The Eagle and the Raven (52 page)

The death throes of his people were far away. Eurgain, he thought, my heart, must I leave you? And my son, and my little girls? He heard the mournful drip, drip of water in the leaves. He smelled the secret, lonely smell of the forest. Slowly and reverently he ran his fingers down the length of Cinnamus’s blood-encrusted sword, feeling an end, a gaping ravine in the smooth continuity of time which he would somehow have to leap, and then stagger on. “Well, Caelte,” he said. “It is you and I. Let us run.”

Within two days the west was crawling with patrols. With an intuition born of five long years, Scapula knew that Caradoc would not retreat into Ordovician territory. Not this time. His army was scattered, his painstaking labor destroyed, and he would need time to recover. Therefore the commander ordered auxiliaries into the hills that sheltered the gap between the west and Brigantia, and they rushed to cut him off before he slipped from their hands. Scapula knew his chances, and they were slim. The tribesmen had melted back into the impregnable, secret holds of the mountains and the soldiers moved with no fear of being molested, but it was like searching for one shadow in a land of shadows, and Scapula’s only hope lay in reaching the gap and filling it with his men before the rebel got there. He paced angrily back and forth by the river, rain drumming on his breastplate and beating on his head, watching the bodies of the slain being slung onto the heaps for burning. His belly was on fire. Only some four hundred tribesmen had fallen in the battle. So few, and the rest had gone. Scapula was not so naive as to imagine that the west was won. The tribes would quietly lick their wounds for a while and then Caradoc would return to them, probably with reinforcements lured by the honey of his words. Then Claudius would lose all patience and recall him to Rome, not to a triumph but to disgrace.

Sweat sprang out on his brow and mingled with the warm deluge. His reputation rested on two fine, ephemeral chances—capturing Caradoc and discovering the strongholds of the men of the west. Neither seemed remotely likely, but he had done all he could, and if he pitied himself, he pitied his successor more. Albion was a squalid, magic-ridden trap.

He turned to his second. “Gavius, I want the cohorts to move south and west. I want Siluria combed. The rebel has his most loyal support from there, and if we can destroy it then perhaps the other western tribes will give up.” He looked to where plumes of black, stinking smoke were curling lazily into the curtain of the storm. “I want the Silures exterminated, all of them. Every man, woman, and child. Burn the fields. Fire the villages. There will be no resistance for some time to come.” He did not wait for an acknowledgment. He swung away, striding to his boat and then the inviting solitude of his tent, aware that he was cold, wet, and unutterably miserable.

Caradoc and Caelte lay on the lip of the gorge, concealed by the thick, shiny greenness of the holly bushes that clung obstinately to the crest of the frozen wave of land. For three days they had run, pausing only to snatch brief hours of sleep when they were so exhausted that they could run no more, stopping to snare rabbits when hunger drove them, yet often not daring to light a fire, always aware of the unseen presence of the soldiers all around them. But running was balm, running was anesthetic, a blessed, mindless therapy of automatic motion when thoughts died and instincts were strained to interpret the sounds around them.

On the evening of the first day they had crossed a stream. They had stripped, taking their bright clothes and tearing off the tassels and braid, stamping their cloaks, tunics, and breeches into the brown mud, and for the first time Caradoc had regretted his dun rags. Then they had sped on, clad without color like leaf mold and darkness, and even the moon had not marked their swift passing.

Now at last the gap lay below them, bottomed by the river that flowed turgid and deep, already full of the shadows of the evening, though the sun still filtered golden through the dark holly leaves, and between the watchers and the innocent, tree-lined banks the soldiers waited.

Caradoc looked down. Scapula had beaten them.

“We must go back,” Caelte whispered. “We can cross farther south,” but Caradoc did not reply.

Farther south there was a fort, and the valley leading out of the west was broad and full of villages. Besides, there was no going back. The forests were full of patrols. He lay very still, eyes closed, thinking. The men below were not regular soldiers. They were auxiliaries, men from Thrace or Gaul, skilled in tracking, able to flit through the woods like silent deer. They were his blood cousins, Caradoc knew, but he knew also that they could not be bribed. Although they looked out at the world through eyes as blue as Eurgain’s, they were Roman to the heart, taken from their tuaths as children, and they hunted him relentlessly, as an enemy. He tore his thoughts from his wife, opened his eyes, and looked at Caelte.

