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

by E. Knight

  Mona? Andecarus felt his blood surge at the shocking words, the sheer power of those tidings stopping him in his tracks as he’d been making for the door to shout out his father’s name by way of identification. The Druids’ last sacred sanctuary had fallen?

  The warriors’ voices became all the clearer as they climbed the steps outside. “The bastard governor left none alive on Mona, so why should we here? Fuck ’em.”

  Andecarus was still trying to wrap his thoughts around the concept of a world without the learned priests of the tribes as the door was ripped open and the two Iceni warriors peered in from the loading platform. One bore a gleaming blade and was stripped to the waist, his long, wild blond hair and beard stiffened with pale mud, the other a darker one with a plaited beard and a mail shirt, still brandishing his torch in the face of the prisoners.

  “Fucking collaborators, look,” the bare-chested warrior snorted, smashing out with his sword hilt and knocking down the Trinovante prisoner with a possibly broken jaw.

  His mail-clad friend grabbed his wrist as he made to bring his sword around blade-first. “Locked up by the Romans? Don’t be stupid. Besides, look: that’s Duro’s son—the little one.”

  The two warriors peered into the gloom, and Andecarus pulled himself up straight, his face sour, ignoring the jibe. “Andecarus, son of Duro. These people are all ours.”

  The two warriors had already lost interest and dropped back down from the loading block, disappearing into the fort, looking for something to kill. Carefully, adjusting to the bright summer sunlight after days of dim shade, Andecarus stepped out onto the stone steps and took stock of the situation. The fort was more or less empty again. The few warriors who had bothered with it were now moving on, looking for anything of interest in the farther reaches of the place. Gingerly, he stepped down to the ground and gestured for the others to follow.

  “You’re on your own, now. Good luck.” As the woman and her swarthy son exited, he grabbed the boy by the shoulder and pointed to the north gate, which now stood open and untended. “The Iceni are in the town now, and only the baggage and the womenfolk will remain out to the north. Leave by that route. As soon as you reach the palisade, wait until the coast is clear, bear left toward the sun, and then run for your life. Keep going until you reach a small river, then follow its banks north until you’re far enough from Londinium that you can’t hear the screams.”

  Waiting for the mother’s nervous nod and watching the rest disperse as though they had hit the dusty ground from a great height, Andecarus took a deep breath. There were options, he knew. He could so easily find himself a weapon and join the fray. No one would stop him doing so. His father would even approve, if such a thing were imaginable. But no, he knew he could not do that. Even with what Paulinus had done on Mona, he could take no part in the ruination of Londinium, his home for three memorable years. Not to mention the fact that these people were innocent in this whole affair. So what? Leave Londinium to its destruction? Perhaps, though it did not take a great leap of imagination to see what the tribal elders would say about that when they found out he had walked away. There had already been suspicion that his absence at the sack of Camulodunum was as much a personal choice as it was down to his injuries. No, he had to stay.

  Because there were two things he needed to do. Somewhere in the procurator’s building there might still be an answer. Even with Decianus fled, the man had thought to send the last few men he had to hold the fort for as long as possible, and if he had thought that far, perhaps he had left someone in authority in his place? A quaestor, perhaps, who could be persuaded to sign and seal something granting the queen her rights in perpetuity? It was amazing what a man might be persuaded to do with thousands of howling enemies at his door. A sealed document of Iceni rights might—might—be enough to appease the incendiary queen whose army rampaged through the streets.

  And maybe, just maybe, Selene was still here with Luci and his fat pony, sheltered in some empty building nearby, hungry but safe.

  A rare gust of wind carried the reek of burning timbers to his nostrils, but once the breeze died again, he became painfully aware of the revolting stink issuing from his own person. Trying not to gag at the suddenly prevalent stench, he strode over to the large stone trough where horses had been watered in the old days. With no care for his body or apparel, Andecarus tipped himself into the trough, rubbing his limbs roughly, removing as much ordure and muck as he could. Relieved, he rose, brushing back his hair, much of which had now escaped the flattened braid in which he commonly wore it. His usually neat, clipped mustaches—a carryover, like the braid, from the days when they had oft been covered by a Roman helmet—had become ragged and drooping. His cheeks, chin, and neck itched with the budding beard that covered them.

