Ravens of Avalon: Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  people around you is always a useful thing. Indeed, I have been think-

  ing that it would be well to have someone here who could teach the

  Latin tongue.”

  “You are wise. If you are to become citizens of the Empire you will

  need to speak its language, although to be sure there are many who still

  hold that Greek is the only civilized speech.”

  Boudica resented the unconscious superiority she sensed beneath

  Pollio’s words. But now she could see horsemen on the road. Even at

  such a distance there was something in the relaxed balance with which

  the first rider sat his mount that she recognized. It is less than a year, she

  thought in wonder. Have I become so linked to him already? Perhaps she

  ought to have expected it, even though he was for the most part as silent

  as ever. Perhaps it was because she was carrying his child.

  She stretched and waved as Prasutagos cantered toward them, as

  grateful for rescue as if she had been beseiged.

  E L E V E N

  L hiannon faced Ardanos across the fi re, their voices twining in the

  chant as the column of smoke twisted toward the sky. The earthen ram-

  parts that protected the barrows of the ancient dead were covered by

  grass and eroded by the years. It was the hilltop across the valley to the

  south that would be Caratac’s refuge. Even now, Durotrige tribesmen

  were toiling up the slopes with hods filled with earth and stone to rein-

  force defenses built by people whose names were lost from the land.

  In the days of peace the Turning of Spring had been a time to work

  for a bountiful growing season. But this year the blood of men would

  fertilize the fields. Through the heat-haze she saw Ardanos’s features

  exalted and intent as always during ritual. He would look like that while

  making love . . . She tried to banish the image, but these days they were

  so linked that he felt her thought, and when his eyes met hers her whole

  body flushed with desire. Her first instinct was to suppress it, but this,

  too, could be an off ering.

  As the circle began to move sunwise she allowed that energy to

  grow, flowing out through her left hand through the circle to the Dru-

  ids and village priests who had joined them for the rite.

  “Equality of day and night,

  Balance point of dark and light—

  This is the day, and this the hour,

  To choose the purpose, raise the power—”

  Since the submission of the tribes in the south and east the previous

  summer she and Ardanos had been moving steadily ahead of the Roman

  advance westward, always together, but never alone. King Veric had

  died shortly after the Roman emperor left Britannia. While General

  Vespasian was busy putting down the last of Caratac’s supporters on the

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  Isle of Vectis and establishing Cogidubnos in his grandfather’s place,

  Lhiannon and Ardanos had gone to King Tancoric. The Durotrige

  lands were rich in hillforts built in ancient days and rebuilt during the

  west country’s endless intertribal wars. Surely the Romans would not be

  able to capture them all . . .

  Wind gusted across the hilltop and the fire flared suddenly, sparking

  along the juniper boughs that had been twined among the the oak logs

  in sigils of fl ame. Now the pine branches caught with a crackle of resin,

  adding their spicy scent to the smoke that was being blown eastward by

  the ever- present wind. Eastward . . . toward the advancing enemy.

  The fire flared and hissed as now one, and now another dancer

  would dart forward to throw an off ering of oil or mead or blood on the

  flames. The smoke grew thicker, billowing above the hill. Lhiannon

  could feel power building within the circle as they danced.

  “By our words and by our will,

  Here upon the holy hill,

  A blessing bid on all we see,

  A spell we cast for victory!”

  Wind gusted again, blowing the hair she had left unbound for the

  ritual across her face. She shook her head to dislodge the fine strands and

  her smile faded as she realized that the wind had changed. Ardanos

  pulled his side of the circle forward, arms lifting to release the power,

  and rather raggedly the others followed. The column of smoke that had

  flowed eastward to threaten their foes was now drifting north, toward

  the hill of stones.

  L hiannon sat down on the bench and drew up one foot, drying it

  with her cloak of heavy, oily wool. The skin was pale and waterlogged,

  the flesh cut and bruised from going barefoot in the mud. At least when

  your refuge was a hillfort, most of the rainwater that did not go into the

  cistern ran downhill. The folk of the fens around Avalon were said to

  have webbed feet. She wished that she did. She wished she were on the

  Isle of Avalon and not beseiged on this hill. She peered upward, hoping

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  that the fine mist that had begun to fall meant a possible break in the

  clouds, but all she could see was gray.

  The omen at the equinox ritual had proved a true one—the Roman

  advance had caught up with Caratac’s forces a week later and dug their

  own bank and ditch all around the base of the hill. With them came the

  rain. Lhiannon looked up as a dark-haired warrior scrambled down from

  the rampart and over to the pile of stones to scoop more ammunition for

  his sling into the bag hung from his belt, and she gave him what she

  hoped was a cheery smile. The defenders of the hillfort had laid in sup-

  plies enough for a lengthy siege, but construction had focused on

  strengthening the ramparts and deepening the ditch between, not the

  buildings within. Yet though comfort might be lacking, they had plenty

  of water, and plenty of stones.

