The Eagle and the Raven (36 page)

Were the gods appeased?

At last the jerking, quivering body lay still, a limp white bundle, and Jodocus drew his sword and cut off the head in one mighty stroke, picking it up and driving it onto the stake prepared for it. Bran spoke. “The winter will be long and hard,” he said, “but this year we will not go hungry and the demons will take no man tonight. Thus says the invoker.” He took the bloodied knife from Madoc and slipped away, melding with the shadows under the oaks, and the people left the hilltop, saying nothing, hurrying to their huts for fear that the invoker had misread the signs and already the unslaked demons padded through the wood toward them.

Caradoc, the last to leave, looked back. The torches were guttering, and as they died the moonlight strengthened, pouring white and joyless into the clearing. The stone stood like a watchful finger of doom, and blood trickled black down the wooden stake and pooled in the earth beneath. Wind troubled the long grasses. He turned and hurried after Cinnamus.

The next day, in another shrine deep in the woods, a white bull was sacrificed. There, fire burned on a stone altar and the Dagda squatted bluntly beside the Silurian tuath’s own god, a tall, skinny idol with three hands and three long faces that looked apprehensively into past, present, and future with deep-hollowed eyes. There was no mistletoe that year. Bran and the invoker had wandered far seeking the holy white berries, but they found none and the altar was bare. The soft white hide was flayed from the dead beast and the flesh was carved up for the Druid’s use. The people went back to the river and watched while all day their cattle were slaughtered, the hot stench of blood enveloping the town. Caradoc was forcibly reminded of the Samain when he, Tog, and Aricia had taken the dogs without permission and then lost them in the gentle Catuvellaunian woods, and he thought how here he would not have been so foolish. The woods of this country were wild, lonely, alive with malevolent powers, teeming with wolves and often bears, and no man who entered them on Samain Eve, other than to make the spells, ever returned.

The season dragged on, long and hard as the invoker had promised. Snow fell on snow, sealing off the valley. In the lowlands it rained and stormed without cease and the few scouts who managed to struggle through the choked foothills or brave the sea route told them that nothing was moving. The peasants and few chiefs who were left were almost starving, for Rome had taken much of their autumn harvest to feed the legions, and in the end Plautius was forced to ration the grain and feed native as well as soldier. Spring was late and came in wet. The snow melted under the battering of torrential rains and the river rose to ominous heights, but at last the clouds drew back, the sun shone, and the ground began to dry.

Caradoc and the others resumed their journeying. The Silurian chiefs were disappointed. They had expected an early mustering of warriors to fall on the legions with the bursting new life of spring, but Caradoc was more determined than ever that no strike be made until he could confidently command all the mountain tribes. A premature attack would mean disaster, and the end of his efforts. Stubbornly, doggedly, he and Madoc visited the farmsteads and summer huts of the chiefs who had refused him their allegiance the summer before, and he found them less sullen, more willing to listen. It was clear that Plautius had no intention of moving against the west, not yet. His hands were full with consolidation, building roads, setting taxes with the surrendered ricons, and erecting more permanent forts than the uncomfortable temporary winter quarters of all his men. From his headquarters at Camulodunon he and the procurator went out with their staff, satisfied to see the embryonic province begin to grow.

Caradoc began to build a network of spies. He chose freemen, not chiefs, who scorned such work and who would have drawn attention to themselves with their limed, bristling hair and their strutting walk. At first he sent them out as they were, some to settle quietly among the peasants of Rome’s client kingdoms—the Atrebates, the Iceni, the Brigantes, the Dobunni—some to live in the woods of the Coritani and the Durotriges. He promised them a new status if they worked well and were able to survive for two years. They were eager to learn from him, coming to his hut while he spoke to them of the ways of the foreigners and the habits of the Romans, and they left the caer with the prospect of chieftain status bright before their eyes. But in that first heartbreakingly tentative year many were lost to the soldiers, to wild animals, to suspicious, nervous peasants, and to their own loneliness. Caradoc knew what he was doing to them. Without chiefs to defend them and land to feed them, they were cast adrift, and only the more enterprising established themselves as refugees expelled by the barbarous men of the west, as part of some chief’s honor-price, even as young Druids. He callously disregarded the cost. It had to be. He felt deeply that this was a year of beginnings, a year when many seeds had to be sown in ruthlessness if the fruit was to be victory, and spring became summer while the Silurian freemen slipped over their borders and vanished, many of them forever.

