The Eagle and the Raven

by Pauline Gedge

  Then she placed him, mounted on a black horse, his animal eyes fixed on Caradoc as he embraced Aricia on that damp, cold morning when she had ridden away into the mists with her red-bearded chieftain. She greeted him with respect. “A good morning to you. I am Gladys, sister to the Ricon Caradoc of the House Catuvellaun.”

  His expression did not change. His eyes remained cautious and haughty, but he answered her with the same politeness. “I am Domnall, chief to Aricia of the House Brigantia. What do you want of me?”

  Her guard touched her shoulder. “Speak Latin, Lady,” he warned her, obviously ill at ease, and Gladys switched to it, speaking slowly and carefully, believing that this man would have little knowledge of the Roman tongue, but to her surprise she found that he had mastered it quite well. That, more than anything else, told her how the years had treated the wild sheepherders. Aricia had been making good her vow to turn them all into Catuvellauni.

  “I want news of your ricon. How is she?” He considered well before he told her. He does not want to lie, she thought with quick intuition, but neither does he want to seem disloyal. Oh Aricia, what havoc have you been wreaking on your proud people?

  “She is in good health, Lady. We have prospered as a tuath since she returned to us. She has brought in much trade from Gaul and Rome and we are richer than we ever dreamed.” The deep voice was emotionless.

  “And what of her husband, Venutius?” Domnall gave her a penetrating look.

  “He is well also,” he said, and abruptly turned away. Gladys left the colorful little knot and began to stroll around the first circle, ignoring the long, curious stares of the officers who sat outside their tents. Domnall had told her much with his few words. Aricia had ordered surrender, Aricia had sent the delegation to make it formal, almost certainly against her husband’s wishes. Venutius would favor a policy like Cunobelin’s, the neutral middle way. Or had he seen that the middle way was no longer possible?

  What would have happened if Caradoc had married Aricia instead of using her, and had faced Plautius with the combined armies of the Catuvellauni and the Brigantes? So many ifs, so many useless, dead avenues of speculation. She stopped in the middle of the path, closing her eyes and raising her face to the sun. I am alive, she thought unbelievingly. Against all odds, I live. The sun warmed her blood, fell hotly on her cheeks, and a happiness greater than she had ever known swelled within her. “Time to go back,” her guard said at her elbow, and she turned to him with an infectious, youthful smile.

  “Yes, yes, I know. Will he let me out again, do you think?” The man shrugged, embarrassed at her sudden change of mien, and together they began the climb to her hut.

  Three days later Claudius and the unnecessary Eighth Legion under Didius Gallus left Camulodunon. Vespasianus and Geta went with him, for they were to parade with him in his triumph and receive laurels at his hands for their part in the invasion, and Plautius and Pudens bowed them all to the boats with relief. Claudius had left Plautius with a list of injunctions. “Conquer the rest,” he had said airily, but Plautius had known that the emperor did not mean it. Spread out, he had ordered, build roads and forts, consolidate. He had appointed Plautius as First Legate of the Imperial Province of Britannia, a post that followed almost automatically from his command of the invasion forces, and he had spoken again of the temple he wanted on the razed site of the Great Hall. Plautius had listened absently, regarding the erection of the temple as the least of his worries. The merchants and traders were already flooding the captured territory, and he knew that after them would come the land speculators, the usurers, the adventurers and beggars and offal of the empire. While Claudius rambled on, Plautius frowned over his wine, wondering how many beneficiarii and speculatores he would need to maintain some kind of order as the boundaries of peace were pushed back and his greatest worries would be with civilians.

