The battle raged fiercely, still two circles from where she stood. The peasants, men and women, did not fall back. She saw them die, still in the same awesome, strange silence, pierced by swords, impaled by spears. And now there were officers in the forefront, moving ahead of their men, and Gladys watched it all, encased in an armor of fatality that detached her from the scene. Time had run out. Time had played with her for a while and then grown tired, moving on to sport with others, and she was left to die in a weird, cold place where every remaining breath was borrowed from the years before. The soldiers were hunting now, no longer faced with a foe, and the peasants who remained died alone, surrounded by the enemy. The officers came on, but slowly, looking about them, and Gladys straightened, raised her sword to rest against her neck, and drove all thoughts from her mind.
Now they came, toiling up the path with red faces, and swords held close to their breasts with bent arms. She felt herself grow calm. They saw her and rushed forward, shields swinging to cover them, booted feet crunching in the loose stones, and she raised her sword, grasping the hilt in both hands, and leaped to meet them. There was a moment of confusion. She was ringed by swords, stabbing in and out like sharp tongues of fire. One man went down, his leg severed below the knee, and she slashed again, her sword striking a shield with a force that stunned her. A shock ran up her arm and it went numb, but she tugged her blade free, turning to meet the soldier behind her, lunging with a cold detachment while her body danced like wildfire. He ducked, throwing himself forward behind his shield, and the cruel bossing caught her in the ribs, knocking the breath from her as his sword jabbed for her belly. She jumped backward desperately, hearing a sharp, shouted command. She was sensing the men who closed in at her rear where she was defenceless, staggering without balance, and her shoulders tensed against the blow that must come. But it did not fall. Strong arms went around her, one about her neck, grinding her against a hard iron breastplate, one over her own arms, encircling her. She struggled maniacally, screaming with rage. She kicked backward, and her imprisoned hands scrabbled for the knife at her belt, but the inexorable grip only tightened and she felt the blood begin to leave her head. Blackness swam before her eyes and the sounds of the shouting around her began to fade. Her legs gave way.
“Don’t strangle her, Quintus,” she heard someone say. The voice floated to her from miles away, drifting over a heaving ocean where dead men rocked. “You have a handful of royalty there. Plautius will want to see her.” Suddenly she felt herself dropped like a heap of dirty tunics, and the sword was wrenched from her hand. Someone undid her belt roughly, pulling it free, and hands moved over her, checking for more weapons, but she could not move. Her sword arm tingled and throbbed. Her head swam. She could only lie there, eyes closed, while the man with the severed leg went on screaming. “Where are the stretcher-bearers?” the same voice said irritably. “It is all over, there is nothing left to do, they should be here.” She wanted to open her eyes but the effort was too great. She lay there listening to the bustle around her, trying to breathe deeply while her head cleared and she felt strength seep back to her legs.
Presently there was the sound of running feet, and a moment of quiet, then the screams began to recede and at last she was able to open her eyes. She was lying against the shrine of Camulos. Above her, one hand on his hip and the other resting on the vine stick under his arm, stood a centurion. Beside him was his optio, a wide chunk of a man with the thick arms and craggy, twisted face of a wrestler. He still held her sword, and her knife now rested in his belt. Beside him, so close that had she stretched out her hand she could have dabbled her fingers in it, was a pool of bright blood where the wounded man had lain. Good! she thought. I hope the rest of the leg falls off and the stump goes bad and he dies in agony. The centurion glanced down at her and then motioned to his second.
“She has recovered, Quintus. Set her on her feet but watch her carefully. Tricky as weasels, these barbarians.” Gladys found herself hauled unceremoniously to her feet. Her legs were trembling, and where the shield boss had struck her breast, she was so bruised that every breath was an experiment in pain. But she folded her arms and stared straight at the centurion while the optio hovered behind her, his hand on his knife.
“Who are you?” the officer asked. “I know you are royal. Loaded down with silver you couldn’t be anything else. What is your name?” She did not answer.
“She probably can’t understand you, sir,” the optio said. “Can you speak her language?”
The centurion shook his head, uneasy under Gladys’s dark, hostile eyes. “No. Now what shall I do with her? Plautius will want to see her but he’ll be too busy for some hours yet. The gate has to be opened and a place prepared for the emperor. Find a couple of soldiers, Quintus, and put her in the shrine for the time being.” Quintus saluted, and the centurion, after another hesitant, sweeping look at his prize, went away. The optio took her arm.
“In here,” he ordered. “You!” Two passing legionaries stopped and saluted. “This prisoner must be guarded. You can see to it.” He pushed her into the shrine and went away, and the two grumbling soldiers took up their posts on either side of the low, narrow door.
“So much for a mug of wine and a rest,” one said. “I suppose we must stand here until Quintus remembers us, which won’t be for hours. Got your dice on you?”
“Let’s have a look at the prisoner first,” the other suggested, and they turned to the doorway. But Gladys, hands pressed to her ribs where the pain seared her, fronted them.
