Dreaming the Hound (46 page)

‘Which would be powerless.’

‘Not entirely. You have your own power and it does not come only from the ancestors.’

‘But I am not fighting this war only for myself.’ Breaca came to sit on the opposite side of the fire. Flames spun in the draught and, fleetingly, took on the shapes of the dead: of Macha, of Silla, of ‘Tagos, smiling as he died. She looked deeper, to the embers, and sought her own mother, who had worn the torc with dignity and untainted honour. No-one came, only a scattered childhood memory of the elder grandmother, whom she had loved, and the old woman’s voice, lost in the crackles of the fire. You won’t lose me, I promise you that.

She had not asked a clear question and it was not a clear answer but, quietly, as if from some distance away, Airmid said, ‘Not all of the ancestors are dangerous. And the dark is unsafe only to the extent that we fear it.’

‘And fear is the only enemy. You sound like Luain mac Calma.’ Breaca reached for the torc and held it a moment near the flames. She was fully awake now, and the prickling danger of the ancestor was less than it had been, gone with the beads of snow-melt. The torc lay across her palms, quiet in its majesty. She said, ‘It would be a pity to melt it. Graine should wear it one day, and her daughters. I would not leave it to them tainted with my own fears.’ She looked up, and found she could smile, which was good. ‘Do you know the words of the binding-oath?’

Airmid shook her head. ‘Not well enough to speak them aloud,

but I think they would be more for the witnesses than for you. The torc extracts its own oaths; taking it, knowing what you do, is enough.’

In the past, there would have been ceremony, and the full three hundred spears of her honour guard to witness the moment when Breaca, first born of the royal line, took back the torc of her ancestors. Dreamers sent from Mona would have offered speeches and told of their dreams. Her daughters would have pledged themselves to follow her, honouring all that she honoured.

On the day after ‘Tagos’ death, it felt better done in private, with Airmid alone to bear witness to the hesitation and the small act of courage that pushed her over yet another threshold so that, with her own hands, Breaca took the torc and fitted it to her neck. It lay solidly alive against her skin, cool and dry and serpentine. The fit was perfect, with the end pieces resting in the hollows below her collarbones and the weight set to the back so that her shoulders took the bulk of it. It had felt exactly the same when she was a child, and far smaller.

As a smith, she could admire the skill that had made it. As Breaca, as the Boudica, as first born of the royal line, come at last to her heritage, she sought to meet and to match what it might bring, and was surprised and a little disappointed to find no challenge or threat, but only a slight lurch in her abdomen and a sigh, as of a hound returning to the fireside.

Presently, when the ancestor did not come either to greet or to harangue, Breaca rose from the fire and lifted back the door-flap. Outside, the world was white; driven snow piled thigh high against the walls of the hut and the cold bit sharply.

Another threshold had been crossed. Nothing had changed, and everything. Airmid came to stand at her shoulder and it was good to remember those things that would never change.

To Airmid, staring out at the snow, Breaca said, ‘You were right, the gods are with us. If Philus has been missed in Camulodunum, those left in charge will never risk sending a patrol out now to come and look for him. At the very least, we are safe until spring. We can use the time to think of ways to keep the legions at bay for longer.’

Snow fell for the remainder of the month, sealing the land in a blanket of ice so that the legions stayed in their winter billets and the tribes in their steadings and the land slept in a semblance of peace.

Three days before the year’s-end, a month and a half before the winter solstice, the gods sent the easterly wind to blow southerly

and warm, scouring the snow from the land. On the third day, when it was safe to ride, Breaca took a bay colt of Cygfa’s, not long broken to saddle, and rode with Cunomar out to the gully in which Philus and his men had made their last, indefensible camp.

The snow lay thin and patchy, running to mud. The air smelled of damp and rotting leaves and, as they reached the valley, of meat hung past its best. The bay colt shied at the stench and had to be coaxed forward, but that was why he had been brought; a battle horse cannot fear the scents of carnage. Breaca tethered him to some willows, and followed Cunomar into the gully.

