The Eagle and the Raven (27 page)

“In here,” he ordered. “You!” Two passing legionaries stopped and saluted. “This prisoner must be guarded. You can see to it.” He pushed her into the shrine and went away, and the two grumbling soldiers took up their posts on either side of the low, narrow door.

“So much for a mug of wine and a rest,” one said. “I suppose we must stand here until Quintus remembers us, which won’t be for hours. Got your dice on you?”

“Let’s have a look at the prisoner first,” the other suggested, and they turned to the doorway. But Gladys, hands pressed to her ribs where the pain seared her, fronted them.

“This is a holy place,” she said, her voice flat. “If one of you puts his dirty foot over the threshold the god will curse you. Your belly will begin to burn. Your head will ache until you plead for someone to cut it off. And demons will pursue you night and day and drive you mad with terror.” They backed away, superstitiously awed as every soldier was when faced with strange gods, and Gladys sank to the ground.

In the dimness Camulos squatted, scowling at the doorway, big hands resting on his fat belly, the lobes of his ears looping up to envelop his bellicose head. Gladys smiled wearily at him. “Where were you when I needed you, Camulos?” she murmured. “Were the sacrifices not pleasing to you? Are you tired of serving the Catuvellauni?” She lowered herself, lying on her side, but whatever she did, her bruised ribs cried out with every indrawn breath. The boss had struck her with such force that her tunic had been driven into the flesh, but she did not try to loosen it, knowing that the pain would only become worse if she did. It was cold in the shrine, and dampness rose from the dirt floor and chilled her until she began to shiver. Her sword arm had no feeling in it and would scarcely obey her. There was a piece of cloth lying across the god’s feet where offerings were placed, and finally she crawled over and took it, bundling it up and placing it beneath her head. The soldiers outside were sitting on the threshold and she heard the rattle of dice and their uncouth laughter. She tried to relax, closing her eyes and thinking of her brother, who was surely now far into the forests, along with her little nieces, armfuls of soft, sweet flesh. But it was for her beloved sea that she longed, and she wanted to crawl into a cave with her hurts and her grief and lie there until the solitude of a deserted summer shore could heal her. She missed the comforting coldness of her sword beside her, and without her voluminous cloak she felt naked, but she slept. The morning turned into afternoon, and the summer sun began to drop slowly and heavily to the horizon.

She awoke in a sweat, her heart thumping and her head thick, to the sound of loud voices and she sat up carefully, while every muscle protested. “Go in and get her!” she heard someone order impatiently. “What’s the matter with you?” And one of the soldiers answered sullenly.

“The god will curse us if we go in. The woman said so.”

“Oh she did, did she? So she can speak a civilized tongue after all! Well, well! Quintus, go in and bring her out. You two, go down to the camp.” Gladys rose shakily, clinging to the wall, trying not to breathe for the agony of it, and the huge optio darkened the doorway. Before he could step within, she walked toward him, willing her feet to obey her, and he snapped his fingers.

“Hurry up! The commander is waiting!” She came slowly into the sunlight, blinking, and for a moment stood looking out over the town. Long shafts of evening light lay peacefully over the valley, and smoke from the Roman cooking fires spiraled straight into the drowsy air. Below her a busy horde of soldiers labored on the earthwalls and the level of the defences had already shrunk. To her left, men came and went, and baggage stamped with the imperial eagle lay piled about the door of the Great Hall. From within came the crackle of new fire and the laughter and talk of the emperor’s servants. She felt bewildered, lost, as if she had gone to sleep only to wake a hundred years hence in a different age, with nothing familiar to hold to. Quintus tugged at her arm, guards formed about her with the centurion leading, and she began to walk, her head high, vowing grimly not to faint. They passed the Great Hall, turned left, and followed the path that ran to the very summit. At last Quintus halted her outside Caradoc’s gray stone house. No! she thought in panic, not here! But the centurion had already gone inside, and presently he came out again, nodding to her. She stepped past the doorskins, with the centurion behind her, and halted. Three men looked at her with a frank, open interest and she stared back, seeing out of the corner of her eye the familiar, homely things, which brought a lump to her parched throat. Eurgain’s box lay on the floor in a corner, open and empty. One of her silver drinking cups stood on the table beside the brown, folded hands of the commander, and down by the hearth, where a fire blazed, lay one of Caradoc’s cloaks, the one striped with red and blue and fringed in gold thread. Tears sprang to her eyes but she sternly fought them back, wanting to snatch up the warm, soft garment and bury her face in its gay folds. But something of Eurgain still lingered here. A whiff of peace, a sane comfort, and Gladys felt her spirits rise with the little spurts of flame that twinkled in Eurgain’s copper lamps. She stood straighter.

