Plautius knew that he must soon begin a tour of his legions, but in the days left to him at Camulodunon he lingered, walking beside Gladys, often in silence. Both would be cloaked against the night chill, watching the moon rise pure and clean to silver the quiet water, and standing by the gray, bubbling foam while the stars came out to shine, netted in the motionless clouds of a tranquil sky. When he finally kissed her, deep under the shadow of a rock that leaned over them and smelled of salt and age, it was with an unselfconscious artlessness, as though he and she, the sand, the cliffs, the ocean, were all linked by ties of a sweet and ancient innocence. Her lips were soft and cool, fitting his easily and naturally, and she tasted of dry wind and herbs. He felt little passion. He wanted only to touch her long hair, feel with his fingers the clean contours of her face, hold her fresh warmth to him under the shelter of his cloak, knowing that with this woman life could be rich and full. He took her cloak and spread it on the gray sand and they sat together, his own cloak enfolding them both, and her hands cool in his. He spoke to her quietly of his estate on the hills outside Rome, and of the marble stillness of his halls in the drugged heat of a midsummer afternoon. He told her of the shady wet greenness of his garden, with the little wrought-iron gate under the spreading plane tree, where one could lean and look out upon his dusty vineyards, and beyond them to the wide reaches of the Tiber and the towers and rearing columns of the city. He told her of the sun lying long in the empty rooms, of his study lined with books and scrolls, of his years governing in Pannonia away from the place he loved. Albion was his last active post. In five years, or six or seven, he could return to Rome with honor, to his grapes and his horses and his beautiful, quiet house. He made no request of her. There were no unspoken questions. In a while he stopped talking and put his arms about her, drawing her to him, and the ocean crashed at their feet, speaking to Gladys of a new freedom.
SUMMER, A.D. 43
Chapter Sixteen
AS she heard the shouting and cheering begin, Boudicca lifted the sleepy, replete baby away from her breast, wrapped it swiftly, handed it to Hulda, and ran outside. The afternoon was hot and drowsy. Beyond the town the forest stood motionless as if dazed with the weight of stifling air, and the marshes were silent under a high and burning sun. She saw her husband leave the cool shade of the Council hall with his train and begin to move toward the gate, and she hurried to catch up with him, snatching her sword from its resting place before the doorskins and buckling it on. Seeing her coming he stopped and waited for her.
“What is it?” she called to him. “Why are the people so excited?” She came up to him flushed, the sun drenching her bare, bronzed arms, her copper-colored hair, her brown, freckle-flecked face. “Is the sky about to fall on us?”
Prasutugas smiled at her fiery, unkempt anxiety, and Lovernius the bard acknowledged the old, proud joke with a rattle of his gaming dice and a shrill, tuneful whistle. “Some would say yes and some no,” Lovernius answered her. “It depends in what light you see the return of our embassy from Camulodunon. Of course, it depends also on how you see the embassy itself. You, Lady, may expect the sky to come crashing down at any moment, while you, Lord, are full of joy at how high and clear it is.”
“Save your wit for the Council fire, Lovernius!” she said rudely. “Prasutugas, is it the embassy?”
“I think so.”
They turned and walked toward the gate where a growing crowd had gathered, eyes fastened on the figures of three horsemen that wavered and danced in the heat haze to the south, and Prasutugas was cheered as he shouldered his way through them, bard, charioteer, and wife behind him.
“Peace for us all, Prasutugas!” someone called gaily. He nodded and waved, carefully keeping his eyes from Boudicca, who had come to stand beside him and was gripping his naked forearm.
“Are there any Romans with them?” she breathed. “If they have brought the enemy back with them I shall shut myself away, I shall refuse them hospitality, I shall…”
“How is my daughter today?” he cut in gently, pointedly, and she let go of him, her hand dropping to the hilt of her sword. “Does she suckle well?”
“Sometimes, Prasutugas,” she replied tartly, “I think I hate you, for you have no intuition and certainly no intelligence.”
