The Queen's Brooch Read online

  Table of Contents

  [1] The Brooch

  [2] The Senate’s Wish

  [3] Sword Drill

  [4] First Mission

  [5] The Men in the Wood

  [6] Cynwas

  [7] The Rain

  [8] The Dream

  [9] The Gorse-Grown Hollow

  [10] The Long Road

  [11] Among the Wagons

  [12] Going South

  [13] The White Garlands

  [14]

  The Queen on the Cart

  [15] Under the Oak Boughs

  [16] The Dark Gods

  [17] Along the River

  [18] Under the Striped Awnings

  [19] Militia Man

  [20] Gerd and the Merchants

  [21] Governor General

  [22] The Doomed City

  [23] The Midland Forest

  [24] Strange Feasting

  [25] Crab’s Claws

  [26] Kinsman of Caratacus

  [27]

  Old Friend and Enemy

  [1]

  The Brooch

  When Marcus Volusenus was a boy of seven his father Ostorius, a very grand Tribune of the Ninth Legion stationed at Lindum, sent home to Carthago Novo in Spain for the boy to come to him in Britain. In his letter to the boy’s stepmother he made the garrison scribe write: ‘All is well here, and my son will be safe. The madman Caratacus has now been driven into the western mountains and will give us no more trouble. Do not delay in sending Marcus to me, my dear wife, for this humid climate may cure his cough where the physicians fail to do so. I have always been convinced that this cough is due rather to the summer dust of our country than to any weakness in the boy’s constitution. In any event, he will be better under my eye, among the soldiers here, than wasting his time on the shore with the Africans who, as you told me in your last letter, are flooding into our city. In Britain the people are much as we Romans were earlier in our history. Marcus will learn from them certain manly virtues which might not be seen in Rome itself today. Of course, his accent will grow worse for these Britons have a language of their own and make little effort to pronounce ours correctly; but, all told, the boy will benefit. I would rather have a son who spoke roughly but was a man, than one who spoke prettily but ran away when he saw a sword come out. Tell our daughter, Livia, that the next ship will carry a doll for her, dressed in the Celtic fashion with coloured clothes and a bronze necklet. Tell her that it will have yellow hair, but that this is how the people look here. She will not believe it but she must learn the truth some day. I expect you are well. You always are. Farewell. Ostorius.’

  For a month or two little Marcus Volusenus was unhappy in the great echoing stone garrison at Lindum. He missed his sister and his dog and the sea and the white-smiled Africans who carried him on their shoulders into the swishing waves. Instead, he watched the soldiers drilling many hours every day, went to school with ten British boys who wore their flaxen hair on to their shoulders, and had to learn everything by memory because no one seemed to write anything down in Britain.

  Then his father bought him a white pony and the world changed overnight. He forgot Carthago Novo and the Africans. He only dreamed of his dog and sister once a month now. And because all the grooms at Lindum were British he had to learn Celtic. He was amazed how easy it was. Once Tigidius, one of the most important centurions, spoke to him on the edge of the parade ground and Said, ‘Why Marcus, when you came here you spoke Latin like a true Spaniard. But now you gabble at it like a duck. You are a credit to your British teacher, my boy.’

  Marcus told his father proudly what the great man had said. His father paced up and down the room a while then said, ‘Very well, we will see who gabbles like a duck. He shall have seven extra guard duties for that.’

  Marcus thought that this was a great honour for the centurion. But when he met the man next time all he got in return for his smile was a black-browed frown.

  Still, he had the white horse. And when his father had his next leave from the Legion, they rode down past the green marshes to see the city of Venta Icenorum, one of the great tribal capitals.

  Marcus was very disappointed. It was only a lot of thatched huts, set at all angles, with little vegetable gardens surrounded by low drystone walls. There were no pretty cypresses and no fountains. But there were lots of pigs grunting among the hawthorns, and big midden-heaps at every cross-road that were always covered with swarms of flies.

  Marcus didn’t mind the flies too much but his white pony did and shied when they came buzzing about his head.

  They stayed at the villa of another Tribune who had left the Legion to cultivate vines in that part. His name was Gaius Domitius and he had a stiff leg that he had got when a chariot ran over him at Camulodunum. He always stumped about leaning on a thick blackthorn stick and striking terror into the hearts of his forty British slaves. Marcus thought that Gaius Domitius must be very like the god Mithras, but his father looked stern when the boy told him this. He said, ‘Marcus, my son, I will tolerate almost any kind of stupidity in one of your age, but now you must learn once and for all that one does not compare the god with any man, however strong that man. The god is the god and not to be compared.’

  Marcus said, ‘Our grooms at Lindum do not say Mithras. They say Mabon and sometimes Belatucader. Can I compare these gods with men then.’ His father shook his head and said, ‘Certainly not, boy. It is all the same thing. We call him Mithras, they call him something else. That is their affair not ours. But we must behave like gentlemen and must give the god his proper respect, whatever his local name may be. Gaius Domitius is a man; a very fine man, naturally, being a Roman, but a man. Mithras is a god. Is that clear?’

