The Warrior and the Druidess (16 page)

They sat near the hearth at a square, squat wooden table with Brude’s sire and mother. A servant girl poured them each a cup of mead. Raising their glasses high, all four knocked their cups together in a toast to the day’s victory.

“A fat cow roasts in the pit for us,” Brude’s mother announced.

“You did well today, my son.” Calach patted Brude heartily on the back.

“The cattle made for good bait, father.” Brude took a swig of ale. “You must stay on this path of ambushes and surprise attacks.”

“Battle on a field against the Romans will not end well.” Tanwen leaned toward the chief. “Heed the fate of my own grandmother.”

Calach offered her a slight smile and nodded his head as if acknowledging the babble of a child. She had to take this matter to the gods. All could be lost. The Smertae were so hungry for blood to wipe on their faces, they would bring all the tribes down by trying to slay all of Agricola’s legions at one time. It was an An impossible task.

“Mayhaps we should sup first and talk war later.” Brude smiled at her.

A reward for the successful attack, a leg of tempting beef was placed on his plate, while the chief, his wife and Tanwen received generous slabs of juicy meat.

Tanwen gazed at Brude and drank in his masculine beauty as he gulped the sweet, thick mead. After the feast, she would honor him in her own way in their chamber. Tanwen silently vowed their love play would heat their bedchamber in the dead of winter hotter than the glowing hearth fire.

Brude chewed the joint of beef then set it back on his plate as he gazed at her with fire in his eyes. She reached out her hand and covered his wrist with hers. Lacing his fingers in hers, she squeezed his hand. His lips came down on hers in a slow, shivery kiss. Her mouth burned.

When the harpist began to play and the dancing started, Brude stood. Taking Tanwen’s hands in his, he pulled her to a standing position as he gazed into her eyes. “I would rather dance with you alone.”

“Yes,” Tanwen whispered.

Arm in arm, they strolled to the wheelhouse. As soon as they reached the door, Brude covered his mouth with hers. She wrapped her smooth arms around him. Lifting her off her feet, he cradled her in his arms  and then carried her inside. He laid her on the smooth bull hide which draped the soft pallet. She let out a low, whispery moan. His heart beat erratically.

Having eased her checkered shift off her, he dropped the garment to the floor. Brude  gazed at the creamy flesh of her beautifully formed breasts and rose tipped nipples. His gaze swept to the curves of her hips, tapering into long straight legs. His eyes roamed to the downy mound at the juncture of her lithe thighs. His breath caught. Blood pounded in his brain. Slowly, his gaze swept up to her face. Her skin was pink with eagerness, an expression of raw hunger. She quivered, but he knew it wasn’t from the cold. She trembled with need.

She watched as he urgently undressed, dropping his cloak, tunic and braise onto the floor. Placing one knee on the pallet, slowly, like a lion to his prey, Brude crawled on the leather hide towards Tanwen, who lay there awaiting him.

Brude slipped his legs over her limbs, his torso covered hers and his muscular biceps laid on top of her shapely shoulders. Warm and yielding, she stretched out beneath him.

Fiercely, his mouth swooped down on hers and sucked the sweet honey of her nectar. Tanwen’s fingers fondled his lime-washed, spiked locks. Instead of the chill of the dead of winter, his senses experienced standing on a soft, sandy beach on a summer day. He felt the sea waves rushing in, wetting his feet as his toes sank deep into the shifting sand. The warm sun caressed him as a gentle breeze ruffled his hair. “Tanwen, my love.”

The heat from her body spread through every fiber of his being. Her lips were wet and warm from the kiss. Brude burned. Again, his lips captured her pink, petal-soft mouth. He pressed down, molding her willing lips to his. Blood pounded in his head. His tongue grazed the softness of her mouth, and then slid between her parted lips. Brude thrust his tongue in and out of her mouth. Blasts of heat surged through him.

Sliding her soft, warm hands down the side of his body, she grasped his muscled thighs, and dug into his flesh with her nails. Brude burned. His arousal swelled and ached with the yearning to sheath it to the hilt, deep inside her.

Tanwen skimmed one hands down his body and as with her other she danced her fingers across the hardened, bulging flesh of his erection, stroking back and forth.

Brude felt he would burst there in her hand. “I want to look at you.”

