The Eagle and the Raven (34 page)

Caradoc looked into the sparkling dark eyes with a new respect. Madoc was no wild mountain man after all, and behind the wide, rough manners, the garish jewels, the boastful, stalking walk, lay a powerful, cunning chief. Cunobelin had taught his sons to fear only the men of the west, and now Caradoc knew why. Madoc was Cunobelin, a Cunobelin without Rome’s tempering influence, and Caradoc knew that he was seeing his father as he could have been, a pure, unadulterated warrior. A strange new pride uncurled in him and the dimensions of the knowledge he had of his ancestors expanded. He had called his task impossible, but what if it were not? What if he could indeed rouse these brilliant, uncouth fighters into a common aim? Bran believed that he could. He smiled at Madoc, and clasped the other’s shoulder.

“I understand,” he said. “Yes, Madoc, together we will do a great thing.” A tiny thread of approval began to be spun behind Madoc’s eyes, still as fine as gossamer, and he fingered his beard and grunted.

“I think we have already begun,” he said. “Now let us walk a little farther. I have one more thing to show you.” He strutted away and they went after him, past the kennels of the hunting dogs and the smoking potteries. The children had become bored and had left them to run screaming and laughing down to the river. They plunged straight in, though the morning was cool, and they swam strongly against the currents, brown, red, and black heads bobbing together, but Madoc lead the chiefs away from the water and stopped finally outside a plain, freshly thatched hut.

“Freeman, are you there?” he called, and the doorskin was thrust aside. A young man greeted them absently, tools in his hands. “Bring out your work,” Madoc ordered. “I want these men to see it in sunlight,” and the youth left to reappear a moment later with something wrapped in a cloth that he carried gently. He squatted and began to unwrap it and they knelt down with him. He lifted it up in loving, in gentle fingers, caressing it as he did so, and Caradoc, Cinnamus, and Caelte gazed at it in astonishment. It was a gold necklace, obviously unfinished. “He is making it for one of my wives,” Madoc explained. “What do you think?” Glinting snakes writhed sinuously, their hooked fangs lengthened, gliding, becoming the stems of strange, languid plants whose flat leaves were drawn out in their turn to become smooth fluid curves. The eye could follow, but never discover where snake ended and leaf began, or where leaf ended and curve flowed into fang. Caradoc touched it with awe, the power of it driving to the heart of him and waking an old, long-forgotten response. It reminded him of the carvings on the pillars of the Great Hall and of the cloak-bronzes and arm bands of Aricia’s chieftains. But beside them it was alive, full of magic, whole and vibrant as though the carving on the pillars had been only lifeless reflections of this hidden, burning reality. Madoc was pleased at their silence. He glanced at them slyly. “Bring out more,” he commanded, and the silent young man brought a silver cloak brooch, a wolf’s head, its hungry, predatory eyes following Caradoc’s own. Between its teeth was the tiny head of a man, the hair curling around the fangs and dripping like solid blood from the mouth, and in the silent scream of the man Caradoc glimpsed another head, a wolf’s. Yes! he thought excitedly. Yes, yes, oh yes!

“More,” he whispered, and the youth shot him a keen glance. He brought a great pile of precious things, rings, brooches, bracelets, bits and harness for horses, circlets for a lady’s head, anklets for her feet, all seething with images, live nightmares, summer dreams, a profusion of visions. Caelte’s wandering hands touched wild music.

“You made all these?” he asked, and the youth nodded once.

“I did.” He began to gather them up.

“In my tuath,” Caradoc began, and the young man stopped what he was doing and gave him a frosty, bitter smile.

“In your tuath,” he said coldly, “my works would have been trampled disdainfully in the mud and I would have been driven away.” He gathered his treasures carefully in his cloak, and Madoc laughed.

“Baubles!” he roared. “Pretty playthings for my ladies and my chiefs who pay and pay, and you, my fine wolfling, get rich! Aaah, but you speak to their wild hearts with your genius.” He rose. Caradoc turned to say something to the youth, wanting to tell him how he had squatted as a proud chief and had risen humbled, but the space before the plain hut was empty. He and Madoc walked back side by side.

“You have gold here,” Caradoc said, and once more Madoc chuckled.

“Yes,” he replied. “Up there, in the mountains.”

