A Year of Ravens: a novel of Boudica's Rebellion

by E. Knight

  If only Ria were here with her ministrations . . .

  Behind him, a dozen other people lurked in the near-darkness of the fetid room. Tiny slivers of light pierced the gloom from cracks in the timber walls and helped illuminate the sad group. Mostly men, though with two women and three children among them. They were all wearing native dress, and from the colors and designs, he would place most of them as Iceni or Trinovantes. He tried to recall what had happened but couldn’t form a coherent thought amid the throbbing.

  “Where are we?”

  A man with a rough, saw-edged voice took a step forward. “Granary in the abandoned fort.”

  The fort? Surely . . . had the Romans won? Boudica’s army couldn’t have fallen here? Surely not enough time had passed for that.

  “The Iceni . . .”

  “Coming,” the man replied. “And soon.”

  Ah. So the prisoners had been taken in the peaceful city and impounded by the few evocati. They had probably rounded up any Iceni or suspected sympathizer they could find. It was probably thanks to Decianus that they were merely locked out of the way and not simply hanged as many of the soldiers would have recommended. Of course, if Decianus had fled Londinium, taking hope of protection with him, who knew what the future held? A cold knot of fear formed in Andecarus' belly.

  And it was not just protection that had gone with the procurator, but also any hope of a peaceful solution. A moment later, the pain in his head still pounding, he was at the barred door of the moldering old building, hammering on the timber and shouting.

  “Listen . . . I am no rebel. I was the foster son of the procurator himself! If you’ll just—”

  The hilt of a gladius slammed into the wooden wall where his desperate fingers were clawing through the gaps, and he pulled them back quickly.

  “Shut up, shit-bag,” grunted what sounded like an old veteran soldier in Gaulish-accented Latin. Evocati. The governor had left some of his few men to hold Londinium, then. He had to admire their bravery and devotion to duty, if not their sense of self-preservation. A legion could hardly hold Londinium even if it had walls and ditches. A score or so old men with a derelict fort? Madness.

  “You need to evacuate,” Andecarus shouted through the gaps in the wood. “The Iceni will kill all of you and every living thing in Londinium. I saw it happen at Camulodunum. Are there still civilians in the town?”

  But the guard had gone. Andecarus put his eye to the gap. Two old men were busy repairing the parapet of the fort wall. Insanity!

  “You speak their language,” the saw-voiced man rumbled from behind him. “Are you a merchant?”

  Andecarus sighed and pulled back from the wall. “Not quite. I’m a noble of the Iceni.” He shuffled back across the room. “Where are the latrines?”

  The man pointed to an old wooden bucket in the corner, which was already leaking into a puddle around it and surrounded by flies.

  “I won’t ask about the food,” he grunted.

  Two days had passed by Andecarus’ reckoning. It was impossible to tell from the meals, which were sporadic and basic and shoved through the door with barbaric roughness, but he had seen two sundowns, which gave him his time marker. He had searched among the prisoners and learned who they were but had found no sign of Luci, and hoped for the boy’s sake that he’d mounted up and ridden away at the first sign of trouble.

  While his wits had continued to recover from the painful blow to the head, he had watched proceedings through the narrow cracks in the granary’s timber walls. He could count no more than thirty Romans, the senior of whom was seemingly only their commander by reason of his length of service. They were well armed and tough, for sure, though what they hoped to achieve when the Iceni finished their death dance at Camulodunum and swarmed over Londinium, he could not possibly imagine.

  That first day he had tried numerous times to engage in conversation one or other of the old soldiers who were attempting to make the near-derelict fort defensible. Every attempt had been unsuccessful, and he had eventually sat back and resigned himself to the fact that he had failed. The procurator was gone, the legions were on the way, as was Boudica’s army, and nothing stood between the queen’s wrath and Londinium but a few tired old men and a small palisade. At least he and the other prisoners would be safe for now. If the evocati who kept them locked up had had violent designs on them, they’d have manifested early on during their incarceration. And when the Iceni arrived, the soldiers would have other things on their mind than the execution of prisoners. So all they could do was sit quietly and wait for the arrival of Boudica's rampaging war band.

