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

by E. Knight

  Duro, taut and trembling, thrust out a hand, and one of the warriors took his red-enameled sword as he stepped close to Andecarus, leaning down so that the two were almost nose to nose. “So you would have us do what? You’ve already made your case clear. The Romans are coming for us. All we can do is fight and try to win.”

  “You can send away those who can be saved,” Andecarus growled again. “The Brigantes might take them in. Or the Coritani, perhaps? Either way, they will be better looked down on by a fostering tribe than as bleached bones on a field somewhere with a Roman standard jammed down through their ribs.”

  “The queen will not have it, and nor should she. The tribe travels together, and the womenfolk and children will watch Rome crushed for good. Or, if your portents have the right of it, they will watch us perish, but whatever the case, the tribe belongs together, not spread across the land like refugees. And what Iceni woman would want to face the world without her man anyway?”

  “The queen seems to be doing it quite admirably.”

  Duro’s lips peeled back from his teeth angrily. “Get out of my sight.”

  “Gladly. I’ll leave you with that hulking moron you’ve raised in my rightful place.” Ignoring the spluttering elder, Andecarus turned his back and stormed off. Where he was going and what for he could not say, but his pride now that he had turned his back on his father would not let him falter or deviate, and so he stormed into the doorway of an old barn directly ahead. Whatever it was used for, it had to be better than the yard out there full of his father’s lethal denial. Out of sight of the old man and in the cool shade of the huge barn, he stopped, put his hand out against the central post to steady himself, and let his eyes adjust to the dim interior.

  He heard the whimper before he saw what was happening, and his hand went to his side. His sword was gone, somewhere back in the burning town. Had he dropped it in the fort when he’d been hit in the head? Left it with the old healer afterward? He couldn’t remember. Hands balling into white-knuckled fists, a low growl emerged from deep within. Ria lay on the straw-covered floor in the corner, her pale legs thrashing around in desperation, her arms pinned as the huge, sweating, muscular shape of Verico lunged again and again, trying to suppress her.

  “Struggle harder,” the brute sneered. “I like a good fight. Teach you to keep running away . . .”

  The first kick Andecarus delivered broke a rib or two. He heard the snaps. As Verico rolled off Ria, stunned by the unexpected attack, Andecarus staggered on his bad knee, gripping the post again. His hand touched cold iron, and his eyes were drawn to it, even as they watched Ria scrambling to safety. A farmer’s tool hung on a peg—a sickle with a hooked end for pruning as well as reaping. His hand closed around the wooden handle and lifted it from the peg.

  “You!” Verico snarled, rising with a wince and clutching a hand to his ribs. Andecarus took a step toward him. The big man, trousers still snagged around his ankles, ducked left, and instinctively Andecarus moved to block him—the oaf’s sword stood propped against the barn wall. “Good. A consolation for a wasted day. I will tear your eyes out through your arse,” grunted Verico.

  “One-handed?”

  As the brute frowned in incomprehension, Andecarus lashed out, quick and deadly, the sickle catching his foster brother on the left forearm and slicing so deep he felt the bounce of iron on bone even inside the wound. Verico screamed, partly in agony and partly in rage, but even so sorely wounded, the big man was strong and fast. As Andecarus recovered from the swing, Verico barged past him with a lowered shoulder, staggering with the trousers at his ankles and the pain in his side, and ripped his sword from its sheath, turning.

  The big warrior leveled the long blade, still streaked with Catuvellauni blood, threatening the smaller man who wielded only a short farm tool. Three swings, accompanied by unintelligible roars, had Andecarus stepping back across the barn defensively. He became aware that faces had appeared at the door, drawn by the noise. Another wide swing would have decapitated him had he not ducked, and he doubled back, using that central pillar where he’d found the sickle to hold off another blow, and another. As the brute hacked chunks out of the post, Andecarus backed toward Ria, who, shaking and pale, was wrapping her clothes around herself once more while spitting hate-filled curses at her captor.