The Council hut was full and the fire burned brightly. Madoc led them to their places, slaves brought them food and beer, and Caradoc ate quickly, still not knowing what he would say to these suspicious people. He noted that here the precedence of seating was rigidly upheld. Eurgain and Vida sat together with the other chiefs’ wives. Tallia sat among the freewomen. Llyn chatted away to the sons of other chiefs, and the Silurian men, with shield-bearers and bards, ringed the walls. Only Bran wandered where he would in his white tunic, stopping here and there for a word or a joke. Presently he came and squatted before Caradoc. “Your daughter’s fever has broken,” he said, “but she stays in bed for one more night. Have you decided what you must say?” The brown eyes were calm, and Caradoc shook his head.

“Not yet,” he replied tersely, and Bran got up and went to Madoc, pushing his way through the jostling chiefs who were not yet seated. Caradoc noticed something that he had been too tired to see last night. The hut was ringed with severed heads. Where the tall wall swept in a circle from post to post, just under the angle where the roof began to rise, they were hung, tied by their long hair, eyes shrunken in deep sockets, skin dried and withered, lips drawn back from leering teeth. Jodocus, who was seated next to Cinnamus, saw Caradoc’s glance and leaned across.

“All taken by the chiefs you see here,” he said proudly. “And most of them were chiefs themselves, Ordovices, Demetae, a few Cornovii. You see that one?” He pointed up to a massive head, black hair, a stump of bone gleaming beneath the thick neck. “He was an Ordovician champion. Madoc fought him and killed him, and we drove many cattle through the passes that day!”

“Mother!” Cinnamus hissed. “And you want them to fight side by side?” Caradoc said nothing. Across the room Eurgain caught his eye and smiled at him, and over by the door two chiefs were fighting, swords ringing, the disputed place lying empty. Madoc rose, lifted an arm, and silence fell. The chiefs retired, arguing heatedly under their breath, neither one willing to take the place, and they went and stood against the wall.

“Council is called!” he boomed. “Slaves depart.” The slaves filed out, the gate was shut, and Caradoc put aside his dish and cup, unwillingly loosening his sword belt and placing it before him on the skins as the other chiefs were doing. “Bran,” Madoc went on after a moment, “do you want to speak?” Bran rose, tucking his hands into his long sleeves, his golden, gray-flecked hair shining in the firelight.

“‘I have nothing new to say,” he said quietly. “But I will remind you all that the Catuvellauni have fought the Romans and we have not. Listen well to them.” He sat down.

“You all know why I have brought Cunobelin’s son here,” Madoc shouted, “and now you must decide for yourselves whether what I did was right. Speak, Caradoc.”

He went to his place and Caradoc rose reluctantly, his mind still blank, his eyes traveling slowly over the hostile, jealous faces fixed on him. A hundred images paraded through his thoughts, conjured from the past, and he sought among them one point of contact, one link that would join these chiefs to his own experience. He was silent, looking at his booted feet, and a restless whispering began. Then he raised his head.

“Men of the west. You call me Cunobelin’s son and make it an insult. Cunobelin was a trader with Rome, Cunobelin gave Rome a foothold in this country, Cunobelin had dreams of conquest that included you, and if he had lived you would have faced him, and all the might of my tuath. So you sneer at him and at me, looking at me and seeing a man stamped with the corruption of Rome. Yet who was it that faced the legions almost alone, while you and many other tribes refused us aid? I did, my people and I, and because of it the remnants of the Catuvellauni are now slaves. When you wish to curse me for a Roman-loving foreigner remember that you did not answer my pleading and now Rome floods the lowlands like poisoned water, turning what was there into a twisted wreckage of tribal life.

“Cunobelin was a great man and I am proud to be his son, but Cunobelin did not see Rome for what she is. That was his greatest mistake. Silurians, it was not mine. I saw, I knew, I refused treaty with Rome, I gathered my chiefs and fought for my territory and I lost. If any of you still hesitates to trust me, think of the battle at Medway and the killing of my brother Togodumnus. I am no longer chieftain over many people. I have no tuath, no honor-price, no riches. But I still have the one thing more valuable than all those things. My freedom.” There was not a sound. The eyes still cut him with their hard, merciless glare. He had almost accused them of cowardice, and that they would not tolerate. But he went on, the words flowing more easily, a confidence rising in him with a new power, and Bran sat back, smiling under his hand. The Silurians would soon have a new chief, though they did not yet know it.

