Page 5 of Boudicca

Briallen moved with the speed of a viper. She placed herself between the Roman and the two girls. She unsheathed her sword

and stood at ready.

Decianus’s look hardened and he commanded, “Drive the girls and the queen from the lodge. Kill anyone who gets in the way.”

A mean smile slid across his florid face. “Except for this fierce woman.” He pointed at Briallen. “Let us toy with her. I

find females who masquerade as soldiers fascinating.”

Decianus stepped aside to allow two Roman soldiers to rush within, and the lodge exploded into movement. Briallen slid the

point of her sword up between the leather strips of the first soldier’s tunic, slicing his groin. He dropped with a terrible

scream. Briallen spun around and her sword cut neatly through the second soldier’s throat, causing him to fall backward out

onto the raised wooden stairs as blood geysered in an arc around him.

“Mother! Take the girls! Go!” I shouted as I pulled the dagger from the leather sheath at my waist. I didn’t think. I reacted.

I met Phaedra’s shocked gaze and commanded, “Go! Now!” My servant sprinted to the rear of the lodge and the shadowy back door.

Then I rushed past my screaming daughters and lunged at Decianus. My knife almost found his throat, but the tax collector

shrieked and staggered back as another soldier burst into the lodge. Set on killing Decianus, I tried to follow through with

a deadly lunge but the soldier was there, blocking my way. “No!” I sobbed brokenly, bowed my head, and dropped my shoulders

in pretended defeat. When the soldier momentarily relaxed I jabbed the hilt of my blade into his thigh.

“Get in here, you fools!” Decianus commanded.

And then there was no more respite. The well-trained soldiers of Rome’s Ninth Legion poured into my home.

“Do not touch her!” Arianell shouted, and pulled Ceri from a soldier’s grasp. And then my mother gasped and her eyes went

wide when the blade of his pugio—a short sword—plunged into her belly.

“Nain!” Ceri sobbed.

“Nooooo!” Ancient Dafina howled her rage. The gray-haired woman, who had spent her life serving and loving Arianell, hurled

herself at the soldier.

In more of a twitch of reflex than a true strike, the soldier met her hysterical onslaught with his iron-tipped pilum. He

speared her through the chest as easily as if the old woman had been a lamb rushing to its own slaughter. She crumpled to

the ground beside Arianell’s motionless body. The Roman soldier pressed his foot to her soft belly as he pulled his spear

from her body.

I watched Mother and Dafina fall but had no time for tears. I rushed to my daughters and shoved them behind me. Briallen took

up a position with her back to me, my two frightened daughters between us.

“Do not kill them!” Decianus shouted. “Drive them from the lodge as I commanded!”

The attack paused. The soldiers reevaluated, regrouped. When next the soldiers entered the lodge it was with the practiced

control for which Rome’s legions were renowned. They entered in pairs with their body-covering shields raised and locked.

Though Briallen and I thrust at them, they did not break ranks but surrounded us with an impenetrable wall. Then slowly, methodically,

they closed their circle of shields and forced us from the lodge.

The world was death and confusion. Screams echoed through the fog around us. I knew my people were being slaughtered but could

only catch glimpses of the village between brief breaks in the wall of shields surrounding and herding the four of us through

the settlement.

“Mama! Mama!” Little Ceri fearfully panted my name.

I brandished my dagger before me as I tried to keep the soldiers from getting any nearer. With my other hand I reached back to touch my youngest daughter. “Stay between Briallen and me! And when we tell you— run for the woods !”

“Yes, Mama! We will! We will!” Enfys said between sobs.

I’d spoken automatically, trying to soothe Ceri, but I knew my girls and I could not escape the Romans. Smoke lifted in dark

tails above the shields, obscuring my view. Tasceni was burning.

And then I heard a sound that momentarily had my heart swelling with joy—voices raised in the Iceni battle cry followed by

the crash of steel on steel. The soldiers who were herding us forward paused as other Romans met the few Iceni warriors who

had chosen to remain in the village as well as the sick, the feeble, the elderly, and those heavy with child. No matter the

age, each Iceni was a warrior who bravely charged at the Romans. And each Iceni warrior fell nobly as they attempted to protect

their queen, her heirs, and their village.

An officer called out a sharp command and the marauding soldiers fell into formation, making a column with their shoulders

pressed against one another so that their large, curved shields extended the impenetrable, confining wall. They held their

pilums—long, deadly spears—at the ready as the circle of soldiers herding us continued to move forward, inside the Roman column.

I realized we were being forced to the Iceni practice field.

My tribe, the brave Iceni, continued to resist. They tried to get to me, but the Roman formation never broke—never even wavered.

