Claudius (26 page)

XL

They were gone. At first Rufus was puzzled, but puzzlement was quickly replaced by concern, and then by outright fear. He looked out over the sea of tents, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gaius’s red hair, but saw nothing he recognized. He called out, praying they were close, but his only reward was blank stares from the other slaves. ‘Has anyone seen my son?’ he asked. ‘Has anyone seen Gaius? Or Britte, the German woman?’

Eventually he found an ox driver with the information he needed. ‘The big lass? She went off with the boy out thataway.’ He pointed towards a distant wood about a mile beyond the fortress wall. ‘Maybe she’s got a boyfriend?’ He sniggered, making Rufus want to smash his teeth into his throat.

He set off at a trot towards the distant shadow of the forest. There was no sign of the pair between the fort and the trees. Gaius he could lose among the tall grass, but not Britte, who would have stood out like a harvester’s cart in a hayfield. Why would they leave the safety of the encampment? Britte knew the dangers well enough. This was a conquered land but there were many in it whose spirits remained unbroken. The indignities they had suffered were more than enough to prompt them to seek easy revenge from a Roman slave girl or a Roman child. The thought made him increase his speed.

He was halfway to the trees when the sharp sound of hoofbeats on the hard-packed earth made him turn. A faint prickle on the back of his neck told him he wouldn’t like what he found. He was right. Five of them, Britons dressed in rough shirts and trews; hard men with warrior-scarred knuckles and blank, compassion-free expressions. All but one. Gavan was in the centre, wearing the same sneering grin he’d worn when he’d just sliced Verica’s head from his shoulders. Hand never leaving the hilt of his sword, Cogidubnus’s executioner slid from his pony and walked forward until Rufus was close enough to smell the rank odour of his unwashed body. He stared into Gavan’s eyes and there was no mistaking the menace there. His mind swiftly went through his options. Running wasn’t one of them. The ponies would cut him off before he got a dozen yards. He was unarmed. No, he was
almost
unarmed. He reached for the little blade he used to trim Bersheba’s feet. Gavan laughed and drew his sword. For a long moment, they stared at each other. Then, with the speed of a lightning strike, Gavan feinted left, making Rufus jump back, which brought another guffaw of laughter from the big man. Rufus watched him, reading his face for the sign that would betray his next move. He was content for the Briton to play all day if he wanted. At least he wasn’t killing him.

The oldest of the horsed warriors shouted something to the man on the ground. Advice on the etiquette of execution? A polite suggestion to hurry the murder along so they could go back to their women and their beer? Whatever it was it had its effect. Gavan hefted the sword in both hands and spat out a string of words in the British tongue. Rufus tightened his grip on the knife. He recognized a single word in the long sequence:
Togodumnus
. At the same time Gavan reached up and touched the simple brooch that held his cloak at the neck. The brooch! Rufus cursed; the golden brooch he’d thought he’d hidden so well. Cogidubnus had learned of it and now Cogidubnus wanted it. Had he taken Gaius and Britte as hostages for its return?

‘Gaius?’ Gavan’s expression didn’t change. ‘Woman?’ Rufus used the British word which was in common use among the legionaries. He saw understanding in the Briton’s eyes, followed by a bitter laugh.
Now
he thought he’d been insulted. Gavan reached up to the brooch once more. It was clear his patience was wearing thin. Rufus changed his grip on the knife, weighing it for an overhand throw. The calculations ran through his head. He couldn’t let Cogidubnus’s champion get close enough to swing that long blade. Even if the knife throw didn’t kill Gavan instantly it would slow him down. They’d catch him in seconds, he knew that, and the long swords would do their work. But he had to try. For Gaius. He tensed for the throw.

