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There were over a thousand women and children distributed among the three stations. Three hundred men had laboured incessantly at the boats, and these were now finished. While all this work had been going on considerable numbers of fish and wildfowl had been obtained by barter from the Fenmen, with whom they had before had dealings, and from other communities living among the swamps to the north.
"Mind you this, that with the Welsh up against us we cannot get to Exmoor, and with the Saxons out also we cannot win to the Mendips, as we have done before now." "There is the fen." "And all the fenmen Owen's own men. Little safety is there in that." "But he slew Morgan, as they say." "Worse luck for Morgan therefore. What is that to you and me, when one comes to think of it?"
This creature has been dead for a long time, and may have been the last of his race. However, if one were to come we should not be afraid of it with a hundred and twenty fighting men here." The Fenmen, after a consultation among themselves, agreed that it would be safer to pass the night with the Iceni than to start in the darkness among the swamps.
"Ay, friends of ours sure enough; but are they the king's?" "Most truly so. Have you news of him?" "I have not; but I have heard some fenmen talking." Then Osmund rose up and went his way silently, as was his wont; and Dudda grinned at us. "He is a good Dane," he said; "now I can speak.
All carried short bows and quivers of light arrows, and spears with the points hardened in the fire, for the Iceni living near the swamps had been strictly forbidden to trade in arms or metal implements with the Fenmen. The chiefs, however, all carried swords of Iceni make. Before the chiefs stepped ashore their followers landed, and at once, to the surprise of Beric, scattered among the bushes.
"It is evident," he said, "that so large a number as this cannot find food in one place in the swamps, at any rate until we have learned to catch fish and snare wildfowl as the Fenmen do. The swine we can take there, but these light boats would not carry cattle in any numbers, though some might be thrown and carried there, with their legs tied together. At present this place is safe from attack.
The Fenmen had come resolved not to allow the strangers to enter their land, but their offer to occupy any spot, even if tenanted by savage beasts, entirely changed the position. In the recesses of the swamps to the east of the Ouse lay a tract of country which they avoided with a superstitious fear.
The Fenmen had joined the Iceni in repelling the attack. The portion of the swamp they inhabited was not far away, and they felt that they too were threatened by the Roman advance.
There is but little communication with the outer world; on market-days a few trains dawdle along the valley from Ely to St. Ives and back again. They are fine, sturdy, prosperous village communities, that mind their own business, and take their pleasure in religion and in song, like their forefathers the fenmen, Girvii, who sang their three-part catches with rude harmony.
The men listened to the statement that the chiefs before them desired to find with their followers a refuge in the Fens, and that they were willing to make presents to the Fenmen of cattle and other things, so that there should be friendship between them, and that they should be allowed to occupy some island in the swamps where they might live secure from pursuit.
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