Red-Robed Priestess

by Elizabeth Cunningham

  “It was too easy to find them,” she finally spoke. “They kept dropping clues, a sandal here, a loose arrow there.”

  “That just shows they are getting desperate,” said Boudica. “They know they have failed. They know they are doomed.”

  “No, Boudica, listen!” I decided I had to speak whether I angered her or not. “I think Sarah’s right. Something is wrong. I know the general,” I paused feeling disapproval and distaste rise up all around me like a chill ground mist. “He would rather die than run away.”

  “We all like to think that about the men we love.” Boudica’s tone froze all my internal organs. “Don’t we, daughter of Lovernios? But you forget, your general has already run away once, from Londinium.”

  “That might have been purely strategic,” Sarah pointed out. “He knew he couldn’t defend the town.”

  “Exactly,” said Boudica. “And it’s strategic for him to retreat now, strategic as in preserving his own murderous, cowardly hide. There is nothing brave about what he did on Mona. His troops outnumbered our remnant. Now the odds are reversed one hundredfold. He is running, tail between his legs, just as the foul treacherous procurator did, just as all Romans do when they can’t beat the odds. The general’s troops are hirelings. They fight because they are paid to fight. They are not warriors. I doubt most of them care anything about Rome or its Empire. The combrogos are fighting for our lives, our families, for this holy ground that is our mother. Even if the general’s numbers equaled ours, that Roman cur could not prevail against us. And he will not escape. Andraste will not allow it. Even now, she has him in her sights; she is snaring him in her traps.”

  She had gone into full blown oration, and though her audience now was small, we were captivated; we were captive.

  “Tonight we will augur,” Boudica declared. “I have asked the chiefs to gather the people at moonrise. If the signs are auspicious, we will mass on them tomorrow. We will force them to fight. We will finish them once and for all.”

  As the moon rose over the plain, glinting off swords and spears, whitening limed hair, Boudica stood in the center of her vast army, her silence spreading out in ripples, so that you could actually hear the sound of the river.

  I stood next to Lithben in the inner circle, Gwen and Sarah to our left. Boudica signaled Sarah, who went to our tent and returned with something wrapped in a plaid, something that appeared to be alive, for it squirmed and kicked as Sarah handed it to Boudica. Not another sacrifice. Please, no. Lithben must have been had the same thought, for she reached for my hand and held it tightly.

  “My combrogos!” Boudica’s voice boomed out, as if it was the voice of the plain itself. “In my arms I hold a sacred hare, a messenger from Andraste herself. If the hare runs to my right when I release her, victory is assured!”

  Thank Bride, no slit throats, no casting of entrails. I felt Lithben’s hand relax. It could have been much worse.

  Boudica knelt down, clasping the hare between her knees as she unwound the plaid. The poor creature hesitated for a moment, no doubt terrified, then it shot away to Boudica’s right and wild cheering rolled through the crowd just as the silence had, and then a chant began.

  “Boudica! Boudica! Boudica!”

  Boudica stood again, her arms uplifted, gathering the power of the sound, the power of the moon.

  “Andraste!” Boudica spoke when the chant finally receded. “Andraste, I call on you tonight, not just as a priestess to her goddess but as a woman to a woman, a mother to a mother.”

  I don’t know how she managed it. For though she was speaking to a multitude in a voice that easily carried half a mile, it felt as though we were sharing an intimate moment, catching a glimpse of her naked soul.

  “The combrogos are your children, even as my daughters are mine. They have been raped by these invaders, they have been wronged! Even as my body was lashed, so has your body, the sacred ground of the Holy Isles, been desecrated, violated, trampled under vile Roman feet. Andraste, my goddess, my mother, my sister, my combrogo. To you we have offered the sacrifice of our enemies’ blood. To you we offer the sacrifice of our own peril. Some of us will die in battle for your honor, for our honor. These brave ones we know you will receive with open arms. These brave ones will feast with you tomorrow in the Isles of the Blest, knowing that with their blood they will have restored our freedom and our sovereignty—your sovereignty!”

