by E. Knight
The nemeton lay silent in a small grove close to the river, where one of its tributary streams bubbled from the ground clean and new—a gift from the gods and the reason for the veneration of the place. It was old, too. Around the spring, in a circle, the ancient trees had grown into one another, forming a solid hedge of branches and intertwined limbs. Years back, it would have been neat, the foliage trimmed with loving work, the grass kept short by goats, the stonework, now barely visible through the undergrowth, polished clean. The Druid of this place had been long gone, though the small signs and markers remaining around the area spoke of its existence even to strangers such as Andecarus. He had seen the low stone with the telltale markings when the army had encamped this evening. He’d not thought to visit it, of course. Who did, in these new and Druidless days?
Crossing the circle, he crouched near the stone-lined spring and began to tear at the long, untended grass. A hundred heartbeats passed with furious defoliation before the offering pit came into view. A deep, stone slab-lined hole. Was it still occasionally used? Certainly, the elders of the army should be seeking the support of the gods when so close to such a place. It was all well and good for the queen to invoke great Andraste in her harangues of the army, but perhaps the tribe’s patron goddess might be more inclined to aid them if some of their nobles were to make regular offerings. In this, he couldn’t help but feel that the Romans had the edge. Their gods seemed so much more powerful, but then the Romans spoke to their gods daily. More, even: every time they crossed a threshold. Every time they faced a decision. And they gave their gods wine and silver and expensive frankincense imported from beyond the ends of the world. No wonder the Roman gods were powerful and looked after their people. Invoking Andraste as you hack off a head and hurl it into a ditch might seem appropriate, but what god would prefer a moldering head in a ditch to a feast of exotic proportions on a dedicated altar?
Drawing his purse from his belt, Andecarus opened it and withdrew a collection of coins. Some silver, some bronze—no copper. Better not to demean a god. Roman coins sat in his palm alongside those minted by the tribes, and even one from a Gaulish nation that must have come in through the merchants in Londinium. Holding his breath, he cast the coins into the narrow pit and was rewarded with the clink and clatter as they landed atop previous offerings from years gone by.
“Great Andraste and spirits of this place, I ask a twofold boon. Let this war end well, and quickly, and let Ria be delivered to me from the clutches of the animal who holds her. In exchange, I give you coin of silver and bronze and my devotion and praise.” Unsure what else to say in this oddly deserted place with no attendant, he rose once more and turned.
His heart skipped and then thundered silently as he saw the rodent move. A squirrel—a small one for its type—but no russet red or lackluster brown. This squirrel was white as snow, white as the cold marble Romans that had been torn from the temple roof in Camulodunum and smashed, white as that striking plume on Paulinus’ helmet. Andecarus shuddered. White was good for the Romans. Their priests wore white; the legions had their white tunics for parade dress. For the tribes of this island, though, white was rather more sensibly tied with death—with ash, with the bloodless body, with the spirits of the restless dead. It was a clear omen granted him at this sacred place, even in the absence of the Druids. It presaged dark times for the Iceni and possibly ascendancy for Rome. And when paired with the logic of his own all-too-human predictions, it told a horrible tale of the days to come. And yet, despite the foretelling of doom that seemed to apply to his tribe and the whole revolt in general, he couldn’t help but worry more whether the white of death might apply to Ria, for she was part of his prayer, too.
The squirrel sniffed, apparently in disdain, and, as though finding him somehow wanting, scuttled off into the undergrowth, taking with it Andecarus’ hope and spirit. Shivering and already defeated, the child of Iceni, child of Rome, walked out of the grove and into the abyss.
Verulamium
“Let the die be cast.”
“What?” murmured the weird, wall-eyed one.
“Oh, nothing.” Andecarus’ gaze drifted to left and right, playing across the warriors striding purposefully along to either side. Most of them bore swords, though a few—particularly those oddballs who he had picked out this last hour and primed for the attack—also carried spears with wicked tips, as did Andecarus himself.
