Song for a Dark Queen

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  We were all out from the woodshore and racing headlong for the same spot, though indeed there was little enough we could do, no more than the yelling herdsmen hurling their beasts along the flanks of the stampede. Prasutagus was out ahead, having gone after Boudicca almost in the moment that she broke away. He reached her as the forerunners of the herd were upon her; no time to catch her up and get clear. He dropped from his own horse in full career, and flung himself upon her, forcing her in against the alder trunk, and shielding her body with his own, as the flood of hooves poured over them.

  That much I saw, even as I was caught up in the force of the stampede and whirled away. For a while, long or short, I would not be knowing, it was all that I could do to keep my own horse from going down; then I got him round and began to force him back against the flood. Upreared heads and thrusting shoulders were all about me, wild eyes and flaring nostrils and streaming manes. But the press was thinning. The dustcloud was sinking, and there was clear ground round the alder trunk when I got back to it; and men swinging down from the horses, and the Queen on her feet again, standing by; and all looking down at the Lord Prasutagus lying still on the trampled ground.

  Sure I am that but for the little shelter of that half-rotten tree trunk, they must both have died. As it was – well, the Queen was seemingly unharmed. They had turned the boy over in lifting him off her; and he lay with his face tipped up to the first heavy drops of thunder rain. A little blood ran from the corner of his mouth and more out of his hair above one ear; and his tunic, half-torn from his body, showed the flesh of his flanks and shoulders bruised and broken.

  After the tumult and thunder of hooves, the shouting men and screaming of horses, it was very still.

  Boudicca asked, ‘Is he dead?’ Her face was as grey-white as his own; and then she said, so quietly that I think I who was standing nearest to her must have been the only one who heard, ‘Let him not be dead!’

  ‘He is not dead,’ someone said, ‘but his spirit is out of his body for this while.’

  Boudicca drew in a quick breath, ‘Let someone ride back for a Healer Priest to call his spirit back into it again.’

  ‘Bran has already gone. Meanwhile we will be getting him back to Dun.’

  And one of the herd riders came forward and crouched at the Queen’s feet. ‘Lady, it was none of our doing, the thunder frightened the herd.’

  Boudicca looked down at him dully. ‘Do you think you would still be alive to tell me so, if I had thought for one instant that the fault was yours? Back on your horse, now, and away after the rest. You will be till sundown rounding them up as it is.’ Her eyes had gone back to Prasutagus’s face before she finished speaking. And she knelt down and wiped the blood from it with her own rain-wet hair.

  So the companions made a carrying litter of cloaks tied over their spear shafts, and carried the Lord Prasutagus back under the hissing rain. There was no more thunder; it was as though the storm had served the purpose for which it came. And we followed, leading our horses. And all the way, Boudicca walked beside the litter. ‘Pile more cloaks on him,’ she said once, ‘his body will grow too cold for his spirit to come back into it.’ And that was the only word she spoke, all the way back to the Dun.

  They carried him into the Royal Chamber, and laid him down on the bedplace, and the Healer Priests came and felt him over with probing fingers, and with ears laid to his breast, after the manner of their kind. They burned strange things in a pot set so that the smoke fronded across his face and when he breathed he must draw it into himself, and they spread green wound-salve on linen and bound it over his many hurts. And most of that night the chief of the Healers sat beside him, pointing the Fingers of Power sometimes at his head, sometimes at his heart, to strengthen his body so that it could wait for him and receive him back again; for the hoof blow on the side of his head had driven him very far away.

  And all the night long, Boudicca squatted at his other side and neither moved nor spoke, nor took her eyes from his face.

  Towards dawn he began to stir uneasily, and crouching in the doorway, I heard the Healer Priest let go a long breath like one that is very tired. ‘He is coming back.’

  And then Prasutagus turned his head on the fine blue woollen pillows, and threw up all that was in him, as I have known to happen with other men after a blow on the head. And then he called out, fumblingly, ‘Boudicca! Boudicca!’ in a voice that I had never heard from him before; a seeking and longing and desperate voice, as though he were crying out after her through a dark forest.

