The Eagle and the Raven (51 page)

He made no comment but gathered the golden, white-streaked cascade into his hands, and looked into the tanned face.

“Eurgain,” he said. “I love you. How long has it been since I told you that?”

Her eyes widened in surprise and gladness. “I do not think that you have ever told me,” she replied, her voice catching on the emotion that swelled her throat, and he kissed her longingly, knowing that time would not stand still for them and cruelly and inevitably the evening would give way to night, and the night to dawn, and perhaps he would never again hold her in his arms, the woman who was his other self. The coming battle lent a slow poignancy to their passion, bringing to their tired bodies the dark freshness of habits played out for the last time, joys to be savored with careful, subtle selection, and when there was nothing left to say they slept deeply, slumped against each other.

In the dawn’s pale, somnolent light they woke and dressed quickly, strapping on their swords over the bright, flaunting tunics and lifting their shields. Then they said goodbye, speaking carefully as though the noon would find them together again at meat around the Great Hall’s fire. They parted with a studied indifference, she to the women who were gathering under the motionless trees and he down to the valley floor, where Cinnamus and Caelte waited for him.

The morning was close and oppressive. Clouds were banked in one solid mass from horizon to horizon and in the east the tongues of lightning flashed soundlessly. The air was so thick that Caradoc felt his legs push through it, and it seemed laden with menace. Men’s heads swam with the need for more sleep, and thoughts came sluggishly.

The three of them walked to the water and stood looking on the busy omnipotence of Rome. Far to the rear the cavalry cantered back and forth, the horsehair plumes of the mounted men hardly moving in the stifling atmosphere, and in the odd clarity of light that precedes a storm Caradoc could make out a knot of officers being briefed. He could even see their features. Was Scapula one of them? The army was milling about on a thin strip of flat land beside the river, thousands of helmeted, iron-clad insects, all dismally identical to the eyes of the chiefs. Right by the water a plume of incense rose straight into the air.

“What are they doing?” Caradoc asked curiously.

“Telling the omens,” Caelte answered. “It is the second time this morning. The weather is upsetting the soldiers and I think they have demanded a clearer reading of the auguries before they will fight.”

“Then their priests will have to lie to them,” Cinnamus said promptly. “For we will win, and no one will dare to tell them so.”

“Are all the chieftains ready?” Caradoc enquired.

Cinnamus nodded, and they turned to look back. The tribesmen were strung out over the whole mile-long front, a warm, vibrant splash of many colors, brilliant in the dull light. The chiefs proudly sported bronze, lazy-patterned shields and thick helms, and their spears were upright and bristling, and their cloaks were flung back, brushing the ground. In front of them the freemen ranged, some dressed in simple tunics, some naked, the dull blue of their intricate tattooing blending well with the gray of the rocks around them. All held their leather shields, and pouches full of stones and slivers of hard rock swung from their shoulders.

Caradoc turned to his men, taking them by the wrists and then embracing them. “Safety and peace,” he said quietly. “You have served me well, both of you, my dearest ones. May you live again!”

They replied quickly, stumbling over the words, gripped suddenly in the same vise of presentiment that had brought unlooked-for tears to Caradoc’s eyes. Then the three of them ran back through the ranks of freemen and up to where Llyn and his young chiefs strode restlessly back and forth, a light in their eyes.

Caradoc picked up his spear, unclasped his cloak, and let it fall. He turned. It all seemed so sickeningly familiar, and for a moment, with a horrible, unhealthy warping of the mind, he believed that he was lying in his bed at Camulodunon beside Eurgain and dreaming it all, but then the dizziness passed. The atmosphere was threatening, the cloud cover was low and black, and the valley held a sudden, expectant silence as both armies waited, all preparations made, for the shock of engagement. Terror stalked on the perimeter of Caradoc’s consciousness, but he took a deep breath and fought it down. Suddenly the incursus rang out, clear and startling from across the water, and the first Roman ranks slid into the river. Caradoc raised the carnyx to his lips and blew with all his might, and the high, wild note struck the trees to either side and rebounded a hundredfold. Drawing his sword he jumped onto a boulder and swung it over his head. “A death morning!” he shouted. “A battle morning! Camulos for the Catuvellauni!” With a roar, the tribes sprang forward, beating on their shields, crying and screaming, and in the forefront the freemen twirled their slings. Legionaries were already dropping in the water, eyeless from the slingers’ stones, but more poured in after them, and then all at once they were across and fighting, their fellows scrambling out of the water after them like waves of black beetles. Caradoc leaped down and ran, Cinnamus and Caelte behind him, Llyn and his band circling them with swords high, and they fell upon the soldiers with a grim, cold burning in their eyes and arms that dealt a pitiless revenge.

