Aillenn and the False God

Aillenn and the False God is a fictional account of what happened to the Celtic druid Aillenn and her servant Tangwen during the summer and early autumn of AD 40.

Dun Eponai, a fortress on the downlands of southern Britain, is where Aillenn’s story begins.  It is here that the local chieftain and three Celtic nobles have met to consider the threat posed by the Romans.  Ammin, the estranged brother of the powerful chieftain Caradoc, Glini, the ruler of the port of Dun Peris and his wife, the beautiful and ambitious Gwenn Alarch, are inclined to take a pro-Roman stance. Aillenn, already famous for her Sight of Foresight and her ability to talk to the Shee, the people of the Celtic Otherworld who watch over her, is there to give them advice.

That night one of Glini’s party, transfixed by a javelin, staggers into Aillenn’s room.  Dying, he passes on to her a mnemonic of obscure yet crucial meaning and exacts her vow to revenge his death.

The search for the murderers takes Aillenn first to Cornwall, where she is challenged to a duel by Sempronius Malanius, a senior centurion working for the Roman secret service, and thence to Brittany on the Erytheia, a Roman freighter outward bound with a cargo of tin. Unknowingly, however, Aillenn’s actions have already interfered with the Roman Emperor’s plans to conquer Britain.

Between bouts of seasickness, Aillenn, with the help of the ex-go-go dancer wife of the captain, is able to solve the riddle of the dying man’s message, but before she can take any action the ship is intercepted by a fast Roman bireme whose commander, Gnæus Nigidius, has orders to arrest her.

Nigidius is immediately smitten by Tangwen’s classic beauty but runs into trouble when the vessel is damaged and has to be beached on the Isle of Women, a forbidden cult centre. 

Still under arrest by the Romans, Aillenn and Tangwen travel to the Emperor Caligula’s palace in northern Gaul where they are pitched into the internecine politics of the Imperial Court.  Gaius Caligula, highly eccentric, callous and convinced of his own divinity, is anxious to prove his military genius by conquering Britain.  Opposed to the invasion are the Roman High Command, which has little faith in the Emperor’s generalship, and the Empress Cæsonia Milonia.

During a series of meetings in the steam of the bathhouse, Aillenn and the Empress develop a partnership.  Caligula, fascinated by the way in which Aillenn disposed of Sempronius Malanius, is further impressed when she and Cæsonia Milonia co-operate in removing and then replacing what Nigidius coyly refers to as his little twins.

Though initially enraged by Aillenn’s interference in his scheme for invasion, Caligula is now prepared to pardon her—under one condition: that she herself provides an alternative plan.  The penalty for failure would be a particularly horrible death.