Dreaming the Eagle

by Manda Scott

  “You think they will do so?”

  “How could they not? It’s winter and the nights are long. If they were bored before, their condition will not be improved by the addition of eighteen men, one of them a warrior whose deeds have been sung in the roundhouse since they were children.” Macha was not angry. If anything, she seemed mildly amused. “What do the Ordovices do when the tedium of winter becomes unsurpassable and someone throws a firebrand into the kindling?”

  Caradoc took it in good humour. “We throw spears at the mark,” he said. “If that fails, we run races and try not to kill anyone.” He turned to Breaca, who rode on his other side. “Amongst my mother’s people, if a warrior’s pledge is made on a blade as we have made it, those between whom it is shared may not fight each other, even in play; they are bound as brother to sister, to defend and protect unless one acts in such a way that the other is bound to break the pledge.”

  Breaca said, “It is the same among the Eceni. We can neither fight nor race unless one dishonours the life or family of the other.” She had known it when she offered him the blade, and had seen before Macha had that it would be necessary and why. For the first time in her life, she had met someone with whom she was evenly matched; they could spend their lives splitting hairs over the results of each race or risking their lives in endless winter challenges—or they could avoid races and challenges from the start.

  Caradoc nodded, thoughtfully. “We could still race on horseback,” he offered. “That would not offend the gods.” His glance held buried laughter and the certainty that she would lose, which was ridiculous.

  “We can’t race in winter,” said Breaca. “The ground is too hard. And…” She smoothed a hand down the grey mare’s neck. In three years, the beast had grown into all her hidden promise. Even thick-coated for winter, her breeding showed clearly in her lines and paces. “There would be no point until you have your own horses. There are no others amongst the Eceni that would match against this.”

  Caradoc grinned back, pushing his borrowed horse to a trot. “Maybe not. In that case perhaps we should all pray to the gods for a quick and easy end to the winter and a peaceful start to the spring.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The end to winter that year was neither quick nor easy. Too many bodies sleeping in too little space made the days long and the nights uncomfortable. As Macha had foreseen, the arrival of the Roman caused less of a stir than the firebrand son of the Sun Hound. The foreigner may have been a warrior and an enemy, but his lineage was unknown and his name had not been three years a watchword for skill and fighting ability as Caradoc’s had been. The young warrior was challenged within days of arrival, with the sea still in him and the skin still peeling in strips from his arms. Predictably, it was Dubornos who made the challenge and, predictably, he lost. ’Tagos was next, because he had to be, and he lost too, if not so badly. The seamen began to take sides, swelling the factions that grew at the end of every winter as those newly made warriors sought to prove themselves against their peers. Fights broke out more often than was acceptable and the dreamers were called in more than once to break them up and heal the injured.

  Caradoc, to his credit, did not take sides. Instead, he gathered the ringleaders and talked them into a series of crazy, impossible competitions, telling them that this was how his mother’s people, the Ordovices, spent the months between solstice and spring. In this, clearly, he was stretching the facts; if the warriors of the war hammer competed thus throughout the frozen winters of the west, there would not have been enough of them left alive and uninjured come the summer to make war in the way that legend had it. Still, the half-truth served well. On a freezing afternoon with the sun bright and the snow caked to ice, he showed them how to build sledges and had them race, six at a time, down the long, curving track between the paddock rails, throwing spears at straw targets as they went.

  He won, but then he had raced a sledge before, on mountains far steeper than the paddock slope. Spirits ran high and ’Tagos, who had come closest to him, gained in stature. When the charge of that wore off, those who had lost the snow race most dismally borrowed axes and cut down a pair of pine trees, cutting the side branches to make poles of them so that they could race in knock-out heats across the river. There was less snow now; the wind had backed round to the south, warming the air. In places, the ice on the river was leaf-thin so that one could look through it and see the fast water beneath. For the final heats, the poles were greased with tallow, to make it more of a challenge. Two of the seamen fell in. One of them hit a boulder on landing and broke his shoulder. The result was a tie; ’Tagos matched pace throughout with Caradoc. Dubornos came close behind them. No-one else cared enough to finish.

  Spring came with a rush after that and suddenly they were too busy to race. The warm wind continued, soothing the last of the snow and ice into water. The river ran in spate, flooding the low ground on either side, carrying away the debris of the winter and leaving churned mud in its wake. Higher up, on the southern edge of the forest, the meltwater washed over the sandy loam, dragging long streaks of sand down through the pastures and into the settlement, where it found its way into the cooking pots and the sleeping hides and was, everyone agreed, worse than the mud.

  The trade routes opened as soon as the snow allowed it. Runners were sent out to summon the council, and Eburovic harnessed his cobs and forced his wagons through the mud to bring back grain from those who could spare it and ale and—joy—a deer’s bladder full of salt. In the paddocks surrounding the village, the home herd grazed on the green shoots that pushed up as soon as the pressure of snow lifted. At the top of the hill, separated by two clear fields in case they brought disease, the new horses were fed the last of the winter fodder to supplement the poor grass. Under the warming sun, they lost the hollows behind their ribs and above their eyes and began to shed the harsh coats of the sea crossing. Each day, as the moon grew smaller, they rubbed out more, itching it away in handfuls on the ageing thorns that bounded their paddock to reveal moth-eaten patches of rich, shining hide. Then one day the last of the old hair was gone and the last of winter with it so that the air lost the damp smell of rotting rushes and wet wood and was filled instead with the lift of new leaves and the sound of the cock redbreasts fighting.

