The Forest House (33 page)

For a moment he was clear; Gaius tugged his spatha from its sheath and straightened. He could see now that the chariots, having failed to break through the Roman lines, were becoming entangled within them. A chariot lurched towards him on the uneven ground; wood crunched as a wheel hit a boulder and it slewed round. He saw the driver hacking at the traces. Whinnying wildly, the horses sprang free, joining the others that careered in panic through the battle, knocking down friend and foe.

Battle was fairly joined now; the slopes of Graupius seethed with knots of struggling men, clumping and unraveling and knotting again in a constantly shifting tapestry. But it appeared to Gaius that little by little, the Romans were gaining ground.

Then a spear seemed to thrust up from the ground before him with a snarling face behind it; his pony reared as he whacked the shaft aside with his sword and slashed downward. Red covered the blue designs as the blade bit, then the horse leaped forward and the face was gone, and Gaius was slashing and guarding with no time for thinking at all.

When he next had a moment to focus, they were well up the mountain. From the left he heard shouting; the Caledonians who had been watching the battle from the summit were now descending, leaping down the slope with appalling swiftness to take the Romans from the rear. Could Agricola see it? Gaius heard once more the bray of the Roman trumpets, and grinned as the four wings of cavalry the General had been reserving swung into action at last. They outflanked the Britons and hammered them against the anvil of the infantry; then the true slaughter began.

Calgacus's force had lost all cohesion. Some men were still fighting, others tried to flee, but the Romans were everywhere, killing or making prisoners only to slay them in turn as yet more enemy warriors came their way. Gaius saw a gleam of white near by and spotted Agricola in the middle of the battle with only two tribunes and a couple of legionaries to guard him. He turned his mount that way.

As he neared them, one of the tribunes shouted. Three Britons, their finery soaked in blood and armed only with knives and stones, were charging. Gaius kicked the pony hard. He swung and his blade tore a crimson gash through the chest of the first man. Then his horse stumbled on something soft; Gaius felt himself falling, released his shield and wrenched himself free as the animal went down. He saw a knife flash and felt pain sear his thigh; the horse tried to struggle to its feet and the knife flared again, sinking into its neck; the animal jerked and went back down.

Gaius got up on one elbow, sank his own dagger into the Briton's chest and then used it to cut the throat of the dying horse. Then, grimacing as his thigh began to throb, he started to get up, searching around for his shield and sword.

“You all right, lad?” Agricola was looking down at him.

“Yes, sir!” he started to salute, realized that the dagger was still in his hand, and sheathed it again.

“Fall in, then,” said the General, “we still have work to do.”

“Yes—” Gaius began, but Agricola was already turning away to give someone else an order. One of the tribunes helped him to his feet, and he tried to catch his breath.

Blood had dyed the bracken at his feet a deeper crimson. The field seemed a mass of broken men and weapons, and those enemies left alive were scattering, pursued by the cavalry. The Romans on foot followed more slowly as the Caledonians fled towards the forest on the other side of the mountain. Agricola ordered some of the men to dismount and beat through the wood while the others circled round behind it.

It was at the edge of the wood as dusk was falling that Gaius whirled to face a man who sprang out at them. He swung instinctively, but he was tired and the blade turned in his hand, taking the warrior on the side of the head and bearing him to the ground. He drew his dagger and bent over the man to finish him, and swore as a bloody hand seized his arm. He lost his balance and came down on top of his enemy; the two of them rolled over and over, fighting for possession of the blade.

Gaius's arm began to shake as muscles that had never quite recovered from the old wound where the boar stake had gone into his shoulder began to give way. Panic tapped his last reserves of energy, and his fingers closed on the other man's throat. For a moment they heaved, the dagger digging uselessly into his armor. Then all the fight went out of the other man and he lay still.

Shaking, Gaius pulled himself upright and plucked the weapon from his enemy's nerveless fingers. He bent over to finish the job he had begun and found himself staring into Cynric's dazed eyes.

“Don't move!” he said in British, and the other stilled. Gaius looked quickly around him. “I can save you—they're beginning to take hostages. Will you surrender to me now?”

“Roman.” Cynric spat, but weakly. “I should have left you in the boar pit!” It was then that Gaius realized the other man had recognized him as well. “Better for me…and for Eilan!”

“You have as much Roman blood as I do!” Guilt added venom to Gaius's reply.