  At least he did not have to worry about setting and handling taxes. The procurator would soon arrive, with his staff. Plautius wondered who it would be, then decided that it did not matter. He was used to handling procurators. Tact, dignity, and gentle persuasion, that was all it took. Besides, he himself was in such high favor that he need not fear the sealed dispatches that always went direct from the procuratorial offices to the emperor himself. He liked Claudius. They had spent many hours together discussing the latest books, and Plautius was always amused and touched to see his emperor forget his fears for a while and grow excited and expansive over Seneca’s latest dry, witty pronouncements. But now, listening to the emperor expound on the dimensions of his temple, he was very glad that he would soon be left in peace to get on with his job. Claudius had made that job very clear. “We have a duty to assimilate these barbarians,” he had said earnestly. “This is Rome’s mission to the world, Plautius. They must be civilized for their own good and for the commonweal. They will live to bless the gods of Rome.”

  Everyone knew that Claudius wanted to see every barbarian wearing a toga. Seneca had made Claudius’s odd ambition the joke of Rome. But Plautius had been touched by his emperor’s transparent goodwill. He was a liberal, fair man, and though his physical defects distressed and titillated those around him, Plautius could see beyond them to a man wounded by a harsh childhood without family affection—a dreamer, a shy reader propelled unwillingly into the glare of divinity. But Claudius was fast becoming something else, and Plautius pitied him. He was anxious to be gone now, fretting continually about what Vitellius was doing in Rome during his absence, and the more upset he became the more his hands shook. Plautius and Pudens exchanged rueful smiles as the imperial barge, with a great fanfare of trumpets, floated out of sight down the river. They were also pleased that the emperor had taken with him all his polite, predatory enemies.

  In the late afternoon, Plautius sent for Gladys. He was not sure why he did so, but somehow in the peaceful lull between Claudius’s departure and the new duties that waited he wanted to see her. She came quietly, as self-composed as she had been on the night when she had bested the emperor, and she stood before him in the Great Hall, waiting without impatience, the low, yellow sunlight streaming under the doorskins behind her. Vespasianus’s brother Sabinus, and Pudens, were engaged in paperwork, heads together over a table piled with scrolls, their secretaries waiting to take notes, and they barely glanced at her as Plautius dismissed her guard and beckoned her closer. “Come and sit,” he offered, but she shook her head, standing before him, hands hidden in the sleeves of her green tunic. “Have you any complaints?” he asked. “Have you enjoyed your walks?” He thought she looked better. Her cheeks had more color, her eyes were free of the cloud of pain, but that strange tension was still with her like a permanent aura.

  “I have enjoyed them more than you can ever know. Thank you,” she said. “But now I would like to test your goodwill with another request.” Plautius sat back and crossed his legs, and she read a pleased smile in the austere eyes.

  “I have already allowed you more liberty than I ought,” he replied, “but ask if you like. I can always refuse.” She took one gliding step.

  “Sir, let me walk by the ocean.” The inflection of her words rolled back a screen for him, and a new corner of her carefully concealed personality peeped out. He was intrigued.

  “Why? You are presumptuous, Lady. You can walk the town every day. Why do you need the ocean?” He had placed an unerring finger on the mystery of her life that even she had been unable to solve, and she quickly shrugged, lifting one shoulder to dismiss the question before he began to probe too deeply.

  “I am unaccustomed to a cage, sir, and even Camulodunon can be a cage to a captive bird that is big enough!”

  He sat looking at her, knowing that he should refuse. She would be too hard to guard on the lonely, open stretches of beach, and besides, what might she ask for next? Her weapons returned to her? He glanced back at Pudens. “Tell me, Rufus,” he called, “when is that shipment of goods due for the troops?”

  “It should have arrived this mor
ning, sir,” Pudens replied, not looking up, and Plautius looked back at Gladys.

  “I take too great a risk, letting you journey to the estuary with only your guard,” he said, “and if you escaped, the emperor would be very angry with me. You are still worth something, Lady.”

  “I have told you before,” Gladys said. “My brother will never cooperate with you, even if it means my death. If you like, I will swear an oath not to attempt escape.” He shook his head, his smile broadening.

