The Eagle and the Raven

by Pauline Gedge

  They moved into the room. Against one wall the fire roared up the chimney, crackling merrily. To the right of it the flames glowed red on the household shrine where Jupiter Greatest and Best, Mercury for luck, Mars, and Mithras received the daily offerings. Favonius was devoted to Mithras and it was said that he had achieved the grade of Lion, though none but his fellow initiates and he himself knew the truth of the rumor. The Mithras men were honest. They lived by a strict, almost ascetic philosophy of personal discipline and forthright dealing, and Prasutugas had told Boudicca many times that the Iceni were fortunate to have their business in the hands of such a one as Favonius. But Boudicca, glancing with distaste at the god flanked by his stern torchbearers as she had so many times in this room, was unimpressed. Give me the clean winds of the groves of Andrasta, she thought as Priscilla, flushed and pretty in her yellow stola, came forward. Her black hair was piled high tonight, and yellow ribbons were twined in it. Flounces covered her tiny, soft feet, golden bracelet tinkled, and a cloud of strong perfume made Boudicca’s nose twitch as the two women embraced, smiling in mutual dislike.

  The Roman women were toys, Boudicca thought, decorative as the delicate curls of spun sugar that adorned their precious cakes, and about as useful. Priscilla was no exception, though her husband had brought her to the dark edge of the empire and faced her with every danger and inconvenience. As for Priscilla, she regarded Boudicca with well-concealed disdain, considering her a mannish, rude barbarian, typical of the uneducated mass of squalid natives who did not know the meaning of tact or gentleness and sought to resist her efforts to enlighten them with an unparalleled scorn. She pitied Prasutugas, who had the makings of a good Roman citizen if only he could shake himself free from his overbearing wife. In his weakness, Priscilla surmised, he allowed her to tramp all over him. No Roman would have stood for it. With the ritual of greetings now thankfully over, Favonius waved them to the couches and they reclined quickly, their stomachs growling. Priscilla nodded to the servant who waited, arms folded, by the door. “Gustatio,” she ordered, then turned to her guests with a bright smile, while wine was poured into the blue glass goblets and the wind rattled the window.

  “How is the grapevine?” Prasutugas asked Favonius. “Is there any sign of life in it yet?”

  “It seems to be shooting afresh,” Favonius answered, “but it is very slow. If the grapes this autumn turn out to be as sour as the ones last year I shall give it up and concentrate on the roses. They seem to thrive on the dampness.”

  “We are putting in a hypocaust this summer, ready for the winter,” Priscilla interposed. “I nearly froze last winter, and Marcus was coughing from December to May.” She chattered on and Boudicca sipped her wine and pushed it away. They had flavored it with honey again and she found it sickly sweet. Everything about them is sickly sweet, she thought cynically. Poor dear Marcus and his cough. But she liked the boy for his clear, frank eyes and his straight talking, and as the servants filed in, burdened with plates, she pulled the goblet to her and swallowed more wine, glad to see that there was a salad tonight, made of the fresh shoots from the detachment’s garden, barely green. The servant bent, placing a dish before her on the dazzling white cloth, and she sighed inwardly. Oysters again. She did not understand the Roman greed for the shellfish of her coast and she watched, amused, as Priscilla licked her lips and picked up her spoon.

  “How are the girls?” Favonius asked her, chewing hard. “I saw Ethelind dashing by on her horse yesterday. How she’s growing!”

  “She will make an excellent horsewoman,” Prasutugas answered for his wife, seeing her abstracted mood. “She has a natural seat. But she is reckless.”

  “Marcus rides well, too,” Priscilla said. “He can’t wait until he’s old enough to join the cavalry. Favonius has sent to Rome for a tutor for him but it’s so expensive, getting an education out here. I can handle the grammar and history lessons, when the young demon will settle to listen, but he’s old enough now for philosophy and rhetoric and that is beyond me.”

  Philosophy! Boudicca thought. Rhetoric! Andrasta most High One, that boy is worthy of a chieftain’s training and she wants to give him philosophy.

  The servants began to clear away the empty plates and the doctor entered, his bare head slicked with rain and his feet leaving little puddles on the tiled floor. Favonius greeted him affably. “Come and have a cup of wine. I’ll have it heated for you. And look at Prasutugas’s arm, will you, Julius? It’s giving him trouble again.”

