A Year of Ravens: a novel of Boudica's Rebellion

by E. Knight

  I bowed my head and said what I ought to have said long ago. “I should have done more to save them. I was there, in the storehouse.”

  That was the real treason. Not accidentally handing silver to the Romans, nor warning the spy, Eisu, nor Andecarus’ suffering, nor overhearing battle plans, but the failure to do everything in my power to defend my sisters. Princess Sorcha was right: I did not deserve to live.

  It was a moment before I felt the queen's hands on either side of my face, lifting it so she could look into my eyes. “We might all have done things differently,” she said.

  Do not cry, I told myself. Do not . . .

  After a moment, she let go of me and delved into a wooden box beside her. “I was going to grant your freedom when Andecarus was whole, but the gods alone know where we will be by then.” She was placing things into my hands, things that were heavy and metallic and cold.

  “Your father wanted you to have these,” she said as I stared at my brooches. “You are a free woman, Ria. You may leave in the morning if you wish.”

  I am still sorry for what I said to her. It sounded grudging and ungracious. What I should have said was, There are thousands of people wanting your attention tonight, and the whole future of our people is resting with you, and still you take the time to think of a slave. That is why I will not—cannot—leave you now, even though I am afraid of the terrible things that lie ahead. You are my queen, and the allegiance I swore before on pain of death I would willingly swear again now. Or I could simply have said, Thank you. Instead, I said stupidly, “Where else could I go?”

  She pressed her hand on my shoulder, and I stepped out into the moonlight a free woman, clutching the gift from my father that I had never expected to receive. I picked my way through the jumble of tents and vehicles and makeshift shelters, catching the odd murmur of conversation from around a dying fire and hearing the swish of a weapon being sharpened and a baby crying out and its mother trying to shush it. Back at the cart, I pinned the brooches to my tunic for safekeeping, folded myself in my blanket, and lay down next to the sleeping Luci. Then I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight and tried to think beyond tomorrow. To the freedom our queen had the power to bring: not just for me, but for all of us.

  PART THREE

  “The Druids lined up, with hands raised, invoking the gods and shouting horrible curses. The strangeness of the sight struck the Romans with awe and terror.”

  — Tacitus

  THE TRIBUNE

  Russell Whitfield

  S

  weat burst out on Agricola’s brow as he tensed for the final push. His shoulders were on fire, arms trembling with fatigue. The freckled face of his friend, Roscius, blotted out the sun for a moment.

  “Come on.” He grinned, showing the cavernous and—to Agricola’s eye—unsightly gap in his front teeth. “You can do it.”

  Agricola gritted his teeth, breath hissing out as he pushed; the halteres weights rose slowly, wobbling as he struggled to lock out his arms. Midway through the repetition, he knew he would fail. “No,” he heard himself say. Roscius hopped away as Agricola released the weights, their dull thud on the earth a statement of his capitulation. “Shit,” he said as he sat up, rotating and stretching his right arm. The palaestra—the exercise ground—was all but deserted save for a few new recruits enduring the punishment of extra sword drills: endless hours of striking wooden posts armed with a heavy oak sword and an overweight shield. The making of a legionary was all in the training.

  “I don’t know why you do this to yourself,” Roscius observed.

  Agricola eyed him. “You could do with more training,” he noted, jerking his chin at Roscius’ thick middle, “and less gorging.”

  “I’m built like a fucking gladiator,” Roscius shot back. “But I’ll admit: being off duty in Gaul for four months hasn’t helped.”

  “I’m sorry about your uncle,” Agricola offered. “He was a good man.”

  “He was that,” Roscius agreed.

  “How was my mother?” Agricola brought her face to mind, stern-eyed and gray-haired.

  “Upset. You know they were . . . close.”

  Agricola shrugged. His mother had been widowed when he was only a boy, and he had grown up knowing of her “friendship” with Roscius’ uncle. In later life, he realized they were more than friends. But rather than be outraged or offended, he was pleased—more than pleased, in fact— that she had found some happiness. “I’m saddened that another man she loved has passed before her.”

