him away!”
The animal in question, a brown bull with heavy shoulders and a
suspicious glint in its eye, was standing a few paces away.
“It is I, not you, who will decide which beasts I am taking,” said
Cloto. “I have selected that one.” He smiled, and Boudica was suddenly
sure that he knew exactly how much pride Drostac took in that bull.
Heads turned as she came toward them, Rigana a pace behind. She
looked from Cloto to the Roman offi
cial who accompanied him, a
small man who kept stepping from foot to foot as if afraid he would sink
into the mud, and clearly uneasy in the presence of the bull.
“You want the bull?” Boudica produced a titter of laughter. “Why
Cloto, have you forgotten everything you ever knew about farming?”
She shook her head pityingly and turned to the Roman. “I suppose you
will be wanting to tax this man again next year? Where do you suppose
the calves will come from if you take the bull away?”
Drostac closed his lips on whatever he’d been about to say as the
Roman frowned. Cloto’s face had darkened. As he turned to reply, Boudica
uttered a small shriek and edged away.
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“Rigana dear, I want you to get back behind the fence,” she said in
a high voice. “And good masters, I think we should do the same. That
animal does not look safe to me . . .”
Rigana’s outrage at being ordered faded as she saw her mother
wink. The Roman official needed no more encouragement to follow
her. Boudica and Drostac came after him, leaving Cloto to face the bull,
which by this time really was disturbed and had begun to paw the
ground.
Once through the gate, Boudica took the Roman’s arm. “If you did
slaughter the beast, he’d not be good for much but sandal leather,” she
said confidentially. “Your troops will thank you for the meat of three
tender heifers, believe me, where they’d curse you for trying to feed
them that bull.”
In the field they were passing, new lambs played with an energy
one could not imagine their mothers had ever had. Now and again one
of the ewes would lift its head in an admonitory baa. Boudica sympa-
thized. As if her speculations had been a prophecy, just after the Turning
of Spring Argantilla had come to her mother to announce that she had
begun to bleed “from the woman’s place,” and when could they have
her ceremony? Though Rigana considered her monthly fl owering an
annoyance, Argantilla had always been much more comfortable with
her femininity. To initiate them together seemed the obvious response,
and now that they were on the road, the girls were cantering their po-
nies up and down the line with equal enthusiasm.
“Calm down, you two,” she called as her younger daughter bounced
by. “If you wear out your mounts before we get there you’ll be walking
beside them.”
Boudica found herself content to hold the white mare to a gentle
amble, her anxiety at having left Prasutagos behind at Dun Garo war-
ring with a guilty relief at being free in the open air. Should she have
stayed with him? He had insisted that she should take the girls to the
sacred spring.
They could have made the journey in two days, but the wagons in
which some of the other women were riding moved slowly. Temella was
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with them, and some chieftains’ wives. Her own mother had died long
ago, but they had sent someone to bring old Nessa down from Danato-
brigos, and Drostac’s wife was bringing her own daughter, Aurodil, to
share in the ritual.
W as the ritual like this for you?” asked Argantilla as they settled
into the shelters beneath the trees.
Boudica put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. Tilla had not yet
gotten her growth, but her figure was already sweetly rounded. She must
have inherited that womanly body and her calm nature from her father’s
side of the family, thought the queen. It was nothing like the rangy en-
ergy she herself shared with Rigana. She would not have been ready for a
womanhood ritual at the age of thirteen, but for Argantilla it was time.
“No, for I was with the Druids on Mona. When my courses began
we had a celebration, but the ritual was always delayed until a girl was
ready to decide whether she wished to become a priestess. So I was much
older—” And in some ways, much younger, she reflected, giving the girl an
extra hug. On Mona the Druids lived in lofty separation from the de-
mands of the world, or at least they had until now, she thought apprehen-
sively. Growing up in the High King’s household had given both her
daughters a sophistication beyond their years.
That night, however, the giggling that came from the shelter where
the three girls were supposed to be sleeping was all too appropriate to
their age. Boudica lay wakeful, remembering how Prasutagos had come
to her in the darkness, touching herself as he had touched her, imagining
he was beside her now. They had not made love since he had fallen ill. She
had not realized how much she needed the release she found in his arms.
In the dark hour before the dawning they were awakened, and fol-
lowed the priestess who tended the sacred spring down the path, rush-
lights flickering in their hands. When they reached the pool they set
their lights around it and stood waiting.
Boudica’s hands were tied to those of her daughters. As they ap-
proached, the priestess barred the way.
