The Eagle and the Raven (66 page)

He tried to speak and could not. He sat up slowly, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, and his arm encircled her. He drew her up beside him, pulled her to him. “Boudicca,” he said huskily. “I cannot withhold my love from you. It wells up like pure water and overflows me, and spills out into every corner of my life. Even the grief we bring each other is joy beside the grief that I would suffer if we parted. We have been drifting. If we had not, then how could you have asked me how long it has been since I really wept? You would know. Let us begin again now, tonight. Let us say that tonight, for the first time, I have wept. Let me tell you tonight, for the first time, that I love you. Can we do this?”

She held him tightly, her face buried in his chest, and tenderness, shame, and relief were strangling her. “I don’t want anything to come between us ever again,” she said. “But ah, Prasutugas, how easily, how subtly it happens! Words push us away from each other. Only your embrace tells me the truth. I will not lie to you again with the lie that is not spoken. Now I believe the Druithin when they say that of all the lies, that lie is the worst. Lovernius and I, and some of the other chiefs, buried enough weapons out in the forest to re-arm the whole of Icenia at the time when Ostorious Scapula ordered them taken from us. The hiding places are marked with signs that you would probably recognize, but no Roman would. I swear to you on my sword, by the power of my honor, that those weapons will stay where they are until you change your mind. If you do not change your mind, then they will rot where they are.”

“You do not swear by Andrasta?” he teased her gently, and felt her tease.

“Andrasta has deserted me,” she whispered in a sibilant flow of bitterness, and he began to stroke her face.

“Why do you say that?”

“The spells have no power anymore. They have become only words. I know this. My honor is worth more than the dead magic of the Queen of Victory.”

He did not pursue the matter, nor did he ask her where she had been all night. “Dawn comes,” he said, “and neither of us has slept.” He pushed her onto the bed and lay down beside her, pulling a blanket up over both of them. “Close your eyes,” he ordered. “Rest. Soon Brigid will be hammering on the door, wanting to go and meet Marcus at the garrison, and I must visit my farms today and talk to my freemen.”

She obeyed him, sighing and turning to fit her body against his. “I am so tired,” she murmured. “I could sleep all day.” For a while they dozed, warmed by each other, exhausted and at peace.

Then Prasutugas said, “I heard a pack of hounds baying tonight, very far away. Were you out hunting, Boudicca?”

She did not stir. Her eyes remained closed. But watching her face, Prasutugas saw a shadow of sadness pass over it. After a long time she answered him.

“Yes,” she said.

They slept late and had only just eaten their first meal of the day in the Council hut with Lovernius and Iain and a few of the other chiefs when Favonius rode up, dismounted hurriedly, and pushed his way through the idle throng at the door to the hut. Boudicca, seeing him come with worried face and brusque stride, felt her heart quicken its pace. She glanced at Lovernius and he at her. Then Favonius was before them. He did not say the words of greeting.

“Prasutugas,” he said, “I want you to come with me and take a look at a puzzle. I cannot make head nor tail of it and it concerns me.” Once again Boudicca caught her bard’s eye, this time in wonderment and alarm, but Favonius was still talking. “I will say nothing more until you have taken a look.”

Mystified, Prasutugas handed his cup to a servant. “Of course I will come. You are upset, my friend. If I can help, I will.” He followed Favonius out the door and Boudicca stepped to Lovernius’s side, but there was nothing to say to him. I want you to take a look, Favonius had said. Not—I want you to hear a tale. She longed to run after the two men, but good sense prevailed. She sank to the skins and began to wind a lock of her hair around one finger in a bemused, brooding impatience. Favonius had not even looked at her. What could have happened?

Prasutugas slid back over the horse’s withers and Favonius swung himself down, flinging the reins to the aide who waited. Together the men walked the little parade ground, passed the administration building, Favonius’s house, and then his officers’ houses. They turned to the rear where the barracks and storehouses stood in neat, crisp lines. Favonius nodded to the soldier fronting one of the small grain-storage huts and the man opened the door. Favonius waved Prasutugas within and the door closed behind them.