“What do you fight for? What do you fear above everything else? Slavery. The taking of your souls from you. Here you are free. You come and go as you will. No man tells you what to do. You own the river, the valley, the mountains. You fear nothing. Here, in your country, is the heart of freedom, and for many years you have disdained to traffic with the tribes who were selling their freedom into Roman hands in exchange for wine and jewels. Your freedom cannot be sold. But it can be taken from you.”

He almost shouted the words at them and they sat straighter, the contempt in their eyes fading into a guarded interest. How innocent they are, he thought desperately, sitting here so smugly, never seeing beyond their mountains from one year to the next, wrapped in their pride and their prowess. “The Romans plan to take it from you,” he said softly. “Even now they are spreading out, building forts, striking ever deeper toward you, and they come determined this time not to fail. They will not give up or give in. Your days as a free people are numbered.”

One of the chiefs jumped up. “The mountains will stop them!” he yelled. “They stopped old Cunobelin!”

Caradoc grinned ruefully. “Cunobelin feared you and his fear stopped him,” he answered. “The mountains will not stop Rome. She has fought in mountains before, and won.

She will creep right up to their feet, consolidate, explore, and then find you and wipe you out.”

Another chief struggled to his feet. “All we need do is gather the war band, march into the lowlands, and give the legions battle,” he snapped. “We will send Rome running back to the coast. Perhaps we can challenge their champions and defeat them and take their heads, thus saving ourselves much trouble.” He sat down amid a pleased murmuring of assent and Caradoc sighed inwardly, seeing the iron clad phalanx of the Fourteenth driving into his warriors who died before they could find a chink in that solid, faceless mass of discipline.

“Believe this,” he said forcefully. “If we attempt to meet Rome in pitched battle we will lose. The Romans fight differently from us. They have no champions. Each man is a champion. Never again must the tribes make that mistake. There are other ways of dealing with Rome.”

“We know,” another chief said with disgust. “Slinking through the woods, striking in the dark, and slinking away again. That is not for warriors.”

Caradoc lost his temper. “What do you value more,” he shouted furiously, “your freedom or the empty respect of the tribes? If you want to give your country to Rome then go ahead and take the chiefs and ride out. None of you will ever come back!” He stamped. “Listen to me, you fools! Roman soldiers have no minds! They fight like demons, they do not fall back, they have been trained and disciplined until they obey orders as the dogs obey whistles, without thought or emotion. Their officers are seasoned, clearheaded, clever men who make no mistakes. Do you hear what I am saying? Do you understand? If you want to defeat Rome you must discard every lesson you have ever learned about how to fight, and you must learn new ones, from me. Be thankful that you do not have to learn them, as I have done, at the hands of the enemy! You are the only people left to fight, you and the Ordovices, the Demetae, and the Deceangli. If you fall Albion falls, and the Roman night will descend forever. Put yourselves in my hands and dare your last chance, or cast me out and die.”

He picked up his sword and belt and strode away through them, and even before he had let himself out the gate a cacophony of angry shouts and heated, rapid talk mushroomed. He smiled wearily to himself. They would never accept him. He heard Cinnamus and Caelte come running and together they went to the river, sitting on the bank in the pale, almost heatless sunshine. Caelte, at his master’s order, got out his harp and sang, but Cinnamus flicked pebbles into the water and refused to listen, and Caradoc, chin on knees, thought with a formless excitement about the young artist and his marvelous magic.

The Council went on all day. Eurgain, Llyn, little Eurgain, Vida, and the other Catuvellauni finally left the hut, telling Caradoc of the furious quarrels going on within, and they all gathered by the river and spent the day sharing stories of the past. They all felt alone and homesick in this strange place, except Eurgain. Bran had promised to take her into the mountains and she sat beside Caradoc smiling to herself, placid and self-contained, with Caradoc’s arm around her. Cinnamus and Vida quarreled desultorily. Little Eurgain lay beside her mother and made daisy chains. Llyn went off to find the other boys, Fearachar trailing him resignedly, and then, when the afternoon began to borrow the chill of evening, Madoc and his train came swiftly to them over the grass. He was smiling. Caradoc rose at once, and Madoc threw a big arm around his shoulders. “They have agreed to follow your way,” he said, “but they want me to tell you that they reserve the right to disobey you if they choose.”