I Was There... Boudica’s Army

by Hilary McKay

  Old Flax is a terrible horse to ride! He does everything possible to stop me. He lifts his long leathery lip and lunges at me with yellow-grey teeth. He twists when I mount and tries to jerk me to the ground. He grinds my legs against tree trunks to try and rub me off. He would roll and squash me flat if he wasn’t too fat to roll.

  He is much too fat, twice as wide as Honey, and he is stone hard to sit on, a jolting bag of stones. I bit my tongue very hard the first time he trotted. Then he stopped very suddenly and my face hit his neck and my nose started bleeding.

  But I ride him anyway.

  As I travel, the trail spreads wider and wider. Other villages are gathering to join the Iceni host. I pass a circle of huts, very small and poor, but they are quiet and empty.

  On that first day I see a little dog. He is the first victim of this war.

  He is a rough-coated little dog and he has been kicked by a horse. His back is broken. His eyes look at me, but he cannot move.

  What shall I do with this dog?

  I tie Old Flax to a hawthorn tree while I look at him. I have to watch Old Flax too, because he is trying to bite through the rope. The little dog is panting. I offer him some of my burnt bread but he does not take it, even when I push it right to his mouth. His eyes do not move from mine.

  Water, I think.

  I haven’t any water but there is rain water standing in a nearby hollow. I haven’t anything to carry water so I have to empty my bread from my bread sack (taking care that Old Flax cannot reach the loaves) and then soak the sack in the marshy water.

  Then I carry it to the little dog and drip the water over his tongue. He licks his nose. I do it again. Is it better for him? I don’t know.

  The third time I bring the little dog water he doesn’t lick his nose. The drips pool around his head. His eyes stay on mine but their brightness fades and goes, like a wet stone drying in the sun.

  It was very hard to leave him. It was like leaving Grandmother all over again. I spent too long stroking his rough little head.

  Oh, I was lonely that first day. It would have been more than I could bear, if I hadn’t had Old Flax.

  Old Flax! What a horse! No wonder they left him behind. When I left the little dog at last and went back to untie him from the thorn tree he wouldn’t move a step. He stood like a stone horse. But I petted him, and rubbed his ears and climbed on his back and shook the reins.

  Then he moved. He walked right into the hawthorn tree and tangled my hair in its branches.

  Ouch!

  OUCH!

  A whole clump of my hair tugged from my head by the thorny branches!

  It hurt so much I felt my head to see if I had a bald patch in the middle like my father does in his.

  I had. I could feel it.

  But Old Flax didn’t care.

  I got off and tried to lead him and it was like trying to lead the wood pile. I held out bread to tempt him. He walked two steps forward to get the bread and four steps back to chew it.

  It got to be night.

  In the dark I tied Old Flax back to the hawthorn tree and then I gathered a bundle of long grass, as big as I could, and piled it underneath. I spread my blanket on top of the pile and lay down on my blanket under my cloak. I couldn’t help wondering if Old Flax would trample over me, but he didn’t. Perhaps he couldn’t be bothered. He ate the grass like I’d hoped he would, and pulling it from underneath me stopped him chewing through his rope. It was nice to know he was there while I slept.

  Sort of slept.

  It didn’t feel like sleep, but it must have been, because at dawn I woke up. My hair was soaked in dew and more tangled than ever but I had got through the dark night and it was morning. I ate some of my bread.

  My bread is wonderful. It tastes of home. I don’t care that it is burnt. I like the burnt bits best. When I get back to the village I will always burn the bread a little. I think it is better that way. Old Flax likes my burnt bread too. He grabs when I give him a piece. I cannot give him much because he can eat grass, but I can’t.

  Before it was properly light I was back on Old Flax and this time he went forward when I wanted him to. I think I have learned something about this old horse, which is that he will only start once a day.

  I think that’s quite funny and clever. I wish I could tell Finn.

