Page 26 of Boudicca

I woke before dawn and dressed quickly. The camp was just beginning to stir when I exited the tent to find my Queen’s Guard

waiting silently in a half-moon formation. Briallen stood in the center of them, calling the warriors to attention as I emerged.

They watched me with an intensity I’d come to understand from my months of training. They were the spearhead of our attack

and I knew their strike would be true. They had exchanged their distinctive Queen’s Guard blue tunics for bland brown. Swords

were strapped to their backs, concealed completely by worn travel cloaks. Behind the warriors stood twenty-three of our swiftest

horses. Their only tack was the slightest of saddle blankets and slim bridles.

“Remember to blend in with them. Call no attention to yourselves.” I walked along the half circle, meeting the gaze of each

warrior. “Wait for the carnyx.”

“Aye, they are ready, my queen,” said Briallen.

“No queen has ever had a better guard,” I said. “You make me proud. May Andraste guide your swords.”

They mounted and, with the ominous sound of pounding hooves, disappeared into the dove-colored dawn.

“I know you wish you were going with them,” I said to the silent warrior at my side.

Briallen shook her head. “There is no honor greater than being entrusted with the lives of my queen’s bairns.”

I rested my hand on her shoulder. “I can fight today with a clear mind knowing they are under your protection.”

“I will keep them safe, my queen.” Briallen’s accent thickened with emotion. She cleared her throat and added, “I’ll be readying the bairns’ horses the now.” She bowed to me and headed to the hobble line behind our tent.

I watched her stride away and from my memory lifted a vision of her that day when she had been sliced up, beaten, and violated

by Rome, yet she had clawed her way back to my side, back to my girls. Andraste, be with Briallen. There was a movement in the boughs above me, and a raven croaked and clicked before taking wing into the lightening sky.

***

There were no victory shouts as we broke camp and made our way to the Roman road. The army was subdued but expectant, calm

and confident. Each Iceni knew his or her role in the coming battle, and each Iceni was ready.

Tribe Trinovantes met us as we reached the Roman road. Addedomaros and his many warriors were in full battle dress and they

were an awe-inspiring sight. Their red cloaks waved bloody in the breeze. They’d painted themselves in scarlet and black.

Each horse was dressed with white ribbons in their elaborately braided manes and tails—honoring their patron goddess, Epona.

Addedomaros, his son, and Mailcun joined me at the head of our combined armies and we marched toward Camulodunum. We made

no attempt at stealth. That would have been foolish. There was no hiding an army that swelled to almost one hundred twenty

thousand. I’d sent out scouts to the west, the direction from which the Fourteenth and Twentieth legions would return should

Paulinus get word of our attack. Scouts were also sent north, following the Ninth Legion’s path, with orders to return to

me if they caught sight of the centuria Decianus had said he would recall to protect Camulodunum. And, of course, our fleetest

scouts went before us to return with movement reports.

As we drew closer to the city, we came upon groups of people fleeing Camulodunum. The majority of them wore the colors of the Catuvellauni. We allowed them to pass unmolested, though I saw fear and awe in their furtive gazes as they began to understand the strength of our army.

As dusk approached, we pulled back to halt within the cover of the last tree line before Camulodunum. The Balkerne Gate was

visible in the distance, a sacrifice waiting for the knife. Addedomaros and his army, except for their chariots, melted away

from us. Half of his army skirted the city to the north and the other half to the south. Tribe Trinovantes would wait within

whatever cover they could find until they heard my signal. Then they would rush the city, their infantry and cavalry entering

through the four gates we’d chosen because of the shallowness of the ditches that framed them.

While the chariots were brought to the front and made ready, my daughters and I went into Wulffaed’s caravan, where Briallen,

Rhan, and Phaedra waited. Enfys and Ceri dressed in short, brightly colored tunics that would allow them to run or ride or

fight without the hindrance of skirts. Wulffaed painted them in bold swirls of woad blue while Rhan and Phaedra saw to me.

I dressed in my own short, sleeveless tunic made from cloth Wulffaed had dyed especially for battle. It was a blaze of color.

Iceni blue created a strong background to strips of red and yellow, green and purple, that were woven throughout it. Onto

my forearms and legs Phaedra strapped thick leather guards. Rhan braided raven feathers into my hair. Around the ends of the

thin plaits she added the smallest of the eagle’s bones, so that when I moved they clacked and clattered around my waist.

