by Hilary McKay
I love Uncle Red but I can see why no one married him.
Uncle Red is older than my father. He can easily remember the time before the Romans came.
Nobody wants the Romans. Everyone grumbles about them, and detests them, and tells bad stories about them. But Uncle Red acts like every Roman that ever stepped is his own private enemy. They are always on his mind.
The Romans came to our country and they took our towns and they took our land and they took our tracks and made them roads. They marched along those roads in tens and hundreds, and hundreds and more. Armed and smart and ruthless. Some British tribes gave up to them at once, but not the Iceni.
The Iceni never gave up, but still they had to bargain. They had to bargain, or lose everything: the villages and horse runs and fields and Queen Boudica’s rule of her people. They had to give up their weapons, and they have to pay the Romans. Tax collectors come to the village. We pay them in coins and horses and anything else that catches their greedy eyes. Last time they took my grandmother’s new woven blanket. Food, they like, corn and honey.
But there are ways of making things a little better.
“Pity the poor Roman,” says my father, “he’s never eaten a honeycomb that some Iceni has not spat on.”
The Romans don’t stay long near a well-stirred midden either, and the dogs that we tied when Boudica came are not tied when the tax collectors arrive.
My grandmother and my father and my Uncle Red and Finn all say the same thing: “There are no good Romans.”
They are wrong. There is one. Not very long ago I met a good Roman and it was because of Honey.
The bigger Honey grew, the prettier and cleverer she became, the more I was afraid of the tax collectors. What if they saw Honey and said, “I’ll have her.”
The last time they came I was so afraid I hid her.
At the end of the village is a broken old house. It caught fire, like thatched houses often do. Uncle Red patched the burnt thatch but it still smelt bad inside. It came to be used for storing things – wood and an old plough, and a few worn grinding stones. Things like that. That was where I took Honey to hide her and I put mud on her to make her look less lovely than she was. It didn’t work very well. Anyone could see that underneath she was shining gold, but I did it anyway. Then I led her into the darkest part of the old house and stayed there with her with my face against her neck. I whispered to her to keep her quiet, “Hush Honey, hush Honey, Honey, Honey, hush!”
When I looked up a Roman tax collector was watching me.
Sometimes the tax collectors speak our language, sometimes their own. This lot spoke ours.
Outside one of them called, “Anything in there?”
Then the Roman watching me smiled and put his finger to his lips and he called back very clearly to make sure I heard, “Nothing in here. Just a little dirty honey!”
And then he was gone.
One good Roman.
When I told about it afterwards nobody would believe me. They didn’t even want to listen. “Stop that talk!” said Uncle Red, so fiercely that I did.
I stopped talking, but I didn’t forget. Whenever I notice the empty house I remember and I smile.
CHAPTER THREE
Something terrible has happened.
One evening a messenger arrived at our village. He came galloping. He flung himself off his horse shouting to the people. We were in the house, eating our evening meal, but we saw him through the open door.
My father looked across to my grandmother. Uncle Red jumped to his feet. Finn said, “Wait! I’m not being left!” and then all three were gone.
Finn’s dog, Brownie, ran after them.
They left their suppers. Barley broth with greens in it. Some fish Finn caught when he should have been in the field strips. New bread with the first honey.
That was the last time my family sat together and talked of little things; where the bees had been, and if I had washed the greens for the soup carefully or did they have to watch out for caterpillars, like had happened the day before. Finn described an enormous fish he had caught that unluckily got away. Uncle Red told about a dream he had the night before, where a great black dragon was woven into his thatching.
“Not all dreams are for telling,” my grandmother said sternly, and Finn whispered to me, “Uncle Red has beetles in his hair, that’s what his dream means!” and my father overheard and burst into laughter.
It’s a good thing you don’t know when last times are last times.
After the messenger came, Grandmother and I were left alone. I wanted to run after Finn and my father and Uncle Red, but Grandmother wouldn’t let me. I had to stay and clear the bowls and wash the soup pot. Then, as soon as they were clean, my grandmother got out her comb (her TERRIBLE bone comb!) and said, “Kassy, you were speaking of beetles in the hair...”
“Finn was, not me!” I protested. “And not in my hair! In Uncle Red’s!”
But it was no use. Grandmother started with the tangles on my shoulders and worked her way up towards my ears. She had me halfway untangled before I fell asleep on my stool. I only knew I was asleep when I toppled off and found Grandmother pushing me into bed.
Every time I woke that night I heard mens’ voices outside. Angry men’s voices, all night.
The first strange thing was the baking.
All night my grandmother baked. Barley bread and corn bread in flat round loaves. In all the other houses the women were baking too. At daylight bread appeared outside the door of every home, piled on tables, cooling. I had never seen so much bread before. Indoors, the women were still turning loaves on the hearths.
They baked enough bread for an army.
In the morning the rider was gone, taking the news to more villages.
Soon it would be their last times too.
As soon as it was light my father went out to the horse runs as he always did, but Uncle Red did not go with him. Uncle Red was going mad among the rooftops.