“Thank you, Varius, you can go,” the commander said, and the centurion beside her saluted and went out. In the moment before he spoke again, Gladys studied him. A man in early middle age, she thought, his black hair sprinkled with gray and cut short. The face was long and thin, the nose slightly hooked, and the chin clean and decisive. His mouth in repose was hard, a slash across his face, but when he spoke it broke into lines of gentleness. He was immaculately dressed. His white linen shone, and the drapings of his short cloak were fresh and stainless. The fastening on his shoulder gleamed and so did the thick bronze arm bands about both wrists. On the index finger of his left hand he wore a massive gold seal ring. At last her wandering eyes found his own and a jolt of recognition went through her as though somewhere, sometime, in a place before memory or consciousness, she had looked long into their depths and had now found a part of her own self. They were blue-gray, speculative eyes, full of an objective perception, deep with a knowledge of the world and himself, but telling her also that this man was a mystery, who kept his thoughts to himself, a man of quiet self-containment. With difficulty, with a strange, bewildering gladness, she tore her gaze from him and glanced at the others. A large, red-faced, ugly man stood beside the table with his hands behind his back. His massive, bronze-plated chest was thrown out, and the iron-stripped apron around his waist hid thighs like boulders. Off to her right, a young, cheerful-faced man rested one sandaled foot on Caradoc’s stool and met her eyes with undisguised curiosity. She looked away.

“What is your name?” the commander asked her. She stared into his face and did not reply, and his hands tightened about each other. “What are you called?” he repeated, and she met his steady look coldly.

“I give my name only to my own people.”

“Where are your chiefs? Where is your ricon?”

“Dead.”

He shook his head firmly, and when he spoke again the level, cultured voice was sharper. “No, they are not. No chiefs lie among the bodies, and I myself checked the prisoners. Where have they gone?”

The soft lips remained firmly closed and Plautius regarded her in the silence. He, like the centurion, had no doubt that she was a prize, a member of some ruling house. Her bracelets were all of silver, the hem of her tunic was rimmed with gold thread, and the two necklaces that hung from the brown throat were silver filigree. The centurion had told him that her shield was studded all over with red coral and sprinkled with pearls. But who was she? What chief could be coerced into submission because Rome held this woman hostage? A husband? A father? No, not a father. She was well past her first youth, though the slim body could have belonged to a stripling and the dark hair fell in a glossy shower down her back without a trace of gray. The face was already traced with lines, fine meshes around the big eyes, faint tracks from the small nose to that cool mouth, but those eyes… He frowned unconsciously, annoyed with himself. This was no time for idle philosophizing on the endless permutations of the barbarian character. Yet there was familiarity in the face and a hidden tension, manifested in her very stillness, a tension borne of long years of some kind of discipline. He had seen it before in the faces of men who had devoted all their energies to art and withdrew into themselves. He looked back at her to see the color draining from her cheeks. She put one shaking hand to her breast and swayed, and he spoke quickly. “She’s hurt. Rufus, give her the stool.” The young man left his perch and carried it to her, she sank onto it and they waited, Vespasianus shuffling and breathing heavily, obviously impatient to get the business over and move on. Then she raised her face, and the color was creeping back.

“You ask me where they have gone,” she said, holding her bruised ribs, the faintness of hunger and exhaustion still threatening to pitch her into oblivion. “And as it can make no real difference now, I will tell you. They have gone to gather new forces. They will fight you again, Roman, and again, until you crawl back to your dungheap and leave us alone.” The insult was ignored. Pudens raised his eyebrows and smiled, and Plautius left the chair and came to stand before her.

