Page 15 of Boudicca

The change that came over Tasceni began that day. Grief and defeat were replaced by determination and action. I ate the midday

meal outside the lodge on tables I’d ordered placed along the main thoroughfare of the village so that the people could be

fed quickly as they took short breaks from repairing the damage left by the Romans. There was a sense of excited anticipation

that permeated Tasceni. Pens were rebuilt. The blackened thatched roofs of huts were replaced. The ruins of the stable were

demolished and a new, simple structure was begun closer to the corrals. Throughout it all, the sounds of our blacksmith and

his apprentices forging weapons rang like the knell of victory bells.

I ate with my people and then visited the huts where our wounded had been housed to recover and was gratified to learn that

the Druid healers believed they would all survive.

The only dark spot on the day was that my daughters did not leave the lodge. Adara remained with them as they soaked their

battered bodies in healing herbs while Briallen stood guard—and then, drugged by the healer’s tea, they returned to my mother’s

bedchamber to sleep.

Adara found me as I emerged from the last of the huts housing our wounded. “Queen Boudicca, Derwyn has announced that we leave

on the morrow. With your permission I will ask to remain so that I may continue to oversee the recovery of your daughters

and the rest of the wounded Iceni.”

I nodded. “Yes, you have my permission and my gratitude.”

Adara easily read my expression. She patted my arm in a maternal gesture that had my stomach clenching with longing for my mother. “Your children will recover.” Her voice was as gentle as her touch. “Be patient. Give them time.”

“I will, and I—” My words were interrupted as my attention was drawn to the main road that fed into Tasceni from the forest.

Along with me, villagers turned toward the sound of approaching carts. Warriors pushed forward toward me, and within several

heartbeats I was surrounded by my guard.

My body went very still. Terror speared through me as I had a visceral memory of the Romans descending upon Tasceni. Panic

narrowed my vision. I would have swayed and perhaps even stumbled and fallen had Rhan’s warm hand not gripped my elbow, steadying

me.

“Breathe,” she whispered.

I forced myself to draw one breath, another, and then my mind overcame my body’s fear. There was no clanking of Roman armor—no

rhythmic stomping of marching feet. My vision cleared in time to see three wooden carts filled with women entering Tasceni.

Rhan dropped my arm immediately, though she remained close beside me. I fisted my hands and pressed them against my tunic,

so that no one would see that they trembled, and strode forward to meet the carts. As I got closer to our visitors, I saw

that they were wearing Iceni blue. Each woman’s face was painted the same blue with our tribal symbols as well as the bold

war strokes Iceni men and women wore into battle. They looked so fierce that it took a moment for me to realize that most

of them were matrons—mothers and grandmothers whose wild white hair hung as loose as mine.

From the first cart a woman climbed to the ground with a nimbleness that belied her age-lined body. She approached me and

bowed low.

“Queen Boudicca, I greet you and wish you the joy of the day.” Her voice was strong and her eyes were sharp with intelligence.

It was her voice I recognized before I saw through the battle paint that decorated her face, shoulders, and bare, sinewy arms.

“And may the blessings of the earth be on you, Wulffaed,” I answered.

Her face split into a smile. “I am honored you remember me, my queen.”

I dipped my head slightly. “I cannot easily forget the most renowned weaver of the Iceni and the Mother of Twenty.” Wulffaed

was the matriarch of an Iceni farming village half a day’s ride northwest of the Chief’s Barrow. Her wisdom and weaving ability

were almost as legendary as the fact that she had given birth to twenty daughters—and each had survived childhood and become

as fertile and as gifted a weaver as her mother. She had been a favorite of Arianell, who often traded with her for the finely

dyed and woven fabrics Wulffaed created. I suspected the fabric of the dress I wore that day had come from her.

The old woman put her hands on her hips and cackled a laugh. “Our goddess has, indeed, greatly blessed me. It is Andraste

who brings me here.” Wulffaed met my gaze, and the lines that crossed her brow deepened with sorrow. “Our queen mother is

dead.”

“She is,” I said.

Wulffaed sighed as her gaze left mine and searched the faces of the villagers who surrounded us. “And I see many elders have

joined her in Annwn.”

“They have.”

Wulffaed met my gaze again and nodded. “Last night Andraste came to me in a dream. She said you have need of me and mine.

I cannot replace the queen mother, but my daughters and granddaughters and I can be sure your lodge is in order, your bread

is baked, and your clothes are woven so that you, my queen, may focus on readying us for war.”

I blinked in surprise, knowing that my riders could not have reached her settlement with the news calling the Iceni to arms

yet. Andraste had, indeed, sent this matron to me. I stepped forward and took her gnarled hands within mine.