  Verico was on him again in moments. Slash, swipe, slash. And then, suddenly, the big man was falling, toppling forward. Andecarus blinked and saw Ria's sweeping leg fold back in as the girl spat on the fallen warrior.

  “When I get back to you, you’ll regret that, Shagpiece,” Verico snarled, rising with some difficulty, using only one hand, blood still pouring in torrents from the other arm.

  “She’ll never worry about you again,” snapped Andecarus as he kicked the big sword away from his foster brother. With deliberate slowness of movement, he placed his foot on Verico’s back, between the shoulder blades, and shoved him down to the floor. As the monster’s breath exploded from thick lips, Andecarus moved around behind him and dropped to a crouch, his eyes catching the fury in Ria’s as she nodded.

  “Only a thief takes things that are not his,” he hissed into Verico’s ear. “Only a hubristic idiot attacks his brother warriors because they beat him to a shared victory. And only a coward would attack a man from behind with a rock. Yes, I know it was you.”

  With a simple, single movement, Andecarus slid the sickle under the prone man’s neck, grasped the hook with his other hand, and jerked the sharp blade upward. He felt the skin, the muscle, the tendons go, heard the involuntary hiss as the blade sliced through windpipe, saw the lake of dark liquid begin to form beneath his victim. He kept tugging until he could hear iron on bone and then let go, leaving the sickle embedded as he rose. Verico’s left foot was twitching rhythmically, but otherwise, he was still.

  Ria was up now, her clothes covering her shivering form, eyes dark. But her expression of defiance and satisfaction as she stepped across the body brought an odd warmth to Andecarus. If the world was to plunge into darkness and end on the tip of a Roman spear, at least he would take to the grave the knowledge that Verico had died first, and badly.

  At the doorway, half a dozen Iceni nobles, wide-eyed and shocked, stepped out of his way, uncertain of what to do. Others were gathering now, and he caught the eye of Sorcha, the queen’s eldest daughter. Though once well-disposed toward him, Sorcha had distanced herself from what she perceived as a traitorous figure, treating him with contempt and scorn throughout the Iceni’s rampage across the country. Yet here, now, the girl who might once have been his gave him a short, sharp nod of respect. Her enmity seemed to have faded to tattered memory in the face of what had just happened. Sorcha’s own experiences at the hands of the Romans would be all too fresh in her memory to overlook Verico's abuses here, even if Ria had been given to him. Centurion or beast, no man should be allowed to rape a girl of the Iceni.

  His spirits sank a little at the sight of Duro storming toward him, disbelief vying with fury in his father’s eyes.

  “What have you done, boy?”

  “What should have been done years ago,” growled Andecarus. “Putting down a mad dog that would one day turn on its master.”

  “Verico!” Duro roared. “You would kill your own brother?”

  “He is no more my brother than you are my father. Get out of the way.”

  Storming past the outraged old man without another word, Andecarus crossed the yard, a huddled Ria held protectively at his side. He would allow his father a night to grieve, even for a monster, and see what the morning brought, vowing a good clean sacrificial ram to dread Andraste and divine Fortuna both that what the morning brought was not a revenge killing. He doubted it. A brute like Verico might seem of high value when the battle rages, but the balance would tip now that it was over. Time tarnished all things, and soon enough Duro would remember mostly the animal’s true nature, his baser side, the corruption that had cankered his heart.

 
Above, a raven fluttered in the tree’s thick foliage.

  “Why should I not go with them?”

  Three days had passed since the sack, and half a mile away, Verulamium was busy sinking back into the earth, naught but ash and bone. Three days Andecarus had spent with Ria, trying to rebuild a spirit eroded by the selfish actions of a fiend. Three days in which his father had raged and ranted and yet not once confronted Andecarus over the death. And this morning, when the few sensible women were climbing into the cart and their supplies loaded with them, the old man had finally emerged, his face drawn and bleak, striding over to them.

  “You will leave?” he had asked in an odd, cracked voice. “When you’ve finally proved to the elders you are Iceni and not a son of Rome, you will flee?”

