‘For the moment,’ he went on, ‘I am severely worried about Boudicca. So should you be, Silanus, and it appals me that you can be so complacent about things.’ Silanus said nothing. Fabius continued, ‘King Prasitagus will certainly expire during the next two or three weeks at the most. When he dies his tribal lands and his fortified cities, all his kingdom and its treasures in fact, will pass by inheritance to Boudicca and her two rather attractive daughters, both of whom have the same temper as their mother from what I’ve heard; the kingdom, however, will be split between Boudicca and her daughters, and Nero himself. Boudicca will remain queen, while Nero will be presented with a gift of half the Icenian kingdom. Prasitagus’ last madness is effectively to present rebellion on a plate, because Boudicca will accept the terms of her husband’s will with all the liking of a stag accepting an arrow in the heart. Boudicca is much loved by her people, and though I have no evidence for it, despite Valentio’s excellent report, I am convinced that she has warriors ready for an uprising.’
‘I would agree with that,’ said the Centurion, Valentio. ‘She is too cunning to let things appear obvious. Even though she is confined to the city, she has good communication with the surrounding settlements.’
Silanus and his Optione exchanged uncomfortable glances.
Fabius, smugly, allowed his withering look to linger upon the garrison commander for a few seconds before he said, ‘I am sure that in every fen and marsh of this gods-forsaken land she has troops of men and women just waiting for Prasitagus to die. What excuse she will use to come against us I know not. But come against us she will, and the Catuvellauni south of here will join her, and so will the Trinovantes, though I imagine we will hold on to Camulodonum because of our strength there. But we will be effectively besieged.’
Silanus said, as he finally located the position of Camulodonum in the south east, ‘This is a lot of speculation on the whim of an old Icenian king, shirking on his bed and pretending to be ill.’
‘Silanus, how did you ever make Centurion?’ Fabius shook his head in despair.
The red-faced Centurion said, ‘I merely pointed out that it was a lot of speculation. I do agree that Boudicca is a nuisance and a threat. But if we kill her we’ll bring the peace of these lands down around our ears, like the sky the druids are always trying to call down.’
Galba leaned forward intensely, his breath sharp, his eyes alight. ‘But if one of her own people killed her …’ He stared at Fabius, who placed two fingers together and nodded.
‘Exactly, Galba. Exactly. It must be shown that she was killed during a fit of temper by a man who is of the British tribes somewhere in this area. We have a lot of recruits from around here who would do the job. Good fighters all, but a little too keen to adopt the Roman way. This is a shame because one of my best men is a Coritanian called Bedus, or Bedivyg. But he’s too aggressively Roman, now, too much a Nero-for-God man.’
‘Then where does that leave us?’ asked Valentio, wincing as buccinnae blared nearby, calling a troop of men to duty.
Fabius grinned. ‘It leaves us with his brother, the Berserker.’
Valentio whistled softly, and Centurion Silanus sat bolt upright in his chair, dull eyes wide. The Greek spoke first. ‘I’d forgotten about your magic warrior. He has never adopted the Roman uniform, insists on wearing a helmet of bronze, with ivory horns, a helmet – I’m told – that is not of any tribe or nation anywhere in these lands. I like the look of him, and the sound of him, though I confess I have yet to see him in action.’
Fabius nodded. ‘That’s because he’s a little too devastating for his own good. In fact, he’s under lock and key, in Venta itself, isn’t he Silanus?’
Silanus was worried that such a secret should so easily be discussed. ‘Well, yes. He fought for his freedom in the games, and was granted it. But he was roped into the army, and before he knew it was locked up, to be kept in reserve. He seems complacent about it, though. At least, he’s given us no trouble.’
‘And he won’t, until he smells blood,’ said Galba.
Valentio, the Greek, asked, ‘Is his imprisonment in Venta part of the treaty?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Fabius, ‘yes indeed. We asked Prasitagus to look after him, partly because he was a Briton, and partly because he was so violent. The king agreed readily. That token co-operation, however, is enough to make an atmosphere of mutual tolerance. I thought it was a very clever move.’
‘And a very convenient one, as it turns out,’ said Galba.
