by E. Knight
Helva didn’t like my taunting. He was already angry that the fight was lasting as long as it was. His men were watching silently behind him, and I knew he must be imagining they thought him weak, a failure.
His started to attack me with quicker, rasher strokes. Not at all like a Roman. Romans were usually patient and methodical. But in his quest to annihilate me, he adopted the moves of my own people. I raised my sword to block, but his blow jarred my arm, sending shattering numbness into my shoulder. But still I swung, though my grip was not good enough to cause any real harm. He attacked again, and this time my sword flew from my fingers, through the air, clattering on the cave floor near my mother’s body.
All the air rushed from my lungs, and my stomach plummeted. This could not be the end. This was not how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to kill him. I was supposed to be the one bathing in his blood.
The bastard’s face creased into a punishing smile. “I win,” he taunted and slowly stalked forward.
My sword was too far. The only weapon I had was my mother’s shield save for the dagger strapped to my hip. A dagger couldn’t win against a sword. But it was all I had.
I returned his smile and beckoned.
His eyes raked over my body, taking in all he was prepared to plunder yet again. I stepped back, allowing him to advance on me but also to retreat farther from his men. Last thing I needed was some over-eager foot soldier wriggling into the narrow opening to join our battle just when I had Helva in the right spot.
When I stopped walking, he stilled, considering how best to rush me, but it wasn’t more than a breath or two before he flew toward me, sword arcing and slamming down. I blocked with my shield, punching my arm up, hoping to tire him. Again and again.
Sweat covered me, dripping into my eyes, over my back, against my palms. Muscles screamed with exhaustion. If I was tired, he had to be tired. Didn’t he?
And then he misstepped. “Thank you, Andraste,” I whispered, knowing my goddess had a hand in his faltering footwork.
I jabbed forward with my dagger, finding the side-gap in his armor, ramming the blade into his ribs. I thrust hard, bellowing as I did it. Feeling the tip of my dagger pierce every layer, feeling the pop of his organs giving way to my blade, and then I yanked it upward, the muscles in my arm burning.
My dagger sank deep, all the way to the hilt. His blood, warm and slick, spilled over my fingers. I’d delivered a deathblow.
Duro had taught me well.
A rush of relief fell over me. I would die, but he would die first. I felt peace in knowing that. Felt the love for my sister, my mother, my people. My blessed mission complete. He stared into my eyes as he stumbled forward, the sheer weight of him pushing me back. A guttural, feral noise fell from his open lips. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
“I win,” I whispered right into his face. “You die.” I yanked out my dagger, and his blood came pouring with it, soaking the front of my chest with its warmth.
His eyes met mine, widening, for I was right. I had won, and he’d not once believed it could be.
Helva dropped to his knees with a futile gasp for air. He reached for me, and I smiled, shook my head, took a step back. Those few seconds seemed to pass by slowly, and I looked toward his men. At their startled faces.
I grabbed Helva’s sword and braced myself for their onslaught.
Another one came at me, and I resolved I would take them, one at a time, until I could take no more. A blood-curdling battle cry tore from my throat, and the last thought I had was of Keena, and that I had set her free.
KEENA
I will never forget the imagined sounds of my sister’s screams.
I will never forget the strength it took for her to give me life.
I will never forget her.
Sorcha makes me strong. Sorcha’s voice guides me on this path now. I trudge along on legs that are much too tired, but strength fills me. A need to survive and carry our story to the gods.
I turn back every few feet to stare into the distance. I listen for the sound of an approaching army. But I hear nothing.
Every gentle sway of the wind is Sorcha pushing me forward.
Every low whistle of a breeze is her soft murmur telling me not to stop.
I am traveling north. I am continuing on our path because, with Sorcha’s help, I found my courage. My strength returned to me from where it had been buried deep.
And she is right. The Romans are not following me.
All through the battles of this long year, Sorcha had pushed me back. Made me hide. Kept me hidden and safe. She was my protector all through my life until the last breath she gave. They would not look for me. I was nothing to them.
But I am something to my people. I am brave. I am the beacon of light that will carry on the memories of the Iceni, their rebellion, and of my mother and sister. I will remember them to the gods so they do not forget, and someday history will record the sacrifices that were made.
These are the thoughts that keep me moving.
I stop only for a moment to rest, my feet blistered and bleeding in my leather shoes. My mother’s sword is heavy, as is my heart and the duty left to me. Leaning a hand on a tree, I drag in a chilled breath, watching it puff out in a cloud of vapor. It is cold. But I cannot stop. I must keep going or I will freeze to death when night falls.
A familiar caw sounds above, and a raven lands on the branch just over my head. His eyes meet mine, and I see the same intelligent animal, the one with the eyes that bore into my soul.
“Hello, raven,” I say.
He caws back, then flies up in a circle before bolting north. I watch him, wishing I could fly to where I need to go. Wherever that is.
Pushing off the tree, I wander toward a stream. I kneel and wash my hands and face, sip the cool water, and stare at my reflection. I look haggard.
Can I go on? Have I failed? No. I cannot let Mother and Sorcha die in vain. I cannot let all of our people’s struggles be for nothing.
