The Eagle and the Raven (62 page)

“What orders, sir, what orders?” the man begged, his voice high with panic, but no orders could save his men, who were falling like wheat before a reaper’s scythe. Valens did not answer but wrenched on the reins and pounded to where his cavalry escort milled in confusion. He tugged the aquila from the fingers of the aquilifer. “Save yourselves!” he shouted. “The legion is finished!” Then he was gone, and after one horrified glance at the wet, stinking carnage around them his escort surged after him. They did not notice the horizon, where the clear, fresh morning had been without mist. Now the far distance was fogged with a haze of gray. Scapula’s frontier had collapsed.

L
ATE
S
PRING
, A.D. 52

Chapter Twenty-Eight

F
AVONIUS
absent-mindedly acknowledged the salute of his sentry, and he and Priscilla walked out the gate of the little wooden garrison and down the path toward the copse. It was a sweet, scent-heavy, late spring day in Icenia, full of mild sunlight and fitful, gentle wind, but Favonius had no eyes for the weather. He moved slowly, with his head down and a frown on his face, and his wife’s gay stream of chatter was no more to him than the equally strident musical piping of the birds that nested in the thick, cool trees he now plunged under, still in a mood of brooding detachment. Priscilla chirped on, her pretty face raised to his, sun and shade dappling both of them, but as Favonius graced her with no more than a grunt or two she took his arm and tugged him to a halt.

“Honorious, what’s the matter? I asked you whether I could take Marcus to Colchester for a few days. Is your response meant to signify yes or no?”

“Yes!” he snapped, the frown still set like a sour, irregular furrow on his forehead. “I mean, no! Oh Priscilla, your requests grow more ridiculous as time goes by. First it was a hypocaust, as though we were building a house in Rome instead of inhabiting a rough wooden house on the edge of the empire. Then it was silverware for the officers’ table, as though we entertained the governor. No, Marcus does not need a few days at Colchester. Perhaps next year.”

He moved on and she slid her arm through his once again. “What a nasty mood you are in today! Leave the garrison to run itself for once, my dear. The dispatches never reveal anything exciting anyway. How safe and peaceful it is here! As you have forced me to attend this display of barbaric prowess and coarse merrymaking you might at least do your best to help me pretend to enjoy it.”

Testily, impatiently, he quickened his stride then sighed and turned to her, smiling in apology. They were nearing the edge of the little stand of oaks and could hear the roar of the crowd that was gathered outside Prasutugas’s town. It was the day for the annual horse and chariot races that had gradually replaced the rites of Beltine, and a hubbub of shouts, whistles and laughter wove into the tuneless clatter of harness bronzes and the intermittent neighs and whickers of the ponies.

“You might consider the dispatch I received this morning to be exciting,” he replied. “There has been a battle, Priscilla, and the Twentieth has been defeated.”

Her mouth fell open. “Honorious, but how sudden. Is it just a rumor? It must be. No legion in Albion would allow itself to be defeated!”

Favonius wearily looked down at the girlish, pert red mouth and the blinking, vacuous eyes, and considered for the thousandth time whether he had been wrong to petition for her presence here with him. It was not usual for garrison commanders to enjoy the company of their families while on active service. Fort commanders, legates, and their officers, often did, but then a fort was not usually erected until an area was relatively safe. He had arrived in Icenia eight years ago with his men, built the garrison, and by the time Ostorious Scapula had landed in Albion he already was the envy of every other garrison commander on the island. Icenia was one of the safest places to be and, after Camulodunon, the most congenial. Its tribesmen were rich and relatively friendly. Its ruling house was not only willing but eager to foster the Roman cause. Favonius had requested the presence of his wife and infant son and the request had been granted without any deliberation on Scapula’s part. Indeed, a cozy Roman family in the garrison was thought by the governor to help lessen the impression of military occupation presented by the soldiers in Icenia. But Priscilla was no hardy plebeian pioneer and had no intention of becoming one. She lived for the day when her husband would be transferred. She could not imagine any posting as arduous as Icenia and said so, often and volubly. Favonius answered her brusquely.

“Don’t be a fool, Priscilla. You ought to think before you speak. If it’s only a rumor the dispatch would have said so. Manlius Valens escaped with his cavalry escort. The rebels tried to fire the fort but apparently they were not successful.”

“What does all this mean for us?” As always, her first fears were for herself and her son and she had lightly brushed off her husband’s reproof.

