he stopped the governor before he destroyed Britannia. And gradually, peace began to return.

Even now, much of Boudica’s kingdom lies desolate. But Argantilla and Caw went back eventually and built a house near where Danatobri-gos once stood, where they scratch a living from the soil. The Romans have rebuilt their ravaged cities. Camulodunum and Londinium and Verulamium are bigger than ever, and as Caractac feared, the children of our chieftains are learning Latin and becoming citizens.

The following spring, the priestesses left pregnant by Roman rape bore their bastards. Some of the girl-children were drowned, but the boys were claimed by the Society of Ravens. Coventa gave birth to a son as she had dreamed, and died in the bearing. Bendeigid has raised him as his own.

In the years after the attack on Mona, Ardanos traveled Britannia ceaselessly, visiting those of our Order who survived, and in time revealing himself to a few of the more liberal Romans and becoming their ally. I wonder if they have ever realized what a rebel he was when he was young. The Goddess knows he is a model for what the priest of a conquered people should be today.

I suppose his submission has been justified. Four years after the burning of Lys Deru, he got permission to establish a community at Vernemeton, where our priestesses might live secluded from the world. The Romans seem to have quite forgotten the dark-robed furies who terrified them on the shore of Mona, and think us kin to their Vestals.

The priests chose as Ardanos bade them, and made me High Priestess as Lady Mearan once foretold. Some days I myself find it hard to remember exactly how it came about. But I suppose the Goddess approves, for I have grown old in office. Caillean has become as fine a priestess as any we ever had on Mona, though I do not think the Council of Druids will accept her as my successor. She thinks for herself, and that is never popul ar with men.

I have never gone back to Avalon, and now I do not have the strength for the journey even if I should wish to go. Though Caillean loves me too well to admit it, I think that soon I will find the way to follow Boudica. I trust she has forgiven me for trying to hold her, as I have forgiven her for leaving me. I have done what I could to preserve the faith of our people, though there were times when I myself had none. Our ways will not be lost.

The procession that escorts the White Mare is coming, but louder than their voices is the song of the wind. That wind carried Boudica’s ashes throughout Britannia. Our people do not speak her name where Romans can hear, but she is remembered.

Rome will not give our women even so much freedom as our men are allowed. But once, a woman stood against the might of Rome, and for one shining, terrible summer, had the victory.

AFTERWORD

hen Marion Zimmer Bradley’s health began to fail during the writing of
The Forest House,
she asked me to help her finish the book. Marion’s invention of the Society of Ravens, a secret society of the sons of the Druid priestesses raped by Roman soldiers during the attack on the Isle of Mona, placed the novel firmly at the end of the first century. But the backstory of
The Forest House
offered even more enticing possibilities, including the Roman conquest of Britannia and the rebellion led by Queen Boudica, and Marion and I promised each other to tackle that story one day.

In this book, I have had the opportunity to do so at last. In the process, I struggled with a number of problems that the writer of fantasy is usually free to ignore. No matter how bravely Boudica fought, or how powerfully the Druids worked their magic, history tells us that they failed, as other brave and good people have failed throughout the centuries, or worse still, in the process of resisting commited the same kinds of crimes as their enemies.

Why do the gods allow such injustice? Can destiny overwhelm both virtue and free will? I do not pretend to have solved problems with which humans have struggled throughout history. I can only hope that the book will cause you, as it did me, to spend some time thinking about the questions.

The events in the novel are based on historical and archaeological evidence, where known. The Claudian invasion of Britain took place in 43 CE. Boudica’s rebellion and the Roman attack on the Druids oc-cured simultaneously sometime in 60 CE. For photos of some of the sites, a timeline, and further background information on how I worked it all out, and information on the other Avalon novels, see my Web site—
www.avalonbooks.net
.

We are currently experiencing a revival of interest in Boudica.

Recent biographies include those by M. J. Trow, Graham Webster, and Vanessa Collingridge. For a different view of the Roman conquest, try
The Heirs of King Verica,
by Martin Henig. In researching the book I also made use of the many Web sites devoted to British antiquities on the Internet. In particul ar, for the site and sequence of Caratac’s last battle, I drew on the work of Graham J. Morris:
www.battlefi
eld anomalies.com/caradoc/index.htm.

I am grateful to the staff at the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP), especially Dr. Neil Faulkner, for taking the time from their work to talk to me when I visited the sites I call the “Horse Shrine” and “Danatobrigos.” For information on finds in the area see the BBC production
Boudica’s Treasure,
the book
The Sedgeford Hoard,
by Dennis Megan and Neil Faulkner, and the SHARP Web site:
www.sharp.org.uk
. The details of Prasutagos’s building projects are based on East Anglian Archaeology Publications Reports EAA 30 and 53, describing excavations in Norfolk. Any mistakes in interpretation are my own.

If you should wish to visit the (most probable) site of Boudica’s last battle, just outside of Mancetter, I recommend the Old House B&B (
www.theoldhousebandb.co.uk/
). The battlefield is on the other side of the A-5 from the B&B.

—Samhain 2006

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