“Thank you,” I said simply. “You are most welcome, Wulffaed, Mother of Twenty.”

Wulffaed squeezed my hands. “As the goddess asks, so will I do.”

The Mother of Twenty was right. I hadn’t realized how much it had weighed on me that my lodge was in disorder. Arianell and Dafina had long directed the tedious details of the daily running of the lodge, which served as the heart of the Iceni, leaving me the freedom to rule beside my husband, who had from the beginning of our marriage valued my judgment.

After Prasutagus’s death three moons before, it had fallen to me as Iceni queen to keep the administration of the Iceni running

smooth. With my lodge in order, I was able to decide disputes, answer requests for aid or sanctuary, and direct the planting

of crops, breeding of livestock, and trading with neighboring tribes. Things I’d had time to do because my mother directed

the daily running of my lodge. With Arianell gone and Phaedra overwhelmed, I’d only just begun to understand the chaos that

awaited me.

But by the evening meal, Wulffaed and her troop of daughters and granddaughters had filled my lodge with the sounds of contented,

busy tribeswomen and set out trays of sizzling meat, onions and potatoes drenched in fat, and sweet, seedy cakes. But what

I appreciated most was seeing my daughters sitting around the central hearthfire of the lodge with Wulffaed, who had them

combing through flax threads to make them ready for the loom. The girls did not eat outside at the long tables with the majority

of the tribe, but they also did not hide in their bedchamber. I took it as a small victory.

After the evening meal I asked Rhan to walk with me to the warriors’ practice grounds, where Derwyn was overseeing the collection

of the bones and other remains of our dead that would be interred in the Chief’s Barrow so that in death, as in life, the

Iceni followed their chiefs and queens.

The day had been warm, but as the sun sank closer to the western horizon, the breeze from the river Tas cooled, softening

the night. The enticing, homey scents of baking bread and smoking meat wafted with the breeze, but Tasceni didn’t feel sleepy,

as it used to most evenings. Tasceni felt energized and poised for a future that held change.

“Can you feel it?” I asked Rhan softly. “It is almost as if my people hold their breath as they wait to see if the warriors

will come to my call.”

Rhan looked up at me and gave a little snort so reminiscent of how she’d responded as a girl when I made outlandish predictions about our futures that I laughed. “What? You do not think they wait?”

“Oh, they wait, but not to see if the warriors will come. They know they will come. The waiting you feel is their impatient need for vengeance. Now that you have declared war on Rome, they are

like horses, champing at the bit with their need to bolt into battle.”

As I thought about Rhan’s words, I looked at my people. Each Iceni I passed paused to bow to me, which was new. Neither Prasutagus

nor I required our proud people to bow or cower before us. We did not hold ourselves aloof or apart, as did some chiefs and

queens of Britain’s tribes. We held our people’s respect and maintained our right to rule through our actions, our honor,

and the unyielding truth that the Iceni royal family always put the tribe first. So the obeisance they showed to me was a

reflection of not just their faith in me but their agreement with the path I’d set them upon.

“Let me be worthy of them,” I murmured.

“You are.” Rhan spoke without looking at me.

Her words warmed me immeasurably. “I’m so glad you are here and that you will stay with me.”

“I will remain with you as long as you have need of me,” said Rhan.

There was a strange tone to her voice and I looked sharply at her, but we’d come to the edge of the practice field and Derwyn

approached, pulling my attention from Rhan.

Behind him, Druids in forest-colored tunics used long, hooked tools to poke the ash and remove bones and other fragments from

the remnants of the pyre.

“Queen Boudicca, we will have the Iceni remains gathered by midday tomorrow and ready to rest in the barrow,” said Derwyn.

The bottom of his white tunic was gray from ash. Dark circles bruised his eyes. With a jolt of shock I realized that he looked

old and tired.

“Are you well, Derwyn?” I asked.

He sighed and ran a hand through his thick white hair. “Ynys M?n calls to me. Last night in my dreams the oaks keened.”

Beside me I felt Rhan stiffen.

Ynys M?n was more than just the island where the Druids trained and lived. It was their spiritual center. Their hearts were

tethered there by the sacred oaks that grew thick and strong on Ynys M?n. Prasutagus and I had visited the island several

times. From the first moment I’d stepped on the isle, I’d felt the love with which the Druids tended their oaks—much like

they were beloved children. “Do the oaks keen because I have declared war on Rome?” I did not want to hear Derwyn answer yes,

though I had to ask.

He shook his head. “No. Andraste has been clear. She supports you; your vengeance is hers. The oaks grieve, but I do not know

why. I planned to remain here, with the Tasceni, until much closer to Samhain and harvest, but I cannot. I must leave tomorrow,

and I must take all of my people with me except Rhan and Adara.”

