Chapter 1

Imbolc

It was a good day for change. Boudicca could feel the earth responding to the stronger surge of life pulsing up to warm its roots and excite its creatures to song. The icy freshness chilled things to their essence, leaving them naked and stark and without pretension, almost as if nature could be seen with a true eye. As she watched the day unfold, she counted two pairs of magpies sprint to the shelter of the nearest fringe of trees. She greeted each of them in turn and smiled for the fresh pairing which heralded the turn of the seasons.

Today was Bride’s Day, a portal day, when the land lay prone beneath the equal grip of spring and winter. She felt it as less a battle of the seasons and more an easing between old adversaries. Welcoming in the dawn, she felt the lust of her Goddess enticing the young God and imagined the scent of Their sexual heat. He was bringing energy to Her, energy and determination, and together Their mating frenzy would clear away the old and the tired and usher in growth and fertility. Despite her regret at having no partner with whom to emulate her Goddess, Boudicca Blessed Their coupling — any change would be welcome.

She hadn’t slept too well throughout the winter, not yet accustomed to sleeping alone, and had woken this morning in the small, quiet pre-dawn of utter isolation. She had felt the stirrings of a great day from the moment she wrapped a woollen blanket around herself and crept out into the fields, where she watched the dawn throw its rose tinge across the horizon. Instinctively, she knew that vast repercussions were carried in its wake.

These slices of privacy had become like a gift in this bustling life where there was precious chance for contemplation and everyone seemed to depend upon her. A few moments when the world moved at a slow enough pace for her not to have to struggle to keep up, and when she no longer felt different or set apart, for there was no one to compare herself to. These insights came with the grief as a mixed blessing, as unbidden as the memories.

In an instant she was back at the start of winter, to Samhain, when she was last with her husband. Her unfocused starring had stilled her mind to invoke a reminiscence as clear as a vision. Her powers of recall were strong enough to feel the lick of flames upon her wet cheeks and the smell of sickness through the wood smoke. Tears welled gently to mist her sight, reproducing the image etched indelibly upon her mind. She tensed, reliving being torn between staying put and going to him. She had stayed put, in the end, tucked away in the darkest spot of the hut, where only the brightest flames illumined her torc and no one could get at her. Stayed put, with an arm around each daughter, making them stay put too. Three shiny mahogany heads with angry, mad eyes that must have seemed like feral creatures to the doctors and diplomats who enclosed the dying man on the pallet by the hearth.

Despite the crackling of the dry timber and the murmu