For three hours the tuaths fought like demented men, and under Caradoc they had learned their lessons well. Rome could not form ranks to drive a wedge through the whistling, slashing swords, and the soldiers found themselves isolated, forced to battle with no friendly arm beside them and further slowed by their fear of the gathering storm.

Scapula watched. He was not worried, and when he saw that his first shock wave of infantry could make no headway he ordered the release of the rest. They obediently forded the river, followed on the flanks by auxiliaries who fought with the tribesmen’s own weapons, for they were recruits from Gaul and Iberia.

Suddenly Caradoc heard a great wailing go up. The Demetae had tired and the officers, seeing the tribesmen falter and break, had the trumpets sounded. Soldiers ran from the bank, dripping, and hurriedly formed ranks, driving into the disorganized Demetae who cursed, broke, and fled up the slope and into the trees beyond. Then Caradoc saw the women emerge from the wood, high above the chaotic clamor, with their swords raised. He thought he glimpsed Sine’s copper-colored, stiff mask. They swept down the sides of the valley to where Rome was already driving purposefully toward Emrys and the Ordovices, and they fell upon the soldiers’ unsuspecting rear like avenging goddesses. Then Caradoc could see no more, for the battle eddied toward him and he turned to fight.

The tribes slowly gave back. The rout of the Demetae had given the legionaries a chance to come together and now they faced the leaping, shrieking chiefs in well-nigh impregnable blocks of linked shields from which the little stabbing swords danced like snakes’ fangs.

Scapula’s spirits rose. Noon had come and he was hungry, really hungry, for the first time in nearly five years as he saw the chiefs backed against their wall of defence, watched them jump it, saw the land before it turned from variegated colors to a uniform gray. “Testudo,” he ordered happily and the order was passed, and the trumpets blared. The massed legionaries melded into one metaled front against the rock-wall. The shields were raised above helmeted heads, and the chiefs who leaned over to hack at Roman heads found their blades turned on an unyielding floor. Now the Romans scented victory. With hope revived they tore at the rockwall, while the tribesmen hurled missiles at them and reached to pierce that chinkless armor.

Caradoc, looking along the top of the wall, saw the impasse and shouted, “Back! All of you! To the top!”

He searched for Llyn but could not see him, and as he turned to flee to the plateau with the other torn, bloody warriors he heard a new howling. Arrows began to fall among the defenders as the auxiliaries found their range, and the scrambling men and women fell, pierced in the back. Caradoc ran. Cinnamus and Caelte joined the rout, and they stretched out, reaching for the lip of the valley with every nerve, yet not seeming to make ground, as though they were locked in a never-ending nightmare while the arrows sang around them. Cinnamus shouted, “All is not lost, Lord! We can turn and best them, and it will be their turn to struggle uphill!”

“Save your breath!” Caradoc snapped, and then he heard the high hiss of an arrow coming close, and he flung himself to the earth.

“Ah Lord!” Caelte cried out, and Caradoc heard another sound, a faint, abrupt hiccup. He whipped around. Cinnamus lay beside him, hands pressed flat to the ground, struggling to rise. Shock filled the round, sea-green eyes, and a gout of bright blood erupted from the wide mouth.

“Mother!” he coughed. “I am struck!” He slumped, and one blue-clad arm twisted behind him, scraping uselessly at the black-shafted arrow that jutted from his back, then the hand slid to his side, the eyes glazed over, and he was dead.

For one frozen moment the noise of battle ceased. Time stood still. The running chiefs slowed their steps and barely moved. Caradoc threw himself on the body of his friend, his cheek rammed against the blood-smeared blond braids, his arms spread out to embrace the tight-muscled back, still fleetingly warm beneath him. “Not you, Cin!” he whispered in amazement. “Mother, not you!” Tears gushed in a painful flood of rage and loss and he raised himself to look into the placid, empty face, oblivious of the soldiers toiling toward him. Cinnamus gazed at him with a sad nobility. Caradoc sprang up and reached to him. He put a foot on the wiry back and with both hands wrenched the arrow free, then he broke it across his knee and flung it away, bending again to gently lift the body. But Cinnamus, for all his lithe grace, had been a solidly built man, and Caradoc could not raise him. Sobbing with frustration he squatted, and Caelte shook him by the shoulder, his own tears sprinkling the ground.

