by Manda Scott
He clasped Airmid’s arm as he had once clasped Odras’s. Foolish that it had ever seemed greater than friendship. “Go,” he said. “Breaca’s right. There is nothing to be won here but a hero’s death and that for nothing if everyone dies. Leave now and take the children. I will see that the line holds strong. The legions will pay dearly for each step forward.” Turning to his other side, he gave Dubornos the warrior’s salute, the first time he had done so. “You must go with them. The dreamers need a warrior’s protection. Sing of us later.”
Dubornos’s smile shone in the mist. A childhood of enmity lifted from his shoulders. He made the singer’s salutation of greatest honour, his eyes wet. “The song is already made.”
“No.”
“I won’t leave you.”
Airmid and Breaca spoke together. Airmid’s voice, pitched higher, was best heard. “Caradoc, you can’t stay. If Breaca lives, you must live. The dream does not lie. And this is your land. Only you can lead the way out. Go now with the others. The dreamers will hold the line. It is what we have lived for.”
“What?” Breaca laughed, loosely and out of control. “Airmid, are you mad? What will you do? Throw pitchers of fire at the legions?”
“Macha dreamed the line and there were dreamers in it.”
“Which ones?”
They argued against each other, against the dream, against time. The songs of the fighting Trinovantes became weaker, became the animal screams of the wounded and dying. Breaca read the pain of betrayal in the faces around her. The Boudica should not desert the site of her victory, even in the face of certain defeat. Shutting her ears to the cackle of the elder grandmother, she raised her voice to carry and said, “I will not leave this place unless every warrior who bears the serpent-spear rides with me—and their dreamers. If so much as one stays, we all stay.”
That settled it for them. More than one would stay, given the chance. The warriors smiled their thanks, raised their weapons and turned to face the enemy. The plan died as it had been born.
“No! You will go when and where you are told. Do you think this fog is an accident? Do you?”
It was Macha who spoke, standing in the centre of the line of dreamers, her back to the fire so that the light flared red around her and her shadow swayed and swooped across them all. Her voice was god-given, penetrating far beyond the walls of fog. “In the time of Caesar, Onomaris and all the dreamers called on Manannan, god of the sea, for aid. The gods heard their plea and gave the storm that wrecked the invaders’ ships. So again have we called on Briga and Nemain to aid their people and they have granted us this fog. What worth is it if we do not use it as they have told us?”
Caradoc said, “We will use the fog to fight.”
Anger raised Macha higher. Her voice flayed him, and the warriors who had nodded agreement.
“Against four legions who have broached the river? I think not. You will use it to buy yourselves honour and glory and an easy death. What do you care for those left alive in a land without leaders, without dreamers, without warriors to carry the battle? You are selfish beyond all who have gone before. The gods will abandon you in death.” To Breaca, in a voice of utter contempt, she said, “The elder grandmother gave the last strength of her life to bring you a dream of untold power. It is your choice alone if you cast it aside. Do not expect her thanks when you meet her in the lands of death.”
She stepped away from the fire. The flames guttered and sank. The fog wavered and the Romans, seeing them, cheered. They were a dozen spear-throws away and the Trinovantes who held them could be counted in spare hundreds, not thousands.
Breaca stepped into the place before the fire. She felt the wall of heat behind her and heard the sucked-in breaths of those around. Ardacos raised his stolen shield as a mirror and she saw herself reflected in the boss, red-haired against a red fire with red fog around. She felt cold, and torn by the lash of Macha’s tongue. She raised her shield and shored up her voice as Maroc had once taught her, that she might carry the authority of the Warrior.
“Macha is right,” she said clearly. “The gods must be heard. We will go as she has asked. All who bear the serpent-spear will take the horses and the children. Those of the sun hound will stay and fight. Caradoc will lead those who are leaving.”
The pyre hissed as if devouring new wood. The fog swirled and hid the battle lines. The gods could not have spoken more clearly. A long, moaning sigh swept the waiting defenders, like the first harbingers of mourning. Breaca felt the weight of their resistance lift.