Although this particular force consisted in the main of Trinovantes, it also contained a healthy—unhealthy?—number of the Iceni’s undesirables. Queen Boudica and her advisors had been careful to place those whom they had reason to mistrust—and the idiots—far from the rest of the Iceni, keeping potential trouble out of the fight as far as that was possible. That Duro had not stood up for him might have driven an ever-greater wedge between them but for the fact that Andecarus knew he was being tested. His loyalty had been questioned time and again, and his father could not be seen to be coddling him until he had proved himself.
And so he found himself among the Trinovante warriors who lusted after the destruction of their age-long enemy—the Catuvellauni. Back across the river, the Iceni moved against the town, which nestled on a long gentle slope against the south bank of a river, in a tightening arc. The majority of the population lived much as they had before the arrival of Rome, gathered in extended farmsteads on the southern and western hills, but the place was changing rapidly. By the river had once stood a sacred site, the investiture place of their kings, until the legions came and built a fort of timber and turf there. And now, a decade since the army had moved on, that enclosure formed the center of a growing Roman-style settlement. Indeed, the hillside farmsteads had gradually extended down to the new heartland, melding with the expanding Roman center so that the whole valley had become one sprawling settlement with native structures around the periphery and a new Roman town at its core.
The Iceni war bands were even now approaching from the south, well positioned to butcher their way across the outlying farmsteads and settlements, carrying fire and death through them and down the hill, converging finally on the new Romanized heart of Verulamium as they tightened the cordon. Below them, the settlement went on in peace, seemingly unaware of their approaching doom, for the intent to sack Verulamium had been kept as secret as was possible with a force of this size, and for the last day, the wagons and noncombatants had been left to follow on while the war bands forged ahead in order to take advantage of surprise.
The gleeful Trinovantes and their Iceni hangers-on had been given the northern approach down the gentle slope, taking the small suburb on the north bank and driving across the bridge, straight at the enclosure that had been a Roman fort and now marked the center of Verulamium. The Trinovante warriors were full of eager talk of what they would do to the inhabitants of the north bank, though Andecarus knew that the bridge was the key, not the settlement. Unless they arrived quickly and unexpectedly, they could easily become bottled up on the bridge, fighting a few men at a time and unable to effectively take part in the main fight. They would have to concentrate on the bridge if they wished to be part of the main assault. Meanwhile, the Iceni bands would have their pick of plunder and slaves from the easy targets to the south and would most likely have the glory of taking the heart, too, while the Trinovantes struggled to cross the river.
Unless someone rushed in and took the bridge before the local warriors managed to plug it.
Not for the first time, he considered simply walking away. The Iceni were his tribe, but the vast majority treated him with mistrust, some also with derision. It had been almost a month since the sack of Londinium, and Andecarus had spent that time all but alone, spurned by his fellow tribesmen as the war band inched its way toward Verulamium. Only his heritage and a deep connection that he couldn’t even try to describe kept him with them in the face of his adoptive people. He could have fled to the embrace of Rome. They would welcome an Iceni warrior with knowledge of his tribe and their goa
ls and tactics, he was sure—one who could speak Latin and had served in the cavalry. But to do so would be to place himself firmly against the tribe, and he could no more comfortably do that than fight the Romans for the Iceni. There were places he could go, of course, which were neither Iceni nor Roman. The Brigantes, perhaps? After all, had he not shed blood with the legions to save their queen from her devious husband?
But finally faced with that inevitable choice, he had pushed down the uncertainty, grateful that this time the target was a town of the Catuvellauni with few actual Romans present. He could almost pretend it was an old-fashioned tribal war—in a way, for the Trinovantes at least, it was.
He had cast his spear into the ground with the rest. When the queen and her advisors drew the rough plan of Verulamium in the dust last night, plotting where the attacks would take place, he had nodded acceptance of his role. Let the die, as Caesar had once so eloquently said, be cast. All that remained was to see how lucky the throw had been.
Shaking off uncertainty with his reverie, he concentrated on the task at hand.
