Iceni

Chapter 1-3

Boudicca hoped that today would bring the return of some of the more sentimental items at last. To show good faith and hospitality she had stowed away all her husband’s belongings, allowing the Romani first choice. There were jewels and fabulous gold crowns and buckles, torcs and brooches. She treated them with disdain, arranging them on display easily.

But there was also a delicate silver ring she had ordered made for him, too light to be worth much; a comb carved from bone with teeth missing which had snapped when he had offered to brush Grania’s unruly hair when she’d been a fidgeting infant. Hunting gloves. Boots made from soft doeskin still smelling of his warmth. Delicate glass beads he was painstakingly restringing when his final illness had kept him bed-bound but restless. And a tiny whittled horse, like the ones he loved. Tough, spirited, independent and agile creatures, he had lived for his horses and the magnificent herd he was building up. He had owned the figure since his own childhood and had called it ‘Mouse’, as he had named every grey stallion he had traded for since. Whoever had fashioned the figure had been a true artist, capturing all the grace and wilfulness of their fierce little ponies. Mouse had been danced, accompanied by the King’s clopping noises, along the cots of both little daughters, who had cooed with delight and tried to grab at it with podgy hands.

These things she arranged more tenderly, running fingers over edges and jogging memories that hadn’t yet found a resting place. Such a sad pile of items, all that remained of someone’s life. Somehow it didn’t seem enough; it didn’t do her husband justice. Only her heart did him justice, these things were just things, and she only hoped she had judged the Romani’s greed right and they would go straight for the items of financial rather than sentimental value.

The Romani were very near now. Those camped over winter to keep the Iceni in check, and otherwise torment them, had gone out to meet the newcomers and Boudicca suspected that it was one of the newly arrived riders who carried the highest rank, because there seemed to be a lot of saluting going on and orders being made.

She was kept waiting whilst they talked and pointed and tapped wax tablets. It was impolite. She was Queen and it rattled her to be treated so dismissively. She was uncomfortable too with the cramps in her stomach which were becoming quite insistent now and inducing a dizzy faintness. She’d never been anything like fluent with their Latin and it was particularly difficult to comprehend over such a distance. Watching them, she noticed that their greedy eyes looked not just at the gold displayed before her but at everything and everyone. The man of rank looked like a bulbous old toad. He kept licking his lips as if he was catching flies and sat squat upon his over-laden horse. She didn’t want to have to deal with someone as unsavoury as him.

On an instinct she called over the young noble she had ordered to gather her people together. He had done well; although missing weapons, the Iceni were in full majestic battle array and looked fit enough to go raiding the cattle of the very Gods. ‘Rochad, there could very well be trouble,’ she spoke under her breath. ‘Be ready to loose the horses and run on my signal. Don’t try and fight, there are far too many of them. It doesn’t matter what they do, nor to whom; we just mustn’t antagonise them. Understand?’

He nodded tersely and stepped back. She watched her instruction being passed amongst the lines of warriors. Then a fanfare of trumpets blared and the Toad approached, walking his horse at a steady pace. He was flanked on both sides by soldiers. His scribes followed immediately behind him, holding parchment and tablets. Underneath the curved rectangular shields of the soldiers she could make out their immaculate armour. It was always identical. Boudicca concluded that they were only frightening when they were together; alone or in small bunches they were puny. Not like the Iceni, Boudicca felt proudly; they revelled in their individuality, battle was an occasion for personal glory when one warrior could take out twenty of these soft babies. Bullies, then, that they had to stay together for protection. Only their faces were different, peering out beneath their helmets, although they all wore the same stern expression and exuded avarice. Here and there she spotted the odd familiar person who had plagued her with petty, and not so petty, annoyances over the last few lunar cycles. Their usual javelins had been discarded, she noticed, but their swords were worn readily to hand.

Boudicca rose to greet the Toad, extending her hand in welcome. He urged his horse just past her and commenced his address: ‘Peoples of Icenia, hear me. I, Catus Decianus, Procurator of the Province of Britannia, by order of your Emperor Nero, God of Rome, Lord of the Oceans, King of the Earth, and by the Will of your late and most recently acknowledged ruler, Prasutagus, hereby take possession of these lands and property.’

Desperate to control her anger, Boudicca ignored the snub, and concentrated on deciphering his words. She thought she had the gist and took a deep breath to answer his obvious misunderstanding. She managed a meaningless mumble before she was overrun by legionaries. Catus Decianus had already given his order and half his men were stationed to overpower the defenceless warriors, tying them up or stunning them with callous blows to the head. The rest of the Romani were already pushing open huts and ransacking for loot. Boudicca looked down. In the stampede, Mouse had been snapped in two by a clumsy sandal, although someone had taken care to bag the jewellery. She wondered whether it might have been, perhaps, the same person.

