The Eagle and the Raven (95 page)

“Brigid, Ethelind, go into the house and do not stir,” Boudicca ordered quickly. “Lovernius, Iain, bar the door and stand just inside it. If the soldiers break in let them take what they want and don’t argue with them.”

“Where are you going?” Brigid asked in panic, and Boudicca kissed her.

“To find Favonius and the procurator and make another attempt at a reasonable settlement.”

She hunted for them, stumbling over the debris of the once-quiet town, half-running from the imploring hands that reached for her.

“Lady, my linens! My hangings!”

“Lady, my brother is hurt!”

“Lady, they have taken away the twins!”

“Help us, Lady.”

Lady, lady, lady…crying, screaming, beseeching, catching at her cloak, her arms, her long hair—drowning, dying hands, clinging, tearing, they were ripping her apart, and she felt herself cry out with the despairing voices, keening and moaning. The desolation filled her and overflowed in tears, but she walked on. The crowds thickened, milling about each circle in a dense confusion. The sun was high now, and streamed a pitiless, indifferently glaring light onto the choked pathways and the littered, frosty grass. She passed the gate where the wains stood, many already loaded with booty. Soldiers relaxed against the wheels, sitting, gambling, laughing, their breath a hot steam. She paused, tired and beaten. Beyond the wains the countryside moved out to a far horizon. The marshes lay shining peacefully, dotted here and there with scraggly clumps of bush, and off to her right the forest invited her to run in under its protecting arms. She wiped her face with one sleeve and started back for the hall, defeated. She could not find them in this crushing, panic-stricken mob.

As she made her way, the crowd suddenly fell silent and parted, and a group of chiefs stumbled past her, chained to one another at the neck, their hands tied together. She felt herself grow faint and she drew back, but they recognized her and began to clamor, shaking their chains. “Lady! See! Vengeance, Lady! Freedom!” All at once she was a leaf torn from a dying tree and whirled onto some great dark river. Swiftly and mercilessly it carried her away. Voices cried from the bank. Freedom! Freedom! The years flashed by her, full of those proud, deafening calls. Caradoc, Madoc, Emrys, Venutius, the nameless dead, and now the tide was rushing her past her own kinsmen, and though the years had lengthened, the cry was the same. Freedom. She ran a trembling hand across her face, and her vision cleared. The chiefs and their jailers were disappearing and the black water in her head sloshed and receded. She went on unsteadily, coming at last to the hall, where she found Favonius, the procurator, and Marcus. She staggered toward them. The procurator had a sheaf of papers in both hands and a frown on his face. He was oblivious of the men who came and went from the now almost empty wine barrels, but Favonius shifted unhappily from one foot to the other, hearing the laughter and loud jokes grow coarser and more violent. Marcus saw her coming and ran to her.

“Lady, is Brigid in the house? I knocked and tried the door, but I could not get in.”

She pushed him aside roughly and went straight to Decianus, terror stiffening her tongue as she glimpsed a group of soldiers reeling from the barrel to the farthest door of the house. “Decianus, this must stop,” she begged urgently. “Men are dying, children are being kicked and punched. Possessions are nothing, we will give you anything you ask, but have mercy on the people!” The soldiers shoved the door open and peered inside. Several remained to continue the plunder, but the others moved on.

He leered his grotesque, meaningless smile at her and shuffled his papers with annoyance. “I am within the law,” he said, breathing hard. “I am taking goods and slaves. Nothing more. If the people are foolish enough to get in the way, then of course my men must defend themselves.”

“Against virgins and babies?” She began to sweat. The group had already thinned. More men had broken away to sift through the contents of the third room, but four of them even now were thumping on the last door.

He bent toward her. “You proud people are learning a long overdue lesson in submission,” he snarled at her, his flabby face convulsed with hatred. “You belong to Rome. For years Rome has treated you well. Too well, in my opinion. And like the savages you are, you have grown arrogant and domineering. Now you are being put in your place.” He pointed to the ground. “There.”

Shock smote her, knocking all but a horrified disbelief from her mind, and before she could recover she heard the last door of the house splinter and a shout go up from the sweating soldiers. She spun around. Decianus had gone back to his papers. Then she heard a high scream, from Brigid or Ethelind she could not tell, and even as she felt life surge back to her limbs a body came hurtling through the jagged timber. It was Iain, the hilt of a gladius protruding from his chest, and he rolled over twice and came to rest in the shadow of the hall, his face down on the iron earth. She began to run, and behind her Favonius grabbed his son by the arm.