Winter had covered the corpses, keeping them whole so that only in the last days had the carrion feeders found them. Breaca had not made any conscious effort to remember the lie of the dead after the battle, but the pattern was easy enough to pace out: here, behind the wicker sheep folds, lay the twelve of Philus’ merchants, all fallen face down and with wounds in the back or sides as they had tried to run; here in front, the mercenaries had died fighting. The black-haired one who went for Cygfa and lost his arm lay under his smaller, grey-haired companion, who had been Breaca’s kill. Pulled tight by ice, their flesh had melted back onto their faces, and their blood had washed away with the snow, leaving them whitely sodden, as the leaf litter was sodden and the drips from the overhanging branches.

‘He’s here.’ Cunomar crouched by a body a dozen paces away. ‘You were right. He’s not wearing the king-band.’

Breaca crossed to where ‘Tagos lay in a puddle of melted snow. In death, he was composed and neat with his cloak wrapped about his shoulders and his one good arm across his chest, his blade still in his hand. A crow had taken his eyes and a fox had begun to feast on his face, but what was left held a peace that it had rarely done in life and it was still possible to see the authority and integrity of the man he might have been, and had tried to become.

Only his king-band was missing, the clamour of red gold, enamel and copper that Breaca had made for him in their first winter, the better to impress a governor with a taste for Eceni art. She knelt at his side and lifted the sodden wool of his cloak away from his one good arm. The band was gone and had been so while he still lived - anyone taking it from his corpse would have disturbed his peace too clearly.

Aloud, she said, ‘It won’t have fallen. He can only have given it away.’

‘Philus is behind you,’ Cunomar said, quietly.

Breaca turned. The slave trader lay as he had fallen, untidy and unmourned. His pack was not beside him, but she found it wedged in the roots of an oak, broken open by the weight of snow and stirred by rats and mice. She turned it upside down and the king band spilled out, wrapped about in lamb’s wool to keep it untarnished.

‘Well done.’ Cunomar grinned. ‘I owe you a belt buckle.’

‘Which you don’t have to give me. I only bet because it was obvious.’ Breaca picked up the cold metal and teased open the wool. ‘No-one but Philus would have had the audacity to ask for this, and even if they had, ‘Tagos would not have felt himself beholden to give it to anyone less threatening.’

Cunomar nodded. ‘It’s still the most beautiful thing you have made, and he treasured it. He would not have given it away if he had not felt it necessary.’

‘I would like to think not.’

Unwrapped, the band lay across her hands, as bright as the day she had made it. Red gold caught the flat light of the morning, warming it; oval plates of blue enamel swam across like fish in summer water; copper roundels at the end pieces glimmered green in their fissures where sweat and man-heat had stained the metal. Lanolin greased her fingers, lightly pleasant, and made it easier to slip around ‘Tagos’ one good arm without tearing the fragile skin or flesh beneath. He looked more complete with it on, more obviously regal.

Breaca sat back on her heels and swept the sodden, crow-torn hair from his face. ‘Made a king by gold and copper. He deserved better, at the end, at least.’

‘If he serves us in death, he’ll be glad of it.’

Cunomar spoke absently, his attention no longer on the dead, but on Cygfa’s bay colt, which had been spooked by some crows. He was still dressed as he had been in the summer, in a sleeveless deerskin jerkin that made mockery of the cold and showed well the bear scars on his upper arms. At his left temple hung a hank of woven red horse hair with a single bear’s tooth dangling, which had been a gift from Ardacos to mark the last day of the old year.

Breaca said, ‘Cunomar? I, too, have a gift for you.’

He had not expected that, and was pleased. The elders of the Caledonii had taught him how to hide whatever he felt, but she

saw the spark of surprise and the flush that followed and was glad she could still move him. She saw, too, and more openly, the consternation that followed. ‘I brought nothing for you,’ he said.

‘I didn’t expect you to. And you may not wish to accept what I offer, which is why we are speaking of it here, where we are overheard only by the dead. If you decide you don’t want it, no one living will know.’

That drew his full attention. Reaching into her belt pouch, she drew out a circlet of red gold, silver and copper. It was not exactly like ‘Tagos’ king-band, but so close that only a smith would know the difference.