Boudicca turned and, bringing all her leadership qualities to bear, caught the harness of Catus’ mare. ‘I, Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, demand an explanation of this outrageous behaviour.’ She was a tall woman. To avoid her eyes yet to still look ahead, Catus had to look up. Boudicca pulled the harness down; she unsettled his seating.

‘We do not acknowledge any ‘queen’. If you are the widow of Prasutagus you will know he left half his possessions to your Emperor Nero. It was a wise choice. Nero has graciously decided to accept the gift and in his wisdom has decreed that it is ridiculous to tear up cloaks, divide pairs of boots, you know, wheat ears will not grow without the stalks, my dear. So, magnanimously and with his usual excessive generosity, he has decided to adopt all property and possessions into his protective fold that, in keeping it whole, it might not be rendered valueless.’

‘That’s not what the Will meant. I’ve put out his possessions, please choose your half. Take all of them.’ She tried not to plead but, unused to being in such a position of powerlessness, she felt unnerved by the situation. ‘What you’re taking from me now is not mine to surrender,’ she reasoned. ‘What of my Ladies and Chiefs? They hold their land independent of me.’ She spoke slowly; she had to translate as she thought.

‘All of it. I wouldn’t bother to resist, you’re nothing against the might of Rome.’

‘Nooo...’

Boudicca did not have a chance to answer him before Grania called out in anguish. Her daughter was screeching and pointing outside the palisade to the corral. The noble fosterling Grania seemed so fond of had been struck down with a sword through his stomach, his body twitching in agony. The ponies were charging off to the forests, a few legionaries stumbling piteously behind trying to catch them. Then, as Boudicca watched the gap widen between ponies and men, at the edge of her vision she saw Grania move quickly and then Catus was unsaddled and nursing a smarting punch to his jaw. Maeve too had edged closer to him and was about to stick the pin of her brooch into his eye.

Boudicca leapt to pull back Maeve. It must have seemed to the Romani that she was about to join in the attack on the Procurator who was screaming, ‘Get these Furies from Tartarus off me!’ An instant later she was hauled away from her daughters and pressed face-down on the ground. She heard Catus stumble away from her, demanding: ‘Treat them as the spoils they are. Their women have such slack morals they’ll probably enjoy it — if they’re not used to it!’

Then her skirts were pulled roughly over her head and, as she realised what was happening, she started screaming in utter outrage that they should consider such a thing. She flailed her limbs, and bit anything her mouth found, like a rabid wild cat. Then there was a huge, sudden weight on her back which winded her, as three men sat on her to stop her struggling. She tried to catch her breath but her skirts and the soldiers’ weight was suffocating. She coughed for air, and then she felt her legs being pulled wide apart and a man sit on each to hold them still too. She moved her toes, hoping to scratch one of them with her nails. Rough hands pulled her buttocks apart and the wadding of moss was torn away, exposing her fully to their hot sight. She felt a flow of thick menstrual blood trickle down her thigh, and sobbed in shame to be seen like this. She tensed, waiting for the first harsh penetration.

The pain, when it came, was not what she’d expected. It was the pain of a kick, hard and mercifully external. The momentum jarred her forward, even under the pressing weight. It was accompanied by grunts of disgust and moans of disappointment and more pain, but now she felt the sharp edge of a strap and knew it must be a sandaled foot. Then she felt spots of wet upon her back as they spat, and more pain as they punched her. Then nothing as she heard an excited fumbling and words of encouragement, whilst the weight shifted from her back to her arms, enabling her to take a deep breath of sweet air.

Then the agony began which bit into her shoulders, scalp and spine. Her clothes were no defence against this flogging and she felt them falling apart around her. She sought, in the regular rhythm of this more predictable torture, the potential of rising above the physical hurt and reached inside for the precious numb place which beckoned. She called upon its reserves, refusing to entertain the lure of passing out, only relaxing into the torment enough to surmount it.

Then she felt for her baby girls, reaching out for them, lending them power, seeking to lead them to the same mental Haven. Maeve was already there, bordered up in a safe catatonia, which, with her impressive Skills, allowed no one in, not even her mother. Boudicca felt saddened, she didn’t only want to give comfort to her daughter, she felt the need to receive it too.

Grania was nothing but colour. Furious and livid, her spirit gave off sparks of orange flame which seared any spirit that approached. Boudicca knew that helping Grania would lead to more anguish at first, her barriers would need to be dropped for an instant, bringing total realisation of the violation which was being perpetrated upon her. She prayed Grania would forgive her the price.

