The Eagle and the Raven (63 page)

“You ought to share this one with the other chiefs or they will become discouraged and refuse to race anymore!” Marcus said, grinning.

Iain stuffed the pouch into his tunic. “What I ought to do and what I am going to do are different things!” he shouted, careless with victory. “This money will buy cattle for me, and an offering for Andrasta!”

Immediately a hush fell. The people glanced furtively over their shoulders but the Roman soldiers were ambling about, oblivious to the little drama, and in an embarrassed quiet they melted away, leaving Iain with red face and awkward hands clasped about the cup. “I am sorry, Lady,” he said. “I forgot myself.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “On the contrary, Iain, you remembered yourself, and so did the people,” she said gently. “No matter how long the time has been, you will never forget.”

He turned away. “It is better to forget,” he answered. “My tongue remembered, that is all.”

No, Iain, that is not all, she thought. Andrasta sleeps in your heart too, and one day your heart will remember her as well as does your tongue. Ethelind tugged at her tunic.

“Mother, make Marcus lend me his horse for my race! Brigid rode mine this morning and he is blown. If I don’t have a good mount and win I have to pay Rittia the birthday belt of amber that Father gave me!”

“I told you, Ethelind, that you may not have him!” Marcus shouted back. “I want to win my own race this year and I don’t care about your stupid wager!”

“If you don’t lend me your horse then I won’t let you use my snares anymore, and I won’t teach you how to make your own!”

“I don’t care! Lovernius will show me how to do it!”

“He won’t! I’ll order him not to!”

They had forgotten Boudicca and moved away, still quarreling until Brigid stuck out a foot and Marcus tumbled to the earth. “That will teach you to refuse a princess,” she said in her high, childish treble. Ethelind burst out laughing and Marcus, pale with rage, took Brigid’s braids in his hands and pulled viciously. Then they were off, the three of them running hooting over the grass, and Boudicca turned at the pressure of a hand on her arm. It was Lovernius, his harp slung over one shoulder.

“Smile at me, Lady,” he said. “Smile and then laugh, so that those who are watching us may see a few jokes being shared.”

She allowed her mouth to obey him, but her eyes measured his own with a sudden alertness. “What is it?”

“Great news. The Twentieth has been chewed to pieces and the garrisons along the frontier are on fire. Venutius and the rebels have left the mountains.”

She blinked at him, her face tingling, the smile slowly growing broader as his words sunk into her brain. “Tell me again, Lovernius,” she ordered. “I want to be sure that I heard you aright.”

He unslung his harp and picked deliberately at the strings, his eyes on his fingers. “The Twentieth has suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Ordovices and Deceangli, and while the legion died, the Silures and the Demetae fell upon the garrisons. I have sent the spy away again, but I have no fears for his safety today.” Ping, went his harp. Trrrring. “The men of this garrison are enjoying our little celebration.”

She wanted to hug him. She wanted to reach her arms to the blue of the sky and shout. She threw back her head and laughed and he laughed also, his harp echoing the crescendo of their joy, and heads turned in their direction. “Who planned this thing?” she asked more soberly, the smile still flashing uncontrollably.

Priscilla, sitting just out of earshot, looked at her curiously. She had never seen the Icenian queen’s masculine forthrightness dissolve into this girlish, uninhibited laughter before, and she wondered if the free, musical stream of humor was directed at her.

“The spy told me that the tactic was Venutius’s,” Lovernius continued.

“Indeed? So he is still with Emrys and Madoc. I did not think that he would last this long, in spite of all Aricia’s treachery.” She stepped closer to Lovernius. “Could this be the beginning of the end for Rome, Lovernius? Have the tribes agreed to follow Venutius?”

“I do not know, Lady, but I doubt it. I think this strategy was so beautifully thought out that it took them by surprise and they agreed to submit themselves to him, but only for a while.”

She clapped both hands to her cheeks. “I cannot think! Such gladness in me, Lovernius, such mad happiness! What now?”