  His bowel strained, and he tried not to look at the overflowing bucket in the corner.

  “What’s this?” murmured one of the Trinovantes, peering intently between the slats. Andecarus struggled upright, noting how the last few twinges in his leg seemed to have faded with his enforced inactivity. There would be no denying it now: he was healed. He might smell like a goat-turd after sharing the bucket with the other occupants for four days, but physically he was as fit as could ever be expected. Scurrying across the granary’s wooden floor, he found another crack close to the one currently in use and peeked through it, his eyes rolling back and forth until they caught sight of what had attracted his fellow prisoner’s attention.

  Horsemen!

  His heart thudded, his pulse quickening. Perhaps Decianus had sent for Cerialis before fleeing, as well as apparently assigning most of his remaining guard to the fort? After all, Cerialis’ remaining cavalry from the Ninth would be the only local force. Would they be enough to present an obstacle to the Iceni?

  He remembered the sheer battle lust and unbending hauteur of both his father and their ferocious queen—and the slavering hunger of his foster “brother,” too—and knew in that moment that no amount of horsemen would be enough. Unless the legions made it south in record time, Londinium was doomed.

  “Paulinus,” muttered the Trinovante prisoner next to him. Andecarus frowned, looking over the riders pulling into the fort. They were legionary cavalry, and he could see a vexillum—a flag—of the Twentieth Legion, with no small number of senior officers among them, and everyone was clearly exhausted and weary from a long, hard ride. Sure enough, in the midst of the crowd, one man’s armor marked him out as a senior officer, the knotted red ribbon of a general around his midriff, his plume strikingly white and pure, if bedraggled and limp from the long sweaty journey. It was strangely jarring to see the man who had been a perfect, relaxed Roman nobleman on the rare occasions Andecarus had spotted him in his Camulodunum visits now garbed as a military man among hardened soldiers. It was like seeing a familiar, elegant hound baring its teeth for the first time.

  As the cavalry moved off to one of the more deserted corners of the fort, the governor and two of his senior officers dismounted, and Paulinus clasped hands with the garrison’s ageing commander on the low earth rampart. The two men began to speak, but the sound of cavalry moving in force nearby drowned out the details for Andecarus, who concentrated, trying to read anything he could from their manner. Paulinus was tall, thin, and no longer a young man, though he stood straight-backed—stiff and formal, even—while the evocati officer of a similar age looked round-shouldered and weary, if determined. Finally, the two began to stroll around the defenses and then, at the gate, descended and made their way back along the central street. The horses now having been corralled, Andecarus strained to hear as the two men closed on the granary.

  “Several days yet at the very least,” the governor was saying in leaden tones. “Longer, in fact. I gave strict instructions to move at a sensible pace. What use is my army turning up to face the Iceni bitch if they are exhausted and cannot lift a shield between them?”

  Paulinus paused, looking at the hastily strengthened parapet and shaking his head. “To attempt the defense of Londinium would be idiotic. Intelligence has the Iceni and their allies less than a day away. It seems they have finally tire
d of desecrating my colonia and are on the move. You are clearly enough of a veteran to recognize that this is a lost cause—my legions cannot arrive in time to save it, nor you. In fact, my adjutant is convinced that once Londinium is a burning husk, the enemy will move on and roll over either Verulamium or Calleva, both of which have a long history of supporting Rome. Unless the enemy is ridiculously slow or careless, they will manage either or both of those before the legions arrive.”

  “Sir, Londinium is the chief port of the region now, bigger than Rutupiae, with the procurator’s palace and the offices of a dozen great Gaulish trading concerns. There are storehouses with a king’s ransom of goods. It may not yet have the prestige of Camulodunum, but it is the new heart of Roman trade—a hub. The procurator gave us strict instructions to preserve it.”

