The Eagle and the Raven (3 page)

“Because we have been growing, and you have been too stupid to see it!” she shouted. “You must have known that I love you, you must have seen it, but you stand there with your jaw hanging down like an ignorant Trinovantian peasant! Leave me alone!” She flung herself onto her bed and did not move. For a few seconds he looked at her miserably, wondering whether he was seeing the real Aricia or another one of the masks she slipped on so easily, but he could not linger and he snatched up his cloak and pushed past the doorskins, out once more into the darkness and the rain.

A few steps took him to his own door, and once inside he dropped the still-sodden cloak onto the ground. Fearachar must have come to stoke the fire, for it was blazing brightly and the room was comfortably warm. He quickly stripped and wrapped himself in a blanket, then sat with his legs stretched out to the red flames, his head in a whirl, wishing for the first time in his life that he could live Samain Eve over again.

He had touched more than Aricia’s body tonight. Somehow he had flayed a raw nerve, a part of her that lay exposed, not yet covered by the droll, whimsical, often hard veneer she showed to the rest of them all too often, and he did not like what he had seen. He had not believed her capable of either tears or pleadings, and he wondered if she was lying in the dimness, caught in surprise at herself.

But marriage! His feet were too hot and he sat up, drawing them in under his chair and reaching for the wine placed ready for him. He had no wish to even consider the prospect with her. She was not the kind of woman to bear the sons of a Catuvellaunian chieftain, and his immediate refusal had come from a deep part of him, a part that he, too, did not know existed. He did not deny the spell she exerted on him. They knew each other too well. At least he had thought that they did. He remembered the day she had come to Camulodunon, all big frightened eyes and pathetic, childish haughtiness. Even then, though he himself had been but a child, his heart had gone out to her. For ten years they had all hunted, feasted, and fought together, terrorized the peasants, infuriated the freemen, lied and cheated for each other, and suddenly, between one dawn and the next, it was all over.

It had always been understood that he would marry Eurgain. She was a noble, the daughter of his father’s chief tribesman, and even before she and he and the others had formed Cunobelin’s War Band they had held a great affection for one another. She was tall, also, but more slender than Aricia, a fragile girl, silent, not beautiful but with an aura of peace and assurance that had begun to lure many to her. She had the deep, honey-colored hair and cornflower blue eyes of the best of his people, and she seemed to know his thoughts even before he spoke them.

Eurgain.

A vision of Aricia immediately arose in his mind, naked, black-eyed, shameless, hair falling to her hips and beyond, and he squirmed in his chair. If she loved him as she said she did, how cleverly she had concealed it! Did she, then, hate Eurgain? She had given no sign of that either. Or was she putting on a last, desperate pose, faced with the prospect of the long, lonely ride back to her birthplace? How could it be that he had lived beside her day after day and did not really know her at all? He put a hand over his eyes, overcome with the desire to take those few steps back to her room, to walk in, to say…what? I lust after you, I am eaten away with desire for you, but I do not love you? What am I, of what price my honor if my father and my friends were to see me now!

He left the fire and went and lay on his bed, his eyes closed, still ashamed of himself, still wondering what would have happened if he had behaved as a freeman ought to behave. If he had walked out the door before she wound those soft arms about his neck. But it was weeks, months too late, and already his will had been weakened. He was vaguely aware that the rain had stopped, though the wind still muttered fitfully beyond the thin walls. He fell asleep, but even in his dreams she snared him like a rutting, netted boar.

He slept late the next morning, waking sluggishly to the sound of his servant whistling as he raked over the ashes of the dead fire and began to set a new one. A shaft of pale sunlight flowed under the doorskins, bringing with it cold, crisp air that blew the last of the night from Caradoc’s head. As he sat up, Fearachar glanced toward him.

“A good morning to you, Lord. How pleased I am to see that you have been preserved and no demons saw fit to disturb your slumbers.”

“And a good morning to you, Fearachar,” Caradoc responded automatically. “I’m hungry.” Feeling clearheaded, he stood, pulled on his breeches and a clean tunic, strapped on his sword, but suddenly the night came back to him. His torc did not lie on the table by his bed. With a shiver he realized he had left it on the floor of Aricia’s hut. Fearachar glanced up to see the dismay on his master’s face, but then rose, dusted off his hands, and produced something from the folds of his short red cloak.

