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Legends, Love, Loss, and Surrender

Chapter Ten
Secret

"I could not help but think that some force, some higher power, had brought Boudicca and me together at that time and place," Methos said. "I decided to tell her my story."

"You told me only as much of your story as was convenient for you," Boudicca interrupted. "And I am no longer convinced that any of it was true."

As Methos inhaled to reply to her thinly-veiled accusation, a sharp rattle in his chest made him cough. All of his stretched and strained muscles complained and he swore he could feel the barely-healed wound in his lung rip open again, but he couldn't even groan in agony because of the coughing. Finally he managed to hawk something up, and spat a gelatinous glob of phlegm and clotted blood at Boudicca's feet. Watching her expression closely, he saw disgust, but no remorse, flit across her features and knew he was in deep shit. He wheezed, cleared his throat again, and this time spat away from her.

"I told you about those relevant parts of my past that I could remember," he finally rasped quietly. "And I never lied to you. If I left things out, it was because they were not important, I did not remember them, or I didn't want to face the pain that came with the memories," he said.

Boudicca sucked her teeth at him. "Who are you trying to persuade, Methos?" she asked. "Me? Or yourself?"

"What does it matter?" he moaned. "You're only going to torture me and then take my head. Why not just get it over with now?" He leaned forward and bowed his head, giving her an easy angle. "Go on, do it!"

"Nay, Methos. I would never dishonor my people by murdering an unarmed captive," Boudicca said.

Looking at her defiantly, he demanded, "Then give me my sword and let me fight."

"I do not wish to fight you if I do not have to," she said.

"Then forgive him!" Macleod called across the room, startling them both. "He's said he's sorry. Forgive him and you don't have to fight him. You don't have to take his head."

"What makes you think she could?" Methos sounded offended.

The Highlander just rolled his eyes. It didn't matter who could or would win, although Methos was certainly at a disadvantage. If they didn't fight, neither of them would have to die. Macleod was trying to save a life, and Methos, the idiot, was posturing to defend a bruised ego.

"I wish it were that easy," Boudicca lamented.

"It is exactly that easy," Macleod told her. "Just make up your mind that you don't need revenge. Make the choice right now to let it go and stop being angry with him."

"I can do that for myself," Boudicca said. "But what about Rheiba, Oidhaeche, Haerviu, Catavingus, and the forty thousand others whom he murdered?"

"It was war . . ." Macleod tried to reason with her.

"It was treachery!" Boudicca roared. "Honor demands that I avenge my people!"

"Then why haven't you done it already?" Methos shouted.

Macleod gave him an irritated glare that said, Will you shut up? You're not helping matters any.

Boudicca turned back to the ancient Immortal. "Even a traitor has the right to a court martial," she said. "Make no mistake, Methos, this is a trial. You are being given a chance to defend your actions."

"You've already decided I'm guilty," he replied sullenly. "Why should I bother?"

"Because I don't intend to spend the rest of my life watching over my shoulder for your friend to come after me with vengeance in his heart," Boudicca explained. "If you cannot convince me that you deserve to live, then you must convince him that you deserve to die, or I will claim two heads today."

"Overconfidence will get you killed as surely as incompetence," Methos warned her.

She whipped out her dagger, cut a deep slash across his chest, and sheathed the weapon again before he even realized what she had done. When he finally gasped at the pain, she smirked and told him, "So will pissing me off. Now, finish the story."

With a soft sigh of resignation, Methos cast a worried glance at Macleod and picked up where he had left off.

Our stories were so similar that I was convinced Boudicca and I had been brought together for a reason. I told her of the oasis where I grew up, what I could remember of my mother and father, sisters and brothers. I described the lean years that came as the oasis went dry, the decision to leave our home before we died of thirst, and the sandstorm that killed my family. I talked about my wandering, alone in the desert, dying of thirst and hunger again and again, until I was taken in by a tribe of nomads. I told her about my first wife, a beautiful Bedouin woman, murdered by the Pharoah Djer's soldiers in the Smiting of the Sinai and how, after Djer, who also happened to be Immortal, had pardoned me for stealing figs and trained me to be his successor, I killed him with a poisoned dart, wrapped him in mummy's bandages, and placed him in a tomb before he could revive, ensuring that he would suffer a repeated waking death for all eternity for having killed my mortal wife. I spoke of the years I spent living among the Egyptians and the time I spent studying with Sun Tzu, and she said she was glad she had spared the philosopher-warrior's head.

