‘I think I believe you. That is your justification before your own Gods. But Rome reckons little of justification beside the fact of danger to the Frontier. When a spark falls on a grass tuft, here on the borders, we stamp it out before it can become a forest fire.’
He crossed to the door, his eyes never leaving Phaedrus’s face, and opening it, called, ‘Optio.’
There was a tramp of feet, and the Optio appeared with his two men behind him. ‘Sir?’
‘Take him away and keep him well under guard until I send for him again – under guard! He is not to be left unwatched one instant. We have had one escape already tonight.’
21
THE MARK OF THE HORSE LORD
SQUATTING UNDER THE lamp, the two Auxiliaries were playing a game of chance to pass the time. At first the rattle of the falling dice had maddened Phaedrus, sitting on the bench on the far end of the narrow, stonewalled chamber. But now it had ceased to matter; indeed, he heard it scarcely more than he heard the drip-drip-drip of rain under the eaves. He was listening for only one thing, for any sound of fighting in the world outside that would mean an attack by his own people, praying to all the Gods that ever he had heard of, that it would not come; that they would obey his orders; that at least they would have enough sense to wait till morning . . . It did not come. Once as the night wore on, he heard faint sounds of activity that could only mean the arrival of the galley – it must have been delayed by the storm and he wondered how Hilarion would be meeting the Escort Commander. For the rest, elbows on knees and cloak huddled about him, for it had turned chilly after the storm and he was bone-cold with weariness, he sat withdrawn from his surroundings deep into his own thoughts, as he had been used to do in the old days, before the arena trumpets sounded.
He had overmuch thinking to do, and not overmuch time, for the trumpets had sounded for midnight watch-setting a good while since. He tried to think about the time to come, and the likely way that things would go for the tribe. But his mind went ranging back over the past year, remembering the surprised look onVortimax’s dead face, and the strange light feel of the wooden foil in his hand, and the moment of stepping forward alone into freedom that was as strange and lonely to him as death . . . Remembering again the cock-loft at Onnum, and the small, tormenting pain of the tattooing needle on his forehead; and the good feel of wrestling with Midir. He thought of Murna who had fought beside him all that summer, and the babe that had been begun among the spears. He wished that he could have seen the babe, even once. Well, Conory would keep his promise to guard them; he would trust Conory with his life – he smiled in his mind at the thought – he would trust him with Murna’s life and the child’s, which was more to the point.
But despite what he had said to the Commander, he had no need to think what choice he was going to make. It was as though the choice had been made long ago, and was as familiar as the folds of an old cloak. It was he who had led the tribe into this new danger, and only he could pull them out from it again. Rome had power over the Dalriads by right of holding him hostage. No hostage – no power; it was as simple as that, on the surface. But suddenly he was remembering that giant, horned figure on the back wall of the Cave of the Hunter, and Midir’s voice saying of his father: ‘He went out to meet his boar. There had been much fighting, and a wet Autumn. It was famine time, you see . . .’ He hadn’t understood, then. He did not really understand now – his head only knew that when it had to be one or the other, there was not much else you could do but pay away your own life for the tribe’s. But something deep within him understood that it was not only among those who followed the dark, ancient ways of Earth Mother, that the King died for the people; only among the Sun People, the King himself chose when the time was come.
‘He went to meet his boar. It was famine time, you see . . .’
The odd thing was that he never once thought to himself that he was not, after all, the King; that the true Horse Lord had leaped to his death a few hours ago, taking the woman Liadhan with him.
It was as though, growing into the kingship through this past year, Red Phaedrus the Gladiator had grown into this other thing, too, because without it, the kingship would not be complete.
Outside, the rain-water still dripped from the eaves, but the rain had stopped. The lamp was guttering into the first grey light of dawn, and the trumpets were sounding cock-crow, and presently a tramp of feet sounded outside, and the two Auxiliaries pouched their dice and got up. Phaedrus got up too, even before the door rattled open and the Centurion’s voice said, ‘The Commander has sent for his prisoner.’
