Boudica's Daughters 1-2

1.

 

 

On a bright mid-morning, when the Spring equinox had passed and the people of Brittania rested after feasting well off the land, a young woman ran beneath a clear blue sky across the rolling eastern grasslands of the Iceni tribe. A man of similar age, his fair hair straggling his shoulders, chased at a distance. His tunic was open; he wore tartan breeches and calf skin boots. A heavy bracelet on each wrist, patterned with fox head and axe, signified an Iceni warrior. The young man measured his run carefully as if unwilling to draw too close to the woman lest the rules of this secret game were over-turned, and he caught hold of her before time. As she ran she glanced over her shoulder, saw him in the near distance - beckoned him to chase some more.

 

Once clear, she made her way to the crest of a hillock, then towards a sweet smelling beech wood beyond which a churning pool lay in sheltered isolation. The young man stopped, caught his breath as she disappeared from view. Imitating the soft melody of a song thrush he whistled to her, the sound carrying beyond budding trees towards the sea that marked the far boundary of his tribe. She replied - a sweet vixen’s call. He smiled, continued with the chase.

 

Once over the hillock he grew cautious – not from any sense of danger but in heady anticipation of what he was about to find. Light filtered in thin columns between the birches; a cool ocean breeze swept through the wood. He edged forward slowly in the same manner as if he were hunting with his brothers, each step a silent invocation in honour of the prize to come. Then he saw her, waist deep in the pool, her shift, skirt and sandals lying near the water’s edge. He closed his eyes, raised his head to the sky, and made himself known.

 

‘At last’ she said. ‘I thought a black bear had fallen on you and was feeding your limbs to its cubs.’

 

The young warrior unbuckled his knife belt and let it fall to the ground. He untied his boots, hopped unsteadily on one leg as he eased off his breeches. ‘No bear could detain me on such a mission as this’ he said. She laughed once more, cupped handfuls of water over her shoulders and breasts, all the while admiring him as he threw down his tunic and stood naked before her.

 

‘Come now, Amminus’ she said, extending her arms. ‘Let us bathe together in the manner of our ancestors. It is said that King Can came to this pool, to woo his queen.’

 

Amminus stepped into the water, his feet sinking into soft spongy mulch. She wore nothing but her bracelets and the gold torc fastened around her neck, a gift from her father - old king Prasutagus. He kissed her, stroked her long jet-black hair, heavy now with water - stared longingly into her sharp clear eyes, the eyes of an Iceni princess.

 

‘You are trembling, Amminus’ she said. ‘Is the water too cold for such a bold young warrior ?’

 

‘I am alive, that is all - alive with expectation and desire.’

 

‘Then let me wash you quickly before we lie together in the long grass. I cannot spend the whole day here, else the trees will begin to whisper.’

 

They held one another, silent for the longer part. He felt at ease now, a feeling that was both strange and natural. As her hands pressed against his shoulders, danced across his chest, he dared to wish that every day could be spent like this, with his foremost love, in pursuit of pleasure, before banishing such idle thoughts as quickly as they had arrived.

 

After a while he lifted her from the pool and lay her beneath an elm. She asked if his love for her would be gentle or fierce, laughed when he answered ‘as gentle as a raging storm’ - laughed so loud that neither of them heard the shallow trudge of another man’s footsteps nearby, a man whose piercing narrow eyes watched eagerly from behind a silver birch. The man was small, his weathered face lined through age and hardship. Slowly he crouched and feasted awhile on the sight before him: Amminus the young warrior and Siara, daughter of Boudica, naked and entangled, joined into one. How richly the Iceni queen would reward him for the telling of such a tale, he thought! The story of what he had seen this day would be worth a hundred times more than the skinny squirrels and ragged birds that lay in his pouch. Truly the gods had bestowed a fair morning’s hunt!

 

Siara whispered: ‘Why are you smiling at me, love ?’

 

Amminus held himself above her. He licked her breasts, her stomach, her lips. Her skin was pale – so pale that he wondered if it were a special mark, conferring upon her the aura of royalty.

