'I'm sure you're right. Anyway, I can't imagine us wanting to stand by and possibly let another Cartimandua take power over the Iceni; one Fury like that is quite enough for this island.'

'What is the name of Prasutagus' wife?'

'I've no idea but I'm sure we won't be able to avoid being introduced to the hairy beast.'

'What makes you say she's hairy?' Magnus asked, in a tone that implied interest; he had left his plump slave back in Rome in Gaius' household where he had supposed, rightly, that she would remain unmolested.

Sabinus indicated around them with an expansive gesture. 'Fog-bound marsh, dim forests all of little use for agriculture; only animals can live here and in my experience animals are always hairy.'

'Elephants aren't; they've got some hair on them but they ain't hairy.'

Sabinus sighed with irritation. 'All right, Magnus; if she isn't hairy she'll be huge.'

Magnus grunted, apparently satisfied. 'Fair enough.'

As it turned out Sabinus was wrong: Prasutagus' wife was both huge and hairy. It was to her that Vespasian and his companions, having sent their names on in advance, presented themselves in the marketplace the following day upon their arrival at Venta Icenorum.

'My name is Boudicca, wife of Prasutagus,' the Queen of the Iceni announced in a harsh voice, used to command; her russet hair was piled high on her head and fell in copious unkempt waves down her back, coming to her waist. She wore the tunic and trousers of a man, brightly coloured; a cloak was fastened around her by a bronze brooch, fas.h.i.+oned as a coiled serpent. About her neck she wore a golden torque, the sign of a warrior old in the way of war. Standing in front of the largest, by far, of the five hundred or so round, thatched-roofed huts cl.u.s.tered within the stockaded settlement, she fixed the visitors with a piercing glare, one after the other, as if a.s.sessing the threat posed by each one before continuing: 'My husband is unable to come and greet you personally as he is confined to his hall.' Her Latin was accented but reasonable.

Vespasian restrained an urge to snap at her, unimpressed by being treated in such an overbearing manner. 'It is with him that we need to speak.' He felt Caenis' hand on his elbow and tempered his voice. 'I suggest that we do so now.'

'You can suggest all you like, Roman, but I'm telling you that you cannot see him; he is on his deathbed. You will address any issues to me or you will leave. Rome does not rule here.' She folded her arms, the sleeves of her tunic riding up to reveal hirsute wrists. The warriors attending her s.h.i.+fted their positions to stand more firmly; here and there one rolled his shoulders as if limbering up. Other warriors could be seen through the haze of pungent cooking-fire smoke that wafted around the nearby huts.

Vespasian felt the turma of cavalry, standing behind him, tense.

Caenis stepped forward, looking up at the warrior queen. 'If we do not get to see your husband before he dies then I can tell you that there is no chance that I will do my business with you.'

Boudicca looked down at Caenis who was almost two heads shorter than her and well under half her body-ma.s.s. 'Do you speak for these men?' There was surprise in her voice.

'My name is Antonia Caenis; I speak for myself. I and my companions will speak with your husband.'

With their eyes locked, the battle of feminine wills raged in silence for a few moments.

'Very well, Antonia Caenis,' Boudicca said eventually, 'but just you and one other.'

'Seneca must think I'm stupid,' Prasutagus wheezed; his chest heaved and he hacked out a series of phlegm-filled coughs, spitting the b.l.o.o.d.y result onto the rushes covering the floor. He grimaced in pain as he lay back down on the pillow and gave a wan smile, wrinkling his thin skin even more than age had done naturally. 'But perhaps he's right: I was stupid to borrow that amount of money from him. It just seemed so easy, and at the time I didn't consider how I would pay it back as we didn't really have any concept of bank loans on such a vast scale before you Romans came and so didn't understand them.'

Caenis nodded her head in sympathy that Vespasian could see was put on. 'I'm sure that you understand them now.'

'Oh, yes; I understand them. I understand them well enough to know that the interest that I've been paying has stopped me from ama.s.sing enough to pay off the debt.' He wheezed again, this time through mirth. 'Seneca's been too greedy: he's not allowed me the means to repay him.'

