by Ralph Harvey
“Grave news commander,” the man called up to him. “we were ambushed as we entered the Valley of Skulls.” He choked, “We lost a third of our cavalry and close on four thousand men. Boudicca had a full ten thousand more than we knew of — Iceni, Trinovantes, Belgae and Parisi — she is hard on our heels, baying for Catuvellauni blood and Roman spoils.”
“What of Caliages, where is he?”
“Fallen,” the man replied, “In the very first charge he was surrounded and lost an arm. The last we saw of him was as he was dragged away and delivered to the women. Caliages is no more, Rufinis his son now leads.”
Forlornly Tacitus looked out, the horizon became full of fleeing men. Thousands of Catuvellauni were racing for the protection of the walls of Verulamium. Scarcely a half mile behind the fleeing men, the troops of Boudicca could be seen; her war chariot, distinguished by its scythes out in front. The Iceni army was advancing unhurriedly, the cavalry and chariots keeping to a steady and slow trot for the massed tribesmen to keep up with them. Slowly the returning Catuvellauni gained distance and grouped outside the massive gates of the city; no further retreat being possible, they were trapped as still the chariots came on, now in their thousands. They could clearly be recognised as Belgae, Parisi, and Iceni who were screaming war chants.
Desperately the Catuvellauni hammered on the gates, “Let us in!” they cried, “Let us hold them from within — you cannot leave us out here!”
At the city’s perimeter voices raised in intensity and their comrades on the ramparts joined in. Rufinis rushed forwards, calling out to Gaius, his eyes wild with fear.
“Gaius! We cannot hold them in the open; they will cut us down like corn! Let us man the barricades and hold them from there.”
Tacitus, now thoroughly alarmed, mounted the ladder to join Gaius on the ramparts. His sudden appearance there inspired the fugitive army below to even further lamentations. When they saw him, an even greater cry went up.
“Let us in Tacitus, they are almost upon us! We will hold them better from the ramparts. Why do you hesitate?”
By now the gap was closing fast and Tacitus realised that precious seconds were being lost. He gazed out to the Boudiccan army, which was slowing in its advance. Suddenly Boudicca raised her hand to halt her army.
At a signal her bowmen raced to the fore, and kneeling three deep they started to string their bows, whilst awaiting the command to release their lethal arrows into the crowd of men cowering beneath the city.
“Quick,” shouted Tacitus, “Open the gate, we have need of every man we can get.”
For the second time that day the log doors swung open, and the Catuvellauni flocked in their thousands into the city. As the last of them went through, Boudicca’s archers suddenly fell back and the ranks opened up to receive them.
They parted again with military precision and the Queen’s heavy cavalry charged through, heading for the open gates. As soon as they had cleared the front line, the chariots followed, packed with warriors all determined to outdo each other in strength and valour and each wanting to be first to claim the spoils of war. Like a great machine they thundered forward, men clinging to the horse’s manes and chariot shafts, and a full score of men holding each of the great looped ropes that Boudicca had had Tarsa construct.
Gaius, seeing the danger screamed to the legionaries below, “Close the gates fast. Stand by to repel attack! Check that charge!”
Tacitus ran to him, “Thanks to almighty Mars for the Catuvellauni archers, look at them, they cannot wait to fight.”
As he spoke, Catuvellauni archers raced to the doors bows at the ready. Then drew them, and at a pre arranged signal all fletched and strained. To their horror the Romans realised that they were not loosing their missiles at the Iceni, but at the legionaries at the gates. With shocked cries the Romans turned to face the new adversary, only to fall. The Catuvellauni warriors, now within the stockade, also drew their weapons with a cry of, “Death to the Romans. Down with Rome! Freedom! Freedom!”
Fighting broke out everywhere as each Catuvellauni archer on the ramparts turned and struck out at the Roman to his left, in seconds over 1,200 Roman defenders went down. Recovering from the unexpected onslaught, the Romans turned upon the traitors, but it was a losing battle. In the confusion the tribesmen had seized the gates, wedging them wide open for the horsemen to thunder in. Close behind them came Boudicca, her flashing scythes cutting down the few defenders who had run out to forestall her. Soon she herself was within the compound, screaming defiance from her chariot.