“Of course you must,” I said quickly as dread fingered up my spine. “Derwyn, have the oaks keened before?”

“Never in all of my days have I heard such a sound.”

“We should make offerings to Andraste,” said Rhan. “And ask her to comfort the grove and hasten your return to the isle.”

“Yes,” said Derwyn, though he stared to the west, toward the distant place that was his home.

I looked around us and motioned for a young villager to approach.

“My queen,” the boy said after he bowed to me.

“Go to the lodge. Tell Wulffaed I need libation bowls for Andraste—honey and milk. Bring them to the altar by the oak.”

“Yes, my queen.” He sprinted off.

“Come,” I said to Rhan. “Let us go to Andraste.”

Wordlessly the seer and I moved through the practice field, skirting the huge ash pile and the Druids who pecked through it. I wanted to avert my eyes. I did not want to see my mother’s bones, but the ash drew me as surely as Andraste had compelled me to the forest. The evening clouds parted and the setting sun caught the remnants of treasures burned with our dead so that the field sparkled, and my dread quieted. I had no reason to turn my face from the remains of my mother or my people. They had been precious, the living jewels of the Iceni. I changed direction so that I walked through the ash and stopped, bent, and scooped up a handful of it. Resolutely, I spit into my hand and swirled my finger through the hastily made gray paste before I drew a line down my nose and two down either side of my cheeks from the corners of my eyes to the strong edges of my jaw.

“You will not be forgotten,” I promised the dead.

Rhan nodded, and silently we continued to the altar. It was darker under the boughs of the massive oak, though the waning

sunlight glinted through the thick canopy of leaves. Before I approached the altar I rested my palm on her skin. “I greet

you, Grandmother Oak.”

“Can you still feel their breath?” Rhan asked.

I nodded, surprised that she remembered.

My friend smiled. “I remember everything.”

“Or you really can read minds,” I quipped as I joined her at Andraste’s altar.

Rhan didn’t respond. Instead she gazed up at Andraste. “I love the fierceness of this likeness of the goddess.”

I kissed my fingers and pressed them to the goddess’s feet. “I have thought that since the first day I glimpsed this altar

when I was little more than a girl, and a very nervous new bride. When Prasutagus and I rode past her, I felt her welcome

me—not with the gentle touch of a mother or matron, but with an intensity and a strange kind of joy. I thought her beautiful

then and think her even more so now that I have seen her in person. Her fierceness is blinding in its magnificence.”

“That is because Andraste was not welcoming a young bride to Tasceni,” said Rhan as she continued to stare at the statue.

“She welcomed Victory.”

I continued to press my hand to her feet. “Let it be so.”

We moved the tribe’s offerings so that we could clean the leaves and forest debris from the altar. I lifted my skirt and used

it to wipe clean the statue. We were replacing the offerings around the feet of Andraste when the boy hurried to us. He clutched

two large wooden bowls close to his narrow chest and placed them carefully on the flat sandstone on which the goddess’s image

stood.

“Now return to Wulffaed and tell her that I said you are to be given an extra seed cake and your own bowl of honey to drizzle over it,” I told the boy.

His smile lit the clearing. “Yes, Queen Boudicca!”

With the altar cleaned and tended, Rhan faced me. “Andraste has chosen you, so it is you who should invoke her aid while I

pour libations and call nwyfre, the life force that fills the world, to carry your prayer to her.”

I nodded, and as Rhan took off her leather shoes and chose the bowl filled with rich, amber honey, I breathed deeply, grounding

myself. Slowly at first, the seer began dancing a circle around the raised altar and me. Her feet followed the music of her

soul; her movements were so graceful she appeared to flow. She sang a wordless tune, increasing the tempo of her spirit song.

Her voice was high and true. She swayed and twirled with a sensuality that was beautiful and alluring. Her bare feet traced

an intricate pattern as she circled, drizzling honey around the base of the altar. The pleasing scent of sweetness lifted

from the loamy forest floor and I felt a rush of pleasure at the rich offering—a feeling that I knew did not come from me.

Andraste loved sweets and rich foods, and it was those things she craved as tribute from her suppliants—that and the blood

of her enemies.

The words came easily to me, and I spoke them in a singsong rhythm that wove with Rhan’s dance.

Andraste, you are the word of knowledge;

the power of the point of the spear;

the lure that calls us beyond the ends of the earth when our lives are over.

You have been raven and boar and hare.

You are the wind and earth, our fire and water.

I am yours, Andraste. Always yours.