  The fort was now empty of the invaders, though every structure within it was ablaze, the roiling black smoke rising in a dozen columns to combine into an ever-thickening fug above the roofs, almost blotting out the azure sky. Having found the installation empty, the place had held no interest for the newly arrived Iceni, who had torched it and moved on south into the town in search of anything to kill, burn, tear down, or abuse. Coughing in the growing cloud, Andecarus ran out into the street that proceeded from the south gate and made for the forum halfway between here and the river.

  As he emerged from the old fort, his heart caught in his throat. The sights he’d witnessed at Camulodunum had been few and in passing, for all their horror. He had tried to stay on the periphery as much as possible—an attempt aided most helpfully by the slave girl Ria and her tender ministrations. Briefly, his thoughts flashed back to her, and even in the midst of this horror, he almost smiled at the memory. She was pretty and kind—a combination he’d found oddly lacking in his people since his return and, while his father would spit teeth if he thought his son might dally with a slave-born girl for anything more than base lust, the idea of courting her and annoying old Duro had been remarkably tempting.

  A scream drew him back to the present. There was no friendly maid to administer unction now, and there was no chance of loitering on the edge of things. If there was any hope of stopping this headlong charge into the underworld, it lay at the heart of the town, at the very epicenter of destruction. Palls of smoke hung over areas of Londinium already, and more plumes rose with every passing heartbeat. The firing of buildings had reached the forum, and he could see the new temple rising above the surrounding buildings, choking black rising from its roof.

  Please, Minerva . . . Andraste . . . don’t let the procurator’s building have burned.

  He ran. The ground, so long parched and dusty, was dry no longer. Blood and shit, entrails and organs formed the new paving, and more than once Andecarus felt himself slip on something that did not bear too close examination. Though many folk had left Londinium on the governor’s recommendation, clearly many more had stayed—both Roman and native. He could picture their reasoning. The Romans simply could not believe it would happen. Even abandoned by their governor and the procurator, they still clung to the hope that the legions would come and save them or that Cerialis would reappear. No help had come. The others—those of the Cantiaci or the Atrebates, the Catuvellauni or the Regini, even a few of the Trinovantes and Iceni who had long since moved to the new port town—simply saw the approaching army as their own people and couldn’t imagine they’d be taken for enemies.

  How short-sighted that had been.

  Bodies lay where they had been cut down and beaten, but the ones who had been gutted in the hurried search for loot or women were the lucky ones. Even the poor bastard whose gut-rope was now coiled around Andecarus’ ankle was lucky. Because he hadn’t been . . .

  That one. The lad of maybe ten summers who had been nailed upside down to a door, his genitals roughly hacked off and cast into the gutter below whence his lifeblood had long since flowed to join it.

  That one. An old man whose limbs had been severed at elbow and knee so that he was for
ced to flee the conflagration of his own house in unbearable agony on four severed stumps.

  That one. The mother cut time and again so that she was almost bled dry, watching, hollow, from a pasty white face as the remains of her twins charred and crisped in the blackened pile of kindling and body parts.

  That one.

  And that one.

  And that one.

  And so few of them actual Romans, too.

  Andecarus paused to vomit by the roadside where a severed hand grasped at something unseen. He might have cried. A sensible human should. Andecarus had fought in pitched battles and sieges against rebels and kings, but those had been battles, where the enemy brandished their own weapons and fought back valiantly. That had been war, which was horrifying yet oddly acceptable. This was not war. This was retribution for Mona on a scale that even the queen might not be able to control. This was joyful slaughter on a scale that would have the gods frowning in disapproval. Roman gods were civilized, he knew, and powerful. But even his own gods and goddesses—even dread Andraste of the Iceni with her love of battle—could not surely countenance such willful execution of their own. His fears seemed borne out as he straightened and wiped the puke from his chin in time to see a cat scurry from a blazing building and race across the road, leaving small paw prints in the dark red, sticky street. It had run to the left. Never a good omen. He remembered his youth before the Romans took him, his father who would not leave the house for a day if an animal crossed his path right to left.

