again his voice was intense, but low.
“We should welcome them, make treaties. They will have to treat
us fairly if we are protected by their law.”
“Like Veric,” said Boudica. Cloto shrugged. Everyone knew he was
a cousin of the Atrebate king. Of course he would agree with him.
“And when we are all as tame as the tribes of Gallia, what then?”
whispered Rianor. “Our children will grow up speaking Latin and for-
get our gods.”
“I don’t think that is quite fair,” Albi said slowly. “I’ve heard that all
the peoples of the Empire are free to worship their own gods so long as
they also honor the gods of Rome.”
“All except the Druids . . .” Coventa said suddenly. Her eyes had
gone unfocused and she was trembling. “The Druids of Gallia who did
not fl ee were killed.”
Boudica gripped her arms and gave her a little shake, willing her to
focus on the here and now. If she went into one of her fits they would
have the priests down on them for sure. For a moment the younger girl
sat rigid beneath her hands, then she relaxed with a sigh.
“It’s true,” Rianor said then. “We Druids don’t have a choice. If the
Romans rule Britannia, the people may survive, but they will no longer
be Atrebates or Brigantes or Regni.” His voice rose. “By the gods, we of
M A RI O N Z I M M E R B RA D L E Y ’ S RAV E N S O F AVA L O N
49
the tribes love our freedom so much we will not even join together as
Britons beneath one king! How can you think it would be better to be
swallowed up by Rome?” He glared at Cloto and the other boy leaped
to his feet, fists balled and ready.
As Rianor surged upright to face him Ardanos appeared suddenly
behind them, gripping each boy’s shoulder in a strong hand.
“What are you thinking?” he hissed, his ginger hair appearing to
stand on end. “Your quarrel profanes the festival! Thank the Goddess,
the High Priestess and the Arch-Druid have departed already.”
They gaped at him. How much had Ardanos overheard? Boudica
knew that the Druids were having the same arguments as the young
people they trained. But not, she had to admit, in front of the whole
community at a festival.
Ardanos let the boys go. “If you can fight, you can work! The feast
is over. Get busy cleaning up the hall.”
Are the gods many, or are there only two, or one?” Lugovalos
leaned forward, his white beard glistening in the light of the spring day.
Boudica rubbed her eyes and tried to pay attention. She had recently
passed her sixteenth birthday, and her long limbs were finding a new
harmony. She would so much rather have been chasing sheep or gather-
ing spring greens for the pot, or any kind of labor if it let her move.
“Lhiannon teaches us that all of those are true,” said Brenna with a
grin for their mentor. “All the goddesses, all that we see as womanly and
divine, we call the Goddess. But when we pray, She wears one face or
another—Maiden or Mother or Wisewoman, or Brigantia or Cathu-
bodva.”
And none of them, thought Boudica, seem to want to talk to me.
“All that is divine and male we call the God. We call on them as
Lord and Lady at Beltane . . .” Brenna blushed. She had just returned
from her womanhood ceremonies on the Isle of Avalon and was making
sure everyone knew that she planned to seek a lover at the Beltane
fi res.
“Your teacher has taught you well,” said the Arch-Druid. Lhiannon
bowed her head, but she did not look as if the praise had made her very
50 D i ana L . Pax s on
happy. Or perhaps it was the reference to Beltane. Would she go to meet
Ardanos this year?
“So,” said Lugovalos, “you understand that the gods are both one
and many. We honor the One, but there are few indeed who can bear
the touch of that power.” For a moment he paused, his upturned face
illuminated, and Boudica was abruptly certain that he was one who had
been in the presence of the Source of All. Then he smiled and turned to
them again.
“Perhaps we know more while we are between lives, but as long as
we are in human bodies with human senses, it is to the many that we
make our prayers and our off erings.”
Rianor raised his hand. “My lord, which god should we be praying
to now, when we face war?”
“How do you name that power in your own land?”
“The Trinovantes offer to Camulos,” came the proud answer.
“Camulodunon is the war god’s dun.”
Boudica nodded, remembering the stately circle of oaks in the meadow
to the north of the dun. It housed a slab of stone where the god had been
carved standing between two trees, wearing an oak-leaf crown.
Other students were offering additional names—red Cocidios in the
north, Teutates among the Catuvellauni, and Lenos of the Silures. The
Belgae sacrificed to Olloudios and the Brigantes to Belutacadros. Among
her own people, Coroticos was the name they called when they went to
war, but like many among the tribes, it was a goddess, Andraste, to
whom they prayed for the battle fervor that would bring victory.
“When the tribes join together, which god or goddess should lead
them?” Bendeigid asked.
“I will ask you a question,” the Arch-Druid replied. “What is the
diff erence between an army and a warrior?”
“A warrior is one man and an army is many,” the boy replied. He
was not the only one to look confused.
