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Iceni

a Mushroom eBooks sampler

Copyright © 2004, Helen K Barker

Helen K Barker has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.

First published in United Kingdom in 2004 by Mushroom eBooks.

This Edition published in 2004 by Mushroom eBooks,
an imprint of Mushroom Publishing,
Bath, BA1 4BX, United Kingdom
www.mushroom-ebooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This is a sampler of Iceni by Helen K Barker. If you enjoy reading these sample chapters and would like to read the rest, you can buy the complete Mushroom eBook edition from the usual bookshops online, or find more details at www.mushroom-ebooks.com.

Contents

A Beginning . . .
1 – Imbolc
2 – Crescent Moon
3 – Last Quarter
4 – Waning Moon
5 – Insula Mona
6 – Camulodunum
7 – Visions & Revelations
8 – Legion Nine
9 – Waxing Moon
10 – Eostar
11 – Disseminating Moon
12 – Basalmic Moon
13 – Londinium
14 – Dark Moon
15 – New Moon
16 – Vernemetum
17 – First Quarter
18 – Gibbous Moon
19 – Full Moon
20 – Beltane
An Ending . . .
About the Author

A Beginning . . .

Was it possible for so much to hurt all at once? Annis moved her shoulders, seeking to lift her head from the forest floor, her long hair catching in last year’s withered leaves. Her muscles ached where she had pushed and resisted. Her skin was sore where it had been bruised and torn and held by rough hands. Everything was pain.

Gradually she came to, returning fully from Haven. Her attackers were nowhere to be seen now, leaving nothing behind as they passed through her life save for bitter memories and a stickiness between her legs.

Wait. No, the clamminess was too much for just that. And there it was – she sighed with relief – the grudging cramp. Early and uncomfortable, but welcome with its message that she was not, and could not become, with child this moon.

But where was Cathbad? Where was her husband? He’d been here when they’d, when they’d . . . Unthinkable. Had he been killed then?

She forced her eyes to focus despite the swimming sensation. He was nowhere near, but neither was his body. So why weren’t his strong, comforting arms around her now to make it all safe again?

She listened. There was a trampling amidst the close-pressed trees, confused shouts, and orders in a military tongue. Then a resonant voice rising above the chaos. Her husband’s pitch, deep and rhythmic: Closing the Paths. But why was he tidying up his Workings now when she needed him more?

Suddenly she understood. He was trapping them within the forest. That would teach them. Her tormenters would never get out; they’d be doomed to wander aimlessly until Artio allowed them to die. But he didn’t need to do it, not now. She could pick her attackers off at her leisure, appearing like a raven whenever and wherever she chose, to swoop vengeful at their eyes. In fact, she’d take the first right now; she was in the mood for retaliation.

She felt within for the Goddess, seeking to tap the Divine power. Surprisingly, there was nothing inside but emptiness. What? Had everyone deserted her then? She felt again. Nothing. But she couldn’t be left alone, not now, not like this!

Where was the Goddess? Where had She gone? Annis panicked. Unable to reason clearly she picked up the strongest scent of the Goddess within the forests themselves and threw herself into the cool verdancy before the Paths could shimmer and shut her out forever.

Forget the pain, ignore it, she told herself firmly as she tore further into the waist-height ferns, beseeching the Divine to return. No amount of agony could ever compare to the mental anguish of losing the Goddess’ presence, not once it had been known so intimately. The physical hurt would all be worth it, if only she could get Her back.

Then Annis heard her own name being called, as if from a far off place; she paused to see her husband beckoning her back. Cathbad looked worried. So, he’d considered her plight at last then? No, she wouldn’t return, not until she had the Goddess again. And not to this ineffectual man who obviously thought more of retribution than of his wife.

She turned away from him. Neither, then, was there any more need to collude with the Goddess for the sake of her husband and marriage. She’d always known instinctively she’d birthed twins and not just one son, but she’d kept up the happy pretence for years for the sake of harmony. How had Cathbad ever thought he could hide the truth from their mother? Now she was finally free to admit it all and grieve for her lost child without her sorrow spoiling whatever he was trying to keep unsullied.

Then she started to run again, deep into the shadows and dark places of these sacred Groves . . .

Chapter 1

Imbolc

It was a good day for change. Boudicca could feel the earth responding to the stronger surge of life pulsing up to warm its roots and excite its creatures to song. The icy freshness chilled things to their essence, leaving them naked and stark and without pretension, almost as if nature could be seen with a true eye. As she watched the day unfold, she counted two pairs of magpies sprint to the shelter of the nearest fringe of trees. She greeted each of them in turn and smiled for the fresh pairing which heralded the turn of the seasons.

Today was Bride’s Day, a portal day, when the land lay prone beneath the equal grip of spring and winter. She felt it as less a battle of the seasons and more an easing between old adversaries. Welcoming in the dawn, she felt the lust of her Goddess enticing the young God and imagined the scent of Their sexual heat. He was bringing energy to Her, energy and determination, and together Their mating frenzy would clear away the old and the tired and usher in growth and fertility. Despite her regret at having no partner with whom to emulate her Goddess, Boudicca Blessed Their coupling – any change would be welcome.

She hadn’t slept too well throughout the winter, not yet accustomed to sleeping alone, and had woken this morning in the small, quiet pre-dawn of utter isolation. She had felt the stirrings of a great day from the moment she wrapped a woollen blanket around herself and crept out into the fields, where she watched the dawn throw its rose tinge across the horizon. Instinctively, she knew that vast repercussions were carried in its wake.

These slices of privacy had become like a gift in this bustling life where there was precious chance for contemplation and everyone seemed to depend upon her. A few moments when the world moved at a slow enough pace for her not to have to struggle to keep up, and when she no longer felt different or set apart, for there was no one to compare herself to. These insights came with the grief as a mixed blessing, as unbidden as the memories.

In an instant she was back at the start of winter, to Samhain, when she was last with her husband. Her unfocused starring had stilled her mind to invoke a reminiscence as clear as a vision. Her powers of recall were strong enough to feel the lick of flames upon her wet cheeks and the smell of sickness through the wood smoke. Tears welled gently to mist her sight, reproducing the image etched indelibly upon her mind. She tensed, reliving being torn between staying put and going to him. She had stayed put, in the end, tucked away in the darkest spot of the hut, where only the brightest flames illumined her torc and no one could get at her. Stayed put, with an arm around each daughter, making them stay put too. Three shiny mahogany heads with angry, mad eyes that must have seemed like feral creatures to the doctors and diplomats who enclosed the dying man on the pallet by the hearth.

Despite the crackling of the dry timber and the murmurings of the professionals which accompanied death, she was sure he was whimpering her name, ‘Boudicca, Boudicca’. He was coughing blood and fighting for each breath, yet still he called her to him. She was rigid with fear and anger, unable to push through these quacks and sycophants with their formal, defined roles. They had tried to take everything from her and her husband and now they robbed them of their last opportunity for intimacy. She was the only character in this bizarre play with no part, no lines, and so very frightened that if she went to him she would lose her composure, would break down and would keep him here, trapped in limbo, between worlds.

So he had died without her, giving one last shuddering sigh like peace itself and surrounded by the faces of strangers. She had berated herself for it ever since. She had approached the bed at last when only the healers’ assistants remained to tidy the body. She had crept stealthily as if afraid to wake him and melted into his eyes, which were already glazing over.

There was no rest. He looked in shock. She had looked up to where he had been staring, to see what he might have seen as his last sight. She was half expecting to see some shining spirit, especially on this day, their New Year when the gates between the worlds were at their thinnest. But there was nothing, just the roof struts. His lips had curled back to bare his teeth in a tight grimace. She made herself bend to kiss him, brushing her lips to his, because she knew that was what she was meant to do. This last picture of him, she realised, would be carved in her heart for eternity, to corrupt any future moment of pleasure which she might have the audacity to enjoy.

Death, she decided, was cruellest in its simulation of life. He had looked so much as he had the instant before, yet with just one vital essence missing. Now here, now gone. And this, showing her tenderness to him too late, with only the slaves to note her compassion, was all she had been granted. Excluded from the pomp and ceremony of death to pick up the rags of their life together from the leavings of others. She couldn’t remember how long she had stood transfixed, keeping vigil by her dead husband. Only that, after a period which had seemed both like moments and eons, her daughters had come back and with strong, insistent, supporting arms had led her outside where the wailing had started and the tears had never stopped.

‘Mother? Here again? You should go back. Don’t you know bears have been sighted in the woods recently and the wolves are still south this early in the year?’

She looked at her daughter as if seeing through her. Being mauled didn’t seem so bad when your insides were in such turmoil. ‘I have my spear.’ She tapped the weapon at her side. Then held her hand out to interrupt her daughter’s further remonstration. ‘I could hunt wolf and even bear single handed before I reached your summers. I haven’t forgotten yet. There’s very little I forget, Grania mine, and I don’t think I’ll be troubled by the wild creatures when I sit so softly and think on your father.’

Grania put her head in her hands in frustration. ‘Father was a good king. Prasutagus will be remembered by the children’s children’s children of both Iceni and Romani for the peace he brought our peoples in difficult circumstances. Now we need a Queen, remember? We need you as you were before you took him as consort and shared your rule. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that, or the fact that if the Romani catch you with your spear, there’ll be trouble for all of us.

‘Oh yes, mother-mine,’ Grania continued. ‘Our “guests” have been especially busy today, despite the earliness. Something’s going on, they’re anticipating something and have tightened up their act. Everyone seems very tense. Come to think of it, out here you can sense a keen sort of “motion”, like nervous energy.’

‘So, you haven’t managed to shut your Gift out completely then?’ Boudicca teased Grania, enjoying seeing her daughter squirm just a little. ‘No, don’t sulk, it’s your birthright and you’ll come to treasure it one day, but I don’t want to argue with you. Just help me up and we’ll say no more, the dew has seized some of my aching joints.’ Grania reached down, bracing her legs and extending a supporting arm.

Boudicca flicked her hand up, catching her daughter not by the hand but by the elbow. Rolling back she pulled Grania over her head and used the momentum to spring into a fighting crouch. There was no need – Grania was doubled with laughter and surprise and quite incapable of retaliating.

‘Don’t tell me I can’t even trust my own mother!’

‘Don’t tell me you’ve studied so much war you’ve forgotten the basics! Just wanted to remind you that I haven’t forgotten anything. Everything is crystal clear, by Mother, occasionally it would be a mercy if it wasn’t. Perhaps it’ll fade in due course, but I’ve delayed too long already and I betray our tribe for ever thinking I did not. So today, daughter-mine, I move on, despite the binds which bid me still. Today is the dawning of a new spring and a fresh start and a day of many changes. I feel it too, perhaps more acutely because I want to feel it, but these Romani with their ordered psyches confuse the land for reading, and I can’t Scry what today brings. I feel it will change us all irrevocably, though, in its passing.

‘Now I may still need my dawn forays to exorcise these moods which plague me, but I’m still capable of placing a Ward for wild creatures around me and a Glamour upon a stick to make it a spear. Can you imagine the Romani’s evidence melting before their very eyes? Now, perhaps one of the most welcome changes would be for you to stop underestimating your mother? After all, I’m not so old; I was only a summer or two older than you are now when I birthed you.’

The two women embraced, their differences accepted, and started back down the slight slope towards the timbered enclosure they called home. They crossed newly tilled fields, each neat square of land forced to expose its rich black tilth furrow by furrow. Plough teams were already harnessed and working the fields nearest the forest edge, freshly cleared to provide work – and grain later – for the many refugees who had fled for royal sanctuary. It was fertile land; by mid-summer it would be a rippling mass of spelt, broad wheat and bere barley. For once Boudicca couldn’t bring to mind the image of the maturing yellow wealth, despite it being such a familiar scene. Perhaps the particular field she was concentrating upon would experience severe storm damage and not come to fruition. She paused, shifting her gaze to another patch of earth, but there was a block here, too, where she could sense only sporadic stumps of stubble. This troubled her.

‘What’ve you seen?’ Grania had picked up her concern.

‘Nothing,’ she lied. She felt like telling her daughter to see for herself, but she didn’t want to communicate her anxiety by snapping. It was probably an anomaly anyway. A rain damaged field, a careless fire, they could afford to have no yield from a few fields, after all it had to be sold through the Romani at the prices they fixed and it would be satisfying to see the very land cheat the Romani of their expected profits. It would also be unwise to conclude that all the crops would be ruined just from two Sensings. There was even a chance she’d been picking up rhythms from previous years, or previous places from the new workers, although she’d never known the harvests fail in all her long marriage. She made a note to Scry the land thoroughly in tomorrow’s pre-dawn excursion.

There were too many distractions to use her faculty fairly at present, so she withdrew her senses to the narrower view of everyday vision and gave Grania a disappointed smile in the hope of making her feel guilty about neglecting her talent. Grania reddened. She had the technique all right, but she’d always been too caught up in the material world to rely on them. They were a bonus or a refuge for Grania, never an essential part of her everyday life.

Grania was the practical one. The huntress, the charioteer, the wrestler, the maker, the leader. The one who saw the world in a straight line, with her ambition at the end and the next goal always pushing her onwards. Like the sun’s rays, inexorable and constant, yet occasionally unbearable. As different as she could be from her twin, Maeve, who dwelt in the dark places of the spirit so naturally that she had taken almost another day to follow her stronger, kicking, twin sister out into the world at birth. Boudicca’s issue were like the two sides of a coin, as if someone had taken her own qualities of wisdom and insight and separated them from her physique and pride. Yet the two girls were close and able to learn what they each lacked from each other.

‘So, tell me then, what exactly have our “guests”, the Romani, been up to today?’

‘It’s going to take me longer than this brief walking distance home to tell you everything.’

Boudicca sighed. ‘I may regret asking, but try me.’

‘Well, they pushed over Deirdre’s cooking cauldron whilst they were returning an amphorae of wine “to its rightful owners”, and spilt the pottage. The slaves I set to clearing it up and giving it to the pigs discovered that one of the piglets was missing from the sty and replaced only by hobnail boot prints . . .’

‘Try me on the things of slightly more importance.’

‘When the gates were opened this morning there were another five refugees seeking asylum. They’re kinsfolk from the hamlet at Camboritum. Were from there anyway, and were also most put out at having to walk here. Their horses, livestock and people were taken and their crops trampled, so all that remains are the Lady, her two husbands and their children.’

‘The Romani’s “appropriation” is so close?’

‘Indeed, mother mine, the Romani here sneered when they saw them and jeered that it served them right for not paying their debts and taxes and that they’d make a good lesson for us. I’ve put the Lady and her children in the main hut where they await an audience with you. I’ve had to put her menfolk to work for they were fidgeting with agitation. The Romani have put the price of grain up twice since sun up and have searched the forge for weapons again.’

‘That’s the third occasion this quarter! When are they going to notice that forge never makes anything? A good lesson in not only using your eyes to see.’

Grania ignored her mother’s dig, ‘Well, while they’re busy hassling the smith, they’re not hassling elsewhere. Oh, and Naoise had his torc taken by a Romani who thought it would make a pretty bauble, so I’ve set Teirnon to make new torcs for him and the kinsfolk from Camboritum. And last, but who am I to say, least? Maeve had a dream last night that she had a hundred lovers, but Maeve being Maeve, didn’t delight in it and found it all rather disturbing. She wants to see you.’

Boudicca gave Grania another reddening look. ‘I’ll deal with the Lady from Camboritum first.’ The two women had already passed through the massive timber gates of the palisade and were now holding up their thick skirts and picking their way through the midden and mud paths running between the smaller dwelling huts.

Boudicca swept open the heavy cloth which served to keep out most of the draught and strode into the gloom of the huge main round hut. It took a while for her eyes to accustom themselves to the dark; she used the precious moments to hold herself regally, making her presence known. Shreds of grey light penetrated through the wattle and daub and through tiny bald patches in the thatch. The Lady had been provided with hay, furs and blankets and several small oil lamps which gave off a smoky faint light. Although her two toddlers rolled around in the hay with wooden swords, oblivious to Boudicca, the Lady had approached immediately and was kneeling with her palms upon Boudicca’s stomach and her head down.

‘Get up, Sister-mine,’ Boudicca gently ordered the Lady, then quickly asked, ‘Did you get the Goddess’ trade tokens out?’ The Lady nodded. ‘Good. Fetch them. We must be quick in hiding them.’

The Lady beckoned her over to a pile of rags and soiled cloths, bundled and tied to look like rapidly gathered possessions. She used the pin of her brooch to unpick the knots and pulled back the coverings to reveal a pile of dull gold bars which gleamed with ancient swirls and etchings.

‘You’ve done well,’ Boudicca approved, nodding to the Lady as she checked over what had been revealed.

‘The hardest part was carrying them so they appeared to be light, madam.’