They threw themselves at the soldiers as they shrieked the Iceni battle cry. Over and over, grandmothers and grandfathers

attacked the Romans—and each of them fell. Suddenly I understood what my people were doing. The tribal elders were keeping

the attention of the centuria on them so that the next generation of our people—brave children and their young mothers—were

able to flee into the safety of the forest.

The Roman soldiers easily cut down all challengers. I felt each of the blows as if they had sliced through my own body.

Impotently, I tried to pull the attention of the soldiers from my people. I struck, thrusting my dagger over and over at them. The Romans ignored my attempts to break through their shields. The most they did was to parry my thrusts—careful never to strike me—and continue to crowd us toward the Iceni practice field.

But they toyed mercilessly with Briallen.

From the edge of my vision I could see that Briallen’s tunic was soaked scarlet from stab wounds to her breasts. Every time

she had to swivel even a little to parry a blow from one man, another soldier from the column would dart forward and slash

at her buttocks—and then the soldiers would laugh uproariously.

My hands were slick with sweat, and the metallic scent of Briallen’s blood thickened the air by the time our little group

reached the practice field.

From his horse, Decianus watched everything. He called the order. “Make an end of it! I tire of the goat-shit smell of this

place.”

The circle of shields suddenly tightened, separating Briallen from my daughters and me. Briallen shrieked like a banshee,

whirling and slicing so that it took five Romans to subdue her. They knocked her to the ground and dragged her behind a goat

shed—and then she stopped shrieking.

Everything went silent. The Iceni warriors were dead. The elderly Iceni had all fallen. There was no one left to worry the

soldiers.

I straightened my spine as Andraste’s words echoed in my mind: Your husband did not heed me... You cannot stop the consequence of his choice. You must avoid it, survive it, or die with

it.

I stood tall and proud as I tried to shield my daughters. But I had no chance against the mass of soldiers, so I lifted my

chin and leveled my gaze on the tax collector.

“I demand a queen’s right to speak with your governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus!”

Decianus made show of looking around before he shrugged. “My good friend Paulinus does not appear to be here. Pity. You will

have to speak with me instead.”

I shook my head and sneered at the little fat man. “I have spoken with you, tax collector , and I am done speaking with you. You overreach your station with borrowed soldiers. What you have done today breaks our treaty—one approved by your emperor and signed by Paulinus. You have no authority over the Iceni!”

“Again, I see no one here except me, which makes my authority absolute. And to be clear, Rome does not acknowledge a woman’s

right to rule; therefore, you may demand nothing!” His nasal voice mocked me as he turned away. “Take them to the stake!”

The soldiers closed on us. I circled my daughters, lunging forward with my dagger as I tried to find a weakness in their wall

of shields. One soldier parried my jab. Using the pommel of his pugio, he struck me hard across the cheek. My world grayed

and I staggered, gasping for breath. He easily slapped away my dagger, and then he and two of his comrades used their long

pilums to herd the three of us through the rest of the column of Romans to the center of the training field.

Decianus had gotten there first. He dismounted, and as my daughters and I spilled out of the column of soldiers to the open

ground before him, he commanded, “Tie Boudicca to the post.”

We were doomed. I knew it as surely as I drew breath. We could not escape a centuria of Romans, but I would not break before

these usurpers. I would not break before my daughters. Let them witness the strength of will of an Iceni queen. I blinked

away the last of my dizziness and wiped my sweaty, bruised face with my sleeve. Then I put myself between my girls and the

procurator. I looked down my nose at Decianus and spit in his face.

Laughing, the procurator pretended to turn away, but then he spun around and punched me in the stomach. Air rushed from me

as I doubled over and fell to my knees. While I retched onto the hard-packed dirt of the training grounds, Enfys and Ceri

shrieked and tried to reach me, but Decianus grabbed them by their slim wrists and threw them at the soldiers closest to him.

“You may have sport with them, but do not kill them.”

“No!” I screamed, and staggered to my feet to lunge after my girls.

Decianus caught my braid as I tried to rush past him and jerked me off my feet.

“You see what happens when you aren’t polite?”

From the ground I looked up at him and pleaded. “Please! Do as you will with me, but they are children . They are no threat to you.”

“Ah, but they will grow up, and because you insist on arming your women, they will become my enemies. Think of this as a lesson

in propriety. I am actually doing them a favor. Perhaps, when they are adults, this will teach them not to bear arms against

their betters.”

“Mama!” Ceri sobbed.

“Help us!” Enfys screamed.

Rage filled me to overflowing. I surged to my feet again. Shrieking the Iceni war cry, I ran directly at Decianus. I bared

my teeth to use them as weapons and made my hands claws as I went for his eyes. The procurator staggered back. Off balance,

he fell against the soldiers who were struggling to contain the two hysterical girls.