Caenis crossed her legs and leant forward. 'Seneca doesn't see it that way, Prasutagus. His reasoning is that the King of the Iceni took out the loan so that the whole tribe would benefit; therefore the whole tribe is liable. So he suggests that you start collecting the taxes that you need to fulfil your obligations to him.'

The dying King looked at Caenis, his long grey hair lank with sweat. 'Or what?'

Caenis smiled sweetly at him. 'Or he has the influence to be able to send a legion to collect it and that will work out far more expensive for you and your people; especially bearing in mind that if the amount cannot be raised in cash and bullion, then slaves are getting quite valuable again after the drop in price when so many Britons were sold off in the first years of the conquest.' Caenis paused for a few moments to let this sink in. 'However,' she continued as Prasutagus acknowledged the possibility of such action, 'Seneca is not so greedy as to insist on repayment of the full amount, since he has, as you have pointed out, already made a considerable profit on the deal.'

Prasutagus fell into another bout of strained coughing; b.l.o.o.d.y saliva trickled from the corners of his mouth. 'How much does he want?' he asked once the fit had subsided.

'He's prepared to forget half of the outstanding interest if you pay by the calends of March; that gives you a little over three months to collect.'

This sent Prasutagus into a choking mixture of mirth and dry hacking, his chest convulsing with the effort.

'That's enough!' Boudicca's harsh voice cut across her husband's discomfort. 'You will leave him now.'

Caenis remained firmly in her seat. 'Not until I have an answer from him.'

'I am mistress here.'

Caenis turned hard, piercing eyes onto the Britannic Queen. 'That's what you might think, Boudicca; however, I make this offer only once, to him, the King, not to you. If I leave now without an answer, the full sum will be due the moment I walk out the door. Can you afford that?'

Vespasian again witnessed a silent battle of female wills, feeling relieved that he was not caught in the middle.

Boudicca blinked first. 'What say you, husband?' Her voice softened; there was considerable tenderness in it.

Prasutagus managed to get his chest under control. 'What can I say? I have to accept. Seneca dresses up a hard deal as a generous favour by threatening me with the immediate bankruptcy of the whole Iceni tribe to be paid for by the liberty of hundreds, if not thousands, of us sent to the slave markets of Gallia and Italia.' He looked back to Caenis. 'Come back in March and the money will be here; even if I'm not.'

'Then how can you guarantee that?'

'I'll make it a condition of my will. Seneca's loan will be paid off and then the rest of my estate will be divided equally between the Emperor on one hand and my wife and daughters on the other.'

Caenis tilted her head. 'Agreed, but with one change: you bring the money to me in Camulodunum.'

Prasutagus sighed deeply and nodded, too tired to argue any more.

Vespasian at last saw how he could be of use. 'Have the doc.u.ment drawn up now, Prasutagus, and I'll witness it along with my brother; as former consuls our signatures and seals would make the will unchallengeable.'

And so Caenis, taking the halting dictation of a dying man and in her ultra-neat hand, wrote down a will that favoured Seneca above all else. Sabinus was ushered into the hall and he and Vespasian witnessed the completed doc.u.ment under the glowering gaze of Boudicca. When it was done they took their leave of Prasutagus, leaving him emptying his lungs and cursing in equal measure.

'You know that in March it'll be with me that you'll have to deal,' Boudicca informed Caenis as they stepped out together into the chill, her breath immediately steaming.

Caenis did not look at the Britannic Queen. 'No, Boudicca; in March it'll be me that you have to deal with. And as far as I'm concerned, your husband has already made the deal, and if he's dead by March then I will expect you to honour it.'

'And if I choose not to?'

'Then it'll be the wrong choice because Seneca will have both the law and the military power on his side. If I were you I'd spend the next few months collecting the money.'

Caenis walked away leaving Boudicca seething, her fists clenching and unclenching. 'I should have you all killed, Romans,' she snarled at Vespasian and Sabinus as they pa.s.sed her.

'And where would that get you?' Vespasian asked.

Boudicca stared at him with undisguised hatred, her towering frame tense as a strung bow. 'You think that you can come here and dictate terms to an independent king?'

'We just did, didn't we?'

Boudicca spat. 'No, you didn't, your woman did. You just sat there as if she were the man wearing trousers and you were the wife.'

Vespasian went for his gladius, ripping it from its scabbard.