Eurgain and Bran took the journey to the mountains that he had promised her. They were gone for two weeks while Llyn and Caradoc were traveling the coast, and Eurgain returned with a pouch full of new crystals and her eyes dark with new mysteries. She and Bran took to lying out under the stars. He would point out to her the lofty, ageless constellations and their meanings, and she would dream spellbound as the heavens wheeled by above her, locked in a wonder and delight that was linked to her absorption with the mountains. When he left with Caradoc and the others, striking north to the wary freemen who lived in constant fear of raids on the border with the Ordovices, she lay on the cool, dry grass alone, staring unblinking and wrapt, while her soul leaped to the sky and danced riotously among the living crystals.

Caradoc saw little of his daughters. They had many friends now, Silurian friends, children who played roughly, ran like a mad wind, shrieked and fought with each other and swam like brown fish, and they needed him less and less. Sometimes, watching them tumble by the river, their ragged hair flying, feet bare, and tunics hitched free of wet, muddy legs, he felt a great remorse. They were the daughters of royalty. They should have been enjoying the riches and comfort that a great honor-price and many servants could bring. Their arms should have been laden with silver, their heads circled in gold, their tunics bordered with rainbow fringes. They should have been riding noble horses harnessed in tinkling bronze, surrounded by chiefs. The pain of their loss had become a physical gnawing in his breast. He had nothing, only his wits on which to live, only his visions on which to feed his deprived children. He heard their laughter but was not comforted.

Chapter Eighteen

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embassy rode out of the hills and down into the town. Cinnamus saw them first and he clambered from his perch in the apple tree and ran to where Caradoc, Caelte, and Madoc sat in the sun. They had returned from the north the day before, leaving Bran to journey on to meet with the chiefs of the Ordovices. The time had come to meet them in Council, and Bran was to spend the coming months with them, dropping his soft persuasions into their hard ears. Cinnamus came up, green eyes glinting. “Guests, Lord. By the Mother, we have had no guests in months!” Caradoc and the others rose, hands going to their swords, and Cinnamus stood beside his master, watching the six horsemen come cantering over the smooth turf. Madoc nodded, and Jodocus drew his sword and went to challenge them as they reined in, and his shield-bearer and bard closed in beside him.

“Who comes to this tuath, friend or foe?” Jodocus called, and the tallest rider leaned forward on his horse’s shoulders as if too weary to sit upright. “Have you a Druid?”

“No Druid,” a deep, firm voice answered, and Caradoc stiffened. He knew it. It awoke waves of an old fascination in him but he could not place it. “We could not find one. But we come in peace, trusting your justice, men of the west. We seek the Catuvellaunian chieftain, Caradoc ap Cunobelin.”

“Throw down your swords.” The other mounted men began to mutter angrily but the tall one reached to his belt and it and his sword went thudding to the grass, and the others reluctantly followed suit. “Now dismount. Keep your hands from your tunics.” Jodocus called again and the men slid from their mounts and stood waiting.

“Who are they?” Madoc growled in Caradoc’s ear. “Do you know them?”

Caradoc shook his head. “Perhaps. I am not sure.” He jerked his head at Cinnamus and Caelte, who drew their swords and strode with him to where Jodocus, his hands on his massive hips, was surveying the visitors with no pretense of good manners.

“You break the laws of hospitality,” the tall chief said sharply, and Jodocus growled, “In these days the laws of hospitality must give way to the laws of survival.” Caradoc came to a halt, hesitated, took another step. There was red hair, a curling red beard, eyes that raced over them all like the eyes of a thing of the wild. He went forward with his arm outstretched, feeling himself seventeen again, full of pride and a haughty, supercilious superiority, full of a reckless shame.

“Venutius,” he said, and the short, strong fingers closed about his wrist.

Venutius smiled. “Caradoc. I am glad to find you at last. So many rumors have been whispered among the tribes this winter. Some said you were dead, some said that you had fled to Mona, but I knew you would be here.” With one friendly, encompassing glance he took in the stiff mane of hair, dark at the roots, blond at the tips, the enigmatic native art about the corded wrists and neck, and hanging on the scarlet chest, and the prematurely lined face from which the glow of youth had been seared. His eyes brushed Caradoc’s, registered a stubbornness, a smouldering cunning and obduracy that had been lacking all those years ago. Caradoc smiled.

“Pick up your swords and buckle them on,” he ordered and they did so gladly. He led them to Madoc, who waited patiently, arms folded on massive chest. “This is Venutius, chieftain of Brigantia,” he explained, and Madoc’s arms loosened, the hand went out, but the face did not relax into a welcoming smile.

“I take your wrist in greeting,” he rumbled, “but I reserve a full welcome. It is said that your ricon has opened her borders to Rome with an eagerness that does you no credit, and so I do not apologize for my rudeness.” He looked from Venutius to Caradoc, quickly noting the same air of indefinable strain on the bronzed faces, the same hidden wounds in the dark eyes. Then he turned abruptly and led the way to the Council hut, the Brigantians striding after.

