“We will not have wars, either,” the boy informed her. “Too many people die or get captured and sold as slaves.”
“That’s silly,” said the girl. “If you have enemies, you have to have wars. I already know how to fight. Let me use your sword. I’ll show you.”
And they spent an afternoon together, trading sword techniques and competing with their slingshots, the only weapon Boudica had at the age of seven, before they went back to their families and never saw each other except from a distance until the day they stand before each other, almost eye to eye, Boudica being slightly taller.
“I do remember,” she says. “You told me you would be king, and so you are.”
“And you told me you would be my best warrior.”
He smiles at her, but Boudica remains unmoved.
“You have no need of warriors,” she says. “You have made your peace.”
She does not say, peace at a price or accuse him of having a price, but her words stir up the air around them, charge it, and everyone shifts nervously, as if they are cattle who sense a predator nearby.
“Boudica, come. Let’s not keep our guest standing,” her foster father attempts to intervene.
“Boudica, daughter of the great druid Lovernios, whose name is known to all the tribes,” says Prasutagus, “I, too, serve the combrogos. A king always needs warriors to guard the peace.”
Boudica bows her head, whether in deference or to mask her dissent, no one knows.
“But this we do know,” Branwen concluded. “For whatever reason, Prasutagus began to court Boudica or to spend a great deal of time with her. No formal marriage negotiations. Not until the new governor decreed that all the tribes south and east of the rivers Severn and Trent must be disarmed, even the collaborating tribes.”
“Publius Ostorius Scapula, the same general that defeated Caratacus,” Viviane supplied. “The second governor, appointed about four years after the invasion. For all his victories or because of them, he died of exhaustion after a year in office. None of them seem to last long. I am proud to say that the Holy Isles are considered a hardship post. In fact, we have heard that the troops themselves rebelled on the eve of the invasion and had to be shamed into going through with it. So far, we’ve routed four governors, and a fifth one is just being installed. Gaius something or other.”
Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, I did not say aloud. I did not want them to know I knew anything about him.
“Let’s get back to Publius’s decree,” I said. “How did an imperial order to disarm persuade Boudica to marry?”
“There was an uprising, of course,” said Viviane. “Led by the Iceni. We think Boudica instigated it.”
“No one knows for certain why she agreed to marry,” began Branwen.
“Or why he went through with it,” said Viviane.
“But there’s a story,” I said. “Tell it.”
Again, as I listened to Branwen, everything else fell away. I felt Boudica’s rage at the decree, saw her fling herself onto her favorite horse, a silvermane mare without bothering with reins or saddle. She rides hard to Prasutagus’s compound, a Roman-style villa that Boudica has refused to enter till now. She strides barefoot over the warm tiles with their wasteful underfloor heating and confronts Prasutagus where he reclines with his retainers at the midday meal. She will not sit down or accept refreshment, and so he stands to meet her and tells the others to leave them alone.
“You once told me that when you were king there would be no bullying,” she skips the preliminaries. “Do you remember that promise? Or do you dismiss it because a child made it to another child?”
“I do not dismiss that promise or any word that I have given.”
“Then you will not cooperate with this decree.”
He does not answer soon enough to satisfy Boudica.
“When an invading power insists on disarming the people,” she presses, “what do you call that?”
“Protecting their interests, protecting their citizens who have settled here in peace.”
“Wrong,” she says flatly, “it’s bullying. You are making yourself willfully blind. Or you would see: the Romans want to reduce us to slaves, and if you cooperate, though you call yourself king, you will be no better than a slave yourself. As for me, I will never be a slave. I will stand alone and fight if I have to, fight to the death, but I will resist.”
And she turns and stalks away.
“Boudica!”
What is it about his voice that makes her pause? It is not anger; it is anguish, longing.
She turns; she gives him one more chance.
“You can’t do it alone. Even the tribe can’t do it alone. That will only lead to useless carnage. The tribes must agree, all of us, the ones who have made our peace with the Romans and the ones who have not. Be my queen, Boudica. We will go to the tribes together. We will show them that the old ways and the new ways can be one way for the good of the combrogos.”
Boudica stands still, so still.
“Resistance,” she says, “that is my bride price. Nothing less, nothing more.”
“I will not see my people disarmed,” he says. “I will go with you among the tribes.”
She waits again. Can she be sure of what he has and hasn’t promised?
“The marriage will take place tonight at my foster father’s home,” she says. “I will go now and tell them to prepare.”
And with that she quits the villa.
“The point is,” Viviane’s voice brought me back to the present. “whichever version you believe, they both married for political advantage.”
“We don’t know that,” Branwen countered. “Their intentions may have been honorable, even so. And they succeeded, don’t forget. The Roman governor rescinded his decree. The tribes retain their weapons.”
“That’s just what makes me suspicious,” said Viviane, “because, in fact, they didn’t succeed. The uprising was put down. Why didn’t the Romans disarm the tribes then? Instead of being punished for the rebellion, they were in effect rewarded.”
