by Henry Treece
Only Marcus and the centurion were allowed to scramble up the sandstone slope; the rest of the Romans were made to sit on the ground with their hands on their heads, each one guarded by a tribesman holding a naked sword. Novantico took it very badly, but the man in charge of him tapped, him lightly on the neck with the flat of his blade and said, ‘Why do you twist your face about so, decurion? Is it beneath your dignity to sit upon the ground? I have led a hundred men in my day, yet I would sit upon the ground. You have command of ten poor fellows - and you frown. In my right hand I hold the cure to all frowning. Have you looked at it?’
Novantico raised his eyes and stared at the sword. He said after a while, ‘It looks well enough, for native work.
It is too heavy at the point, however. A good sword should come broad from the hilt towards the point, lightening as it goes. So, the thrust is balanced and the aim accurate.’
The Celt considered this and nodded; his heavy plaits swung against his cheeks. He said, ‘You are not wrong, decurion. But we use them differently. See…’
He snatched a crab-apple from an overhanging bough and with the same movement tossed it into the air. As it came down, red in the sunlight, his long blade flashed out and the small fruit fell, evenly divided, before the decurion, who picked it up and examined it closely.
“You have a good eye,’ he said. ‘I once saw a Batavian who did much the same - but he threw up a grape and cut it crosswise too. It fell in four parts.’
The Celt smiled and said, ‘One hears of these Batavians and their grapes. I have heard of a Frisian who did it with an axe, only he used a walnut. If all such men would only agree to join together - what a warband! Hey, Roman, what a warband!’
Novantico turned his head and spoke no more to the man; but he did not frown any more either.
Up in the Dun, Marcus and the centurion stood before Cynwas. He was a very big man with red hair, who sat upon a flat stone with a length of thick tartan over his head and shoulders, sneezing. He said to Marcus, ‘Forgive me, friend, but I have caught one of these Trentside colds. This always happens to me when I come here for the grazing. Do you catch colds on that draughty hill at Lindum?’ Marcus said, ‘Up there we live in stone houses and have underfloor heating. If we take cold we treat it with mulled wine flavoured with spices. One sweats through the night, but in the morning the cold has gone.’
Cynwas said, ‘My father used to carry a hare’s foot slung round his neck to ward off colds; but it never worked. He suffered through the winter, I can assure you. If the truth was known, that is what took him off at the end.’
Marcus said, ‘No, it was that spear gash he got on your last big cattle raid against the Brigantes. He did not take care of himself. I saw that wound, if you recall, and I can tell you that if a legionary got one like that he would be put into the garrison hospital for a month. But Tringad was out hunting deer a week after he got his. You folk don’t look after yourselves; that is your trouble.’
Cynwas smiled up slyly and said, ‘We have many troubles, friend. As for looking after ourselves, well, I grant you, at one time we didn’t. It was one of our rules never to bandage a fresh wound until it had been exposed for a day and a night. By that time, most of the sufferers needed no further treatment. But we are learning, Marcus; yes, we are learning.’
The Tribune waited a while before saying, ‘Yes, you are learning, friend, but perhaps not fast enough. It is hardly wise to take branded horses from the legion’s fields, would you say?’
Cynwas sat back and gazed at the Roman very steadily. Then he smiled and nodded with quiet scorn. He said at last, ‘I thought that you did not visit me out of friendship, Volusenus. I thought there was something else that brought you here. Well, I will tell you. If you were to climb to the top of the rise you would see four horses bearing the Roman brand, grazing in the pastures below, among my own beasts.’
Tigidius said gently, ‘We are looking for twenty, not four, Cynwas.’
The Briton turned to him stony-faced and said, ‘The legion must look elsewhere for the others then. The Iceni who came through my territory drove only four. If he could speak now, he would tell you that, no doubt; but after my men took him to the wood he stopped talking. As for your four horses, they are in better condition now than they were when we took them into our care. Your grooms would have been pleased with them when we returned them.’
Marcus said, ‘You speak as though you mean to keep them, Cynwas. That would be a mistake, friend. Look, I should not have accused you so rashly, and I am sorry indeed. But you must not keep those horses. You will be paid in full for their care and grazing, of course.’