“Where have they gone?”

“I have told you enough.” She spoke his native tongue with a pleasant, lilting accent, her voice deep for a woman, but soft, soft and compelling, and he found it hard to remember that she was a warrior, and that many of his men lay dead or wounded because of her.

“Why didn’t you go with them?” he probed more gently than he had intended, and she looked up at him sadly.

“It was… It was a matter of honor.” Vespasianus muttered something and sat on the edge of the table, and Pudens leaned against the wall, arms folded, his smile broadening. He found a respect for her growing in him. Plautius thought for a moment and then went on.

“Lady, I must know where they have gone, surely you understand that, and so I will keep asking you. How many chiefs left this place? How great is the force?”

“Not great—yet,” she said. “But it will grow. And if you think to keep me here as a hostage in order to draw them back, forget the idea. My brother would rather see me die than surrender himself to you.”

“And you yourself? Don’t you want to live?”

She shrugged and then cried out in pain, mastering herself immedi ately and answering with pride. “Life without honor is nothing. I will die if necessary. There is nothing left to live for.”

And yet you do want to live, Plautius thought. You do not know it yet, but you do. You are full of misery, lady, and dreams, and strange, unfulfilled yearnings. I see them all behind those dark eyes of yours. He walked to the door and called, and Varius returned and saluted. “Find a hut for the lady,” Plautius said. “Send my surgeon to her, and food and drink, but keep her well guarded.” Varius nodded and stood waiting and Gladys rose slowly and went to him, passing through the doorskins without a backward look. Plautius turned to his men. “Well?” he said. Vespasianus grunted.

“What a primitive idea these people have of firmitas!” he replied. “Give her to Quintus. He’ll soon wring the truth from her, before it’s too late to round up the chiefs.” Plautius had a thought, then rejected it.

“She would not speak, and in any case it is already too late to make any difference now. Honor is all she lives for. Who is she, Rufus?”

Pudens left the wall and came to stand with them. “She mentioned her brother. We know that the younger brother is dead and the older one here with us, so it must be Caradoc who has slipped off with the remnants of his men. Cunobelin had only one daughter, sir.”

Plautius nodded. “Gladys, I believe. Quite a prize for us, gentlemen! She should have gone with her brother.” But even as he said the words he was suddenly glad that she had not.

She was put in a hut in the first circle that had escaped the ravages of the fire, though the outer wall was scorched black. Plautius’s surgeon came to her, a brisk, efficient man who ripped the cloth from her ribs with no comment, slapped a cold salve and a bandage on her, and told her that her arm would heal and the feeling would come back, but that it would take some weeks. She was brought a soldier’s meal—broth, leeks, beans, and barley porridge, and wine diluted with water—and she wolfed it down while the man left her and returned with her clothes rolled up in a sack. All her jewels were gone, resting now in the packs of the legionaries. She begged for her sword and her knife but the man just laughed in astounded contempt and went away.

Three days later Claudius, with the arrogant insurance of the Moesian Eighth Legion, made his triumphal entry into Camulodunon.

Chapter Fifteen

T
HAT
night, after the fanfares and the ovations, the sacrifices and pomp, the emperor and his officers gathered in the Great Hall to celebrate the victory. Plautius, in full and glittering regalia, reclined on Claudius’s right in the place of honor, and listened to Claudius’s brusque comments on his plans for the future of the new province, the state of his delicate health in this contemptible climate, and his promises of promotions and rewards. Plautius’s mind roved among the retinue gathered about the royal couch. Claudius is no fool, he mused, hearing the roars of masculine laughter go echoing to the roof as a servant bent to fill his cup. He has brought all his enemies with him. The thought made him smile. Here they all were, the Gallic senator Valerius Asiaticus, a contender for the purple after Caius’s murder, a man who could still harbor a lingering ambition beneath that grizzled gray skull. Crassus Frugi, whinnying with horselike laughter, his big teeth exposed while Rufrius Pollio, commander of the elite Praetorians, calmly finished his joke, his eyes, as always, on Claudius. Frugi was married to one of Pompey’s descendants. What was it Seneca had said of him? Plautius sipped the wine slowly, savoring its dry bite. “A man silly enough to be a possible emperor.” A man of power also, and Claudius was busy trying to placate him and his illustrious house. He had married Frugi’s son, Pompeius Magnus, to his daughter Antonia, but did not trust the son any more than the father. Magnus lay on his couch and watched the company with shrewd, heavy-lidded eyes.