  “I don’t particularly care what your orders from the procurator were, Stator, the military of the province fall directly under my command, especially when Decianus left word that he has fled to safer climes. Legions are poorly employed on the walls of forts, and their full talents are best displayed against an enemy in open field. We cannot garrison an indefensible place such as this, regardless of its commercial value. We must tempt them out into open ground and defeat them there.”

  “But, sir . . .”

  “No.” Paulinus began to stroll on once again, his hands clasped behind his back. “Londinium is lost, as is anywhere within two days’ march if the Iceni wish it. The city will be abandoned. I want you and your men to kit up and march out with us, awaiting the arrival of the Twentieth and the Fourteenth to put these savages down. I will not waste veterans on the pyre of a lost hope.”

  “What of the civilians, sir?”

  Paulinus snorted. “Those with a modicum of sense will already have fled out of the reach of the Iceni. Those who remain deserve anything they get. Put out the word that all defense is pulling out, and we advise the population to do the same. If Boudica and her war dogs decide to push their army, they could be here in mere hours, and I intend for you and my cavalry to be long gone when that happens.”

  The old soldier saluted, the two men now moving away from the granary so that Andecarus had to shift and strain to see them.

  “And the prisoners, Governor?”

  “Prisoners?” Paulinus stopped walking again.

  “We’ve a dozen or so known or suspected Iceni and Trinovantes locked in the granary. Should we execute them or bring them along?”

  As Andecarus’ heart caught in his throat at the words, the governor turned to regard the granary, and for the first time, the young Iceni got a good look into the man’s dark eyes. What he saw was intelligence, nobility, and plenty of determination. This was no Cerialis—throwing away good men on a foolish attack. This was a shrewd strategist who would not stop until he had beaten Boudica or had died in the attempt. Andecarus’ hopes for any kind of peaceful solution evaporated under that resolute gaze.

  “Leave them,” the governor announced calmly, turning his back.

  “Sir? They’re the enemy.”

  “If they are the enemy, then what are they doing unarmed in Londinium rather than running around in the ruins of my palace waving swords and the heads of my household slaves? More likely they are ordinary hapless natives, but whatever the case, they are none of our concern. Prepare to move out, Stator—you have your orders.”

  The soldier’s reply was lost to Andecarus’ straining ear as the two men moved on away from the granary. He turned to see the other prisoners looking expectantly at him.

  “My queen and the Iceni and Trinovantes are just hours from here. The governor has given the order to abandon Londinium, as the legions are many days away yet. We are to be left here to rot.”

  “Can we escape?” one of the women asked nervously. “When the Romans go, I mean?”

  “The Iceni will free us soon enough.”

  The woman shook her head. “You, maybe. You say you’re important. We’ll be seen as collaborators.” She was shaking. As Andecarus looked at the three-year-old boy by her side, he realized her peril. The boy shared neither her blond hair nor her pale skin, his own olive complexion clearly betraying the origins of his father. He shivered as he pictured what his foster brother might do to a woman who had lain with a Roman, to say nothing of her half-Roman child.

  “When they come, stay at the back and let me do any talking.”

  “Can we not escape?” asked the man who’d been at the cracks in the wall next to him.

  “How? The wall might be cracked, but it's still good, heavy timber, treated against the weather and with no rot. The roof might be tiled, but beneath that it is solid timber slats. The floor is heavy beams above stone. The door’s sealed with an oak bar. And we have nothing but fingernails. We wait for my people.”

  My people.

  How odd that still felt. He’d been almost wistful at the sight and sound of the Roman cavalry harnesses and armor, the smell of oiled leather and horse sweat. Just how Iceni was he, really? Would he have been more comfortable riding out with Paulinus than waiting here for his father? Listening to the distant, muted sound of the cavalry, Andecarus found himself wondering what had happened to his horse, Selene, who he’d left tied to a post in the forum. Hopefully, Luci had led her away to safety. Or perhaps Decianus’ staff had taken her in with the household animals and shipped her to Gaul?