“The Lady Aricia asked me to give you this and to tell you that though it is the badge of a freeman, to her it sometimes seems more like a yoke of slavery.” Caradoc snatched at the torc and slipped it about his neck. “The Lady also said that she has taken Caesar to his kennel. It was foolish of you, Lord, to borrow the dogs. Your father will be angry.”

“Perhaps. But what is that to you?” Caradoc said rudely. Yoke of slavery! How dare she!

“I am a freeman,” the servant said, hurt. “I may have lost my honor-price but not my honor. I may speak my mind.”

“Fearachar, when you have found your mind you may indeed speak it, but please find it first.” Caradoc slung his red-and-yellow striped cloak around his shoulders and fastened it with a silver brooch. He put on plain bronze arm bands, and slipped his feet into leather sandals, then combed his hair, flung down the comb, and strode out into the morning.

He paused outside his house to sniff the clean air. The storm had moved on to trouble the north, and the valley lay before him, beyond the motley cluster of huts where smoke spiraled from the roofs and children romped in the thin, pale sun of winter. From where he stood he thought he could just make out a haze that was the river, and farther toward the horizon the dark blur of the forest, its plumes smoking with mist. The sky was washed blue, dressed in shreds of white cloud. More clouds, gray, hung in the north. It would be fine until the evening.

He strode down the winding path, calling for Cinnamus and Caelte as he went, not waiting for them as they ran, but the three of them reached the entrance of the Great Hall together and went inside, on their way greeting the chiefs who hung about, waiting for Cunobelin.

A smell of hot broth and pork fat met them as they entered the darkness and they went immediately to the great black cauldron that hung from iron chains over the massive fire at the center of the Hall. They ladled the steaming broth into wooden bowls, took cold pork and bread from the slave who sat behind platters heaped high with both, then found a corner and sat, drinking their broth with the utmost concentration, their eyes still unaccustomed to the gloom.

The Great Hall had been built five years before Caradoc’s birth, when his father had swept upon the Trinovantes and taken their tribal territory for his own, setting up his new capital and his mint here, at Camulodunon. Caradoc’s grandfather, Tasciovanus, had also conquered the territory but had not held it for long, withdrawing tactfully back to Verulamium when Caesar Augustus had come hurrying to Gaul. But Cunobelin had bided his time, waiting to strike at the Trinovantes once more, when Rome was smarting and demoralized by the loss of three legions in Germania. This time Rome had shrugged her imperial shoulders and Cunobelin had settled down to rule one of the greatest gatherings of tribes in the country. He called himself ricon now, a king, and though he was old his ambitions still consumed him. Caradoc well remembered his father and his uncle going off to war when he was ten, and now his uncle, Eppaticus, ruled the northern Atrebates, and Verica, their true chieftain, was left with nothing but a strip of coastline. He had protested to Rome on numerous occasions, but Rome had better things to do than send good men to die in Albion for one insignificant chief. And besides, Cunobelin controlled the southern trade with Rome. He kept that city supplied with dogs, hides, slaves, cattle, grain, and, once in a while, raw metals—gold and silver—from the inland territories of the tribes who traded respectfully with him. In return, Rome sent wine, and silver tableware and drinking cups, bronze-plated furniture, pottery, ivory, but most of all, jewelry for the chiefs, their horses, and their women. The river was always busy. Ships plied up and down, traders swarmed all over Catuvellaunian territory, news went back and forth, and Cunobelin watched it all, silent and unblinking like an old, wily spider, weaving webs of deceit and successfully holding Rome in one hand and his dark policies of expansion in the other.

He trod a narrow, dangerous path and he knew it. To make war was to invite Roman intervention, for Rome would allow nothing to interfere with her precious trade. But to rely too heavily on the goodwill of Tiberius was as foolish a move as to trust one’s life to the shifting sands of the marshy estuary of his river, and, besides, a great deal of his power depended on his keeping the chieftains happy. He let them raid sometimes, to give them something to do, and though there had often been formal protests from Caesar, it was a tribute to Cunobelin’s statecraft that no more concrete objections ever materialized. He was content, for the time being, to hold the land that he had, but his glance ever strayed—northeast, to the rich Icenian lands, and west, to the hills of the Dobunni. He left the Durotriges of the southwest alone. They were a warlike, fierce people, thoroughly intractable. He could only conquer them with a full-scale assault, which would mean irreparable damage to his trading connections. They kept to themselves, following the ways of their deep ancestors, and he knew he would have to wait for a more favorable time to lead his war band against them.