Tacitus’ jaw dropped. “Treachery,” he cried, “traitors!”
A Celt behind him suddenly threw off his robe; it was Caliages, still alive, his face filled with hate.
“Die Tacitus!” he cried. “Die you Roman cur.”
With that he struck out with a short stabbing sword sticking it deep into the exposed, unprotected area of Tacitus armpit. With a strangled cry Tacitus fell forwards, a scarlet stream pouring from his mouth as punctured lungs pumped his very lifeblood away.
He looked up despairingly at Caliages, perplexed at his action, gulping frenziedly for air as waves of agony swept over him. Cold bloodedly the Celtic chief placed his foot onto the heaving chest of Tacitus and deliberately propelled him over the edge of the stockade into the baying mob below.
As Tacitus struck the ground, the mob surged forward, hacking and thrusting at the helpless body with a vitriolic fury. As the Roman garrison commander breathed his last, a great roar went up. Tacitus’s head was severed and mounted on a long Roman pila and displayed before the blood-crazed rabble.
The battle was now drawing to a close, the ramparts had been taken, invaders firmly in control, yet still the Iceni foot soldiers and their allies poured in. A forlorn group of legionaries with Gaius at their head made a valiant last stand, but the mob poured over them, and soon only their naked and mutilated remains lay in a slowly spreading pool of blood.
Other Roman legionaries swiftly gathered into battle groups, reinforced by heavily armed auxiliaries and towns people, and hurled themselves once more at the open gates in a last desperate attempt to close them.
However, like a flood, Iceni, Belgae, Trinovantes, Parisi and hordes of their treacherous new allies the Catuvellauni, were still pouring throught he gates, all united in a common purpose — the destruction of all that represented Rome. Meeting head on they locked in battle but the odds were against Romans, for the sheer weight of numbers of the massed invaders methodically and systematically cut them down.
A few fought vaingloriously, but scattered and defenceless as they were it was hopeless. Each man held on to his life for as long as he was able, but eventually they were all swept away like twigs in a flood tide.
The town’s inhabitants were swiftly put to the sword, the slaughter continuing for nearly two hours, long after the last of defenders had parted this life, then the looting and drinking started.
Doors were broken down, chests emptied and anything of value carted away. Every now and then a door would be smashed to reveal a family cowering pitifully within, who were dragged out and delivered to the mob. Children were butchered on the spot, babies swung by their legs to have their skulls smashed against walls, their mothers stripped and raped time after time.
The men folk were emasculated and mutilated, and men and women were crucified, bound onto spikes, or roasted alive in macabre barbecues. People were tortured and impaled regardless of their age or sex, such was the fury that had been unleashed after years of oppression, branding and beating by the hated Romans.
After the orgy the intoxicated Celts ran on a rampage smashing everything in sight, and ruining or burning the rest, bodies were thrown down wells to pollute the water supplies, followed by dead pigs, hens and donkeys, only the horses were kept. An ox was slaughtered, manhandled to the main well and dropped over, but its bulk jammed and to the merriment of the onlookers only its rear legs protruded from the top.
Idris roared with laughter, “In a few days R
afinus it will be riddled with maggots and thousands will fall into the bottom — there will not be a water outlet for miles they can use.”
Fired with success the tribes wasted no further time and the drunken rabble departed to pursue Suetonius and his decimated, dispirited legions. Their final act of defiance was to nail severed heads by their ears to all the trees around to greet those who would eventually enter the city and witness first hand the carnage they had created. Then they slashed the mouths from ear to ear, so that the lower jaw dropped into a hideous smile of death to greet those who would find them.
Few buildings remained standing, let alone intact. Galt, a Parisi walked amongst the smouldering ruins, seeking a place to sit. Time and again he placed his hand on the brickwork only to swiftly retrieve it as the still cooling brick singed him.
