The Eagle and the Raven (49 page)

Scapula called a halt. The soldiers retreated gratefully into winter quarters on familiar ground and the chiefs rested their battered, emaciated bodies, their thoughts turning to their snug farmsteads, their sheep and cattle, the long-forgotten satisfactions of beer and meat beside a hot, friendly fire. They had oathed to their arviragus and they obeyed him willingly, but it had been four years since many of them had left their huts to take the war tracks, and it seemed to them that nothing was being accomplished.

Caradoc knew their doubts but there was nothing he could say. He had done more with them already than he had ever dreamed, brutally taking from them their pride in noisy, open combat and turning their rigid conception of what was honorable into an acceptance of the shame of battle without warnings and without triumphs. Supplies were running very low as winter deepened, and the freemen nursed their homesickness when there was no activity to drive it from their minds. Huddling around their small fires, chewing gloomily on salted meat and flavorless wheat porridge, it seemed to them that they were trapped in a slow wash of pointless, spasmodic little frays that settled nothing. They could look back on days bright with promises, sunny with the certainty of swift battle and easy victory. But when they peered cautiously forward they could see only more years of privation in exchange for the tiny handfuls of Romans who were slain each season.

The spring rains began and night after night they gathered morosely, sitting in water, drenched and miserable, thinking of the honor-prices they had relinquished into the dubious hands of their peasants, wondering how the spring calving would go and whether their little fields would be sown once more.

A rumor began to circulate, and try as he might, Caradoc could not discover who had started it. The freemen were whispering that they were surrounded, that their farms had been burnt to the ground months ago, and their cattle were gone. Scapula had not gone into winter quarters. A traitor had led him through the hidden valleys and even now he waited for the rains to cease before falling on them.

An insidious rumble of discontent grew. There had been outbreaks of incipient revolt before, but this time the grievances were dangerously focused on Caradoc himself. The arviragus had lost his vision. The gods no longer spoke to him. He was as lost and aimless as they. His magic egg had lost its power and he was deceiving them. He was a truth-sayer no more. It was not the Silures who complained. They understood Caradoc’s patient, subtle policy of attrition. He had come to them first. They had sworn to him first, fought beside him before Emrys and his proud people, and they answered the rumors with scorn. But the Ordovices had listened reluctantly, acquiesced grudgingly, and now they wanted to go home for a season, just to set their affairs to rights. Madoc sought out Caradoc one wet, steamy evening.

“Call a Council, Lord,” he said peremptorily.

Caradoc did not even bother to look at him. He went on braiding his hair. “No.”

Madoc squatted before him, his gross flesh folding into his black beard, and his bushy black eyebrows jutting over eyes that held a stubborn concern. “Call them together and let them shout their doubts and longings aloud. Then they will be satisfied, and the rumors will cease.”

“No!” Caradoc tossed back his plaits and put the comb away. “I am arviragus. They have all oathed to me. I order and they must obey, and I have the authority as arviragus that overrides any Council. Even the Druids must do my bidding. If I call a Council I will be admitting an uncertainty and my authority will be shaken. I cannot take the chance.”

“They do not deny your right to order them, for they have oathed to you and their honor demands that they fulfill the terms of that oathing. They only wish to feel that they have a say in the ordering of their fate.”

“But they have no such say and you know it, Madoc. As arviragus I am lord of their life and their death until such time as my mission is accomplished.”

Madoc tugged unconsciously at his beard with one worried, beringed hand. “They love you, Catuvellaunian, but they are simple, ignorant chiefs who have suffered much in the cause of freedom. Let them speak, I beg you.”

Caradoc looked swiftly at his friend. The bluster and raucous dogmatism were absent and the deep lines of crude mirth and lusty living that crisscrossed the chunky face now made him look like a sad, tragicomical old bard. Caradoc felt a groundless guilt prick him. “It does not suit you to beg, Madoc,” he snapped, and color flooded the older man’s face.

“We have all become beggars and outcasts, Arviragus, yet I am not ashamed. Cast a few crumbs of your vast pride before the people and let them give voice to their fears. What are you afraid of?” He rose, saluted, and strode away, and Caradoc glowered at the hazed, dim greenness that ringed him. I am afraid that the sound of their voices will give strength to their discontent and they will defy me and go home, and all the years of sacrifice will be worthless. Did you battle these things, Vercingetorix, as well as Julius Caesar’s implacable juggernaut? After a moment he called Cinnamus to him.

