Red-Robed Priestess

by Elizabeth Cunningham

  She lifted her eyes to mine again.

  “I was too angry with you,” she said bluntly, “and too afraid of what I might do if I found out you had told him anything.”

  “Oh, Sarah.”

  I felt for us both, how hard it was to love each other and not understand each other.

  “What did he say when you said I was crazy?” I asked after a moment.

  “He sympathized,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Yes, he agreed that you were demented. Said you had come to him babbling incoherently about some vision.”

  “Babbled, did he say babbled?” I felt insulted, and then I realized: he was covering for me.

  “He did. I wanted to kill him on the spot, and I would have, but Bele grabbed my arm, and said we better not leave you unattended.”

  I started to laugh, and I couldn’t stop. Sarah stared at me with mingled wonder and disgust.

  “You are crazy,” she said.

  “So I’ve been told,” I said, still gasping with laughter. “You and the general agree on that much.”

  And then I remembered why the general had called me crazy, and I sobered up.

  “Listen, Sarah, I want to tell you something about why I, well, why I took the general as a lover.”

  “I really don’t want to know,” Sarah looked pained, “unless you did it to get information out of him. Did you? Find out anything?”

  I shook my head.

  “Nothing that we don’t already know. Sarah, I saw something yesterday when we were in that valley. Maybe you sensed it, too. Something terrible. The general wasn’t lying when he said I told him about a vision. I wanted to try to stop it happening. I wanted to him to want to stop it happening. I thought if I—”

  It really did not make sense when I said it out loud.

  “Anyway, I warned him,” I concluded lamely.

  “But he didn’t believe you,” Sarah stated. “He thought you were crazy.”

  I didn’t answer. It might be worse than that. He had believed me; I swear he had shared my vision, but not my conclusion: that this horror could and must be prevented. By him. That’s the part he thought was crazy.

  “What’s done is done,” Sarah decided, and she reached for both my hands, the acorn pressed between her right and my left. “As far as I am concerned, we will never see that man again, we will never come to this place again.”

  Her voice was fierce, determined, as if by sheer will she could make it so. I wished she could, but I sensed some part of her knew that it wasn’t over yet. But for now at least, she and I had come to some peace together.

  “Alyssa, Bele. It’s safe now,” Sarah called over her shoulder, and then she turned to me. “Are you ready?”

  It took me a moment to register. Sarah was deferring to me; she was waiting for me, waiting for me to claim my stake in this journey.

  “Let’s go, everyone,” I said in a loud, clear voice. “We ride east!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  TRUTH?

  AFTER OUR CONFRONTATION, Sarah and I were at once more at ease and more careful of each other, as if the new peace between us had to be swaddled and held close. For someone who was the daughter of eight mothers, I confess I was finding it challenging to be the mother of two. Maybe that was it: the ratio was all wrong. My mothers could always pass the blame endlessly among them. Not to mention they had shipped me off to druid school when I was fourteen. And had never seen me again, I reminded myself. Did their hearts still ache for me as mine had ached for Sarah the long years she was missing, as mine still ached for the tiny red-headed baby who had grown up to be a queen? Had Boudica ever longed for her vanished mother? Would she welcome her sudden uninvited reappearance?

  Each day we rode further east into more settled country, Roman towns cheek by jowl with the round wattle daub huts of native homesteads. Each day my doubts deepened. When Branwen and Viviane told me the story the druids had concocted about my disappearance, I had been incensed. At that moment, I would have rushed to Boudica’s side, hell bent on setting the record straight: I never would have left you. I was forced into exile. I did not abandon you. Now I heard the implication of my self-exoneration. No, Boudica, it’s the people you admired most and wanted to emulate who lied to you shamelessly for their own ends.

  What about that truth would ever set her free? Free from what? And would I be telling the truth for her sake or for mine? Cariad, I spoke to my beloved silently. You never addressed that point, did you?

  And he remained silent now.