Eventually he wandered to what had been part of the main square, now littered with smashed pedestals and the remains of the countless statues that had once adorned it. The fallen torsos looked like petrified corpses as they had fragmented on impact. Here a stone arm lay, still clutching a stone papyrus that had once depicted some Roman dignitary; severed heads were numerous, the original effigies decapitated by the blood-crazed tribesmen to whom even a stone statue was an enemy to be felled by them.
By a stone fountain that had once spouted clean spring water through a lion’s head, there was now a gushing torrent, the mouth of the beast smashed by a war club, but here, what remained of the fountain was cool.
Galt sat down on the side and produced an alabaster unguent jar, the spoils of a previous raid, then gingerly feeling the side of his face his fingers traced around a scarlet blistering mass. Half of Galt’s beard had gone, leaving only charred burnt stubble. He had been trapped earlier in one of the houses they had fired and had been lucky to escape with his life. A wine vat had exploded as the flames reached it and he had nearly become its victim.
He unscrewed the jar and rubbed the salve contained within on the still smarting flesh, then as he began on his arms and legs, he was suddenly aware of a movement near him. Looking up he recognised Moola, a young widow turned warrior who had survived the Roman massacre of her village some two years earlier.
“How went it with you Moola?” asked Galt, “Have you satiated the hate within you?”
Moola nodded, “I could not fight men, as I am not a strong woman, but my blade struck down their wives and children … yet strangely my heart is no lighter Galt.”
The hoary old warrior understood, “I lost my eldest son to the legion in a skirmish some two years ago, and today I avenged him by slaughtering Roman men, who will never live to raise sons.”
Moola looked directly at him “And are you the better for it?”
Galt shook his head, “No Moola. For years I dreamed of revenge and at Camulodunum and here I fulfilled it; but it is a hollow victory.” He touched the burns on his face gingerly.
“I slew a youth of some eighteen summers, and my only thought as I thrust my blade home was, ‘now let your father mourn as I did’, but the next day I regretted it. I will never be able to forget the look on his face as he appealed for mercy.”
Moola’s eyes misted up, “All I ever wanted was a husband, some land and a family, and what little I had the Romans took from me. My bitterness has been so great it has eaten me away inside.”
She took the unguent from his hands and gently massaged it into Galt’s cheek with tender hands, “I know now the gall that is in Boudicca’s heart. She was a strong Queen, but she knew tenderness too, and she loved deeply.” She wiped away a tear, “Her daughters were everything to her, as my babies were to me.”
Galt got up and drew his sword, his fingers caressing the blade, “I need to re-hone it for tomorrow. It has lost its edge today. Come Moola, let us return to camp.”
Silently the pair walked back towards where their comrades were feasting. Moola heard the sound first, a light mewling was coming from a cavernous entrance that had once been a cellar. The splintered door told its own story. Blades drawn Moola and Galt carefully entered, hesitating in the entrance for their eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom, the sweet pervading smell of death permeated the cellar, an odour they knew well.
As they entered slowly, they could see the bodies side by side, the man to the fore, and the woman behind, her body lying half across his. The man had a gaping wound in his chest and in his hand, a broken sword while the deep recess to the woman's temple showed where a war club had struck. Moola and Galt, as used as they were to death, were moved at the man's defence of what had obviously been his wife.
All Celts revered their own women who were brought up in complete equality, they trained as warriors, occupied high positions, ran their own households and sat on the war councils. Revenge for their ill treatment at the hands of the brutal Roman oppressors had overcome their natural instincts as they succumbed the madness of the blood letting. A great sadness came over the pair, when the sound came again, a gentle sobbing.
The two of them stared around the blackness of the cellar; nothing was there except old boxes covered with sacking. Carefully Moola removed the cloth while Galt stood by, his sword raised ready to strike, and there beneath the sacking were two babies, a boy and a girl, sucking their thumbs.
“Twins!” Moola ejaculated, then looked down at the body of their mother.
Galt lowed his sword, “I have satiated myself with battles, the war is won with the destruction of Verulamium. The Roman cause is lost.” He looked at Moola, “The last of Suetonius’ soldiers wait near Mancetter to receive Boudicca, there is now but a handful left. They are at their weakest and Boudicca grows stronger daily. Britannia is ours again, the time of killing is over.”
