Page 12 of Boudicca

“Tie her!”

The waiting soldiers did as he commanded, binding my hands above my head so tightly that my face pressed into the thick wooden post.

“Stop your men!” I pleaded with the tax collector as I hung from the post. “I will not arm my daughters. If you release them unharmed I give you my oath as queen that they will never take arms against you!”

Decianus took his pugio from a sheath strapped to his side and approached the post. With ironic gentleness, he lifted my thick braid and brushed it aside so that it no longer covered my back. Then the procurator leaned into me so that his hot, foul breath brushed my cheek. His body pressed against me and I could feel his erection, hard and insistent. “But what good is the oath of a queen who is so weak she cannot even protect her children?” A cold blade touched the patch of skin that was visible at the base of my neck. “Your daughters must learn what happens when women are not ready to serve their men.”

With a swift stroke that left a line of warm blood dewing my skin, Decianus cut through the back of my tunic. He pulled and ripped the garment until I was naked from the waist up. Then he went to his horse and unwrapped a long, braided whip from his saddle. It ended in several strips of leather that were knotted. Decianus shook it out and cracked it over his head as he approached me again.

“And now,yourlesson begins, Iceniqueen. But let it not be said that I am without mercy. All you need do to stop your flogging is cry out and ask me to do so, and I will know you have learned your place. I shall put away my whip then.”

I said nothing as he marched away. I could not think past the screams of my daughters. I had no time to prepare. The first lash struck like a hot knife fileting my skin. I opened my mouth to scream, but the whip snaked out immediately again. My gasp of pain cut off my scream as it struck my back, leaving a hot ribbon of agony. The pain was so all-encompassing that it took my breath, my voice—it felt as if it took my soul. I had no control over my body; it jerked spasmodically with each blow. My bound hands grasped the wooden stake. My fingernails broke and bled as I clawed the post, but I did not cry out. I could not cry out. I had no breath. It had fled and taken my words. Decianus struck again—and again I could not scream, could not gasp, could not cry out. Instead I struggled to hold to consciousness as my sight tunneled and blood washed down my back with every lash.

The only sounds in the field were the murmur of soldiers, my daughters’ fading screams, and the crack of the whip.

“Cry out, woman! Beg me to stop!” Decianus commanded.

My cheek pressed against the wooden post. I did not close my eyes but stared up into the mighty oak before me and said nothing.

“I said,cry out!” Decianus’s voice was shrill. Nero’s tax collector struck me over and over until blood ran down my hips and thighs and calves to pool around my feet.

And still I did not cry out. Instead I continued to stare into the tree. The watching soldiers had gone silent. My beloved daughters had stopped screaming. The day held its breath.

My mind became very clear. Gone were dizziness, confusion, anger, and fear. I realized that Andraste had known I would not choose to remain in Annwn while my people were attacked. The goddess had also known that her Victory, though not a queen who had led Iceni warriors into battle, would not bow to the will of Rome. With that icy clarity that often preludes the end of life, I understood that I had come to the real choice the goddess had foreseen and asked me to make. Die or survive. I could feel the seductive allure of death as surely as I felt the white-hot lash of the coward who flogged me.

A raven lit on a bough of the oak. Its gaze caught mine. I stared into its dark depths. I could easily remain silent. I could already feel Arbred, the mortal world, slipping away. The pull of Annwn was great. Prasutagus was there. My mother was there. So, so many beloved Iceni elders were there. My daughters quite probably were there. If I just let go, my spirit would follow my loved ones. Andraste had given me this choice; she said she would welcome me to her Summerlands. This day I could feast with those most dear to me—free of pain and of the oppressive fist of Rome.

But with every lash a new raven landed in the oak. Each great black bird stared at me in silence until one raven opened its obsidian beak and I heard the goddess’s voice inside my mind.Look around you, Victory.

My vision, like my mind, was preternaturally sharp. I turned my head to gaze around the training field and the path my children and I had so recently been forced to walk. The bodies of the elders of Tribe Iceni were strewn everywhere. Ancient limbs had been severed.Skulls had been broken. Bellies that had carried children who now had children of their own had been opened, spilling entrails across the hard-packed ground.

If I chose death, what would the Iceni do? In a span of a few short months they would have lost their chief, their queen, their royal family, and their elders.

My gaze returned to the tree. The raven’s dark eye caught mine again.If you choose death, the Iceni will be no more. They will be absorbed by other tribes who will bow to Rome. With the extinction of Tribe Iceni, so too will life as you know it end—and Rome will go unpunished for its crimes.

With those words—Rome will go unpunished for its crimes—anger began to build within me. With each stoke of the whip, that anger grew into a rage that burned away the lethargy that had begun to lull me into death.

“Submit to me!” Decianus shrieked, and the whip snaked against my blood-slick back again as yet another raven landed to perch in the great oak and bear witness to the flogging of a goddess-anointed queen.

The memory of Andraste’s promise filled my mind.If you heed my words and let today fuel your anger instead of your demise, a great blue tide of vengeance will sweep across your world and you will ride its crest, leading the charge.

Vengeance.

It was then that I spoke. My voice filled the field with such authority that the leaves on the oak trembled and the ravens croaked eerily.

“Stop!”

“Ah! Good!” Decianus’s words released in bursts as he gulped air and tried to catch his breath. “Good! You are strong. I acknowledge that.” His panting voice drew closer to me as he continued. “Your strength makes it more gratifying that you finally learned the lesson I came to teach you. You see,QueenBoudicca, I knew Prasutagus was dead. I came for you—not him. To teach you a lesson, which it seems you may finally have learned.” He halted beside me. From the edge of my vision I could see that sweat dripped like tears from his fat, floridface. “One last thing.” Nero’s tax collector wrapped his thick fingers around my delicate golden torque and ripped it from my neck. With a self-satisfied smile he hefted it, testing its weight, before he slid it around his meaty bicep and pinched it closed. “There, lesson over.” Still smiling, he used his pugio to cut the ropes that trapped my wrists over my head.

My legs would not hold me. I dropped to the ground, which was wet with my blood. My head lolled uncontrollably and as I fought off the graying of my vision, Andraste’s voice lifted from my memory once again.Do not forget that I will be beside you every moment... I will hear your voice, my Victory—to that I pledge my oath.

Righteous indignation filled me. It cleared my vision and sent a wave of strength through my battered body. I gripped the post and stood. My chin lifted and I looked down to meet the diminutive tax collector’s hot gaze. Then my rage spilled from me. I spoke with the fury and force of a tribal carnyx, the war horn that struck fear into the heart of anyone who stood against Iceni warriors.

“Catus Decianus, procurator of the emperor Nero, I curse you and every man here. For taking my mother’s life and violating my daughters, you will know the fire of Brigantia. For what you have done to the Iceni, you will know the vengeance of Andraste.”

Decianus’s self-satisfied smile faltered. His sweaty face blanched the color of a dead fish’s belly. “Shut up, woman!” His voice was a shrill obscenity—and utterly impotent compared to the power of my curse.

I was not a defeated queen. I was the instrument of a warrior goddess who blazed with the fierceness of a mother calling down vengeance on the abusers of her children. As I finished the curse, my voice echoed throughout the silent field.