Cynwas blew down his nose as though smoke had got into it and said, ‘Must! Must not! Can you Romans use no other words? You come to my house and accuse me of being a horse-thief; then, when you hear the truth, you say that you are sorry and expect that all will be well again. How long have you known me, Tribune?’
Marcus shrugged his shoulders helplessly. ‘Almost ten years,’ he said.
The Briton nodded and said, ‘And in those ten years have you ever known me put my hand on anything that belonged to you, or that bore the Roman mark?’
The Tribune held out his hands. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I am sorry, Cynwas. I am sorry down to the heart - what more can I say? It appeared that you must have taken the horses.’ Now Cynwas rose and said coldly, ‘Just as it appeared that you were once my friend, Tribune. But now it seems that if my tribe want friends, then they must go to their own people for them and not to Romans.’
Tigidius spoke then and said, ‘You are angry, Cynwas, and you do not mean what you have just said. Angry men speak in haste; let us not throw fuel on the fire.’
Cynwas suddenly turned to the henchmen who stood about the secret hall and signalled to them with his hand. They went out grumbling and left him alone with the Romans. For some moments he stared at them hard, then sat down again and pointed his long forefinger at the centurion. ‘You,’ he said, ‘you talk to me of throwing fuel on fires. Do you know what fuel has been thrown on the fire at Venta Icenorum? Or do your commanders not tell their centurions of the high policies that the Senate in Rome dabbles with?’
Marcus said, ‘No more of this cat-and-mouse game, Cynwas. Have the goodness to speak straight sense to us. We are plain soldiers, we do not hear every little bit of gossip that spreads through the tribes.’
Cynwas smiled bitterly and said, ‘I was wondering when you would tell me that you were plain soldiers. Romans always say that when their leaders have led them into difficulties, as though that cleared them of all guilt, as though that justified all cruelty.’
The centurion became impatient then and said, ‘This is wild talk, Cynwas. Why don’t you get the bard to set it to harp music? It would go well.’
But Marcus shook his head at the centurion and said, ‘What guilt and what cruelty are you speaking of, Cynwas? Am I guilty and cruel because I come, under orders, looking for twenty stolen horses? If you lost such horses, would you not go looking for them? I know you too well, old friend! You would be out with forty men at your back and the torches ready to burn down whole villages in vengeance for horse-stealing.’
Cynwas said in a cold voice, ‘We are not talking of horses now, Tribune. We are talking of Romans. We are talking of what your people have just done, in the name of justice, at Venta Icenorum. And it took many more than forty of them to do it, the cowardly ravens.’
Suddenly he brought his fist down hard on to a clay lamp, smashing it to fragments and sending the oil spattering across the dim room. Marcus wiped his hand down the front of his tunic and said, ‘It was a shame to ruin such a pretty lamp, friend. But now that you have done it, perhaps we can hear some sense from you. Tell us what is troubling you, for I swear to Mithras we do not know.’
Now Cynwas spoke with passion, his face as red as though he had been standing in the north wind for an hour. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘you ask and you shall hear. Three days ago your peo
ple put the torch to Venta Icenorum. They dragged the queen and her daughters from the house and flogged them with whips, strung up on posts, in the sight of all their people.’
Marcus stared at him wide-eyed. ‘But the queen was in mourning for her dead husband, Prasutagus,’ he said. ‘It is not our custom to dishonour mourning widows and their kinsfolk. Someone must have brought the wrong news, Cynwas.’
The chieftain said, ‘My nephew brought the news. Do you now accuse my kinsfolk of being liars? No, the news is true enough, Roman. It is your ears that cannot bear to hear the truth. Since you are so ill-informed, let me tell you the story, then you may call me a liar again if you wish. Though I do not think you will. Boudicca the queen knew well enough that as soon as her husband breathed his last, you vultures, Nero’s scavengers, would be into the palace, rummaging among the treasure-chests for all they could lay hands on. She was no fool. We Celts are not fools, we are realists, whatever you high and mighty fellows with your half-understood Greek philosophy may think. No, do not sneer at me, I am serious, hear me out.’
