Ravens of Avalon: Avalon

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by Marion Zimmer Bradley


  the prospects for a good harvest. There was a murmur of satisfaction as the

  seeress spoke of sunny skies and fields golden with ripe grain. Now the air

  around her was beginning to glow. Lhiannon smiled. Mona was one of

  the breadbaskets of Britannia—it would take an evil fate indeed to threaten

  that harvest. Coventa swayed beside her, humming softly, and Lhiannon

  gave her hand a sharp squeeze.

  “Fasten yourself to the earth, child,” she whispered sharply. “Only

  the seeress is supposed to go through the gate of prophecy.” Coventa

  hiccupped and then grew still, but she remained unsteady as Lugovalos

  spoke once more.

  26 D i ana L . Pax s on

  “In Gallia, the Legions of Rome have placed an iron yoke upon

  our people, and now their emperor has banished the Druid Order

  from their lands. Say then, seeress, what the future holds for us here in

  Britannia?”

  There was a silence, as if not only the Arch-Druid but all Britannia

  was waiting to hear.

  The blossoms in Helve’s garland began to tremble, and Lhiannon

  felt Coventa shake as if in sympathy. Once more she damned Helve’s

  pride. The child was being caught up in the vision and had no defense

  against it.

  “I see oars that lift and dip like wings on the water . . .” muttered

  Helve. “As the geese flock north in the spring they come—three great

  flocks of winged vessels stroking across the sea . . .”

  “When will they come, wise one?” Lugovalos asked urgently. “And

  where?”

  “Where the white cliffs rise and the white sands gleam,” came the

  answer. “When the hawthorn is in white bloom.”

  Time was notoriously diffi

  cult to fix in prophecy, thought Lhian-

  non as a murmur of unease swept through the crowd. But at the earliest,

  it could not be until next year. To collect so great an army would take

  time, and though the Druids might be banned from Gallia, the Order

  had agents in plenty on the other side of the sea. Surely when an inva-

  sion was planned they would know. She put her arm around Coventa,

  holding her close and praying that Helve would finish soon. But the

  Arch-Druid wanted more.

  “And what then? Where are our armies?” he demanded.

  “The Red Crests march westward and none oppose them. I see a

  river . . .” Helve’s moan was echoed faintly by Coventa. The glow

  around her deepened to a fiery hue. Lhiannon shook her head as vision

  teased at her awareness, armies locked in combat and corpses fl oating

  downstream.

  “The river runs red . . . red . . . it becomes a river of blood that cov-

  ers the land!” Coventa’s thin scream joined Helve’s shriek in eerie har-

  mony. Focused on Helve, the priests did not appear to notice, but the

  other priestesses turned in alarm.

  “Get her out of here!” hissed Belina in Lhiannon’s ear.

  M A RI O N Z I M M E R B RA D L E Y ’ S RAV E N S O F AVA L O N

  27

  Coventa’s limbs were twitching now. With the strength of despera-

  tion Lhiannon lifted the girl and stumbled backward into the trees. Be-

  hind her she could hear Helve’s wail and the murmur as Lugovalos

  strove to stem the torrent of visions. The Druids would have more ques-

  tions about the Romans, but Lhiannon did not need to be in trance to

  predict they would not be asking them at a public festival.

  Panting, she leaned against a tree. She tensed as a shadow appeared

  beside her and then relaxed, recognizing Boudica. Coventa had gone

  limp, still muttering. Together they carried her through the trees and

  back to the House of the Healers.

  W ill she be all right?” Boudica looked from her friend’s still face

  to the strained features of the priestess, alternately lit and shadowed by

  the flickering of the little fire. Coventa had quieted as soon as they got

  her away from the grove, and now she lay as one in a deep sleep. She

  leaned forward, wondering in what dream Coventa wandered now.

  “Should we try to wake her up?”

  “Best not,” answered Lhiannon. “People often fear being lost in

  trance, but if one cannot return consciously, it is better to simply

  pass into normal sleep. Coventa’s mind will reorder itself before waking

  again. All we can do is to guard her. If she wakes too suddenly some

  part of her spirit may be dream-lost, and it will be difficult to fetch it

  back again.”

  “But you would do it, wouldn’t you.” It was not quite a question.

  “Would Helve?” The sound of the festival was like distant waves on the

  shore—they might have been alone in the world.

  Lhiannon looked at her in surprise, and Boudica held her gaze. Ex-

  cept for Coventa, for a year she had refused all offers of friendship, espe-

  cially Lhiannon’s, suspecting condescension, or worse still, pity. Lhiannon

  was so beautiful, what use could she have for a gawky, head-blind girl?

  But tonight they were united by a common need and a common fear.

  Boudica was the one who had noticed that Coventa was in trouble. To-

  night she could face her teacher as an equal and dare to wonder what lay

  behind the serene face the priestess showed the world.

  “Oh yes. You must not underestimate her skills. It is likely that she

  28 D i ana L . Pax s on

  will be High Priestess after Mearan.” From outside they heard the joyful

  shout that hailed the lighting of the Beltane fi re.