  The doctor greeted them all and went to sit beside Prasutugas, taking the stump gently and lifting the empty sleeve away from it. Priscilla looked away. It was raw again, seeping a yellowish fluid, and the doctor exclaimed in annoyance. “I may have to take some more of it off,” he said brusquely. “The salve isn’t doing it any good at all.”

  Prasutugas withdrew and shook down the sleeve with his healthy arm. “You have hacked at it before,” he protested, “and it still will not heal. In the summer it will improve. Just give me more salve for now.”

  The doctor rose. “I’ll send it along to you tonight. No wine, thank you, sir. I won’t interrupt your dinner.” He bowed out, and a silence fell around the table. The servants returned with the next course, steaming, fragrant mutton that filled the room with the odor of rosemary and thyme, and began to place servings on the glossy, coral-colored plates. Boudicca looked up. “Is there any news out of the west?” she asked, her grating, hoarse voice louder than she had intended, and Favonius raised his eyebrows at his wife and looked into Boudicca’s brown, gold-flecked eyes. What a woman! he thought with admiration. She dominates this table like a predatory eagle, and her conversation is about as subtle as an eagle’s croak. The ruddy skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled and replied.

  “No, there is nothing new. Rumor has it that the governor intends to put forward a great effort this season and encircle Caradoc and his tribesmen, and there has certainly been much activity at Colchester lately. The last of the active legionaries have all marched west and the veterans are busy taking their places. The natives don’t like it, of course. The veterans are entitled to land and it has to come from the peasants. There will be trouble if Scapula is not careful.”

  “He has stopped being careful,” Priscilla remarked, spearing mutton with her knife. “He is absolutely obsessed with Caradoc. He even dreams about him. Every day he has the auguries read, hoping that his luck will change, but that wild chief goes on scattering soldiers like leaves on a wind. The governor has even raised the price on his head to six thousand sesterces and offered Roman citizenship to the native who brings him in.”

  “More wine, Priscilla?” her husband said quickly, leaning over to pour it before the waiting servant did, and he whispered, “Say no more! You will embarrass them!” He straightened and smiled. “Are you hunting tomorrow, Prasutugas? If you are, I think I’ll come too. I want to see how the dogs are working.”

  But Boudicca was not to be put off. “Six thousand! Were there eyebrows raised in Rome, I wonder?” She laughed, a gravelly, harsh bark almost masculine in its tone. “It will take more than the offer of money to persuade the chiefs to forget their oaths to him. It has been three years since Scapula arrived in Albion to find the Cornovii and the Dobunni in a shambles and the legions demoralized, and still the situation is only barely in hand. What a man! I met him once, did you know that, Prasutugas?”

  Favonius was looking at his plate. Priscilla blushed painfully, cleared her throat, and prepared to divert her guests, but Boudicca had the bit between her teeth and with a sinking heart Prasutugas saw the evening disintegrating. He shook his head noncommittally as though he were not interested, looking at his wife with a desperate pleading, but she smiled knowingly at him, raised her goblet mockingly, and drank.

  “I was six. My father took me to Camulodunon with him when he went to make some protest to Cunobelin. I do not remember what it was about, but I do remember taking Caradoc’s hand, and riding his horse. He seemed as
tall as a giant to me, and very handsome. He had thick brown hair and warm eyes, and he laughed at father and me when I told him that the Catuvellauni had the Roman disease.” Prasutugas groaned audibly, Priscilla swallowed, her appetite gone, but Favonius leaned back on his couch and fixed Boudicca with an expression from which all geniality had fled. I know you, lady, he thought, seeing how the flames of the fire leaped behind her, turning the rich chestnut waves of her hair into vibrant red life, making the amber stones on her circlet glow deep honey golden. She was smiling at him, the pale, freckled face was alight with mischief, the light brown eyes sparkled, and the nails of her blunt, capable fingers tinkled against the glass of her goblet. I know why the Iceni elected Prasutugas as lord instead of you. Tease me all you like, I will not be roused, and if your hostility finds rest in this way, I applaud. Your hands are tied and you know it. Your chiefs want peace and prosperity, and you can rant all you want. I rule here. “How foolish of him to laugh,” he commented drily. “You must admit, Boudicca, that under him the Catuvellauni have been destroyed as a tuath.”

