Song for a Dark Queen by Rosemary Sutcliff Read Free Book Online

floor with a coloured pattern on it, wine jugs of red Samian ware on a chieftain’s table, and maybe a graceful bronze lamp in his women’s quarters; though nothing so beautiful as the Queen’s dark Bride Cup with the flame at its heart. But we were a free people still.
    And then, some six years after we made our friendship treaty with the Emperor at Camulodunum, the first trouble came.
    In that winter, Ostorius Scapula, who was Governor of Britain – for the Romans behave as though we were one land and one people divided into a few clans; they do not understand that we are the Tribes, and Britain little more than an idea of their own – Ostorius Scapula began the making of a frontier line; road and fosse and string of forts, running all the way from the hunting runs of the Dumnoni in the far south-west, up to their great new fortress they call Lindum beyond the settlements of the Parisi. This was for a defence against the hill tribes beyond, the Bearers of the Blue Warshields, and the Silures who were still carrying on their own war with Caratacus to lead them at that time.
    And when the new frontier line was finished, Ostorius Scapula ordered that the tribes lying next behind it on the Roman side should be stripped of their weapons; amongst them ourselves the Iceni, the Lords of the Horse.
    The order came, brought by pot-bellied officials guarded by Red Crests lest we tear them into little pieces and feed them to our hunting dogs. At such and such places, on such and such days, the weapons were to be brought in and stacked for Rome to carry away; and any man caught carrying sword or war spear thereafter was to pay for it with death or slavery. ‘You have no need of weapons,’ said those pot-bellied officials. ‘Rome is here to keep order. Rome is here to protect you.’ And one, standing beside the fire in the Royal Dun itself, said, ‘Was it not for that you yielded to your Emperor without a blow, six years since?’
    We heard them, we who counted ourselves a free people, and our bellies rose within us.
    ‘We are free allies of Rome! We have paid our allotted tribute, we have sent our young men to serve with the Eagles; but by the word of the Emperor himself, we are a free state, not a conquered people like the Catuvellauni, to be ordered to lay down our arms.’
    Thus said Prasutagus the King, standing also by the fire in his High Hall. He spoke very softly, and his face had gone as white as buttermilk. He always grew pale and deathly quiet when he was angry. But the officials were not knowing that.
    ‘Then you had best send to Rome, and take the matter up with the Emperor himself,’ said the pot-bellied one. ‘Meanwhile, these are the orders of Ostorius Scapula, Governor of Britain.’
    And all men knew that by then Caesar was old and sick and surrounded by evil advisers.
    ‘I must have time to call the Council, that we may speak together upon this matter,’ Prasutagus said, as quietly as before.
    ‘You have time enough for that. It is half a month before the date set. Only see that when the day comes, the weapons of the Iceni come with it to the appointed places.’
    But scarcely were the officials gone jingling off with their escort of Red Crests, and before ever the Council could be called, word came that the clans of our south-western runs had risen against the order, and made their strong place among the great fortified banks of the High Chalk that had been raised long since against the Catuvellauni.
    It was evening when the word came, brought by a tired man on a tired horse. The evening meal was over– a gloomy meal it had been – and men and women had moved in from their own sides of the Hall to meet and mingle according to our custom when the eating is done; but there was little of the usual talk and laughter. I sat in my accustomed place at the Queen’s feet, my harp tuned and ready, though it was in my mind that there would be no harp music that night. But though it had been quiet before, I