  Now, of course, they could not forage for thatching straw or white-

  wash to protect the wattle-and-daub walls. The circles of hastily erected

  roundhouses clustered on the muddy turf of the hilltop were less secure

  than the buildings in which folk kept their cows at home, and there were

  no withies with which to mend the fencing that kept the cattle they had

  brought here penned. The food had been moved to the best shelter, and

  even then, some of it had spoiled. Humans were expected to be more

  resilient. With a sigh she picked up her other foot, grimacing at the touch

  of cold mud when she put the first one back down.

  The reason she had refused to stay with Boudica was standing on

  the rampart, peering between two of the pointed logs that formed the

  palisade. Ardanos’s white robe was mud-colored now, but then so was

  Lhiannon’s priestess-blue gown. What was needed here was a nice, neu-

  tral gray. But new clothing was another thing they were going to have

  to do without for a while.

  Someone shouted and she squinted upward, following the flight of

  the incoming stone with wary gaze. The Roman catapults were quite

  powerful, but the area protected by the double rampart that surrounded

  an extended square atop the hill was extensive enough that apart from

  the wear and t
ear on everyone’s nerves, they rarely did any harm. The

  boulders that struck the palisade were another matter, but they still had

  logs enough to replace by night what was smashed during the day, bol-

  stered by the stones with which the enemy had gifted them.

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  Why was it that the epics the bards were so fond of reciting never

  mentioned the sheer misery of standing seige in the rain? She hoped the

  Romans were equally uncomfortable. She hoped that their iron breast-

  and backplates were rusting together, the laminated arms of their bal-

  listas becoming unglued, their leather tents rotting away.

  Lhiannon stood up with a sigh and pulled the cloak over her hair

  as the rain intensifi ed once more.

  W e have held this place longer than any of the others,” said Caratac,

  coughing as a draft set the smoke from the hearthfire swirling around the

  roundhouse where the chieftains had gathered. Lhiannon shielded her

  face with her veil and dipped up more herb tea from the cauldron. The

  rain on the thatching made a dull patter beneath the whisper of the

  fire, so familiar that it was only at moments like this, when everyone

  fell silent, waiting for the smoke to clear, that she even noticed the

  sound.

  “Nearly two moons . . .” said Antebrogios, the chieftain Tancoric

  had put in charge of the defenses. “But longer is not forever.” He

  coughed, either from the smoke or from the catarrh that affl

  icted most

  of those

  here. “Our supplies are getting low and we have sickness

  among the men.”

  “So do the Romans,” muttered one of the others. “At night you can

  hear them coughing in their tents. They curse the climate of Britannia,

  and they curse the emperor who sent them here.”

  “Then let them go home to sunny Italia,” muttered someone. “If

  this rain keeps up much longer I’ll be wishing I could go, too.”

  “If they run out of food or men they can ask for replacements,”

  pointed out his chieftain. “We cannot.”

  “Are you saying we should give up?” challenged Caratac. He held

  out his beaker for Lhiannon to refill. Like the rest of them, he was gaunt

  and grimy, honed down by hardship to muscle and bone. If he had fore-

  seen this day at the council on Mona, would he have spoken so boldly? she won-

  dered as she handed the cup back to him. Would any of them?

  Her gaze met that of Ardanos, sitting in the shadows near the door,

  and she thought he was wondering, too. He had grown thin in the past

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  weeks, with hollow cheeks and haunted eyes. Always before he had had

  a wry comment or a cheerful word, but in the past weeks he had been

  uncharacteristically quiet. They had not been tempted to dance together

  at Beltane, for the defenders had not had wood enough for a bonfi re. He

  no longer tried to persuade her to his bed, and that was the most dis-

  turbing sign of all. But she had grown silent, too.

  She looked away. If we speak, we are afraid we will have to admit that

  there is no hope of victory . . .

  “The Romans out there outnumber us,” Caratac said with quiet

  intensity. “Their legions outnumber the Durotriges as they did the Tri-

  novantes when we fought on the Tamesa. But they do not outnumber

  the Britons of Britannia! If we do not give up, if we make them bleed

  for every hillfort, every river crossing, every foot of ground, there will

  come a time when the gold and grain they can seize from us cease to be

  enough to pay for the lives of their men. That is why we must hold out

  as long as we can, and if we are driven from this stronghold we will re-

  treat to another. We can outlast them. This is our land!”

  Perhaps even Caratac would have quailed, a year ago, if he had

  known what was to come, but it was clear to Lhiannon that he could

  not do so now. The others might surrender, but he must continue. He

  had paid too much already to give in.

