Red-Robed Priestess

by Elizabeth Cunningham

  “No! No druid of Mona would ever rig a lot. No druid of Mona would interfere with the will of the gods.”

  There was no point in saying I had never mentioned Mona. She knew; I knew. Now everyone knew.

  “You are mistaken,” she informed me.

  For a moment I was shaken; it was as if all my years fell away and I was standing before the druid court. Could I be wrong? Could I be making it all up?

  “Perhaps,” I said, closing my eyes, seeing again from my father’s point of view. “Perhaps it comes to the same thing. The druid believed the young man was the chosen one, the one destined for the god-making death. In this he was not altogether wrong.”

  When I opened my eyes, I saw Sarah. Her gaze was so golden, so unguarded. For a moment I was back in the garden, standing with my beloved under the tree. She smiled and nodded. I had done something right, even if I wasn’t sure what it was. Slowly, very slowly, the way a mountain might wear away, Boudica took her seat again.

  And I went on with the story, or the story went on itself, the point of view shifting unpredictably back and forth, so that I was not only the girl calling the tidal bore as her lover made shore on the other side of the straits, I was also my father dismounting and walking straight toward the wall of water. This time I heard him, or thought I heard him, singing to the wave.

  I will go back, back to the sea

  sea that has been the ruin of me

  sea that will be the death of me

  there my life will be, under the wave

  under the sea, there my death will be

  to Tir fo Thuin I go now,

  to Tir fo Thuinn I go.

  And I was startled to hear my voice singing the song, and to feel my own tears slipping soundlessly down my cheeks.

  “You killed him.”

  Boudica did not stand to accuse me, but everyone heard her.

  “You killed him.”

  Everyone waited for me to say something, but my story had come to a dead stop.

  “You killed him.”

  Then to my amazement, it was Sarah who rose to her feet and stepped between Boudica and me.

  “My mother did not kill him,” she stated. “He killed himself. My father tried to save him; my mother did, too. He chose the wave. He chose it.”

  Boudica rose and faced Sarah; I could not read her expression. She just looked at her, as if she were an obscure augury, a garbled message from the gods.

  “Will you hear the rest of the story?” I asked softly, a hint of pleading in my voice. “Will you hear about the birth?”

  Boudica turned to me and gave me a look I had only ever seen on one face before.

  “I will not,” she said. “We will speak in the morning.”

  And with that she walked past me into the night.

  “You didn’t kill him,” Sarah turned to me, needing reassurance as much as giving it.

  “I didn’t kill him that day long ago,” I said slowly. “But my story killed him tonight.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  BETWEEN STORIES

  IF BOUDICA COULD have called a tidal bore to Iceni country, I swear I would have flung myself into it, joining my father, our father, under the wave. Sarah, shaken as she was herself, must have sensed that urge. When we got back to our hut, she had a whispered conference with Bele and Alyssa in which I believe it was agreed that someone would be awake and watching over me at all times. At the moment I hardly noticed. I might as well have been underwater, I was so deep in loss, misery, and self-reproach.

  Sarah’s must have been the first watch, for soon I sensed her near me, not touching me, but sitting close to me, offering an almost animal kind of comfort. I felt myself relaxing into her warmth, but I would not let myself have the relief of sleep. After a while, I sat up, so Sarah would know I was awake.

  “I am sorry.” Sarah’s words startled me. “It was my idea.”

  “Your idea?” I repeated, not knowing what she meant.

  “It was my idea that you should tell her the truth. You were the one who wasn’t sure, who knew what the truth might cost her.”

  Sarah, my Sarah, reproaching herself for something that utterly was not her fault.

  “It was in no way your idea to tell the whole story in front of her whole tribe!”

  “I encouraged you,” she was stolid. “I share the blame.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m the mother, yours, hers. What I have done, I have done.”

  We sat in silence for a time. I was just about to tell her to go to sleep, to promise her that I wouldn’t do anything rash, (though admittedly she would have little reason to believe me) when she spoke again.

  “I don’t know that you could have told her any other way.”

  “Of course I could have,” I resisted her kind attempt to exonerate me. “I could have told her privately. I could have told her right away.”

  “She would not have believed you,” Sarah spoke with certainty. “She believed you tonight, because you gave her a choice. And because you told the story well, better than you have ever told it before.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I think.”

  We let the silence fall again, but it had a different quality this time. It was more spacious.

  “But Sarah,” I said slowly. “I destroyed her father for her, and for the combrogos.”

  “Maeve Rhuad.” Sarah had never called me that before. “He destroyed himself.”

  “But why does anyone need to know that?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  In the dark, I shook my head.

  “And the way you told it,” she went on, “you could understand him, you could feel what he felt. He was a hero, a flawed hero, as much the hero of your tale as you or my father.”

  I picked up Sarah’s hand, kissed it and pressed it to my wet cheek.

  “Daughter of Esus,” I said. “You are wise beyond your years.”

