Part 4 (2/2)

'All I'm saying is, let me do it my way. Tomorrow.'

'All right.' Hoff slipped the gun back into his belt. 'But if it doesn't work, I'll have the hot irons ready.'

Chapter Three.

Boudiccan Destruction Layer

The next morning, Smith walked into the cla.s.sroom, dressed in the mortarboard and gown in which he always looked so awkward. Silence fell, as it always did.

The Captains sat at the back, and the boys at the front, and all of them stood to attention as he entered. He caught a paper dart happily, glanced at it, tweaked the wing a notch and threw it back, straight into the hands of the boy who threw it.

'Good morning, cla.s.s.'

'Good morning, Dr Smith,' they chorused.

'Sit down.' As they did so, Smith opened his briefcase. 'I put a notice up on the board in the corridor. The cricket team.'

Hutchinson held up his hand. 'Excuse me, sir, but weren't we going to talk about that?'

'Were we? I thought we had. Sorry. Oh well, it's only a game. Now, destruction, murder, people impaled on posts - '

'Sir?' Captain Merryweather put his hand up. 'Aren't you going to take the register, sir?'

'Abbot, Andrew?' Smith muttered, flipping open the register. Each boy answered his name, until: 'Alton, Clive Ian?'

'Sir.'

'Dean?'

Timothy was staring out of the window at the terrible greenness of the cricket pitch. Anand nudged him in the ribs. He looked up. 'Sorry, what?'

'Timothy Dean?' Smith grinned at him. 'I don't know why I'm asking, I can see you're there.'

Hutchinson glanced at the stern looks on his comrades' faces, nodded and stood up.

'Sir, that's not right.'

'What?' Smith peered myopically between Dean and Hutchinson. 'Can't you see him?'

'Missing one's name in a roll call is a disciplinary offence, sir, under the rules of the school. Aren't you going to do anything about it?'

'Why, what do you think I should do?'

'The standard punishment is ten strokes of the slipper, sir. Perhaps you weren't aware of it.'

'Aware?' Smith looked uneasily round the cla.s.s. 'Yes, I knew that. But this is my form room. Can't I change the rules?'

'None of us can change the rules, sir. Even if we'd like to. If you'd prefer it, I could administer the punishment myself.'

Smith fiddled with the air, thinking. 'Yes,' he decided. Timothy opened his mouth in horror. Last time Hutchinson had punished him, he hadn't been able to sit down for three days, and couldn't get to sleep for the pain of the bruises.

Hutchinson stood up. 'May I have the slipper, sir?'

Smith was fumbling inside his briefcase. 'I wondered why I had to bring one of these to every lesson. I nearly wore it, but I'd have ended up walking in circles.

Ah!' With a flourish, he pulled a fluffy pink slipper from the bag, and experimentally slapped it across the back of his hand. 'Yes... that shouldn't hurt.'

He looked up at Hutchinson. 'Ready?'

Hutchinson had walked up to the desk. Now he stopped, stiffly turned and headed back to his place. 'I think we can defer the punishment, sir.'

'Oh good.' Smith looked puzzled, dropped the slipper back into his bag, and smiled at the cla.s.s. Many secret smiles were directed back at him, except from the Captains, who were staring at him with a mixture of incredulity and distaste. 'Now.

Destruction, murder, people impaled on posts. All of these are a feature of Boudicca's rebellion against the Romans, circa circa AD 62.' AD 62.'

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Atkins put his hand up. 'Please, sir, do you mean Boadicea?'

'Yes. Boudicca was her real name. She was a Celtic queen, the Queen of the Iceni, who lived around here. She was the widow of Prasutagas. He was the old king.

When he died, he left his land to his daughters and the Roman empire jointly. This is when the Romans ruled Britain. He thought that would work. But Roman agents came and tried to take over the place. Why?'

'Because girls couldn't rule a kingdom?' suggested Merryweather.

'That might be what they thought. We don't know if they were acting officially.

Paulinus, the Governor, was away fighting in Wales. That might have been the idea. If they'd failed, n.o.body could blame him. A lot of governments work like that.'

'Not European ones, surely?' Alton murmured, a sly smile on his face.

'Perhaps. In Bosnia - but never mind that. The agents raped the daughters and molested Boudicca herself. So she - what? What's the matter?'

A murmur had rippled round the cla.s.sroom: 'Sir, what did they do to the daughters again?' asked Phipps.

'Raped them. Had s.e.x with them against their will. Isn't that in the dictionary?

Now...' He ignored the murmurings and turned to the map. 'Boudicca's immediate reaction was to do - what to the agents? Hadleigh-Scott?'

Hadleigh-Scott looked up from nudging his deskmate and giggling. 'To make them marry the girls, sir?'

'What? No. Strange. No, she had the agents skinned alive and impaled on posts with their intestines - most texts say intestines - in their mouths. Very nasty. Then, because they'd given the impression they were working on Imperial orders, she called the Iceni to war, and declared that they were free. They didn't have to do what the Governor said any more. The tribe attacked Colchester, St Albans and London, and burnt them all flat. There was so much destruction that archaeologists know when they've got down to AD 62 in those towns, because there's a layer of broken things and ash. Finally, Paulinus returned, got his troops together and defeated the Iceni. Boudicca killed herself. The question is: was this great British heroine, a favourite of Queen Victoria, right to rebel? Hutchinson?'

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