‘Rub them with earth and help me insert them in the thatch. The Keeper will be here this evening to take them on.’ Boudicca groaned as she stood. The Lady steadied her; Boudicca smiled weakly and quickly started to secrete the muddied gold in the thatch. ‘It’s only my menses. The cramps will pass by the end of the day, it’s only just the dark of the moon and I wasn’t expecting them so soon. I wonder what has set them off this early? They’ve been a trouble all my life, I thought that would pass with the birth of my daughters but they’ve become even more of a burden since Prasutagus died and seem to be quite random. Do you have some moss with which I might gather the flow?’

Having climbed upon the sleeping platform, which ran around the inner circumference of the hut, to conceal the gold, Boudicca settled down upon the furs and gestured for the Lady to join her. A mewling toddler crept upon her lap and dangled over her knee. Boudicca stroked the child’s head.

‘I always regretted never having any more,’ Boudicca sighed. ‘I would’ve liked to have had at least one son to remind me of our love.’ The Lady nodded in quiet sympathy. Boudicca relaxed, trying to ease the Lady into informality where she could feel able to talk without first being spoken to. ‘So, tell me what happened.’

The Lady sat very still, then started rocking gently. ‘They came in the dead of night, with torches and swords and greed in their eyes. They read some document to us which they claimed had my father’s mark upon it, agreeing to a loan. But they spoke fast, in their legal Latin, and when we didn’t respond because we were half bleary with sleep, they started to destroy us. They had dogs and chains and they rounded up anyone who could still walk and set collars around their necks in long lines of servitude. They killed the old and the infirm and a babe at her mother’s breast. They defecated upon the Goddess’ shrine and urinated in Her well, trampled our corn, broke our pots, gorged themselves upon our food, stole our torcs. Then they claimed the land was theirs, the very earth, which I don’t understand.

‘The strangest thing is, I still don’t know why. My father accepted the ‘Grantus’ their Claudius-god made and we invested it back in the land as they instructed us. That was way back, before I became a woman, this sum is much greater and we’d never borrow. That’s the only link, but how can there be a connection?’ She spoke in rote as if she was talking about something that had happened a long while ago to someone else. Then she was quiet, still rocking.

Boudicca reached out a gentle hand to her. ‘I can only promise you sanctuary here, not safety. You know that, don’t you? We’re experiencing almost as much extortion ourselves; I’ve even started to wonder if we weren’t better off when we warred with the Catuvellauni deep south of the forest. At least we understood the rules of combat then. I’m sorry to be so pessimistic. You may stay here as long as you like, as long as you are able. Set your husbands to building you a hut, be welcome back to your family no matter how distant your blood tie and . . .’

‘Mother?’ A gush of wind set the lamps wavering and a shaft of light transfixed them. ‘Come now, very quickly, please.’

Boudicca knew that tone. She patted the Lady reassuringly and followed her daughter. Grania pointed out of the enclosure, past the stockades and pens, across the fields. There in the dim morning light she could just make out a mass of movement, many people, with here and there the glint of armour and the faint trill of war trumpets.

‘Romani. A war host approaches. What of the Romani camped here?’

‘They’ve tidied themselves up and armoured themselves. Equipment has been washed and polished. Swords and daggers sharpened. The white robed ones have been writing feverously. Are they the same Romani, then?’

‘They’re always the same Romani. Despite their different skins, their different names and tongues. That’s why they fight us. It’s unhealthy for a tribe to be so big, they have to travel a long way to find someone to raid.’

As Boudicca watched, the regular tramp of marching men increased. ‘They come for their inheritance. I readied it several turns of the moon ago and left it in the temple.’

Boudicca turned and strode away purposefully, Grania jogging to keep up. They approached the only rectangular building in the enclosure. At the door stood a willowy young woman dressed in blue, with a woad moon painted over her face. She wore a wistful expression and an unfocused stare in the vague direction of the approaching army. A young warrior stood by her offering a string of beads with a puppy’s adoration. She was ignoring him, but not spitefully.

‘Hag Herself! The moon struck and the love struck.’ Grania spat and stomped off round the corner where she could see the enclosure gates without having to watch those at the temple door.

Boudicca registered her daughter’s wrath. Jealousy? Grania was old enough to choose whom to couple with and mature enough not to need to tie a man to her. Boudicca suspected, with a mother’s insight, that despite Grania’s bravado, there had not been that many couplings. She often forgot how young and inexperienced her two daughters really were. It didn’t matter. Right now she needed both of them, so she set about getting rid of what she perceived to be the cause of the trouble as painlessly as she could.

She recognised the young man as Rochad, a warrior noble in foster to their house. He should be used to giving orders, or should at least be learning to do so, so she directed him to join the other warriors. ‘Tell them not to arm themselves. Lime your hair and paint your bodies by all means – look as ferocious as possible. We don’t know what the Romani’s intentions are yet and I want to keep some things secret for now. We may be able to pay them off, that’s what I intend and there’s no need for them to threaten a client kingdom that has so far brought them little trouble in proportion to its wealth. Just stand together and look strong and confident. Gather in everyone from the fields and be vigilant. Remember you’re Iceni; you’ve reason to be proud and brave.’

‘Maeve,’ she turned to her silent daughter. ‘I need the things I set aside from your father now.’ Maeve nodded and pulled her gently into the temple and over to an oak chest. ‘We need to take it to the gates. I will need your help.’

Maeve nodded but did not move to lift the chest. ‘I have dreams, mother-mine, where unspoken things entwine and strangle my secretest places. I still work at their meanings. I still struggle to read these alien minds which have so little emotion.’

Boudicca suspected that Maeve’s powers had heightened suddenly at the onset of puberty, as hers once had. She remembered how frightening the increased awareness and visitations had been and chided herself for not being there for her daughter. She really had been too wrapped up in her own black despair for too long. ‘Don’t force it,’ she advised gently. ‘Their reason stirs too few feelings to make a Scryable imprint. You’d exhaust yourself in trying. Now, Maeve, I really must have this chest moved to the gates.’

Together they hauled it outside the temple, then Grania took over from Maeve. The two stockier women lifted it easily to the gates of the palisade. Maeve brought furs and arranged them for the three of them to sit and await the Romani. Boudicca opened the chest and brought forth her husband’s personal belongings. They were all here.

Between the two of them, Boudicca and Prasutagus had devised a Will which left half of his personal possessions to the Romani. She could remember their counsel together and the plan he had wheezed out with the intention of bribing the god the Romani called ‘Emperor’, so their kingdom might be left in peace. Peace was costly now, there were so many taxes and tributes which cancelled out the benefits of having leisure to sow and reap and breed. They had both felt certain this gesture would be interpreted as a generous gift from a people who could no longer really afford to make it, both of them being acutely aware of how much the legendary Iceni wealth had dwindled in the two generations since the Romani came. Certainly the Romani scribes had smiled encouragingly and rubbed their hands together when Prasutagus had finally set his mark to the document they had drawn up.

Boudicca hoped that today would bring the return of some of the more sentimental items at last. To show good faith and hospitality she had stowed away all her husband’s belongings, allowing the Romani first choice. There were jewels and fabulous gold crowns and buckles, torcs and brooches. She treated them with disdain, arranging them on display easily.

But there was also a delicate silver ring she had ordered made for him, too light to be worth much; a comb carved from bone with teeth missing which had snapped when he had offered to brush Grania’s unruly hair when she’d been a fidgeting infant. Hunting gloves. Boots made from soft doeskin still smelling of his warmth. Delicate glass beads he was painstakingly restringing when his final illness had kept him bed-bound but restless. And a tiny whittled horse, like the ones he loved. Tough, spirited, independent and agile creatures, he had lived for his horses and the magnificent herd he was building up. He had owned the figure since his own childhood and had called it ‘Mouse’, as he had named every grey stallion he had traded for since. Whoever had fashioned the figure had been a true artist, capturing all the grace and wilfulness of their fierce little ponies. Mouse had been danced, accompanied by the King’s clopping noises, along the cots of both little daughters, who had cooed with delight and tried to grab at it with podgy hands.

These things she arranged more tenderly, running fingers over edges and jogging memories that hadn’t yet found a resting place. Such a sad pile of items, all that remained of someone’s life. Somehow it didn’t seem enough; it didn’t do her husband justice. Only her heart did him justice, these things were just things, and she only hoped she had judged the Romani’s greed right and they would go straight for the items of financial rather than sentimental value.

The Romani were very near now. Those camped over winter to keep the Iceni in check, and otherwise torment them, had gone out to meet the newcomers and Boudicca suspected that it was one of the newly arrived riders who carried the highest rank, because there seemed to be a lot of saluting going on and orders being made.

She was kept waiting whilst they talked and pointed and tapped wax tablets. It was impolite. She was Queen and it rattled her to be treated so dismissively. She was uncomfortable too with the cramps in her stomach which were becoming quite insistent now and inducing a dizzy faintness. She’d never been anything like fluent with their Latin and it was particularly difficult to comprehend over such a distance. Watching them, she noticed that their greedy eyes looked not just at the gold displayed before her but at everything and everyone. The man of rank looked like a bulbous old toad. He kept licking his lips as if he was catching flies and sat squat upon his over-laden horse. She didn’t want to have to deal with someone as unsavoury as him.

On an instinct she called over the young noble she had ordered to gather her people together. He had done well; although missing weapons, the Iceni were in full majestic battle array and looked fit enough to go raiding the cattle of the very Gods. ‘Rochad, there could very well be trouble,’ she spoke under her breath. ‘Be ready to loose the horses and run on my signal. Don’t try and fight, there are far too many of them. It doesn’t matter what they do, nor to whom; we just mustn’t antagonise them. Understand?’

He nodded tersely and stepped back. She watched her instruction being passed amongst the lines of warriors. Then a fanfare of trumpets blared and the Toad approached, walking his horse at a steady pace. He was flanked on both sides by soldiers. His scribes followed immediately behind him, holding parchment and tablets. Underneath the curved rectangular shields of the soldiers she could make out their immaculate armour. It was always identical. Boudicca concluded that they were only frightening when they were together; alone or in small bunches they were puny. Not like the Iceni, Boudicca felt proudly; they revelled in their individuality, battle was an occasion for personal glory when one warrior could take out twenty of these soft babies. Bullies, then, that they had to stay together for protection. Only their faces were different, peering out beneath their helmets, although they all wore the same stern expression and exuded avarice. Here and there she spotted the odd familiar person who had plagued her with petty, and not so petty, annoyances over the last few lunar cycles. Their usual javelins had been discarded, she noticed, but their swords were worn readily to hand.

Boudicca rose to greet the Toad, extending her hand in welcome. He urged his horse just past her and commenced his address: ‘Peoples of Icenia, hear me. I, Catus Decianus, Procurator of the Province of Britannia, by order of your Emperor Nero, God of Rome, Lord of the Oceans, King of the Earth, and by the Will of your late and most recently acknowledged ruler, Prasutagus, hereby take possession of these lands and property.’

Desperate to control her anger, Boudicca ignored the snub, and concentrated on deciphering his words. She thought she had the gist and took a deep breath to answer his obvious misunderstanding. She managed a meaningless mumble before she was overrun by legionaries. Catus Decianus had already given his order and half his men were stationed to overpower the defenceless warriors, tying them up or stunning them with callous blows to the head. The rest of the Romani were already pushing open huts and ransacking for loot. Boudicca looked down. In the stampede, Mouse had been snapped in two by a clumsy sandal, although someone had taken care to bag the jewellery. She wondered whether it might have been, perhaps, the same person.

Boudicca turned and, bringing all her leadership qualities to bear, caught the harness of Catus’ mare. ‘I, Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, demand an explanation of this outrageous behaviour.’ She was a tall woman. To avoid her eyes yet to still look ahead, Catus had to look up. Boudicca pulled the harness down; she unsettled his seating.

‘We do not acknowledge any ‘queen’. If you are the widow of Prasutagus you will know he left half his possessions to your Emperor Nero. It was a wise choice. Nero has graciously decided to accept the gift and in his wisdom has decreed that it is ridiculous to tear up cloaks, divide pairs of boots, you know, wheat ears will not grow without the stalks, my dear. So, magnanimously and with his usual excessive generosity, he has decided to adopt all property and possessions into his protective fold that, in keeping it whole, it might not be rendered valueless.’

‘That’s not what the Will meant. I’ve put out his possessions, please choose your half. Take all of them.’ She tried not to plead but, unused to being in such a position of powerlessness, she felt unnerved by the situation. ‘What you’re taking from me now is not mine to surrender,’ she reasoned. ‘What of my Ladies and Chiefs? They hold their land independent of me.’ She spoke slowly; she had to translate as she thought.

‘All of it. I wouldn’t bother to resist, you’re nothing against the might of Rome.’

‘Nooo . . .’

Boudicca did not have a chance to answer him before Grania called out in anguish. Her daughter was screeching and pointing outside the palisade to the corral. The noble fosterling Grania seemed so fond of had been struck down with a sword through his stomach, his body twitching in agony. The ponies were charging off to the forests, a few legionaries stumbling piteously behind trying to catch them. Then, as Boudicca watched the gap widen between ponies and men, at the edge of her vision she saw Grania move quickly and then Catus was unsaddled and nursing a smarting punch to his jaw. Maeve too had edged closer to him and was about to stick the pin of her brooch into his eye.

Boudicca leapt to pull back Maeve. It must have seemed to the Romani that she was about to join in the attack on the Procurator who was screaming, ‘Get these Furies from Tartarus off me!’ An instant later she was hauled away from her daughters and pressed face-down on the ground. She heard Catus stumble away from her, demanding: ‘Treat them as the spoils they are. Their women have such slack morals they’ll probably enjoy it – if they’re not used to it!’

Then her skirts were pulled roughly over her head and, as she realised what was happening, she started screaming in utter outrage that they should consider such a thing. She flailed her limbs, and bit anything her mouth found, like a rabid wild cat. Then there was a huge, sudden weight on her back which winded her, as three men sat on her to stop her struggling. She tried to catch her breath but her skirts and the soldiers’ weight was suffocating. She coughed for air, and then she felt her legs being pulled wide apart and a man sit on each to hold them still too. She moved her toes, hoping to scratch one of them with her nails. Rough hands pulled her buttocks apart and the wadding of moss was torn away, exposing her fully to their hot sight. She felt a flow of thick menstrual blood trickle down her thigh, and sobbed in shame to be seen like this. She tensed, waiting for the first harsh penetration.

The pain, when it came, was not what she’d expected. It was the pain of a kick, hard and mercifully external. The momentum jarred her forward, even under the pressing weight. It was accompanied by grunts of disgust and moans of disappointment and more pain, but now she felt the sharp edge of a strap and knew it must be a sandaled foot. Then she felt spots of wet upon her back as they spat, and more pain as they punched her. Then nothing as she heard an excited fumbling and words of encouragement, whilst the weight shifted from her back to her arms, enabling her to take a deep breath of sweet air.

Then the agony began which bit into her shoulders, scalp and spine. Her clothes were no defence against this flogging and she felt them falling apart around her. She sought, in the regular rhythm of this more predictable torture, the potential of rising above the physical hurt and reached inside for the precious numb place which beckoned. She called upon its reserves, refusing to entertain the lure of passing out, only relaxing into the torment enough to surmount it.

Then she felt for her baby girls, reaching out for them, lending them power, seeking to lead them to the same mental Haven. Maeve was already there, bordered up in a safe catatonia, which, with her impressive Skills, allowed no one in, not even her mother. Boudicca felt saddened, she didn’t only want to give comfort to her daughter, she felt the need to receive it too.

Grania was nothing but colour. Furious and livid, her spirit gave off sparks of orange flame which seared any spirit that approached. Boudicca knew that helping Grania would lead to more anguish at first, her barriers would need to be dropped for an instant, bringing total realisation of the violation which was being perpetrated upon her. She prayed Grania would forgive her the price.

‘Stop it, daughter-mine!’ She used the harshest, most authoritative spirit-voice she could muster. It was enough. Like an infant jolted out of mischief, Grania’s defences fizzled out. Boudicca’s spirit swooped in and held her tight. Grania yelled and screamed and struggled as her rage cleared and she registered reality, then pulled in her will ready to start up her psychic attack again. ‘No, Grania, don’t look. Come with me. Come into the comfort of your mother. I’ll keep you safe. Relax into me. Come!’

Grania’s spirit energy burnt Boudicca as her defences switched back on against the indiscriminate enemy she perceived to be everything that was not-Grania. Boudicca feared her own spirit would bear scars for offering her daughter help, then Grania seemed to swoon into her, and she scooped her daughter up and bore her away to a softer place.

‘Mama, I hurt.’

‘Yes, I know, but you are safe here for a while.’

‘They killed Rochad.’ Grania’s spirit-face screwed up in rage. ‘I loved Rochad, but he loved Maeve more than me.’

Grania’s spirit appeared as a sobbing toddler holding its hands between its legs where the pain had been. ‘There are many, many people who love you and who will come to love you, little one. Rochad will be waiting in the Summerlands where he’ll be free to love you and Maeve equally and you won’t mind because you’ll be too busy loving other people too.’ She cradled the child to her. ‘Sleep if you like. I’ll wake you when it’s safe to go back.’ Grania was already nodding against her breast. Boudicca squeezed her tight.

