Dreaming the Eagle

by Manda Scott

  At dusk, when it was clear the Romans would not attack again that day, Odras’s body had been recovered from the tight knot of yellow cloaks lying dead by the river. Of the seven members of the royal household who had ridden into battle that morning, only Togodubnos was left alive and that only barely. Throughout the camp, word had spread of his dying. Because it mattered that the enemy continue to believe him to be alive, and because they had, after it all, won a victory against overwhelming odds that would be sung of by the winter fires for generations, the warriors celebrated the day’s triumph with fires and songs and ale. The sound filled the quiet spaces within the hut as the rush of a river soothes the soul but does not interfere with necessary conversation.

  “They will not leave just for this. They will attack again tomorrow, and tomorrow, until we have driven them back to the sea.” Togodubnos spoke through tight teeth, harbouring his breath and his pain. His life drained with each heartbeat and he had more things to say than he could manage in the time allowed him. He grasped his brother’s hand. “You must hold the people together. Caesar won in Gaul because the tribes fought among themselves. We have lost the Dobunni and the Atrebates. We cannot afford to lose—”

  “I know. It will be done. Keep your strength. We have talked of this before.” Caradoc spoke lightly. His face was still. His free hand twisted in the folds of his cloak, out of sight beneath the death bier, the knuckles yellow-white with the pressure. Only Breaca, standing closest, could see it.

  “Good. Can you—” Togodubnos stopped, brought short by pain. Those around waited while he struggled. He abandoned the sentence. His lips formed a different word. “Luain?”

  “I’m here.” Luain mac Calma wore the entire tanned skin of a heron. The grey wings grew from his shoulders so that it seemed surprising he had not yet taken flight. The head and the killing beak hung down his chest. The eyes had been replaced by amber beads that took on life in the smoke. He moved behind the dying man and laid his long fingers on his temples. Silently, he began the invocation to Briga that she might keep safe the soul of one killed in battle. Macha, Maroc, Efnís and Airmid joined him. In the known history of the Trinovantes, there had never been more dreamers present at a death.

  Togodubnos opened his eyes. “I don’t want a tomb like my father’s…just the fire.”

  “It is ready. We have built a pyre for you over the small stream that leads into the great river. You will rest on a place where fire meets water and earth meets sky. It could not be done better. Briga awaits you. You will go to her armed and armoured with horse and harness and all the food we can give.”

  “And Odras?”

  “Odras awaits you also. She lies ready on the pyre.”

  “Thank you.” Sweat slicked his face. His breath ran ragged and then seemed not to run at all. They thought he had passed beyond speech but after a while he opened his eyes and rolled his head to the side and smiled at the child holding his left hand. “Cunomar…stay with Caradoc, your uncle. He will love you as a son.”

  Caradoc said, “He already does.”

  The boy ignored them both. He stared past his father to the space beyond the fire where the door-skin hung open. Only here was there a gap in those watching, left clear for the departing spirit that it might find its way to freedom without hindrance of the living. With caution, and surprised delight, the boy said, “Mother?”

  Crouching to child height, Caradoc said, “Cunomar, my son, your mother was the best of warriors. She gave her life for—” But Airmid touched his arm to stop him, and Togodubnos, lifting his head, smiled as if the sun had shown its face in darkness. “Odras…you came.” His head fell back on the rolled blanket behind him. His mouth moved without sound, in greeting and in love. He listened awhile as questions were answered and then turned to his son, smiling through tears. “Cunomar, we will wait for you at the river.”

  He died as the last words reached the living. The child nodded, pleased, not understanding, and then broke into violent weeping as the death became clear. The adults, meeting eyes, honoured the departing spirits and did not speak.

  They burned Togodubnos’s body with Odras’s on the waiting pyre. On this side of the river, wood was plentiful, augmented by the forest of logs floated across from the other bank in advance of the battle. All round the camp, victory fires and death pyres were as one; another would not arouse suspicion amongst the Romans. A black-haired giant amongst the Trinovantes had already been chosen to wear the helmet and bear a shield similar to that of the dead man. For the benefit of those who may have watched, he led the songs for the parting dead and then others for victory over the enemy. The greater mass of warriors joined for a while and then separated, to sit at their own fires or to sleep.

  “You should sleep.”

  “I don’t think so. Tomorrow I may sleep for ever. Why lose the night now?”

  “Then you should eat, at least. You cannot fight on an empty stomach.”

  “I’m not hungry.” Breaca had thought to walk the riverbank alone but Caradoc had joined her. They were the only ones left standing. The dreamers had withdrawn to their meeting place, promising an intervention from the gods in the morning if one could be found. Braint, Dubornos and Gunovic had retired, taking Cunomar with them and vouching their lives for his safety. If Togodubnos had spoken the truth, the boy would die; the dead cannot wait long for the living, but those left uncursed would see he did not die needlessly or for lack of care. The remaining warriors had left in ones and twos, rolling in blankets by the fires. On both sides of the river, campfires were banked to last the night. The wind had dropped and a thin mist obscured the moon and stars. The river ripped and spun, made turbulent by the piles of bodies logged beneath the surface.

