Iceni

Chapter 10-2

This tent-like structure, then, was like an island in a sea of turmoil, an oasis of bliss, open to Boudicca to accept its offer. Only she could not. Her insides were knotted into a tangle of cares and burdens, and part of her could not stop going over and over the situations she’d bound herself up in. Lovernios sensed her tensions and brought her wine to steady her. She sipped it slowly, not wanting to fall into trance like on the last occasion she had drunk alcohol. He waited patiently for her to finish; she sipped repetitively, still tugged between her wearing concerns and the pleasures available to her for the rest of the night.

Lovernios was a good, kind man, she decided then, looking at him in consideration. He’d been very patient with her when she had thrown so much at him; lesser men would have dissolved back to an easier wife. So, he had perseverance; good, she liked that, he’d need it to love her. This was not going to be an easy relationship even now that they’d publicly announced their union, their promise to each other. No, two people so strong in character, so plainly obstinate, could never share a relaxed love. But Boudicca thought she might reject such a simple relationship if it were offered now, opting in preference for the heat and excitement she got from Lovernios. Nothing, with him, was ever boring; she hoped she was an equal inspiration to him.

And there was certainly an unmistakable desire between them, whose flush she could feel even now as she gazed for a prolonged period upon his handsome face. She had, she realised, been reluctant to commit herself to this man, too scared of being hurt or betrayed in her vulnerability. It was becoming slowly obvious such reluctance was long past, and she’d already fallen deeply in love whilst she’d been clawing at her independence, too busy to notice her true feelings.

She reached up then, to touch his tender expression, drawing him to her in desire, yet in more than that too.

‘Lovernios mine?’ She hesitated. He kissed her trembling lips. ‘I love you, Lovernios mine.’

He smiled softly, and nuzzled her face with his short beard. ‘I know you do. I love you too.’

Then she pulled him to her in a tight, desperate hug, trying to describe some of the fierce emotions inside and starting to show him in actions what she could not say in words.

Their lovemaking was like nothing Boudicca had known before; certainly there was a sacredness about their motions, but there was something more too. It was as if something deeper and older than the earth took place within their shelter, something primeval and basic, raising power and energy to accentuate their awareness of each other and the cosmos around. Their restless rhythms stirred parts of themselves previously not awake, whilst their spirits soared around the heavens, their loving seemingly liberating them from their own bodies.

When they dozed fitfully in each other’s arms during the late evening, still drifting to the sounds of merrymaking in and around the Temple compound, Boudicca asked Lovernios the one question left burning. ‘Do you know, Lovernios, what the main thing is which attracts you to me?’

‘Madam,’ he chuckled. ‘Surely that could be any one of a number of virtues?’

‘No, shush, I’m being serious.’

‘So am I!’ He replied tersely with mock indignation.

‘No, what I meant to point out was the look in your eyes of half-remembered pain. It’s that which I recognise from the look in my own eyes peering back at me from a bronzed mirror. It’s the same look I identified with when I first met you, and instinctively knew, even then, that you’d understand me and the things I’ve been through. You never talk of your childhood, nor of your past. It’s only a few days since you first spoke of your father.’

Quite abruptly, Lovernios pushed himself up onto his elbows and leant over to pour himself a large goblet of wine. He gulped at it, not enquiring whether Boudicca wanted any. He had resumed the barriers between them, she realised, typified by his sudden indifference to her. She felt as if he had hung a veil to divide them one from the other.

‘I’m sorry, Lovernios, I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to tell me anything. It’s just my hope that you might jog things I’ve put from my own mind and can no longer remember; I often ponder what horrors I might have blotted out.’

He was still thinking. Wondering what? Whether to tell her, or what bits to tell her, or how to tell her? She waited, certain now there was some awful story to be told.

‘There are things which have happened to me and those around me which I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell you, madam, for fear you might not be ready to hear them.’ He poured more wine. ‘I should, by rights, have told you before we were publicly joined, but I was concerned they might be too near to your heart and your own experiences for you to be able to bear the telling.’

Boudicca put her head on one side as she paused to listen more carefully.

‘Those are the reasons I’ve delayed and those are the reasons I give now for still wishing to spare you. It’s a pain I’ve learned to bear alone; I can still do so. Sharing will not release this particular burden.’

‘I would there was nothing between us, Lovernios, including whatever horrors you’ve lived through. Come, lie down in my arms and let me comfort you while you tell me the things I need to understand.’

After more wine he snuggled up to her embrace, laying his head upon her breast as if he were her child. Then he spoke softly, his voice wavering and nervous, as he started to tell her who he was.

