He lifted the pouch now bulging with nuts and they sauntered on with no fear of being lost. He had grown up in these woods—they belonged to his family—and in the daylight hours he had explored every inch of them, and he knew the burrows and sets of every mole and badger, every fox and rabbit. They passed the big oak that was so good for climbing, and the little clearing with the ring of mushrooms that had always been “safe” ground to the pursued when he and Tog had hunted each other. They pushed their way into the dense thickets of trailing bramble bushes whose arching stems with the cruel thorns tore at their clothes and their hands.
“There is no room in the pouch for berries,” Aricia said. “Let’s just eat them. There are so few left now. Most of them have rotted.”
They lifted the fuzzed purple berries gently, and crushed them in their mouths, savoring the sweetness, and their fingers and mouths were soon stained with the dark juice. The mist was very thick in here, white and wet, and the cobwebs festooning the gaunt tree trunks were weighed down with thousands of shimmering, pear-shaped crystals. But it was not cold. Only still and secret and private, a hushed world within a world.
Presently Caradoc raised his head. “Listen!” he whispered, and she paused, berry halfway to her mouth. In the silence the steady trickle of water could be heard. “A new spring has opened somewhere close by,” he said. “Come!”
They followed the sound, and after a while found a clearing, not open to the sky but clear on the ground. Long, wet grass stood there, and pine needles lay dark around the feet of the surrounding trees. In the center, a well of water bubbled up and trickled away through the grass in two little channels already grooved in the spongy turf.
Aricia knelt and fumbled at her girdle. “A new goddess has come to live here,” she said with awe. “Quick, Caradoc, have you any money?”
“No, but I have my ring.” He drew it reluctantly from his thumb, and together they approached the spring, laying Aricia’s bronze coin and his own gold ring in the ice-cold, pure water, and for a moment they stayed there, hypnotized by the quiet tinkle of the gushing water.
Soon Aricia sat back on her heels with a sigh. “Such a beautiful, hallowed place,” she said. “But I think we should go. Someone may steal our horses.”
He put a hand under her elbow and helped her to her feet, then found that he could not let her go. She was a bright-clad and living thing here among this quiet, mute-colored wetness. Her breath was a warm cloud, her skin perfumed, and there was no one to see them and no one to know. Only they themselves would see his shame well up again. He took her other arm and turned her roughly to face him, then lowered his head and found her lips, cold, resistant, tasting of berry juice. For one moment she relaxed against him, then stiffened and wrenched her head away. He dropped his arms, feeling foolish.
“Son of a dog,” she said viciously. “Will you marry me?”
“No.”
“Do you not love me?”
“Aricia.”
“It would not matter,” she whispered, her breath hissing into his face. “What you feel for me is something stronger, isn’t it, Caradoc? You will never be rid of me. Don’t think you can brush me aside, for I am buried deep inside you.” She touched his loins and he started as if he had been scalded. “There, in a place where your mind has no power.
If you do not marry me you will have no peace, not ever.”
“You are wrong,” he flared, his reckless pride stung. “Already I have had enough of you, Aricia. You have nothing more to give me and I am sorry we began this. You are no longer a pleasant diversion.”
“Liar!” She slapped him across the face with the flat and then the back of her hand, once, twice, and turned on her heel, pushing blindly through the undergrowth. He ran and caught her up, heedless of the branches and thorns that caught at his hair and whipped across his forehead, bringing blood.
“Aricia, listen to me! Tell your father that you will not go! Tell him….”
But she shouted over her shoulder, “Perhaps I should go! Perhaps I have been here too long and Subidasto is right! Where is your honor, wolfling? What wasting disease invades the mighty Catuvellauni?”
When she reached her horse she leaped upon it, tore the reins from the tree and whipped the animal madly, and it careened down the path in a startled gallop, mud flying from the hoofs. Caradoc followed slowly in a mood of exasperated despondency. The pouch had been left behind, and so had a certain vision of himself, shattered among the tall grasses where the goddess combed her wet hair and played with his golden ring.
