The Eagle and the Raven (25 page)

Aching with pity he gathered her into his arms. “Gladys, Gladys, do you want to die?” he whispered. “All of us are guilty of this blood. None of us will ever be clean, but perhaps the Roman lives we can yet take will help to wash away that stain.”

She rested against him, her thin, tight body tense, but then she pulled free and bent, picking up her sword. “How do you cleanse a soul, my brother?” she asked him. “Yes, I am ready to die.”

He saw that she would not be swayed. The others were calling to him, their voices sharp with panic, and he kissed her on her forehead. “Farewell, my sister,” he spoke softly.

“Go in peace,” she whispered back, turning away deliberately as he ran to the door, his tears coming slowly, hurtfully.

The Silurian motioned to his followers as soon as Caradoc joined them. “Follow me,” he said curtly. “Keep low and do not speak.” He vanished into the darkness and they crept after him, moving silently through the warm curtain of rain and the gusting freshness of the night wind. He led them down the path that ran to the now impassable gate, crouching swiftly, blending as only he could with the wet darkness, and they hurried after him, gliding unseen between the warm, smouldering heaps of ash that had once been their homes.

Caradoc, a child in his arms, still wept, but his spirits began to rise as he felt an end to the weeks of living with the certainty of death. It was good to be doing something, to be going somewhere, to be able to look ahead without flinching. He would not mourn Gladys and her fate. Each freeman and freewoman had the right to choose death, and if that death was honorable, no tears were expected. Tears were spent on memories, not remorse. Each independent member of the tuath dictated his own fate, and so it was right.

The Silurian veered suddenly, dropped to his belly, and slithered away, Eurgain behind him, and Cinnamus with little Eurgain in his arms behind her. Caradoc, on elbows and knees in the mud, the rain soaking his back, looked up. The wall loomed ahead and lower down. He shifted his daughter’s weight and she whispered, “Father, put me down. I can crawl.” He nodded, gesturing, and she disappeared before him. There was no sign of the peasants. They would be crowded into the few huts still standing behind the Great Hall, probably asleep, and he felt a surge of guilt but quickly beat it back. They were nothing, only peasants, little better than cattle or slaves. But unlike slaves, they are men, his mind retorted. He groaned and crawled on.

At length, the man stopped. They were right against the wall now, at its foot, in a hollow of dryness that the rain could not reach. He waved silently, pointed to a rock, and put his thick arms around it. Two chiefs crawled to help, and with surprising ease the rock moved, came loose, and they eased it outward. The man vanished for a moment, wriggled back and waved them on, and they squeezed after him. Caradoc, pushing his way after little Gladys, found himself suddenly outside Camulodunon, in a place where the wall snaked back on itself and made a sheltered, hidden corner. The valley was shrouded and quiet. The Roman cooking fires had long since been put out, but Caradoc, his ears straining to reach what his eyes could not, fancied that he heard the low voices of sentries off to his left. Now for the dyke. Must they swim? The last chief emerged from the hole and the Silurian motioned to them, striking out once more into the drizzle, running low down the grassy bank before the dyke. With scarcely a ripple he slid into the black, oily water and began to swim, and Eurgain followed after, her tunic billowing about her on its surface for a moment like a gray sail. Caradoc picked up little Gladys and swung her onto his shoulders. She was exposed now and any soldier who happened to look their way with sharp eyes could have seen her, but she was still under the shadow of the wall and the chance had to be taken. In another moment Caradoc was in the water. Gladys slid to his back and clung to him with frightened fingers and he fought his way across, the cold of the water shocking to his bones even though it was high summer. The Silurian had already pulled himself up onto the farther bank and was crawling away, with the muffled, almost invisible line of men and women after him. Caradoc tumbled Gladys onto the bank and climbed out of the water to see Cinnamus waiting in front of him. Suddenly Caradoc had an idea. He turned to the chiefs behind him. “Here, Vocorio, take care of Gladys. Cin, give Eurgain to Mocuxsoma,” he whispered, and the chiefs took the children without a word and passed on. Caradoc then went close to Cinnamus and put his mouth to the other’s ear. “Adminius,” he said. “Where do you think he is?”

Cinnamus shrugged. “There are thousands of tents out there,” he whispered back. “Any one of them could hold him.”

“But wouldn’t Plautius want to keep him close by? I would like a chance at him!”