A tall grassy mound marked their point of descent to the river, and the warriors surged around the barrow—burial place of a king dead just a few years—like a fast-flowing river around a rock, and on down the long slope. The river lay below, a wide glittering ribbon in the early afternoon light, cutting through the dry landscape from east to west. The whole of Verulamium lay spread out before them like a banquet: that burgeoning Roman settlement by the waterside, replete with a few grand structures, numerous workshops, and houses in stone and timber, whitewashed plaster and red tile, spidering out in regular streets and meeting the straggle of native huts and houses that had spread down from the ancient slopes to meet the new.
The Iceni had come. Though their individual forms were thus far only fleetingly visible, like ants crawling among the most distant reaches of the place, wherever those tiny shapes flooded, columns of smoke began to plume up into the blue. Andecarus yelled to the squint-eyed Iceni lunatic and the bull-shouldered fellow with the misshapen skull—two of the misfits who had cleaved to him as a noble of their tribe. The Trinovantes around them would mostly concentrate on the riverside settlement, rampaging madly, but there was only one hope of achieving any sort of success with this prong of the attack, and that lay in making it across the bridge before the enemy clogged it.
As he pelted down the shallow slope, praying his knee continued to hold up under the pressure and trying not to fall foul of holes or roots, the two strange warriors passed on his words to the others he’d primed in the past hours. Those words—the bridge, the spears, the phalanx—spread through the Iceni undesirables like a summer fire through a field of barley stalks. He had prepared them as well as he could. Some had even listened.
They were perhaps halfway down the long slope when the world erupted into the din of battle. The Trinovantes whooped and bellowed their war cries, clanged their swords on shields or mail shirts. The occupants of the buildings on the north side of the river emerged from their doorways, some in panic, others determined, bringing with them swords and spears. Brave but pointless; their fate was already sealed—the Trinovantes outnumbered them by many hundreds to one. The alarm was now being raised across the settlement. Shouts of panic and anger rang out across the wide valley, a whistle blown somewhere echoed, a bell was clanging desperately at the old Roman enclosure. Screaming and cries of dismay began to rise in pitch and volume across the valley alongside crashes and rumbles, melding to form a blanket of sound—the death rattle of a town.
The Iceni were beginning to descend like a forest fire from the hills across the river, burning the majority of the structures, hacking, spearing, and maiming their way to the center. Now they were a true swarm of ants, small dark figures moving amid the golden thatch and the parched, pale grass. Small knots of activity were visible here and there where desperate, defiant groups of Catuvellauni warriors tried to hold off the tide of the enemy despite the hopelessness of the odds. Boudica’s army was immense and strong, full of spirit and vigor, riding high on their earlier successes, certainly more than a match for a sleepy town caught off guard.
Ahead of the swarming Iceni, women, children, warriors, gray-beards, dogs, cats, and horses flooded in panic for the settlement’s core. Whether they thought to defend themselves at that small fortified heart or to flee across the bridge to safety, naught would come of it. Verulamium was doomed, and that had been clear from the start. It was just a matter of severity.
Andecarus yelled more instructions as he concentrated on his run and on not letting the spear’s butt touch the grass. More than once in the descent, his knee had issued a sharp little pain—the legacy of his injuries still making their presence felt for all its relative strength—and it was by luck alone that he’d remained upright throughout. Finally, his legs trembling with the effort of maintaining so long a run over such terrain, he and perhaps a hundred of the Iceni reprobates and Trinovantes pounded across the short length of flat ground to the river and the bridge that was even now beginning to fill with locals flooding the other way.
Behind him, the bulk of the Trinovante force began to spread out among the northern settlement’s buildings, burning, killing, and brutalizing, but Andecarus had his sights only on that old fort at the settlement’s heart. Even above the press of people at the far side of the bridge, he could see it clear, for a high timber tower stood atop the old fort’s northern gate, the location of that warning bell that had notified the population of danger far too late to save them.