The hut was dim and it stank. Prasutugas recognized the sickening odor. The sheeted form, which lay on a wooden plank slung between two sawhorses, seemed to glow in the shadow and he felt the hairs at the back of his neck prickle as Favonius beckoned him closer and pulled away the covering, his eyes on Prasutugas’s face. Prasutugas went to the body and looked. At first what he saw made no sense to him, as it had made no sense to Favonius. The man was completely naked. His limbs were soiled with earth-mold and crisscrossed with scratches from briars, as though he had forced his way through the forest with no regard for the maiming of his flesh. His chest was crusted in places with rust-brown, dried blood, but in other places it was clean. Where the nakedness showed, white and startling between the patches of old blood, there were neat, shallow cuts whose lips gaped open and dry.

“Turn the head and look at his face,” Favonius said.

Prasutugas obeyed, grasping the matted black hair and rolling the head toward him. Involuntarily, he stepped back. A terror as naked and tangible as the decomposing body itself was imprinted on the features. The eyes were open so wide that the whites rimmed the brown irises. The mouth, too, was wide, and stretched into a grimace of horror that had been frozen by death. The teeth glinted at Prasutugas as he raised his hand to his nose. The choking smell filled his nostrils, strong and unmistakable, mingling with a memory blown to him from his boyhood days when Subidasto ruled the Iceni and Andrasta was queen. His suspicions, become certainty, fell upon him like rocks. The nauseating contents of a fox’s bladder. Hounds baying late at night, far away, yet disturbing as he lay on his bed unable to sleep. Were you out hunting, Boudicca? Yes. I should have asked you what you hunted, but never, never would I have suspected this. Annis. You poor young man.

“Take a look at this,” Favonius said, beckoning Prasutugas, who woodenly went to stand with him. He lifted the feet, and Prasutugas saw that the soles were ripped and raw and the nails gouged. “The man was running from something, running hard with no thought of his feet,” Favonius observed. “From what? What was he doing, miles from his post, stark naked, covered in knife slits which may have been painful but would not have killed him?”

Prasutugas found his voice. He knew that Favonius was watching him carefully and he strove to make the words even, natural. “What did kill him?”

“You tell me.” Favonius dropped the feet and folded his arms. “He was brought in by the men I sent out early this morning to find him. He left his post sometime last night. The body was three miles upriver, lying on its back under a tree.”

“Did he drown?” Prasutugas made the question come, knowing that it was expected of him, but the pain was back, deep inside him, a nagging, sick hopelessness as his thoughts revolved around his wife. Yet she had said that Andrasta’s power was gone. Perhaps this was not her work after all.

“No. He was too far from the bank to have been washed up. He walked or ran to where he was found. The tracks are clear. And if he didn’t drown, then what? He looks as though some great bird has clawed his chest. Whoever cut him made it look that way, but why? Why cut him up and not kill him?”

“Perhaps he went mad and cut himself. Perhaps his fear of the forest at night was too much for him.”

“Perhaps.” Favonius eyed him shrewdly. “What killed him, Prasutugas?”

Prasutugas swallowed and made his eyes meet the Roman’s. “Look at his face, Favonius. He died of fright.”

“What frightened him?”

“What frightens any man? Fear is a disease, like any other. It begins in the mind, not outside the body. And like any other disease, fear can kill.”

“Certainly. But fear cannot cut man’s chest to ribbons.” Prasutugas made no reply and Favonius seemed undecided whether to say more. Then, when the stench in the hut became unbearable, he opened the door and both men went gratefully outside.

“I think you know more about this than you will say,” Favonius remarked heavily. “I will conduct a few enquiries, but I am sure that they will bear no fruit. Do I have your word, Prasutugas, that no more soldiers will die of fright?”

Prasutugas faced him angrily. “I had nothing to do with the circumstances of this man’s death,” he snapped. “I can surmise, but so can you, and my surmises will be no more fruitful than yours. I rule many people, tribesmen who have been loyal to Rome and who have given you very little trouble, Favonius, and whatever happened to that man was incidental, a minor outburst of someone’s frustration. I refuse to make you any promises. That would be ludicrous.”

“I wonder whose frustration burns so deeply?” Favonius rapped back.

Prasutugas summoned a smile. “The annoyance was light and fleeting,” he replied smoothly. “Use your good sense, Favonius. The man was tortured a little, a very little, and then freed. No living hand struck him down. He died of his own fright.”