  “I would be if I were you.” Roscius shook off his grim expression like a man discarding a rain-soaked cloak. “All she spoke about was you. And by the gods, she can talk—so even though I’ve been away, I’ve hardly missed you. She has plans for you, man. Kept telling me she’s made sure you’re going places.”

  “She and I agree that politics is the best path for me, Roscius. I’m inspired by Athens, the great men—”

  “If I didn’t know you better,” Roscius cut him off, “I’d say you were turning Greek. Philosophy, poetry, and you even look like one of their statues.” He gestured at the hard ridges of Agricola’s stomach. “That isn’t natural.”

  Agricola shrugged. “Girls like it,” he said, rising to his feet.

  “And Greeks.”

  Agricola ignored the jibe. “I’m for the baths,” he said. “I’ll let you rub me down like I know you secretly want to.”

  “Fuck you, Tribune.” Roscius made an obscene gesture.

  “In your dreams, Tribune.”

  Roscius laughed, big and booming like the man himself. “Come on, Blondie,” he said and ambled off, leaving Agricola scowling in his wake. His sand-colored hair was a constant reminder that he was of Gaulish—and not Roman—stock. Even if his family could boast governors and procurators in its history, his heritage was one of those things that irked him because he could do nothing about it. “Even a god cannot change the past,” he muttered.

  Roscius stopped and turned around. “What?”

  “I was quoting Agathon.” Agricola trotted to catch up. “A Greek philosopher.”

  “To annoy me? I know who fucking Agathon is. We had the same pedagogue, didn’t we?”

  “We did, but no one would know it.” It was true; like himself, Roscius had Gaulish roots, and their families were close. Roscius had seven more years on him than Agricola’s twenty, and his mother had ensured that he had been posted to the same legion as the older man—the Second Augusta—for his military service. To keep an eye on you, as she had said. “I just don’t know why you insist on speaking like someone from Subura when you had the finest education money can buy.”

  “The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances,” Roscius replied in flawless Greek.

  “Aristotle?” Agricola arched an eyebrow. “I don’t see the relevance.” This was good, he thought. Perhaps Roscius would engage in a proper debate for once—because argument and educated discourse were in short supply at Isca Dumnoniorum's fortress.

  The two moved from the palaestra toward the newly constructed bathhouse. It was a building of which Agricola was truly proud; it had been constructed at his suggestion, its design influenced by the Hellenic style of which he was so enamored—more graceful and stylish than the modern Roman bent.

  Like all forts, Isca was constructed in exactly the same way—a man in the legions could find his way around a base whether it was in Britannia, Bithynia, or Belgica; but as far as Agricola was concerned, if the placement of the buildings had to have uniformity, it did not mean that they had to lack panache. Even if panache was wasted on most of its inhabitants, Agricola thought ruefully as an eight-man contubernium marched past singing a song about a whore with a bad case of piles.

  The cold water of the bathhouse frigidarium did much to ease the pain in Agricola’s muscles; he worked hard on his physique and took pride in the results, but it was a constant effort t
o maintain the sculpted look he wanted. The two stayed in as long as they could bear it, Agricola exiting first as he knew that Roscius would rather die than admit to any hardship. “You were quoting Aristotle,” he prompted as they moved into the tepidarium, Agricola taking time to nod and greet the straw-haired female slaves in attendance before entering the caldarium—the hot room—that was the heart of the bathhouse. Steam rose from the braziers, obscuring the statuary therein, giving the place a mythic quality—or so Agricola fancied. Britannia was a mythic sort of place—it turned even the most prosaic Roman mind fanciful.

  “You’re a Gaul, I’m a Gaul,” Roscius said. “It’s an undeniable fact—look at your hair. Mine, too, for that matter. Sand and rust—we don’t look like we’re swarthy farm boys from rural Campagna, do we?”

  “I rather think you speak as though you are.” Agricola sniffed.

  “That’s because I have no political ambition.” Roscius was sober for a moment. “I love the army. I want to remain a soldier for as long as I live. The lads relate to someone on their level more than they will to some career officer who’s only here to serve a bit of time before moving on to political office.” He looked pointedly at Agricola from under red brows.