Boudicca stood firm as her bodyguards surrounded her, their spears levelled. The auxiliary cavalry troopers, suddenly alert to the tension, leapt into the saddles; horses reared up in surprise at the abrupt activity. Castor and Pollux growled, deep and guttural, straining against Magnus and Hormus respectively.

Vespasian felt a hand grab his shoulder and another, his right wrist.

'Don't be stupid, brother,' Sabinus shouted in his ear.

'Do you expect me to let that insult pa.s.s?' Vespasian hissed, staring into Boudicca's mocking eyes.

'We're outnumbered; just look around you.'

Vespasian strained against his brother's grip, but knew that he was right. After a few moments he calmed, taking a couple of deep breaths, and then lowered the tip of his sword.

'Anyway,' he said, his voice tight with frustration, 'Roman men don't wear trousers.'

Boudicca sneered. 'Yes, I noticed.'

Again Sabinus had to restrain his brother, and it took Caenis turning and running back to grab his face in both hands, forcing him to look into her eyes, to calm him this time. 'Focus on me, my love; on me.'

Vespasian looked into her eyes and saw the strength within the sapphires; he gritted his teeth and did as she had commanded and then allowed himself to be led away.

With difficulty he ignored Boudicca's scoff.

'You make sure that you're there in Camulodunum with the money on the calends of March, Boudicca,' Caenis called over her shoulder.

'I'll be there, Antonia Caenis,' the Queen replied, her voice harsh in the cold air. 'On the calends or as soon after that as the tracks are pa.s.sable, I'll be there.' She said something else, quieter, but neither Vespasian nor any of the others caught it as the words were drowned out by the neighing of horses and the jangle of tack.

'I wonder what they did,' Magnus mused, looking up at the bodies of four men slumped on crosses just outside the northern gate to Camulodunum; although their eyes had already become food for the crows there were faint signs of life in two of them.

Vespasian shrugged; he did not care, brooding, as he was still, upon the insult to his masculinity by a woman albeit a very manly woman, but a woman nonetheless. What had irked him the most was the truth in what Boudicca had said: he had been nothing more than a bystander in the negotiations between Caenis and the King. And Caenis had dealt with the situation masterfully; he gave a rueful smile at the use of such a masculine word to describe her behaviour.

'Still,' Magnus went on next to him, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Vespasian was occupying his own internal world, 'I'd a.s.sume that it would have been serious seeing as they don't look to have been slaves.'

'Perhaps there's been a bit of tension whilst we've been away,' Hormus suggested, keeping his eyes averted from the grisly sight. 'It didn't feel like a very harmonious town when we arrived.'

Vespasian grunted. 'I agree; as soon as I've spoken with that little runt, Paelignus, we'll get back to Londinium and wait there for three months whilst the Iceni get the money together and the other loans are repaid.'

Sabinus smiled. 'In relative comfort, you mean?'

'In as much as anywhere can be comfortable in this a.r.s.ehole of empire.'

'Talking of a.r.s.eholes,' Magnus said, pointing ahead of them, 'there's a little one.'

Vespasian looked up to see Paelignus riding towards them with an escort of auxiliaries. As he got closer Vespasian could see that the prefect had the grimace that pa.s.sed for his smile spread across his face.

'Ah, Senators Vespasian and Sabinus, it's a pleasure to see you both back,' Paelignus said in his most ingratiating tones as he pulled up his horse opposite them. 'I had people on the lookout for your party so that I could come and greet you myself.'

'What do you want, Paelignus?' Vespasian asked, well aware that their return was anything but a pleasure for the prefect.

'You'll be pleased to know that I've been entirely successful in my task of regaining the monies owed to Seneca.'

Vespasian hid his surprise. 'And what about the money that you owe him?'

The smile was sickening; it was as if Paelignus was trying to pretend that they were the best of friends talking about a thing of mutual interest that gave both of them joy. 'That is all in hand, Vespasian. I recently squeezed some more out of the colonists as a tax to go towards the completion of the walls, but seeing as we don't really need them I've appropriated that, which, along with what I have on deposit with the Cloelius Brothers' agent in Londinium, is over half the amount.'