Claudius turned away from Plautius to speak to Galba, and there, Plautius thought, is a man worth listening to. The emperor puts his trust in the right hands, but warily, for Galba rolled in money, Galba was a fanatic, devoted to his duty and the physical prowess of his legions, driving his own body with the same nerveless, humming energy that he demanded of his men. He was here to assess the situation in Albion, and to pronounce. He and Plautius had spent hours together discussing Plautius’s future course in this wild, furtive, outlandishly lovely country, but Plautius, though recognizing his vast experience and superior tactical knowledge, did not like him. He could not believe that behind the flaming, forceful drive of the man there was no secret, hidden ambition, and perhaps Claudius doubted also, and kept Galba in his constant company. Galba, two years ago, had calmly crushed the warlike Chatti in Germania and took the subsequent adulation as his right. But most of all, Galba was connected to the old Empress Livia, and Claudius never forgot it.

Plautius met the eye of his relative, Silvanus Aelianus, and they smiled at each other, lifting their cups in silent, mutual toast, and Plautius, drinking, thought—you too, Silvanus. Is it a curse or a blessing to be related to Caesar? “Oh a curse, a curse, my dear Aulus,” he could hear his aunt complain, the aging face puckered in distaste. “Can you imagine being made love to by a man who dribbles when he becomes roused?” and Urganilla’s painted lips would pout. “Then he becomes offended because of my lovers. Well, really. What could I do?” Plautius grinned at the remembering. Claudius had divorced her, both of them hugely relieved, but then Claudius had donned the purple and Urganilla had howled, not at her lost status but in fear that the career of her favorite nephew might be ruined. She need not have worried. Claudius was just. He saw the potential in Plautius and acted accordingly, and since that time he and Plautius had, by tacit agreement, never mentioned Urganilla. Claudius had Messalina now, and Plautius wondered whether he ever missed the petty nagging of his aunt. Messalina did not nag. Messalina smiled, and men’s fortunes were made or broken on the strength of the whims beneath that smile. At least Urganilla had had no great ambitions.

“What a dark, stinking hole this is, eh Plautius?” Claudius had turned back to him and he shook his mind free of reverie. “When I am gone, burn it down. It reeks of stale pork drippings and magic. I think we will have a temple on the spot, to myself, of course. At first it will hearten the soldiers and later when the barbarians have begun to acquire some civilized habits, it may serve as a focus for their otherwise depraved religious instincts. What do you say?”

Plautius glanced at the emperor and away again. The face was fine, noble, a true patrician face, but Claudius’s nose had begun to run again and little gray bubbles of foam had gathered in the corners of his mouth. “I think that would be wise, sir,” he replied. “The peasants have begun to creep back to their farms now, and every day more of them leave the woods in search of food. I can have them put to work. It will keep their minds and bodies occupied.”

Claudius smiled. “I do congratulate you, Plautius. A brilliant campaign. I have decided to name my son Britannicus after my new province when I get home. I must say I am looking forward to going home. Triumphalia ornamenta for Vespasianus and Geta, and the salute of the senate for me.” He smacked his lips and lay back. “I hear we took an important prisoner,” he went on. “A barbarian princess. Have her brought in, Plautius. I want a look at her.”

Plautius rose reluctantly, and Claudius, seeing his hesitation, waved a heavy, bejeweled hand at him. “Don’t be afraid that she may insult my Divine person. She can say anything she likes to me and I shall be vastly amused. I feel expansive tonight. You did say,” he leaned forward anxiously, “that she spoke Latin?”

