“He is there,” she said, “leaning
against that tree waiting for you.”
“I am glad to see you safe among us,”
Beric said to the young man. “How did you
escape the battle?”
“I was driving the chariot with Parta’s
attendants, as I had from the day we started.
I kept close behind her chariot, and escaped with
her when the line of wagons was broken to let the queen
pass. When we got far away from the battle your
mother stopped her chariot and bade me go north.
‘I have no more need of attendants,’ she
said; ’let them save themselves. Do you
find my son if he has escaped the battle, and tell
him that I shall share the fate of Boadicea.
I have lived a free woman, and will die one. Tell
him to fight to the end against the Romans, and that
I shall expect him to join me before long in the Happy
Island. Bid him not lament for me, but rejoice,
as he should, that I have gone to the Land where there
are no sorrows.’ Then I turned my chariot
and drove to your home to await your coming there
if you should have escaped. It was but a few
hours after that the messengers brought the news that
you were safe, and that the survivors of your band
were to join you at Soto with such men as might have
escaped. As Parta’s orders were to take
the women with me to the north, I drove them two days
farther, taking with me a lad, the brother of one
of them. Then I handed over the chariot to him,
to convey them to the land of the Brigantes, and started
hither on foot to join you.”
“You shall go on with me tomorrow, you and your
mother and sisters. Boduoc will be rejoiced to
see you all. We have found a place where even
the Romans will hardly reach us.”
That evening Beric had a long talk with Aska and four
or five men from the coast accustomed to the building
of large boats. The matter would be easy enough,
they said, as the boats would not be required to withstand
the strain of the sea, and needed only to be put together
with flat bottoms and sides. With so large a number
of men they could hew down trees of suitable size,
and thin them down until they obtained a plank from
each. They would then be fastened together by
strong pegs and dried moss driven in between the crevices.
Pitch, however, would be required to stop up the seams,
and of this they had none.
“Then,” Beric said, “we must make
some pitch. There is no great difficulty about
that. There are plenty of fir trees growing near
the edges of the swamps, and from the roots of these
we can get tar.”
