Before the Council Hall men had raised a platform flanked by a line
of poles. Bogle growled as they passed the first, and she realized that the
dark thing at the top was Pollio’s head. His legionaries grinned from
other poles beside him. Brangenos had not told Boudica that they took
the heads before burying them. Perhaps he had not known. Most of
them were missing their eyes already—it gave her a grim satisfaction to
know that the ravens had gotten their feast after all.
As they mounted the platform the murmuring crowd grew still. Pra-
sutagos had designed the enclosure for just such assemblies, but thank the
gods he could never have imagined what its first use would be. In the
flickering torchlight familiar faces appeared and disappeared—Brocagnos
and Drostac and old Morigenos. She saw Rianor, who had arrived just
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after the king’s funeral, with Brangenos. They had been out tending a sick
child when the Romans came. Tingetorix, who had fought under Caratac,
was standing with Carvilios and Taximagulos. She recognized with some
surprise the faces of Segovax and his sons Beric and Tascio. He was one of
the richest of the Iceni, and she would have expected him to support the
Romans—but she did recall hearing that his wealth was based on Roman
subsidies. Catus must have tried to collect on the loans.
“Men of the Iceni . . .” The voice that rang out through the night
was Boudica’s, but men stiffened, staring, as they felt its power. “Sons of
Epona—you chose me as your queen, as your priestess before the gods,
to guide and guard this land!” She had dressed carefully, coiling her
red-gold hair high on her head and confining it with golden pins. Gold
drops hung from her ears, and from her neck gleamed the great golden
torque that Caratac had left in her keeping ten years before. “I swore to
uphold the laws the good king Prasutagos made, and to keep the oaths
he swore to the Emperor of Rome.
“But see how the Romans have betrayed their honor! Many among
you have already suffered from their greed—Drostac, they have taken
your livestock—Brocagnos and Taximagulos, they have seized your
farms! They have taken away the weapons that marked you as men!
Goods and gear they have stolen, they have marched our young men
away to die far from their homeland, they have sold our women as slaves.
But now they progress from greed to blasphemy!” She turned and pointed
to Rigana, who stared defiantly, sheltering her sister in her arms.
“They have defiled the daughters of the king, the flower of this
land, and they have treated your queen as if she were a slave.” Men
fl inched as they felt the anger in Her gaze. “Behold!”
She unpinned the great golden brooch that held the cloak and let it
fall. She wore a skirt, but no tunic. Boudica would have flinched to bare
herself before so many eyes, but Cathubodva displayed Her breasts, still
high and full even though Boudica was now thirty-four, with pride. She
heard the intake of breath from the men below, and then, as She turned
to reveal the ruin of Her back, a whisper of horror that rushed through
the crowd like the sighing of trees before the storm.
Boudica felt consciousness receding as the Morrigan turned back to
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face the tribe. “Too long,” She cried, “have the Romans defiled our land!
We must cast them forth! Their soldiers we must slay; their cities burn!”
Shouts echoed Her words, but others were objecting that the Ro-
mans had defeated them thirteen years before, and why would they do
better against them now?
“If your arms have forgotten the weight of a sword, they can learn
once more!” She cried. “Your hearts are strong! If the Iceni are not enough
to drive the Romans into the sea we must call on all Britannia!” She
touched the torque that gleamed from Her neck. “This is the torque of
King Cunobelin that Caratac took from the body of Togodumnos his
brother and wore when he raised the tribes!”
“Even for him they would not all come,” called Segovax. “Why
should they rise for you?”
“Because I am the Great Queen! I am the Raven of Battle, and I
shall lead you!” She shook her head and pins flew like sparks as Her hair
flamed free. “Because I am Victory!”
“What shall we do? Where shall we go?” came the cries.
“This is the clanhold of the Hare—let Andraste’s holy animal show
us the way!” She leaped down from the platform.
Men fell back before Her as She strode toward the carved gates,
falling in behind in a swirling, shouting mob. Bituitos was close be-
hind Her, holding a bag where something struggled and squirmed.
They passed under the lintel and between the fences that lined the
way to the road. She waited for the crowd to pour through the open-
ing behind Her, falling silent as they spread out to either side. And
when there were sufficient witnesses, She reached into the bag and
drew forth the hare, which lay limp and trembling in Her predator
hands.
“Fear not, little one,” She murmured, stroking the gray pelt. “This
is not the night when thou shalt die . . .”