A fluted ‘phhhhutt’ like the hiss of an angry swan stopped his arm in mid-cast and in the same instant the earth at Gavan’s feet sprouted an emerald-flighted arrow, immediately followed by a second. Rufus recognized the arrows, and almost laughed aloud, feeling the battle-heat grow in him, the way it had when he had killed Dafyd in the rock-strewn gully. Gavan looked from the green-feathered shaft to Rufus’s face, then very slowly turned his head to his left, where two men sat their horses with an unnerving stillness. The first was a slightly built soldier in the green tunic and pot helmet of the mounted archers who served the Romans. He held a short, curved bow with a third green-flighted arrow notched to its iron-taut string and pointed in the general direction of Gavan’s broad gut. Rufus waited, knowing that to move or speak would break the spell cast by the two arrows. The Atrebate rider who had spoken earlier barked a command, and Gavan’s head came round like that of a hunting dog hitting a scent. Clearly it was very well to ambush a Roman slave, but to attack three armed men, with no guarantee of success, was not part of their mission. The Briton stared at Rufus and his fingers twitched on the sword hilt. The order was repeated, this time with more authority. Gavan spat before turning abruptly and vaulting on to his pony. With a final glare at Rufus he rode off towards where the British huts shimmered in the ground haze.

For the first time Rufus looked towards his two saviours. Hanno, of course, grinning like a maniac through the thicket of his black beard. The other man sat his horse as solidly as one of the great mountains Rufus had known as a boy: squat, almost square, and glaring out from beneath heavy brows. A bear of a man, armed with a long spear and an iron sword. Ballan. But it could not be. Ballan should be with Caratacus and his defeated army in the west. What was he doing in the middle of a Roman camp where the ten tribes of southern Britain waited to give up their freedom to an Empire he despised and feared?

‘It seems that trouble follows you, Roman,’ the Iceni said when he’d dismounted. Rufus hurriedly explained about Britte and Gaius but Ballan insisted they make sure that Gavan was gone for good. While Hanno looked after the ponies he explained his timely reappearance.

‘I was never oath-sworn to Caratacus. After we were defeated . . . when the Romans drove us like cattle’ – Rufus could hear the shame in the Briton’s voice, but there was pride there too – ‘we fled west. Fled, but never broke, for if we had broken the Romans would have slaughtered us. But the west is not my land and the Catuvellauni are not my people, and when we had gone but a few miles Caratacus summoned me before him. “Ballan of the Iceni,” he said, “your obligation to me, if obligation there ever was, has been fulfilled ten times over. Go to your people and aid them through this time of trial that is upon us. They will need strong hands and strong minds and men who can wield sword and spear.” Thus he thanked me and regretted that he could not reward me, but I told him that to serve him was reward enough. You understand that, Roman? You understand what it is to serve a lord like Caratacus? I took twenty heads and yours would have been twenty-one if Nuada had not required it for the sacrifice when you were saved from the belly of Taranis.’

He told how he had travelled east, avoiding the Roman cavalry patrols, until he had joined a band of Parisii noblemen who gave him news of a great gathering of tribes at Camulodunum.

‘You could have been recognized,’ Rufus pointed out. ‘You risked death or slavery by coming here.’

Ballan grinned. ‘I am a noble of the Iceni and the Iceni are now bound to Rome. Did not my sister receive gifts and a blessing from your Emperor, though she cursed the one and will deny the other?’

‘Your sister?’ Rufus noticed for the first time that Ballan had forsaken his leather tunic and chain armour for the clothes of a Celtic lord, and an honoured one if the gold at his neck was anything to go by.

‘You saw her today, when my people rode into the Roman camp. The red-haired girl.’

Rufus remembered the proud, flame-haired figure who had ridden behind Prasutagus. ‘The Iceni queen? Your sister is a queen?’

Ballan laughed. ‘And what a queen. Prasutagus may make accommodation with the Romans, but only if Boudicca sees advantage for her people. The king did not want me here – he fears anything that makes his wife more powerful – but she had her way, and here I am.’

There was still one thing that puzzled Rufus. ‘But how did you discover me, a single slave among this multitude?’

