by E. Knight
“By the terms of the treaty—”
“The treaty,” Caratacus said with utter contempt.
My throat tightened. “You were their enemy before you were mine. Trust me when I say that it is a profound act of friendship to give you over to Rome. I speak not of my friendship with Rome, but with you. For all the affection I bear you, I will turn you over to Rome to parade about as an exhibit. Because they can afford to let you live. Whereas I . . .”
I did not say it. I did not have to say it. We both knew the truth of it. As long as he was alive, he would be a threat to me and my kingdom. I could not spare him. I would not spare him. As much as I wanted to.
Caratacus drank the rest of his wine, savoring it as if he thought it the last he would ever drink. “I suppose I am pleased in one thing. All the might of Rome could not capture me. It took a clever Brigante to do it, and a woman at that.”
“Why say it that way?” I challenged. “Men will fight and die for a woman. Who do they worship here but the high goddess Brigantia? Not a god, but a sovereign goddess.”
“So they do.” He smiled. “Perhaps, someday, when I am gone, the mantle I have dropped will be carried by a red-haired lady of iron will.”
Perhaps, I thought.
But not by me.
I still remember that the Romans took Caratacus away in fetters, and it was with unnecessary roughness that they shoved him into an iron cage, like a giant bear to be baited. I told myself that I would remember their names, those young Roman soldiers who gloried in the capture of their formidable foe. But I was mistaken. For of the Romans there, I can now only remember that Helva fellow.
I stood alone that day, watching with a broken heart as Caratacus was carted away. Glad that my husband was not there to heap abuse upon me. Glad to be so far up on that hilltop that I could not hear the jeers or curses of those Brigantes who would condemn me. For if they had not hated me before, they would now. I had been a much-loved maiden and a stern but respected mother to my people, and now I wondered if the blame I would take for giving Caratacus to the Romans would make me a bitter, twisted, old crone.
But the crone is a wise woman, I told myself. She sees what others do not.
Alas, that was cold comfort.
Especially since the Romans didn’t appreciate what I’d done, either. If I expected thanks for capturing and delivering the Hero of the Britons into the hands of Rome, I was to be disappointed. For though they delivered to me several chests of coins—as if I sold Caratacus to them for gold pieces—I heard the whispers of the legionaries, who spoke of how they despised a woman who would trick a proud warrior like Caratacus into chains.
I had stripped them of their glory in capturing him, too, it seemed.
But what would have happened if I had not given Caratacus over to Rome? They would have taken my gold crown and my ivory scepter, my purple mantle and my curule chair. They would have dismantled my tribe, disarmed them, and shamed them, as they had done to all the others that resisted.
Sometimes there was no winning with Rome.
No winning with the people.
No winning at all.
Except for Caratacus, of course. When I told him that the Romans could afford to let him live, I did not dare to dream that they would let him live. But the silver-tongued bard delivered such a stirring speech in Rome that he was actually pardoned by the same emperor who had called me the Cleopatra of the Celts.
Caratacus, who had meant the death of so many Romans—to say nothing of Britons—was set free to roam the forums and admire the basilicas of the Eternal City, admired by the people who lived there.
He, the rebel, pardoned and celebrated.
Me, the loyal queen, despised and insulted.
CARTIMANDUA
Venta Icenorum, Kingdom of the Iceni
Winter, 60 AD
“Drink this.” Boudica pressed a cup of warm liquid into my hands, and I finally tore my eyes away from the corpse upon the floor. The assassin I had killed. “It’s a potion that will help ease the pain in your throat.”
So she was a healer, as her husband had been. Though I was keenly aware of the lingering crowd, I accepted this gesture of kindness from Boudica. Perhaps she sensed my discomfort, for she sent a baleful look in the direction of the gawkers. “Leave us.”
When we were alone and I was pressing my fingertips to the sore spots on my neck in some awe that I was still alive, she said, “You’re sure it is your husband behind this?”
