The Eagle of the Ninth [book I] (3 page)

It took him a little while to settle down with his officers. The Surgeon, who appeared, like the Quartermaster, to be a fixture, was a gentle soul, content enough in his backwater so long as it contained sufficient of the fiery native spirit; but the Quartermaster himself was something of a trial, a little red angry man who had missed promotion and grown overfull of his own importance in consequence. Lutorius, who commanded the fort’s one squadron of Dacian Horse, spent all his friendliness on his horses and was reserved to the point of sullenness with all men, even his own. Marcus’s five ranker centurions were all so much older and more experienced than he was that at first he was uncertain how to deal with them. It was not easy, with less than a year with the Eagles behind him, to tell Centurion Paulus that he was overfond of using his vinestaff on his men’s backs; or make Centurion Galba understand that, whatever might be the custom in other cohorts, the centurions of the Fourth Gaulish were not going to take bribes from their men for letting them off fatigues, while he was in command. But he managed it somehow, and the odd thing was that though both Galba and Paulus raged inwardly at the time, and even talked to each other about puppies, there was a better understanding between them and the Cohort Commander afterwards. And between Marcus and his second-in-command there was a good working understanding from the first, which grew to a warm liking as time went by. Centurion Drusillus, like most of his kind, was promoted from the ranks; he was a veteran of many campaigns, full of odd wisdom and hard counsel; and Marcus had need of such, that summer. Day started with the trumpets sounding Cockcrow from the ramparts, and ended with Late Rounds; and between came all the complicated pattern of parades and fatigues, patrols out and in, stables, arms drill. He had to be his own magistrate too; he had to deal with the situation when one of his men claimed that a tribesman had sold him a worthless dog; or a tribesman complained that someone from the fort had stolen his poultry; or when the Dacians and the Gauls fell out over some obscure question of a tribal god whom he had never heard of before.

It was hard work, especially in the earliest days, and he was thankful for Centurion Drusillus; but the work was in his blood, just as farming was, and it was work that he loved. And it was not all work: there was the occasional day’s hunting too—good hunting, even as Hilarion had said.

His usual guide and companion on the trail was a Briton not many years older than himself, a hunter and horsedealer, Cradoc by name. And on a morning of late summer he went down from the fort, carrying his hunting-spears, to pick up Cradoc according to custom. It was very early, the sun not yet up, and the mist lying like a white sea between the hills. Scent would lie low and heavy on such a morning, and he sniffed the dawn chill like a hound. And yet he could not find his usual pleasure in the fine hunting morning, for he was worried. Not very worried, but enough to take the keen edge off the blade of his enjoyment; turning over in his mind the rumour that had been drifting through the fort for the past day or two— the rumour of a wandering Druid having been seen in the district. Oh, no one had actually seen him themselves; it was much more vague than that. None the less, remembering Hilarion’s warning, he had checked up as best he could, without of course the least result. But even if there
were
something in the wind, there would be no result—nothing to be got even from the few men who held official positions from Rome; if their first loyalty was to Rome they would know nothing; if it was to their Tribe they would tell nothing. Probably there was not a scrap of truth in the story; it was just one of those floating rumours that blew up from time to time, like a wind out of nowhere. But he would keep his eyes and ears open, all the same, especially as once again, for the third year running, the harvest was going to be a poor one. You could tell that from the faces of the men and women, as well as you could from their little fields, where the corn stood thin and shrivelled in the ear. A bad harvest was always the time to look for trouble.

As he threaded his way among the crowding huts beyond the forum, it struck Marcus again how untouched this place was by Rome. The tribe found the forum and basilica useful to hold their markets in. One or two men had laid aside their hunting-spears to become Roman officials, occasionally one even saw a Roman tunic. There were wine-shops everywhere, the craftsmen of the town made things to please the garrison, and everybody else sold them dogs, skins, vegetables, and fighting-cocks, while the children scrambled after the auxiliaries for denarii. But all the same, here in Isca Dumnoniorum, Rome was a new slip grafted on to an old stock—and the graft had not yet taken.

