A week after I met Gracchus, Galen took my crutches away from me.  He was very unhappy with me the day I went for my walk, because I had overworked my muscles, but he understood my need to be mobile.  Maximus wanted me able enough to not only walk but ride as well, I learned from Galen.  This indicated to me that I was going to be leaving, and it hurt me.  I felt safe here, if of no apparent use.  I knew the physician liked me; we spent much time discussing various ways of curing and healing; I learned that he had observed Druids and their medicine as well as the Greek doctors.  He was pleased with my knowledge of plants, and though the Romans gave them different names, I found that many I knew of grew in abundance here, as well as more potent ones that I was unaware of that he told me he would show me.  I was most happy when he promised to take me on some of his calls to female patients.   He mentioned that one or two were due to give birth and would probably feel comfortable with a skilled midwife present.

Gracchus came frequently to visit me, often accompanying young Lucius.  He said little; most times content to just watch the two of us interact and look on approvingly.  The times he would come alone, he would bring me a lime from the orchard as a symbol of his goodwill.  He continued to ply me for information regarding my life in Britannia.  I could not understand why it was so important to him.  Would he use it against my people at home?  Word came every day in the whispers between servants that there was still trouble in Britannia.  A new governor had gone there to suppress the mutiny of the legions that were tired of fighting and the conditions in which they did.   Was this why Gracchus wished to know so much about me?  To find out what I knew that could be of use?  I could not imagine any other reason for his queries.  Simple curiosity seemed too easy a solution.

The more he pressed, the more memory returned to haunt me against my will.  For the last seven years I strove to forget my former life and empty myself of all but hate and strength.  I no longer knew hope that I would one day be free or that I would ever see the wild woods of home again.   I let no emotion overtake me; no one could penetrate the wall of my silence if I chose not to speak.  I accepted each change in ownership of me and did what I was told; hiding my thoughts behind a face I kept carefully blank.   Only survival mattered to me, though for what reason I cannot explain, other than my gods told me I must and they would keep me safe.  The only beings I trusted were those spiritual ones. 

I shut out of my mind my life before I was sold in the slave market in Zucchabar.  Other than snatches of my childhood and my education, I refused to think on it.  However, Gracchus was persistent, and my resistance broke down gradually.  The effort to keep it to and away from myself was causing me to sleep again and this caused great consternation with Galen, fascinating him at the same time.  It angered me, and my control began to slip.  The day I snapped at Lucius for nothing at all and sent him away hurt and let down, I knew I needed to at least face the inevitable confession.  I did not have to like it.  I limped out to the gardens to find Gracchus. 

It was his ritual in the afternoons to feed his beloved geese, so I sat on a stone bench nearby, collecting my thoughts.  A thought occurred to me while I perched there, that perhaps he wanted to know about me to help matters in Britannia for my people.  So unsettling was the idea, I almost got up to leave and hide again in my room to mull it over, but instead I stayed and waited.  Finally, Gracchus finished with his birds and took a seat beside me.  He was dressed in a warm tunic made of raw fiber cloth, rather than his fine senatorial robes.  Winter was coming upon us and the breeze was cooler.

"You look like a woman with much on her mind.  Lucius tells me you were quite unhappy today."  He said it gently, not accusatorily. 

"Not with him, my lord.  Myself."  I gazed out to the pond, then back down at my feet.

"Ah.  Good, he will be glad to hear that.  He is beside himself, not knowing what he did.  He thinks quite highly of you."  His eyes twinkled merrily, and I made a point to myself to be sure and apologize to Lucius that very night.   We were silent for a few more minutes, as I chose a good way to begin my story to him.

"You always want to know about me and my past.  Why?"

"Boadicea, how long have you been questioning the motives of every single Roman that addresses you?"  He reprimanded me softly, like my mother would have done years before.

"For fourteen winters.  Since I was twelve."  

"That is a long time.  Have you been a slave all that time?"

"No.  It was some years after that that I was sold.  How much do you know about what happens in Britannia?"  I decided to press him for information, too.

He shook his head.  "Very little, I'm afraid.  We send governors to keep the peace there.  But it is difficult to control the army.  From what I hear, they are not very successful in keeping rebellion at bay there, either from the Celts or our own men."

"No, they're not."  If he looked surprised or showed any emotion at all, I did not notice, for I was already far away in time and place, where there was no new master, no Rome save the army that came to make life hard for the inhabitants of Pritani.

For several hundred years, relations between Romans and Celts had been strained at best.  It is difficult to explain where the hostility between the two began.  It was long before Julius Caesar set foot on the shores of Cantium, and even before Rome was no longer the capitol of Etruria but the heart of an empire.  Whatever the cause, war was waged for centuries between the nations, and had finally reached the shores of Britannia some ninety years after Caesar's first expedition to the isles.

