Red Queen, White Queen Page 21

  As the first line of chariots swayed and crashed, heeling over drunkenly, their leaders falling this way and that, the second rank, unable to stop, plunged into them, creating an even worse confusion.

  Then the whole wood seemed to open like a cavern mouth, and men came forward at the double, shield held close to body, short-sword extended for the kill. The butchery at the chariots was almost complete.

  Now the air was heavy with the sound of blows, of grunted war-cries, of the call of the Legions’ trumpets, the silver trumpets that brayed like mad elephants.

  Boudicca signalled to the chieftain who acted as her chariot-leader. He thrust in the silver-pointed goad and the horses plunged forward.

  ‘Death to the Romans!’ she screamed, but no one heard her, for already the survivors of that second fatal charge were careering back towards the wagons. Only by great skill did her leader avoid being run down by his own tribesmen.

  And so at length, what remained of the chariot lines drew back, bewildered and confused. Now the Queen dismounted and stormed here and there, slapping this man’s face, spitting at another, her voice hoarse with passion.

  Then, when the sun had begun his downward falling, the Queen cantered in her chariot to the centre of the reassembled line, in the very place where King Drammoch’s chariot had stood before he had rushed to his death.

  And now, behind the chariots, row after row of footmen waited, anxious to try their luck with these dogs of Rome.

  And when the horns blew, the chariot line moved forward, cautiously now, intending to stop short of the ditch for the javelin cast, each archer ready to let fly his quiver of arrows the moment he came within range.

  But this time, even when the chariots were two bowshots away, the great horn of Suetonius sounded, and the Roman ranks ran forward, leaping the ditch, to meet the war-carts. And as they ran, the cavalry on the flanks burst from the woods on either side.

  The Queen saw all this too late to stop the charge. She saw her footmen falling like sheaves of corn under the scythe, saw her foremost chariots being toppled over by weight of numbers, saw the Legate himself, seated on a bloody-flanked white stallion, riding at her, brandishing his long spatha, his red face twisted with fury.

  And before her charioteer swung the unwieldy cart-round, she saw the Legate ride alongside her and slash downwards, killing the archer who rode beside her. And as he did so, Boudicca the Queen raised her long bull-hide whip and swept it out into the air. The cruel lash caught the Imperial Legate about the head, knocking off his gilded helmet, almost dragging him from the saddle, blinding him with his own blood for the instant.

  Then she was racing back again towards the wagons, while the footmen straggled hither and thither, each man intent now on preserving his own life. The chariots were finished. Now the Queen looked with dismay at the great wagon line, the barrier which was to have penned in the enemy. Women and children were trying to swing the clumsy vehicles round, for the draught horses had been turned loose to graze. Babies lay here and there untended on the coarse grass. Little girls sat sobbing with the new terror that had come upon them, their flowers forgotten.

  The Queen rode in among them, trying to console them, to keep up their spirits.

  ‘Have courage, women!’ she shouted, ‘Rome shall crumble!’

  The old woman in black who had fed the horses called back to her, ‘Aye, Lady, but not in our lifetime!’

  Then the Queen turned again and went to her women, who waited for her in her tent.

  ‘Go to the little hillock behind the wagons,’ she commanded. ‘Stay with the Druids there. If we fall this day, you may still have protection if you are with the priests.’

  Eithne, her eyes red with weeping, said, ‘Lady, the Legate has just returned from the West, where he has destroyed the College of Druids, and has slain every priest he could find. You offer us little safety, I fear.’

  The Queen turned on her in anger and answered, ‘Eithne, daughter of King Drammoch, it hardly becomes one who has given herself to the Romans to tell her Queen what shall be done.’

  Then, afraid that if she stayed longer she might be driven to using her bull-hide whip on the back of this girl, the Queen returned to the battle-field.

  And there she saw the end of all her hopes of victory. The tribesmen fought in little bands, without fear, but without any expectation of victory. No longer tipsy, they saw life only too clearly, and death waiting for them at the next stroke but one. Among the still threshing legs of the chariot horses, men tumbled here and there, weary with ceaseless effort, their swords flailing helpless now, as the Legions drove forwards, ever forwards.