  Sound rose from the crowd again, not cheering; it was more like the sound of storm wind, wild, mournful, angry, and ecstatic all at once. Boudica was the still point of that storm, its source, its ending, her face austere as the moon, her hair gleaming in the firelight.

  This is how I will remember her, I thought. This is how I will always remember her. For this she was born, for better or for worse, for this she was born.

  “My combrogos,” she said when silence fell again. “I am proud to be one of you. I am proud to fight beside you, I will be proud to die, if that is my fate, and proud to live and rejoice with you in our sure victory! Rest now, my beloved combrogos, rest well. Tomorrow we fight as one people, we will prevail against our enemy, we will restore our goddess to her sovereignty, and our great deeds will live forever in the memory of all who come after us.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  HAWK AND DOVE

  I DID NOT expect to sleep. The sense that something was wrong would not leave me. Boudica, despite her admonition to rest, was nowhere in sight. Sarah, too, was on the prowl. I feared she might be following up on her own suspicions.

  “Don’t worry about your girl, Mother of Sarah,” Alyssa tried to reassure me, as I sat with her and Bele around our fire. “If she doesn’t want to be seen, she won’t be.”

  “She is like a walking piece of night,” agreed Bele. “She can turn herself into the shadow of a tree branch. A stalking wild cat makes more noise than she does.”

  “And if she finds out something,” added Alyssa, “she’s about the only one who stands any chance of influencing Boudica.”

  “Why is that?” I wondered.

  “Everyone respects Sarah,” Alyssa stated the obvious. “Some people are a little afraid of her, but in a good way, because she always says what’s true, not what people want to hear.”

  “She can’t help herself,” I laughed. “She’s her father’s daughter.”

  “And her mother’s,” said Bele quietly. “Don’t you see, Mother of Sarah ? Boudica and Sarah are both your daughters. Letting Sarah close to her (as close as she lets anyone) is the only way Boudica can let herself love you.”

  With Bele’s astute observation fresh in my mind, I finally went into the tent and curled up next to Lithben and Gwen.

  Screams of horses and humans, metal striking metal, the sickening sound of a blade finding flesh, a skull splitting, the stench of blood and piss, guts sliced open, the merciful, merciless sunlight pouring down as if this were just any other day, the shadows of carrion crows and vultures circling, circling, waiting for their feast.

  I woke abruptly, my teeth sunk in my own hand to stifle my screams. I had not dreamed of the horrors I’d witnessed on Mona. The nightmare was the same one that had invaded my waking moments ever since I had met the general in that valley in the folds of the ridge—the dark ridge less than a mile from this camp.

  It doesn’t have to be this way, I spoke to him in my mind. It doesn’t have to happen.

  I slipped out from under my blanket, not yet knowing what I intended to do, only that I had to do something.

  “Grandmother,” Lithben woke. “Grandmother, where are you going?”

  I knelt beside her and took her hand. I could not lie to her.

  “There is something I have to do,” I said. “I don’t know quite what it is yet.”

  All at once, I realized: that was not true. I did know. I was going to that ridge.

  “There is somewhere I have to go. Alone,” I added before she could ask to come with me.

  She was so quiet for a moment, her hand in m
ine so soft, I almost thought she had fallen back to sleep.

  “You will not be alone, Grandmother,” she pronounced. “He will be with you.”

  Now I was the one who clung to her. I had promised not to leave her again, but I was, and there was no certainty that I would come back.

  “He’ll be with me, too. It’s all right, Grandmother. You can go.”

  With the blessing of the youngest of my line, I went forth into an ageing night.

  Sarah was not the only one who knew how to move silently. My feet remembered how to sense the ground before falling, never breaking a twig, hardly stirring a leaf. My hands fluttered out delicate and sensitive as antennae, moving branches that might have snapped. My eyes knew the dazzle and dapple of moonlight, how what appeared solid was not and how what seemed to be shadow might be rock. For a time, I was only my senses and sensations. It was a relief to forget everything else.

