The Eagle and the Raven (38 page)

“Next summer we treat with the Ordovices,” he said, as though nothing had happened. “The last test, and the greatest. Then we will see.”

“I will come with you then,” she replied evenly, though she was trembling. “I can no longer wait here in idleness while my thoughts run from my grasp to follow where my body cannot go. I was wrong to let him take these burdens without me. I too want to go back, Cin, but not from any love of Camulodunon. The mountains satisfy my soul. I wish only for a husband whole and carefree again, concerned with nothing but raids and honor-prices.”

“That day will come, Eurgain, do not fear.” He tried to cheer her, but her lip curled and her face was suffused with bitterness.

“I do not think so,” she said, straightening her tunic and moving to the door. She made as if to leave but then turned back, hesitating, one hand on the doorskins. “Cinnamus, I…” she began, but he cut her short.

“Do not think about it, Eurgain,” he said. “It was not a matter of dishonor, to yourself or to Caradoc, and Vida would understand, if I chose to tell her. It was a matter of comfort, that is all.”

“Yes,” she answered slowly. “I know. Comfort. I am so tired, Cin.” She left then, and the doorskins whispered shut behind her. Cinnamus lifted the stool and stood looking at it, but after a moment he set it back in its place and picked up his helm and a clean polishing cloth, whistling and smiling to himself.

For three summers Caradoc had been constantly on the move and now his spies came to him with messages that whipped his impatience to a frenzy. Roman civilians were pouring into Albion in a steadily increasing stream, still mainly traders and adventurers, but also more women, officers’ families, people bent on settlement. Many of the roads were completed, and the speculatores cantered along them bearing dispatches from posting station to fort, and the wains rum bled, full of grain and wine, strange new seedlings and plants for the homesick settlers trying to turn their wooden homes into Roman estates, plate and hangings, provisions of all kinds for the legions. The once-mighty hillforts like Camulodunon were becoming peaceful Roman towns, transforming slowly, their straggling, mean huts giving place to blocks of smart wooden houses, shops, and baths. At Camulodunon itself the temple to the Divine Claudius rose block by monumental block, paid for by cowed freemen who no longer ran with angry protests to chiefs who could do nothing. The gangs of chained Trinovantian and Catuvellaunian laborers paid for it in blood. But none of these things drove Caradoc to the point of recklessness. Other news did that.

A scout stood before him and reported without emotion how the first shipment of young tribesmen had left Albion, bound for Rome to be trained to fight in the legions, and more would follow regularly. Rome knew that a great deal of the wealth of the new province lay in its uncouth warriors, tall, healthy, and fearless, and in vain the chiefs and sword-women stood on the shore, weeping and cursing. Their brothers and lovers were never seen again by the tribes.

Caradoc listened coldly, his mind clicking over behind the white-hot wall of compulsion that always seemed to stand between himself and his people, thinking of Llyn with a sudden, fierce protectiveness. Llyn was eleven, stockiness giving way to the gangling, easy grace of Togodumnus, not yet blooded, not yet a man. Caradoc saw him with the Roman slave chains about his neck and then in the ranks of some legion’s auxiliary somewhere, hardened and changed, his quick wit and fearless laughter gone. He thought also of other reports, closer to the caer. Roman patrols had been seen too close for comfort, moving through the dense forest where the Dobunni territory ended and the Silurian began.

Caradoc knew that he had almost run out of time and he did not wait for winter to relinquish its grip. He called a Council. As he had expected, the Silurian chiefs oathed to him to a man, flinging down their swords before him, greedy for action at last, and he, Cinnamus, and Caelte, together with Madoc and Jodocus, led them out of the valley going east. They slipped through the empty, bare forests with nothing but their weapons and as much food as they could carry on their backs. They had learned his lessons well. They kept away from the new fort where Boduocus warmed his old hands at the fires of Rome. They lay concealed in the bush beside the new road that ran south to the fort in Belgae country, picking off dispatch riders, ambushing small patrols, capturing food wains while the last rains of winter washed the bright colors from their cloaks and the cobbled road clean of Roman blood.