  They walked in silence, having nothing to say. Caradoc had set aside his mail shirt and the hero’s cloak. He wore the colours of the Ordovices with a plain tunic beneath. It suited him better. Breaca had removed her mail but nothing else.

  She stepped over a fallen warrior and bent to check the certainty of death. Long, tawny hair entangled her hand. She smoothed it away to reveal a woman’s face, marred by the stabbing blow that had carved beneath one cheekbone and on into the skull, baring bone and teeth in its path. The lifeless hand still grasped her spear. The point was buried halfway up the haft in the groin of a Roman legionary.

  Caradoc said, “That’s Cerin.” She had been one of the thirty on the night of the choosing. He could not have forgotten. He knelt at her side.

  Breaca nodded, remembering. “She ducked to get the spear low beneath his armour. The man to his right drove his blade in when she dropped her guard.”

  “She took one with her. That is what counts.”

  “She took many more than that. She has fought them from the day they first landed. She killed three in the ambush yesterday alone. I thought she knew their ways better than that.”

  Breaca wrenched the spear clear of the body and laid it along the warrior’s side. A grey cloak lay trampled in the mud behind her. Together, they freed it and wrapped her in it, laying her straight with her head to the west, to the night and to Briga. Breaca made the invocation for the battle-fallen dead. Caradoc retrieved her shield and washed it clean in the river, laying bare the mark of the serpent-spear painted in red on black. With respect, he laid it beneath her head. The warriors of Mona had fought like wolves to hold the river and turn back the onslaught of the IInd. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She was a good friend.”

  “They are all friends and we are all sorry. We will be more so tomorrow if we cannot do better than this.” Breaca was tired and had seen too many die who mattered to take the trouble to soften the words for the living. The fires of her soul were extinguished, and the battle rage and the certainty of victory. She could fight another day and others after that if she lived beyond it, but she was no longer sure she could win. Her consolation was that the legions, sleeping beside poor fires and knowing defeat, would feel worse.

  Caradoc rose when she did and f
ollowed her away from the river. “We will do better tomorrow,” he said. “And you should still eat.”

  “Later. After we’ve checked the horses.”

  The bear-horse was closest. They found him well tended and eating hay. Nearby, a gaggle of Eceni children slept with their grooming wads close at hand in the way warriors sleep by their blades. A dozen armed warriors stood watch in case the Batavians attacked again. Greetings were made in silence, not to wake the children.

  Towards the end of the lines, they passed a pied mare, resting one hind foot. The sign of the serpent-spear had been painted in red on the black hide of one shoulder. It was beginning to fade, but not so much that it could not be seen. Breaca said, “Your cavalry mount was lame. I saw it as we rode in. You will need a new horse for tomorrow. This one was Cerin’s second string. It would suit you well but we should find you some harness. Hers was destroyed when—”

  “No.” He took her arm. “Breaca, stop. I have another horse set by and the harness is ready. If I need one after that, I will take this one with pleasure, but for now you have to stop. If nothing else, you must drink water. It drains out of you as you fight and one never drinks enough on a battlefield to put it back.”

  She had drunk each time the children had offered and they had offered each time she had rested. Even so, it was never enough to replace what was lost in the wild heat of battle and, faster, from the wounds. She had not thought about it in the time since the last fighting; the exhaustion had left her light-headed and immune to pain. Reminded, she found she was parched; her tongue was a tab of dried leather and her voice rasped her throat like a file. Reluctantly, she nodded. “You may be—”

  She stopped. All he had done was tilt his head. He was standing beside her in a sliver of firelight. His eyes were the same colour as the river water, and his hair took on the light of the fire. He raised one brow. “I may be right?”

  He knew her too well, and she him. The barriers between them, carefully tended, had gone. Crowding memories stabbed at her guts.

  “No. Thank you.” She removed her arm carefully from his and began to walk towards the hut that had been set aside for her. Caradoc followed in the space where Hail should have been. They stopped together at the door of the hut and it seemed likely he might try to follow her in.

  She turned, blocking his way. “’Tagos used to run at my heels like this. I had not thought it of you.”

  “No?” His eyes searched her face. The dry, half-hidden amusement was gone and she found she preferred it present. It was easier to deal with the humour than the caring. He said, “You saved my life and those of my friends. Am I not entitled to some concern?”

  “But I did not save Odras for you. I’m sorry.” Pain made her bitter. “Nor did I care for your daughter’s mother. Did she live through the day?”

  “Ah.” He gnawed on a lower lip. It was the only time she had seen him uncertain. He stepped past her to lift the door-skin and peered inside. “Do you have water in there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then the answer is no. Breaca, come away.” He took her arm in a way that would have been difficult to escape with dignity. “It’s dark in there and the smoke has stolen all the air. It’s a good night. The mist is not cold, and you will be better outside.”

  She allowed him to guide her, lacking the will to fight. He led her past his brother’s pyre to a place far beyond it where a solitary campfire burned under a beech tree. A jug of water stood on a flat stone and a wrapped bundle held cheese and cold meat and malted barley in separate bowls. The smells rose with the smoke, clearing the dregs of battle. Hunger exploded within her, and a raging thirst. Caradoc released her arm and laid his cloak on the ground. A bear-skin beneath it promised more comfort for the sleeper. “My fire,” he said simply. “I would be honoured if you would join me.”