She was alone and very cold. Caradoc gripped her wrist as he had in the night and, leaning down from his horse, pressed his lips to her head. Breaca would have spoken, but the words would not come. He nodded, grim-faced and silent, and turned his horse to the north. Every warrior who bore her mark turned to follow. Within a hundred heartbeats, the exodus had started. Silent, wide-eyed children were grasped and lifted onto saddles, their voices like reeds in the fog, asking if they were being taken to the fighting. Spare horses were untethered and took dreamers or children, two or three at a time. In the line of the dreamers, men and women took their leave. Of the Eceni, only Macha stayed, and Gunovic. Luain mac Calma had parted swiftly from them both and rode near the front with Caradoc. All that needed to be said between them had been spoken in the night, knowing what was to come. All who mattered had known, it seemed, but Breaca. The knowledge was a knife that scored at the rawness of her heart. She pushed the bear-horse forward to Macha. “How long have you known?” she asked.
Macha was no longer angry. Her eyes carried a peace they had not known since Eburovic’s death. Her face was Bán’s, lacking only his constant wonder at the world. Smiling, she said, “A while ago, uncertainly. It became clear in the night.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have listened? I know what it takes for a warrior to leave the battlefield. It had to come from the gods for you to believe it.” The bear-horse nuzzled Macha’s neck. She soothed his muzzle, absently, and lifted her hands to the torc of the Eceni, as if the horse had reminded her of its presence. Drawing it off, she held it out. “This is yours as it was your mother’s before you. Wear it with pride and when the day comes that you are free of your duty to Mona and can return to the Eceni, rule them well and with love, as she did.”
Once, Breaca had thought of the torc as a living thing, a snake of gold in the hands of the elder grandmother. Now the fog folded around it, a cushion of white, and the band lay like a woven corn-crown in the centre of it. Bending, she let Macha fit it round her neck. The sense of her mother, briefly, was overwhelming. Macha saw it and smiled. “You will do as well as she, if the gods allow it.”
Pain rose and set in Breaca’s throat. “You are Eceni, both of you. You don’t need to stay. Please come with us.”
Macha shook her head. “We can’t. Who do you think is holding the fog?”
The wrongness of it ached, and the calm acceptance. Desperately, Breaca said, “Our gods are not Roman gods. They don’t demand the death of their people as the price of their gifts.”
“A life freely given is not payment. One must stay to hold the fog, just as Onomaris walked into the sea to hold the storm in Caesar’s time. It is the way.”
“Someone else can do it.” Breaca turned and found a face she knew; the sole dreamer of the Trinovantes stood not far from the pyre, her mouth moving in invocations to the gods. “Lanis is staying,” she said. “She can hold the fog, surely?”
“No. I raised it. It is mine to hold.”
“Then I won’t leave. The children are safe. I’ll stay. Ardacos, too.” He was hovering nearby, his hand on the bridle of a child’s pony. Breaca would have signalled but Macha restrained her.
“Breaca, no. Do you still not understand? This is not about these children alone. It is about you and Caradoc and the child you carry from last night and the others not yet conceived. It’s about Airmid and Braint, Dubornos and Efnís, Gwyddhien and Ardacos and the o
thers who will rear and teach them. Between you, all of you, you carry the seeds of the future. If you live through today there is hope that everything we are, everything we have—the dreaming, the gods, the songs of past and present—can survive. Without that, Rome will destroy everything until our children and our children’s children will know as little of us as we know of the ancestors—less because the dreams will have gone. It will be as if we were never here.”
“That could never happen.”
“It can. If you don’t leave now, it will. Even so, nothing is certain.” Macha was serious now, not angry, but insistent. “Swear to me that you will fight them, in every way you can. That you will listen to the gods for guidance and follow the dreaming. That you will teach your children likewise.”
Breaca laid her hand on the hilt of her sword. “I swear.”
The mist held them close. To the north, it swallowed children in bites of ten and a dozen; dreamers and hard-faced warriors followed. Caradoc led them, far away at the front. Gwyddhien, Dubornos and Braint waited, gauging the distance to the Romans. Airmid was last, leading the grey battle mare. Hail ran at her heels. Gunovic stood at Breaca’s bridle, talking to her horse. She gave him the warrior’s salute. “Thank you for the bear-horse. He is the best I’ve ever ridden.”
