Ravens of Avalon: Avalon
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cation for womanhood she wondered how the race could survive. And
how could she be a flame when she felt frozen inside?
Or was she? Pollio had slid off his glove and now was easing his fi n-
gers beneath the woolen mitten that covered her hand. The touch was
surprisingly intimate. She felt a sudden rush of heat, as if he had put his
hand beneath her gown.
“You are a princess of your people as I am a lord among mine. To-
gether we could do so much for this land . . .”
The horses had stopped. She trembled as he began to trace small
circles in the sensitive center of her palm.
“I have dreamed of you, my lady,” he said softly. “Sweet and ripe as
one of the apples we grow in the southern lands. I dream of tasting that
sweetness, as I dream of warming myself at your fire. Blessed Boudica,
fairest of women, welcome me to your hearth . . .”
Bogle was barking, but the sound seemed to come from somewhere
very far away. Pollio leaned forward, his other arm reaching up to draw
her to him. Her lips parted, awaiting his kiss.
And the dog, yipping gleefully, bounded beneath the bellies of the
horses. Pollio’s mount bucked, kicking, and the red mare shied.
Boudica grabbed a handful of mane and righted herself. The Ro-
man was half off his horse, swearing as he tried to retrieve his reins.
Bogle, apparently believing he had at last found a playmate, bounced in
and out, dodging the hooves, and then dashed away again, barking in
the tone that meant, “People are coming, come see, come see!”
She straightened, squinting against the glare of sun on snow as a
group of riders approached from the other direction. A big man on a big
horse led them. With some sense that went deeper than vision Boudica
knew him. She sat back, willing her heartbeat to slow.
By the time Prasutagos reached them, Pollio had also gotten his mount
under control. He nodded with a wary courtesy. “Greetings, my lord.”
Boudica watched with mingled amusement and consternation. How
long had they been in sight before Bogle noticed Prasutagos and started
barking? And what, at that distance, could he have seen?
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What, indeed, was there to see? Would I really have allowed the Roman to
kiss me? She felt nothing for Prasutagos, but next to him the Roman
looked—small.
“It is a cold day for riding,” the king observed. “We don’t often have
such a storm.” He turned to Boudica. “I was at Coric’s steading near the
harbor. A roof on one of his outbuildings collapsed from the weight of
the snow. I thought I should see if you needed any help here.”
It was a reasonable question. The steading had been in some disrepair
when she arrived. And she knew that during the past six months Prasuta-
gos had spent most of his time traveling from one steading to another. To
strengthen ties between king and people, they said, but it might be that
he could not bear living at Eponadunon, either. Surely it was chance that
he had happened to be in this part of his lands when the storm struck.
But whether it was a happy chance or an ill one she did not know.
“Everything seems to be secure,” she answered neutrally.
“That is good news,” said Prasutagos. He turned to the Roman.
“To lodge your men and mine we will need the second roundhouse, and
it would be best to have the horses under shelter as well.”
“Oh there will be no need to crowd your warriors.” Pollio’s lips
stretched in an equally polite smile. “If we push on we should reach the
ferry by nightfall. I have messages for the Brigante king that cannot
wait, and I must take advantage of the calm to cross before more bad
weather rolls in.”
Before Prasutagos arrived, thought Boudica, he had seemed quite
willing to spend the night with her.
“Perhaps you are wise,” the king said thoughtfully. “A ship came in
just before the storm, so you will not have to wait long. Greet Venutios
and Cartimandua for me.”
“I am sorry we will not have the pleasure of your company.” Boudica
let the Roman take that as he would. “But I understand the claims of
duty.” Including, she wondered warily, my own?
Prasutagos had visited from time to time when he was in the neigh-
borhood, staying long enough for a meal, but always off again before
dark, checking on her as he would any other possession, she thought
bitterly. The first few times she had scarcely noticed whether he was
there or not, but lately she found his detachment a little unnerving.
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Bogle sat down in the snow, tongue lolling, as Pollio summoned his
men and the little troop plodded off down the road.
“They ought to thank us for breaking trail for them,” observed Bi-
tuitos, the older of the two warriors who
were the king’s primary
guards. As big a man as Prasutagos, but ten years younger, he was some
kind of cousin, with the family size and strength and coloring.
“But they had better hurry,” added Eoc Mor, equally tall, but with
the brown hair and gray eyes of the older race. He had been destined for
life as a farmer until someone noticed how deadly quick he was with a
sword. “If the Roman cannot read the weather, I can, and clouds are
building eastward that will bring more snow before dawn!”
