Hero of Rome

XXVIII

Valerius emerged from the low building that served as the port commander’s office and shook his head. ‘Every ship that’s docked this week has been at least three days late. Apparently there have been poor winds in the bay. The galley bringing our man isn’t expected until the end of the week at the earliest.’

Lunaris nodded. His knowledge of ships was limited to the transport that had brought him to Britain but he understood enough of the vagaries of the wind to accept the delay without complaint. ‘So what do we do now?’ He pointed with his thumb to the men lounging among the bales along the wharf by the Tamesa. ‘If we don’t keep them busy they’ll get up to mischief.’

‘I’ll report to the camp prefect and have you put on the ration strength. Three days isn’t long, but I’ll try to make sure you’re on light duties.’

‘Watch your back. Crespo might still be around,’ the duplicarius warned.

‘If Crespo’s around he’s the one who needs to be watching his back.’

Two hours later they met on the wharf and Valerius gathered the legionaries around him. ‘You’ve been excused duties for the rest of the day.’ The news raised a small cheer. ‘But I’ve been made responsible for your behaviour and you’re to be on parade for inspection before dawn tomorrow.’ The cheers faded as they realized there would be no night of debauchery in Londinium’s inns and brothels.

When the men had dispersed, Lunaris approached Valerius with a scowl. ‘I sent the Mules out to ask around about Crespo. Know your enemy, right?’ Valerius nodded. ‘The word is that he left eight or nine days ago to do the procurator’s dirty work and took half of the garrison with him.’

Valerius whistled. ‘That’s a lot of dirty work.’

‘That’s right, but he must have finished the job, because most of them are back now, which is why we aren’t up there patrolling the walls.’

‘Did anybody say what it was?’

Lunaris hesitated. ‘Only that it was up somewhere in Iceni country.’

Valerius froze. He thought of Maeve and Cearan in the little township at Venta.

If Crespo harmed her…

The hut stank of fish.

Maeve had bandaged Cearan’s shattered face as best she could, but was barely able to look at the torn flesh and splintered bone created by Crespo’s sword. Now she sat with her back to the thatch wall, cradling his head as his body shook uncontrollably. She had little medical knowledge, but enough to know that if he did not receive help soon he would die.

Little Banna lay slumped against the opposite wall. Her eyes were closed but Maeve doubted she was sleeping. Beside her, a dark-haired woman spoke quietly as Rosmerta sobbed against her breast. Maeve shuddered as she thought of the horrors they had endured. The Romans had eventually tired of the two girls, but so many… She knew they would never be the same again.

She had been certain she would be killed, and every man, woman and child in Venta along with her. The Roman commander was the tall pock-marked officer who had kidnapped her — the man Valerius called Crespo — and she had known better than to expect mercy. She brushed away a tear. What she had suffered was nothing compared with the suffering of the Iceni. When Crespo eventually left the square with the bulk of his men she had rushed from her refuge to Cearan’s side. Aenid’s lifeless blue eyes had stared uncomprehendingly, but Cearan still breathed and somehow she managed to raise him to his feet. The Roman guards had averted their eyes as she supported him away and Maeve sensed that some of the soldiers with the procurator were ashamed of what they’d been ordered to take part in. It gave her hope she would survive, but did not quench the fire of her anger. Later she returned to the square with a small party of women and cut Boudicca down and recovered the girls. They had left Venta and journeyed eastwards, the dark-haired woman leading them along secret paths to this isolated community among the endless reed beds and swamps of the coast.

Now the queen sat alone, a coverlet across her scarred back and breasts, staring south through the open doorway her eyes filled with unnerving savagery.

As the hours passed, the heat became oppressive and the unceasing buzz of insects filled the salt air. Dark clusters of flies settled on Cearan’s bloodstained bandages and Maeve was kept busy brushing them away. At one point she must have fallen asleep. When she awoke the queen hadn’t moved from her position. From time to time she heard her whisper to herself, a garbled litany of fury. Maeve could distinguish only a single word. ‘Andraste.’

In the late afternoon voices outside alerted them. Maeve reached for Cearan’s dagger, which was the only protection they had, but it was the Iceni lord, Volisios, who entered, accompanied by a stooped figure in dark clothing, a young man with pale, almost translucent skin that clung to the bones of his face, and eyes that knew you in an instant. He carried no weapon but wore a belt studded with loops holding short cattle-horn containers, each about three inches long and stopped with birch bark. He took in the occupants of the hut at a glance and immediately crossed to where Maeve sat with Cearan.

‘I am said to have some healing skills,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would allow me to look at his wounds.’ He deftly unwrapped the bandage and studied the Iceni without emotion. ‘He will lose the eye, I think, but one eye will suffice.’ He heard Maeve’s gasp and without turning said: ‘A man’s looks are but an outward decoration. It is what is inside that makes him who he is. Our first task is to fend off the spirits that would enter him and set the wound afire.’ He reached into one of the containers at his belt. ‘Boil water and place this in it, and when it has cooled sufficiently, make him drink it, every drop.’ He left the hut and returned an hour later with a cloth bag. ‘This is a poultice which you must place over the wound. The drink will ease his suffering, the poultice will begin the healing process. See, you place it like this.’ He manoeuvred the bag, which was damp and gave off an unusual earthy smell, directly over Cearan’s ravaged face, taking care to leave the mouth clear. When he was satisfied he lit a small fire in the centre of the floor. Then he unstoppered another of the horns at his belt, took out a handful of what appeared to be dust and scattered it in the flames, where it hissed, sparked and crackled. Instantly, the room filled with a suffocating, evil-smelling smoke that battered Maeve’s senses and left her head reeling. The thin man bowed his head over the fire and began to chant a rhythmic, sonorous incantation, and Maeve felt the hut spin around her. At one point she was certain she was taken by the hand and drawn into the sky, to look down upon the land of Britain and all who dwelt there. Strange that she thought not of her father or Cearan, but of the Roman, Valerius.