Favonius hissed sharply through his teeth and stamped away, and Prasutugas went out through the gate, down to the copse, and in under the trees. No living hand struck him down, he kept telling himself. That is true. But to have been murdered by his own terror he must have been pushed over the edge of sanity. Boudicca, the poor young man was a Roman. How could he have understood his part? Annis. I know you, my love, I know your daily burden, that I made suddenly too heavy to bear. I, too, am responsible for the soldier’s death. When he reached the hut he called her sharply outside and she left the skins and came to him. He drew her away from the crowd that always stood about the hut, and when they were alone he said to her quietly, “You were hunting last night, Boudicca. What quarry did you flush?” If you lie to me now it will all be over between us, he thought so clearly that he was afraid he had spoken the words. I will put you away from me in body if not in soul. He was perfectly calm, everything within him poised and waiting for her answer, and she smiled sadly across at him, squinting a little against the bright sun, her red hair fluttering under her square chin in the warm breeze.

“You do not know for sure, do you, Prasutugas? And if I never tell you, you will be left with nothing but suspicions. Therefore I will tell you. Lovernius and I set loose the Annis.”

Relief flooded him and he exhaled, then anger coursed through him, washing away the weakness. He did not need to ask her why she had done such a desperate thing but he mastered the rage and said, “Did the hounds bring him down?”

She looked at her feet. “No. He got away. Think of it, Prasutugas! An Annis has never outrun the hounds before! Oh, I know what you think of me, I know how mad my act must look to you, but don’t you think it odd that an Annis escaped?” She looked up again, and now he saw that tears were not far away. “The gods have left Icenia. They went years ago, when the Druids went away, but I did not believe until now.” Her lips shook. “Andrasta has gone. Only the Roman gods have power in Icenia now.”

So she did not know. In spite of the warmth of the morning, a shiver went through him as he thought of that face disfigured by horror, and he grasped her shoulder and shook his head. “No, Boudicca, Andrasta is still the Queen of Victory, though she may be forgotten by all but you and Lovernius. She heard the spells.”

For a moment she frowned, bewildered; then convulsively, she clutched his wrist in both hands. “Prasutugas! What did Favonius have to show you? You know something!”

He stood quite still, and she did not miss the note of sadness in his words. “Favonius showed me the body of a young man with the marks of the Annis blooding on him and the odor of the Annis scent in his hair.”

“But I do not understand! The dogs did not slay him, I swear it to you, Prasutugas! I am telling you the truth!”

“I know. He was not torn to pieces, Boudicca. He died of fright. I wish you could have seen his face.”

Amazed, she let her arms fall limply to her sides and Prasutugas released her. “So Andrasta took him after all,” she whispered. “I cannot believe it. She came to him in the forest…”

“He was killed by fear, and that is all we know,” he broke in emphatically. “Boudicca, I must ask you to swear an oath to me that the Annis will never be hunted again in Icenia for as long as I am ricon.”

“You ought to tell Favonius, oughtn’t you?” she said softly. “Prasutugas, I am so sorry. Already it begins again between us, doesn’t it?”

“No,” he smiled at her. “This time it is different. This time there are no secrets in our little war.”

“None. That I do promise. And I will swear the oath by Andrasta never to hunt the Annis again, if you will swear not to tell Favonius where the weapons are.”

“I will swear, but if I discover them through another, Boudicca, then I am bound to report them.”

“You never will!” She grinned impudently. “How good it is to swear by Andrasta once more!”

They parted, she to find Lovernius and he to order his farming freemen. I do not deny you, Andrasta, he thought as he made his way to the stables. I have never denied you. But I do not wish to live my life in fear of you. You must understand that your power was curtailed by me on behalf of the people. I do not begrudge you one Roman, but I will not see you spread your phantom wings over the whole of Icenia again. The forests are yours, and with that you must be content. He mounted and set off to ford the river, and thence through the woods to his fields. All the way his mind was full of Icenia’s two queens, his magnificent, impulsive wife, and the black mystery of Andrasta. His thoughts strayed once to the news out of the west, but he, like Favonius, dismissed it as unimportant to Icenia. The west was a mirage, the west was another world. Here his crops were springing up fragile and green, and his new calves and lambs cavorted over his meadows to remind him that he was rich and secure. If his wound throbbed with his horse’s stride, it only served to bring to mind a past that he had successfully obliterated and that he would never allow to come again to his people. Rome had put its strong, sheltering arms around the land, and Prasutugas was happy.