Myths of the Modern Man

by Jacqueline T Lynch

  “When she is through with you, you will bring my dagger to me,” he said. Cailte did not hang around the hut much. He was off most of the day, practicing songs and stories, performing for the queen, trying to get closer to at least one of her daughters. I wondered which daughter, and if it was infatuation or social ambition that made the horny little rooster dance for them.

  I had followed him in the village when he let me, and got lost when he let me know I should. It was in these moments I was able to observe the weaving of the women servants by firelight, in the open doorways of the huts. I saw them bathing their children in the cold running stream. They were roughened, long-haired children, starved for physical affection yet able to thrive without it. More than half the kids born in the world at this time did not make it past six years old. I thought of that as I watched The Boy polish Cailte’s long bronze shield, his skinny arm rubbing it over and over with a rag. At least he had scraps from Cailte’s table to eat.

  “Bouchal,” I said to him, “What is your name?”

  He did not answer, but looked up at me with dark eyes and a vague expression.

  I was patient. I could wait for an answer all day, which he sensed, and grew anxious in case that was my intention.

  “The Bouchal came to this place a small child. He does not remember.” It was soft, gentle voice of the woman. I turned. She looked expectantly towards Cailte’s seat by the fire, and the bowl of water, and the dagger in her hand. Evidently I was next.

  “What do you call him?” I asked, sitting in Cailte’s spot before her. I wet my face, and she wet the dagger.

  “Avic.” She placed her palm lightly against my forehead, and scraped the dagger slowly across my cheek.

  She called him son. She was not allowed to give him a name, but decided to soften the name given him by Cailte. To his master he was boy, to his fellow servant, he was son.

  “Then I will call you A chara.” I said to her. My friend.

  She did not answer, and refused to look me in the eye, but only dragged the sharpened blade up my neck, and carefully over my chin. She did not touch my upper lip, just as she had left Cailte’s mustache. It was a popular style among these Celts. When she was finished, she wiped the blade and put the dagger in my hand.

  She turned back to the fire, and stirred it long and well.

  I left the hut to find Cailte.

  It was only a matter of days before Boudicca’s need for the protection of her war goddesses became real. The Roman Procurator came himself, along with an army, to deal with the little matter of the inheritance left by King Prasutagas.

  The village women pulled their children from the stream and hid them in the fields.

  Boudicca’s personal guard and the aristocrats of the village gathered in the long hall, as the Roman invasion manifested itself to the proud Iceni.

  Catus Decianus, the Procurator of Britannia entered the compound behind a wall of legionnaires, their short swords, long javelins, shields, leather and iron. He read from a scroll like the host of a TV game show announcing prizes, but the stock and booty he counted were all for him and his colleagues, not for any charming contestants.

  Most of the leading clans had already left for their hill encampments after the May festival, including the chieftain, Dubh. Some of the chieftains in the tribe had recently been evicted from their ancestral properties by the order of Catus. Cailte had told me Dubh was one to whom this had happened. He was planning revenge.

  The Queen was attended only by her own small guard and servants. Even Nemain and Taliesin were gone, for she had sent her druids away for their own safety, knowing the Romans were out to get them. Her peasant people encamped beyond the long house, the villagers and farmers, were kept at bay by a cohort of troops. They knew why the Romans were here. The Romans were to inherit half Prasutagas’ kingdom. They wondered what that meant. They wondered if their own lands would be taken, or if half of them would be taken as slaves.

  Boudicca met the Romans with disdainful tolerance. She knew the bargain that her husband had made. She was prepared to give over the shared inheritance, but did not know yet that the Romans intended to take it all.

  She had dismissed her chieftains after the May festival, knowing there would be confrontation, because she believed that she could better handle the Roman tax collectors herself. She was either shrewd, or the most conceited person I had ever met. She purposely kept only her own household to see to her needs, her daughters by her side standing like emblems of the kingdom, and her retainers. That included Cailte and me, I guess. Perhaps she wanted the kingdom of the Iceni to seem poorer than it was, the way people in my day hid poker winnings from the I.R.S. The Romans were quite prepared to do the inventory themselves, and not take her at her word.

