Line #47 Literature/SongForADarkQueen


1	[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sfadqchessedition.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:200:Her Majesty sporting the traditional British "chicken's bottom" helmet.]]
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4	''Song for a Dark Queen'' is a 1978 YoungAdult HistoricalFiction novel by Creator/RosemarySutcliff. It dramatises the life of the British queen UsefulNotes/{{Boudica}} and won the Other Award.
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6	Boudicca, future queen of the Iceni tribe of eastern Britain, is not pleased about her ArrangedMarriage to a man who will lead her people for her. But young Prasutagus is not her real enemy – UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire has landed in Britain. When the Roman authorities move to seize her entire kingdom, she leads the British tribes in a bloody uprising.
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8	----
9	!!''Song for a Dark Queen'' contains examples of:
10	* ActionGirl:
11	-->"We are not like some tribes whose women go to war with the men in the usual pattern of things, only in times of sorest need our women follow the war-trail with us and we lead our mares under the chariot-yoke; yet our mares are broken to harness and our women learn to use their spears, lest the need come upon us."
12	* AllFirstPersonNarratorsWriteLikeNovelists: The main body of the text is narrated off the cuff by the Iceni's official historian, [[TheBard Cadwan of the Harp]], as he lies [[spoiler:dying]] under a tree at the end of the story.
13	* AntiHero: She killed seventy or eighty thousand people, most of them civilians, in real life.
14	* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Boudicca is acclaimed Queen of the Iceni and Goddess-on-Earth on the ancient grave mound where her father has just been laid to rest.
15	* BelligerentSexualTension: Boudicca is the only belligerent, because Prasutagus is a patient NiceGuy.
16	* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: [[spoiler: After her army's defeat, Boudicca returns to the Royal Dun to take poison rather than be paraded as a captive in a Roman triumph.]]
17	* BurningTheShips: Boudicca summons her allies to witness the sacrifice of the women of Camulodunum.
18	-->'''Andragius:''' Assuredly, from this trail there can be no turning back. Oh you witless ones! Do you not know why she did the thing that she did two nights since in the Grove of the Mother? Nor why she called in chiefs from every tribe of the War Host, to have a part in it? Do you think the Romans will ever forget ''that''?
19	* CallBack: Sutcliff established that Icenian rule descends through the Queen rather than the King in the story "Death of a City" told from the perspective of a survivor of Londinium in 1973's ''The Capricorn Bracelet'', and again in 1977's ''Sun Horse, Moon Horse''. The Procurator's role and Boudicca's death [[spoiler:by poison]] were mentioned in 1954's ''Literature/TheEagleOfTheNinth''. The full story of Caratacus of the Catuvellauni's resistance and betrayal by Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes was told in 1965's ''Heroes and History''.
20	* DeadGuyOnDisplay: The war host hangs up the sacrificed women of Camulodunum in the sacred grove, flays several defenders of Londinium, and crucifies the rest.
21	* DefiledForever: The Princesses Essylt and Nessan are part of the line of sacred and untouchable priest-queens, so when there's a danger of the tribe perceiving them this way after they're raped ([[ScreamDiscretionShot off-screen]]) by the Romans, their mother Boudicca stamps down hard. The tactless young warriors who try to take liberties with them narrowly escape HumanSacrifice.
22	* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Among the British, killing someone completely harmless without making them suffer too much or mounting a WorthyOpponent's head on a stick are noted as gestures of mercy and respect. Boudicca ritually sacrifices some Roman women in a way that [[GoryDiscretionShot even the narrator finds unspeakable,]] then is horrified and remorseful – she might have profaned the rite because she got some political gain out of it.
23	* DividedWeFall: The Iceni and other surrounding tribes choose not to support the Catuvellauni, the powerful tribe embattled by the Romans, because they've already suffered the Catuvellauni's expansionist policy. It turns out UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire is worse than the devil you know.
24	* ElectiveMonarchy: The Iceni [[{{Matriarchy}} head of state]] and chief religious official is the hereditary Queen, but her husband the King is chosen for her by her parents' Council of chieftains and priests (all men).
25	* EpistolaryNovel: Starting about halfway through the novel, the chapters are ended by letters written by [[YoungFutureFamousPeople Gnaeus Julius Agricola]] to his mother, explaining events from the Roman perspective.
26	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: In AMinorKidroduction, six-year-old Boudicca attempts to follow her father’s war party on foot to battle with the Catuvellauni.
27	* FieryRedhead: Essylt inherits Prasutagus's hair and Boudicca's personality.
28	* GondorCallsForAid: After the sack of the Royal Dun, the Iceni send to the surrounding tribes.
29	-->"In the dark, beneath the surface of things, by the old secret ways, by the sunken drove-roads and the tunnelled forest tracks and the winding fen waterways, the messengers were going out, even as the Queen had said. And by the same secret ways, the chiefs and war-captains were coming in."
30	* HeirClubForMen: Inverted. Prasutagus won't come into his full power as King until he provides the Queen with a female heir.
31	* HeroicBSOD: [[spoiler:Boudicca shuts down after Prasutagus’s sudden death and is only roused up again by the demands of the Roman tax collectors.]]