Boudicca could watch her village from here and as she did her anger grew despite the passiveness this Haven placed upon her. She forced herself to watch the continued rape of her daughters, wanting to remember every detail so she could be sure to exact a high enough revenge price when the opportunity arose. It could not be too entertaining for the soldiers, she noted in her detached way; both girls had passed out and the legionaries pumped only at body shells as unresisting as rag dolls. Every soldier behaved differently in his turn. Some who jeered the loudest were the most reluctant to perform, having to be persuaded by their comrades. Some displayed their parts proudly to their fellows before using the girls. Others hid themselves, lifting their armour at the last moment before entry. One knelt, playing with his flaccidity, then vomited. They dragged Maeve away from that mess before they continued. Some urinated, some defecated, those with the iciest, narrow eyes took their turn over and over again, jostling the less enthusiastic out of the way and once pulling off a much older man who seemed to be straining unproductively forever.

Possibly the youngest legionary, still festooned with acne, was dragged away from pillaging the main hut and led forward, giggling nervously, as white as a sheet. They threw him onto Grania, offering advice and suggestions. He climaxed within thrusts and collapsed onto her breasts with a wide-eyed expression of wonder and disgust. He reached up to gently touch her hair before being yanked off and kicked back to work whilst the next took over.

The Toad was nowhere to be seen. Having extracted the choicest baubles for his own keeping, he had obviously crawled home to gloat under a slimy stone. He had taken his scribes and clerics with him, all, no doubt, feeling somewhat conceited and financially improved.

Despite being sickened, Boudicca wanted to remember their faces and acts in every detail. The memories would be fuel to kindle her hatred; none of this would ever be allowed to be forgotten. Her body shell had been left lifeless and wounded, a mass of bloodied strips where the whips and belts had left their mark. She was unattended and neglected, those who remained of her people lay huddled and hidden, they played dead or had fled to the forests.

In these shortened days, dusk fell rapidly with its freezing mantle, and the Romani eventually tired of their frivolity. Laughing and singing they burdened themselves with their hoard of stolen prizes and trophies, set notional fires to several stores and huts and left. As darkness enveloped the village in its own peace, destruction and desertion was all the Romani left in their wake.

‘We return now, daughter. It will hurt, but they’re gone and I’ll still be with you.’ Boudicca woke the Grania-spirit with her soothing words. Maeve’s defences were impenetrable, Boudicca would come for her later. For the moment it was important that no one mistook them for being dead. She held her daughter firmly by the hand and guided her back to her body-home.

It took a long while for Boudicca to come back to full consciousness. Despite the will of her spirit, her body still protested at being made to experience the full agony of the mistreatment it had undergone. She lay in an exhausted semi-faint for what seemed like an eternity. As she revived, she realised she was not alone. She turned her head, scraping her cheek along the gravel earth, to see her companion.

He was cloaked and hooded in black, and sat cross-legged, patiently waiting for her to reawaken. She recognised sensitivity in his lips, a short trim beard, and kind cornflower eyes that sang of summer. He smiled encouragement to her.

‘What day is it?’ She stammered, her mind still disorganised.

‘It’s a good day for revenge,’ he answered.

Chapter 2

Crescent Moon

Reality passed in and out of Boudicca’s swimming vision. Someone carried her to the main hut with a sturdy, secure touch. The same person laid her in a quiet place and covered her with blankets. Then she was left alone to rest and listen to the subdued, frightened whispers of those who had survived to gather together.

Everything hurt. Whoever had lain her down had placed her on her side so that the weals on her back had a chance to heal. She wanted to stretch, move, sit up, but her body objected so much that she stayed put and lay glaring at those who could move, like an angry child shut out from a feast. She desperately wanted news of her daughters. The forced patience and stillness provided a vacuum in which her imagination ran riot.

Eventually someone came to her; it was the man she had awakened to earlier. He carried a small pot of porridge and a spoon. She watched him approach, noticing his careful grace and slender, strong hands. The porridge pot, she decided, looked very snug in those hands.

‘Are you feeling a little better?’

She nodded. ‘A bit groggy. I’ll be fine in the morning.’

‘Something tells me you won’t be going off for one of your “forays” tomorrow, though,’ he teased.

‘How do you know about that?’

He gave her an ‘I know more than I’m letting on’ look and laughed. Then he held her by the shoulders, keeping her down quite firmly, before admitting: ‘Grania told me.’

Boudicca bolted upright. Restrained by his grip her body jolted only a fraction but the pain was enough to make her wince aloud.

‘I’ll answer all your questions and whilst I do so, I’ll feed you.’ Boudicca nodded in reluctant assent. ‘First question,’ he demanded.

‘My daughters?’

He spooned a tiny amount of porridge into her mouth. It was difficult and undignified to eat on your side. She chewed and swallowed awkwardly. He offered her more porridge. She accepted.

‘Grania is up and about and very full of self-righteous anger. She has used her energy to organise those who are left into what you see around you. Your people are fed and warm, some are being healed, the rest have done their own looting and brought anything of value or, more importantly, of use, here. Most are refusing to think beyond tonight. They will need you tomorrow; I hope you’ll be up to it.

‘But tonight they have Grania. She will do, for an emergency. She’s bossy enough to motivate your people out of despair but not diplomatic enough to avoid putting backs up given long enough. Apart from anything else, she glares at anything remotely male as if to blame us all for her violation.’

Boudicca pushed away the next spoonful to be offered. ‘Is she all right, though?’

‘Yes. Now eat whilst I talk. She doesn’t seem too upset for the moment, just angry. You should watch her over the next few days. When it all starts to register for her, she’ll need someone to hold her. That’s when her temper won’t be enough to pull her through.’

Boudicca pushed away the next offering of porridge too. ‘No need,’ he insisted, tapping her lips with the spoon. ‘Maeve is back. She was more of a worry – I found her amongst the dead.’ Boudicca stopped and glared at him. ‘Trust me, she’s all right. I sensed she was only Absent as I did a quick check of all the bodies. I brought her in, arranged for her to be washed, cleaned up and dressed in some fresh robes. It was better to do that whilst she was still in Haven, otherwise she might have struggled. Then I went to bring her back. Your daughter certainly has some Skill; it needs honing, but the rawness of power is remarkable. It took patience and cunning even for me to prise apart those barriers without being injured myself.

‘Now, compared to Grania, Maeve is different altogether. She’s become very reserved. She hasn’t said a word, just gazes at nothing as if she sees things in the insubstantial air and curls of smoke plumes. If necessary, I can arrange for her to be accepted by the Sisters – I know it’s a long way from her home, but it may be the only healing deep enough to reach her. Anyway, I’m talking about worse possible outcomes, which we’ll only need to consider if there is no change in, say, a turn of the moon.

‘Everyone is keeping their, somewhat discreet, distance from us partly because I instructed them to do so, and partly because they feel a great disappointment in not having protected their Queen from the assault which befell her. There is a weariness in the people here that has cut their spirits and blackened their hearts. Tomorrow you must encourage them to look you in the eye again; offering them forgiveness will relieve some of their guilt, even though the two of us know that it is not them who should be seeking forgiveness, but the Romani.’

Boudicca nodded as she thought his words over. ‘You must be the Keeper,’ she exclaimed.

He smiled a ‘wondered how long it would take you to deduce that’ smile. ‘Lovernios the Keeper, madam. I don’t want the gold yet, you can show me at very first light,’ he calmed her. ‘Yes, madam, I know you still have it, I can sense the layers of Wards placed around it as the hoard was added to over the last quarter: a most uneven emanation. Now, whilst you dream, think on what has passed today. Don’t tidy it away but seek to live through it and rediscover the fierce strength you’ll need. It’s not only your people who desire a Queen.’

Boudicca’s eyes had shut whilst she’d been listening to the rhythmic lilt of his voice. As her mind wandered in its pre-sleep meanderings, she realised he was right, it was tempting to push the more disturbing memories away to be dealt with in a later, safer place. Then she found that moving through the horrors, rather than around them, meant addressing their spectres in the mind’s equivalent of the brightness of day, giving her a semblance of control, rather than allowing them the power of night’s sneakiness.

Still incredulous that what had happened had happened, she slept with the ravages of the day as her uncomfortable bed partner and the memories of the screams of her daughters tormenting her rest. When the dreams came they stirred from a deep well of a place. She felt arms rise from within to soothe and ease her people, to gather the homeless and the cold to her and hold them to the shelter of her breast. Then, as she held them in the strength of her arms, she felt her heart smoulder, kindling a giant rage which demanded justice. Then the rage caught alight, bursting into quick flames, until her whole body flared as if it were made of a massive wicker frame, burning herself and all those who had reached for her.

She awoke later than usual, lost to the lure of this most vivid dream, with no desire to disappear by herself. Today’s desire was for constant company as if she feared to be alone. Lovernios was with her as she woke. He brought more porridge and helped her stiff, sore body to sit whilst she ate.

‘As soon as you’re ready, I’ll gather the gold.’

Boudicca nodded between gulps of porridge. She took several quick swallows and then stood up, gasping as she did so. Together they moved to the very back of the hut. There they climbed a rickety ladder and, lit only by the dim light of a clay lamp, they started to pull out the twists of muddied gold bars, spun so thinly as to be mistakable for thatch. Lovernios packed them away into a sack, which he tied and hid away in the folds of his black robes. ‘Did you know this was the only hut not to be looted or set to the torch? You set powerful Wards, madam, which distracted the Romani from our real treasure. Well done. You’ve taken your proportion of the Goddess’ trade?’ Boudicca nodded. ‘Good. The Iceni have really earned it on this occasion; your people deserve this wealth. Now, we must talk.’

They moved away, gathered up a couple of blankets each and went outside to the brisk air. In the clear truthfulness of daylight, Boudicca couldn’t avoid the destruction surrounding her. Still she said nothing, not knowing where to begin.

‘What are you going to do?’ Lovernios whispered the question.

‘I’m going to devour them.’ Boudicca raised her head to meet his eyes quite calmly and regally. The merciless vengeance in her reply shocked her. She almost felt shame at the quite unbidden idea, but once expressed she realised how much it was meant and how proper it felt.

‘I can help you to do that.’

‘I know. Do so.’ It was a stated request. No pleading. Boudicca made it plain she would exact her price with or without his help but that any advice and influence he offered would be appreciated.

‘Fine. Gather everyone you can find and meet me at your forge in the forest. I’ll be there within a turn of the moon, after I have deposited the Goddess’ trade with the Boatman on the coast. Welcome anyone: those who can walk, those who can’t. Bring horses, livestock, weaponry, armour, stores, all you can carry. Send out for those who live elsewhere in other hamlets in the furthest reaches of Iceni land. Gather them all to you.’ Boudicca whitened in remembrance of her dream. ‘Keep their anger and their memories alive, encourage their hatred of the Romani like a spark which you coax into flame.’

Lovernios led her gently by the arm back towards the doorway of the main hut. He nudged her forward, pushing her in front of himself. ‘They need a Queen,’ he whispered. ‘Address them, arouse and agitate them!’

Boudicca took a very deep breath. She waited for a little silence to fall, then she filled the void. ‘We move out,’ her voice rang out, clear as a rainbow’s promise. ‘We take everything and we go by nightfall. I need runners to send for all Iceni kin beyond the forests. Who will go? It’s vital that you’re gifted in Finding if you offer.’ She counted out the volunteers. ‘Meet us at the great forge in the forest, no more than a lunar cycle hence. We move with the stealth of deer; let no Romani discover our refuge. There in the womb of the woods we will plan our devouring and imagine the sweetness of their blood!’

From the dimness of the hut rose a ragged cheer which increased in volume as her words were absorbed. ‘You’re providing them with the decisive action which offers hope, madam,’ Lovernios was whispering again. ‘I did doubt whether you were up to it, which way your grief would push you.’ Then he danced away from her swinging punch. ‘Prove me completely wrong, madam – bring me so many Iceni that we can’t all meet at the forge!’

Boudicca glared at his retreating figure as he hopped and skipped away from her. He was goading her, she knew, with laughter. He ran east, into the sun – she had to shield her eyes to watch him leave. There, with a nimbus of light around him and his naughty laugh, she could almost mistake him for the Trickster himself.

She let him go and turned back to address her people. She clapped sharply to draw their attention. ‘I suggest we pack immediately. Take only that which you can carry. Remember, there are many things you’ll be able to reclaim from the Romani very soon.’ She knelt and started to gather some newly milled flour, discarding the quern stones as too heavy, after all she expected precious little chance for milling in the coming days. All around her others started to make decisions about what could be taken and what would be left and what was the best way to pack. The children, the old and the sick, were organised into the few places available in wagons. There were no chariot places available without horses to pull them. The wagons and chariots alike would have to have human teams.

She looked around for her daughters. Grania had thrown herself into the packing, snatching sacks off men folk and shoving them out of the way. Most people gave her the wide berth she was so obviously claiming as her most pressing need. There was only one place where there was no motion: by the fire where Maeve sat as vacantly as the simple-minded. Boudicca worried for her. Was there no way of reaching her? She thought of the healing the Sisters in Hibernicus would offer and, as abruptly, pushed the thought out of her mind as unacceptable. Maeve needed her kin, her home, her mother. Boudicca desperately prayed for enough inner strength to be capable of providing what her daughter would require.

Then she went to her. Gently she approached and sat beside her. Across the fire, the Lady of Camboritum was baking griddle bread from a batch of mix. The little flat cakes were at their best fresh and warm but would keep for a day, maybe two, at a push. Boudicca motioned that she would take over.

She wrapped the handle in the cloths of her skirts and moved the hot griddle to her side of the fire, hanging it from the ornate fire-dogs, and measured out a ladle of the thick batter. It sizzled immediately and she watched it gradually brown, deftly flipping it over to cook the other side. Then she added it to the stack already begun. This action of ladle, watch, flip, watch, stack, ladle and so on, was such a familiar routine it was like a meditation. Such an ordinary chore, but Boudicca derived great comfort from it. The world may change, kin might die, rulers may change, but griddle bread stayed the same. She could cook good bread quite absentmindedly, and it gave her an excuse to sit and talk to Maeve without feeling lazy.

‘Do you remember when Mama cooked you griddle bread when you were little, daughter-mine? You would always want to cook a special cake to yourself and it always ended up with a tiny piece burnt when you didn’t manage to flip it quick enough. Do you recall how you always used to claim that you liked the black burnt bit best because you liked the crunch? But you always used to pull the most disgusted face when you had to eat it.

‘You had pride even then, Maeve, and you loved the unusual, the distinct. Where is that pride now? Is it that which keeps you hidden from us? There’s no shame for you in what happened. No one here holds any blame for you.’ She touched Maeve’s cheek with a soft finger. ‘It won’t get any better until you come out.

‘There, now in talking I’ve caught the edge of this cake. You’d better be the one to have it since you’re the only one who likes it a little burnt and I dare say it’ll be the last opportunity for warm bread for a while.’ Boudicca transferred the warm griddle bread to Maeve’s hands, closing her fingers around it. Maeve did not move. The bread cooled as she held it. Boudicca looked away in anguish, tears crawling down her face.

She turned back to supervising the packing. She hated what she was doing to Maeve by neglecting her, if indeed Maeve was aware of any neglect, but Boudicca knew that from now on her people had to come before even her own daughters. There was not much to pack. Only the most essential, portable possessions had been chosen and furtive meals made of any perishable foods. Gradually, the folk sitting patiently outside, with belongings heaped around them, started to outnumber those who were still busy. Boudicca set Grania to hurrying the rest along, then went to Maeve and pulled her to her feet. Fortunately, Maeve responded to the order inherent in her mother’s touch and shuffled along as she was led. Even though her body moved with the grace of a priestess, its precision disguised by a casual air, her face still kept its stony, detached expression.

Boudicca supported Maeve until they were out of the hut and past those who were waiting. She went back to poke out some unburnt kindling from the hearth fire and tucked it away in a bag. Two slaves doused the smouldering hearth-stones by emptying the contents of an enormous iron cauldron over it, enveloping themselves in hissing steam. Then they threaded an iron bar through the cauldron handles so it could be lifted and carried. The next Iceni fire would be lit from the old kindling; the next Iceni meal would be eaten together from the kin-cauldron. These things were the last to leave, and would be the first to be set down. As was proper.

‘We move out,’ Boudicca called to her people. ‘Follow me and stay close. Finding is involved and those of you who do not have the Skill will need to rely on those who do.’ Boudicca strode purposefully to the head of the column which had formed naturally, slowing her pace when she reached Maeve and guiding her by the arm. It was like leading a blind woman, except that Maeve’s feet missed turf clods and lumps of flint, rendering her as sure footed as one of their brave little ponies.

