The Eagle and the Raven (45 page)

When he was spent he lay quietly, inhaling the thick, wet smell of the empty forest, his swollen eyes pressed shut, and his arms flung out to feel the solid strength and comfort of the soil he loved. Then he sat up slowly, wiped his face on a corner of his cloak, and looked about him. The fox had gone. He rose stiffly. His legs were tender and trembling, and his belly was empty and, blessedly, his mind was too, peacefully empty, then he turned and saw her standing by the path, one hand against an oak, her blue cloak falling to the ground. He walked toward her unsteadily, and a moment of pride flickered and was gone. She waited motionless, watching him come, only her eyes betraying the price she had paid in humbling herself and running after him, and he knew that she would not speak. The word must come from him. He stepped onto the path and halted, taking his fierce, uncompromising Catuvellauni spirit and bending it with the little strength he had left.

“Forgive me, Eurgain,” he said huskily. “I have belittled you. If you wish I will give you what I have and you can leave, but I beg you to consider carefully before you do so. I need you.”

She did not smile. She looked long into his face seeing the eyes clear and whole again, the mouth with no bitter twist, and she took his dirty, bloody hands, turning them palms upward, and kissed them. “Where would I go to escape from you?” she said, her voice quivering. “We are bound together, Caradoc, whether I go or stay.”

He drew her to him and they clung to each other, full of words too charged with emotion to say, then holding hands they started back down the path. When they reached the edge of the forest he turned her gently and kissed her. “Can we go back?” he asked, and she smiled. “We can try,” she said.

The Silures and the Catuvellauni spent the rest of the winter hunting and waiting. The weather was changeable that year, frost and sun, rain, a few brief snowstorms, and Caradoc’s spies had no difficulty moving in and out of the territory. The rumors of Plautius’s recall were confirmed, as Caradoc knew they would be. In the spring he was going back to Rome to claim the honors Claudius was preparing to heap upon him. It was even said that he was to receive an ovation and the emperor himself would walk beside him in his triumph, but Caradoc thought of his sister, stared at and whispered about by the fickle, gossipy-hungry mobs of Rome, facing a strange country and strange people. He had done right to cast her from the tuath, he knew that, even though he had broken the sword in a fit of madness. Cunobelin would have done it. Yet he pitied her. If Plautius was not the man she said he was her life would be dreary and miserable. Her name was never spoken again in his hearing, but she lingered in his and Eurgain’s thoughts and sometimes, sitting late at night by the cheery comfort of their own little fire and listening to the wind, they would fall silent and Gladys would rise between them, dignified and cool, leaning on her enameled, pearl-studded ceremonial shield and smiling enigmatically. Her odd, abrupt defection symbolized for them the precariousness of their own life, and insecurity helped draw them closer together.

They rediscovered each other slowly and wonderingly that winter, knowing that to each the other was irreparably changed, a different person from the one who had pledged so long ago on the grass outside Camulodunon in the sunshine. But it was an adventure, an odyssey. New delights were born. Old habits died. Only sometimes, in the long, cold nights, did they privately mourn for the time that had gone and the couple that had been.

Spring came, with blossom and bird song, and the tuath flung back its doorskins and emerged blinking and cramped, to calving and Council. Bran returned. He came striding easily along the valley, his head thrown back to sip the scented air. Before he rested he went straight to Caradoc, who was watching his cattle being herded for the trek to their summer grazing, with Cinnamus and Caelte beside him. Caradoc saw Bran coming, a white dot toiling up the hill to the wooden shelter and the pens, and he left his freemen and his restless, lowing herd and ran to meet him, his train behind. Bran stopped and watched Caradoc come, hands that might betray him nudging into the cover of his cloak, and eyes swiftly searching the face. The sturdy lope was sure and confident, the face a little fuller. Eyes like dark wine smiled at him with no trace of obsession or anxiety and Bran nodded to himself. The crucible had been scoured and now lay clean and empty, waiting for a new holocaust.

The two men embraced. “Bran! How well you look! Are the passes open already? Have you news?”

