The Forest House (31 page)

Dieda grimaced,
And well he should be. If I had insisted on leaving here to marry Cynric, what would have become of this fine charade?

“Dieda.” For the first time Eilan spoke on her own behalf. “We have been like sisters. For the sake of the blood we share, and because you, too, know what it is to love, please help me!”

“At least I had better sense than to give myself to a man who would abandon me!” Dieda said tartly. “Caillean has vowed to send me to Eriu.
Sister,
what will
you
promise me?”

“If I remain High Priestess I will try to help you and Cynric. If I fail in this, you have the knowledge to destroy me. Will that be enough for you?”

“That is true.” Dieda found herself smiling strangely. And when she had finished learning from the Druids of Eriu, she would be able to raise blisters on a man's skin with a word, or charm any bird or beast with her song; she would have skills of which these pious fools did not dream. She realized suddenly that it was only the constraints of the priestesses that irked her. She could learn to enjoy wielding power.

“Very well, I will help you,” she said, and held out her hand for the veil.

D
espite the tales the Romans of Londinium told about the North, traveling through northern Britain at the end of summer was no hardship for a young and healthy man. It did not rain every day, and the air was sweet with the smell of curing hay. As Gaius traveled up the eastern side of Britain through country that grew ever wilder, he observed the woods and hills with a professional interest, for on his previous campaign they had marched up the western coast through Lenacum, and the eastern was new to him. With Capellus, his father's orderly, once more at his side, the details of making camp and tending the horses were handled efficiently. And his own British tongue was enough to win them a welcome when they had to seek shelter at a native holding.

As Gaius moved further north, more of the talk was of the Governor Agricola's campaigns. From a newly retired veteran who managed one of the posting stations he learned that in the previous year the appearance of a Roman fleet off the Caledonian coast had struck the natives with such panic that they had attacked in desperation, and succeeded in savaging the already weakened Ninth Legion before Agricola sent his cavalry around to attack their rear.

“It was bad, my boy, very bad,” admitted the station-keeper, “with them demons howling like wolves in the middle of our camp and men falling over tent lines as they tried to get to their arms. But somehow we held them, and I won't forget the moment when suddenly we could see the glitter of our standards and knew that day was coming at last.” He took another long drink of the thin wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Then, I'll tell you, we found our courage, and when the Twentieth finally came up to help us we were ready to tell them they were too late for the party and should go home! But the General kept the men to their work. If those painted devils hadn't scuttled back to their pestilent woods and marshes, we'd have mopped them up entirely. But I suppose we had to leave something for you young glory-hounds to do!” He laughed and offered Gaius more wine.

Gaius suppressed a smile. He had learned something of the battle from men who had been sent home to Deva, but it was interesting to hear the story from someone who had actually been inside the camp when the Caledonians attacked it.

“Ah, the General is a great man! After last summer, even those who hung back and whined about the danger are singing his praises. He'll find work for you, no doubt about it, and you'll start your career with some honors behind you! I wish I was coming with you, lad, so I do!”

Licinius had said nothing about the possibility of actually serving with the Governor, but Gaius wondered suddenly if the messages he carried were at least partially intended to bring him to Agricola's attention. As a provincial governor, Agricola was unusual in that he had got on quite well with his procurators. A word from Licinius might indeed be useful.

In the previous campaign Gaius had been no more than one of a gaggle of young officers, all eager for glory and depending heavily on their centurions. He had been impressed by what he had seen of their commander, but there was no reason for the General to remember him. Ambition stirred within at the thought of winning his commander's esteem.

Presently Gaius left the hunting runs of the Brigantes behind him and moved into even wilder country where the folk spoke a dialect he did not know. Rome might conquer these lands, he thought, as he rode over barren heaths and through shadowed forests, but he wondered if she could ever rule them. Only the need to prevent the wild Caledonians and their Hibernian allies from tearing at the richer fields of the South—as they had destroyed the house of Bendeigid—could begin to justify a Roman presence here.

