I Was There... Boudica’s Army

by Hilary McKay

  My little dirty Honey! She comes dancing out of the shadows and behind her she pulls a Roman boy. He has my Honey safe and I have his little cat Stella tangled in my cloak.

  So we swap.

  I knew there were good Romans.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Roman boy holds his cat against his face. My cheek is pressed on Honey’s neck. The murmurs which the Roman boy makes to his cat and I make to Honey have the same sound.

  Old Flax doesn’t like to be ignored for so long. He fidgets and bites at my shoulder and blows hard through his nose. When he blows through his nose there is a terrible sound from the city behind us. A great groaning screech, and a huge rumble. The smash of falling stone, the long thunder of tumbling roof tiles. The Roman boy and I grab the horses and run and run and run.

  We run north from the city, tumbling and stumbling in the dark, north and north and north until our legs refuse to do it any more.

  When we can’t run any longer, we walk, and when we can’t walk, we stagger, the boy leading Old Flax, me leading Honey. I remember being bowed by the weight of my head on my shoulders but I don’t remember anything more. I don’t remember falling asleep but I must have done.

  When I woke the Roman boy was looking at me. Black eyes.

  The little cat was beside him. Honey and Old Flax were tied to a broken tree. In daylight I could see a smudge or two of gold through the ashes on Honey’s coat. Old Flax was grey with ashes too, just like her. So was I. So was the Roman boy.

  I wonder when that happened.

  I didn’t notice before.

  The boy had been waiting for me to wake. He had one hand behind his back. When he saw me looking he drew it out. He was holding a round flat loaf.

  I was so hungry I swallowed and swallowed. The boy broke the loaf in two halves. He held them up, measuring which was biggest.

  He gave the biggest to me.

  I wonder who baked that loaf for him.

  We ate together, biting our bread with our eyes on each other’s faces. When it was gone we both stroked the cat. The boy pointed to the cat and said, “Stella,” and I nodded to show that I understood he meant her name.

  Then he pointed to himself and said, “Marcus.”

  Then he pointed to me.

  I made a sound but it wasn’t my name. I tried again and it was a croak. The boy pointed to Honey and I whispered at last, “Honey.”

  Honey.

  Honey.

  My voice is free! I have words to speak again! I point to myself and say, “Kassy” and to the boy and say “Marcus”. I name Honey again, and Stella and Old Flax. I chew imaginary bread and say, “Thank you.” The boy nods.

  Marcus has nothing and no one left except Stella his cat. I know because he told me. He held his hands out flat to the sky and two tears showed in his black Roman eyes. Marcus has more bread though. Three loaves. He brought them out and laid them on the ground between us.

  I have no bread left, but I have somewhere to go and somebody left. I have my grandmother. I didn’t even say goodbye. I want her more than anything else in the world right now.

  I know where I’m going. I’m going home.

  I point to myself, Kassy, and I point north to tell Marcus.

  Marcus nods again, to show he that he understands that I, Kassy, am going north. I still have somewhere to go.

  Then Marcus passes me two loaves of bread.

  Thank you, Marcus.

  Oh, this is going to take some untangling! But I try.

  I take the Roman boy’s hand. I say, “Kassy and Marcus” and I point my other hand north.

  The two tears spill down the Roman boy’s face.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  That first day we hardly moved, except to leave the churned trail of the army and cross to the unspoilt countryside in the east. There we found a patch of scrubby land where blackberry bushes grew. The berries were purple and black and we ate them in handfuls. They made my sore throat feel better. There were nut bushes too, with green nuts in clusters. I filled my empty bread sack with green nuts for the journey home.

  For most of that day we rested. We slept and woke, picked berries and nuts, and dozed and woke again. In between I tried to ask questions, and Marcus tried to answer them.

  You would think that would be impossible, because Marcus spoke not one word of my language, and I spoke not one word of his.

  But the Roman boy has an amazing thing! So simple, so clever! When I get home, if I get home, I will make one for myself. One for myself, and one for Finn. Finn would love it!

  It’s small, the size of two folded hands. Two flat thin wooden boards joined along one edge. It opens like a butterfly’s wings and then closes shut again. When it is closed shut you cannot see that inside the wooden boards are shallow frames and the frames are filled with wax. Beeswax. There is a layer of beeswax on each board and a sharp bronze stick on a leather thong.

  Often Finn and I have drawn pictures on smoothed earth with a stick. Pictures to show each other where we had gone, a fish for the river, a round hut for home. Once Finn drew Father with his hair all fallen off. Once I drew Uncle Red dancing on a roof.

  So I knew about pictures.

  Now Marcus takes his sharp bronze stick and makes pictures on the beeswax. He carves the wax like back in the village my father used to carve wood. But the wax is better than wood because you can carve it again and again. You can smooth it and make a new picture.

  That was how Marcus answered my questions. With pictures.

  That is the way I found out how he came to have Honey.

