The Eagle and the Raven (85 page)

“No, Lord,” Emrys replied, though no other words in all his life had cost him so dear. “Let Sine and your nephew die. Put their blood away from you and let us do the thing we have planned. If they could speak to you they would only curse you for endangering the cause of freedom for their sakes. They would say that the responsibility is too great for them.”

But Venutius, tight-lipped and resolute, brushed aside his words. “It can be done, Emrys. Look at it strategically. With Aricia dead the Roman hold on the north will be weakened and the adjustments the governor will have to make will drain even more men from the legions in the south.” He went to the earth, picking up a stick in order to trace his thoughts on the ground, and unwillingly Emrys squatted alongside, his terror for Sine now overlaid with another fear. He did not believe that Venutius was strong enough to slay Aricia, and he saw tragedy as the end of any new move. The change in the arviragus had been too sudden.

“Now,” said Venutius, drawing rapidly with his twig. “Instead of falling on the Twentieth once more at Deva, and then marching south through the foothills to the Second at Glevum and so across to Camulodunon, we can move against Aricia, destroy the town, and attack the Ninth at Lindum. Then straight south and west. We deal with the Second, then Camulodunon. By then the Twentieth will surely be on the march south, and we can turn from Camulodunon and intercept it.”

“It is too complex,” Emrys objected. “We should fear the Ninth, Venutius. We are mountain fighters, as are the legionaries of the Twentieth, but the Ninth has been quartered in Brigantia’s open country for years, and it will be too difficult for us to fight a legion that is not bottled in a valley but can wheel and maneuver freely on the moors. The original idea is best. Leave the Ninth until the lowlands become ours and we have gathered men from the tribes there—enough men to overwhelm Nasica with numbers alone. Besides, we must cover too much ground if we go your way.”

Venutius’s hand still traced out the battle paths. “The Twentieth is alert and waiting for us. That cannot be avoided. But if we slip past it to the Ninth, unexpected, we can take Nasica by surprise.”

“Not if we tarry in Brigantia.” Emrys’s foot came out and gently scuffed the map away. “Do not do it, Arviragus. It will not work.”

“It will. I will make it work. Aricia will die, and then everything will work.”

“Nothing we can do will save Sine and Manaw, Venutius.”

They fought silently, eye to eye, the big-shouldered, flame-headed chieftain and a lean, stubborn Emrys. Then Venutius snapped, “Look you, Ordovician. We have the horses, we have the manpower and the tactical advantage. We also have the will, and we have had the time to grow strong again, and cunning. It does not matter whether we cut the Twentieth to pieces first or the Ninth. We will win. The governor is an old, bad-tempered man with a grudge against everyone. Young Nero sits in Rome, pondering the complete withdrawal of all troops from Albion on the governor’s advice, and the legionaries know it. The fight is going out of them. Why die now, they say, when in a few months these shores may be abandoned for good. I say to you that no matter whether we march east or south and east, we will have the victory. “

“In that case we will have plenty of time to deal with Brigantia when the Romans have gone.”

“No.” Venutius’s mouth grimaced in hate, or passion. “I want her dead now.”

“You have no right to intrude private vengeance, Arviragus.”

Venutius stabbed him with his fierce gaze. “Private, Emrys? Do you not want her dead as well?”

Emrys continued to look at him steadily, but he was nearing the end of his control. “Not at the expense of a sea of unnecessary bloodshed.” Venutius spun on his heel and went away.

Emrys did not attend the Council. He took his cloak and a blanket and walked into the forest until the sounds of the thousands who gathered to hear Venutius’s words were far behind, and still he paced, his thoughts succeeding one another as silently and regularly as his soft footfalls. I could kill him, but what good would that do? The Silures, the Demetae, and the remnants of the Deceangli would not follow me, and the Ordovices cannot march alone. We have all become too dependent on each other for that. I could speak against him in Council, but then the host would become divided, and precious time would be lost while we quarreled. This time your visions played you false master, my strange-eyed cousin. The Druithin have made a mistake at last, and what a mistake! Why this mistake, cousin, why have your dreams failed you now? Is it an omen for the future? Is your power waning at the end? Venutius is no Caradoc.

He is flawed, like a rock with a seam of sand running through it.