‘I am Ballan,’ the Iceni boasted. ‘Would a man who stalked the legions for a hundred days be troubled finding an elephant in a flock of sheep?’ He shook his head and gave a little smile, as if he was embarrassed, an expression that looked out of place on that war-worn face. ‘Narcissus,’ he said. ‘Narcissus told me where you would be. Somehow he had word of my arrival and he sent for me. He questioned me about Caratacus.’ Ballan shrugged. ‘Perhaps I gave him the impression I would be his man. This Narcissus spoke of a thing that was of interest to him; an insignificant thing he had given a slave in error. I was to prove my new loyalty by returning it to him.’ He met Rufus’s eyes. ‘Narcissus would ensure the slave would leave his tent empty by using Hanno to order the slave’s woman and child on some errand.’

Rufus shook his head at his own folly. Gaius and Britte were safe. ‘So you searched my tent, but you did not find what you sought, which is why you followed me here?’

Ballan grunted what might have been a laugh or a dismissal. ‘If I had known the way of it, I would have given a different answer. This smells of palace plots and I want nothing more to do with it, though I am interested to know what he would have had me steal. A brooch, he said, but a man like Narcissus could buy a hundred brooches, or send a dozen legionaries to fetch this one from you. And now I find you with an Atrebate sword at your throat. What is it like, this insignificant thing that has so many men seeking it out?’

Rufus stared at him. Just how much did he trust the Iceni? It was a question that only had one answer. The few hours he had spent in Ballan’s company had created a bond between them that went beyond time shared and made the gulf between their two cultures irrelevant. It was a bond of true friendship and he had experienced it only once before. Ballan was as different from Cupido as any man could be, but he had the gladiator’s heart and unfailing honesty. He had trusted Cupido with his life; how could he do less with Ballan? ‘The brooch Narcissus seeks is the brooch Togodumnus of the Dobunni wore at his throat. A brooch of gold, wrought with the figure of a charging boar. It is a beautiful thing, and of cunning construction, but I fear it is cursed, for it seems death follows it.’

Ballan’s dark eyes blazed. ‘And you are right to fear it, but not for any curse. Did we not speak once of a charm that Caratacus held dear?’

Rufus remembered the exchange at the mouth of the gully where he had killed Dafyd. An image of the brooch Caratacus had unpinned when he had given him his cloak filled his head. ‘Then this is the same brooch? But—’

‘Not the same,’ Ballan said triumphantly. ‘The twin. Cunobelin, who ruled here, had them from his father, and his father before him, even back to Cassivellaunus. Cunning construction, you said? Yes, and for a reason. Caratacus wore the one and Togodumnus the other, for they were the signs of their kingship, but there was more. The brooches are two halves of the same whole, and brought together, with a Druid saying the proper words, it’s said they will allow a man to divine his enemy’s thoughts. Thus did Cunobelin bind his two sons – only acting together could they unlock the true power of the talisman.’

Rufus snorted. ‘Much good it did them at the battle of the river. The one is dead and the other flown.’

Ballan shrugged. ‘Such things are in the gift of the gods. Perhaps Togodumnus did not prove worthy of their gift.’

Rufus shook his head. Enough! He would find Britte and recover the brooch from her. He would give it to Narcissus and be well rid of it. ‘Where did Hanno send Britte and Gaius on their errand?’

The little Syrian, who had been sitting apart, shook his head, and Ballan looked puzzled. ‘Did I not say? When we reached your tent it was empty. They were already gone.’

XLI

Rufus was up and running before Ballan could get to his feet. The Briton called him back with a shout, but the young Roman shook his head. ‘I don’t have time to explain. My son is in danger.’

Ballan didn’t hesitate. ‘Then take this.’ The Iceni unsheathed his sword and threw it towards Rufus. ‘We will follow as we can.’