  The story of Honey and Marcus was long. I had to wait to see it all drawn.

  First Marcus drew people. A man with two crutches under his arm. He hopped on one leg. A woman holding bread in her hands. A boy with a cat.

  His father. His mother. Marcus and Stella.

  Marcus drew the city, the walls and the rooftops. He drew a road from the city leading down to a river. He drew boats on the river. Not little boats like the one Uncle Red used to rescue Honey and me from the marsh. Big boats.

  Then Marcus pointed.

  He showed me that his mother and father and Stella the cat were in the city.

  He showed me that he was out of the city. He was beside a boat.

  What was he doing there?

  Marcus drew big pots by the boats. He pointed to show me the pots came out of the boats. He pointed to his father to show the pots belonged to him.

  Marcus counted the pots. Four pots. He made a mark in the wax for each pot.

  So I understood that Marcus the Roman boy went down to the river to watch the pots being unloaded from the boats and to count them. They were for his father. He went instead of his father because his father had crutches and couldn’t walk well.

  But what about Honey?

  “Honey?” I asked.

  Marcus held up his hand to show I must wait to hear about Honey. He smoothed the wax and began to draw more.

  Here was the city and the walls again. Here was the gate where I found Stella. Many, many people now came running from the gate.

  They ran towards the river.

  Marcus stopped drawing and pointed at me.

  Me?

  He nodded. He spoke a word I knew.

  “Iceni,” said Marcus.

  Oh.

  That’s why the people were running.

  I turned away from Marcus. I didn’t want to look at him. I went to hug Honey and to rub Old Flax with grass. I picked a handful of nuts from a bush. My mind was all a tangle. I was ashamed.

  But I wanted to shout too.

  I wanted to shout questions to Marcus.

  What about the tax collectors coming to our village? What about Queen Boudica and her gold and silver girls? What about our stolen horses and honeycombs and woven blankets and bags of coins? What about our stolen land?

  I didn’t go back to Marcus for a long time.

  The next picture Marcus drew was of a boy like himself. The boy was
trying to pull Marcus into a boat. The boy’s eyes are wide open and his mouth is wide open as if he is shouting. What is he telling Marcus?

  Marcus draws a terrible picture.

  The man with the crutches is lying on the ground. His eyes are closed as if he is sleeping but he isn’t sleeping. He is stabbed with a spear.

  Marcus draws broken pots. He draws his mother beside them. Her eyes are closed too.

  When I look at Marcus his hands are over his face. He rocks like he is blowing in the wind.

  What can I do? What can I do?

  I pick up Stella who is prowling amongst the blackberry bushes and I carry her to Marcus and I put her on his knees. He holds her tight against his chest.

  I pick blackberries for Marcus and I lay them on a leaf to carry them. They are perfect berries. I checked each one to make sure. I put them beside Marcus.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  I rub his back and he lets me.

  After a while he lifts his head and begins to draw again.

  Now the city is burning. Smoke rises under Marcus’s hand. It billows and spreads. It covers the whole of the wax.

  Out of the smoke a pony comes running.

  Honey.

  I laugh out loud to see her.

  Honey! There is Honey running out of the smoke, out of the wax, before my eyes! How frightened she is! Her ears are laid back. Her eyes stare.

  Honey runs to the river and there she stops.

  Marcus stands up and shows me how he called to Honey then. He holds out his hand. “Veni, veni, veni!” he calls and Honey comes to him likes she comes to my whistle. He rubs her neck and pats her shoulder, and she leans her head against him. That’s how she came to him out of the smoke, frightened and he comforted her.

  Honey and Marcus, lost in the smoke together. They drink from the river. Marcus sleeps. When he wakes he remembers that his mother is dead and his father is dead. His home is burnt. Nothing is left.

  Except maybe one thing.

  Stella.

  In the quiet of the evening, Marcus goes back to look for Stella. There he is on the dark wax in front of me: a boy and a pony.

  Then Marcus puts down his wax boards and nods at me. That is the end, his nod says. All the rest you know! You found Stella. I found Honey. He points to Honey in the wax. He has answered all my questions.

  No he hasn’t! No he hasn’t!

  Now it is my turn to draw.

  I draw a boy, my brother Finn, riding on Honey’s back. I draw his curly head and his dog Brownie running beside him. I push the picture to Marcus and I point to them both. Did Marcus see them?

  Marcus looks very sadly at me and he shakes his head. No Finn. No Brownie. He takes the wax back to draw more smoke. Smoke everywhere.

  No use then, to draw Father or Uncle Red, or Queen Boudica and the bright brown horses?

  No.

  Now it is my turn to cover my face with my hands and Marcus’s turn to put blackberries beside me and give me Stella to hold and rub my back.

  There are still so many questions I would like to ask Marcus, and there must be just as many that he wants to ask me, but that is enough for one day. I bring out one of the loaves that he gave to me the night before. We will have to make this bread last at least another four days, but I break off two pieces and I hold them up to measure them.