“It must be this way,” he said, “and it must be tonight. If we wait another day we will be caught. The patrols are already too close behind us. The moon is waning and there are clouds in the east so perhaps the night will be dark enough for us to get across the river without being seen.”

“We do not know the fords,” Caelte objected, “and of course we would not be seen. But we might be heard. We need Bran here, to put a holding spell on the soldiers.”

Caradoc pointed. “We can work our way along the gorge and cross there, where the trees are thickest. There will be a sentry or two, but we will be just two more shadows. Now we must sleep. You first, Caelte.”

His bard did not argue. He curled himself into a ball like a fox and was almost instantly asleep, but even in his unconsciousness there was a quality of watchfulness. Caradoc lay beside him, eyes on the kindly face and grieving at the empty grasses on his right hand, where Cinnamus’s warm body should have been pressed. Resolutely, he warded off any thought of his family. Each one of us is alone now, he told himself. Living or dead, we can do no more for each other. The golden light faded to pale rose and in the dimness Caradoc lay with his shieldbearer’s sword against him, and mourned.

Just after the moon was up they rose, bundled their cloaks under their belts, and set off. The valley floor was quiet as they slipped like wraiths back under the night-hung trees and slunk west to where the descent was more precipitous and the rocks would give them shelter. In an hour they found the edge again and cautiously lowered themselves over, feeling immediately exposed to the sentries who paced slowly beneath them, their boots crunching audibly on the loose stones. They inched from rock to shadowed rock, holding their breath, testing each foothold for fear they might send gravel rattling to the floor, not glancing down for fear the moon might glitter in their eyes.

At last they crouched together at the foot, peering along to where the little tents squatted. All was quiet. Only the sentries stalked, three moving up and down before the camp, six covering the river. The clump of trees directly ahead of the two men stood still and calm, a haven of shadows, but both knew that concealed in the depths more sentries waited, hands to their gladiae, eyes nervously straining.

Caradoc patted his chest and Caelte nodded. They lay on their bellies and began to slither over the rock-pitted ground, slumping into an inert stillness every now and then to press their ears to the earth. The trees drew nearer, became willows and vines, and Caradoc’s sharp eyes picked a short, upright trunk that he was sure was not a tree. Caradoc rolled silently away, and Caelte followed.

The clouds had not floated in to cover the moon but clung stubbornly to the east, and moonlight brimmed the valley, spilling out aloof and peaceful to bathe the river. At last the fugitives felt moss and stiff ferns under their hands and the warm tree shadows danced on their backs.

There must be another sentry, Caradoc thought anxiously. Where is he? They were within hearing of the soldier who stood stolidly off to their left, and before they moved they carefully cleared the way of twigs and last year’s still-crisp leaves, and while they worked, patiently and slowly, the moon reached its zenith and began to swing west. Caradoc saw a glint of light on water ahead of him. It was the river at last, but between himself and the water there was another shadow, tall, helmeted, and he knew that there was no longer time to find a way around. He cursed violently to himself, motioned for Caelte to lie still, and rose into a crouch, not knowing in the snug darkness whether the man was facing them or the river. He stepped forward, softly drew his knife, then sprang, one hand cupping hard against the sentry’s chin to force it up into his shoulder, the other going for the exposed throat. The man had been looking across the water and it was a simple matter to drive the blade home behind his ear. He sagged in Caradoc’s arms with scarcely a gurgle but the quick scuffle had been heard, and as Caelte glided past Caradoc and on into the river the other sentry called, “Did you hear something?”

Caradoc lowered the body to the ground, wiped his knife on the grass, and tucked it back in his belt.

“It was nothing,” he answered, the Latin coming hard to his tongue after so many years. “A squirrel, that was all.” The other man grunted, and Caradoc went after Caelte, dropping quietly into the cool, dark water. He was immediately out of his depth and before he had adjusted to his stroke, the current had carried him several yards downstream, but he took a full breath, sank beneath the murky surface, and battled grimly to the other side. As he dragged himself free of the weeds’ slimy grip Caelte was waiting for him, and without pausing to wring out their clothes they fell to the earth once more, wriggling quickly into the covering darkness of the wooded slope beyond.