“This is a holy place,” she said, her voice flat. “If one of you puts his dirty foot over the threshold the god will curse you. Your belly will begin to burn. Your head will ache until you plead for someone to cut it off. And demons will pursue you night and day and drive you mad with terror.” They backed away, superstitiously awed as every soldier was when faced with strange gods, and Gladys sank to the ground.
In the dimness Camulos squatted, scowling at the doorway, big hands resting on his fat belly, the lobes of his ears looping up to envelop his bellicose head. Gladys smiled wearily at him. “Where were you when I needed you, Camulos?” she murmured. “Were the sacrifices not pleasing to you? Are you tired of serving the Catuvellauni?” She lowered herself, lying on her side, but whatever she did, her bruised ribs cried out with every indrawn breath. The boss had struck her with such force that her tunic had been driven into the flesh, but she did not try to loosen it, knowing that the pain would only become worse if she did. It was cold in the shrine, and dampness rose from the dirt floor and chilled her until she began to shiver. Her sword arm had no feeling in it and would scarcely obey her. There was a piece of cloth lying across the god’s feet where offerings were placed, and finally she crawled over and took it, bundling it up and placing it beneath her head. The soldiers outside were sitting on the threshold and she heard the rattle of dice and their uncouth laughter. She tried to relax, closing her eyes and thinking of her brother, who was surely now far into the forests, along with her little nieces, armfuls of soft, sweet flesh. But it was for her beloved sea that she longed, and she wanted to crawl into a cave with her hurts and her grief and lie there until the solitude of a deserted summer shore could heal her. She missed the comforting coldness of her sword beside her, and without her voluminous cloak she felt naked, but she slept. The morning turned into afternoon, and the summer sun began to drop slowly and heavily to the horizon.
She awoke in a sweat, her heart thumping and her head thick, to the sound of loud voices and she sat up carefully, while every muscle protested. “Go in and get her!” she heard someone order impatiently. “What’s the matter with you?” And one of the soldiers answered sullenly.
“The god will curse us if we go in. The woman said so.”
“Oh she did, did she? So she can speak a civilized tongue after all! Well, well! Quintus, go in and bring her out. You two, go down to the camp.” Gladys rose shakily, clinging to the wall, trying not to breathe for the agon
y of it, and the huge optio darkened the doorway. Before he could step within, she walked toward him, willing her feet to obey her, and he snapped his fingers.
“Hurry up! The commander is waiting!” She came slowly into the sunlight, blinking, and for a moment stood looking out over the town. Long shafts of evening light lay peacefully over the valley, and smoke from the Roman cooking fires spiraled straight into the drowsy air. Below her a busy horde of soldiers labored on the earthwalls and the level of the defences had already shrunk. To her left, men came and went, and baggage stamped with the imperial eagle lay piled about the door of the Great Hall. From within came the crackle of new fire and the laughter and talk of the emperor’s servants. She felt bewildered, lost, as if she had gone to sleep only to wake a hundred years hence in a different age, with nothing familiar to hold to. Quintus tugged at her arm, guards formed about her with the centurion leading, and she began to walk, her head high, vowing grimly not to faint. They passed the Great Hall, turned left, and followed the path that ran to the very summit. At last Quintus halted her outside Caradoc’s gray stone house. No! she thought in panic, not here! But the centurion had already gone inside, and presently he came out again, nodding to her. She stepped past the doorskins, with the centurion behind her, and halted. Three men looked at her with a frank, open interest and she stared back, seeing out of the corner of her eye the familiar, homely things, which brought a lump to her parched throat. Eurgain’s box lay on the floor in a corner, open and empty. One of her silver drinking cups stood on the table beside the brown, folded hands of the commander, and down by the hearth, where a fire blazed, lay one of Caradoc’s cloaks, the one striped with red and blue and fringed in gold thread. Tears sprang to her eyes but she sternly fought them back, wanting to snatch up the warm, soft garment and bury her face in its gay folds. But something of Eurgain still lingered here. A whiff of peace, a sane comfort, and Gladys felt her spirits rise with the little spurts of flame that twinkled in Eurgain’s copper lamps. She stood straighter.
“Thank you, Varius, you can go,” the commander said, and the centurion beside her saluted and went out. In the moment before he spoke again, Gladys studied him. A man in early middle age, she thought, his black hair sprinkled with gray and cut short. The face was long and thin, the nose slightly hooked, and the chin clean and decisive. His mouth in repose was hard, a slash across his face, but when he spoke it broke into lines of gentleness. He was immaculately dressed. His white linen shone, and the drapings of his short cloak were fresh and stainless. The fastening on his shoulder gleamed and so did the thick bronze arm bands about both wrists. On the index finger of his left hand he wore a massive gold seal ring. At last her wandering eyes found his own and a jolt of recognition went through her as though somewhere, sometime, in a place before memory or consciousness, she had looked long into their depths and had now found a part of her own self. They were blue-gray, speculative eyes, full of an objective perception, deep with a knowledge of the world and himself, but telling her also that this man was a mystery, who kept his thoughts to himself, a man of quiet self-containment. With difficulty, with a strange, bewildering gladness, she tore her gaze from him and glanced at the others. A large, red-faced, ugly man stood beside the table with his hands behind his back. His massive, bronze-plated chest was thrown out, and the iron-stripped apron around his waist hid thighs like boulders. Off to her right, a young, cheerful-faced man rested one sandaled foot on Caradoc’s stool and met her eyes with undisguised curiosity. She looked away.