Despite the efforts of men such as Venutius of the Carveti and Cunobelinus of the Catuvellani to keep their Celts separate from Rome, the Empire still came and plundered our people and land.   Claudius defeated the army of Caratacus, son of Cunobelinus, and marched triumphant into Camulodunum, holding treaty talks for sixteen days with leaders representing all the tribes of Britannia.  Only two of them, Cartimandua of the Brigantes, wife of Venutius, and Prasutagus of the Iceni, husband of Boudicca, accepted client-rule under the Empire.

It was Cartimandua's decision to tie herself to Rome that caused Venutius to divorce and declare war on her.  When he attained the upper hand in battle, Cartimandua called up her Roman allies to help her.  Venutius was captured and beheaded for his adherence to a way of life that had served us well enough for centuries.  Cartimandua years before had captured Caratacus, who along with his family, was sent to Rome in chains to plead his case before Claudius.  So impressed was the Emperor with Caratacus' eloquence and courage, that he granted him clemency, but without returning him home.   Cartimandua paid a price for her alliance, however.  The Roman armies came among her Brigantes and took control of them.  Cartimandua remained queen in name only.

Prasutagus, on the other hand, while paying his tribute to his Roman friends, kept a tight rule on his Iceni.  That this was because he was a man is a matter of some conjecture.  Whatever the reason, Rome bothered him very little, and while the Roman way of life was introduced to his court and education in Roman law and language extended to his nobles, he was a Celt in spirit.  Before his death of illness, he stipulated in his will that his kingdom be divided and ceded half to Nero and the Empire, the other to his daughters, with his wife to be placed as regent above the Iceni until the girls were old enough to come into their inheritance.

The will displeased certain Romans, as it was looked at as slighting the Emperor and made provision for women, who could not inherit land under Roman law.  Seeing the situation as an opportunity to gain favor with Nero, who cared nothing for what was happening in Britannia, Procurator Decianus Catus marched on the Iceni with his legions, seizing property, valuables, and stripping nobles of their ancestral positions.  When Boudicca protested, reminding Decianus of the agreement her husband had made with Rome, she was taxed heavily, and since she could not pay, was beaten and her daughters raped, thus rendering her and her husband without a legal heir to their throne.

Unlike Cartimandua, Boudicca did not simply sit back and accept Roman rule.  Calling for the assistance of other tribes, she waged a bloody, brutal war and before she was defeated, destroyed the cities of Camulodunum, Verulamium, and Londinium, all inhabited by Romans or supporters of Rome.  Thus she sent her message that the British Celts would not go quietly into slavery.  It is said she sacrificed her victims to the goddess Andraste.  Rather than be captured and paraded by Suetonius Paulinus as spoils of war in front of Nero, she and her daughters took poison and died.   While hers was the last revolt of its kind in our country, it was hardly the last time we would resist the yoke of our oppressors.  With the southern tribes under control, the legions and their commanders could turn their attention again to the north.   This they did, and for a hundred years or more, conflict with the Caledonii, Pictii, and other tribes continued.

The stars were out when I finished my retelling of the events of my life to Gracchus.   I told him about my childhood, my parents, and the destruction of a fragile peace at Roman hands.  How me and mine were taken from our home in the middle of the night to be separated and sold as bonded labor.  I left out the reason that I had truly been kidnapped and that I was a Druid.  That was a secret I told only Galen.

He said nothing for long minutes, then sighed deeply.  "I am not sure what I can say about all that," he mused.

"There is nothing for me there, only them," I assured him, waving my hand in the general direction of Britannia.  I just felt as if a weight had been lifted from me.  He handed me a cloth to wipe the tears that had fallen at times during my story, and we got up to go back toward my quarters.  I wanted to make things up to Lucius, however, so we changed direction and walked without speaking to the house, where a bright-eyed Lucius met us.

"He's here!"  He shouted, grabbing our hands and pulling us with him.  Gracchus stopped him and asked him who the visitor was.

"Maximus!  He got here an hour ago."  He stopped and looked at me.  "What's the matter with you?"

I was frozen.  The day I would be handed over to the man who had paid for me had been a specter in front of me always, but I had kept it as far from my mind as possible.  Now it was at hand, and I was sick at heart.  The future was suddenly black with uncertainty and the reason for it was just behind Lucius, examining me with eyes like a blue-green sea.

He was still dressed in his armor, and in the light from the torches that lined the lane, cut an imposing figure behind Lucius.The gods have a strange sense of humor.  All of Celtic Britannia was in the grip of Rome and here was I, owned by one of her generals.  I glanced at Gracchus accusingly.  He had said Maximus was a soldier.  He had not given all away.  The old man grinned sheepishly back, and while it was hard to be angry with him, I was certainly not amused.  Maximus did not miss the look that passed between us, and cocked an eyebrow at Gracchus.

