When the Eagle Hunts

'I'm sure you didn't. I meant no disrespect, Cato. I'm just trying to work out our chances against the Druids and, well, you don't have the build or the look of a killer about you.'

Cato gave her a thin smile. 'I try not to look like a killer, actually. I don't find it aesthetically pleasing.'

Boudica chuckled. 'Appearances aren't everything.' As she said this she turned her head to look at the sleeping centurion and Cato saw her smile. The tenderness of her expression jarred with the cool tension that had seemed to exist between her and Macro over recent days and Cato realised she still bore more affection towards Macro than she was willing to admit. Still, any relationship between his centurion and this woman was no business of his. Cato swallowed the shred of beef he had been chewing and stuffed the rest into his knapsack.

'Looks can certainly deceive,' Cato agreed. 'When I first saw you back in Camulodunum, I would never have guessed you enjoyed this kind of cloak and dagger stuff.'

'I might say the same about you.'

Cato blushed and then smiled at his reaction. 'You're not the only one. It's taken me a while to gain any kind of acceptance in the legion. It's not my fault, or theirs. It's not easy to accept having a seventeen-year-old foisted on you with the rank of optio for no better reason than that his father happened to be a faithful slave in the imperial secretariat.'

Boudica stared at him. 'Is that true?'

'Yes. You don't suppose I'm old enough to have earned such a promotion through years of exemplary soldiering, do you?'

'Did you want to be a soldier?'

'Not at first.' Cato smiled sheepishly. 'When I was a boy I was far more interested in books. I wanted to be a librarian, or maybe even a writer.'

'A writer? What does a writer do?'

'Writes histories, or poetry, or plays. Surely you have them here in Britain?'

Boudica shook her head. 'No. We have some written words. Passed down to us by the ancient ones. Only a handful know their secrets.'

'But how do you preserve stories? Your history?'

'Up here.' Boudica tapped her head. 'Our stories are passed down through the generations by word of mouth.'

'Seems a pretty unreliable method of keeping records. Isn't there a temptation to try to improve the story with each telling?'

'But that's the point of it. The tale's the thing. The better it becomes – the more it is embroidered, the more it grips the audience – the greater it is, and the more enriched we become as a people. Is it not so in Rome?'

Cato silently considered the matter for a moment. 'Not really. Some of our writers are storytellers, but many are poets and historians and they pride themselves on telling the facts, plain and simple.'

'How dull.' Boudica grimaced. 'There must be some people who are trained to tell stories like our bards do. Surely?'

'Some,' admitted Cato. 'But they are not held in the same esteem as writers. They are mere performers.'

'Mere performers?' Boudica laughed. 'Truly, you are a strange people. What is it that a writer produces? Words, words, words. Mere marks on a scroll. A storyteller, a good one, mind you, produces a spell that binds his audience into sharing another world. Can written words ever do that?'

'Sometimes,' Cato said defensively.

'Only for those who can read. And how many in a thousand Romans can do that? Yet every person who hears can share a tale. So which is the better? The written or the spoken word? Well, Cato?'

Cato frowned. This conversation was becoming unsettling. Too many of the eternal verities of his world were in danger of being undermined if he should entertain the vision Boudica offered him. As far as he was concerned, the written word was the only reliable way a nation's heritage could be preserved. Such records could speak to the generations as freshly and accurately as at the time they were written. But what was the utility of such a marvellous device for the illiterate masses that teemed across the empire? For them only an oral tradition, with all its foibles, would suffice. That the two traditions might be complementary was anathema to his view of literature, and he would have none of it. Books were the ultimate means by which the mind could be improved. Folk tales and legends were mere palliatives to beguile and distract the ignorant from the true path of self-improvement.

Which thought led him to consider the nature of the woman before him. She was clearly proud of her race and its cultural heritage, and she was also educated. How else did she come to have so ready a grasp of Latin?

'Boudica, how did you learn to speak Latin?'

'The same way anyone learns a foreign language – hard practice.'

'But why Latin?'

'I speak some Greek as well.'

Cato's eyebrows rose appreciatively. This was no small achievement in so backward a culture, and he was curious. 'Whose idea was it that you should learn these languages?'

'My father's. He saw the way things were moving years ago. Even then our shores had been penetrated by traders from all over your world. For as long as I can remember, Greek and Latin have been part of my life. My father knew that one day Rome would no longer be able to resist the temptation of seizing this island. When that day came, those who were familiar with the tongue of the eagle soldiers would profit most from the new order. My father thought himself too old and too busy to learn a new language, so I was given that task and spoke for him in his dealings with traders.'

'Who taught you?'

'An old slave. My father had him imported from the continent. He'd been teaching the sons of a procurator in Narbonensis. When they had grown to manhood the procurator no longer had any use for the tutor and put him on the market.' Boudica smiled. 'I think it came as a bit of a shock when he came to our village, after his years in a Roman household. Anyway, my father was hard on him, and he in turn was hard on me. So I learned Latin and Greek, and by the time the tutor died, I was fluent enough for my father's purposes. And now yours.'

'My purposes?'

'Well, Rome's. It seems that older and wiser heads among the Iceni elders think we must tie our future to that of Rome. So we do our best to become loyal allies and serve Rome in her wars against those tribes foolish enough to resist the legions.'

Cato did not miss the resentful edge to her words. He reached out to the small pile of wood and placed another splintered length of roof beam on the small fire. The dry timber caught at once, cracking and hissing, and the flare lit up Boudica's features in a fiery red that made her look quite beautiful and terrifying at the same time, and Cato's heart quickened. He had not found her attractive before, as she had been Macro's woman, and he had been grieving for Lavinia. But now, as he gazed furtively at Boudica, he felt an unaccountable yearning for her. Almost at once he cautioned himself against such feelings. If Prasutagus suspected that he had taken a fancy to his future wife, who knew how he would react? If the unpleasant scene back in that i

'I take it you don't wholly approve of the policy of your tribal elders?'

'I've heard how Rome is inclined to treat its allies.' Boudica looked up from the fire with glinting eyes. 'I think the elders are out of their depth. It's one thing to make a treaty with a neighbouring tribe, or to grant trade rights to some Greek merchant. It's quite another to play politics with Rome.'

'Rome is usually grateful enough to its allies,' Cato protested. 'I think Claudius would like to see his empire as a family of nations.'

'Oh really?' Boudica smiled at his naivety. 'So your Emperor is a kind of father figure, and I suppose you strapping legionaries are his spoiled sons. The provinces are his daughters, fertile and productive, mothers to the empire's wealth.'