Tears sting my eyes. “Sorcha,” I whisper to the wind. “I am sorry.”
Just then, the raven returns, sweeping down to the ground beside me. His wing brushes my chilled hand. I must be brave. I must live up to my name. I must be the woman Sorcha believed I could be. I have to survive.
The raven lifts up, flying in a circle and then landing in exactly the same spot. He cocks his head from side to side, then opens his black beak and lets out an irritating squawk.
In it, I hear my sister’s voice in my head. I am proud of you. Have courage. You cannot see the Keena I see. But I can. She shines like a beacon from within your soul . . .
And I am renewed.
The raven soars into the sky, beckoning me, and I follow wherever he might lead.
My blood sparks to flames, and I run. But I am not fleeing from my enemies, rather rushing toward my future and the woman I am destined to become.
EPILOGUE
Stephanie Dray
CARTIMANDUA
A
nother prisoner is brought before me in shackles. This one a girl. Dirty and slight of build, with a nest of wild hair, she sways before me as if the chains are too heavy for her to hold up. Still, she manages to stay on her feet when my loyal armor bearer reports the reason for her arrest. “We found her huddled in a tree trunk for warmth, insect-bitten and murmuring to a black raven. We thought her half-mad, but in her delirium, she kept murmuring your husband’s name.”
My husband. Venutius. The man who covets my crown and would take my kingdom from me if he could. But what does it mean that some girl in a tree was murmuring his name? It might mean nothing, of course. She might be a kinswoman of my husband’s. A servant. A bastard child. Who can guess?
In the devastating aftermath of Boudica’s failed rebellion, my wayward husband still imagines himself the great prince who will finally unite the Britons and expel the Romans from our shores. It will come to nothing, and I think m
y people know it, yet in spite of the tragedy that has befallen the south, they stubbornly cling to a failed dream. A deadly dream.
Boudica buried thousands of Britons. My hands are not so bloody, and my mind is clear on the need for reconciliation, and yet, in their helpless rage about the slaughter of the tribes to the south, my Brigantes prefer my husband’s incendiary talk.
Remember Boudica, he cries, and the warriors cheer.
But this girl standing before me is no warrior. She is, in fact, little more than a shivering child. And in an act that is unbearably familiar, I say, “Remove her chains. Then bring some bread, meat, and wine. The poor thing is half-starved.”
I rise from the ivory curule chair that an emperor of Rome gave me from whence to dispense justice and find a more comfortable seat by the fire. My white snake is in a basket there, and I curl the creature in my lap, stroking it softly as I beckon the girl to me. “Come. Warm yourself. Tell me how it is that you know my husband.”
The newly unfettered girl looks dazed as she drops to her knees before the fire, her dirtied face awash in its glow. But she doesn’t answer me. Not even when I prompt her again. “Are you seeking my husband out for some reason?”
She gives me one, long side-glance that is filled with hostility and fear.
Still, she says nothing.
I begin to fear that she is just a feral girl who has been touched by the gods, her senses in another world, her body in this one. But when the bread and wine come, she doesn’t lunge for them when offered. Even though her eyes glisten as if she were fighting the temptation to ease her hunger and thirst, she turns away from food and drink and back to the fire.
And that, I know, is not a gesture of madness . . . but of contempt.
“Girl,” I snap, impatient now as I take the cup of wine and raise it toward her lips. “I am Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes. I command you to drink and to answer me.”
“I know who you are,” she replies softly before taking one sip of the wine—only to spit it back into my face. “You are the Betrayer of the Britons.”
So then, I think, wiping the spray of wine from my cheeks. I shall not have to wait to die before Brigante children spit upon me. They’re happy to do it while I’m still alive. Except that something in the way she speaks tells me that she is not Brigante.
Her inflection is Iceni. Which is no great surprise.
The few survivors of Boudica’s war who have not been captured by the Romans have gone into hiding with the tribes. Some taken in by kinsmen, others reduced to servitude, and some to madness. But again, I see no madness in this girl’s dark gaze. What I see in those eyes is . . .
A resemblance to a man I loved.
But no. It cannot be. King Prasutagus has been dead a year now. His lands seized. His wife flogged. His daughters raped. His royal kinsmen taken as slaves. His people slaughtered.
The Romans told us that Queen Boudica and her daughters killed themselves rather than be captured. We were told they did it to deny Governor Paulinus his prize—for the Romans love to march their prisoners in great parades, during which their people may humiliate and torture the captives.
That is what we have been told, here in the kingdom of the Brigantes.
But I remember standing by the bier of a dead king a year ago and looking down into the eyes of this very same girl. Unless the gods are playing tricks on me, I am staring into the face of Princess Keena, the last survivor of the Iceni royal family.
“You look very much like your father,” I say to let her know that I recognize her. Though I half suspect she will fling the silver dish at me, I still offer her a platter of dried and salted fish. “I knew him very well. So you should eat and drink of my hospitality in his honor, even if it comes from my hands. Because your father was a very dear friend to me.”
“But not my mother,” the girl says, sullenly refusing the salted fish but losing her fight against thirst. She gulps down the wine so quickly it drips from the corners of her mouth.