He looked at Moola, who was bent over the babes, her eyes misting up once more at the memory of her own loss. Laying down her sword, she almost reverently picked one up. As her maternal instincts emerged, gone was the revengeful fury that sought only to slay, and she was once more the mother, a woman; the procreator of life.
Cradling the infant in her arm she stood there, just holding it, then bent down and picked up the other one. As she held them they felt the warmth of her body and instinctively sought her breast. Gently she pushed them away, knowing she had no milk to give, and looked at Galt, who stared back, each trying to guage the thoughts of the other. It was Galt who spoke first.
“I remember how my wife cradled my son, the years that saw him rise to a stripling and enter manhood.”
Moola spoke softly, “We have been companions in arms for many months now.” She paused, “Tell me, is your wife still alive?”
Galt, hoary bloodstained old warrior that he was, Galt who had fought a hundred battles, and who was devoid of pity, found his eyes misting up and a lump rise in his throat as painful memories returned.
“No, she died of swamp fever three winters ago, though she died happy … my son was still alive then.”
Moola hugged the children closer to her bosom, “You have said there is only one battle to go, and the result is a foregone conclusion. I almost feel pity for the Romans now that Suetonius Paulinus who at the start of this rebellion had some 12,000 heavily armed men, makes his last stand with less than half of them, against our Queen’s 200,000, not to mention those who flock to join her.” Moola placed her finger lovingly on the baby’s lips, playing with it, “Aye Galt those Romans are brutes, but they are brave. I hear that countless women and children are on the roads with their wagons to witness the final destruction of Rome at Mancetter. They say that they flock to observe the final hours of the hated Romans.”
Galt started to gather up his sword to leave, “And to rifle the dead like scavengers afterwards.” He walked to the cellar door.
“Where go you now Moola, and what of the babes. I cannot kill them; can you?”
Moola laid the infants back in the box and replaced the sacking, but first she wrapped them in her cloak, “I’m going home Galt, back to the land of the Parisi, to make a new life … with them
.” There was a moments silence, then she added, “And you Galt?”
Galt shifted uneasily from foot to foot, then blurted, “Will you be my woman Moola? Say yes and I will leave with you and fight no more. I feel it is time to hang up my sword.”
Moola walked away from the softly crying babies and approached Galt. She slid her arm around his waist saying, “I am yours for the taking Galt. I have spent many days with you on the great march and feel I know you, and we are both alone in the world.” She looked back at the two mewling infants.
Galt interrupted, “Take them and I shall rear them as my own.”
She stretched her neck up and kissed him lightly on the lips, “You are a brave warrior and friend, could a Celtic woman ask for more?”
They hugged each other in understanding, then Galt said, “Go find a donkey and panniers, and we will forage all the supplies we may need.” He looked at the two dead bodies lying on the cellar floor and removed a ring from the hand of each of the corpses.
“I shall bury them, side by side, in death as they were in life.” He looked at the two rings in his hand then at the babies, “Maybe some time I will tell them of this day and give these to them.”
The Betrayal
A rider, clearly identifiable as an Ordovice, and enemy of Boudicca, slowly started to approach the Roman encampment. The perimeter guards, seeing him, took up a defensive position.
Halting, he hobbled his horse attaching leathers to its forefeet and approached, hesitantly. Instinctively the archers took aim at him and watched for any aggressive movement. He hesitated again, then slowly he put aside his spear and shield, and slowly unbuckled his sword belt and dagger, allowing it to fall to the ground.
Seeing the conciliatory move and now assuming the man was unarmed, a decurion barked an order, “Un-fletch, but keep your bows strung.”
At his command, the archers dutifully lowered their bows, and slackened the bowstrings. Seeing this action, the tribesmen cautiously started to approach once more. Suetonius, who had become aware of the altercation, walked to the perimeter with Paulus, flanked by two decurions. The guards were clearly suspicious and showed it, particularly now their leader was present. Sensing the danger, the Celt made his opening ploy.
