Dreaming the Serpent-Spear Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  I: SPRING AD 60

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  II: LATE SPRING AD 60

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  III: EARLY SUMMER AD 60

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  IV: MID–LATE SUMMER AD 60

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Characters and Pronunciation of Names

  About the Author

  Also by Manda Scott

  Copyright

  FOR FAITH,

  WITH ALL LOVE,

  CDELETE EGÈSZSEGEDRE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In this final book of the series, all thanks must go to the two women whose energy and inspiration made it possible from the start: Jane Judd, my agent, and Selina Walker, my editor at Transworld; both believed in the impossible so often that it became not only possible, but tangible, for which no written thanks is enough. Similarly, Kate Miciak and Nita Taublib held faith on the far side of the Atlantic; both gave time, effort, insight and encouragement that helped shape the series to be what it is. Nancy Webber and Deborah Adams have worked far beyond all reasonable limits to hold my copyediting in line and, as ever, I am indebted to H. J. P. “Douglas” Arnold for his accuracy of Roman thinking.

  I am indebted also, at this ending, to my friends and neighbours in Moulton, who have taken care of me for the past twenty years: you are too many to name, but you know who you are, and that thanks are not enough. Those who had the courage to join me in the dreaming have been part of an extraordinary journey which has taken all of us beyond any boundaries we might have imagined to be real, while those friends who remained in consensus reality have been the bedrock of a stable life: Debs, Sarah, Jackie and my fellow Unusual Suspects. And to Faith, who began at the beginning—thank you.

  Listen to me, I am Luain mac Calma, heron-dreamer, Elder of Mona, guardian of those who wait in exile in Hibernia, and protector of the Boudica, who is our hope for the future. You who gather here will inherit that future, whatever it may be.

  We stand now at a crossroads in our history. Once, we were a proud people; we honoured our heroes for their courage in battle, and our dreamers for the wisdom they brought from the gods.

  Our tribes were diverse in their customs and histories, we were famed throughout the known world for our work in gold and silver and iron; our horses and hunting hounds are sought from the far northern snows to the heat of Alexandria; our land was so fecund that Julius Caesar believed he had come to a place of the gods when he first sailed across from Gaul with intent to conquer over a hundred years ago.

  In our diversity was our pride, but we held our gods in common and in that was our strength. Each tribe sent the best of its warriors and dreamers annually to train here on the island of Mona, beloved of the gods and all people.

  This heritage, and the island itself, is at last under threat. It is nearly twenty years since Rome sent her legions to conquer the tribes of the land they call Britannia, to take our gold and silver, our hounds and our horses, to tax our peoples for the right to farm our own soil and to take our youth into slavery.

  Throughout those two decades, while the eastern part of our land has suffered under occupation, the west has resisted savagely and effectively. The high mountains and the fierce courage of the western tribes have kept safe the land they treasure and, most especially, have protected this gods’ island of Mona.

  For much of those two decades, I believed that whatever other crimes Rome might commit, Mona and all that it means to us was safe. This is no longer true. The new governor of Britannia, Suetonius Paulinus, is gathering two of his four legions off our coast, tasked first to invade, then to slaughter all those who live within the gods’ domain and to erase for ever the dreaming from the earth. Such is Rome’s fear of what we are and what we may be.

  Our hope of survival lies now in the woman we know as the Boudica—she who brings victory—in those who care for her and keep her safe, and in the war host that gathers even now in her name. She is Breaca of the Eceni, once Warrior of Mona.

  Breaca carries within her the strengths and reality of all that we have been. She is a warrior without match and has fought unceasingly these past eighteen years to clear Rome from the land.

  While she remained here in the west, with Mona as her home, she was successful. But the east lacked a leader with the strength to raise the warriors from their slavery, and without an eastern uprising the war in the west was one of attrition, not of victory.

  Three years ago, the Boudica took the decision to leave Mona and to travel east, to the lands of her birth, to the heart of the enemy’s occupied territory. She arrived in Eceni lands with her daughters Cygfa and Graine, and with Cunomar, her only son. There, they found a once-proud tribe living in fear and humility with none willing or able to rise against the legions who surrounded them. Still, they set their minds on raising a rebellion and worked towards it.

  Over three slow years, they settled into their birthright as the royal line of the Eceni, and, with the death of Prasutagos, who had claimed rulership, began at last to raise the war host that might rid the land of Rome.

  That might have been the end of it, or at least, an auspicious beginning. But the emperor Nero, who covets gold above all else, and who had heard of the wealth of the Eceni “king,” sent his procurator, one Decianus Catus, to claim all that belonged to the Eceni in the emperor’s name.

  Catus was a tax collector, a man of mean mind and meaner spirit, who made himself safe with a cohort of paid veterans: men retired from the legions, who retained with their fighting abilities the legions’ abhorrence of the native tribes.

