“He is not reliable,” Caradoc said. “If we wanted to fight from Brigantia we would have to kill Aricia first.” A thrill went through him as he said the words, and Cinnamus snorted.
“A good idea, Arviragus! I wish you had ordered the spies to kill her a long time ago!”
“Peace!” Llyn hissed suddenly, head uplifted. “They are coming!”
All eyes swiveled to the road. The bulk of the legion had passed an hour before under the hostile eyes of the war band, winding like an articulated, metal serpent into the dawn. The cavalry and few advance legionaries were followed by metatores and their equipment, then the men who cleared the path of obstructions that were often a prelude to engagement, the general and his staff with their mounted escort, more cavalry, the mules dragging the siege machines, officers, and the aquila sparking in the early light and guarded by its men. Then came the monotonous passing of the soldiers six abreast flanked by the centurions, rank after rank pouring into the west. But the baggage train and the rear guard of auxiliaries and soldiers had not come, and Caradoc was seizing the opportunity to take the grain. Food was always short and now, with the new offensive, the Romans held many of the valleys where the crops had been. Caradoc had ordered the Silurian fields and their precious crops burned and his command had been obeyed without emotion, even though the peasants knew that when winter came they would starve. They had ignited their little fields and vanished into the hills, and Caradoc added the burden of their deaths to the already crushing weight of his responsibility.
“Swords out,” he ordered now, and the word was passed. They lay still, watching the vacant bend fill with the uneasy, lumbering vanguard. The wains were overloaded and the oxen strained, the men guarding them whipping at them futilely, the cavalry escort ringing them. The eyes of the perspiring soldiers flicked back and forth between the steep, brush-choked banks. They were afraid, Caradoc could see it. So much the better. He tensed and the eyes of his men turned to him but still he did not give the word, and the first of the wains reached the farther edge of the bend just as the last of the legionaries marched into view. Only then, when he saw that there were no more to come, did he jump to his feet, swinging the sword above his head. “Freedom!” he shouted, his voice as full and sudden as a summer thunderbolt, and the men rose with him and threw themselves forward, taking up his cry. “Freedom!” they called. “Freedom!” and the soldiers below scrambled to form fighting ranks, their own terror hampering the officers from bringing a swift order.
“Wains, Llyn!” Caradoc shouted, then he, Madoc, and Cinnamus were swallowed up in the melee. No quarter was ever given on these occasions by the tribesmen, and the soldiers knew it. They swung their shields forward and closed quickly, their short, lethal swords stabbing. Long ago the officers had given up any idea of mercy and it no longer mattered to them whether they faced the fury of the ragged men or the shrieking, wild-haired women. If they hesitated they were dead men, and they battled stubbornly to come together in compact phalanxes while Caradoc and his men struggled to keep them apart. Romans could not fight well as individuals, and Caradoc had had many successes by surprising and scattering. But this force was large, nearly two hundred legionaries, and the chiefs paid dearly for the grain that Llyn and his followers were calmly unloading from the wains, tossing the sacks to eager hands above on the bank. Beside him, Caradoc could hear Cinnamus’s oaths as he laid about him, and Madoc was grunting and squealing like an attacking boar. For many minutes the issue was undecided, each side swaying back and forth, then Caradoc began to tire. The wains were empty and by now the grain was on its way to their camp hidden deep and high in the forest. He spotted his son, shieldless, dancing about a cavalry trooper who leaned down in a vain effort to reach the flashing limbs. Llyn held a knife in each hand. As the Roman’s arm went out Llyn leaped aside, yelling “Now!” and one of his friends jumped onto the horse’s rump, jerked the man’s head back, and drove his knife deep into the exposed throat. It was a ploy that Llyn had painstakingly taught to his young warriors, and it always worked.
“Llyn!” Caradoc screamed above the din. “The women!” Llyn put a knife in his teeth, pulled the corpse from the horse, and leaped upon it, thrashing it and galloping for the band. Then the Romans knew that they would never leave that narrow, bloodsoaked place, for Eurgain, Vida, and the other women swept around the bend, fresh and terrible, and seeing them come their men fought with renewed vigor. A handful of officers escaped, running weaponless into the dense wood, but by the time the sun had risen far enough to shine undiluted onto the path, the tribesmen had tipped the wains on their sides and piled all the Roman bodies on top of them, blocking the way. Then Caradoc ordered a swift retreat. He knew that before long a detachment from the main body of the legion would be sent out to find the missing rear guard, and there must by then be many miles between the weary chiefs and the scene of the ambush.