“Most of her tribe speaks our tongue,” Plautius replied. “The traders say they are most proficient in it.” Claudius was unaware of the mild rebuke. He liked and admired Plautius and he merely smiled and shooed him out, his head wobbling with excitement on its stalky neck.

Plautius strode from the Hall and sent two soldiers to fetch Gladys from her hut. He did not trust one man alone, not since he had seen her sword, bloody and notched. He waited patiently, looking at the star-strewn beauty of the night sky, the thousands of pricks of red light on the valley below, and he felt enormous contentment. Life was good. He was high in favor, his invasion had gone well, and soon Claudius would take his powerful, sophisticated retinue and return to Rome, leaving him, Plautius, to carve a province out of this wild land. Pannonia had been a challenge, but this… This would be like jumping into the arena to face a hungry lion with only a knife between himself and disaster.

He heard them come and he turned. She was swathed in a long, flowing cloak, black, he thought though he could not tell until she stepped into the light of the torches, and her dark hair mingled with the folds of it so that it seemed to him she was hooded as well. Starlight and firelight glinted on her pale face, giving it an ethereal, unearthly beauty, a softness that he had not seen there before, and he almost bowed and held out his arm. The eyes sought his without pleading or fear, and he gestured the soldiers away and spoke to her politely.

“Are you recovering from your hurts, Lady? Do your ribs still ache?” She nodded once, faintly, and did not reply. “The emperor has called for you,” he said. “Do not fear him. He is curious, that’s all. Come in.” She smiled then, a sardonic, knowing twist of the mouth that made him feel like a fool. He turned swiftly, and she followed him.

Gladys stood on the threshold, shocked into momentary immobility by the change that had been wrought. Her eyes flew from wall to wall, darted among the now silent, staring company, but still she could not absorb it and adjust quickly and calmly, as Eurgain would have done. The dirt floor was covered all over with soft, thick carpets of blue and yellow. The fire burned, but in a huge grate raised high above the hearth. Torches flared about the walls and on every pillar, their yellow light reflecting from the gleaming breastplates, the gold cloak clasps, the bronze arm bands of the men who filled the Hall. Couches had been drawn up in a wide semicircle, brocade and damask sweeping from wall to wall, and in the middle was a table hung with bright cloth, laden with strange fruits, golden flagons, dishes piled with food that she could not begin to identify. She was suddenly shy, overwhelmed by the inquisitive, worldly eyes of the Roman aristocracy fastened on her in amusement and scorn, but she drew herself up regally and walked forward, following Plautius’s tall back. He stopped, bowed, and stepped aside. “The Lady Gladys, sir,” he said and went back to his couch, and Gladys looked into the most powerful face in the world.

At first she was impressed. He was tall even when seated. His forehead was high, crowned with thick gray hair cut short across his brow and below his ears. His nose was broad like Caradoc’s, but the nostrils spread, and around them deep lines curved that gave him a cruel, sullen look. His mouth was large, well-determined, but again harsh lines marred it, made it petulant and capricious. The eyes that now were hungrily regarding her were fine, intelligent, and steady, even kindly. But Gladys felt a flash of pity, for the emperor was slobbering, wiping the spittle away now and then with a white cloth, and nothing could disguise the tremor of his head. He held out an elegant hand and the purple cloak fell back. “Come closer,” he said and Gladys obeyed, trying to remember all that her brother had said about this man. He was a coward. He lived in continual fear of poison and betrayal. He was a genius, a historian, a great and learned reader. He was a tool of his Praetorians, his freemen Greeks, and his women. “We salute your bravery, barbarian woman,” he went on. “You fought well, or so I have been told. We are not vengeful men, Gladys. We bring you and your people a new peace and prosperity. For many years your countrymen and ours shared good trade and we have become as brothers. So, like brothers, let there be continued cooperation and growth together. What do you say, eh?”

