The Eagle and the Raven (80 page)

She slipped quietly along the deserted paths that ran behind the wooden houses of the chiefs, and passed at the back of the Council hall, carrying with her a moment full of Andocretus’s voice, raised in song within. Under her feet the ground began to slope away to the earthwalls and the gloomed moor beyond, and then the river. The guest huts clustered under the wall, to the right of the tall, unguarded gates, sunk deep in shadow. No lights showed beneath the doorskins. Aricia walked cautiously to the doorway of the first and raised the skins, but it was empty. The second hut was also cold and dark. But when her hand gingerly pushed aside the soft leather of the third she saw the faint orange glow of a dying fire and a still, softly breathing form on the cot, an almost indiscernible length of body dimly silhouetted. She stepped soundlessly within, letting the skins rustle closed behind her. She stood for a while, struggling to breathe as fear choked her, and she saw in her imagination the spells of protection and warning hovering over that sleeping monstrosity. Then she slipped the knife from her belt and glided to the bed.

The Druid lay on her back, a blanket draped carelessly over her, one snake-gripped arm hanging loosely to the rugs. Aricia bent down. The eyes were closed, the mouth was gently parted. Now I must not think, Aricia told herself. Do it, and afterwards think. Of Venutius running home to Brigantia, to me. Of Venutius rocking in the cart on his way to Lindum. But she stayed frozen, both hands clutching the hilt of the knife, her eyes on the peaceful, small face, so human now, so defenceless, so…so ordinary. Under her long cloak her body’s muscles tightened and loosened in spasms of terror, and cold struck through the rugs to cramp her feet and calves. But she could not move, she could neither strike nor withdraw. She began to cry quietly, unaware that she did so, the tears coursing down her face. If he were here this would not be happening to me, she thought over and over…if he were here…holding me back from myself…if he were here… Then she saw the glitter of eyes open in the darkness and her heart turned over and began to pound. The Druid did not move.

“No,” she said. “No, Aricia. I do not want your soul after all. You may keep it. It is worth nothing to me.” She closed her eyes again and turned over, and the snakes moved sinuously, easily, with her. After a moment Aricia lowered her arm and crept out of the hut, wounded, a broken animal.

In the morning the Druid came to say goodbye. Domnall was with her, and they both stood before Aricia on the porch of her house, new sunlight dancing joyously around them. She met them coolly, her shoulders back, holding out her hand to Domnall. He leaned forward and took it, meeting her eyes with his own. The warmth she read there was not for her and she knew it.

“So, shield-bearer, you are really going,” she said. “To hunger, constant weariness, and in the end a sword through your gut or an arrow in your chest. And all for nothing. Will you consider again?”

He took his hand from hers. “No, Lady.”

“And you, poor Lady?” the Druid said, those pebble eyes black on Aricia. “Will you consider again?”

I hate you, Aricia thought suddenly. I hate your arrogant purity, I hate your ignorant honor, your blithe, stubborn self-righteousness. You were not worth killing after all.

“No,” she snapped back.

She did not wish them a safe, peaceful journey, but went into her house and slammed the door. Leaning against it, her eyes closed, she felt a change within her. The heat of shame was gone, and her head was clear. She was left with only her hatred and her maniacal will, for every other emotion seemed to have died with her shame. Demanded or not, her soul had left her to follow the snake woman into the west.

Spring and summer pursued their accustomed courses. Lambing came and went, crops sprang up green and healthy, cattle wandered slowly over the bare, rolling land, and traders from Rome thronged river and coast. Autumn passed, and during winter, Aricia spent much time riding between her town and the fort at Lindum to dine with Caesius Nasica. They discussed the year’s levy of Brigantian freemen to be sent to Rome, and talked of the sudden death of Claudius, poisoned, it was said, by a dish of mushrooms that the Empress Agrippina had prepared. The new contender for the purple was seventeen-year-old Nero, a vicious fool, in love with a nonexistent histrionic ability that led him to bore the courtiers with a feeble, piping singing voice, who fancied himself the new Augustus. Of more immediate interest to Aricia and Nasica was the state of her southwestern border. Many of her own chiefs patrolled it with the Twentieth where it touched Deceangli territory, and so far she had held her other borders without Roman aid, a fact that every succeeding legate of the Ninth had carefully noted in his dealings with the Brigantian ricon. She was worth all the gold and goods poured into her country, but only just. If the westerners decided to force Brigantia into combat and edge into the lowlands, the headquarters of the Ninth would move to her town and take over her kingdom, but the west was not yet that desperate.