Rufus caught the sword in his right hand and turned for the trees. When he reached them he found there was no path, and he had to hack his way through thick undergrowth on the forest edge. The sweat was soon coursing down his back but when he was beneath the broad-leafed canopy it chilled on his body and he felt as if he had been doused with a bucket of icy river water. As he moved forward the entangling brush quickly thinned to a carpet of fern and stinging nettle, and the gaps between the trees became greater. At times it seemed he was walking among the Corinthian columns of some darkened temple, and not in a silent wilderness where danger threatened with every step. He walked slowly, careful not to tread on fallen branches or hidden twigs that would betray his presence. And as he walked, he listened for any sound that would provide a clue to the whereabouts of Gaius, or Britte – or his unknown enemy. The forest floor was mottled with delicate patterns of sunlight that had somehow pierced the dense canopy above, and insects and dust-mites danced in the rays. On another day it would have been pleasing, but he was conscious of a feeling of dread. The silence of the forest was the silence of the dead.

After another hundred paces he realized he was approaching a clearing. It wasn’t so much a sound as a disturbance in the air that alerted him; some change in atmosphere that made him stop and crouch down in the shadow of a giant hornbeam. He understood the feeling was a warning from the gods, but which gods ruled in this strange and frightening place? Roman gods had dominated his life: mighty Jupiter, great Mars, fearless Diana. But in his childhood there had been other gods. He knew the world was divided into three, just as there were three deadly gods and three benevolent gods. The earthly world, where humans lived and suffered. The divine world where the gods looked down upon the earthbound and imposed their will upon them. But there was also the shadow world, inhabited by those trapped between. Perhaps he had already entered the shadow world. He waited for the physical manifestation of the warning to become clear.

A rasping cough that might have been a bear, but wasn’t, gave him his answer. He peered into the gloom ahead. Silhouetted against the dim light was a broad-shouldered figure with the lime-spiked hair of a British warrior. Rufus’s fist tightened on the unfamiliar grip of the long sword and he stood, slowly, took a single, deep breath and readied himself for the attack.

A call from beyond the silhouetted figure stopped him just in time, and he watched in relief as the man silently disappeared from view towards whoever had spoken. That was when the singing began; a song that sent a shiver down Rufus’s spine. The last time he had heard the sonorous, mournful notes he had been trapped in the belly of the Wicker Man and he knew full well their portent. Then, the words had been bellowed from a dozen throats; now, a single, piercing voice split the air among the trees. Nuada!

He slipped to the ground and bellied through the leaves towards the spot where the warrior had vanished. What he saw made the blood freeze in his veins.

The sacred grove was as broad as a legionary parade ground and half as long, with a low man-made mound at its centre and two huge oaks standing like gateposts at its eastern edge. Britte was roped to a wooden stake fixed to the west of the mound, held upright by the bonds which cut into her body, her screams silenced by a leather gag. To her left stood Nuada; a different Nuada, worn skeletally thin by the privations he had endured since the defeat by the Batavian river rats. The Druid’s grey hair hung in filthy matted strands and his robe was rent in so many places that it seemed more gap than cloth. He appeared as if he barely had the strength to stand, but he still had his hate and it burned bright in the amber falcon’s eyes that seemed too large for the skull they inhabited, and in his voice, which soared ever higher as he reached the climax of the gift song.

The Druid reached out and Britte attempted to jerk her head away as the fearsome bear claw stroked the long strands of her dark hair. To the right of the stake stood a warrior with the shoulders of a bull and the emotionless expression of an executioner. Nuada’s eyes rolled back in his head and he raised both arms towards the sun that was now high above them. At the same time, the warrior almost gently moved Britte’s hair to one side, placed a noose of thin cord over her head and tightened it round her throat until it stood out against her flesh like an obscene necklace. He then produced a short piece of wood and fitted it carefully through a loop in the cord at the base of her neck. He looked towards Nuada and the Druid nodded. Rufus saw Britte’s face contort as the warrior made the first turn of the stick and she felt the noose bite into her throat.