“Nothing much. We couldn’t be further from the arena of action unless we waded in the ocean. But we have been asked to stand an alert. There is also a rumor that the garrisons along the late governor’s frontier are in trouble, but no solid news has come from them yet.” He rubbed at the frown that still creased his forehead. “Five years ago the thought of a whole legion’s destruction would have been ludicrous. Something new is rising in the west, Priscilla, something big. A fresh approach to their war, or even another arviragus rising. I don’t like it.”

She laughed and dismissed it all, her brief moment of panic gone with his assessment of Icenia’s safety. “Now you are being silly. It is all so much nonsense. A new dispatch will arrive before long, Honorious, and we will be told that it was only Valens’s cavalry escort that took a little beating and the messenger got it all wrong. Nothing ever comes out of the west but contradictions. Besides, the Twentieth is such a proud legion. It would rather die than acknowledge a defeat.”

Favonius clamped his teeth together and sighed inwardly. “Perhaps you ought to be appointed the next governor,” he said with heavy sarcasm, but as usual it was lost on her. She wrinkled her nose.

“Smell the horse dung, Honorious! They should scoop it all up and put it on their fields, but I suppose it will lie and stink for days under this sun. Don’t go off with Prasutugas today and leave me to Boudicca’s sharp tongue. I shall hate you forever if you do.”

He was sensible enough not to answer and together they broke through the trees. Immediately they found themselves thrusting their way through a choking, jostling press of excited freemen, all talking at the top of their voices. The meadow that encircled the town was thronged with them and their sweating ponies. The sun danced gaily on the bronze-traced wheels of the chariots and on the necklaces and arm bands of the freemen who struggled to yoke and harness the ponies in the press. A large fire burned by the gate, sending thick black smoke into the blue sky, and Favonius and Priscilla pushed their way to where Prasutugas and Boudicca sat. People came and went to the fire, nibbling on pieces of mutton and hunks of cheese, and by it the beer barrels stood behind a pile of wooden cups.

Marcus ran to Favonius and Priscilla as they approached, his face smeared with mutton grease, his scarlet tunic flying behind him. His legs and feet were bare, but though the day was warm he wore a long chieftain’s cloak of green wool. In one hand he clutched a pair of breeches, purple with silver fringes, and in the other a mutton bone, which he waved under their noses. Before he could speak his mother pounced on him.

“Marcus, where did you get those clothes? And what is that…that thing around your neck?”

“It’s a talisman of Epona, the Horse Goddess. Do you like it, Mother? Prasutugas gave it to me. He gave me the clothes as well. They were his when he was my age.” He threw his shoulders back and stalked before them. “Don’t I look fine? Do you think I would pass for a chieftain?”

His father looked at the olive skin already darkening to a rich brown, though the summer had only just begun. Marcus’s hair hung black and shining to his shoulders. A country child’s clear, untroubled gaze met Favonius’s own, and Favonius glanced to the hand holding the bone, the hand that already knew the tug of chariot harness and mount’s rein, the feel of a knife’s hilt and a tree’s rough branches bending under the boy’s questing weight, the slippery coldness of a jerking fish. But not a sword, Favonius thought. Not yet.

“No, I don’t,” he replied gravely. “You have no torc.”

“Go and take those ridiculous things off!” Priscilla snapped. “Anyone would think this was Saturnalia!”

Marcus grinned at her. “This is more fun than Saturnalia,” he answered her back, and he flung the bone away and stepped quickly into the breeches. “Father?”

Favonius could not refuse. “All right, Marcus. I don’t really mind. Will you race today?”

“Yes, but I’ll lose against the young freemen. Not a good thing for Roman honor. Ethelind wants to borrow my horse and Brigid has dared me to go in the chariot races.”

“No!” Priscilla exclaimed.

This time Favonius agreed with her. “No chariot, son,” he said firmly.

Marcus shrugged the cloak higher on his shoulders and smiled at them. “Well, I don’t really care. Conac nearly broke his neck this morning, practicing the turn. I told him he should wait until he grew up to attempt the chariot and he knocked me down.” He fingered the charm at his throat. “With Epona giving me her protection perhaps I shall win my race today.” Then he was off, jogging through the people, calling to this one and that one, leaving Priscilla white with fury.

“Epona! Some savage blood-hungry native god! Really, Honorious, I find their religious taste extreme, and I won’t have Marcus tangled in it.”

“Oh hush!” he blurted. “What does it matter? What is a charm, Priscilla? The boy is healthy and happy. What more can you ask?” He spoke more harshly than he had intended, for uneasiness pricked him suddenly, but then Prasutugas saw them and rose to his feet, and Boudicca’s freckled, volatile face was upturned to them.

