Iceni

Chapter 7-3

Boudicca felt herself struggling to catch up with the fleeing hare but always it was just out of reach, never pausing, never tiring, just continually moving and leading her on. She cast a quick look behind. Her robes flowed out around her for what seemed like forever, casting a curtain of night all about, populated with the huddled masses of her horde, their camp hearths shining like so many stars in the firmament. She dare not look too long, she might lose sight of the hare, and she whipped her neck back round to scan for it. It was just disappearing over the horizon. Boudicca put on a mighty effort, drawing physical strength from reserves she’d never thought to use, and pelted after the hurtling creature. She topped the crest of a shining hillock and looked down upon the desolation stretching before her.

The little hare hopped between the burnt houses and dead bodies, all horribly disfigured and mutilated, it leapt over cracked pottery and spilt grain, it sped over ruined fields, then darted into dense woods. Boudicca didn’t have the same energy, but she jogged after, jumping over the destruction littering her path. Soon she became immune to the pain all around, failing to flinch even at the sight of familiar Celtoi faces lying slain before her. She ducked to pass beneath the trees only to emerge almost immediately upon a clearing filled with a strange strong scent. She caught sight of the hare at the edge of her vision, rushing past the oaks across the clearing and she bolted after him. As the long grasses stuck to her skirts and brambles tugged at her clothing she pulled herself free, breathing deeply of the perfumed smell of woman permeating the area.

Then she was released and moving forward again into a tangle of black branches which snagged and blinded her like so many clawed fingers reaching for her eyes. Here there was confusion and fear and a deep musky smell of masculinity and dominance dissipating into a feminine smell of blood and tears. Bewildered, she pushed through the forest, listening now for the gentle thud of hare paws running over dried leaves and young shoots, until she was out again into open countryside. Just ahead was the little hare, too close. She hurled herself upon it, hoping to catch it for good, but it struggled free at the last instant, wriggling more than necessary in its escape. Prone upon the earth she looked down at what she’d almost caught to see hare after hare loosen itself from her grasp and go tearing across the ploughed fields, hither and thither in all directions. As she watched, the entire horizon filled with hares, all bounding away from her and running onwards and onwards, never tiring, never stopping, bobbing up and down in their crazy flight until she could see nothing but hares.

Mesmerised, she let them dance in front of her vision, unable to break her gaze away from their erratic movement. Then the hares metamorphosed into ravens and crows of darkest ebony gorging themselves upon human flesh. They swooped and flew, calling greedily to one another and squabbling between themselves, pulling bloody globules of food off their quarries and flying with the morsels into the face of the yellow sun, which beat inexorably down upon the whole scene and bathed everything as if it had been cast into a sickly furnace. Then suddenly all the creatures coalesced into bouncing flames of myriad colours enthralling in their intensity.

‘Madam, madam, I think you should move back from the fire now, madam!’

Someone was tugging at her body, her brow was sweating quite feverishly and she felt dizzy.

‘Boudicca, Boudicca,’ more urgent now. ‘You drank too much too quickly. Come, move back from the fire, the timber has caught alight now and the heat is quite stifling here. I don’t know how you could have stood it so long.’

Delirious with the temperature and the things she’d seen, Boudicca allowed herself to be hauled back to a more comfortable distance.

‘I wish you’d warn me when you’re going to go into Goddess trance, madam. If we hadn’t pulled you back then, I doubt very much whether you’d have been able to return and tell us what you’d seen, and all your effort would have been wasted. And I know you’ve seen something, I can tell by the renewed glow in your face, and it’s not just the redness from the fire. Here, drink this water. Slowly, madam.’

The cooler air washed over her body, turning her sweat to rivulets which soaked her clothing. The water trickled down her parched throat, seeming to separate the walls of her gullet which felt as if they’d been stuck together. She sagged where she was lying and they brought damp cloths to place upon her skin and cool her down even more.

‘Lovernios, Lovernios?’

‘Yes, madam, I’m here. I never left you; I’ve been beside you all the while. It was I who realised you were overheating where you were and got you back here.’

‘Lovernios?’ Her voice was weak. ‘Lovernios-mine, you are like an old mother hen.’

‘She’s going to be all right! Everyone! She’s going to be all right!’

‘Of course I’m going to be all right. I’m fine. Just Goddess inspired. In fact, everything’s going to be all right.’

‘Just as soon as you’ve had some sleep, madam.’

‘I sleep too much. I slept plenty this afternoon.’

‘You should take as much sleep as you need, and right now you need plenty more than anyone else. Doze. I’ll be beside you all night, I promise.’

‘Lovernios mine? Lovernios, I...’

‘I know. I know. Sleep, madam, tell me everything in the morning. Believe me, it’ll all keep.’

Boudicca’s vision and Lovernios’ favourable interpretation of the symbols she had Seen did not wait until the morning. Boudicca had taken to waking just before dawn again and it was then that they talked and made love quietly. They held each other tight under the rich Romani blankets which smelled of herbs, and they watched the dawn light steal over the heavens. Secret, muttered conversations could be just heard around them, too, and Boudicca guessed they were not the only ones to discover the day’s start was when a little privacy could be found by a people already crushed together and lacking personal space.

‘So, Lovernios mine, it seems we’re on the right course, and your scheming fits nicely with the Goddess’ own plans for us. Somewhat comforting that we’re doing what we’ve been ordained to do, fulfilling our destinies if you like.’