‘I was born, like your daughters, as one of a multiple birth but, unlike your daughters, not identical. I shared my mother’s womb with a brother, and we formed together, sharing her ample sustenance. My mother was from Hibernicus, a princess from an ancient royal family of Insula Sacra, and as magnificent in looks as a Faery Queen from the oldest tales.

‘Boudicca mine, I could embellish this tale with all the skills available to a Bard. I could sing of my mother’s legendary beauty and compare her to each of our Goddesses in turn, but I’d be detracting from the events and I trust you’ll believe me if I just speak simply.’ Boudicca stroked his hair in reassurance. ‘Forgive my ineloquence, madam, lost in favour of brevity?’

Boudicca nodded that she would.

‘My mother was named for the mother Goddess Anu, being called Annis. She was as lovely as the most skilful depiction of any of our Goddesses. Like a graceful willow, she was tall and slim; her hair was as long and straight as yours, and black as glossy jet; her hands were slender and pale, her nails neat where she’d never needed to labour in the fields.

‘She was proud, too, as a Celtoi princess of the royal line should be, boastful of her looks and confident of her ability to stir any man’s heart. But she was not a callous woman, never using her beauty for destruction, just proud and rightly so. When her father decreed she should wed and choose a fitting husband, she politely refused all the champions and warriors who offered themselves and picked instead a young Bard whose music and sweet words had lightened her days of maidenhood.’

Boudicca raised her eyebrows in surprise; it was unusual for someone of a royal line to marry outside the Celtoi aristocracy.

‘It was, of course, a great honour she bestowed upon the Bard, and one which caused consternation in her father’s court. But she had her way eventually, for she was wilful even then and her wondrous looks had meant no man could deny her desires for long, even her own father.

‘The Bard, of course, was Cathbad, my father, and he was soon recalled to complete his training at Insula Mona. My mother accompanied him, leaving Insula Sacra despite never having done so before. It was when she had left that she started to waken her own not inconsiderable Skills. Imagine, then, the joy for this young couple when they learned they were to become parents, not to one child, but to two. The same joy rushed through the Druidic community like a fire in summer brushwood: such children would be certain to be naturally Gifted, beyond even the usual Skills displayed by Druidic offspring. And when the news reached back to her home lands, it found a doting father glad he would soon be a grandfather and relieved his daughter’s choice had been so Blessed.’

Lovernios and Boudicca exchanged smiles at the thought.

‘The couple stayed at Insula Mona until the birth. My mother went into a long and protracted labour, as would be expected for two babes. Her womb was distended and swollen, rich with new life, but she lost copious blood and was exhausted from the work the Goddess had ordained for her. First one babe was birthed and screamed at its first intake of breath. Half a day later the second was still not birthed. By now my mother was weakened and feverish, desperate for sleep and torn with pain. The Healers did all they could, with kind words and encouragements, Spells and Workings, and every knot upon the island was ordered to be untied, but to no avail. The second babe was finally birthed stillborn, a bloody mess, with the birth cord wrapped tight around its neck. It would, as I’ve told you already, have been a son.’

Boudicca hugged Lovernios tighter as he told her what had happened to his would-be brother and his words brought back memories of birthings for her too.

‘Finally, my mother slept, with herbal draughts to staunch the blood and cloths to keep her warm and clean. My father wept, for joy at the gift of one perfect son and for grief at the death of a boy taken before he could even be named. My father wept alone, for the Healers had left and even I was too exhausted from my birth journey to do else but sleep. It was then, so I learned, that he decided to spare my mother’s sorrow and tell her there had only ever been one babe. The last, he concocted, had been a midwife’s error over a particularly difficult afterbirth, easily made when twins are so rare anyway and a son is born so large and healthy. My mother, he knew, had been virtually delirious when the last child was birthed, and she would believe him if the Healers kept to the same story. Why, he decided, should the joy of a new mother be shattered when it could so easily be complete?’

Boudicca shook her head in sadness and disbelief at the foolishness of the man. ‘Did your mother fall for that?’ she asked.

‘Warily at first, and only after the story was corroborated by the midwives. My mother accepted what my father told her, loving me, her baby son, with heartfelt gratitude for the happiness I brought her. My father, though, grieved the loss of his other son more than he’d anticipated, and the grief cut even deeper for the fact he’d consigned himself to endure it without his wife’s shared solace. My mother, seemingly oblivious to the fact that her son had once been half of twins, became absorbed in her new babe and the wonder of the creation she’d helped bring into the world, not noticing my father’s pain. He withdrew gradually, letting his mental agony guide him into realms of the mind usually only reached by deep meditation.