  Sarah and I did doze for a bit after that, leaning against each other, holding hands, closer than we had been since she was a little girl. But the respite didn’t last for long. Boudica’s summons came at dawn.

  The guard, the same one who had challenged me the night I arrived, did not guide me to her hut where kinsfolk and servants would have been stirring, but to the chariot field, empty now and as flat and bleak as the sky where clouds had settled low. I saw her waiting at the far end, almost small in that expanse.

  “She wants to speak with you alone,” the guard stated the obvious.

  And he left me to walk across the field by myself, one of the longest walks of my life. Boudica kept her back to me, which would have been unwise if I had been a fellow warrior, but I suppose she did not consider me dangerous in that way. My damage was already done. When I was within five paces of her, she turned to face me, and I stopped where I stood.

  I don’t know how long we stood looking at each other; there were no shadows, no shifting light to measure the time. It was long enough for me to let go of my own remorse and longing and simply see her, a woman between stories, a woman who did not know anymore who she was, who she should be. In that way, she was like an infant, but not one I could hold, and never one I could protect.

  “I will not call you mother,” were her first words.

  They did not seem to call for any response, so I just nodded and waited for her to go on.

  “Why did you come?” she asked, a slight alteration of the question she had asked the first night, but with a seismic shift in her tone which held not just anger now but anguish.

  “I wanted to see you again,” I repeated the words I had said that night. When she didn’t answer I went on. “I wanted you to know: I did not abandon you; I did not give you up. The druids took you from me by force.”

  She continued to regard me as if my words were still incomprehensible.

  “Then why?” she said at length. “Why did you wait till now to tell me?”

  “I was afraid,” I admitted.

  “Afraid of what, afraid
of me?” she asked sharply. “Am I so fearsome?”

  Yes, I wanted to say. You are an angry, wounded woman who does not know herself. No, I wanted to say, you are still my baby. I am still holding you to my breast, whispering your name in your ear.

  “I was afraid for you,” was all I said.

  “Afraid for me?” she repeated.

  “Afraid that if I told you the truth, you would lose your pride in your lineage. I did not want to take that from you.”

  “Then why did you?” Her voice was cold and raw as the wind, her face as bleak as the sky.

  There were so many reasons—or excuses—I could have given. None of them seemed adequate. And there was another truth I needed to tell her.

  “I did something thoughtless yesterday that I had no business doing. But it is too late now to undo it. I think you ought to know.”

  “Go on,” she said when I hesitated.

  “I went to see Prasutagus. Your daughter Gwen was there, too. I just blurted out who I am. Prasutagus asked if you knew. Gwen demanded to know why I had left you. I felt that I had betrayed you by telling them first.”

  I don’t know what I expected her to do. Lash out at me, turn away, freeze or blast me with her rage. Instead she looked suddenly vulnerable, almost as if she might burst into tears. Could it be that she still had some feeling for him, or that she was moved by her daughter’s anger on her behalf? Whatever it was, I decided to seize this rare moment of openness.

  “I know you are estranged,” I waded right in. “For what it’s worth, Prasutagus puts the blame entirely on himself—”

  “It’s worth nothing!” she interrupted, but her voice wavered and she did not tell me to stop.

  “Be that as it may, he is dying, Boudica. Lithben needs to see her father before he dies or she will suffer even more when he does. And you, you need to speak with him.”

  Her face closed again, not violently, but slowly, with deliberation.

  “I will never reconcile with him.”

  “He does not expect that,” I said. “But he fears for you and for his daughters, as you should also. Feeble as he is, he is all that stands between you and ruthless military domination. You are still free now, even if you are poor. When he dies, you will be in danger. Your daughters will be in danger. You must hold counsel with Prasutagus and do what you can to safeguard the lives of your daughters and your people.”

  She looked at me coolly, almost with contempt.

  “He is not all that stands between my people and Roman domination,” she countered. “I stand. I stand. I stand!”

  And tall as she was, she appeared to grow taller, tall enough to reach up and pull down the whole sky, if she chose.

  “I will never be a Roman whore!”

  I was stunned, as if she had dealt me a blow. How did she know, I wondered, how did she know? Then I realized she meant Prasutagus, not me. But still her words shook me.

  “No,” I agreed. “You won’t. But don’t be a fool, either. Go to him, Boudica. Be armed with knowledge as well as weapons.”

  She looked at me thoughtfully, as if some plan were forming in her mind.

  “Heroes often do foolish things,” she said, echoing the words I had said to her last night, “and sometimes terrible things happen to them.”

  And as she spoke, more softly than she ever had, I suddenly heard a roaring in my ears, pierced with terrible cries and clashing metal. And then the stench: fear, smoke, blood, loosened bowels, death.

  “No!” I cried out. “No!”