From my recent history, I told her about the days I spent in Capernaum before the caravan left for Rome, how we were set upon by bandits and sold into slavery. I described my life in Petronius's household, how good it was in comparison to most other slaves, and how horribly it ended. She understood better than most, that it doesn't matter how well a slave is treated, if he is not a free man, then he is still a slave. I told her how Constantine rescued me from Druscilla's cross, helped me start a new life, and gave me letters of introduction that got me a warm welcome wherever I went in the Empire.

Boudicca agreed with me that our lives had followed similar paths and that we were fated to meet. She understood why I loved the life that Rome had given me and why I couldn't love the Empire the way she loved the Iceni, and she recognized the risk I would be taking to help her and the loss I would suffer if I were found out. I felt that I could trust her, at least as much as I trusted anyone, and I believed that she trusted me. By the end of that evening, we had formed an alliance with the express intent of saving the Iceni from Roman conquest.

"An alliance which you shattered barely a year later with your cowardly betrayal, you 'n ddi-asgwrn-cefn sacha chan cacha (1)," Boudicca interrupted.

"I did not betray you!" Methos insisted. "If you would let me explain . . ."

"There is no excuse for what you did," Boudicca cut him off. "You promised to help us defeat the Romans, and then you disappeared when we needed you most. If that is not betrayal, I don't know what is. Tell your friend, Macleod, how you came to 'help' us," she ordered. "Then I will tell him of your treachery, and he can decide for himself whether your head is worth his concern."

Methos glared at her defiantly, but her determination was greater and eventually he capitulated. Dropping his gaze and hanging his head, he continued.

On the second day of my visit, over a midday meal of hearty stew served in chewy, crusty bowls of bread, with a bowl of pickled onions and a plate of fresh sliced apples layered with thin slices of cheese to share between us, I asked to see Prasutagus.

Boudicca said I could not. "My king would not wish anyone to see him in his current condition," she told me, "least of all a Roman."

"But I am not any Roman," I reminded her smugly. "I am your Roman ally, advocate, and spy."

"And your friendship is most appreciated," she replied. "But Prasutagus has asked that even his own daughters be kept away from him. The girls try to be obedient, but they love their father and they miss seeing him. So as long as they do not linger too long, the servants pretend not to see when they sneak in for a visit and I pretend not to know what secrets the servants are keeping from me. Mine is the only company he allows, and I will not disrespect him by bringing you to see him against his wishes."

"If I am to help save his kingdom for his heirs," I responded, "then I need to speak with him. I need to be certain that he understands the dangers his household and especially his wife and daughters will be facing. Please ask him if I may speak with him."

Boudicca fixed me with a stern glare. "That will not be possible," she insisted with a note of finality in her voice. With a quirk of her brow, she told me there was more to her message than the words she was saying.

"Are you telling me . . ."

She nodded. "For more than two cycles of the moon already," she said. "He asked me to rule as regent until the girls are ready. The request was duly witnessed some four months ago according to our tradition by his eldest brother, his manservant, his daughters, and his closest ally at the time, Catavignus of the Trinovantes. I have seen how the Romans operate. I know the risks we all are facing, and I have made sure Rheiba and Oidhaeche understand them as well. I left it to them to choose whether to claim their inheritance as equals to the Emperor or capitulate to Rome, and they have chosen to fight for their crowns, their lands, and their people."

I was dumbfounded. Prasutagus had been dead for two lunar cycles and no one in Camelodunum had heard the news! How had they kept the secret for so long? Why? Having done so, how would they present the corpse when they did announce his death? It was common among the native tribes for clan leaders to view the body when they came to pay their last respects, and certainly months of decomposition would be noted.

