by Ralph Harvey
Below, Suetonius looked up as the whole hilltop exploded in a fireball. “Greek fire has broken many a defence in old campaigns,” he shouted ecstatically, “these Celtic villages are tinder traps.”
Paulus, alongside him, watched the black pall of smoke billowing out away from the advancing soldiers, “We judged the wind right and it has remained constant, see?” he pointed to the hilltop. “They are being forced out into the open. With a shield wall in front of them and a fiery death behind them, they are trapped commander.”
Suetonius checked his horse, “Triple formation” he ordered, “Form a shield wall. Advance slowly in line and force them back into the flames, let nature do our job for us.”
Lined up, the war horn now sounded and a line of steel, armour and wood marched up the hill. Only the top of their coolus helmets showing, a row of pilas pointed forward in the infamous hedgehog.
By now the Iceni fighting men were alongside their leader. A giant of a man jumped excitedly onto a pile of logs.
“Now warriors all, let us live one last time as in the old days, and let us go out of this life as Iceni men!”
Another took up the cry. “Let us die in battle as a warrior should!”
As the shouting reached a crescendo, Darien held his war shield aloft.
“So be it!” he shouted, “gather on me!”
Hrodry sprang to the fore, “Boar’s head!” he shouted adding, “I will be the first to break through the Roman lines. Who will form the arrow behind me?”
Everyone ran to take up position for the infamous ‘V’ formation. When in place, each man held his shield with his left arm crooked and raised, his right with his sword aloft held high in salutation.
“Hail Bellanous! Hail Boudicca!” They cried. “Great Bellanous, great Andraste, accept our souls this day!” Then they started a slow jog trot down the hill.
Nearing the first Roman line, they increased the pace, and when they considered the distance was right, Darien’s war-cry echoed throughout the hills.
“Charge!” he cried, “For Boudicca and Britannia!”
Behind the Roman lines Suetonius and his mounted troops watched.
“This is not cavalry country Paulus — this will be finished man to man soldier versus warrior!”
Paulus agreed, “Aye commander, but look, they are going to make a fight of it. See? They leave the village and have formed a boar’s snout. We will not be pinning them back against the flames, they have started their run down the hill even as we watch.”
Hrodry to the fore, Lugh and Darien behind him, then three, then five, then seven, forming the feared triangle affectionately known as the boars snout or arrowhead, swept forwards.
When they were upon the Roman front lines, sidestepping the levered pilas, Hrodry struck the first spear aside with his shield and physically shoulder barged his Roman adversary’s shield. The high ground, plus the momentum of his run, combined with his tremendous strength had the effect desired.
Hrodry, a six foot two giant of a man was ideal to be the tip of the ‘snout.’ Reeling backwards with the sheer force of the impact, the unfortunate Roman fell, only to be transfixed on Hrodrys spear. Unable to retrieve it, jammed firmly in the man’s armoured plate, Hrodry rushed with his sword at the second line. Behind him, the packed Iceni poured through the breach, swinging the Roman line back. The Romans closed ranks and fell upon them from behind.
As the survivors swept down, the next line of Roman infantry prepared to receive them, unworried about their numbers as the Celts were reduced to a pitiful handful that would soon be butchered. Then, to their horror, the heavens appeared to fill with thousands of Celts, and there in the fore crashing through, was Boudicca, her hair flying through the powdery mist of the clouds, a ghostly army of the dead had joined Darien in his last vainglorious charge.
Hrodry hit the second line and again it broke, this time as much through fear of the phantoms riding with the attackers than the assailants themselves. But by now Roman gladius’ and pilas were reducing the Iceni numbers, for as Hrodry and Darien swept through, Lugh fell, a Roman pila in his back, then a cloud rolled back across the blue heavens and Boudicca had gone.
From 108 souls that broke the front line, only 67 made the second. Hrodry and some 14 struck the last line, but this time it held and like angry wasps the soldiers fell upon them. Roman gladius’ rose and fell until all was still.