He was stiff and sore as a rheumaticky old man – he grinned to himself at the thought. That was something he would never have to put up with, anyway. He took his time with studied insolence, knowing well enough that the Commander would have given orders that he was not to be treated like a common captive, raked his hair as best he could with his fingers, settled the folds of his war-worn cloak across his shoulders – lightly touching the great brooch that fastened it. They had taken his dirk, of course – odd that no one ever thought of a brooch with a pin as thick as a corn stalk and longer than a man’s forefinger as a weapon, even in a camp of the Eagles, where they learned, just as one did in the Gladiators’ School, that two inches in the right place were enough.
‘Quite ready, Centurion,’ he said, when the last detail, even to the dazzlingly insolent play-actor’s smile, was perfectly to his satisfaction.
‘I rejoice to hear it,’ said the Centurion with feeling, and gestured him to go out first. Outside in the grey dawn light a small guard of the Frontier Wolves were waiting. Phaedrus laughed at the sight of them.
‘You’re taking no chances! Do you think I am Cuchulain, to make the hero’s salmon-leap over these ramparts and away?’
‘Get on!’ the Centurion said, his patience fraying badly. ‘Guard, march!’
In the room where Phaedrus had stood before the Fort Commander last night, the lamp burned low and guttering, and Titus Hilarion, in the same drenched clothes, now somewhat dried on him, red-eyed and grey-faced so that suddenly he looked like an old man instead of a young one, rose from behind the littered table and the report he had clearly been writing.
‘Well?’ he said, when Phaedrus came to a halt before him.
‘Well?’ Phaedrus said, a little mockingly.
‘Have you made up your mind?’
Phaedrus gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘I’ve little enough choice, come to think of it, have I? A tribe doesn’t thrive without its leader – and they say it’s none so bad a life in the Auxiliaries. Yes, for myself, I accept your terms.’
He thought he saw a flicker of disappointment in the Roman’s eyes. But he only said, ‘So. A wise decision.’
‘There were conditions, remember. I am to have speech with my people and tell them of these terms, myself. The final word must be for them to speak.’
‘Surely.’ The Commander reached for his sword, which lay on the bench beside him, and slipped the belt over his head. ‘The sentries report a band of them waiting before the Praetorian Gate now; your reserves, it seems, came in last night, and their leader – a dark man, broad-shouldered and short in the leg—’
‘Gault the Strong.’
‘So? He is well named, I should judge – Gault the Strong came in with a band of them, demanding word of you. I spoke with him in the Gate, and swore to him that you should be safe until dawn, so long as he and his men attempted no attack on the fort, and that at sunrise you would speak to them yourself as to the terms for your release.’
Phaedrus settled the folds of his cloak again on his shoulder, and said pleasantly, ‘I think I heard sounds of the galley a good while after midnight. She was delayed by the storm?’
‘Yes.’
‘How inconvenient for you that she was not delayed a while longer. Ah, but I am sure you will find means to carry out your plan despite any counter orders.’
Hilarion’s brows flickered up. ‘Fortunately the Es
cort Commander has not the power to give me counter orders. All he can do is to take back my report to the Commander of the Wall.’
‘Sa. That should give you time.’
‘Time to handle the thing my own way, and maybe avoid a clash along the Frontier.’
‘Yes, you want the quiet of the Frontier. You told me. That is why you will exchange me for all that is left of Earra-Ghyl’s fighting power.’ Phaedrus looked at him straightly. ‘Has a mere Fort Commander the right to do that?’
‘No,’ the other said crisply.
‘And how if the Governor Sylvanus prefers the kudos of a captured King to the more serviceable but less dramatic gain of a heavy draft for the Auxiliaries, which after all, will go to strengthen the Eagles for another Governor in another province of the Empire? Will he be pleased with the Fort Commander who made that choice?’