“I have news, and do not bother with formal greetings, Lord. I must be rude, for I cannot wait to tell you.” He went down, and the three chiefs squatted with him. “The Demetae will oath to you. In three weeks their chieftain and his men will arrive to do it. The Deceangli will also, for they know that the easiest path for Rome to take in order to strike at Mona and the heart of the west is through their country.”

Caradoc nodded gravely but Cinnamus burst out, “What of the Ordovices, Bran? By the Mother, if we have tramped through their precious mountains for nothing I will go back and twist that Emrys’s neck for him.”

Bran laughed. “It would take stronger wrists than yours to twist his neck, Ironhand, but you need not fear. Emrys and his men will oath to you, Caradoc, and they have already set out, but you should know that the Council was long and bitter and the issue only decided on the word of their invoker and a visit from the master Druid himself.”

“It does not matter. They oath, and that is the important thing.” Caradoc stood. He looked out over the greening, peaceful valley. His gaze traveled the blue-hazed hills beyond, the dimpled, fast-rushing water, the clouds puffed white and covering the distant peaks, and suddenly he wanted to leap and dance and sing, crow like a wild pheasant, shout until the world was filled with the sound of his triumph. He looked down at Bran. “Arviragus,” he whispered.

Bran inclined his head. “Arviragus. A work well done, Lord, and a greater work beginning.” He stood and reached into his tunic. “I have a gift for you, sent by my master on Mona.” He withdrew a small pouch and drew from it a round object, wrapped in hide. He handed it reverently to Caradoc, and Cinnamus and Caelte rose and craned to see what it was. Caradoc gently loosened the covering. It was a pocked, gray and white cartilaginous object, the size of an apple. Cinnamus and Caelte sprang back but Caradoc fondled it with awed fingers, feeling the steady, strong spell of it mingle with his breath.

“A magic egg,” he said.

“Yes. The master Druid performed the bull dream for you, Caradoc, and in the dream he saw a green snake form this egg with its own spittle and roll it behind a rock. When he woke he sent one of my brethren to find it, and here it is.”

“‘Greater wisdom than any man, a stronger sword arm than any man, and power to make a kingdom.’” Caradoc gingerly wrapped it again and put it in the pouch, tying it to his belt. “Thank you, my friend. For years uncounted no chief has possessed such a gift.”

“Not since Vercingetorix,” Bran commented lightly, and Caradoc shot him a quick glance. Many of the Silurian chiefs had been saying quite openly that the soul of Vercingetorix had been waiting patiently to possess the body of Caradoc in order to rise as arviragus again and this time be victorious. For the first time, questing Bran’s brown face, Caradoc wondered if it might not be true. The weight of his new responsibility to the people and the uniqueness of his position suddenly smote him and he felt a wave of depression, but the die was cast and his feet were on the path he had chosen. “Vercingetorix failed,” he snapped, and Bran’s smile grew broader.

“But you will not,” he said.

They filed down out of the mountains, Emrys and his lithe Sine, the tall, noble Ordovician chiefs, the black, uncouth Demetae, the tribesmen of the Deceangli, spreading through the town like a glittering, many-hued river, filling huts and spilling over onto the tiny fields, camping out under the summer stars. There were no squabbles. Each tuath kept to itself, cooked its own food, sang its own songs. When the passes lay empty and the western paths were still, Caradoc called his Council in the open air around a great fire, sitting on a chair with gold on his brow and a carnyx across his knees. The artist had come to him when the news of the tribes’ capitulation had sped through the town, standing before him and thrusting a new torc into his bewildered hands. “To replace the one you gave to your son,” the taciturn young man said. “It is a gift. And you still owe me for two brooches and an anklet, Lord.” Caradoc turned it over. It weighed heavy and he knew immediately that it was pure gold, worth more than anything he owned, and he did not know what to say. The curving thickness of it was covered in gay leaves that seemed to flutter on a warm wind, and the faces of goddesses with flowing hair smiled at him between flowers that opened trumpetlike under a gentle sun. There was no hint of blood, fear, or secrets, and Caradoc asked him why. He smiled briefly. “An arviragus is lord of death and often forgets that he is also protector of freedom and life. My gift will remind you.” He bowed absently and wandered away and Caradoc set the torc about his neck with an incredulous, blithe lightness of heart. Lord of death, and protector of freedom. Arviragus. Now anything was possible.

