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BOUDICA: DREAMING THE BULL
Synopsis
DREAMING THE BULL begins in AD 47: Aulus Plautius has left Britannia and the new governor, Publius Scapula is due to arrive. In the space between, Boudica and Caradoc mount a savage resistance against the leaderless western armies of Rome. Set against them is Julius Valerius, an officer in the Roman auxiliary cavalry, whose increasing brutality in the service of his god and emperor can never shield him from the ghosts of his past.
Author's Comment
With this novel, we move into the realms of a land partially under occupation: the west is still free while the east is subject to some of the most savage oppression in the history of Rome's domination of Europe. In Rome, Claudius was gradually losing his touch. He clung onto power until AD 54, for which the tribes of Britannia should probably be grateful: it gave them at least four years in which the opposition was poorly and incoherently led. It gave breathing space, for a time.
Dreaming the Bull, sees Britain from the viewpoint of a Roman Auxilliary officer, but one who used to be of the tribes. It was a time of absolute repression in the east: In imagining it, I thought of it as Tibet under Chinese rule, or France under Nazi rule: there are some collaborators, but on the whole, there is a subject nation kept in check by the very real threat of force.
By contrast, the tribes of the west, led by Caradoc, were still essentially free and their culture flourished. Their rebellion was so nearly successful and Cartimandua's betrayal of Caradoc must rank as one of the single worst acts of cultural annihilation in our history. If he had stayed in Britain ... if he had kept the tribes of the west together.. If he had been as good a war leader as he seemed...
But he didn't, and didn't, and may have been, but had not the chance to prove it more than he had done and so we follow him to Rome and the Boudica in the west as the rebels strive to keep Rome from their mountains. It was a time for heroes, and heroism on both sides, which is what battles are all about.
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