  She sat, quickly, while she had control of her limbs. He passed her water and meat and watched her drink and eat without comment. When it was clear there would be enough for two, he sat opposite and joined her, breaking the cheese between his palms and sharing the crumbled chunks across the fire. When they were done, he leaned back against the tree and they sat together in silence.

  “Airmid is still alive,” he said at length. “That must be good.”

  “It is.” She had been bound to Airmid long before Mona and the thread that linked them ran deeper than all the rest. It had stretched but not broken through the day. She knew without question that if Airmid had died she would have known it, that she would have lost all control and gone where neither Ardacos nor Braint could bring her back. “If she were not, I would be dead,” she said.

  “I know.”

  He laid a branch on the fire, old and dry and padded with lichen, flammable as summer grass. Fresh flames plumed around it. He watched her through them. “Cwmfen remains in the lands of the Ordovices with Cygfa, our daughter, and her newborn son. She did not ride out with the warriors of the war hammer when they answered Togodubnos’s call.”

  She was too tired to be shocked or angry, and she no longer had a right to know of his life, as she had once believed she did. Equally, he had no right to burden her with details; it broke the bounds of their accord. Stiffly, she said, “I didn’t know you had a son.”

  “I don’t.” He smiled. “The child’s father rides now in my honour guard. I have sworn to protect his life with mine. Today, you saved it for me.”

  “I see.” The branch cracked in the heat of the fire. The food warmed her belly. Other things stirred within her, unexpected and dangerous. The closeness of him traced lightly on her skin, melting her bones. Carefully she said, “You had spent too many months in the lands of the Catuvellauni?”

  “And she knew that my heart lay elsewhere.”

  The stirrings stopped, plunged in cold. Dry-throated, she said, “Odras. I am so sorry. If I had known sooner that she was in danger—”

  “Not Odras. She was always pledged to Togodubnos, from before we were grown. We were friends; she was the sister I never had. She was never a lover.”

  “But you would have liked her to have been.”

  “Maybe, when I was much younger, but she didn’t want it. She was very kind, but very certain. Such a thing must come from both, or it is worthless. You know that.”

  She looked up, sharply. The change was in his voice and in the luminous, firelit stare of his eyes. He said it again, to remove all doubt. “The need must be from both, Breaca. It is not enough if the heart of one lies elsewhere. You do know that.”

  “Yes.” Her throat was still too dry. She felt as she did in moments of mortal danger, when time slowed and a heartbeat dragged for eternity. She could have reached through the fire and touched him. He could have done the same. Neither of them moved.

  “Cerin was Ardacos’s lover,” she said. “It’s why I went to look for her. I knew where she fell. He is caring for Cunomar and can’t go alone. Also, I think he doesn’t wish to weaken himself for tomorrow. I would have asked Airmid but she can’t leave the dreamers on a night when they are calling the gods for the sake of the people—” She was talking to fill the space. She stopped. He said nothing. The space between them stretched beyond endurance.

  “Caradoc—”

  He dragged his cloak away from the bear-skin. The pelt was amber in the light. “The bear has room for two,” he offered, and he was shy suddenly, like a child. “If you were to come to it, I would know that the need was felt by us both.”

  She was standing, not able to go closer, held by an impossibility of longing. “Do you not know it already? How could you not? Have you forgotten Mona?”

  “No, how could I? But I have also not forgotten my father’s grave mound, nor a certain hillside overlooking the Atrebates. You are quite terrifying when you’re angry.” He smiled, lamely, only half serious. “And, besides, Airmid hates me. How could I offend Maroc’s favoured dreamer?”

  “Airmid?” The shock of laughter let her move. She stood and stepped round the fir
e. “She doesn’t hate you. Airmid has been telling me for years that the gods cast you and me together for a purpose. I thought she was saying it because it was what I wanted to hear.”

  “And was it?”

  “Oh, yes.” She reached down and touched his palm, and his fingers closed on hers. Lightning sparked up her arm, stealing her breath. “From the beginning, yes.”

  “Then it is good we know now, when it is not too late.”

  The death and terror of the day were gone. His smile was the grin of a youth in a river, challenging the gods. It caught her heart and lifted it into the sway of the gods; it flayed her skin from her body so that every nerve ending ached for him; it shattered the last boundaries of her self-imposed restraint as the first floods of spring break a child’s dam of sticks and straw, sweeping it into oblivion.

  Trembling, she reached out and traced the line of his lips with her finger, prolonging the moment, holding an eternity of joy at her fingertips as she had held an eternity of death on the battlefield. He reached up and caught her wrist and turned it round and kissed the soft skin on the inside, where the pulse raced to a new rhythm that changed as his lips pressed onto her and then the soft tug of his teeth and she laced her fingers through the gold silk of his hair and down to his neck and his shoulder until, wrapping close, they slid down onto the bear-skin. The night was warm. The pelt beneath them was soft and safe.