He grinned, a great bear of a man, who had taught her what it meant to race with an open heart and fight to win. He said, “He will sire better if you put him to your grey mare—but only if you leave now and give him the chance. I would hate the Romans to reap the fruits of four years’ work.”
“I’m going.” Unforgivable on the field of battle, she was weeping. She reached down for Macha’s arm. “We will sing of you every winter for a thousand generations. Don’t let them take you living, either of you.”
“It won’t happen. Now go.”
She turned the horse away. To her left, the last of Togodubnos’s honour guard died and the legionary line moved onward, swords clashing on shields, boots churning the ground. They were blind in the fog and came slowly, testing each step with care. Breaca pushed her horse to a trot. Airmid waited for her with the grey battle mare.
Breaca said, “Can she run?”
“Yes, if you don’t load her. Come on, we must hurry—Gods! Cunomar, no—”
Braint had been given charge of the child. His father’s prophecy had been forgotten, or was being ignored, and, alone of those on the field who bore the sun hound, he was being made to leave. He had refused at first then suddenly relented and had followed the young warrior sullenly past his father’s pyre. At its furthest margin, while she bent to lay her fire-spears on the ground, he wrenched himself loose, turned and, pulling a burning brand from the fire’s edge, kicked his pony past the others and into the fog.
The death-song of the sun hound carried in high treble, losing no force with the distance. As it reached a peak, red flame stained the fog. A horse screamed in terror. Men howled in surprise, cascading into panic. A child died on a dozen swords. Macha sang the invocation to Briga clearly, so that it carried through the fog: the sound of a wren at dawn’s first light. The hound bitch, Cygfa, joined, raising her muzzle in the damp air. Beside them, Gunovic swung his hammer and laid the first of his fire-spears in the pyre.
Breaca found herself at the back of a silent string of warriors. Known faces wavered in the mist ahead of her: Airmid and Gwyddhien, Ardacos and Braint, Dubornos and Efnís, Luain, come back to see that they had all left, half of the honour guard from Mona, a sea of blue-cloaked Eceni. She hefted her shield and held it to the sky. Closed fists were raised around her. Airmid pointed along the path through the marshes to where Caradoc led the way to freedom.
“We must go.”
At the pyre, the first clash of warriors masked the noise of their leaving.
EPILOGUE
Macha.
She was there, far more clearly than she had ever been in the visions. Bán could see her, standing with Gunovic the travelling smith, and a hound bitch he did not recognize; with Togodubnos and Odras and a child who bore the blond hair of one and the wide brown eyes of the other and who sat a small grey pony, smiling his battle challenge. She was there in spirit, as Bán had seen her these past six years, and yet her body, newly dead, lay charred and smoking on the remains of the pyre. The hammer blow that had killed her was clear on her head, the silver wren sagging in molten waves across her breast. Gunovic, whose hammer, in mercy, had made the blow and whose hands, in honour and grief, had lain her on the pyre with the hound bitch at her side, had died nearby on the swords of a dozen legionaries and had sent twice as many, maybe more, to the other world ahead of him. These, too, Bán could see, but more dimly, more wraithlike, as he had once seen his mother and his sister, believing both dead when one, at least, had still been alive.
The knowledge of his error and its magnitude came to Bán slowly and against great resistance. He had not taken part in the systematic slaughter that was the battle of the second morning; that had been reserved for the IInd legion, a gift from Aulus Plautius to their commander Vespasian to assuage the humiliation of the first day’s defeat. The auxiliaries, Bán among them, had been called across the river later as the fog began to lift, to scour the battlefield for wounded, to slay any of the enemy that might lie feigning death and to ferry the wounded legionaries back across the water to the ministrations of Theophilus and his helpers. From the first, passing through the fallen lines of Trinovantian dead, the auxiliaries had found the shields bearing the newly painted serpent-spear and had remarked on it—the Gauls, too, had their ancestors and knew of their marks. Bán alone had been silent, shielding his mind from his heart’s fear, from the terror that had touched him on a hillside the day before when a red-haired warrior had led the charge in the rescue of Caradoc and Togodubnos.