“We are going home now, Marcus,” he said firmly.

The young man protested, white to the lips. “But Father, I must find Brigid!”

“You’d never find her in this muddle anyway. Hurry up!”

They left Decianus and began to move toward the first circle. Favonius kept a tight grip on his son’s tunic. “This is a nightmare,” Marcus said quietly. “I love these people, and the trust you’ve built here over the years is being destroyed in one day. Surely the procurator is exceeding his duties! Would Paulinus approve? Can’t you do anything?”

“Jupiter!” Favonius snarled, guilt and fear driving him to lose his temper. “Do you want me to call out the garrison and give battle to Decianus? I’d be executed! Use your head, Marcus, and be quiet!”

They slipped unnoticed through the throng and past the gate, and they mounted quickly and set off for home. The noise of the dishonored town faded, and the wind soughed a high threnody in the branches around them. They did not speak. Fear prickled down Favonius’s back, and Marcus slouched on his horse, hoping that Brigid would have the sense to lie low somewhere. I can’t help her if I can’t find her, he told himself angrily. Besides, she’s quite safe. Decianus would never allow a princess to be manhandled, he’s not that stupid. But he knew that he was lying to himself. He knew where Brigid had been. He knew Decianus’s rapacity. And he knew himself for a coward, after all.

When they reached the garrison, Favonius went straight to his wife. “Are Marcus’s things all packed and ready to go?” he demanded, and she looked at him curiously.

“Honorious, what’s the matter?”

“Decianus is completely stripping the Iceni. Blood has already been spilt, and there’s more trouble coming. I can almost smell it. I want you to go with Marcus, as well, Priscilla.”

“But I can’t just pick up my cloak and walk out!” she said, stepping to his side. “Is there danger for you? Oh surely not!”

He patted her shoulder absently, his ears still full of the shrieks and sobs of the townspeople. “I hope not,” he said heavily, “but I know them, these spell-sick barbarians. They will put up with anything as long as their honor is not abused. I only wish Decianus knew it.”

“Is Marcus with you?”

“I brought him back. I suppose I’m being too alarmist, my dear, but it affords me great relief to think of you and Marcus safely on the way to Colchester. You will just have to be packed by tomorrow.”

“I hate this country!” she burst out suddenly. “I’ve always hated it. Sometimes I hate it so much I want to vomit. When we get to Rome in safety I may never come back!”

If
you get to Rome, he thought gloomily, then he laughed at himself. “And what would I do then?” He kissed her angry cheek. “We will see what happens, Priscilla. First things first. You must leave long before the sun is up.”

Boudicca reached the shattered door of the house and burst inside. At first she was blinded after the bright sunlight and she had to stand inert, the scuffles and terror-stricken cries coming to her out of a thick dimness, but gradually her eyes adjusted and what she saw drove the last vestiges of control from her. Lovernius lay almost at her feet, crumpled into a limp heap of rumpled cloak and splayed limbs. At first she thought he was dead, but as she glanced down at him he stirred and moaned softly. The room was a shambles of overturned chests, smashed lamps, and piled hangings. One of the soldiers stood beside the hearth, with her golden jewel box in his hands. He upended it on the floor even as she watched, and he crouched to sift through the cascade of brilliant stones, lacy necklaces, thin, delicate circlets. But these things did not matter, these things were fragments of a meaningless, idiotically disjointed moment of time, for Ethelind stood pinned against the wall. Her tunic was torn from her shoulders and it was imprisoning her arms to her waist, and her head snapped from side to side as she tried to free her hands. She was whimpering like a wounded dog, and as Boudicca stared, the soldier crushing her into the corner slapped a big hand across her throat and fought to bare her thighs. Brigid lay spread-eagled beside the bed, gasping, her hands pushing and clawing at the man kneeling over her. She was naked, one braid unloosened to carpet the floor in silver. Blood trick led from a gash on her right breast and she was fighting back with the strength of sheer terror.

