A Legend Begins

       The chestnut Fell-mare was skittish as she skirted the great pool, unnerved by the shifting reflections of overhead branches, the squeak of stressed
sap and rustling grasses. It seemed a million roving spirits were hidden in the foliage and the grey green of the water became a veiled wall into another world. Damsel flies hovered and reversed between sunlight and shadow attempting to grapple with the bobbing mouths of tadpoles and inverted water-boatmen. She must reach the forge before nightfall if she was not to lose her way. She knew she was near as she reached the rocky outcrop topped with the wild damson tree. The blossom she had lain under at the height of spring was long gone and the fruit was full and enticing now, buzzing with drunken bees, some fallen fruit fizzed in pulpy fermentation under the mare's hooves.
       Like Bartleby's Fire the fear of what was to come spread through her people unchecked. The thought of a bigger invasion concreting at the news of the fleet now anchored down river. The long reaching arm of the insatiable beast stretched out from the body of Rome and would swallow everything in its path if they did not stand their ground. She must take action. She must rally her people. She would come before them armed, mounted, daubed in woad, dressed in the bear skin of her grandfather and the torque of her tribe. They would recognise her strength and rally their own.The strength of a free people who had no will to be conquered.
        As the thoughts and images of her warrior dream chased around in her head the mare brought her to the end of the trail, a green living wall, and whinnied at the sharp tang of the blacksmith's scorches in the air. Weapons had been forbidden by the governor and they had suffered many raids, losing valuable tools in the process, but she had traded all the corn and skins the people could spare, gathered broken tools, any metals she could, and given them to the safekeeping of the blacksmith. At great risk to himself he had vowed to bring them here and turn the raw material to their own purpose, moulding the metal to weapons of war, swords, axes, knives and arrows. She listened to see if the duet, hammer on anvil, could be heard but their voices were muted by the mossy stones and dull earth and by the song of the waterfall.
        She dismounted and led the mare behind the waterfall, drawing aside the skirt of ivy, a living wall protecting the sanctity of the gods' cave. Once out of sight she left the mare to stand,hobbled with a reed rope, and ventured deeper into the dark feeling her way along the smooth wet warts of limestone wall. As light gradually gave way to dark she became disoriented, and doubtful. What signs had there been? Was this a trap? Had she been betrayed?  But as she was about to turn back the promise of loyalty from the blacksmith was fulfilled. The bellows emptied their breath and a flare of orange light gave life and form to the shadow rock puppets on the walls. She glimpsed on the walls the drawings of old, deer leaping, hounds running, a moon gazing hare, an owl, a bear,symbol of the gods. She walked forward, confidence returning with every step.
       There was another vapour at work in the alchemy here. The smell of offerings, herbs and wild berries to appease the gods for the desecration of this, their sanctuary. And something still further, earthy and damp, she felt her pupils react to fungal fumes.The blacksmith recognised only an intruder, through eyes that were not his own, and grabbed a recently forged blade and roared at her,
      "Who goes there? By all the gods you are not welcome here." He was in the ecstasies of creation, a looseness of mind forged by mushroom mists, a poor bed fellow with the paranoia and fear that infected him. She knew she must be careful. "Whosoever you be, know I am no mere mortal, the gods protect me and you trespass against their goodwill."
      "Good blacksmith, it is I, Boudicca. The gods will have need to protect us all if we are to come through this alive." The anxiety made her voice sound harsh as they fell to the rock floor from the letterbox of her mouth and he fell to one knee.
       "Rise sir, you already do me great service. How goes it?" She offered her hand in a warriors welcome and he returned the gesture clenching her forearm.
       "I have your arrow heads lady" he said as he turned back to the anvil. She reached for the pile of cooled iron heads on his rough plank work bench, feeling the strength of the gods under the pitted surface. This iron had a will of its own, a will to fly, to bite, to kill. They were ready to bind to the shaft and follow their destiny. "These are for you alone lady, arrows worthy of a queen.  I have bound the heads with copper to catch the sun like your hair, so we will know your movements on the field. All the legions of hell will bow to our great warrior Queen. They will have no general to match you. Let fly your arrows and see the flame pierce the very heart of Rome."
      "You do me great honour blacksmith, I thank you, but I do not look to be queen, just to rid this land of a foreign plague."
She may yet be hauled into the belly of a ship and taken to the land where 'bong' trees grow and are shaped by slaves into birds and beasts to amuse, but she would not go quietly. Like the fierce she-bear at her centre she would protect her den. She would fight to the end.