His actions caused no more than a small ripple among the conquerors of the lowlands. He was careful not to pressure the Second Legion too hard, for he did not want to bring the full force of Vespasianus down on his head before he was ready. The Ordovices waited for his coming and the last knot had to be tied. Irritated, Vespasianus doubled the guard on the wains and alerted the patrols, sending a report to Plautius at Camulodunon, but as yet there was no cause for alarm. A few chiefs, desperate with starvation, had had the temerity to attack his men and eventually they would die. That was all. But Plautius, reading the scroll beside the window of his new headquarters through which the winter sun pooled weakly, felt a stirring of intuition. The men of the west, and Gladys’s brother. It had to be. He again felt a quick desire to know this man and he handed the scroll to Pudens to read. He sat at his desk with fingers pyramided to his chin, thinking. “Will you order counterattacks, sir?” the young man asked him. But Plautius, after a moment, laid his ringed hands flat on the desk’s smooth surface and shook his head.

“No, not yet. Too soon, and besides, it’s still winter. I think I will wait for the spring and see what happens. Answer the dispatch for me, Rufus, will you?” He took up his helmet and cloak and went out seeking solitude in which to think, but there was nowhere in Camulodunon to go nowadays to escape the noise of industry. He might as well have been in Rome.

On the last foray of the season, when the wind already blew warmer and wildflowers pushed determinedly through the slush, Llyn went missing. Caradoc and the chiefs had sprung upon a century not knowing that behind the soldiers an alae of cavalry rode, and the little battle that ensued was hot and vicious. Llyn and Fearachar had remained hidden, as usual, lying behind brambles that choked the hill from which the chiefs had attacked, hearing the shouts and cries, the clash of swords and thud of shields, but not able to see much for the misty drizzle that whitened the morning. Down on the road Caradoc and his men fought grimly back and forth, while the Roman centurion barked his orders and the soldiers tried to form ranks, confused by the suddenness of the onslaught. There was an impasse and for a while the Silurians began to gain the upper hand, but Caradoc’s sharp ears picked up the clatter of horses’ hoofs and he ordered a retreat.

Without a question the chiefs and freemen turned and ran, melting into the mist and the trees, but this time the Romans, emboldened by the arrival of the cavalry, gave chase, and the tribesmen found themselves hunted relentlessly. Under the shrouded, dripping trees they turned singly at bay or ran on silently to the safety of the pathless depths, and not until Caradoc, Cinnamus, and Caelte had crossed the river did Caradoc think of his son. Then he sped among the men straggling to safety, searching for Fearachar. Cinnamus stopped him. “It is no use, Lord, until all the chiefs have returned to the caer and a count can be taken,” he said and Caradoc angrily agreed, a wildfire of fear raging in him. Llyn was his talisman. Llyn was his comfort, his charm against despair, and if Fearachar returned without him Caradoc would have his head. He went straight to the Council hut and paced before the gate in the rain. The chiefs went by him one by one seeking warmth and food but no Fearachar padded lugubriously into sight. Eurgain came to him, begging him to change his sopping clothes and to eat. He refused brusquely so she walked with him until Madoc came to tell him that there were no more living men left to be counted. A silence fell on the little group, then Caradoc sprang to life.

“Cinnamus, round up our chiefs, the Catuvellauni. Madoc, I must take the few horses you have. Is the patrol still seeking us?”

“No. The officers came to their senses and ordered their men back onto the road. The scouts tell me they have moved on, sadly short of men, though.”

“Good. Eurgain, where are you going?” She was hurrying away and shouted over her shoulder, “To get my sword.”

“No!” He ran after her. “No, you are not. Stay here. What can you do in this cursed mist?”

She flung round and faced him, two spots of color flaming in her pale winter cheeks. She yelled at him at the top of her voice, driven by more than she could stand. “And what do you think you can do? Damn you, Caradoc, I will not be told no by you again! I am not your chattel, I am a free sword-woman! I will come and go as I please. By Camulos!” She was screaming now and Madoc and the gathered Silurians looked at her in awe, but a tiny, approving smile played about Cinnamus’s mouth. “Are you still so much of a Roman that you would keep your woman put away in her house like a piece of pretty furniture? I did not put on a slave chain when I married you and by the common law I can leave you whenever I like!” She dropped her voice. “And sometimes I think that I would like to leave you,” she said huskily. “I have become no more to you than a convenience.”