“But the army is more than a collection of fighters. When you say
‘a Druid,’ you could mean me, or Cunitor, or Mearan. But when you
say ‘the Druids,’ you are talking about a greater entity that includes all
of our powers and our traditions.”
“People are like that, too,” said Coventa suddenly. “A woman can
M A RI O N Z I M M E R B RA D L E Y ’ S RAV E N S O F AVA L O N
51
be a daughter, and a mother, and a priestess, but people talk to you as
only one of those things at a time.”
The Arch-Druid nodded. “An army is also more than the sum of its
warriors. It has a spirit, a mind of its own. And so it is with the gods.
When the fighters in an army call the war god by different names they
call into being a greater power that includes them all.”
“Not all of them . . .” someone said quietly. Ardanos was standing at
the edge of the circle, looking grave. “The god of the Atrebates will not
fi ght with us. Caratac has driven Veric from his land.”
For a moment silence held them all. The news was not unexpected,
but to hear it suddenly, and in this context, was startling, as if by talking
about the god of war they had summoned him. In the faces around her
Boudica could see the shock of that awareness.
“Curse you all!” Cloto jumped to his feet, glaring around him.
“And you most of all!” He spat at the Arch-Druid’s feet. “The Catuvel-
launi have always lusted after our lands, but without your support they
would not have dared to take them!”
Cunitor laid a hand on th
e boy’s arm. “Come, Cloto, here we are no
longer Atrebate or Trinovante, but Druids. Lugovalos has done what he
thought best for the whole of Britannia.”
“He has brought doom on our people!” Cloto wrenched his arm
from Cunitor’s grasp and stood with clenched fists, defying them all.
Lugovalos could have immobilized him with a word, but the Arch-
Druid only gazed at the boy, sorrow in his eyes.
“You think you are so wise!” Cloto spat. “Do you not see that you
will bring upon us the very thing you fear? Caratac has driven Veric
into the arms of the Romans. Their treaty requires them to help him,
and this will be all the excuse they need!”
“But Helve saw them invading,” said Coventa, holding out her
hands in appeal. “Don’t you understand that to unite against them is our
only chance to survive?”
For a moment they stared with locked gaze, the furious boy and the
fey girl. Who had the right of it? Was fate fixed, as it had been in the
stories Cunobelin’s old Greek slave used to tell?
“Curse you! I curse you all!” Cloto screamed. “When this island
runs with blood you will remember, and wish you had lis—”
52 D i ana L . Pax s on
And now, at last, Lugovalos lifted his hand, and though the boy’s
lips continued to move, no sound came. In the sudden silence someone
giggled nervously, then gulped and was still.
“Enough,” the Arch-Druid said. “If you will not stand with us, you
are no longer one of our company. You will gather your things and go
to the landing. A boat will be waiting for you there.”
Speechless, they watched Cloto stalk away. Lugovalos had silenced
him, but even the Arch-Druid could not wipe those words from every-
one’s memory. What if Cloto was right? Was it better to fi ght for the
right reason, even if you failed, or to surrender for the sake of safety?
The Druids had no choice. And if they were doomed, at least the bards
could sing about how valiantly they had tried.
That summer brought rumors of war on every wind. Some said that
King Veric had been killed, others, that he had fled across the sea to
hold the emperor to their treaty and would return with a Roman army
to win back his land. If so, thought Lhiannon grimly, Lugovalos’s eff orts
to create a defensive alliance were creating an excuse for the attack the
Britons feared. But as spring gave way to summer, she found it hard to
care, for Lady Mearan was dying.
As Lhiannon came up the path to the roundhouse where the High
Priestess lived she saw Boudica push through the cloth that hung across
the door, a wooden basin in her arms.
“How is she?”
“The Lady has kept nothing down today,” Boudica exclaimed. “She
has grown so thin, Lhiannon! I think that only the strength of her spirit
is keeping her alive!”
“She always had courage,” murmured the priestess.
“I saw King Cunobelin die. He drifted between sleep and waking
until finally he woke no more. But Mearan is awake. Is there nothing
you can do for her, Lhiannon?”
“If she cannot take the infusions, we cannot help her with medicines,
but I may be able to help her detach her mind from the body’s pain.”
Boudica nodded and carried the bowl off to empty it. Lhiannon
M A RI O N Z I M M E R B RA D L E Y ’ S RAV E N S O F AVA L O N
53
took a last breath of the hay-scented air and went inside. As she noted
the waxy pallor of Mearan’s skin, she had a sinking feeling that the
battle being waged here was one that they were going to lose.
“My lady, how fare you? Are you in pain?” she asked softly, kneel-
ing beside Coventa at Mearan’s side.
Slowly the bruised eyelids opened. “Not now. I feel . . . light . . .”
