Red-Robed Priestess

by Elizabeth Cunningham

  Hail to thee, thou new moon

  Jewel of Guidance in the night

  Hail to thee, thou new moon

  Jewel of Guidance on the billows

  Hail to thee, thou new moon

  Jewel of Guidance on the Ocean

  Hail to thee, thou new moon.

  Jewel of Guidance of my love.

  But my daughters were not in the west with the setting new moon. They were both to the east where night had already come, beyond the straits, beyond the sharp-toothed mountains, beyond the long, hard Roman road. I wondered if they had celebrated Bride’s day together. I wondered if Sarah would tell Boudica about the Bride’s day when Paul of Tarsus had killed a snake, and he and I had quarreled publicly, and Sarah had run away from us both. Boudica could have told a Bride’s day story, but I doubted anyone had ever told her about how, in a trance, I had revealed my pregnancy to the druids and for a moment become the goddess herself. That night Sarah’s father had stepped forth to protect me, willing to be named as Boudica’s father if need be. How much more bound they were than they could know. Or maybe at some level they did know. They had chosen to band together. Together they had let me go where I had to go.

  It was time, time to send out my spirit, to both, to each.

  Wrapping myself in Dwynwyn’s cloak and my own, I left my cave and walked over the small hill to the other side of the isle where the well of eels gleamed faintly with reflected stars. I crouched before it, waiting for the dark water to open the way to whatever I needed to see, whatever I needed to know.

  “Boudica,” I spoke her name to the wind. “Boudica.”

  But I could not see the angry, wounded woman she had become, the woman who had relented enough to ask me to carry a message for her. It was as if I had gathered her back into my womb, dark as this night, rocked by the waves and the tides.

  Then just as I was about to give up and go back to my cave, seek her in dreams, I saw a flash of light, a sweep of red hair by torchlight, a curtain across a face. Then for a brief moment a whole scene, distinct, clear: Boudica sitting at the foot of her husband’s bed, as still as he was. His eyes were closed, but his chest still rose and fell. He was alive, just barely. Part of him already hovered outside himself, ready to go, part of him still clung to this woman, fiercely, protectively, but the battle couldn’t last long.

  “Boudica,” I spoke to her in my mind. “Boudica.”

  “Mama,” another voice answered. All at once I was awash in warmth, in gold. I couldn’t see Sarah, but I could feel her presence all around me, huge, strong, comforting. “She can’t hear you now. I’m here. Speak to me.”

  “Oh, Sarah, Sarah.”

  I don’t even know if I spoke. I was a river carried by my own current.

  “I am here,” I said in whatever language was available to me. “On the druid isle. Tell Boudica I delivered her message, but there is no help for her from the druids. Sarah, you must not come here, either. Stay with Boudica, for her sake, for my sake. The Romans are on their way to Mona. The druids are going into hiding across the water. Only a few will remain, the old ones. I will be with them.”

  Then the river broke its bounds, love and loss a flood plain, tossing on it all the jumbled bits of memory and regret, funny, poignant, bitter, achingly sweet.

  Sarah, oh Sarah, oh my Colomen Du.

  All words went away, but we both saw what was to come; only in the vision the straits were not red but gold and a bird flew high above the battle din. Then I heard Sarah’s voice half speaking, half-singing.

  O my mother, my little mother

  be brave, my mother, be brave for me

  fear not, my mother, my little mother

  fear nothing, for we have lived gladly

  and gladly we will die, fear nothing

  little mother, though I am far away

  I am with you, and you are with me.

  And I wept to think that my daughter, my little daughter, would sing comfort across the worlds to me.

  It is a strange thing to wait for death while all around you the earth is coming back to life, trees leafing, flowering, shining, breezes carrying such a richness of scents, onion grass, apple blossom, sheep manure, the scent of new turned earth, and of course for me, the scent of the sea, seaweed in the sun, warmed tidal pools. Every day another kind of seeding took place, coracles and fishing boats blown across the water to isles too tiny and distant to find, remote caves, crevices in rock. Also, in ones and twos warriors began to arrive. I watched all the coming and going from my isle. And the oracular well and I gave what help we could to the other inhabitants of Mona as they struggled to decide whether to go or stay, whether to plant crops that might be trampled or burned, what to do with animals that might be stolen or slaughtered. Where to go, if they went.

  It is an even stranger thing to know personally the man who will kill you or at least orchestrate your death and the death of everyone around you. Stranger still to think he might be related to the man whose death in this very place I had prevented. I did not know what to do with this knowledge, so I did my best to set it aside as I waited for this death, both known and unknowable, to arrive.

  One afternoon, I had some other visitors. I was sitting in the shelter of a hummock, gazing across the straits, when I heard footsteps. My hearing was still sharp. Before I even looked, I knew that two people approached. I guessed they were not young, not used to walking so far, but still fit, with light steps. I turned and saw Branwen and Viviane stop at the top of the hummock to scan the isle for me.

  “What have you brought for my pot?” I stood up and called out to them.

