Page 144 of Boudicca

“I am glad you are here with us,” I said.

She nodded, and I watched her blink rapidly as she struggled against tears before saying, “I’ll always be here, my queen.”

I didn’t correct her, just as I hadn’t corrected Romilly. Nothing felt real. It seemed I moved through a living dream—and unending nightmare. My mind was as numb as my body. My spirit was broken. The babe within me kicked and I curled around her, or him. Suddenly I wished very much that the child would be the girl her father had wanted so badly.

The image of Maldwyn skewered by a spear and falling from the chariot almost blinded me, and I realized that I could not see because my eyes were filled with unshed tears.

I hope they are laughing and feasting with Andraste—Maldwyn, Rhan, Cadoc, Abertha, Phaedra, Wulffaed and all of her daughters and granddaughters. Let them be together. Let them be free of fear and longing and pain. And let them save a place at the goddess’s feast table for me.

I did not think I would sleep. Truth be told, I was afraid to closemy eyes. Afraid that the images of this terrible day would play over and over across my closed lids. Afraid I would dream their deaths. I’d witnessed Maldwyn’s death. I’d watched Abertha fall. I did not want to see Cadoc breathe his last.I could not bear to watch Rhan die.

But weariness ruled my body and I could not keep my eyes open. As darkness closed around me, I whispered a prayer to Andraste.Please don’t let me dream.Whether the goddess heard my prayer or not, I did not dream.

***

We left before dawn, fortified by sleep and the dried meat and bread Romilly had packed for us the night before, and a pattern was set. Heading northwest, we avoided settlements, riding all day and only stopping to give the horses a break until twilight, when, every night, just as the sun sank into the horizon, we would come upon a roundhouse or a small camp or a group of hunters or traders returning from market. Each home or group was always marked by the goddesses with either a stag, a raven, or a hare. Each welcomed us. Each recognized me.

At first that worried me, but soon it was obvious the goddesses had touched everyone with whom we came in contact. Maldwyn had been correct. Just by surviving, I gave them hope, though with the dark news the people relayed to us it was difficult for me to understand that hope.

My army had been destroyed.

Out of the three chiefs, only Mailcun lived.

The devastation of my people had ended the revolution. The monster that was Rome had swallowed my world and now ruled Britain.

The night I learned that Rome had declared their victory, I waited until my daughters slept before taking out the Roman pugio Rhan had packed in my saddlebag—the same dagger the procurator Catus Decianus had used to cut my bloody bonds that day so long ago in Tasceni.

I walked to the hearthfire that crackled in the center of the smallroundhouse, decorated with carvings of hares, that succored us that night. Slowly, methodically, I lifted fistful after fistful of my waist-length hair and cut it, whispering through sobs each name as I dropped a hunk into the fire.Rhan, Maldwyn, Cadoc, Abertha, Wulffaed, Comux, Leofric, Addedomaros, Derwyn, Bryn, Arianell, Dafina, Phaedra...The names went on and on.

Briallen tried to stop me. I commanded her to leave me be. She did not. She could not. Instead she pried the dagger from my fist and continued for me, cutting and cutting as I spoke a new name with each slice until my hair was so short it haloed my head in fire and I finally ran out of names.

***

The word officially spoken by Paulinus was that I had poisoned first my daughters and then myself, effectively stopping him from taking us to Rome to be paraded through the streets like slaves. But that was only the official word. Roman soldiers had been commanded to find me and capture me alive. Any Briton who aided in my capture would be granted fertile lands and riches. Any Roman who captured me would be rewarded with a villa in Rome. So under the guise of choking out the last of the Iceni, Roman soldiers raided, sacked, and razed our lands, when in truth they were hunting me.

During the long days and weary nights, we traveled ever northward, passing through territory held by tribes whose names I recognized but I had never known. Carvetii, Novantae, Damnonii, Caledonii, Cerones, and Carnonacae—all welcomed me. All knew me. All kept us safe.

After traveling for a fortnight, I woke one clear early morning with my throat feeling as if I’d swallowed coals and my head pounding. My skin was flushed and hot, but I shivered with cold.

“We are close,” said Briallen, guiding her horse beside Tân. “Can you continue?”

“The Romans could not stop me,” I said with an attempted smile. “A little illness will not.”

Briallen narrowed her eyes at me but said nothing.

At midday we came to a huge stone, white as snow, decoratedwith carvings of shaggy horned kine, massive swine, and curled-horned rams. Briallen kneed her horse to the stone and placed her palm against it. She bowed her head and whispered a prayer before looking at me.

“’Tis Beira’s Stone. It marks the edge of the Caereni tribal lands—the lands on which I was born. We made it, my queen.”

The girls squealed happily and began firing questions at Briallen, which she answered enthusiastically, though she kept glancing sideways at me.

“I am well,” I assured her. “I just need rest.”

She grunted but said no more. I knew it wasn’t just the illness that worried her. I’d become a stranger. To her. To myself. To the world through which I had to continue to move. I wanted to find myself again, but I’d lost my mooring. My land was inhabited by the enemy. My people were either dead or scattered and in hiding. As I drifted north, I was unable to navigate my life. I’d lost my present and future and could not live in the past. So I ceased living; I only existed.

***

The sun was sinking into the ocean as we entered Ulapul, the royal village of Tribe Caereni. Briallen and I rode next to one another with the girls and their wolves trailing us. Even though I shivered with chills and my head ached, the excited chatter of my daughters’ voices soothed me, as did the increasingly strong and constant movements of the babe I carried. When we’d stopped to rest and water the horses, Briallen had told us we would come to her birth village that evening. I’d forced myself to keep moving. I’d braided the girls’ hair and brushed dirt and stains from our travel-weary clothes, trying to make us look more than we were—outcasts fleeing for our lives. As we entered Ulapul I was dizzy with fever, though not so ill that I didn’t realize I needn’t have worried about how Tribe Caereni would perceive us. As soon as they caught sight of Briallen, she was the focus.