  Was this an omen for Andecarus, or for all of them? He was no Druid, trained to read such signs and the will of the gods, but the fading paw prints in the blood seemed too vast an omen for him alone.

  He ran.

  A blood-curdling scream issued from a building to his left. Despite repeated vows not to involve himself, he paused and peered inside. A torn, bloodied, and clearly dying woman in a Roman stola hung from a wall, roped by the wrists, while two Iceni warriors practiced their throwing with jugs, plates, knives, and anything else that came to hand, bellowing their hatred of the invader and exhorting Andraste to take Roman sacrifices in remembrance of Mona. A red-glazed bowl smashed painfully into her face and fell away surprisingly intact as a triumphant shout came from a third man who rose from a corner with a purse of money, bronze coins spilling out on the floor nearby.

  Honestly, what had that woman done to the Iceni to deserve this? She had hardly rammed a gladius into the heart of a Druid.

  Andecarus stifled a snarl of anger and turned away with difficulty, running on down the street. The forum, at last. Some sort of ritual killing was being performed there, the burning temples and houses and shops ringing a scene of horror the likes of which was rapidly becoming gruesomely familiar. Six old women struggled on a makeshift gibbet, their life choking out past swollen purple tongues as their feet danced merry jigs in the air. As one woman started to slip into blessed unconsciousness, a Trinovante warrior took her weight while another threw a bucket of water at her face. Instantly revived into the terror of her situation, they let the rope take the strain again so that she began her death jig anew.

  His earlier fears were realized as his gaze picked out tendrils of smoke rising from the roof of the procurator’s complex. It was afire, but thankfully the conflagration had not yet taken full hold. Perhaps there would be something of use still inside. His heart sank at the sight of the empty tethering posts by the door—not that he’d expected Selene to still be there, but it had been one small hope. Running, he burst through the door, past the small guard room, almost falling face-first over a sorry little mound at the threshold. Luci had not made it to safety, it seemed.

  A hollowness opening inside, he crouched and turned the body over. Had the boy been caught by the raiders? The innocent, enthusiastic little gray-white face was strangely peaceful, but the single gruesome wound betrayed the nationality of Luci’s killer. A lone, wide stab wound above the collarbone, straight down into the heart. An execution, carried out Roman military-style. Damn those evocati! Yes, he had been Iceni, but he was just a boy. What harm could he have been?

  His mood blackening by the moment, Andecarus rose and strode on into the courtyard. The bonfire of documents was now little more than a sad gray heap of ash, and the body of a young man was half buried in it, just his legs and lower back visible, along with the hands bound behind him. A Roman boy from his sandals, and killed by the rampaging Iceni. In revenge for Luci in the doorway, perhaps?

  Andecarus turned, and his mouth ran dry as dust, for materializing from the door to the procurator’s offices was a most unexpected, and most unwelcome, sight.

  Duro, elder of the Iceni, right-hand man of the queen and father of a sickened and angry son, stepped out into the light, blinking, his heavy sword in one hand and a rope in the other. The old man either did not see or did not recognize his son, striding out toward the exit with his expression oddly unreadable. Behind Duro, at the other end of the rope, came the matron Valeria, wife of Decianus. Andecarus gaped. Had her sense of honor so overcome her sense of self-preservation that she had opted to stay and face her doom? Valeria’s footsteps were fast and purposeful, and despite the fact that she had never truly warmed to Andecarus during his time with her family—she had been too absorbed in her dignity as mistress of the house to truly befriend a tribesman—he found himself approving of her manner. Rather than submit to the indignity of being dragged unwilling from the building by her captor, she walked fast and proud, head held high, the very picture of a stoic Roman matron. It was an almost laughable sight as Duro reached the exit to the forum, but his new slave’s accelerated pace allowed her to push imperiously past him and out to the open as though it were her leading him. At least with Duro, Andecarus reflected, Valeria would be safe from the clawing hands and vicious wiles of a thousand vengeful warriors. No one would take what the powerful elder had claimed for his own. He sighed and paid no further heed to his father, instead making for the door whence the old man had come.