“Yes. You have my apologies for dragging my marital strife into your kingdom in a time of such sadness and distress. I am very sorry for your loss.”
“As I am sorry for yours,” she said, confusing me. “Better to lose a husband to the next life than to lose one to differences that cannot be reconciled.”
“What a tactful way of phrasing it.” It was too delicate by far. Since I turned over Caratacus to the Romans, my husband had raised arms against me, laid siege to my stronghold, and tried to murder me in my bed. This latest attempt was particularly well timed. I was too far away from my kingdom to order immediate retaliation against his family, who I had been forced to hold hostage for his good behavior. If he had succeeded in this attempt . . .
“I shouldn’t have come,” I admitted, and it went down hard with me. Because I had been warned by the procurator, and I hadn’t wanted to listen. I had been wrong. And when a queen is wrong about one thing, she begins to worry that she has been wrong about everything. “I must go back to my kingdom before Venutius makes another move.”
“Marriage is a hard thing, is it not?” Boudica asked. In spite of the fact that I was covered in the blood of a dead man, I found myself gripped by the most intense curiosity. I was fairly certain the bitter acrimony in my own marriage was entirely unique. “Was it so hard for you and Prasutagus?”
She gave me a sidelong glance that made me wonder what she knew. “Oh, we agreed on very little.”
Like me, Prasutagus had remained loyal to Rome. Had he, too, been challenged for it in his marriage? “But you had children together. Surely that made it easier.”
“It made it harder, actually. I bore love and respect for him as a husband and a king, so I could accept that he was making the wrong choices for me. As a mother, however, it was harder to accept the choices he was making for my children and their future.”
Children. A life together. Love and respect.
Even if their opinions differed greatly, it seemed like an idyll.
“But I console myself in one thing,” Boudica said. “As a widow, I will now be like you—free to make my own choices without having to bow to a husband whose decisions do not sit well with me.”
It was good that she was finding ways to console herself because the days ahead for her were likely dark ones. The treaty between the Iceni and the Romans expired with King Prasutagus’ last breath. With it, Boudica’s wealth and status were likely to be swept away. “What will you do now?”
Boudica’s chin jerked up, and she snared me with an intense gaze, strangely reminiscent of a prince who once came to court me. “A better question is . . . what will you do?”
I felt a light-headedness that I did not think came from having been so nearly strangled. I had the sense that something very unexpected was afoot. And I said her name rather more sharply than I intended. “Boudica. I do not wish to be the bearer of such bad tidings, but you must prepare yourself. In coming here, I was nearly turned back by Procurator Catus Decianus. He said he could not guarantee my safety—and given the events of this night, that is abundantly clear. But Romans seldom inconvenience themselves out of unselfish concern for the Cleopatra of the Celts. No. The Romans expect trouble here, and not on my account, but on yours. The most likely reason is that they intend to seize the lands of the Iceni.”
This should’ve been shattering news, but it didn’t seem to surprise her in the least. “They may intend to seize the Iceni lands, but that doesn’t mean th
ey will keep them.” She reached to wet a cloth in a basin of wash water for me. “If the Romans are wise, they will honor the last wishes of my husband. If they are wise, they will allow my daughters to inherit, and I will serve as regent over them until they come of age.”
A shocked breath puffed from my lips. If she was to be believed, Prasutagus left his kingdom jointly to his daughters—not to his wife, which might have been more palatable. Romans had grudgingly acknowledged widowed queens before. Prasutagus must have had some reason for not naming his wife, and I came to realize it might be those very differences of opinion she had spoken of.
“The Romans will never honor your husband’s last wishes,” I said, reaching for her hand to make her see sense.
“Because I am a woman, and I have only daughters?”
