Dreaming the Eagle (37 page)

She lay back on the bank and closed her eyes. A clatter of ducks took off downstream, roused by the horses, or one of the men splashing in the water. ‘Tagos shouted and Dubornos replied, then Sinochos joined in and one of the women from the northern coast, and it seemed suddenly that all of them were bathing, hurling water and oaths and washing away the smoke and smear of three days under a foreign roof.

Breaca stripped and slid into the spring water alone. The cold made her gasp. She plunged her head under and stood with her feet on the bottom and her arms spread wide, letting the current strip her clean of the dun, of Cunobelin and his machinations, of Amminios and his sneering evil. She opened her eyes and saw the light from the surface made green. Her arms were ghost limbs stripped down to nothing, flesh pared from bone until all that was left was the core of her, and the grinding pain of Airmid’s leaving. She let her breath out in a stream of uneven bubbles and kicked for the surface. The world came back, light and loud and full of others’ laughter. She kicked for the bank and pulled herself out onto the warm sands to dry in the sun and then to dress in a tunic that had been clean and no longer felt so.

Lying on the bank afterwards, she listened to the familiar rise and fall of Iccius’ questions and Ban’s succinct and careful answers. Underneath them, at the edge of her hearing, someone walked softly over sand. She thought of frogs and kept her eyes closed.

‘You did not wish to eat?’

It was Caradoc. It could have been worse. She opened her eyes and rolled her head sideways. ‘No. Thank you. I have had meat enough for a lifetime. I can live without more.’

‘It’s not only meat. There is cheese, and malted barley, and oats ground with hazelnuts wrapped around with dock leaves.’ This last was a Trinovantian delicacy and he knew that she liked it. She might have eaten it for his sake but the thought of food made her stomach clench.

‘Thank you, but no. I would rather not eat for now.’

‘As you wish. It may all be gone now in any case. Dubornos is eating like a bear in case food is scarce on the journey west to Mona.’

He said it plainly, with the familiar bite of humour, and she was grateful. The others had stepped round the topic of Mona for days, as if it could not be mentioned in her presence. Not even Eburovic had dared speak of it openly in her hearing. She said, ‘Food won’t be scarce. They will be travelling under the protection of the grey cloak of Mona. Wherever they stop, they will be fed as if they came from the gods.’

‘Dubornos thinks Airmid should avoid contact with the Catuvellauni or the Coritani. She might be wise to listen.’

‘I don’t think so. Only your father dares ignore the sanctity of Mona and even he has promised them safety. They will not be harmed by warriors of any tribe and even Dubornos can see to the wolves.’

‘Possibly.’ He sat at her side. He had changed his tunic for one in darker wool of coarser weave and his neck was bare of the torc. Seeing it gave her a warning of what was to come.

‘You are leaving us?’ She felt a twist of disappointment. She could laugh with Caradoc as she could with no-one else; his presence would have brightened the spring.

‘Yes. I’m sorry. Segoventos will hold the ship for me at a port halfway down the river, but only as far as tomorrow morning’s tide. If I don’t reach him then, he’ll sail without me.’

‘So you are going to Gaul with Luain?’

‘Only briefly. Whatever I said to my father, I must go west and speak with my mother’s people, if only to let them know the facts of Cygfa’s death. There are ships that sail from Gaul up the west coast. At this time of year, two or three leave the ports every month. I will find passage on one of those.’

‘You could ride with Airmid. The route to Mona passes through the lands of the Ordovices.’

‘I could, but I am too easily recognized to pass for long unnoticed. My father would hear of it and send men on my trail. This way, I can be at the dun of the war hammer before he has word that I am not still with the Eceni.’

‘Lest he try to make you a stud horse.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I remember.’ She remembered other things of the conversation in the forge. ‘Your father has men already with the Ordovices,’ she said. ‘They will return with word of your arrival.’

‘No. He may have other spies, but he will not hear anything further from those who killed Cygfa.’

There were many ways in which he mirrored his father. The ability to speak of death without emotion was not yet one of them. He tried, but the edge of it hardened his voice. She studied the set planes of his face and the grey expanse of his eyes. ‘Dead men bear no witness?’ she asked.