  “As a tuath, yes, but not as a free people, those that are left. To you he is a crazy, ragged outcast with a price on his head, but to the men of the west he is arviragus, a savior.”

  “Savior from what? His followers die like flies from starvation, from the sword, when at one word from him they could lay down their arms, go back to their towns, and live in peace. I say he is a murderer.”

  “It would be the peace of the soul’s death,” she replied softly, her eyes losing their sparkle and turning hard. “Favonius, I apologize for my rudeness tonight, but you know me well enough by now to realize that I will not sit here and smile my principles away. Scapula has forgotten that he is here to govern. He has mobilized all the legions to one end and one end only. The capture of one lonely, hunted man. What has such madness to do with prosperity and peace for the province?”

  Favonius signaled to the servants. “Bring the mensae secundae,” he ordered curtly, then he looked back at her. “Boudicca, even you see the answer to that. When Caradoc is captured, all resistance can cease. And it will. He alone keeps the war going and when he has gone to Rome in chains, as of course he will eventually do, the people will settle down to a normal life once more.”

  She shook her head violently, the wine in her goblet splashing over her hands. “No, they will not. Oh, Favonius, this is what you cannot understand. The people do not want your peace and your prosperity. They want only their freedom.”

  “Bah!” he snapped peevishly. “Freedom is a word that children use. No man who ever lived was free. What kind of freedom do they want then? Rome can give them freedom from war, want, disease, and fear. What else could they possibly want? What?”

  “They want to be left alone.”

  A dismal silence settled over the table, a pall of embarrassment and unease, and while the servants dished up the pastries and set cakes and sweets and bowls of apples on the table, the four of them studied the walls. Favonius decided to drive his lesson home. Prasutugas and Boudicca had been guests at his table many times and there had been arguments before, but this time he knew that Boudicca’s customary acerbic tongue lashed him from fear. The campaigning season had begun. Scapula, in a mood of angry desperation, had changed his tactics and the ships of the Classis Britannica were landing soldiers on the Silurian coast while all available men gathered in Dobunni territory, ready to spread out through the mountains and encircle the rebels. This time there would be no mistakes. The governor’s reputation depended on the capture of Caradoc, and he knew it. He was running out of time, his health was not good, and the expansion of the province had been at a standstill while he bent all his powers on this manhunt.

  Things were coming to a head and Boudicca knew it. He did not think that she would be stupid enough to throw caution to the winds and mount her own little uprising, not again. Her chiefs had tried it two years ago when Scapula had ordered the disarming of the tribes before he left his rear thinly guarded in order to make his first move against Caradoc, and though she had not moved so much as a finger herself, she had done a lot of secret encouraging. So had Caradoc. His spies were everywhere, and Favonius had no doubt that it had been their insidious influence that had precipitated this spontaneous outburst of tribal defiance. But it had been quelled, Prasutugas had apologized, and Rome had been merciful. The Iceni had learned their lesson and now went about their increasingly lucrative business peaceably. Only Boudicca smouldered like a fire that had not been properly quenched. Favonius admired her, but her fierce, wild beauty did not blind him to her unreliability. As long as she was outspoken and quarrelsome he knew that Rome had nothing to fear, so in spite of her taunts he treated her well. But he watched her carefully for signs that her flamboyant wit was turning into quieter, darker channels. He and Priscilla had suffered through her sallies at dinner many times, but tonight he had had enough.

  “I caught a spy yesterday,” he said offhandedly, slicing an apple deftly on his plate. “My officers spent all night questioning him, but he would say nothing. I had him executed this morning.”

  She sat quite still, only the rapid rise and fall of her scarlet tunic betraying any shock, and he did not look at her.

  “How did you know that he was a spy?” Prasutugas asked casually, his pleasant face fighting not to register alarm, and Favonius crunched his apple, washing it down with more wine.

  “He lied to me. He said he was a traveling artist, come to ply his trade among your tribe, but when I had him stripped his body was a mass of scars. Artists don’t usually fight. A pity. He was a good-looking young man.”

  “Artists used to fight,” Boudicca ground out, her voice like pebbles sliding down a shingled cliff, “before Rome taught them that for artists to fight is not gentlemanly.” She pushed her plate away and swung her legs to the floor. “How many innocent men have you executed, Favonius?”