  And as the Queen watched, a Roman herald came into the field and stood upon an overturned chariot, a great trumpet in his hands.

  ‘Hark ye, Boudicca, widow of Prasutagus,’ he shouted. ‘Hark ye, self-styled Queen, and ponder! I speak the words of the Imperial Legate in Britain, Suetonius Paulinus. And this he says to you, that if you be taken this day, such an example shall be made of you that Britain shall never forget your name or your crimes. Go, Boudicca, says the Legate, and hide with the foxes and the badgers, for if you are taken you shall be flogged until no more remains of your vile carcass than would feed a hawk, and each one of your women shall be publicly dishonoured. They are the words of the Legate himself. I, the herald, Gaius Enarbius, speak the Legate’s words exactly.’

  With a flourish the man dismounted from the chariot, and ducking low to avoid the chance arrow, ran swiftly back to the side of the Legate, who sat fuming, his face now scored by the weals of the Queen’s whip.

  Boudicca heard these words, but her face did not change. She watched the Roman footmen charging on and on up the clearing, watched the horsemen ride again and again out of the wood on to the flanks of her despairing people.

  Then she turned and went to the little hillock where her women waited, sitting on the ground by the Druids. ‘

  And even as she reached this place, the first rank of the Legions burst on to the remnants of the tribes, crushing them against the helpless wagons, their swords threshing among the screaming women and children.

  Then Boudicca the Queen shrugged her broad shoulders and said quietly to the old man, her Druid, ‘This is the moment we feared, Priest, feared and prepared for. Now we shall drink the bitter draught, as we feared.’

  The old man came forward with a clay beaker, full of an amber-coloured fluid, on which floated the flowers of the foxglove, the digitalis.

  The Queen took the beaker and smiled at him. ‘Tell them that it will not hurt, Priest,’ she said. ‘Tell them that they will follow me to safety without pain.’

  She waited for the man to speak, but he shook his white head. ‘I may only speak the truth in this moment of death,’ he said. ‘There is always pain.’

  The Queen made a wry grimace and said gently, ‘You always were an old fool, Priest! I wonder why I did not get rid of you years ago!’

  Then she drank deeply of the liquid. The Druid stepped forward immediately and took the cup from her hand.

  For a moment the Queen still smiled. Then her smile turned to the fixed and agonised mask of death as her fine body arched and her blue eyes almost started from their sockets. For a moment she was able to scream, and then she could only whimper.

  Some of the women, the older ones, drank without a struggle, turning their eyes away from Boudicca. But her two daughters, Siara and Gwynnedd, who still hoped, had to be forced to follow their mother to her end. Two Druids held Eithne while the old man administered the draught. She bit their fingers savagely as the stuff coursed over her tongue, and in her struggles, flung away the vessel, spilling what was left on to the turf. Then she flung herself backwards, howling like a stricken she-wolf.

  The old Druid looked mournfully at the shattered vessel. Then he said, ‘That was a disloyal one after all. Now we must pray that Suetonius will treat us mercifully and end us quickly.’

  But his prayer was not answered that day, for there
was no mercy left in the heart of Suetonius, the Red Fox, when he stormed up the little hillock with his bodyguard, their swords dripping.

  But it was not the Druids that first took the Legate’s attention. He was more concerned with the Queen.

  Pointing at her with his sword he said, ‘That bitch still breathes! She who has brought about this carnage is still on the threshold of life! Use her as you will. No harm shall come to you!’

  Then still fingering his slashed face, the Legate walked blindly down the hill, to give thanks at the altar which had been set up near his tent for the day’s sad victory.

  And after he had prayed, he sent for the guard who had refused to let the Gallic Captain enter his tent that morning. Even in the moment of victory, the Emperor’s Legate was not the man to forget a promise.

  40: Aftermath

  Gemellus saw it all,from a high eminence, but did not understand it at first. Then, as the last sounds of battle died away, and the last stallion died threshing wildly, the second army, of pillagers, ran in among the dead.