As they climbed the slight rise, out of the enclosure, stumbling towards the forest, Boudicca glanced back at the rag-tag army straggling out behind. The warriors amongst them held themselves tall despite their limed hair, the spikes of which had bent and drooped. Were sad huddles like this all that was left of the once proud, wealthy Iceni? Boudicca swallowed. There had been a period, within her memory, when they had wanted for nothing, when gold had flowed and they had been the envy of all the other tribes of Britannia. Then they had held off all attempts at conquest or raid, dissuading their enemies by the fame of their champions and the defence offered by the forest and fen flanking their lands. She hated the Romani for reducing them to this, especially following the courtesy and hospitality they had taken and crushed. She swore, with every stamp of her foot, that she would win back Iceni notoriety. Every Romani would regret the day they chose to trick and deceive and steal. They would pay with blood and fire. There was an evil brooding inside her which had started to demand its feed.

The forest started abruptly, running along the ridge of the hill. Birch saplings hemmed in the denser oak which turned the forest to night. She paused to allow everyone to catch up. ‘Join hands or tie your skirts to each other, I don’t want to lose any of you who accompany me,’ she called. ‘Leave the wagons and chariots and those who really can’t walk the short distance. They’ll be brought in very soon as my first priority.’ Those who could came forward to follow Boudicca’s instructions. As it was, there was only a handful who stayed behind. They crouched together for warmth, confident in Boudicca’s promise.

As Boudicca advised, those who could walk formed a windy line which moved forward to snake between the trees and seemed to hiss with the disturbance of leaf mould. Quickly Boudicca placed a Ward to Artio against harm over them. Away in the distance, her sharp ears picked up the lumbering of a bear and knew that the forest Goddess was with them in Her natural form. When she judged the whole line to be within the boundary of the forest, she started to Find. Such workings took effort and concentration and it was one of the few techniques she had not fully mastered. She needed stillness, lack of pressure, no stress. She kept walking. In the chain behind she heard someone trip over a tree root. Someone else coughed. She had to Find quickly, they couldn’t tramp around a forest forever, and there were the invalids outside who were depending on her to get them in. Being a Queen didn’t provide too many occasions for Finding true Paths; how she wished she had practised more! Perhaps, she reprimanded herself, that would have been a less wasteful pursuit than her morning forays.

Still nothing happened. No footpath opened to show a clear way through the woodland. Boudicca was beginning to feel nervous, realising how vulnerable they all were. Was she really the right person to lead? Was there really no one else? She tried to push such thoughts from her, knowing they compounded the anxiety which clouded the mind and prevented attainment of the necessary clarity. Then, suddenly, she was no longer leading but being led as Maeve pushed off confidently to the left. And then she saw the Path revealed ahead. It was so obvious in hindsight, the click of the mind which enabled the Otherworld to shift into place. Branches lifted, tree roots sank into the earth, tendrils and creepers twisted apart.

She looked at Maeve in wonder, then back at the Path. Maeve still gazed with blank eyes and had relinquished the lead back to her mother. No-one else would have known that Maeve had done the Finding, instead of Boudicca. Boudicca regained control quickly and led them forward, down into a shallow valley where the sound of rushing water encouraged them to hurry to meet it. Maeve had seemed to take control for only a moment, no one else had appeared to notice, but Boudicca could not be certain exactly what had happened. Whatever, she, or they, had Found, and were now safe. That was all. ‘Is everyone present?’ she asked those who followed. ‘You can stop holding on to each other now, we have Found!’

Sounds of relief filtered back to her and the pace lightened. At the river they came to a sturdy bridge, barred by a blacksmith who stood, arms crossed, guarding the way. He wore leather aprons and his hammer tucked into his belt. On the other bank stood his forge with an ever-glowing fire, and stables full of ponies which appeared very familiar to Boudicca. She approached without hesitation and greeted him. ‘Sucellus, I am Boudicca of the Iceni. We’ve met before, I trust you remember – although the years have been kinder to you than to me. You see before you all that remain of the royal enclosure of the Iceni tribe. We beg your aid.’

‘Madam,’ the smith grinned suddenly with welcome. ‘I am hardly likely to forget the face of my Lamer, am I? Once and always bound to serve the Iceni, how can I refuse now?’ He limped forward to bow before her, favouring his right leg.

‘The years may have been kind to your face but your temper is as sour as ever,’ she reached down to raise him up and clasped his hand. ‘It was a fair fight and well you know it. I’ve got one or two scars to show for it myself.’

He grinned, ‘Wouldn’t be a proper iron-smelter if I were free to wander, would I, madam? You stay here as long as you like, and ask of me what you will. I guessed something was up by the arrival of your ponies yesterday. Been busy shoeing them all. Might I ask, though, just a small favour?’ He was rubbing his hands together. ‘Perhaps a bit of gold to work? I haven’t had any for quite a while. Not for myself, you understand. For the Goddess.’ His hand swept around, indicating the river.

Boudicca nodded, as if indulging a child. ‘I think we might be able to find you a little.’

Sucellus’ face lit up and he started to shake all over in excitement. ‘Madam, I’ll go and get the old and infirm you left outside. I should be able to Find a path wide enough to get the wagons in. You all make yourselves comfortable and I’ll take a few of the horses to help with the pulling.’

Boudicca looked at him in astonishment, wide eyed and mouth agape. Sucellus winked and limped off past her people, whistling to some ponies to follow. Boudicca waited for three or four horses to tear themselves away from their hay and trot over the bridge after the blacksmith. Then she led the way over the bridge and straight to the forge fires where her people dropped their burdens and started to warm themselves.

Sucellus was back with the wagons and chariots and their contents almost straightaway. He saw to the comfort of the ponies first, making sure they had a quick rub down and water and ensuring their places at the hay bales hadn’t been usurped by their fellows. Then he called Boudicca to him. ‘You’ll be here for a while, I can see that, and there’ll be more to follow. Set them to building shelters. Take only the birch, not the oak. You’ll find a bit of food in my hut; kindle your new fire from mine and yours blended together. Grania’ll be the best for that job. Then you and Maeve come with me.’

Boudicca did as he bid. Her exhausted people knew they had to work a little more before they could rest the night. If they did not, the lack of shelter might deplete their numbers further by morning. She checked that the work Sucellus had set was progressing, then collected Maeve from the place where she’d left her. They joined Sucellus on a wooden platform which jutted out slightly over the river.

He invited them to sit. Maeve did so without needing to be nudged by her mother. Boudicca was beginning to feel increasingly out of her depth. She sat regally, keeping her back as straight as possible, reminding the others of her status. She was the tallest there. She was trying not to relax, even though she hadn’t felt so free for whole seasons. There might be thirty odd people who directly depended on her and looked solely to her for hope, but she was no longer weighted by the demands of running a community or with the diplomacy necessary to appease an occupying enemy. And this was one of the few places in Britannia, unless you went a long, long way north, where they were truly rid of the Romani.

She wasn’t going to let herself relax, though. Queens didn’t relax.

‘Thank you, Sucellus, for all you have done.’ Sucellus bowed his head. ‘I don’t expect we’ll stay very long. The Keeper said he’d be back within a turn of the moon; hopefully all the other Iceni will have joined us by then. As soon as we’ve gathered, we’ll move on. Although there is one amongst us who would gladly stay. Teirnon has been working a simulated forge for us. He has some skill, manufacturing cooking utensils, basic repairs . . .’ Sucellus pulled a face. Boudicca felt the need to quickly explain: ‘We needed a forge which was free of all signs of weaponry to fool the Romani. Anyway, he has the way with metal, and he’d make a good apprentice.

‘I don’t know how many of us there’ll be, how many will meet here in total. There have been many, many refugees in the past few turns of the moon. I don’t recall how many hamlets still remain, but I’ll ensure we don’t trouble you unnecessarily.’

Sucellus smiled enigmatically.

‘You won’t be able to see the trees.’

Boudicca looked round at Maeve. She was staring into the water as if nothing had happened.

‘What did you say?’

Maeve continued staring as before. Boudicca started to joggle her, trying to get her attention. Sucellus put his arm out to stop her. He solemnly shook his head, indicating that that would do no good. Then he pointed into the waters which Maeve watched so intently.

Here, by the platform, the waters ran slower. There was a natural depression in the riverbed which had been worn smoother and deeper by the waters that swirled into it and spun so mildly, rendering them almost still. Boudicca watched the clear ripples eddy into the whirlpool before darkening almost to black. She looked deeper, leaning forward to smell the energising air that was being created here, then her sight shifted and she saw bright, sparkling gold, down, down, in the deepest depths. Then she fell herself, seeming to pass beneath the waters that closed over her head, dropping to the treasures.

She blinked and it was gone.

‘What did you see?’ Sucellus asked.

‘Nothing. Only the gold.’

‘Then you must make a sacrifice.’

Boudicca looked at him, questioning. His face gave her no guidance. The most precious thing she owned was her torc. Sucellus himself had fashioned it from pure gold twisted into knots and designs so intricate they could only have been produced by one truly Goddess inspired. Her own mother had presented it to her on the day she had abdicated and Boudicca had ascended to Queen. She remembered having to put it on over her childhood torc, before taking the old one off, ensuring that since birth she had always worn the divine mark around her neck. The gold had been collected from three quotas due from receiving and releasing the Goddess’ trade – it represented a sizeable proportion of gold due to the Iceni in a year and a great deal of wealth.

Without it she was nothing. Unrecognisable as Queen, or even royal kin, nor even as Iceni. The neck-band was such an intrinsic symbol of her identity that she might even be nameless without it.

But without the Goddess, without her first love, she was also nothing. As Priestess first and Queen second she should never forget that all she understood was held cupped in the balance of the Goddess. She was weary too, it wouldn’t hurt to relinquish it all to the Mother. So she reached to her throat and pulled the torc away, casting it softly into the waters that caressed it away.

She instantly felt naked without it and suddenly realised the enormity of what she had done. Hag herself! She might want to lie down and remain in the Haven of the Mother, but there were others who still needed her. She might desire nothingness, but a Queen had no right to impose nothingness upon those who were truly loyal to her.

Then she glimpsed a shimmer further downstream and she jumped up and ran after the fleeting object. ‘It’s been rejected!’ She sobbed and looked to Sucellus and Maeve for support, but they remained as passive as ever. It only took a few swift paces to catch up with the shining torc, then she splashed into the shallow river and pounced upon it as if she were fishing for salmon. She tore it from the waters and defiantly pushed it back on. If the Goddess didn’t want it, she certainly still did! Then as the rounded ends touched her skin she realised that the torc was heavier and she brought it back to her view. Still standing in the stream, oblivious to the icy lapping against her calves, she turned the torc over and over: this could have been made by no human hand. Not even Sucellus had the skill to create something as cunningly beautiful and delicate as this.

The torc with which the Goddess had Gifted her, came straight from the Otherworld, spun from Faery gold with secrets which could only be perfected by tiny hands and minute fingers. Boudicca replaced it around her neck. Mouthing a personal apology to the Goddess, she silently repeated her pledge to serve Her as Priestess and Queen. She felt her confidence soar. she would be proud to wear this emblem, there would be nothing she couldn’t do whilst she bore its benediction.

Turning to stride from the waters she heard, from the forge, calls of welcome and surprise. There were familiar voices sounding relieved. Sucellus had turned and was already heading back over the short distance with his loping run, which was the best he could manage. Maeve was still staring into the waters – Hag alone knew what she could see, if anything. Perhaps she was simply entranced by the glistening play of light upon the surface water like a child would be. Whatever, it was evident she would need Boudicca to guide her back to the forge.

No one, then, had seen her being Gifted. It was a private moment, one that she had no need to share. Those that needed to know, or who knew her well, would notice the torc; the others would only notice her changed demeanour. She followed at an elegant pace; the heaviness of the torc had affected her bearing and she had to move with an air about her now.

Helping Maeve, Boudicca made her way back to the forge. In the short while they’d been gone, many rough shelters had been constructed which would serve as adequate temporary accommodation, and as the building continued, those too frail or tired to help claimed shelters for their own and crawled inside to rest. A couple of the messengers who had been sent out to other Iceni villages had returned, bringing Iceni kin with them. And that, it seemed, had been the reason for the welcoming calls. Apparently, it wasn’t just those from the royal enclave who had been prepared to abandon their former lands; all those in Iceni territory seemed content to leave their homes and gather with their kin, no matter how distant. It was as if they were all aware that the encroaching Romani occupation meant it was only a matter of waiting before they too lost everything. The prospect of change, the chance at some sort of hope, anything was better than just waiting for the inevitable worst.

The following days and lunar quarters passed slowly for Boudicca. The moon waxed to full and then started to wane again. Grania still vented her anger on inanimate objects, seeming to find more energy than all the others put together for coppicing and tree felling. Boudicca had tried to hug her once, but had been pushed aside with an: ‘I am fine, mother-mine.’ Maeve remained, on the whole, still, but she would take herself off on three or four occasions a day to wash herself in the river. She had also taken to watching Sucellus work. The smith never pressed her for conversation, he just went about his business as if her frightened little eyes were upon someone else. However, Boudicca had noticed how he would angle himself, as he produced fine weaponry, so that he didn’t obscure Maeve’s view.

Sucellus had pledged himself to arming all the warriors amongst the Iceni, and he was producing a steady stream of iron tipped spears, daggers and honed swords. It seemed he had been building up quite an arsenal before they had arrived, predicting that it would be needed soon. He revealed his cache of weapons which had been brought to him bit by bit in the last decade for safekeeping. In his care, since the Romani’s edict against keeping weapons, the Iceni had avoided the confiscation which had blighted other tribes. Each object had been kept oiled and wrapped, and lay perfectly preserved, ready for use after a quick resharpening. He even directed the smallest children to the riverbank to collect sling-stones.

The refugees continued to tumble in, filling the makeshift shelters and stables, and finding warmth amongst the steam of the ponies when needing quick, immediate heat. Grania’s team of woods-folk had to travel further each day for available birch, not least to satisfy the fire which consumed vast quantities of fuel. The Goddess kindly provided wood pigeon and hedgehog, boar and deer upon which they could feast. There were also the few root vegetables and mushrooms which could be foraged by those who knew where to look, as well as the grain, sheep and cattle brought in by the refugees.

There were very few disputes or quarrels to settle; the tribe for once were pulling together and making a real effort to curb their naturally fractious characters. There was the odd raised voice, slap, or over zealous punch, but by Iceni standards that was exceptionally placid behaviour. By the end of the first lunar quarter, their original numbers had quadrupled; by the third, Sucellus’ large clearing was very cramped. It was no longer simply Gelfine here; the basic royal family had expanded to include cousins and aunts, great-nephews and grandparents: Derbfine. Distant kin met distant kin, often after having been separated for generations; ancestral memories were shared and new allegiances formed. Sucellus returned heirlooms to their owners on recognition; he seemed to sense to whom each weapon should belong, claiming that swords sang to him when their rightful owner arrived. Champions took up their grandparents’ swords and wielded them once more, marvelling at the balance and weight of such treasures. The Iceni tribe was almost complete, truly Tuath again.

Everyone, Boudicca realised, was coping fine without her. She felt slightly superfluous. She busied herself organising and participating in battle training for those who were sorely out of practice, but still she couldn’t shrug off the mood of agitation which hung over her. Unusually she also felt lusty, as if the rising sap in the greenery around provoked her to rutting fever too. She wondered if Lovernios had been delayed on his way to the Boatman at the coast. Even in Iceni territory there were bandits, beholden to no tribe, who would rob a Druid if they found one. She couldn’t Sense him at all, he had Cloaked himself too well. She wondered why she was surprised. Perhaps it was just that he seemed so young, maybe a year or two younger than her. He could only just be out of Druidic training, yet he was so very gifted. The feelings reminded her of her long yearning after Prasutagus died, and she recognised the desire to push onwards that was indicative of her reaction to stress, her desperate need to do something.

The new torc hung heavy on her neck too. It pulled her deep into nightmarish dreams, full of blood and pain and flapping ravens which clawed at her eyes. There were waking visions, too, hinting at sudden movement just at the corner of her eyes. And there was a brooding badness right inside her, scrabbling for a foothold to reach for release. The tension was permanent, leaving her to feel continually on edge, as if she was about to birth some horror.

On the last day of the third lunar quarter to pass, at sunset, when the low sun flickered through the bare branches as if through a cracked glass, Lovernios came and her mood lifted. Just when she was beginning to despair that she might have to make some excuse to Sucellus and thank him dearly for his hospitality, and move her people on to roam forever like so many lepers, Lovernios sneaked up behind her to tap her playfully upon the shoulder. She knew someone was there well before she tucked and turned because they lacked the stealth of the hunter, even letting their tall shadow fall in betrayal. ‘You’re too fast for me!’ Lovernios chuckled. Boudicca gave him her best patronising smile.

She looked past him to the trees. There was the tiniest unnatural movement, so slight she almost missed it, but it definitely wasn’t one of her spirits hovering just out of sight. Lovernios had brought a warrior with him, a skilled warrior. He followed her gaze. ‘I’ve brought someone with me. They would join with you – Addedomarus of the Trinovantes.’