Marcus made a little bow of the head and clenched his jaws. ‘Go on,’ he said then.
Cynwas stared him in the eye. ‘I shall,’ he said. ‘The time for politeness is over, soldier. Now, in my house, you will listen while I speak. I repeat, the queen knew that, to keep what little your tax-gatherers have left her family, she must prevent the grave-robbers of Rome from rushing in and stealing all when her husband died. And so, to protect her two daughters and herself, she publicly named your Emperor, that fat-bellied drunkard Nero, as the coheir to all her husband left.’
Marcus said drily, ‘That is an old trick, Cynwas. Our own noblemen do it to avoid death duties. It often comes out cheaper that way.’
The Briton thumped his fist against his own stomach in anger. ‘Comes cheaper!’ he said. ‘Why, man, you use words like a Syrian market-haggler. Cheaper? We are not goods to be bought and sold, we are free men. Our history is longer than your own. We were lords and warriors when your folk grovelled in the fields with your ploughing-sticks for the Etruscans. We wore gold at our wrists and throats when your fathers had nothing more than a gaggle of frightened geese to give the alarm over your reed-huts, down by the river you call the Tiber. Cheaper? Why, you had a cheap enough army to guard Rome in those days. But you had a dear enough payment to make when our kinsman Brennus pushed into your city with his Gauls and weighed the tribute out in his iron scales. You had a dear enough payment when your kinsman Vercingetorix took Caesar by the nose and…’
Marcus walked up to him and stroked his cheek with a hard soldier’s hand. He said, ‘Cynwas, brother, you are frothing at the mouth. Take my neck-cloth and wipe your face.’
Suddenly all the red of violence went from the Briton’s cheeks. The sky-blue of his eyes came back as when the sun shines again from behind a rain cloud. He reached out and gripped the Roman by the right ear and tugged hard at it in the sort of friendship that one lion might feel for another. He said, ‘You are a fool, Marcus. You are a fool with such wisdom that one day we might have to kill you. A man can only stand a little sense at a time. I pray to the gods that it is not my hand, chosen to put the sword to you.’
Just then Aranrhod ran in, her flaxen hair all tangled and her gold neck-ring bobbing up and down on the faded grey stuff of her gown. She was muddied from hem to forehead, but she was laughing. ‘Cynwas,’ she shouted, ‘I put the Roman’s horse at the stockade below Prysg field, and he took it without a falter. Can I have the horse?’ Cynwas made a stern face then glanced over her head at Marcus. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘My sister lives for horses. She dreams of them by day and by night. She would eat their fodder and sleep in their stables if I would let her.’ Marcus smiled a little stiffly. ‘It is in the blood,’ he said. Then he turned to the girl and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Princess,’ he said gently, ‘your brother cannot give you my horse. Only I could do that.’
At first she turned on him frowning and shrugging off his hand. Then she thought a little and began to smile. ‘Tribune,’ she said, ‘I beg your pardon. I had forgotten it was your horse. I forget things like that.’
The two men gazed down at her very solemnly. She shifted from one foot to the other and put the end of her plait into her mouth and bit it, looking very miserable. At last she said, her face screwed up, ‘I did not notice that you were here when I came in, Tribune.’
Cynwas said, ‘That was because the Tribune is so small. He is only the length of six feet, and another foot with his helmet on. Who could expect you to notice anyone as small as that, my sister?’
She began to fidget and tug at her neck-ring. She said, ‘Tribune, this ring is of ancient gold. Will you take it for your horse?’
Marcus bowed gravely to her and said, ‘There is no lady I would rather trade with - but the horse is not mine. He belongs to Rome. He comes from the garrison stables. You might as well ask me for my sword.’
She swung round and began to shout out again at her brother; but he held his hand over her mouth and said, ‘Sister, you heard the Tribune. It is not good manners to appeal to me now. And might I tell you that it is not good manners either to wriggle your finger in your ear the way you do? Or to go about with no shoes on? Besides, your feet need washing. Go to your bower and see to that before we eat together. And tell the women to scrub them well.’
Aranrhod ran out of the room, her hair flying and her torn skirts flapping against her dusty legs.
Cynwas said, ‘It is strange to think that one day she will marry some Pict or Scot and be a queen.’