It was true that the wind was beginning to rise, with a damp chill
that cut deeper than the crisp cold of the morning.
“Perhaps we, too, should be on our way,” she suggested. “When we
met the Romans I sent Temella to warn the household we would have
guests. It is just as well you arrived—it would have been a pity to waste
the food.”
Bituitos had read the weather rightly. By sunset the wind was driv-
ing the fi rst flurries of snow across the downs. The interlaced frame-
work of beams and withies that supported the thatched roof fl exed and
groaned with each gust and changing pressure sent smoke from the hearth-
fi re billowing beneath its tall peak. No one suggested that the king and
his men should ride anywhere in such a storm, if indeed Prasutagos had
ever had such an intention. She was aware of his presence as she had not
been before, and did not know whether it was he who had changed, or
she. He seemed thinner, she thought, fined down by hard riding to
whipcord muscle and bone. Firelight glinted on his mustache and bur-
nished the strong modeling of cheekbones and jaw.
There were two roundhouses at the farmstead, along with other
buildings for stabling and storage. When the last of the mutton stew had
been eaten, most of the king’s men were sent off to the second house
where old Kitto and his wife lived with the other men who worked the
farm. Even to unlace the hide that covered the doorway long enough to
let them out let in a chilly blast that left Boudica shivering. The hides
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and rugs of heavy wool that hung on the inner side of the house walls
smoke to escape outward through the thatching also allowed cold air to
fi lter in.
Temella found more skins and blankets, and Bituitos and Eoc rolled
themselves into them beside the fire where Bogle already lay snoring,
his heavy head resting on a bone. Usually, in weather as cold as this,
Temella and Boudica would share a bed, but the girl was laying out her
own bedding in the partitioned section that was old Nessa’s place. That
seemed to answer the question of where Prasutagos would be sleeping.
Boudica could feel his gaze following her as she banked the fi re.
“Lady of the holy fire, ward this flame till morning. Brigantia, blessed
one, be you the fire in the hearth as you are the fire in the heart. Against
all evil that walks the night be our shield and protection.” She drew the
Lady’s sun-cross in the ash and rose to her feet, dusting her hands.
As she started to turn, the king rose and fell into step beside her. She
controlled a flinch—she had forgotten how tall he was. Together they
passed through the wool curtains Boudica had woven in her own clan’s
russet and gold and gray to hang from the houseposts that defi ned her
sleeping place. Swiftly she stripped off shawl and her outer tunic and
shoes and lay down in shift and gown, curling defensively against the
cold and away from the man whom she could hear taking off his own
outer garments. The straw beneath the sheepskins and linen sheet rus-
tled as Prasutagos got into bed beside her. She did not speak, but surely
a turned back made her wishes clear.
Boudica had forgotten that for some things he needed no words
at all.
She had been braced to resist his courtship, but this time there were
none of the sweet whispers with which he had taken her virginity, only
the rasp of his breath in her ear. She stiffened as he pulled up the skirts
of shift and gown and curled around her, those strong hands, calloused
from sword and bridle, taking possession of all that lay beneath. In silent
fury she tried to break free, but legs that could grip a horse’s barrel held
hers, one muscled arm pinioned her arms while the other hand relearned
the shape of her breasts.
“You are my wife . . .” Words escaped set teeth as the same force
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that gave him the strength to hold her broke through the barriers that
had kept him silent. She could feel each tremor that shook his body,
pressed so tightly against hers. “You may live without a man . . . but
you shall not lie with any . . . man . . . but . . . me!”
That answered the question of whether he had seen Pollio try to
kiss her.
Boudica was still trying to think of a response when with a last agile
shift he had her, and as once before, when her body was constrained, her
outrage exploded inward, driving the thinking self to one side. The
Roman had called her a fire, and now she was bursting into flame.
I am the oven that bakes the bread . . . said a voice within. I am the kiln
that fires the cup . . . I am the forge that shapes the blade. Burn!
When Boudica woke the next morning, the snow had ceased and
Prasutagos was gone. She might have thought his visit all a dream, but
by the Turning of Spring, she knew that she was once more with child.
Spring came to the Tor bearing a treasure of golden kingcup and
yellow flag and heralded by a clamor of returning birds. To Lhiannon, it
seemed as if the lengthening days were one long morning, releasing her
from the shadows in which she had walked since the fall of the Dun of
Stones. The long, slow cycles of winter had accorded with Lhiannon’s
mood, but with spring, the pace of life grew frenetic, and as she felt that
same energy burning in her own veins she realized that so far as she
would ever be, she was healed.