  I am starting to love Old Flax. You have to love something. I do, anyway. So even though Old Flax bites my shoulders and hits me with his tail, I love him. I don’t think he loves me though. This morning he flicked out a back leg and kicked me right over.

  Poor Old Flax. He doesn’t like this journey. What he would like to do is shake me off and eat up all my bread and then head straight home.

  Well, he can’t, but I have found something Old Flax likes. He likes to be rubbed on his back and neck with a handful of rough grass. He lets me do that as we jog along together.

  On the second day of riding I didn’t dare to get off once, in case Old Flax wouldn’t start again. I was so tired that I fell asleep as I rode, with my head on his neck, and my fingers wound tight in his mane. We passed more empty huts, and one place where small children were standing outside. They hid at first when they saw us, and then as we got closer they came out again and stared, sucking their fingers. After we passed they took their fingers out of their mouths and called.

  “Stop! Come to us!” they called, but we didn’t stop.

  That day I met more Iceni, riding late after the war host. Four men came galloping hard down the track behind us. As they came up they spread out on either side and rose on their horses to look at Old Flax and me. They stared.

  I sat up as straight as I could and tried to look fearless and old. I pointed my arm to the south, straight, as if it held a sword. The men looked at each other, and shook their heads.

  Mad, said their looks.

  Then they shrugged, shrugging off the thought of me I suppose, and turned their eyes on Old Flax. I could see they were thinking: “Shall we take that horse?”

  That frightened me.

  What could I do if they took Old Flax?

  Walk?

  Could I walk all the way to Colchester?

  I held my breath while I waited to see what they would do.

  It was as if Old Flax understood. He looked at those four staring, unfriendly men and he dropped his head and lifted his tail.

  Old Flax made a rude noise from under his tail and suddenly there was a very bad smell. I know he did it on purpose. Then he stretched back his head and showed the men the angry red whites of his eyes. He lifted his lip and bit at the air with his old yellow teeth.

  “Useless,” said one of the men, and the other three nodded and said, “Useless.”

  Oh, clever Old Flax! No wonder my father laughed at him and kept him for luck.

  When I stop tonight I will give Old Flax a whole hunk of bread! The men rode on and I was so glad to breathe again.

  Then one of them turned and wheeled back. He smiled at me with his teeth showing and he called, “Girl! There are children back there in the huts! Go there! Go back to the children, you girl. You hear?”.

  I nodded.

  Then he wheeled round and was gone.

  As if I would go back!

  Before I knew one more thing about those men, I knew I didn’t like them. I am learning new things all the time. Already I knew that you didn’t have to hate someone, even if they were Roman. Now I knew that I didn’t have to like them, even if they were Iceni. Those men would have taken Old Flax and left me to walk. No one from our village would have done such a thing, but they were hard, cold strangers.

  Later that day I found what those men did after they rode away from me.

  It was evening when I saw the bundles. They were not on the straight track south, they were a little way to the side. Two large dark bundles. I thought of all the things that I wished I had brought when I hurried away from the village. A warmer cloak, something to carry water. A spare rope to lead Honey. Bread. I’d eaten
as little as possible, but even so I hadn’t much left in my sack of burnt bread.

  So I turned Old Flax towards those bundles.

  They were men. I couldn’t believe it at first. I stared and stared at the first dead people I had ever seen.

  Two men with grey hair, and short Roman tunics. They had fallen on their faces, running. They had been speared from behind not long before.

  Those four riders must have done it.

  Old Flax skittered sideways when he saw them and I nearly fell. Old Flax’s lip was curling and his ears were laid flat back. He ran away down the track, faster than I had known Old Flax could run.

  He ran north and I couldn’t turn him.

  We have wasted too much time, I thought, as I lay under my cloak that night. Time with the little dog and now time travelling backwards. In future we will go straight on, not stopping and not turning aside for anything.