  “My duty is to serve in politics despite my heritage.” Agricola added more coals to the brazier. “We cannot shape the destiny of the empire from the army, Roscius. You’re an educated man—you know this.”

  “We cannot manifest the destiny of the empire without the army, you dozy twat.”

  “Elegantly framed.”

  “But on the nose,” Roscius said. “Look. The only person who thinks coming from Gaul is some kind of hindrance is you. You’re a fucking tribune in the best legion in the empire—your old man—a Gaul—was a praetor and a senator . . .”

  “And was unjustly executed by Caligula.” Agricola said it quickly. “Which is why politics must be served,” he went on, “lest tyranny take root once again.” The thought was a bitter one: Agricola’s father had been a great man—his writings and thoughts on Hellenic philosophy and temperance had inspired Agricola since boyhood.

  “Caligula was a cunt,” Roscius stated the vulgarly obvious and unarguable.

  Agricola got up and walked back toward the tepidarium, where the slaves awaited to oil and massage them. The prettier of the two blond Britons made a beeline for him, making Roscius shake his head as he, too, entered the warm room.

  “Make sure you oil his bollocks well, love,” he advised. “No doubt they’ll be resting on your chin the moment I’m out the door. As for you, Chunky,” he turned his attention to the other woman, “I’m all yours.”

  “Forgive my friend,” Agricola said as the girl troweled the oil onto his chest and abdomen with abandon. “It is an affectation of his that he believes is endearing.”

  Roscius got a laugh out of that. “Look, Agricola,” he said after a moment, lowering himself onto a massage bench with a groan. “Life is short, Hades is long. As Agathon says, you can’t change the past, and as Aristotle says—paraphrasing—things are as they are, it’s how we deal with them that counts.” He grunted as “Chunky” worked his back muscles probably harder than he wanted. “Life—or the Gods, if you like—has a way of throwing shit at you that you least expect. On the other hand,” he rolled over onto his front, “there’s always an upside. Isn’t that right, Chunky?”

  “As you say, sir,” the woman replied with practiced neutrality.

  “She’s a bath slave,” Agricola said pointedly as Roscius’ hand crept around the woman's hip. “Not a whore. There are women in the town for that sort of thing, Roscius.”

  Roscius scowled. “You’ve been reading Seneca again, haven’t you? Chunky here has got me right in the mood—my ball sack is ripe to burst.”

  “Then empty it into someone who provides that service,” Agricola snapped. “That they are slaves is bad enough for them. It is ungentlemanly to impress their servitude upon them by forcing them to bed you.”

  Chunky stepped away from Roscius, which clearly irritated him—more so as both women gave Agricola a thankful and, he fancied, appreciative glance.

  “This from the man who has cuckolded more husbands than I can count,” Roscius observed.

  “Ah yes, but young wives are willing, Roscius. Married to fat old windbags, they find my ‘unnatural’ physique appealing. Slaves are under duress to perform.”

  “Don't get lofty, Agricola. You’ll knob anything that gives you the go-ahead to do so. Trying to take the moral high ground when you’re ruled by your dick is—in military terms—an untenable position.” Roscius grinned over at him.

  He was, of course, right. Agricola believed that slaves should not be treated harshly—as Seneca advocated, he lived by the tenet of treating others as he would wish to be treated himself. However, the lure of new flesh—and especially forbidden flesh—was a vice that he could not seem to break. A part of him suspected that when he was an older man, it would be he who would be the cuckold, and the irony of his youthful behavior would be impressed upon him. And, he realized, the ministrations of the straw-haired slave had started to arouse him. “I think,” he said, “a few cups of wine in the town would go down well.”

  “Do you, now,” Roscius mocked. “Come on, then.” He winked at Chunky. “Another time, love. We’re off to pay a couple of whores so the paragon of virtue here can maintain his elegant disposition.” He began to thrust his hips, grunting like a sow. “That’s what he looks like when he’s doing the business,” he explained.

