The Eagle and the Raven (77 page)

He went to the arenas alone, or with his father and Plautius, and sat for hours with elbow on knee and chin in hand, gazing down upon the parade of death with a brooding, closed face, while the thousands around him screamed and cheered. The Catuvellaunians had never developed the taste for organized slaughter that moved the Romans to spend hours watching breathlessly, while life after life was ended in the sand and sunshine of the arenas. But they often went to see the gladiatorial contests, seldom losing the money they wagered, so expert were the eyes they ran over the protagonists, and the chariot races brought to them complete forgetfulness of who or where they were for a time, so deep was their involvement.

“Valog is fighting today,” his uncle said to him one bright morning. “Will you come? Rufus and Gladys will.”

“I suppose so. You should give that man his freedom, Aulus. You can afford a dozen more like him.”

“He will ask for it when he is ready and, besides, what would he do with it if he had it? He could go back to his tribe and die of boredom, or brawl here in Rome until he became a nuisance and had to be put out of the way.”

“That would not matter.”

“Even to him?”

“No. The only reason he has never lost a fight is that he refuses to die unfree. Take him off the wheel, Aulus. You have plenty more. It would not matter to you.”

“He makes money for me.”

“I will take his place. Free though, of course!”

Plautius laughed. “You may be a mighty warrior, Llyn, but I would place no bets on you!”

“Why not?”

“Because you would not last a week. You hold your honor higher than your will to live.”

In the end the whole family walked through the early afternoon brilliance to the arena, passing under its high, cool arches, up the stone stairs, and out to where the stone seats ran in a sweeping circle to enclose smooth, glaring sand. The seats were packed tight, and as Plautius made his way to his place heads were turned and fingers raised to point in his direction, for no gladiator had survived as long as Valog and the crowds flocked to see his reputation grow. One day he would go down, everyone knew it, and no one wanted to miss the hour when it happened. Until then, however, he was the object of hysterical acclaim. They settled themselves on the cushions the slaves had brought for them, and their canopy was unfolded. Gladys leaned out over the row of heads in front, craning to see if the emperor’s box was occupied, and Pudens gently drew her back.

“He is there,” he said. “It would be better if you did not remind him of his troubles. Llyn, did you know that Claudius offered to buy Valog from Aulus for a ridiculously high price? But Valog said that he would not fight for the emperor.”

“Neither would I,” Llyn retorted. “It would be thumbs down no matter what when Claudius got tired of his gladiator. I would like to go down and wish him good luck, but I suppose he will be waving his talisman about and muttering incantations. Who is he fighting today, Aulus?”

A strange look, half-embarrassment and half-challenge, passed over the older man’s austere face. “New blood, Llyn. A tribesman from Albion, owned by one of the Greeks.”

The Catuvellaun looked at him blankly, then Caradoc barked, “Which tribe?”

“I am not sure, but I think he is a Trinovantian. I have not seen him, but the Greeks have an eye for a promising fighter. He will be worth seeing.”

No one made further comment. Formality dropped around the family like a hunting net and though they did not move, it seemed to draw them away from Plautius and Pudens. Gladys withdrew her hand from Pudens’s arm and her aunt turned her head from her husband to study the restless crowd around the imperial family. Then the trumpets shouted their arrogant fanfare and the gladiators came pacing slowly, wrapped in a fleeting regality as they made their way to stand before the emperor and give him their salute. There was a silence. “We who are about to die, salute you,” Caradoc thought. We who are about to die… Always the expectation, the darkness held at bay by pride and determination over the years of battle, and yet here those words have a potency stronger than the day-to-day terror that lurked in the western forests. How many times has Valog spoken those words aloud to the emperor? Do they bear for him, as they do for us, a meaning that hangs precariously with each moment spent in this city? Claudius nodded indifferently, and the gladiators suddenly broke into pairs and ran to their positions.

Pudens turned to Gladys. “They will fight one pair at a time today, I hope. Do you want something, Gladys?”

“No. I am not thirsty yet. Look! There is Valog! Oh Llyn, the Trinovantian! How big he is!”