  And she said quickly, ‘I am here, Love. Feel now; hold to my hands – I am here.’ And she too spoke in a voice that I had never heard before.

  For many days and nights, Prasutagus lay sick and fevered, even while his hurts began to heal, tended night and day by Boudicca herself and her old nurse, and with the Healer Priests coming and going about the Royal Chamber. And then one morning I heard him laugh; a small cracked laugh, for his flanks and breast-cage were still too bruised and battered for him to draw breath easily; but joyous. And I knew that all would be well.

  More days went by, and then one night, passing the entrance to the Royal Chamber with its embroidered deerskin curtain drawn close, on my way to the warm corner of the Hall that was my own sleeping place, I chanced to look down; and there, in the last light of the torches and the white shaft of autumn moonlight falling from the nearest of the high window-holes, the old King’s sword with the hilt of nawhal ivory lay across the threshold.

  5

  To Be a King and Think Too Much

  BOUDICCA NO LONGER carried her head as though her neck were for ever braced to the weight and balance of the moon headdress. Now she walked like one wearing a midsummer garland. There was a bloom on her in the years that followed, and she gave off warmth and happiness as a flower gives off scent. I think that I have never known any woman happy as she was happy in those years. After the babes came, she even grew a little fat. She knew it, and laughed and said, ‘Where is the use of having little cubs, and no soft lap to nurse them in?’

  Essylt the Royal Daughter was born in the dark of winter, pink and squalling, with feathery hair on her head as red as the midwinter fires; and three summers later came Nessan, the little dark one who scarcely ever cried. And each time there was a small fret and tumult in the women’s quarters, because Old Nurse would have each babe in turn all to herself as she had had Boudicca; and the Queen, though she would share them, made it very clear that they were hers. Many’s the time I have seen her sitting in the sunshine on the threshold of the women’s quarters, with her tunic slipped down from her breast, feeding first her fiery baby and then later the little dark one, while Essylt, grown to toddling size, played with a hound puppy at her feet; and her lovely happiness like a cloak about them all. And then maybe Prasutagus’s shadow would fall across them as he passed by, and he would check, he looking down and she looking up, and something would pass between them, a kind of shimmer in the air. Once, laughing, he told her, ‘You look as contented as a cat with her kittens, half-asleep there in the sunshine.’ And she narrowed her eyes and stroked her cheek against the little dark head of Nessan who she was holding over her shoulder, and said, ‘Prrr?’ softly in her throat.

  Aye, those were good years.

  And as good years and bad alike must do, they went by.

  Rome’s yoke sat light enough about our necks. So light at first we scarcely knew it for a yoke at all. Once a year the tax-gatherers came for their tribute of gold and horses. Once a year the agreed number of young braves went off to serve as auxiliaries with the Eagles. But there were always plenty who were glad enough to go, for the adventure and the soldier’s pay and the seeing of distant places. Up and down the tribal lands north and west of us, the Red Crests had built their forts. Great far-off forts for the frontier legions, and small ones scattered between, to hold the conquered tribes quiet, like the studs on a shield that hold the dappled oxhide to the wooden backing. But there were no forts in the
runs of the Horse People. We were a free people still.

  Life took on a more Roman colour; and as the merchants came and went, there began to be more Roman things to be seen. A paved floor with a coloured pattern on it, wine jugs of red Samian ware on a chieftain’s table, and maybe a graceful bronze lamp in his women’s quarters; though nothing so beautiful as the Queen’s dark Bride Cup with the flame at its heart. But we were a free people still.

  And then, some six years after we made our friendship treaty with the Emperor at Camulodunum, the first trouble came.