  Marcus said that it was, but it wasn’t. He still thought that Mithras must be very like Gaius Domitius; but now he had sense enough not to say everything he thought out loud.

  Then while they were still in Icenian territory, a strange thing happened. A horse-slave called Rudda called for Marcus one morning and offered to take him out riding to a place where some ancient stones were. It was midday when they reached the place, which was all overgrown with nettles and willowherb, with the stones standing up in a crazy circle among the weeds. Many of them were chipped at the edges and most of them blackened with fire. Rudda pointed to them so that Marcus should see them but he would not go near them himself. In fact, he would not look at them directly, but held one hand over his eyes like a shade if there was any danger of seeing them.

  Marcus said, ‘What do you call them, Rudda?’

  But the slave shook his head and said, ‘They have a name but I must not say it. If I said it a bad thing would happen to me.’

  Marcus said, ‘You Britons are very funny, aren’t you? You do not laugh as much as the Africans, but you are much funnier.’

  The slave said, ‘If you please to think so, sir.’

  Marcus said, ‘There you are again, calling me “sir”. I am only a boy. You are twice as old as I am. You would call Gaius Domitius “sir”, or my father. But not me. Why do you do these funny things?’

  Rudda said, ‘We do not think they are funny. They are our customs.’

  Marcus said, ‘Well, I still say they are funny, call them customs if you please. Come on, let’s gallop down that sunken road. It looks so strange and mysterious with the oak branches leaning low over it.’

  But the slave shook his head and said, ‘No, no, sir. That road is forbidden. I am not allowed to set foot on it.’

  Marcus turned in his saddle and said, ‘Forbidden? By whom is it forbidden? It looks open enough to me. There is no chain across it to stop anyone. How is it forbidden, you funny fellow?’

  Rudda clasped his hands and said, ‘It is the sacred road that
leads to the stones. If I tread on it a bad thing would happen to me.’

  Then Marcus lost all patience and said, ‘Well, you can please yourself, with these bad things that are always going to happen to you, but I like the look of that road and I am going to ride along it to see what is at the top of the hill, round the corner. You can cut across the moorland and find me farther on, if you choose. But I am going.’

  So he swung his white pony round and dug his heels in the beast’s sides and was soon away like the wind. The road was really little more than a mud track, baked hard by the sun, and flanked on either side by tall elders and wild briars, with oak trees above them and, here and there, a flowering thorn. It was exciting to ride this track because suddenly it fell into a steep hollow where the shadows from the trees almost blotted out the sunlight. A hare loped across the road in front of the white pony and for a moment Marcus was almost thrown. But then the track climbed upwards again, before it disappeared round a high bank of ferns.

  Marcus put the white pony at this slope gaily, shouting encouragement as he drummed with his heels. Then just when he was at the top and swinging round the ferns, his heart almost jumped into his mouth.

  Coming towards him and filling the track were horsemen on shaggy ponies and carrying tall lances. They wore wolf-skins about their shoulders and great iron helmets with bulls’ horns at the sides, which made them look very fierce indeed. But it was the woman who rode before them all on a black horse that most startled Marcus, for he had never seen anyone like her in his life. She was dressed like a man, with a wolfskin jacket and hide-breeches bound round with coloured thongs of braid. Her helmet hung on the saddle-horn and her thick hair flowed on to her shoulders as russet as a fox’s pelt. Marcus noticed all the gold rings and bronze bracelets she wore, but what caught his eye most of all was the strange tattoo-mark in blue in the middle of her forehead. It was in the form of a watching eye. And on her cheeks were other streaks of blue, in lines, that gave her a very savage look.

  At first he thought she was going to ride him down for she made no effort to pull in her black horse. But just at the last moment, when he was wondering what on earth he should do, she stopped and stared at him silently, her eyes wide open and angry. This made him feel very young and very helpless; but he remembered that his father was a Tribune and so he sat there in the middle of the track and tried to put on the expression of dignitas.

  And after a very long time the woman leaned a little to one side of her horse’s tall neck and said to him in very fair Latin, ‘I think you must be ten.’

  Marcus smiled, although the woman was not smiling, and said, ‘No, I am eight. But I am big for my age.’

  The woman said, ‘When you speak to me you must say “My lady”.’

  Marcus tried to frown at this, but in the end he said, ‘Very well, my lady.’

  Then the woman nodded and said, ‘That is your first lesson in manners, Roman. Now, since you are eight years old, you should know enough to declare your own name properly.’

  This time Marcus felt very stubborn. He said, ‘I am not used to telling my name to every stranger I meet on the road, my lady.’ He said the last two words very loudly so that she would see the sort of people Romans were. But she did not seem to care and said, ‘I am not a stranger, but you are. This is not your road, but it is mine. There are certain words I could say to the warlords who ride with me, and then you would be in a very awkward position indeed. Yes, very awkward. So have the goodness to state your name, aged eight.’

  So Marcus gave his name, very crestfallen, and said who his father was, and with whom they were staying. And when he had finished, the woman beckoned him to come closer to her. And when he sat almost beneath her shadow, she said, ‘I am the Queen here. Can you understand that?’ Marcus nodded, feeling most ashamed now. The woman said, ‘My name is Boudicca, which in your language means the Victorious One.’