In the late evening light, when the sun hung in the west, too drowsy to set, the chiefs walked proudly to Caradoc’s chair and flung their swords at his feet. Eurgain leaned over his shoulder, taking a count, her blonde hair wisping about her face, and Llyn stood beside his father, his own sword under Caradoc’s feet. Cinnamus and Caelte had also oathed afresh and now sat beside him, bathed in the red summer glow that preceded a long, warm twilight, their helms on their heads and their torcs and bronzes sparking gaily. When Emrys came he did not add his sword to the shining pile. He drew it forth slowly and deliberately, kissed it, and laid it on Caradoc’s knee. “You are first among equals, Lord,” he said softly, and Caradoc met the dark, veiled eyes and smiled.

“As it has always been, Emrys. Do not fear. The time will come when you and I can return to raids and feasting.” Emrys did not bow. He merely inclined his head and went back to sit with his wife.

With the first faint pricking of the stars the weapon count was complete and Caradoc rose, stepping around the haphazard mound of swords and putting the carnyx to his lips. Taking a deep breath he blew it, and the harsh, haunting note rang in the hills and returned, bringing with it an echo as if a ghostly host waiting in far-off blackness had answered the call. “Does any man deny me my destiny?” he shouted, and the men rose in one seething mass and yelled back, “Arviragus! Arviragus! Caradoc for freedom!”

“Does any man deny the task?”

“Death to Rome! Albion for the tribes!”

He handed the carnyx to Cinnamus behind him, raised his arms, and the people settled to silence. “Then I give you my first orders. Return to your tuaths, and bring back all your freemen. Arm your freewomen as well. Leave the peasants to harvest the crops and care for the cattle, but bring what grain you can. Forget your huts, forget your hunting grounds and your friendly hearths and your jewels. Henceforth you live where I am, you hunt only men, and your riches will be in Roman heads. Make haste!” He dismissed them and beckoned to Bran. “Take a message to Mona,” he said. “Tell your brethren that they must double the shipments of grain to the Ordovices, and I want three Druids to accompany every tribe that moves with me. I want no quarrels while I am arviragus.” Bran nodded and he turned to Eurgain. “You, Vida, and Sine will see to the women and children, Eurgain.” She began to protest angrily but he held up an impatient hand. “I want them turned into warriors and I want them drilled. No gossip, dear heart, no silly boasting on behalf of their men. Teach them to boast for themselves. Every male and female over the age of sixteen will fight.”

Llyn thrust forward. “But father, that leaves me out! I am a chief! I bear a torc! I demand to fight!”

Caradoc laid a hand on his stiff shoulder. “For you I have other work, Llyn. I want fresh spies placed where my first spies have settled, so that the seasoned ones can be free to come and go, following every move of the legions and moving between myself and them. Take your Silurian friends and make beggars and urchins out of them. A few more in the new towns of the south will not be noticed, and I need young ears in the streets.”

“Do you know what you will do to those children?” Cinnamus asked quietly, and Caradoc looked into the expressionless green eyes.

“Of course I know, and so will they. Some will die, but all will say that it is better to die free than live to row in Roman galleys or labor in Roman mines.” He and Cinnamus held their glance for a moment longer. Then Cinnamus sighed, “Ah, Mother,” and dropped his gaze. The change was completed. His lord, his friend, had become arviragus.

S
PRING
, A.D. 50

Chapter Twenty

B
OUDICCA
stood still while Hulda draped the heavy scarlet cloak around her shoulders, then she lifted her chin and the servant fastened the folds to her tunic with a small gold brooch. The room was big and gloomy, full of the damp drafts of a wet spring night, and though she could hear laughter and the desultory conversation of the freemen who came and went past the house, she felt isolated, cut off in this quiet, orderly room. She walked quickly to her table, picked up the gold circlet studded with warm, glowing amber, and set it on her brow. “Where are the girls?” she asked, and Hulda came to her, holding out her cup of wine. “They went to the hall. Lovernius promised to teach them the new board game tonight, and to let them try his harp.”

