offer up their bodies to gain the right to at least temporary existence as whores or gladiators.
Alba and her people had for a long time escaped this fate. Tradition said the Painted People had created this system and—never conquerors—had been able to peacefully persuade the rest to accept it.
It was vested in their women. Women like Morgana, who could speak for the land goddess and could create a king either by birth or the acceptance of him in sacred marriage.
For this is where we all come from, the dark, moist passage between a woman’s legs. And if the woman will not open her body to us in love or squat down and bring us forth in blood and torment, then we cannot live. And if we cannot warm the earth with a plow or send out beasts to feed on her green mantle, then we would wander over the land that rejects us—and die.
But a woman can be forced and the earth ruined, and both happened when the Romans came. The prosperity of Alba and Gaul drew them like vicious wasps, and they, not ever understanding the great achievements of his people, destroyed it without ever understanding that there was anything to destroy.
Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain. And the same might be said for greed, also. The conquering, militaristic Romans had an ample supply of both in their nature.
Before the Romans disrupted this magnificent and ancient system, the high king presided over a balanced realm. The fair south, ruled by its cattle lords, produced a vast quantity of food, more than enough even in the worst years to banish famine forever from the White Isle. His people, the Silures, ruled themselves in accord with the warrior societies. The democracy of the war band drew them together to resist outsiders even as they in the end successfully held off the Romans. They paid a high price for their freedom, but it had been worth the cost. His people were rich in timber, amber, gold and silver, hides, and iron.
The king was usually chosen from among them because he was able to win the support of the powerful war bands. But he in turn usually chose his tanist and successor from among the rich, southern farmers. And that ruler in turn chose his tanist from the Painted People.
So the High Kingship moved from one power base to another. The deep forests of Wales, the southern ring-forts such as Maden Castle or Cadbury, to the high fastness of the oak wood overlooking the North Sea dominated by the Pictish queens—the Dragon People, as they were called.
The Veneti helped tie them together. They were in the beginning a subtribe of the Painted People, but in time they became a sailing and trading society. They helped the Painted People exploit the rich fisheries of the cold, gray sea, where whale, ling, cod, and walrus abounded. But they also sailed south into the blue Aegean, the lands of honey, oil, and wine. They traded with the Egyptians at the Nile Delta, the Minoans at Crete, and the distant city-states on the plain of Sumer at the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and were represented at Sidon and Tyre in the cities of the Phoenician Coast.
Then the Romans came.
They smashed the prosperous southern kingdoms, depriving the high king of his most important power base. After Bodiccia’s revolt, they made war on the people themselves, exterminating without mercy the best farmers in the kingdom and selling the few surviving women and children as slaves.
But the land was still there, and the land was good and rich. Others moved in to fill the vacancy left by the murdered tribesmen, displaced farmers from Italy, legionary veterans too old or crippled for the endless wars the Roman state engendered. Landowners from Gaul, fleeing the chaos created by the brawls among Roman aristocrats, fighting for the now dwindling spoils of conquest, endless brutality, and bottomless greed remaining from the great thieving conquerors of the past.
Then, last but not least, the weary Roman authorities who feared and distrusted the peoples of
Alba and her people had for a long time escaped this fate. Tradition said the Painted People had created this system and—never conquerors—had been able to peacefully persuade the rest to accept it.
It was vested in their women. Women like Morgana, who could speak for the land goddess and could create a king either by birth or the acceptance of him in sacred marriage.
For this is where we all come from, the dark, moist passage between a woman’s legs. And if the woman will not open her body to us in love or squat down and bring us forth in blood and torment, then we cannot live. And if we cannot warm the earth with a plow or send out beasts to feed on her green mantle, then we would wander over the land that rejects us—and die.
But a woman can be forced and the earth ruined, and both happened when the Romans came. The prosperity of Alba and Gaul drew them like vicious wasps, and they, not ever understanding the great achievements of his people, destroyed it without ever understanding that there was anything to destroy.
Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain. And the same might be said for greed, also. The conquering, militaristic Romans had an ample supply of both in their nature.
Before the Romans disrupted this magnificent and ancient system, the high king presided over a balanced realm. The fair south, ruled by its cattle lords, produced a vast quantity of food, more than enough even in the worst years to banish famine forever from the White Isle. His people, the Silures, ruled themselves in accord with the warrior societies. The democracy of the war band drew them together to resist outsiders even as they in the end successfully held off the Romans. They paid a high price for their freedom, but it had been worth the cost. His people were rich in timber, amber, gold and silver, hides, and iron.
The king was usually chosen from among them because he was able to win the support of the powerful war bands. But he in turn usually chose his tanist and successor from among the rich, southern farmers. And that ruler in turn chose his tanist from the Painted People.
So the High Kingship moved from one power base to another. The deep forests of Wales, the southern ring-forts such as Maden Castle or Cadbury, to the high fastness of the oak wood overlooking the North Sea dominated by the Pictish queens—the Dragon People, as they were called.
The Veneti helped tie them together. They were in the beginning a subtribe of the Painted People, but in time they became a sailing and trading society. They helped the Painted People exploit the rich fisheries of the cold, gray sea, where whale, ling, cod, and walrus abounded. But they also sailed south into the blue Aegean, the lands of honey, oil, and wine. They traded with the Egyptians at the Nile Delta, the Minoans at Crete, and the distant city-states on the plain of Sumer at the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and were represented at Sidon and Tyre in the cities of the Phoenician Coast.
Then the Romans came.
They smashed the prosperous southern kingdoms, depriving the high king of his most important power base. After Bodiccia’s revolt, they made war on the people themselves, exterminating without mercy the best farmers in the kingdom and selling the few surviving women and children as slaves.
But the land was still there, and the land was good and rich. Others moved in to fill the vacancy left by the murdered tribesmen, displaced farmers from Italy, legionary veterans too old or crippled for the endless wars the Roman state engendered. Landowners from Gaul, fleeing the chaos created by the brawls among Roman aristocrats, fighting for the now dwindling spoils of conquest, endless brutality, and bottomless greed remaining from the great thieving conquerors of the past.
Then, last but not least, the weary Roman authorities who feared and distrusted the peoples of
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