He planted a swift kiss on the tip of her small nose. “Good, good,” he teased her. “I shall enjoy being hated by you, for then you will leave me alone. I am the most wife-ridden, nagged man in the tuath, and everyone knows it!”
She looked across at him, meeting his blue, smiling eyes, and then suddenly leaned her tousled head against him. But before she could speak a roar went up from the people and she straightened to see that the flickering shapes had become cantering riders approaching the gate, their blue, yellow and scarlet tunics pasted wet to their chests, their breeches fluttering from their hanging legs. When they had come within earshot they drew their swords and held them high, and in a moment they had drawn rein and the crowd flowed swiftly around them. The nearest chief flung his sword at Prasutugas’s feet and the tip of it thudded into the dry earth.
“Success, Lord!” he panted, sliding from his mount’s back. “We have much news, all of it good, and the Iceni are safe!”
“Peace?”
“Peace!”
The cry was taken up. Peace, peace, the people shouted as Prasutugas, his train and the members of the embassy began to move into the town. Only Boudicca walked with a stiff back and a glowering face.
“Did the sky hurt your head when it splintered around you?” Lovernius whispered in her ear. She swung around to strike him but then did not dare. His eyes were full of sympathy.
“From now on, shut your mouth, Lovernius,” she murmured. “If you have felt the sky cracking around your own ears, keep it to yourself.”
The hall was blessedly cool and dim, a shadow place with its huge shields frowning from the walls, its ancient swords that in winter reflected the light of Council fires, its massive chains from which the cauldron hung. Men and women pressed excitedly through the doorway to sit on the skins or stand, and Prasutugas, Boudicca, the embassy, and the others went down near the now-cold hearth. Beer was brought and they drank thirstily, the travelers gulping down two and three mugsful. The leader of the embassy wiped his mouth carefully on his tunic and relaxed with a sigh, while a servant threaded his way through the packed bodies bearing cheese and bread, and fresh, steamed fish.
“Well?” Prasutugas demanded. “Did you speak with the emperor? What did he say? Does he accept our offer of cooperation?” There was a hush throughout the hall as the people strained to catch the conversation.
The man took a loaf from the proffered tray and tore it apart. “We met with the emperor,” he said slowly, proudly. “He is a very great ricon and his hospitality is boundless. He fed us strange dishes and gave us sweet wine to drink, and talked very fair, but his words were of all the fine things that would come to us and we quickly understood that our business was not with him but with the man who beat the Catuvellauni. There were many other embassies present, who also ate at the emperor’s table, and he was so polite that we felt no stain upon our honor at any time.”
Boudicca snorted and began to speak, but Prasutugas said quickly, “Tell me what has happened at Camulodunon. Were there many soldiers? What of the Catuvellauni? What has become of them?”
The chief stopped chewing. “There are soldiers everywhere, but they treated us with respect. They have leveled the earthwalls, and most of the town was burned. As for the people, they are already hard at work for their masters, and very fitting it looked. How pleased I was to see those sons of dogs sweating with picks and spades in their hands instead of swords!”
“And Caradoc?” Boudicca could contain herself no longer. “Is he dead? Taken? What?” Prasutugas looked at her curiously, wondering at the catch of plaintiveness in the deep voice, and those in the crowd who had lost members of their kin in the wars against Cunobelin’s sons craned nearer. The ch
ief signaled for more beer.
“Caradoc and many of his closest chiefs ran away. Some say that the god of the Catuvellauni carried them over the walls to safety in the forest, but the strongest rumor is that he has gone into the west. He left his peasants to be slaughtered and his sister to be taken prisoner, coward that he is. But what else can one expect from a Catuvellaunian?”