  The council was set for the full moon. For five days before, elders, grandmothers and dreamers began to gather. In the high land above the steading, the great-house was cleaned and cleared; the old rushes, laden with rodent droppings and white with fungus, were dug out and burned in noisome heaps at the far edge of the trees. Those at the river had not yet grown to replace them, but grandmothers with forethought had brought dry barley straw from those communities that could spare it and the smell of it filled the vaulted space beneath the roof.

  Efnís arrived on the day before the council. The young man from the harsh lands of the north had grown in three years to be the foremost dreamer of his people. Bán found him in the evening, sitting alone on a horse-hide in the great-house surrounded by half-made torches. Bán offered to help and they sat together in the half-light, sharing news as they worked; or rather, Bán shared the news and Efnís listened, since all that was worth hearing had happened south of the lands he had left.

  Bán was the acknowledged expert on the Roman. It had happened by accident; the foreigner was clearly very taken with the red Thessalian mare and Bán had been in love with her from the moment she emerged from the sea, so it was natural that they should talk once they found a common language. The man had tried to learn Eceni but had found it difficult. Bán, out of courtesy, had tried Latin but the feel of it twisted his tongue and made the muscles of his jaw ache and he had stopped as soon as he had found that they both spoke Gaulish. Bán had been learning it from Gunovic in order that he might do business with the horse traders on the far side of the ocean and not be cheated, and the Roman had learned it from his unit’s posting there. Neither was fluent but time and the help of the sailors had improved them.
r />   Bán’s other area of expertise was Caradoc, although for different reasons. The boy had discovered early that he did not like the young warrior. The memory of Amminios’s visit and the loss of the dun filly came between them, so that their eyes never met and any conversation was so formal as to be worthless. With time, they had stopped trying to speak and Bán had watched from the outside as the factions brooded and changed in the overcrowded men’s house. In the beginning, not knowing of the sword-pledge made on the seashore, he had pleaded with Breaca to challenge the newcomer and cut his legs from under him. Later, he had come to realize that, even without the warrior’s oath, each would have found a reason not to test the other, that neither she nor Caradoc was certain of winning and the fight, if it came, could only be in private and would not be in play. After that, he drew back, and was careful when talking with Efnís to complain chiefly of Caradoc’s reaction to the Roman.

  “Caradoc hates him.” Bán took a torch from Efnís’s hand and dipped it into the vat of bear grease, twisting it to work the fat into the straw. The earthen smell enveloped them both, richly. “It’s because of his father. The Sun Hound favours Rome and Caradoc hates his father so he hates the Romans, too.”

  “He has good reason. Were it not for the influence of Rome, the Sun Hound would not have driven the dreamers from his land.” These days, Efnís was inclined to see everything through the mask of the dreamers.

  “But that wasn’t this man’s fault. All he’s done is get shipwrecked and run races and everyone hates him for that, too, because he holds back and lets Dubornos and ’Tagos beat him when he could run them into the ground. Dubornos would see him gutted and be happy about it. It’s the only thing he and Caradoc agree on.”

  “I heard your young men hate Caradoc as much as he hates the Roman.”

  “Not all of them. Only those who think they should be able to beat him, which is Dubornos and his friends. The rest love him. It’s disgusting; like watching a bitch in season walk through a pack of dogs. If he walked through fire into the depths of the ocean, they would follow him just for his smile.”

  Efnís grinned. “Men are like that. They see something good and they either want to be part of it or to be better themselves. Sometimes the only way to be better is to destroy what is good—” He looked up, sharply. “Who’s that?”

  It was Breaca. She stood in the doorway with her hair wild around her head and she was panting, as if she had been running hard, or riding. “Bán? Have you seen Airmid? Or Macha? They’re not in the roundhouse.”

  “No. Macha was outside a while ago. I haven’t seen Airmid since this morning.”

  Airmid had dreamed badly. It had shown in her smile and the dark hollows under her eyes. Bán had not asked her about it, nor had he spoken of it to Breaca. One did not, these days, speak of one to the other, except now, when something had happened to change things. He stood, the torches forgotten. “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “They’re racing again. Dubornos and his friends have set it up. The fools have made a route along the river track—up one side, across at the fallen oak and down again to cross on the greased logs at the bottom.”

  Efnís said, “But it’s nearly dark. They can’t race now, surely.”

  Bán shrugged. It was insanity. The greased poles were a nightmare and had been proved so. No-one with a head on their shoulders would choose to walk across them in broad daylight, still less run them at night. The river flowing beneath them was once more within its banks but it still ran white and wild and angry; anyone falling in would be lucky to come out alive. “So let them race. If they drown, we can ask Airmid to sing the water from them afterwards. If she fails, it will be no great loss.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” He had rarely seen Breaca so upset. Her fingers were white where she gripped the doorpost. “They’re going to cross at the oak log above the sacred pool. If one of them falls in or tries to swim the river, he will be swept down to the pool. Airmid dreamed it. It must not happen.”