Finally, I placed the new bronze helmet on my head. Trimmed in Tan’s red mane and tail, it seemed to be an extension of my

hair. My daughters donned their own helmets and I felt such pride in them that I hugged the girls tightly, whispering to them

how fierce and fine they were and how much I loved them. I kept my breathing steady, refusing to allow nerves or fear to taint

this moment.

“May Andraste’s strength fill you,” said Wulffaed.

“May the goddess keep you safe,” added Phaedra.

Neither woman wept. Their eyes were bright, but with excitement, not tears.

I led us out of the tent. Maldwyn was there in the chariot. He, too, was painted for war, with Iceni moons and the outline of plunging horses on both of his muscular arms. He wore a bronze helmet decorated with the silver-white mane of the two magnificent stallions that pawed impatiently, eager for battle. There was a second chariot in which Cadoc rode. He was the god of war, Belatucadros, incarnate. From his helmet sprouted stag horns. A woad mask had been painted across his eyes, with bold Ogham marks up and down his thickly muscled arms between the tattooed Iceni crescents and stars that had been permanently marked into his skin years before I’d been born.

Abertha’s chariot was beside his. Her beauty was savage. She wore only a short leather tunic that was dyed woad blue. It and

her body were painted in coal-colored Ogham symbols. She’d cut her hair short and its tips were dyed blue and spiked. Her

bronze helmet was trimmed the same as the rest of the cavalry, in dyed white horsehair. Around her neck she wore a collar

made of raven feathers.

Briallen was also in full battle dress. She sat astride a gelding while she held two more riderless horses. I nodded to her

and she saluted me.

“Lead us to the front of the army,” I told Cadoc. “Rhan will ride with you. She carries the sigil until she invokes Andraste,

and then Maldwyn and I will take it into battle.”

Cadoc’s grin was a baring of his teeth. “As you ask, so will I do, my queen.”

Rhan joined him in his chariot as my girls squeezed in between Maldwyn and me. Sunne and Mona, whose silver-gray coats had

been painted with my daughters’ woad-colored handprints, galloped close to the chariot as Maldwyn clucked to the horses. Briallen

and Abertha brought up the rear. We followed Cadoc swiftly through the caravans to the army, which parted for us as if we

were sunlight spearing through clouds.

Maldwyn drove our chariot out before the army and then turned to face our tribe. Briallen and Abertha waited at the edge of the army with Cadoc, who halted his chariot so Rhan could step down. She carried the sigil she’d made. It was a magnificent sight. She’d prepared a long oak bough, working it smooth until it shined. It was twice her height, tall and straight. From the top of it hung a large circle made by willow branches. Within that circle was a woad-colored spider’s web of hemp twine that formed the triple Iceni moons. Dangling from leather straps all around the willow circle were the largest of the eagle bones. They clacked in the evening breeze with the dry voices of wraiths. In the very center of the sigil Rhan had woven the skull of the eagle upside down, defeated, dead, useless.

Rhan moved into the space between my chariot and the army. She wore her ovate robe of green and brown, and as she began to

dance and chant, her cloak billowed around her. She was beautiful and wild and glorious.

Hu rì o hùo ro—hu rì o hu

Strike, cut, spear thrust straight, straight and true.

E ho hùo hùo

Brigantia’s fire flow.

Hu rì o hùo ro—hu rì o hu gaol i

Andraste’s promised vengeance fulfilled by thee.

Hu rì o hùo ro—hu rì o hu

Strike, cut, spear thrust straight, straight and true.

The army beat out the rhythm of her song on their shields until the earth shook with the force of our rage and I knew that

the goddesses could not help but hear it in Annwn.

Rhan spun and leaped, swayed and stomped her bare feet. Her hair flew around her with her cloak. She was a creature that slipped

between Annwn and Arbred. When she finally halted before my chariot, the power of nwyfre, the life force that filled our land

and our bodies, crackled in the air like lightning.

Rhan handed me the sigil, and as I raised it, the army went silent. Maldwyn knew what to do. He knelt down in the front of the chariot and clucked softly to Ennis and Finley, and they trotted back and forth across the front line of the warriors, necks bowed, straining against their bits. Beside me Enfys and Ceri stood straight and strong. Their hair streamed behind them, mingling with mine like small flames joining a wildfire. Their wolves kept pace with us. I understood why I saw savage glee in the eyes of my people. We were Iceni and we were magnificent.

I drew a deep breath and spoke to my people.

“Iceni! Today we do not fight as Romans do for land or spoils or riches. We fight for life. We fight for freedom. We fight

for the right to live in our land unmolested by those who do not belong here, who do not know our gods, who violate children

as they call us barbarians. If fighting for my children makes me a barbarian—if refusing to submit to Rome makes me a barbarian—if

honoring Andraste makes me a barbarian— then I say I am a barbarian !”

