Song for a Dark Queen (8 page)

The Procurator smiled. Small white teeth, he had, very even; but there seemed to be too many of them in his mouth. ‘As to that, Imperial Rome takes no account of Queens, only of Kings.’

Boudicca rose slowly to her feet and stood looking down at him with those empty eyes that might have frightened a wiser man. ‘I am thinking that Imperial Rome may have good cause to take account of
this
Queen!’ she said.

‘Threats, from those without power, have a hollow sound.’ The Procurator tapped the scroll with his fingers. ‘There is more. Would you like to hear it?’

‘I would hear it, that I may know all that comes against the Horse People.’

‘Ah no, this does not concern the Horse People, only yourself and your daughters.’

Behind her, I saw the Princesses move closer together.

‘I make no doubt you know already that your late husband in his will named the Divine Emperor as heir to his personal fortune.’

‘Half his personal fortune,’ said the Queen.

‘Ah, to be sure. But the Emperor makes no doubt that that was an oversight. You and your daughters will have enough, far more than enough, in your own right, even from the sale of your jewels if need be, to live quietly, as you will be living from now on. If it were not so, the Emperor would of course provide you with a small state pension. But he is extremely short of money just at present. The citizens of Rome require a great many circuses to keep them happy, and circuses are not cheap. Divine Caesar is convinced that your late husband did not leave him his whole fortune simply because he was not aware of this.’ His smile broadened, showing yet more teeth. ‘And so, rather than take offence at the oversight, he has resolved to take the will for the deed, and accept the whole. I am commanded to attend to all matters concerning the collection of his inheritance.’

Boudicca went on looking at him. Then she said in that cool, almost gentle voice, ‘Your mother must have wept for shame on the day she bore you.’

He made a tiny movement as though the farthest tip of a whiplash had flicked him. But still he kept his smooth official manner, and for the moment there was mockery in his tone. ‘Ah now, I cry your mercy, Lady! Remember I am but the Emperor’s Procurator, carrying out the Emperor’s orders.’

‘I do remember that,’ said Boudicca. ‘Little man, it is easy to remember.’ And then, ‘My Lord’s wealth was for the most part in horses and cattle, after the way of our people. Brood mares and half-wild colts and unbroken stallions. Have you brought enough herd riders with you to handle such a legacy?’

‘They need not all be run south in one drove; and for the first, a few herding slaves in part payment –’

‘Our herds are handled by free men of the people.’

He made an impatient gesture. ‘These are trifling matters, to be dealt with at another time.’

‘Surely,’ said the Queen. ‘But the other thing that is in the Emperor’s scroll, the first thing, that is no trifling matter.’

And all the while I was thinking, ‘This is not Boudicca, this creature of dream-bound calm. None of this is Boudicca.’ And I was cold afraid, and missed what came after, until the Procurator and his men were getting to their feet.

Decianus Catus was saying, ‘Meanwhile the hour draws on to supper time. Will you give orders for meal and oil and wine to be issued to the Escort, and bid your slaves to show us to our sleeping places, that we may wash off the dust of the road, before we eat?’

‘Your Escort shall be fed,’ said the Queen. ‘Where is it that you and your fellows think to eat?’

‘This, that was your husband’s hall, will do well enough.’

‘As it pleases you. My daughters and I will eat in the women’s quarters.’

‘Ah no, to eat and yet lack the pleasure of female company, that is but half a meal. Where is your British hospitality? Besides, it may be that some of these matters of which we have spoken, trifling or no, may be sorted out more smoothly across the supper table.’

‘This also is an order?’ said the Queen.

‘It is.’

‘Another of the Divine Emperor’s?’

‘No, of mine, my Lady Boudicca.’

She gave him back look for look. ‘You are not afraid?’

‘To eat at your table? With more than two centuries
of legionnaries outside? With the power of Imperial Rome behind me, which likes not to have its ministers murdered in stray corners of the Empire and does not leave them lying unavenged? You are no fool, Lady; you will think of burned thatch and salted fields, and men sold into slavery. No, Lady, I am not afraid. I look forward to a pleasant evening in the company of yourself and your most fair daughters.’