“Who comes to the sacred spring?”
“I am Boudica, daughter of Anaveistl, and these are my daughters,
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Rigana and Argantilla. Through all the years of their growing I have
protected and nourished them. It is my right to stand with them now.”
“The children you cherished are no more,” said the priestess. “They
are women, and their own blood flows red at the call of the moon. On
the journey they are beginning they must walk alone.”
She turned to the girls. “Rigana, Argantilla, the Goddess has called
you to take on the responsibilities of womanhood. Are you willing to
separate yourself from your mother and obey?”
“I am,” they answered her.
The priestess turned to Boudica. “And are you willing to let
them go?”
As she gave her assent her heart was crying No! They are only children.
It is too soon! But the ritual, like the years that had brought them to this
place, had a momentum that carried her along.
“Then I cut the cords that have bound you. From this moment, you
shall walk free.” With a little sickle-shaped knife the priestess severed
the bonds.
As the cord gave way Boudica felt the loss of another connection
that she had not consciously realized was there. I should not have done this
for both girls together, she thought frantically. I am not ready to lose both my
babies at one blow!
She stood aside as the pro cess was
repeated for the other mother
and her girl, and followed, unhappily aware that from now on her only
function here was to stand as witness. Three of the younger women
had stripped off their garments and were helping the girls to disrobe
before leading them into the pool. Boudica saw the goose bumps peb-
ble their skin and winced in sympathy. Even at the height of spring the
air was chilly at this hour, and the water was always cold.
In the dawn wind ribands fluttered from the branches, some old,
some new. She supposed that the one she had left here so many years ago
had become dust by now, like the body of her son. But the image of the
Goddess was still there—or perhaps it was another one made to the
same pattern. Boudica imagined a sequence of such statues, one replac-
ing another as the first decayed, just as new generations of daughters
took their mothers’ places at the sacred spring.
“Now let the water bear away all stains and soil,” chanted the young
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women, dipping up water and pouring it over the girls. “Let it dissolve
all that bound you, let all that hid your true selves be washed away . . . Feel
the water caress your bodies, and remember the waters from which you
were born.”
Red and dark and fair, the girls turned to receive the blessing. In the
flickering light their bodies gleamed like ivory, glittering where the wa-
ter made rivulets across rounded limbs. Boudica’s breath caught in won-
der at the beauty of budding breasts and the sweet joining of slim thighs.
At places like this one and the Blood Spring of Avalon she had sensed
a holy power. And there had been times when she had felt it within. But
as the three girls embraced each other she saw the Maiden Goddess
manifest in all Her infinite variety, radiant with potential, and her tears
fell to mingle with the waters of the sacred spring.
“Rigana, Argantilla, Aurodil, clean and shining, revealed in your
beauty, arise, O my sisters, and join us now . . .”
The girls got out of the pool with more alacrity than they had gone
in, gasping with cold and laughter as they rubbed each other dry and
pulled their tunics on. Meanwhile, the women faced each other along
the path, arms clasped in pairs to make a tunnel through which the girls
must pass to reach the feast that waited in the clearing beyond.
“From the blossom comes the fruit and from the fruit the seed,” the women
sang. “Dying, we are born again, and buried, we are freed . . .”
Boudica and Aurodil’s mother opened their arms to catch Rigana,
holding her close.
“With this embrace you are born into the circle of women,” whis-
pered Boudica.
“With this embrace you are born into new life,” the other woman
replied.
Then they were releasing her to the next pair, and opening their
arms to Aurodil. Ahead of them the song continued.
“Birthing and rebirthing, passing, we return,
Releasing, we are given all, relinquishing, we learn . . .”
As the initiates passed through, the line unraveled behind them and
the rest of the women followed. Light from the newly risen sun shafted
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through the branches in long rays made visible by the steam that rose
from the pot boiling over the fire. The girls had been given seats of honor
and crowned with wreaths of early primroses and cowslips. Laughing
and blushing, they received the wisdom and warning, much of it bawdy,
that the women were there to provide.
Boudica sipped the mint tea Nessa gave her in silence. She had felt
this mingling of joy and loss after childbirth. And why should she be
surprised? She had expected it to hurt when she birthed her daughters’
bodies, but this second separation tore at her heart with a new and un-
expected pain.
But her children were still with her. The Druids taught that death was
another kind of birthing. If her husband made that passage what would
she do? After today she would still be able to hold her daughters in
her arms even though their relationship had changed. But if Prasutagos
died . . .