  “I do not think such an oath would be binding on you,” he said, “or am I wrong? Isn’t there a time limit on oaths sworn to an enemy?” She did not reply and he saw her shoulders droop. Then he emptied his cup and rose. “I want to check on the baggage that arrived today,” he said. “I could wait until it is unloaded here, but I wouldn’t mind a stroll on the beach myself. I will come with you.” She smiled then, that strange, sourceless happiness blossoming like a spring flower on her face, and he shouted for his orderly. “My cloak, Junius, and my helmet. Lady,” he walked to her as the servant entered, cloak over his arm and shining helmet in his hand, “do not be deceived. My days in the ranks may be over, but you would find me more than a match for you if you tried to run!” Her smile widened. He took the cloak and helmet and together they left the Hall, walking down to the new gate in the bee-busy afternoon.

  They rode slowly through the dappled green woods, the quaestor, two centurions, and three soldiers with them. The men chatted desultorily, and Plautius, acknowledging the salutes of the passing legionaries who came and went between town and river, relaxed on a tide of monumental well-being. Gladys did not speak. She rode easily, her eyes wandering in the trees, listening to the echo of bird song and the mild fluttering of the breeze in the ferns and leaves, her thoughts on Caradoc. Had he come this way? Where was he now? The thought that he believed her dead sent a pang of remorse through her, but it could not dull her mood. They rounded a bend and the river flats lay before them, brown water flowing slowly under the sun, boats drawn up to the pier and rocking gently, and she dismounted. One of the soldiers took her horse and she, Plautius, and his men clambered onto a barge. “Cast off,” Plautius ordered and they swung into the turgid current, the stiffer wind off the water blowing away the heavy forest scents and bringing to her a pungent whiff of the sea.

  The estuary was busy. Beyond the sodden marshes where the river dawdled out to linger before it trickled into the ocean, a camp had been set up, white tents and earthworks, and the bay was full of the slim ships of the newly formed Classis Britannica. Gladys could make out sailors leaning over the sides and enjoying the sun, and the gay standards and pennants of the ships ripped frantically in the onshore breeze. Their barge came to rest against a new, solid pier, and the sentries ran to make it fast, stiffening and saluting as Plautius and the officers got out, with Gladys following. Shouts and the clamor of unloading came from the beach, and an officious soldier approached Plautius, worry creasing his brown forehead, a slate in his hands. Plautius turned to Gladys. “Where do you want to go?” he asked, and she looked up to where the stark, bird-circled cliffs rose from the bay and gained height, their shoulders grass-covered and their feet planted among black rocks.

  “Around that curve there is sand and pools and silence,” she said. “Let me walk there.”

  He nodded. “Quaestor, see to the tally. I will come too.”

  Gladys spread out her arms in pleading. “Oh sir, let me go alone,” she begged, but impatiently he brushed her off.

  “What kind of a fool do you take me for?” he snapped as the quaestor took the slate, already preoccupied, his eyes on the mountains of sacks and boxes by the water. She turned away, Plautius moving behind her while the quaestor strode under the shadow of the ship.

  The yells of the officers, the grunts of the perspiring soldiers, the crashes and thumps slowly faded. She took off her sandals and laid them on a rock, putting her cloak over them. Then she straightened and drew a long breath, and shook her head as the wind found her hair and sent it floating out behind her. The breakers boomed as they rolled toward her and collapsed in white fury almost at her bare feet. “Plautius, don’t be alarmed,” she called. “I am going to run!” She saw him nod, his face shaded under the helmet, then she pelted down the sand, her arms wide and her eyes squinting in the blinding glitter of sunlight on blue water. The curve of the bay narrowed but she did not slow. She turned in a shower of sand and careened back, her breath coming fast, her heart beating strongly, and a mad gaiety tingling in her fingers and hot, bare toes. Plautius watched her, amused, with his arms folded over his bronze breastplate, and she came up to him and stood, hands on knees, panting and laughing at him.