  “Nothing, you old witch,” Viviane called back. “We are not in the least interested in our love luck.”

  “Of course we did!” countered Branwen, and she held out some wild ramps she must have dug up along the way.

  “These will give the stew some savor,” I accepted them and walked down to the water to rinse them.

  “We came to say goodbye,” Viviane said.

  I didn’t answer, just kept walking to the pot, knowing they would follow. At my cave, I picked up a knife and sliced the ramps and added them to whatever simmered there, a perpetual flame, a perpetual feast.

  “Sit,” I commanded. “Eat.”

  “You are getting more and more like her,” complained Viviane. “All you think about is your stomach. We don’t have long. We sail with the tide at dusk.”

  But they both sat down. I ladled stew into a common bowl, and we broke a small loaf of barley bread together. I remembered at Temple Magdalen Judith always had people sitting and eating within moments of their arrival. And Jesus had said, “Whenever you break bread together or share a cup of wine, I’ll be with you, in your midst.” The three of us sat and ate silently, companionably. Surely Jesus was with us, and maybe many others in my life that I had not known I would never see again. I thought of Dido and Berta, especially. I had seen them last when I was hot on Sarah’s trail. Now I didn’t even know if they were alive or if Temple Magdalen was still standing.

  It is strange to know when a goodbye is final. It is a gift.

  “Are you afraid, Maeve?” asked Branwen.

  She had never been one for small talk and certainly now was the time to say only what mattered or nothing at all.

  “Not yet,” I said. “But I might be. I don’t think I’m afraid of death. But dying can be a nasty business.”

  I had seen Jesus die; felt his dying pains. If I was lucky, my death would be quick and I wouldn’t live to see many others.

  “Do you wish you were staying?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Branwen.

  “No,” said Viviane.

  “We’ve been all over it, and over and over it,” sighed Branwen. “For me it is a sacrifice to go, for some it is a sacrifice to stay. We each have to do what we have to do—”

  “For the good of the combrogos,” I completed her sentence. “I’ll never forget when the archdruid said those words just before he sen
t me off beyond the ninth wave. He was having such a good time being noble and regretful. He even manufactured a couple of tears. Did you know that? At least Ciaran isn’t quite such a stagey hypocrite.”

  Viviane made a noise that could be loosely translated as “harrumph.”

  I glanced at her, and she turned her face away, but not quickly enough. I could see that her eyes were red, and there were tear tracks she had forgotten to cover.

  “You are not all going together?” I suddenly guessed. “The three of you?”

  “No,” said Branwen. “Viviane and I are going today, but Viviane will stop at the Isle of Mann and I will go on to Caledonia. We will both join groups already there. Ciaran will follow soon, but he will go far west to Hibernia.”

  “We have different strengths, but each one of us has all the knowledge, all the wisdom,” explained Viviane. “Each one of us is qualified to be an archdruid of a college. We have to spread out, just as you said, for the good of the combrogos,” she concluded, her voice both wistful and defiant.

  “So you see,” said Branwen, “it is goodbye for all of us.”

  “I see,” I answered.

  And I reached for their hands as they reached for each other’s, and we sat together, a living triad with no need for rhymes or study stones to commit each other to heart.

  “Do you remember,” asked Viviane, “when we first came to this isle and Dwynwyn spoke prophecy over the three of us? The poet, the lawgiver, and the lover, she called us.”

  “Don’t forget the word great,” I reminded her. “Great poet, great lawgiver, great lover.”

  “Do you think her prophecy came true?” wondered Branwen.

  “Yes,” I said without hesitation.

  And we all laughed for as long as we could. And then we wept. At last we helped each other to our feet.

  “It’s only for a little while,” said Branwen.

  She let go of us and held her hands up to us in blessing:

  Bride be taking charge of you in every strait

  Every side and turn you go

  Bride be stretching out her arms for you

  Smoothing the way for you

  When you go thither

  Over the river hard to see

  Oh when you go thither home

  Over the river hard to see.

  “Come,” said Viviane. “The tide’s turning.”

  Almost violently she flung her arms around me and gave me a kiss like a blow. Then Branwen and I held each other softly and easily. At last she and Viviane took hands and made their way to the shore. I climbed the highest hummock and watched my two oldest friends in the world walk hand in hand down the sands until they were out of sight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE ORDER

  I WON’T LIE. I was bereft after they left. Of all the partings in my life, this one was one of the hardest. My beloved was dead; Joseph was dead. I had left Miriam near death in the care of John, a lover I would never see again. Nor would I see any of my friends from that world, or ever know if they still lived or had died before me. Anna the prophetess had told me long ago that there is nowhere else but here; everything is here. But while you’re still in the flesh you can’t always see it or feel it. While you’re in the flesh, you want flesh, arms to hold you, hands to clasp. This phase of life when your friends and lovers are lost to you, for whatever reason, comes to everyone who lives long enough. Now it was my turn, and I just want to say, it felt different from my chosen solitude in the cave. It felt lonely, and sometimes I felt afraid, not of death exactly, just afraid. Tending the sheep and Macha was some comfort. I think they tended me, as much as I did them. And all the while, across the straits, the snow melted in the mountains, the passes opened and the green of Spring took root on the rocky slopes.