  The sun had turned into a livid orange disc, massive and somehow ominous as the two men made their way to the camp gates. The end of another perfect early spring day. Agricola felt good—training and massage had made his skin sing, and he was eager for a whore. Native women were a strange lot, he thought. Most of them were as tall as a Roman soldier, fair-haired and large-breasted; nearly always drunk on mead. They were enthusiastic professionals, which made the transaction even more appealing.

  “How was that funeral at the end of last winter?” Roscius asked as they made their way through the encampment. “Your first political mission went well, I assume?”

  Agricola gave him a sidelong glance. “It was interesting,” he offered. “With no male heir, the Iceni king has left his kingdom to his wife—Boadicea, or Boudica as the Britons call her. She has red hair like you. Taller than us both. Full of gristle. And what a voice.” Agricola shook his head. “She sounds like an early morning buccina on a hangover,” he referenced the harsh braying of the Roman military trumpet.

  “You tried to bed her, didn’t you?”

  “No,” Agricola lied, remembering the disdain with which she had rejected his halfhearted advances. “I was more interested in the procurator’s wife, Valeria. Catus Decianus is a spineless little pen-pusher,” he added. “I felt sorry for the poor woman.” Though she hadn't been any more interested in his advances than the Iceni queen—Valeria had given him a few smiles, but the moment he brushed a hand against her hip in invitation, she looked at the physique that melted most women like ice in the summer and just raised a pair of terrifyingly imperious eyebrows. Two rejections in a row; that trip to Iceni territory at the end of last year hadn't been his luckiest when it came to bed-sport.

  “You’re a whore, Agricola.” Roscius laughed. “I look forward to your wedding day—for you, it will be the march of the condemned gladiator, won’t it?”

  “That day will never come,” Agricola said with real feeling. “But I’ll tell you, Roscius . . . that Boudica. There’s something about her—she's not the mug her husband was, that's for sure. She has more balls than Catus Decianus. I see concessions—lots of them.”

  Roscius grunted. “You want to be a political man? What do you read from the situation?”

  “Decianus is a bean-counter,” Agricola said. “He’ll roll over as long as there’s profit in it for him and it keeps the Iceni quiet. This Boudica's a proud one, though. Her husband not ev
en on the pyre yet, and already the tribesmen were looking to her as if to a queen. Decianus will have to eat some shit and kiss her arse to keep her quiet—and then everyone’s a winner. Which seems to be how it's played out given that the annexation must have gone ahead by now.” He'd ended up leaving Iceni territory before the funeral was over, certainly before the procurator carried out his orders. “And I can tell you this, Roscius—if there's anyone who knows how to eat shit and kiss arse, it's Decianus. His wife is wasted on him. She was one of those cool ones—you know, fire underneath for the right man, a real challenge—”

  “Sir!” They were interrupted as a young legionary trotted over to them, his segmented armor clattering on his skinny frame.

  “Felix, isn't it?” Roscius identified at once.

  Felix grinned, showing his teeth. He looked to Agricola to be about sixteen years old—skinny, enthusiastic, with a mop of white-blond hair. Probably another Gaul. “Yes, sir. Sallustius Secundus Felix—”

  “Tenth of the Tenth,” Roscius finished. The tenth century in the tenth cohort of the Augusta was the least regarded of the entire legion—indeed, as it was in any legion, manned largely by new and untried men. Like himself, Agricola realized. “What is it, legionary?” Roscius asked with the correct military severity, letting the boy know that the greeting was over.

  “Begging to report, sir, that the camp prefect requests your presence in his quarters.”

  “At this time?” Agricola glanced at the sun.

  “He said at once, sir.” Felix was earnest. “I’ve been looking for you two for a while now. I went to the palaestra and all—the lads say you’re always there, sir. Working on your muscles.”

  Roscius chuckled. “Looks like the town will have to wait,” he said to Agricola. “All right, Felix. Run along.” Felix saluted and did as he was told—a new recruit, clearly eager to be away from the ancient stare of his superiors.