  “I find it hard to like her,” said Boudica. Lhiannon said nothing, but

  her lips tightened, and Boudica understood what the priestess was too

  loyal to say. “She flirts with every male she sees, but she gives her love

  to none.”

  “She must keep pure to serve as Oracle,” Lhiannon said evenly.

  “When Mearan fell ill it was a good thing we had another priestess who

  was qualifi ed.”

  “You could do it,” Boudica said warmly, and noted the betraying

  color that reddened Lhiannon’s cheekbones. “Is that why you are here

  instead of dancing around the fire?” She had seen how Lhiannon and

  Ardanos looked at each other when they thought no one could see.

  “I am here because Coventa needs me!” snapped the priestess, and

  this time, her response was sharp enough to warn Boudica off .

  “I do not understand all this emphasis on virginity,” the girl said

  at last.

  “To tell you the truth,” Lhiannon said wryly, “at this moment, nei-

  ther do I!”

  Boudica smiled, finding it surprisingly sweet to know herself for-

  given. “I do not like the idea of being at the beck and call of a husband,

  but I would like children. Mearan has always seemed like a mother to

  this community. I am surprised that she has none.”

  “In the past the High Priestess often bore children, and another

  woman served as Oracle,” Lhiannon replied.

  “But is it so important?” asked Boudica. “How do they manage in

  Rome?”

  “The Romans have no seers of their own,” Lhiannon answered,

  obviously relieved to move the conversation to more neutral ground.

  “They visit the oracles of Hellas, but when t
he Sibyl of Cumae off ered

  the books of prophecy to their last king, he refused twice, and she

  burned six of them before the tribal elders insisted he buy the last

  three—for the same price she had originally asked for all nine!” Both

  women laughed. “Now they consult omens or pore over the verses that

  remain, or make pilgrimage to oracles in other lands.”

  “I have heard there is an oracle in Delphi. Is she a virgin?”

  M A RI O N Z I M M E R B RA D L E Y ’ S RAV E N S O F AVA L O N

  29

  “That is what they say. The pythia is an untried maiden, though

  in other times they chose older women who had already raised their

  families.”

  “But no one who has a husband or a lover . . .” observed Boudica.

  Lhiannon sighed. “There are other kinds of divination a married

  woman can do. To read omens does not require the same level of trance.

  Or even to prophesy on the fingers’ ends or in answer to a sudden ques-

  tion, as they do in Eriu. But the rite of the bull-sleep in which the Druid

  divines the name of the rightful king requires the priest to prepare with

  prayer and fasting, and to sit on the tripod involves an even deeper sur-

  render, for which all the channels must be clear.” She sighed.

  “And you want to do that,” Boudica said.

  “Yes. The visions call me as they called Coventa, but I know I must

  resist them.”

  Above the crackling of the fire they could hear the skirling of pipes

  and a sudden shout as some lucky pair leaped over the fl ames. Lhiannon

  turned, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

  “I must resist them,” she said. “Helve is the priests’ darling, and I

  will never sit in the high seat while she is here.”

  “Then go after what you can have,” Boudica told her. “Coventa

  needs only a guardian. If someone is waiting for you,” she said tactfully,

  “go to the fires—I can keep watch here.”

  “There was someone, but I don’t suppose he is still waiting now,”

  the priestess said softly, head bowed so that her face was hidden by the

  shining fall of pale hair. “Once I thought that the Goddess had called

  me to serve as an oracle, but now the way seems blocked. I am halted,

  whichever way I turn!”

  Boudica stared, shaken to find that even a sworn priestess could be

  as tormented by doubt as she herself had been.

  “How do you know the Lady’s will?” she exclaimed. “Does She

  speak to you?”

  Lhiannon looked up at her with a shuddering sigh. “Sometimes . . .

  though I am usually too fixed on my own pain to listen at those times

  when I most want to hear.”

  Such as now . . . thought Boudica.

  “Sometimes She speaks to me through the lips of others,” Lhiannon

  30 D i ana L . Pax s on

  managed a wry smile, “as I think She is speaking through you now.

  Once or twice She has spoken to me aloud, when she occupied Lady

  Mearan’s body during a ritual, and sometimes I have heard Her speaking

  in the stillness of my soul. But sometimes we know what our choices

  were only after we have made them. I thought that to gain love I would

  have to relinquish power, but instead I appear to have traded love for

  duty.”

  “Or perhaps for friendship?” asked Boudica, only now, when she

  found herself letting down the barriers that had kept her solitary here,

  realizing how lonely she had been.

  “Yes, little

  sister—perhaps that is what I have done.” Lhiannon

  managed a smile.

  T H R E E

  On a hot afternoon just before the feast of Lugos, the blare of the

  bronze carynx horn echoed across the fields. After the Beltane Oracle

  the Arch-Druid had summoned the kings to take counsel for the fate of

  Britannia, and they were coming at last. Boudica ran for the House

  of Maidens to change her clothing. For more than a year her world

  had been limited to the community here on the isle. What could she

  say to them? Would any of those she had met at Camulodunon re-

  member her?