  Then Gemellus stumbled down the hill to find the woman he sought.

  An arrow’s flight behind him ran two women dressed as boys. One was tall and white, the other short and black. They both called out, ‘Gemellus! Gemellus!’ But, of course, he did not hear them. And if he had heard them, he would not have known them. His mind was set only on Eithne—for now he knew what had happened to his brother.

  And Gemellus ran hither and thither, his wild hair flying, his one hand feeling. Until at last he came to the Queen’s overturned pavilion, its hawks dying, its Druid dead.

  And the Red Queen lay naked and tumbled over a broken wagon-wheel, so that her body lolled backwards on to those of her poisoned women. The Romans had stripped her of her clothes, her bracelets, but not of her dignity. That was beyond even them.

  Now the only gold she wore was her thick hair, which swept, unbraided, across her curving shoulders.

  Though the foam-flecked lips gaped in their last spasm of agony and the light-blue eyes glared wide-open and empty, her honey features still held the final remnants of nobility.

  Despite the cruel sniggering exposure of the breasts, the gravid belly, the sprawling thighs, there still remained a splendid power about that ruined body. It was as much a part of essential nature as was an oak-tree or a great and rushing river.

  Even in its vulnerability, what the common soldiers had viciously done to it in their ignorance, its desecration, its death, it had majesty, it held the past, and the future, in its strength.

  A curly-haired Tribune stopped, holding his bleeding wrist tightly, on the way to the dressing-station, to gaze down at her, in the shallow valley where her body now lay.

  ‘I have seen the statues which the old Greeks made,’ he said in awe. ‘But she is more magnificent than them all.’

  A hide-faced Centurion from Andalusia stopped beside him and nodded.

  He said, ‘What a woman! Mithras, but what a woman!’

  He stepped back a pace and saluted, as one must do in the Legions when addressing an officer—even a badly-wounded officer who couldn’t care less. Though in his heart that salute was meant for her.

  Then he said, ‘What a bloody mess she would have made of that fat nancy-boy, Nero, if only we could have got them into the arena together, sir!’

  Then both he and the Tribune gave a grim smile, and parted.

  The thought of that woman filled both their minds for years to come.

  Half-blind, Gemellus found Eithne, her body twisted, her eyes glazed, somewhere behind Boudicca.

  He went to her, stupidly, unable to understand that she was dying, stroking her wracked face, holding her stiffening body to him.

  ‘My love,’ he said. ‘My dear one, my only one. My queen’

  And Eithne, near to the shadowy door of death, turned back and tried to look at this man from the warm world who cared to speak to her now.

  And dimly, as in a picture which grew and shrank, cleared and faded, stood upright, then fell aside, she saw that it was Gemellus, the young Decurion who did not want her when she went to him as he paddled in the little stream, a million years ago,

  And now he had come back out of the past to speak to her, to tell her he loved her and to let his warm tears run over her stiff cold face.

  He did not know that she would not be able to go with him now, and her lips would not form the words which would tell him so. Poor Gemellus, she thought, what a pity that you did not run away with me before. We could have lived in a shepherd’s cottage in my father’s kingdom and have worn sheepskin jackets…. Then no one would have troubled us any more… no one would ever have known…. And I should not be dying now.

  But Gemellus could not hear what Eithne said to herself. He could scarcely hear the words which his own lips mumbled.

  ‘My Queen, my white Queen,’ he was saying, ‘we will go to Mother Centennial. She will heal us both. She has the magic in her fingers. She will take us in and tend us as her own children. You shall be well again, my white queen!’

  And as he struggled to raise the girl in his arm, the Lady Lavinia and the negro maid Marissa reached the shambles of battle-field. The Lady ran past the tumbled horses, the peeping men. She had eyes for Gemellus alone, no other.

  And then she saw him, stumbling along, his head thrown back, with something in his one arm, his left arm.

  At first she did not see what he was carrying, for her eyes were blinded with tears, and she rushed forward to greet him.

  ‘Gemellus,’ she shouted, forgetting her Patrician manners, Gemellus! Dear one! Hail, Centurion! Thank Mithras I have found you at last!’