Soon, she knew, she would have to leave the Tor, but as the world
hovered at the Turning of Spring she found herself as undecided as the
season. A year ago at this time she and Ardanos had been preparing to
defend the Dun of Stones. Now the dun bore a Roman fort and most of
the south and west were in Roman hands. Governor Plautius was driv-
ing westward across the midlands. Caratac had gone to ground some-
where in the mountains beyond. Even if Lhiannon had been willing to
face more war there was nothing for her to do.
On the first fair day after the equinox an excess of energy drove her
up the Tor. This time she did not walk the spiral, but it scarcely mat-
tered. Her awareness of the Otherworld was always with her now. Wind
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ruffled the new grass. Below, the marshland pools, still full from the
spring rains, spread across the levels in a shifting mosaic of silver and blue.
But the spring sun was warm on her shoulders, and when she reached
the summit she lay down to rest.
Whether what came upon Lhiannon then was sleep or a vision she
was never sure, but it seemed to her that she was in a place of wide skies
and open fields where the air had the scent of the sea. Boudica was with
her, more beautiful than ever, her breasts full but her face fi ned down to
reveal the lovely curves of cheek and brow. In her eyes Lhiannon saw a
grief to match her own.
“Lhiannon . . .” across the miles she heard the cry. “Lhiannon, I am
afraid. I need you . . . come to me!”
Boudica knelt at the edge of the offering pit, fi ngering the ridges
that ornamented the curve of the bowl she held. It was a fine piece of
cream-colored pottery in the Gallic style her people had brought with
them from across the sea, one of a set that had been included in the
wedding treasure sent over from Eponadunon when she had taken up
residence at Danatobrigos. It was filled with early primroses now,
picked as she came through the wood that partly surrounded the Horse
Shrine at the foot of the hill. On the other side the ground was open
toward the path that ran alongside the stream. In the center of the en-
closure the skull of the most recent equine sacrifice contemplated her
from its pole.
“You old ones who were here before,” she whispered. “Your dust
is part of the earth whose fruits feed me and my child. Give us your
blessing.”
Prasutagos’s winter visit had shattered her peace. The quickening of
her child roused her to panic and a frantic search for ways to protect the
new life within. Once more, she had something to lose.
“The ghosts of this land have taken one life from me,” she went on.
“Surely you don’t need another! Please accept this off ering!”
As she stretched to lower the bowl she lost her balance and the
smooth ceramic slipped from her hand, hit a stone, and cracked. She
collapsed onto hands and knees, staring as the water ran out and soaked
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into the soil. Like an afterimage came the memory of how the kings had
broken the swords and bent the shields before off ering them at the Lake
of Little Stones. Was this a sign that the ancestors had accepted her of-
fering or an omen that her womb was as useless as the broken bowl?
She was no Druid to interpret it! She had refused to become a
priestess, abandoned her duties as wife and queen . . . would she ever be
a mother? She hunched over her belly, weeping.
“Boudica? Who has hurt you, child? What is wrong?”
For a moment she thought that soft voice a fi gment of her memory.
Then she heard a pony snort and the creak of harness. She turned, vision
blurring at the sight of a thin woman in blue with golden hair. Slowly
she got to her feet.
“Lhiannon? You’re real? I have wanted you so badly! Are you really
here?” As the priestess slid down from her pony Boudica ran forward,
hugging her in a tumult of mingled laughter and tears.
“You’ve lost none of your strength, at any rate,” Lhiannon said
when Boudica released her at last. “And you are blooming. But what are
you doing here? They told me I had some days of travel yet to reach
Prasutagos’s dun. I only took this path to see if I might find a meal at the
farm.”
“I am sure that Palos and Shanda would make you welcome, but
there’s no need to trouble them when my home is just up the hill!” ex-
claimed Boudica. “The farm is busy with preparations for Beltane, but we
can slaughter one of the lambs early for a feast of welcome! Follow me!”
As they walked perhaps she could find the words to tell Lhiannon
all that had happened to her since they parted at Camulodunon. The
gods knew she had rehearsed the story often enough during those sleep-
less nights when she longed for the other woman to come.
I believe you,” said Lhiannon. “When the need is great there is
power in such a cry. This time I heard you calling, I think, because I
was on the Tor. I am only sorry . . .” She sighed, tugging on the rein by
which she was leading the pony as it tried for a particularly juicy clump
of new grass.
“That you did not hear me when I was birthing my son?” said
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Boudica. “I do not blame you now. Even the greatest of priestesses could
not have instantly transported herself all the way across Britannia.”