‘No,’ the other said again, ‘but it so happens that I am more interested in the peace of the Frontier than in Sylvanus Varus’s chance of catching the Emperor’s eye.’ A small, bitter smile flicked at the corners of his mouth for an instant. ‘Rome will not risk losing face before the Barbarians by repudiating my action, though undoubtedly she will repudiate me.’
‘Sa. I was thinking that. You will be broken for what happened last night, in any case, Commander.’ Phaedrus glanced at the half-written report on the table and felt a stirring of sympathy for this man who would have to go on living and face in all likelihood, unjust disgrace and the ruin of his career. ‘Best keep me to sweeten the Governor, and leave the peace of the Frontier to the man who takes your place. That way at least they may give you another Cohort in another part of the Empire, after they have kicked you enough.’
‘Is that the faith they taught you in the arena?’
Phaedrus laughed. ‘The world is a hungry place for a broken soldier, just as it is for a gladiator who has won his wooden foil. If you grow hungry enough you may come to the arena yet, as you would have had me come to the Frontier Wolves.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Offer a pigeon in my name, for old time’s sake, the first time you sacrifice at the Altar of Vengeance.’
‘I’ll remember.’
Phaedrus half turned towards the doorway, beyond which the courtyard was coming back to form and colour, and the sky over the roof-ridges was already full of light. ‘Shall we be going? A pity, it would be, if the Sun were before us.’
‘Surely.’ The Commander crossed to the door beside him and spoke to the Centurion of the Guard. ‘Escort him to the Praetorian Gate, Centurion.’
The escort formed up, and with the tramp of nailed sandals all round him and the Commander at his side, Phaedrus fell into the long-paced, swaggering parade march, as they went through the camp, where men were beginning to stir and horses shifting and stamping in the stable lines, towards the Praetorian Gate.
He outpaced his escort in the last few yards, and turned to face them on the lowest step of the rampart stair. ‘I go to speak with my own people, and I go alone. From this place you can hear every word that I speak; there is no need that any man of the Red Crests come farther with me.’ His eyes met Hilarion’s, and their gaze locked and held for a long moment. Then the Fort Commander put up his hand in a gesture that might very nearly have been a friendly salute. ‘Very well.’
So Phaedrus climbed the rampart stair alone. Out of the tail of his eye he was aware of a knot of soldiers standing some way along the rampart-walk on either side, but they were a good distance off and it would take almost as long for them to reach him as it would for the men behind him to come springing up the rampart stair.
The sun was just rising, and it was going to be a glorious day after the night’s storm. The morning seemed clear-washed and new as the first morning of the world, and above the hoarse never-ceasing surge of the tide below the headland rose the thin, sweet crying of the plover and the harsh laughter of gulls. Far off north-westward, clear in the cool after-storm light, Cruachan caught the first rays of the sun. Phaedrus suddenly knew again the feeling of being light on his feet and lucky, the feeling that most of the arena-trained knew well, that it was your lucky day, the day when the God’s face was towards you . . .
He looked down. Yes, he had been right about the drop. Clearly the Red Crests thought that it was enough to hold him from escaping that way, or they would not have allowed him up here without the guards close at his sides, and they were probably right. But here on the landward side, it was not far enough to be sure of the other thing, even if one dived head foremost, especially for a man trained how to fall. Well, he had his means of making sure.
Lastly, he looked at the knot of horsemen who had been waiting a little way off, and now at sight of him were urging their horses in closer. He saw the squat, dark figure of the leader, a bloody clout round the head, and was glad that it was Gault, good, level-headed old Gault, who had had the sense not to bring the War Host out in force and so betray its strength – or rather its pitiful weakness – to the Red Crests.
They were quite close under the Gate now; the hand of the Centurion away to the right flashed up: ‘Near enough!’
And they checked their horses.
They were looking up at him, tossing up their spears to bring them crashing down across shield rims in the Royal Salute, and now they sat their horses, silent, waiting for him to speak. Gault and Dergdian, Niall and hairy Aluin and Finn, young Brys with a white, sullenset face . . . He wondered if they were thinking in their hearts that he had betrayed them now. It was Brys that he minded about most.