So Boudicca gave the needful orders; and when the Procurator and his men were gone to the guest-huts, with slaves to tend upon them, she went like one walking in her sleep, to the Royal Chamber; and the two Princesses close behind her. And as they walked, I saw Nessan reach out for her sister’s hand, and Essylt take it in a quick hard clasp. I think that was the first time I had seen them go hand in hand since they were bairns. I bided by the fire. She would know where to find me if she had need of me. And sure enough, before long one of the women came running, ‘Hurry! The Queen bids you come.’

And when I came into the Royal Chamber, the Queen stood in the midst of the place, her clenched fists driven against her temples on either side, as though to hold her head from flying apart. Her women and the Princesses stood against the walls, watching her with curd-white faces. ‘I am in the hollow of his hand,’ she was saying, ‘and he knows it. May he die a slow death and watch the flesh rot from off his bones while the breath is still in him!’

Her hair that she had torn down, hung forward about her face, so that I could not see it; but I knew that she was awake from her long sleep.

Old Nurse said, ‘I have certain skills that you know of. The skills of the Dark People. I can give you a little
powder to put into his food, but with so short time, I cannot come by enough for the others.’

‘No poison,’ said the Queen. ‘It may be that I will come to you for your skills, one day, but that will be for myself, not for the Procurator Decianus Catus.’

‘It would be good, that he should die,’ said Old Nurse, simply.

‘It would be good! But not for the Horse People. At least, not yet.’

‘What, then, are you thinking?’ one of the women asked.

‘Of burned thatch and salted fields and men sold into slavery. But I must have time to think of other things.’ She turned and saw me, and thrust the hair back from her face. ‘Time to think of many things – to make sure that if the thing comes to fighting, we do not fight in vain. Cadwan, go to the companions; I saw their faces as they stood by the door. Tell them to bring no hidden weapons to supper. Ah, but when did that ever stop trouble, since men must have their knives to eat with. . . . Tell them, then, that this evening must pass in seeming peace. That nothing must happen to fire the stubble, before the Queen has had time for her thinking.’

And as I hesitated in the doorway, not sure if there was any other word for me, she turned to her women, ‘Old Nurse, bring me my gold and cornelian necklace, and the Queen’s arm rings; the Princesses’ jewels, also. Caer, my red and purple gown – and the box with the eyepaint.’

They stared at her, gaping, and she began to laugh, wildly. ‘He seeks to humiliate us. That is why we are forced to sup with him. He shall see whether he can reach high enough to humiliate the Royal Women of the Iceni!’

And she went to the clothes’ kist from which the woman Caer had just shaken out the heavy red and purple gown, and herself lifted from among the folds of other gowns and mantles stored there, a bundle wrapped in the finest crimson cloth. And a little gasp ran through the chamber. Always, on the greatest occasions and for the most honoured guests, the green cup with the fire at its heart was brought out. Essylt cried out, ‘Mother! No!’

And the Queen turned on her like a wildcat, so that she shrank back. ‘Little fool! I would smash it to pieces with my own hand, before he lay so much as a finger on it!’ Then to Rhun she said, ‘Old Nurse, set down the jewels. There is no knowing what the outcome of this Roman visit will be; therefore take this and lay it away safe beside my father’s sword, until the house is clean of these wolf-spawn!’

And I saw that there was no other word for me, and I went to find the companions.

SO WITH THE
full dark, when they were washed and had put on fresh garments, the Roman officials and the Commander of their Escort came again to sup in the High Hall, and Boudicca came out to them with the Princesses and her women behind her.

And truly it seemed that the fire on the hearths leapt up to greet her, and she walking tall and proud in her red and purple gown with the Queen’s goldwork about her arms and neck, and her eyes stained with the green malachite eyepaint that she scarcely ever wore, and all the bones of her face (she was lean enough, now) standing out hard and beautiful. And behind her, Essylt walked defiant under her blaze of red hair; and Nessan, the little dark one – nobody but I would have seen that she was afraid, only that her lips were set like a boy’s when he comes to his man-making.

The Procurator and his officials had been given their places with the companions on the Men’s Side of the Hall, and the Queen greeted them and would have gone to the Queen’s Place that had been made ready for her on the Women’s Side. But Decianus Catus came from the men’s table, holding out his hand. ‘And must we shout to each other across the fires, with all the width of the hall between us? Ah no, that is no way for a pleasant evening.’

