Page 1 of Boudicca

Part I

Spring 60 CE, Ancient Britannia

Chapter I

For the rest of my life, when fog swirled in with the dawn, my stomach would tighten, and the small hairs on my forearms would lift. I would remember that day and what came with the fog: the scent of fertile earth and baking bread and danger—a danger so thick and cloying that my palm called my blade and my spirit cried out to my goddess for courage and strength and cunning.

Boudicca! Awake! Come to the forest!

I jolted from a deep sleep, sat up, and flung the pelt blanket from my body. With one hand I brushed back heavy hair from my face, while the other searched the bed beside me.

My husband wasn’t there. Instead of warming my bed, Prasutagus, chief of the Iceni tribe, rested entombed in the Chief’s Barrow.

Do not be foolish,I told myself.Prasutagus has been dead for three full cycles of the moon. You are Queen Boudicca, and Iceni queens do not grasp at ghosts.

I shook myself, chasing away the last of the sleep from my mind, which sharpened instantly. From the first moment I drew conscious breath that morning I had felt a sense of anticipation. I knewsomethingbeckoned. I’d dreamed of it—of the ominous thing—but when I woke, the dream had dissipated like morning dew.Is it the arrival of the Druids that calls me awake? Derwyn has not visited in months.I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and tried to understand the compulsion that had awakened me.

On most mornings I would rise from my bed when the sun lifted above the verdant forest that surrounded my tribe’s sturdy huts, lodges, and animal pens. The many fields were lush with crops growing toward harvest. As queen, I had the luxury of waking slowly. My personal servant, Phaedra—who had been with me since thathappy day fifteen years before when I married Prasutagus—would help me dress and plait my hair while she whispered the latest gossip.

Not that day.

That day the compulsion that woke me came with a premonition so urgent that it usurped the dawn and the lazy light it brought.

Phaedra, who had taken to sleeping on a thick pallet near the foot of my bed since my husband’s death, yawned and groggily started to rise.

“Sleep, Phaedra.” I spoke softly, careful not to disturb my two young daughters, who slumbered behind the woven-bough walls that separated their bedroom chamber and mine. “I do not need you this morning.” With a sigh my servant curled up on her side again and was instantly asleep.

As the words escaped my mouth, I wondered at them. I could have used Phaedra’s help to tame the wildness of the copper mane that fell past my waist—its unruliness was in constant contrast to my calm, well-organized demeanor.

But the need to go to the forest was too great for niceties like combing through my hair. I quickly plaited the thick length into a single braid that hung to my waist and pulled on the simple brown overtunic I wore when my women and I hunted truffles in the woods that surrounded Tasceni, Tribe Iceni’s largest settlement and home to their royal family. I shook out a moss-colored cloak and fastened it around my shoulders, clasping it in place with my favorite brooch—a mighty boar whose silver tusks were decorated with elaborate knot work. The only two outward signs that I was not just an ordinary Iceni tribeswoman were the brooch and the delicate gold torque that encircled my neck like a cuff.

From an oak chest, I took a small dagger that fit perfectly into the leather sheath attached to my belt and the large leather satchel I preferred for foraging, and added a water bladder to it before I hastily slung it over my shoulder. Then, on swift but silent cat’s feet, I parted the heavy fur drape that served as the door to my opulent bedchamber and headed for the center of the lodge and its ever-burning hearthfire, where I hoped to find some bread and cheese to take with me.

“I wondered if you would awaken with me.”

Arianell’s voice surprised me. I spun around to see my mother, sitting beside the central hearthfire of the roomy lodge as she sipped her morning tea from a wooden mug. Behind her, perched on a small stool, her ancient servant, Dafina, slowly combed through Arianell’s long silver hair.

“You startled me,” I said as I made my way to my mother. I bent and kissed her cheek affectionately. “Mother, why are you awake so early?”

“A question I have been asking your mother since she woke me with a shrill scream some time ago.” Dafina’s voice cracked with age, but her hands did not waver in their work and her vision was still as sharp as her mind—though the servant was older than Arianell by at least a decade.

“And as I told Dafina, that interesting question must wait for my daughter to answer,” said Arianell.

Dafina made a show of looking behind me. “Phaedra is not fluttering about you like a busy little wren. Are you as somber as this one today?” Dafina asked.

“Old woman, get our queen a mug of herbs to break her fast. I should question her, not you!” snapped Arianell.

I hid my smile. Dafina was more like a grandmother than a servant, and I had long enjoyed her prickly personality almost as much as I appreciated the old woman’s expertise with braids and knot work.

Mumbling to herself, ancient Dafina put down the wide-toothed wooden comb and hobbled to the cauldron that simmered over the hearthfire. As she ladled hot water into another wood mug, I could feel Arianell studying me. My mother’s gaze went to my haphazard braid and she sucked her teeth contemplatively before saying, “My daughter, my queen, it is unlike you to appear so disheveled, no matter the hour.” She gestured at the satchel slung over my back. “What is it you seek in the first light of the day?”

Dafina handed me a mug that steamed with aromatic herbs. She bowed quickly before she returned to combing through Arianell’s hair.

“Here, Boudicca.” Mother pointed to a comfortable woven rush chair much like her own. “Sit beside me. Let us talk.”

I blew across the tea before I sipped it but was too restless to sit. Instead I stood beside my mother and stared into the hearthfire, though what I really wanted to do was to rush from the lodge out into the predawn forest.

“The Druids will be here tomorrow and I remember how much Derwyn enjoys the taste of truffles. I thought to forage for them. It has been months since the leader of the Druids visited us and I want him to feel most welcome.”