Boudicca, page 6
Briallen turned away so that Enfys was shielded from seeing the elder’s body. “None will be alive. The brave old ones who remained in the village to protect their queen and give the bairns and mothers time to flee into the forest were slaughtered—every one of them—along with the few warriors who were not at the spring games.”
I met Briallen’s gaze. “I am sorry. Bryn was a fierce warrior.”
“He died protectin’ his queen.” Briallen’s voice broke. She paused, collected herself, and continued. “He will join your mother in Annwn, as is right. Except for the four of us, ’tis a village of the dead.”
“It will live again. We will live again.”
I continued the trek to the lodge. As we approached the open wooden doors, the knowledge that my beloved mother was within—dead and cold—had me staggering.
“Steady!” Briallen caught my elbow and lent me her strength. “We will because we must.”
I drew a deep breath, nodded, then spoke gently to my girls. “Enfys, Ceri, you must do something for me. You must close your eyes and keep them closed until we are in my bedchamber.”
Ceri cried and pressed her face into my shoulder, soaking it with her sweat and tears, but Enfys turned her head so that she could meet my gaze. “Nain is in there with Dafina. I will look. I will remember.”
I thought my heart would break, though I was filled with pride at her fierceness. I badly wanted to command my daughter to close her eyes—to remain a child—but what had happened to her, to us all, had changed everything. And I understood intimately that in this new, terrible world of ours, anger fueled action. I met my oldest daughter’s gaze and saw the reflection of the fury that boiled within me, that kept me on my feet, that would keep me moving forward from this day on. “Then look. Remember. And know we will get vengeance.”
“Aye, bonny lamb. ’Tis as Herself says. We will get vengeance,” said Briallen.
“We will get vengeance,” echoed Enfys.
We entered the lodge. The scent of blood and loosed bowels permeated the air. There were only three bodies. Bryn’s body slumped just inside the door with the long pilum spear still embedded in his chest. My eyes were drawn to the middle of the spacious lodge, where my mother rested beside her beloved servant. In their final moments of life they had curled toward one another, and the two old women’s hands were joined—holding as tightly in death as in life.
I tore my gaze from the two women I had loved the longest in this lifetime and moved woodenly past them, pushed aside the hide that was the door to my private chamber, and laid Ceri carefully on my wide bed. Briallen placed Enfys beside her sister. The older child instantly took Ceri into her arms.
Enfys looked up at me through eyes a century older than thirteen namedays. “Go ahead, Mama. Do what you must. I will stay with Ceri.”
The pride I felt for her took my breath. I touched her cheek. “See how brave you are. I have never been prouder to be your mother than at this moment.” I pulled a blanket up over my beautiful, violated daughters. “We will not be long.”
I left my bedchamber with Briallen beside me and closed the pelt door. Then the warrior and I paused. Except for the three bodies, the lodge looked remarkably normal. The hearthfire was still burning, though the iron pot of water that had been boiling there was knocked over. It soaked the rushes along with the blood of Arianell and Dafina.
“We need to tend to our wounds, but first we must move them.” My hand shook as I wiped sweat from my face. My back had become so tight that every movement was agony, but I’d felt no new warmth of blood and my dizziness had passed, so I ignored the pain. My daughters must come first.
“Aye. We can take them outside and care for their bodies properly after we tend the living,” said Briallen.
We worked together silently. Bryn was the most difficult to move. In life, he’d been a massive but graceful man, like one of Tribe Demetae’s oceangoing war vessels. Now, in death, he was battered and beached. It took both of us, a human tide pulling and heaving, to remove him from the lodge.
I carried my mother myself. I cradled Arianell much like I’d so recently held my youngest daughter—tightly against my chest. I breathed in the familiar scent of the rosemary that Mother had liked to rinse her hair with and fought back tears by embracing rage instead.
The Romans will pay for this. I cursed them. Andraste heard. The goddess and I will make certain the curse comes true.