Boudicca stooped, picked up the spear she had been practising with, and turned and threw it in one smooth movement. The spear quivered righteously from the bark of the oak in which it was now embedded. ‘How dare you!’ she screeched at Lovernios, all the tensions of the previous days exploding at once. ‘You drag me here. You make me wait. Without telling me what is happening. Without giving me or my people any hope except that which I have conjured for them.’ They had an audience, Iceni were running towards them. Addedomarus had been dragged out from behind the oak and was surrounded, a ring of spear-heads pointed at his chest. ‘Then you bring, you dare to bring, a,’ she spat, ‘a Trinovante, from beyond the forest, to our midst. I know you Druids go where you please, sacrosanct to all tribes, but now you’ve gone too far with your priestly immunity. I’m surprised you didn’t think to bring one of the Catuvellauni with you too, then we could have killed ourselves here, with only the trees to witness our warfare; finishing ourselves off without ever needing to trouble the Romani again!’

‘Boudicca, Queen,’ Addedomarus addressed her humbly yet without abasing himself. ‘Our tribe has a deep desire for revenge too. We would be stronger together.’

‘The Iceni don’t need to borrow your strength. You might need help, but we don’t. We solve our own problems. Our independence is our pride.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Your troubles don’t even begin to approach the magnitude of ours.’

Lovernios grabbed her wrists; he was strong. She hissed and struggled like a cat, then remembered who he was and quietened. Lovernios spoke firmly to her, holding her eyes and forcing her to look back at him. ‘Let us talk, let us discuss. Then you may decide whether the Iceni will allow the Trinovantes to fight. But first give him a chance to explain; you may be surprised at what has been going on in Britannia beyond the cosseting barriers of forest and fen.’

Chapter 3

Last Quarter

Boudicca snarled at him. She was livid. It was as if some wild beast had taken over. Lovernios stepped back, wary of her. Then, as she swept back her hair before recommencing her attack, Lovernios reached for her throat, touched her torc, nodded and mumbled: ‘So it is you. Be still, Andraste, we’re not ready for you yet.’

She shook her head as the tension lifted like mist. ‘Go back to practising,’ she snapped at the warriors around her. They dispersed and returned to throwing spears to each other, still keeping a watchful eye out for their Queen. ‘It’s warm at the forge and there’s food for tired travellers,’ she conceded. ‘I’ll listen. But I expect a comprehensive explanation,’ she indicated her throat. ‘Of everything.’ She held her arm out to Addedomarus; he grabbed it, gripping her roughly in nervous greeting.

Once at the forge, she ordered food to be served to Lovernios and Addedomarus. Addedomarus raised several suspicious glances from the Iceni people who deliberately kept away from him. Eventually one slave was kicked forward, volunteered into serving him. The slave slopped stew clumsily over Addedomarus who lifted his hand to strike the slave then stilled the blow, looking at the culprit as if in recognition. He looked questioningly at Boudicca.

‘The price paid for poaching waterfowl in Iceni marshland, Addedomarus. I daresay if I encroached upon your hospitality, I too would find familiar faces.’

Addedomarus was silent. Lovernios ate his stew unobtrusively, watching the two leaders spar with body-language. Grudgingly, Addedomarus picked up his bowl and ate his meal. He dribbled juices down his long moustaches and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He discarded his bowl and started to speak. Lovernios halted him. ‘Call your leaders, Boudicca. Call Sucellus and your daughters too. Addedomarus doesn’t need to repeat his story more than is necessary.’ Boudicca clapped a slave over and gave the instructions. It was almost dark; the forge fires were built up for warmth whilst the slave carried out Boudicca’s orders.

Soon they were joined by those Lovernios had requested. The Ladies, Chiefs and champions made their obeisances and sat at a discreet distance where they could still hear. Grania turned up, puffing and sweating, complaining at being pulled away from her work. She nodded curtly to Lovernios and sneered at Addedomarus; Boudicca noted how some of her daughter’s anger had subsided at last. Sucellus led Maeve; they bore a dish of clear water which they set before them. Boudicca hoped it wasn’t for Maeve to wash in, not now, but Lovernios seemed especially pleased at the sight of it.

Lovernios stilled them with a traditional Druid gesture. He started to speak with an even more refined and noble timbre than he used for everyday speech. He was Bard trained, Boudicca noticed, and she settled down to allow him to lull her with his mesmerising arguments. ‘The Romani,’ he started, ‘As we all know too well, are not grouped as tribes, like us Celtoi. Instead they are like one immense people, a conglomerate of states and nations who act, not as individuals, but as a whole. They treat us as one, they aim not to subjugate Iceni, but all Celtoi. They are a strange conquering type for whom it is not enough simply to raid and then allow the enemy to recover so that he survives to be raided again. And it is all of us who have lost to their hunger.

‘All Celtoi have suffered from the Romani, and it seems that we have done so forever. First, on the continent, your ancestors fled from them to settle here. Now that the Romani have traced their flight, you suffer in turn. The Druids too have suffered.’ He held his hand for silence. Night had dropped and the shelters had gradually filled, they were alert with Iceni ears which strained to hear Lovernios, and Iceni mouths which responded to his oratory with exclamations and gasps. It had been a long while since the Iceni had been entertained by a Bard. ‘Yes, even the Druids have felt the grip of the Romani and the Goddess has lost wealth. All things are of the Goddess and She permeates our life. What are we without Her?

‘Iceni wealth comes from the Goddess: you have good lands, rich soil, healthy livestock. You are the last link in the trade from Hibernicus too, and as such are due the largest proportion of Her trade of all the tribes on the route. This income is the envy of other tribes.’ At these words Iceni faces turned to Addedomarus in hatred and Lovernios rapidly spoke on, seeking to recapture their attention. ‘But it’s your position in Britannia which grants it to you, and it’s not open to others for the taking. Without this gold, without all the other links in the chain, you are nothing.’ Iceni faces turned back to Lovernios. ‘Just another agricultural settlement without luxury or comfort or the means to make gold sacrifice – indeed, without the gold you would be forced to return to blood sacrifice. But likewise, without you the Goddess’ trade would collapse.

‘The Romani want the Goddess’ gold. It was the legend of Britannia’s gold which lured them here in the days of your ancestors. It’s fabled how our earth runs rich with seams of precious metal. It does, but not as rich as the earth of Hibernicus from whence the gold comes. The Romani have long realised this, they’ve little imagination but great powers of logic and reason, and they are now seeking to destroy the Druids. Even while I talk they campaign in the mountains to the west, maiming and killing the Silures, Ordovices and Deceangli, working their way north to Insula Mona and our College there. There are no warriors on the island, only teachers, lawgivers, historians and poets. Most have already fled back to Hibernicus, there will be scant defence now that the mountain tribes-people only offer guerrilla resistance.’

Horror and shock registered around Lovernios’ listeners now. The Druidic College at Insula Mona was so famous as to be almost legendary. Several Iceni mothers currently had offspring studying there, their children specially picked for showing intuitive promise. Boudicca herself had passed a few years of her youth in the harmony of its learned repose. She could recall the winds breezing in from the endless seas and the acres of crops rippling in noon heat, as effortlessly as if she had only just returned. The idea of the Romani trampling the holy island to dust, disturbing the lazy scent of honeysuckle and the lessons sang over and over in rote, seemed a desecration as great as the crime perpetrated against her daughters.

‘It’ll be a sacrifice worth making, if the Iceni do as I say.’ Boudicca took especial notice of what Lovernios was saying now. That the Iceni could be connected in any way with the potential loss of Insula Mona, shone a fresh light upon the importance with which Lovernios, and the Druidic Council, perceived the plight of the Iceni. She started to realise the possibility of viewing her situation with a broader perspective, one which would also offer some justification for the presence of Addedomarus.

‘The mountain tribes’ harassment and the imminent destruction of Insula Mona has led the bulk of the Romani military force away from your lands. If we act soon, you could enact your revenge with relatively little resistance. There’ll still be war, but the Romani have left themselves weak and undefended. You have your best chance of victory now.

‘To do this, you must think like the Romani think – not as Iceni, but as Celtoi as a whole. It’s not enough to be rid of them from Iceni territory, we need to be rid of them from the whole of Britannia. You need to join and communicate with other tribes. You need to learn as much as you can about the Romani deployment of legions, where their weaknesses are, what they fear. To do this you need the help of a tribe who have lived alongside the Romani – the Trinovantes are one such tribe,’ Lovernios gestured towards Addedomarus. ‘To communicate and plan, to translate amongst tribes, and most importantly to bind the tribes, you need the Druids. We are the only universal symbol that every Celtoi tribe recognises.

‘Great Queen, the Iceni are the most feared warriors of Britannia, but you can’t do this alone. Even Cuchulainn himself would find it difficult to defeat a legion if he did not have his trusted champions with him. United, however, is a different matter – united, Cuchulainn could crush a century or two as he rolled over in his sleep.’ Lovernios raised a laugh from those who knew the story of the Hound of Culann. ‘You may lose some pride in having to share the victory, but at least this way there’ll be a victory to share. It’s the Iceni who will lead this rebellion, it’s the name of the Iceni that will be sung for generations to come and be remembered with every mention of the word ‘freedom’.

‘I have the authority of most of the Druidic Council and their full support in this suggestion. The Goddess’ Blessing has been sought and granted. The Trinovantes have been near to revolt for years, their tempers are like a cauldron which has been allowed to simmer for too long. I invite Addedomarus to speak next.’ Lovernios gestured for quiet while he explained. ‘When he tells you the injustices his tribe have suffered at the hands of the Romani, you’ll realise that being conquered is very different from being a client kingdom. He’ll also tell you the Romani’s weaknesses. He has watched them for a long while – watching is all he and his tribe have been able to do.’

Lovernios gestured to Addedomarus. As Bard he had the right to decide in which order the speakers would make their address. Boudicca didn’t mind waiting; there was a lot of information to take in. Although her fury hadn’t abated at the outrages perpetrated upon her daughters, herself and her people, nevertheless she was starting to feel she had been at least slightly cocooned from the realities of life under the Romani. Especially, she reflected, during the last winter when she had refused to deal with much else except her grief at the death of her husband. She was beginning to realise how selfish she had been, how self-absorbed and short-sighted.

‘I am Addedomarus.’ Their guest cleared his throat. He was not a natural leader, Boudicca could see that. He was too nervous, although he concealed it well with a show of bravado. ‘Some of my words are not your words, but I hope we can manage without a translator. I, my people, the Trinovantes, offer ourselves to the Iceni in fighting the Romani. We would be rid of them from the shores of Britannia forever.

‘They set up their Colonia at Camulodunum. Their ‘best’ city. They choose Trinovantes’ land because it is good land, because their fighting men like Trinovantes’ land. It is good route to their king emperor Nero far across the seas. We live alongside old soldiers. They pensioned off, but still act like soldiers, with swagger, with women. They are given land instead of a payment when they retire, and their fellows, who still serve as soldiers, help them in this. They know it is what they will get for their pension too. But they cross at not having money, so they take that off Trinovantes. They take more land, and our gold and then us. They make us slaves and force us to work. My people live in bad places, like small huts for dogs, chained together where the sunlight will not go.

‘Then those of royal kin, with gold, we pay for new temple. Temple to their other king god Claudius who brought elephants when I was child. This not like Trinovantes’ temple, full of peace in woods and green places. This temple vast. Big enough for several hundred people to live in at once, and room for horses too. Made of stone, with steps so it will not flood in rain, and very high so you have to lean right back to be able to see the roof. There are pictures all around it which do not wash off when they get wet. Not needed for a temple to be that big. Cost too much. Also we are made to be priests and pay for the festivals they say we must perform.

‘They also build theatre, senate-house, roads and forum. They make census and tax us too high. They take our weapons so no fighting allowed. We must buy our grain from them at the cost they say.’ The Iceni around him nodded their heads in empathy. ‘What they did to Iceni very, very bad, but not good what do to Trinovantes. I think our own fault. We so pleased to have them stop Catuvellauni fight us, we thank Romani, but we not that thankful. We would fight now, fight or be swallowed, we have no choice. Iceni have no choice, if you go back you be like Trinovantes.

‘Romani frightened of Druid. Very scared of what Britannia people can do with their minds, they not like Otherworld. But they not frightened of Celtoi, they build no ramparts, no palisade, all Colonia open.’

There was silence after Addedomarus had spoken. Boudicca had found listening to the faltering speech difficult and was still trying to unravel all the strands. She had heard of the Temple of Claudius at Camulodunum from the Romani diplomats who had been stationed near the place she had called home up until a few moons ago. She knew it was meant to be magnificent and finely wrought by master craftsmen. She’d also heard that it was a symbol of everything the Romani were bringing to Britannia – culture, health, education, wealth, peace . . . extortion, mass slavery, poverty, degradation and oppression. She was trying very hard to imagine what the Colonia must look like; it was very hard to conceive of buildings that were so impractically large. Such buildings, she reflected, would take an age to heat and would never feel cosy to live in.

‘Maeve will show us.’ Sucellus spoke up.

‘Of course she may, if she so wishes,’ Lovernios smiled at Maeve benignly, encouraging her to come forward. Maeve lifted the shallow basin, careful not to spill any water. She set it down at Lovernios’ feet and sat opposite him. ‘I had hoped that good would come of ill and this violation might be your making, Sister.’

Maeve passed her left hand over the water, once, twice, thrice. There, by the flickering embers of the forge fires, she Scryed into the still surface waters, willing the images to arise. As the last tiniest ripple cleared, Boudicca gasped aloud. Around her there were mumbles and sighs of astonishment as the others also saw what was happening. Boudicca had expected her daughter to Scry for herself and narrate what she saw in a sing-song distant voice as visionaries before her had done. But there was no need. Maeve had Scryed so strongly that the scenes were reflected from the bowl for all to see.

There, right before them, were the immense buildings of Camulodunum, the confiscated gold, the toiling Trinovantes. The Colonia was built for giants, not for people, it was a place of wonderment, a miracle of structure. Boudicca was amazed at what she saw, but furious too, that they were capable of such fine edifices yet still coveted the rude huts of the Iceni.

Maeve couldn’t hold the image for long but it was enough to supplement Addedomarus’s description.

‘Now, will you host as I requested?’ Lovernios’ question shook her out of her reverie. For a moment Boudicca had been lost to her inner self. Then Maeve spoke, giving Boudicca longer to form a reply.

‘Watch! There is more.’ The images commenced again, rolling over the waters. They saw a triumphant war host sweep over the land, rising from the east, leaving destruction in its wake. They saw warriors with spiked hair and woad tattoos dance naked into battle, pirouetting upon chariots and somersaulting into the fray. Fearless of death they fought, tearing the enemy apart, and children with evil faces despatched the fallen with sharp little daggers. Every face wore the same gloating, vengeful expression which stirred familiar memories in every Iceni sat around. It was the likeness of their war Goddess: Andraste. She rose behind the hoard, spurring them on to total victory. She charged ahead of them in the form of a hare, leading them on to fresh slaughter.

The visions faded, leaving the Iceni awestruck. Boudicca caught them a little longer, straining to see before they dwindled completely. She saw the Goddess hot in Her battle lust turn upon everything and everyone, indiscriminate in Her desire for flesh. She saw the leaping little hare change direction. Then she saw water again and felt the stirring within as if some sort of birthing was taking place. On this occasion a bubble burst free and something other than herself used her mouth to announce: ‘We fight. How soon?’

Lovernios studied her. ‘Not yet.’ He looked worried. ‘Push Her back down, madam.’ Boudicca felt a flutter like trapped wings and then the sensations were gone. She felt wrapped in a cold sweat. Lovernios gave her an ‘are you all right?’ smile. She nodded to reassure him.

Grania had leapt up. ‘If we’re invoking Andraste, then we should ready the Groves.’ She licked her lips.

‘There’s no need to return to the Old Ways,’ it was Sucellus. ‘I’ve been busy fashioning sacrifices from the gold you’ve loaned me, there’s plenty to appease the Goddess. She always receives any given here most graciously. There’s no greater sacrifice.’

‘Andraste will demand blood. If that’s the form the Goddess chooses, then be prepared to give it. I know the sort of death She’ll demand.’ Grania had worked herself up into quite a frenzy. There was no response, everyone sat stunned by her outburst. She sat, and let out the faintest sob, then she turned and ran crying from the camp, into the trees. Lovernios looked after her in pity. Boudicca rose to follow her.

‘Madam,’ Lovernios called softly. ‘Give her comfort. Her healing is beginning. Then return. I know it’s late but I must talk with you, alone.’

Boudicca ran to keep up with her daughter, leaping over the indistinct bodies which slept near the fire and the sharp knolls of coppiced birch. Somehow she kept her footing, bounding after the wailing left by Grania as a trail. Almost as soon as she left the orange glow of the forge fires she was engulfed by the full force of night but still she blundered onwards after the weeping that seemed to rend the very forest in two. She cursed Grania under her breath for her daughter’s lack of control and for being forced into a darkness she had no wish to explore. She objected to being pulled down unwillingly into the depths of Grania’s animal despair. Boudicca also knew that only she would be accepted by Grania now and that if she deserted her daughter, she would never have the chance to reach her again, her daughter would be lost for ever and she would regret her inaction for the rest of her life.