Goddess! Lady of the Sacred Spring! I will give him your waters to drink,
and if he recovers we will build a temple here at your shrine. Lady of Life! Let my
husband live!
Prasutagos lay in the great bed, utterly still.
Sweet Goddess, is he dead? Boudica stopped short with the curtain
half lifted, staring.
Surely, she thought in blind assurance, he would have waited—he
could not leave her without saying farewell—and then, more sensibly,
surely they would have told her if he had died. She saw his chest rise and
fall and her heart began to beat once more. And though she had made
no sound, his eyes opened and he greeted her with his old sweet smile.
Boudica forced her lips to respond though her heart was weeping.
He is so thin! I should never have gone away!
“So, our daughters are women now . . .”
“The rites went well,” she said, letting her cloak slide to the fl oor.
The thongs of the bedstead creaked as she sat down beside him.
He sighed. “Surely the years fly fast, when it seems no more than a
season since I first held Rigana in my arms . . . You look no older now
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than you did then, my wife . . . when you began to forgive me for be-
getting her . . .”
Boudica blinked back tears. “I saw strange horses in the pen,” she
said with forced briskness. “Do we have visitors?”
“One for you . . . one for me . . .” His lips twitched. “Or I suppose
they are both . . . for me, though I only summoned one.” His breath
caught suddenly and his chest heaved as he struggled for air.
Breathe! Boudica leaned over him, willing him strength, and was
rewarded as he drew a shuddering breath. “Shh . . . don’t try to talk!”
“It will ease in a moment, my lady,” said a new voice. The curtains
stirred and a tall thin man in a white robe came in. He took the king’s
wrist, feeling for the pulse.
Boudica stared at him, memory gradually matching the lean fea-
tures and graceful hands to those of a Druid she had last seen on Mona
more than half her life ago. There was scarcely more silver in his black
hair than she had seen there then.
“Brangenos! What are you doing here?”
“Responding to your call, my lady,” he replied. “I trained as a
healer—I use medicine to heal the body, and song to restore the soul.”
He looked down at Prasutagos, who seemed to have drifted into sleep,
and drew Boudica aside. “I can ease the king’s pain, but music is the best
treatment I can off er now.”
“He is dying?” She closed her eyes against his answering nod.
“Do not blame yourself, my queen. It would have done no good if I
had come sooner. This is not the coughing sickness, but some deeper ill.
He tells me that a horse kicked him in the chest some
years ago. That
might be the first cause, or some other evil that we cannot know.”
“But he seems so cheerful,” she said weakly.
“He knows what comes to him, but he will not show his pain to
you. Not yet. But you studied on Mona—soon you will have to remem-
ber your training. He will fi ght—and suffer—until you give him leave.
You must be the Goddess for him, my lady, and ease his birth into the
Otherworld . . .”
Boudica shook her head. I don’t remember . . . I am not a priestess . . . I
can’t let him go . . .
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“But not yet,” came a whisper from the bed. Boudica and Brange-
nos both turned. “First . . . we have work to do.”
“Yes, my lord.” The Druid bowed. “Do you wish the Roman to
come in?”
“While you tended our daughters’ spirits . . . I have tried to safe-
guard . . . their inheritance,” Prasutagos said as Boudica’s brows lifted in
surprise.
She resumed her seat beside him as the curtains were drawn aside
and Brangenos returned, followed by Bituitos, Crispus, and a bald man
in a Roman tunic who eyed her with mingled appreciation and appre-
hension.
What on earth has he heard about me? She forced her grimace to some-
thing more pleasant. I won’t hurt you, little man, no matter how unwelcome
you may be.
“This is Junius Antonius Calvus, a lawyer from Londinium,” said
Crispus, in British, and then in Latin, “Sir, this is the queen.”
“She speaks our language?” asked Calvus, as if finding it hard to
believe.
Boudica bared her teeth in a smile.
“She does, but Bituitos here does not. Therefore I will translate so
that he may serve as witness.”
The lawyer cleared his throat. “Very well then. Domina, your
husband has asked me to draw up a will in our fashion, as he is a client
of the emperor and a friend of Rome. Ordinarily, this would have
been done long ago and the document sent to Rome to be recorded in
the temple of Vesta, but we can keep it in the Office of the Procurator
for now.” He opened the leather satchel at his side and withdrew a
scroll.
Boudica tried to listen as the sonorous Latin rolled forth, its lilting
British echo driving the sense of it in. The dower lands already settled
on Boudica remained her own, but the king’s possessions were divided
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