The Eagle and the Raven (46 page)

Favonius was looking at his plate. Priscilla blushed painfully, cleared her throat, and prepared to divert her guests, but Boudicca had the bit between her teeth and with a sinking heart Prasutugas saw the evening disintegrating. He shook his head noncommittally as though he were not interested, looking at his wife with a desperate pleading, but she smiled knowingly at him, raised her goblet mockingly, and drank.

“I was six. My father took me to Camulodunon with him when he went to make some protest to Cunobelin. I do not remember what it was about, but I do remember taking Caradoc’s hand, and riding his horse. He seemed as tall as a giant to me, and very handsome. He had thick brown hair and warm eyes, and he laughed at father and me when I told him that the Catuvellauni had the Roman disease.” Prasutugas groaned audibly, Priscilla swallowed, her appetite gone, but Favonius leaned back on his couch and fixed Boudicca with an expression from which all geniality had fled. I know you, lady, he thought, seeing how the flames of the fire leaped behind her, turning the rich chestnut waves of her hair into vibrant red life, making the amber stones on her circlet glow deep honey golden. She was smiling at him, the pale, freckled face was alight with mischief, the light brown eyes sparkled, and the nails of her blunt, capable fingers tinkled against the glass of her goblet. I know why the Iceni elected Prasutugas as lord instead of you. Tease me all you like, I will not be roused, and if your hostility finds rest in this way, I applaud. Your hands are tied and you know it. Your chiefs want peace and prosperity, and you can rant all you want. I rule here. “How foolish of him to laugh,” he commented drily. “You must admit, Boudicca, that under him the Catuvellauni have been destroyed as a tuath.”

“As a tuath, yes, but not as a free people, those that are left. To you he is a crazy, ragged outcast with a price on his head, but to the men of the west he is arviragus, a savior.”

“Savior from what? His followers die like flies from starvation, from the sword, when at one word from him they could lay down their arms, go back to their towns, and live in peace. I say he is a murderer.”

“It would be the peace of the soul’s death,” she replied softly, her eyes losing their sparkle and turning hard. “Favonius, I apologize for my rudeness tonight, but you know me well enough by now to realize that I will not sit here and smile my principles away. Scapula has forgotten that he is here to govern. He has mobilized all the legions to one end and one end only. The capture of one lonely, hunted man. What has such madness to do with prosperity and peace for the province?”

Favonius signaled to the servants. “Bring the mensae secundae,” he ordered curtly, then he looked back at her. “Boudicca, even you see the answer to that. When Caradoc is captured, all resistance can cease. And it will. He alone keeps the war going and when he has gone to Rome in chains, as of course he will eventually do, the people will settle down to a normal life once more.”

She shook her head violently, the wine in her goblet splashing over her hands. “No, they will not. Oh, Favonius, this is what you cannot understand. The people do not want your peace and your prosperity. They want only their freedom.”

“Bah!” he snapped peevishly. “Freedom is a word that children use. No man who ever lived was free. What kind of freedom do they want then? Rome can give them freedom from war, want, disease, and fear. What else could they possibly want? What?”

“They want to be left alone.”

A dismal silence settled over the table, a pall of embarrassment and unease, and while the servants dished up the pastries and set cakes and sweets and bowls of apples on the table, the four of them studied the walls. Favonius decided to drive his lesson home. Prasutugas and Boudicca had been guests at his table many times and there had been arguments before, but this time he knew that Boudicca’s customary acerbic tongue lashed him from fear. The campaigning season had begun. Scapula, in a mood of angry desperation, had changed his tactics and the ships of the Classis Britannica were landing soldiers on the Silurian coast while all available men gathered in Dobunni territory, ready to spread out through the mountains and encircle the rebels. This time there would be no mistakes. The governor’s reputation depended on the capture of Caradoc, and he knew it. He was running out of time, his health was not good, and the expansion of the province had been at a standstill while he bent all his powers on this manhunt.