The awkward sobbing still seemed a long way off but it had stopped moving away. Boudicca was led deeper into the woods. This seemed to be no Finding; tree branches didn’t swing up and out of her path, instead they snared her cloak and scratched her face. For a while she still felt the burning heat of the fires upon her cheeks but before long the black air laid icy fingers upon her. She started to call out, screaming Grania’s name over and over until she was hoarse and breathless. Then finally a little way ahead a weak voice acknowledged: ‘Here I am, mama. I’m frightened.’

Boudicca stumbled forward. ‘Keep talking to me, daughter-mine, mama can’t see a thing.’

‘Over here, mama.’

Boudicca stepped to the right.

‘Mama here.’

Boudicca swung back to the left.

‘Mama, mama, where are you?’

The call was from behind. Boudicca froze. There were tricking, trapping old things in the forest who needed to be approached with courtesy and caution, if at all. There were many, many manifestations of the Goddess and the spirits which she didn’t understand, but which she had definitely heard of and which needed to be paid respect. In an instant she felt truly unprotected, at the mercy of the instincts of this primeval forest. Silently she reprimanded herself for not placing Wards upon her person. Caught up in her panic and concern for Grania, she’d hurtled into potential danger without thought for the consequences.

Quickly she Warded herself, imagining light radiating from her ethereal body as if she had grown armour. Immediately she felt safer, many little threats evaporating, warned off by her power. Then she called for True-sight, asking for clarity of vision. Gradually the darkness lifted, just a fraction, in what seemed like one circle of her sight. There, as if a hole had been cut out of a sack that covered her, the moon, waning to a crescent, slunk out from behind dense cloud to offer gradual illumination and she could see she had wandered into the wide mouth of a cave.

As Grania called once more, her fresh awareness brought understanding of how Grania’s voice had reverberated off the rock to produce the disorientating effect fed by Boudicca’s fear and confusion. Lit by the moon’s bright shining, she went to her daughter and knelt, holding her tightly to reassure her through her racking convulsions of utter despair.

‘Mama, mama, I’m frightened. I’m so angry, I want to kill and maim and rend and tear and torture and hurt. I want to destroy everything.’ Grania scratched at her face and pulled at Boudicca’s robe. ‘I hate so much. I don’t understand these new feelings inside of me, they seem to career away without my control. What should I do with them? Express them and let them ride where they will, or deny them? Oh mama-mama, I’m so confused, it doesn’t feel like it’s me at all any more. I’m not a nasty person, I feel so small and young. I try to be good but all the while I feel men’s eyes upon me knowing what was done to me and I hear voices filling me with anger and I don’t understand, oh mama-mama help me, please . . .’

Grania was rambling. Boudicca flew inside her head for a fleeting instant to identify the symptoms she observed. Grania’s mind was governed by chaos, too distorted and twisted for Boudicca to want to spend more than a fleeting moment within it. Had Grania concentrated upon learning the Craft, she might have known herself better and understood the mazes and patterns that her psyche was spinning in order to enable each emotion to have a turn at expressing itself. Then she might have been able to unravel and mend the strands herself. But this was not the place for recriminations.

Grania needed love and support and an opportunity to heal. Sadly, Boudicca reflected, that seemed increasingly unlikely now. She’d given Grania those opportunities, or at least thought she had. The anger and bitter temper Grania had demonstrated after her ordeal so far was now proving to be only the surface of a seemingly bottomless cavern. Normally Boudicca would have encouraged her to eject all the rage, now she wasn’t too sure whether they were dealing with a finite quantity. For the sake of her daughter, and perhaps for those around, she had to be careful not to misinterpret what was going on for Grania internally.

She held her daughter tight and rocked her. She prayed within whilst doing so. Then she heard the calm voice, low in her mind, and recognised the Divine: ‘Let her loosen the reins. There is no other option, even though she travels the borders betwixt life and death. She exudes part of My nature that will not be denied, and there is no other suitable receptacle.’

Boudicca smoothed her daughter’s hair and tried to comfort her with gentle words of reassurance. She felt false in the attempt as if she betrayed her child, encouraging hope when she suspected there might be none to be found. Already, well within the space of a lunar cycle, a wedge had been driven between herself and her daughters. Where once they’d been so close, they now seemed isolated each from the other. There was a thin line between being the Goddess’ chosen ones and being the pawns in some celestial game where only the Goddess and Her Druids knew the rules. She doubted the prudence of the course that seemed to be being plotted for herself and her daughters, let alone for the tribe. What wild unknowns would be unwittingly released, what dark paths might they be forced to tread? She almost wished she had never birthed her twins, if it was only to bring them into such peril.

No, she banished such thoughts. She was Queen and Priestess, nothing could be hidden from her. If there were concealment she would reveal it, if corruption she would cleanse it. The Goddess didn’t work by manipulation and falsehoods but with clarity and cooperation. There’d be no reason to use anything other than honesty in requiring Boudicca to participate in whatever plans had been concocted, she was bound to the Goddess and virtually obliged to do as She asked. Whatever, she had faith too, and now she simply had to trust there was some larger scheme, of which she was aware of only the tiniest part. She was dependent on the expectation that all would be revealed when it was right.

Grania had calmed a little. Instead of the racking sobs that shook her whole body, she sniffled and whimpered quietly. ‘Mama, mama, you do love me, don’t you.’

‘Oh, yes, Grania mine. Of course I love you. What made you think I might not?’

‘I thought you loved Maeve more than me. You’re with her so often and now she seems so Gifted in the way you wanted me to be.’

‘Grania, Grania, daughter mine.’ Boudicca was embarrassed, she’d never meant to give Maeve more attention, it was just that her need had seemed more desperate. ‘We all thought you were coping so well. It’s only now we have a chance to be alone that you’re starting to tell me that wasn’t the case. Maeve has seemed so much weaker than you, but you’ve been strong and without you I couldn’t have coped in the last few days. Your strength and energy has been truly indispensable. I am very proud of you.

‘See, Grania mine, you have gifts in areas where Maeve is very lacking. Even the talents you do see Maeve perform are not honed and trained. They’re raw, which can be a very dangerous thing. She doesn’t consider the outcome of showing her Gifts, she just does them. Perhaps she’s no longer able to exercise such consideration. Perhaps there’s very little of Maeve still there and most of her spirit has been subsumed by the prophecy of the Goddess. What if she were to show someone their future, and if that same someone were to see themselves meet a cowardly end? Think what it would do to that person, how it might destroy them inside, how it might provoke them into enacting the same events that led to the ignoble acts. No, daughter mine, half the skill in using the Gifts which Maeve has is knowing when it is appropriate to use them and when it is wiser to leave them be. In many ways, it is more Blessed to be bereft of the Gifts than to use them unknowingly.’

Grania clutched at Boudicca tightly. ‘Thank you, mama. But there is still a pulling inside of me. Do I vent what is within or continue to fight?’

Boudicca paused, torn between her own doubts and the Goddess-guidance. ‘You must let it go, Grania mine. I’ll share the consequences with you and hold you when I’m able, but I don’t recognise the like of which you are releasing.’

Grania slumped against her. ‘I’ve done so and I feel light inside and rather empty. It’s soothing to no longer be fighting against your own self. I feel ready to go back now.’

Go back. How? Boudicca hadn’t noted the route she had taken. She doubted very much whether Grania had either. She’d rather hoped that Grania might be so exhausted she’d need to sleep until daylight.

Boudicca stood, walked silently out of the cave and looked around. She listened too. She could hear nothing, no campfire chatter, nor could she see the rosy glow of warming embers that must be far off between the trees. She smelled for the scent of wood-smoke upon the breeze. Nothing. She wondered whether Grania had coppiced this far and how well she might have become acquainted with the forest, but there was plenty of birch still around at this point and she had no wish to alarm Grania with the possibility that they might be lost.

She could, she reminded herself, Find her way back, but her earlier experiences at trying to Find the forge had lowered her confidence and she doubted her ability not to lose them both even further. She also knew that the best way to counter those feelings was to tackle her dread head-on and attempt another Finding immediately.

‘It’s this way, Grania. Would you like me to support you?’

‘No mama. But I’ll hold your hand so we don’t lose each other.’

Together they moved out into the night, as stealthy as foxes, seeing by the minimal light of the moon, Her two horns glowing with white light to cast ethereal shadows over the blue landscape. Boudicca set a slow pace, concerned not to let herself wander even further should she fail to Find. She concentrated on the clarity she desired. Then remembered not to concentrate, but to relax. Then her mind fidgeted, alerting her to the forest dangers and producing predators to match the creeping sounds around. She slowed her breathing which had speeded to panic and started Finding again. She searched for the necessary mental clearness, tried too hard and blanked her mind again. She felt for the path she wanted, pictured it, held it, then lost it.

Ahead she heard a different sound, a slow, patient lumbering. She reinforced her Wards, placing them around Grania too. The lumbering paused, then approached more cautiously. ‘Mama,’ Boudicca turned to looked at her daughter. ‘It’s a bear, mama. Can you stop it from coming too close? I don’t fancy wrestling a bear in the dark – there won’t be enough people to watch and inform the Bard of my struggles so I can be immortalised in song. Without that, who’ll believe my boasting?’

Boudicca didn’t know why she had turned to look at Grania. She should have realised there wouldn’t be enough light to see her face. Perhaps it had been habit, perhaps politeness, perhaps an instinctual action to better her hearing of Grania’s words. Whatever, she was instantly relieved she had done so. There, behind, quite a way off, back through the clawing trees, moved a thin, yellowing light. She squinted to see at such a distance and nudged Grania. ‘Is it a torch?’

‘No, mama, the flame is the wrong shape to be a torch.’

Boudicca thought of the stories of will-o-the-wisps and corpse lights she’d been told about as a child. She hoped Grania hadn’t thought of them too. She pulled her daughter down into a crouch. They couldn’t go forward and they couldn’t go back. Boudicca increased the Wards around them and imagined themselves both cloaked in invisibility. They would wait out the twin threats.

The distant light bobbed towards them, weaving its way through the trees but still taking an almost direct line towards them. Whatever it was seemed to know they were there. The clumsy lumbering, too, increased to include a snuffling panting and the crack of snapping bracken. Then, so near, a sniffing as if to define their hiding place, and finally silence.

Boudicca and Grania stayed motionless, holding each other tightly for reassurance. Warriors both, they stilled their fluttering hearts to ease their rising panic and shallowed their breathing. Their presence was barely perceptible. All that moved was their eyes, and those they had shielded with hair to prevent the light from reflecting off them and betraying their presence.

They could see enough though to watch Maeve approach, hands cupped around a soft wavering light, as if she held a burning sea coal, but much, much brighter. She brought illumination with her as if bearing a gift. A couple of paces from Boudicca and Grania’s hiding place Maeve paused and turned, revealing a prone bear. Massive in bulk with a long coat and intelligent beady eyes, the bear lay upon the ground as if waiting in supplication. It sat up on Maeve’s approach, holding eye contact, and then dropped to its prone position again. Then it turned to look directly at Boudicca and Grania, sat up, nodded its head twice as if directly at them, then dropped back to the floor again. Maeve stood as if she were only there to provide the light, holding her hands up to provide optimum visibility. Then the bear pulled itself to its feet, shaking its weight, and lumbered off past them, each step chorused by the tearing of tendrils and the crunch of dry leaves. Maeve held the witch-light higher and it brightened, showing the bear shovel off to the cave.

Maeve turned serenely and walked back the way she’d come. She took the light with her and the trees opened before her and the paths cleared. ‘We must keep up, she’s Finding. We should be back soon,’ Boudicca hissed, hauling Grania up and pulling her along as they scrambled after Maeve.

As they dusted themselves off, running along to catch up, Boudicca felt like a naughty child who’d been caught by an overly-wise parent and was being punished by being ignored. A crime so heinous could not be acknowledged, let alone mentioned, and for some reason she felt guilty. Then she thought back to what she’d done and realised there was no manifest fault, it was simply that Maeve’s behaviour was so superior it was triggering such responses without her realising why. Maeve’s poor, confused behaviour was probably not intended that way at all, but Boudicca’s automatic response afforded her insight into why Grania had reacted so extremely. Now Boudicca grabbed Grania’s hand and laughed, trotting after the elusive Maeve with childish conspiracy.

‘I wish I had wrestled that bear,’ Grania said with pride. ‘It looked docile enough to take on single-handedly, especially for someone of my strength. There may have been no one to see, but we could have dragged the carcass, or at least the skins, home between the two of us. Think of the stories they’d have told of me then! And I could wear the furs into battle – how fearsome I would be – and I would make the Romani quake when they saw me come hollowing at them in battle-lust.’

‘Grania mine, I do declare you’re getting some of your visionary powers back. A little more practice and you’ll be as Gifted at imagining what you desire as Bride Herself.’

‘There’s never any harm in dreaming,’ Grania joked.

That comment halted Boudicca’s jovial mood, reminding her of the black visions which had haunted her sleep in recent days. ‘Now that,’ she conceded, not wishing to upset Grania, ‘depends upon what you dream.’

Boudicca caught up with Maeve just as they arrived back at the clearing by the forge. The distance hadn’t been far, and had certainly been nowhere near the length of the outward journey they’d made. Apart from anything else, they approached the Iceni camp from a different direction to the one they’d left, and from that Boudicca gleaned a little more of the complexities and nuances of Finding. She stopped Maeve with a gentle touch and turned her around. Maeve still wore the same vacant expression.

‘Maeve, daughter mine, do you understand what went on back there, with the bear?’ Boudicca asked.

Maeve nodded, and went to turn and continue. ‘I want to go and wash now,’ she pleaded.

Boudicca held her more firmly. ‘How did you learn to do that thing with your hands? That light thing?’ Maeve shrugged and opened her hands for her mother to inspect them. There was nothing there. No burns, no scarring, not even any reddening of the skin. Nothing to indicate that anything peculiar had happened.

Boudicca paused, exasperated. ‘I’ve got to see Lovernios,’ she stated to both young women. ‘I suggest you both get some sleep. Perhaps you could keep each other warm?’ She left Maeve and Grania looking at each other, both undecided about what to do, fearing rejection yet so painfully needing each other. They approached from two different worlds, Boudicca knew, but it would take knowledge of both realms to survive in the days to come.

Lovernios awaited her at the forge fires. He stood in welcome, his eyes widening at her arrival and an unnecessarily warm smile playing on his lips. ‘You were gone a long while. I was quite concerned.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ he paused, thinking. ‘Because without you, I . . . things can’t proceed. You’re the linchpin of our plans. Without you, lives, homes, gold and land will have been sacrificed without reason. There are a lot of things, and many people, who depend on you.’

‘So, I’ve little choice in helping you. What’re your plans?’

‘Immediately?’ Lovernios asked, Boudicca nodded. ‘There are still more outlying Iceni to the north and east, right on the coast at Branodunum and Gariannum. We’ll call those in. They live on the outskirts of the forests so I’ll arrange for them to be brought here by Finding, that should bring them in very quickly.’

‘Arrange? What do you mean?’

‘There are more Druids who’d join with us. They camp alone in the forests at present, roaming the countryside in isolation, on the Goddess’ errands, safe from all but the Romani. They could be Called in an instant. They are mages and translators. You heard what Addedomarus said about the Romani – they’re superstitious and scared of what we can do with our minds. We know how it’s possible to live, using the best of both worlds, how a fuller awareness can take away fear. They don’t have that awareness. They live entirely in the material world and are very easy to frighten. We could do a lot of damage to the Romani without even leaving the forest. Half the battle is already won with the Romani massed at Insula Mona, another quarter could be won with ‘omens and portents’. Maeve would accomplish that very easily with her Skills.

‘Also there are Trinovantes who live amongst the Romani. They could help too; they’ll certainly keep us informed. And they’re ready to rise against their enemy. Together your host would outnumber the Romani at Camulodunum by ten to every one. They’re old soldiers, your victory would be as easy as squeezing the neck of a goose at Yule, when you hunger for food to comfort the winter snows. That’d be a sore blow against the Romani – it’s their model city, their showpiece, and it would hurt their pride to lose that. Other Celtoi would flock to you then. The host would number whole tribes, and you could choose your next target at leisure. The easiest pickings perhaps, or the most challenging combat? The odd defended fort? Their mewling little harbour at Londinium? Whole legions in their battle plumage? You could even see if you could identify those who perpetrated the outrages upon you, hunt for familiar faces. Then there’s the Catuvellauni nobles swanning around at Verulamium in their summer clothing, enjoying their leisure and their Romani bribes. Yes, you’d like to destroy some of the Catuvellauni, wouldn’t you? There are many, many others who share your hatred. Together you’d be unstoppable.’

Boudicca was tempted. She didn’t want to let Lovernios know that and give him the advantage. ‘I don’t like you using Maeve like this. She should be able to choose.’

‘She does know what she’s doing, madam, be assured of that. She communicates constantly, if only you’d listen. Of all of us, you have the most difficult task, straddling both worlds and keeping them in equilibrium within. At least for everyone else it doesn’t matter if they become unbalanced in this way. I do appreciate how difficult it must be to pay equal attention to both ways of knowing, but you must try, otherwise Andraste . . .’ He paused. ‘Andraste won’t Manifest as She should.’