  But what if the Romans felt the same way? What if every legionary

  who fed the Morrigan’s ravens strengthened General Vespasian’s resolve

  to destroy those who had brought him down?

  Outside someone raised the alarm. Cursing, the chieftains snatched

  up their swords and crowded through the door. Slipping and sliding in

  the mud, one hand holding their shields up in a linked mass to repell

  missiles from above while the other gripped a sword, the Romans were

  assaulting the ramparts yet again.

  It was not until midsummer that the rain let up at last.

  Great shining fortresses of cloud drifted slowly eastward, having sur-

  rendered all their store of rain, leaving the sun as victor on a field of blue.

  At the Dun of Stones, besieged and besiegers alike paused a moment in

  their labors, turning toward the light like flowers as the strengthening

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  sun drew moisture from the soaked ground of the dun in curls of steam.

  The humid air lay heavy in Lhiannon’s lungs, but it would dry, and the

  mud on the slopes of the dun would dry, and the Romans would attack

  again.

  Overhead ravens were circling, dark and bright in turn as their glossy

  wings caught the light of the sun. Be patient, she thought. Soon you will

  feed!

  She stripped down to her linen undertunic and draped her blue robe

  over the thatch of her roundhouse, then began to undo her braids.

  “Your hair is like spun sunlight . . .”

  She felt a touch and turned almost into Ardanos’s arms.

  “And you like a faerie child in your pale gown, with your white

  arms gleaming in the sun.” Smiling a little, he began to work at the

  tangles with which she had been struggling.

  “Mud-colored around the hem, though it is kind of you to say so . . .”

  she answered as steadily as she could. “But if death is coming, at least I

  will face it in dry clothes.”

  “Probably . . . almost certainly, I would say,” he answered with an

  attempt at his old sardonic detachment. “When I looked over the pali-

  sade there seemed to be a lot of activity down the hill. The Romans are

  moving the ballistas into position for an assault, with no attempt to do

  so unobserved. And why should they? Whenever they choose to assault

  us we can only meet the attack with what we have. Which is not much.

  We have almost no arrows, and even the supply of slinging stones is get-

  ting low.”

  “And a fortress cannot run away,” she agreed. Nor can those trapped

  inside it. But there was no need to say that aloud.

  He finished working on the second braid, combing the strands

  out with his fingers so that they lay soft upon her shoulders, shining

  in the sun.

  “How is it that lack of food only makes you more beautiful?” he said

  then. “You were almost too thin before, but now your spirit shines like

  a lamp through your skin . . .” For the last week the food ration, never

  ample, had been cut. The Romans might not have expected them to

  hold out for so long, but An
tebrogios had never expected the Romans

  would have the patience for so long a siege.

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  Ardanos had grown gaunt as well. She saw now how he would look

  when he was old, if indeed either of them survived to see old age. At this

  moment it hardly mattered. To hear that gentle note in his voice, to see

  that light in his eye, was what she needed now. If he was fey, then so was

  she. It was not only hunger that made her lightheaded as she moved into

  the circle of his arms.

  The activity in the Roman camp continued all afternoon. In the

  dun, the eve ning meal was quiet, but the cooks served out the best of

  the food that remained. There was only water to drink, but the chief-

  tains pledged each other as if it had been wine.

  “If this night we are fated to fall, we should go rejoicing,” said Ar-

  danos as the horn came to him. “The Romans we kill may go down to

  gloomy Hades, but for us the Blessed Isles are waiting, until it is time to

  enter the Cauldron and be born anew.”

  The Isles of the Blessed, or the Otherworld the faerie woman showed me . . .

  thought Lhiannon. If that lady should open such a gateway here and now

  would she go through it? Not alone, she thought, looking at Ardanos.

  Never, if she had to take that road alone.

  “By all the gods, you men of the Durotriges will surely feast among

  the heroes,” exclaimed Caratac. “None ever fought more bravely, or

  endured so well.”

  “None ever had such noble chieftains to lead them,” came the re-

  sponse from the men.

  When the meal was over, Lhiannon and Ardanos wandered out past

  the empty livestock pens, looking up at the stars. The men who walked

  the ramparts were singing. When they paused, one could hear a mur-

  mur like distant thunder from below. But here on the pile of straw

  where Ardanos had spread his cloak, it seemed very still.

  Lhiannon rested her head upon his shoulder. They were both still

  fully clothed, and he had made no move to change that. She could feel

  a regular quiver beneath her palm, as if she held his heart in her hand.

  “I never thought it would be in such a time and place when I fi nally lay

  with you in my arms,” Ardanos said at last. “Or that it would be enough to

  simply hold you, and know that this is where you chose to be.”