 

‘I will remember these days forever’ he said.

 

‘There will be more days like this, Amminus’ she whispered. ‘I promise.’

 

They rolled over and the short man had to crane his head to fully see their coupling. Siara brushed her hair from her face – a face which had now turned away from her lover and stared dreamily into the warm earth. Woof! Woof! the man wanted to shout. He wiped his mouth on the harsh, bloodied material of his jerkin. Yes, he thought. There was no doubt that it was Boudica’s daughter who was at play. Now he would return to the Iceni village, demand that he be allowed into the great royal house of the queen. First, he would ask the queen for a jug of barley mead to help soothe his throat; then perhaps a leg of salted hog to fill his empty belly before recounting the scene before him with well measured words. Satisfied, he turned, ready to make a silent exit. But as he did so the end of his long bow clacked against the birch trunk. The sound – sudden, unnatural - halted Amminus in his lovemaking. ‘Who’s there ?’ the young warrior shouted. ‘Show yourself, rascal!’

 

Siara twisted herself, smiled and said: ‘Hush my dear one. It was only a badger or a weasel or the ghost of one our ancestors come to pry.’

 

The shorter man waited, frozen in his desire to leave.

 

‘Perhaps so’ said Amminus, gauging the moment. ‘Let our ancestors watch us all they want and know that the Iceni thrives still.’

 

Siara drew down his head; Amminus’ lips met hers. The short man felt a shiver of relief and scuttled into the wood.

 

 

 

2.

 

 

In the king’s room of the Iceni royal house old Prasutagus was also frozen. He, though, was frozen before a blazing fire. He was not much longer for this world. His burial chamber had been prepared, the ceremonies for Boudica’s succession decided upon. Now, in his final days, he sat wrapped in a bearskin watching the flames dance in the hearth even though outside the sun was at its brightest.

 

The old king could hear voices in the adjoining room. In his weak, aching voice, he ordered those voices to silence, an order that went unheard. He called out for his man servant but nobody came. Angry now he lifted his thin mottled arm in a vain attempt to throw another log into the fire. Unable to do so he lay back in his wooden chair, exhausted. Tears began to dribble from his rheumy eyes.

 

During the weeks before he was confined to his room Prasutagus had gathered the elders of the Iceni and warned them of the struggles to come. In the tribe’s smoke-filled meeting house he announced that upon his death the treaty he had negotiated with the Romans would expire. Romans were not to be trusted, he said. And the appointment of a new governor to oversee Brittania didn’t bode well. New governors were always keen to flex their muscles – eager to gain praise from their dissolute emperor. But Roman governors were also aware that harmony was beneficial to both occupier and occupied. He said: ‘When I am no longer of this earth the Iceni must stand firm in the face of unreasonable demands. If it does so, our great tribe will be rewarded through trade and opportunity.’

 

When he had finished dispensing his advice for the final time he looked hard at the noblemen sitting before him. Fools, all of them. He knew they were eager to see the old king die but his headstrong wife, Boudica, would soon put paid to them. Some of the elders thought it had been a mistake to enter into a treaty with the Romans; others saw his imminent passing as an opportunity for a new family to take up the throne. Let them squabble for influence all they want, he thought. Eventually the Romans would come, ready to pick the last meat from the old king’s carcass.

 

The voices in the adjacent room grew louder. Prasutagus shook his fists and shouted for calm. He could hear Boudica, scolding as usual. He thought of how she had changed over the course of their union. Once obedient and meek as a house cat she now spent her days barking like a hunting dog on a leash. He had been warned not to marry her, but politics had played its part. He had outlived all his sons. Only his daughters, Siara and Gwynned, offered him any semblance of joy.

 

Prasutagus yelled but no sound came out of him. He knew that his wife was preventing his daughters from seeing him. What cold act was the red queen scheming, he wondered ? And which, if any, of his daughters would survive ?

 

Go to Parts 3-4 here: Boudica's Daughters 3-4 | ABCtales