Free Song for a Dark Queen by Rosemary Sutcliff Page A

afraid?’
    ‘To eat at your table? With more than two centuriesof legionnaries outside? With the power of Imperial Rome behind me, which likes not to have its ministers murdered in stray corners of the Empire and does not leave them lying unavenged? You are no fool, Lady; you will think of burned thatch and salted fields, and men sold into slavery. No, Lady, I am not afraid. I look forward to a pleasant evening in the company of yourself and your most fair daughters.’
    So Boudicca gave the needful orders; and when the Procurator and his men were gone to the guest-huts, with slaves to tend upon them, she went like one walking in her sleep, to the Royal Chamber; and the two Princesses close behind her. And as they walked, I saw Nessan reach out for her sister’s hand, and Essylt take it in a quick hard clasp. I think that was the first time I had seen them go hand in hand since they were bairns. I bided by the fire. She would know where to find me if she had need of me. And sure enough, before long one of the women came running, ‘Hurry! The Queen bids you come.’
    And when I came into the Royal Chamber, the Queen stood in the midst of the place, her clenched fists driven against her temples on either side, as though to hold her head from flying apart. Her women and the Princesses stood against the walls, watching her with curd-white faces. ‘I am in the hollow of his hand,’ she was saying, ‘and he knows it. May he die a slow death and watch the flesh rot from off his bones while the breath is still in him!’
    Her hair that she had torn down, hung forward about her face, so that I could not see it; but I knew that she was awake from her long sleep.
    Old Nurse said, ‘I have certain skills that you know of. The skills of the Dark People. I can give you a littlepowder to put into his food, but with so short time, I cannot come by enough for the others.’
    ‘No poison,’ said the Queen. ‘It may be that I will come to you for your skills, one day, but that will be for myself, not for the Procurator Decianus Catus.’
    ‘It would be good, that he should die,’ said Old Nurse, simply.
    ‘It would be good! But not for the Horse People. At least, not yet.’
    ‘What, then, are you thinking?’ one of the women asked.
    ‘Of burned thatch and salted fields and men sold into slavery. But I must have time to think of other things.’ She turned and saw me, and thrust the hair back from her face. ‘Time to think of many things – to make sure that if the thing comes to fighting, we do not fight in vain. Cadwan, go to the companions; I saw their faces as they stood by the door. Tell them to bring no hidden weapons to supper. Ah, but when did that ever stop trouble, since men must have their knives to eat with. . . . Tell them, then, that this evening must pass in seeming peace. That nothing must happen to fire the stubble, before the Queen has had time for her thinking.’
    And as I hesitated in the doorway, not sure if there was any other word for me, she turned to her women, ‘Old Nurse, bring me my gold and cornelian necklace, and the Queen’s arm rings; the Princesses’ jewels, also. Caer, my red and purple gown – and the box with the eyepaint.’
    They stared at her, gaping, and she began to laugh, wildly. ‘He seeks to humiliate us. That is why we are forced to sup with him. He shall see whether he can reach high enough to humiliate the Royal Women of the Iceni!’
    And she went to the clothes’ kist from which the woman Caer had just shaken out the heavy red and purple gown, and herself lifted from among the folds of other gowns and mantles stored there, a bundle wrapped in the finest crimson cloth. And a little gasp ran through the chamber. Always, on the greatest occasions and for the most honoured guests, the green cup with the fire at its heart was brought out. Essylt cried out, ‘Mother! No!’
    And the Queen turned on her like a wildcat, so that she shrank back. ‘Little fool! I would smash