W
INTER
, A.D. 54-55

Chapter Thirty-three

A
RICIA
lay on the dining couch in Nasica’s spartan house. A littered table was between them, and behind her a native servant stood to pour her wine. It was late. They had eaten and drunk and eaten some more, while outside the snow fell straight and silent. The lamps had burned low and their conversation had slowed to an occasional dutiful, social comment. Nasica lifted his cup from the table and leaned back, pillowing his head in his other palm.

“I heard a piece of news today that might interest you, Cartimandua,” he said. “Actually it is only a rumor, but a strong one.” It had been almost a year since Domnall and the Druid had left Brigantia with light steps and lighter hearts, and he eyed her thoughtfully, carefully, his gaze level and bright with anticipation. “Word is going around that the men of the west have elected a new arviragus.” He waited for her reaction, but she settled herself more comfortably into the cushions and stifled a yawn.

“I find that hard to believe,” she said. “They have been on the move all summer, and the legions have only just gone into winter quarters. They have not had time to Council all together.”

“The news I hear is that the decision was handed down by the master Druid himself, subject to each chieftain’s approval. There were no objections. Shall I tell you who was chosen?”

“If you like.” She smiled at him briefly, noting sleepily how the wine had brought a dull flush to his heavy, pockmarked features and swelled the flesh around his bleak eyes.

“Oh I like. And so will you. I have been saving this information until the end of the evening. I thought it might put the crowning touch on a good dinner.” He smiled back at her, his mouth conveying only his ever present cynicism, his eyes an unwavering stare of observation. “The choice has fallen on Venutius, your husband. It seems that he is their new arviragus.”

Nasica’s smile widened as he saw the pale face blanch. He watched clinically as she leaned forward to pick up her cup, an almost imperceptible shake in her fingers as she brought it to her mouth and emptied it quickly.

“No,” she said with a little gasp. “They would never choose him. Never! He is not to be trusted, he cooperated with me and with Rome for too many years. He…”

“He is to be trusted now,” Nasica replied. “In fact, the choice is a logical one since he comes into the west from the outside. By choosing him no one tribe can be incited to jealousy of another because its chieftain has gained eminence. He brings a backbreaking load of wrongs and personal grievances with him. Hatred for Rome because of what she has done to his beloved Brigantia, and hatred for the tame natives—you, in particular, Cartimandua. You must admit that you made his life a living torment. And he has had three years in which to prove himself. But all that is behind him now. He is arviragus. He won’t come back to you, no matter how you thirst for him. Personally, I find the situation amusing. You, one of our staunchest allies, married to our greatest enemy.”

She snapped her fingers impatiently and the servant moved quietly from the shadows to refill her cup. Once again she tipped it high, licking her lips, then she flung it onto the table, where it clashed and rattled amid the debris, coming to rest against Nasica’s empty plate. “I fail to see the humor. What will the governor say now?”

“Nothing. Why should he? I have sent on the news, and he will remember who it was that gave Caradoc to the emperor. He will not trouble you, Cartimandua.”

She turned onto her back and lay staring at the ceiling, one arm raised across her forehead and the other tapping the back of the couch. Venutius as arviragus. That fumbling, hot-tempered innocent chosen by the master himself to pick up Caradoc’s mantle… Her lip curled contemptuously. Impossible! Caradoc had had a brilliant, devious mind, a mind that could outwit Scapula time and again, a mind that projected power to his followers, a mind that was rich, whole, unrelenting. Ah Sataida, Caradoc, Caradoc! Venutius was a simple, foolish child, unable to plan his way from the north of his country to the south, let alone plot and carry out military operations year after year. Or was he? Have I ever seen him as a man? she wondered. Perhaps I do not know him at all. Suddenly she was greedy for him, and on the wave of this terrible hunger came an idea. She sat up unsteadily.

“Nasica, order the servants out.” With eyebrows raised he did as he was bid, and when the door had closed quietly he turned back to her. She was sitting upright on the edge of the couch, her hands pressed tightly together. “Now,” she said. “What will you give me for another arviragus chained at your door?”