All night they pushed on through dense trees choked in old, half-rotten underbrush, and when dawn came and they could go no farther they fed on the tight-curled tendrils of young ferns and the rabbit meat they had saved. Then they slept together, pressed uncomfortably into the heart of a giant bramble. Their sense of urgency had diminished with the crossing of the river. They were out of Scapula’s net now, and though the whole of Brigantia crawled with Romans, they were not actively seeking Caradoc, and he and Caelte had a good chance to pass themselves off as peasants when they came to the treeless, rolling country where Aricia’s people herded their flocks. Caradoc thought briefly of her while sleep lapped at him, but he was too tired for the memories to do anything but fill him with a warmth of poignancy. He wondered where Venutius was. If he was with her, then they were running from danger into danger, but if, as his spies had told him, Venutius was once again in the far north with his chiefs, a new campaign could begin, perhaps next spring. The prospect was appalling. It filled him with despair. But he knew with a dull, tired stubbornness that it must come, that either he must die or Claudius must give in, for he was still arviragus, and could not lay aside his responsibility. He slept fitfully, uneasily, while the hot summer sun strode proudly across the sky, and far away Scapula waited for word from his auxiliaries camped by the river, looking for the wild boar that had already gored through the net and was gone.

In two days they came to a village and Caradoc decided reluctantly that here they must seek proper food and try to glean such information as they could. He took off his gold torc and the magic egg from around his neck, thrusting them deep inside his tunic, and he and Caelte walked slowly down into the circle of wattle huts. The village was quiet. Smoke rose from the roofs, dogs yawned and panted in the thin shade of the palisade, and one or two near-naked children played desultorily in the shallows of the stream that meandered tiredly out of the trees. In the center was the Council hut, a stone wall around it, and the travelers reached it before they were challenged. Then a tall, gold-bearded chief rose from the shadow of the gate and barred their way.

“Greetings,” he said curiously. “Welcome to this village. There is meat and bread if you are hungry, but first you must tell me who you are.”

“We are Cornovii,” Caelte replied. “We are seeking a chief who will take us as his freemen, for the men of the west have burned our land and our lord is dead.” The man’s sharp eyes strayed to the swords hanging from their belts, and seeing his furtive glance Caradoc cursed himself. The swords should have been left in some safe, secret place, for most of the Cornovii and the Brigantians now went weaponless at Scapula’s command, but all he had thought of was hot meat and perhaps a jug of frothing mead. He had not been so careless in a long time.

“Explain your swords,” the chief said, an edge of suspicion to his tone, and Caelte hastened to assure him that they were booty, captured in the raid from which they had fled. But Caradoc could see that the man was not convinced and he wished now that they could turn and walk away, for he smelt fine mists of conjecture in the air that at any moment could condense to certainty.

“Remove them and leave them against the wall,” the chief said curtly. “They will not be disturbed.” He watched while they unbuckled their belts. Already several more chiefs were sauntering over, and as Caradoc followed the first man into the cool gloom of the hut he heard one of them say, “Look at this scabbard! Not western craftsmanship, I swear, and not Roman either. What do you think it is worth?” He hesitated, almost goaded into speech, but swung on his heel and turned to the chief who was waiting for him.

“Now I know where you are from,” the chief said quietly. “I did not think that any man of the west could be so foolish. Sit and eat quickly now and then be on your way, for many of these people are in the pay of Rome and you are fortunate that I am not. Do not tell me your names. I do not want to know them.” Caradoc and Caelte stretched out on the dirt floor, backs to the curving wall, and the man brought them hot, roasted mutton, apples, stale bread, and jugs of beer. He squatted before them, his level eyes searching their faces as they wolfed down the food. He seemed to be struggling with himself. Several times he opened his mouth as if to speak then closed it again, but finally he sat, crossed his green-clad legs, and said softly, “If you seek Venutius then you must hurry. He is on his way from the north, back to the lady, and if you do not intercept him you might as well go back into the west. I cannot shelter you here, it is too dangerous for me and the freemen who are loyal to Venutius. Eat and go. Perhaps Brigantia the High One will give you luck.”