“Your mother sold her honor! Mine died!”

Gaius found himself pushing down on the blade, and at the last moment realized that was what Cynric wanted him to do.

“You saved my life once. Now I give you yours, and Hades take your damned British pride! Surrender, and another day you can fight me.” He knew this was foolish; even lying in his blood Cynric looked dangerous. But saving him was the only thing he could do for Eilan.

“You win…” Cynric's head fell back in exhaustion, and Gaius saw new blood seeping from the gashes on his arms and thighs. “…Today…” Their eyes met, and Gaius saw the hatred still burning in his eyes. “But one day you will pay…” He fell silent as the wagon that was picking up the wounded creaked towards them.

Gaius watched two battered legionaries load him in with the others, his satisfaction in the Roman victory dissipating as he realized that he had lost his friend as surely as if he had seen Cynric die before his own eyes.

 

With darkness Agricola called off the pursuit, not wishing to risk his men on unfamiliar ground. But for the Caledonians who survived it was not yet over. Far into the night the Romans could hear women calling as they searched the battlefield. Over the next few days returning scouts reported an ever-widening circle of devastation. The land that had once supported a thriving people was now a silent world in which the bodies of women and children killed by their own men to save them from slavery gazed blankly at the heavens, and the smoke of burned housesteads darkened the weeping sky.

When the numbers were finally tallied it was estimated that wounds or battle had accounted for ten thousand of the enemy, while only three hundred and sixty Romans died.

As Gaius rode along the column of men marching south to winter quarters, he remembered the words of Calgacus:
“To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles they call Empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”

Certainly the North was peaceful now, the last hopes for British freedom as dead as the men who had defended it. It was
this,
more than the fact that the despatches he carried included a very flattering description of his own conduct on the battlefield, that made Gaius realize that he must become entirely a Roman now.

D
espite Agricola's hopes, the pacification of the North was not to be neatly accomplished with a single battle. And though the people of Rome danced in the streets when the triumphant account of Mons Graupius was proclaimed, a great deal remained to be done to secure the victory. The despatches that Gaius bore southward included an order for him to return as soon as his wounds were healed, for the Governor was not inclined to let so useful a young man go to waste in Londinium.

One of Gaius's assignments was to visit the compound where they were keeping the more important prisoners. Cynric was still there, scarred and embittered, but alive, and grimly triumphant that Calgacus had not been captured to grace Agricola's triumph in Rome. Indeed, no one seemed to know what had happened to the British leader. There were rumors that the Druid Bendeigid was hiding out in the hills.

“I was taken in arms, and expect no mercy,” said Cynric in a momentary softening, “but if your general has any regard for you, ask him to pardon the old man. I pulled you out of the boar pit, but he saved your life. For that, I think you owe him something, don't you?”

And Gaius had agreed. In truth, his debt was greater than Cynric knew, and since it could not be proven that Bendeigid had fought against Rome, Agricola was willing to let word be circulated through the North that the Druid could safely return home.

In the event, it was not until the Governor himself headed south to prepare for his return to Rome that Gaius was given leave to do the same. And so it was the end of winter by the time he found himself on the road to visit his father in Deva, free at last to follow the instructions Julia had given him months before to make his peace with Eilan.

Winter in the North had been black and chill, with bitter winds and nights that seemed to have no end. Even this far south the air was brisk, though the first buds were beginning to tip the branches with green, and Gaius was glad of his wolfskin cloak. In Britain even the deified Julius had sometimes worn three tunics, one above the other, against the cold.

It felt strange to ride through a country that was at peace. It seemed to Gaius that everything must have changed since last he saw it, as if he had been gone for years. But as he neared Deva, the raw wind that blew in off the estuary was the same, and the dark mountains that hung on the western horizon were the brooding shadows that had haunted him since he was a child. He rode past the mighty embankments of the fortress to the main gate, and found the timber stockade that crowned them only a little more weathered than he remembered. It was he himself that had changed.

His footsteps rang on the stone pavement of the praetorium as he strode towards his father's office. Valerius looked up as he entered, frowning for a moment until Gaius began to strip off his wrappings. Then he grinned. But it was when Macellius emerged from the inner office that Gaius realized he was not the only one to have grown older.