  He didn’t see the other figure emerging until it was too late, the interior too dim after the soot-laden sunlight outside. He found himself stepping back from the threshold in order to avoid being knocked flat by the big warrior. It was only as he staggered and recovered that his eyes narrowed and his lip twisted in practiced hatred.

  Verico.

  The bear of a warrior who had usurped Andecarus’ place as a son to Duro while he himself had been a hostage, paying the price for a failed revolt. The one responsible for Andecarus’ injured knee. A monster of a man, almost as tall as the queen herself and twice as wide at the shoulder. Verico’s straw-colored hair and beard were braided roughly by his own hand in a manner that Andecarus thought slovenly, though the women of the tribe in their swooning dozens seemed to find it windswept and attractive, especially in conjunction with those dead, pale blue eyes. He failed to recognize Andecarus, which was hardly a surprise given his current state. Andecarus was about to launch into a tirade of invective when his eyes widened in shock.

  Like their father, Verico had apparently taken a slave, though how this girl came to be here was beyond Andecarus. Draped over his shoulder like a half-filled sack of grain, clearly unconscious, she was at once horribly familiar and dreadfully out of place.

  “Ria!”

  “Move,” grunted Verico, unable to wave at Andecarus but glaring at him. Then, slowly, recognition dawned in the beast’s eyes. “You!”

  As Verico turned to face him, several other figures emerged from the dark interior, fanning out behind. Still locking his malice-filled gaze on Andecarus, Verico slid the unconscious form of Ria from his shoulder and heaped her onto one of the unburdened warriors behind him.

  “What are you doing?” Andecarus snarled.

  “Taking my spoils. Get out of my way.”

  Andecarus took half a step forward, his face contorted in anger, but even that belligerent half step had those animals accompanying Verico brandishing swords and axes threatenin
gly. Though he didn’t know these others, Andecarus recognized the timeless combination of bully and acolytes and knew that he was powerless. Even were he armed, there would be little he could do. One punch at that ugly lantern jaw would see him beaten within a sparrow’s breath of his life—he'd be food for the ravens that even now circled in the clearer areas of sky, looking for tasty titbits in the charnel-house streets of the settlement. He was unarmed . . . Verico and his bullies were not.

  “What are you doing with Ria?”

  Verico leered unpleasantly. “Shagpiece? She bolted from my tent as soon as my back was turned. My boys found her and gave her a knock on the head to bring her home.”

  Andecarus found himself wondering whether he could take one of the smaller warriors quickly and snatch his sword fast enough to gut the brute at the center. It was a stupid idea that could only have one outcome, and yet he considered it in earnest.

  “Ria is not your property. She serves the queen’s house.”

  “Not anymore.” Verico snorted and spat a wad of phlegm onto Andecarus’ already blood-soaked boot. “You should spend more time with your people and less swanning off with your Roman friends, then you’d be better informed. Some of us actually fought at Camulodunum instead of skulking like a collaborator,” he sneered unpleasantly, “and those of us who fought in the front were gifted whatever reward we wanted. This is what I wanted.' He reached out with his free hand and slapped the unconscious girl, now draped over one of his cronies, on the rump. “Didn't I, Shagpiece?”

  Andecarus could feel himself breaking. He prided himself on his self-control, his patience. But somehow the sight of Ria so treated incensed him beyond reason. Ria, who had so gently and patiently ministered to his injuries, now slung over a shoulder, a plaything for an animal, to be used and discarded. Ria, who had been privy to his true level of fitness for battle and yet had held her tongue. It was intolerable. It was odd to realize in the midst of all this appalling horror, that she apparently meant a great deal more to him than he had thought.