“Nothing much. We couldn’t be further from the arena of action unless we waded in the ocean. But we have been asked to stand an alert. There is also a rumor that the garrisons along the late governor’s frontier are in trouble, but no solid news has come from them yet.” He rubbed at the frown that still creased his forehead. “Five years ago the thought of a whole legion’s destruction would have been ludicrous. Something new is rising in the west, Priscilla, something big. A fresh approach to their war, or even another arviragus rising. I don’t like it.”
She laughed and dismissed it all, her brief moment of panic gone with his assessment of Icenia’s safety. “Now you are being silly. It is all so much nonsense. A new dispatch will arrive before long, Honorious, and we will be told that it was only Valens’s cavalry escort that took a little beating and the messenger got it all wrong. Nothing ever comes out of the west but contradictions. Besides, the Twentieth is such a proud legion. It would rather die than acknowledge a defeat.”
Favonius clamped his teeth together and sighed inwardly. “Perhaps you ought to be appointed the next governor,” he said with heavy sarcasm, but as usual it was lost on her. She wrinkled her nose.
“Smell the horse dung, Honorious! They should scoop it all up and put it on their fields, but I suppose it will lie and stink for days under this sun. Don’t go off with Prasutugas today and leave me to Boudicca’s sharp tongue. I shall hate you forever if you do.”
He was sensible enough not to answer and together they broke through the trees. Immediately they found themselves thrusting their way through a choking, jostling press of excited freemen, all talking at the top of their voices. The meadow that encircled the town was thronged with them and their sweating ponies. The sun danced gaily on the bronze-traced wheels of the chariots and on the necklaces and arm bands of the freemen who struggled to yoke and harness the ponies in the press. A large fire burned by the gate, sending thick black smoke into the blue sky, and Favonius and Priscilla pushed their way to where Prasutugas and Boudicca sat. People came and went to the fire, nibbling on pieces of mutton and hunks of cheese, and by it the beer barrels stood behind a pile of wooden cups.
Marcus ran to Favonius and Priscilla as they approached, his face smeared with mutton grease, his scarlet tunic flying behind him. His legs and feet were bare, but though the day was warm he wore a long chieftain’s cloak of green wool. In one hand he clutched a pair of breeches, purple with silver fringes, and in the other a mutton bone, which he waved under their noses. Before he could speak his mother pounced on him.
“Marcus, where did you get those clothes? And what is that…that thing around your neck?”
“It’s a talisman of Epona, the Horse Goddess. Do you like it, Mother? Prasutugas gave it to me. He gave me the clothes as well. They were his when he was my age.” He threw his shoulders back and stalked before them. “Don’t I look fine? Do you think I would pass for a chieftain?”
His father looked at the olive skin already darkening to a rich brown, though the summer had only just begun. Marcus’s hair hung black and shining to his shoulders. A country child’s clear, untroubled gaze met Favonius’s own, and Favonius glanced to the hand holding the bone, the hand that already knew the tug of chariot harness and mount’s rein, the feel of a knife’s hilt and a tree’s rough branches bending under the boy’s questing weight, the slippery coldness of a jerking fish. But not a sword, Favonius thought. Not yet.
“No, I don’t,” he replied gravely. “You have no torc.”
“Go and take those ridiculous things off!” Priscilla snapped. “Anyone would think this was Saturnalia!”
Marcus grinned at her. “This is more fun than Saturnalia,” he answered her back, and he flung the bone away and stepped quickly into the breeches. “Father?”
Favonius could not refuse. “All right, Marcus. I don’t really mind. Will you race today?”
“Yes, but I’ll lose against the young freemen. Not a good thing for Roman honor. Ethelind wants to borrow my horse and Brigid has dared me to go in the chariot races.”
“No!” Priscilla exclaimed.
This time Favonius agreed with her. “No chariot, son,” he said firmly.
Marcus shrugged the cloak higher on his shoulders and smiled at them. “Well, I don’t really care. Conac nearly broke his neck this morning, practicing the turn. I told him he should wait until he grew up to attempt the chariot and he knocked me down.” He fingered the charm at his throat. “With Epona giving me her protection perhaps I shall win my race today.” Then he was off, jogging through the people, calling to this one and that one, leaving Priscilla white with fury.