“Talk to Prasutugas.” He spoke the words softly, then bowed and walked away, whistling. Boudicca turned to see her husband and Favonius approaching Priscilla and ran to meet them. Prasutugas, looking at her glowing face, smiled inwardly, not without a twinge of anxiety. So she knew. Favonius had given him the news while they stood leaning against the corral that protected Prasutugas’s foals, yet already Boudicca’s brown eyes sparkled with the knowledge that had brought him a stab of fear. He knew she sheltered spies who took news of the daily doings of the Icenian tuath back into the west, but it disturbed him to think that the western chiefs regarded her so highly as to send their own to her. Looking at Favonius, he felt guilt. He had never been able to bring himself to tell the Roman that his tuath was riddled with spies and up until now it had not mattered. The chiefs and freemen did not care what the fools in the west were doing, but now the frontier was down. The province lacked a governor, and the summer stretched ahead, long, hot, and unknown. He looked at her and she at him, and in that moment he was glad of the sense of honor that bound her to him under the oath of fealty. That, and her love for him. Without her honor and her love he knew she would have wasted no time, but would already be coaxing and bullying the chiefs into some kind of action. She smiled at him smugly and he frowned back, but she was not reckless.

That night Favonius and Priscilla went back to the garrison in the comforting belief that only Prasutugas knew of the chaos that was spreading on the island. The day had been good. Marcus had not won his race but had come in a close second. Ethelind had not won either, and was sulking over the loss of her belt. When dusk fell and the Romans withdrew, the tuath settled to singing and drinking around the fire, and the meadow that had been scored with chariot wheels and horses’ hoofs now lay warm and fragrant under the bare feet of the carousing people. Marcus, Ethelind, and Brigid wandered through the company for a while, then stole away into the copse to play hide and seek in the darkness and tell stories to one another. Prasutugas, tiring more easily now, went to his house, and Boudicca went with him.

“Favonius did not enjoy himself very much today,” she remarked as he sank into his wicker chair and stretched his long legs out before him with a groan. “And Priscilla was very glum. I wonder why?”

He answered the roguish grin with a slight movement of his blond head, and smiled back unwillingly. “Do you want to play with me for a while before you pounce?” he murmured. “Very well, Boudicca. Favonius had certain matters on his mind, and I will wager that Priscilla had words with him over leaving her to your sweet and tender care. She is terrified of you.”

“The poor, silly thing! I am terrified of her also, afraid that if I should happen to bump into her someday she will shatter. Do you think that Favonius is happy with her? Should we offer him some coarse, strong young freewoman for a second wife?”

He laughed. “Romans do not have more than one wife at a time,” he said, “and besides, I think those two understand each other very well, though they seem as mismatched to us as we do to them.”

She looked startled. “Are we mismatched, Prasutugas?”

“Of course. Your father and the Druids thought so. The whole tuath thinks so. Only you and I are not yet aware that we were not born for each other.”

She softened, coming to him and kneeling at his feet. “How can you be so good to me, knowing what I am going to say to you?” she whispered. “For ten years I have fought you. You are like some once-gay shield now gored and split under the sword of my tongue. Yet still you stand and take my blows.”

He did not move but just lay back in the chair, his eyes on the ceiling, his legs crossed loosely at the ankles, a faint smile of amusement hovering on his lips. “I stand and face the sword of your tongue,” he replied. “I do not lie down under the weight of your feet. There is a difference. Say what you must, Boudicca. We both know why Favonius is worried.”

She got up and went to look out the window, standing still and gazing to where the fire roared to the sky. He rolled his head to watch her, the red reflection drenching her face and neck and glittering in her eyes, the color of blood. The cheerful sounds of the maelstrom beyond came to him clearly, and for just a moment he missed the strong, distinctive odor of the bonefires of Beltine.

“They cannot win, my dear,” he said, pulling his legs in under the chair and sitting straight. “They have destroyed one legion, but three more must be faced, and Venutius cannot take them by surprise with a subterfuge as he obviously did the Twentieth. The frontier is down. What does that mean? You know as well as I. A chain of garrisons, but the lowland is littered with garrisons. The most they can do is delude themselves into thinking they have made headway for a while by ranging to and fro unhindered. The governor will come, mobilize the legions, and it will all be over.”

She swung from the window as though she had been waiting for the signal of his words. “It does not have to be that way! Prasutugas, have you ever seen such bravery, such tenacious love of freedom, such a capacity for suffering? Every time I think of them, my heart is pierced by shame. They forgive us our cowardice! They no longer plead with us for help!” She rushed to him and stood over him, her arms still folded tightly across her dusky blue tunic. “They are so pitifully alone, Prasutugas. Yes, yes, you are right—they will be driven back. But not if we do something. This is the moment, my husband. The time has come. Never again will such luck favor the cause of freedom. A legion gone, no governor, the officials undecided about what to do! Think!” Her arms left her body and spread wide. “We could fire our garrison in one night and sweep out of Icenia. Who would expect it of us? We could be at Camulodunon before the news of our actions had even reached the town…”

“No.” The word came out sharp and final. His mouth was no longer soft but set into an obstinate line, and his eyes scanned her coldly.