  Decianus briskly announced his mission. He paid no deference or homage to Boudicca as queen. He seemed to concentrate instead on the jewels in the hilt of her sword. She held it in her hand, unsheathed, and stood. She looked at the Roman legionnaires in her banquet hall, and at the pasty little man who told her, in so many words, that she was queen of nothing.

  She then dismissed the Romans with haughty finality. I almost smiled at her feminine bravado, but I was too edgy about this. Understanding at last the outrageous price Catus was demanding, she laughed off his demands and told them all to leave. They didn’t feel like it.

  A knot formed in my stomach, stabbing me. According to the historian Tacitus, whose brilliant but achingly terse report of the matter was all I had to go on, Boudicca was then whipped by the Romans and her daughters were raped. She had given the Procurator attitude, and he didn’t like it.

  It happened, like Tacitus said. They took her, unceremoniously, and to the surprise of everyone but me.

  To punish her for her resistance, but mostly to drive home the lesson that she was nothing, they pulled her from her seat of honor, stripped her, tied her, and flogged her like a criminal her in front of her household. Her personal guard was held back or slain. Her torture was businesslike, loud and brutal.

  Her daughters were the only ones not made to watch; they were pulled aside and repeatedly raped in turns by the rest of the unit. Catus took a few accountants and headed for the stores of silver, jewels, and horses.

  Cailte let out a scream in unison with the royal women, and tried to rush through to help them, but he was grabbed by three Roman legionnaires otherwise unoccupied, who playfully carried him outside and tied his leg to the accouterments of a horse. They beat the horse to make it bolt, dragging Cailte out of the compound and out of sight, his face buried in the trail of his long hair, manure, dust, and Celtic cursing.

  My turn. Helping Boudicca was impossible, also not as necessary. History already declared that she survived her torture and led the ensuing rebellion. I must let her suffer.

  I charged the rapists instead, and took the sword of one of them. I hit anything I could, which was just enough to make the ones holding the girls down in the dirt release them. It was just enough to make the rapists pull away, disoriented, searching for weapons, while I shouted that they were no better than filthy dogs.

  Somehow shouting “Canis sordidus!” did not sound as vile as I intended. The Latin language had a burnished edge to it, like the shining metal of a fine sword. Even at its most unpleasant, it was a dazzling thing to hear.

  One of them slashed at my leg, and left a deep gash in my thigh. I stood up, looked the bugger in the face and shouted more. I shouted clichés from a schoolboy copybook in Latin.

  “Cur Romani socios suos timent?” Why do Romans fear their allies?

  “Gladios tuos non timebimus!” We shall not fear your swords. “Dei arma sua etiam habent!” The gods also have their own weapons.

  Some of these men, the lowest of their class and not all of them Romans, rather from Roman-governed dominions, did not speak Latin well, but they recognized it. They stopped. It was as good as coin of the empire for authenticity and value.

  I lifted the girls, one in each arm,
and walked them away, still shouting threats, insults, and calling on their gods for rebuke. Especially Mars. I knew all about Mars. God, my leg hurt.

  They were pulling back. They had had their fun. I was bleeding rivers. The girls were holding me up.

  ***

  I remember nothing after that, and grew conscious again only to pain. I opened my eyes to the dark tent skin overhead, to the hands of Taliesin working his willow bark magic into my leg. Opposite me lay Boudicca, conscious also, brooding through spent tears into the firelight. She lay on her stomach, while a woman druid pasted the raw skin of her torn, bloody back with oil and herbs. Her daughters entered. They had changed into clean tunics for their mother, to cover their hurt and humiliation, thereby lessening hers. They knelt before her, wondering where to touch without causing their mother more pain, and settled on stroking her hair, kissing her face, as the three of them cried and consoled each other.

