taught at the school?”
Lhiannon lowered her eyes. “We have not discussed it.”
Of late, Boudica and Prasutagos had seemed easier in one another’s
company, but she still did not sleep with him, even though the child was
weaned. If Boudica did not share his power, could Prasutagos truly
reign? Did that matter, now that the true power lay with Rome? And
what was left here for Lhiannon, if Boudica did take her place at her
husband’s side?
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“What other commands have you brought from Lys Deru?” she
asked.
Belina shrugged. “From Helve, you mean. Lugovalos is failing, and
she gives the orders now. I was told to raise what support I might for
Caratac. The governor is sending his legions too close to the north and
west for comfort.”
“Do they threaten Mona?” Lhiannon asked in alarm.
“He knows it is the Druid stronghold,” answered Belina. “He knows
that Mona has some of the richest land in Britannia, and that with grain
or with magic we will support anyone who is willing to fight. He would
have to be stupid not to know that while we stand, his hold on Britannia
will never be secure.”
“The Romans are not stupid,” Lhiannon said slowly. “But this is a
big island. If we keep worrying at them, they may decide it would be
foolish to keep on wasting resources and men . . .”
“You’ve lost none of your wits.” Belina gave her an approving hug.
“Whether it is I or Boudica who does the honors, you should leave with
me when the inauguration is done.” Both women looked up as a sudden
commotion rose from the direction of the council fire before the High
King’s hall.
“After the king-making . . .” Lhiannon said slowly, “I will give you
my answer then.”
People were beginning to hurry past as the noise grew louder.
“Prasutagos son of the hazel, Prasutagos son of the sun, Prasutagos
son of the plow, Prasutagos Ricon, Iceni king!” came the cry.
S I X T E E N
Turn, my lady, and lift your arm—”
Boudica complied, controlling a twitch at the feather-touch of the
brush with which the old woman was painting a series of spirals along
her side. Her breathing was slow and steady. Her pulse throbbed to the
vibration beneath her feet, the heartbeat of the Beltane drums.
Rays of setting sun filtered through the roughly woven curtains
with which they had walled and roofed the women’s enclosure, scatter-
ing flickers of ruddy light across the grass. The mask of the White Mare
hung from the center post, waiting to play its role in her transformation.
Through the cloth walls the noise of the festival came oddly muted, as if
this space were separated from the world.
As I am from my former self . . . she thought slowly. Waiting to learn
what I will be . . . To endure the tedium of the body painting she had
drawn on the disciplines she had learned at Mona; she sat as motionless
as the image into which the painting was transforming her. Her naked
back and belly already bore the running figures of the Hare and the
Boar, the Wolf and the Eagle, Ram and Bull and Bear, with a wealth of
horses twining among them, totems that the incoming Celts had inher-
ited from the peoples whom they had conquered.
In the Earth-ring, Prasutagos would be receiving the blessings of
the Druids who had witnessed the oaths of the chieftains. When Ro-
mans were present the priests went disguised. As long as they did not
bring themselves to the attention of the conquerors, the current policy
seemed to be to ignore them.
But the Horse Queen who blessed the Beltane rites was the priestess of
an older magic. The Druids consecrated the king to the tribe. The God-
dess linked him to the land on which they lived. Boudica did not yet know
if she could submit to so overwhelming an energy. Belina was prepared to
step in, but if Boudica failed she suspected it would mean the end of her
marriage.
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A part of her mind lay immobilized within her body, its panicked
yammerings suppressed by the same discipline that held her limbs. This
time, she thought, she could not ride the red mare to freedom. This
time, the White Mare would be riding her.
“All done,” said the old woman. Slowly she lowered her arm.
“Come back, my darling.” Lhiannon’s face appeared before her.
“You can rule your limbs now. Breathe in and out and in and out again.
That is right—you are here with me and soon the ritual will begin. Re-
turn!”
Boudica blinked as sensation rippled through her, aware of the stiff
paint on her skin, the women’s chatter suddenly loud in her ears. The
sun had set; she was surrounded by shadows. She shivered. The king’s
procession would be coming soon.
“No!” Nessa was saying to someone at the entrance. “You may not
see her. This space is forbidden to men, especially you! Go away before
I call the warriors to throw you in the midden—for that they will need
no swords!”
“Who is it?” Boudica called.
“No one you need to care about,” muttered the old woman, sighing
as she met Boudica’s glare. “It’s that Pollio . . . he says he must speak
with you.”