When he arrived back the stables were in pandemonium. A crowd of freemen pressed about the open circle where the horses were walked in the early morning, and Caradoc heard enraged shouts even before he handed the reins to the stable slave and tried to push his way through. There stood Cinnamus, a grim smile on his face and his drawn sword in his hand. Togodumnus was shedding his cloak and tying back his hair.
“What is it? What has happened?” Caradoc called to Cinnamus as Togodumnus tugged his sword from its scabbard.
“Your brother has accused me of freeing all his breeding stock in the night, Lord, and driving them far afield.”
Cinnamus turned to reply, a look of pure, venomous delight in his calm green eyes. “He has rounded up some fifty of them, but apparently thirty are still wandering in the woods. How he comes to blame me I do not know.” The eyes dared Caradoc to interfere but showed no guilt. Cinnamus had merely thought again about the agreement and decided upon his own revenge. He had nothing to reproach himself for. “Come then, Lordling whelp,” he said, bringing his sword whistling down in a great arc. “Teach me the lesson you promised me, for I have need of such learning.”
Togodumnus stepped toward him, teeth bared, and Caradoc stepped back. He could do nothing. It had gone too far for words. But do not kill him, Cinnamus old friend, he prayed, or I will then be forced to kill you to prevent a blood feud. Cinnamus knew this, but his anger had burned slow and long, and all watching read Togodumnus’s death in his eyes. Caradoc turned and sent a servant running for Cunobelin, then sat down cross-legged on the wet ground. The crowd did the same and the two young men circled one another, testing their defenses. With a cry Togodumnus hurled himself upon Cinnamus, aiming a slashing blow at the legs, but Cinnamus sprang up and the blade cut only air. Before Togodumnus had time to regain his balance, Cinnamus moved in with a great swing that curved straight for Togodumnus’s neck, but the lad slipped on the slick earth and the blade did nothing more than rip his tunic from his shoulder. Cinnamus waited for Togodumnus to rise, saying nothing, not taunting, and Togodumnus raised his sword, grasping the hilt in both hands. Cinnamus stood still, watching, waiting, knowing where the next blow would fall. His shoulder tingled in anticipation, and then it came with the full force of Togodumnus’s weight behind it. Cinnamus moved like lightning, and there was a jarring, crunching sound as the blades slid together. All at once Togodumnus was on his back, his sword just out of reach, and Cinnamus moved in for the kill.
Caradoc sprang up, drawing his own sword and shouting bitterly, but his father thrust him aside. “Enough, Cinnamus,” Cunobelin said quietly. “Let the lad get up.” Cinnamus did not stir. He and Togodumnus regarded each other without expression, panting a little, still locked in combat with their eyes. “Cinnamus,” Cunobelin said, “if you kill him you will die. You know this well. If you must feud with him, wait until he is older, but let him up now. I do not want to lose a son, or one of my finest young warriors, in this foolishness.”
Cinnamus blinked and lowered his sword arm, then contemptuously kicked Togodumnus’s sword within his reach and walked away, loosening his hair as he went. Caradoc found that his own sword arm was sore from the effort of Cinnamus’s capitulation.
Tog began to grin. “A narrow escape, that one!” he said, leaping up. “My thanks, father. Now call Cinnamus back and have him restore to me all my cattle.”
Caradoc groaned. Cunobelin took two strides, and with one blo
w of his big fist knocked his son to the ground once more. “Be quick, Togodumnus,” he shouted, “and grow up, before your honor-price is worth no more than the price of your sword!” He flexed his fingers, grunted and walked away. Caradoc knew what that blow had cost his father, for no one could speak against Tog and not feel Cunobelin’s anger. A buzz of approving conversation broke out, and Togodumnus’s chiefs went to him and helped him to get up, restoring his sword to him and soothing him with soft words. But Togodumnus shook them off and stalked away, the tatters of his torn tunic making him look a little ridiculous.
Someone tugged softly at Caradoc’s arm and he looked around. It was Eurgain, dressed in yellow and blue, her dark blonde hair parted in the center and falling down her back.
“What a terrible thing,” she said, a crease of worry between her long, feathered eyebrows. “Cin would have killed him if Cunobelin had not come.”
“Of course he would. And a happy circumstance, many would have said.”
“Caradoc!”