He shrugged. His gaze did not flinch from hers. ‘The elders will meet in council as they did for the Roman. The decision will not be in my hands.’

‘I think your voice will count for something. It did so with the Eceni and you were not one of us.’

‘Then I will think carefully before I speak.’

He would vote for their death. It did not need to be said. She would have done the same.

She picked another stalk of grass and chewed on it idly. With her forefinger, she drew a war hammer in the sand, followed by the symbol of the sun hound. ‘Did you know them?’ she asked. ‘Your father’s men?’

‘I believe so. Three men of his honour guard were missing for the duration of our visit. They would have been present had it been possible.’ He leaned over her drawing and smoothed out the sun hound, replacing it with a serpent-spear, well drawn. ‘They are of an age between Togodubnos and my father. They taught me my weapons as a child. One of them gave me my first battle mount. I would have trusted all and each of them at my side in war before any other man alive.’

‘But they killed Cygfa and so they must die.’ She drew a frog, because she was not thinking, and rubbed it away with the heel of her hand. ‘She was your cousin, is that not so?’

‘She was to me what Ban is to you.’

‘Ah.’ That made it different. ‘Did Odras know that?’ she asked.

‘Of course.’

‘And your father?’

‘It is wise to assume that my father knows everything. It almost always proves to be true.’

‘Then he will know that you are taking ship tonight.’

‘No. In some things we are careful. Of those left behind, only Luain and Segoventos know I am coming. No-one else.’

‘And of those here?’

‘Ban knows. And now you. When I am gone, you can tell the others. Dubornos might wish to betray me out of spite, but I do not believe he will ride back alone into the dun, not with the journey to Mona so close.’

He stood, smiling in a way quite unlike his father’s. His cloak was lined with raw, undyed wool on the inside. As she watched, he took it off and turned it, so that the plain side faced outwards. The brooch with which he pinned the shoulder had no real shape to it and would not arouse attention. He took a leather cap from his belt and set it on his head, hiding the sunlit gold of his hair. His blade was the one Eburovic had made for him. It hung across his shoulder and the hilt was covered with calf-hide, concealing the war hammer that stood proud on the hilt. She looked for his horse and saw the pied cob that Segoventos had been riding on the journey down. It was a good mount, but it was not the colt. They walked together to where it stood by the edge of the birch stand and she made a cradle of her hands for him to mount with.

‘You should have taken the dun colt,’ she said. ‘At least then we could have raced one day.’

It was something to say and not important. Still, he grinned. ‘Ban and I have agreed a temporary exchange,’ he said. ‘I will return, in due course, for the colt. In the meantime, the beast is safer with the Eceni than on a ship bound for Gaul. I will take the cob and sell him. Segoventos will return the proceeds to Ban in kind. He will buy a mare for Iccius so the lad can set up his own herd. Ban will give him use of the dun colt as a sire.’

He settled his cloak behind the saddle. She patted the cob on the rump. Caradoc reached down and offered his hand and she took it. ‘You have it all worked out,’ she said.

‘Of course. I am the son of my father.’ His smile was light. His grip was cool and firm and touched the depths where she felt most empty. His eyes were the colour of clouds and their patterns as complex. He withdrew his hand and made the salute of the warrior. ‘You could still ride for Mona,’ he said quietly. ‘The elders did not confirm Dubornos as Airmid’s warrior and she will hardly be unhappy if he is supplanted. You should speak to her. She fears tomorrow’s parting as much as you do.’

‘We have said all we can ever say. There is nothing that words can change.’

‘Maybe.’ He kicked the cob on. Breaca walked at its shoulder, pushing the trailing birch out of the way. He looked out over the top of her head, his eyes narrowed, searching the distance. As if to the horse, he said, ‘Lanis was the daughter of the last true dreamer of the Trinovantes, one of those my father had flayed and hung on an oak. She has reached her womanhood with no-one to guide or teach her. To have three dreamers present at once was a gift greater than any she could ever have prayed for. You can’t blame her for taking all they can give.’

The spit dried in her mouth. Had it been anyone else, she would have walked away. Because it was Caradoc, with whom she was oath-sworn, and she trusted his integrity, she said, ‘There is no blame. Airmid chooses where she will. We all do.’