“Maybe the governor realized disarming the tribes was impossible,” argued Branwen. “He’d made his point by defeating them in battle. He could afford to be magnanimous.”
Viviane shook her head vigorously.
“I think Prasutagus was playing both sides the whole time. He appeased the resisting tribes by marrying Boudica and lent her credibility among the compliant tribes. Very likely he also gave the Romans information that led to the rebels’ defeat. I have no doubt he persuaded the governor that if the tribes were stripped of weapons, he would be deposed as a king friendly to Rome and the tribes would be re-armed by hostiles. And, as I said before, he may have agreed to spy on the druids through his wife, which could explain why we haven’t heard much from her.”
“We know that she has given birth to two daughters,” put in Branwen.
Two daughters. My granddaughters!
“How old?” I asked. “What are their names?”
“The older one must be nearly thirteen. I am not sure about the younger one. Their names are Gwen and Lithben, or so we’ve heard,” Branwen answered. “It’s been a long time since Boudica left us. Prasutagus may be good to her; he may be good for her. She may have made peace with her life.”
“Peace?” Viviane sounded skeptical. “It’s not in her nature.”
Branwen and Viviane continued to debate whether or not essential change was possible, Branwen’s examples tending to the literary and Viviane’s to the legal. I realized as I stopped listening, they had never left the druid groves from which I had so long ago been cast out to a life that had buffeted me about even as I stubbornly insisted on my purpose. Had my essential nature changed? Had I found or made any lasting peace?
“Maeve, what are you doing?”
Only when Branwen spoke did I notice that I had gotten to my feet. The other two also rose, but neither one reached out a restraining hand.
“I am going to find Boudica, of cours
e. It’s why I came back, not that I am not happy to see you again.”
“And nothing we have said makes any difference to you?” asked Viviane. “You still mean to traipse off across country without a plan and without official sanction or help from the druids?”
“Like they’d give it!” I rolled my eyes at Viviane. It made me feel young again. Clearly my essential nature had not changed much. “More likely I’d end up out to sea again, if I was lucky, or pounded into a pit.”
“It’s hard to say,” Viviane admitted. “But Branwen and I could make a case for clemency.”
“Thank you for that, Viviane, and I may need your help one day. For now I’ll try my luck on the open road. If you would tell me where the road is, I’d be grateful.”
“There is only one main road,” said Branwen. “Wyddelian, it’s called. It runs all the way from Mona to Londinium and beyond to the Roman port. It’s an old road, but the Romans have paved it with stone almost halfway.”
As Branwen spoke, I remembered my vision of the hard road, my heart pounding louder than my horse’s hooves.
“Travel east along it, and when you reach the territory of the Catuvellauni, ask the way. You’ll be leaving the Roman road there and heading northeast,” Viviane said. “Just remember, if you ever need or want to find Mona again, the Wyddelian road runs both ways.”
“And if you find Boudica,” added Branwen, “I mean when you find Boudica, for surely you will, give her our greetings. Tell her we remember her with love and that we know she has always kept faith with the druids of Mona.”
“We don’t know that,” cautioned Viviane, her tone much gentler than her words. “But say it anyway.”
“I will,” I promised.
Then all three of us just stood and looked at each other, not wanting to say goodbye.
“Let’s go to the top of the Tor before we go,” I said. “You know, finish walking the spiral path to the place where all things are revealed.”
“An absurdly exaggerated claim,” grumbled Viviane. “That’s priestesses for you. All visions, no traditions.”
But she led the way out of the intimate darkness we had shared into the shock of light and cool, fresh air. At first I wondered how it could still be daylight. Had no time passed at all? Then I realized the light had shifted direction. It was the morning of a new day. It seemed like a good omen. Morning always does.
The rest of our spiral climb was not long, and soon we stood on the smooth, grassy top of the Tor in a strong wind that for some reason made us throw back our heads and laugh. In order to anchor ourselves, we took hands, facing out. Together we could see the round horizon of all that is, the green earth, veined with blue water, the homely smoke of cook fires, the herds of sheep and herds of clouds.
Slowly as if of one accord, we began to circle round and round. Maybe it was dizziness, maybe it was the long sleepless night, or maybe the priestesses’ claim was true, but I found that I could see beyond the horizon to the hard road I would travel, and then when I turned to the west again, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks and nearly made us all lose our balance.
“What is it, Maeve?” asked Branwen. “What do you see?”
“Dwynwyn’s Island.”
“Well, at least you’re looking in the right direction,” said Viviane. “So what about it?”
I shook my head. I did not want to tell them the rest. That I had seen myself there, looking out over the straits that were as red as Dwynwyn’s robe, the robe she had bequeathed to me.
“I will return to Mona one day,” I said. “That’s all I know.”
I dropped their hands and we turned toward each other into a triple embrace.
PART TWO
Fire
Daughters Of Lovernios
CHAPTER TWELVE
PASSING THROUGH
FOR SO MANY YEARS she had been an ache, an absence, a hidden sorrow, a secret shame, not shame that I had borne her, but that I had lost her and never sought her till now. In my only memory of her, she was fierce, red, tiny, latching onto my breast as if she would never let go. I could still feel the small warm weight of her; I could still feel the emptiness when I woke to find her gone.