“Well, it’s true. Tog is loved and also hated by everyone, and there are many who are tired of loving and forgiving a liar and a cheat no matter how much charm he has.” Caradoc looked around him and then lowered his voice. “Eurgain, I must talk to you. Where can we go?”
She hesitated, scanning his face swiftly, aware of some almost indefinable change in him, a new soberness, a sense of stress. “Come to my hut. We can break our fast on cold pigeon if you like.”
They walked side by side and in silence up the hill, following the path that took them behind the Great Hall to the very edge of the massive earthmound, where Eurgain had a house with a window. The window made her room very cold in the winter, covered as it was by skins which let in the wind no matter how firmly they were tacked down, but she did not mind. She liked to sit with her arms folded on the sill for hours on end, looking out west above the forest to the gently rising hills and the hazed horizon beyond. She and Gladys were very close, indeed the Royal War Band had gradually been breaking up into smaller groups as its members matured—Aricia spreading dissent among all, but spending most of her time with Caradoc or Togodumnus, Gladys and Eurgain growing more companionable, and Adminius, the eldest, withdrawing from them all. The woman and the young girl shared a love of wild, lonely places, an affinity for solitude and oases of quiet. Gladys loved the sea. She went often, and would not come home for days, taking food and a sword and her warmest cloak, and sleeping alone in some dark cave on the beach. She would hold a mystical commerce with the ocean that was far from easy or safe, and what she learned she never divulged. Eurgain’s longings went to the hills, the open, bare spaces of her country where the wind tore at her and rippled the long gray grasses, and the curlews and plovers swooped overhead. She would lie on the hilltops, her arms outstretched and her eyes closed, feeling the slow pulse of the earth beneath her, feeling the swing and rhythme, majestic and eternal, of the silent rock. If it rained, so much the better. Rain enclosed her, wrapped her in her dreams, and, like Gladys, none knew her thoughts.
She and Caradoc passed within her doorskins. The fire burned, and the light was very dim. Caradoc lit a lamp and she went to the window and dropped the skins with an apology.
“I thought that it might snow today and I had Annis take out the tacks so that I could wake and see the world,” she said. “But all we get is gray sky, and I do believe it is warming to rain again.” She spoke quietly, her mind feeling for his.
Caradoc glanced about him. Nothing ever changed in here. Stepping into Eurgain’s room was like stepping into a place where one might wait in perfect tranquillity for a glimpse of eternity. Her Palmyran hangings were soft, muted, very rich. Her jewels always lay in the same place, piled on a table beside her bed. There was only one chair, a Roman couch used for dining. She had many lamps, all intricately and beautifully cast and polished. Some were by her bed, some hung on slender chains from her thatched ceiling, some stood on the big table where she kept her crystals and her precious star maps and paper. For Eurgain could read Latin. Not well and not fluently but certainly better than Caradoc himself, and though she did not tell him so, she had spent an hour with the Druid, poring over the star maps, sorry that he had left so soon. It was a dangerous thing to do, she knew, yet with her father’s wealth came a certain haughty disregard for public opinion, and as it turned out, no one had seen Bran come and go but Tallia, her servant.
“Light the other lamps,” she said, going to sit on the edge of her bed, still puzzled at his air of abstraction.
The afternoon was advancing and the light was already fading away, but as Caradoc moved about the room the friendly, quiet glow increased and he felt his muscles and his mind relax.
“Now,” she said when he had finished. “Sit on my couch and tell me what you want.”
He did as he was bidden. What do I want? he thought, and such was the stillness and peace of the room that all his confusions fell into niches and he could view his troubles clearly. I want to be finished with Aricia. I want you to make me feel clean again, Eurgain. I want a new position in the tuath. I want roots among my kin, new anchors against my restlessness, but most of all, oh most of all, dear Eurgain, I want to be rid of Aricia!
He cleared his throat. “Eurgain, we have been promised to each other for a long time now, and it is time I was wed. Do you agree?”
She did not move. She did not color, or blink, or sigh. She merely sat there looking at him, the lamplight flickering on her hair and making shadows in her tunic. But slowly a deep sadness, a hurt, passed over her face and he saw it.
