Ravens of Avalon: Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  fugitives were to reach safety by morning they must leave soon.

  “Not until I know what happened to my mother and my sister!” said

  Argantilla stubbornly.

  “They are dead, Tilla.” Caw’s voice cracked with pain. “You can

  see what it’s like down there!”

  “Not all of them, or who are the Romans killing now? But even if

  you are right, do you want those monsters to defile their bodies? If no

  one else will search, I will.”

  At that, Lhiannon roused from her despair. “I promised the queen

  that I would see you safe, and with Brangenos and Caw you will be.

  Rianor and I will go—we have been trained to pass unseen.”

  “Take the dog,” said Argantilla. “Bogle would track his mistress to

  the gates of An-Dubnion.”

  “He may have to,” muttered Rianor, but he took the rope from her

  hand.

  “Where’er I bide, my shape I hide.” The Druid began to murmur the

  spell. Lhiannon’s blue gown faded into the shadows, and Rianor had

  covered his white robe with a cloak of checkered browns and greens

  that blended with the terrain. As they whispered Lhiannon could feel

  herself becoming one with the night, until there were only two shad-

  ows following the pale shape of the great dog.

  “No need to fear . . . no one is here . . .”

  Only the dead, thought Lhiannon. Of those, there was an abundance,

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  lying with staring eyes and tangled limbs to either side of the line along

  which the Romans had advanced. The chariot in which Boudica had

  ridden so triumphantly still stood at the edge of the field, though the

  ponies were long gone.

  She knelt beside the dog. “Find Boudica, Bogle—find her. Find

  Boudica now—”

  The dog gave an anxious whimper, looking around him as if he

  expected the queen to appear, then began to sniff along the ground. For

  the first time, Lhiannon felt a fl icker of hope.

  With the dog for a guide, they did not have to identify each body,

  though they could not help finding some they knew—Mandos, still

  holding his beloved sword, and Tingetorix, crushed beneath his horse;

  Brocagnos and Drostac, neighbors in death as they had been in life. As-

  tonishingly, some still lived. Kitto, the farmer’s son, had been felled by a

  blow to the head and was just regaining consciousness when they found

  him. Lhiannon kept him with her as they went on.

  She found it hard to believe that Bogle could make out any scent

  above the pervasive reek of blood, but the dog continued to move

  among the bodies, and when Lhiannon recognized Eoc she knew that

  Bogle was leading them well.

  “The gods reward you—I know you defended her,” murmured the

  priestess, bending to close the staring eyes. Holding Bogle’s leash in one

  hand and Kitto’s arm with the other, she went on.

  “Here,” she said softly as the dog paused, whining. Before them the

  dead were piled high, Romans mixed with Britons. She tied the dog to

  a dead man’s leg and she and Kitto began to drag the cold bodies to ei-

  ther side.

  They found Bituitos fi rst, his mail hacked and a great wound in his

  chest, and just beyond him, Boudica, crumpled over the body of her

  daughter in the center of a ring of slain. Rigana was quite dead, but as

  Lhiannon gently took Boudica in her arms, Bogle surged forward with

  a muffled bark and began to lick the blood from her face.

  “Hush, Bogle, get back, get down!” Lhiannon whispered with a

  frantic glance toward the Roman torches. The dog crouched, tail wag-

  ging. For a moment Lhiannon stared, then pressed her finger to the

  pulse point in the queen’s neck. She could not tell if what she felt was a

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  heartbeat or her own trembling. But she had touched enough dead fl esh

  tonight to realize that Boudica was not quite cold.

  “Blessed Goddess, she’s alive! Quickly, Rianor, help me lift her.”

  Kitto took up Rigana’s body, and moving with infi nite care they

  started toward the hill. Twice they had to drop flat when Roman

  searchers came too near, but the very magnitude of the disaster was in

  their favor. Even the greediest legionary needed time to search all the

  slain.

  As they reached the shelter of the first trees Lhiannon looked back.

  Beyond the flicker of Roman torches, another fi gure moved among the

  dead. Tall and graceful, a glimmer of light followed where it passed. She

  touched Rianor’s shoulder.

  “Is that one of our women, walking down there?”

  He followed her gaze, swallowed, and then, very softly, whispered

  the final verse of Brangenos’s song—

  “The Great Queen walks the battlefield

  And weeps for all the slain,

  To Her embrace their souls they yield,

  She takes away their pain.”

  The Morrigan weeps . . . thought Lhiannon, and found a bitter com-

  fort in knowing that they did not mourn alone.

  S he has lost a great deal of blood,” said Brangenos as they laid the

  queen down on the hill.

  “Yes—” The fitful moonlight that shafted through the trees showed

  them the gashes on Boudica’s long limbs. Those had mostly stopped

  bleeding, but there was a deep slash in her side that looked bad. All they

  could do was to bind the wounds and lay her, wrapped warmly, on a

  litter of branches. Lhiannon looked up as Caw came back through the

  trees.