Cinnamus pondered briefly, then shook his head. “It is too great a chance to take, Lord. We might find him but it would take too long. He is probably well guarded. No, we must leave him to the demons.”

Caradoc had to agree. It was only a thought, but it had brought him a spurt of pleasure. More than anything else, he wanted his brother’s breast under his knife. He and Cinnamus crawled on.

In half an hour they had passed clean through the neat, precise lines of the enemy tents. The Silurian had chosen a good time to make his bid, for it was the hour when time seemed to slow, when men slept heaviest, when the sentries’ spirits were at their lowest, their heads thick with the need for rest. In two hours the dawn would come, bringing an end to the haphazard, sprawling Catuvellaunian empire. Claudius snored, lying on his back in his spacious, silk-hung tent. Plautius dozed uneasily, worry still dogging his thin dreams like a cloud of mosquitoes, and the Catuvellaunian chiefs gained the cover of the dark woods at last and straightened with relief. The Silurian did not pause. He plunged in under the rustling branches, moving in a half-run, half-lope like an animal, and the others followed. Caradoc knew where they were. He, Tog, and Adminius had used this path many times on their way north, riding out to raid, and memories curled about the trunks of the trees and drifted in the long grasses under his light feet. But the man left the path after a mile, running straight into the brush where the dark brambles hung heavy with beads of moisture. Further on there was another path, Caradoc knew, that would have taken them into Dobunni country, but this man of the west obviously wanted to travel on the border between the Atrebates and the Durotriges. Caradoc looked ahead and saw that Llyn was failing, walking with one hand clamped to his side while his feet stumbled beside Fearachar. Just then they were challenged by a group of men on horses. They all halted, panting, and the Silurian went forward. Caradoc counted five, perhaps six riders, but he could not be sure in the gloom. The Silurian spoke to the horsemen rapidly, then turned and beckoned to Caradoc. Unconsciously, and from long habit, Caradoc drew his sword and then started forward. Cinnamus and Caelte swung in beside him, and together they walked noiselessly to where the black beasts pawed the ground, their harnesses muffled. A tall man dismounted and strode to meet them, his step long and purposeful. His hood was up, and silver gleamed on his wrists as he held out his hand.

“Greetings, Caradoc ap Cunobelin,” he said softly. “So we meet again. I told you that the day would come when you had need of me.” Caradoc took the thin wrist, feeling a jolt go through him as he did so. Above them the waning moon came out for a moment, leering through the trees, the pallid face of a drowned man, and the stranger raised his hand in a curious gesture, half-greeting and half-command. “Remember,” he ordered softly. Then he pushed back his hood and Caradoc found himself gazing into a lean, bearded face dominated by two bright eyes that watched him steadily. “I am Bran,” he said, and suddenly Caradoc was back in his room at Camulodunon and it was late, a dark night, and a Druid sat before his fire, the flames casting grotesque shadows on the walls. The fear that he had felt then came back, a tide of rootless anxiety, but now it was muted, faded with the years of disillusionment and dangers in between, and even as Bran smiled it flickered and was gone. The two men stood looking at one another, while around them the forest was hushed and the men, Silurian and Catuvellauni, blended quietly with the black tree trunks and waited.

Bran had not changed, Caradoc thought. The beard was thicker, perhaps, and crisper, the cheeks more drawn under high bones, but the voice was still compelling, vibrant, and the eyes still caught him in their black points and held him prisoner. But Bran, searching Caradoc’s face, felt himself overwhelmed with pity and admiration. There was suffering in the wide, dark eyes and the lined mouth, but it was held tightly in check, and the hard, emotionless stubbornness that Bran had merely sensed in the lad all those years ago was now stamped clear for all to see. The sensitive lips were thinner, held in a grim line, and would smile only unwillingly. The high, proud forehead was furrowed by two great, slashing lines. For a moment Bran wondered if the budding clear-sightedness he had seen on that night had been extinguished by Caradoc’s bitterness, if the stubbornness had become only a reckless, suicidal hatred, but then Caradoc smiled slowly, his eyes narrowing, and Bran knew that his own intuitions had not played him false.

“Yes, I remember you,” Caradoc said evenly. “I remember very well. You sat in my chair and prophesied, Druithin, but I was young and stupid and full of pride, and would not listen. I will not thank you for snatching me from the gladiae of Rome, for you have brought me and my kinsmen only the sorrow of division and the agony of dishonor, but I will ask you—what do you want of me?”

