Free Song for a Dark Queen by Rosemary Sutcliff Page B

it to pieces with my own hand, before he lay so much as a finger on it!’ Then to Rhun she said, ‘Old Nurse, set down the jewels. There is no knowing what the outcome of this Roman visit will be; therefore take this and lay it away safe beside my father’s sword, until the house is clean of these wolf-spawn!’
    And I saw that there was no other word for me, and I went to find the companions.

8
Death on the Dancing Floor
    SO WITH THE full dark, when they were washed and had put on fresh garments, the Roman officials and the Commander of their Escort came again to sup in the High Hall, and Boudicca came out to them with the Princesses and her women behind her.
    And truly it seemed that the fire on the hearths leapt up to greet her, and she walking tall and proud in her red and purple gown with the Queen’s goldwork about her arms and neck, and her eyes stained with the green malachite eyepaint that she scarcely ever wore, and all the bones of her face (she was lean enough, now) standing out hard and beautiful. And behind her, Essylt walked defiant under her blaze of red hair; and Nessan, the little dark one – nobody but I would have seen that she was afraid, only that her lips were set like a boy’s when he comes to his man-making.
    The Procurator and his officials had been given their places with the companions on the Men’s Side of the Hall, and the Queen greeted them and would have gone to the Queen’s Place that had been made ready for her on the Women’s Side. But Decianus Catus came from the men’s table, holding out his hand. ‘And must we shout to each other across the fires, with all the width of the hall between us? Ah no, that is no way for a pleasant evening.’
    ‘It is the custom of the Tribes, that men and women do not eat together,’ Boudicca said.
    ‘But this evening, let us follow the custom of Rome.So we may talk together of many things, and enjoy each other’s company.’ He seemed to have laid aside the man who had spoken of burned thatch and salted fields, earlier in the evening. But it was only the outer seeming that had changed. The man was still there. And Boudicca cried out to the slaves to bring forward trestle-boards and stools and benches, and set them up on the Dancing Floor between the two fires.
    And when it had been done, they sat down, the Queen and the Princesses, the Roman officials and the Escort Commander all together, while the warriors and the women took their usual places along the sides of the Hall, and the cook-slaves brought the great bronze pots of beef-stew and barley cakes and the tall jars of Greek wine.
    ‘We would have had a boar for you, and badger baked in honey, if we had known that we had guests this night,’ the Queen said. ‘This is plain fare, but at least the wine is worthy of Imperial Rome.’ And she gestured to young Cerdic, who had been Prasutagus’s cupbearer, to bring the great bronze cup with the silver rim, and put her lips to it, in courtesy, or in token that it was not poisoned, I am not sure which, and bade him take it to the Procurator.
    So the meal went on. And all up and down the sides of the Hall, we watched those who sat at the makeshift cross-table between the fires, with the light of the torches all about them. And Oh, but the Queen was beautiful in the torchlight, like some queen out of the oldest and deepest legends of our people. And I saw that I was not the only one to be thinking so, for the eyes of the Procurator were often upon her, across the rim of the great bronze wine-cup; and it was not all in mockery, when he said, ‘When all this regrettablebusiness is over, you must be done with this barbarian way of life, and come to us at Camulodunum.’
    I could hear him well enough, for there was little talk along the side tables, and I saw the fire under her green eyelids. But she only said, ‘I thought your living place was in Londinium.’
    ‘Only for business purposes,’ he said, ‘Londinium is a rough place; the