  I must have looked as if I was about to swoon. I don’t think Boudica would have willingly touched me otherwise, but suddenly her arms were around me, arms strong and muscled as a man’s, pulling me to a breast that was surprisingly full and soft. Oh Boudica, I thought, my dear lost child.

  And then I really did faint.

  When I came to, I was back in the guest hut with Sarah, Bele, and Alyssa. If it hadn’t been for their anxious hovering, I might have thought my encounter with Boudica had been a dream.

  “Are you all right?” asked Sarah, whose dark skin looked almost pale.

  I nodded, though when I sat up, I still felt a little dizzy.

  “Rest, Mother of Sarah,” said Alyssa, sitting behind me to prop me up.

  Bele brought me a bowl of broth, but Sarah stayed right where she was, close to me but facing me.

  “Boudica was afraid it was your heart,” said Sarah. “She carried you back, you know, as if you weighed nothing. She has sent for a healer. Do you have pain anywhere? Can you speak?”

  “No pain,” I said, though my tongue felt a little clumsy. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with me, other than the usual.”

  Sarah frowned, her eyebrows drawn together so they almost met, just the way her father’s had.

  “Did Boudica say something to upset you?” Sarah wanted to know.

  “No, I mean, yes.” I paused and tried to reconstruct what had happened. “Well, it wasn’t the easiest conversation, but it wasn’t what she said, it’s, it’s what I saw.”

  “Oh,” said Sarah. “You had another vision.”

  “Yes.” I closed my eyes to call it back, then opened them. I did not want to see it again. “It was like the one I had before when we were in the valley near the fort, only worse.”

  “Worse?” prompted Sarah after a moment.

  “Yes, worse,” I repeated. “Because Boudica, Boudica….” I found I couldn’t finish.

  I did not know I was weeping until Sarah put her arms around me and held me close. Two embraces from two daughters in one morning and yet no comfort, for I felt powerless to protect either one.

  Boudica’s healer confirmed that I suffered only from fatigue, which made sense. I tried vainly to persuade myself that my vision was only a waking nightmare brought on by nervous exhaustion. I spent most of the day resting, with one or the other of the young women in attendance. Boudica herself did not come to see me, but when I woke from a nap in the late afternoon, I found Lithben sitting beside me.

  “I brought you honey cakes,” she greeted me.

  “That is just what I wanted,” I told her sitting up. “How did you know?”

  “It’s what I like to have when I am sick,” she explained.

  “Have some with me,” I said sitting up. “I am not sick. I was just a little tired, so this can be a party instead.”

  She accepted the offer, and we ate companionably for a bit, licking our fingers as daintily as the cats of Temple Magdalen licked their paws after a treat of fish. When we were done, she looked at me solemnly for a moment, her face and manner so like my mother’s I almost had to look away.

  “You are my grandmother,” she pronounced at last.

  “Did your mother tell you that?”

  “No one told me,” she said. “I just know. You are, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am your grandmother, your mother’s mother. And you are my granddaughter, which makes me very glad.”

  I waited for her to ask the same question her sister had, but instead she was full of information.

  “Your mothers were witches,” she stated.

  She had heard that much of the story and had figured out who the girl hero really was.

  “Yes,” I affirmed. “Warrior witches. They taught me to race chariots, just as your mother is teaching you.”

  She said nothing, but gave a little dismissive shake, like a dog shedding water from its fur. That is not the story we are telling right now, she might have said.

  “Your mothers stole from your father to have you.”

  A succinct way of putting it.

  “And so he hated you. But it was not your fault.”

  “I thought Sarah put you to bed last night,” I said with as much severity as I could muster. “Did you sneak back out to hear the rest of the story?”

  She shook her head again, vehemently.

  “I just know,” she said again. “Something bad happened. Will you tell me what it was?”

&
nbsp; I considered. Should I tell this child? She had already figured out that the druid in the story was my father. But should I tell her this father raped his daughter and made her pregnant with this child’s mother?

  “Here’s what happened,” I said slowly. “My father was so angry with my mothers that he stole back. He stole from me. But the good part is that I gave birth to your mother.”

  “Why is that good?” she asked.

  As relieved as I was not to have to explain rape, I was also startled by her question.

  “It’s good, because your mother is strong and brave, and because she is your mother and your sister’s mother.”

  “Oh,” said Lithben.

  She fell silent again, reached for one of her braids and began to suck it as she pondered, a childish habit she had doubtless been scolded for. But I was her grandmother, and I let her be.

  “Will you stay with us now? Always?” she asked.

  Before I answered her, I did my best to shut tight whatever eyes had the second sight. But really I didn’t need the sight to know this child would suffer, with her father dying, her mother fanatically defiant, a rapacious empire at the door, unless….a beautiful desperate idea took form…unless I took her with me when I went. For all at once it was clear to me: I had to go.

  “Cariad,” I said, and I touched her soft cheek, still round with her baby flesh. “I don’t know yet what will happen.”

  And for a moment, at least, that was the truth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  HEART TO HEART