“Well, go and sit with them, Hulda, and make sure that Lovernius doesn’t bring out his dice. Prasutugas doesn’t want them gambling. You can go now. I don’t need anything more.”

The servant bowed, took up her own cloak, and Boudicca was alone with the soporific, slow-dancing shadows. Prasutugas was late. He was always late these days, for his arm pained him constantly when the weather turned wet and the fumes rose from the marshes, but he hid discomfort well and never complained. I would complain, she thought. I would scream and rage and drink myself into a stupor rather than smile like a suffering Druid and wait to be asked how I felt. Ah, Andrasta, what’s the use? She drained the cup and set it with a bang onto the table, then she folded her arms and paced slowly between the fire and the rich, thick hangings that concealed the door. Surely the accounting would be done by now. But I suppose he is talking with the procurator’s assistant, exchanging polite snippets of news while the freemen ride empty-handed back to their farms and I wait here getting angrier and angrier. I did not want to go tonight, he knows that, and yet he keeps me pacing while he fritters away the time. Now Favonius will be able to make yet another condescending comment to his pristine, perfumed Priscilla. These barbarians are without manners, my dear, time means nothing to them, and Priscilla, will cluck like one of her outlandish, weird birds called hens and send her slave running to the kitchen with orders to keep the food warm. Boudicca smiled at the image, reached for the cup, and finding it empty, flung herself into a chair. No, that is unjust. They are good people, Favonius and Priscilla, doing their best to civilize us wild-men. What a dreadful, thankless task! Oh Subidasto, fierce and true son of the Iceni, what do you think of us now? Are we not fine, with our soft Roman hangings and our couches and our beautiful, silver plate? She shot to her feet abruptly and began to pace again. Not tonight, I must not think tonight, I must be sweet and charming. Hunger is making me careless.

Outside she heard swift footsteps and the chief on the door saluted, then Prasutugas hurried in, peeling off his cloak, fumbling with his belt, and she ran to help him. “I am sorry, Boudicca, but I could not get away. The procurator’s assistant was unable to balance the accounts and neither could I. Where is Hulda?”

“I sent her to watch the girls. Let me do that.” She drew the flower-patterned tunic gently over his head, easing it past the stump, but in spite of her care he winced. “Are you in pain today?” she asked, going to the chest and taking out a fresh tunic, and he waved a hand.

“No more than usual in the spring. It has started to weep again.”

“Favonius will call in his doctor, and then you will feel better.” She pulled the tunic over his head, belted it, began to comb his hair, and he stood meekly, like a child. “We are going to be very late.” She flung down the comb and hung his cloak around his shoulders. “I think we should ride.”

He selected four silver bracelets and juggled them over his fingers and onto his wrist. “I can’t, Boudicca, not tonight. The chariot is waiting.” His voice was high, almost a whine, and she knew then that the pain was very bad. A Druid could have given him a drug, but no Druid lived in Iceni territory anymore. The doctor would put salve on it, and wine would do the rest. She touched his cheek.

“We don’t have to go, Prasutugas. We could sit here by the fire, and eat mutton and drink good beer, and then go to bed.” She spoke without hope, and even before she had finished he was shaking his head and moving to the door.

“It is too late to refuse the invitation now and, besides, I want to go. Favonius will have plenty of news to tell us.” With a shrug she blew out the lamp that hung beside the door and followed him.

Rain gusted in their faces as they took the few steps to the chariot, and Boudicca raised her hood against the warm, wet wind. The moon swung low in the west, a rising crescent wan and gray above scudding clouds, and the trees surrounding the town dipped before the first of the spring gales. They mounted, Prasutugas balancing easily, Boudicca reaching for the reins, and clattered along the road that swept gently down to the gate and the truncated earthworks and the brown hump that had been the dyke. It was filled with earth now, and grass grew where once the water had lapped, and as the chariot bumped over it the Roman sentries straightened and saluted. Boudicca sang to the horses and they rolled into the shelter of the tree belt, already seeing the lights of the little garrison twinkling out through the fresh darkness. In a few moments they had arrived. More sentries raised lamps, opened the tall wooden gates wide, and they trotted into the compound and came to a halt, climbing down as the stable boy ran to take the reins.