“Epona! Some savage blood-hungry native god! Really, Honorious, I find their religious taste extreme, and I won’t have Marcus tangled in it.”
“Oh hush!” he blurted. “What does it matter? What is a charm, Priscilla? The boy is healthy and happy. What more can you ask?” He spoke more harshly than he had intended, for uneasiness pricked him suddenly, but then Prasutugas saw them and rose to his feet, and Boudicca’s freckled, volatile face was upturned to them.
“Welcome, welcome!” Prasutugas smiled. “We are honored that you came. Favonius, I want to show you the pair I have selected to race for me today.” Favonius acknowledged the greeting, worry still nibbling at his mind, but he was not so preoccupied that he did not notice the flush of health on Prasutugas’s face, and he was glad.
“My surgeon has been having some success with your wound?” he commented. “He has been longing to try the new salve he concocted.”
“It is not your surgeon’s stinging brew,” Prasutugas responded cheerfully. “It is the warmth of the new sun. Three of my mares have foaled, Favonius. Come and see them, and tell me what you think.” He and Favonius began to move away, and after one sharp protest Priscilla subsided, settling herself sulkily on the grass beside Boudicca and batting ineffectually at the hounds who came bounding to nudge her with cold noses. Somewhere nearby a carnyx blared and the people scattered.
“This is the third race,” Boudicca said. “Soon the chariots will be put away and the horse races will begin. So far there has been only one broken arm and one splintered ankle. Is Marcus going to ride?”
Priscilla glanced at her, searching, as always, for the unspoken taunt, the hidden sneer behind the gruff words, and as always she seemed to find malicious spite where there was only humor and a mild, polite dislike. You would be happy if Marcus broke an arm, she thought hotly. “Yes, he is, but I do not think he will hurt himself,” she said aloud. “He rides too well for that.”
Boudicca’s head turned, and she quizzically surveyed the stiff, disapproving little face beside her. “I did not mean to imply that Marcus would finish the day with a broken limb,” she growled. “Really, Priscilla, why must you always see insult where no insult is intended? That boy of yours has become very dear to my husband and to me, and I would not like to see him hurt. I asked you a simple question.” There is something else on your mind, Roman lady, she thought. I wonder what it is?
They felt the turf begin to tremble beneath them. The crowds around them craned forward. Then six chariots came pounding into view, horses stretched out with heads down, charioteers straddling the wicker floors with whips held high, and cloaks and hair ripping behind them. The crowd began to scream and leap up and down and the contestants flew around the corner and were gone. “The first circuit,” Boudicca observed easily. “Iain will win again. You know, Priscilla, Marcus could win his race this year if he would only put behind him his riding master’s instructions and leave all to his instinct. He still sits on his mount as though he were not one with it.”
“He has a good seat,” Priscilla replied stiffly. “He only needs time.”
How miserable she is, Boudicca thought. How uncomfortable, sitting here in the grass with me, doing her duty for Favonius’s sake. I wonder if she ever stops to think that in all the world she has not one friend, and it is her own fault. “Are you hungry?” she asked ki
ndly. “Thirsty? Would you like to walk about a little?”
“Not really,” Priscilla said curtly. “I will eat when Honorious comes back. If you have duties, Boudicca, do not let me hinder you.”
Boudicca sighed and rose as the chariots came thundering around the bend again, strung out this time, and the shouts of the charioteers rose hoarse and unintelligible over the screamed encouragements of the people. “I will return in a moment,” she said, leaving Priscilla to watch her stride easily down to the meadow, a tall, sturdy woman in green fringed breeches and blue tunic, her fine, waving red hair undulating with her mannish gait.