  At least confined here he could not be expected to rampage through the helpless town with the Iceni warriors. If no peaceful solution could now be found, sooner or later he would have to draw his sword and decide whose son he truly was. Unless he could find another way, without the procurator, to halt this nightmare and reconcile the two sides before he was torn apart by divided loyalties.

  For just a moment, he considered that if the Druids were still among the people, they might have wrought some sense and order from this whole disaster. But no. After all, their rabid hatred of—and resistance to—Rome was what had taken the Druids to Mona in the first place. Gods only knew how they were faring now, but it was just as well they were not here. For all their closeness to the gods, the Druids would just have poured pitch onto this particular inferno.

  With a sigh, he moved to the corner closest the door and sank to the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees and leaning back against the wall, waiting for his father to come.

  He’d dozed off at some point, and the first he knew of the tribe’s arrival was when the Trinovante shook him roughly by the shoulder. Starting awake rudely with a snort, Andecarus shot to his feet. The sounds of the Iceni were clear and unmistakable. The cries and the clatter of weapon on shield, the thunder of hooves, and the creaking and rattling of the chariots bearing the nobles. It was not a battle. It was not even an attack. It was simply the Iceni and their allies arriving to find Londinium undefended.

  His eye to one of the bigger cracks in the wall, Andecarus tutted with annoyance as he realized that the structures and rampart of the camp obscured his view of the approaching horde. He listened hard. The faster warriors among the tribes were already passing the fort and moving into the streets at the northern edge of the town, finding no defenses and no soldiers waiting for them. For long moments, Andecarus wondered whether the city was deserted and the entire population had taken the governor’s advice and fled. Then the screaming started and the vengeful howl that accompanied it.

  Andecarus closed his eyes and fought rising bile. What he’d seen done by his own people at Camulodunum would stay in his nightmares as long as he lived, and the sounds issuing from across the fort’s walls told an almost identical tale. What had been done by Decianus' soldiers after the death of the Iceni king in the first place had been incendiary and dangerous, and the punishment and dishonoring of Prasutagus’ family had been appalling for a self-proclaimed civilized people. It was inexcusable even if, as Andecarus suspected, the order for the recalling of debts and the seizing of estates on the tenuous text of the will had come down from the emperor an
d not from the procurator himself. That would not have been the Decianus he had known. Yes, the behavior of Rome was dreadful, but was the response of his queen in line with her grievances? Was this a reaction to those terrible acts or a simple declaration of war? Where would it stop?

  He knew the answer to that, of course. He knew Rome’s attitude to retribution. Thousands crucified along a great road were all that remained of Spartacus’ slave army. Fifty thousand Carthaginians enslaved while their glorious city was razed to the foundations. Whole tribes in Germania so ruthlessly cut down in response to Arminius’ revolt that it would be generations before the crops were worked fully again. Was this the future for his own tribe?

  His ponderings were cast aside as activity outside drew his attention. Half a dozen warriors had finally swarmed over the pathetic ramparts of the small deserted fort, and others had burst through the gate. While a few of the hungrier ones rampaged around the fort’s interior looking for something to dismember, a few others, carrying burning torches, began to cast them through the windows of the old, dry barrack blocks, firing the fortified reminder of Roman supremacy. He watched in surprise as one of them threw his burning torch into the ventilation channels beneath the granary, where the flames immediately caught on a decade of detritus and what might—from the smell of it—be a long-deceased dog. Even as the first waft of smoke came up through the floor, Andecarus grabbed the clearly half-Roman boy and his mother and pushed them safely back into the darkness before joining the chorus of voices at the door, bellowing for release.

  Outside the granary, two warriors’ voices cut through the general din, closer to the makeshift prison than the rest of the marauding Iceni.

  “Don’t waste time firing that.”

  “Burn every fucking building. Catch every fucking Roman and pull out his eyeballs,” snarled the other. “That’s what you said when Princess Sorcha brought back the news about Mona. A thousand charred Roman skulls for every Druid butchered, you said. Retribution for Andraste.”