  I smelled smoke, and realized much of the village must have been put to flames. I wondered about Cailte’s servants. I looked up at Taliesin and whispered, “Cailte?”

  He turned a dark glance at the queen and her daughters briefly and leaned down to whisper in my ear.

  “Outside. Not as harmed as you, only his dignity.”

  I was relieved, but his dark expression made me feel as if I shouldn’t be.

  Her daughters then came to me, gently touched my shoulders and mutter soft words of gratitude. When they left, Boudicca’s face was turned towards me, resting on her crossed arms. Her beautiful cinnamon eyes reflected her pain.

  “You are mine,” she murmured, meaning, I hope, that she would pay her indebtedness to me by taking responsibility for my welfare. Nothing more. Celtic syntax was easier to understand then Celtic intent.

  “I am, indeed.” I answered, “I will follow you.”

  “You know not where,” she warned.

  The hell, I don’t.

  A man entered the tent, the huge, barrel-chested chieftain, Dubh. He looked down on her silently a moment.

  “You see the worth of Prasutagus’ plans,” he growled.

  “You will honor me by taking my daughters into your home.”

  “I will take them.”

  He came over to me, looked at my leg.

  “You still have a leg. You still have your daughters. Only the kingdom is lost.”

  “It is not lost. I am taking it back. You may join me, if you can do more than sputter,” she replied.

  “A battle against the Romans?”

  “As many battles as it takes.”

  He smiled at last.

  He went to spread the word among the other chieftains.

  “That is Dubh,” she said a moment later, “My only brother. Clan chieftain. The Romans took his land, burned it. It was my home, too, before I wed Prasutagas. Dubh escaped with his wife and children. They are in the hills now, safe.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes. My brother Dubh. He is the younger.”

  “He is enthusiastic.”

  She smiled ruefully. “Yes. He has spirit. He was always thus. As a boy he thought he was a man. As a man, he thinks life is his plaything.”

  “What do you think of life?”

  “I think it is a test of courage.”

  She shifted her position again. Her wincing squinting eyes looked suspicion at me.

  “You speak the Roman language.”

  “Yes. I learned it as a slave.”

  “What did you say to those Romans?”

  “I called them insults. I called for revenge from the gods.”

  “Whose gods?”

  Damn, she was smart.

  “Any that would listen to me.” She seemed to consider this a moment.

  “Bring Cailte,” she muttered over her bare shoulder to Taliesin.

  Taliesin nodded, and left the tent. Boudicca turned her face towards me again.

  “Tomorrow you must draw for me again the picture you made on the ground before me.”

  “Yes.” Now look what I started.

  “In this way you will be of use.”

  “Yes. Still, I will follow you.”

  “If you can.”

  Taliesin returned with Cailte, who was nearly breathless with anticipation. He had cuts all over his face. He looked a mess.

  “Give us songs and stories,” she said.

  Cailte’s face fell. Perhaps he expected to be recognized, thanked for his attempt to help. Instead, he was called upon to entertain. He did not expect to have to entertain me. Entertaining me was beneath him.

  The bard’s first duty was to inspire. Normally he would have been up to it, for Cailte’s gift was truly inspirational. But his thoughts, our thoughts, were indeed elsewhere.

  He sang a bitter song of loss. Then, looking at the queen, who looked at me through drowsy eyes, he restlessly began a story.

  “King Mark ruled Cornwall, looking over the Irish Sea from his castle fort at Tintagel. Tristan was a warrior in the king’s service, and he charmed the court with the sad and lonely music from his harp.”

  Cailte’s version of Tristan and Isolt was a little less thunderous than Wagner’s. He was telling the old story from a different viewpoint tonight, I think. His own viewpoint, perhaps.

  “Tristan was a favorite of King Mark, making others at the court jealous. They contrived to find a wife for their king, so that a child born to him might inherit the kingdom, and give new purpose to the king’s loyalties and affections.