The bridge was a heavy wooden affair—a recent Roman construction replacing the original crossing—wide enough to drive a cart across and more. The hundred or so Iceni and Trinovantes poured onto the seasoned timbers, swords raised ready, many bellowing their war cries. Andecarus ran on, oddly silent, out of place. The only combat he had seen in his adult life had been from horseback as part of a Roman turma, and try as he might, none of the ancient battle cries of his people would come to mind. Bellowing the exhortation for Mars and Minerva to guide his spear and shield his flesh seemed wholly inappropriate. At the far end of the bridge, frightened occupants of the town had begun to flee the southern assault, thinking to cross the river to safety, but as they spotted the fresh force of enemy warriors flooding down to block their flight, they held back, milling about in panic. Even as Andecarus and his companions pounded across the timbers toward them, the warriors among the fleeing locals came to the forefront, leveling blades.
Again, for the hundredth time this hour alone, Andecarus found himself wondering why he was doing this. Did he believe in the great cause? Not really. Was it a matter of paternal or regal or even peer approval? Again, hardly. So why? The answer came as it had every other time: Because you are Iceni. Because the only Romans who know you are gone or in your father’s hands. Because, perhaps, the die was cast long ago, before you ever even tried to stop it all. Because when Verulamium lies in ruins with Londinium and Camulodunum, the last chance that Paulinus might offer terms will flit away in the wind, and the governor would no more welcome you to his bosom than he would a viper. Because the time for dreams of peace is past. Because the tribe is watching. Because, in an odd way, you need to prove that you are a match for Verico.
Because to leave would be to abandon Ria to her fate.
He grimaced as he cried out, “Spears!”
The small force of misfit Iceni closed at a run with that last bellowed command and lowered the tips of their spears as though they were a cavalry unit charging infantry. Amid the din of battle cries, Andecarus found himself instinctively invoking Mars anyway—alongside Andraste—and was once more grateful that the thin screen of warriors they charged were no more Roman than were their attackers. It did not do to anger gods, especially when it seemed they’d already taken against you.
His spear struck an unarmored Catuvellauni warrior in the chest. The shaft broke, and the shock of the collision ran up Andecarus’ arm, but not before the ti
p had penetrated, pushing between ribs, scything through muscle, lung, and veins and lodging up against the inside of his shoulder blade. The man let out a cry and fell back, his sword dropping to the timbers below, but Andecarus had already discarded his spear and deftly swapped his own blade from left to right hand, bringing it up for the fight. Others around him were having less success. The wall-eyed one had managed to catch a fleeing girl behind the warriors in the face with his spear and had fumbled his blade, running with surprise straight onto the point of a Catuvellauni sword. The one with the misshapen head had missed entirely, his handling of the spear poor, the tip slicing through the air a clean foot above the enemy’s head.
But there were five of them in that first spear-charge, and three had hit warriors square on, taking them out of the fight. Even as the front men raised their blades for the melee, the spears of the four men behind them, carefully—most carefully—leveled between the heads of the front line, struck. Again two missed the warriors, but two more hit, one spear shattering a foot below the tip, a dozen jagged shards of ash-wood scraping Andecarus’ shoulder as he raised his sword.
Battle in earnest had begun.
Across the river somewhere, Verico would be murdering and raping his heroic way to the compound at the settlement’s heart, desirous of being seen to be the greatest of the Iceni. But the Romanized brother who had learned the swing of the spatha and the thrust of the spear among the legions would be more than a match for the brute. If Andecarus could not steal or buy Ria from the bastard’s clutches, he would outshine Verico and win the girl back somehow. The Iceni might see him as a seeker of peace, a too-Roman courier at best, but they had not been there when Andecarus the cavalryman had wielded his sword against the forces of Caratacus, nor had they seen Andecarus the unhorsed rider caked in blood, knee deep in bodies on the field of battle, helping save the Brigante queen from the forces of her rebel husband. They had seen only Andecarus the peace-monger, not Andecarus the soldier. After days—weeks, even—of indecision and uncertainty, the simplicity of wielding a blade and having an enemy trying to kill him infused Andecarus with spirit and strength, and he fought with a clear mind and an easy heart—for as long as the faces appearing before him were Catuvellauni and not Roman, at least.