For twenty years Uncle Red had thatched the roofs of our village, and now he was pulling them apart. He was not the only person pulling things apart. Finn was unstacking the wood pile by the wasps’ nest. Wasps built new nests in that dark corner every year and Uncle Red would never have them killed. Uncle Red liked wasps. He left them in the thatches too. When children were stung and ran wailing to their mothers, Uncle Red didn’t care at all.
“Be thankful it was only a wasp,” he would say.
The wasps by the woodpile were in a seething temper, now their home was being disturbed at last. Theirs was nothing compared to Finn’s temper though. He was working all by himself, and he looked awful. His face was as wooden as the logs he was hurling aside.
Other boys were unstacking woodpiles too, and digging behind middens. They mostly looked scared. All the big girls were doing the same boring thing. Grinding grain for more baking.
Grinding and grinding.
It makes a sharp pain between your shoulders.
It was after dark when I saw the first sword.
Finn was holding it, and his blue friendly eyes were like blue stones.
Where did they come from, these swords? These spears? How could they be here, all in a day? I asked Uncle Red and he looked at me and scratched his thatched head.
Oh.
Hidden from the Romans for all these years. Guarded by wasps and dogs and cunning. Not just in this village, but in all the Iceni villages and farmsteads and huts, all through the country.
In all the other Iceni villages, are they taking down wood piles and digging by middens and opening the thatch? Are they grinding and baking and sharpening blades and looking at each other with eyes like stones?
No one will tell me anything. Not my father or Finn or my grandmother or anyone I catch hold of, until I catch Uncle Red.
Sharpening swords.
“Why won’t anyone tell me anything?” I demand.
“Because,” said Uncle Red, “what you don’t know can’t be frightened out
of you.” Then his eyes flick me a look.
“Something terrible has happened,” I say.
“Has it?” asks Uncle Red, feeling a blade with his thumb.
“That messenger rode a bright brown horse,” I remember out loud.
“Good fast horses, those brown ones,” said Uncle Red.
“Queen Boudica has horses like that.”
“Fit for a queen, those horses,” agrees Uncle Red, and again his eyes flick me a look.
“Something terrible has happened to Queen Boudica,” I say.
Uncle Red glances at me.
“Was it the Romans?”
“Was it who?”
“Did they hurt her? Did they hurt her gold and silver girls?”
Uncle Red looks carefully along a blade and then makes it sing in the air. He nods his head slowly.
“Is she dead?”
“No, she’s not dead,” said Uncle Red. “She’s alive. She’s angry. And that’s all you need to know.”
I think I must have been the last person in the village to understand what was going to happen next. My Uncle Red, my father, Finn, my village, they were going to take those swords and they were going to kill people. That’s what swords are for. Killing people. Enemies.
The Iceni are summoning an army.
When Finn said he was going with them I couldn’t bear it. I held his tunic in my fists and said, “You can’t.”
“I can,” said Finn. He shoved me away and went off to Uncle Red.
Uncle Red put an arm across Finn’s shoulders. He hugged Finn to him. Uncle Red! When did Uncle Red do a thing like that!
“They’ve had it now,” said Uncle Red. “They’re finished. That’s it.”
Finn lifted up his head and nodded.
They are talking about the Romans, I know.
The Romans are our enemies. They took our country and now they have done something terrible to our Queen. They have gone too far. They have had it now. They’re finished. That’s it. Everyone says the same, not just Uncle Red.
Boudica is on fire for revenge. The village is on fire for revenge. The Iceni are on fire for revenge. There are hidden swords and spears. There are long-planned secrets. There are thousands of people as angry as my Uncle Red.
Uncle Red shouldn’t be worried about anything frightening me. What could be more frightening than Uncle Red, glaring and growling and sharpening swords by firelight?
Firelight.
“We’ll need fire to follow the blades,” said Uncle Red to my father as I ground and ground and ground the grain to make more loaves.
Oh no! Not fire! Who fights with fire? I’ve seen fire. I’ve seen a thatch burn and crumble and fall on the home beneath.
The poor Romans, if the Iceni arrive at their houses with fire. The poor, poor Romans.
Somebody should warn them.
I said that aloud and my family heard me.
“Kassy,” said my father in a voice he had never used before. “Come here.”
So I did.
“Don’t you say those words again,” said my father. “Don’t you think them. Don’t you show them in your eyes. Do you understand?”
“No,” I said.
“There are no good Romans,” said my father.
“There’s one,” I said. “Don’t you remember? When Honey and I hid?”
Then Uncle Red stood over me and he said, “Girl, there are people in the village who would kill you for those words you said just now.”
“She’s a child,” said my grandmother, and now she was standing too.
“Kill you,” repeated Uncle Red, and in front of my father and my grandmother and Finn he put his thumbs on my throat. “Like this,” he said, and pressed until I squeaked with fear.
My father roared and leapt at him but my grandmother got there first and untangled their arms and their angry bones and she said, “Red’s right. Better she knows.”