When she woke for a second time, she felt as refreshed as if she had spent a long night in her own soft bed, rather than a few minutes on a hard earth floor. The healer sat by Cearan, but, like her, he could not ignore the heated conversation between Volisios and Boudicca.

‘I have swords, shields and spears and the warriors to wield them,’ the nobleman insisted.

‘And I am Boudicca, queen of the Iceni.’ Self-will kept her voice controlled but Maeve could almost feel the physical force of Boudicca’s suppressed rage.

‘Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, was dispossessed by the Romans,’ Volisios persisted.

Boudicca laughed mirthlessly. ‘And you, Volisios, if you were brave enough to return to your estate, would no doubt find a Roman in your bed. I am Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, and if I were not you would not be here, with your talk of warriors and spears.’

‘I came here to assure myself of your safety.’

‘You came here to assume my authority. To raise yourself above the rest.’

Volisios flinched at the undeniable truth, but he held her gaze. ‘And do I have it?’

‘No!’

‘Then who does?’

‘I am Boudicca, queen of the Iceni,’ she repeated, and her words rang through the little hut like a voice from another world. ‘No man among the Iceni has suffered greater wrong than I. I will take the fight to the Romans with sword and spear. I will destroy them with fire and with iron. I will have my vengeance! Go now and call the war bands. Every man, be he warrior, youth or elder, must play his part. I will wipe the Romans and any who stand with them from this land or I will die in the attempt.’

Volisios stared at her, overwhelmed by her presence and her anger. He snatched a startled glance at Gwlym. Now he understood. The wrath of Andraste. The druid rose to his feet and Boudicca glared at him.

‘You are no longer Boudicca of the Iceni,’ the priest declared, ignoring the fierce eyes that hooked him like an eagle’s talons. ‘The spirit of Andraste lives within you. The spirit of the hare and the horse… and now of the wolf.’

‘And who is it who is so impudent as to gainsay a queen?’

The stoop vanished and the young man’s paleness took on an almost mystical light, so his skin shone in the gloom.

‘I am Gwlym, druid of Mona, and I am here to guide you.’

He was finely muscled, with long brown hair drawn together by a red ribbon at his neck.

Gwlym watched from his place beside the queen as the guardian of the sacred pool led the young man forward. He had been carefully chosen for his untarnished character; no stain sullied his past or his present. He was a prince of his tribe, and he had come willingly to this place and to his death. The druids of Britain knew they had one last opportunity to drive the Romans from their land and they had sacrificed themselves and their sanctuary on Mona to achieve it. But there had to be other sacrifices. Nothing could be left to chance. Gwlym had sent word by swift horsemen to north and west and south. Now. Now was the time. And from each place, as the forces of free Britain assembled, a messenger would be sent, a messenger of such status as to impress even the most blood-weary deities.

So they had gathered here beside the forest pool, in a place sacred to the Iceni and their forebears since antiquity.

Gwlym led the chants, his powerful voice ringing out through the glade, and they were taken up by each of the elders of the tribe in turn. Once, these men had been acolytes and the keepers of the groves, but they had lost their way when the druids were driven into the west. But they still remembered. A thin cord attached the victim to the guardian, a warrior dressed in a red tunic and plaid trews. The others formed a loose circle on the firm ground by the water’s edge.

As he sang, Gwlym watched the moon as it made its unflinching arc across the night sky. When the glowing orb reached the exact centre of the circle in the tree canopy he raised his arms high. At the signal, the sacrifice threw off his cloak to stand naked in the firelight, swaying in time to the rhythm of the chanting.

Gwlym hid his relief. The drug had been administered in the exact quantities. He slipped his hand into the folds of his robe. This was his time. This was what all the years of tests and trials on the sacred isle had been for. He allowed the others to continue the chant and walked forward, talking reassuringly to the young man, as he would to a nervous colt, and as he talked he circled round behind him.

When he was in position, Gwlym swung up the short-handled metal axe and brought it down on the boy’s head with such force that everyone round the pool clearly heard the sharp ‘thunk’ as the blade bit into the bone. The blow would have felled an ox, but, incredibly, the victim still stood, swaying wildly, until a second blow of the axe knocked him to his knees.

Now the young druid stood back to allow the warrior with the red tunic to take his place above the prince. With both hands the man took hold of the noose with which he had led his captive, twisted it round the helpless boy’s neck, and pulled it until it bit deep into the flesh of his throat. But still he would not die. Without relaxing his grip, the warrior dropped on one knee on to his victim’s back with such violence they clearly heard a rib break. Then he used the extra leverage to twist the ends of the noose until the boy’s head suddenly flopped forward as his neck snapped.

The warrior rose, his job done, but two deaths were not enough. Three gods needed to be appeased. Volisios, his face a mask of determination, lifted the dead prince’s lolling head by his gore-thick hair and in a final act of mutilation drew the edge of a dagger slowly across his throat.

While the guardian carefully weighted the body and placed it in the sacred pool, Gwlym, breathing heavily, strode to where Boudicca stood in a hooded cloak. The three deaths had been administered exactly as ordained by Aymer and in accordance with all the edicts of the sect. The gods would accept the sacrifice.

‘It is done,’ he said. ‘Unfurl the wolf banner. Unleash the wrath of Andraste.’