Boudicca stared at him in disbelief. ‘That’s what’s happening, then, isn’t it? Isn’t it?’ she demanded. ‘You’re using me to invoke Andraste, using my body, my mind, as a vehicle for Her to Manifest in the world. That’s why I have these rages and fits of confusion.’

Lovernios calmed her with a simple gesture. ‘We’re not using you, madam – not the Druids, not I. Andraste chose you. It just took us a while to recognise who She’d chosen. Personally, I was only certain after I saw your torc.’

‘So, if She wasn’t me, and I wasn’t Her, you wouldn’t be helping the Iceni now in their revenge against the Romani? We’d just be cast off like all the other Celtoi tribes who’ve suffered?’

‘I don’t wish to get involved in ‘what ifs’, madam. First of all, Andraste only chose you because you were receptive to her. Your anger, your desire to destroy, to ‘devour’, you said yourself must have been so strong that you opened floodgates in your spirit which might have been held shut by others. You have tremendous powers for one who walks the paths of reality, but it’s not to be unexpected – you are Queen and Priestess and Druid trained, it’s a volatile combination. Whatever, you opened those depths and you called upon that dark inner strength. Now you’ll need Guides, like me, to control what you’ve unleashed.’

Boudicca slumped in awareness and resignation at what must be. ‘At least,’ she comforted herself, ‘it’s not my daught . . .’ She sat up in horror and realisation. ‘She’s within Maeve and Grania, too, isn’t She?’

Lovernios nodded. ‘They offered suitable ‘hospitality’ too. They can be helped to channel the Divine also.’

‘If they accept help.’ She finished Lovernios’ sentence for him. She was thinking of Grania. He nodded again. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Lovernios the Keeper. Recently graduated Bard of Insula Mona. Respected, shall we say, within the Druidic Council. Prince of Hibernica and Chosen, too, in my own way. I’m here as Guide and perhaps . . .’ he leaned over to give her a wet kiss which lingered upon her lips. ‘Lover, too?’

Chapter 4

Waning Moon

Boudicca took Lovernios to her bed that night. They left the forge fires and huddled close in mutual warmth upon a mattress of dried leaves which scrunched as they turned together. Then they slept, wrapped snug in each other’s cloaks.

The whole experience was very strange for her. She had started to wake early again and thus had a while to think it all through before Lovernios stirred. Certainly the Iceni, like the Celtoi as a whole, had a very relaxed attitude to sex. No one would judge her or refer to the incident, there was no shame or obligation incurred, and there’d been many other similar muffled noises around the camp last night. She knew how relaxed and good she should feel, how perfectly free of recriminations, but still she couldn’t shake a feeling almost of guilt. That set her remembering what she’d heard of the Romani matrons whose bodies were assets like those of brood mares, to be kept chaste and precious, and she felt sick at the thought that such people could heap so many responsibilities onto such a natural act.

No, she couldn’t hide from the fact that this was her first coupling since her husband had died. She thought she was ready to resume that part of her life but it had moved her like she had secretly known it would, if only she’d been more honest with herself. Old vulnerabilities had been opened up, reminding her of the possibility of being cared for and the pain of losing that affection. This was why, until now, she had avoided such contact with the men she knew, guessing they wouldn’t be strong enough to hold her through the emotional tide which might erupt if she opened herself to their giving. The wounds were painful and this felt like someone was picking at the scabs.

Lovernios, though, held her constantly through the night, waking at her every movement, all concern at her well-being. She came to, finding strength in his arms which promised protection, and she relaxed into his warm and perfect body curled up around her. There was something about him drawing her to him, something alluring in his eyes which triggered memories of sadness, something impossible to resist. Something which suggested to her that he would be a worthy recipient of her love and that she would be a fool to reject his.

 He was nuzzling her hair, rubbing the bristles of his trim beard against the back of her head, and stroking her body. She rolled over onto her back and kissed him, then they dressed quickly.

‘Shall we start putting your plans into action today?’ she asked.

‘They’re not my plans, madam. They were devised by the Druidic Council, and I hope you’ll come to see them as our plans.’ His eyes were all concern.

‘What do we do first?’ The intimacy of the night was over; she had to make that plain. If there were peoples other than the Iceni about to join them, then she couldn’t afford to be seen as a lovesick little girl.

Lovernios drew himself up to his full height. She liked the fact that he was taller than her, few men were. He was thinking. ‘Give out orders to intensify their training, they don’t have much longer to work off their fat and flab, we’ll have hosted by new moon. Then bring Addedomarus and come with me.’

Boudicca did as he suggested, leaving Grania in charge of the battle training and Sucellus hotting up supplies of weaponry. Then she woke Addedomarus and they followed Lovernios’ long strides, rustling through the forest floor. They walked until they could no longer hear the camp activities. There were very many peoples gathered now, and the raucous noises drowned out all other forest sounds until they’d travelled far enough for the trees to gradually muffle out the various calls, shouts and excited screams. Still they walked, and then the paths eased as if the Faery folk had been out sweeping their way clean with miniature brooms. Boudicca realised that Lovernios had been Finding, but he had done it so subtly that the changes which clarified their route had been almost imperceptible.

They were at the cave which Grania had stumbled into the night before. In the morning light, Boudicca could see how the tunnel had been formed by regularly placed sarsen stones fronting a low hillock. It would be just high enough inside for her to stand upright.

Lovernios was about to enter. ‘No!’ Boudicca warned. ‘It’s a bear’s cave.’

‘How do you know?’ he asked accusingly. ‘This is a holy place, how come you know anything about it?’ He stepped towards her.

‘Bears sleep in caves. This would be ideal. There’re droppings here too,’ she kicked a lump of black wood over, hoping he believed her and didn’t come over to check. ‘Don’t you know anything about staying alive in a forest?’

Lovernios hesitated. ‘I’ll do my Workings outside,’ he announced and beckoned them over to sit with him. Boudicca and Addedomarus joined him as deferentially as if they were his apprentices.

The Druid lit a fire, carefully choosing young green wood which would give off a heady smoke. He sprinkled some dried herbs on it to deepen the scent, arranging the fire so the skein of smoke drifted straight upwards without dispersing, trickling out of the makeshift hearth as if it were the long silky tail of a wildcat.

‘What are we waiting for?’ asked Addedomarus.

‘For the Druids to arrive,’ intoned Lovernios. ‘Then you’ll return with them to your people and then you’ll bring your whole tribe to us here. Some you’ll leave behind to ensure the Romani don’t realise something is afoot, but they’ll have important tasks to do and not long in which to do them.’

‘Well met, Brother Lovernios,’ came a greeting as a hooded figure stepped from behind an oak. ‘I was expecting your bidding.’

‘Well met, Usnach. Please be seated and wait with us.’ Usnach nodded to Boudicca and Addedomarus in greeting. He sat silently. Others joined them, making greeting as they stepped into the small clearing and sat around the fire. Most, but by no means all, were men, cloaked and hooded in black or white, of varying ages but all with the same gentle concern and wisdom showing in their eyes, the same tenderness Boudicca saw in Lovernios. Before long the new arrivals numbered enough to form a circle around the fire with but one gap. They were still silent.

Lovernios looked around at the faces gathered there. ‘Where’s Cathbad? Everyone I summoned is here except for him.’

‘He was delayed at Vernemetum after the Imbolc rituals. He was so concerned at the Romani threat to Insula Mona that he pleaded with everyone with any Gift to set Wards around every sacred site, in the hope the Romani will pass them by.’

A smile played upon Lovernios’ lips. ‘How very like him,’ he commented. ‘If only wars could be won without sacrifice. Never mind for now. You know why you’ve been summoned, you’ve all heard the Council’s decisions: we’re to Work to open the old routes into the forest. All routes are to drive straight to Sucellus’ forge. First, I want all Trinovantes to have access here, then open the forests to all tribes. Let it be known that the Celtoi are hosting to drive out the Romani; Camulodunum is to be our first target. Let any who would fight come to us with ease; connect the woods of Britannia so even the remotest tribe might Find us with speed. Let the trees read the hearts of individuals so any true Celtoi may Find their way to us.’

‘Not the Catuvellauni.’ Boudicca was shocked by Lovernios’ speech.

Lovernios was indignant at her interruption. He made it very clear in his terse response that she’d spoken out of turn.

‘Madam, every Celtoi who seeks to join us will have their heart read by the forest. That means any Catuvellauni or Romani, any sycophantic Regni even, will be doomed to wander for ever in this tangle of thorns. Artio will provide no water, no berries or roots, no comfort of any kind. They’ll be picked off one by one by Her sacred creatures, tormented by the sight of fruit hanging well out of reach and tortured by the trickling sound of sweet water that they can never find. Do you forget, madam, how Hidden we are, how our presence is assured here only so long as Artio and Her forest tolerate us, how we stay at Her whim? Her bountiful Gifts are easy to take for granted, but that is when they start to dwindle.’

Boudicca fumed at his words. She hung her head to contain her anger. She would talk to him in private. Yesterday, she thought, that would never have occurred to her. How quickly everything was changing.

Lovernios continued to address the Druids. ‘We also want to ensure the Romani get a sense of our Powers. Make them aware they’re not only dealing with mortal enemies but also that the entire land rises up to eject them from our shores. Ideally we want every Romani at Camulodunum to spend the last of his days looking over his shoulder, aware of a constant but unspecified threat.’

Lovernios gestured for Addedomarus to speak. ‘I can arrange for things of greatness to fall, our women can sing stories of destruction, our people can start to look confident and free again.’

‘That will supplement what we can do. Do the Romani have any monument which has especial meaning for them?’

‘There is a statue they call “Victory”’, Addedomarus confirmed, ‘It is of a woman. My Gerbfine paid for it.’

‘Good. It sounds particularly symbolic. Can you arrange for it to be toppled, say two nights from now?’ Lovernios chuckled. ‘Perhaps face down as if fleeing from the woods?’

Addedomarus nodded.

‘No.’ Boudicca interjected. ‘Isn’t there something else of equal significance?’ Even at the risk of incurring further wrath, Boudicca felt obliged to disagree. She continued rapidly before Lovernios could object. ‘Andraste is Victory, Victory is Andraste. Whether She is worshipped by Romani or Iceni, the two are the same, only the name changes. You’d be desecrating Her. There must be something else.’

‘Is there?’

‘No.’ Addedomarus shook his head vigorously. ‘Nothing of quite the same meaning for Romani. We Trinovantes never think of it as Andraste; we have no Victory Goddess, until now.’ He shrugged, holding his hands out as if he could do nothing for them.

‘We’ll make sure Andraste is appeased.’

‘Apologising before angering Her won’t right your wrong.’ Boudicca was aware she was being very protective of her Goddess. She felt extremely defensive, as if shielded an unborn child.

‘We have to, madam. Now,’ Lovernios addressed one of the other Druids. ‘I want the Faery invoked. Request that they shriek and wail by night for their lamented lands in the west. Let them do it in whatever place the Romani meet to govern.’

‘There is a place they call “senate-house”’, Addedomarus explained to the Druid.

‘Is there anywhere where sound will carry well? As it does in a cave?’

‘Yes, there is a great open theatre, with step after giant step of stone; each step is many, many seats. Our children often call to each other there and play with their voices.’

‘How would it sound if a wolf was in there, calling to the full moon? Might it sound as if a whole pack of ghouls and ghosts screamed for the entrapment of their spirits?’

‘It maybe make their blood cold.’

Lovernios turned to another Druid. ‘Ask Artio to tame us two wolves for a night of Her choosing. Let them be very vocal wolves!

‘These are all things which look like sabotage.’ He turned back to face the group as a whole. ‘We need something more, something which a superstitious mind will nurture and work at, incorporating all these little inconveniences. We need a Glamour which will appear as an unmistakable message of doom.’ Lovernios was thinking hard. ‘Madam, with your leave, Maeve could weave a river of blood and a vision of what will come to be.’

‘Would it harm her?’

‘No, it wouldn’t harm anyone. It would just look frightening. If she can conjure up those images we all saw of Camulodunum in the basin last night, then she can produce such images upon any water.’ Lovernios was thinking aloud, partly to himself. ‘If that water is still enough then the Scrying can be seen by any number of observers. The Colonia is built by an estuary; she should be able to Scry such images onto it when the waters are fairly still. Any ripples disrupting the images should only heighten the effect of tumbling, unstable buildings.’

Some of the Druids mumbled at the skills he was attributing to Maeve. One or two looked almost in awe. Lovernios held up his hand to gesture for silence.

‘We’ll be able to work out between us when the waters are due to be still from our observations of the moon’s phases, and when a red sunset is likely to clothe the Glamour in a tide of blood. We can work cloaked in invisibility upon the shores. Maeve might be exhausted by the Working, but she won’t be in any danger.’ Lovernios chuckled in delight at his ideas. ‘We will, of course, need some of the Trinovantes to “spot” this dreadful sight and bring the Romani to the lapping shores to share in the terror. Do you think you’ll be able to do that, Addedomarus? Feel free to include as much hysteria as you deem fitting.’

All around Lovernios, heads nodded. His creativity had set many of the others to imagining what could be produced, how terrified and demoralised the Romani could be made to be.

‘It will, of course, need to be followed up very quickly with the sort of total destruction which has so far only been hinted at by our omens. These prophecies must only be seen as preliminaries. Our attack must be perfectly executed and a total surprise. All Celtoi who host upon Camulodunum must be gathered here within days. The descent of the horde must come at the peak of their paranoia, or else our efforts will be wasted. It’s essential,’ Lovernios stared directly at Addedomarus, ‘That we are kept thoroughly informed of what’s happening in the Colonia.’

‘Of course. Each Trinovantes who comes to join you here will bear news, every refugee will find some small way in which to add to the fear of the Romani before they leave their home. Have no doubt, this has been a long while in the waiting.’

‘Then we open the old routes,’ Lovernios announced to the other Druids as if he had been finally convinced he was right to continue with his scheming. ‘When they’re open, Addedomarus, you will return to your peoples and instruct them in our plans, then direct them here in their dribs and drabs. They will be welcome.’ His look told Boudicca not to argue.

Lovernios stood and gestured the Druids to follow him. He led them a little way from the barrow entrance, then they seemed to take up established positions and gestured together, pulling sickles from their robes with which they made cutting motions in the air. They danced an old, old dance, moving in and out of each other’s paths, curving around, seeming to reach the central position and at the last moment sweeping back. They stepped familiar steps, each footfall marking its traditional place. Their robes moved with them so they appeared as strutting ravens, or folded together to look like one vast magpie.

As the ancient dance slowed to a halt, Boudicca noticed a quite tangible change in the feel of the forest. It was as if nature’s chaos had become slightly more ordered. Then the Druids dispersed, as mysteriously as they’d arrived, each walking away into the dense trees, disappearing one by one, the forest swinging over to seal their passing.

Lovernios returned to join Boudicca and Addedomarus at the fire. ‘Now we’ve opened the routes to Sucellus’ forge. Any who’d join us will be able to come directly to us as easily as reaching out to any tree. Addedomarus, I’ll direct you back to your peoples so you can start to effect those things we’d planned.’ Addedomarus nodded. ‘You’ve only a few days before we host. Send anyone, anything even, that is not indispensable directly here. Come and Find me at the forge if you need additional help, and keep us informed. I know it’s been difficult for you to talk in a tongue foreign to yourself and I appreciate that you were making the concession so that the Iceni could understand you better, but at our next meeting it should be in more formal circumstances and I’ll be pleased to act as the translator your rank deserves.’

They clasped hands, exchanging a few words of farewell in Addedomarus’s own language. Then Lovernios pointed out a path leading between two oaks and the Trinovantes’ King set out for it, his form dispersing in turn leaving Lovernios and Boudicca alone.

‘Do you realise, madam, that you’re the only person who doesn’t pay me the respect due to my position?’

‘That begs two questions then, doesn’t it? What exactly is your rank and why do you put up with me?’

Lovernios chuckled again. He put his hands on his hips and gave her an admiring look. ‘I find your attitude so refreshing, I wouldn’t want to risk losing it by telling you.’ Then he cupped her face in his hands and gently kissed her. ‘I take it that’s allowed now no one else is around?’ She smiled softly. ‘Did you actually see the bear when you were last here?’

‘Yes, but it didn’t do any . . .’ She shut her eyes. He knew.

‘I knew something had happened when you went to get Grania because of the way Maeve slipped off. I also knew that both you and Grania were in too much of a state to worry about where you were going, and with the strength of both of your Gifted birthrights blundering around Artio’s forest it was almost inevitable that some sort of Finding was going to take place without either of you realising it. What you see here is a layer deeper than Sucellus’ forge. Fortunately both you and Grania have similar levels of ability and you ended up in the same place. Your ‘skill’ at Finding is somewhat notorious even as far as Insula Mona, so I doubt if you’d have been able to get back without being rescued.’ He dodged out of the way of her punch. ‘There was something of the Divine glowing in your faces when you returned, and a certain placidity in your spirit, so I assumed you’d met Artio Herself.’