An officer strode to meet them. “Greetings, sir,” he said. “A wild night. Please follow me,” and they returned his greeting, walking across the packed earth of the assembly ground, past headquarters, then turning left to where the officers’ houses stood, a tidy row of wooden neatness. Favonius’s door stood wide, candlelight and lamplight mingling with the rain and turning it to glimmering cold fire, and the three of them stepped up onto the veranda, their booted feet sounding hollow on the sturdy boards. Boudicca tossed back her hood and shook out her hair, and the officer bowed and left them as Favonius himself came out to greet them, his arms wide, his fleshy face wreathed in smiles, and his elegant white toga falling to big, sandaled feet.

“Greetings, Prasutugas, and to you also, Boudicca. We thought perhaps you were not coming. Enter, enter!” He ushered them in and the servant closed the door and turned to take their cloaks. Favonius, seeing the drawn, tight look on Prasutugas’s face, clucked sympathetically. “You are not well tonight, my friend. Is it the arm? Longinus!” His servant bowed. “Run and find the doctor.” He turned back to Prasutugas. “You should have sent word that you were unwell and could not come. Priscilla would have understood.”

They moved into the room. Against one wall the fire roared up the chimney, crackling merrily. To the right of it the flames glowed red on the household shrine where Jupiter Greatest and Best, Mercury for luck, Mars, and Mithras received the daily offerings. Favonius was devoted to Mithras and it was said that he had achieved the grade of Lion, though none but his fellow initiates and he himself knew the truth of the rumor. The Mithras men were honest. They lived by a strict, almost ascetic philosophy of personal discipline and forthright dealing, and Prasutugas had told Boudicca many times that the Iceni were fortunate to have their business in the hands of such a one as Favonius. But Boudicca, glancing with distaste at the god flanked by his stern torchbearers as she had so many times in this room, was unimpressed. Give me the clean winds of the groves of Andrasta, she thought as Priscilla, flushed and pretty in her yellow stola, came forward. Her black hair was piled high tonight, and yellow ribbons were twined in it. Flounces covered her tiny, soft feet, golden bracelet tinkled, and a cloud of strong perfume made Boudicca’s nose twitch as the two women embraced, smiling in mutual dislike.

The Roman women were toys, Boudicca thought, decorative as the delicate curls of spun sugar that adorned their precious cakes, and about as useful. Priscilla was no exception, though her husband had brought her to the dark edge of the empire and faced her with every danger and inconvenience. As for Priscilla, she regarded Boudicca with well-concealed disdain, considering her a mannish, rude barbarian, typical of the uneducated mass of squalid natives who did not know the meaning of tact or gentleness and sought to resist her efforts to enlighten them with an unparalleled scorn. She pitied Prasutugas, who had the makings of a good Roman citizen if only he could shake himself free from his overbearing wife. In his weakness, Priscilla surmised, he allowed her to tramp all over him. No Roman would have stood for it. With the ritual of greetings now thankfully over, Favonius waved them to the couches and they reclined quickly, their stomachs growling. Priscilla nodded to the servant who waited, arms folded, by the door. “Gustatio,” she ordered, then turned to her guests with a bright smile, while wine was poured into the blue glass goblets and the wind rattled the window.

“How is the grapevine?” Prasutugas asked Favonius. “Is there any sign of life in it yet?”

“It seems to be shooting afresh,” Favonius answered, “but it is very slow. If the grapes this autumn turn out to be as sour as the ones last year I shall give it up and concentrate on the roses. They seem to thrive on the dampness.”