Suetonius sat quietly, fearful of what he had seen in the heavens: wave after wave of ghostly riders and men had appeared … or had they? As he looked again there was only swirling cloud. Watching the carnage, inwardly admiring the last brave charge, he dismissed the vision from his mind. He was victorious, the day was his, and now there would be fearful retribution throughout Britannia. On the hilltop, the inferno still raged, the whole of the encampment a glowing mass of scarlet and yellow. Even at that distance the heat could be felt. He looked at the sky again and shivered inwardly. There was only the sun shining through the blue sky as the white cumulus clouds rolled across the heavens.
“An illusion Paulus,” he muttered, “a mirage. I saw such things in the deserts of Afrique.” He reined his horse, “Come, there is nothing for us here.”
“And Boudicca? Paulus enquired.
Suetonius looked up at the scarlet glow on the skyline, “There were no women in that charge. She was not there and nor has she escaped. It can only mean that she is dead.” He pointed upwards once more, “That is her funeral pyre we are witnessing.”
Recall
A long drawn out blast on a horn sounded recall, and obediently the Romans left the hillside, taking their dead and wounded with them. Suetonius, watching closely, frowned when he saw how many of his army had fallen.
“Bury them in the grove there,” he commanded, “there is no time for cremation, I want to leave this cursed place.”
Shallow graves were quickly dug in the soft earth and the bodies laid out only inches beneath the surface. Covered carts were brought and the capsarius’ assistants laid the wounded in them, and the columns were ready to move out.
“Give the order to march centurion,” cried Paulus, and dutifully the men had them on the move moments later. Their route taking them to the base of the bloodied hill, as they made for flat ground.
Suetonius’ horse stiffened as a crash of burning timbers from the village, echoed through the valley, sending a great shower of blazing sparks upwards in the process. He paused at the hillside and saw, from the direction of the burning village, a snow white hare running down the hill. It was zig-zagging amongst the fallen Iceni dead, then stopped and raised up on its hind legs intently watching the departing troops, its paws bright red with the blood of the fallen, in sharp contrast to the snow white fur of its body.
Fearfully, all, including Suetonius, made the sign of the horns with their fingers to avert evil, then the animal bounded back up the hill as the sun began to set, once more it sat there, paws upraised, a black silhouette against the golden orb of the setting sun, a halo of bright orange around it. And in a blink, it was gone.
Survivors
Cantis had arrived at the brow of the high ridge that overshadowed the great mound, guided by the plume of smoke streaming skywards. He watched the giant funeral pyre, which had once been the village, from his vantage point, and could see the retreating and now victorious Roman legions leaving, their work now done. The Iceni Queen was destroyed, and with her death, the last hope of Britannic freedom.
He turned to the small band of survivors who had escaped with him.
“We are too late to help, and would have been too few to aid them.”
He glanced down to the hollow, then to the hillside scattered with bodies from that last vainglorious heroic charge. He then looked at the Romans disappearing in the distance.
“Give them two hours to get clear and we will move down and lay our brave warriors to rest,” he glanced at the copper and silver talisman that Treva had placed for luck upon his wrist, “then we will ride n
orth and console our people when they hear the news that our Queen is now no more, and seek out Salinas and Treva.” He rose in the saddle, “Roman retribution will be hard, we must bow the knee once more: but one day our land will be free again, though I fear it shall not be in my lifetime.”
With sorrowful hearts they waited for nightfall, then by the light of the full moon they buried their dead brothers.
The following morning they gathered up the charred bones of the villagers from the hill top and laid them reverently in a large pit alongside their dead men folk, then silently they headed east to Siluria and hopefully succour from the dreadful aftermath they knew would follow.
Aftermath
Britannia remained under the Roman heel for 400 years and as predicted revenge for the uprising was brutal. The Roman legions ravaged the land from coast to coast. Villages were burnt and their inhabitants slaughtered as the Romans wreaked a gory and unbridled vengeance. Crops were burned, stores destroyed, and wells filled in as Suetonius fury went unchecked.