“What about the horses?” Llyn asked him and he paused. There were many horses and each horse still bore the soldiers’ packs and equipment, but the way to the camp was rocky and tortuous and they would be slowed if they took time to lead the beasts. “We need the meat,” Llyn pressed, and Caradoc gave in.
“All right, Llyn, but you and your chiefs can see to them. Hurry up!” He turned away and saw his wife sitting beside the path, a hand to her thigh, her face pale. He strode to her, wiping his sword on his cloak and sheathing it swiftly. “Eurgain, you’re hurt.” He knelt and she glanced at him, biting her lip and nodding faintly. He lifted the tunic gently, took his knife and slit the leg of her breeches, and exposed a jagged wound from which the dark blood oozed. He probed it carefully and she winced, then he took his cloak, cutting strips from it and binding the cut tightly closed. “It is not serious,” he said, “but this is your third wound in two months. You are getting careless.” He spoke roughly, worry putting an edge to the impersonal words, and she answered him through clenched teeth as he tugged his bandages tighter.
“We are all tired, Caradoc. We need rest. If you keep up this pace you will lose more chiefs through sheer exhaustion than to the gladiae.”
He let her tunic fall and sat back. “That should stop the bleeding until Bran can attend to it. Can you walk?”
“I can try.” She stood and put her weight on her foot tentatively, and he saw the quick flare of pain in her eyes. He beckoned to one of Llyn’s chiefs.
“Bring a horse for the lady.” Then he faced Eurgain. “You can ride with Llyn. How many women lost today?”
“Five, perhaps more. Caradoc…”
“Not now, Eurgain!” He begged sharply. “I know it all, who knows it better than I? Every decision I make costs lives, every move I make means more sacrifice, more hardship for the people who trust me. If you love me, keep your counsel.”
“Yes, I love you,” she said softly, and the grim lines of his face relaxed into a smile. “Like all your men, I am ready to die for you.”
“But not yet, please Camulos!” He helped her to the horse and she swung herself up with difficulty, her leg already stiffening, her breeches sticky with drying blood. He left her then and she gathered up the reins, waiting for her son to give the marching order to the chiefs who were to ride, watching her husband walk in under the new leaves of spring. His words to her were always harsh and she knew that his love for her was just one more insupportable burden that brought him constant anxiety. No man could speak against her. No chief was allowed to bring her anything but the most respectful homage on pain of the arviragus’s displeasure, and no woman, in spite of his attraction, ever got closer to him than the Council fires. His possessiveness was a part of his torment. She and his children were all he had left to him, and he felt that if he lost them his soul would be gone. Only Cinnamus still teased and chaffered her, argued with her, hunted with her in the easy friendship they had always had, and Caradoc did not mind. Cinnamus, too, was precious to him, as was Caelte, and he trusted their judgment, giving them the last word over Madoc and Emrys.
&
nbsp; Now Caradoc swung along beside Cinnamus, his thoughts on the coming Council and the new decision that awaited him, and the war band melted with him into the embracing forest, leaving yet another scene of carnage to feed the raging fires of Scapula’s obsession.
When they reached their camp hidden in a tiny valley, little more than a tree-choked gully with stubbed rock behind and a wide view of all the approaches in front, Bran was waiting for them with Caelte and the girls, and before any man ate they went to the stream. Bran made the incantations and the Roman weapons and armor were cast into it, for its goddess. Then they gathered about the fire, feeding silently.
An hour later Llyn and the horses came. He sent one to the freemen to be slaughtered and the others were tethered in the forest, then he flung himself down with the other men. Eurgain went to her tent and Bran followed to attend to her wound. The valley was quiet, each warrior wrapped in his own thoughts. The days of loud laughter, boasting, and squabbling were long gone. The men of the west had taken on the atmosphere of the lonely places that were their only home, and they had acquired the wild beast’s facility of sleeping with one eye open wherever they happened to cast themselves to rest. Even the children were like animals, swift to startle into flight, suspicious of everyone.