As if sensing my thoughts, Boudicca explained. "There are many ways to preserve a body, Juventius, and I have traveled enough to have learned most of them, I think. Following his death and according to his wishes, my late husband's corpse was gutted and washed. His brains were scooped out through his nose with a long-handled spoon, and then his empty skull was rinsed clean with clear spring water forced up his nose using a clyster made from a pig's bladder. His corpse and innards are now pickling in separate vats of brine much like that which was used to preserve the onion you just popped into your mouth."

When I swallowed, the onion went down like a stone and seemed to want to come back up again.

Boudicca curled her lips into a mischievous smirk and said, "Don't worry. We used fresh brine and clean jars for the foodstuffs."

I feigned relief, but honestly, I was appalled not only at the manner in which she had dealt with her husband's mortal remains but also with the calm, businesslike way she was describing it. I'm not a particularly sentimental person, but somehow, I thought a dead man's wife should be.

"Make no mistake," she told me. "This is not just the whim of some poor widow gone mad with grief. In the last weeks of his life, Prasutagus and I discussed how we should handle his death. You see, many of the Iceni would regard it as a bad omen to bury their king at the beginning of the fall harvest. The harvest is a time to take from the earth what she has given us. To return to her something so exalted as a king could be perceived as an insult. Instead we will announce his death some twelve nights hence to allow the clan leaders and neighboring tribes to pay their respects. We used pale apple vinegar so that his flesh will not stain as it would with the red vinegar that comes from Roman grapes, and once his corpse is rinsed and his guts sewn back inside him, we will wrap him in a winding sheet soaked with lavender oil and rosewater and packed with sweet-smelling herbs to hide the smell of pickling so none will know he has been gone so long. Then we will bury him the night before the solstice festival with the appropriate speeches and incantations so that everyone will see his spirit reborn in his wife and daughters when the old year gives way to the new and we rise against the Romans."

Oh, I could see that I had sorely underestimated Prasutagus and his women! Though I could not convince myself that the princesses' affection for me was anything but sincere, I had to wonder now if they have been instructed to curry my favor in hopes of winning my support later. I also wondered how much of the elaborate scheme was Boudicca's invention, and what had come from Prasutagus himself. I suspected that most everything after naming the princesses co-heirs with the Emperor was Boudicca's planning, for while Prasutagus was reasonably clever, he had not struck me as imaginative enough to dream up a plot as cunning as this.

We finished our meal in silence. I didn't know what to say, and Boudicca seemed to think she had said all that was necessary. When my stew was gone and the last slices of apples and cheese had been eaten, I asked Boudicca if I might speak to each of the princesses privately. In Rome it would have been an extraordinary request, a man asking to have time alone with a blossoming young woman, but the Iceni had different views on a woman's virtue, virginity, and honor. As far as I could tell, so long as she did not fall pregnant before her marriage, and being married, so long as she was not caught fornicating with a man other than her husband, an Iceni woman was free to associate with whomever she chose, whenever and wherever, with or without an escort. Boudicca naturally agreed to let me interview the princesses, and then extended me more courtesy than I had any reason to expect.

"Once you are satisfied that they comprehend the gravity of their proposed undertaking, Juventius, find yourself a quiet place to think, and make sure you understand it as well," she said. "If, by the evening meal, you have changed your mind about helping us, you will be free to go. You have my word that no harm will come to you so long as you do not betray us. Reveal our plans to the Romans or abandon us after you have agreed to help, and I swear to you now, I will personally carry your head on a pike through every Celtic town and village from here to Maridunum to Durovernum and back before I give it to my nephews to use as a ball for sport."

If there was one thing I had quickly learned to admire about Boudicca, it was that she was plainspoken and not the slightest bit coy. I gave her a nod and went off to find the princesses.

TBC

(1) Spineless sack of shit, in 'Iceni'.