“I am calling a great Council,” he said. “Gather in the chiefs and freemen, Cin. We might as well while away the evening in fruitless bickering as sit idly by the fires.”

Cinnamus pondered briefly, his green eyes thoughtful. Then he nodded. “I think it is wise, Lord. Let them berate us, and thus their sting will be drawn.”

“I do not need you to tell me my thoughts!” Caradoc snarled at him. “Get about your business.”

Cinnamus whirled smartly and strode away. “Mother!” he muttered under his breath. “I pity the poor freemen!”

They came eagerly to the fire that night and Caradoc, sitting crosslegged on his blanket, carnyx under his tense fingers and gold circlet on his brow, watched the hopeful, shameful gleam of a thousand eyes catch the flames’ slow licking. They were still divided, even in Council. The Silurian chiefs sat closest to him, secure in his favor, but even they were careful not to step over the invisible line of power that surrounded him. The Ordovices glided silently and sank to the ground in a solid, well-ordered block, and the Demetae shoved and growled their way to the rear, heedless of crushed fingers or bruised toes. Madoc sat beside Caradoc, fidgeting and grumbling, and Emrys came, swinging smoothly over the turf to fold easily on his left. “You do not order your tuath properly,” Caradoc snapped at him, and he turned slowly to fix his arviragus with a cool, quenching gaze.

“I am chief among chiefs,” he replied, unruffled, “as you are greatest among greatest, Arviragus. I guide and judge but I do not order. The Ordovices are a free people.”

“The Ordovices are a stubborn, stiff-necked people,” Caradoc replied furiously, and Emrys wisely did not respond.

Llyn came and settled behind Madoc, and Cinnamus and Caelte, bearing harp and the arviragus’s shield, stood arrogantly behind Caradoc. Eurgain and Vida sat with the sword-women. The chatter died away slowly until the only sounds in the clearing were the soughing of the restive spring wind and the incomprehensible speech of the deep forest. Caradoc handed the carnyx to Cinnamus and rose, his quick, jerky movements betraying to the gathering the foulness of his mood.

“I call for Council!” he shouted. “Slaves depart.” Then he plunged straight on without bothering to unbuckle his sword, and no one dared to remind him of his omission. “You wanted a Council,” he said briskly, “so I have called one, though what you hope to accomplish is beyond me. I will caution you to remember that you oathed to me, and any decisions made here must have my approval.” He sat down and Sine rose and walked to the front, a slim, brown-clad figure hung with bronze and topped incongruously by the glaring savagery of her wolf mask.

She spoke directly to Caradoc. “Remember, Arviragus, that I speak for the tuath and not for myself.”

“I will remember,” he said tonelessly. “Take off the mask, Sine.”

She removed it and turned to the company. “Warriors! Freemen and women! For four long years we have lived together, sharing food and fighting, putting aside all our differences for the sake of the defence of the west. We have all lost brothers and sons, sisters and daughters, we have all suffered hunger and danger, but we have not complained, knowing that only in our hands lies the hope of Albion. Our arviragus’s name has become a magic talisman, a spell of hope to the enslaved peoples of the lowland, yet the time goes by, the chiefs die and the children grow to stand in their places and die in their turn, and still we are not victorious. We wish to know how much longer we must be separated from our homes before the arviragus cries, Enough! We will not slide on our bellies like snakes through the forests anymore! We will stand and fight like men! Tell us, Arviragus, when we may don our pretty cloaks again.” She stepped over the lines of people and resumed her place beside Eurgain and immediately a chief of the Demetae sprang up, the antlers on his massive helm bristling.

“The Demetae do not care about going home,” he sneered loudly. “For us, home is wherever our swords wish to bite. But we care about killing Romans. Our swords are hungry. They are forced to nibble daintily at little morsels when they long to swallow whole legions. Give us battle, Arviragus, not ambushes and sneaking, shameful raids!” He had barely sat down when an Ordovician woman rose far back. “Strike at them now, Arviragus,” she pleaded, “while they are tired and discouraged.”

“How can they be tired when they have been lying in winter quarters for two months?” Caradoc yelled back furiously, and Cinnamus put a hand on his shoulder.