‘Mm.’ He mused upon her words. ‘I’m relieved, truth be told. One gets fleeting inspiration from the Divine and it’s impossible to corroborate the experience unless someone else receives similar insight. Thank you, madam, for confirming my own visions.’

Boudicca felt a digging in her ribs, which reminded her of an issue she’d forgotten. ‘Did Fand find a suitable sacrifice for Andraste?’

‘What? Oh yes, yes,’ he sighed. ‘She found a very suitable offering. I’ll let you find out for yourself. You might need a strong stomach, mind, but I think Andraste’ll make sure you’re up to it.’

‘That’s intriguing. On both counts. I’ll leave Fand ‘til the morning; I’ve learned patience since meeting you.’

‘That is a blatant lie, madam. You’ve just become good at feigning patience in the hope of spoiling my fun!’

‘I’ll treat your remark with the disdain it deserves. Tell me, you keep referring to Andraste and me as separate, but I thought we weren’t any more?’

‘That’s a mystery, madam, and one which I’ve tried to explain to myself so I might frame the words for your elucidation. But I can’t. It’s as if there are two of you, which are also only one. I see the changes in your face myself; occasionally you are you, and occasionally you are Her, and occasionally the difference between you is indeterminable. As for the young God, he comes to me as a constant companion, but I think that is part of the aspect of the Divine you’ve invoked. Cathbad might be able to clarify my words, but the task is beyond me.’

‘You’ve mentioned him before. Isn’t he at Vernemetum?’

Lovernios stiffened. ‘From what I’ve been told, yes, he’s there. For what good it’ll do him. Us, even.’

Boudicca said nothing, forcing Lovernios to fill the silence by continuing to talk. ‘He’s trying desperately to set invisibility Wards upon each individual shrine and Grove in the hope the Romani might pass them by. Such Workings allow people, places, even things, to go unnoticed or overlooked. Anybody under the influence of the Wards seems to have their attention diverted. It’s a simple Spell to invoke, whereby the energy can be maintained and held over several centres; many centres for the skilled practitioner. He, and those who’ve stayed with him, claim some success with this tactic. They say that where the Goddess allows Romani to chance upon our holy places, a profound yet gentle change is effected. Even the Romani’s hardened spirits are apparently touched by the seasons of our worship at these sites, they feel the sacredness of the spaces we have set apart and make their own consecrations there in turn.

‘Cathbad claims this veneration is the evolution of our ways necessary for them to survive. He insists all things must adapt if they’re to last perpetually, that these are not the first nor the last changes to occur in the religion this land chooses for its own.

‘So, he won’t be joining our cause. He’d prefer for us Druids to drift and slink away into the forests, to play a more spiritual role in the ways of this land and relinquish material power.’ He shrugged. ‘To the Romani, I presume. He argues that the wealth we’ve acquired with our gold routes is at odds with the true spiritual life and such temporal power should be relinquished. I don’t know where he expects so many of us to go. Artio’s forests can only sustain so many wandering hermits. The north is wild beyond the Brigantes’ land, even for the Goddess’ own, whilst Hibernicus is already harbouring many of our number who’ve fled from the Romani advances in Gaul. Perhaps he’d have us disappear deep into the impenetrable layers of the Otherworld, which overlap each other in the woods and forests? Then we might spend eternity peering in awe at the earthly world we’ve left through the knotty bark of oaks and the upturned faces of flowers.’

Lovernios shook his head in disbelief. ‘I don’t agree with him, as you’ve no doubt worked out for yourself. I’ve always felt the stirrings of the Divine within a person’s heart is something not just for the spirit but an urgent message to be manifested within the material realm. Else of what value are these tuggings? The material and the spiritual are indivisible, and both can lend wisdom to the other.’ Lovernios had raised his voice, his eloquence becoming more forceful as if he was repeating well-rehearsed arguments. ‘We Druids cannot leave the Celtoi to the destruction of the Romani, we’ve been your shepherds for too long. And anyway, he seems to conveniently forget the Romani pledge to exterminate all Druids.’

Boudicca gripped Lovernios’ hand to try to tell him she would never let the Romani exterminate him. Lovernios smiled at her attempt to comfort him and continued. ‘Fortunately the majority of the Council side with me, else things would never have progressed even this far.’ Lovernios’ voice quietened, as if something had saddened him.

‘Hush, Lovernios mine. It’s only me you’re talking to in our sweet pillow talk. There’s no need to address the horde and awaken them.’

‘Sorry, madam, was I becoming too passionate?’

‘I’ve not seen the like in you before. You’re usually more contained. I feel I may have opened a wound. One which you assumed had healed until you had need to let a healer examine it.’

‘You may be right. Perhaps I did get a bit carried away. It’s only... No, there’s no point even wishing for such things.’

‘What?’

‘Just that I hate this division. It’d be better if we could all be united in this.’

‘Does he outrank you then?’

‘No. We Druids don’t understand rank and authority in quite the same way as you do. There’s not exactly the same need. You must have noticed that when you trained with us?’

‘There was a distinctive difference, but since there was no need for orders to be given and received during my stay I hadn’t been able to reach any such conclusion, only to make observations.’

‘You surprise me, madam. Again.’

‘You’re avoiding the issue. Why is Cathbad’s support so very important to you?’

Lovernios hesitated and closed his eyes as if trying to decide whether or not to tell her. ‘I shouldn’t really let it be. It’s just that he’s my father.’