Eventually his excesses alarmed Rome herself and as revenue from Britannia diminished, Caesar eventually recalled him. Petronius Turpilianus was sent to replace him and rebuild the country to pacify its inhabitants.
With the recall of Suetonius Paullinus a new era commenced and never again would the Romans estrange themselves from the common people. A new renaissance began, with Roman immigration and settlement encouraged, eventually leading to a Romano-Celtic race who intermarried over a 400-year span.
Roman laws were instituted that form the basis of our laws to this day. Roman ways and Roman culture became universally accepted and when they eventually went, they left behind a stable, prosperous and civilised country.
Regretfully it did not last. Within a space of a few short years, without the guiding hand of Rome, Britannia fell back into what we now refer to as the ‘Dark Ages.’
Present Day
The sun’s rays filtered through the budding trees, bringing life to the primroses and bluebells emerging through the short grass below. Huge oaks and beech grew together with silver birch and ash, upon which blackberries had encroached. Squirrels scavenged in the branches, rabbits mated and burrowed, and at the far end a pair of badgers had excavated their sett. Amongst all this, birds nested and butterfly wings gave their iridescent flashes of fire and gorgeous colour. It was a hive of activity and a scene of peace.
This was the Boudiccan hill fort, that precious village where the great British Queen Boudicca, now better known as Boadicea, had been born, had lived: learnt to hunt deer, for the cony or rabbit had not been known in Britain before the coming of the Romans. This was where she had grown, married and borne two daughters to Prasutagus, and had been a happy wife and Queen.
For months after Prasutagus’ death she had been inconsolable, shutting herself away from everyone. Eventually the Queen in her had taken over once more, and she ruled her people from the hill fort with justice. Here she had been born, and here, on that fateful day in AD 61, Boudicca had died.
The stream where she had bathed is still tinkling away at the base of the hill; a little wider now, the banks having eroded over the years and a little deeper. Occasionally a Celtic coin has been found, thrown into the stream as an offering to the Old Gods years before, or on the land, alongside the occasional arrowhead, brought to the surface by some burrowing rabbit.
Nothing has changed except that the healing hands of nature and time have clothed the old site in a mantle of pure emerald. The deadly nightshade still grows amongst the nettles, and the death cup and red-topped fly agarics nestle side by side at the foot of the beech trees.
Little do the locals realise that ‘old hill fort — ancient monument’ as marked on the ordnance survey map, contains such history, nor that beneath the little tumulus, slightly raised above the ground in the centre of the circle of oaks, slept Boudicca and her daughters, the faithful Corrianus still guarding her, spear in hand, the eternal watcher for all time at the tombs entrance.
The grave, barely discernible, is bathed regularly in the rays of the sun as an oak tree, sacred to the old ways, reached up, growing steadily towards the green canopy above. Now Boudicca is at rest, forever, and ever.
Her body has never been found to this day.
Author's Notes
‘Boudicca — Queen of Death’ is based on historical facts. It was one of the bloodiest and most infamous periods in British history, as the uprising of the massed Britannic tribes led by the Iceni under Queen Boudicca, slaughtered, maimed, raped, and mutilated, in an orgy of violence. They committed some of the worst atrocities the human mind could devise in order to strike fear into their enemy with an inverted and depraved type of psychological warfare.
Always a warlike people they revered the heads of their enemies who they slew, and were notorious for their skill and bravery in battle, but in AD 43 the superior might of the heavily armoured Roman army with their superior tactics eventually crushed all opposition. Many tribes, realising the hopelessness of resistance to such a resolute invader, bowed the knee and became client kingdoms. Such was the ultimate fate of the Iceni in AD 43 who also yielded and made peace.