“Well, my boy! Is it you indeed? We had begun to fear that the Governor would take you back to Rome with him. He wrote very favorably about your work up there, lad, very favorably indeed.” Macellius held out his arms, and clasped Gaius in a hearty embrace, cut short, as if the older man were afraid to betray himself if he held on to his son for too long.

But Gaius had felt how his father's fingers gripped him, as if he needed to reassure himself that his boy was there in the flesh, alive. He had no need to ask if Macellius had been worried; he did not think that settling the petty squabbles of men in winter quarters and tallying up stores had put the new gray in the Camp Prefect's hair.

“So how long are we to have the pleasure of your company before they need you back in Londinium?”

“I have a few weeks of leave, sir.” Gaius forced a smile. “I thought it was time I came home for a while.” With a pang he realized that Macellius had not said a word about his wedding.
The old man must realize that I have grown up at last!

But Macellius no longer needed to ask about it. Since the battle of Mons Graupius Gaius had somehow begun to take his marriage to Julia for granted. But now that the familiar hills of Deva were bringing back old memories he wondered. Could he really go through with it, and if he did not, what would he do?

But Gaius had found out one thing about himself in these last months: he was ambitious after all. Agricola was a great man, and he had been an excellent Governor, but who could say whom Domitian would send after him? And there were things about this land that even Agricola could never understand. The old Britannia of the tribes was dead. Its people would have to change and become Romans, but how could some Gaul or Spaniard understand them? To make this country the gem of the Empire could require the leadership of someone both British and Roman. Someone like himself, if he made the right moves now.

“…invite a few of the senior officers to join us for dinner,” his father was saying. “If you're not too tired?”

“I'm fine.” Gaius smiled. “After the roads in Caledonia, it was a pleasure to ride here.”

Macellius nodded, and Gaius could see the pride radiating off of him like heat from a fire. He swallowed, suddenly realizing that Macellius had never before given him such unqualified approval—and how much he needed to see that glow in his father's eyes.

 

It was usual for the High Priestess to spend some time in seclusion after the great festivals, recovering from the ritual. The women of the Forest House had become accustomed to this when Lhiannon ruled them, and no one thought it odd that after Eilan's first appearance as High Priestess her recovery should be protracted.

And once she was up and about again, they might have been disappointed that she did not participate much in the life of their community, and so often went heavily veiled, but they were not surprised. Lhiannon was the only High Priestess that most of them had ever known, and during her last years she had kept mostly to her rooms, served by Caillean, or by her chosen attendants. In any case a period of retreat was required so that the new Oracle could commune with the gods.

And the reclusiveness of their new High Priestess was less intriguing a topic of gossip than the disappearance of Dieda. Some were sure that she had gone voluntarily, angry because she had not been chosen High Priestess. Others suggested that she had run away to join Cynric, whom several had seen when he visited the Forest House in the company of Bendeigid.

But when someone heard from a woodcutter that a pregnant woman was living in the hut in the forest, the solution to the mystery became appallingly obvious. Dieda must be with child; she had been sent to live in the isolation of the forest until she should be delivered of her shame.

The truth, of course, was so impossible that no one guessed it. In the event, Dieda's part in the deception was not even very taxing, for after the battle of Mons Graupius the Governor had forbidden all public assemblies lest they spark unrest. This far south they had heard only rumors of the destruction; for most folk, getting in food for the winter was a more pressing concern. At the feast of Samaine folk had to make do with the little divinations of apples and nuts and the hearthfire, for there was no fair or festival, and no Oracle.

As for Eilan, she spent the winter snug in the round hut in the forest, visited from time to time by Caillean, and attended by an old woman who did not know her name. She made a little altar to the Goddess as Mother by the fireside, and as she watched her belly ripen, she wavered between joy in the new life that was growing within her and anguish because she did not know if she would ever see her child's father again.

But it was the natural course of things that even the longest winter should one day give way to spring. Though there were times when Eilan had felt that she would be pregnant for ever, the feast of Brigantia was approaching, when her child should be born. A few days before the festival Caillean appeared in the doorway, and though these days she came easily to tears or laughter, Eilan felt so glad to see her that she thought she would weep.

“There is fresh oat bread that I baked this morning,” she said. “Sit here and join me in my noon meal—” She hesitated. “Unless you feel that I contaminate you by my forsworn presence?”

Caillean laughed. “Never,” she replied. “If it had not been for the snows, I would have come before.”