  At last it came time to leave the Wyddelian Road and ride northeast on smaller roads and cart tracks. Or, at least, Sarah had decided it was.

  “We haven’t asked directions of anyone,” I pointed out.

  We had paused for a midday break on a hill overlooking a valley. The road led across it to a large town with earth fortifications surrounding it.

  “We don’t need to,” said Sarah. “You told us Branwen and Viviane said to leave the Roman road when we came into the territory of the Catuvellauni. We’re right in the heart of it. By my calculations that town over there is Verulamium.”

  The Catuvellauni, the tribe who had spawned the resistance fighter Caratacus, had clearly returned to their Roman-loving ways. Though Verulamium looked like any other Roman settlement, it had been built by the Catuvellauni by themselves and for themselves, complete with Roman-style gymnasiums and baths. Flattered and encouraged by the imitation, Rome had granted the town status as a municipium, second only in status to a colonia . Local magistrates were rewarded with Roman citizenship at the end of their term. A model town from the Roman point of view.

  “Why don’t we stop there before we go north?’ I suggested casually, aware that I wanted to stall the last leg of our journey for as long as I could. “We could go to the baths, eat something we haven’t foraged or killed. Make ourselves presentable.”

  Sarah looked at me, almost sorrowfully I thought. Here was her mother, who had survived exile beyond the ninth wave, who had shared her father’s open air ministry, who had toughed it out in the Taurus Mountains, lived aboard ships for seven years, inhabited a cave, here she was craving Roman-style luxuries at every turn.

  “We bathed in the river this morning,” Sarah said.

  “So we did,” I agreed. “I just like hot water now and again.”

  “Since you’re usually in it, Mother of Sarah, that’s just as well,” remarked Alyssa.

  “And you can hardly be hungry,” Sarah went on. “We feasted last night on rabbit and greens.”

  “And ate cold leftovers this morning,” Bele took my side, as she sometimes did. “Cold, just like the river water. No, sorry, the river was colder than the rabbit. Way colder. Try bone-numbing.”

  “We have precious few coins and nothing to barter,” said Alyssa, who kept track of the purse.

  “There’s a more important reason not to go,” Sarah stated. “We stand out. Four women traveling without men. People will be curious and the Catuvellauni are now an enemy tribe. We don’t want them knowing our business.”

  I heard also what she wasn’t saying, that if the general had sent out our description and wanted to keep track of our movements, we would be easily spotted there.

  “All right, let’s go on then, but before we do I want to say something.” I took a breath and prepared to annoy my companions. “I am the one among us who was raised in the Holy Isles and trained by the druids. I was enslaved in Rome and saw my husband killed by Romans. So if anyone has reason to hate them and regard them all as enemies, it’s me. Yes, I know you were arrested by the Romans and spent a night in a Roman jail, but let’s face it, you were, in fact, pirates.”

  All three of them began to sputter.

  “Wait,” I held up my hand. “I’m not done. Do not imagine that all the natives here are blameless heroes or shameless collaborators or all Romans exploiting tyrants. The Romans invaded here, because they could. Because the tribes warred with each other and made and
betrayed alliances as it suited them, Boudica’s tribe among them.”

  There was a silence.

  “Are you defending the Pax Romana?” Sarah asked, trying to keep her tone even and not quite succeeding. “Have you become an apologist for the Empire?”

  Because of that man, she did not say, but I could hear her thinking it.

  “No,” I said, and I hoped it was true. “I only want to say, nothing is simple.” I was old enough, why couldn’t I speak wisdom instead of clichés. “Let me put it this way, Sarah. The Romans killed your father; the druids tried to. If it comes to choosing sides, I am on the side of truth.” I startled myself by quoting my beloved. “Though I will admit I don’t always know what it is.”

  That was the truth, all right, but it didn’t have the same ring as: And all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice. No one was listening to me, as far as I could tell, or if they were, only reluctantly. Before anyone could answer or argue, I whistled for Macha, and led the way north.