  Andecarus had shaken his head, not in denial, more in despair. “I took your favored son from you, and although I knew him to be a beast undeserving of life, I can see that I have done you wrong. The tribe will now forever see me as the man who killed one of their strongest warriors in a time of need. To stay would be to cause division and do you and I both further harm. Besides, the carts need an escort who knows one end of a sword from the other. And since the entire tribe is about to march into a Roman grave, my blade will make little difference to the outcome.”

  The old man had remained silent, his very presence forming the question again. You will leave?

  “Why should I not go?” he said again.

  Duro looked his son in the eye, his expression an odd mix of resignation, regret . . . and pride? “You are my son, and my son could no more desert his tribe than he could have sided with the Catuvellauni. And if you can walk away from your tribe, then I was right and you are naught but a Roman in Iceni dress.”

  Andecarus remained still, his expression unreadable, and his father pursed his lips. “You have served with Rome’s military. You alone among us have seen how they work on campaign. You know better than any of the Iceni or the Trinovantes how we can beat them, and with your knowledge, we can drive them from our shores.”

  “You still think we have a chance?”

  “Andraste will not fail us. The queen is her chosen. And don’t forget, boy, that with your foster brother’s death, you owe the tribe a warrior.” His voice wavered between quiet acceptance and suppressed anger. “He may have been unrefined to your Roman-fed tastes, but his sword will be missed unless you take it up in his place.” The effort with which the old man was keeping control on his emotions was impressive and showed in taut tendons and the pronounced veins of his temples.

  “Good reasons for you to want me. Poor reasons for me to stay.” His eyes flicked up to the carts and then back to his father, sucking air through his upper teeth.

  Duro narrowed his eyes, an uncharacteristically piercing gaze driving through Andecarus, into his heart. “And yet you will. I offer you the chance to redeem yourself among the Iceni. To make a difference.”

  And to redeem myself to a father? His gaze slid up to one face in particular atop the cart. Ria. She had assumed he would be coming with her, and it was only when she spoke of it that he had realized he was undecided. When he’d expressed his uncertainty, she had been surprised and afraid. She had pleaded with him to go, and he had looked deep into her eyes. Perhaps he could have? There was the chance of a good life there, even for exiles, moving on from all this horror. And Ria was a warm and thoughtful girl. He was not foolish enough to think she loved him, as much as she pleaded for him to join her. That, he knew somewhat painfully, was merely affection, possibly even just gratitude and fear. But if he went with her, perhaps someday there could be more . . .

  Yet his gaze slipped past her to the distant figure of Sorcha, the girl he’d seen violated. The girl he hadn’t been able to help. The daughter of a queen he served. And in a different life . . .

  There was a long, tense pause, and finally the son sighed. “Yes. I will stay.”

  As his father nodded—the closest he would come to a smile—Andecarus gestured to the carts. Perhaps two dozen women and children sat atop them, including Ria near the front, her face bleak and worried. “On a condition, though,” he added. “There are wounded warriors from today’s fight who will be of little use in battle against Rome—men who will live but will never again charge a shield wall. Yet they might afford adequate protection from bandits by their presence alone. Send a few of them with the carts—see that they reach the north safely.”

  His father nodded his assent, looking up at the women. And Andecarus was surprised given how long he'd paced back and forth beneath the silver gleam of the moon, how long he'd wrestled with the question, at how little persuasion it had taken to keep him here.

  He’d been dismayed at how few women and children were willing to join the evacuation that morning. The queen had avowed her intention to fight Rome and to win, and too many of her people were so swept along by her rhetoric they could see nothing in their future but glorious victory. Still, every life he saved on those carts was one less that would fall on the field against Rome. And the queen had consented that Ria and the rest could go—had even given coin to assist them.

  The cart drivers, at a nod from Duro, began to urge the beasts forward, and the carts bounced and jostled on the turf and began to roll away toward the paddock where the healers were at work on the wounded, seeking an escort. As the last cart shifted, Andecarus looked up at Ria, who pinned him with her gaze.

  “I will wait every day for news,” she said quietly.