Tanwen rasped, “Yes, my love.”

He raised up on his knees  and scooted down the bed. He knelt between her legs.

Spreading her long, creamy legs wide, she opened herself, offering herself to him.

Brude’s body throbbed with fervid need as he peered into her deep, sultry heat. He dipped his finger into her sweet canal. He churned her creamy, hot liquid core until she panted and moaned.

He withdrew his hand, dipped his head, and his tongue, like wet fire, plunged into her depths.

Gasps and soft whimpers escaped her lips. Boiling, bubbling over, she breathlessly rasped, “I want you.”

Brude stretched out, covering her body with his. He prodded then lunged his hard erection into her hidden heat. As he filled her, Tanwen bucked with the impact of his powerful thrust.

On fire, feral cravings took hold. With a constant flow, in and out, he pumped into her, plunging higher, faster each time. As he pressed harder, her moans became deeper, more desperate.

The rhythm inflamed his blood even more. He plunged again and again into her sex. He was mad with battle lust from the earlier attack, but most of all, he was mad with love for this druidess, his wife.

They were an inferno, rising flames engulfed them until together they quivered with release. His body stilled, and his pounding pulse began to slow. He breathed deeper.

Brude eased off of her and leaned up on one elbow, gazing at her as she lay by his side.

She whispered to Brude, “I like the way we dance when we are alone in our bed.”

“It my favorite way to dance,” he chuckled.

* * * * *

Other than the times Brude led surprise attacks, the stark, icy winter days blended together, one seeming much like the rest. Everyone lodged in their wheelhouses, huddled around blazing hearth fires. But, as creamy-yellow primroses blossomed and the bellies of ewes grew fat and heavy with the promise of fluffy lambs, thoughts of spring arrived with the feast of Imbolc.

Tanwen noticed subtle changes in her body as well. In the two moons since her woman’s cycle had come, her breasts had grown fuller. After retching the little food she’d eaten that morning, she stopped by the well. She drew up a bucket to cleanse her face and hands and then headed into the woods to prepare for this special Imbolc, the first one she’d celebrate as a mother-to-be rather than as a maiden.

Garbed in her voluminous gold-speckled, white cloak, Tanwen stood in the sacred grove holding a large chalice. Ciniatha, parading a mother ewe and Huctia, cradling its newborn lamb, led in the women of the tribe. Each woman held a white, burning candle. They gathered in a circle around Tanwen.

“Let us honor the mysteries of motherhood.” Tanwen knelt down and set the chalice beneath the ewe. She milked her then stood with the chalice in her hands. “We drink the milk of the first ewe to give birth after winter.” She passed it around so everyone had a sip. “We drink the milk of motherhood, which the goddess gives us to bless new life.”

“Blessings on new life,” the women chanted in unison.

The ewe’s milk provided the main staple of the Imbolc feast, a celebration for women only. Women held the highest level of magic— birthing, creating new life. Only women held the gift of fertility and creation, one of the many reasons why women were sacred.

After the cup was handed back to her, Tanwen held it with one hand as she rubbed her belly with the other. She gazed down at the slight bulge in her tummy.
A mother? Me? A baby?
My
baby?

“Druidess, what is it?” Ciniatha asked with a worried look on her face. “Does your stomach pain you?”

“No, the standing stone blessed me with fertility.” Tanwen smiled at her mother by marriage. Her tone rose with excitement as she said, “I have not spoken of it to Brude yet, but I am with child.” She clutched the cup to her chest.

Ciniatha walked forward. She drew Tanwen into her arms. “Blessings upon you.” Then Ciniatha stepped back as the circle of women cooed with good wishes.

“My thanks,” Tanwen said. “Blessings to the goddess and to mother earth whose fertility feeds us all.” She poured the rest of the offering of milk onto the ground, drenching a patch of the fertile earth. “We nourish it as it nourishes us.”

One of the women handed her a burning beeswax candle. Holding it to the towering pile of logs and branches, Tanwen ignited the bonfire into a roaring blaze. The heat of the flames warmed the chill from her bones on the cold night. The women gathered closer to the crackling fire for warmth. As the flames flickered, the women leapt like the sparks. They shot up into the air like the flickering embers as they danced for the goddess.

