The Eagle and the Raven

by Pauline Gedge

  “Take the boy,” he said, “and go back toward the hills. Climb a little before you turn to watch, but choose your line of escape before you settle, my friend. And you, Llyn,” he said, taking his son’s hands and speaking sternly. “If you leave Fearachar’s side I will take your freedom from you in Council and you will become his slave forever more. Is that clear?” Llyn blanched and nodded solemnly, and he knew his father did not speak idly. Caradoc kissed him and sent them away, then he went and sat on the damp grass beside his chiefs, huddled in his warm cloak.

  Already the mist was thinning, turning from pallid gray to the palest golden, shredding slowly, and he sat with head bowed, thinking of Eurgain and their cozy, laughter-filled house, and of Cunobelin, who in all the invisible nets of his ambition had never dared to snare a Roman army. But he thought also of his own moment of fear, of the feeling that would come soon when he sounded the carnyx and his chariot would begin to roll. He already felt it creeping over him, tingling in his limbs and filling his mouth with the taste of metallic sourness, and he rose abruptly and began to walk the lines again, hearing the muttered spells, the faint, guttural curses, and the pledges and pleas to Camulos. They had made the sacrifices yesterday. Many in the host had demanded a human victim, but Caradoc, not yet free completely of the years of Roman influence, though he did not know it, forbade the sacred knives. Besides, there was no Druid.

  He found Togodumnus deep among his own chiefs, leaning on the spokes of his chariot and humming softly, but there was nothing to say, nothing at all. They looked at each other without rancor, then they embraced affectionately and Caradoc went back to his post. He tied back his hair and put on his helm, working it snugly against his head, then hefted his spear and loosened his sword in its scabbard. He removed his silver and bronze bracelets and put them in the pouch at his belt. His slow, nervous fingers found the golden torc at his neck and he stroked it for a moment, pride stiffening his spine. Catuvellaunian wolf! They shall feel my fangs this day, he thought. Then he picked up his shield, and as he slid his arm into the leather straps, the mist suddenly shook, dissolved, and blew away, and a gentle morning sun beamed down upon them, firing the sluggish water.

  Then he saw them. It was as if they were black rocks, or a great hard wall of adamant sunk viciously behind the covering cloak of the fog by the hammer blows of some angry giant, or…his heart missed a beat and then began to thud within him. Like thousands upon thousands of stiff, motionless gods of doom carved out of stone, waiting for a word of magic to release them from the holding spell. The Catuvellaunians sprang to life. Their shouts and curses rent the air. They howled, they screamed, they drew their swords and beat upon their shields, and still the Roman forces did not move. Only the horsehair plumes on the mounted officers’ helmets danced gaily in the breeze.

  “Jupiter!” said Pudens. “I have never seen such a sight! And listen to them! Are they drunk?”

  “Some of them perhaps,” Plautius replied, “but their noise is ritual, Rufus. They beat the demons of death away and they also intend to frighten us.” He gazed across the river, watching the gaudy, screaming mob. How far? he thought swiftly. A quarter of a mile?

  Beside him, Vespasianus grunted contemptuously. “Barbarians! And so few of them. Julius Caesar was right. They must be war mad.”

  Plautius turned to the heavy, red face. “Remember what I told you all last night,” he said. “Their first charge is most to be feared. They pour all their effort into it. And do not forget what I said about the women!”

  Vespasianus chuckled hoarsely. “Our men are not likely to care which sex is behind the swords. And as for a charge, there will be none today, poor fools.”

  Plautius took a last, sweeping glance around at the flat, peaceful river valley, the sun streaming to mingle its warm rays with the turgid water, and the trees smudging into distance behind it. Then he straightened. “Vespasianus, get the Thracians into the water. Sound the incursus.”

  The men around him saluted and scattered and the strident, harsh notes of the trumpet ended the dreamlike quiet of the summer morning.

  At the sudden shock of a trumpet’s call Caradoc swung into his chariot and Cinnamus gathered up the reins. They rolled forward quickly, the chiefs running behind, spears raised and swords drawn, their clamor a constant, terrifying din, but when they reached the bank they stopped incredulously. There were soldiers in full armor in the river, swimming strongly, and behind them troops splashed into the shallows and struck out, hundreds of them. The river was full of bobbing, iron-clad heads. “They will flounder for sure, the idiots!” Caradoc heard Caelte shout. “The river is too deep and there are strong currents!” But Caradoc felt his heart sink. The men who were now almost halfway across were not Roman. They were auxiliaries, Batavians or Thracians or both, tribes renowned for their water skills.