‘It is the custom of the Tribes, that men and women do not eat together,’ Boudicca said.

‘But this evening, let us follow the custom of Rome.
So we may talk together of many things, and enjoy each other’s company.’ He seemed to have laid aside the man who had spoken of burned thatch and salted fields, earlier in the evening. But it was only the outer seeming that had changed. The man was still there. And Boudicca cried out to the slaves to bring forward trestle-boards and stools and benches, and set them up on the Dancing Floor between the two fires.

And when it had been done, they sat down, the Queen and the Princesses, the Roman officials and the Escort Commander all together, while the warriors and the women took their usual places along the sides of the Hall, and the cook-slaves brought the great bronze pots of beef-stew and barley cakes and the tall jars of Greek wine.

‘We would have had a boar for you, and badger baked in honey, if we had known that we had guests this night,’ the Queen said. ‘This is plain fare, but at least the wine is worthy of Imperial Rome.’ And she gestured to young Cerdic, who had been Prasutagus’s cupbearer, to bring the great bronze cup with the silver rim, and put her lips to it, in courtesy, or in token that it was not poisoned, I am not sure which, and bade him take it to the Procurator.

So the meal went on. And all up and down the sides of the Hall, we watched those who sat at the makeshift cross-table between the fires, with the light of the torches all about them. And Oh, but the Queen was beautiful in the torchlight, like some queen out of the oldest and deepest legends of our people. And I saw that I was not the only one to be thinking so, for the eyes of the Procurator were often upon her, across the rim of the great bronze wine-cup; and it was not all in mockery, when he said, ‘When all this regrettable
business is over, you must be done with this barbarian way of life, and come to us at Camulodunum.’

I could hear him well enough, for there was little talk along the side tables, and I saw the fire under her green eyelids. But she only said, ‘I thought your living place was in Londinium.’

‘Only for business purposes,’ he said, ‘Londinium is a rough place; the business centre of the Province; yet but in truth it is little more than a big sprawling trading post. In Camulodunum there begins to be something of civilization. The great temple to the Divine Claudius, the circus and the theatre – and so many Romans have settled there that it has become almost a little corner of Rome itself, and life has taken on a reasonable degree of comfort. A small house in one of the more pleasant suburbs – you would not be the first British lady to find pleasure in our Roman way of life. And I assure you,’ he leaned towards her, ‘you would have no difficulty in finding husbands for your daughters.’

And there was truth in that, I thought, seeing how the hot and hungry eyes of the Escort Commander had been on the Princess Essylt all evening; but I doubted if it was of marriage that he was thinking.

Young Duatha was beside me on the bench; and I felt him move sharply, and glanced round; but both his hands were on the table, and his knife was not in them.

Boudicca only said, ‘Then maybe I will come to Camulodunum – one day. Meanwhile, I am the Royal Woman of the Iceni. And my hearth and my pillar-stone are here among my own people.’

Before he could answer her, there came a distant splurge of sound from somewhere in the night outside; voices and ugly laughter, and a woman’s protesting cry. The hounds under the tables sprang up, bristling,
and men were on their feet, looking towards the doorway. But the foreporch was full of Red Crests. And into the moment’s pause, clear through the tangled worry of sound, came the lowing of frightened cattle.

The Queen looked from the Procurator to the crowded doorway and back again. ‘What evil thing is going forward, out there?’

He remained sprawling in his seat, playing with his wine-cup, and looking round at her with that smile that showed too many teeth. ‘I should imagine the Escort have found the barley beer you gave them for supper somewhat stronger than the watered wine they are used to. Either that, or they have found their way to the main supply. Nothing that need trouble you unduly.’

‘Nothing? A woman cried out – and they are driving cattle –’

The Women’s Side had risen a while since, the Princesses with them, to carry round the tall-necked wine-jars, in the way of the Tribes when the men have finished eating, and at that same moment Essylt was pouring for the Escort Commander. She checked, her head turned like all others, towards the door. The man’s hot, hungry eyes were on her still, and he put out his hand, the arm heavy with military bracelets, to touch her wrist. ‘Do not be afraid, my flame-flower, no harm shall touch a hair of your bright head while I am by.’ And his hand began to move further up her arm.