CHAPTER 30

Fire had not yet reached the antechamber to the temple, only a drifting of smoke that covered the smell of anticipation and battle fever that the veterans had left behind.

Beneath that, more dryly, was the scent of incense and old, spilled wine. Cunomar felt the hairs rise up on the back of his neck. Like a hound, he stepped stiff-legged into the space and turned round, in a circle, studying all of it.

It was a place that had been much inhabited without anyone’s ever having lived in it until the veterans had need. The stone pavings of the floor were tracked by many feet, worn in places where the traffic had been highest. The walls, too, were of faced stone, and the roof of bare tiles with no lining. Torch holders stood out with black planes of soot behind from countless nights of burning, but there were no chests for storage, nor beds, nor signs of a workshop.

Instead, chain mail and scale armour hung from wall brackets alongside pieces of horse harness and old battle-worn weapons fixed on polished wood, preserved as they were when last used with bloodstains on hilt and blade.

Between and among them were the standards of the legions made in miniature; small gilded eagles clutching crossed lightning bolts stared from each wall to the door, a wild boar in red ran across a blue pennant that stretched half the width of one wall, a goat stood carved in time and wood, a horse, a three-headed dog, a ram with curled horns such as was never seen in Britannia; all of them were more than their shape alone, and the living wood knew it; the sense of being watched, then, was perhaps explained.

Cunomar said, “This feels like a shrine to the might of the legions. We should be gone from here, and burn it like the rest.”

“This is only the antechamber. The true shrine is in the cellar beneath.” Valerius leaned against the far wall, one arm crooked up to pillow his head. He was grey with exhaustion, or pain, or both. “The first temple to Mithras ever built in Britannia is in the cellar that can be reached from this room and the centurion’s house beyond the garden. I was brought first to the god here.”

“Would you have us preserve it?”

“In the midst of a city that is burning to nothing? No. In any case, the god is in the stones and the earth, not in the places men build for him. He won’t mind the touch of fire from here.” Valerius let his legs fold and sank to sit on the floor with his back to the grey wall.

They were alone, but for Longinus who stood quietly by the door, lest too many of the wearily celebrating war host unwittingly disturb the Boudica’s brother and son in their conversation.

The necessary people waited close by outside: Ulla and Scerros and a handful of others who gave support without question to Cunomar; Longinus for Valerius, obviously, and Knife and the boy Snail who had found a role tending the wounded, and a wild Hibernian woman with jackdaw eyes, and Huw, the slinger with the scarred face, both of whom fought for Mona.

There were a surprising number of Mona’s warriors who supported Valerius and did not appear to notice the existence of the Boudica’s son. Cunomar had intended that to change with the battle for the rear gate to the temple. He was not certain that it had.

“We should talk,” Cunomar said, to the man sitting on the floor opposite. “And then tend to the wounded. My mother withdrew from the battle at its height. She has done what she can and that is momentous; Rome’s capital in this province is ours and we can burn every part of it. But we have three more legions and other towns to take before we can call ourselves free. To succeed further, the war host must be led from strength, not weakness. You said once that you would not let one man’s search for personal glory destroy the war host. I would ask you now if you still think—”

“The leadership is yours.”

“—that my conduct in the taking of the city…What?” Cunomar rubbed his one ear, and felt foolish that he had done so.

Valerius’ head had fallen back against the wall so that he looked up at the ceiling, as if he might find inspiration there, or support. He said, “The leadership of your mother’s war host is yours. Those who follow me will continue to do so, and I will follow your leadership. You have only to say what you intend and we will do it.” His voice was entirely flat.

Something had disturbed the warriors outside the door. Raised voices twittered, sharp as morning birdsong. Very suddenly, Cunomar wanted to be in the fresh air, with only the stench of the newly dead thickening the air.

He stood, pressing his hands to the wood of the table. “Let me be clear. You are saying that you concede all leadership of the full war host to me and that—”

“Julius?” Longinus spoke from the doorway. There was fondness in the word that went deeper than the careless intimacy of the battlefield or the bed, and a depth of care that took notice of the other man’s exhaustion and forgave a decision badly made, and spoke of something else, that brought hope in a hopeless world.

All of these Cunomar heard, and misplaced, because he did not at first understand that the Thracian was talking to Valerius, who evidently had another name.

Thus he turned too late, only after Valerius had risen, and Longinus, quite gently, had said, “Julius, your sister is here.”

Valerius had thought perhaps he might sleep leaning against the wall, and eat there when he woke and then sleep again, and only after that begin to deal with the aftermath of the decision he had made as he watched his sister leave the battlefield.

Seeing her return, he rose on limbs that resisted, so that he came up stiffly, and more slowly than he wanted, and leaned back on the wall because simply standing was enough.

Breaca leaned against the doorpost, matching him. She wore a cloak in Eceni blue for the first time since the start of the war, pinned with a brooch in the shape of a serpent-spear with tags of old wool hanging down. Stone was with her, less lame than he had been, and Airmid was smiling which was something Valerius thought she had forgotten how to do.