He reached the cluster of huts that were Cradoc’s, and turned aside at the house-place door, whistling a few bars of the latest tune running in the Legions, with which he was used to announce his arrival. The leather apron over the doorway was drawn aside at once, but instead of the hunter, there appeared a girl with a solemn sunburned baby on her hip. She was tall, as were most British women, and carried herself like a queen; but the thing that Marcus noticed about her was the look on her face: a queer, guarded look, as though she had drawn a veil behind her eyes so that he should not see in.

‘My man is out behind with his chariot team. If the Commander goes to look, he will find him,’ she said, and stepped back, letting the leather apron fall between them.

Marcus went to look. The sound of the hunter’s voice and a horse’s soft whinny gave him his direction, and making his way between the wood-pile and a tethered cock whose feathers shone with metallic colours among the duller hens, he reached the doorway of a stable hut, and looked in. Cradoc turned to the doorway as he appeared, and gave him a courteous greeting.

Marcus returned it—by this time he spoke the Celtic tongue fluently, though with an appalling accent—but he was staring into the shadows behind the other man. ‘I did not know you drove the Royal Fours in these parts,’ he said.

‘We are not above learning some lessons from Rome. Have you never chanced to see my team before?’

Marcus shook his head. ‘I did not even know you for a charioteer, though I suppose I might have guessed. The British are all charioteers.’

‘The Commander is mistaken,’ Cradoc said, drawing his hand down a glossy neck. ‘The British can all drive after a fashion; not everyone is a charioteer.’

‘You, I take it, are a charioteer?’

‘I am accounted among the best of my tribe,’ Cradoc said with quiet dignity.

Marcus had moved in from the doorway. ‘May I see your team?’ he asked, and the other stood aside for him without a word.

The four were loose in their stable, and they came to him almost like dogs to sniff inquiringly at his breast and outstretched hands; four superbly matched black chariot ponies. He thought of the Arab team he had sometimes driven in Rome. These were smaller—under fourteen hands, he judged—thicker coated, and for their size a little more heavily built, but in their way they seemed to him without match; the heads that turned to him gentle and intelligent, the ears pricked and delicate as flower petals, the quivering nostrils lined with vivid red, the breasts and haunches deep and powerful. He turned from one to another, moving among them, fondling them, running a practised hand over their lithe bodies from proud crest to sweeping tail.

Before he left Rome, Marcus had been in a fair way to becoming a charioteer, in Cradoc’s sense of the word, and now desire woke in him, not to possess this team, for he was not one of those who must be able to say ‘Mine’ before they can truly enjoy a thing, but to have them out and harnessed; to feel the vibrating chariot floor under him, and the spread reins quick with life in his hands, and these lovely, fiery little creatures in the traces, his will and theirs at one.

Turning, with a soft muzzle against his shoulder, he said, ‘Will you let me try your team?’

‘They are not for sale.’

‘If they were, I could not afford to buy them. I asked that I might try them.’

‘The Commander also is a charioteer?’ Cradoc said.

At the Saturnalia Games last year, Marcus had been put up to race a borrowed team against a staff officer, reputed to be the finest driver in the Legion; and he had won. ‘I am accounted the best in my Legion,’ he said.

Cradoc did not seem to think his question answered. ‘I doubt if you could handle these black jewels of mine.’

‘Will you take a wager on it?’ Marcus asked, his eyes suddenly cool and bright, and his mouth smiling.

‘A wager?’

‘That I will handle your team to your satisfaction, over ground of your own choosing.’ Marcus slipped a brooch from the shoulder of his rough cloak, and held it out, the red cornelian with which it was set gleaming faintly in the shadows. ‘This fibula against—against one of your hunting-spears. Or if that does not suit you, name your own stakes.’

Cradoc did not look at the fibula. He was looking at Marcus, rather as though the young Roman was a horse whose mettle he wished to gauge, and Marcus, facing the cool stocktaking, felt himself flushing. The hunter noticed the angry colour, and the arrogantly raised head, and a queer little twisted smile lifted one side of his mouth. Then, as though satisfied by his scrutiny, he said: ‘I will take the wager.’