 

The long northern twilight was deepening the sky to violet when Gaius rode into Pinnata Castra, the fortress the Twentieth Legion was building above the firth of the Tava where the fleet had made so impressive a showing the summer before. Stone walls were already rising behind the stout palisade, and the leather tents of a marching camp had been replaced by barracks and stabling of timber that looked as if they could stand up even to a winter in these wilds. The place seemed all the larger because it appeared to be almost empty.

“Where is everyone?” he asked as he rode under the legionary wild boar emblazoned on the gate and presented his orders to the officer on duty.

“Up there.” The man waved vaguely towards the North. “The word is that the tribes have united at last under a Votadini chieftain called Calgacus. The Old Man's been chasing 'em all summer, laying down marching camps behind him like stepping stones. You'll have another week's riding to catch him, but tonight at least you can sleep under a roof and put a hot meal inside you. No doubt the Prefect will give you an escort in the morning; it would be a shame to get picked off by an ambush after you've come so far!”

By this time Gaius was less interested in a meal than in soaking himself in the legionary bathhouse, but he was glad enough for the dinner once he was clean again, and his host, who was clearly lonely and a little nervous, left here with his small command, seemed glad to welcome him to his quarters and have someone new to talk to.

“Did you hear about the Usipii mutiny?” asked the Prefect as the remains of the sauced grouse on which they had been dining were cleared away.

Gaius set down his wine cup—it had been a rather nice Falernian—and looked expectant.

“A bunch of raw Germans, you know, fresh from their dismal marshes, sent up to Lenacum as levies. They mutinied and stole three ships—ended up sailing all the way from west to east around the coast of Britannia.”

Gaius stared. “Then Britannia
is
an island…” That question had been a topic of dinner-table debate for as long as he could remember.

“It would seem so,” the man nodded. “Eventually the Suevi caught the survivors and sold them as slaves back to the Roman side of the Rhenus, and so we learned the story!”

“Remarkable!” said Gaius. The wine had done its work, and he was beginning to feel nicely toasted. It would make a good story to tell Julia when he got back to Londinium. He was a little surprised to realize that he was thinking of it as something to share with her—but it was a tale whose ironies could only be appreciated by someone from his own world. Eilan would not have understood at all. He realized that he was really two people—the Roman who was betrothed to Julia, and the Briton who loved Eilan.

 

The next day it began to drizzle. Gaius snuffled and coughed as they moved forward through the sodden landscape, thinking that it was no wonder they said the tribesmen could dissolve into the heather at will. It seemed to him that the hills were dissolving into the sky, and the woods into the soil, and he and his horse into the mud through which they toiled.

At least, he thought dismally, he was riding. He pitied the legionaries, who had to slog along this road weighted by all their weapons and gear. Sometimes they saw sheep on a hillside, or the little black cattle the natives herded, but except for an arrow that flashed by Gaius's head from the trees as they were fording one of the streams, there was no sign of hostile forces anywhere.

“Good news for us, but maybe bad for the army,” the decurion who led his escort said somberly. “If the warriors aren't guarding their own hunting runs, it can only mean they really have united at last. No one can deny they're good enough fighters when their blood is up. If the tribes had been able to join forces when Caesar came, the Empire would still end on the coasts of Gaul.”

Gaius nodded and pulled his brick-colored cloak more tightly around him, wondering what fate had inspired Licinius to send his messages at just the moment when perhaps the most formidable confederation of British tribes ever to assemble was about to attack the army that Agricola had led north…

 

“You have news from Martius Julius Licinius? Tell me, is he well?”

The man who emerged from the large leather tent was only of middle height, and without his armor almost slender, but despite the raindrops glittering in his graying hair and the shadows around his eyes, he projected an aura of authority that would have identified him even without the cloak, of scarlet so deep it was almost purple, that he wore.

“Gaius Macellius Severus Siluricus reporting, sir!” He drew himself up and saluted, ignoring the water that dripped from the brim of his helmet. “The Procurator is well, and sends you his dearest greetings. As you may read in his letters, sir—”

“Indeed.” Agricola held out his hand for the packet and smiled. “And best read under cover before they dissolve from damp. You must be wet as well, after your ride. Tacitus here will take you over to the officers' campfire and see to your billeting.” He indicated a tall, saturnine young man whom Gaius later learned was his son-in-law. “Now that you are here, you had best wait for the conclusion of the fighting so that I can send a report home with you again.”