‘Indeed.’

They reached open ground. She stood in the shade of the trees. A deer track passed east towards the sea. She could see no roundhouses, nor herders’ huts, at least as far as the next rise in the land. Beyond it, the air held the bright, reflective quality of sky over water. The smell of the sea mingled faintly with crushed turf and horse sweat. She thought of his last meeting with the gods of the ocean and the courage it would take for him to board ship once again. On impulse, she unpinned the serpent-spear brooch from her tunic. ‘Here.’ She held it up. ‘For protection.’

‘Against shipwreck?’ He read her too easily. ‘Do you think I’ll need it?’

‘No. Segoventos will do nothing that might risk his new boat, but it doesn’t hurt to be sure.’

‘No, it never hurts.’ His smile was crooked, as it had been in the forge. He pinned the brooch high on the left shoulder where, until these last days, Airmid had worn its partner. Luain would know what it signified, and possibly Segoventos.

The horse stamped under him, needing to be gone. Caradoc reached down one more time and laid his hand on her arm. His touch was warmer than it had been and his palm damp.

‘We will meet again in the autumn,’ he said. ‘I have promised Ban I will speak for him when he sits his longnights.’

‘Thank you. It matters to him.’

‘And to me.’ He swung the horse away. His voice came back over his shoulder. ‘Briga keep you safe.’

She watched the path for a long time after he was gone.

xv.

THE ECENI TRAVELLED FASTER ONCE CARADOC HAD LEFT THEM. The track was broad and the horses were more closely matched than they had been. From the first, Breaca pushed the grey mare forward into a canter, seeking freedom in the rhythms of movement that stilled the need to think. The others followed at their own pace, always keeping her in sight.

Caradoc had chosen his place of leaving well. For the rest of the day and on into the one that followed, they met no-one. The track passed through great swathes of managed woodland, dotted here and there with the huts of charcoal burners and signs of recent felling, but no men hailed them for news of the dun, nor sent their children to beg rides. If word were to travel to Cunobelin that his son no longer rode with the Eceni, it would not do so by chance.

Late in the second day, they reached the Place of the Heron’s Foot, named by the ancestors for the pattern of three rivers running into one that made the land look as if the great stilted bird had walked across it, leaving a single footprint deep in the plain that stretched on either side. The rivers themselves ran through wide, wooded valleys, making singular contrast with the surrounding land and marking convenient boundaries. Here, the boundaries of three tribes came together. To the north and east were the lands of the Eceni, stretching as far as the north coast. The Trinovantes, on whose land they had travelled, held everything to the south. Westward were the Catuvellauni. The valley of the heron’s print itself was owned by no-one, being the preserve of the gods and granted freely to all who passed, that they might rest for a time without fear of attack.

They crossed the river late, swimming naked through the cold, fast-flowing water, and made camp in a clearing on the far side.

Breaca made her bed in the shelter of a briar some distance from the main clearing. Night mist gathered at the base of the trees. The air hung heavy with the scent of cow parsley sharpened by thyme and the beginnings of bloom on the thorns. She sat for a while, wrapped in her cloak, and watched the moon rise towards the top of the thicket. The hare who lived on the moon’s surface showed her face so that the ears and the one eye looked down to the earth, watching the watcher. Breaca’s shield hung on the stub of a cut branch close at hand, the round whiteness of it mirroring Nemain’s light. The old scar on her palm ached and had done so since morning.

‘May I join you?’ It was Airmid. She could always walk more quietly than the others when she chose.

‘If you wish.’

She had not placed her back to a tree, believing there to be no threat. Airmid came to sit behind her and wrapped her arms loosely round her waist. Her chin rested close to Breaca’s shoulder in the way it had done in the beginning when they had wanted to speak together and not be heard.

One could wonder, now, why it might be necessary. One could remember a woman emerging unclothed from a cold, fast-flowing river, and the earthen smoothness of her skin, like sand newly washed by the sea. In doing so, one could note, in retrospect, that there were none of the marks that such a woman might carry had she taken a new lover and wonder if it was tact that made it so, or the absence of cause.

‘She is a dreamer. She is also pregnant. We dreamed the birth of her child and how it should be named. It was her first dreaming. She could not do it alone.’