  Her second summer at the Druids’ Isle had been as bountiful as

  Helve had promised. By midsummer the barley hung heavy on the stalk

  and the lambs grew fat on the rich grass. But for those who had heard

  the Oracle’s predictions, the blessings of the season were an evil omen,

  for if Helve was right about the harvest, she might be right about the

  Roman invasion as well.

  Swiftly Boudica pulled the white gown over her head and jerked the

  comb through her thick hair. Brenna and Morfad were already settling

  wreaths of summer asters on their heads. She snatched up her own

  wreath and hurried after the others down the road that led from Lys

  Deru to the shore.

  The chorus of youths and maidens formed behind the senior Druids

  and priestesses. At the narrowest part of the strait the cliff s were steep on

  both sides of the water. Boats made their landing farther down, where

  between the cliffs and the sandbanks there was a narrow beach. A barge

  was angling toward them across the blue waves. There was a haze upon

  the water, and all Boudica could make out within were the bright blurs

  of clothing and a glitter of gold. Another craft followed; she glimpsed

  the shapes of horses. No doubt the rest of their retinue had been left to

  camp upon the far shore.

  The

  Arch-Druid had sent out his summons to all the southern

  32 D i ana L . Pax s on

  tribes. No one at Lys Deru seemed to doubt they would obey, but if

  Cunobelin, with all his devious skill, had only been able to bring the

  Trinovantes and the Catuvellauni under his yoke, would even Lugov-

  alos be able to impose unity on tribes that had been enemies since their

  fathers came into this land?

  As the barge reached the midpoint of the strait it seemed to lose way.

  Boudica remembered that moment from her own arrival, when even

  untrained and exhausted as she was then, she had felt the pressure of the

  invisible wall that protected Mona.

  “Who approaches the holy isle?” Lugovalos’s voice rang out across

  the water.

  “Kings of Britannia, come to take counsel with the Wise,” came the

  answer, blurred by something more than distance.

  “Pass, then, by the will of the mighty gods,” cried the Arch-Druid,

  and the priests and priestesses behind him began to sing. There had been

  no chorus of Druids to welcome the pack-train that brought Boudica,

  only two priests and a priestess. But she had felt an odd tingle when

  their voices joined in the spell. There were twelve here now, and the

  thirteenth was the Arch-Druid standing before them. Their chanting

  vibrated through her bones.

  The Druids were reshaping the relationship between sky and sea.

  For a moment that vibration matched her own; Boudica saw each par-

  ticle shimmering and understood what her teachers meant by the har-

  mony of all things. When she could focus again, she saw the two barges

  and their passengers clearly. But the far shore behind them was still

  veiled by a golden haze. Their guests had passed the barrier.r />
  Boudica recognized Cunobelin’s two sons immediately; wiry, red-

  haired Caratac, who had taken over the Cantiaci kingdom, and Togo-

  dumnos, grown more portly already as he settled into his father’s

  dignities. With them were two more whom she did not know. Behind

  Togodumnos she glimpsed another man, tall with fair hair and mus-

  tache. She raised one eyebrow as she realized it was Prasutagos, brother

  of the Northern Iceni king.

  As the barge approached the shore, the youths and maidens began to

  sing:

  M A RI O N Z I M M E R B RA D L E Y ’ S RAV E N S O F AVA L O N

  33

  “It is to the land of gifted men that you have come,

  It is to the land of wise women that you have come,

  It is to the land of fair harvests that you have come,

  And to the land of song.

  You who sit in the seat of the hero,

  You who sit in the seat of the king,

  You who give ear to good counsel,

  Be you welcome here . . .”

  If both Helve and Lady Mearan have foreseen a Roman victory,

  why have you called us here?” said King Togodumnos. Unusual among

  the younger men, he wore a short beard. “Are you counseling us to bare

  our throats to the Roman wolf without a fi ght?”

  There was a growl from the other leaders, and Boudica, who was

  refilling the golden drinking bowl, stopped with it in her hand. The

  kings had spent half a day already debating whether the visions should

  be believed. At this rate, deciding what to do about them might take till

  the next full moon.

  “I am willing to go down fighting,” added Caratac, “but I would

  rather not know that I am doomed before I begin!” As he leaned for-

  ward the fi relight kindled a new flame in his russet hair. He was not so

  kingly a figure as his older brother, but though he always spoke to and

  of Togodumnos with respect, Boudica judged that of the two he had, if

  not the greater intelligence, certainly more energy.

  To house their guests the Druids had repaired the huts in the meadow

  where they held the festivals and removed the wicker sides from the long

  feasting hall to admit air and light for their deliberations. In the central

  trench a fire was kept burning, providing light and warmth and a witness

  to oaths as well. Several stave buckets bound in bronze and fi lled with

  ale served to lubricate the deliberations. Boudica, who had lived in a

 

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