And well she might, thought Lhiannon. It seemed to her that the
strong bones of the older woman’s face poked through the skin even
more sharply than they had the day before.
“I think that soon I will float away.” Mearan paused, then drew
breath again. “It is not by my will that I leave you, but some good may
come from this. Between the worlds, I can see . . .”
“You must not tire yourself.” Lhiannon heard herself say the deny-
ing words even as she realized that Mearan was right. It was said that the
final vision of an adept had great power.
“You must not delude yourself . . .” The High Priestess echoed wryly.
“I know that I am dying.”
Lhiannon sat back on her heels as Boudica came in with the emptied
bowl and a pitcher.
“My lady, here is cool water from the sacred spring,” said the girl. “It
will ease you.” Lhiannon helped the sick woman to sit upright so that she
could drink and then laid her back upon the pillows once more.
“Thank you . . .” Mearan closed her eyes. For a few moments her
labored breathing was the only sound. “Hear me. This morning I lay in
a waking dream . . .” she said. Lhiannon straightened, attention nar-
rowing to the focus in which all she heard would be remembered, as she
had been trained to do.
“I saw you, Lhiannon—only you were old. Older, I think, than I
will ever be.”
“Is that who it was!” exclaimed Coventa. She flushed as she caught
Lhiannon’s disapproving glare. “I know I should not, mistress, but truly
saw . . .”
Lhiannon sighed. If the child picked up the visions of a seeress in the
chair, it was no surprise that she should share Mearan’s visions now. For
54 D i ana L . Pax s on
her own good, Coventa should be given other duties, but if Lhiannon
suggested it, Helve would no doubt disagree.
“Never mind, child,” she murmured. “Lady—what else did you see?
“You were in a house surrounded by forest, some place I have never
been. You wore the ornaments of a high priestess.” Eyes still closed, she
smiled.
Lhiannon stiffened in shock, looking at the two girls to see if they
had heard. “Mearan,” she whispered, “what do you mean? Am I to be
High Priestess after you?” It was the privilege of the High Priestess to
choose her successor, though the Druids could decide whether to accept
that choice. And Helve had been so sure . . .
“High Priestess . . .” the sick woman’s voice strengthened. “Yes . . . that
you will be, but not now, my daughter. And not here . . .” She coughed.
“Between that time and this there is a void. There is something there—
fire—blood . . .” Her head rolled fretfully on the pillow. “I cannot
see . . .” she moaned. “I have to see!” The words were cut off as she
retched into the bowl that Boudica held.
“Mearan! Drink this! Don’t try to talk,
dear—I don’t need to
know!”
“To know . . .” The sick woman gasped. For a few moments her
labored breathing was the only sound in the room. “Not here . . .” she
whispered at last. “Take me to the Sacred Grove. There . . . I will see.”
Lhianno
n eased the priestess back on the pillow where she lay with eyes
closed, breathing carefully. She did not speak again.
Mearan died just after the Feast of Lughnasa, having delivered
with her dying breath a prophecy whose details only the senior priest-
hood knew. But when her body was released to the fire, it was Helve
who presided as High Priestess, not Lhiannon. Boudica recalled only
too clearly Mearan’s hoarse whisper when she spoke of seeing Lhiannon
with the ornaments of the High Priestess on her brow. None of the stu-
dents had been present at Mearan’s final ritual, but through the autumn
and winter that followed, the school had been full of wild rumors about
what the dying woman had said. Had she changed her mind, or had the
se nior Druids refused her selection for some reason of their own?
M A RI O N Z I M M E R B RA D L E Y ’ S RAV E N S O F AVA L O N
55
Tonight those questions seemed trivial. Winter had given way to a
stormy spring, and across the narrow sea Roman armies were gathering.
Caratac and the Cantiaci were preparing to resist their landing, but Helve
had sworn that they should not come at all and summoned Druids and
students alike to join their powers in ritual.
As darkness fell the wind that whipped the flames of the torches felt
as if had come directly from the peaks of the mountains across the
strait, where snow clung still. Helve stood as High Priestess before the
altar, dark robes falling away like black wings as she lifted her arms. On
her wrists golden bracelets gleamed in the torchlight; a golden torque
weighted her neck. Had those ornaments belonged to Mearan? Boudica
could not remember if she had seen the old High Priestess wear them.
When Mearan led the rites you remembered what she was, not what she
wore . . .
The new High Priestess had settled into her role with less disturbance
than some might have expected, or perhaps it was only that she spent
much of her time with the senior Druids in conference and they saw little
of her. But she was like a high-bred mare that Boudica’s father had once
owned, strong and beautiful and as likely to bite as to bear you.
Lhiannon had been given the title of Mistress of the House of Maid-
ens, and now, as if even that much recognition was a threat to her, Helve
had assigned her rival to go with Ardanos and the other Druids who