  Then I arrived at the top of the ridge, and of course he was there, just as he had been there so inevitably and inexplicably that night on the cliffs. A sliver of moonlight fell across his face, though his armored body was carefully concealed in shadow.

  You won’t be alone, grandmother. He’ll be with you.

  Jesus, I felt for him, are you with me? What do I do now? Am I your brother’s keeper?

  He didn’t answer, but I felt his presence as a calm that came over me, like the sorrowful calm I had felt when we washed his body in the tomb. I was in the only place I could be, doing the only thing I could do, which at this moment was to watch, wait.

  The general was gazing out across the plain. I knew what he was seeing: his enemy massed almost to the horizon.

  A breeze sprang up and lifted the branches of the tree that sheltered me. He must have caught sight of me out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head and looked straight at me. I don’t know whether he thought I was real or an apparition, whether he would have followed me if I had fled, because I didn’t. I took a step closer to him, then another to match the step he took until we stood face to face.

  “Who are you?” he said, so softly I don’t know if he spoke aloud or in my mind.

  I couldn’t answer. I shook my head, as if the barest wind touched my leaves.

  “Why do you hunt me? Why do you haunt me?” he demanded. “I only did what I had to do. I only do what I must.”

  His words took me by surprise. Did he want me to forgive him? Exonerate him?

  Before I could answer, I heard the whinny of a horse in the valley, followed by a man’s curse. I turned and looked to the valley floor. No campfires burned there, but something caught the moon’s light and gave it back: helmets, spears, armor. Suddenly dizzy, I reached out and caught the general’s arm to steady myself. Massed below me were the troops that had followed from Mona. The cavalry camped down the road were only a decoy.

  I had to warn Boudica.

  I let go of his arm, but before I could even turn, he grasped both my arms and whirled me around so that my back was to him, my wrists crossed and held fast.

  “I can’t let you go,” he said, his mouth so close to my ear, he sounded more like a lover than a captor. “You must understand that. It is nothing personal. I have a job to do.”

  I searched my mind for Sarah’s instructions on how to break a hold, but I decided I did not want to writhe ineffectually and further his suspicions of me. My tongue had always been my best defense—and offense.

  “If it’s not personal, then why do you care so much about whether I understand? If it’s not personal, why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance on Mona? Why not kill me now?”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  I wished I could tempt him in another way, tempt him to forget that we were enemies.

  “Do you really think I care if I live or die?” I demanded. “I’ve lived long enough, and I’ve seen too much.”

  “I think you care if other people live or die,” he answered. “You proved that on Mona. You tried to kill me, remember?”

  “I hope you didn’t take it personally,” I said. “I was just doing a job.”

  “I was flattered.”

  “Don’t be,” I said sharply. “You’re the general. I simply thought of killing you as lopping the head off a beast. Too bad I botched the job.”

  “Were you planning to finish the job tonight?” he inquired. “Or were you just spying?”

  “Neither,” I said. “I was—”

  Here is your chance, my beloved spoke in my mind. Here is your chance to speak the truth.

  “Do you remember?” I changed my course. “Do you remember when we came across each other in that valley down there? Do you remember what we both saw then?”

  “Yes.” His grip tightened, but it felt more desperate than restrictive.

  “That’s why I came here tonight,” I told him, “because I dreamed of that horror again.”

  He did not answer, but I could tell he believed me, whether or not it made sense to him. His grip relaxed a little, but I did not try to loose myself. We just stood together, listening to the night sounds around us, the wind riffling through trees on the ridge, the men and horses below, stirring in their sleep or wakefulness.

  “Do you remember?” I spoke again. “Do you remember the night we spent together on the watchtower?”

  “What is the point? What is the point in remembering that?” he asked, his voice low, equal parts angry and sad.