Her first annoyance gave way to alarm. “I’ll talk to him,” she said in
a low voice. “Lhiannon, keep these others out of earshot until I am
done.” She stepped to the curtain.
“What is it? You must speak quickly,” she murmured through the
cloth.
“Let me see your face, Boudica,” came the familiar Atrebate ac-
cent.
“Goddess, no!” She flushed with sudden awareness of her naked
body. “In the old days they would have staked you out for the wolves for
coming even this close to the women’s sanctuary.”
“You don’t have to do this!” Pollio’s words came in a rush. “It’s
known that you refuse your husband your bed—you don’t have to let
him lie with you now. It will make no difference. Prasutagos is king
because Rome supports him, not because of some barbarous ritual.”
“What are you talking about?” Since that day in the snow when he
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had tried to kiss her she had scarcely seen the man, and never alone.
Had he been building up some fantasy in which she loved him all this
time?
“Leave your husband! Come away with me!” he hissed. “You are a
princess of the royal house—I could make you a ruling queen like Car-
timandua!”
“You are mad!” she said with conviction. “And this is sacrilege!”
“I love you, Boudica! I know that you are not indiff erent to me!”
“Indeed not,” she answered with leashed fury. “A man who would
tempt the wife of an ally to betray her marriage can only be despised! Is
this the honor they teach in Rome?”
No matter that she had been tempted to fl ee herself—she wou
ld
never have gone with this pig of a Roman! And in that moment Boudica
realized that her ambivalence had disappeared.
“But my lady—” His words were cut off as the golden blare of the
carynx horn reverberated through the eve ning air.
“They are coming! They will kill you if they fi nd you here. Be gone
and be damned to you, Roman! This warning is the last word you will
have from me!”
She heard a rustle of retreating footsteps as the horns called again
and stepped back, breathing quickly.
“What did he want?” asked Lhiannon.
“Nothing that matters,” Boudica muttered, glad that the dim light
hid the blush that was warming her cheeks. Lhiannon was the last per-
son to whom she wanted to reveal the shameful proposition the Roman
had made.
Outside, drums boomed, commanding attention. The deep voices
of the Druids rose and fell, closer and closer, then passing as the king
was escorted to his place of honor near the fire. There was more at stake
here than a ceremony. If Belina acted as priestess tonight, she would be
linked to the king only while the Goddess was present. But for Boudica
to take that role would admit Prasutagos as well as Epona into her heart.
Boudica felt an anticipatory shiver pebble her skin. Lhiannon brought a
white cloak and draped it over her shoulders against the cooling air. The
door curtain moved and she saw her mother there.
“Oh my daughter, you are so beautiful—even more than on your
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wedding day,” Anaveistl said with a tremulous smile. “I just wanted to
see you, and now I will be getting back to the house and our darling
little girl—”
Boudica patted the older woman’s hand. Upon meeting her grand-
daughter, Anaveistl had become instantly besotted. Rigana could ask for
no more devoted guardian.
“What is happening now?” she asked as her mother departed.
“The king has been seated,” answered Belina. “I think it is dark
enough now to open the curtain a little. If you sit here, you can see—”
One of the Druids knelt to set the fire he had carried from the
Earth-ring to the stacked wood in the center; a great shout went up as it
burst into flame. The drummers let loose with a thunder of sound as a
line of young men came dancing around it, armed with staves.
There should have been more of them, thought Boudica sadly. These
were the younger brothers of men who had died at the battle in the fens.
But they twirled and struck valiantly. Was Prasutagos thinking the same
thing? He looked tired, but his features displayed his usual calm control.
As they must, she realized, if he was to rule. Gold rings gleamed from his
strong arms, a golden torque circled his neck. They had garbed him in a
kilt and cloak in the ancient style. She had never noticed that his legs
were as muscular and well shaped as his arms.
Well, when would I have had the chance? she thought with a fl ush of
shame, and something more. A flicker of excitement warmed her at the
realization that she was free to look at him all she pleased, and he could
not see.
Now some of the girls slipped out of the women’s enclosure to join
the line of maidens who were tracing sinuous patterns around the fi re.
They were crowned with hawthorn, and as they grew heated by the
dancing, first one and then another undid the pins that held her garment
at the shoulders so that it was held up only by her woven belt, leaving
white breasts bare.
Someone brought Boudica a cup of wine; she felt the warmth in her
limbs, and in her head a regular pulsing that matched that of the drums.
The young men returned to circle around the maidens, dancing
forward until they almost touched, then whirling away once more.
Eyes grew bright and faces flushed with more than the heat of the fi re.