  “The Romans are searching the east and south, along the road. We

  cannot go that way.”

  “I have hunted all through these hills.” Kitto spoke from the shadows

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  where he and Argantilla had been scraping a shallow grave for Rigana.

  “I can lead you past the Roman fort and around to the west of this

  ridge. From there we can make our way to my father’s farm.”

  It would appear that the Goddess had not abandoned them entirely.

  For the fi rst time Lhiannon dared to hope they might escape. To what,

  was a question for another day.

  For Boudica, consciousness returned on a wave of agony. She was

  lying on something that jerked and swayed; each movement sending

  agony jolting through every limb. She drew a shuddering breath, felt

  below her ribs a pain so profound that she could not even scream. The

  motion stopped and something sweet was forced between her lips. She

  recognized the taste of poppy seed in honey and presently knew no

  more.

  When again she found herself aware, she thought she was on the

  ship that had carried her to Avalon. But Prasutagos was beside her, his

  skin bronzed and his hair burnished to pale gold by the sun.

  “I saw you on your pyre. Am I dead, too?” Her heart leaped as he

  smiled.

  “Not yet, my love. You have a way to go.” His face began to dim as the

  motion beneath her increased. She clung to the vision, trying to ignore

  the persis tent gnawing agony.

  “Don’t leave me again!” her spirit cried.

  Darkness swirled betwe
en them, but she heard his voice, as through

  her pain she had heard it long ago— “Boudica, I am here . . .”

  The next time she woke she was lying in shadow on something soft

  that did not move. Familiar voices murmured nearby. She must have

  made some sound, for Argantilla’s face swam into view above her.

  “Mother! You’re awake! How do you feel?”

  As if I would rather be whipped again, and weak as a day-old pup, she

  thought, realizing in just how many places she was hurting now. “The

  better for seeing you,” she said aloud. “Where are we?” she added as

  Tilla managed a watery smile.

  “At Kitto’s farm. They have been kind.” The girl stopped, swal-

  lowed. “Rigana—”

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  “—is dead. I saw her fall. It was what she wanted.” It is what I wanted,

  too . . . Boudica did not let that knowledge alter her smile. It would

  have been better if she had died on the battlefield. She was a danger to

  them all. But Lhiannon would never grant her the mercy stroke now.

  She found that she could remember the battle quite clearly, and

  wondered if the trauma to her flesh had somehow insulated her from its

  terror, or whether the magnitude of the disaster helped her to bear her

  body’s pain.

  Argantilla moved aside and she saw Lhiannon, her face gaunt and

  her eyes shadowed by fatigue. With gentle efficiency the priestess took

  her pulse and tested the temperature of her brow.

  “You have a little fever, but we were able to clean and stitch your

  wounds while you were unconscious, and they seem to be doing well.

  Rest while you can. The Romans are searching. We cannot stay here

  long.”

  “Are there horses?” Boudica asked.

  “We can get them. We could make a horse litter, I suppose . . .”

  Lhiannon said doubtfully.

  “Tie me into the saddle. If I fall, tie me over it. If I die, bury me as

  you did Rigana,” she said baldly. “If you are in danger of being caught,

  slit my throat and run. I will not be dragged in chains through the

  streets of Rome.”

  Lhiannon’s lips set, and she touched Boudica’s brow once more. “I

  will not allow you to die. We are making soup. You must drink as much

  as you are able to build up your blood. We will stay here as long as we

  can.”

  The Roman road was closed to them now. Kitto guided them by

  winding tracks and cowpaths to the farm of his uncle, who in turn

  passed them on to a foster-brother and so, guided from one friend to the

  next, they made their way through the lands of the Cornovii and Dobu-

  nii toward Avalon.

  The countryside was full of rumors. It was said that the commander

  of the legion in Isca, hearing of the great victory that his fear had kept his

  troops from sharing, fell on his sword. If so, thought Lhiannon bitterly,

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  that was one Roman offi

  cer whom they had managed to kill. The rest of

  them were vigorously alive, slaughtering anyone they suspected of sym-

  pathy for the Killer Queen.

  But the Romans had not yet begun to look westward. Most of

  Boudica’s army had come from the south and east, and it was they

  who were the targets of the legions’ wrath. Those Iceni who made it

  back to their homes might soon wish that they had died on the battle-

  fi eld.

  The fugitives rode slowly by hidden paths, and they encountered no

  patrols. As they moved on, Boudica seemed to grow stronger. Her wounds

  were beginning to close. But though she never complained, when they

  stopped each night she fell immediately into an exhausted sleep, and her

  color alternated between flushed and pale.

  When we get to Avalon she can rest, thought Lhiannon. I will make her

  well.

  The old moon had worn away and was swelling to the full once

  more by the time they descended the southern slopes of the Lead Hills

  and saw across the marshes the pointed tip of the Tor.