  “This battle doesn’t have to happen.” I turned so that I could feel the pulse of his throat next to my mouth. “I told you then. I am telling you now. It doesn’t have to happen.”

  His whole body tightened again. I could almost hear it creaking as he braced himself—but against what? The truth? His own longing?

  “I told you then, and I am telling you now, you are wrong,” he said. “It does have to happen. You can’t stop it. I can’t stop it. Why do you think you dreamed it? You only dreamed what must be.”

  I did not know how to argue with him. Below us were two armies ready to fight to the death. I did not know how to argue with that. Yet we were not done, not done with each other.

  “Why do you think we met on the cliffs and saw each other the way we did?” I asked.

  “Madness, moonlight.” He said the words as if they were curses. “Who knows why the gods taunt us.”

  “Or haunt us, hunt us,” I repeated his earlier words. “Listen, my beloved enemy. We have the same wounds, you and I. You came here to find your son. I came here to find my daughter.”

  “My son,” he said bitterly. “My son is a coward.”

  I wonder still if I should have told him in that moment what his son had done to my daughter, how this nightmare about to play out was authored by our own lost children. And we, we had failed to stop them.

  “My daughter,” I began. “My daughter—”

  I could not finish the sentence, but in that moment he heard, he knew.

  He loosed my wrists and turned me to face him, holding me by the shoulders as he looked into my face, confirming everything.

  Fly, a voice inside me spoke, Dwynwyn’s, my own. Fly.

  If you had been watching the sky that night, you would have seen a dove flying out toward the plain, catching the moon on her wings, casting a fleeting shadow, while a hawk higher and faster circled around and back, diving, catching the dove in his talons, bearing her away back to the dark ridge.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  BATTLE

  WHEN I COME to myself, I am surrounded by the sound of water flowing through reeds, washing over small bright pebbles. At least I think they are bright, for the light behind my eyelids is so golden, I think everything in the world must shine. When I open my eyes, I see that it is so. I am on a shoals in the middle of a great golden river. To one side is a country so bright I can hardly look at it. To the other…I find I don’t want to look to the other side. My heart hurts when I do, as if it has been pierced by sharp talons.

  “It has been, my dear.”


  I look towards the voice that is slow and gentle as water stilled when a river widens.

  “Lazarus!” I reach for him and we embrace without embracing; the way sunlight touches skin.

  “Am I dead?” I ask after a moment.

  “You are in the place between,” he answers. “Don’t you recognize it? You once waited here with me. This time he has asked me to wait here with you.”

  Lazarus did not have to tell me who he was.

  “Why do I have to wait?” I want to know.

  “Why did I?” he counters.

  “He called you back,” I answer. “Is he going to call me back?”

  “Do you want to go?”

  The other side of the river is waking. The light there is not golden, it is harsh. There you can see every blade of grass and its shadow. The country of life is hard, I remember. The stones there are so sharp.

  My daughters are there; my granddaughters. Sarah, Lithben, Boudica, Gwen.

  “I must go back,” I whisper to Lazarus. “I have to go back.”

  “Fly then, Shekinah. Dove of Asherah, fly.”

  I am back in the country of life, in our dismantled camp. The field has been cleared, all the carts to the far end, and the warriors are massing, with charioteers racing up and down the loose ranks to create a semblance of order. Along the front lines rides Boudica, with Gwen and Lithben beside her. Like all the warriors, Boudica is swirling with woad, her arm torcs gleaming in the sun. I know she is speaking. Her laigen, in her raised arm, pierces the sky over and over, but I can’t hear what she says. There is a roaring sound of wind or water, but the air is calm, the river at a late summer low. The people’s voices wash over the plain, pour into the empty bowl of sky. I am the sound; I am exhilaration and release, readiness to charge, to hurl, to slash and stab. I am the excitement surging through blood, bone, and muscle. No more waiting. No more waiting. Today is the day.