The land lay quiet around them, rolling away beyond the rise that
held the dun in long swaths of heathland and pasture, dotted with the
huddled shapes of trees. She tipped her head, feeling the tension return
to the animal’s muscles as its fur bristled with energy.
“Andraste! Andraste! Sister, I call You, Lady of this Land! Show us
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the way, Lady! Lead us to victory!” She cradled the hare against Her
breast and whispered in its long ear: “Run now, and show us our road,
run fast and free!”
She bent, placed the hare on the ground, and opened Her hands. For
a moment the little beast crouched, quivering. Then with a mighty leap
it sped down the road—southward—toward Colonia.
The great cry of the Iceni bore the hare forward on a wave of sound.
Men brought up horses, tucking the red- painted war arrows through
their belts and grasping torches in their hands. At Her word they sped
outward, racing like shooting stars through the night to bear word to
the people of every tribe that the Britons were marching to reclaim
their native land.
T W E N T Y- F O U R
“The Great Queen rides a good gray mare,
Above her, ravens fly.
Where she fares, the eagles fear,
Where she goes, men die!”
The mare shook her head and snorted as Boudica reined her in. Be-
hind her streamed an irregular, relentless tide of people and horses and
wagons, beginning to slow and eddy now as they moved off the road to
set up camp for the night. Bogle, who had trotted at the mare’s heels, lay
down with a sigh and the other dogs, footsore with the day’s march,
settled beside him.
The Iceni had started south on the second day after the gathering,
and Brangenos ha
d started the song to cheer their march. The ravens
flew with them, black specks circling above the dust, calling in harsh
descant to the clatter of hooves and the rumble of wagon wheels.
“Ho—Tingetorix!” she called as a grizzled warrior on a spotted pony
came into view. He walked with a limp got in Caratac’s wars, but he
could still outride most of the younger men. “How many swords did
they send us today?”
Back at Teutodunon, the smiths were still hard at work beating out
new weapons and repairing the old. Every day a rider would catch up to
the column and unload a bag or two more.
“A dozen—” he brought his pony alongside her, “—and as many
spearheads.”
“That’s a dozen more lads who can stop using sticks to practice with,
and turn their staffs into spears,” she said with satisfaction.
Prasutagos was not the only one to have hidden weapons. Some had
come to Teutodunon with supplies and such weapons as had survived
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the Roman confiscations, but many more had only their bows and
slings, or perhaps a hunting spear. The main force was constrained to
the pace of the ox-drawn wagons, and there was more than enough
time for a horseman to gallop home and retrieve a sword or a shield and
helm that his fathers had borne to war, and persuade his neighbors to
join him while he was there.
“Brangenos says my back is healed enough to start sword work,”
Boudica told him. She had always been strong and active, but she had
never needed to develop the specific muscles required to use sword and
shield. Even men whose upper bodies had been hardened by years of
farm work found themselves aching in unexpected places when they
began to train.
“Did he now?” said the warrior. “I shall see you, then, after the eve-
ning meal.”
Boudica laughed. The fl ex and sway of riding had left her back sore,
but could not sour her spirits. “Then you had better summon the chief-
tains to meet with me now. We must send someone to the city.” She
heard her voice deepen and closed her eyes for a moment as she felt the
dizzy lurch that meant the Morrigan was moving to the fore. “We need
to find out if they know we are coming, what defense they have, and
whether they have called for aid.”
By the uneasy flicker in his gaze she knew that Tingetorix sensed
the presence of her inner adviser. He and the other experienced men
had been surprised to find her so knowledgeable about the problems of
training and supply. With every hour the partnership between the Iceni
queen and the Great Queen was becoming smoother.
When the Morrigan was with her, Boudica did not feel the empti-
ness Prasutagos had left in her soul.
“Yes, my queen.” He bent his head and put his horse into a canter to
do her will.
When she turned back to the road, her daughters were there. Like
her, in body they had recovered well.
Rigana was surveying her with a frown. “Is he going to teach you
to fight?” she asked abruptly. “I want to learn, too. I don’t want to be
helpless before a man ever again.”
Boudica started to shake her head, but there was something very un-
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childlike in Rigana’s eyes. Among those who had joined the rebellion
there were boys who were no older and not much bigger, and who had
far less reason to kill Romans than she.
“And what about you?” She looked at Argantilla.
“Caw says I am too small to do anything but carry more arrows to
the archers,” she said a little tremulously, “but I will do what I can . . .”
The child Tilla had rescued in Colonia had gotten his growth this
past year and promised to be a big man. He had become her most de-
voted protector.