He leaned forward, his hands braced on the splittimber coping of the breastwork. They were quite close, he need scarcely raise his voice to reach them across the dry ditch.
‘The Light of the Sun on you, Gault the Strong; you are well come.’
‘And on you, Midir of the Dalriads. I have brought men with me – enough, maybe; you have but to say the word—’
Was that in some way for the benefit of the listening Red Crests? Or simply that the squat, dark warrior with the bitten mouth was so much a fighting-man through and through that his heart turned to battle even when he knew that battle, any attempt at rescue, had no possible place in what was happening at all, or was it a direct question from the only man among that little band who knew the truth about him. ‘You are willing? You who are not the King?’
Either way, the answer was the same. ‘There shall be no fighting, my brothers. No attack on this fort.’ He had spoken in the common British tongue that would be understood both by the knot of horsemen across the ditch and the Red Crests in the fort behind him; but now he changed quickly to the highly inflected speech of Earra-Ghyl, which would be scarcely, if at all, intelligible to the Red Crests. ‘No fighting now – or afterwards. To attack this place with the war bands we have left to us would only be to fling them on disaster. It would mean the death of the Dalriads as surely as though Liadhan stood beside you to urge you on. I keep my faith with you, now; and after, you shall keep yours with me.’ Out of the tail of his eye he saw the men on either side begin to move in closer, distrusting the almost foreign tongue, and changed back to the common British speech. ‘Sinnoch would have said that was a fair bargain.’
‘We will keep faith with you,’ Gault said simply.
And Phaedrus saw in all their upturned faces, even on Gault’s, that they knew and accepted what he was going to do, because he was the King, the Horse Lord, and had the King’s Right.
How loudly the plovers were calling, disturbed by the horses. For a moment their pied wing-flicker seemed all about him as a whole cloud of them swirled across the fort, and among the thinner calling of the rest, he thought he caught the sweeter woodwind whistle of golden plover, who sometimes flock with the lesser of their kind. They swept on and sank again like a falling cloud of storm-spray. And out of the sky where they had passed, a single feather came drifting down, twisting and circling on the quiet air. It drifted past Phaedrus’s face and settled on the parapet, almost touching his hand
– a dark feather, spangled with the clearest and most singing gold – clung there an instant, and then lifted off again, and went circling and side-slipping on down towards the ditch.
Phaedrus said, ‘It was told to me that you have had speech already with the Chief of the Red Crests here in this fort, and that he gave you his word that I should speak with you at sunrise, and see, he has kept his word.’
The men below were silent, waiting.
‘The Chief of the Red Crests offers these terms for my release; that he will sell me back to you at his own price, and his price is one thousand of the best of our young warriors, to serve as Auxiliary troops with the Eagles.’
There was a faint stir among the little band of horsemen, and a pony threw up its head in protest against a sudden jab of the bit. But nobody spoke. They were waiting. They were his people.
‘But it is in my mind that I do not like to be bought and sold, I who have been a slave; and so I have thought of a better way— It is this!’
He had been playing idly with the great enamelled brooch at his shoulder as he spoke, working it free. He had it in the hollow of his hand now. His fingers closed over it so that only the tip of the deadly pin that was almost as long as a small dagger, projected between them. He had plenty of time to find the place, the two-inch place just to the left of the breastbone, that meant a quick death. A good exit. The old instinct for good exits and entrances that the arena had trained into him, was still with him now.
The freed folds of his cloak fell away from him as he got a knee across the rampart coping and next instant had sprung erect. There was a shouting and a running of feet behind him and on either side, and a strange deep cry from his own men below, but it all came to his ears like the roaring of a circus crowd. The sun, still rising far north with summer, had sprung clear of the hills and shone full into his eyes as he turned a little to face it, in a golden dazzle that touched as though in greeting the Mark of the Horse Lord on his forehead. He opened his fingers, freeing the whole deadly length of the great pin, and drove it home.
The Mark of the Horse Lord Page 26