Marcus answered, ‘With her love for horses, what a Queen of Ireland she would make! Their bards would sing such poems of her that men in the years to come would think she had been a goddess, brother. With that golden hair and those sea-blue eyes… Yes, a goddess.’
Cynwas frowned a little, then said, ‘I will try to arrange it, Tribune. But we were talking of something nearer to us than goddesses. I was telling you that Boudicca wished to share her husband’s estate with Nero. But now Nero’s chief vulture, the Procurator Decianus Catus, has claimed everything, and not only that which belonged to Boudicca, but to all her kinsfolk - the whole royal clan. All of them are beggared, all of them outlawed. And, worse than that, their queen dishonoured - her house burned, and she and her daughters flogged in the square by the common executioner.’
Marcus bit his lips. ‘If the General Suetonius were here,’ he said, ‘this Decianus Catus would need a slave to feed him for the rest of his days.’
The red came back to the cheeks of the Briton. He said, ‘It would be one vulture picking the bones of another, the greater vulture preying on the lesser for his own profit.’
The Roman stood up again. ‘Suetonius is a great man,’ he said. ‘He is my commander-in-chief. It is to him that my oath stands, not to Nero.’
Cynwas waved his hands. ‘Words, words, words!’ he sneered. ‘This Suetonius of yours is, at this moment, on the island of Mona with his thousands of brutes, destroying our sacred groves there, drowning our priests in the salt marshes; butchering the harmless folk who still hold to the worship of their fathers. I hear that the Romans are so weary of lifting their spears that now they save themselves labour, they rope a whole family together and fling them into the sea.’
Marcus waited a while, blowing down his nostrils. Then he said, ‘Cynwas, you and I are only men. We are not gods. We cannot change the world. Why should you blame me for what Rome does? I am not Rome, I am a single man, a soldier.’
Suddenly the Briton smiled. It was not a happy smile, but it was the smile Marcus had been waiting for. He took Cynwas by the hand and said nothing.
And at last the Celt said in a lowered voice, ‘Let us go to the table and eat together, brother.’
He said the last word almost shyly, as though it was an old forgotten word that had been learned again. It made Marcus happier than he would have been at regaining all the horses of the Ninth.
[7]
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The Rain
That night the rain came down as though it had never fallen before over the green midland countryside. It beat on the thatch of the hall and made everyone restless. Then it made its way in through a place where the reeds were thinnest, and ran down in little water-spouts, wetting the floor. Some of the Romans from the south of Spain shivered and grumbled, pulling their heavy riding-cloaks over their heads. But the tribesmen laughed at them and told them to move a little way up towards the hearth-fire where it was drier.
Novantico’s face was sour. He said bitterly, ‘It is a place where only green frogs could live, this Britain. How could any but savages tolerate this weather?’
Cynwas came up to him and patted him on the cheek. ‘There, there, little one,’ he said in good humour. ‘Do not fret so. Our wind and rain will make a man of you yet.’
The Coritani were standing round, their russet faces gleaming with wet, their light eyes laughing to see how miserable a rain-storm had made these proud Romans in their cloaks and war-gear. Novantico swung round on them and said, ‘Only madmen grin at the truth. If you were in Rome, we would put you all in a play, with wooden collars round your necks and chains on your ankles, to amuse the people with your antics. I have seen apes from Egypt who were more like men.’
Cynwas did not smile now, but put his hands behind his back and gripped one with the other tightly, as though he did not trust what they might do. Then he said very slowly, ‘You are a little man with a big temper. That is not good, unless you are a general and have power enough to back up all your words. Be at peace now and do not work yourself up into more frenzy, or it will spoil your appetite when the food comes in.’
He began to turn away but Novantico suddenly reached out and grasped him by the sleeve, almost dragging him round. ‘Appetite?’ he shouted. ‘Appetite for the sort of pig-swill that you folk gobble down? And as for generals, do not mention your generals to me, Briton. You had one once, and his name was Caratacus. Do you recall what we did to him? Do you recall that we chased him half over his own land, and then dragged him in chains to Rome, like an orchard-robber or a cattle-thief?’