32	-->"Boudicca was like one bound by a spell […] nothing looked back out of her eyes, and the glow of warmth and life that had always come from her came no more."
33	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Boudicca, Prasutagus, their anonymous daughters; Caratacus and Cartimandua; Agricola, Suetonius Paulinus, Claudius, Nero, and other Roman officials and officers.
34	* HumanSacrifice: Boudicca has the captured women of Camulodunum sacrificed to her mother goddess in some manner [[GoryDiscretionShot too brutal for the narrator to describe]]. She's also interrupted in sacrificing a couple of presumptuous young warriors who hit on her daughters (and sends them on a SuicideMission instead).
35	* IncurableCoughOfDeath: [[spoiler:The first sign of Prasutagus's chest defect and the fever that kills him.]]
36	* KarmaHoudini: The Procurator [[DirtyCoward Decianus Catus]], who orders the assault on Boudicca's household.
37	-->'''Agricola:''' ''"Our valiant Procurator sent half of [the garrison] up to hold Camulodunum against the rebels, before he himself hurried aboard the last ship for Gaul. It seems to have been largely his treatment of the Iceni that fired the heather in the first place."''
38	* KnowWhenToFoldEm: Prasutagus reluctantly decides war is impractical against the vast resources of the Roman Empire.
39	-->'''Prasutagus:''' There was a moment–I could have set fire to the stubble. I could have had the whole Horse People out in revolt, and maybe driven the Red Crests back into the soft lands in the south.
40	-->'''Cadwan:''' What happened?
41	-->'''Prasutagus:''' I started to think.
42	* LastStand: The citizens of Camulodunum fight to the last ditch and are finally cut down in the temple of the Divine Claudius, while those who can't escape Londinium are besieged in the army depot.
43	* LikeBrotherAndSister: Boudicca’s Royal Daughter Essylt and her childhood friend and fiancé, Duatha.
44	* NudeNatureDance: Boudicca has an OutOfClothesExperience in the Grove of the Mother the night before attacking Camulodunum, when she apparently promises the goddess a sacrifice in exchange for the victory.
45	* PortentOfDoom: An omen of red water might be a warning to Boudicca, or to the unfortunate [[RedShirtArmy Ninth Legion]], or it might actually be [[BloodIsSquickerInWater their blood in the stream]].
46	-->'''Boudicca:''' The water is running red.
47	-->'''Cadwan:''' It is only [[RedSkyTakeWarning the sunset in the water]].
48	-->'''Boudicca:''' [[Myth/CelticMythology The Washer by the Ford is washing blood-stained clothes]], can you not see her?
49	* RapeAsDrama: A Roman sexually harrassing Boudicca's teenage daughter Essylt provokes her betrothed Duatha into stabbing him. The Roman party retaliates by sacking the Royal Dun, killing most of the household, raping Essylt and Nessan, and giving Boudicca ATasteOfTheLash.
50	* RescueRomance: [[spoiler:Boudicca rejects Prasutagus until he nearly dies protecting her during a stampede, whereupon she suffers a LoveEpiphany and nurses him back to health, and it turns out they have a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage after all.]]
51	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: In return for Roman offenses, Boudicca reduces Camulodunum, Verulamium and Londinium to smoking ruins, before Suetonius delivers a NoHoldsBarredBeatDown.
52	* SecretStabWound: [[spoiler:Cadwan hangs on long enough to get Boudicca back to the Royal Dun and recite the entire novel to himself before expiring of the spear to the flank he got while sheltering the dying Nessan.]]
53	* SpeechImpediment: The Emperor Claudius.
54	-->"A man with a big paunch and a little head on a long neck, who stammered like a midsummer cuckoo in his speech, and limped when I saw him walking. [...] Like young Prasutagus, he had a thinking face."
55	* SupportingProtagonist: The two narrators – Cadwan, a bard with an avuncular relationship to Boudicca who reveals virtually nothing about himself otherwise, and Agricola, a Roman observer who doesn't affect the plot in any way.
56	* TagalongChronicler: The narrator Cadwan of the Harp has the useful function of following the protagonist Boudicca around on campaign as her official historian, but also of witnessing moments with Prasutagus and Nessan that Boudicca isn't present for.
57	* ThisIsMySide: ThereIsOnlyOneBed, and Boudicca lays her sword down the middle of it (a ShoutOut to the ''Literature/{{Mabinogion}}''). Prasutagus has no mind to force her to do anything, so this state of affairs continues for months.
58	* UnderdogsNeverLose: Averted unsurprisingly, [[spoiler:the ragtag alliance of local nations lose against ''[[TheEmpire Rome]]'']].
59	* WorthyOpponent: The new Governor of Britain, Suetonius Paulinus, busy putting paid to the Druids in Wales.
60	-->"A great soldier, so said his reputation, following him from the ends of the Empire; but a hard man like an east wind and a hammer."
61	* YoungFutureFamousPeople: Agricola, later the Governor and conqueror of the farthest extent of Roman Britain, happens to have also been around acting as Suetonius Paulinus’s aide-de-camp during the Boudiccan Revolt, but not doing too much and free to narrate some of the novel for us.

Context Literature / SongForADarkQueen