“Yes,” I sighed. “Emperor Claudius acknowledged me as a queen. But that is because I already was a queen before he ever limped onto our shores. You’re dealing with Emperor Nero now. He will not give crowns and curule chairs and purple mantles to two young, untried girls, neither of whom have seen more than sixteen summers. Besides, Romans don’t like dividing kingdoms between siblings. It has not gone well for them before. I hope, for your sake, that I am wrong, and that your husband’s scheme will win the emperor’s approval. But I don’t think it can happen. It is against Roman convention. It is not even in keeping with Iceni tradition.”
She gently withdrew from me. “Well, if the Romans want to leave us to return to the old ways of voting for our chieftains, I have no objection.”
How strange to hear her speak of what she would or would not object to given her vulnerable position. I told myself that perhaps, in her grief, she didn’t understand what was happening. That she couldn’t accept that her life, as she knew it, was gone. “My dear lady, you must swallow your pride and be ready to cooperate lest—”
“Cooperate?” Her eyes flashed even as her voice remained calm. “As we cooperated in giving up our weapons? As we cooperated in taking gifts from Romans that they later claimed were loans? As we cooperated in fastening a chain upon our own necks?” A pause. “Or upon the necks of our own heroes?”
Caratacus, she meant. I turned, shamed by the mention. Angry, too, that it should be held against me. “That chain would have been on my neck if not his.”
“Yes,” Boudica agreed, sponging the blood off my arms. “The Iceni were loyal to Rome, and yet our weapons were taken from us, and we have been left to the mercy of rapacious tax men. After years of outrage piled upon outrage by soldiers, the rough treatment of our people by private agents from Seneca and his ilk upset my husband so much that I believe it hastened his demise. Prasutagus was loyal to Rome, and yet now you tell me they will take his lands, his wealth—leaving nothing for his family. What would you do if Rome were to repay your loyalty with such abuse?”
“They have always honored their treaty with me,” I said stiffly.
“So far,” she said. “The Romans devour and devour, and their hunger never ends. It is only that you are so far north that you will be one of the last morsels to be swallowed up.”
I wanted to say that she was wrong, but it wasn’t easy to argue with her calmly reasoned grievances. She wasn’t like my husband, ranting about how we must fight only for the sake of fighting. Nor did I sense in her the unbridled ambition of Caratacus.
But she did remind me of him.
Indeed, maybe she was not only a healer but also a bard because even I was stirred when she said, “We are not sheep. We are Britons. Someone must remind us of it. And when the time comes that my tribesmen remember there are some transgressions against honor that cannot be tolerated, what will you do, Cartimandua?”
“What will I do?” I met her eyes, seeing in her a mirror of myself. She was the queen I might have been if I had chosen a different path. A different outlook—one that doubtless made her much loved by her people. I liked her. I respected her. In another life, I might have allied myself with her. Even in this life, some part of me hoped she might triumph. But the rest of me hardened in terrible resolve. “I will do what I have always done. I will be a faithful queen, wife, and ally.”
To the Romans.
I would not start a war, not even for the sake of Prasutagus’ beloved memory. Not for the love of my people. No, not even for that.
DECIANUS
Ten denarii, thought Decianus. That’s about how much silver’s worth of wine, meat, and bread he vomited up into the pail. He’d spent the night in such a deep and drunken slumber that he had not learned about the attempt on Queen Cartimandua’s life until sunrise.
Now it was going to take all his willpower not to remind the foolish woman that this was precisely what he had warned her against. It was a lucky thing she had survived. The kingdom of the Brigantes was too big and too strategic an outpost to be lost. And the timing was terrible. With the legions in the west, an unfriendly north would leave the governor’s flank exposed at the very moment the entire southeast of Britannia was undefended. Good thing the barbarians weren’t noted for their strategic thinking, or Decianus might have suspected a conspiracy.
In any case, Decianus made it his business to call upon the Queen of the Brigantes, who—in clean garments but gaunt expression—he found in the stables at dawn, stroking the coat of her horse. A white pony—the descendant of a fine line that she’d once been gifted by a man she nearly married, she said.
Decianus cleared his throat. “On behalf of the emperor, may I extend to you our gratitude that the assassin is dead and that no lasting harm has come to you, Madam?”