  “Not as many as you would like to think, Boudicca,” he said quietly, his round, ruddy face calm. “And certainly not this time. Before my soldiers skewered him he flung up his arms and shouted ‘Freedom!’”

  Priscilla rose with determination. “It was a lovely dinner, and I am tired of the two of you spoiling my evenings with your eternal wranglings. At heart you agree, you know that, and I wish we had had music tonight to drown your words. Now let us sit by the fire, and talk of nothing but the weather.”

  Boudicca caught Favonius’s eye and smiled and for once he responded to her impudent sympathy. She rose also. “Forgive me, Priscilla,” she said smoothly. “I love a quarrel, as you know only too well. Will you invite me again? Tell me, will you take Marcus to Rome this winter, or will your hypocaust be ready?” She folded onto the floor by the fire, a smile pasted carefully on her sharp features, and Priscilla rattled on brightly, a spate of relieved, happy gossip, while Prasutugas signaled for the servant to refill his goblet and turned his attention to hunting and the pride of his life, his dogs.

  When the guests had gone, Priscilla sat back with a sigh. “What a terrible woman she is, Favonius! You would think that by now she would have learned some manners. And that voice! Sometimes when I look at her she seems as old as Tiber’s hills, but she can’t be more than twenty-three or four. Poor Prasutugas. No wonder he is so quiet.” Her husband came and stood looking down on her reflectively. “She’s twenty-three. She has fought in twelve raids and killed five men. Because of us she has lost a kingdom and a way of life dearer to her than anything else. Don’t you think, my love, that there is something pathetic about this warrior-queen reduced to sitting at your feet while you prattle on about your melons and your child?”

  She glanced up at him, hurt. “I was only trying to do my duty. I live in constant fear that one of these nights you and she will come to blows yet I go on inviting her here, at your request.”

  Contrite, he bent and kissed her. “I’m sorry. But you know why I hold these dinners. It is important to stay close to the pair of them.”

&nb
sp; She turned away pettishly. “That’s not the only reason. Admit that you like her.”

  He smiled at the stiff, angry head of black hair from which the girlish ribbons trailed. “Yes,” he said. “I like her. Now come to bed.”

  Boudicca slipped off her cloak, flung the gold, amber-studded circlet onto the table, and stalked to her chair. She threw herself into it, smiling ruefully up at Prasutugas. “I am sorry,” she said hoarsely. “Very sorry. I have done it again, haven’t I? And I did promise to be polite.” She yawned. “I should never have asked for news from the west and started all that. If Priscilla thought me rude before, she will have utterly despaired of me after tonight.”

  He walked to the fire a little unsteadily, too much wine and the constant, nagging pain making him light-headed. “It doesn’t matter. Favonius is a tolerant man, and I think you amuse him with your fiery speeches.”

  “Like a chained, performing bear, I suppose!” she flashed. “Ah Prasutugas, to what shameful end have we come? If my father had lived, Rome would be battling two fronts instead of one, and Caradoc would know that he has friends among the Iceni. He despises us, and with good cause.”

  He closed his eyes wearily, his face slack and gray. “Not tonight, Boudicca, please. I am so tired.” She got up and went to him, helping him off with his cloak, undressing him, and he stood there limply.

  “Shall I get Hulda to come and bathe your arm?”

  “No. I want to sleep. If it is sunny tomorrow I shall feel better.”

  “We may have to cauterize it again.”

  He pulled back the covers on the bed and got onto it, lying down with a deep sigh of relief. “I don’t want it cauterized anymore. It only helps for a month or two, and then the wound opens and I am back at the beginning. Curse the Coritani! I know how you feel, Boudicca, but I for one am glad that the days of raiding are over. The Roman peace is precious to me. If it had come sooner I would not have lost my arm and become less than a man.” She took off her clothes quickly, combed her hair, and slid in beside him, alarmed at the heat emanating from his body, and his pouched, pain-stamped face. Each time his wound opened and his health failed her fears woke to new life, but he had always recovered to go back to his dogs and his horses and this time would be no exception. The evening had left a sour taste of old dreams in her mouth and she could not resist laying a hand on his good shoulder.