  “Now I will walk!” she puffed. “How hot you look! Take off your helmet and your armor! You do not need defence from me. I have no knife!” He gestured to the top of the cliff. “I might be shot at from up there,” he protested, and she laughed at him again, her eyes slitted and her black hair whipping about her shoulders. He removed the helmet, unbuckled the breastplate and let it fall, and the hot wind ruffled his gray-sprinkled hair with dry fingers. She turned away and walked down to the water, squatting, catching a wave in both hands and raising it to her nose, putting her tongue into it, and rubbing wet palms over her face. He stood behind her looking down on the thin curve of her green-clad back, and the tangled, falling hair. She was all innocence today, making him feel worn and old, and a tenderness flooded him. He wanted to hold her in his arms like a mother cradling a wounded child, but she reached out to catch a piece of seaweed that went floating by and the sleeve of her tunic fell back. Her arm was scarred and pitted with dozens of white, puckered sword slashes, and once more he felt confusion.

  She rose, and together they explored the beach. They stood ankle deep in the warm, translucent pools left by the tide. They teased the irritated crabs that vainly rose up on their silly legs and clicked at them with offended claws. They pried the mollusks loose from rocks festooned in gray, rotting weeds, and Plautius scraped out the juicy, strong-smelling meat, offering it to her on the point of his knife, smiling at her, and she found herself suddenly laughing over nothing like an idiot. Then, when the sun began to drop toward the cliffs and the light that streamed over the water no longer blinded them or made them sweat, they sat side by side, their feet buried in wet sand, and fell silent. The gulls wheeled above them, crying. The wind veered and began to gust from the summit of the cliffs, and down where they were there was a sudden lull. They watched as the sun behind them opened a wide, scarlet pathway, a water road leading to the dark blue, far horizon and their shadows mingled. Gladys looked out upon the ocean now slowly changing from bright blue to a somber, cool gray. Ah, freedom, freedom, she exulted, boundless wealth of my soul, and she turned her head to find him watching her. All at once freedom seemed to dwindle, shrink, and become contained in those crinkled eyes that held within them the color and mystery of the sea. She looked away quickly, but now the ocean only reflected his steady, gray gaze, and its depths flung back at her his thoughtful face. She sighed. What is freedom?

  “I am grateful for this,” she said. “I do believe I am fully healed.”

  “I am grateful, too,” he said simply. “I needed a few hours of peace.”

  “What are you going to do with me?” she asked him, her eyes fixed on the horizon where evening clouds were forming, and he followed her gaze.

  “There are several possibilities,” he said evenly. “I could send you to Rome as an important prisoner of war and you would be paraded through the streets in chains. I could keep you here as an encouragement to the remnants of your people to cooperate without fear. I could kill you and send your body to your brother.” She did not stir.

  “And what do you want to do with me?” she pressed.

  “I don’t know. You could be useful, but without your cooperation you are just a nuisance. I should send you off to Claudius and forget you.” Something in his voice warned her not to argue and she changed the subj
ect.

  “Where is Adminius?”

  “Your brother? He has gone on a little tour with one of my cohorts in an effort to reach the chiefs and people still living in the woods. I also sent him to Cogidumnus and Boduocus. He is proof that Rome is not bent on the destruction of the tribes. He will return in two or three days. Do you want to see him?”

  “Keep him away from me!” she exploded. “Slave! Stinking Roman pig! I disown him! I have only one brother!”

  She had begun to tremble and her voice held such anguish that he was embarrassed. “Tell me about your brother,” he said quietly. “What kind of a man is he? You know I saw him once, standing on the earthwall, and something about him made me want very much to meet him.”

  “Not kill him?” she snapped, her mouth twisted and her color still high. Then she loosened, drew up her knees, and began to studiously trickle the warm sand through her fingers. “I am sorry. I find my position extremely difficult, and moments such as this only serve to make my future look more dark. About Caradoc.” She smiled, a lingering, gentle smile of reminiscence and love. “He is upright, full of honor, a great warrior. Men count it a privilege even to be his enemy.”

  “It is a privilege to me,” he said softly, and she turned to the lean, stern face.