The use of public funds for personal gain did not surprise Vespasian; he had seen it happen many times and was, frankly, used to it. 'And what about the rest?'

Paelignus' grimace cracked into a full-scale leer. 'Ah! Well, I thought that the easiest way to make the other creditors pay up was to use force; which, as I knew they were not citizens, seemed perfectly legitimate. So I had them arrested for plotting treason and, as Urban prefect and the highest-ranking Roman official here, I tried them myself.'

Vespasian felt the blood pound in his head; he gaped at the man he hated probably more than anyone else in the world, looking so pleased with himself, as he recounted what Vespasian was sure to be the most stupid thing that any magistrate could do.

'Of course, they were guilty and their estates forfeit. So I now have all the money that you came to collect for Seneca waiting back at the Governor's residence for you. Therefore, my ...er ... friend, perhaps we could forget all that has pa.s.sed between us; take the money and go with my blessing.'

Vespasian felt sick as he looked back at the bodies hanging from the crosses. 'Are those the men, Paelignus?'

'Of course; I gave them a taste of good Roman justice.'

'No you didn't, you crooked little c.u.n.t; they were innocent as you yourself as good as admitted. What you've given them is a taste of good Roman injustice and in doing so you've managed to execute four men who were most probably held in respect by the rest of their people and you've therefore managed to p.i.s.s off the entire Trinovantes tribe.'

CHAPTER XI.

VESPASIAN SCREWED UP the letter he had just read and tossed it over the terrace bal.u.s.trade of their rented villa, onto the muddy sh.o.r.eline of the Tamesis the place was an expensive luxury but better than running the risk of seeing the procurator, Catus Decia.n.u.s, every day had they decided to stay at the official residence. 'Well, it was inevitable, I suppose.'

'What was inevitable?' Magnus asked, throwing a piece of meat high in the air for Castor and Pollux to fight for.

'Cerialis has written to say that Governor Suetonius Paulinus has ordered him to direct his attentions to the Brigantes in the north this coming campaigning season, rather than worry about the Iceni.'

Magnus lobbed up another hunk of pork. 'Why's that inevitable?'

'Because since Prasutagus' death last month, Paulinus doesn't consider the Iceni a threat seeing as they have a queen now rather than a king and she isn't officially the queen until Nero confirms her as such, which at this time of year will take a while.' Vespasian pointed at the dogs sc.r.a.pping over the meat. 'Why are you feeding them just before we go out hunting?'

'I'm trying an experiment to see if they refrain from ripping the kill apart if they're not so hungry; it'd be nice, for once, to come back with a deer that's reasonably edible rather than something that looks like it's just had the starring role at the circus, if you take my meaning?'

Vespasian did and thought it not a bad idea, as Magnus' dogs had proved to be very enthusiastic hunters and seemed to build upon that enthusiasm with every succeeding hunt.

Magnus chucked another lump at the dogs. 'I suppose Paulinus is worried about the Brigantes taking him by surprise as spring approaches seeing as he's chosen to winter up there in the north.'

'He didn't choose to, he's been forced to; with Myrddin still unaccounted for and the few druids who escaped with him from Mona still at large somewhere up there, he had no choice. Add to that the new development of Venutius going back on his word to Seneca and stirring up trouble with the Carvetii to the north of the Brigantes then it makes sense for Paulinus to want Cerialis concentrating in that direction rather than towards the currently leaderless Iceni.'

'They do have a leader,' Caenis said, walking out onto the terrace with Sabinus, both dressed warmly, as were Vespasian and Magnus, in hunting clothes. 'Boudicca. Just because Nero hasn't confirmed her in her position doesn't mean that her people won't follow her; she's a very strong woman.'

'But even so, there would be nowhere to follow her to,' Sabinus pointed out. 'a.s.suming that Prasutagus' will is ratified and she can inherit, which according to Britannic custom she can but to Roman law she can't, she would be stupid to do anything provocative towards us once she's paid off her debt and the threat of having it collected by force has disappeared. If she lives peacefully then she'll wake up one morning later on in the year to the news that Rome is withdrawing and Caratacus is coming back to be king of the eastern client kingdom, which the Iceni would nominally be a part of but in practice will remain independent. If she does make a nuisance of herself then that event could well be delayed.'