Things were coming to a head and Boudicca knew it. He did not think that she would be stupid enough to throw caution to the winds and mount her own little uprising, not again. Her chiefs had tried it two years ago when Scapula had ordered the disarming of the tribes before he left his rear thinly guarded in order to make his first move against Caradoc, and though she had not moved so much as a finger herself, she had done a lot of secret encouraging. So had Caradoc. His spies were everywhere, and Favonius had no doubt that it had been their insidious influence that had precipitated this spontaneous outburst of tribal defiance. But it had been quelled, Prasutugas had apologized, and Rome had been merciful. The Iceni had learned their lesson and now went about their increasingly lucrative business peaceably. Only Boudicca smouldered like a fire that had not been properly quenched. Favonius admired her, but her fierce, wild beauty did not blind him to her unreliability. As long as she was outspoken and quarrelsome he knew that Rome had nothing to fear, so in spite of her taunts he treated her well. But he watched her carefully for signs that her flamboyant wit was turning into quieter, darker channels. He and Priscilla had suffered through her sallies at dinner many times, but tonight he had had enough.

“I caught a spy yesterday,” he said offhandedly, slicing an apple deftly on his plate. “My officers spent all night questioning him, but he would say nothing. I had him executed this morning.”

She sat quite still, only the rapid rise and fall of her scarlet tunic betraying any shock, and he did not look at her.

“How did you know that he was a spy?” Prasutugas asked casually, his pleasant face fighting not to register alarm, and Favonius crunched his apple, washing it down with more wine.

“He lied to me. He said he was a traveling artist, come to ply his trade among your tribe, but when I had him stripped his body was a mass of scars. Artists don’t usually fight. A pity. He was a good-looking young man.”

“Artists used to fight,” Boudicca ground out, her voice like pebbles sliding down a shingled cliff, “before Rome taught them that for artists to fight is not gentlemanly.” She pushed her plate away and swung her legs to the floor. “How many innocent men have you executed, Favonius?”

“Not as many as you would like to think, Boudicca,” he said quietly, his round, ruddy face calm. “And certainly not this time. Before my soldiers skewered him he flung up his arms and shouted ‘Freedom!’”

Priscilla rose with determination. “It was a lovely dinner, and I am tired of the two of you spoiling my evenings with your eternal wranglings. At heart you agree, you know that, and I wish we had had music tonight to drown your words. Now let us sit by the fire, and talk of nothing but the weather.”

Boudicca caught Favonius’s eye and smiled and for once he responded to her impudent sympathy. She rose also. “Forgive me, Priscilla,” she said smoothly. “I love a quarrel, as you know only too well. Will you invite me again? Tell me, will you take Marcus to Rome this winter, or will your hypocaust be ready?” She folded onto the floor by the fire, a smile pasted carefully on her sharp features, and Priscilla rattled on brightly, a spate of relieved, happy gossip, while Prasutugas signaled for the servant to refill his goblet and turned his attention to hunting and the pride of his life, his dogs.

When the guests had gone, Priscilla sat back with a sigh. “What a terrible woman she is, Favonius! You would think that by now she would have learned some manners. And that voice! Sometimes when I look at her she seems as old as Tiber’s hills, but she can’t be more than twenty-three or four. Poor Prasutugas. No wonder he is so quiet.” Her husband came and stood looking down on her reflectively. “She’s twenty-three. She has fought in twelve raids and killed five men. Because of us she has lost a kingdom and a way of life dearer to her than anything else. Don’t you think, my love, that there is something pathetic about this warrior-queen reduced to sitting at your feet while you prattle on about your melons and your child?”

She glanced up at him, hurt. “I was only trying to do my duty. I live in constant fear that one of these nights you and she will come to blows yet I go on inviting her here, at your request.”

Contrite, he bent and kissed her. “I’m sorry. But you know why I hold these dinners. It is important to stay close to the pair of them.”

She turned away pettishly. “That’s not the only reason. Admit that you like her.”

He smiled at the stiff, angry head of black hair from which the girlish ribbons trailed. “Yes,” he said. “I like her. Now come to bed.”

Boudicca slipped off her cloak, flung the gold, amber-studded circlet onto the table, and stalked to her chair. She threw herself into it, smiling ruefully up at Prasutugas. “I am sorry,” she said hoarsely. “Very sorry. I have done it again, haven’t I? And I did promise to be polite.” She yawned. “I should never have asked for news from the west and started all that. If Priscilla thought me rude before, she will have utterly despaired of me after tonight.”