For a moment more she glared at him, standing tall, her breast heaving, and her hair plastered to her face and snaking over the sleeves of her orange tunic. Then she whirled and ran in the direction of their hut, calling to Tallia for a dry cloak and her boots and sword belt. Stunned, Caradoc watched her go, then he turned to where the horses were already being led toward him. His face was white and a pit of hopelessness was opening before him. He mounted quickly and gathered the reins into his hands, sitting motionless and gazing at the ground while the chiefs followed suit and Eurgain came back, blue cloak trailing the ground, hair bound up, sword clanging against her boot. She passed him without a glance. He peered into the pit, a vertigo making his head spin. Llyn was dead. He had lost Eurgain. The Ordovices would refuse him aid, and so would the Demetae. Then a shred of humor came to him, a cleansing shaft of steady wholesomeness like white sunlight at the end of a tunnel. Surely Llyn was lost, not dead. Eurgain could be courted and won again. And the Ordovices and the Demetae would oath to him, he knew it. He blinked and looked behind him to the waiting chiefs, quelling the bubble of laughter that threatened to become an unrestrainable, hysterical outburst. He raised an arm. “Ford the river and spread out!” he shouted. “Go in twos! Search the forest up to the road, and then return!” He dug his heels into his horse’s belly and cantered into the mist.

Cinnamus and Caelte rode with him and together they traversed the forest, now full of a gloomy, cheerless light. The mist thinned as noon passed. They followed the paths and found nothing, not even the trace of a passing, so they dismounted, tethering their mounts and moving through the trackless undergrowth with their swords drawn. As they neared the road they began to stumble across bodies lying hidden in the long grass and sodden leaves and they methodically stripped them of their precious weapons as they went. They were hoping that the goddess of the forest would see their action, know that the weaponry was for her, and send Llyn to them. Caradoc walked in an introspection that deepened, while Cinnamus knelt now and then and studied the dewed forest growth. Togodumnus had knelt in the same way in the lovely Catuvellaunian woods as they searched for Cunobelin, and a superstitious dread took hold of Caradoc so that he had to force himself to look in the face of each obscene, outspread corpse they found, seeing his father lying there under each tree, neck snapped, gray hair floating in the grass. When Cinnamus spoke it was with Tog’s light, quick tones, and each white, still face seemed more lined, more cunning than the one before.

At last Cinnamus knelt, then gave a low exclamation. “Here! Look, Lord! Fresh tracks, a Roman cavalry mount, lightly loaded, one shoe cast and another coming loose!” Caradoc bent, seeing the faint indentations in the wet earth. “That is obvious,” he snapped, “but no use, Cin. We do not seek a lost soldier. Let the chiefs find him and kill him.”

“You do not listen, Lord,” Caelte interrupted. “The horse is lightly loaded. It may be carrying a soldier’s gear, or it may bear a boy.”

Caradoc straightened. “Of course. It is a slim hope, but we must seek this beast. Cin, you track. You are better at it than I.”

They went slowly, and Cinnamus paused many times to examine the tracks. Above them, beyond the sullen clouds that blanketed the forest, the sun began to swing into the west. For an hour they plodded on saying nothing, alternating between surges of hope and despair at precious time wasted, then Cinnamus stood upright, his eyes clouded with puzzlement.

“This rider is certainly lost,” he said. “We are traveling in a circle, Lord. Had you noticed?” Caradoc had been too abstracted to notice, but now he sighed. “You are right. How far are we from our starting place? Can you tell?”

Cinnamus pointed. “We have almost arrived there. Through those trees, behind the two oaks that have twisted together, is our beginning.”

Caradoc cursed, but dared not berate the goddess of the forest. “We can only hope,” he snarled bitterly, “that the other men have had more luck than we. There is no sign of horse or rider, which is a good fortune, for if I met another Roman now I would tear him limb from limb.”

Suddenly Caelte flung himself to the ground and as if at a signal the others followed, all talk forgotten. “What?” Cinnamus mouthed, and Caelte pointed. A flutter of gray movement, a brief scarlet flash, then Caradoc was on his feet and running, crashing through the branches like a wounded deer, shouting and calling Llyn’s name. Cinnamus and Caelte followed.

Llyn was sitting astride a huge gray cavalry charger which still had a soldier’s pack slung across the broad withers. He sat with reins limp in his small fingers. He was cloakless and bootless. His red tunic was in tatters. One sleeve had gone and he was splashed in blood from knee to shoulder. He watched them come almost without recognition, eyes glazed in a face rivuleted by tearstains and grime, brown hair tangled and full of twigs and thorns. Caradoc fell forward, then came to a halt, shocked for a second into immobility.