A new Roman fort stood near the old earthen works previously constructed by the Celts, but there were few regular troops stationed here.
Boudicca’s guerrilla warriors ran from the woods at her shrieking command, like a stream of pestilence personified. The Celts, both men and women warriors, ran from the woods with shouting into the wind and tattoos upon their bodies, towards the unfortunate city. They attacked the pensioned legionnaires, who had served their twenty-five year hitch in the army and who were the only administrators of this place. Then the Celts retreated back, but only momentarily as a ruse, to bait the soldiers. They attacked again, those men and women warriors, some of them naked with blue dyed designs on their tall, white bodies to make them appear more frightening. They ignored the symmetrical pillars of Roman majesty. They went straight for the citizens.
The Romans’ IX Legion was posted in a fort many miles to the northwest, the closest legion to the trouble. Those young, professional soldiers marched down to rescue the city, and the Temple where a few soldiers had barricaded themselves for two days, but they arrived too late to save the citizens, or even as it turned out, themselves. Boudicca’s army decimated the IX Legion, an almost unheard of accomplishment for the many millions of occupied people the Romans collectively called “the barbarians.” It wasn’t supposed to happen. It almost never did.
Boudicca herself ran with the first assault to the walls of the city, and after the first pull-back, she mounted her chariot, drove her horses onward, and directed the fighting like a lunatic stage director, cutting here, there, shouting, pleading, cheering. I rode with her, in deference to my injured leg, and to help her pull the wounded into the chariot, race to safety, and go back for more.
It took two days of these continuous guerrilla attacks. At last, Camulodunum was ours. The captives, including scant remaining soldiers of the IX Legion, pled for mercy.
There was no mercy. They were butchered.
Some were used for the druids’ ritual sacrifice. The gods needed to be thanked. The robed ones dragged the strong young soldiers to the oak groves where mystic mistletoe hung from the trees, and the priests drove their daggers into their victims’ chests on makeshift altars.
I watched Taliesin string up a soldier like a side of beef, and with the help of another druid, carry him off, disappearing into the grove. I wondered if he killed him with the same dagger he used against me when we met. How many weeks ago?
I lost track of time. I had no desk calendar. I had no watch. I had no almanac. I just kept telling myself this was a long, long time ago. Long over. No need to feel sickened. No need to feel guilt. Just steady yourself, John. The psych ward awaited in peace and sedation.
Cailte outdid himself for victims. He hacked and slashed with that long sword of his until I thought his arm would fall off. I wished it would. He made heads roll. Literally. I would have thought him driven mad.
When the last resistance fell, when the dying screams from the groves of mistletoe broke the night stillness, Cailte came before Boudicca’s fire, his long sword held aloft in his hand, the blood of many men coloring its blade, which he held for her notice. He threw back his long, sweat-dampened hair from his shoulders with a flick of his head, and asked her if she desired a song. He did not sound sincere to me. It was sarcasm, a boast.
She regarded him a moment, her face glowing with perspiration and the thrill that revenge gave her, and waved him away as if he were only interrupting her thoughts.
His expression grew cold. Rebuffed, he walked away.
Fast on his heels was Dubh, who bounded before us like a man who had no right to have such energy. He was like a kid at Disney World. He, too, held his long sword in his hand, but only because I think he didn’t want to let it go, that he didn’t want to let the thrill of the victory of this night drift away in sleep. He wanted to hold onto it forever, forever victorious, young, and strong.
“Well then?” He smiled heartily, bellowing in his big voice. She looked on him with amused affection, a sister’s warm feeling for a clownish, boisterous brother.
“I need you, Dubh,” she said in her low, guttural voice. “Send a messenger now to the Trinovantes to tell them what we have done this night, and to tell them to expect you. Tomorrow you will take two others to their settlement. Tell them our next victory over the Romans we will share with them. If they do not join us, we will know what is in their hearts.”
At first I thought he might balk at being sent on a diplomatic mission, but he was quiet, thoughtful, perhaps he was impressed by his sister. Perhaps he was used to being impressed by her.
He smiled again, and nodded, and bounded away.
Her servants served Boudicca bowls of pork, barley and beer, which she offered to me.
“Small help I was.” I said, lifting the water skin she had just pulled from her lips and handed to me. I touched it to my lips and drank.
“You saved many. They value this if you do not,” she said, watching me drink.
“Cailte fights like a legion himself.”
“He is a good warrior,” she agreed, concentrating again on her food, “I should say he fought like our people, not a legion. Romans are pigs.”
“They have skills.”
“They are pigs. Have you lived so long among them you appreciate them?”
“I appreciate success.”
“But we won.”
“Fortuna vestra est bona.”
“What is that?”
“Milites Romani virtutem magnum habent.”
“Do you dare taunt me with their vile speech?”
“Your victory will be long remembered,” I bowed, relenting. I was so charming as a bootlicker. Why couldn’t I do this with Eleanor? She’d be putty in my hands. I guess we just rubbed each other the wrong way. Funny, she represented no threat to me; she did not hold power of life or death in her hands like these Celts, with whom I was so admittedly charming. No, come to think of it, she had ultimate power of my life and death. The only thing controlling her hand on the button was God, and the Time Dimension Study Manual of Protocol.
