Free Myths of the Modern Man by Jacqueline T Lynch

Cailte. He glared at me, and grabbed me by the arm, hoisting me up. He pushed me, stumbling, towards the queen, and I let him. She kept us waiting by granting an audience to another man, a huge black-haired warrior.
    “ Dubh,” Cailte said, rolling his eyes. So, he was called the Dark One, whoever he was. He did not make it to the history books, so he was a mystery to me. But, Boudicca gave him her patient attention.
    I was brought forth at last, while I licked the honey off my fingers, to be presented to her.
    She glowered at me, much as Cailte did, like they were all just about fed up with me. She looked at my limbs as if she were deciding to buy a horse. She spoke, in the same guttural, flowing gurgle that Cailte spoke, and I understood very little. Cailte spoke for me.
    I got bored with this really quickly, and decided to speed things up. With a quick thrust and grab, I yanked the knife from Cailte’s belt. Boudicca watched, breathless, but she did not draw back. She would not show fear.
    Abruptly, I turned my back to her, squatted, and etched into the dirt floor a map of Britannia. I put a mark for her in present-day Norfolk, and drew Roman shields for as many cohorts as I knew all around the west country. I marked the empty forts, and the ones which Dr. Ford said were full, according to the historian Tacitus.
    At first she looked at me as if I were a loony. Then she left her seat, and joined me on the floor, lifting her yellow gown above her knees as she went down on all fours to study the design I had made. We both looked like we were playing marbles on our hands and knees.
    “ Romans. Iceni.” I said, and pointed to my scratches in the dirt. The druid priest Nemain now glared at me. He would not get down on all fours for nothing. Besides, I stole his thunder. Taliesin looked apprehensive.
    I gave her something to think about. I did not tell her what to do. I did not really tell her anything she couldn’t find out about herself. In a few weeks.
    She fingered the silver broach on the shoulder strap of her tunic, a design of a sword crossing a shield. Her eyes were not steely now, but luminescent with wonder and torchlight. I don’t know her age. Late twenties, middle thirties? Her two daughters were very young women, not yet joined with husbands, and still under her protection. They looked like noblewomen, in long, colorful tunics and carefully presented. Their mother, however, looked like a warrior. She was the Queen, but I sensed she was a warrior, first.
    There were many warrior women in Celtic society, many women leaders, and many of the fiercest battle gods were females. They were not lesser individuals in a society hell-bent on just surviving. They wandered, some were driven, from the heart of Europe to the British Isles. They needed everyone who could fight, to fight. It made no difference to chieftains if the warrior was a man or woman, as long as the warrior could stand firm. The Romans found them distasteful, humorous, and quaint.
    I read once the words of a Tibetan ruler who declared that the first principle of a warrior is not being afraid of who you are. Simple words. Wise words. I was sometimes afraid of who I was, and worried about vulnerability. How afraid was Boudicca?
    At first, I thought I might be praised for my knowledge of the Roman positions, then I realized her fascination was that she had never seen a bird’s-eye view of the land before. I smiled, the joke was on me. My showing off with info on the enemy was for nothing. Dr. Roberts would rather have it that way. I wasn’t supposed to get involved.
    She sat back on her heels and considered the floor. Dubh, Nemain, Taliesin, Cailte, they all looked at my creation coldly, and I had an idea my molecules might be visiting Avalon sometime soon. It did not look like I would make it back to my seat, let alone back to the 21st century.
    Boudicca looked at me now, but with a startling absence of judgment. I submissively put Cailte’s knife back