I was sent out of the way to cry if I wanted, but I didn’t. I went out into the dark and across to the horse runs. There I whistled and Honey came running.
I stood for a long time with my arms around Honey’s neck.
I wish that messenger had never ridden to our village but I didn’t tell Honey that. I didn’t tell Honey anything.
I had no words left to speak.
Uncle Red had seen to that. With his thumbs he had silenced me, inside and out. So I pushed from my mind the thought of the good Roman who had saved Honey for me, and of the good Roman’s friends, if he had any friends, and of his brother and daughter and son and his mother, if he had those people, and his dog like Brownie, if he had a dog. I pushed away his merry smile when he said, “Just a little dirty honey.”
You wouldn’t think it was possible if you’d seen as many swords as I had seen that day, or the wagons loaded with firewood for after the swords.
But I did.
That evening, a dark cloak of Iceni swept up to our village. Men and boys and swords and spears. Wagons laden with bread and wood and cloth to bind wounds. Whole families sometimes.
It was like the spring rains, when a small flood joins a big flood and the water spreads over the land.
Queen Boudica was leading the great spreading rabble. I glimpsed our bright brown horses racing with her chariot. Her golden hair flew out like flames as she passed.
I didn’t know there were so many people in the world.
So many horses.
So many swords.
CHAPTER FOUR
Now they are gone.
The Iceni are going to the city of Colchester. That used to be our city until the Romans took it and made it their centre.
When the Iceni reach Colchester they are going to kill every Roman in it and burn it to the ground. Then they will move on to London and do the same. And then on to the next place after that.
Our village feels as hollow as an eggshell when the bird has hatched and flown. There is hardly anyone left. Some very young children, and some very old people. Even the dogs have followed their masters. Except for the oldest and stiffest, the village is empty of dogs. People left behind stare at each other. I am not the only person who cannot find a single word to say.
“Look after your grandmother,” said my father, that last night. “You are the best girl in the world.”
“Look after your grandmother,” said Uncle Red. “I didn’t hurt you. I would never hurt you.”
“Look after our grandmother,” said Finn, hugging me. “I’m sorry.”
I have stopped saying words since those thumbs on my throat, so I didn’t ask, “Sorry for what?”
I soon found out.
My grandmother is already restacking what’s left of the woodpile. Covering the midden. Now she’s on the roof, untangling the torn thatch. She says she is getting ready for when they all come back. Slowly, slowly, the few people left in the village are beginning to stir. We stand close together, gathering up what’s left of our world to feel safe. Babies and old people and a few tired dogs and, I think, Honey!
I’ll fetch Honey! She can live here in the village with Grandmother and me!
So I go racing down to the horse runs.
The horse runs are as empty as the village. I whistle and I whistle but Honey doesn’t come.
Where is she? She was much too young to be taken on such a hard journey! She has never carried anyone heavier than me.
I whistle more, again and again, and at last I hear a reply. A whicker. A pony whicker. And hooves.
Slow hooves though.
It is Old Flax.
Fat Old Flax. The barrel-shaped old horse that my father always laughed at and kept for luck.
Now I understand why Finn said sorry. He was taking Honey.
Honey, taken to war.
There is not much left to eat in the village, but what there is my grandmother has charge of. She has untangled the muddle that is left. The very old people are minding the babies. The oldest of all are grinding grain. There is a fire going and the tired dogs
are resting in the warmth. I see someone has brought water. Grandmother has just remembered the fish trap in the river. She doesn’t need me to look after her.
Good.
Because I am going after Honey.
Honey does need me to look after her. She will be afraid. I know what she will do. She will run away the first chance she gets, and Honey is clever. I don’t know how Finn caught her once. He won’t catch her twice.
Honey will be lost.
As soon as I had thought all this I couldn’t wait. I ached to be away.
What do you need for such a journey?
A blanket.
Some bread.
Old Flax.
It will have to be Old Flax. That fat, biting, flea-bitten old horse! But his four legs will be faster than my two. I have a blanket of my own. I’ll take that. There was a batch of loaves that got burnt and were set aside and forgotten. I’ll take them too.
It was easy. This was my plan:
Bread in a sack.
Blanket on Old Flax.
Leave.
I am going to follow the Iceni army to Colchester.
But first I go and stand very close to my Grandmother, so close that I can feel her bones.
“Kassy,” she says with her hand on my tangles, and for a moment we are still. We face south. South is the way they went. Colchester is south, and now that is the only direction that any one can look. The round circle of the world has closed like a fan to a line that points one way.
Every moment that I stand close to my grandmother the Iceni are travelling further along that line.
I didn’t tell her I was going, so she didn’t tell me to stay.
CHAPTER FIVE
So this is the road to Colchester and I am already further from the village than I have ever been before.
There is no chance of me getting lost on the way. The army has left a trail as wide as a field. They have spread across the old track and flooded out over the land on either side. The ground is crushed by their passing.