He was so transfixed by the terrible drama being played out before him that he barely noticed the two heavy-set figures enter the clearing from his right. They were naked to the waist and between them they held a squirming naked bundle. Rufus almost cried out when he recognized his son. Gaius snarled and bit behind the cloth they had used to gag him, and his russet-mopped head shook left and right as he tried to fight them with every step they took. Rufus’s heart filled with a father’s pride that was instantly replaced by a father’s terror. The first warrior moved slightly aside as he killed Britte by inches, allowing Rufus his first sight of the second stake. It was lower – perhaps four feet high – and narrower; the bark was a deep, rich brown, but the fresh heartwood at the tip showed clean and white where it had been carefully sharpened to a needle point.

A shock ran through Rufus as he recognized it and the thought of what was about to happen pushed him beyond the edge of reason. With a cry he threw himself into the sunlight towards the two men. They turned in surprise at this violation of the sacred grove and their free hands went for their swords, but a shouted order from Nuada stopped them. Instead, the warrior on Gaius’s left pulled the little boy’s head back to expose his throat and at the same time drew a bone-handled knife from his belt and placed it very deliberately against the taut, white skin. A nerve twitched in Gaius’s throat and he froze as he felt the razor edge of the blade against his flesh. The warrior laughed as Rufus stumbled to a halt, knowing that one more step would kill his son. His mind raced as he sought a way out of the trap Nuada had set. But there was none. It didn’t matter what he did. One way or another Gaius would die. In any case, his body had made the decision for him. Fear had turned him to stone.

He watched Britte die.

She fought them, as only Britte could fight them. She threw her head back, attempting to smash it into the face of her executioner. Her teeth bit at the gag that silenced her. But it was never going to be enough. The shadowed grey eyes bulged as she fought for air; her flesh turned first marble white, then a dull blue. She was dead long before the last turn of the stick broke her neck with an audible crack and her head flopped nervelessly on to her chest.

Now the Druid’s attention turned to Gaius. Rufus looked on helplessly as his son was carried towards that obscene spike. He cried out the boy’s name as he fought the paralysis that had seized him as surely as if Nuada had cast some Druid’s spell. He pleaded to die in Gaius’s stead. Even wished he had burned in the bowels of the Wicker Man so he would not be forced to see what no man should see. And as he watched, Nuada looked on in his turn, with a thin, pitiless smile. The two warriors were feet from the stake when they raised Gaius up to place him precisely on the jagged wooden point.

Rufus was puzzled by a soft thud, like a heavy footfall on a silk-carpeted floor. At first he wasn’t certain what he was seeing. But the initial sound was followed by a second, clearer than the first, and the warrior on Gaius’s left side gave a sharp cry and clawed desperately at his back, half turning so Rufus had a clear view of the twin green-flighted arrows buried deep in his spine. The second warrior’s face was a mask of disbelief. Snarling, he dropped Gaius to the ground and clawed for the sword at his belt. But he was too late. Much too late. Even as the two arrows were speeding towards their victim, a bulky shadow had detached itself from the woods and moved with astonishing speed across the grove. Ballan. Rufus saw the long spear slice into the warrior’s throat, the blade tearing skin and muscle and cartilage and showering a fountain of blood from the ruined neck that bled the man dry in less time than it takes to tell it.

A father’s instinct screamed at Rufus to rescue Gaius as he wriggled like a hog-tied piglet amongst the blood of his two sometime impalers. ‘No!’ Ballan pointed to where Nuada was racing for the trees. Rufus nodded acknowledgement and sprinted after the Druid. The warrior who had killed Britte moved to cut him off, but Rufus ignored him, his eyes never leaving Nuada’s back. A second later his faith was rewarded by a clash of arms and a shrill cry as the last of the grove’s guardians died on the point of Ballan’s spear.

By the time Rufus reached the forest edge the Druid had disappeared into the gloom. The young Roman kept the long British sword raised and at the ready. Old man he might be, but Rufus had no illusions how dangerous Nuada could be. He touched the charm at his throat and moved carefully into the trees. The trunks were close-ranked here, and the branches above him formed a continuous roof that starved the forest floor of light. As he cautiously advanced, he could hear the shuffle of his feet through the leaf-mould and the nervous sound of his own breathing. The trees and the rotting leaves gave off a distinctive but not unpleasant scent, and the whole atmosphere below the leaf canopy was somehow mesmeric. The word rang inside his head like a warning bell. He stopped. Listened. Was the feeling some Druid magic of Nuada’s? He shook his head to clear it and set off again, his eyes searching left and right, up and down, for any hint of danger.