For an instant I thought Ceri and Enfys might escape—might dart between the wall of soldiers and shields and flee into the

misty, concealing forest. But the men only laughed, made the mocking sounds of clucking hens at the girls as they closed their

wall of shields. Ceri and Enfys ran in the other direction. Again, the wall closed and the soldiers taunted. Hand in hand,

the sisters raced from the column and ran into the only building on the field, the hut in which straw targets and wooden practice

swords were stored. They closed the door. My heart ached with the futility of it. The hut was no barricade against the lust

of Rome. Still laughing and clucking like hens, soldiers broke down the door and entered the hut.

As my children’s screams lifted to the boughs of the great, watching oak, Decianus backhanded me before he wrapped my long,

thick braid around his hand and dragged me to the center post.

“Tie her!”

The waiting soldiers did as he commanded, binding my hands above my head so tightly that my face pressed into the thick wooden

post.

“Stop your men!” I pleaded with the tax collector as I hung from the post. “I will not arm my daughters. If you release them

unharmed I give you my oath as queen that they will never take arms against you!”

Decianus took his pugio from a sheath strapped to his side and approached the post. With ironic gentleness, he lifted my thick braid and brushed it aside so that it no longer covered my back. Then the procurator leaned into me so that his hot, foul breath brushed my cheek. His body pressed against me and I could feel his erection, hard and insistent. “But what good is the oath of a queen who is so weak she cannot even protect her children?” A cold blade touched the patch of skin that was visible at the base of my neck. “Your daughters must learn what happens when women are not ready to serve their men.”

With a swift stroke that left a line of warm blood dewing my skin, Decianus cut through the back of my tunic. He pulled and

ripped the garment until I was naked from the waist up. Then he went to his horse and unwrapped a long, braided whip from

his saddle. It ended in several strips of leather that were knotted. Decianus shook it out and cracked it over his head as

he approached me again.

“And now, your lesson begins, Iceni queen . But let it not be said that I am without mercy. All you need do to stop your flogging is cry out and ask me to do so, and

I will know you have learned your place. I shall put away my whip then.”

I said nothing as he marched away. I could not think past the screams of my daughters. I had no time to prepare. The first

lash struck like a hot knife fileting my skin. I opened my mouth to scream, but the whip snaked out immediately again. My

gasp of pain cut off my scream as it struck my back, leaving a hot ribbon of agony. The pain was so all-encompassing that

it took my breath, my voice—it felt as if it took my soul. I had no control over my body; it jerked spasmodically with each

blow. My bound hands grasped the wooden stake. My fingernails broke and bled as I clawed the post, but I did not cry out.

I could not cry out. I had no breath. It had fled and taken my words. Decianus struck again—and again I could not scream,

could not gasp, could not cry out. Instead I struggled to hold to consciousness as my sight tunneled and blood washed down

my back with every lash.

The only sounds in the field were the murmur of soldiers, my daughters’ fading screams, and the crack of the whip.

“Cry out, woman! Beg me to stop!” Decianus commanded.

My cheek pressed against the wooden post. I did not close my eyes but stared up into the mighty oak before me and said nothing.

“I said, cry out !” Decianus’s voice was shrill. Nero’s tax collector struck me over and over until blood ran down my hips and thighs and calves

to pool around my feet.

And still I did not cry out. Instead I continued to stare into the tree. The watching soldiers had gone silent. My beloved

daughters had stopped screaming. The day held its breath.

My mind became very clear. Gone were dizziness, confusion, anger, and fear. I realized that Andraste had known I would not

choose to remain in Annwn while my people were attacked. The goddess had also known that her Victory, though not a queen who

had led Iceni warriors into battle, would not bow to the will of Rome. With that icy clarity that often preludes the end of

life, I understood that I had come to the real choice the goddess had foreseen and asked me to make. Die or survive. I could

feel the seductive allure of death as surely as I felt the white-hot lash of the coward who flogged me.

A raven lit on a bough of the oak. Its gaze caught mine. I stared into its dark depths. I could easily remain silent. I could

already feel Arbred, the mortal world, slipping away. The pull of Annwn was great. Prasutagus was there. My mother was there.

So, so many beloved Iceni elders were there. My daughters quite probably were there. If I just let go, my spirit would follow

my loved ones. Andraste had given me this choice; she said she would welcome me to her Summerlands. This day I could feast

with those most dear to me—free of pain and of the oppressive fist of Rome.

But with every lash a new raven landed in the oak. Each great black bird stared at me in silence until one raven opened its

obsidian beak and I heard the goddess’s voice inside my mind. Look around you, Victory.