“Caradoc,” she said calmly. “Something is wrong, I know it. Why do you come to me now, at this strange time, and blurt out your proposal as though a demon were at your back? Have our fathers not pledged us to each other? There was no need for this.”
“I want a betrothal now, Eurgain. We are both of age and I tire of an aimless life.”
“Aimless? How can you say that, you a warrior with an enviable honor-price, in full health and leading a hundred chiefs?” He was lying, she knew, and a knife turned in her heart. “It’s Aricia, isn’t it? The rumor is all over the tuath.”
He started, then rose and began to pace in agitation. “I should have known better than to think I could keep my foolishness from you. You are right. It is Aricia.”
“Are you in love with her? Do you want her for your wife?”
“No!” The word exploded into the room, and she heard all that there was to hear in the force of its passing. “She is troubled because she knows her father will send for her before long and then she will have to leave us. She is trying to press a claim on me, Eurgain.”
“Say no more!” Anger lit her words. “I, too, have a claim on you, Caradoc, but I would not dream of presuming on a childhood agreement!”
He stood still and pushed a bemused hand through his hair. “I know, I know. Will you still forgive me, Eurgain?” he said with difficulty. “I’m a weak-kneed peasant, I admit it. Will you still accept me?” He felt suddenly as though the course of his whole life hung on her answer, doom or pardon, slavery or freedom, and he watched the wide blue eyes, the small nose, the large, pensive mouth, in an agony of waiting. Finally she sighed.
“I will accept you, Caradoc,” she said, but her voice was flat and tired. “I have waited long enough. You think you know me, but you do not.” She rose and drew close to him and he took her cold hands in his own. “I am a sword-woman and the daughter of a sword-woman. Never insult me, dear one, by underestimating me.”
He enfolded her mutely. He could not find the words to tell her that he loved her because from their earliest years their lives had been intertwined and had formed a bond that would not be easily broken. No matter what he said at this moment she would not believe him. Aricia, he thought, but the pain was already subdued. Aricia. He cradled Eurgain gently in his arms.
She drew away slowly, her hair netted in the rough embroidery of his tunic. “Will you eat now?” she asked him, as th
ough she had not just been torn apart, as though the sweet fantasies of all her fifteen years had not been turned to dust and blown stinging into her face. She had never controlled herself with such iron determination before and her chest ached with pain and her eyes smarted. A sword-woman does not break down, she told herself. She does not show fear.
“I think I should go and talk to Father,” he said, knowing he could not eat. “And then I should go see Sholto.”
“Watch that man, Caradoc,” Eurgain said. “Father says that he has a large honor-price but no honor.”
“Yes, I know,” he replied. “But he swells my ranks.” He bent and kissed her cheek, and left her.
Cunobelin was in the Great Hall, talking to his chiefs as Caradoc and Fearachar plunged into the gloom and went to join them. The big fire was out and ashes lay scattered about the floor. Lamps burned high on the pillars but their brave circles of wan light only served to darken the shadows around them. Caradoc heard the chiefs burst into raucous laughter and watched them disperse before going to Cunobelin, who turned to him, smiling.
“Well, Caradoc, this has been an unlucky day for me. First those greasy traders refuse to give me money instead of wine because of that cursed Druid, and then my son nearly gets himself killed by my favorite chief. Now what ill news do you bring me?”
“My chief, Father. Cinnamus is in my train,” Caradoc reminded him, and they sank cross-legged to the ground together. “Bring wine, my friend,” he said to Fearachar, who was hovering in the background. “And then get about your business.” Fearachar went to the end of the Hall, drew wine from one of the newly landed jars standing there, and then brought it back and served them.
“From today’s shipment,” he said. “Probably a bad vintage. Those Romans will cheat you as soon as look at you,” Fearachar said and then left.
“To the eternal night of the tuath,” Cunobelin said, raising his cup, and they drank together, pouring their dregs onto the floor for the Dagda and for Camulos and for the goddess of the tribe, aging now, even as Cunobelin himself aged. Cunobelin licked his lips and folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. Caradoc heard the slaves behind him begin to lay another fire, chattering as they padded among the ashes.
The Eagle and the Raven Page 6