He walked to the fire a little unsteadily, too much wine and the constant, nagging pain making him light-headed. “It doesn’t matter. Favonius is a tolerant man, and I think you amuse him with your fiery speeches.”

“Like a chained, performing bear, I suppose!” she flashed. “Ah Prasutugas, to what shameful end have we come? If my father had lived, Rome would be battling two fronts instead of one, and Caradoc would know that he has friends among the Iceni. He despises us, and with good cause.”

He closed his eyes wearily, his face slack and gray. “Not tonight, Boudicca, please. I am so tired.” She got up and went to him, helping him off with his cloak, undressing him, and he stood there limply.

“Shall I get Hulda to come and bathe your arm?”

“No. I want to sleep. If it is sunny tomorrow I shall feel better.”

“We may have to cauterize it again.”

He pulled back the covers on the bed and got onto it, lying down with a deep sigh of relief. “I don’t want it cauterized anymore. It only helps for a month or two, and then the wound opens and I am back at the beginning. Curse the Coritani! I know how you feel, Boudicca, but I for one am glad that the days of raiding are over. The Roman peace is precious to me. If it had come sooner I would not have lost my arm and become less than a man.” She took off her clothes quickly, combed her hair, and slid in beside him, alarmed at the heat emanating from his body, and his pouched, pain-stamped face. Each time his wound opened and his health failed her fears woke to new life, but he had always recovered to go back to his dogs and his horses and this time would be no exception. The evening had left a sour taste of old dreams in her mouth and she could not resist laying a hand on his good shoulder.

“One of these days your wound will kill you, my husband, you know that, and then what will happen to the Iceni? Rome’s policy toward its tame kingdoms is quite clear, yet you refuse to see it. When Boduocus died, did his son succeed him? No! In went the procurator and his staff of vultures and stripped the Dobunni of what little wealth they had left, and then they found themselves governed by a praetor. And still poor Boduocus’s son had to pay the inheritance tax, though his inheritance was more taxes!”

He struggled to sit up, and gave her a resigned smile. “Favonius has assured me that the situation here is quite different. Boduocus had made a mess of ruling the Dobunni and many of his chiefs had become uncontrollable through Caradoc’s influence. Rome had to step in. But here it will be different.”

“How? By leaving me out of your will you play straight into the emperor’s hands. If you die before the girls are old enough to rule, Rome can quite legitimately march in to rule for them and there will be nothing I can do. The Iceni will have ceased to be a people. Rome will take everything she has not taken already.”

“She has taken nothing,” he said patiently, knowing that he would get no sleep until she had once more given voice to her anxieties. “We are the richest tuath in the country. Even our freemen wear the softest wool and can afford to hire the artists to make precious things for them. For the first time ever, our energies go into growth. No raids, no wars. We have never been so fortunate.”

“One day you will die,” she insisted, her throaty voice deep, “and all the money you have borrowed from Seneca in order to turn yourself and the chiefs into Romans will have to be repaid. Can the girls repay it? Only I could soothe the bloodsucker’s worry. By taking from me any power in the event of your death, you leave the tuath open to ruin. Favonius knows this. He laughs at us behind our backs, poor ignorant savages trying to ape our betters; poor blind, innocent barbarians!”

“You are unjust and suspicious. The times have changed, Boudicca, since your father mixed hatred of Rome with your meat and fed you pride with your bread. Favonius works hard for us. I like him.”

“I like him too, but I sit in the hall, looking into the past, and what do I see? The Gauls are Roman, the Pannonians are Roman, the Mauretanians are Roman, the whole world is turning into one vast Roman province, ground under by men who speak of cooperation and prosperity in the same breath as atrocitas and extermination. Yes, the times have changed. Honor is giving place to an amused reason. The chiefs no longer wear swords on their belts, when only five years ago to be abroad without a sword was a matter of grave consequence. I am afraid, Prasutugas, and I ache with longing for the times that have been. It will not take long before the Iceni are no more, and people who look like the tribesmen, but are really Romans, will hunt in the woods and paddle their coracles in the marshes. Sometimes I wish I were dead.”

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and slid back beneath the covers, closing his eyes. “The tuath elected me as lord because I offered peace with Rome and protection against the Catuvellauni. I have given them what they wanted. You are alone, Boudicca. You see the tuath the way you want to see it, not the way it is. Now be quiet and let me sleep.”