My vision, like my mind, was preternaturally sharp. I turned my head to gaze around the training field and the path my children and I had so recently been forced to walk. The bodies of the elders of Tribe Iceni were strewn everywhere. Ancient limbs had been severed. Skulls had been broken. Bellies that had carried children who now had children of their own had been opened, spilling entrails across the hard-packed ground.

If I chose death, what would the Iceni do? In a span of a few short months they would have lost their chief, their queen,

their royal family, and their elders.

My gaze returned to the tree. The raven’s dark eye caught mine again. If you choose death, the Iceni will be no more. They will be absorbed by other tribes who will bow to Rome. With the extinction

of Tribe Iceni, so too will life as you know it end—and Rome will go unpunished for its crimes.

With those words— Rome will go unpunished for its crimes —anger began to build within me. With each stoke of the whip, that anger grew into a rage that burned away the lethargy that

had begun to lull me into death.

“Submit to me!” Decianus shrieked, and the whip snaked against my blood-slick back again as yet another raven landed to perch

in the great oak and bear witness to the flogging of a goddess-anointed queen.

The memory of Andraste’s promise filled my mind. If you heed my words and let today fuel your anger instead of your demise, a great blue tide of vengeance will sweep across

your world and you will ride its crest, leading the charge.

Vengeance.

It was then that I spoke. My voice filled the field with such authority that the leaves on the oak trembled and the ravens

croaked eerily.

“Stop!”

“Ah! Good!” Decianus’s words released in bursts as he gulped air and tried to catch his breath. “Good! You are strong. I acknowledge

that.” His panting voice drew closer to me as he continued. “Your strength makes it more gratifying that you finally learned

the lesson I came to teach you. You see, Queen Boudicca, I knew Prasutagus was dead. I came for you—not him. To teach you a lesson, which it seems you may finally have learned.” He halted beside me. From the edge of my vision I could see that sweat dripped like tears from his fat, florid face. “One last thing.” Nero’s tax collector wrapped his thick fingers around my delicate golden torque and ripped it from my neck. With a self-satisfied smile he hefted it, testing its weight, before he slid it around his meaty bicep and pinched it closed. “There, lesson over.” Still smiling, he used his pugio to cut the ropes that trapped my wrists over my head.

My legs would not hold me. I dropped to the ground, which was wet with my blood. My head lolled uncontrollably and as I fought

off the graying of my vision, Andraste’s voice lifted from my memory once again. Do not forget that I will be beside you every moment... I will hear your voice, my Victory—to that I pledge my oath.

Righteous indignation filled me. It cleared my vision and sent a wave of strength through my battered body. I gripped the

post and stood. My chin lifted and I looked down to meet the diminutive tax collector’s hot gaze. Then my rage spilled from

me. I spoke with the fury and force of a tribal carnyx, the war horn that struck fear into the heart of anyone who stood against

Iceni warriors.

“Catus Decianus, procurator of the emperor Nero, I curse you and every man here. For taking my mother’s life and violating

my daughters, you will know the fire of Brigantia. For what you have done to the Iceni, you will know the vengeance of Andraste.”

Decianus’s self-satisfied smile faltered. His sweaty face blanched the color of a dead fish’s belly. “Shut up, woman!” His

voice was a shrill obscenity—and utterly impotent compared to the power of my curse.

I was not a defeated queen. I was the instrument of a warrior goddess who blazed with the fierceness of a mother calling down

vengeance on the abusers of her children. As I finished the curse, my voice echoed throughout the silent field.

“Your homes will burn. Your women will burn. Your children will burn. You will all—every one of you—suffer more than my daughters

and my tribe. You will cry out for mercy and you will be shown none, because, Caius Decianus, through my blood and with my

goddess-blessed breath, I have cursed you unto death!”

As I pronounced the last two words of the curse, unto death , every raven took wing from the oak and circled so low over me that Decianus cringed away from them, before they flew into the fog and disappeared.

“I said shut up!” The procurator struck me across the face, knocking me onto the ground.

Through vision blurred by sweat and blood, I watched him turn his back to me and walk hastily to his horse. He gestured wildly

at the gaping soldiers.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Move out! We have more of these Brittani to attend to, and this rabble has cost us far too

much time. Thankfully, I need not return to this pathetic village until after harvest to collect that which is owed us.” But

the soldiers around him were staring at my torn body and made no move to obey his command. Decianus picked up the bloody whip

and cracked it over his head, drawing every man’s attention to him. “Shall I inform Paulinus his soldiers disobeyed my order?

I said we return now! I need a bath and a drink.”

Silent and subdued, the Romans withdrew. The men who emerged from the hut were laughing. As they observed the somber expressions

on the faces of their comrades, they, too, went silent, so that, soundlessly, the Roman centuria disappeared into the fen

like wraiths returning to their graves.