Llyn grunted, his eyes, also, on the tall, swaggering chieftain with the midnight hair who was glancing about him with such disdain, holding his net and trident high for the approval of the people. Then Llyn stiffened and turned incredulously to his father. “The man is wearing a torc! Father, he is a slave, he belongs to a Greek, and yet he has the impudence to sport a torc! I will wager that his father and grandfather were slaves to Cunobelin, and now he is here in Rome, strutting as though he owned the whole of Albion!”

“It does not matter anymore,” Caradoc replied. “We are all slaves of Rome, Llyn.”

Pudens overheard the remark but said nothing. Below, combat had begun, but the crowd watched with only half its attention. No gladiator had yet clawed his way into the great glare of popularity that Valog had won, and the people waited, their boredom a steady undercurrent of laughter and conversation. Plautius and Pudens talked politics desultorily and the Catuvellaunians sat tightly and uncomfortably, their eyes on the two natives. Claudius also looked bored. He sprawled back in his chair, well under the cover of his canopy, and those watching him could see the sunlight flash from his rings as he drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Then the trumpets spoke again. Valog lifted his mighty shoulders, drew his sword, and strutted out from the shadows into the full light of the arena. The crowd rose. “Valog! Valog!” they screamed and Valog slowly made his circuit. Even from where he sat, Llyn could glimpse the grin under his brown beard. Then he shouted something to the Trinovantian, a taunting superiority in his voice, and the Trinovantian answered with a shake of his trident and a leap that brought him within the whistling circle of Valog’s sword. The people sat down and began to shout.

“Valog will win again,” Pudens said. “The other barbarian is too sure of himself and he has not yet learned to ignore the yells of the crowd. But how light on his feet he is! Will Valog kill him, I wonder?”

“It depends on the crowd,” Llyn said. “Listen to them. They would let him kill the emperor himself in return for such a show.”

“Ah!” Gladys hissed. “The Trinovantian is down!”

But he did not stay down. Before Valog could move in the Trinovantian had bounced away, flicking his net free of Valog’s sword. A cup of sadness was suddenly thrust toward Caradoc’s mouth by some invisible hand but he angrily refused it. The honor of Albion, he thought. The clean, mighty state of champion of the tribe, reduced to this. Two slaves battling each other for the adoration of an ignorant populace. But I will not grieve. There is no point in it.

Suddenly there was a hush, as though the people had drawn breath and then been unable to let it go, and in the shocked silence Gladys craned forward. “What is it? What has happened?” she whispered, and her aunt said tersely, “Valog is down. The net tripped him.”

“The net did not trip him!” Caradoc said loudly. “The cowardly Trinovantian threw it but he stuck out his foot as well. Who else saw that, I wonder?”

“Get up, Valog, get up!” Llyn said fiercely under his breath, his whole body tensed on the edge of the seat, but Valog did not get up. He struggled, and the more he kicked the tighter the net pulled itself around him. Scattered shouts rang out. “Get up, get up! Valog!” Then the whole arena was on its feet, chanting. “Get…up! Get…up!” The Trinovantian made no move to help him, and then Llyn knew. Most of the people had not seen that cowardly foot go speeding with the net, and their shouts grew louder, uglier. They still called for Valog to rise but their voices were impatient, as though he had toppled to the ground on purpose and lay there begging their sympathy. The Trinovantian stalked to his victim, placed a foot on his flailing arm, and raised the trident, holding his other arm high to the crowd.

“Surely the people will not accept!” Gladys said, shaken. “What is the matter with Valog? Is he ill?”

Plautius looked about him grimly. “I would put nothing past the owner of that healthy Trinovantian animal. He has the makings of the next favorite, but the first five or six bouts are crucial, and many potential favorites have never lived to take laurels. I wonder.”

“Ah, no,” Gladys whispered. The shouting had stopped.

The people stood still and their mood came gusting to the family, irritated, petulant, and capricious. Valog had not fought well today. Valog had failed them. Perhaps Valog was getting old. One by one, tier by tier, the hands came out, waved, and the thumbs turned down. The Trinovantian followed the decision, turning his head slowly to see his majority, then he looked at the emperor. Claudius rose and came to the edge of the box, his own gaze traveling the sullen crowd. Shrugging, he raised an arm.

“No,” Llyn murmured. “He was downed by a trick. No. No!” He got to his feet. “No!” he shouted, and he jumped down onto the next tier, pushing the people out of the way. He leaped again, stumbling, regaining his balance, and before Caradoc knew what he was doing he had tumbled into the sand of the arena.

