Page 135 of Boudicca

“Did Andraste mean for me to visit her before the battle?” I asked.

“Has the goddess called you?”

I shook my head. “No. I would still be sleeping had you not awakened me.”

“Then no. But Andraste did compel me to bring you here.” Rhan moved her shoulders restlessly. “I believe she wants you to cleanse yourself in the stream because it is so near to Annwn. Then I will paint your body and ready you within sight of an entrance to the Otherworld. But I also feel that there is another reason the goddess wanted you to know this place. She just hasn’t made that reason known yet.”

I shrugged off my cloak, drew a deep breath, and then stepped into the frigid stream. I ignored the cold and focused on the rowan arch and the closeness of Annwn as I washed.I want to be worthy of your belief, Andraste. I ask for strength. Not for myself, but for my people. I ask for wisdom, not for myself, but to lead my people.

I finished cleansing and was about to leave the stream when the gray of predawn changed to a lighter shade of slate, that of a dove’s feathers, and my gaze was caught by a spot of white on the other side of the stream not far from the rowan arch. As if of their own volition, my legs carried me out of the stream and up the slight bank. I walked the few feet to the living arch that was farther up the steep slope. When I reached it a wave of dread washed over me, choking my breath, making me dizzy, causing me to stumble back as I gasped in horror.

I heard Rhan wade quickly through the stream behind me, but I could not look at her. All I could do was stare at the dead thing.

“Oh, goddess.” Rhan’s voice was hushed.

“It’s a sacred hare, isn’t it?” I spoke through numbed lips.

Rhan took my cold hand in hers. “Yes, but more than that. It is the sacred hare I loosed in the valley five days ago. See, there. She has the crescent moon I painted on her chest.”

I nodded and continued to stare. The hare was on its side. The one eye I could see was open and opaque, sightless. Her mouth was open, too, as if frozen midscream. Blood darkened and matted the soft fur around her mouth. But that wasn’t the most horrible thing about the little broken body. Her stomach had been torn open. Her entrails spilled onto the forest floor, and within those entrails was a glistening chain of three small, white things wrapped in scarlet—like a necklace of freshwater pearls that had been dipped in blood.

I clutched Rhan’s hand and swallowed several times before I could speak. “The hare was pregnant.” I somehow choked the words out.

“Yes,” Rhan said softly.

I finally tore my gaze from the dead hare to look at my best friend, my lover, my high Druid. “This is a very bad omen.”

“It is a dire warning.”

A shudder rocked my body and I turned to face Rhan. “The Romans are too close. Our warriors might be able to scatter into the forest and escape, but the caravans cannot possibly get away.”

Rhan nodded. “And if the warriors flee the caravans filled with the families of our people will fall to the Romans.”

“Even should I ask them to our warriors would not abandon their families. There is nothing I can do.” As I spoke those words the weight of them pressed down on me so heavily that I felt rooted to the floor of the forest.

“That is not entirely true,” said Rhan slowly. “Boudicca, I told you I have been preparing.”

“Yes.”

“I have seen that you survive this battle—you, your girls, and the child you carry. But you must be willing to do as I say when the time comes.” Rhan’s voice had taken on the quality of strength and command it held when she spoke as the high Druid.

“But what does that mean?”

“I do not know yet. Not entirely. Just know I have prepared. I will be by your side. And you and your children will survive,” Rhan said.

My reluctant gaze went back to the hare. “We cannot make this portent known.”

“Agreed. It would devastate the army.” Her hand cupped my chin and she turned my face from the body so that I saw only her. “Go back into the stream. Do not look at the hare again. Cleanse yourself again. I will care for the creature. Then I will paint you with protective symbols and help you dress. We will return to camp with your head held high, confident and strong.”

“Because that is how it must be.” I nodded shakily. “That is how they must see me.”

“No, my queen.” The high Druid corrected me sharply. “Because that is how itis. Youareconfident and strong. That is how theydosee you, because your people see you truly.”

“Yes,” I whispered as she loosed my hand and I turned my back to the goddess’s dead messenger. “Yes... yes... yes...,” I continued to whisper as I cleansed myself again. I heard Rhan moving through the underbrush, but I did not look up.

Finally she joined me in the stream, bending to wash her hands and arms thoroughly. We left the water together. I stood silently as she dried me with my cloak and then Rhan painted my body, naked except for my torque, with Iceni blue, outlining the Ogham symbols she’d tattooed so many months ago and adding the sickled moons with star points that proclaimed me a warrior of Tribe Iceni to my arms. As Rhan worked, she hummed a sonorous melody that increased in tempo until it reflected my heartbeat. It was cold that morning, but I did not notice it. I’d shut myself off from feeling anything. I was no longer Boudicca, daughter of Arianell, mother to Enfys and Ceri. I was only Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, who prepared to lead her mighty army into battle.

I dressed in the dyed woad leathers Wulffaed had spent so much time and talent and love creating. They fit like a second skin and blazed blue, trimmed in silver thread that formed ravens within knots. When I was dressed, we retraced the steep path back to the camp.