The eager crowd murmured their assent but Boudicca sat very still, remembering the brown-eyed, tall young man who had set her on his horse and galloped with her through the shedding trees in the crisp, sparkling winter air. She had felt his kindness as an impersonal, indifferent thing then, with the swift knowing of a child, and her pride had been stung at his loud laughter, his disdain of her father. That disdain had fueled her anger when she had taken to the field with Subidasto against the two arrogant young Catuvellauni brothers. But now, as she felt the air in the hall grow warm and stuffy, and listened to the chief speak so easily and glibly of the end of her tuath’s freedom, she remembered Caradoc’s impatient, sure grip on the reins that had kept her secure and the way a path had opened before him so smoothly through the excited, seething cattle owners by the river. So he had gone, he had escaped. A thrill of gladness ran through her. He had not capitulated to Rome after all. In the end his honor had been worth more than the honor of her own husband and her tuath, and the once-corrupt Catuvellaunian had been through the fire and had emerged—as what? Why had he gone west? What spell had caused him to sacrifice blood kin? She did not believe for a moment that he had run away.
“I saw his sister,” the chief was continuing. “She was walking about the town with her guard and talking to other chiefs, but she did not approach us. No one knows why the Romans have not executed her.” His lip curled in spite. “Perhaps she will be sent to Rome and torn to pieces in the arena.”
Prasutugas felt his wife begin to fidget, her annoyance mounting. “So Caradoc has left the lowlands,” he said. “Well, what of Plautius? What agreements did you make? Will he leave us alone in exchange for our submission?”
“He will not molest us as long as we make no war on him, but we must allow roads through our land if he sees fit, and perhaps a garrison. The emperor is offering a gift of gold to all the tuaths that desire peace with him, and with the gift goes his most honorable word that we will be left alone.”
Boudicca sprang to her feet, her hair flying. “Bribery!” she yelled. “Call it by its proper name and do not tiptoe around it with such reverent awe in your voice! This so-called gift of gold is nothing but a bribe and comes without the sealing of the pact of friendship. Do you really believe that Claudius gives gold and promises in return for nothing more than smiles? What chief could offer these things and ask for nothing and not be thought a fool or criminal? You make me ashamed, all of you,” she glared at Prasutugas, “and afraid, also. What seeds of ruin are you sowing?”
“Sit down, Boudicca!” someone shouted. Another voice boomed out, “No more war!” The call was taken up. “No more war!” the chiefs and their women began to chant, and after one sweeping glance over their stubborn, determined faces she stamped her foot, shook her fist at Prasutugas, and marched outside.
He found her an hour later, sitting moodily on the bank of the river with the shadow of the copse at her back and her bare legs dangling in the cool water. He quietly took off his sandals and his sword and lowered himself beside her, gasping as his sweating feet touched the slow-washing shallows, but she kept her head averted.
“In two days a Roman called Rufus Pudens will be here,” he said after a moment, “with his escort. He is bringing us the gold, and papers of agreement to sign.”
“Can you read Latin?” she shot back at him, her gaze still fixed on the white sparking of sun on bright water.
He put his hand to her cheek and forced her to look at him. “Boudicca,” he said softly. “Do you remember how the chiefs carried the headless body of your father home, and we walked through the night crying and wailing beside his bier while the rain pelted down out of the blackness? Do you remember how Iain slew the tall Catuvellaunian warrior who had hacked off my arm and was waving it about his head and roaring with laughter? Can you forget how you screamed and raged at Lovernius because he told you that I was going to die? Such agonies, such raw, searing memories! Do you want those things to go on happening all your life?”
She pulled away from him, stood up in the water, and stepped out until the current swirled frothing about her brown knees. Bending, she scooped up the water and splashed it on her face, then folded her arms and looked at him. So young, so serious, the open, guileless vulnerability of him pierced straight to her heart.
“We fought the Catuvellauni as a free people,” she said harshly. “In the end we may have lost, we may have won, we may have made a peace and then turned on the Coritani and made war again. This is how it has always been. But then the Romans came, and Caradoc begged help from us, and out of maliciousness we refused, because the people could not see past revenge to the deeper danger beyond.”
“That is not the only reason,” he reminded her. “The people had grown tired.”
“You persuaded them that they were tired!” she shouted. “You spoke to them of peace forevermore, and they elected you ricon over me in exchange for this peace, but the price, Prasutugas, the price! For the dishonor of the Catuvellauni, for Roman gold, for peace, you have secretly taken their souls away from them!”