“What is your name?” the commander asked her. She stared into his face and did not reply, and his hands tightened about each other. “What are you called?” he repeated, and she met his steady look coldly.
“I give my name only to my own people.”
“Where are your chiefs? Where is your ricon?”
“Dead.”
He shook his head firmly, and when he spoke again the level, cultured voice was sharper. “No, they are not. No chiefs lie among the bodies, and I myself checked the prisoners. Where have they gone?”
The soft lips remained firmly closed and Plautius regarded her in the silence. He, like the centurion, had no doubt that she was a prize, a member of some ruling house. Her bracelets were all of silver, the hem of her tunic was rimmed with gold thread, and the two necklaces that hung from the brown throat were silver filigree. The centurion had told him that her shield was studded all over with red coral and sprinkled with pearls. But who was she? What chief could be coerced into submission because Rome held this woman hostage? A husband? A father? No, not a father. She was well past her first youth, though the slim body could have belonged to a stripling and the dark hair fell in a glossy shower down her back without a trace of gray. The face was already traced with lines, fine meshes around the big eyes, faint tracks from the small nose to that cool mouth, but those eyes… He frowned unconsciously, annoyed with himself. This was no time for idle philosophizing on the endless permutations of the barbarian character. Yet there was familiarity in the face and a hidden tension, manifested in her very stillness, a tension borne of long years of some kind of discipline. He had seen it before in the faces of men who had devoted all their energies to art and withdrew into themselves. He looked back at her to see the color draining from her cheeks. She put one shaking hand to her breast and swayed, and he spoke quickly. “She’s hurt. Rufus, give her the stool.” The young man left his perch and carried it to her, she sank onto it and they waited, Vespasianus shuffling and breathing heavily, obviously impatient to get the business over and move on. Then she raised her face, and the color was creeping back.
“You ask me where they have gone,” she said, holding her bruised ribs, the faintness of hunger and exhaustion still threatening to pitch her into oblivion. “And as it can make no real difference now, I will tell you. They have gone to gather new forces. They will fight you again, Roman, and again, until you crawl back to your dungheap and leave us alone.” The insult was ignored. Pudens raised his eyebrows and smiled, and Plautius left the chair and came to stand before her.
“Where have they gone?”
“I have told you enough.” She spoke his native tongue with a pleasant, lilting accent, her voice deep for a woman, but soft, soft and compelling, and he found it hard to remember that she was a warrior, and that many of his men lay dead or wounded because of her.
“Why didn’t you go with them?” he probed more gently than he had intended, and she looked up at him sadly.
“It was… It was a matter of honor.” Vespasianus muttered something and sat on the edge of the table, and Pudens leaned against the wall, arms folded, his smile broadening. He found a respect for her growing in him. Plautius thought for a moment and then went on.
“Lady, I must know where they have gone, surely you understand that, and so I will keep asking you. How many chiefs left this place? How great is the force?”
“Not great—yet,” she said. “But it will grow. And if you think to keep me here as a hostage in order to draw them back, forget the idea. My brother would rather see me die than surrender himself to you.”
“And you yourself? Don’t you want to live?”
She shrugged and then cried out in pain, mastering herself immedi ately and answering with pride. “Life without honor is nothing. I will die if necessary. There is nothing left to live for.”
And yet you do want to live, Plautius thought. You do not know it yet, but you do. You are full of misery, lady, and dreams, and strange, unfulfilled yearnings. I see them all behind those dark eyes of yours. He walked to the door and called, and Varius returned and saluted. “Find a hut for the lady,” Plautius said. “Send my surgeon to her, and food and drink, but keep her well guarded.” Varius nodded and stood waiting and Gladys rose slowly and went to him, passing through the doorskins without a backward look. Plautius turned to his men. “Well?” he said. Vespasianus grunted.
“What a primitive idea these people have of firmitas!” he replied. “Give her to Qu
intus. He’ll soon wring the truth from her, before it’s too late to round up the chiefs.” Plautius had a thought, then rejected it.
“She would not speak, and in any case it is already too late to make any difference now. Honor is all she lives for. Who is she, Rufus?”
Pudens left the wall and came to stand with them. “She mentioned her brother. We know that the younger brother is dead and the older one here with us, so it must be Caradoc who has slipped off with the remnants of his men. Cunobelin had only one daughter, sir.”
The Eagle and the Raven Page 26