Now I had directions to the country where she was queen. I knew her name and the names of her husband and children. I knew her dream had been thwarted, just like her father’s. I knew she looked like him, or like me, or like both of us.
I knew she believed I had abandoned her.
That knowledge propelled me forward and filled me equally with urgency and dread. Each day we travelled east, I also felt the pull of the west, despite the terrible things Dwynwyn insisted I would witness. It was like riding a breaking wave and being caught in an undertow all at once. Maybe I was simply homesick for my mountain cave. There was a smaller cave on Dwynwyn’s Isle, and the well of eels, and the sheep that looked like no others with their strange markings and wildly twisted horns. And the sound of the waves and the tides coming and going in the straits and the wind whooshing over everything….
“Mother,” Sarah had a way of knowing when I was drifting and pulled me back sharply sometimes. “Look. That must be a Roman fort. It’s huge.”
We had been riding for several days now on the Wyddelian Road since we parted with Branwen and Viviane in the country of the Silures. The going had been fairly easy, round hills (of perfect breast-like proportions) rising to the right, forming a ridge, and rolling land to the left that was now spreading out into a plain through which a river meandered. We all looked where Sarah was pointing to a vast walled complex with watch towers at regular intervals.
“Bloody Romans,” said Alyssa, as she always did when we encountered anything that smacked of their influence, however convenient it might be, like the well-maintained road we were traveling right now. “They’ll likely be thick on the ground from here on out. This is probably where they base themselves for campaigning against the western tribes.”
“One of the places,” put in Sarah. “There’s more than one occupying legion.”
“What do you say about a little detour into those hills?” Bele sounded nervous. “This road will probably take us right past the fort.”
“Why should we?” Alyssa became belligerent. “We have as much right as anyone to travel these roads.”
“The Romans might dispute that right,” Sarah countered. “None of us are citizens. None of us belong to any tribute-paying tribe. We’re on our way to visit a tribe that once led a rebellion, however docile they may have been since. You could make a case that we are outlaws. They might want to detain us for questioning—or other purposes.”
Alyssa blew a raspberry at the idea of any soldier interfering with her, but she made no further objection to turning from the hard road to follow a stream up the fold of a hill to more sheltered terrain. I did notice that no one had asked my opinion, but it didn’t bother me as much as perhaps it should have. Since we had turned east, I had become strangely passive.
As soon as we left the road, I again had that sense that we crossed through some portal into another world. Or rather that the Roman world was superimposed on this older one, older than the coming of the Celts, a world where water, soil, and rock ruled and trees led their deep-rooted, sheltering lives. We rode for awhile along a footpath that ran parallel to the ridge top and gradually climbed until we came to a narrow valley hidden in the fold between two swelling hills, backed by the ridge. We paused on the top of one of the hills and looked down the steep slope to the valley floor that was already in shadow.
“It might be good to make camp down there for the night,” said Alyssa. “You probably can’t even see it from the plain; it would blend right into the ridge from a distance, and there’s most likely a stream somewhere.”
“I want to be sure that we can make a quick getaway,” cautioned Bele. “I wouldn’t want to be backed against the ridge. The footing might be treacherous for the horses, if we had to make a run for it.”
These were the
kinds of things we considered whenever we made camp. Why did I suddenly feel panicked, almost sick to my stomach? Why did I feel that I did not so much want to set foot in that valley, let alone sleep there? Let’s go on, I wanted to say, but something had happened to my voice, something was happening to my head. I couldn’t hear anything over the din.
“Hush!” three voices demanded of me.
I must have cried out, but I hadn’t even known it, hadn’t even heard it over the strange clamor. Now suddenly everything was quiet. The birds had stopped singing. I could hear a trickle of water somewhere and the sound of horses’ hooves on the other side of the valley. All of us tensed, and our horses did, too.
Then we saw them: five soldiers on horseback, directly facing us on the opposite hill. I caught the glint of a general’s insignia on one man’s chest, the one in the middle.
“I think they’ve seen us,” Sarah spoke in a low voice. “But I don’t think they’re on military maneuvers or the general wouldn’t be wearing that crested helmet. I’d say he’s on a tour of inspection, getting the lay of the land.”
“Well, I say we cease being part of the scenery,” said Bele. “Let’s disappear. Now.”
“If we turn tail, they might pursue,” objected Alyssa.
“We’d have a head start,” Bele reasoned. “To follow us, they’d have to cross the valley or go around it.”
“Let’s wait a moment and see what they do,” said Sarah. “We have no reason to run.”
“We have no reason to face them, either,” argued Bele.
“Yes, we do.” I surprised us all. “I do.”
For suddenly I knew, it had to be him, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the new governor, making the rounds of all the forts. Now I had another chance to deliver my warning to him, the one I had forgotten when we rushed off to find Joseph. Before anyone could stop me, I raised my hand and signaled to him in what I hoped was a nonthreatening gesture. He raised his arm in return.
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