  I give the biggest one to Marcus and he smiles.

  Marcus folds away the waxed wooden boards that have told us so much. Bread and blackberries and warm afternoon sunshine. After a while we sleep.

  When I woke it was evening. In the north the sky was clear and there was Honey, with Old Flax. I had found her. Honey was safe.

  I began to feel better.

  I cannot guess how this will end. A Roman boy in an Iceni village, if there is an Iceni village left for us to find. Who knows what will be left, or who will return? The Iceni have burned Colchester and moved on to the next city. They have had the revenge they rode to find with Boudica.

  But somewhere out there is a huge Roman army.

  They will want their own revenge now.

  Come home, Father! Come home, Finn! Finn, you will like Marcus, you couldn’t not like Marcus!

  Come home, Uncle Red!

  But although one half of me is afraid of what Uncle Red will do when he finds out I have brought a Roman boy back to our village, the other half of me guesses that I will never see Uncle Red again.

  Will anyone return?

  Will my father’s huge smile light our house as he comes in from the fields?

  Will Finn and Brownie race each other back from the river?

  Will Boudica come next spring to visit the horses in the horse runs?

  Will the memories of these past days ever untangle from my mind?

  Marcus and I have seen too much. We have been too frightened. We have been too sad.

  We need my grandmother.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” I say to Marcus and he understands at once and picks up Stella and tucks her under his cloak. We gather the nuts and the loaves of bread. We fetch Old Flax and Honey.

  In the village the evening bread will be baked and cooling. The babies will be sleeping and the old dogs will be lying close to the fire. My grandmother will be thinking of the next work to begin.

  Perhaps she is thinking of me.

  I’m sure she is thinking of me

  Old Flax likes going north and he lets Marcus ride. We will travel by night and hide by day, because we are a Roman boy and an Iceni girl, and we are friends and people will not understand.

  A clean wind is blowing. The sky is clear, and there are stars again.

  You would think, after all that has happened, even the stars would have fled from their places in the sky. But they haven’t. They are still there. They still shine in their lovely patterns.

  Thank you, Grandmother, for showing me the stars.

  There is the North Star, high overhead. I untangle it from the night sky and point it out to Marcus, and that’s how we find our way home.

  EPILOGUE

  The Iceni army burnt Colchester, and killed as many people as they could. It is difficult to know how many that was, because some people did manage to escape.

  The Roman citizens knew that the Iceni were angry. When the news came of what had happened to Boudica and her daughters, people probably guessed what would happen next. We know about the fire because it left behind a thick layer of deep red burnt ash. That layer is still there. People excavating to build in Colchester still find it.

  After Colchester the Iceni went on to London, and very much the same thing happened again. The town was burnt, but this time the Roman people had more warning. Not only did they flee, but they made sure not to leave behind food that would help the Iceni army. This was important. The Iceni must have counted on being able to get food from the stores of their enemies. Without food their huge number of fighters and followers would soon weaken.

  But the Iceni went on. The town of St. Albans was also destroyed by fire.

  They would not have been able to do this if most of the Roman army had not been far away in North Wales, but things were about to change. Messages reached Wales and the Romans began hurrying south. They were well trained and well organized and they could travel very quickly when they had to.

  Boudica’s army was much bigger, but quite different. They were not trained fighters, they were angry country people – men, women and children. They could not move quickly because they had brought so many slow wagons with them. They were also weak from hunger.

  The last battle of the Iceni was fought in a narrow valley. There was so little space that the Iceni chariots had no room to charge. In front of the Iceni were the Roman soldiers. Behind them were their wagons and families. The narrow valley became a trap. The Iceni were killed or crushed to death, completely overpowered.

  Nobody knows what happened to Boudica. Some people think she was killed in the battle. Some believe she escaped, and later drank poison. I believe she di
ed in the battle but I do not know because I was not there.

  Someone who was there was a Roman soldier named Agricola. Later Agricola was to become the Roman Governor of Britain.

  Kassy was right when she said there were some good Romans. Agricola was a good Roman. Agricola watched the battle from a hilltop and he never forgot what he saw. He told his daughter, Julia, and the man she married, Tacitus.

  Tacitus was a Roman historian and he wrote it all down. He wrote a whole book about Agricola. It has been translated into English and I have read it. It tells of the Roman invasion and the suffering of the British people, and Boudica and the Iceni, and it tells us that afterwards things began to change. The Romans began to understand what Kassy and Marcus found out, that it is better to work together than to fight. They began to respect the people whose country they had taken. Agricola was a good Governor. He was fair and brave.

  Imagine Agricola and Tacitus talking together, as they so often did. Perhaps Agricola said, “There was an Iceni boy, a brown curly-haired boy with a brown curly-haired dog. They slipped past me together at the end of the day, and I let them go...”

  Perhaps that happened. I hope so.

  Also available...

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