  I am glad now that I never saw Verulamium or any of its inhabitants.

  When I think of Iceni country, always in my memory is the sound and smell of water. Streams everywhere, some running free, some cut as channels. In this flat country with just a hint of roll or hill, the sky is huge, yet often low with clouds and mists that swirl and shift. Because of the water, this is a country of birds—bitterns, larks, curlews, orioles—and their constant sound gives a brightness and lightness to a land of seamless green and grey. It was excellent grazing land for cattle, and I knew the Iceni exported lots of meat. They were also known for the horses they bred and trained. The pirates turned horse whisperers felt right at home, and our mounts as well. It was great country for galloping.

  Late in the afternoon of our second day of riding north, we asked the way of a wizened cattle herder who’d brought his cows to drink in a shallow ford. Many Celts are tall and strapping, but he looked like he must be descended from the smaller peoples that the Celts (in their turn) had invaded.

  “King Prasutagus and Queen Boudica?” the man repeated, seeming a bit wary. “Are you strangers here? Where do you come from?”

  We had kept so much to ourselves on the road and been so suspicious of others, we had forgotten that we might encounter suspicion. We needed to offer credentials (that is to say, lineage) and I was the only one who had any that might be comprehensible.

  “We’ve been living in Gaul,” I said, truthfully enough. “I am the foster daughter of the late King Bran of the Silures. And I am kinswoman to Queen Boudica.”

  That sounded good, I thought. I was impressed with myself for quick thinking.

  “Maybe you can talk some sense to your kinswoman then. No good can come of it. No good. Kings and queens, it’s all quarreling and cattle raiding and taking of captives and buying and selling. Fun for the warriors, while they live. Me, I’ve been bought and sold more than once. My kin are the kine.”

  “I understand, combrogo,” said Sarah. “I’d trust my horse over most people, any day. But would you, out of kindness, tell us if we are going the right way?”

  “Combrogo, you call me? Combrogo. A word the queen likes. Keep going. Ride till the east darkens, and look for the left fork, if it’s herself you want, the left fork.”

  He paid little attention to our thanks, and we rode on without questioning him further. Sarah dropped back and slowed her pace to ride beside me for awhile.

  “We must be near,” she said. “It sounds as though that man has actually heard her speak.”

  “Branwen said that when the Romans tried to disarm the tribes, Boudica went around and rallied them to rebel,” I told her. “She probably gave lots of speeches then. Who knows how far afield she may have traveled.”

  “He did say, in that poetic way, ride until the east darkens. That will be in another couple of hours,” she said, and when I did not respond she added, “You’re nervous, aren’t you, Mother?”

  “Nervous?” I repeated. I had been avoiding naming the feeling in the pit of my stomach, the clamminess of my hands, but now that the subject had been raised, I might as well be precise. “I’m terrified.”

  Sarah said nothing for awhile, her eyes turned to the horizon, as if trying to gauge its darkening. The sun behind us found a break in the clouds and cast its rays on the clouds to the east, an effect I usually enjoyed.

  “I suppose you have reason to be afraid,” she said. “But I always think of you as fearless.”

  “You do?”

  “It used to comfort me, all those years we were apart, to think of you being brave and fierce and coming to my rescue.”

  “I thought you hated me when you ran away,” I ventured; this was territory we usually avoided.

  “I forgot to after awhile,” she said matter-of-factly. “And you did rescue me, eventually. I was right.”

  “I’m glad I had the chance,” I said. “But I always think of you as the fierce and fearless one. Beating up all the boys in the village, and then leaving a trail of black eyes and bloody noses as you went.”

  “I’m tough,” she admitted, “but not fearless. And not as foolish as you, either. Fearlessness and foolishness often go together.”

  She punctured the swelling of my maternal bosom.

  “I prefer the word impulsive,” I said.

  “Whatever.” Sarah waved away my semantics. “Have you thought about what you are going to say to Boudica?”

  “I have thought about it,” I told her. “However out of character you may find it, I don’t intend to be hasty.”