“It is not done, yet.” Boudicca continued, “The Trinovantes will join us soon. They will want their share of the fight. Then if Cartimandua remembers herself and her true loyalties, then the three tribes will cleanse the land of the Romans soon.” She drew a deep breath and chewed harder. She looked exhilarated, but tired. There was no flowing tunic the color of corn silk for her tonight, only a plain linen tunic, with trousers underneath to make it easier for her to ride and fight, gathered at her slim waist with a gold chord. A dark cloak, draped like a cape down her back, fastened by a plain silver broach at her collar bone. She assumed no pretense of an aristocratic Celtic queen tonight, only a warrior, unadorned. Her long, wild hair lifted by errant strands into the night breeze.
“And the Romans will never return?” I said absently, drinking in the sight of the fire reflected in her face and her red hair.
“They would not dare. Nemain sees our bravery rewarded.” She turned her glance to the last dim light of day over the oak grove, where the sounds of the tortured continued, moaning and screaming their agony. I was glad I did not have to watch this, as I was made to watch the ritual sacrifice of the sheep in Nemain’s temple. It was enough to stand at this distance and be ill with horror.
She stuffed a hunk of bread into her mouth. It filled her cheek.
She was a most remarkable woman for her time, for any time I should say. I tried again the game of comparing her to Dr. Roberts. I seemed to do that with all the women I met. Odd. What a waste of time.
There was no real comparison. Eleanor did not have Boudicca’s bloodthirsty vindictiveness, or her passion for life, an odd contradiction for one person to possess. Besides, Eleanor could not have lasted a day in this society. She liked too well the comforts of the modern world, especially the regimentation of meetings, and deadlines. She demanded proof of daily accomplishment as a validation to her own existence. She colored her hair becaus
e those first strands of gray she discovered in her early thirties meant she was slipping as a human being and would never reach her full potential unless she disguised them.
She loved schedule. She did not love me.
Boudicca drew another deep, restless breath and looked up at the night sky. She noticed only that the stars were still there, and went back to her food. She did not look for constellations or signs, nor did she marvel at her own insignificance among them. She did not know how awesomely bright they were to me, because she had never seen them pale and dim as I had, faint and weak above a city skyline. They hung always here, huge, magnificent, and only just beyond her arm’s reach.
She just pulled another piece of pork from the bowl with thumb and two fingers, and brought it to her mouth.
Her maidservant noted the stains on the back of her tunic where her wounds from her whipping had reopened. She entreated her mistress to allow her to dress them again. Boudicca nodded, and pulled herself up, letting herself be led into her tent to be cleaned up and treated.
“Come to me after,” she directed, and stepped inside.
For what?
Okay, okay, don’t jump ahead with the story. Be patient, Milly. I know your dirty little mind.
I hobbled off on a long staff made for me by Taliesin. I don’t know if he imparted to it any magic powers, but it got me around camp.
I found Cailte. He sat brooding by his own fire, filling up on mead instead of meat.
The woman brought him the mead. She did not look me in the eye.
“My thanks for mending my clothes.” I said to her. She did not reply, but nodded, and turned away from me.
Cailte looked over his shoulder at her, curiously. I don’t think he knew she’d done my clothes for me.
“More,” he said to her, “Then get out of my sight.”
“You fought bravely.” I said to Cailte. He stood, and then kicked my staff out from under me. I fell hard on my back.
“You are still a slave,” he said contemptuously.
I waited for my breath to return, and decided to lay there like a dog who shows submission to a larger dog, hoping not be bitten. That’s how charming I am. However, he did not sniff me over. He turned his back to me.
“Go back to your mistress.”
“She is my queen. She is your queen.”
“Her daughter will be my wife. If she makes a reward of her to you, I will kill you.”
Ah, then it was not Boudicca he was after. I caught myself feeling relieved.
“She must mean her daughters for young men, Cailte. I am past my years.”
“You are not an old man.”
“I am more old than young now. I have crossed that.”
He turned sullenly and looked at me.
“And I am crippled,” I added.
“For always?” his eyes narrowed, distrustful, as if he dared not hope it was true.
I shrugged.
I let him chew that over, and I think he may have softened towards me a little. He was still angry, dangerously resentful.
“You have her confidence,” he said.
“I know a little of Roman ways. For now, I am of use to her.”
He nodded.
I pulled myself up with difficulty. He did not offer to help me.
“Does she love you? The one you want?” I did not trouble to ask which one. I’m not sure which one mattered to him.
“Yes.” he looked insulted, and then repeated, “I would kill you.”
“Where is your man?”
“Worthless swine ran in the confusion. Another time I would bother to bring him back. It does not matter now, it can wait. The boy is well old enough to do his work.”
“I am sorry you had misfortune with him. Still, you have fine servants in the other two.”
“I am pleased you make use of them,” he said, inferring much more.
“I would not presume to make use of them, yet I understand a servant’s life, and have pity. As you said yourself, in many ways I am still a slave.”
“You have pity? They are well treated.”
“For slaves, perhaps.”
“How else should they be treated, if not as slaves?”