Caelte sat with his back against a tree, humming as he fingered a tune on his harp, and the girls took their wooden swords and poked at each other, while Caradoc lay with one elbow propping up his head as he watched them. Eurgain was fifteen and Gladys fourteen, two unkempt, undisciplined girls, Caradoc thought, more at home with blood and sudden death than with dogs and hunting, or with the suitors who should have been courting them. They were both old enough to be betrothed but showed no interest in the young men of Llyn’s war band. Or so he believed. He did not know them very well. Soon it would be time for them to join Eurgain’s group of sword-women and take their chances with the other women who fought and died, blooded like all the young chieftains without ritual and without pomp. He sat up and took out his sword. “Cin,” he said. “Give Gladys your sword. Eurgain!” The girls came to him panting and flushed and he held his sword out to his daughter, who took it eagerly, her fair hair falling about her face, and her strong brown arms hefting it. Gladys took Cinnamus’s heavy blade, adjusted her grip on the hilt, and soon the clang of iron on iron rang out and the chiefs clustered to watch. Caradoc sat still, thinking of his wife and his sister sparring happily before the Great Hall, but Cinnamus could not contain himself. He got up and circled the combatants.
“Feet farther apart, Gladys,” he commanded. “Eurgain, don’t watch the sword, watch the eyes or you are dead.” The older girl had her aunt’s cool, steady swing, but the younger one was quick. They fought well but as yet they were no match for professional soldiers, and the weight of the shields would slow them still further. Caradoc got up and went to the tent.
Eurgain was lying on their blankets, wrapped in her cloak. She smiled at him as he unbuckled his belt and dropped it, and cast his own cloak down beside her. “Is your leg easier?” he asked, lifting the covering to see it, and she nodded.
“Bran packed it with herbs and it’s closing already, but it will be very stiff for a couple of days. No fighting for me tomorrow.”
“No fighting for any of us tomorrow. I have decided to go north and let Scapula have this country.”
“He is no longer interested in the country,” she said. “All he wants is you.”
He grinned at her, a lopsided grimace. “But as Emrys would say, I am the country. We can open a new front in the north, Eurgain, and have the advantages of the escape routes into Brigantia and the more rugged territory. Also, we will be closer to Mona and our grain supply.” Caradoc was surprised that Scapula had not made a concerted effort to break through to Mona and destroy the lush, productive fields. He himself would have done it, in Scapula’s position, but Scapula was losing his judgment, allowing his preoccupation with the rebels to warp his good sense.
“In the north we will face the Fourteenth and the Twentieth,” Eurgain pointed out. “We have had little to do with them so far. But of course you are wise. If we stay here we will be trapped.”
“Scapula will find the Ordovices and their mountains a very different proposition,” he replied. “Emrys tells me that Roman patrols have been seen quite deep in the mountains, and Scapula is obviously exploring the paths and passes. It will do him no good. He is losing men to us every day. We have held the west free for nearly five years. Think of it Eurgain, five years, and if only we can hang on for a couple more, Rome will declare Plautius’s frontier zone to be the official boundary of the province and we will be free.”
She lay back. “I prefer to think of you,” she said softly. “Ah Caradoc, I love you so well. When you take me in your arms I do not regret that we may die tomorrow.”
He took her luxuriant fair hair and spread it wide on the blanket and she raised her arms. He slipped off his brown tunic and his breeches and enfolded her, feeling her warm hands glide down his back and over his buttocks. She’s like the rain, he thought, seeking her mouth. The sweet, cold summer rain that patters gently over the parched fields of my soul. Eurgain! He parted the cloak and lifted his head to see the nakedness beneath, running his fingers over skin as puckered and scarred with old sword thrusts as his own, yet still infinitely precious to him, still full of dark, appealing secrets. With a peculiar constriction of her heart she watched the ravaged face above her blur into softness.
“Arviragus,” she whispered, “I do not care if the whole world is consumed with the fire of war as long as there is some corner where you and I may lie together.” He smiled slowly and brought his hands to cup her face, so small, the blue eyes sparkling with humor and desire, the full lips parted, but a shadow fell across the tent flap and Cinnamus called, “Lord, an Ordovician embassy has arrived. Emrys is hard pressed and wants us to pack and move tonight.” Caradoc sighed. “Give them meat and beer, Cin, and tell them to wait. Tell them that I am attending to important business.”