“Welcome, welcome!” Prasutugas smiled. “We are honored that you came. Favonius, I want to show you the pair I have selected to race for me today.” Favonius acknowledged the greeting, worry still nibbling at his mind, but he was not so preoccupied that he did not notice the flush of health on Prasutugas’s face, and he was glad.

“My surgeon has been having some success with your wound?” he commented. “He has been longing to try the new salve he concocted.”

“It is not your surgeon’s stinging brew,” Prasutugas responded cheerfully. “It is the warmth of the new sun. Three of my mares have foaled, Favonius. Come and see them, and tell me what you think.” He and Favonius began to move away, and after one sharp protest Priscilla subsided, settling herself sulkily on the grass beside Boudicca and batting ineffectually at the hounds who came bounding to nudge her with cold noses. Somewhere nearby a carnyx blared and the people scattered.

“This is the third race,” Boudicca said. “Soon the chariots will be put away and the horse races will begin. So far there has been only one broken arm and one splintered ankle. Is Marcus going to ride?”

Priscilla glanced at her, searching, as always, for the unspoken taunt, the hidden sneer behind the gruff words, and as always she seemed to find malicious spite where there was only humor and a mild, polite dislike. You would be happy if Marcus broke an arm, she thought hotly. “Yes, he is, but I do not think he will hurt himself,” she said aloud. “He rides too well for that.”

Boudicca’s head turned, and she quizzically surveyed the stiff, disapproving little face beside her. “I did not mean to imply that Marcus would finish the day with a broken limb,” she growled. “Really, Priscilla, why must you always see insult where no insult is intended? That boy of yours has become very dear to my husband and to me, and I would not like to see him hurt. I asked you a simple question.” There is something else on your mind, Roman lady, she thought. I wonder what it is?

They felt the turf begin to tremble beneath them. The crowds around them craned forward. Then six chariots came pounding into view, horses stretched out with heads down, charioteers straddling the wicker floors with whips held high, and cloaks and hair ripping behind them. The crowd began to scream and leap up and down and the contestants flew around the corner and were gone. “The first circuit,” Boudicca observed easily. “Iain will win again. You know, Priscilla, Marcus could win his race this year if he would only put behind him his riding master’s instructions and leave all to his instinct. He still sits on his mount as though he were not one with it.”

“He has a good seat,” Priscilla replied stiffly. “He only needs time.”

How miserable she is, Boudicca thought. How uncomfortable, sitting here in the grass with me, doing her duty for Favonius’s sake. I wonder if she ever stops to think that in all the world she has not one friend, and it is her own fault. “Are you hungry?” she asked kindly. “Thirsty? Would you like to walk about a little?”

“Not really,” Priscilla said curtly. “I will eat when Honorious comes back. If you have duties, Boudicca, do not let me hinder you.”

Boudicca sighed and rose as the chariots came thundering around the bend again, strung out this time, and the shouts of the charioteers rose hoarse and unintelligible over the screamed encouragements of the people. “I will return in a moment,” she said, leaving Priscilla to watch her stride easily down to the meadow, a tall, sturdy woman in green fringed breeches and blue tunic, her fine, waving red hair undulating with her mannish gait.

Boudicca arrived at where the chariots were rolling to a halt, a tangle of cloaks, whips, harness, and foam-slicked horses. Marcus and Brigid ran to join her, and with a spurt of jealousy Priscilla saw how Marcus’s brown face was raised to hers, how she reached down to cuff his black head in playful affection before leaning down to listen to her daughter and to fondle the white-gold tresses that hung down her back in three dazzling braids. The nine-year-old Ethelind sauntered over to the group, her own red-blonde curls dancing in the wind, and Priscilla suddenly felt lonely. She looked at her son, the talisman glinting at his throat, indistinguishable from every other chief’s young child. The emotion did not reach to danger and was contained by her self-concern, but it came close, a loneliness mixed with homesickness, and she hunched up her knees and looked about vainly for the security of her husband’s smile.

Boudicca spoke to Marcus and while he ran to the beer barrel and drew a cupful, Iain jumped from his chariot and ambled to her, grinning and panting.

“Another win!” Boudicca exclaimed, tossing him the pouch that had hung on her belt. Marcus came and lifted the cup to him and he drank quickly and noisily while the other contestants came to fling themselves on the cool grass and the chariots were led away.