‘Indeed.’ Tribune Lucius turned again to stare at the scurrying activity of the camp. ‘When he smells blood he goes crazy. It would be good for him to smell blood when Boudicca is in the room. Because believe me,’ Fabius relished the thought of what he was saying, ‘once his ghost, his inner spirit, gets a scent of blood he will kill everything he can lay his hands on. I have seen
him do it. In Rome, in the games. It is magnificent to watch. Whatever a Berserker is, it is certainly a vicious and violent – though fortunately satiable – beast.’
‘A duel, then,’ said Silanus. ‘A duel between Swiftaxe, the Horned Warrior, and Queen Boudicca.’
‘You fool,’ said Fabius quietly, contemptuously. ‘No one fights duels now, not publicly. No. I suggest that Boudicca comes across her eldest daughter stabbed upon that weapon of the Berserker’s that all men can learn to wield with proficiency.’
Valentio laughed. ‘That’s how a Briton would speak. By the Sun, Fabius, I believe you’re becoming indoctrinated.’
‘Perish the thought,’ said the Tribune with a shiver. ‘But as to what I was saying … she will immediately strike at Swiftaxe in her anger, draw blood, it matters not how much, and he will kill her. It will mean the loss of the warrior, but that is by no means too high a price for ridding ourselves of this troublesome war queen.’
The three faces that watched him from his round tent were smiling their approval.
Swiftaxe sensed the girl before he saw her; he followed her movements with all the ease of a fox following the invisible motion of a field mouse – by sound, by smell, by senses that only a hunter possessed.
He was still unsure why he had been released into these cosier quarters of the ‘palace’. Since arriving in his home country, if not his home lands, he had been placed under guard, in reasonable comfort, but without access to the outside. He considered himself to have been tricked, but Bedivyg, in his smart and polished new uniform, had explained that it was for his own good … and everybody else’s safety.
Swiftaxe felt a strong sense of discomfort when he thought of his brother. They loved each other greatly, and Swiftaxe had felt that Bedivyg was his only chance of getting out of this confinement, for his brother was on the other side of the locked door. But Bedivyg had settled to the new life with a rapidity that had left Caylen Swiftaxe breathless.
A Roman for a brother
, he kept thinking, and the bile rose in his mouth. And yet he could not forget their boyhood together, and the still mutual love that existed between them.
Bedivyg, no doubt, had engineered this escape for him, although to avoid his brother any trouble Swiftaxe had decided to stay put in the plush quarters, and not make a bid for freedom.
He looked around at the drape-hung walls, not marble walls, or intricately carved stone as he had known in Rome, but wood and wattle, thickly pressed out with clay, and faced with rough stone quarried in the west. The roof, heavily raftered, was of thatch and he could hear the spiders crawling about in the eaves, and across their shimmering webs, strung from strands of straw and bits of wood.
This was a palace … eighteen rooms, in a wide circle, with corridors and small private chambers, and to the Iceni – as to Caylen, if he were still in his own land – it was luxury.
The girl had stopped outside the curtained doorway and was thinking. Swiftaxe held his breath, wondering how she would look as she came through. She was for him, there was no doubt. Bedivyg had fixed it so that Swiftaxe’s more natural desires were catered for. There would be no killing, no chance for Odin the bear to take hold of him and send him screaming, and whirling,
through the quiet place. But food and drink Bedivyg had had supplied by the barrel – and a girl, now, to ease that other pain.
She pulled back the curtain and stepped into the room, her face bright in the firelight.
Swiftaxe breathed out, and felt his heart stammer. He had expected a woman of some experience, a girl who would know what to do, and was thus marked out in her face and eyes, and the make-up with which she would hide the tell-tale signs of knowledge. This girl, though, was innocent … totally innocent.
Red hair tumbled, a copper cascade, to her shoulders. Green eyes watched him, wide and unknowing, yet fully appreciative of the muscle and sinew that marked Swiftaxe out as a warrior among men. She wore a flowing white shift, that reached below the knees and clung to her naked body showing the smallness of her breasts, but the growing, hard tips of them; her hips were full and womanly, but the girl was young in years, no more than fifteen.
In her arms she cradled the Berserker’s huge and shining axe, the weapon that he loved. Inside the doorway she placed this down. Swiftaxe found his eyes drawn to the blade and the familiar alder wood haft, and he felt a great surge of pleasure. But he made no move to pick the weapon up.