A single sunbeam saved his life.

In the corner of his eye he saw it glint on one of the claws on Nuada’s bear paw as it was swung with lethal savagery at his head. The blow came from behind and Rufus only had a heartbeat to react; no time to bring the sword round, but he had to try. He ducked and swung in one movement. In the same instant his head exploded in a lightning rush of pain and he instinctively threw himself to the left, away from the attack. He lost the long sword as he fell and cursed himself for the carelessness that was about to cost him his life. Half blinded by blood, he fought his way to his feet, fingers scrabbling for the knife at his hip. His mind told him he wasn’t dying: the bear paw had only caught him a glancing blow – there was still hope. Suddenly a blurred figure filled what remained of his vision and he threw up his right arm to block the blow he knew was coming. He heard the unnerving crack at the same time as he felt the throat-filling agony as one of the bones in his forearm was shattered by the force of Nuada’s strike. Lost in a fireball of pain, he fell backwards, and the Druid was on him like a hunting leopard. Rufus could smell the carrion-reek of his breath and the stink of his body. He blinked away blood and was only just in time to wrap the fingers of his left hand round the Briton’s wrist as the bear claw descended towards his face in a killing blow. Nuada snarled a curse and his own left hand groped for Rufus’s throat, where his fingers closed like an iron ring as the young slave choked and struggled for life. He knew he had only seconds left and he ignored the pain in his right arm as he tried to dislodge the Druid, but his hand only flapped uselessly and the effort almost made him faint. He was dying.

But as he fought for consciouness, the weight on his chest vanished and he could no longer feel Nuada’s fingers at his neck. Which meant he was dead or . . .? He opened his eyes and saw the Druid sprawled a dozen feet to his left, where he appeared to have been thrown by some giant hand. Towering over Rufus, a great, grey mass that gave a gentle snort of affection blotted out what little sun the branches allowed through, and he felt warm dampness on his cheek. Bersheba? It was impossible. The questions flooded his spinning head, but he knew he wouldn’t find any answers today. It was enough that she was here. Enough to know that she had saved his life. He struggled to his feet, his useless arm hanging at his side, and her liquid brown eye caught his, full of compassion and, perhaps, reproach. And why not? After all, he had abandoned her again.

He heard a scuttle behind him, and turned to see Nuada disappearing into the trees. He stared into the murk. How many more innocents had he condemned by leaving the Druid alive? He shook his head and tried to work out the way back to the sacred grove. At the same time Bersheba brushed past him and ambled off, following the path Nuada had taken.

‘Bersheba!’ He put all the authority he could command into the order, but she ignored him entirely, leaving him swaying on his feet. He was still there when Ballan and Hanno found him minutes later.

‘You should be more careful when you walk in the woods, Roman,’ the squat Iceni said, eyeing Rufus’s battered scalp. Before Rufus could reply, a tiny figure darted from behind the Briton and rushed towards him. Forgetting his injured arm, he stooped to pick up his son and winced as the pain hit him like a hammer blow. Ballan stepped forward to retrieve Gaius, but Rufus shook his head, and shifted so he could hold his son in the crook of his left arm. For a moment, he revelled in the warmth of the little boy’s body and the gentle beat of his heart; the soft breath that caressed his cheek and the damp tears that mingled with his own. His body shook as he remembered what might have been. Gaius was engulfed in a blood-stained shirt retrieved from one of the dead guardians. Rufus studied his son, searching for some outward sign of his ordeal, but in the same instant the little boy lifted his face and his blue eyes shone in a smile of such untouched innocence that he knew there was no lasting damage.