“Do not interrupt the Council, Lord,” he warned softly. “They are in no mood to see the customs flouted.”

Caradoc repressed an urge to strike his friend’s hand away, and the woman went on in a high, nervous voice. “Never before have so many soldiers been gathered together in one place, within our reach. It is too good a chance to see go by.” She sank into the throng.

Then Madoc sighed heavily, dipped his shaggy black head, and heaved himself to his feet. “I speak for myself, and for the Silures,” he boomed. “We were warned by the arviragus to trust his judgment even if it seemed strange to us, and we have done well to listen. Under him, the west is still free. Give him your obedience for a little while longer. I am a man who cannot talk with lovely words. I and my tuath honor our oaths and we will stay under his guidance as long as it is necessary.” He sat down puffing from his effort and a moment of silence reigned. Then suddenly several people jumped up and began to shout.

“He has lost the Dagda’s guidance!”

“He has lost the power to decide rightly!”

“He does not know what to do!”

The company rose to its feet in one angry, seething mass. The Silures reached for their swords but blades had already appeared in the hands of the Ordovices, and the children scattered. The clearing erupted into violence as the chiefs howled at one another, and a torrent of frustration was unleashed. Emrys sprang up and leaped into his tuath, laying about him with the flat of his sword, Aneirin and Gervase beside him. Madoc ran to his Silures’ aid. Then Caradoc rose, put the carnyx to his mouth, and blew, and the seductive, plaintive note went echoing through the trees. Startled, the chiefs lowered their blades and looked at him, and he stamped his foot.

“The Romans pray to their gods for a madness such as this to overtake us!” he roared, his face chalk white, his hands trembling with rage. “Be seated, all of you!” Shamefacedly, without a word, they sank to the ground, their wary eyes on the tall, lean man who stood with stiff arms raised, his body black against the background of the hot, orange flames that ignited his torc and his circlet so that he seemed crowned and necklaced in fire. He stamped again, dropping his arms and putting his hands on his hips. Peasants! he thought, raking them with his fierce gaze. Stupid cattle! More dear to me than my life. “I have told you many times,” he said deliberately, his voice shaking with suppressed anger, “that no tribe has ever met the legions in pitched battle and won. I will tell you again. If we gamble all the slow, painful progress of the last four years on one moment of stupid and reckless bravery then we will have lost everything. Everything! Your kin will have been butchered in vain. Your children will have starved in vain. We must continue as we began, striking unexpectedly and running away, playing on the soldiers’ fears, luring them to death one by one. Then in two years, or three, Rome will give in, and we can all go home.”

Gervase stood up. “Lord,” he said quietly. “We have learned many hard lessons since we began this work together. Now we are tired. We cannot go on much longer. Listen to us, and let this battle be the last. We are ready. If we win there will be a song to sing that will never be forgotten as long as Albion exists. If we lose then we will have done our best and there will be no songs to remember down the long years of captivity. We are your beasts, Arviragus, and like beasts we have been hunted until our hearts have burst and there is no life left in us. The dogs of Rome are tireless, and ten years from now we could still be crawling through the forests. I beg you, let us fight, then set us free.”

You are wrong, wrong, all of you, Caradoc thought in dismay, feeling the walls of the people’s will close in around him. Claudius will tire of the money and men we are draining from him. He will have Scapula replaced. He will fix the boundaries outside the west. Oh why can’t you see it, you fools?

“A vote,” someone called softly, and the cry was taken up. “A vote! Let us vote, Arviragus!”

“You elected an arviragus,” he reminded them arrogantly, “and where there is an arviragus there is no voting.”

A hush fell. Their eyes were glued to him and he slowly scanned the honed, animal-thin faces before him, reading hope, fear, uncertainty, bewilderment, hostility, and underlying it all a love, and the final weight of a humbling trust. He met Eurgain’s eye. Let them vote, he heard her cool voice say. Make an end, Caradoc. The time is here. He looked away. Bran’s dark eyes also spoke to him, and the invoker’s face was hidden under his white hood, but he sensed the futility of calling on the Druids. Well, why not bring all things to an end? Gervase may be right. The tribes may be ready. But something whispered bitterly within him that it was not the case, they were not ready for open battle and never would be, and Scapula would carry the aquilae with a vicious, gloating triumph into the west. He squared his shoulders. My destiny is accomplished, he said to himself. I can do no more.