Only when he found the pyre, when he knelt, retching, in the acrid smoke of his mother’s body, when he looked at what had so recently been alive and now lay, stripped of half its flesh, in the embers, when he raised his head and saw his mother’s soul shining and radiant before him—only then did the shields disintegrate and the truth flood in.
“Macha!”
He called her name and received no answer. In the silence of the passing ghosts, Bán wept as he had never wept in his life. Pain unmatched tore through him, the storm of the gods, wrenching his soul from its moorings. Corvus was forgotten and all that he stood for. Death was his best and only hope, his deliverance. The knife at his belt bore the mark of the falcon god, Horus. It had been a gift from Corvus early in their days together, a promise and an offer that neither had expected to be fulfilled. Bán’s fingers closed on it as if they belonged only there. Sweetly, it sang from its sheath and he swept it, point first, towards his breast. The pain was dull and hard but not deathly, the pain of impact as an iron knife blade strikes a medallion of solid gold and does not penetrate. His fingers, numbed, sprang open and his mother’s shade reached down to sweep the weapon from his grasp. Even in the confines of Amminios’s slave-boat, he had not known her so close, or so real. Looking up, he read only contempt in her eyes. His soul cried to hers. “Mother! I want to join you.”
You cannot.
“Why?”
That is for you to find. You are forsaken. The gods condemn you to life.
She left him to join her people and Bán was not one of them. One by one, he watched as the dead of two days’ battles—Eceni, Trinovantes, Brigantes, Votadini, Coritani, Catuvellauni, Silures, Ordovices—filed across the river into the care of their gods. Their names came to him, and their titles, their loves and their deeds, each one etched on his mind as on marble. At the end there was emptiness and the knowledge that the one who, next to his mother, he sought most had not passed him by. Macha had waited at the side, alone. She smiled at him, coldly, and nodded. “Breaca lives,” she said. “Your sister is Boudica, Bringer of Victory. With Caradoc she cares for the children. Remember that.”
The green and gold fields of the other world beckoned. Macha
turned and walked into the haze. The last Bán saw of his mother was the flat rejection of her back and the wren that circled over her, singing.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The peoples of the late pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain did not maintain written records of their histories, dreams or oral teachings. We have no contemporary records save those written by the enemy—Rome—with all the political, cultural and social bias that implies. Of the woman we know as Boudica, very little is known beyond her role in the events leading up to and during the revolt of A.D. 60–61 as recorded by Tacitus. Of the preceding years, particularly the events surrounding the Claudian invasion, we have only the incomplete histories of Cassius Dio, written nearly two centuries later. Concerning her early life there is no written record, and thus everything contained in these pages—the people, their life and their dreams—is a fiction. As far as is possible, I have woven my imaginings within a framework of contemporary archaeological theory, but it must be stressed that this interpretation of the jigsaw of pottery fragments, midden debris, experimental archaeology and numismatic theory is entirely my own.
A little more is known of Boudica’s contemporaries: Cunobelin and his three sons are mentioned in the classical sources, and some details may be inferred from the existence and spread of the coins of the time, although only with due reservations. Most is known about Caradoc/Caratacos and he was undoubtedly a charismatic and intelligent war leader. Graham Webster states, “If Cunobeline [sic] can be said to have been the first British Statesman, Caratacus [sic] was certainly the first great British Commander.”1
Others for whom we have credible authority are Berikos (Verica), Beduoc, Cartimandua of the Brigantes (her name means “sleek pony”), her consort Venutios and her charioteer Vellocatos.
On the continent, Julius Civilis was known to command a cohort of Batavian auxiliaries and claimed during a later revolt to have known, and consider himself a friend of, the future emperor Vespasian. My assumption that they met during the invasion of A.D. 43 is entirely unfounded but is not, I think, unreasonable.