“Yes! Yes! This time we will have a good chance of success. We have the people, we have the weapons, we…”

He was on his feet and in a flash she found her wrist imprisoned in a cold iron grip. “Boudicca, what have you done?” he whispered rapidly, harshly. “What weapons? We have no weapons. At least,” he went on grimly, his grip tightening until she gasped, “
I
have no weapons. Where are they, Boudicca? Where have you hidden them?”

“I cannot tell you!” she shouted in pain. “If I do you will go running to Favonius.”

“You know me better than that!”

“No, I do not! I cannot afford to!” For a long time they glared at one another, she on the verge of tears, caught in his one-armed grip, he with blue eyes blazing.

He let her go abruptly. “I have been more lenient with you, perhaps, than I ought,” he said, as she rubbed at her wrist. “I have given you everything a ricon’s wife could desire and more. I have been patient with your madness, I have kept your little secrets from Favonius, I have taken your public insults, because there is love between us. I thought there was trust also, Boudicca. It seems that I was wrong. Burying weapons is a treasonable offence, punishable by death, and you know it. Such folly could endanger the whole tuath. You force me to tell you now that if you make any moves to incite the chiefs into rebellion, if you conceive any plans that might endanger the work Favonius and I are doing in Icenia, I will remove you from my bed and from my life.”

She stared at him aghast, her eyes wide. “Prasutugas! You would do that to me?”

He nodded. “I would. I have done all I can, Boudicca, I have taken all I can. No more.”

“Yes,” she said bitterly. “You have indeed done all you can. To you I am nothing but a bad-tempered, seditious child. Yet, Prasutugas, you have not given me all you could. I do not have my freedom.”

His face hardened. “You are free to leave me whenever you choose.”

“That is not the kind of freedom I mean!” The cry tore into him but he did not flinch. Her arms encircled herself once more, an embrace of shock and deep fear, and she was bent before him, her magnificent hair tumbling to hide her face. “I feel my chains, Prasutugas; every day they bite into my soul like red-hot iron. You cannot know how I suffer, how my words to you are soft and pleasing compared to the words that scream from my soul. Perhaps I am mad, but if I am, then so is the whole of the west. I hate your sanity.”

“And do you also hate me?” He spoke quietly but was as appalled as she at the swiftness of this chasm that had finally opened between them and was still widening with terrifying speed. He wanted to leap over it, to take her in his arms and hold her until the rift snapped shut again and they were whole once more, but its cold blackness beat him back.

“I do not know!” she sobbed. “Ah, help me, Prasutugas, I do not know! I only know that I have taken all I can as well as you, and I can think of nothing but those poor, bloodied people carrying the weight of freedom on their dying backs for all of us!” Her head came up and he saw her face, disfigured by tears. “How long has it been since you wept, Prasutugas? How long?”

He put out his hand but could not reply, and after a moment she straightened and stumbled out the door, her hands moving blindly, uncertainly, before her. Prasutugas could not move. He stood there in the dimness, surrounded by the flickering orange shadows, his heart leaping and falling erratically, the tears trickling slowly down his cheeks.

She waited in the shadow of the porch for a moment, leaning against the lintel and wiping her face on the hem of her tunic. She could not think. For ten years they had slashed and parried with each other, their loyalties deeply and irrevocably divided, and all the tuath knew it and wondered at such unity in diversity. She shouted, he yawned. She threatened, he smiled and did not shift one jot from the course that he, as ricon, had chosen. Their arguments had acquired a formula, a stately, invisible dance of words, and each of them had followed the steps because to break the pattern would have been hurtful. But this time he said new things, she thought, tears flowing fresh and hot once more. This time he broke the rules, he did not play fair, and what had become a game between them after so many quarrels was shown to be a matter of life or death after all. What did he say? Shock had driven the words from her mind. She remembered only his face, hard and strange, showing her a depth of resolve she had not believed possible in him. The door of the adjoining room opened and Hulda came out onto the porch.