Now Dubnovellaunus, chieftain of the Trinovantes, nursed his wounded pride in Rome and his people farmed for the Catuvellauni. Cunobelin had built the Great Hall in the first flush of his new conquest. It was of wood, spacious and airy, its roof vaulting high above, its wooden pillars carved tortuously by the native Trinovantian craftsmen into curling, sinuous leaves, plant tendrils that wrapped dreamily around one another, and half-hidden faces of men and beasts that peered out, sleepy and mysterious. Cunobelin and his family did not particularly like the native art. They preferred the honest, open faces and designs of the Roman potters and silversmiths, for sometimes, of a lonely winter evening, the complex, secretive work of the native artists seemed to come alive and move softly, speaking of a time when the Catuvellauni had been nothing but a dim prescient warning carried on the night breezes.

The roof was vented so that the smoke from the fire could escape, and all around the walls hung shields and iron swords, javelins and thrusting spears. Hanging on the central pillar was the wizened, wrinkled head of one of Tasciovanus’s fallen foes, held there by a knife through his hair. No one could remember who he was, but he was carried into every battle, and hung in Cunobelin’s tent whenever the ricon was away from Camulodunon. Caradoc and the others had ceased to notice him years ago, and now he swung above the company, his sunken eyes watching the comings and goings, his gray locks stirring in the constant draft.

“No hunting today,” Caradoc said to his friends. “I suppose you both want to go and watch the slaughtering.”

Cinnamus wiped his generous mouth on his sleeve and put down his bowl. “I had better watch,” he said. “My freemen tell me some of my herd is missing, and I have a feeling Togodumnus will be rubbing his hands this day. If he has touched my breeding stock he had better look to his weapons.”

Caelte leaned his back against the wall. “We have guests,” he said softly, “and here is Cunobelin.”

The Hall was almost empty, for the morning was advancing and already the autumn slaughtering had begun on the flat land by the river. Caradoc turned his head to watch his father come striding into the dimness, surrounded by his chiefs. With him came a short, fat man whose braided hair hung over his cloaked shoulders, and a little girl. They went immediately to the cauldron, and Cunobelin himself served the guests broth and bread, then looked about for a place to sit. The chiefs served themselves noisily, already quarreling over the pieces of meat that floated so appetizingly in the brown soup, and Cunobelin steered his guests toward the three young men. They stood up, as Cunobelin approached, and Caradoc tried to divine his father’s mood. He wondered if Cunobelin already knew about Brutus.

“Ah, Caradoc,” Cunobelin boomed. “This is the Lord Subidasto, chieftain of the Iceni, and this is his daughter, Boudicca.” Caradoc nodded to the man and smiled briefly at the girl, then he presented Cinnamus and Caelte.

“Lord, this is Cinnamus, my shield-bearer and charioteer, and this Caelte, my bard. You are welcome in our Hall.”

They all clasped wrists and then sat down, Caelte immediately talking to little Boudicca. Cinnamus excused himself and went out, and Caradoc turned to Subidasto, feeling his father’s calculating gaze upon him.

“You have come far, Lord,” he said. “I hope your stay with us will be one of rest and peace.” They were the words of formal greeting, but Subidasto laughed harshly. How rude he is, Caradoc thought. I am only trying to repeat the words of formal greeting as I’m sure Father has done.

“That depends on your father and our talks together,” he said. “We have much to discuss.”

Caradoc looked at him closely. He had been wrong about the fat. Subidasto was enormous, yes, but his girth was not loose or flabby. His arms were full of tight muscle, his mouth firm and unyielding, and he had the pale blue, piercing eyes of a man who spends all his time out-ofdoors, looking into far distances. Is there trouble here? Caradoc wondered. Is that why Subidasto has claimed the immunity of Samain? What is my father plotting this time? He glanced at Cunobelin but read only merriment in the close-set eyes, in the heavily wrinkled face.