Boudicca arrived at where the chariots were rolling to a halt, a tangle of cloaks, whips, harness, and foam-slicked horses. Marcus and Brigid ran to join her, and with a spurt of jealousy Priscilla saw how Marcus’s brown face was raised to hers, how she reached down to cuff his black head in playful affection before leaning down to listen to her daughter and to fondle the white-gold tresses that hung down her back in three dazzling braids. The nine-year-old Ethelind sauntered over to the group, her own red-blonde curls dancing in the wind, and Priscilla suddenly felt lonely. She looked at her son, the talisman glinting at his throat, indistinguishable from every other chief’s young child. The emotion did not reach to danger and was contained by her self-concern, but it came close, a loneliness mixed with homesickness, and she hunched up her knees and looked about vainly for the security of her husband’s smile.
Boudicca spoke to Marcus and while he ran to the beer barrel and drew a cupful, Iain jumped from his chariot and ambled to her, grinning and panting.
“Another win!” Boudicca exclaimed, tossing him the pouch that had hung on her belt. Marcus came and lifted the cup to him and he drank quickly and noisily while the other contestants came to fling themselves on the cool grass and the chariots were led away.
“You ought to share this one with the other chiefs or they will become discouraged and refuse to race anymore!” Marcus said, grinning.
Iain stuffed the pouch into his tunic. “What I ought to do and what I am going to do are different things!” he shouted, careless with victory. “This money will buy cattle for me, and an offering for Andrasta!”
Immediately a hush fell. The people glanced furtively over their shoulders but the Roman soldiers were ambling about, oblivious to the little drama, and in an embarrassed quiet they melted away, leaving Iain with red face and awkward hands clasped about the cup. “I am sorry, Lady,” he said. “I forgot myself.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “On the contrary, Iain, you remembered yourself, and so did the people,” she said gently. “No matter how long the time has been, you will never forget.”
He turned away. “It is better to forget,” he answered. “My tongue remembered, that is all.”
No, Iain, that is not all, she thought. Andrasta sleeps in your heart too, and one day your heart will remember her as well as does your tongue. Ethelind tugged at her tunic.
“Mother, make Marcus lend me his horse for my race! Brigid rode mine this morning and he is blown. If I don’t have a good mount and win I have to pay Rittia the birthday belt of amber that Father gave me!”
“I told you, Ethelind, that you may not have him!” Marcus shouted back. “I want to win my own race this year and I don’t care about your stupid wager!”
“If you don’t lend me your horse then I won’t let you use my snares anymore, and I won’t teach you how to make your own!”
“I don’t care! Lovernius will show me how to do it!”
“He won’t! I’ll order him not to!”
They had forgotten Boudicca and moved away, still quarreling until Brigid stuck out a foot and Marcus tumbled to the earth. “That will teach you to refuse a princess,” she said in her high, childish treble. Ethelind burst out laughing and Marcus, pale with rage, took Brigid’s braids in his hands and pulled viciously. Then they were off, the three of them running hooting over the grass, and Boudicca turned at the pressure of a hand on her arm. It was Lovernius, his harp slung over one shoulder.
“Smile at me, Lady,” he said. “Smile and then laugh, so that those who are watching us may see a few jokes being shared.”
She allowed her mouth to obey him, but her eyes measured his own with a sudden alertness. “What is it?”
“Great news. The Twentieth has been chewed to pieces and the garrisons along the frontier are on fire. Venutius and the rebels have left the mountains.”
She blinked at him, her face tingling, the smile slowly growing broader as his words sunk into her brain. “Tell me again, Lovernius,” she ordered. “I want to be sure that I heard you aright.”
He unslung his harp and picked deliberately at the strings, his eyes on his fingers. “The Twentieth has suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Ordovices and Deceangli, and while the legion died, the Silures and the Demetae fell upon the garrisons. I have sent the spy away again, but I have no fears for his safety today.” Ping, went his harp. Trrrring. “The men of this garrison are enjoying our little celebration.”
She wanted to hug him. She wanted to reach her arms to the blue of the sky and shout. She threw back her head and laughed and he laughed also, his harp echoing the crescendo of their joy, and heads turned in their direction. “Who planned this thing?” she asked more soberly, the smile still flashing uncontrollably.
Priscilla, sitting just out of earshot, looked at her curiously. She had never seen the Icenian queen’s masculine forthrightness dissolve into this girlish, uninhibited laughter before, and she wondered if the free, musical stream of humor was directed at her.