Gaius blinked as the Governor withdrew into his tent. He had forgotten the man's charm, or perhaps it had never been directed at him personally when he was just one junior officer among many. Then Tacitus took his arm, and, wincing a little as his stiffening thigh muscles protested, Gaius followed him.

It was very good to sit around a campfire with his brother officers once more, eating hot lentil stew and hard bread and drinking sour wine. Only now did Gaius realize how much he had missed that camaraderie. Once the other tribunes had been reminded of his previous campaign experience and realized he was not just a parade-ground soldier, they accepted him, and as the wine jug went round, even the rain that was still beading on his cloak did not seem so cold. The tension he sensed around him was only to be expected, and morale seemed high. The loricas of the men on duty were scoured and shining despite the weather, and new paint gleamed on battered shields. The young staff officers with whom he was sitting seemed serious, but not afraid.

“Do you think the General will be able to bring Calgacus to battle?” he asked.

One of the other men laughed. “More likely to be the other way round. Can't you hear 'em?” He gestured into the windy darkness. “They're up there all right, howling and painting themselves blue! The scouts say there's thirty thousand men up on Graupius—warriors of the Votadini and Selgovae, Novantae and Dobunni and all the other little clans we've been chasing these past four years, and Caledonians from northern tribes whose names even they don't know. Calgacus will give us a battle, no doubt of it; he has to, before they all start remembering old feuds and begin to fight each other instead!”

“And how many,” Gaius asked carefully, “have we?”

“From the Legions, fifteen thousand: the Twentieth Valeria Victrix, Second Adiutrix, and what's left of the Ninth,” said one of the tribunes, who by his insignia, was attached to the Second.

Gaius looked at him with interest. The tribune had joined the Legion since Gaius had been in Londinium, but there must be others here from his father's Legion whom he would know.

“And eight thousand auxiliary infantry, mostly Batavians and Tungri, some Brigantian irregulars and four wings of cavalry.” This was from a troop commander, who shortly thereafter took his leave to return to his men.

“Well, that's not so unequal, is it?” Gaius said brightly, and someone laughed.

“It would be no problem at all, except that they hold the higher ground.”

 

On the upper slopes of the peak the Romans called Mons Graupius, the wind was colder. The Britons gave the mountain other names—the Old Woman, ancient and enduring, Deathbringer and Winter Hag. As the night wore on, it was in her latter aspect that Cynric was meeting her. Here, the gusts of rain that fell in the valleys were coming down in bursts of sleet that stung his cheeks and fell hissing into the fires.

The Caledonians did not appear to mind. They sat around their campfires, draining skins of heather ale and boasting of tomorrow's victory. Cynric pulled his checked cloak over his head, hoping that it would hide his shivering.

“The hunter who boasts too loudly at dawning may find himself with an empty cookpot when night falls,” said a quiet voice at his elbow.

Cynric turned and recognized Bendeigid, his pale robes a ghostly blur in the darkness.

“Our warriors have always chanted thus before battle—it raises their spirits!”

He turned and gazed at the men around the fire. This lot were Novantae of the White Horse Clan, from the south-east coast of Caledonia, where the Salmaes firth ran in towards Luguvalium. But at the fire beyond them Selgovae men were drinking, their hereditary enemies. The volume rose and he saw the figure of their commander lit suddenly as someone threw a new log on the fire. The chieftain threw back his head, laughing, and the light flamed anew in his pale eyes and his red hair.

“We're on our own ground, lads, and the land itself will fight for us! The Red-cloaks are driven by greed, which is a cold counselor, but we burn with the fire of freedom! How can we fail?”

The Novantae, hearing his words, left their own fire to gather around him, and in moments the two groups had become a single mass of cheering men.

“He's right,” said Cynric. “If Calgacus has been able to persuade this lot to stand together, how can we fail?”