  In that winter, Ostorius Scapula, who was Governor of Britain – for the Romans behave as though we were one land and one people divided into a few clans; they do not understand that we are the Tribes, and Britain little more than an idea of their own – Ostorius Scapula began the making of a frontier line; road and fosse and string of forts, running all the way from the hunting runs of the Dumnoni in the far south-west, up to their great new fortress they call Lindum beyond the settlements of the Parisi. This was for a defence against the hill tribes beyond, the Bearers of the Blue Warshields, and the Silures who were still carrying on their own war with Caratacus to lead them at that time.

  And when the new frontier line was finished, Ostorius Scapula ordered that the tribes lying next behind it on the Roman side should be stripped of their weapons; amongst them ourselves the Iceni, the Lords of the Horse.

  The order came, brought by pot-bellied officials guarded by Red Crests lest we tear them into little pieces and feed them to our hunting dogs. At such and such places, on such and such days, the weapons were to be brought in and stacked for Rome to carry away; and any man caught carrying sword or war spear thereafter was to pay for it with death or slavery. ‘You have no need of weapons,’ said those pot-bellied officials. ‘Rome is here to keep order. Rome is here to protect you.’ And one, standing beside the fire in the Royal Dun itself, said, ‘Was it not for that you yielded to your Emperor without a blow, six years since?’

  We heard them, we who counted ourselves a free people, and our bellies rose within us.

  ‘We are free allies of Rome! We have paid our allotted tribute, we have sent our young men to serve with the Eagles; but by the word of the Emperor himself, we are a free state, not a conquered people like the Catuvellauni, to be ordered to lay down our arms.’

  Thus said Prasutagus the King, standing also by the fire in his High Hall. He spoke very softly, and his face had gone as white as buttermilk. He always grew pale and deathly quiet when he was angry. But the officials were not knowing that.

  ‘Then you had best send to Rome, and take the matter up with the Emperor himself,’ said the pot-bellied one. ‘Meanwhile, these are the orders of Ostorius Scapula, Governor of Britain.’

  And all men knew that by then Caesar was old and sick and surrounded by evil advisers.

  ‘I must have time to call the Council, that we may speak together upon this matter,’ Prasutagus said, as quietly as before.

  ‘You have time enough for that. It is half a month before the date set. Only see that when the day comes, the weapons of the Iceni come with it to the appointed places.’

  But scarcely were the officials gone jingling off with their escort of Red Crests, and before ever the Council could be called, word came that the clans of our south-western runs had risen against the order, and made their strong place among the great fortified banks of the High Chalk that had been raised long since against the Catuvellauni.

  It was evening when the word came, brought by a tired man on a tired horse. The evening meal was over – a gloomy meal it had been – and men and women had moved in from their own sides of the Hall to meet and mingle according to our custom when the eating is done; but there was little of the usual talk and laughter. I sat in my accustomed place at the Queen’s feet, my harp tuned and ready, though it was in my mind that there would be no harp music that night. But though it had been quiet before, I mind the deeper quiet that came over the Hall when the news was spoken. And the Queen cried out into it, ‘Fools! The fools! Could they not have waited at least for word from the Royal Dun?’

  Prasutagus set down the cup that he was holding, and got to his feet beside her; and standing there by the fire, he called to his armour-bearer to make ready his war-gear; gave orders for horses to be bridled and chariot teams harnessed up; and sent riders to gather the men of the Kindred, the Royal Clan.

  ‘Let you wait till morning,’ one of the old men said. ‘Dawn comes early at this time of year.’

  ‘Not early enough! Maybe we are already too late; but assuredly there is no time to wait for morning.’

  Boudicca also had risen to her feet, and stood facing him. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘Whatever seems best; whatever there is that can be done.’

  ‘I will come and help you to arm,’ she said.

  ‘No need. Cadog is my armour-bearer.’

  ‘But I am your woman,’ said Boudicca.

  And they went together into the Royal Chamber.

  Then there was a great coming and going; a flaring of torches all across the outer court, and a trampling of chariot teams being led under the yoke, and the whitt-whitt-whitt of sword and spear blade on the tall black weapon-stone. Cold and blue-white are the sparks that fly from a whetted sword blade; frost-coloured against the red flare of the torches. And the south gates were opened wide, and in the dark hour of the young-summer night, Prasutagus and his household warriors were gone, drumming out over the causeway to meet the war-bands he had summoned to join him along the way.