“What nonsense you talk! We want change, all of us. Are you glad that your father lies buried without his head? Are you happy that the sleeve of my tunic hangs empty and my wound still drags me to the earth with pain? I do not understand you, Boudicca. What do you fear?”
She pushed back her red hair with both wet hands and then gazed past him to where fat cattle grazed in the long, lush grass and the grain was ripening to a heavy gold in the fields. “I do not fear Rome for herself,” she replied slowly. “Nor do I fight you, my dear one, because I am ignorant and mean of mind. The people want change, but they do not realize that the change will not be outside themselves but within. Something will be lost to the Iceni, Prasutugas, something precious, and though I myself do not yet know what it is, I feel it, feel it deeply, and know that once gone it can never be replaced.” She flung out her arms. “Already the Druids have gone away, and soon the gods will no longer speak to us. It is death that comes to the Iceni. Can’t you feel it sliding closer?”
“No,” he offered calmly. “No, I can’t. You are carried away with your own sense of doom, and how you love the sound of your own voice! I think that if you had no one and nothing to battle, you would hold up your mirror and scream at yourself instead.”
“Idiot!” she said hotly. “My father was right, the invoker was right. I should never have married you. This year has been a trial for me, and I think that now I shall take another husband.”
He burst out laughing. “Any other man would have beaten you into silence by now, and then slit his own throat out of boredom.”
“Well, I would rather face fists than your endless humoring and cowlike acceptance!”
He bent his head and made as if to rise, but then suddenly threw himself forward, still laughing, and caught her unprepared. His good arm shot out, catching her around her neck. She lost her balance, and together they fell into the deeper water with a splash and a shower of spray. He swiftly changed his grip, pushed her to the gravel bottom, and held her there while she kicked and clawed at his breeches, then reluctantly he released her and flung himself just out of reach, grinning while she floundered and gasped. “Boudicca,” he called, while she found her breath.
“What what what!” she shouted in a rage, still coughing. “Andrasta, how can a one-armed man pinch in so many places at once?”
“I love you very much. Give me your hand.” He gripped her fingers tightly and for a moment they stood, clothes plastered to their strong bodies, red and blond hair matted on their cheeks, water shining on their faces and arms.
T
hey scrambled up onto the warm earth of the bank. “I do not take you lightly,” he said. “There are two wounds that plague me. One is seen by the world but the other is my pain at your unhappiness and my constant care for you.”
She relaxed against him and her arms crept around his neck. “I love you also, Prasutugas,” she whispered. “Oh, how I love you! More than my kin, more than my love for the people, I love you. What is existence without you? For your sake I will give hospitality to this Roman, this Pudens, and smile and be agreeable, but my smile and my outstretched hand will be only for the love I bear you.”
He kissed her gently, their many and often wounding differences submerged for a while under the love that had taken them both by surprise.
She stood up, pulling the heavy, wet tunic away from her legs. “I must go to my duties. Ethelind will be crying again and Hulda will be walking her up and down and getting angrier and angrier.” She lifted the hair from the nape of her neck. “How hot is it! I can’t remember such a scorching summer! I suppose the Romans will be congratulating themselves on having found a new province that promises to be as fruitful and pleasant as their own country.” She snorted. “Let them wait until the snow comes! Then we shall see.”
He struggled to his feet and stood looking at her, knowing by her sudden lost, pensive air that her thoughts were on Caradoc and the mystery of his disappearance. He picked up his sandals and sword and moved away. “Shall we sleep under the stars tonight?” he asked. “We can bring blankets, and lie beside the river. Ethelind will not stir until the dawn.”
She came to herself and grinned at him. “If you promise not to roll me into the water when it is time to get up! I may catch a chill and have to take to my bed. Then you will have to receive the Roman by yourself.”
“And how disappointed you would be!” Together they strolled back through the green, listless dimness of the copse, and long before she reached the door of their hut Boudicca could hear the baby’s thin, hungry wails.
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