Gently, I placed my mother’s body on a pile of clean rushes just outside the great lodge. Briallen had already taken armfuls of the rushes into the lodge to replace the blood-soaked ones. Lastly, Briallen placed Dafina beside her mistress, where she had been for more years than I had lived.
Then we reentered the lodge. I could feel my strength waning. If I moved too quickly, my vision narrowed and spots of light obscured my sight. I spoke hastily to Briallen, knowing that I must get the next part done quickly, before I could no longer force my body to do anything. “I’ll draw and heat the water for the bath and add healing herbs. We need to get the girls warm, bathe the remnants of those beasts off them, and then dress and pack their wounds. You need your wounds tended as well.”
Stiffly and carefully, I moved to right the cooking tripod over the fire and then hooked onto it the cauldron my servants used to heat bathwater. Behind elaborately embroidered tapestries that decorated the lodge’s curved walls were shadowy recesses that held pots, buckets, and dishware of all sizes. I grabbed two of the largest wooden pails and turned to shuffle to the rear door of the lodge, just outside of which was the deep, cold well my attendants used to draw water for their royal family—and almost ran into Briallen.
The warrior swayed precariously and looked as if she might fall over at any moment, but her voice was firm. “I’ll be takin’ one of those buckets. We can fill it faster if we work together. And you must be tended, too, my queen.”
I opened my mouth to tell Briallen not to be ridiculous—that she was barely standing—and then I saw the iron in the warrior’s gaze and recognized the anger there that was almost as deep as was her need to do something, anything.
I nodded shortly. “Get clean linens from Mother’s sewing chest. There should be a covered wooden pot beside the baskets of yarrow and goldenrod. We’ll need the herbs to add to the girls’ bathwater, and the salve in the pot is numbing and healing.”
Briallen nodded. “Aye. Arianell is a great healer.”
“She is. She was.” I corrected myself, blinking hard to keep the tears that welled from falling. “Get enough herbs to steep in the cauldron, as well as in the bathwater. There is a pitcher of water and a basin on the table near my bed. Fill it with the herbed water from the cauldron. You can clean the girls’ wounds with that while I draw from the well and fill the bath.”
Briallen nodded and began gathering the items. I did not think. I moved. I went to and from the well until the cauldron was filled, and then repeated the filling as I poured the hot water into the huge copper tub Prasutagus had given me fifteen years before as a betrothal gift. I stoked the fire and hung a fresh cauldron of water. Then I went to my mother’s medicinal chest and carefully chose herbs that induced sleep, placed generous portions in two wooden mugs, and poured boiling water over the mixture to steep for tea before I joined Briallen with my daughters.
Briallen had cleaned Enfys’s face and was carefully wiping the blood from the girl’s body. Ceri had curled into a tight fetal position with her back pressed against her sister.
“Ceri will not allow me to touch her,” Briallen said softly.
I nodded, wetted a strip of linen in the already pinkening water, and sat close to Ceri. “Little dove, will you let me clean you?” The child whimpered and burrowed her face into the goose-down-filled mattress. I stroked her matted hair gently. “Ceri, look at me.”
Ceri’s body trembled and her voice sounded even younger than her ten years. “If I open my eyes I will know it is not a dream.”
Her sister’s words made Enfys sob, and Briallen wiped away her tears, speaking softly to her, as if she were a wild hare that had been wounded and needed to be soothed so that it would not attempt to run away and further injure itself.
I thought my heart would break but forced my voice to be steady.
“Yes, little dove, my little love, I know. I wish we were dreaming, but I will not lie to you as if you are still a baby. You must be strong. We all must be—you, Enfys, and me. For Nain. For our people.”
Ceri’s eyes fluttered open. She whispered three words. “Nain is dead.”
It was not a question, but I answered. “She is. Death is the only thing that could keep her from our side right now.”
“She died because of me.” Tears leaked slowly down Ceri’s smooth cheeks.
“No, little dove. She did not. She died because Romans attacked us.”
“C-could you not have s-stopped them? You are a queen,” Ceri sobbed.