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Prasutagos was smiling. Did she imagine that the pulse at the base of
his throat was beating more quickly, or was that only the throb she felt
in her own?
This festival was not only to honor the new king but to welcome in
the summer, and to do all that men might to encourage a bountiful year.
Boudica cast a glance toward Lhiannon, remembering how the older
woman had hoped to meet Ardanos at the Beltane fires. Child that she
was, she had not understood the message of the drums. Her fl esh com-
prehended it now.
They thundered in a fi nal flourish; man and maid joined hands and
ran laughing into the darkness. Suddenly the circle was still.
“It is time . . .” said Lhiannon very evenly, as if she, too, were fi ght-
ing for control.
“It is time indeed—” Belina turned to Boudica. “Are you ready, my
dear?”
Boudica could not have found words, but her body was responding
for her. She got to her feet. She reached out to take the mask of the
White Mare from the priestess’ hand. She settled the molded leather
over her head, where her hair had been coiled to support it, and Lhian-
non reached up to secure the ties. The neck of the mask extended down
the back of her head to her shoulders, while the head hid her face,
cheekpieces curving down to frame her own while the muzzle pro-
jected forward. Real horsehair had been added to form a mane.
“Now . . .” Lhiannon’s voice seemed to come from a very long ways
away. “Now you are a queen . . .”
Boudica scarcely noticed the leather’s weight. As the mask enclosed
her head, she felt a corresponding pressure within her skull that pushed
the self she thought her own into some space from which she could only
watch in terror and amazement as her body jerked like a young horse
fighting the rein. How many queens had borne this crown? They were
all here, whispering, their voices blending into a single Voice.
“Is it time to run?” came the question. “Is it time to dance?”
Tremors ran downward along her spine, out her flailing arms, down
strong legs to feet that stamped and struck the earth. She reeled, and soft
hands pushed her upright again. The mane tossed as she shook her head,
breath exploded from her lungs with a sound that was halfway between
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a laugh and a neigh. She tried to fight, as she had tried to fight the Mor-
rigan. This goddess was both wilder and more benign, but She was just
as strong.
“You already know Me, my daughter, why are you afraid? Don’t you re-
member how you rode the red mare?”
And as Boudica recalled that wild ride through the moonlight, past
and present, rider and ridden, became one. When she was a little girl she
had begged her father for a pony, and ridden her own galloping legs
around the dun until he complied. Her body already knew the motions.
Letting the cloak fall from Her shoulders, She swept the curtain aside
and paced toward the fi re.
A whisper of awe swept around the circle, louder t
han the fl utes and
rattles that had finally remembered to play. “The goddess is with
us . . . Epona has come to us . . . the goddess comes to the king . . .”
The totems of every clan rippled as muscles slid beneath white skin.
She turned, arms extended, embracing them all. Women were weeping,
men’s eyes shone with a hope that had not been there before. She took
Her time, for these people had suffered and had need of Her love. Once,
twice, thrice, She paced around the circle, blessing Her tribe, and then
at last She came to a halt before the king.
Prasutagos’s calm had shattered. On his cheeks shone the silver track
of tears, in his eyes an astonished joy. The molded mask bowed before
him, lifted with a shake of the mane. A quiver ran through Her body;
She twisted, presenting Herself like a mare. But She was also a woman.
She turned back to him, offering the firm breasts that had suckled his
child, ran Her hands across Boudica’s belly, outlining the womb that
had received his seed.
“Come!” came the command in a voice that both was and was not
Boudica’s own.
The king stood, fumbling with the golden clasp of his belt, and let
the wrapped kilt fall away. Already his phallus was engorged and rising.
Was it the ritual, or was he really more generously endowed than other
men? The people shouted out their approval as he stepped toward her.
As She was the goddess, he stood before them as the image of the god.
“Come and serve Me,” She whispered. Power jolted through them
both as he took Her hand.
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A path was opening through the crowd before them. Beyond, the
plowed fi eld waited to become their bed.
I wish that you were not leaving us,” said Boudica, picking up the
traveling cloak that Lhiannon had just shaken out and folding it up
again. At Dun Garo the queen and her women had a sun- house for their
own activities, built in a ring whose center was open to the sky. The
light was welcome, but the company of so many chattering women
grated on Lhiannon’s nerves. But there was room here to pack the many
things that the queen had insisted she and Belina must take on their
journey.
“We need you here, Lhiannon. We need your healing and your wis-
dom,” Boudica continued.
If you had said “ I need you here, Lhiannon,” I might stay . . . she thought
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