  She waited a while, and to fill in the silence, Marcus said, ‘Then, my lady, I am sorry that I galloped along your road. I thought that it looked exciting. That is all.’

  The Queen stared at him for a while with a frown on her forehead. Then she said strangely, ‘Yes, it is exciting to many who go down it. It is so exciting that they wish they might never come to the end of it, but that they could fly away like birds straightway.’

  Then for the first time Marcus noticed that, at the end of the column of horsemen, there was a man on foot. His wrists were tied and he had a wound on one side of his head. It was unbandaged and the flies were troubling the man, but the horsemen didn’t seem to mind.

  Marcus said, ‘What has that poor man done, my lady? He looks very sad.’

  For a moment Queen Boudicca frowned again, this time quite angrily. But then she shook her head and smiled. ‘I do not ask you about your private affairs, do I?’ she said. ‘I do not ask you who showed you this road, do I?’

  Marcus said stoutly, ‘If you did I shouldn’t tell you.’

  Then at the last moment he remembered to say, ‘My lady.’ Suddenly the queen seemed to lose all interest in him. She called out to the warlords in a harsh language and they prepared to ride on. Then she looked down at Marcus again and felt in the deerskin pouch at her side. In her hand she held a round bronze brooch, on which was moulded a shape like a stag leaping, but all done in strips of metal joined together so that, unless you looked very carefully, you could not tell what it represented.

  She held this brooch out to the boy and said, ‘This is for you. It is the queen’s brooch and will serve to hold up your cloak when you are bigger. Do not lose it for it might be very useful to you one day. Suppose, for instance, you were galloping along my road another time and the men caught you and wanted to punish you - then you could show them this brooch and they would know that the queen had given you her permission to go where you wished in Iceni territory. That would be useful, wouldn’t it?’

  But before Marcus could answer, she said quite sternly, ‘Now move out of my way and let me pass, Roman.’

  He watched until they had gone into the shadowy hollow, then he rode off. Rudda met him half a mile further on, where the road faded out across the moorland. His face was very pale and he said, ‘Did you tell her who had shown you the road and the stones?’

  Marcus said scornfully, ‘Of course not. Romans do not do things like that. Look what she gave me.’

  He drew out the brooch, but Rudda put his hands over his eyes and would not look. ‘Put it away, put it away,’ he said. ‘It is not for me to look at. Oh, oh, this is the last time I shall go out with you. I do not think you are a lucky person to go out with. Let us go home straightway, before we meet with any more ill luck.’

  Marcus laughed and said, ‘There you go again, croaking like a raven.’

  The slave wept and beat his hands together. ‘You must not mention them,’ he said. ‘Oh, oh, I can see that I am doomed if I stay with you. Please let me run on, then I ’ shall not have to listen to what you say.’

  So Marcus let him go and held back the white pony until the slave was well ahead. Now he felt quite certain that these Britons were the funniest people in the world.

  [2]

  The Senate’s Wish

  A marriage was arranged for Livia with a rich textile manufacturer of Alexandria when she was fifteen. A letter came to Marcus from his stepmother in Carthago Novo. It said: ‘In this life one must put duty before personal pleasure. It was your sister’s wish that you should be present at the celebrations but her husband-to-be, who has the handsome name of Phrygillos and a great white villa in Athens as well as his establishment in Egypt, also a stable of twelve white horses, not to mention the finest gilded furnishings I have ever seen, together with a pleasure boat the sail of which is of pure scarlet silk from the other side of the earth, is a busy man. His affairs require that the marriage be solemnized forthwith. No doubt you and your father the Tribune will find the occasion at a later time to visit Livia in Athens or Alexandria. Then your reunion will be the more
pleasurable, made in the knowledge that your private wishes were caused to wait on the exigencies of your sworn duty to Rome.’

  Though Marcus was seventeen when this letter came, he wept. He had never greatly liked his stepmother, who came from a harsh patrician family of Rome, but he had always dreamed of seeing his sister once more. Now, by this strange letter, he felt that Livia was lost to him for ever.

  For a while he stamped round his quarters in the barracks, mouthing the name Phrygillos and finding it unpleasant and cold. He felt certain that Livia was being made to marry this merchant because of his money. He could only remember her as his little golden-haired playmate and hated to think that she would be sent to Egypt or even Athens, into the house of a busy and no doubt elderly merchant.

  When he went to his father’s quarters to complain, the Tribune smiled sadly and said, ‘Life has been a pleasant holiday for you until now, my son. But today you have learned that in this world we must all suffer so that the fortunes of our family shall grow.’

  Marcus said, ‘Are you prepared to sell Livia to this merchant so that my stepmother shall have villas and horses to boast of? ‘

  Ostorius Volusenus put his great brown hand on top of his son’s hand firmly and said, ‘Marcus, you and I are much alike, although I have never said this to you before in case I offended you. But in some ways we are not true Romans of the old patrician breed. We are of Spain, my son, where a man sets courtesy and good living above ambition. But your stepmother can claim ancient Brutus as an ancestor. She sees life differently from us. We must abide by what has been arranged.’