Page 10 of Boudicca

It was a dream, but it was also a memory—so clear and real that to my sleeping mind it seemed I gazed into a mirror that reflected

the past.

The scene my dream conjured was one from my youth. I was almost seventeen, near to the end of the time I fostered with the

Trinovantes. Children of royal families often fostered with neighboring chiefs or queens as a way to solidify alliances and

strengthen the ties of trust and friendship among tribes. A friendship between the daughters of Tribe Trinovantes and Tribe

Brigantes, future tribal leaders, was an important relationship to forge, and Rhan and I happily did become close.

In the dream she and I were at our favorite spot in the woods outside Camulodunum, which was then a village still in Trinovantes

territory and as yet not usurped by Rome. We had woven vines and twisted them into torques, which each of us wore proudly

around our neck. I brandished a wooden sword and Rhan held a long branch she’d carved to look like a spear. We stood side

by side on a high bank above a stream that had been dammed by a family of industrious beavers. As my dream began, we were

speaking to the hawthorns that lined the stream as if they were an elder council.

I remembered the day clearly, though I hadn’t thought of it in over a decade. The dream was so vibrant that I could smell the fragrant hawthorn flowers that crowned the trees. Rhan and I were the eldest children of our fathers, though Rhan did have a brother, younger by two years. He would not automatically succeed her father; succession was always the choice of the gods and the tribe, and never as simple as blood or gender or birth order. Unlike Romans, we value our daughters equally to our sons and give little thought to birth order, which allows us to choose the best person to lead each tribe instead of being mired in the nonsense of patriarchy and birth order. So, Rhan and I were being raised to be queens, and our play was more practice than a child’s game.

My sleeping mind followed the events that lifted sharply from my memory. Rhan and I had finished addressing the “council”

behind us, and we had turned to face the new set of boughed and flowered “elders” before us, across the clear pool the beavers

had created. I had just raised my sword and declared that there would be more generous portions of pork haunches in everyone’s

stew henceforth when something in the pool below caught Rhan’s attention.

“What is th—” Rhan began.

But her words were cut off as she leaned forward and stared down into the quiet crystal pool. Rhan’s body had gone rigid at

the same time the birdsong in the trees silenced. I stared down into the water too, trying to see what had so captured my

friend’s attention, but saw nothing except water, river rock, and fallen branches. I turned to ask Rhan what I was missing

and felt a shock of understanding when I realized her face had lost all of its color and her dark eyes had rolled to show

only their whites.

Then Rhan’s body seemed to turn boneless and she began to fall. Had I not moved quickly—and not been taller and physically

stronger than my friend—Rhan would have toppled headfirst into the pool and drowned.

I carried her to the hawthorns and laid her on the carpet of moss under their fragrant boughs. I held her tightly, cradling

my best friend—the friend who had made my five-year separation from my beloved family bearable—and murmured softly to her,

beseeching her to come back to me.

Soon, Rhan’s eyelids fluttered, and though her face was still white as milk, her eyes had returned to normal.

“What is it? What happened? What did you see, Rhan?”

Rhan stared up at me, and when she spoke her voice sounded decades older than sixteen short years.

“I saw you. You were queen. You wore a golden torque.”

I smiled and hugged her tightly, feeling great relief that Rhan seemed herself again. I was pleased by her vision. When I was seventeen, becoming a queen was a fantasy that brought with it daydreams of rich clothes and loyal attendants, and the childish belief that a queen answered only to herself.

“Well, of course I will be a queen. You will be, too. We’ll commission our torques from the finest jewelers. I want mine to

be delicate and beautiful and decorated with—”

Rhan touched my cheek with fingers that were bloodless and cold. “No.”

“But do not tell me what you saw; not now. You can tell me when I become queen so I choose the right decoration for my torque.”

In my dream memory I watched my seventeen-year-old self chatter as Rhan and I collected our things and returned to the Trinovantes

village. But this time I focused on Rhan and noticed now what I hadn’t had the wisdom to see then.

My friend had remained somber and pale. Rhan only spoke enough to keep the young version of me from asking her more questions

about the vision. Then, I had believed Rhan had been shaken because the vision was proof that she must leave to train with

the Druids, which meant that she would never be queen of the Trinovantes. Not long after that day, I returned to the Iceni

and Rhan began the journey to the Druid stronghold on the isle of Ynys M?n. Until the dream, I had forgotten about Rhan’s

first true vision.

Rhan was so quiet, so pale, because she had seen the truth. She spoke literally. She saw me wearing a golden torque. But which

torque? And what else did she see that day?

“Boudicca, you must wake.”

Like a memory swimming up from the past to surface in the present, Rhan’s voice intruded on my dream. I opened my eyes to

see my friend, no longer a girl, leaning over my bed and shaking my shoulder.

“What? What is it?” I sat up abruptly and then winced at the pain in my back.

Phaedra was suddenly awake as well. “Oh! I did not know the Druid had entered! I am so sorry, I was—”

“Ssh, Phaedra. All is well. This is my friend Rhan the seer. She has long had the ability to move unseen and unheard.” I ignored

the pain and stiffness in my back and swung my legs off the side of the bed as I smoothed the hair from my face. “It is dawn?”

Rhan nodded. “Just so. The warriors have returned, and so has Gar.”

“Gar? He is just now returning from the fen?”

“He is, and he did not come alone. He brings with him a captive, the reason the Romans found their way through the fog and

the sinking sand.”

I felt a flush of anger, and as it receded, it left clarity and calm in its wake. I knew exactly what I must do. “I will dress

quickly. Tell Derwyn to assemble the warriors and the tribe at the practice grounds around the pyre. Have Gar bring the intruder

to me there.”

“As you ask, so will I do.” As silently as she had arrived, Rhan slipped from the chamber.

“I will get you fresh food and ale. Then I can—”

“There is no time,” I interrupted. “Help me dress. There is still bread and cheese from last night here. I shall eat while

you comb out my hair.” Phaedra helped me into the beautiful gown that had been my mother’s last gift.

“Should I triple-plait your hair in the style your mother preferred?”

“No,” I said around bites of unleavened bread and thick goat cheese. “Brush it out and leave it unbound—as all Iceni should

be.”