‘This is the first part,’ she said. ‘You should know that it was not only made for you. If we hadn’t found ‘Tagos’ band, I would have given him this to hold in death through the winter; the Romans would never have known it wasn’t his.’ She held it out. ‘Knowing that, if I offered it to you, would you still take it?’

‘Gladly.’ A smile lit his eyes so that, briefly, he was very much his father. ‘I did say it was the most beautiful thing you ever made. I had always thought it wasted on ‘Tagos.’

The band slid into place above his elbow. It was heavier than ‘Tagos’ and the end pieces were not enamelled discs, but fashioned in the shape of a bear’s paw with room to fasten the kill-feathers, as had been done in the days of the far-distant ancestors.

Cunomar sat in silence as his mother fixed the five feathers of his kills on the left side. He would not look down when she had finished; he was too proud for that.

‘You look more regal than ‘Tagos has ever done,’ Breaca said, and then, ‘Cygfa painted and bound the feathers. Airmid helped me draw the wire. Graine carved the shapes for the end pieces. This is from all of us, to mark the start of a year that will be different from anything we have ever known. ‘

His head came up sharply. ‘And so this is not the gift you feared I might turn down?’

‘No.’

The wind was moving easterly again, and growing colder. Breaca blew on her hands to warm them.

Presently she said, ‘After ‘Tagos’ death, it was agreed that we would wait until the bodies of the dead were found, and

that I would go to Camulodunum in spring when the snow melts, to tell them of the tragedy of the king’s death and how it has blighted our lives, to ask their help in returning his body so that we may mourn him properly, and to ask for their help in finding those responsible for his death. If the Romans believe us bereaved and not at fault, they will not send the legions to destroy the steading in revenge for Philus’ death.’ Cunomar grinned, wryly. ‘I don’t think it was agreed. I think it was argued for three days and three nights and you had your way because you are the Boudica and even Ardacos, Cygfa, Dubornos and Airmid together cannot sway you when you set your mind to something so obviously dangerous.’

‘You were the only one who didn’t speak against it. Did you not agree with them?’

‘Of course I agreed. It’s madness you’re going. If Rome does not believe you, you’ll be the first to die and then who will lead the war host? Do you think the warriors will gather for Ardacos, or for the son of the Boudica whom they have never seen lead a single spear into battle? I don’t. No king-band, however beautifully made, could make them trust me that much.’

He was not bitter, only speaking the truth as he saw it, and was probably right. He picked up a pebble and threw it at a crow that was teasing the bay colt. ‘I would have argued against with the rest of them, but I’m your son. I can tell when your mind is set beyond changing. The Caledonii taught me never to waste my breath on arguments that couldn’t be won.’ He was not grinning any longer, and he did know her well. ‘Is that your gift?’ he asked. ‘That you would not go?’

She nodded. ‘That I would not go, and would ask you to go in my stead. You are the king’s son. You speak Latin as well as I do. You have the courage and steadiness to say what is needful. If I can’t go, and it does seem as if the gods and dreams - and common sense - are against it, then you are the best alternative. It may be that you were always the best anyway. If I asked it of you, would you risk your life in Camulodunum for us? For me?’

The elders of the Caledonii had done their job well. Only because he was her son did she see the blaze of unshaded joy behind Cunomar’s eyes. Outwardly, his face was schooled to stillness, his answer measured. ‘I would be more grateful than I have words to express,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me what made you change your mind?’

‘Airmid. And then Ardacos, and then Dubornos and Cygfa together, and then Airmid again. They have all known me since before you were born, which perhaps gives them reason to believe

that when my mind is set, it may still be altered.’

‘Did they suggest I should go in your place?’

‘Hardly. Each of them offered to do it alone, as I had done. It may be death, we all know that; no-one would ask that of anyone else. Except that now I ask it of you.’

‘No. Now you offer it as the greatest gift you have ever given, or could give, to your son who still stands in the shadow of his parents and would prove himself a warrior. Which is why I accept, with great thanks.’

The rites of the year’s-end passed quietly that year.

Once, the Eceni would have marked the end of autumn and the birth of the new child-winter with a killed ram and malted barley and games on river ice for the youths coming up to their long nights and a ceremony afterwards in the roundhouse with all the dreamers and singers present to keep it safe.