I felt my daughter’s words like a gut punch. “I tried, little dove. I—” My words broke off and I bit a bloody hole in my cheek to keep from screaming or sobbing or both.
Briallen spoke solemnly into the silence. “Your mother our queen was brave and fierce. Her words saved us all.”
Ceri turned her head to stare at the warrior, but it was Enfys who asked, “Did Mama truly save us?”
“Aye, she did. She cursed the Romans. ’Twas the power of Herself’s curse that affrighted the soldiers so bad that they crawled off me. One of them had raised his spear to strike me with a killing blow at the moment our queen said, ‘Through my blood and with my goddess-blessed breath, I have cursed you unto death!’ It seemed to turn the soldier to stone. He stood there—spear raised—as if entranced and stared at Herself. While he and the rest of the Romans gaped at the sight of our mighty queen, I fled so that I could live to serve her.” Briallen’s gaze met mine. “Had she not cursed them, the Romans would have burned the village and made sure we burned with it.” Briallen bowed her head deeply, respectfully.
I tried to speak, but my daughter was quicker.
Ceri sat, grimacing painfully. “Wash me now, Mama. I will be brave like you.”
Silently, the warrior and I wiped the blood and dirt and fluids from my children, and then we carried them to the steaming tub. We added several more buckets from the well to make the water bearable before gently placing the girls within. Enfys and Ceri were so small that they both fit in the tub together. The children gasped and cried out as their wounds met the water, but they bore it like the daughters of a queen. As Briallen washed the girls, I gave each of them a mug of tea, adding dollops of golden honey. My pride in them was so fierce it lifted my spirit.
“Drink, my little loves.”
The girls did as they were told. The tea and the warmth of the herbed water worked on them. Their eyes began to close and their breathing deepened as they rested more comfortably in the tub.
While the girls soaked in the healing warmth, Briallen spoke softly but urgently. “The Romans set fire to the stables. I’ll go see if any of the horses escaped. If so, I’ll catch one and ride for our warriors.”
Before I responded, I took a bucket already filled with the herb-steeped bathwater and got another fresh cloth from Mother’s sewing chest. I gestured for Briallen to join me in Arianell’s bedchamber.
“Take that ruined tunic off and sit so that I can see to your wounds.”
“I should clean your back first, my queen,” said Briallen.
“My bleeding has stopped. Yours has not. Sit,” I commanded.
Briallen sighed but shrugged out of her tattered tunic. “It shall be as you command, but I cannot sit.” She turned so that I could see the bloody sword slashes that covered her buttocks.
Kneeling beside the warrior, I began to clean her wounds. “They aren’t men. They aren’t animals. Those who did this to you—to me—to my daughters—are monsters.”
Briallen’s voice sounded ancient and incredibly tired. “They aren’t monsters. They’re just men from a people who do not value women. It could happen to any men, even our own.”
“Do you excuse them?”
Briallen snorted. “Och, no. I only explain. The Romans are rabid animals and should be culled from our land.”
I stood and gently, carefully, cleaned the lacerations that covered Briallen’s breasts and ribs. And as I tended the warrior, it was like a dam loosened within me. Words flowed, horrible and thick, almost drowning me.
“They came from the fen, but I don’t understand how. How could they have made their way through the fen in the fog? Why didn’t the sucking mud swallow them?”
Briallen moved her shoulders. “I do not know. But had they come by the main road we would have heard them and not been taken by surprise.”
“Heard them, yes. But still not been able to defend ourselves with almost all of our warriors at the spring games.” My rage—which was now always there, just waiting to boil over again—felt good. It warmed me. It burned away grief and pain and fear. “They knew the warriors would be gone. They had to have known.”
“How? Tribe Trinovantes are our allies and not in league with Rome.”
“I do not know, but I will find out.” I spread healing salve over Briallen’s wounds. “Some of these need to be sewn.”
“We don’t have time for such things, my queen. Wrap the wounds tightly. They will heal.”