  They arrived in the Eceni steading to find the beginnings of resistance and insurrection. After a mockery of a trial, they found Breaca and her family guilty of treason and began the steps to execution. To this end, they flogged the Boudica and her son and then raped the two unmarried girls that they might not be slain while still maidens, this being against Roman law. Thus is justice prosecuted in the emperor’s name.

  One man prevented the inevitable progress to execution by crucifixion: the Boudica’s brother, who had fought for fifteen years on the side of the legions.

  Born Bán, and later called Valerius, this man’s story is known to you all: his betrayal into slavery, his return to Britannia with the auxiliary cavalry, and his eventual betrayal by those close to the dying emperor Claudius, such that he was named traitor by Nero and became exile
d, then, from both sides of this conflict.

  Valerius has lived with the essence of despair, but he has also come to understand his birthright both as a warrior and as a dreamer. In his time with Rome, he was given to Mithras, the bull-slayer, hidden god of the legions’ elite. Later, on Hibernia, he came to understand that he was given also to Nemain, god of the moon and water, she who walks most closely with the tribes, who sends the hare and the frog to be her messengers on earth. In the living history of our tribes, no-one has ever walked in the presence of two gods more disparate. It is a testament to his strength that Valerius can do so and live. That he can do so and retain his sanity and humour is exceptional.

  Valerius was travelling east, bearing a message from Mona to the Boudica, when he learned of the procurator’s actions and the imminent execution of his sister and her family. His enduring love of the prefect Corvus enabled him to ask that man’s help in preventing the catastrophe; only an officer of highest rank in the legions could have commanded the procurator to desist and his men to leave. This Corvus did, and then departed, to lead his men west to join in the preparations for the attack on Mona. Even now, he travels towards us.

  Half a month has passed since then. With the legions marching west, the Boudica’s war host is in the best possible position to attack Camulodunum, the once-sacred settlement named by Rome as its capital city. To do so will not be easy: Camulodunum has been colonized by veterans of the XXth legion who were given land and holding as their pensions from the legion and will fight hard to keep them. Then, too, they must deal with the IXth legion, which has been stationed to the north of Eceni lands since the time of the invasion, to prevent just such an assault. At the first signs of insurrection, the IXth will march south to attack the war host from behind.

  We are also uncertain of the strength of those who must bear the brunt of this war. In the month since the procurator’s assaults, Airmid, dreamer, healer and the Boudica’s first love, has worked day and night to restore those who were damaged.

  She has succeeded in some measure. The Boudica’s son, Cunomar, who lost an ear in battle and was later flogged, can fight again and, with the warrior Ardacos, is training his she-bear warriors. His sister Cygfa, who was raped by half a century of men, has taken up her sword and thrown herself into the war against Rome. Of all those close to the Boudica, she has taken most closely to Valerius, trusting him to train her in ways that will best defeat the legions.

  We are left, then, with the Boudica and with Graine, her nine-year-old daughter, who is broken in body, but worse, is broken in soul such that she has lost her dreaming. Once, Graine would have matched the Elder of Mona. Now, she is a child who looks at the world with ordinary eyes. Breaca knows this and holds herself responsible.

  It is this, I believe, as much as a premature effort to walk and to ride, that has set her into the fever that consumes her. She is beset by despair and there is no healing we can offer which will lift it. In the healing of her daughter is her own healing, and she knows it, but time is short: the legions already gather to invade Mona and in the east a war host gathers in her name, awaiting her leadership.

  She is our hope, in her healing, is the hope for the land. I leave you with the words of the long-dead ancestor dreamer who spoke to the Boudica in a cave on her first journey from Mona. They are as real now as they were then, and our future lies within them:

  You are Eceni. It is your blood and your right and your duty. It is not too late to keep the children from weeping. Only find a way to give back to the people the heart and courage they have lost. Find a way to call forth the warriors and to arm them, find the warrior with the eyes and heart of a dreamer to lead them and you may prevail. At the last, find the mark that is ours and seek its place in your soul. Come to know it, and you will prevail.

  PROLOGUE

  A hammer, an anvil, hot iron beaten between. The noise invaded her dying.

  Nemain was close, a vague god-presence hazed in moonlight, felt but not seen. She said, “Your brother makes you a serpent-spear. He believes it will hold you more strongly to life.”

  Valerius; the lost brother of her childhood, returned to her changed beyond all measure. The sound carried his presence: a wild mix of despair and compassion together. There was more, but she was not able to read it. Even so, she did not want any gift that would hold her to life.

  Breaca said, “Am I not yet dead?” She spoke in her head, where only gods and the ghosts of the dead might hear her. The voice that might have reached the living had long since burned away in the fires of her fever.