“And how are things in the Forest House?” Eilan asked. “How does Dieda in my place? Tell me everything; I am very dull here, growing like a vegetable!”

“Surely not.” Caillean smiled. “Perhaps a fruit tree come to harvest not in autumn but spring. As for Vernemeton, Dieda performs your duties faithfully, though perhaps not as well as you would do. I promise you I will come when your child is born. Send me word by the old woman when the time comes.”

“How will I know?”

Caillean laughed, not unkindly. “You were present when your sister's second child was born. How much do you remember?”

“What I remember of that time is the raiders, and how you carried fire,” Eilan said meekly.

Caillean smiled. “Well, I think it will not be long now. Perhaps you will deliver on the Feast of the Maiden—your hands were busy this morning, and such restlessness is often seen when a child stirs in readiness to be born. And I have brought you a gift, a garland of white birch twigs, sacred to the Mother. See—I will hang it above your bed that it may bring you good fortune at Her hands.” She rose and drew the wreath from her bag.

“The gods men follow may seem to shun you, but the Goddess cares for all Her daughters who stand where you stand now. After the festival I will come again, though it will be no pleasure seeing Dieda in your place there.”

“How delighted I am to hear your opinion,” someone said from the doorway, the sweetness of her voice intensifying the sting of her words. “But if you do not like me in the role of High Priestess, surely it is a little late to be saying so!”

A figure heavily veiled in dark blue was standing there. Eilan's eyes widened and Caillean flushed angrily.

“Why have you come here?”

“Why not?” Dieda asked. “Do you not think it gracious of the High Priestess to visit her fallen kinswoman? All of our dear sisters are aware that someone is living here, you know, and have concluded it is me. I will not have a shred of reputation left when I eventually ‘return.'”

Eilan's voice shook. “Did you come only to gloat over my shame, Dieda?”

“Strangely enough, I did not.” Dieda put back her veil. “Eilan, in spite of all that has been between us, I wish you well. You are not the only one who is alone. I have had no word of Cynric since he went north, and he has sent no word to me. He cares for nothing but the fate of the Ravens. Perhaps when this deception is over I should go north instead of to Eriu and become one of the warrior women who serve the goddess of battles.”

“Nonsense,” said Caillean tartly. “You would make a very poor warrior, but you are a gifted bard.”

Dieda shrugged helplessly. “Perhaps, but I must find some way to atone for serving Ardanos's treachery.”

“Do you truly call it so?” asked Eilan; “I do not. I have had time to think, living here, and it seems to me that the Lady has allowed this to happen to Her Priestess so that I may understand the need to protect all the children of this land. It is peace, not war, that I will work for when I return.”

Dieda looked down at Eilan. She said slowly, “I never had any wish for a child by Cynric or any other man. And yet I think that if I were bearing a child to Cynric, I might feel as you do.” Her eyes were glistening with tears and she dashed them angrily away. “I must return before busy tongues have time to spin too many tales. I came only to wish you good fortune; but it seems that even here, Caillean has forestalled me.”

She turned, pulling her veil over her face once more, and before either of them could find words to reply, was gone.

 

Every day, it seemed, the light lasted a little longer. The branches blushed with returning sap and the swans began courting in the marshes. Though winter storms might still come to lash the land, there was a sense that spring was coming. The men who worked the land took down their plowshares from the rafters, and the fishermen began to caulk their vessels, and the shepherds stayed out all night on the cold hillsides with the lambing ewes.

Gaius rode out, listening to the sounds of new life all around him, and counted the days. It had been Beltane when he and Eilan lay together, and since then nine moons had passed. She would be giving birth soon now. Women died in childbirth sometimes. He watched returning waterfowl unraveling across the sky and knew that whether he married Julia or not, he had to see Eilan once more.

The higher he rose among the Romans, the more he could do for Eilan and their child. If it were a son, perhaps Eilan would let him raise him. She certainly could not keep him in the Forest House. It did not seem so unlikely; his mother's people had been willing enough to give him up completely into his father's hands.

As he rode back to the fortress his thoughts went round and round. It would be hard to tell her that they could not be married, at least not yet. If Julia did not give him a son, well, he sometimes thought divorced couples were more common than married ones in the Roman world. When his position was assured perhaps they could marry; at least he could give his child a good start in the world. Would she believe that? Would she forgive him? He bit his lip, wondering what he would say to her.