  “To the river!” he shouted. The bronze carnyx glittered suddenly in the upflung arm, its wolf’s claws grasping its gaping mouth, and its wolf’s fangs snarling to meet his own as he put it to his lips. He blew, and the company howled and began to run. “Camulos and the Catuvellauni!” he called, his voice rising strong above the chaos. “Death or victory!” Then he flung the carnyx to the floor of the chariot and they galloped at full stretch across the dry, cracking mud flats, the wind singing keenly in their ears.

  The auxiliaries reached the bank and struggled out of the water to meet the brunt of the first mad onslaught. They went down like stricken boars, their blood suddenly, vividly pooling out and spreading on the water, but the second wave and the third gained the shore and rose to fight. Caradoc, out of his chariot now and swinging his blade, Cinnamus beside him, sensed a strange reluctance in the grim, expressionless faces that reared before him. The soldiers did not want to give battle. They were dodging blows, running this way and that, pushing for the rear, and suddenly Caradoc knew why. A scream of terror split the air and then another, the high, mindless outcry of animals in pain, and he turned with an oath and a bitter shout. The legionaries were hamstringing the chariot horses, darting in under the wide blows of the chiefs to slash quickly and run away again, and one by one the gallant beasts fell to their knees, their eyes turned back in their brown heads, the chilling, inhuman sound of their agony filling the ears of their masters. But Caradoc had no time to feel outrage at this cowardly attack. The flats were swarming with soldiers and more were coming, rising from the river water flooding from them as they came, and he turned from the useless chariots, a fierce bloodlust welling within him. He saw Gladys beside Caelte, both hands grasping the hilt of her slimed sword, her feet planted sturdily apart. She swung, but he had plunged with a snarl into the mess of seething, leatherclad Roman bodies and did not see the blow go whistling through the hot air.

  The legionaries swam across the river like black flies and Plautius sat on his horse and watched. The resistance had been more sustained than he had expected, and accordingly he prepared for a long day. Soon the soldiers were across in sufficient numbers to form battle ranks, and hour after hour the solid, almost impenetrable wedges of men beat back the enraged Catuvellauni with their simple but devastatingly effective ploy.

  Caradoc, sweating and filthy, caught in a sudden, welcome lull, watched as the front line retired and the second came to take its place, each man stepping smartly forward while the front rank rested far back. They fought without heart, without emotion, these Romans. Their faces remained blank, their arms moved with tight precision, while his chiefs hurled themselves against the cruelly studded leather shields with heroic recklessness, again and again. He turned back into the melee, then saw something that stopped his breath and brought a shout of unbelieving joy to his lips. The whirlpool of battle that had spun away from him had revealed an avenue of clear ground leading straight to Hosidius Geta as he sat calmly on his horse, surrounded by his protecting cohorts, and Caradoc looked wildly about him.

  “Royal War Band! To me!” he shouted urgently, and his train came speeding out of the mass of strugg
ling men. Other chiefs had seen the opportunity that would never come again and they fell in behind Caradoc, rushing up that sweet, open pathway. Togodumnus joined them, bloody and grinning, and together they charged. “Not dead!” Caradoc yelled. “Take him alive!” and the startled cohorts tumbled to close ranks around the general.

  Plautius, watching from his vantage point, saw the pattern of engagement suddenly break up and swirl in another direction, and, astonished, he saw Geta islanded by a sea of jubilant, bright-clad chiefs, his cohorts in confusion. “Mighty Jupiter!” he exploded. “Rufus, have a left swing sounded and be quick!” The trumpets blared, two embattled centuries answered promptly, wheeling in tight precision, and the bitterly disappointed chiefs found themselves edged farther and farther from their almost defenceless target.

  “A good gamble but evil luck!” Togodumnus shouted. He and Caradoc saluted each other ruefully and parted and Plautius saw his friend come galloping along the riverbank, cloak flying and plumes dancing.