The room stank of stale wine, fear, and sweat. “Lie still, pretty bitch, lie still,” the soldier cursed her and the waiting soldier snapped, “Hurry up!” The other slapped Brigid across the face, back and forth with all the weight of his wrist, and she began to scream, a high, continuous ululation. He drove his knee between her legs, and then Boudicca came to life. She leaped across the room, howling with anguish and rage, and knocked the man sideways, her teeth ripping at his cheek, her fingers digging into his throat. They rolled together, and his hands gripped her wrists, trying to force them to relinquish their hold, but a madness had seized her and all he did was to drag those long nails lower and deeper. She felt warm blood gush onto her hands. Her mouth found the lobe of his ear and she bit hard. He screamed, and the sound of his pain mingled with Brigid’s agony. His hands loosened. She wrapped her long legs around him, flung an arm about his neck, and began to force him backward, feeling his spine stiffen and crack under her relentless clutch. A fierce release of emotion shook her, a feeling of exultation and power, then brutal fingers entwined in her hair and jerked back hard and she lost her balance and fell choking.

“Mother!” Ethelind was wailing, her voice as tremulous and thin as a newborn baby’s. “Mother, Mother!” She was hauled to her feet. The soldier with the severed earlobe staggered to her, and clenching his fist drove it toward her mouth, but as quick as light she turned her head and the blow fell on the side of her jaw. She cried out, and he punched her in the belly. Then he weaved back to Brigid, and Boudicca found herself dragged into the open.

Nothing had changed. Decianus still stood frowning over his growing pile of requisition papers. The tribesmen still milled about, rudderless and speechless. But now Ethelind’s screams provided an insane harmony to her sister’s abandoned melody. The soldier pushed Boudicca to the procurator and he looked up angrily, but before he could speak she began to shout from between clenched teeth.

“You dirty, disgusting animals! One day I will plunge a sword into that fat paunch of yours, Decianus! I will slay every filthy Roman I can find! I spit on you! I spit on your witless emperor! I spit on your honor!”

He was still smiling, but the fixed, wet mouth showed only a freezing, devouring malice. He looked at the bloodstained teeth, the grimed, sweating face, the glint of madness in the huge eyes that were veiled by her tangled chestnut hair. Then he looked back at his figures.

“Take her to the gate and give her twenty lashes with the barb,” he said coolly.

“You’ll kill her, sir,” the soldier responded doubtfully, and Decianus smiled again.

“Well, twenty without it then, but make each one count. I don’t care whether we kill her, but perhaps it would not amuse the governor to find that we had whipped a queen to death. Learn your lesson well, barbarian,” he finished laconically, and before Boudicca could make any reply the soldier shoved her from behind.

“Walk,” he commanded, and she stumbled down the path.

The freeman saw her coming and made way for her, and the stunned silence of the now-ruined town gave place to an ominous, incredulous whispering. The crowd let her and her guard pass, but it closed in behind and followed, and when she reached the gate and the laden wains and the lines of chained men and women it pooled out into a lake of white, puzzled faces. “You!” the centurion barked at one of the resting legionaries. “Bring me a whip!” A sigh of disbelief went up from the assembled people but it was ignored. Boudicca found herself led to a tall wooden post used for the tethering of guests’ horses. Her arms were raised and cradled around it and roped securely, and she felt the man’s fingers at her neck. With a jerk and a tear her tunic parted, and shouts of indignation went up all around.

“No, you cannot!”

“Why do you do this?”

“She has done nothing!”

The man’s vacant eye flicked over them. He took off his helmet and laid it on the grass, unstrapped his leather jerkin and let it fall, and the other soldier returned and handed him a long leather whip, barbed at one end. He fingered the barb longingly for a moment, considered, then deftly removed it and threw it onto his jerkin. If the barbarian died he would be demoted. He flexed his muscles, put his legs apart, and the first stroke came whistling down to leave a deep welt in the naked back from waist to shoulder.

Pain burst like raw, new fire in her brain and her head snapped back, but before she could tense her body, the next stroke fell, the tip of the whip curling under her chin, and she cried out. Blood trickled slowly down her spine, under her armpits. The third stroke was lower, searing, biting deeper as the centurion found his rhythme, and she sagged against the post, taking her lower lip between her teeth and grinding it. I will count, she thought, already light-headed. Before her she saw the friendly gray stone of her wall, patched with moisture where the sun had warmed the frost to water. She saw the thin winter light flowing through the leafless little copse that hid the garrison. She saw her chiefs, their necks in iron rings, their dark, murderous eyes fixed on the sweating soldier. Four. The pain was unendurable. I must scream, I must cry for mercy, Andrasta, I am dying and I cannot take this pain, then all at once her people began to shout.