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Updated: May 31, 2025
"We will do that," Aska said, "we have more than we require;" for indeed after the battle with Cerealis and the sack of the towns all the men had taken Roman swords and carried them in addition to their own weapons, regarding them not only as trophies but as infinitely superior to their own more clumsy implements for cutting wood and other purposes.
Beric had done all in his power to allay this feeling, recompensing them for the losses they declared they had suffered, and bestowing many presents upon them. He and Aska often talked the matter over, and agreed that their greatest danger was from the Fenmen. "They view us as intruders in their country," Aska said, "and doubtless consider that in time we shall become their masters.
When they reached it Aska and Beric at once began to mark out a semicircle, with a radius of some fifty yards, on the river bank. Ten of the cattle were killed and skinned, and as others of the party came up they were set to work to cut down the trees and undergrowth within the semicircle, and drag them to its edge, casting them down with their heads outwards so as to form a formidable abbatis.
I hope for victory, Aska, but I cannot say that I feel confident of it." Marching next morning against Verulamium, they arrived there in the afternoon and at once attacked it. The resistance was feeble, and bursting through in several places the Iceni and Trinobantes spread over the town, slaughtering all they found.
Messengers had already brought in news that at midday Cerealis had learned that Camalodunum had been attacked, and that the legion was to start on the following morning to relieve the town. The news had been taken to him by one of the Trinobantes, who had received his instructions from Aska.
The speaker was Aska, who had just left the group of chiefs gathered round the queen at the other end of the apartment, and had come close without Beric hearing him. The lad coloured. "I spoke only for my mother's hearing, sir," he said. "To no one else should I have ventured to express an opinion on a course agreed upon by those who are older and wiser than myself."
"There will be but few escape," Aska said, throwing up his arms in despair; "the wagons have proved a death trap; had it not been for them the army would have scattered all over the country, and though the Roman horse might have cut down many, the greater number would have gained the woods and escaped; but the wagons held them just as a thin line of men will hold the wolves till the hunters arrive and hem them in."
For the chiefs and leaders there will be no mercy, and for a time doubtless all will be slaughtered who fall into the Roman hands; but after a time the sword will be stayed, for the land will be useless to them without men to cultivate it, and when the Roman hands are tired of slaying, policy will prevail. It were best to speak to the men, Aska, for us to be moving on; will you address them?"
The Fen country is wide, there must be room for great numbers to shelter, and surely there must be places where we could live without disturbance to your people." "There is room," the man said briefly. "We will take your message to our people, our chiefs will decide." Aska and Beric wore few other ornaments than those denoting their position and authority.
Beric learned from the old chief Aska, who had first spoken to him on the day of their arrival at the sacred oak, that all Britain was ripe for the rising, and that messengers had been received not only from the Brigantes, but from many of the southern and western tribes, with assurances that they would rise as soon as they heard that the Iceni had struck the first blow.
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