8 After Emperor Claudius died in Rome—some said his doctor killed him with a poisoned-dipped feather down the throat— the Roman occupiers of Britain built a large and magnificent temple in his honor. Calling him the Divine Claudius, they worshipped him as a god. “Do you know,” Faelan’s father had said while the temple was being built, “that this Claudius used to fall asleep at banquets? And then people use to flick food at him and put his slippers on his hands. They liked to watch him wake up and rub his eyes with those slippers. And now they call him a god!” The very idea of this god Claudius would be funny if the priests at his temple weren’t so greedy. They took whatever they wanted— in the name of their divine emperor, but actually, for themselves. Faelan’s father and the other nobles seemed powerless to change their situation; no one dared to take on the whole Roman army. Humiliation seemed better than death. That is, until Boudicca experienced the worst treatment of all. After the death of her husband, King Prasutagus, the Romans arrested Boudicca and her family and whipped her. When they released her, the Romans assumed that she would obey out of pain and shame. They vastly underestimated the queen. Every wound from the Roman whip became a cause for throwing off her captors. With fiery speeches, Boudicca gathered forces of Britons from other tribes into a large army. Her description of Roman oppression and her account of what the occupiers had done to her and her daughters aroused the people’s fury. Even if it meant their own death, the clans would fight the Romans until the island was theirs again. The tribes attacked Camulodunum, and then Londinium; they killed everyone in their path and burned both cities to the ground. Faelan was been too young to take part in these battles,
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