“You know what I want, Caradoc.” The bronze rings tied in his hair glinted as he replied. “The Silurians would have left you to die. They care nothing for you or Rome or anyone but themselves, but I spoke and they listened. I want you to put yourself in my hands. The Romans can be beaten, but not until the tribes sink their differences and move as one.” He stepped closer. “I want you to be the arviragus, Caradoc.”

Caradoc laughed, a harsh, croaking bark. “You are mad. The last arviragus of the people was Vercingetorix, and though he led two hundred thousand warriors, yet he was flung into the dungeons of Rome, living in darkness and filth for six years until Julius Caesar paraded him around the forum and then had him strangled like a sick animal. The Gaulish tribes remember him, but they fight no longer.”

“Yes, he failed,” Bran said, “and we may fail also, and you, Caradoc, may end your days in the dungeons of Rome, emerging only to humiliation and death. But think carefully, as I have thought over the years. There is only one choice. Fight on, or surrender.”

“Then there is no choice. I deserted my peasants, Bran, and my sister, and my Hall, because only thus can I live to draw my blade again. But I do so with no hope. Your dream is foolish. The men of the west will never unite.”

Bran went on staring at Caradoc through the dimness, while the moon was veiled once more and the rain began to fall. “Caradoc,” he said, finally breaking the silence, “I am no seer, as I told you once before. Yet you are wrong. The tribes can be drawn together if the right man counsels them, a man with the power of reason, a man who can inspire loyalty. I do not dream. I think.” The fruit has ripened on the tree, he thought, and now we have plucked it before it could fall to the earth. “Will you attempt this thing?” he asked.

Caradoc’s gaze left the Druid’s to find the leaf-strewn ground at his feet. Arviragus. No, it was impossible. But better to pursue the impos sible than to turn and die at Camulodunon, or even to gather the few chiefs he had left and to fight the legions alone. The Silures intended to resist Rome to the bitter end, that was obvious, but what of the Ordovices, the Demetae, the Deceangli, the other tribes of the west? He was not a child any more, he did not shudder when their names were mentioned, but he still felt a vestigial reluctance to pass into their ragged, snow-shrouded mountain fastnesses. They would fight on, he thought, with or without him and his chiefs, for no commerce with Rome had softened their swords. He looked up. Bran had not moved, and the black eyes still regarded him almost indifferently. Caradoc knew that he had made his decision, knew what he must say, but all at once the words stuck in his throat. He knew that an arviragus was not like other men, and that if he agreed he would become something unrecognizable even to himself. He felt alone, imprisoned by the darkness, and by the cool rain that trickled down his neck and dripped from the hem of his cloak, and he sensed the wights and demons who were standing behind every tree, watching him, their pronged, horned helms monstrous in the poor light. The weight of his choice seemed to stretch before him with more consequences, more infinite, twisting roads of fate than he could comprehend, and it bore him down. He swallowed, meeting Bran’s eyes, and the current of strength seemed to flow once more from the older man and he squared his shoulders.

“I will come,” he managed huskily and as he said it, he thought he saw pity or sympathy flit across the lean face.

Bran nodded, turning abruptly to his men. “Good. Jodocus, bring up the horses. We must ride swiftly if we are to put many miles between us and this place before the battle is over and the Romans turn to seek you.” He issued more orders, then swung back to Caradoc, who had not stirred. “How many chiefs did you bring?”

“About one hundred.”

“Your family? Your son?”

“Yes.” The questions were sharp, businesslike, and Bran left him, striding to where horses were being led from somewhere in the dimness behind the morose and silent Silurian chiefs.

Caradoc went to his men. “We will go with them,” he said. “Cin, you take little Gladys on your horse. There are no wains. I’ll take Eurgain. Llyn, you can ride, but remember that if you tire and fall off, no one will stop. Would you rather sit behind Fearachar?”

Llyn was shivering, his cloak pulled tightly around him, but he answered arrogantly. “Of course not, Father. I will not tire, and I will not fall.”

Caradoc nodded and walked to where Eurgain stood. Her hood was back. Her fair hair was plastered to her face, her breeches clung sopping and cold to her long legs, and the blue eyes flew to him, smoky gray with fatigue and stress. He kissed her, pushing the wet hair from her cheeks. “They want me for arviragus,” he said. “They want me to unite the tribes, but if I can only fight beside the Silurian chiefs I will have accomplished something. What do you think?”