“No, not your mother,” I agree, softy. “Your mother was not my friend. But neither was she my enemy.”
The girl makes a little sound of derision, as if she has trouble believing that there is any ground in between. “Rome is your friend. Which made my mother your enemy. Otherwise, you might have sent an army to help us against the Romans.”
She is not a child, after all, I decide. No. Not given what she has been through. Violated by the Romans. Riding in a war chariot with her mother. Somehow surviving the slaughter and finding her way here . . . by herself. She has been through too much for me to treat her like a child. So I tell her honestly, “Yes, I am friends with Rome. Which is why I had no cause to send Brigantes against Roman legions. But even if I had ordered my soldiers to fight in your mother’s cause . . . I’ve heard tell of how the battle was fought. If I sent an army against the Romans, my people would have been trapped between the wagons and Roman swords just as your mother’s army was. It was not numbers of soldiers that your mother lacked.”
The princess doesn’t reply. But she does take wash water from the basin when my servant offers it. She tries to clean her face and hands, but I fear it is an effort in vain when the water runs black. She will need a long bath and a scrub and new clothing. “I will order you a tub of water and attend to your washing myself.”
“Do queens play the part of wash girls here in the kingdom of the Brigantes?” she asks with no small bit of bite.
It’s rumored that of the two Iceni princesses, she was the mild-tempered one. Either she’s been hardened by the tragedies in her life, or it is yet another thing about Boudica’s legend that people get wrong. “No. Queens do not play wash girls here, but your mother once helped sponge blood off me when an assassin attacked me under her roof. This is some small repayment. Besides, if it is true that your mother and sister killed themselves, then I fear what you might do to yourself if left to your own devices.”
It is the mention of her sister that seems to rattle her most, and the princess looks away. “I wanted to die. For a long time. Now I can’t. Not if there’s any chance—” Keena breaks off, piercing me with a stare that reminds me so much of her mother that it stops my heart. “What will you do? I know that I am a prize that Governor Paulinus would pay handsomely to get his hands on.”
She is that. I cannot deny it.
What will you do? Boudica once asked me the same question, and now, repeated by her daughter, it seems to echo from the past. If the Romans knew that I had Boudica’s daughter, they would demand that I turn her over. They would likely pay me again with a chest of gold, just as they did when I gave Caratacus to them. They would take Boudica’s daughter away in a cage. Then, after they marched this poor girl through the streets of Rome to be violated again by the jeering crowd, they would strangle her to death.
I have no doubt about that. Emperor Claudius was a genial man who could afford to be merciful. But Nero, that pompous fool? No. Emperor Nero will kill this girl, just as he’s killed so many others for spectacle in Rome.
And I will not be a part of it.
The decision comes upon me at once, like a thunderclap, with resounding finality. “I will shield you,” I tell her. “You’re safe in my kingdom. You may live here with me, in freedom and under my protection as my ward.”
She seems almost as shocked by my words as I am.
I infamously gave over to the Romans Caratacus, Hero of the Britons. But now I can make a different choice. I will make a different choice. I will protect this child of Prasutagus as I was not able to protect the one we once made together. It is no breach of my treaty with Rome to protect this girl, for they don’t need her. As far as everyone else knows, she is already dead. The Boudican rebellion was put down. And no matter the delusions of my husband, it is over. Over. Rome won, decisively. Completely.
And with such devastation that an entire tribe is no more.
There has been enough killing.
Noth
ing can be served by giving them this girl.
I simply will not do it.
“Is there anyone left alive who might know you?” I ask.
Keena’s eyes fill with tears, but she bravely holds them back. “Only . . . well. My sister.”
Princess Sorcha is alive? Now that does surprise me and threatens to ruin all my plans. The younger princess I can take into my household without rousing suspicion. But the older one—the one who swung a sword with as much fierceness as any battle goddess, the one who bathed in the blood of Romans—she would be impossible to hide. “We were told you and your sister both committed suicide with your mother.”
Princess Keena shakes her head of matted and tangled hair. “No.” A knob of emotion bobs in her throat as she speaks, but her voice is, nevertheless, emphatic. “Sorcha did not kill herself; she fought! The Romans are probably ashamed because she would have killed some of them before they killed her . . . but she is dead. She gave her life for me. I didn’t think I could make it this far, not on my own, but my sister believed I was strong enough to do it.” Princess Keena chokes back a tiny sob. “She believed in me.”
How far did this poor girl travel by herself, grieving for her lost family? For her lost people? For her lost gods? My heart fills with sorrow for her, and I want to pull her into my embrace as the child I never had. But it is too soon for that, I know. And I worry that even if Princess Keena is not mad, she is confused. “If Sorcha is dead, then what did you mean when you said your sister might recognize you?”
The princess gets hold of her emotions and warily takes a nibble of bread. Only after she swallows does she say, “I meant my other sister. My half sister. Ria. She was sent away to safety after the sack of Verulamium. She’s only a freedwoman. The Romans won’t be hunting her, will they?”
“No,” I say, heartened by the relief I see in the girl’s eyes. “I’m sure your half sister is safe. We will look for her if you want. But it would be safer if we waited some time, and only if you took a different name.”