“Thank you,” she said. “Now there is the matter of bringing my husband to justice or at least ensuring that he makes no more mischief.”
His belly burning with acid and his tongue just as sour, he joked. “I begin to think I prefer open warfare in marriage as opposed to tepid battles of emotional attrition.”
The queen didn’t laugh. Which annoyed Decianus since he only meant to bring a smile to her face. But then, there was just no pleasing women, was there?
“Is that the way of it in your marriage, Procurator?”
He wished he had not brought it up. Only this throbbing headache could have made him so candid with a stranger about something so very personal. (And of course Valeria had no headache whatsoever—she had sailed out this morning with immaculately pinned hair and an energetic stride as he was still vomiting into the pail.) “My wife and I, well—” It was then that he noticed that the queen's satchels and traveling trunks were stacked in the corner. “Madam, after all the fuss you made about coming, you’re now leaving before the burial rites are performed?”
“It’s Queen Cartimandua.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The tall woman lifted her regal head and pulled a curtain of red hair over her shoulder. “I am a client queen of Rome, duly vested with the emblems of that office, and in keeping with our treaty, I am to be addressed in a manner fitting my station. I am not Madam. I am Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes.”
Decianus supposed that knowing her own husband wanted her dead was bound to make her prickly. But he was still fighting a hangover, not just of wine but of painful memories. His patience was thin.
“Why don’t you just divorce him?” he heard himself asking bluntly.
This seemed to startle Cartimandua, as if attempted murder wasn’t cause enough to end a marriage. Instead of being grateful for his good advice, she snapped, “Why don’t you divorce her?”
It was his turn to gawp. Divorce Valeria? What grounds would he have for it? She had never disobeyed him in word or deed. Given her pedigree, his honor might more likely be besmirched by a divorce than hers. No. Divorce was unthinkable. Why was he talking about this at all, much less with a barbarian?
Cartimandua gave him one last fearsome glare. “I am returning to my kingdom to manage my own affairs, but you must be careful in managing yours here, Procurator.”
His head fogged
over with belligerence. “What is it you think you know of my affairs here?”
She pressed her cheek against the horse’s mane before dragging her eyes to him again. “If the Iceni are to lose their independence, you must tread carefully. You must show respect to the nobles. You must give them reason to see the opportunities in this change—”
“I daresay there is nothing I must do on your say-so,” Decianus replied, startled at the brazen authority with which she spoke.
“You are known as a mild-tempered man, Procurator,” she continued as if he had not just shown his displeasure. “That will serve you well. But do not discount Iceni pride, and do not discount Queen Boudica.”
He wondered what on earth the woman could be getting at. “What possible threat could be posed by a grieving, middle-aged widow without any sons?”
Cartimandua gave an exasperated shake of her head. “Women are not always what we seem to be. What our reputations would tell you. Nor do we only exist in reference to our fathers, husbands, and sons.”
Bewildered, Decianus asked, “Do you know of some plot to make trouble?”
Cartimandua eyed him levelly. “What I know is that you must guard against being provoked to any precipitous action. Do not be goaded to something you will regret.”
Why would anyone try to goad him? With his head still throbbing and his mouth dry, he could hear nothing of her words that made sense. All he knew was that he was facing another nattering woman telling him what he must do. And she kept going. “Roman strength is shown in restraint. The order, reason, and lawfulness your people employ, the true source of your honor. Restraint. In the matter of the Iceni, you must reflect that most manly of virtues and show yourself to be a true Roman, honorable and just.”
Was he to now take instruction on how to be a true Roman from a barbarian trollop? His head was already ringing with Valeria's declarations of how a Roman conducted himself; now he had to listen to another version on the same theme from an uncouth queen of the icy north? How was it that women could simultaneously give a litany of specific instructions as though admonishing a simple-minded child and then imply that only by obeying them completely could one live up to the standard of masculinity they had just eviscerated?