“We are putting in a hypocaust this summer, ready for the winter,” Priscilla interposed. “I nearly froze last winter, and Marcus was coughing from December to May.” She chattered on and Boudicca sipped her wine and pushed it away. They had flavored it with honey again and she found it sickly sweet. Everything about them is sickly sweet, she thought cynically. Poor dear Marcus and his cough. But she liked the boy for his clear, frank eyes and his straight talking, and as the servants filed in, burdened with plates, she pulled the goblet to her and swallowed more wine, glad to see that there was a salad tonight, made of the fresh shoots from the detachment’s garden, barely green. The servant bent, placing a dish before her on the dazzling white cloth, and she sighed inwardly. Oysters again. She did not understand the Roman greed for the shellfish of her coast and she watched, amused, as Priscilla licked her lips and picked up her spoon.

“How are the girls?” Favonius asked her, chewing hard. “I saw Ethelind dashing by on her horse yesterday. How she’s growing!”

“She will make an excellent horsewoman,” Prasutugas answered for his wife, seeing her abstracted mood. “She has a natural seat. But she is reckless.”

“Marcus rides well, too,” Priscilla said. “He can’t wait until he’s old enough to join the cavalry. Favonius has sent to Rome for a tutor for him but it’s so expensive, getting an education out here. I can handle the grammar and history lessons, when the young demon will settle to listen, but he’s old enough now for philosophy and rhetoric and that is beyond me.”

Philosophy! Boudicca thought. Rhetoric! Andrasta most High One, that boy is worthy of a chieftain’s training and she wants to give him philosophy.

The servants began to clear away the empty plates and the doctor entered, his bare head slicked with rain and his feet leaving little puddles on the tiled floor. Favonius greeted him affably. “Come and have a cup of wine. I’ll have it heated for you. And look at Prasutugas’s arm, will you, Julius? It’s giving him trouble again.”

The doctor greeted them all and went to sit beside Prasutugas, taking the stump gently and lifting the empty sleeve away from it. Priscilla looked away. It was raw again, seeping a yellowish fluid, and the doctor exclaimed in annoyance. “I may have to take some more of it off,” he said brusquely. “The salve isn’t doing it any good at all.”

Prasutugas withdrew and shook down the sleeve with his healthy arm. “You have hacked at it before,” he protested, “and it still will not heal. In the summer it will improve. Just give me more salve for now.”

The doctor rose. “I’ll send it along to you tonight. No wine, thank you, sir. I won’t interrupt your dinner.” He bowed out, and a silence fell around the table. The servants returned with the next course, steaming, fragrant mutton that filled the room with the odor of rosemary and thyme, and began to place servings on the glossy, coral-colored plates. Boudicca looked up. “Is there any news out of the west?” she asked, her grating, hoarse voice louder than she had intended, and Favonius raised his eyebrows at his wife and looked into Boudicca’s brown, gold-flecked eyes. What a woman! he thought with admiration. She dominates this table like a predatory eagle, and her conversation is about as subtle as an eagle’s croak. The ruddy skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled and replied.

“No, there is nothing new. Rumor has it that the governor intends to put forward a great effort this season and encircle Caradoc and his tribesmen, and there has certainly been much activity at Colchester lately. The last of the active legionaries have all marched west and the veterans are busy taking their places. The natives don’t like it, of course. The veterans are entitled to land and it has to come from the peasants. There will be trouble if Scapula is not careful.”

“He has stopped being careful,” Priscilla remarked, spearing mutton with her knife. “He is absolutely obsessed with Caradoc. He even dreams about him. Every day he has the auguries read, hoping that his luck will change, but that wild chief goes on scattering soldiers like leaves on a wind. The governor has even raised the price on his head to six thousand sesterces and offered Roman citizenship to the native who brings him in.”

“More wine, Priscilla?” her husband said quickly, leaning over to pour it before the waiting servant did, and he whispered, “Say no more! You will embarrass them!” He straightened and smiled. “Are you hunting tomorrow, Prasutugas? If you are, I think I’ll come too. I want to see how the dogs are working.”

But Boudicca was not to be put off. “Six thousand! Were there eyebrows raised in Rome, I wonder?” She laughed, a gravelly, harsh bark almost masculine in its tone. “It will take more than the offer of money to persuade the chiefs to forget their oaths to him. It has been three years since Scapula arrived in Albion to find the Cornovii and the Dobunni in a shambles and the legions demoralized, and still the situation is only barely in hand. What a man! I met him once, did you know that, Prasutugas?”