“Don’t even think about sending us somewhere safer—if there is any
such place now!” Rigana said dangerously.
Boudica sighed. That was true enough. If this rebellion failed, there
would be no refuge for them anywhere. She looked at her daughters,
and felt the Morrigan’s fury amplifying her love and her pain.
“Very well . . . we will seek our fate together, whatever it may be . . .”
They had been on the road for three days when a small man in a
ragged Roman tunic came limping into camp. Boudica left Rigana strug-
gling to hold her sword steady at arm’s length for a count of ten and fol-
lowed Crispus back to the fire in front of the wagon that carried her gear.
A tightly woven woolen cloth had been stretched from the wagon to pro-
vide some protection from the thin drizzle, supported in front by spears.
Tingetorix was already questioning him when she arrived.
“My lady—” He turned to her. “This man brings news both good
and bad.”
The man’s eyes widened as she came into the firelight, and she won-
dered what he had heard. He made an obeisance.
“Great Queen, I was once a freeholder and a notable man among
the Trinovantes. Now I am called Tabanus, a
debt-slave in Colonia.
There are many of us—we will help you however we can.”
She nodded. “They’ve heard we are coming, then?”
“Yes, Lady, and they are afraid. There have been evil omens—the
statue of Victory fell from its pedestal, and in the theater and senate
house evil cries have been heard. Someone had a vision of a devastated
city down by the seashore, and the waters turned red.”
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“Our gods are stronger than those of the Romans because they be-
long to this land,” she said softly. A slight fuzziness in her awareness told
her that the goddess was with her. She was grateful. Cathubodva would
know best what to say now.
Tabanus nodded. “A few hundred men are stationed in the fort at
the old dun, and in the city there are men who once served in the le-
gions, but they are old now, and Colonia has no walls. They have sent to
the procurator in Londinium, and another messenger has gone to the
fort north of Durovigutum.”
Boudica nodded. The Romans had built an outpost to guard the
road they were putting through the fens.
“No one knows what force the procurator may send them, but Petil-
lius Cerealis has part of the Ninth Legion and some cavalry.”
“Is he the sort of commander to sit and wait for orders, or will he set
out immediately he gets word?” asked the queen.
“They say he is a hothead. I think that he will come as soon as he
can muster his men.”
Boudica could feel the goddess considering. “How many experienced
warriors are there among us?” she asked. Though the Morrigan might
know all things in Her own realm, the part of Her being that was acting
through Boudica depended on information available to the queen. “Gather
them together, and men who are good hunters as well. Tingetorix, I want
you to take our fastest horses and lead them north. Send scouts to learn what
road they are taki
ng, and attack them from ambush. This is important—you
must not let them catch you in open country. Hit them from cover with
javelins and arrows and slings, shoot from trees.”
“I understand.” His sidelong glance noted the slave’s wonder at her
expertise and he smiled beneath his grizzled mustache. “You need not
fear any surprises from the Ninth Legion, my queen.”
The Romans have built a camp on the heights above the strait,” said
Ardanos. “Paulinus has brought men from two legions. They will take
another day to rest, or maybe two, and then they will embark. I have
sent runners to every farmstead. Every man who can carry a weapon
will be here soon.”
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“But it would be far better if the soldiers never reached our shore,”
observed Helve. Someone stifl ed nervous laughter. “We do not have the
powers of the masters from the Drowned Lands who could use sound to
move great stones, but here are thirty trained singers. We will raise a
barrier of sound against the enemy. Go now and rest while you can . . .”
As the meeting dispersed Lhiannon found her steps lagging. Would
the thatch above the meeting hall soon be blazing, or would this place
become a healers’ shelter where she worked to bind up wounded men?
She looked around her with a sigh. The fi rst vision was far more likely.
If the Romans managed to cross the strait, she did not think the refugee
army the Druids had put together would be able to stand.
What use was the rite they had performed at the Lake of Little Stones?
The power had been raised and sent eastward, but at most it had only de-
layed the enemy. Would their singing do more?
She ought to seek her bed as Helve had commanded, but tension
sparked along each nerve. There would be no rest in the House of Priest-
esses, where she would have to barrier her mind against Coventa’s
nightmares and old Elin’s weeping. Her frown relaxed as she realized
that her spirit had already set her on the path to the Sacred Grove.
A soft wind was whispering through the leaves of the oak trees.
Even in her moments of greatest anguish Lhiannon had always found
peace here. “Holy goddess . . . holy goddess . . .” The melody sang in her
memory, though it was only afternoon. She closed her eyes, opening her