  Geta reined in and blew out his cheeks. “A tight moment, Aulus! What a prize I would have been to them. They would have bargained us right off the island!”

  Plautius laughed. “Hosidius, you’re getting old.”

  The Cantiaci came at last, rushing screaming into the fray, putting new heart into the beleaguered Catuvellaunian warriors, and the sun westered slowly, sinking at last beneath the reek and fume of battle. Finally, when it was too dark to tell friend from foe, the armies broke off, retiring to campfires, staggering with weariness. Not all the legions had crossed the river. The soldiers of the Second still waited on the farther shore with their commander, Vespasianus, pacing before them, and when nothing could be seen but the red twinkle of the watchfires, Plautius sent for him.

  “Take your men, all of them,” he said. “Go south and try to find a ford lower down. It may be that we can encircle the barbarians and have done with this indecision. They fight well, don’t they?”

  “By Mithras!” Vespasianus replied, a grudging admiration tinging his voice. “They fight as though they were possessed. I am no longer disposed to pity them.” He saluted and rode away and Plautius turned wearily to Pudens. He needed sleep. Tension ate at him, etching the lines around his thin mouth still deeper, but he knew from past experience that he would lie awake until the dawn, his strategies going round and round in his mind as he examined each one and searched for the flaw, the hidden mistake.

  “Rufus, bring me the barbarian,” he ordered. “It is time for him to prove his worth.”

  Pudens nodded and disappeared to return some minutes later with his reluctant companion. Adminius looked surly and afraid. The clean, handsome lines of his face, the cleft chin of the House Catuvellaun, the wide eyes and broad nose that he shared with his brothers were becoming blurred, softened with age, and he had a loose, unhealthy look. The years in Rome had put fat on him, and the idleness and frustration of his life had embittered him.

  Plautius did not meet his eye. He was afraid that his distaste would show. “Now, sir,” he said crisply. “I want you to cross the river. Go quietly among your kinfolk. You know what to say. They will be tired and dispirited tonight, and your words should bear fruit.”

  “What if they take me and kill me?” Adminius said plaintively.

  Plautius smiled. “I do not think they will. Not if you choose the right ears for your…sedition.”

  “It’s useless,” Adminius said sulkily. “They hate me, all of them, and they will hate me all the more now, for bringing the might of Rome down on their heads.”

  “But Adminius, you led the emperor to believe that your tribe could not wait to shake hands with Rome and welcome you back,” Plautius said gently. It was too dark for Adminius to see the sarcastic glint in the gray eyes.

  “It is true,” Adminius protested vehemently, “but not in the middle of a battle, sir!”

  “If you are successful the battle is over,” Plautius reminded him. “You know what to say, Adminius. Now go.” The words ended heavily, and Adminius saluted shortly and vanished.

  Caradoc lay beside the fire, too tired to wash or eat, though Fearachar had offered him goat’s flesh and barley bread. Cinnamus sat beside him wrapped in his flower-patterned purple cloak. He was polishing his great sword, a cup and a jug of wine at his knee, and his golden braids shining in the warm glow. Llyn was curled close to the fire, fast asleep, with one grimy hand under his brown cheek and his cloak over him. Beyond him sat Gladys, her head bowed and her arms folded on her green chest. She had not spoken since the dusk and Caradoc knew that she suffered, her longing for the healing quiet of the lonely ocean wounding her. But he was too weary to care. Togodumnus had come to him, boasting of his tally, but Caradoc, lying prone with grass under his sweat-bedraggled hair, his muscles burning and his right arm and hand almost numb, had sent him away with sharp words.

  The subdued rise and fall of many voices filtered through the dark trees around them, and Caradoc stirred and sat upright.

  “How many have we lost, Cin?”

  Cinnamus spoke without looking up, his hands busy. “I do not know, Lord.”

  “Can you not make a guess? A hundred? A thousand?”

  “Oh Mother, Mother, I do not know!” Cinnamus snapped. “All I know is that the chiefs are almost done and the Romans are fresh as spring daisies, and the morrow will bring an unknown fate.”