The army and my daughters roared, “Aye!”

Maldwyn wheeled the chariot around to face the center of the army. I raised the sigil high and lifted my other hand in a fist

to the sky as, in a voice amplified by Andraste, I repeated the curse the goddess had promised to fulfill.

The army was completely silent as my curse echoed around us. A single raven croaked from above me. It circled us three times

before it landed in the uppermost branches of the closest oak. The setting sun flashed behind it, and I knew it was time.

I motioned to Briallen, who galloped to me, leading the spare horses.

“Kill them all, Mama,” said Enfys.

“Yes,” said Ceri. “All of them.”

I kissed each daughter before lifting them onto the backs of the waiting horses. Rhan mounted her horse, Briallen bowed her

head to me, and then they were gone, riding fast for the rear of the army, where they would join the caravans that would retreat

into the western forest and wait for the battle to end.

Cadoc’s driver maneuvered his chariot beside me. Abertha’s chariot moved up so that she was positioned on my other side. “Is

it now, my queen?” Cadoc asked.

“It is,” I said.

Cadoc lifted the long bronze war carnyx to his lips. And from the snarling boar at its end came the sound that called the Iceni to war. It rang across the land to Camulodunum’s Balkerne Gate. Over and over Cadoc blew the horn in long, eerie notes as the horses pawed and stomped and snorted impatiently.

I stared at the city, waiting. And suddenly saw hundreds of burning arrows slash the sky above Camulodunum. They flew in a

beautiful arch up and up, and then as one they dipped and sped down into the city.

“Again, Cadoc,” I said.

Cadoc blew the carnyx, holding the note long so that it echoed across the empty stretch of land between Camulodunum and us.

Again the sky burned with Trinovantes arrows.

“Once more, Cadoc!”

The carnyx sounded and death rained from the evening sky.

I placed the sigil in the ties Maldwyn had fashioned for it at the front of the chariot, took up my first spear, raised my

shield, looked over my shoulder, lifted my gaze—and waited until the sun finally kissed the trees, blinding anyone who would

be looking west from the city.

“Now, Maldwyn!”

With a savage cry, he let loose Ennis and Finley. On one side of us Cadoc’s chariot surged forward—on the other Abertha’s

team pounded the ground in time with us. Behind us the mass of Iceni chariots thundered, causing the world to vibrate with

their might. My blood pulsed hot and fast. I was not afraid. I did not have time for fear. I opened my mouth and shrieked

the Iceni war cry. All around me my warriors did the same. From north and south of the city I heard Trinovantes’ voices joining

us with their battle cry.

We were at the four arched stone entryways so soon that it shocked me. I had half a breath to worry that the iron-barred gates

would slam closed, but they did not, and as we charged into the city I caught a glimpse of my Queen’s Guard cutting down the

last of the Roman lookouts.

And then the first Roman soldiers were upon us. As we had prepared for this day, Maldwyn, Cadoc, and Abertha had spoken to me often of what it was like to be in a battle. They described the tunnel-vision aspect of war. They talked of the confusion and the raw brutality that would seem endless, though it might only last moments. Most especially they drilled into me that I would not have time to think—that I must practice over and over and over so that my body would act when my mind was overwhelmed.

They had been right, but what they had not described to me was the unexpected intimacy of battle. As I took lives, it was

as if I were alone with each man at the moment of his death. I saw his shock—his fear—his pain—his release.

I killed the first man almost immediately. A gray-bearded soldier rushed me from the side, surprisingly swift for his obvious

age. Maldwyn saw him and swerved our chariot. My body moved automatically. I threw my spear and caught the soldier cleanly

through his throat. It seemed to take a very long time for my spear to skewer him. Blood arched, shockingly bright red. His

eyes fastened on me, wide with surprise as he took in my tunic, my hair, and the fact that a woman had just killed him. The

light went out of his eyes as he fell and we thundered on.

Our chariots hurtled forward, reverberating deafeningly over the stone road as we raced toward the colonia and the heart of

Roman Camulodunum. The city was already on fire and we had to dodge burning men and debris. We passed pockets of Trinovantes

cavalry engaged with soldiers on our flanks, and as we reached the main barracks, red-cloaked warriors joined those in Iceni

blue as they surrounded the surprised Romans, squeezing them into doomed circles that closed tighter and tighter.

“Cadoc! To Brigantia!” I shouted.