  Then the dreams began, the dreams that were not dreams.

  I do not recognize the place; it could be anywhere in the Roman Empire, a dining room off an atrium, some dozen or so guests (or clients) reclining, enjoying the remains of a modest feast, various dishes set forth on three tables, slaves removing empty platters, bringing fresh ones, keeping the wine flowing, while the men hold forth, all at once, interrupting each other, as people do when they are at that stage of tipsiness.

  Then there is the sound of feet crossing the atrium, and a man steps into the dining room. He is clearly not a slave or a mere messenger; he’s too well-dressed for that, in a fine linen tunic, new sandals. He has a sword at his belt and epaulettes on his cloak. I reckon him to be a centurion.

  “Lord Procurator,” the newcomer addresses a man at the central table.

  I recognize him then. He was not just any Roman, anywhere in the Empire, the Procurator of Pretannia, Catus Decianus, the one who has been bleeding the tribes dry, the one the general refuses to confront, his secret son. There is some faint resemblance around the nose and mouth, but character and circumstance have made it hard to see. The father looks grim, the son querulous and petulant.

  “I bring you news of the Iceni king.”

  “I suppose I must hear it then. Excuse me,” he says to the company, as he rises ungracefully from his couch. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  The two men cross the atrium to a smaller room, the procurator’s private office.

  “So, did old Prasutagus finally kick the bucket?” the procurator asks, reclining again and gesturing for the messenger to sit on a stool beside him.

  “He died this morning, Lord Procurator, with his family surrounding him.”

  “So touching,” says the procurator. “Well, I sorrow, too. He was one of the easier ones to manage. Understood what a client was, didn’t get above himself. Didn’t quibble too much about his debts. Almost civilized.”

  “He had a reputation as a reasonable man,” agrees the centurion.

  “What about the wife? Heard she’s a savage bitch who prefers a native hovel to a villa. She going to be any trouble?”

  “Sir, there is a complication. As you know, King Prasutagus was granted the status of a Roman citizen, for being such a cooperative client.”

  Catus Decianus groans and shakes his head.

  “I’ve never agreed with that policy. Takes things too far. Gives natives an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Still, he’s dead now. What’s complicated about that?”

  “It seems he had a will drawn up, an official will, written, witnessed, signed, sealed. Here is the copy to be sent to Rome. But I have read it, read the copy his wife holds.”

  Although I am not present in the scene, I feel sick. The will, the plaguing will that I helped write for Prasutagus’s peace of mind.

  “His wife! Surely he didn’t leave anything significant to his wife. What does he have to leave her anyway but the balance of his debts? He understood that on his death his lands come under direct Roman rule. I recently went over that with him myself. He made no objection. After all, he has no heirs.”

  “He has daughters.”

  “As I said, he has no heirs,” Catus Decianus reiterates.

  “Well, sir, it seems King Prasutagus was in disagreement on that point. He has willed his kingdom jointly to Emperor Nero and to his two daughters.”

  The procurator’s eyes bulge unbecomingly, making him look like a surprised toad that swallowed something unexpected.

  “Utter cheek,” he says. “I suppose the bitch wife is behind this.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but the wife is not mentioned in the will at all. She seemed stunned and withdrew almost immediately. Whether she was overcome by rage or grief, I could not say.”

  “What of the daughters?” Decianus asks. “Are they young enough to be ruled by their mother?”

  “They are young, but the older one is certainly of marriageable age. Perhaps something suitable could be arranged, some noble from one of the friendly tribes who understands the way things work. Maybe even one of our retired soldiers in Camulodunum who could settle everyone down.”

  “Perhaps,” the procurator says, sounding thoug
htful in an odious way; or maybe that is just the effect of his sucking the tip of his forefinger as he ponders. “But I think they must be taught a lesson first. This sort of arrangement cannot be allowed to stand. It can’t become precedent. It won’t do to have all these petty tribal kings thinking they can dispose of Roman property as they please. I’m afraid we must make an example of these so-called heirs.”

  The centurion looks as though he is wrestling with himself. I can tell he doesn’t like the procurator much, but it goes against his training to oppose a superior, even if that superior is a civilian and a disagreeable self-serving one at that.

  “Sir, perhaps that is for the Emperor to decide, since he is named as co-heir in the will.”

  “Co-heir!” The procurator clearly does not like to be questioned. “Do you hear yourself? Emperor Nero co-heir with a pair of girls to land he already rules? The emperor is not to be bothered with such nonsense. I am appointed here to take care of petty nuisances like this laughable will. No, they must be put in their place, and you and your century shall put them there.”

  “Sir?” says the centurion.

  “Don’t play the innocent with me. They are women. Discredit them, ruin them, humiliate them in the eyes of their people, make them unfit to rule. You know what to do. Standard procedure.”