Emrys found a tiny waterfall, splashing through green ferns down a tumbled rock face that was hidden in treetops, and he cupped a hand and drank. He sat beside the tinkling, ice-cold curtain and drew his cloak about him, folding his hands beneath it and staring into the forest. Sine, my Sine. I cannot remember a time when I was without you, and now time stretches ahead of me, an infinity of meaningless, dead days, carrying me from nowhere into nothing, and fate laughs at your pathetic, pitiful ending. You and I together. You and I apart. Forever. And the last chance at freedom is going also, lost because of a woman, one cheap, dishonored woman. I sacrifice you, I lay down your life—for what? For the chance of a chance. Die well, beloved, as you have lived. Sine… Pain crushed him at last to the earth. He put his face in his hands and wept.

He stayed alone in the forest that night, and when he returned to the camp in the early morning he found the tents being struck and the chiefs readying themselves to move. He sought out Madoc, who greeted him tersely, his black beard bristling and his wrinkle-set eyes bright with annoyance.

“I am getting too old for this constant running,” he complained. “I should fall on my sword and let my son champion the Silures. Would that I had died under Caradoc’s command!” He grumbled a little more, quietly, then Emrys asked, “Is his mind set on this foolish thing?”

“It is. We march immediately. Yet it need not be so foolish, Emrys. There will be more ground to cover, of course, and less room for mistakes, but we have a good chance of success.”

Mistakes. A good chance. Emrys suddenly laughed. “Caradoc warned us that we should never attempt pitched battle, and we did not listen. That is, not until we were scattered and he was a prisoner. Then we were wise, Madoc, oh how wise! We smashed the Twentieth by making good plans, even as we should be doing now, instead of crossing Albion in full view of everyone and then standing against a legion that will be ranked and waiting. All our victories since the Twentieth have been because we finally learned sense. Now we are about to repeat every mistake we ever made, and we will be defeated, and you and I will die still crawling about in our own mountains.”

Madoc looked at him critically, noting the marks of a night of grief on the fine, thin face. “I am sorry about Sine,” he offered gruffly. “Yet, Emrys, she will live again.”

Emrys’s eyes seemed to gather all the hurt on his face into them selves. “I know,” he whispered. “But not with me, Madoc.”

In two weeks the west had emptied. Venutius led his forces south and east, cutting deep through Cornovii country and then swinging north along the Coritani border. Long before the dry summer paths would have led them to Lindum they veered again, flowing quietly just under the eaves of the great forest that straggled the edge of Brigantia’s moors. No one saw them pass. The Cornovii peasants were busy in their fields, for the harvest time was approaching, and the legionaries, at Gallus’s command, spent their time patrolling the foot of the mountains and did not know that the mountains were no longer their enemy. The weather was hot, the wind stilled. Autumn waited patiently for the sun to tire, and the rebels waited also, riding enervated and sweating under the thin, stuffy shade of the trees. The night they made their last camp before moving out under Brigantia’s revealing sky, Venutius called Madoc and Emrys to him.

“I will take the Brigantian war band and march alone to the town,” he said. “Two thousand warriors will surely be able to defeat my wife’s forces. You are to stay here under cover of the forest. I will send word when it is safe to march against the Ninth. This way no Roman need know that our host is gathered together here and that I have not come out of the west on a private matter.”

It was a good compromise, a sensible precaution, and Emrys’s spine loosened in relief. With the main force held back, perhaps they might still take the fort at Lindum by surprise. Venutius and his chiefs slipped away that night, riding hard, muffled in dark cloaks, and Emrys and Madoc settled themselves to wait. Idleness hung heavy on Emrys. He had nothing to do but pace the forest, back and forth, and think of Sine. Had she come this way, on her journey to death? He watched the last full moon of summer shimmer like a silver globe in the soft night sky, but its plump beauty could not stir him. His heart was cold.

Venutius and his men traveled by night and lay in the folds of the hills by day, but they did not go unnoticed. A young sheepherder, wandering after his flock in the late evening, saw the last of the chiefs and their horses disappear into a thick clump of willows by the stream where the sheep liked to drink. His clear eyes had picked out the flicker of setting sunlight on helms and swords and, his heart in his mouth, he left his beasts and ran to his father’s farmstead, and well before dawn a message was speeding to Aricia. At noon the next day she heard it, sitting before the Council hall with Andocretus and her other chiefs, and she got to her feet, astounded.