The old warrior, whose chariot was always beside mine, nodded and barked a command. A row of chariots broke off to follow

us south to the Gosbecks District. As we’d planned, Abertha took command of the rest of the chariots and continued into the

heart of the burning colonia.

We raced through the Gosbecks. Here the flames licked high into the darkening sky as there were more of our wooden roundhouses and less Roman stone. The heat pressed against my skin and I was glad for our speed. The district appeared deserted. We pounded up the slight hill to Brigantia’s desecrated shrine, our horses’ hooves tearing great hunks of turf and dirt, which lifted behind us. Though the buildings around the hill were aflame, the shrine was untouched. The only fire on the hill was the one dedicated to Brigantia. Maldwyn pulled Ennis and Finley to a halt and I leaped from the chariot with a coiled rope in my hands. I ran to the statue and wrapped the noose of the rope around the goddess’s neck, where it rested beside my mother’s pendant. As I looked into the goddess’s face I noted that no one had washed the rust of my blood from her cheeks.

“Blessed Brigantia, now you will be free.” I touched her face gently before I stepped back.

Cadoc joined me, looping another rope around the goddess’s neck. “Your desecration is over, mighty Brigantia,” he said.

The dozen chariots that had followed us also cast their ropes around the goddess’s neck, until her face was covered. My eyes

were drawn to my mother’s pendant. The ever-burning fire before the shrine caught it, lighting the flames stamped in gold

so that they appeared to truly burn.

We returned to our chariots and secured the ropes. I raised my hand high. “Minerva!” I lifted my voice above the sounds of

battle and the roar of devouring flames. “Return to Rome. You are not wanted here.” I dropped my hand. “Now!”

As one, our chariots surged from the shrine, pulling the statue of the goddess so that she fell forward with an enormous crash

directly onto Brigantia’s flame. There was a great whoosh as the iron receptacle that held the well of oil was pierced. We threw our ropes free and galloped down the hill as the shrine

exploded in orange and gold flame.

Cadoc pulled up beside us as we paused to watch it burn. I wiped sweat and blood and grime from my forehead and met the warrior’s

gaze. “And now we do the same to the Temple of Claudius.”

He bared his teeth. “Aye, my queen!”

We raced back through the burning Gosbecks and into the colonia, where the fire was spreading, but less quickly. The wide stone streets were filled with Iceni and Trinovantes cutting down pockets of Romans as the battle moved closer and closer to the huge temple that proclaimed their dead emperor a god.

Later my warriors reported how the people who had chosen to side with Rome and remain in the city had fled to Claudius’s temple,

but then, in the heart of the battle, I knew only what was before me. Maldwyn and I cut down soldier after soldier. I threw

my spears again and again. We were a magnet for the Romans, who were drawn to us by our sigil and by the sight of me, a tall

barbarian woman whose flame-colored hair lifted in the heat of the burning city and whose spear arm threw true. My arm did

not weaken. My voice, which shrieked the Iceni war cry, did not falter.

When a pilum sliced across the outside of my bicep, I did not feel pain, only rage. I snarled at the Roman as Maldwyn wheeled

our chariot around. The soldier tried to crouch behind his shield but I knocked it away with the blunt end of my spear. As

we thundered past I pivoted, twirled the spear in an arc, and thrust it down between his neck and his shoulder. Blood gushed

from his mouth, and his eyes widened at me before they rolled to show white and he fell forward onto his face.

And then we were at the temple. Roman soldiers attempted to set up a defensive line around the front of the huge building.

They locked shields and were able to hold their line as people flooded into the temple behind them. As Maldwyn and I got closer,

I saw Decianus. He was just ahead of a group of Iceni foot soldiers, fleeing toward the line of Roman shields with a group

of women. Even from a distance I could see the terror on the procurator’s face. It appeared as if he were melting. Sweat poured

down his wobbling cheeks and darkened his soiled white toga.

“Catus Decianus!” I roared the name.

The procurator’s head whipped around as he looked over his shoulder. His small eyes went glassy with shock as he caught sight

of me. Maldwyn moved us closer.

“Through my blood and with my goddess-blessed breath, I have cursed you unto death!” I hurled the final words of my curse at him, and his florid face went the color of old milk just as his group reached the line of Roman soldiers. They did not part quickly enough. Decianus grabbed the voluptuous woman dressed in a sheer toga who was in front of him and threw her at the soldiers. She hit the shield wall and fell, her head cracking on the stone pavement. She was the woman I’d spoken to when we’d scouted Camulodunum—the one who had chosen to live, and die, like a Roman. I stared at her as Decianus stepped on her stomach and raced through the hastily parted shields.

