while at the same time our land is stripped from us and handed over to Roman settlers, and our lesser folk are set to working for those same settlers – old Red Crests who treat all men not of their own kind as slaves.’
‘That is a tale all men know,’ said the Queen when he had grumbled on long enough, like the bear of his name. ‘Tell me now, what fighting strength you can yet raise?’
And he spoke the number, in horsemen and foot-spears and chariot-warriors. And the Oak Priest who kept the tally wrote them all down on his peeled willow-rods. And when that was done, Vortrix said, ‘There is another thing that we can give to the strength of the War Host, though it may not be numbered in the tally.’
‘What thing is that?’ said the Queen.
‘Men, women too within the city, who are no friendsto Rome, who can tell of evil omens, and set unchancy whispers running, and spread confusion in men’s minds.’
And the Queen smiled. ‘A few such men within an enemy stronghold may be worth many chariots outside the gates. We will talk more of this at another time.’
From the Coritani of the mid-country to our west, chiefs came; and from the Cornovi, whose runs are towards the high hills westward of that again. The Chariot Lords of the Parisi, and Princes of the Brigantes from over beyond Ostorius Scapula’s old frontier, the Bearers of the Blue War-shields, proudest of the proud.
Captains of the Catuvellauni too, promising war-bands. Aye, war-bands from the Cats of War, who had counted themselves Lords of the World, and our enemies, before the Romans came! Boudicca looked at them when they stood before her; and the memory was in us all, of old menace and old border raids, of how they had slain the King her father, and how we had taken the friendship oath with Rome, that the Roman yoke might be the more surely clamped upon their necks. And the Catuvellauni and the Brigantes looked at each other, remembering that when Caratacus had gone for refuge to the Brigantian Queen, she had handed him over for a gift to Rome.
So many memories lying dark behind men’s eyes. And I thought, ‘This is a team that will take some driving.’ And I looked at Boudicca in her wolfskin cloak, with her father’s sword in her hands, and the sea-coloured firelight shining in her hair but never reaching her eyes; and I thought ‘But this is the driver who can handle them if any can.’
Men came and went again; and the Council Firesburned in the nights. And by chains of watchers and riders all across the tribes between, came word of Suetonius Paulinus the Governor, with his legions on the far western coast, making ready for his attack on Mon. We must unleash our own attack before he was done, with his and his hands free once more; yet we must wait as far as we could into the summer, that there might be grass enough for the horses, so many horses all together. And the rising, when it came, must be swift, with small time for Hosting beforehand, to give warning to our enemies of what was to come.
So the war-pattern was worked out, for secrecy at the start of things, and speed when the time came. And all the while as the curlew came up from the marshes to nest on the higher ground, and lambing time came and went, and the mares dropped their foals, and the whitethorn flowered and scattered its petals to the wind, men took their bird-bows into the marshes, hunting the heron for their hackle feathers to furbish long-hidden war-spears, and old swords were brought out, aye, mine among them, from their hiding places. And in secret clearings in the oak woods, where the best of the horses had been hidden already, and the best of the warriors, too, the smiths and armourers mended old weapons and forged new ones; and new war-chariots were built, and hunting chariots strengthened with dappled oxhides lashed over their wicker sides; and the great wagons for the baggage and the women and the children who could not be left behind. We had never had
‘That is a tale all men know,’ said the Queen when he had grumbled on long enough, like the bear of his name. ‘Tell me now, what fighting strength you can yet raise?’
And he spoke the number, in horsemen and foot-spears and chariot-warriors. And the Oak Priest who kept the tally wrote them all down on his peeled willow-rods. And when that was done, Vortrix said, ‘There is another thing that we can give to the strength of the War Host, though it may not be numbered in the tally.’
‘What thing is that?’ said the Queen.
‘Men, women too within the city, who are no friendsto Rome, who can tell of evil omens, and set unchancy whispers running, and spread confusion in men’s minds.’
And the Queen smiled. ‘A few such men within an enemy stronghold may be worth many chariots outside the gates. We will talk more of this at another time.’
From the Coritani of the mid-country to our west, chiefs came; and from the Cornovi, whose runs are towards the high hills westward of that again. The Chariot Lords of the Parisi, and Princes of the Brigantes from over beyond Ostorius Scapula’s old frontier, the Bearers of the Blue War-shields, proudest of the proud.
Captains of the Catuvellauni too, promising war-bands. Aye, war-bands from the Cats of War, who had counted themselves Lords of the World, and our enemies, before the Romans came! Boudicca looked at them when they stood before her; and the memory was in us all, of old menace and old border raids, of how they had slain the King her father, and how we had taken the friendship oath with Rome, that the Roman yoke might be the more surely clamped upon their necks. And the Catuvellauni and the Brigantes looked at each other, remembering that when Caratacus had gone for refuge to the Brigantian Queen, she had handed him over for a gift to Rome.
So many memories lying dark behind men’s eyes. And I thought, ‘This is a team that will take some driving.’ And I looked at Boudicca in her wolfskin cloak, with her father’s sword in her hands, and the sea-coloured firelight shining in her hair but never reaching her eyes; and I thought ‘But this is the driver who can handle them if any can.’
Men came and went again; and the Council Firesburned in the nights. And by chains of watchers and riders all across the tribes between, came word of Suetonius Paulinus the Governor, with his legions on the far western coast, making ready for his attack on Mon. We must unleash our own attack before he was done, with his and his hands free once more; yet we must wait as far as we could into the summer, that there might be grass enough for the horses, so many horses all together. And the rising, when it came, must be swift, with small time for Hosting beforehand, to give warning to our enemies of what was to come.
So the war-pattern was worked out, for secrecy at the start of things, and speed when the time came. And all the while as the curlew came up from the marshes to nest on the higher ground, and lambing time came and went, and the mares dropped their foals, and the whitethorn flowered and scattered its petals to the wind, men took their bird-bows into the marshes, hunting the heron for their hackle feathers to furbish long-hidden war-spears, and old swords were brought out, aye, mine among them, from their hiding places. And in secret clearings in the oak woods, where the best of the horses had been hidden already, and the best of the warriors, too, the smiths and armourers mended old weapons and forged new ones; and new war-chariots were built, and hunting chariots strengthened with dappled oxhides lashed over their wicker sides; and the great wagons for the baggage and the women and the children who could not be left behind. We had never had
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