You bitch, he thought, looking at her with admiration, seeing her tongue flick out to moisten red lips, the gleam of excitement in her eyes. You fiendish little bitch. How long will it be before there is no one and nothing left to sell, and you begin to feed on yourself? “The price will be the same, I imagine. I will have to send to the governor for confirmation. What makes you think you can do it?”

“While I am living he will not come near me, but dying… I think, Nasica, that I must begin to die, very slowly, very painfully.”

He lifted his cup in salute and for a moment their eyes met in perfect understanding. Then she said, “Tell me, legate, how do Roman men make love?”

He was not taken aback. He had seen it coming for a long time and had been waiting with amusement. Now she was frenetic, fired, and her movements were jerky and continual. Her hands flew over the table and about her hair, in a tension within her like a tightly coiled spring. The languid sleepy woman had gone, swept away on the tide of this tight, hot-eyed animal. He knew better than she herself what had caused this sudden burst of energy and lust, and something within him answered her impudent invitation with a callous affirmative. “I have no idea,” he responded easily, “seeing that I have never been driven to that extremity. But I know how native women make love. With reluctance.”

She laughed, and leaving her couch she came and stood over him. “Does a commander stoop to rape?”

“Not usually. It is better for a commander to buy his women.” The smile had left his face and he lay relaxed and waiting, his eyes echoing the sarcasm of his words, and she began to strip the jewelry from her arms.

Aricia shut herself up within her house, and Caesius Nasica remarked to his officers during a staff meeting that the Brigantian queen was very ill. Before long the troops were speculating on the nature of her sickness and whether she would die, leaving Brigantia in the far more capable hands of a praetor. The rumor filtered slowly through the forts and garrisons of the lowlands and from thence to the native populations of the towns. By the time a new spring came eagerly elbowing winter out of the way the story had grown. Cartimandua was dying of a wasting disease that shrunk the flesh from her bones and made her unable to stand. Some said it was her goddess’s judgment upon her, and a fitting retribution for her betrayal of Caradoc. Some said that the Romans were poisoning her. Some said that now, nearing her end, she had repented of her dishonesties and lay on her bed weeping and tearing her clothes, calling for her husband. Only her most loyal chiefs, Nasica, and the governor knew the truth, and all waited with bated breath for the gossip to reach Venutius’s ears.

Spring waxed hot and strong, and Brigantia celebrated Beltine with gaiety. But Aricia, pacing from window to door and back to window in the dim, stifling prison of her Roman house, saw neither the sun dancing on the hill outside nor the black, star-frosted sky. She waited to feel the moment, the right moment, when she could be sure that Venutius had word of her distress and she could send Andocretus to him to confirm the rumors that would surely, she told herself, twist his heart and darken his days. She settled the affairs of the tuath through Andocretus and went no more to the Council hall. She had not bothered to replace Domnall with a new shield-bearer, for her arms had forgotten how to hold sword or shield. Finally she sent for Andocretus.

“Tell me the mood of the tuath,” she requested. He closed the door quietly and came to her across the soft sheepskin rugs, his legs bare and tanned with hot sun, his blond hair loose and already bleaching to a gleaming white-gold from days spent with his flocks.

He shrugged. “It has not changed. Your chiefs know that you are not ill, but as Venutius took with him all whose loyalties were suspect, it does not matter. The freemen are busy with sowing and birthing, and I have distributed seed as you ordered, making sure they know it came from Rome.”

“Then if I send to Venutius now, and he comes, no Brigantian hand will be raised in his defense?”

He allowed his gaze to travel the sun-starved, pale skin, and the drooping shoulders. The air of lethargy and boredom that enveloped her reached to him also, making him feel suddenly tired. “None at all. No Brigantian rushed to save Caradoc either. There was only your husband, Lady, and now he and his men have gone. You have nothing to fear from Brigantia anymore.”

She glanced at him sharply, but innocence shone on his brown face. “Very well. I want you to take a chief and horses and go into the west. Find Venutius. Tell him that I am dying and that I wish to see him and beg his forgiveness. Make up anything else you like, I don’t care, but convince him that he must come.”

“How am I to reach him before the western wildmen shove a sword through my gut?”

“Do you think the rumor of my illness has come to his ears yet?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can be sure that no strange tribesman taken in western territory will be slain before he has had time to give his news. Venutius will be mad for news of me. His anxiety will be destroying him, I know, Andocretus. He will be grasping at every whisper that comes to him out of Brigantia. You will reach him in safety.”