  The god was her mother, and then Airmid and then Graine. Their care encompassed her. It did not ease the pain of her body or her soul. As all three, the god said, “You could be if you wished. Have you no reason to live?”

  She wanted to say “No,” and could not. A single name sealed her lips, over and over.

  Graine. Graine, Graine.

  The anvil spoke it in the triple rhythm of making: a reason, the first and the best; the mark by which all else was measured. It came as a gift from her brother. She drifted on the sound, and on memory, and the understanding of failure.

  Nemain said, “Your daughter’s wounding is not your fault or your failure.”

  “But can she be healed?”

  “Perhaps. Nothing is certain. Would that be worth living for?”

  “If you could promise it.”

  She felt the light touch of a smile, and a kiss and the vagueness of presence, departing. The god’s voice remained, hidden in the tap of the anvil. “Nothing is certain except death, and the peace that it offers. War is coming, with the hope of victory. Is that alone not reason for life?”

  Airmid came later, lover and dreamer, not god. She stood in a stippling of too-bright sunlight, bringing scents of rosemary and seaweed and lanolin and the touch of cool water and cooler hands that made the fever seem less.

  She spoke to someone else, as if Breaca were asleep. Her voice carried over a quiet, where the ring of the anvil had ceased. “If the flesh can’t be made to cover the bone, then she will never wield a weapon again.” She was tired, and had been weeping, and was hiding both.

  “Just now, I think we have more difficult things to worry about than weapons and their wielding.” Valerius spoke from the other side of the bed and it could have been another country and another language and another kind of grief. “The legions flog men to punish, not to maim. This was done more savagely. It will take her longer to heal.”

  “But she will heal?”

  “I think so,” Valerius said. “If she wants to badly enough.”

  They left her soon after, these two who held her to life. The rhythm of the anvil began again. A hound remained, to lie by the bedside, and became two hounds that lay one on each side of the line between living and dying, so that she would have company whichever path she chose.

  CHAPTER 1

  Rain clouds bruised the last pale of the sky, lit to copper by the dying sun, and the ring of fires beneath.

  Cunomar of the Eceni, only son to the Boudica, thrust a lit brand into the bundle of gorse and thorn and straw that lay close to the base of the legionary watchtower.

  He waited, watching the clouds and the fire equally. A lifetime passed; time to be seen, for the alarm to be raised in the watchtower above, for a legionary standing on the ramparts to hurl a javelin into his unarmoured flesh, for a dozen of the enemy to burst from the gates with their blades unsheathed, seeking the life of the warrior who sought to burn them.

  None of these things happened. He watched the nuggets of mutton fat wound in the centre of the thorn take light and flare, brightly. Three part-naked warriors ran in from his right and threw more bundles of fatted furze along the foot of the wall. Cunomar ran after them, lighting each one. He hurled the burning end of his brand into the heart of the last.

  Straw and dry thorn blazed, belching greased smoke. He backed away, choking. Heat washed over him then, as if the need to succeed had kept him safe from th
e ravening power of the fire. Freed from that, he felt the skin of his forearms blister where burning tallow had sprayed onto them. The king-band on his arm grew dull in the heat and burned him.

  “Cunomar! Here!”

  He ran back into unseen shadows, blinded by the flames. Friendly hands caught his elbow and dragged him to shelter behind a short barrier of woven wicker palisades. Someone—Ulla, perhaps; she cared for him most closely—reached across to cover his head and shoulders with a cape of soaked rawhide, making sure not to touch the healing wound on the right side of his head where his ear had once been. Someone else passed him a scrap of wet wool and he pressed it over his mouth and nose. He tried to make his breathing shallow and could not; the run and the heat and the fire had taken that from him.

  He breathed smoke and coughed again and was not the only one. His lungs ached. The bear grease about his torso and limbs became fluid in the heat. Battle marks in woad and white lime that spelled out his oath to the she-bear, to honour her in victory or die, smeared into meaningless swirls. His hair stood up like a cock’s comb, a hand’s length of stiff, white lime. He flexed his shoulders, and felt the heat equally on the old bear scars, cut with love by the elder dreamers of the Caledonii, and the new ones scourged by Rome. None of them matched the savage, perpetual ache at the side of his head where a hawk-scout of the Cortani in Roman pay had hacked off his ear.

  Far faster than he had imagined, the flames engulfed the wood of the fort, except at the gates, where the timber was steaming, but had not yet lit. Following standing orders, the men of the XXth legion on watch inside had doused the gates with water before dusk. Even here, in the occupied east of Britannia, where there was supposed to be peace, the legions still protected their watchtowers nightly against fire.

  Valerius had said they would do that, and that the men inside would be drunk because, orders not withstanding, the legionaries did not believe there was any risk of attack. He had said, too, that, drunk or not, they would still charge from the gates in a wedge as soon as the alarm was sounded.