Tanwen’s hot skin was slick with sweat from the heat of the red amber fire as she twirled and leapt. She thought of the babe that would soon be kicking inside her. She shook her whole body freely and fervently as she danced around the blazing fire with the other women of the tribe.

Late at night, the women departed the grove. Bubbling forth with energy from the celebration, she walked briskly to the wheelhouse she and Brude now shared— her home.

Finding him asleep, she slid into bed beside him and covered his lips with hers. With the unquenchable hunger she had for him, Tanwen moved her mouth over his in a demanding caress. He stirred and opened his eyes as his warm lips met hers.

Now awake, he ran his hands slowly down her bare back. Still straddling his muscular thighs, she wrapped her fingers around the smooth skin of his erection. She slid her fingers up and down his bulging arousal. He moaned as she stroked his hardening flesh.

He placed a hand on each of her breasts. Her nipples tightened. He squeezed and she mewed with delight. As he kneaded and stroked her breasts, she burned with need. He arched and stiffened as she guided the head of his erection inside her. She slid down the girth and length of his rock hard shaft. Her quivering sex fully impaled on his, the fire ignited. She felt hotter than when she’d danced around the flaming Imbolc bonfire. Tanwen and Brude began their own dance, rocking to and fro in the ancient rhythm of love play.

He caressed her breasts as she pumped her hips up and down, harder and faster. She gasped as he flicked her nipples with his fingers then gently tugged on and pinched the tight tips. She moaned.

Her breasts and sex tightened as she squeezed his hard flesh, clenching down,  expanding, contracting and massaging his erection.  He met her thrusts, jabbing harder and deeper into her fiery center. Panting heavily, they moved together to the low, rhythmic music of their urgent pants as flesh slapped against flesh. Pleasure rioted in her, taking her to the brink.

She sucked in quick breaths. Ragged groans tore through his lips. She shuddered. A tormented expression of deep pleasure-pain crossed his face as he burst inside her. She quivered in spasms as jolts of pleasure racked her body. For a few moments, she didn’t know who or where she was.

Her panting slowed. She eased off of him and then slid down by his side as he wrapped his arm around her. Fully sated, she shut her eyes. Tanwen didn’t known she had drifted to sleep until Brude awakened her with moist, butterfly kisses on her forehead, cheeks, and lips.

“Good morn.” He grinned.

She reached up and hugged him, squeezing him fervently as she planted her lips on his. They were warm and soft and a hot shiver shot through her. The sensations of his kiss was so riveting it took all her might to tear her lips away.

"I have something to tell you,” she said in a near breathless whisper.

“What news have you?”

She gazed into his moist eyes and knew her face beamed with a bright smile as she announced the best tidings she had ever had. “Our child lives within me.”

“What?” He laughed with joy. “A baby.”

“It is so.” She wrapped her arms around him, mellow warmth spread through her.

At the same time, they each uttered, “I Love you.”

They eased out of bed and dressed quickly. With her hand in his, Brude led her to the chief’s wheelhouse to share the news of the blessed event.

“Father, you are to be a grandsire.”

Calach patted Brude on the back. “This is wonderful.” The chief turned toward his wife, who had her back to them as she pulled things out of the cupboard. “We are to be grandparents.”

“Yes. I am getting the mead to celebrate.” She came toward them with a tray of cups and a jug of mead.

All four poured themselves a generous drank and chugged it down.

“This one will be a great warrior, like his father,” Calach said.

“What if it is a girl?” Ciniatha asked as she carried the tray with the cups and jug back to the cupboard.

“Then she will be a great war leader like her grandmother, Boudica,” Tanwen said.

The round house filled with laughter as they all chuckled.

“We need more warriors.” Calach set his empty cup down. “The chiefs grow impatient. Many of our allies sent messengers demanding a grand battle to wipe out the Romans once and for all. “

“No.” Brude leaned closer to his father. “It is not the way to fight the Romans. Planned battles on a large field are their strength. We must continue to fight in concealment with small raids. It is the only way we will win.”

“Are you saying we will lose a battle their way? Do you have so little faith in your men?”

“No.” Tanwen folded her arms over her chest. “Our men have not been drilled in Roman warfare as they have. We need to fight as Celts not as Romans.” She placed her hand over her stomach. “Calach, for the sake of your grandchild and for your entire tribe, I implore you— heed the gods.”