"You left something out, when you told her about me?"  He chided, and the beginning of a smirk turned up a corner of his mouth.  

Gracchus smiled and returned, "I told her nothing you asked me not to."  I stood stiffly while they joked as if I understood nothing, and found myself falling into my old habit of letting nothing of my thoughts show, either in my face or my eyes.

Or so I thought.  Maximus turned his intrusive, infiltrating gaze back on me, and certainly he was searching though me, finding my thoughts no matter how deeply I tried to hide them.  It was unnerving, and I needed away from him as quickly as I could get.   But I dared not leave; he was my master, and I was a slave.  By rights, he could do as he wished.  He must have realized how uncomfortable it was for me to be examined, because he left my eyes and came around to the side of Lucius, who still gawked at me as if I had grown two heads, to look the rest of his acquisition over.  Lucius finally repeated, "Boudicca, what's wrong with you?"

Gracchus answered him for me, aware as he was that I had just graced him, a Senator of Rome, with a piece of myself that was painful and bitter, knowing that Maximus represented all that to me.  He probably understood as well, that soon, drowsiness from trying to stem the tide of emotion that crashed upon the hardened rock of my heart was beginning to overtake me.  "It's been a long day for her, Lucius.  Strong as she is, she is still very weak at times.  And it can't be easy to be stared at like a prized horse."  The last he directed at Maximus, who was indeed, investigating me, noting that I stood straight and without assistance, that I had walked steady and true beside Gracchus with only a slight limp the way to this point.  He seemed pleased with what he could view immediately, but I wondered if I was to be thoroughly examined later when it was only the two of us.  The thought was not appealing.  Gracchus continued, but to me, "Did you have something you wanted to tell Lucius?"

I found my voice.  Avoiding the questioning glance from Maximus, I apologized to the boy I had hurt earlier with careless words and misdirected anger.  I offered him my hand, and Lucius took it. We were still friends.  We walked together, the rest of the way back to my tiny room, the men trailing some distance behind us.  I could hear snatches of the quiet conversation they were involved in, and Gracchus' soft, "Later...Galen will explain...wild..."  What Maximus responded with was lost to me, his voice a gravel-rough whisper in a tone so low I could not hear it unless I turned around, and I was not going to do that.

Outside my sleeping place we said our goodnights.  Lucius begged me to come watch his weapons practice the next day, then realized that I should probably have the general's permission.  Our friendship suddenly seemed to have limits placed upon it by the physical presence of my owner, whereas the idea that I belonged to someone, but had been given time to heal and get by virtually on my own had allowed us freedom to just be on somewhat equal ground.  Now, he was of noble birth, Gracchus was a powerful man, and I was a slave.  The boundaries were far clearer to me.  I averted my eyes, but turned toward Maximus in askance.

His answer was a kind, "Of course.  I would like to see what she thinks of your skills."  He left first, then Gracchus, who pressed a lime from out of nowhere into my palm with a smile, patting my arm for reassurance.  Lucius waited until they were out, then turned back to me.

"Is it very hard to be a slave?"  He choked on the word, and I realized he truly thought of me as a friend.  In that instant, I wished he were my son.  I turned his chin so I could look into his eyes and give weight to my words.

"It depends on who your master is.  If you belong to someone who is kind and remembers that you are human, then it is not like being captive at all.  You come to think of it as employment.  My first owner was that sort of man.  The last one was a cruel beast more terrible than the ones I fought.  The bears were merely hungry, frightened animals.  Pontius was evil, and fed off the misfortune of others because he enjoys the blood and suffering and the money that he makes from it.  I hated him and wanted my death, if I could not have my freedom."  He thought about what I said, then looked toward the door, where the men had disappeared but waited for him outside.

"Maximus will be good to you, Boudicca.  He used to be a slave, too."  How could I make him understand that it was not the man himself I was uncomfortable with, but the position he held?  Living in the home of a senator was one thing; here, Gracchus was only a good man, with a ken beyond that of his peers for the plight of the common persons he had charge over.  Being the slave of a soldier, the commander of legions no less, was quite another.  I had told Lucius nothing of my life, how the legions had ravaged my home, and how Maximus was an enemy to me simply for being what he was.

He had to have been planning to buy me for some time before that awful last day in the amphitheater.  Why, I could not begin to guess.  But it was now clear to me what sort of things he must have been asking the guard that first time I saw him in the bowels of the arena, where I had come from, what I might know, any number of things that would require his need of me.  Gracchus had said I would have to ask Maximus most of my questions.  I now wondered if I should or could.

"I know he was." I smiled down at Lucius, but to convince myself more than the boy.   That night, I dreamed of marching legions of Roman soldiers that all had Maximus' face. A voice in the dream kept repeating, "Destiny and fate..."