She mulled over possible hiding places while she showered and quickly dressed, then began her search. The two main floors of the house revealed no matches for the key. But then she found a door that led to an attic at the end of the hall. It would be up there. It had to be.
The attic was a museum. The old armor, paintings, sculptures, and trinkets made her fingertips itch to explore. But no chest.
Then she spied a crumpled tapestry that looked like it was draped over something, and with nowhere else to look, she pulled at it. Dust billowed. Her coughing turned to a gasp.
There it was. The chest was big and old, made of dark and beautifully carved wood. It was much older than the lock that had been fitted to it. She knelt reverently next to the chest, goose bumps pricking on her arms as she laid her hands on the cool wood that covered the top.
A l
ow buzz sounded in her head. What was in here could change everything. It could be nothing more than an illegal collection of antiquities or his family’s old hunting rifles, but she doubted it. Her hand shook as she fitted the key to the lock. It caught slightly, but finally opened with a snick.
Her breath came short and hard, dragging into her lungs but not filling them as she lifted the lid. With sweaty palms, she reached in and clasped the hilt of a sword. The moment she gripped the smooth handle, an unseen force punched her in the chest.
She tumbled onto her back, and the little air she had rushed out of her lungs as she hit the floor. The vacuum that stole her breath took her vision and hearing as well. The real world faded away.
Memories assailed her, one after another jumbling into her mind and fighting for supremacy. A woman clothed in a plain brown dress stood over a fire built into the middle of a roundhouse, smiling at her and beckoning her closer. Mother.
Warmth billowed from the fire and the smoke stung her eyes. A baby wailed in a crib near the wall and the woman turned from her to hurry over. I had a brother.
Diana lay helpless as the scene changed. She stood outside in a glen, dressed in a fine wool cloak fastened with a straight bronze pin, looking up at the man who would be her husband. He smiled down at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners and mist gathering in his hair as he encouraged her to step forward. She didn’t love him, was too young to love such an old man, but he would make her queen of her people. And she wanted to lead. Oh, how her young heart yearned to be a good queen to her people, the Iceni.
She was Boudica.
Time shifted forward and she sat on a grassy knoll, watching two girls of perhaps twelve playing in a stream. Her daughters. The bright sun warmed her face, but she and her husband, now a truly old man, spoke furtively of the future as their daughters splashed in the water. The world was closing in on them.
“It will never succeed, Prasutagus,” she hissed to her husband. “We must fight them! The Romans will never honor your will.”
“No, my queen.” He shook his head slowly, white hair flowing around his shoulders. “You are brave and wise, but in this you are wrong. My daughters will succeed me on the throne. The Roman emperor will be satisfied to be co-heir. They are so far away.”
“No! Rome encroaches farther every year. We agreed to their terms when they came to our borders the first time, as did the neighboring kingdoms. Our line shall hold only until your death, then our kingdom is Rome’s. By law, the emperor becomes your heir. They will not accept this move and will come down upon our heads.” She shook him to make her point, glancing at her daughters to see if they noticed. “We must attack first, and drive them from Britain. It is our only hope. Or remove our daughters as co-heir to the throne so that Rome will not atta—”
Diana realized that the scene had moved forward when a shadow of pain lashed across her back. Roman legionnaires held her by the arms, pinned to the ground in front of her people, as their leader swung a whip at her back. Her husband was dead of old age, and the Romans were at their doorstep intent on collecting on her husband’s debt.
She heard her daughters’ screams, and strain as she might, all she could see were the feet of the bastards who held her to the ground. Though the pain burned through her, she fought to hear her daughters, to know they were alive. But when their screams stopped abruptly and the Roman legion cheered, she knew.
Dead.
Diana curled onto her side in the dusty attic and vomited. Dry heaves wracked her body and tried to pull her soul from her. She’d never felt such pain. It was as if her heart were a glass bottle smashed to bits.
She lay, curled on her side in the attic, tears streaking down her face and into her hair, as memories continued to flash in front of her near-comatose eyes. The Romans departed, retreated after making an example of the Iceni by killing her daughters, the illegal heirs to the throne, and left her in the mud with the bodies of her children and the ruins of her tribe.
But they had erred. Diana’s hand tightened unconsciously around the hilt of the sword. Oh, how they had erred.
She’d risen that day, with nothing left to lose and the burn of rage in her soul, to exact her vengeance upon the dogs who had dared trespass upon what was hers. Had taken what was hers.
The woman she had been—mother, wife—was no more. That woman had burned to ash in Rome’s fires, but had not risen as a phoenix. Instead, she had risen as destruction, bent on vengeance. The man responsible would die by her hand alone. Rome’s efforts in Britain would be crushed. Her people would have their freedom back. She rallied the neighboring Celtic kingdoms and, with her army, cut a swath of destruction through the Roman cities and legions of southern Britain.
It was then, during the months of the deadly and mobile revolt, that she had met Cadan of the Trinovantes, the son of the king of a southern tribe and a general in his army. A general in her army.
Diana curled in on herself and a cry tore from her throat as she was hit by memories of Cadan.
He had loved her, in his way. Though she’d had no love left in her heart, she’d trusted him above all others. He’d become her rock.
Their army had struck strong and true, driving the Romans back until everything depended on one battle. The man whose death she sought, their leader, was amongst them. The scene that coalesced before Diana’s eyes was fraught with tension. She and Cadan stood over a table of maps within a large tent, arguing. The next day’s battle would determine whether the Celts of Britain lived free or beneath the yoke of Rome.
“You will lead the Trinovantes from the south at dawn.” The words scratched at her throat, stress and exhaustion her constant companions. “I shall take the rest from the north.”
Cadan gripped the back of her head and glared into her eyes. “No. You will stay behind the front lines. Have Bran lead from the north.”