  Sarah considered for a moment.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, it might not be wise for me to rush in and say ‘I am your long-lost mother.’ That’s all.”

  “Then how are you going to present yourself?” she asked, reasonably enough.

  “Well,” I said, “as I told the cattleman, I am the foster daughter of King Bran. That ought to do it, especially since I have a message for her from Branwen.”

  “You do?” Sarah was surprised. “You never told me about that.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said firmly. “I am to give her Branwen’s love. Oh and Viviane’s if I must.”

  “Right,” said Sarah. “And you rode across the whole country to do that. And where are you supposed to have been all these years? What are you going to tell her about your life?”

  I didn’t answer. Clearly, I hadn’t thought it through.

  “What I’m asking,” Sarah persisted, “is, are you, well, going to concoct some story?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You just said you were on the side of truth.”

  “A story is true if it’s well told,” I fell back on my mothers’ old axiom.

  “You always said that to me when I was a child,” retorted Sarah. “But you know what, Mother? That’s a lie. Come on. Let’s pick up the pace.”

  The truth is, she who has the faster horse has the last word.

  There is no more delaying now. The east is darkening; the clouds have thinned enough that I can see the first star just east of mid-heaven. I can also just barely see the fork in the cart track. The right fork leads to a large torch-lit Roman villa, and the left fork leads to…more darkness.

  “Can this be right?” Bele wondered after about a mile.

  “We could go back to that huge villa and ask the way,” suggested Alyssa.

  “Just a little further,” Sarah urged. “Just over that rise. I hear dogs barking.”

  My hands trembled so badly, Macha could feel it; she whinnied at my uneasiness, and the dogs barked louder. As soon as we crested the rise, we saw it: a large village of round houses behind a wooden stockade. In the next moment, half a dozen warriors arose seemingly out of nowhere; we were surrounded. Each warrior had an arrow or a spear aimed at one of our hearts.

  “Who goes there?” demanded the leader. His voice sounded frail and elderly for a captain of the guard. “Who approaches the Queen’s seat by night and by st
ealth?”

  None of us answered for a moment. Bele and Alyssa didn’t understand the language well enough. Though Sarah was a quick study with languages, she seemed, for once, to be waiting for me to speak first.

  “We approach the Queen’s seat by night only because the day has ended,” I began. “We have no need for stealth. We come in peace.”

  “And if you do not, you will leave in pieces,” the man rejoined.

  (Yes, I know this is a pun only in English, but trust me, the Celts loved wordplay as much as swordplay, so let it stand.)

  “State your lineage,” the man commanded.

  This could be tricky. My patrilineage was the same as the queen’s. Well, my mothers never approved of tracing descent through the father, anyway. Boudica didn’t know her matrilineage, so it would not be recognized. Plus, I would be telling the truth. So there, Sarah.

  “I am Maeve Rhuad, daughter of the warrior witches of Tir na mBan.”

  I paused, remembering the name Tir na mBan used to cast warriors and druids alike into a trance of terror or longing. Men used to moan; their eyes would roll up in their heads, knees would buckle. So far as I could tell, these men were unmoved, except perhaps by impatience. Were they too far east to feel the proper awe?

  “Go on,” the man prompted.

  “Daughters of the Cailleach, daughter of the goddess Bride—”

  “Daughter of Dugall the Brown,” the warriors began to chant (at least they revered Bride). I could hear women’s voices among them. The guard was not all male. “ab Aodh, ab Conn, ab Criara, ab Cairbre, ab Cas, ab Cor-mach, ab Cartach, ab Conn. Each day and each night that I say the descent of Bride, I shall not be slain, I shall not be sworded, I shall not be put in a cell, I shall not be hewn, I shall not be riven, I shall not be anguished, I shall not be wounded, I shall not be ravaged, I shall not be blinded, I shall not be made naked, I shall not be left bare, nor fire shall burn me, nor sun shall burn me, nor moon shall blanch me...”