“A rebel force here? In Brigantia? Impossible! They must be messengers. Venutius is sending me another dreary mouthful of misery.”

The chief shook his head. “My son saw horses and weapons. He said that there were many men concealed in the trees—he could hear their voices.”

She looked past him for a moment to the peaceful sky, the smoke towers rising tall and gray from the fires of her town, and that other fear rose up to choke her. The men of the west creeping toward her, their eyes alight with grim anticipation, and she herself rooted to the earth, unable to run. She pursed dry lips. Venutius was coming, but was he coming with only a few of his bodyguard, as a token of dignity, or was he coming to fight? Had the eyes and ears of the shepherd boy deceived him out of fear? “My thanks,” she said to the shabby, bronzed man before her. “Eat and drink before you return to your farm. My bard will give you payment later for your news.” He bowed and walked past her into the hall and she moved slowly down through the town until she reached the earthwall.

“Andocretus, have the gates closed and a guard set,” she ordered, then she climbed the wall and stood high above her world. Her eyes strained in each direction, but the horizon flowed on, uninterrupted by movement of horse and rider, and blurred into haze where the land met the forests striding out of the west. Most of my armed chiefs are with the Roman patrols, on the Deceangli border, she thought. I cannot recall them, it is too far away. She was unable to plan. Her mind felt helpless, muddled. What shall I do? He is one day away, and Nasica is two. He will come first. I have many chiefs gathered here, waiting for his surrender, but not enough to do more than hold the town for a little while. A wind blew from the ocean where she was standing on the rim of her wall, and it brought to her the salt scents of Gladys and the merry tumult of old Camulodunon, but she knew, as the memories wafted in her nostrils, that her town was not Camulodunon and she was no Caradoc, though it was not Rome but a small war band that marched against her. She was afraid.

Before another hour passed she had sent a rider to Lindum. “Tell the legate that a small rebel force is coming this way,” she said. “I must have help. If he does not send me soldiers he may find my town in flames.” She did not wait for an acknowledgment. She almost ran into her house, standing before Brigantia with clenching hands and a beating heart. But she had no offering and no prayers. She had forgotten them all.

Nasica listened to the chief’s message with a mounting exasperation, and when the man had gone he sat back in his chair with an exclamation of ire. “Oh damn the stupid woman! Why can’t she handle her internal affairs properly? She should have left well enough alone when her first attempt to get Venutius failed, but no, she had to go on probing around in his wound until he lost his temper. If I had my way he could hang her from the nearest tree. How am I supposed to do my job efficiently when every time she has nothing to do she stirs up trouble with her husband?”

His secretary listened, smiling. “Sir, we may yet capture the arviragus or, better still, kill him in battle,” he said, and Nasica waved impatiently.

“I know, I know. I must send her a few men, there’s no way around it, because if I don’t and she loses this scrap we will have a much larger problem on our hands. I am only angry at her ineptitude. Her usefulness to Rome is rapidly coming to an end and I intend to tell the governor so.” He rocked back on his chair and flung an arm over it, raising his ruthless pocked face to his aide. “Have two auxiliary infantry units called out right away. No, make that two cohorts. Put the primipilus in charge. Send him to me first. I am going to have something to say to Cartimandua when this is over. Stupid…” He turned back to his desk, muttering, and the secretary saluted and left the office.

The auxiliaries marched out of Lindum that afternoon, but they were only halfway to Aricia’s town when Venutius drew rein and pointed. “There it is. We will not pause to talk with her. Straight on, surround the town!” He surged forward, his men strung out behind him, and on the wall Andocretus gave a cry and slithered down to where the lower circles were packed with armed chiefs. Aricia ran to meet him.

“They are coming!”

“How many?”

“It is hard to tell. Perhaps a thousand, helmed and weaponed. They do not come to talk, Lady.”

She put her fingers to cold lips, trying to think, trying to decide what to do. Her messenger had still not returned from Lindum and she supposed that he intended to ride back with the soldiers. Without Domnall to advise her, a Roman centurion to do her thinking for her, she was confused. Finally she dropped her hands, looking around her to the massed, jostling chiefs. “Open the gate!” she called. “Meet them out in the field!”