  I am so hungry I have to hide the bread from myself or else I will eat it all. I wish I could eat grass like Old Flax. Crunch, crunch, crunch! He makes it sound delicious! I fall asleep thinking of cooked beans and porridge. Of baked apples and honey. Of roast meat and new bread and soup with peas in it. Of eggs and milk. Of Finn’s big fish that got away.

  I wonder what Finn is thinking of now.

  I began to lose count of days after that one. It is no use remembering what I saw. At night we rested. At daylight we went south. I didn’t turn aside to look at anything, ever. Honey was growing further and further away. It began to feel like a dream where I would always be riding Old Flax southwards.

  I wished Old Flax were faster. I wished he would gallop and gallop. I wished I could see the war host just ahead. I think Honey would be one of the last of them, struggling to keep up. How fast could she travel with Finn on her back?

  Not very fast, I hope.

  Perhaps we will come across them, camped in some quiet place, Honey and Finn and Father and Uncle Red and Brownie all together. Then I will whistle and Honey come running and bump me with her bee-velvet nose. Brownie will bounce around me, wagging his tail, but perhaps Finn will be angry. He won’t want to swap Honey for Old Flax.

  Uncle Red will roar.

  Father will gather me up.

  Anytime now, perhaps I will see them again!

  What I hope most, is that Father will make Finn travel back home with me. That’s my best hope as I jog along. To meet them at a quiet time. To be sent back to Grandmother with Finn.

  And Brownie.

  Could it really happen? Would Queen Boudica allow it?

  Yes, she would. Queen Boudica is kind. Perhaps she will remember the bronze comb that she put in my hair. Also, she knows about horses. She won’t want Honey to be hurt and frightened. Now I have a very good idea that makes me feel much better. I will say to her (politely, very, very politely) “Queen Boudica I will give you Honey. Send us home now, with Finn and Brownie, and when you have conquered and when you come home and when Honey is grown I will give her to you. Please Queen Boudica. Do you remember the day in our village when the sky turned twice as blue and Brownie threw the daisies and you gave me your comb? When the days are like that again, I’ll bring you Honey, and you can have her for ever, and all her foals too.”

  I practise this speech in my head as we travel along, half asleep, and I eat my bread in the evening.

  We must be getting close now.

  My bread is all gone.

  For some time we have been passing burned farmsteads – Roman farms, not Iceni. Square, high walls and roofs with tiles. We have passed more bundles like the ones the four men left. Now the land looks like a great rough plough has passed over it. All the green has turned to black. All the trees are broken. All the buildings are black too.

  The air begins to smell of burning. The sky to the south is darkness, even at midday. There are no stars at night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The last day of riding was through ruin. I wish I hadn’t seen the things that I saw that day. The small horse stumbling with the broken leg. The smashed cart with the two children. That must have been their father underneath, but where was their mother? Who scattered their belongings after they died? Who broke their cooking pots and tore their blankets? What good did it do? And the old woman beside the wall. Much older than my grandmother.

  I didn’t know it would be like this.

  I keep looking for Finn.

  Now I have come to the city.

  This is it. This is Colchester. But there is no living thing to be seen. I cannot hear even a bird. There is no one here.

  This is what I see:

  A huge, stone-walled town, much, much bigger than our village. The walls are broken, tumbled as if the earth had shaken underneath. I can see burnt rooftops beyond the wall. Sky shows in the gaps between the timbers.

  There are gates in the wall, thick arches of stone. The gate nearest to Old Flax and me is blocked with fallen stone and burnt wood. The whole town has been burnt and there is such a bitter smell of burning in the air that I can taste it in my mouth, and my eyes sting with pain.

  As if in a dream, Old Flax and I circle the broken walls. It is warm here. The stones are still warm from the flames.

  Who did this?

  It doesn’t look like men did this.

  Was this my father, Uncle Red and Finn? Was this Queen Boudica with her bright brown horses?

  Where is everyone?

  Where is Honey?

  Where are the brave Iceni?

  Where are the terrible Romans?

  Halfway round our circle of the city, Old Flax and I find a great arched gate in the wall that isn’t broken. It’s open and we can see inside.