  “What?”

  The blood drained from Bán’s head, leaving him giddy. What she said was unthinkable; everyone knew that the pool was Nemain’s, that to enter it was utterly forbidden, that a life was forfeit and the death appalling for anyone who broke the taboo. Worse than that was the devastation that would be visited by the gods upon the people. The last time a man fell in was in the grandmothers’ time and the war with the Coritani had started soon afterwards. Even the far southern Gauls, who had not understood the ways of the midden and had left piles of human ordure and the stench of male urine around the roundhouse, would have known not to enter the pool. “But, Breaca, they won’t go in the river. They wouldn’t dare—”

  “The Roman would. They’re making him race. Dubornos held a knife at his throat and told him to race properly or he’d carve out his guts before the council had a chance to vote on it.”

  “But someone will have told him about the pool.”

  “Did you? You have talked to him more than anyone.”

  He had not. The pool was a part of his life; it had not occurred to him that anyone might not know about it. Even had he thought of it, his few words of Gaulish were for trading horses, not for explaining the complex balance of honour and obligation that maintained the relationship between the gods and their people. Aghast, he said, “Dubornos is mad. He is doing this to kill the Roman and he hopes it will bring war so he can prove himself a warrior in battle. We have to stop them. Where are the horses?”

  “The grey is outside.” He had heard it arrive earlier in a hammer of hoofbeats and a wrenching stop, but had taken no notice. “Yours is in the paddock. It’s too far to go and get it. You can ride behind me.”

  They were already running. Hail bounded ahead of them at the door. Bán called over his shoulder to Efnís, “Find Macha or Airmid. Tell them what’s happening. Get them to the pool.”

  “What if I can’t find them?”

  “Then blow the horn that calls the council. That will bring them.”

  “That’s sacrilege!”

  “Only if done without good cause. This is the best cause. Do it.” The mare wheeled, standing straight on her hocks. Bán whistled Hail and they were gone.

  The race had begun. The route followed a track up the side of the river, then turned inland and wove through the woods. To run it was difficult, but possible. To ride it, flat out, was insanity. Bán kept his head low and his arms locked around his sister’s waist as Breaca pushed the grey battle mare to her limits. Branches whipped at them raising welts and the path twisted viciously, but they did not die.

  The path broke out of the trees close to the river. The smell of mud and surging water flooded Bán’s senses. The perfect disc of the moon lit up the water so that he could see twice over the shape of the hare that lived on the surface; Nemain’s beast. Usually, it was her signal to him of good hunting. Tonight, it felt as if she held her breath, waiting to see who profaned her pool.

  “There, at the crossing. Caradoc is ahead.”

  The river ran wild and white. Bán made himself look up to the narrows, where the oak trunk spanned it. The figures of running men were small in the distance and their bodies merged with the land. Caradoc was most easily seen; even had he not been at the front, his hair marked him out from any distance. On the headland, soaked from the sea, it had been the colour of old straw. Now, dry, cut and combed, it caught the light of the moon and shone like burnished metal. ’Tagos was a pace behind, then Dubornos. The Roman was harder to see. His hair and his body were so dark that, had he stood still, he would have been all but invisible. As the pack spread out, it could be seen that he ran an arm’s length behind the other three.

  “The Roman’s still holding back.” It was clear from the way he ran. Bán shouted it out loud, not sure if Breaca could hear him.

  “He was. Not now.”

  She was right. The man had taken Dubornos’s threat to heart, or perhaps, with his death less than a day away, he had chosen to show who
he really was. Either way, having paced himself up the side of the river, he let loose with perfect timing and put in a startling sprint as Caradoc slowed to approach the log. ’Tagos was taken by surprise; he neither saw nor heard the shadow closing in on him until it was past. Dubornos had been running closer and had, perhaps, been expecting the move. He lengthened his stride to match the foreigner and passed ’Tagos on the other side.

  The fault for what happened next was Dubornos’s, everyone agreed on that later. He had walked across the oak log uncounted times in the summers since it first fell and he knew that it was rotten and unstable and could not take more than one man at a time. The Roman could not have been expected to know that and so, when they reached the trunk together, it should have been Dubornos who held back.

  He did not. Caradoc was midway across, running neatly and with an economy of effort that could be seen from the riverbank. The trunk shuddered beneath him but did not tip until the Roman and Dubornos—in that order—leaped onto it, running. Then it rolled.

  Eight men, and a boy and a woman on horseback, shouted a warning. The runners had already acted. Caradoc flung himself bodily at the far bank. The Roman dropped to one knee and took hold of the rotting wood, digging his fingers deep for a handhold. No-one saw clearly why Dubornos fell. Some said later he had already lost his footing on the rolling timber, others that he simply ran headlong into the Roman and that was enough to trip anyone. Whatever the truth, there was a moment of silence as his body arced over the river and then a scream that ended as he hit the water. His red hair flashed once above the surface and was gone.