  “I fear it will not be good,” he replied sadly. “Go with the gods, Ria, and live.”

  As the cart with its precious cargo bounced away, he watched that pretty face recede and turned to his thoughtful father.

  “You must see that we still cannot win?”

  Duro slapped a veined hand down on his shoulder. “So you say. But if the queen, with men like you and I beside her, cannot beat the Romans, then no one can.”

  The kraa of the raven in the tree was loud and almost—almost—drowned out the distant screech of the eagle.

  PART SIX

  “They will not sustain even the din and the shout of so many thousands, much less our charge and our blows.”

  — Tacitus

  THE WARRIOR

  Kate Quinn

  DURO

  T

  he Roman's head rolled across the ground and stopped on my foot.

  The peaceful hum of the evening ground to a halt. My queen had been hearing my report on the wagon-loads of refugees and wounded I'd sent north after the fight at Verulamium, rasping a whetstone the length of her sword. A bard had been plucking softly at his harp in the tent's corner, singing some plaintive lay of seal-queens and sea gods, and the lamps flickered with the cooling breeze of evening. But the guards murmured outside, letting someone in, and when I glanced up, the severed head was already lolling against my foot, staring up at me.

  A legionary. I'd killed enough to know the look, though the head was withered and desiccated. A young man, clean-shaven, his hair a white-blond rarely seen in swarthy Romans. A Gaul, then, from a tribe defeated so long ago their men had no qualms anymore about serving in Rome's legions. I felt no pity for the dead boy. I would sink a knife under my own breastbone before I'd let them cut my hair and replace my long-sword with a short gladius—if this one hadn't minded being Romanized, he deserved death.

  "The sacrifice was made," a boy's voice said as the harp trailed away. "The sacrifice is complete. Andraste assures us victory."

  Boudica's head snapped up, and we traded glances as a young Druid came into the light. A Druid—we had lost our own Druid in the sack of the sacred isle of Mona, and I had seen no others since despite reports of survivors coming to join us. Hope leaped in my chest at the sight of this boy, wide-eyed and skinny, his robe grimy with travel dust and old blood spatters.

  "I found him four miles north of the war band. Making his way here with a guide." Another voice, quiet and commanding—my son's voice
. I had not even noticed him enter the tent in the Druid's wake. Andecarus looked older than his twenty-seven years, tired and dusty, as he always was after a long scouting ride. He'd been taking a great many of those lately to avoid me. He addressed the queen as he indicated the Druid boy. "He insisted on being brought to you at once."

  "I am Yorath." The Druid came toward the queen on thorn-ripped feet. "The gods sent me visions of you, Queen Boudica, and I have traveled far to join you. The gods delayed my arrival, gave me many trials over many weeks. But I have brought you victory."

  He rambled on, something about how he had survived Mona with the aid of the gods, had seen the queen's daughter, had delayed joining us to make a proper sacrifice—but it was the word victory that sharpened my queen's gaze.

  "Andraste showed you a sign?" she asked.

  The Druid smiled, serene as a lake. "When I made sacrifice, a beam of sunlight lit the open clearing, and an owl flew through to seize its prey. Victory is assured. We will meet the Romans in open battle, and we will crush them utterly."

  Boudica's eyes flared, and I saw my son, Andecarus, shifting his feet. "Open battle?"

  Yorath nodded. "Only by confronting them openly—placing our fate in one throw for the gods to dictate as they will—do we win."

  I glanced at my queen, but she only looked back at her sword, letting the whetstone resume its leisurely rasp. "Druid, you are most welcome in my camp. Andecarus, see he is given food and shelter befitting his rank."

  I picked up the severed head, returning it to him reverently. "Spread word through the war band of Andraste's favor."

  Boudica nodded. The boy stroked his emaciated fingers over the bloody white-blond hair of the sacrificed legionary. "Felix was his name. He died happy. Another good omen!"

  I nodded. I wasn't a man to doubt omens. The queen did—she had a questioning mind that probed everything it saw for shadows, but my view was straighter and blunter. It was one reason we worked so well together, countering each other’s strengths.