  It is like looking into the end of the world. I’m not going in there. Honey cannot be in there. Nothing alive could be in there.

  And then I see that I am wrong.

  There is a small movement. I have been seen. A little cat comes tiptoeing along by a wall towards me. I can see that it is terribly frightened. Each step that it takes is careful.

  A little black cat.

  I slide off Old Flax and hold out my hand. The little cat comes to me and rubs its round head against my shaking legs.

  Old Flax is too tired to bother to move.

  I can hear my heart banging.

  The little black cat has a white star-shaped mark on her face. Still white, in all this blackness. Her eyes are the shining green of sunlight through leaves. She stretches and arches around my feet. Will she let me pick her up?

  Yes.

  I tuck her under my cloak and she begins to make a new sound. Like running water but softer. Like a bumble bee but sweeter.

  Purring.

  It is very late in the day and Old Flax needs water. Looking south, I see the road running away before me. There is a small arched stone shelter beside the road. I saw a place like that before, on the journey down. The Romans build them. The other was sheltering the water tank of a well. Perhaps this is another. Perhaps we will find water there. Anyway, that’s where we are going, the little cat and Old Flax and me.

  Poor Old Flax. I lead him, and he follows like a tired dog. We move like one animal together now, Old Flax and I. We try not to look around us too much.

  Dead men look very alike I think. Roman and Iceni, dark and fair, curled or lying sprawled. I haven’t seen a small gold horse. I don’t want to see a brown dog. I don’t know what I would do if I did. Would I look, and find Finn?

  I think these things to stop me thinking of water because suddenly I know how much I need that arch to be a well.

  Water, water, water. My throat is ash dry and burning.

  And it is a well.

  Who found this water? Who built this well? Iceni or Roman, I thank them from the whole of me. There is clear water in cool stone, and the little cat drinks and Old Flax drinks and I drink and drink and drink and then we look around.

  The land is growing darker. There is deep shadow now beside the city walls and in the shadow a boy is moving.

/>   A boy, not a man.

  A boy the size of Finn, but not Finn. Thin as a willow wand with shaggy dark hair. He leads a dark grey pony.

  Old Flax and I don’t make a sound.

  We lose sight of him between heaps of stone and rubble, and then we see him again. He is creeping to the South Gate. He moves like a boy locked in fear. Sometimes he stands so still that I cannot see him at all. He is gentle with his pony. I see him smooth his hand along its neck. Then he becomes lost in the darkness around the South Gate.

  Has he gone through the gate? That was brave, if he has. I wouldn’t go through that gate.

  The little cat is folded snug in my cloak. I hold it tight, and with my other hand I lead Old Flax forward. We have to leave the well anyway, because surely the boy will want it himself before dark, and then he will find us there. But we make our way back northwards again, towards the gate that has swallowed the boy and his pony. We can hear his voice.

  The boy is calling. He is calling gently there in the warm burnt ruins. “Stella, Stella, veni Stella!”

  ‘Stella’ is star. I know that. Who would call for a star in such a dark place? But the little cat is struggling under my cloak, and all at once I understand! This boy has come for his cat!

  I am so relieved that it feels as if I just had walked into sunlight.

  Iceni or Roman, this is a boy like me, and he has come to find his cat, just as I came to find Honey. So I start to run towards the South Gate, clutching the cat, tugging Old Flax, forgetting to be quiet. I didn’t think how the sound of me rushing across in the dark would frighten the boy, but of course it did. The gateway was silent when I arrived. It was silent while I stood hidden in the shadows and waited.

  Then there was a small whicker. The voice of a horse, and I know that call!

  I lost my words under Uncle Red’s thumbs, but I didn’t lose my whistle. I whistle and whistle, and the pony replies.

  Just like Honey!

  But Honey was gold, and this pony is dark grey. I know I must be dreaming but when I rub my eyes the pony is still there. It is Honey, not golden but ash grey.