“Have you come to a decision?” The Boudica’s voice filled the room, as it would not have done before.

“No,” said Cunomar.

Valerius said, “Yes.”

Breaca looked from one to the other and back again. The sharp edge of her smile was one that Valerius had seen on a boat, newly come from Gaul, and before that, not since his childhood. He could have wept. It seemed possible that he was actually weeping. He did not put his hand to his face to check.

Amused, his sister said, “Should I go away again, until at least you find common ground on that?”

“What?” asked Valerius.

“I have just been seen to leave the field of battle. If one or other of you wishes to claim leadership of the war host, I have no right to deny it.”

Valerius had not been weeping, only tired. He laughed, rustily. “Look behind you,” he said, and nodded past Breaca to the gardens, where the she-bears and the warriors of Mona had joined with the others of the war host and were no longer stripping the dead or lifting the wounded, but gathered in a solid mass of waiting, expectant humanity. “If you want to turn round and tell them that you’re leaving again, you’re welcome. I’m not at all certain they’ll let you.”

He found the energy to join her at the doorway. Cunomar had the sense to come to stand at her other side. Together, the Boudica, her brother and her son faced the mass of men and women who had just followed them to the edge of death and back; each one had been driven to the edges of resilience, each one made that small step beyond where he or she could have gone alone.

Between them, they had taken by force the first and only Roman city in their land. To do so, they had fought for two days almost without break in a way none had ever experienced or imagined; fighting through streets and in brick-built villas, against armed Romans and unarmed Trinovantes. They had killed at times with honour and courage and at other times without either of these, and the taint of that, and the euphoria of victory, lay equally on them.

They were greater than they had been, perhaps greater than they had ever imagined, and could be greater still, but they needed to be told so, and to be given a reason to find the paths to victory in themselves.

Out of habit, and two decades’ training, Valerius opened his mouth to speak. Breca was there before him.

“Warriors of the Boudica…” Her voice carried better than it had done when she first addressed them at the marsh edge, but not far enough; the garden was full and more were pressing in at the gate, or climbing the unclimbable walls. The hum and the press of a spreading rumour drowned out the first words, even when they were shouted down by others, who thus made more noise.

A plinth stood to one side of the door, that had until recently borne an urn. Breaca vaulted onto it, and stood framed by the white wall of the temple. Like all of them, she was burned and stained with ash and smoke and the debris of battle. Unlike them, she had been visited by a god, and it showed. She stood tall against the white stone of the temple and the late afternoon sun cast gold over the burnished red of her hair and polished to shining jewels the iron and bronze of her belt buckle, of her sword hilt, of her serpent-spear brooch.

Other gods came to add their touch: the wind lifted her hair and made of it a widening copper helmet. Her cloak bellied back, so that she was late sky blue against the white, with the cast of sun all around; a crow danced on the gilded tiles of the rooftops and cawed three times. The last call fell into a profound and waiting silence.

There was no question, then, of the leadership. If the Boudica’s brother or son had tried to take it, their own supporters would have killed them; if the Boudica had tried to walk away, they would have blocked the gates until she gave her whole heart to staying.

Seeing that, knowing it, Breaca cast her voice out to its farthest reach, and began again.

“Warriors of the Boudica. You have won a city, and the first part of a war. Not one of you is without injury. Each one of you has lost friends, lovers, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers in this battle and all that has led to it. But still, we have faced the army of Rome, which has fashioned an empire by virtue of its own might, and we have won. This was the legions’ capital, their first fortress, their pride in the province of Britannia. When we leave, it will be ash, to be blown on the wind and taken back to the earth. Never again will an army sink its foundations into the clean ground of Camul’s dun.

“This is only the beginning: Rome’s other towns must be laid flat, Rome’s legions must be destroyed. Our land must be made free. With your help, with your blood and your courage and the help of the gods, we will make it so. Our children and our children’s children will live in a land in which Rome is a distant threat, long forgotten, and we will be the cause of that. Never forget. We are the war host that will vanquish the legions.”

She spoke the last into a silence as thick and crisp as when she had started. It softened, slowly, as five thousand battle-weary minds understood the full measure of what they had done and what they were asked to do.

They needed a response and were all too tired to think until, far at the back, someone unnamed shouted, “Boudica!” and gave them their answer.

“Boudica! Boudica! Boudica!”

The sound rebounded off the walls and would have raised the golden tiles on the temple’s roof, had they not already been melted.

Breaca stepped down from her plinth. They swept apart to let her in, and came together again behind her. Very slowly, she walked through the middle of her host to the back gate of the garden. As geese follow the leader, they followed her out, and through the city to the green space beyond where they could rest, and eat and retell the stories of Camulodunum’s burning, and plan all that was yet to come.

It was evening before Breaca was alone.