“My queen!” Cadoc’s voice pulled my attention from the temple as Decianus ran, stumbling and falling, up the stairs and finally

reached the wide doors and disappeared inside. “The city burns. We must signal to leave or risk getting trapped in the flames.”

“First push anything that will burn against the temple and into this line of Romans. Have the archers shoot arrows dipped

in pitch into the debris and the roof of the temple. Then sound the carnyx.”

“We should leave, my queen,” said Maldwyn.

“In a moment. I want to see it burn first.”

Wooden tables from the nearby market were dragged to the temple. Our warriors used them as huge shields to press the line

of Romans back and back and back until they were at the steps of the temple.

“Cadoc!” He turned to look at me and I pointed to the bronze head of Claudius that had rolled down the temple steps. “Take

that vile thing. Drown it as a gift to Andraste.”

“Aye!”

The old soldier shouted an order at one of the charioteers, who raced in, looped a rope around Claudius’s head, and then dragged

it away. Then Cadoc called another command and arrows sizzled through the air, bringing more flame and heat, and with the

sound of a great exhalation the debris heaped against the temple caught fire. The Romans who had been holding the line in

front of the temple were forced all the way to the wide doors, which they opened and rushed inside.

“Push the debris to the door. No one escapes. No one,” I said.

Cadoc directed the foot soldiers. Using tall, curved shields taken from the bodies of fallen Romans, they ran at the burning piles of tables and furniture, bushes and wine barrels, knocking the flaming mess up the stairs and into the entryway of the temple, clogging it with death. When the screaming began within, I turned away.

“Sound the carnyx!” I called.

Cadoc lifted the great horn and blew three times, short and swift, paused, and then blew three times again. With the other

chariots, Maldwyn turned our team and we raced through the burning city, followed by the cavalry and foot soldiers. It was

an inferno. I smelled my singed hair. My skin was so hot that later I found blisters on my arms. But at that moment I felt

nothing except savage joy. Catus Decianus was dead.

We burst through the Balkerne gates and kept racing away from the city. The heat grew so intense that our own people would

be immolated if they did not keep moving. Finally, we met the line of caravans that remained to rearm us and treat the most

severely wounded. Only then did Maldwyn turn the team so that we could look back at Camulodunum. He wrapped the reins around

their hook and leaped from the chariot, going to Ennis and Finley and running his hands down their legs and over their bodies,

checking for wounds.

I meant to join him, but I could not look away from the blazing amber jewel the city had become. To me it seemed very little

time had passed between entering the gates and leaving them, but the sky was the black of deep night. I did not see stars

sprinkled above. Instead there were flames and sparks and smoke the color of the gray mist called the breath of the dragon.

The army was forming up around me, stretching in its vast numbers southwest, toward the cool forests and the caravans that

waited there to welcome us. Cadoc and Abertha halted on either side of me. And then Addedomaros, his son, Adminius, and his

shield, Mailcun, were with us as well.

“It is a decisive victory. The city is no more!” Addedomaros wiped gore from his face and grinned. “Let us join the caravans

so that we may feast and rejoice.”

“The curse is not fulfilled,” I said.

“What?” Adminius blurted. “The city has been destroyed. Many Romans are dead.”

“The centuria that attacked Tasceni was not in Camulodunum. The curse is not fulfilled,” I repeated.

“But surely—” Addedomaros began to protest, but a scout galloped up on a horse frothing with sweat, cutting off his words.

“Queen Boudicca! The Ninth comes!” He spoke quickly as he gasped for breath. “On the Roman road north of the city.”

“The entire legion?” I asked.

He shook his head and sweat rained from his long hair. “No. Only a centuria from the Ninth.”

It was as if my body changed then, shifting from flesh to armor, turning bronze and unfeeling except to know itself a weapon.

“Gather the chariots and the cavalry. We will destroy the centuria,” I said. “Send our infantry to the caravans. We will join

them afterward.”

“But we should—” Addedomaros began, and my words sliced through his.

“Not you. This is Iceni business. You, your son, and your warriors may go to the caravans. Feed and rest your men. Tend to

your wounded. We leave tomorrow for Londinium.”

Addedomaros seemed as if he would say more but finally nodded and turned his horse, calling to the Trinovantes to follow him.

Eagerly, Adminius galloped with his father from the field. I felt eyes on me and my gaze caught Mailcun’s. The Trinovantes

shield bowed to me and pressed his fist over his heart before he followed his chief.