  But then she saw what lay cradled in his one arm. She saw his wild eyes staring past her into nothing, as he staggered on with his dear burden. And she knew then that the doors of his world were closed to her for ever.

  As she backed away, her fine white hand over the mouth that shaped as to scream, the Tribune, Gaius Flavius Cottus, he who had known her in boudoir and villa, whose father had once been a Byzantine money-lender, stepped from the ranks of the archers of the dead towards her.

  ‘Come away, Lady,’ he said gently, putting his strong brown about her shaking body. ‘Come away. This is no place for you.’

  And for the first time in his life he forgot his father’s past, his pretences, his ambitions, and became a man.

  And while this man grew up, Gemellus staggered down that field of red grass, carrying his white-faced burden; past the place where King Drammoch lay, his eyes upturned to a sun that would never shine again, his great hands outspread as though he asked for an answer to the strange problem of life and death.

  His horses were dead under him. His fine chariot was smashed silly splinters. He had not even the head of Duatha to add dignity to his headlong destruction, for he had flung that at the Roman enemy as he careered madly on to the score of javelin points that waited to prick the life out of his stupid old heart.

  And that head lay under a gorse bush, placid and composed now, its delicate features seeming to smile quietly as Gemellus passed within a foot of it.

  It was as though Duatha might have said, ‘Go in peace, Roman brother, and may good fortune go with you. I, who now know all things, tell you that the door of life is still open for you both. My mother Centennial holds it open by her boundless love. As for me, my brother, I go another way, to where our father, the Centurion, holds out his arms for me. He who is blind will not despise me because I was not strong enough to become a Roman. He will not know that I do not wear the helmet, hold the shield. Farewell, my brother and my sister, name a boy-child after me, then one day all will be well.’

  41: Home

  Now summer had turned to winter once more and the fires in all the village huts crackled with pine branches. |In their winter quarters, legionaries from Delos and Numidia blew on their chapped hands, trying to fend off the cold for a little while so that they might get to sleep. Britain was still again, still under its c
oating of hoar-frost and ice. Even the wolves lay quiet in their caves, their fierce hearts bludgeoned in to docility by the cold.

  It was a time of immobility, of uneasy peace, of rest after action, of healing after wounds. In the new year the strife would come again, perhaps, when the Spring revived old memories, old dreams of vengeance. The Legate, Suetonius, was already planning for that season, brooding over hurts and injuries. Next year he would make sure that the ghost of Boudicca did not rise. He would draw the teeth of the tribes for ever, he thought, as he sat in his chilly stone-walled quarters, a fur rug round his shoulders, poring over a map of the midland territories. The brazier at his side burned up, casting its warmth over him, softening his harsh thoughts, melting his ice for a moment. The Legate’s eyelids drooped and his red hand fell away from the map. He began to sleep, lightly, like a cat, ready to leap up and defend himself against any attacker. But no attacker came; the British wolves had been bludgeoned into docility by more than the cold of winter.

  And in her low bed of bracken and sheepskins, Eithne watched the shadows thrown by the fire on to the thatched roof. One looked like a tree, one like a bear—one like a warrior driving a chariot.

  She looked away from the troublesome shadow, her eyes ringed with blue, her lips pale.

  ‘Husband,’ she said, ‘they tell me that my father died in the great battle between the woods. Is that true?’ Gemellus looked away from her at first. Then he nodded slowly, unwilling to speak any word which might sadden her.

  Eithne waited a while without saying anything. She closed her dark-shadowed eyes and for a few moments let her thin fingers run up and down the sheepskin coverlet of the bed. And when Gemellus was beginning to hate himself for giving her the bad news, she slowly opened her eyes again and reached out towards him, taking his left hand in her own white one.

  ‘My brother, Bran, is dead also,’ she said. ‘He died that night in the dark wood when we fell in with the Brigantes, did he not, husband? ‘

  Gemellus nodded. ‘Be still, sweetheart,’ he said, ‘The gods have given us each other again; let us not blame them for what they have taken in return. Rest, little one, white one; rest and be well again. ‘