The full five thousand had not come each to speak to her personally, it only felt like it. Then there was the time of planning with those who had taken responsibility for strategy while she had not. Then Cunomar left, and the she-bears and the warriors of Mona. Cygfa, Dubornos and Ardacos finished their quiet thanks and the brief, understated eulogies of battle.

In the end, even Longinus, Theophilus and Airmid had stepped away, to find the evening cooking fires and the smoke that kept the dusk insects at bay. Only Valerius was left. Breaca sat with her brother on the turf by a smouldering heap of ash on the western edge of the encampment. One or other of them should have scraped the embers into the centre and laid on more wood from the small, neat pile left in the morning, when the world was a different place. Neither had yet found the energy.

Valerius began to shed his chain mail. He stood, bent double from the waist, while the slither of linked iron inverted itself and, chiming softly, oozed over his head.

He shook himself free and straightened up. His hair was vertical. His woollen undershirt was marked with sweat and rust and blood. The mail had left a reddened lattice of prints on his upper arms.

He attended to none of these, but sat down and said, “They would not have agreed to that so readily if it was me or Cunomar who had suggested it.”

Breaca reached at last for a piece of cut wood and laid it across the fire. Through the new smoke, she said, “I’m sorry there was no time to talk to you before. Are you happy to go south to take Canovium and the other towns? They’re farther and harder to reach than Verulamium.”

“Verulamium is the easier battle, and by far the more glorious. Cunomar will do well with it. Yes, I’m happy to go south.”

It was Breaca’s plan, conceived in the moment when she stood on the plinth in the garden and saw her war host so clearly divided. Even when they came together again, united in the roar of unison, it had seemed good to split them in two; fewer mouths to feed in each travelling host, fewer causes for conflict, twice the fighting power.

She had offered it, and it had been taken: Valerius had agreed to lead his followers south and then west to assault the Roman towns and ports along the banks of the Great River, ending at the place where the legions had crossed in their first invasion, which the Romans called Vespasian’s Bridge; Cunomar had leaped at the chance to take his faction due west to annihilate Rome’s second city, Verulamium. They already had scouts who knew each other; it had not been difficult to arrange the means by which a relay of riders could keep the leaders of the two smaller hosts in touch with each other.

Valerius leaned his back against his saddle packs and peered through the growing cloud of midges at his sister. He looked thoughtful, as Cunobelin had done, but weighed with the weariness of life.

“You didn’t say what you were going to do while we are clearing Rome from the southern towns and ports. Cunomar thinks you will be with him, but is afraid that you may join me, which is why he didn’t ask. The rest think his fears are right. I don’t need you and you know it. So where will you be?”

Breaca watched a crow gather its courage to approach one of the unmoved dead from the temple’s front courtyard. She said, “Airmid has asked that I not fight for nine days. I’m going north to find Venutios of the Brigantes, to see if he will bring his warriors to join the host. He has at least two thousand spears with battle experience who will answer his call, and they hate Rome as much as any. We’ll do better against the legions if we have them with us.”

“We still shouldn’t face the legions in a line fight,” Valerius said. “Nothing has changed that. Even Cunomar would agree, I think, after facing the veterans in the garden. If one century was hard, imagine a legion of a full five thousand.” The evening light lay on his face. He shuffled sideways a little and, taking out his belt knife, began to clean the grime of battle from beneath his fingernails.

“It won’t come to that. We don’t have to let it. The scouts can carry messages between all three of us. Mid-summer is five days from now. If your warriors and Cunomar’s can be done by four or five days after that, you can meet at a place west of Verulamium. I will bring Venutios’ warriors south and we can join the host again and you can tell us how to find victory against three legions.”

“If Venutios agrees to send his warriors,” Valerius said. “He may not.”

“He may not,” Breaca agreed equably. The crow flapped from the wall and dropped raggedly to the body below. Bird of Briga, it called to its fellows to join it. Two others flew in, so that three fed together.

A last threshold waited, beyond which was a land she had never entered and from which she could not return. As three crows fed, Breaca said to her brother, “I heard you had made me a spear, like the heron-spears of the Caledonii but with iron instead of silver for the blade, and that Airmid had carved the haft with serpents, so that it was a true serpent-spear, with no feathers to tip the balance, that might be used in battle. Is it true?”

Valerius stopped cleaning his fingernails. He laid his knife neatly on the front of his saddle. “We told no-one. How did you know?”

“Nemain told me. At the end of the fever. She said you believed it would hold me more strongly to life.”

The moon had not risen yet. He looked west, to the setting sun. His face was Macha’s made harder by battle. “I was arrogant in my despair,” he said at last. “You don’t have to take it.”

“I want to, but not yet. When I come back from the north, and am whole, I would like it then.”

She rose and took his arm and he was Bán again and she Breaca and they were going to the roundhouse for an evening meal and life was as it had always been before the nightmare of the legions, or could be allowed to seem so for a night at least before they parted.