Inside they shed their cloaks and settled themselves against the wall under the mirthless grins of the smoke-grayed severed heads, and Madoc, Caradoc, and their chiefs sat also, as the slaves skewered fresh pig onto the spit and freshened the fire. Beer was brought and they all drank silently, pouring the dregs politely onto the floor for the Dagda and the goddess. Eurgain and Vida came and squatted with them and Venutius looked at them, recognized, and looked away, his heart full of the chill morning when he had taken his black-haired, grim-lipped little ricon away from them. I should have left her there, he thought viciously, or slain her in the forests or when she was ill, feverish and defenceless in my hands. Cursed bitch. Now we sleep under her holding spell, and the once-mighty tuath is a wreck of lost dreams and servile, dishonored people. Cartimandua, fair slayer of men’s souls!

They spoke of inconsequential things, the weather, the new disease that was attacking the breeding stock. The peasants were saying that Rome had brought it, but Madoc thought it had come with the unending dampness of the winter. Brigantian, Silurian, and Catuvellauni drank again, the conversation lapsing into moments of brooding quiet while the slaves laughed and hurried about the huge hut and the dishes set up a friendly clatter.

One by one other chiefs and freemen drifted in, lured by the rumor of guests, and came to stand or squat, listening to the talk with greedy ears. The pig browned and crisped, its aroma floating with the smoke to tantalize the hungry, weary men. Caradoc felt that if only he closed his eyes he would be at home in Camulodunon, Cunobelin’s Royal War Band around him laughing and squabbling—Aricia, her dark eyes flashing, Gladys folded deep into her cloak and watching reflectively, his Eurgain responding to Tog’s rough teasing with a flush of color in her cheeks and a placid smile on her gentle mouth.

Venutius was talking of the fierce, destructive tides that had raced up his tuath’s river that winter, his voice firm, the cadences rising and falling in and out of the general clamor, and Caradoc realized dismally that the past could not be wiped out, even as Eurgain had said. Homesickness rolled over him, tinged with poignant, full-bodied memories, and he would have given away his honor, his sword, even his children, to be back there with his father and his friends, to be lusty and impetuous and untroubled, to be young again. He knew then that Catuvellauni he was and Catuvellauni he would remain, forever.

Madoc rose and went to the pig, snatching the knife proffered to him by Jodocus and hacking the choice portions of haunch for the guests, then all the company helped themselves and sat eating, while Madoc’s bard sang and the children finished quickly and ran outside to play in the warming sun.

Finally Madoc threw aside his dish and leaned back on one elbow. “Is your business for the Council?” he asked Venutius, and the other paused, considering.

“No, it is not,” he said slowly, “although you have the right to discuss it in Council. That is for you to decide. I would rather state it only to you and to Caradoc.”

Madoc’s shaggy head nodded. “Then we will walk by the river together.” He struggled up and Caradoc and Venutius rose too, following him into bright sunshine and the air that wafted to them the tang of rising sap from the forest. They passed the three circles of huts, the artist’s home, the kennels and potteries, and strolled at last in deep grass beside muddy water that rushed by them. The melted snow of the mountains and the spring rains carried driftwood, dead wolves, and bloated mountain goats, all the debris of the foothills. Beyond them the forest steamed, tinted with an almost imperceptible blur of soft green, and the mountain heights were lost in the humid haze. The chiefs straggled behind, Cinnamus with naked sword, his green, hard eyes on Venutius, his mind full of the black witch he had always despised, and Caelte whistling tunefully as he turned his face to the white glory of the sun. “Now speak,” said Madoc. “What do you want of us?”

“I have heard,” Venutius said softly, “that men from the west are leaving their mountains and new peasants are taking over lowland farms deserted by the war. I have heard that in the towns there are new freemen who speak and dress as members of the various tuaths, but are not. I have heard of unwary Roman soldiers found headless within spitting distance of Camulodunon. Have I heard aright?”

“That depends on why you want to know,” Caradoc said smoothly. “In times like these men’s fears often turn innocent happenings to imagined threats, and make into mountains the most innocuous mole hills.”

“I am no pawn of Rome,” Venutius flashed angrily. “Give me no smooth words of caution, Caradoc! I come to you with honor unstained!”

Caradoc took his arm and swung him to a halt. “Unstained?” he hissed. “How can that be, when your tuath has welcomed the Ninth with open arms, and your ricon drinks with Roman officers who already plan roads and posting stations through her land? Is there one Brigantian chief left who dares even to speak of honor? Roman ships ply your coast, not only traders but also vessels of the Classis Britannica, and has not your ricon already begun to build a great Roman house, designed for her by the legion’s architect? And to think that once you sheepherders accused me, Caradoc, of toadying to Rome!” The biting words stung with contempt, lashing Venutius.