Gladys did not know whether to burst into astonished laughter, or spit in his face, or burst into tears. Sholto… Tog… She felt the lump form in her throat. Tossing back her hair she fought it down. “My town is in ashes,” she said huskily. “My brother is murdered, my people are scattered. I have neither honor-price nor position left to me. Even my sword has been taken from me. And you dare to speak of peace and cooperation.” She could not go on. More words would have brought tears, and she would rather have died than afford these spotless, superior lords the sight of a sword-woman in public disgrace.

Claudius considered her, his head on one side. “Delightful accent,” he said at last. “Well spoken, for a savage.” Plautius held his breath. Why am I caring? he thought, amazed at himself. How many barbarian men and women have I seen brought to their knees before the imperium? Let them all humiliate her. It would do her good, stubborn female. But he felt his fingers grip the cup even tighter and was unable to relax them. Claudius was in a merry mood now, but he was less stable than he used to be. He might order her execution if the game palled. “Rome is here,” Claudius said affably, “whether you like it or not, my dear, and before long you will like it, we are sure. Come and drink with me.” Plautius tensed still further, hoping for her sake that she would bend that arrogant head, smile apologetically, and take the cup from the servant’s outstretched hand. But he was hoping for his own sake that she would not. She had eyes now only for the emperor. They stared openly at one another, taking a measure, then Gladys stepped forward, an enigmatic smile on her face.

“And who will taste my cup?” she said quietly.

Deep silence descended as the implication of her insolent words sank through the cheerful, victory-flushed company, and Plautius wanted to stand and applaud. He actually felt his knees stiffen, then he bent his head to hide his action. The fire danced merrily on, the only sound in that warm, hushed place, then Claudius snatched the cup from the servant’s fingers and turned it upside down, and the red wine splashed onto the carpet.

“Go away,” he said, his reedy voice trembling. “Go away!” Gladys looked slowly around at the still, heavy faces, now full of hostility and a new respect, then she spun on her heel and glided out the door. No one spoke. Claudius’s heavy breath rasped into the thick air and he turned to Plautius, his nose streaming. “If they are all like that,” he said, suppressed rage flooding his face with color, “then we might as well exterminate them.”

But they were not all like that. By noon of the next day embassies began to arrive in Camulodunon, riding up to the gate in their bright cloaks and glittering bronzes, looking with uncomfortable amazement at the transformation that met them. All that remained of the great defences was a little wall, hardly breast high, a pleasant place to stand resting and gazing out over the river valley. The mounds of ash and rubble were being cleared away, and the officers’ tents ringed the Great Hall in severe, pristine circles. Before the Hall, flapping idly, the standards and the tall, bronze aquilae of the five legions were clustered, guarded by motionless soldiers. Everywhere there was motion. Messengers came and went, troops wandered about, the auxiliaries sat in the dust and gambled. Claudius and his retinue, and the officers of the legions, sat in the Great Hall to receive the formal surrender of the subdued chiefs who filed through with their shield-bearers and bards to bow and squat before them, anxious only for peace. The brutal crushing of the once powerful Catuvellauni had awed them. All they wanted was treaty and then the long, relieved ride home.

Gladys, pacing back and forth in her dark hut, heard the ring of their harness and the sweet familiarity of their common speech, and she went to the door. “Please let me out,” she said to her guard. “I want to speak with the chiefs. I will not run away.” He looked at her doubtfully, shaking his head. “I will have to get permission,” he said. “Wait until my relief gets here in another hour, and I’ll ask my tribune. But he’ll say no.” She retired, pacing slowly again from bed to door and back, ignoring the now faint twinge in her ribs where the big black and purple bruise was shrinking. She listened with straining ears to the snatches of conversation outside. She heard the guard change, and she went and sat in the little chair, folding her arms, beating back the feeling of suffocation that the dimness and stuffiness of the room brought to her. A dozen mad visions fluttered through her mind. She would slip away and steal a boat, and run free on the sand in the hot sun. She would disguise herself and ride out with the chiefs. She would overpower her guard and take his knife, and rush into the Hall and kill the emperor. But then between her and her frustration came those eyes—steady, smoky, full of sternness, and she hugged herself tighter and closed her own eyes, a new restlessness joining the others.