The girl came swiftly across the room and slipped the gown from her body, stepping lithely from the gathered folds at her feet. She reached round to hug Swiftaxe, and rested her head against his deep, scarred chest. He couldn’t help but touch her gently, leaning down to explore the smooth skin of her back, and the way her haunches swelled out excitingly. As she had stepped close he had noticed the sparseness of hair between her legs, and he doubted her ability or capacity to receive him, let alone entertain him.
‘You are too young,’ he whispered.
‘I know what to do,’ she said quickly. ‘I have been told.’ She drew back and looked up at him, her hair falling away from her face, her full lips moist and pouting. Her hands wandered across his chest and, as if on an uncontrollable impulse, she dug her long nails into his nipples, clenched her teeth and sucked breath into her lungs. ‘By the Goddess, your body is magnificent … look at these …’ she scratched his shoulders as she ran her fingers down the ridged muscles of his arms, and the pain shot through him, stirring the beast in his head; Caylen Swiftaxe fought it back.
This is my moment, not yours
…
He was aware of the girl deftly loosening his belt, and a moment later the cloth of his trousers slipped away from his body; her hands, and sharp-nailed fingers, were painful and thrilling touches on his rising flesh, and the blood in his head began to surge and beat; the room swam around him as his body resigned itself to the ecstasy of the girl’s touch; his hands rested easily on her shoulders, feeling the creamy suppleness of her skin, and the thinness, the slimness of her flesh. In his mind he could visualise picking her up by her
arms and holding her tight against his torso as he slipped her gently down on to his member and breached her there and then; but he restrained himself, for he could not, with his upbringing as a Coritanian, take a girl of his own age, or nearly, who had not been known by an older man first.
Her lips touched his shaft and he reached down to grasp her hair and pull her up, not willing to allow his defences to be battered any more.
‘You are too young,’ he repeated.
‘I know what to do,’ she said. ‘I have been told.’
The repetition of the words struck a false chord in Swiftaxe’s head. He stared into the girl’s beautiful green eyes, felt her slim, hard breasted body against his, and recognised the influence of some spell other than her enchantment with his male physique. The girl was not excited at the thought of his lust taking her maidenhead … she was excited because someone had fed her a potion, or a spell … this was not natural desire, but desire by design.
He pushed the girl away roughly. Her eyes widened for a second, then half-closed suggestively. She licked her lips elaborately. ‘But I want to taste you before I give my body to you.’
‘Who are you?’
‘She is my daughter,’ said someone from behind him. Swiftaxe turned quickly, stepping out of the gathered cloth of his trousers and reaching for a small knife he had been using for his food. The girl cried out and reached down for her robe, backing into a corner of the room.
Swiftaxe, seeing that the woman who stood before him was unarmed, let the knife fall back on to the low table. His eyes lingered on the shape of his great axe, gleaming redly in the firelight, resting near to where the woman stood.
She smiled as she realised at what Swiftaxe stared, then she came further into the room and drew the curtain behind her.
She was truly magnificent, an older, more mature, more experienced version of the girl who now cowered, terrified, behind the Berserker.
Instantly Swiftaxe knew whose daughter he had come close to possessing. He dropped to his knees, acknowledging her royalty despite their tribal differences. ‘Boudicca,’ he murmured, ‘Great Queen. Fast flying of the air and the birds of the air. Swift flowing of the waters and the fish that swim in the waters.’
The woman smiled. ‘Strong running of the man, and strength to his sword arm.’
Swiftaxe looked up, looked into the woman’s eyes, and at her full and sensuous mouth. ‘You are even more beautiful than the bards in my village told us.’
She frowned. ‘I dislike manful flattery of my female attributes,’ she said. ‘In other words, shut up and keep your lusting to yourself.’
But what lusting Swiftaxe felt!
Boudicca stood as tall as a man, and as broad, and yet the shape of her body was softly curved as a woman’s should be, and not harshly knotted and gnarled as a man’s. Her hair, red like her daughter’s, flame red, like burnished copper, fell half-way to her waist, and about the crown of her head it was curled and twisted into spikes that had been stiffened with some colourless grease. Her face was lean and hard, though softness existed in her eyes; her cheeks were high, slightly flushed, and her mouth was wide and full, every bit the classical dream of the Trinovantian warrior from a song that was popular at the time.