  Caradoc fell silent. He needed to sleep, if only for an hour, but something knocked at the back of his mind—an insistent, unwelcome pulse of warning. It had no shape, no coherence, but he felt that there was something he should know, something he had overlooked. The unblooded legion across the river, waiting in the darkness, bothered him. Why had Plautius withheld it? What new horror was he planning? The shrieks of the tortured horses rang again in his ears. He thought of Eurgain, sweet, sane, blue-eyed Eurgain, and of his little girls, dimples and blowing curls, but the pictures in his mind had no substance, like the wraiths of a dream. He sighed, troubled, then fell back onto his side and slept.

  One hour before the dawn he woke, cold and stiff. His cloak was soaking with dew and he rose and carried it to the fire, and stood shivering while it dried. The woods were full of morning noises, of the first drowsy bird calls and the spasmodic, disgruntled murmuring of sleepy, hungry men. Llyn was awake, sitting cross-legged on the other side of the fire and chewing thoughtfully on dried beef, a cup of water by his knee. Caradoc greeted him, and Fearachar moved from his perch on the lowest bough of the overhanging oak and went to bring him meat and beer.

  “What did you think of the battle yesterday?” Caradoc asked Llyn “Were you afraid?”

  The round, dark eyes met his scornfully. “Of course not! The Catuvellauni are afraid of nothing and no one. But I couldn’t see much, Father. Fearachar made me lie down and peer over the edge of a hill.”

  “That was wise of him.”

  “Will we defeat the Romans today?”

  Caradoc handed his cloak to Fearachar and took the food held out to him. He still was not hungry but he forced down the tough, unappetizing mouthfuls. “I do not know, Llyn. Perhaps. Now you and Fearachar must leave, for the sun is rising and there is work to do.”

  “If you do not beat them today, Father, I think that I will go home,” he said, getting up obediently. “It is good hunting weather and my dogs will be looking for me.”

  Suddenly the meat tasted to Caradoc like the bark of some old, sick tree, and he spat it out. “That is a very good idea, Llyn,” he said gravely. “Why don’t you go now? If you hurry you can be with your mother in three days.”

  Llyn shook his head. “Not yet, Father.”

  “Farewell then. Be obedient to Fearachar.”

  The man and the boy walked away into the mist and Caradoc slung the cloak that Fearachar had handed him around his shoulders. The sun was up. The mist lay only on the ground, and above, through the lacy-green, fluttering branches he glimpsed a bright sky. Good hunting weather. He smiled with wry pain and drank his be
er, then struck out through the wood, moving silently, keeping low, hugging the shelter of the biggest trees. At last he came to the edge and dropped to the ground, slithering easily through the long grass. He halted, and peered out.

  Across the river the brown mud flats were deserted. The legion had gone. Panic seized him. Where were they? The hairs on the back of his neck crawled. Between himself and his own side of the water the Romans were up, forming ranks, readying themselves for another day of slaughter. They had piled the dead in great heaps away from their fires, but there was no sign of any wounded. Caradoc hastily wriggled back the way he had come and then took to his heels, pelting through the dense brambles and briars. Where, where, where? He tied up his hair as he ran, and burst into his own camp to find Mocuxsoma and Cinnamus searching angrily for him, and the chiefs harnessing their chariots.

  “Where have you been?” Cinnamus panted. “There is news.”

  Mocuxsoma shouldered forward. “Lord, your brother has been here in the night. He slipped past the guards and went among certain chiefs and their freemen. Half our force has gone.”

  “What do you mean gone? Gone where? What has Tog been up to?” His heart was still pounding and his throat was dry.

  Mocuxsoma stamped on the ground. “Not Togodumnus. Adminius! He has enchanted the men away. Now they fight beside Rome!”

  The words struck Caradoc in the deepest part of his soul, igniting his whole body in a sudden, flesh-searing explosion, and he flung back his head and roared like a wounded boar, his eyes closed, his voice screaming. “May Camulos split his belly and spill his guts before his eyes! May Epona trample out his brains! I curse him! In sleeping and eating, in hunting and feasting, I curse him! Taran burn him! Bel drown him! Esus strangle him!”

  Cinnamus went to him, touching his arm, but Caradoc threw him off, the pain of betrayal ripping through him, becoming a torrent of despair. The tuath was forever disgraced, and all the worry, the sleepless nights and careful planning, all the suffering—all, all for nothing.