“What of Rome?”

She walked away from him and slumped onto her unmade bed. “The governor is sulking. He wants to go home. Now that Scapula’s western frontier has been refortified and secured he will not push the rebels because he simply cannot be bothered. He allows the forts and garrisons to defend themselves but he will not let them mount any attack. He feels that he has done his duty now that he has cleaned out Siluria for good. Nasica told me so. You will be able to cross the battle lines without hindrance.”

“Gallus wants the emperor to order a full withdrawal from Albion,” Andocretus said softly.

“That is why he does nothing. But he is a fool. If he would take a tour of his western frontier himself, he would understand how completely he plays into Venutius’s hands by giving the rebels this long respite. Time to eat and grow strong again, time to rest, time to plot. But he does not care. He is nothing but a time-server, and if he leaves Albion before Venutius explodes out of the west once more he will be luckier than he deserves.”

Aricia looked down at the hands that had begun to twine about each other of their own volition at the mention of Gallus’s desire for the permanent abandonment of Albion. The thought of Rome going away forever was too terrible for her mind to contemplate, but the subsequent thought, the one that brought real, incapacitating fear, was the bloody, fire-rimmed picture of the chieftains of the west, riding out of the mountains at last, like violent gods hunting her down. It will not happen, she told herself vehemently. If I deliver Venutius to the governor it will not happen.

“Our governors have not been lucky men,” she said as lightly as she was able, and Andocretus felt his mouth dry up. Roman luck was a weak, pale thing beside Albion’s hatred, and he must go on an errand for Rome and face the hostile eyes of Albion’s forests, walk the narrow tracks of her mountains, with only Roman luck to ward away her virulence.

“I hate war!” he said suddenly. “My father used to taunt me and call me a coward because I loved my songs and not my sword, but I am not a coward. I simply hate war.”

“Poor Andocretus,” she said gently. “You should have been a Druid,” and he did not hear the contempt in her voice. She knew that he was gifted and handsome and weak, but not in the way Venutius was weak—not weak with too much honor or too much love. Andocretus was weak with too much self-seeking, a mediocrity in everything but his talent. In the days when bards had been Druids he would have failed at both. But he was good to the eye, young and tall and fresh, and she rose to kiss him longingly.

“Go now,” she said. “Practice your lying. If your eyes falter when you face Venutius, he will know all, and here. Take him this.” She strode to her table and flung a heavy gold necklace to him, encrusted with jet and seed pearls. “This will melt his big heart. It was his wedding gift to me.” He caught it and stuffed it into the pouch at his belt. “If you are unlucky enough to tell him your tale with a Druid standing by, and you are accused of falsehood, point out to him that the Druithin have always hated and been suspicious of me. Bring him back, Andocretus, as you love me!”

“But I do not love you, Lady,” he quipped as he went to the door and opened it. “Does Nasica?” Then he began to laugh and she laughed also, and he closed the door behind him and walked out the gate under the steady summer sun.

He struck out due west, taking with him another young chief, a member of Aricia’s bodyguard, and they went unarmed. When Scapula disarmed the tribes he had allowed certain ricons and their nobles to retain their weapons, but the majority of Brigantians went without defences and Andocretus had decided that it would be safer for him and his companion to be seen as helpless. They did not hurry. They ambled across the Brigantian hills, their tans deepening under the ceaseless blowing of the hot wind and the bright cascade of sunlight. Their eyes swept across the vast, rolling horizon, and they filled their nostrils full of the odors of bending grasses and hidden flowers. They sang gay songs, and Andocretus was glad to be free of his aging, darkly complex mistress for a while. He could understand her desire to capture an arviragus on Rome’s behalf but her constant appetite for a husband she did not love, indeed, one she had fought with through all the years since her return to Brigantia, puzzled him. He put her behind him and did not look ahead, content to savor the lengthening hours of sweet summer daylight, the nights swathed in his cloak listening to the stars’ faint music. He and his friend ate well, demanding hospitality from the village chiefs as they went or sharing onions and leeks with odd Roman patrols that moved freely across Brigantia. It was with reluctance that they came at last to the western coast and turned south, walking their horses hock-deep in the gray, swirling foam that sucked at their hanging feet.