‘Stop it, daughter-mine!’ She used the harshest, most authoritative spirit-voice she could muster. It was enough. Like an infant jolted out of mischief, Grania’s defences fizzled out. Boudicca’s spirit swooped in and held her tight. Grania yelled and screamed and struggled as her rage cleared and she registered reality, then pulled in her will ready to start up her psychic attack again. ‘No, Grania, don’t look. Come with me. Come into the comfort of your mother. I’ll keep you safe. Relax into me. Come!’

Grania’s spirit energy burnt Boudicca as her defences switched back on against the indiscriminate enemy she perceived to be everything that was not-Grania. Boudicca feared her own spirit would bear scars for offering her daughter help, then Grania seemed to swoon into her, and she scooped her daughter up and bore her away to a softer place.

‘Mama, I hurt.’

‘Yes, I know, but you are safe here for a while.’

‘They killed Rochad.’ Grania’s spirit-face screwed up in rage. ‘I loved Rochad, but he loved Maeve more than me.’

Grania’s spirit appeared as a sobbing toddler holding its hands between its legs where the pain had been. ‘There are many, many people who love you and who will come to love you, little one. Rochad will be waiting in the Summerlands where he’ll be free to love you and Maeve equally and you won’t mind because you’ll be too busy loving other people too.’ She cradled the child to her. ‘Sleep if you like. I’ll wake you when it’s safe to go back.’ Grania was already nodding against her breast. Boudicca squeezed her tight.

Boudicca could watch her village from here and as she did her anger grew despite the passiveness this Haven placed upon her. She forced herself to watch the continued r**e of her daughters, wanting to remember every detail so she could be sure to exact a high enough revenge price when the opportunity arose. It could not be too entertaining for the soldiers, she noted in her detached way; both girls had passed out and the legionaries pumped only at body shells as unresisting as rag dolls. Every soldier behaved differently in his turn. Some who jeered the loudest were the most reluctant to perform, having to be persuaded by their comrades. Some displayed their parts proudly to their fellows before using the girls. Others hid themselves, lifting their armour at the last moment before entry. One knelt, playing with his flaccidity, then vomited. They dragged Maeve away from that mess before they continued. Some urinated, some defecated, those with the iciest, narrow eyes took their turn over and over again, jostling the less enthusiastic out of the way and once pulling off a much older man who seemed to be straining unproductively forever.

Possibly the youngest legionary, still festooned with acne, was dragged away from pillaging the main hut and led forward, giggling nervously, as white as a sheet. They threw him onto Grania, offering advice and suggestions. He climaxed within thrusts and collapsed onto her breasts with a wide-eyed expression of wonder and disgust. He reached up to gently touch her hair before being yanked off and kicked back to work whilst the next took over.

The Toad was nowhere to be seen. Having extracted the choicest baubles for his own keeping, he had obviously crawled home to gloat under a slimy stone. He had taken his scribes and clerics with him, all, no doubt, feeling somewhat conceited and financially improved.

Despite being sickened, Boudicca wanted to remember their faces and acts in every detail. The memories would be fuel to k****e her hatred; none of this would ever be allowed to be forgotten. Her body shell had been left lifeless and wounded, a mass of bloodied strips where the whips and belts had left their mark. She was unattended and neglected, those who remained of her people lay huddled and hidden, they played dead or had fled to the forests.

In these shortened days, dusk fell rapidly with its freezing mantle, and the Romani eventually tired of their frivolity. Laughing and singing they burdened themselves with their hoard of stolen prizes and trophies, set notional fires to several stores and huts and left. As darkness enveloped the village in its own peace, destruction and desertion was all the Romani left in their wake.

‘We return now, daughter. It will hurt, but they’re gone and I’ll still be with you.’ Boudicca woke the Grania-spirit with her soothing words. Maeve’s defences were impenetrable, Boudicca would come for her later. For the moment it was important that no one mistook them for being dead. She held her daughter firmly by the hand and guided her back to her body-home.

It took a long while for Boudicca to come back to full consciousness. Despite the will of her spirit, her body still protested at being made to experience the full agony of the mistreatment it had undergone. She lay in an exhausted semi-faint for what seemed like an eternity. As she revived, she realised she was not alone. She turned her head, scraping her cheek along the gravel earth, to see her companion.

He was cloaked and hooded in black, and sat cross-legged, patiently waiting for her to reawaken. She recognised sensitivity in his lips, a short trim beard, and kind cornflower eyes that sang of summer. He smiled encouragement to her.

‘What day is it?’ She stammered, her mind still disorganised.

‘It’s a good day for revenge,’ he answered.