They heard Cinnamus laugh and stride away, then Eurgain pulled his head down roughly. “What business could be more important?” she murmured and he chuckled, one of his rare, throaty eruptions of humor.
“None, my love, none at all,” he agreed.
The Ordovicians had brought grim news. The Fourteenth and Twentieth Legions were gathering for a concerted push up the Severn valley and Scapula was with them, determined not to waste one day of the summer campaigning. He had mustered fifteen thousand men, all that the active legions could spare from the forts of the frontier and the peaceable towns, and the lowland lay almost undefended while he pursued his fey, fleeting enemy with angry singleness of purpose. Caradoc sat listening, two thoughts in his mind. If the Brigantians, the Iceni, the Trinovantes, had had one spark of honor left then this would have been the time to strike and strike hard, while he and his chiefs kept Scapula entangled in the west. But he knew bitterly that there was no resistance left anywhere but around himself, and this opportunity would go by, perhaps never to return.
He also pondered the coming year. Fate was drawing his time as arviragus to a close, he knew that too. Scapula had never before gathered such an army and Caradoc, chin in hand, unseeing eyes fixed on the faces of the Ordovicians, felt his thoughts stretch out, probing across the mountains, reaching for the mind of the man whose gaze turned stonily west, seeking him. What would Scapula do? Would he continue to press them with patrols? Would he mass his host and wait for them in some valley somewhere? Would he come to his senses and march on Mona, then sit and rub his hands while they all starved to death? If it came to that, could they slip into Brigantia and find a welcome from Venutius?
He waved the Ordovician down and he rose, squinting into the late sun. There were too many questions he could not answer. He felt his destiny throb in his veins, pulsing with his hot blood, returning to plague him with a force that was driving him like a runaway horse. He clutched the reins but was unable to control it. H
e could only look ahead with sudden fear to the time when destiny would come to a sudden, unpredictable halt and he would lose his hold and go tumbling on, bereft of all guidance. His hand went to the magic egg that hung on a thong about his neck and his fingers closed around it. The steady spell it wove served to calm him and he spoke evenly. “We will come,” he said. He turned away.
“Madoc, Cin, you too, Llyn, have the camp struck. Leave nothing but ashes.”
They all moved to do his bidding and Eurgain limped to him. “It is time to call out the full force of the Demetae,” she said, but he disagreed.
“I will call on them, yes,” he replied. “But I want to leave some chiefs to handle the coastal patrols if they can. Scapula thinks he can get at me from the rear, but he is mistaken. The Demetae can swim better than fish, and fight in their boats like water gods. He has a surprise coming to him, that dour old Roman with the stomach ache! Now go, Eurgain. Get your women ready to leave.” She hobbled away and he stood very quietly, listening to the subdued, efficient bustle around him, saying goodbye to yet another sanctuary that had become, even briefly, a home.
For all Scapula’s slowly mounting hysterical impatience, he did not take Caradoc that summer. The combined Silures, Ordovices, and Demetae held him off, giving him tantalizing glimpses of themselves, forcing him to long, wearing marches, leading him on before they melted away into the thick-treed, sullen fastnesses of their country like mist before the sun, only to reappear and strike impudently at his rear. His belly gnawed at him for days on end during that season. He could not sleep. He swallowed his food with difficulty, knowing that it would turn to acid and pain. He watched his long-suffering men scrambling through rocky passes, fording deep cataracts that washed away baggage and pack animals, losing themselves in forest that stretched endlessly, with a deceptive, beckoning coolness and peace. Many of them were never seen again. At night there was the howling of wolves and the hooting of owls and in the morning there would be a sentry missing here, a careless officer found headless there, horses with throats slit. He captured no peasants, either, to assuage his burning thirst for knowledge. The land seemed empty under a hot, thunder-heavy sky. In the south his coastal patrols were faring badly and he reiterated his order to slay any human being unfortunate enough to be taken in Silurian territory. When he had defeated them, he decided maliciously, he would order them all killed, every last dirty, treacherous one of them. But the summer was not entirely wasted. He was getting to know the countryside. His surveyors and cartographers were charting the tracks and marking the places most suited for the building of forts, and they worked objectively and thoroughly under his meticulous eye.
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