  And behind them was the silence again, and the waiting.

  Nine days, we waited, and on the evening of the ninth day they came back, clattering in between the stone gateposts under a low squally sunset barred with yellow along the west; and the yellow made a cold and hollow glitter on their weapons and horse-ornaments. We saw no riderless horses, no empty chariots, and yet they had about them no look of victory. And I was minded of the time we came back from Camulodunum, Prasutagus having done the bitter work of the Council. But then, he had been little more than a boy. He was a man now, and whatever had been done, the doing had been his and not the Council’s.

  He reined in and got down from his chariot, stiffly, before the threshold where Boudicca waited for him. He was mired with long hard driving, his eyes red-rimmed.

  She asked no questions, but he answered her as though she had. ‘The Red Crests stormed the defences. It was all over before we got there.’

  ‘What did you do, my Lord?’

  ‘I did what I could. There is some kind of patched-up peace. Pray to our Lady of the Foals that it lasts. At least we are still a free state.’

  ‘And the Governor’s orders?’

  ‘The Governor’s order still stands.’ The great weariness that was on him sounded in his voice.

  The first of the appointed days came for the handing in of weapons; and each clan brought its war-gear in to the steading of its chieftain, where the officials and their Red Crests waited. And in the forecourt of the Royal Dun, Prasutagus brought his own sword, and broke it across his knee; and laid the pieces with deep and formal courtesy at the feet of the senior official. And behind him, one after another, the warriors of the Royal Clan did the like; until the pile rose so high and wide that the official must step back quickly to avoid losing a toe or two, and someone in the gathering laughed.

  So it was done, swords broken, spearheads wrenched from their shafts and flung into the waiting carts. By evening, all was over.

  I wondered if they must be fed and lodged in the Royal Dun for the night, as we had fed and lodged the tribute-collectors every year. But the Red Crests, following their usual custom, had made their own camp for the night; and I am thinking the officials felt safer within their stockade than within ours. And I am thinking that maybe for that time they were right.

  Next day, after they were gone, and their laden carts with them, I took my harp and went away down into t
he marsh country, for my heart was sore within me, and I needed the space and emptiness, that I might make a lament to ease the ache, with none but the shore birds to hear me.

  So towards evening I sat on the bank of a looping waterway, staring down into the water that riffled through the tufted reeds, with my harp fallen silent on my knee. And as I sat there, there was a brushing and flurrying through the reeds, and Prasutagus’s two great hounds came along the bank, and lay down with lolling tongues beside me. ‘Greetings brother, greetings sister,’ I said. And Prasutagus came up behind them. At most times he was like the rest of his kind, a man who never walked when he could ride or drive. But there were times of darkness, he had, maybe times when the kingship irked him, when he would whistle up the dogs, and take a light hunting spear in his hand – for the look of the thing, even to himself, I think, for he never brought back any kill at such times – and walk until he had outdistanced the darkness in himself. He looked now as if he had walked from the world’s end to the world’s end, and floundered into a few soft patches on the way. Even the dogs were weary. Maybe, I thought, it was the same with him as with me, only that he had no harp-skill.

  He thrust one of the hounds out of the way and sat down beside me, his arm across his knees. ‘No greeting for me?’ he said.

  ‘Greetings, brother,’ I said. A harper speaks to all living things as equals.

  He reached out and touched the nearest horn of my harp with the extreme tip of one forefinger. ‘A new song for tonight?’

  I shook my head. ‘I make only for myself today – a lament for broken swords.’

  We were silent a moment, only the pale feathery tips of the reeds swayed against the drifting sky; and somewhere an oyster-catcher made his lonely whistling call. Then Prasutagus gave a little dry cough. Quite a small sound, but when I looked round, his eyes were shut, and it seemed to me that there was a faint greyness round his mouth.