Resistance soon started to fester under the harshness of the Roman yoke as those who had made treaties with the Roman scavengers soon realised that they were only slightly better off than those who fought bitterly to the end. Within two years of the invasion the Romans had control of Britain, although resistance was still continuing under the brilliant leadership of a Silurian by the name of Caratacus.
Caratacus employed hit and run tactics in one of the most successful guerrilla campaigns ever known, striking from ambush he continuously harassed the occupying forces of Rome. In AD 51 he forwent his tried and tested strategy and decided he was now strong enough to engage the Romans on their own terms in the open.
Caratacus was successful and the Roman legions suffered a humiliating defeat, exhilarated Caratacus pushed his advantage home with disastrous results. The Romans realising their mistake sent in more legions to crush the rebellion and in the following battle Caratacus was soundly beaten. He fled to Siluria (Wales) and sought sanctuary from the Brigantes who were led by the treacherous Queen Catamandua, a half-sister of Queen Boudicca, whose later exploits would all but erase her from history in the years to come.
Catamandua secure in the vastness of the Silurian hills suffered the Roman conquerors and curried favour from them continuously. Treacherously seizing the rebel leader Caratacus, she had him bound and handed over to the Romans, an act that betrayed the fundamental customs of the Celtic nation’s hospitality to a fellow Celt, and an act that would damn her in Celtic eyes forever.
The great rebellion was finally crushed but the seeds of discontent continued to grow as taxes, land seizures, and Ill-treatment of the Indigenous population increased to unbearable proportions. Britannia for years was a tinder box about to explode as a cold smouldering hatred of the invader gathered in momentum, all It needed was a spark, and this came in AD 61.
The actions of one single man were to bring about the slaughter of over 200,000 Romans, mainly civilians and close on 70,000 Roman legionaries, in an horrific uprising that was unparalleled in its cruelty, both during the rebellion and the ghastly aftermath that followed.
The setting for this drama was in the stronghold of the Iceni tribe in the area we now know as Norfolk. It was here that Catus Decianus in a fit of temper and pique had the great Queen Boudicca stripped and flogged before her people, and her daughters raped before her eyes, simply for refusing to pay a false and unjustified tax. Enraged the humiliated the Queen rode to outlying tribes displaying her bloodied and bruised back, stirring them into rebellion.
Inexorably war clouds gathered and the tribes, one by one, rose to throw off the Roman yoke. Towns fell and cities burned as the rampaging Celtic army razed and ravaged the land in a gigantic bloodbath of unbridled revenge and resentment. The lucky ones were those that died in battle. For those captured, the cross,
the gibbet, and the stake awaited them after hideous torture and mutilation. Roman blood flowed throughout the length and breadth of Britannia, neither maid, matron, nor child was spared.
In swift succession Camulodunum (Colchester) the capital fell in a welter of blood and atrocities, followed by Londinium (London) and Verulamium (now St Albans). In the course of his investigation the mystery of how Verulamium, the strongest city in Britain and deemed impregnable, fell so swiftly is equally answered, and culminates with a plausible explanation of why Queen Boudicca’s final resting place has never been found to this day.
A vast Celtic army over 200,000 strong fell upon the last vestiges of the once great Roman army which had been reduced from 70,000 to less than 7,000 battle-weary men, tired, wounded, and hopelessly outnumbered, convinced that a hideous death awaited them.
Suetonius Paulinus was a brilliant commander. He placed his men on high ground between three hills where the approach narrowed, and waited. As the sun was at its apex the vast Celtic army charged.
Within minutes the mass of chariots were jammed together, wood and wheels splintered, and the occupants crushed. Boudicca now signaled full retreat, but to her horror found the narrow entrance to the valley was blocked by hundreds of carts as peasants entered in their thousands to loot the dead. Unable to turn a terrible slaughter now took place as the legions wrought their revenge
According to the Roman historian Tacitus, the dead were numbered at over 125,000, for the loss of only 400 Roman soldiers — but does the victor write history I ask?
Britain was to live under the Roman heel for the next 350 years.