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

mind the deeper quiet that came over the Hall when the news was spoken. And the Queen cried out into it, ‘Fools! The fools! Could they not have waited at least for word from the Royal Dun?’
    Prasutagus set down the cup that he was holding, and got to his feet beside her; and standing there by the fire, he called to his armour-bearer to make ready his war-gear; gave orders for horses to be bridled and chariot teams harnessed up; and sent riders to gather the men of the Kindred, the Royal Clan.
    ‘Let you wait till morning,’ one of the old men said. ‘Dawn comes early at this time of year.’
    ‘Not early enough! Maybe we are already too late; but assuredly there is no time to wait for morning.’
    Boudicca also had risen to her feet, and stood facing him. ‘What will you do?’
    ‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘Whatever seems best; whatever there is that can be done.’
    ‘I will come and help you to arm,’ she said.
    ‘No need. Cadog is my armour-bearer.’
    ‘But I am your woman,’ said Boudicca.
    And they went together into the Royal Chamber.
    Then there was a great coming and going; a flaring of torches all across the outer court, and a trampling of chariot teams being led under the yoke, and the whitt-whitt-whitt of sword and spear blade on the tall blackweapon-stone. Cold and blue-white are the sparks that fly from a whetted sword blade; frost-coloured against the red flare of the torches. And the south gates were opened wide, and in the dark hour of the young-summer night, Prasutagus and his household warriors were gone, drumming out over the causeway to meet the war-bands he had summoned to join him along the way.
    And behind them was the silence again, and the waiting.
    Nine days, we waited, and on the evening of the ninth day they came back, clattering in between the stone gateposts under a low squally sunset barred with yellow along the west; and the yellow made a cold and hollow glitter on their weapons and horse-ornaments. We saw no riderless horses, no empty chariots, and yet they had about them no look of victory. And I was minded of the time we came back from Camulodunum, Prasutagus having done the bitter work of the Council. But then, he had been little more than a boy. He was a man now, and whatever had been done, the doing had been his and not the Council’s.
    He reined in and got down from his chariot, stiffly, before the threshold where Boudicca waited for him. He was mired with long hard driving, his eyes red-rimmed.
    She asked no questions, but he answered her as though she had. ‘The Red Crests stormed the defences. It was all over before we got there.’
    ‘What did you do, my Lord?’
    ‘I did what I could. There is some kind of patched-up peace. Pray to our Lady of the Foals that it lasts. At least we are still a free state.’
    ‘And the Governor’s orders?’
    ‘The Governor’s order still stands.’ The great weariness that was on him sounded in his voice.
    The first of the appointed days came for the handing in of weapons; and each clan brought its war-gear in to the steading of its chieftain, where the officials and their Red Crests waited. And in the forecourt of the Royal Dun, Prasutagus brought his own sword, and broke it across his knee; and laid the pieces with deep and formal courtesy at the feet of the senior official. And behind him, one after another, the warriors of the Royal Clan did the like; until the pile rose so high and wide that the official must step back quickly to avoid losing a toe or two, and someone in the gathering laughed.
    So it was done, swords broken, spearheads wrenched from their shafts and flung into the waiting carts. By evening, all was over.
    I wondered if they must be fed and lodged in the Royal Dun for the night, as we had fed and lodged the tribute-collectors every year. But the Red Crests, following their usual custom, had made their own camp for the night; and I am thinking the officials felt safer within their stockade than within