  A nd so, after everything, I am back at Avalon, thought Boudica.

  They had brought her to the apple orchard to bask in the dreaming

  peace of the afternoon. She wished that she could believe that every-

  thing that had happened since she and Lhiannon left this place had been

  a nightmare. But that would have been to lose Prasutagos. She did not

  tell Lhiannon, who was working so hard to make her live, that he came

  to her in her dreams.

  Sunlight spangled the grass beneath the apple trees that grew below

  the Blood Spring. In Avalon the world seemed very fair. But in her

  homeland things might be otherwise. Was it cowardice to fl ee what the

  Romans would do to the Iceni now? At the thought, Boudica started to

  raise herself, and a wave of anguish felled her once more.

  The wounds on her arms and legs were healing, but there was

  something very wrong within. Perhaps the decision to live would not

  be hers. And why was she surprised, she wondered when the darkness

  receded and she was able to focus once more on the leaves. Some fates

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  could not be fought—losing her son, losing Prasutagos, losing the battle

  for Britannia . . .

  Goddess, why did You betray me? Her eyes stung with angry tears. You

  promised me victory . . . But since Manduessedum, the place in Boudica’s

  mind where the Morrigan had been was empty. Perhaps what she thought

  was the Lady of Ravens had been no more than a delusion born of her

  own rage, and it was she herself who had betrayed them all . . .

  Bituitos, look out!” Boudica’s cry jerked Lhiannon awake, heart

  pounding. “So many, damn them—I can’t get past their shields!”

  Since Manduessedum the priestess had learned to sleep lightly, alert

  for the fi rst muttering that meant Boudica’s fever was rising once more.

  Brangenos helped to dress her wound, and Coventa or Argantilla could

  keep watch during the day, but through the nights Lhiannon fought for

  Boudica’s life as fi ercely as the queen had battled Rome.

  The light of the oil lamp showed her Boudica flailing as if she held

  a sword. In the hut they shared, two steps took her to her patient’s side.

  She soaked a cloth in cold water and laid it on the queen’s burning brow.

  Bogle, who had risen when she did, rested his head on the pillow.

  “Hush, be easy, my dear one. The battle’s over. You’re safe with me

  now . . .” Lhiannon judged the time to be near midnight—she could

  safely let her patient have more willow-bark tea. “Wake now—open

  your eyes and I will give you something to make it easier.” She held the

  cup to Boudica’s lips and the queen swallowed. Her eyelids fl uttered and

  she drank again.

  “Damn all Romans . . .” she whispered as Lhiannon eased her back

  down. “I fought them a whole day. I should not have to do it all over

  again.” She laid her hand on the dog’s head.

  “Never mind, darling. Eventually the memories will fade. It takes

  time for the dead to lea
ve us,” said Lhiannon. “At fi rst we see them ev-

  erywhere. But as time passes and the world is changed they withdraw,

  and we go on.”

  “Not always,” Boudica replied. “And it is not all nightmares. Pra-

  sutagos is with me all the time.” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I know you

  don’t like to hear me speak of him.”

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  “He was a good man,” answered Lhiannon briskly. “But he is dead,

  and you must think about getting well.”

  “Perhaps.” Boudica sighed. “When we were here before, you found

  the way to Faerie, and I could not follow you. But I think that where I

  am going now, one day you will follow me.”

  Boudica had always been a strong woman with good muscle on her

  tall frame. With time and childbearing she had even grown matronly,

  until she lost that softness during the campaign. But now, stark in the

  lamplight, the good bones of her face stood clear. Lhiannon’s belly clenched

  as she recognized how fever was wearing the fl esh away.

  “You could still go there,” Lhiannon said desperately, trying to deny

  what she had just seen. “The Faerie queen could heal you, or keep you

  living until—”

  “Until nothing.” Boudica cut in. “Life eternal and unchanging, never

  meeting the ones you loved, never growing wiser, never returning to this

  world to live anew?”

  Lhiannon winced, hearing from Boudica the argument she herself

  had off ered the Faerie queen.

  “Would you wish that for yourself, Lhiannon? Why would you

  want it for me?”

  “Never seeing Prasutagos again, you mean?” Lhiannon asked bit-

  terly. “But when he was dying, would you not have taken him any-

  where he might live a little longer if you had the chance?”

  “Prasutagos was my—” Boudica fell silent, eyes widening as she met

  Lhiannon’s gaze.

  Now do you understand? thought the priestess. Now do you understand

  that I love you?

  “He was your husband,” she said aloud. “Nor did I ever try to part

  you while he lived. But I will not let him drag you down to death if

  there is any way you may be saved. Curse it, Boudica,” she added sud-

  denly, “do you want to die?”

  “Not just at the moment, no,” the other woman said honestly. “I

  didn’t want to go into battle, either, but when the time came, I did it.

  I admit it is easier when a thousand warriors are baying for blood all