‘When do we put the matter to the test?’ asked Marcus, returning the brooch to the shoulder of his cloak.

‘I am taking a draft of horses up to Durinum tomorrow; but in eight days I shall be back. We will hold the trial on my return. And now, it is time that we were away.’

‘So be it,’ said Marcus; and with a final pat to a glossy neck, he turned and followed Cradoc from the stable. They whistled the waiting hounds to heel, collected hunting- spears from the house-place wall where they had been propped, and disappeared into the wilderness.

•
    
•
    
•
    
•
    
•

Cradoc was away longer than he expected, and the harvest, such as it was (there would be many hungry in Isca Dumnoniorum that winter), was gathered in by the time the trial took place. Marcus was turning over in his mind the question of getting in extra grain supplies when he arrived at the appointed meeting ground, a wide stretch of level land in the curve of the river, to find the other waiting for him. Cradoc flung up an arm in greeting as he appeared from the woodshore, and springing into the chariot, turned the team and came thundering towards him through the swaying fern at a gallop. The sun flashed back in spars of light from the bronze ornaments on the breasts and foreheads of the team, and the long hair of the charioteer was flying like his ponies’ manes. Marcus stood his ground, though with an uncomfortable tightening of his stomach, until at the last moment the ponies were brought to a rearing halt almost on top of him and the charioteer ran out along the yoke-pole and stood poised against the sky.

‘A pretty trick,’ said Marcus, grinning up at him. ‘I have heard of it before, but never seen it until today.’

The other laughed and stepped back into the chariot, and as he brought the team round, Marcus side-stepped and sprang in beside him. The reins and the many-folded lash changed hands, and Cradoc drew back into the spearman’s place, with a hand on the wickerwork side of the chariot. ‘Take them across to the dead ash-tree yonder, for a start.’

‘All in good time,’ said Marcus. ‘I am not yet ready.’

The ponies were harnessed Roman fashion, the two inner to the yoke-pole, the two outer by traces to the axles. So far, so good; but the chariot was another matter. Until now his driving had all been done in a Roman racing chariot, a mere cockle-shell with room for no one but the driver; this thing was twice as big, though fairly light, and the open front gave one a sense of being on top of the team which was new to him. To get the best out of chariot and team, certain allowances must be made. Holding the carefully separated reins high, in the approved Colosseum manner, his feet wide planted on the interlaced straps of the chariot bed, he set the fidgeting team in motion; easily at first, getting the feel of them, then steadying them from a trot into a canter, as he headed for the silvery target of the dead ash-tree. Just before it, he wheeled them, obedient to Cradoc’s direction, and sent them weaving delicately down the curved row of javelins that the other had stuck upright in the turf before his arrival, in the same way that he had woven the white Arabs between the practice posts on Mars Field, his speed quickening to a gallop, but with never a grazed wheel-hub to disgrace him. He took the team through every trick and test that their master ordered, until the moment came for a final burst of speed, and they were sweeping at full gallop round the mile-wide curve of the woodshore.

To Marcus that moment was always like being born from one kind of life into another. So must an arrow feel when it leaves the bow! It had been hot and sultry in the old life, but in this one the cool wind flowed against him like water, pressing his thin scarlet tunic into his body, singing past his ears above the soft thunder of the ponies’ flying hooves. He crouched lower, feeling the chariot floor buoyant and vibrating under his wide-set feet, feeling the reins quick with life in his hands, his will flowing out along them to the flying team, and their response flowing back to him, so that they were one. He called to them in the Celtic tongue, urging them on.

‘On, brave hearts! On, bold and beautiful! Thy mares shall be proud of thee, the tribe shall sing thy praises to their children’s children! Sweff ! Sweff, my brothers!’

For the first time he loosed the lash, letting it fly out and flicker like dark lightning above their ears without ever touching them. The forest verge spun by, the fern streaked away beneath flying hooves and whirling wheels. He and his team were a comet shooting down the bright ways of the sky; a falcon stooping against the sun…