“Lord, it is fate. You can do nothing but mourn for him, and he would not have wanted you to die for him. We must fight on.”

Caradoc nodded and rose, heedless of the fresh crop of arrows clattering in the stones about him. Swiftly, he unbuckled Cinnamus’s sword belt, and his tears flowed afresh as he gently pried the blade loose from the strong-boned fingers. Then he leaned down once more, kissed the high forehead, and fled with Caelte to the cover of the trees. As they tensed for the final spurt, a sheet of white fire lit the heavens, there was a deafening, heart-stopping crack of thunder directly overhead, and the burdened clouds opened. A blinding wall of warm water poured down, soaking both of them before they ran in under the shadow of the forest, but they hardly noticed it. Caradoc ran and leaned Cinnamus’s sword against a tree, then joined the others, for the Romans came on like soulless beasts and the chiefs, at last, turned at bay.

Their will had not been broken. For another hour they hewed the legions, the bitter memories of the long years behind them leading a brutal, superhuman strength to arms that had ceased to register weariness, but inexorably the battle turned against them. Rain streamed down steadily, turning the steep slopes into treacherous, muddy rivulets, and men fought and died ankle-deep in the loose, sloppy soil. Under the trees it was drier and here the fighting was fierce, but one by one the chiefs fell, and the afternoon wore drearily on. Finally Caradoc sought Madoc.

“Pass these words,” he said. “It is time to run. Scatter into the forests, go west and north. No more must die if we want to fight on.” Madoc lumbered wearily away and Caradoc began to hunt for Llyn, and for his wife, and Vida. Oh Mother, Vida, he thought in a panic close to hysteria. What shall I say to her? Around him he saw his army begin to vanish, speeding low into the gloom in twos and threes. But Scapula, across the river now and standing with his Second in the downpour, ground his teeth as he saw what was happening.

“They are getting away!” he said. “Order the cavalry after them! If Caradoc goes free again I will crucify every one of my officers!” His stomach lurched and began to churn and he wanted to double over at the swiftness of the attack, but he forced his shoulders back. The valley was strewn with sodden lumps that were the bodies of the slain. Please, Mithras, he begged, let one of them be Caradoc.

Off to his right Caradoc heard the whinnying of horses but he did not pause, running on as silently as his aching legs would allow. Cavalry were of no use in this densely wooded, gorge-ridden country, slit savagely with roaring streams that pounded down precipitous slopes to the river, and he was not afraid that he would be cut off. He did not know where he was going, he just ran, and the sounds of the seeking soldiers faded. Caelte sped with him. Presently they slowed, and all at once a white-robed figure stepped out from behind a thick oak trunk. Caradoc reached for his sword, but Caelte whispered, “Bran!”

The Druid came swiftly to them, and he wasted no words. “Listen to me, Caradoc. Do not go around in circles. I will stay and find Eurgain and Llyn, and the girls, I swear it, and send them to you. Your life is more precious than theirs to the tribes, and you know it. Where is Cinnamus?”

“Dead,” Caradoc said softly, feeling the cold simplicity of the word like an arrow in his own back, and Bran was silent for a moment, at a loss for words.

“That is a cruel blow,” he said then. “The Ironhand was one of the greatest warriors ever to be born to the Catuvellauni. But do not mourn him, my friend. He died heaped with honor, and he will live again.” He stepped forward. “Now. Do not go back into the west. Scapula will seek you without sleeping and without sanity, and for many months the men of the west will be hunted like animals. Before Madoc and Emrys can reunite them many of them will have died. You must on no account be taken. Go into Brigantia. Find Venutius. If he does nothing else, he will give you shelter and hide you.” He embraced Caradoc and then pushed him away. “Run. Run! Even now Scapula is searching among the bodies for you. Keep the sun on your left shoulder.” Without another word he turned from them, blending with the gray pall that hung about the trees and disappearing, and Caradoc stood listening to the silence.