Macro and Boudica had met shortly after the fall of Camulodunum. Since the Iceni were nominally neutral in the war between Rome and the confederation of tribes resisting the invaders, Boudica was more curious than hostile towards the men from the great empire across the sea. The town elders had rushed to ingratiate themselves with their new rulers and invitations to feasts had flooded into the Roman camp. Even junior centurions like Macro had found themselves asked to attend. On the first such night he had met Boudica. Her forthright nature had appalled him at first; the Celts appeared to have a distastefully egalitarian attitude towards the gentler sex. Finding herself standing next to a centurion, who in turn stood next to a barrel of the most powerful beer he had ever encountered, Boudica wasted no time in grilling him for information about Rome. At first her open approach inclined Macro to regard her as just another of the horse-faced women that made up the majority of the higher class of Briton. But as he endured her questioning, he slowly became less and less interested in the beer. Grudgingly at first, then more willingly as she artfully drew him into a more expansive discussion, Macro talked to her in a way he had never before with a woman.

By the end of the evening he knew he wanted to see more of this lively Icenian, and stammered out a request to meet again. She gladly assented, and extended an invitation to a feast being held by her kinsman the following night. Macro had been the first guest to arrive and stood in embarrassed silence by the spread of cold meats and warm beer until Boudica arrived. Then he watched in horror as she matched him drink for drink. Before he knew it, she had slapped an arm round his shoulder and was hugging him tightly to her. Looking round, Macro observed the same forwardness in the other Celtic women and was trying to reconcile himself to the strange ways of this new culture when Boudica planted a boozy kiss on his lips.

Momentarily startled, Macro tried to break away from her powerful embrace, but the girl had mistakenly taken his writhing as a sign of his ardour and merely tightened her grip. So Macro gave in and kissed her back, and on the alcohol-saturated wings of passion they had collapsed under a table in a dark corner and fumbled the evening away. Only the limp side effects of the beer prevented the consummation of their mutual attraction. Boudica had been decent enough not to make an issue of it.