“The spy told me that the tactic was Venutius’s,” Lovernius continued.
“Indeed? So he is still with Emrys and Madoc. I did not think that he would last this long, in spite of all Aricia’s treachery.” She stepped closer to Lovernius. “Could this be the beginning of the end for Rome, Lovernius? Have the tribes agreed to follow Venutius?”
“I do not know, Lady, but I doubt it. I think this strategy was so beautifully thought out that it took them by surprise and they agreed to submit themselves to him, but only for a while.”
She clapped both hands to her cheeks. “I cannot think! Such gladness in me, Lovernius, such mad happiness! What now?”
“Talk to Prasutugas.” He spoke the words softly, then bowed and walked away, whistling. Boudicca turned to see her husband and Favonius approaching Priscilla and ran to meet them. Prasutugas, looking at her glowing face, smiled inwardly, not without a twinge of anxiety. So she knew. Favonius had given him the news while they stood leaning against the corral that protected Prasutugas’s foals, yet already Boudicca’s brown eyes sparkled with the knowledge that had brought him a stab of fear. He knew she sheltered spies who took news of the daily doings of the Icenian tuath back into the west, but it disturbed him to think that the western chiefs regarded her so highly as to send their own to her. Looking at Favonius, he felt guilt. He had never been able to bring himself to tell the Roman that his tuath was riddled with spies and up until now it had not mattered. The chiefs and freemen did not care what the fools in the west were doing, but now the frontier was down. The province lacked a governor, and the summer stretched ahead, long, hot, and unknown. He looked at her and she at him, and in that moment he was glad of the sense of honor that bound her to him under the oath of fealty. That, and her love for him. Without her honor and her love he knew she would have wasted no time, but would already be coaxing and bullying the chiefs into some kind of action. She smiled at him smugly and he frowned back, but she was not reckless.
That night Favonius and Priscilla went back to the garrison in the comforting belief that only Prasutugas knew of the chaos that was spreading on the island. The day had been good. Marcus had not won his race but had come in a close second. Ethelind had not won either, and was sulking over the loss of her belt. When dusk fell and the Romans withdrew, the tuath settled to singing and drinking around the fire, and the meadow that had been
scored with chariot wheels and horses’ hoofs now lay warm and fragrant under the bare feet of the carousing people. Marcus, Ethelind, and Brigid wandered through the company for a while, then stole away into the copse to play hide and seek in the darkness and tell stories to one another. Prasutugas, tiring more easily now, went to his house, and Boudicca went with him.
“Favonius did not enjoy himself very much today,” she remarked as he sank into his wicker chair and stretched his long legs out before him with a groan. “And Priscilla was very glum. I wonder why?”
He answered the roguish grin with a slight movement of his blond head, and smiled back unwillingly. “Do you want to play with me for a while before you pounce?” he murmured. “Very well, Boudicca. Favonius had certain matters on his mind, and I will wager that Priscilla had words with him over leaving her to your sweet and tender care. She is terrified of you.”
“The poor, silly thing! I am terrified of her also, afraid that if I should happen to bump into her someday she will shatter. Do you think that Favonius is happy with her? Should we offer him some coarse, strong young freewoman for a second wife?”
He laughed. “Romans do not have more than one wife at a time,” he said, “and besides, I think those two understand each other very well, though they seem as mismatched to us as we do to them.”
She looked startled. “Are we mismatched, Prasutugas?”
“Of course. Your father and the Druids thought so. The whole tuath thinks so. Only you and I are not yet aware that we were not born for each other.”
She softened, coming to him and kneeling at his feet. “How can you be so good to me, knowing what I am going to say to you?” she whispered. “For ten years I have fought you. You are like some once-gay shield now gored and split under the sword of my tongue. Yet still you stand and take my blows.”
He did not move but just lay back in the chair, his eyes on the ceiling, his legs crossed loosely at the ankles, a faint smile of amusement hovering on his lips. “I stand and face the sword of your tongue,” he replied. “I do not lie down under the weight of your feet. There is a difference. Say what you must, Boudicca. We both know why Favonius is worried.”
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