“They will scar terribly,” I said.
Briallen’s feral smile showed missing teeth from where the last Roman had struck her with the hilt of his pugio. “Aye, that they will. It will be my honor to wear them.”
I nodded and wrapped the worst of her wounds tightly before taking a plain tunic from Arianell’s clothing chest and carefully helping the warrior into it.
“Now you, my queen.”
Gratefully, I slid the filthy, torn clothes from my body and kicked them into a pile with the warrior’s bloody rags. Then I stood still, breathing in small, shallow gasps as Briallen cleaned the long lacerations the whip had carved into the soft flesh of my back, and then sighed in relief as she smeared salve into them. Moving quietly and carefully, I went to my chamber and dressed in a soft linen tunic as Briallen added hot water to the girls’ bath and took the empty mugs from them.
When I rejoined Briallen, I checked on my daughters, who were drowsy and pink faced from the steamy bath. While I was dressing, the warrior had brewed us herbal tea, rich with honey, which we drank quickly. It gave me the strength to go to where I’d hidden the satchel just before the Romans had attacked. I breathed a sigh of relief when I lifted it and felt the reassuring outline of my husband’s heavy torque. I grimaced as I slid the satchel over my shoulder and its leather strap pressed against my wounded back, but I needed to keep the goddess’s gift close.
Briallen went to me and bowed stiffly. “My queen, allow me to ride to our warriors. If I leave now our warriors may catch Decianus before the river reaches the sea. We will cut him down like the rabid dog he is and send him to be judged in their Underworld.”
I spoke firmly to my warrior. “Brave Briallen, I want vengeance, too, but our people will begin returning, and some of them will be wounded. Today we need healers more than soldiers. The Druids must be within a day’s ride; they always travel with healers. My injuries are not as grave as yours. You remain here and see to my daughters. I shall go meet the Druids and ask that they send a rider south to fetch our warriors.”
Briallen began to protest, but my hand on her arm stopped her words. “You cannot help my daughters if you die on the road to the Trinovantes. I must think of our people. What is best for all of us at this moment is not to ride after a mere centuria and a tax collector who are already dead.”
Briallen nodded. “Aye, your curse.”
“Andraste heard me. I know it as sure as I know my own name. We will kill every one of them. First we heal. Then we will have our vengeance.”
Briallen’s shoulders slumped. “I will do as you command, my queen.”
A keening lifted from the practice field and drifted to the lodge like smoke from a hearthfire. Ceri’s scream pierced the peace of the lodge.
“The Romans return!” Enfys cried.
The water from the tub sloshed over the sides as the girls tried to scramble from its depths.
“No!” I spoke sharply. My tone caused the girls to stop flailing in the water and stare at me with wide, panicked eyes. “Think! Romans would not keen over our dead.”
“’Tis too soon for the tribe to have returned. They should still be in hiding at the barrows.”
I nodded. Like Briallen, I knew where we would find the Iceni who had managed to escape into the woods. As soon as an Iceni child could walk and talk, he or she was taught the way to the Chief’s Barrow and memorized which of the hillocks that surround it were burial mounds and which were hollowed sanctuaries that waited to succor the tribe in a time of need.
I met Briallen’s gaze. “I will whistle if they are friends. If I do not, get the girls out the back door and into the forest. I will meet you at the barrow. Guard them.”
“With my life,” said my warrior.
As quietly as possible, I moved through my ravaged village toward the practice grounds and the keening of the many voices that lifted and fell from there. As I passed a goatherd’s hut that still smoldered, I got my first glimpse of the grounds. My breath whooshed from me in a wave of release as I whistled the distinctive song of the whippoorwill, signaling to Briallen that the visitors were friends. From the lodge came the answering birdcall. Satisfied that the girls knew they were safe, I hurried through the village.
The practice field was filled with people moving from one fallen Iceni elder to another. The people swayed side to side as they keened in grief. They were cloaked in the blue, green, and brown colors of the three Druid orders.