“Like fellow Celts.”
“You make a companion of the queen, of the queen’s daughters, and of my servant woman. You are quite an easy fellow.” There was venom in his baritone voice, and murder is his deep gray eyes.
“Mac Cecht, god of eloquence, has truly blessed you, Cailte. I have no answer, except to offer you my friendship as well. For tonight, I salute your bravery and skill with your sword. Please return to your food. I would not keep you.”
I hobbled away. It was the only thing I could do under the circumstances. Well, not the only thing. I could have popped the uppity little bastard. I could have kicked his aristocratic ass. I had to remember that he was a man of his time, not that us humans have changed much in two thousand years, but I couldn’t sit down and have a chat with him about inalienable rights. There were none, not for slaves, not for peasants, not even for aristocrats like Cailte or Boudicca. Life and death was nearly the same for them as for the lower classes. You plunks down your dinars, you takes your chances.
I took a wide detour, and sneaked around to the rear of Cailte’s tent. The woman was lying under a blanket on a bed of straw. Her head rested on her arm, and her eyes were open. I lowered myself to an uncomfortable kneeling position, leaning on my staff, and motioned her to make no noise. She did not lift her head, nor say a word, but she looked me in the eyes this time, almost as if she expected me, or at least expected someone.
There was a figure beside her huddled under the blanket. Drowsy Bouchal’s head darted from underneath the blanket and emerged in startled confusion.
She rested her hand on his bottom, and patted him reassuringly.
“Shh, Avic. Not the master. It is the friend. Sleep, you.”
He nestled back down beside her.
“Does he call you mother?”
“No.”
“He should. Send for me if you have trouble,” I jerked my head towards the direction of the jerk by his fire.
“My thanks. But go now.”
“How long will you keep your eyes open?”
“Until he is asleep.”
I did not need to ask who. There would be no sleep for her tonight if Cailte did not sleep. I pulled myself up, stifling a groan, and left her.
Dr. Ford would be interested in the woman with no name. He would ruminate on her interpersonal relationships as a foster mother and slave/concubine in ancient Celtic society. He would calculate her life expectancy. He would probably ask me how many teeth she still had. He would miss the whole point. He would miss the heartbreaking, ecstatic challenge of being alive here and now, and what she had to do to make that possible.
Could he ever appreciate how hard it was for her to live? How hard it was for me to stumble away?
She rolled onto her side, and gently draped her tired arm protectively over the boy.
Just survive, he says. We’ll take care of the analysis when you get back. Yeah.
Fires whipped by the night breeze dotted the dark field, and decorated with tents and the free-form design of thousands sleeping out in the open on the ground, not far from the mirror image of the dead who lay strewn on the battlefield and the city streets of Camulodunum.
Just before I reached Boudicca’s tent, I noticed with relief the sounds of torture from the forest behind us had stopped. The night sounds took over, normal sounds of the mysterious world of nature the druids found so evil and tried to appease. To me, it was just crickets, and I tried to forget everything else that made this night truly evil.
Boudicca’s tent was still lit from within. I felt silly relief. I entered.
Her maidservant covered her with a blanket. The servant went to her own corner and covered herself, pretending to be invisible.
Boudicca glanced at me as I stood in the tent’s opening, leaning on my staff
. Cinnamon eyes, almost wine colored in the reflection of a torqueh bowl.
“You will stay with me tonight.”
CHAPTER 11
Colonel Moore’s body was still absent from module. Eleanor chided herself, realizing that her increasing glances at the empty place were becoming automatic and ritual, and compulsive. Involuntary wondering leading to actual and unaccustomed moments of concern brought her pale eyes back to it.
Silly, really. Constantly reaffirming that there was no body under the clear shield did not vouch for the mission’s success. When he came back, that would be a kind of success. When he told them he had been to the mission location at the appointment time in past history, that would further speak of success. When he told them that he personally was as little involved in his surroundings or company as possible, thereby protecting the integrity of the mission, that would be the final feather in her cap. She hoped he would bring back some kind of tangible proof, though. It would make thing so much easier with General English.
She hoped he would not bring back a Celt. That would be so like him.
That her future directorship of this department, and of the hoped-for new agency, was dependent on John Moore, of all people, made her wince with pained irony. He was the least dependable person she had ever met. Well, no, that was not true. He was not undependable, but his attention to task had a lot to do with what he felt like doing at any particular time. His arrogance remained clearly his biggest liability, to himself and to others who had the misfortune to depend on him.
What Ford said about her wanting him, that was typical bait-and-switch debating, so like Cassius.
It could also be another handy knife in the drawer if she chose to use it.
She reviewed her projections again, but that was also futile. If she wasn’t wrong fifteen minutes ago, she wasn’t wrong now. She pushed away her keyboard like one of the half-eaten containers of cottage cheese in her refrigerator at her apartment, and refused to look at it anymore. Eleanor suddenly realized it was too late for damage control, should she need it. She had always left that sort of thing to General English. She realized now that was a mistake. He would look after his own interests. That was human nature, after all. No one would look after her, except herself. It had been that way since she was a child at the mercy of a neglectful mother and a bullying sister.
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