“So it is true,” Venutius said, his leathery face staining brick red. “How else could you know so much of the business of my people? Oh Caradoc, how sly and secretive you have become.” He lowered his voice. “Send me your spies. I will give them cattle and sheep to herd, I will take them in my train and they can move among my tribe with words I dare not utter myself. Send them, and tell them to stir up the faint and dying hearts of my chiefs. Ah, Caradoc.” His voice broke. “How can you understand? She has bewitched them with promises of riches and ease, and they follow her like puppies, panting to please. She tells them that Rome brings peace and prosperity, and an end to the fear of other tribes, and she has made them forget that they cared more for honor than for life.”

“Why don’t you rally them yourself? Your chiefs have a reputation for ferocity and your boundaries encompass most of the north. You could repulse the Ninth without too much trouble, before it becomes too deeply entrenched.”

Venutius gazed in the direction of the river. “Because I have sworn allegiance to her, and my oath must stand,” he said quietly, and it was then that Caradoc knew. Venutius still loved his treacherous, spell binding wife, and he burned day after anguish-filled day on the pyre of her rapacious greed yet was unable to face the cold darkness of a life without those flames. “I will give aid to the spies,” Venutius went on, “but you must understand that if my ricon’s men find them out I cannot defend or acknowledge them and they will have to die at her hands.” His eyes snapped back to Caradoc. “This only I can do. I can lay a scent, I can keep memories alive, I can prick the spirits of my chiefs with the sword of a lost honor, if you will help me.”

“Strange idea of honor you have, Brigantian,” Madoc burst out angrily. “You are too cowardly to do what my Silurian freemen will do, and you call it honorable! If you hate your ricon so much then lop off her head and drive the Romans out yourself!”

“I cannot,” Venutius whispered, “I cannot,” his voice like the death sigh of a hunted deer, and Caradoc deliberately turned and began to walk again, Madoc and the others following.

“I accept your offer, unsatisfactory though it may be,” Caradoc said. “I will send more spies. But what will you do, Venutius, if the swell of revolt grows and the chiefs wake from their holding spell?”

Venutius’s lips tightened. “I do not know. You ask me to predict the secret surgings of my soul, and that is impossible. One day at a time, Catuvellaunian wolf!” They smiled at one another in rueful understanding and paced on, the sun hot on their backs, their swords rattling in their jeweled scabbards.

That evening, after the feasting, when Venutius had retired to the guest hut and his chiefs, apart from his bard and shield-bearer, had curled up in their cloaks on the ash-strewn floor of the Council hut, Caradoc handed Eurgain her cloak. “Go to Venutius and talk to him,” he said. “You and Aricia grew up together. It will be quite natural for you to want further news of her. Make him speak of her, my love. I need to know just how deep the Roman penetration has been, how strongly Aricia holds the reins of power, what chink there may be in her armoring. Brigantia is in an ideal position for Plautius to launch an attack on the west if he so desires, and the spies are not yet well enough established with the Cornovii to bring me all the information I want.” She settled the cloak around her shoulders, withdrawing her hands into its blue depths and looking at him coolly.

“The spies in our country tell us that the emperor ordered Plautius to strengthen, to consolidate, not to expand too far north or until he has secured the lowlands. I do not think that he will strike against us here for at least another two years.”

“Unless he has provocation. And provocation, dear Eurgain, is just what I intend to give him, provided I can come to some agreement with the Ordovices next summer. Then the paths through Cornovii country and into Brigantia will be of the utmost importance.”

She nodded calmly. “But even so, Caradoc, between now and then the situation everywhere could have changed enormously. Are you sure that you send me only to extract tactical information?”

“We have been married for a long time, Eurgain,” he replied quietly, with a firmness he suddenly did not feel. “And I have never taken another wife, nor wanted to. That should answer your question.”

“It should,” she said lightly, coming to plant a swift kiss on his lips, “but it does not. It tells me only that my husband does not like to lie, and so dissembles with care.” The cornflower eyes darkened in quick jealousy, and as always when she thought of Aricia and the strange fascination she held for certain men she yielded to it, let it wash her for a moment, then stoically pushed it away. She had no wish to own her husband body and soul as Aricia had wanted to do, though Aricia had not loved him. She loved a man, a whole, independent being, and she respected him because she could sway him but never make him bend. But sometimes, as tonight, watching the play of hurtful, lustful memories on his face, she ached with a dull, heavy despair that the years had not healed, even as they had not healed the wound in Caradoc. Somewhere deep within him was a place from which she was barred, a place where Aricia nestled sleeping, waiting for an event such as the coming of Venutius to wake and stretch and send waves of misery through them both, and it would always be so though they loved each other in their way. She sighed. “I will go,” she said.