“Aulus, stop him!” the elder Gladys said sharply, and Pudens half rose in amazement from his seat. Llyn had picked himself up and was striding along the front of the arena, his arms held high, berating the astounded crowds as he went.

“Up, up!” he shouted. “Savages! Barbarians! Lovers of the stink of blood! Raise your thumbs, you cannibals, you slaves! You will never see another like Valog. Do you think that this treacherous man will delight you with his filthy tricks? Valog is worth a hundred, a thousand, of him, and you. Carrion! Vultures!” He paraded before them, insulting them, taunting them, and all at once a ripple of laughter began and spread quickly. The thumbs wavered. Claudius dropped his arm and waited. “Up!” Llyn screamed. “Up for a brave man, up for a champion! Has he not pleased you many times?” The laughter grew. The crowd had loosened, loving suddenly and with a fickle reversal this insolent, foolhardy young barbarian in his outlandish breeches and garishly patterned tunic. A thumb went up, and then another and another as Llyn continued to shout at them, but they no longer cared what he said. They worshipped him, begging for more, and their thumbs rose high. Claudius beckoned, and Llyn ran to him and bowed.

“You are either very stupid, or the gods of Rome have decided to love you, Linus,” Claudius called down to him. “You could just as easily have been torn apart by them.”

“But I was not,” Llyn shouted back, smiling. “I am indeed stupid, and your gods do indeed love me. Is it up or down, Emperor?”

It was impossible to despise Llyn. Claudius raised his arm again, and the thumb turned to the sky. The crowd roared hysterically, and Llyn bowed again and ran to Valog, pushing the Trinovantian out of the way and kneeling to untangle the net.

“Are you hurt, Valog?” he asked quickly.

Valog sat up, rubbing his ankle. “No. He tripped me. Me!” Rising to his feet he waved his thanks, then he turned to Llyn. “I do not like to be in your debt, Catuvellaun. My honor is diminished until I repay you.”

“There is no honor here,” Llyn returned with a sneer, “as you well know. It did not please me to see them waste your talent, that is all.”

They glared at each other for a moment, then the big Gaul stepped to Llyn and embraced him.

Llyn did not return to his seat. He pushed his way out of the arena and walked slowly home. Caradoc had expected him to make for the taverns like an exhausted homing bird but was surprised to find him sitting in the reception room, with a scroll across his knees. He greeted his father with a smile, and Caradoc asked him what he was doing.

“At the moment I am reading,” he replied. “And tomorrow I am going to bully Rufus into taking me into the senate house.”

“Why? You will never be allowed inside the Curia.”

“Oh yes I will. I want to see how this mighty empire is administered. I am going to be a senator one day.”

Caradoc stared at him and Llyn went on smiling, but the warmth of the mouth had faded to a cool cynicism and the eyes held no expression.

Two weeks later, on a sweet, windy evening, Caelte and the younger Eurgain sought out Caradoc as he walked pensively in his garden. He watched them come to him together over the sunset-blooded grass with their heads lowered, and something in their manner warned him of what was to come. He greeted them quietly, then turned from them and leaned against the wall where the city lay pink and peaceful and the river was still. “You have ill news for me,” he said. “I know it. Tell me.”

Eurgain went to stand beside him, putting a hand on his arm. “I love you, my father,” she said unexpectedly. “I loved you in the mountains, and every day I feared for your life, but I think I love you more now, when the days of danger are gone and all that remains is help lessness.” He turned his head in puzzlement and she kissed him. He saw that her eyes were blurred with tears. “I have come to say goodbye to you. I want to go away.”

So it had come, drifting like the melancholy autumn mists of Albion into his soul, another parting, another face that he would never see again. “From the beginning we have all been together,” he said to her. “We left Camulodunon together, we fought among strange kin together, and together we have endured this exile. There is a unity within the family that goes deeper than the loyalty owed to blood kin, Eurgain. Will you break it now?”

“Yes, I will,” she replied, the tears brimming over. “I must. I cannot live my life chained to this house, and I do not want a husband who will move me to just such another house, and make my life a daily round of little duties, little pleasures, until I die still imprisoned in this city. The emperor will not miss me, and when he does it will not matter. It is you and Llyn he must keep under his old eye.”