  “The daughter of a rival king was promised to King Mark, and Tristan offered to brave the journey over treacherous seas to retrieve her. The wild sea was churned by Manannan the sea god, and the ship which bore Tristan was tossed like a toy in his mighty hands, yet the water was calm when he arrived in the far away land, because Manannan relented, admiring his courage.

  “The rival king and queen met Tristan on the shore with their daughter Isolt. She was the most lovely young woman ever seen. The queen handed to Isolt’s maidservant a love potion, and told her to slip half into King Mark’s drink and half into Isolt’s on their wedding night, that it might bind the two strangers together.”

  Cailte’s voice was hoarse. He spoke slowly. I waited for the other shoe to drop, while Boudicca closed her eyes. Cailte’s own sad, gray eyes were pinned on the far tent flap.

  “When the ship set sail to return to Cornwall, Isolt called to her maidservant to fetch her a drink. She shared the drink with Tristan. They drank from the same bowl. Mistakenly, the maidservant had brought them the love potion. His hands held over hers, each grasping the bowl, passion came upon them. Suddenly, stunningly, their desire made the night a living, breathing thing around them as they made love in the darkness.”

  It was his own version, a personal message.

  “They at last arrived in Tintagel, and King Mark was well pleased with Isolt. Their marriage, alas, did not end the desires of Tristan and the king’s bride. They felt much guilt over their passion, for both felt great affection for King Mark, but their love was too strong for them to control. They must be with each other some way.

  “A tryst was planned when the king was out boar hunting. Tristan and Isolt met in the orchard, lit by the moon, scented by the flowers.

  “With the dawn they arose from their bed of flowers, and were blinded by the sun’s gleam on the hilt of a sword, which had been driven into the ground at their feet.

  They realized, with shame and remorse, that it was the sword of King Mark, as a sign to them that he could not allow their love, but neither would he condemn them….”

  Boudicca slept. Cailte, distracted by her deep, easy breathing, and loud whistling snore, broke off his story, long before it was finished.

  Except I think he would rather it finished there. I think he was Tristan.

  Our eyes met briefly, and he turned, and left the tent.

  Who was Isolt? Not Boudicca?

  ***

  The next afternoon she held court on her stomach. Dubh ranted his
dissatisfaction at plans that were too slow in coming. Nemain proclaimed the need for a proper and worthy sacrifice in order to make this next step. I hoped he didn’t mean a human sacrifice and I hoped he didn’t mean me.

  “Is this Roman slave to hear all our counsel?” Dubh asked her in frustration, fingering his knife every time he paced around my bed.

  “He is no longer a slave,” Boudicca mumbled, trying to shift position with the help of her servant. No good. She was in pain no matter what she did. “Have the clans harvest from the fields what they can, for the Romans will surely destroy the rest. Take my daughters and half the household, and as many as will go of those who cannot fight and take them to the hill village.”

  “And what of the priests and priestesses?” Nemain asked.

  “You will come with me, Nemain,” Boudicca said, “And take who you need to serve you. The rest to the hill village.”

  I don’t think he wanted to come, but sure as anything if he had to go, he was making Taliesin go, too.

  “Dubh,” she said, “have the clans ready their tents, their horses, their weapons. The time for offerings to the gods is now, for afterwards there will be no time for praying.”

  Dubh nodded, and left.

  Nemain considered her last remark. He had just made summer to happen. Could he follow that up with a victory over the Romans? I wondered how much power he really thought he had. A druid trains twenty years and more to gain all the knowledge and skills needed to become a priest. That is lot of time for learning, and a lot of time to really think about the power of such learning, and of power itself.

  He bowed, and left.

  How much power did Boudicca think she had? The power to say who goes to war and who does not, and perhaps the power to entreat female gods that a warrior queen was a more worthy recipient of their favor than legions of Roman men?

  Her servant poked his head inside the tent flap and spoke a few soft words to the tent pole by her head.

  “Let him come himself,” she answered him.

  The servant straightened, looked briefly appalled, and then stepped outside. In a moment Bouchal entered the tent. He was scared, and he carried a lump of clothing in his hands, which he twisted nervously.