‘You had no intention of going in the cave at all when we first got here, did you? Of course not,’ she accused. ‘No one’s going to be able to achieve that snaking effect with wood smoke and get it to curl out of a cave too. It was all a ruse to get information out of me, wasn’t it?’ She stamped up and down wondering how she could have got to be so stupid. ‘If it wasn’t for the fact I seem to have very little choice in anything I do these days, I wouldn’t trust you at all. Now, since what must be must be, why don’t you make it all a little easier on my heart and start being more honest? Stop playing games. Just ask. What do they say about me on Insula Mona, anyway?’

He stroked her hair. ‘You’re very beautiful when you’re angry. I like your eyes, they’re as constant as the sea on a rough day: merciless and turbulent. But the waves can’t help themselves, they just are.’ He paused. ‘Actually, what they say is a sort of compliment: that you don’t like to lose control and always seem to need to influence whatever direction you take. That’s why you have such difficulty Finding, because it’s the only Sensing to require so much relinquishing. Your qualities are rather more vital for a Priestess who is also a Queen, particularly since there are so many natural Finders scattered around. You can always grab one of them to do your bidding, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘For someone who has to walk both paths and be an expert in each, yes, it is very difficult to let go.’ She agreed with him. ‘It would be ideal, perhaps, if I could relinquish just enough. So I could walk ever nearer the Goddess yet without straying further from the material path.’

‘Well now, that so happens to be why we’re here.’

‘Let me guess. There’s something else you have to tell me?’

Lovernios shuffled his feet like a naughty boy. ‘You still have to contact Andraste. It’s necessary. You’ll understand afterwards. There’s still some rawness in you, some healing to be effected. We, these plans, can’t progress until you and Her are one. I’ve brought you here to this place of contemplation. You wear Her torc, the sign that you’re Bound to Her, ready to relinquish everything for Her. Until now you’ve not really meant that; to go on, to succeed, that must change.

‘I’ll await you here until you’re ready to return. I’ll be here to rescue you if you call out, too. You must go into the tomb,’ he gestured to the cave mouth. ‘The tomb of your ancestors, to meet with Her on equal terms.’ He gestured to her not to interrupt. ‘Artio won’t harm you. Yes, She sleeps within, but She’ll bow to Andraste, at least for now.’

Boudicca didn’t move. ‘What if I refuse? How many more things are you going to spring on me like this? What if I fail?’

‘You can refuse. Then we can go back to being slaves and pets of the Romani, and we’ll lose everything we’ve ever known or ever held precious. Or else we host with an unbalanced, unrealistic and uninformed Queen at our lead. You won’t fail, not if you learn what you must learn. You must feel the pulling within. It fairly shrieks at me, madam, whenever I look in your eyes. There’s a need in your spirit for repose and rounding; without it you’ll never move on from the things you’ve seen and suffered.’

‘What if I don’t want to move on? What if I still want to remember the outrages perpetrated upon my daughters, my people, and the very earth that sustains us? What if I want to continue mourning my husband so I’m not free to love you? Yes, that’s what you want, isn’t it? I’ll be easier to manipulate if I follow you around with puppy eyes.’ She wavered. ‘I don’t want to forget Prasutagus. I still love him. At least he was always honest with me.’

‘If you do as I say, you’ll understand I have never lied to you and have never sought to mislead you. You won’t appreciate what I’m saying until you’re able to see things from my perspective. To do that you must make one last, final, leap of faith, madam, and be alone with Andraste. I wouldn’t try and replace Prasutagus in your heart, Boudicca. I had hoped there might be room for the two of us.’

‘Yet again,’ she caught back a sob that nearly escaped her throat, ‘It doesn’t seem like I have very much choice.’ Then Boudicca swirled around, sending her cloak flying out as she marched into the cave. Lovernios reached out to stroke her arm as she left, but she pulled away from his touch and ducked between the sarsen stones without so much as a backward glance. She hoped very much that he was gazing after her longingly – somehow she managed to resist peeping to check.

Within the long barrow there was just enough room to stand for perhaps three people abreast. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. She could hear heavy breathing from way back in the pitch-blackness and deduced it came from the bear, sleeping during the day. She must ensure, above all else, that she didn’t disturb it; she didn’t have Grania’s confidence for wrestling.

The visibility was virtually nil, a thin shaft of tentative daylight from the entrance serving only to illuminate the area immediately around the portal. She wondered how both she and Grania had ever managed to stumble into the cave the night before. Even with the night as black as death and the magnification and distortion the fear of dark casts upon things, she found it difficult to accept it was the same place. She ascribed it all to the magic of the place: it was a sacred site, its nature would change with the day and year and the receptivity of the visitor. She wondered again what it was she was meant to do and just what was meant to happen here.

Adjusting a little more to the available light, she could just make out, as various shades of grey, several side caverns inside the tomb, separated off by low walls of stones, piled flat, each upon the other. Inside each cavern was impenetrable black. She edged a step forward, further back, away from the only available light, towards the thick breathing, but so quiet as to ensure the sleeper wouldn’t be woken. She slipped her other foot forward, convincing herself she was meant to separate from the things she clung to. Right now, the only thing offering any comfort was the light from the entrance, so she kept on moving, consciously shunning her security and the man who awaited her outside. She had to challenge her structures, the things she relied upon, face all her fears.

Nothing was happening. All that was going on was that she was terrifying herself out of her wits and walking into a bear’s den to receive a mauling. And that only if she was very lucky and was going to get off lightly. Perhaps the bear had eaten recently. Perhaps it just sounded like a bear snoring. Perhaps it was really the sleeping of the royal ancestor who slept here. No. That was worse. Don’t think thoughts like that. This was a place of death. There would be many, many remains here of, perhaps, hundreds of people. People of her bloodline. Spirits who knew her. Who watched her. It smelt of death here, musty and damp. It was cold. Was it getting colder? Had the dead awakened?

Boudicca backed herself against a wall and slid down until she was sitting on the wet earthen floor. She reminded herself that the jagged edges biting into her buttocks were jutting flints and very unlikely to be bones. She drew her knees up to her chest and sat, rigid with panic, glaring into the ebony which was all she could see, defying the murkiness to send forth its test. Waiting was worse. Keeping alert, looking all around, convinced of movement where there was none. Her eyes were tiring, darting all around at the imaginary threats she was certain were waiting for her just to drop her guard for a moment. Yes, a split instant would be all they would need for her to lower her vigilance and then she would be at their mercy. So, just as long as she kept up her watching, watching, they would not attack and she would be safe. Eventually Lovernios would come for her and she would be safely outside again and they could laugh about the phantoms she was sure she had seen.

Then, in the stillness, she remembered her husband and his last illness. She remembered the love they had shared over the years, their joys, their tears, their arguments. The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed, his kindness, his touch. How those glinting eyes had turned to pain, then to agony as the illness had eaten into him bit by tiny bit, eroding him from inside, gnawing at his body and his spirit and taking him from her a little more each day. His brave smile as his failing body heaped indignities upon him, and a little squeeze of her hand to tell her he still loved her and appreciated her presence.

Was it any wonder, then, that other more worldly concerns had been pushed aside to care for themselves? That her most fierce priority had been the welfare of Prasutagus? That occasionally she had snapped at others or made rash, unconsidered decisions? No, she wasn’t about to criticise or punish herself for some of the unfitting ways she’d behaved when she was under so much pressure. No. People could understand or judge her forever; she had done what was best for her husband and had survived herself.

Death had taken hold very quickly when it had finally come. Quick and sudden, although the preceding days had seemed drawn out and stretched, she remembered. In hindsight it had all been over so fast. He had pushed away the healers, wanting release, not realising they sought to soothe, not to extend, his sentence. She had comforted him in those moments, like with a frightened child, promising that treatments wouldn’t hurt and poultices wouldn’t sting. Some had. Some had seared and racked his thin, weakened body and she’d caught the accusation of betrayal in his eyes, deducing he could no longer trust even her in a world where everything seemed set to destroy him.

Back then and in the days following she could only flash in return a shamed glance full of apologies at the way of things and whisper, ‘Sorry’.

The funeral had been worse in many ways. On the one occasion when she needed him there beside her, even if just to be, he was gone. There was so much to organise, so much to endure, his mere presence would have been a comfort. Many things had been taken out of her hands by formalities and traditions, but her role had never been explained. Perhaps the part of the widow, the chief mourner, was only felt so acutely by her because of her sensitivities. Perhaps what she had felt was unexplainable and no one could have forewarned her.

They came for her when the body had been readied and the pyre stacked. She’d been left with her daughters, alone and undisturbed. She felt like an embarrassment to the tribe, as if her associations with the deceased rendered her so close to death that she had partly crossed the border out of life herself. Had she belonged with the living or the dead that day? She’d felt set apart by her people, familiar faces would not meet her eye; she was other, the focus of their grief. For one day she was not Boudicca, she was Prasutagus’ widow, her personal identity swamped in her tribe’s sorrow.

The weight of her people’s grief had hung heavily upon her as she walked behind the wicker chariot upon which her husband’s remains lay. It jerked slowly forward to the cemetery of the Iceni. It was a burdensome responsibility where the pressure of so many strong emotions seemed to suffocate her. She felt the collective feelings from those attending the funeral like a blanket. Somehow she coped. Somehow she got through the experience. Somewhere deep within provided some inner strength to draw on to see the day to its close. But it was an alien strength, it hadn’t felt at all like a part of her. She had felt as if she’d been in a trance all day, drugged by a pervading numbness that was surviving not living, lending an aura of unreality to the whole proceedings.

Images invoked themselves unwillingly. Of taking a shaky place amongst the women folk who shrieked and howled to eject their grief, whilst on the opposite side of the pyre stood the men, bedecked as warriors and sounding war trumpets. A cacophony of noise to disguise any unqueenly sobs. Someone lit the pyre and cheery flames licked over and round the body as if tasting and scenting its meal before devouring it completely. It was as if the glowing fire delighted in the sacrifice it had been given. How Boudicca hated those flames then, how she resented their amber warmth which stole her husband before her very eyes. She watched the pyre with pure hatred until it burnt out, seeing abstract shapes of torment in the flames which she took a savage delight in, using the images of cruelty as an unexpected outlet for her anger. Then the ashes were raked in and placed in an urn which was buried amongst the urns of their forebears. The earth was marked with a wooden stick-man who took his place bravely amongst the other male and female markers which pitted the burial field.

And during the whole ceremony no one touched her or spoke to her, too embarrassed she might break, or too frightened of her associations with the dead. Whilst everyone else had seemed to have someone to comfort them, she was different, she was utterly alone. Yet, despite this almost avoidance, her presence had been intrinsic to the whole ceremony; without her, there would have been no focus for Iceni grief. She had been their figurehead for the day. Despite her own very real bereavement needs, her tribe had placed the onus upon her to lead them through their grief: to put the needs of the whole before the needs of the individual. And now, although others might be able to leave that place, part of her would be remaining there forever.

Here in the cave, the whole episode seemed so distant; it was like remembering someone else’s memories.

The front of her tunic was wet. She’d been crying. Had she woken the bear? She listened carefully. Nothing, then the sound of rhythmic, gentle breathing. She sighed with relief, then wondered if Lovernios really was waiting for her outside. What good would he be against a gigantic bear? He was no warrior, that was certain; his lean body was definitely toned although it lacked the muscular definition and scar patterns of a seasoned fighter. Could he work his magic quickly enough to fend off an attack by a raging bear? She still didn’t trust him totally, she realised; she was coming to depend upon him, but she still lacked the essential trust.

She couldn’t explain the strange attraction she felt for him. He looked nothing like her late husband; he was of a longer, less stocky, build with a beard instead of drooping moustaches, but he smiled with his eyes as Prasutagus had. His smell was unfamiliar but safe and musky; she had liked his body smell, wafting from his strangely unblemished skin. It was a good, man’s scent. Certainly, he didn’t possess the usual looks which would normally draw a second glance from her, but there was a fascination with him that she could not deny, some sort of binding she could no longer resist.

How much, then, of her distrust was linked to these strenuous efforts to stop herself falling in love with him? For that, she realised now, was what she had been striving to do. What of her husband, her late husband? What of his memory? Would she be betraying him? Lovernios had already reassured her he didn’t seek to replace Prasutagus. Did she have enough love within herself to love them both? Since when had love been finite? If her intimate relationship with the Goddess had taught her anything, it had been that there need never be any constraints upon the quality or quantity of love.

And how much of her distrust centred upon his strange and incommunicable wisdom, with his secret plans to be hinted at just enough to keep her in line? She realised that in many ways he was right. No matter how much she might resist change, she did have to move on and somehow she would have to find the strength to do so. She understood now that she and the Iceni, even the other Celtoi, had been fools in their dealings with the Romani. Even she had been seduced by the promise of luxuries like sweet wine and pretty trinkets, cosseted by the lure of comfortable town living, civic amenities and soporific pleasures such as under-floor heating. They had paid with metals and dogs, hides and grain, even slaves. How many nameless faces had she personally sent, chained and whipped into vast, creaking ships never to see the shores of Britannia again? No hope for those captives that a raiding party might bring them home. And what had she got in return? Some amber beads, glassware and some empty amphorae, the wine long guzzled in an orgy of waste, to boast to the other Celtoi of Iceni riches.

She’d been tricked. The Romani had demonstrated their consumable commodities and encouraged the Celtoi to procure them. The Romani had funded Celtoi bragging, interpreting it as greed and not tribal pride in displays of wealth. They’d bought all the Celtoi offered for barter, and then they’d taken even more, more that was not on offer. But these Romani were conquerors, not traders, and their promises were nothing against the price of freedom.

Had Lovernios seen this? Would she have listened to him back then if he had tried to explain? She doubted if she would have done; she was too headstrong, she needed to have worked these things out for herself. In his wisdom, with his broader view, he must have understood all these things and known how useless it would have been for him to try and explain. But now it seemed to her as if Lovernios was asking her to do the same as she had had to do at Prasutagus’ funeral: to put the whole before the individual, to preserve and kindle the atrocities performed upon herself and her daughters – not to let the memories heal, but to use them to rouse the Celtoi of Britannia into a frenzy of nationalistic fervour against the Romani. There was reason aplenty for revolt, piled up like so much dry wood; all it needed was one spark to set it alight.

She was intended as the tinder. A sacrifice in a way, but a sacrifice of identity not of life. That other price would come from the warriors she’d lead, some of them, inevitably, to their deaths. If she did as Lovernios asked, if she provided the figurehead to his scheme, she would be seen by many thousands not as Boudicca the woman, but as Boudicca the Queen, Priestess, and Destroyer.

‘And as Boudicca the Incarnation of Andraste.’

Boudicca sat up, alert. She had started to drift away into the realms of her thoughts and imagination, where she was unaware of the present material world. She could no longer hear the bear’s breathing, but she had distinctly heard the voice which had spoken to her from within, the voice that she now recognised as belonging to the Goddess.

‘Is that what is required?’ She asked tentatively.

‘At last, little one, you acknowledge Me. Just a slight shifting over should do.’

Boudicca felt a strange sensation in her skull, like the tension before a thunderstorm or before a headache, then her thoughts seemed to converge into one place, into one side of her head, and then suddenly it was as if she was sharing her psyche with another. Concepts seemed crowded at first as her mind filled with wobbling images, then her thoughts settled like ripples in a well after pebbles have been dropped into it. Clarity returned, but with a sense of compactness as if mentally things were still a squeeze. Clarity yet with the benefit of a perception beyond her own.

She sensed the shared aspect of herself make itself aware of its surroundings, the cave, the forest, the wider land. She shuddered. ‘We would be rid of these Romani, they have no feeling for this land. They have no feeling at all. Everything falls before their order.’ Then she desired to leave the barrow and see Lovernios. Her need of Lovernios was strong.

Almost tripping over the rough floor, she stumbled outside into the warming spring air. The world had depth to it now. Boudicca saw significance where before there had been none; the emphasis of importance had shifted in nature. Lovernios was ruffling the neck of the great bear, lying prostrate before him.

‘Lovernios!’ She called. ‘What have I done? What have I unleashed?’

He looked up. The bear turned and dropped in supplication to her.

‘Beloved.’ Boudicca felt her arms open to sweep Lovernios to her. ‘At last we are together again. How long has it been?’ Then as Lovernios cradled her to him and kissed her forehead, the pressure waned and the Goddess left her once more.

That's the end of the sampler. We hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to find out what happens next, you can buy the complete Mushroom eBook edition from the usual online bookshops or through www.mushroom-ebooks.com.

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About the Author

Helen K Barker has interests in neo-Paganism, the "Celts", and world mythology. She has a BSc and a MSc in Archaeology and has specialised in studying southern Britain in the Iron Age and Roman periods. She draws on her interests, qualifications and experiences as inspiration for her creative writing.

She lives in Hampshire, England, with her husband and two cats.

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