Your Victory, who comes to you today to ask that you hasten home Derwyn, who has long been beloved of Annwn.

The oaks of Ynys M?n keen for him, but he is here tending to the Iceni.

I paused, and when I spoke again words spilled from my mouth as Rhan continued in her dance and poured the fatty goat’s milk over the honey.

Soothe the oaks as Derwyn hastens to them.

Ready him for what is to come.

Strengthen him. Be near him. Give him courage.

He has well and truly served the gods his long life.

As I ended my prayer, Rhan poured the last of the libations and then dropped into a deep, fluid bow to the goddess. Then a

mighty gust of wind sluiced through the boughs of the ancient oak so that her leaves whispered and moaned and sighed. The

flesh on my forearms and neck prickled as my hair lifted and the evening clouds that had so recently parted closed, casting

the grove deep into shadow.

***

We left the bowls at Andraste’s feet, knowing that the tribe would fill them with sweets and treats for our goddess. Rhan

and I walked slowly back through the trees. We paused at the remnants of the pyre, where the Druids had been joined by those

of our people most experienced with plowing our fertile fields. Somberly the Iceni tilled the ashes of our elders into the

soil. In the days to come the warriors would return to the field and their feet would hard-pack the ashes into the earth.

Every day after this one, we would know that the ashes of our people who had died defending their village and their queen

were just below the surface, giving us strength for battles to come.

Then Rhan and I took the main road that would lead us to my lodge, where the voices of women would be filling it with life

again. My steps were lighter. My girls would recover. My people would answer my call—I felt sure of it. We would fulfill Andraste’s

curse. Vengeance would be ours.

We’d reached the area just outside the lodge that had been lined with trestle tables. It wasn’t full dark yet, but fires had been lit around the tables and the Iceni shared ale as they relaxed after a long, pro ductive day. Beside me I felt Rhan stiffen, and then I heard horses approaching, but this time fear didn’t smother me. Even before I turned to see them I knew by the way their hooves beat out the sound of freedom that we had nothing to fear.

The faces of the Tasceni villagers reflected my joy as ten horses and a chariot drawn by two galloped to me and slid to a

dramatic halt. The Iceni warriors who rode and drove them were dressed in full battle regalia. Bronze helmets decorated with

plumes of horsehair caught the last light of the sun and gleamed. Short shields and quivers filled with arrows were slung

across their painted shoulders. They wore leather breeches dyed Iceni woad blue. Their faces, as well as their horses, were

painted with Iceni signs and symbols of Andraste. They were small in number but they were magnificent.

The tall blond man who was their leader was unfamiliar to me, but he dismounted gracefully and dropped to one knee before

me. He, like the horses and the other warriors, was covered in sweat and breathing heavily, but when he spoke, his deep voice

did not falter.

“Queen Boudicca, I am Ealhhere, horse master of Durobrav.”

“Rise, Ealhhere. You are most welcome to Tasceni.”

He stood. “More of our warriors follow, though slower as they come with carts filled with weapons.”

“You say you are from Durobrav?” I asked.

“We are, my queen.”

“But Durobrav is a hard day’s ride from here,” I said. “My riders could not have reached your village.”

Ealhhere stood even taller as he replied, “We met two of your riders half a day from here.”

I shook my head as if to clear it. “But how could you have known to come?”

“We came as soon as we heard the Romans had attacked Tasceni,” said Ealhhere.

From behind Ealhhere the driver of the chariot shouted, “We did not wait for your call, my queen. We came!”

“Aye!” shouted the other warriors together. And then they spoke the words that would become our war song.

“We heard what the Romans did,” another warrior said.

“And we came!” shouted the rider on the horse beside him.

“Aye, we came!” repeated Ealhhere.

My heart thrilled at their cries. I stepped forward and put a hand on Ealhhere’s shoulder. “May Andraste bless you.”

Ealhhere’s smile blazed. “Is it true then? Have you declared war on the Romans?”

“I have,” I said.

The warriors behind him loosed the Iceni war cry, which my village answered. Cadoc strode up to us. Eyes sparkling, the old

warrior greeted Ealhhere fondly. “I should have known you would be the first to come.” Then he tilted his head and studied

the sweat-lathered horses. “But our riders have just reached Durobrav. How do you know Queen Boudicca called for you?”

I took up the words to the song that would sustain us. “They did not wait for our riders to relay my call. They came.”

Cadoc clapped the tall horseman on the back as his gaze found mine. “Aye, well, the call of Victory is impossible to ignore.”

Wulffaed was suddenly there at my side. “Shall I bring the warriors food, my queen?”

“Yes, and prepare more. A great deal more food.” My voice was filled with pride. “These warriors are only the first of many.”