Venutius arrived with the dawn. She must have been dozing, for she came to herself with a start to hear his deep voice raised in anger on her porch. “Out of my way, bastard whelp! Let me pass or I’ll spit you like a suckling pig!”
She heard a scuffle and rose stiffly, her tongue furred and her head heavy from the wine. A yelp, an oath, and her door burst open, he lunging toward her, kicking the door closed behind him. He stopped inches from her and flung his sword onto the floor.
“Tell me it is not true!” he shouted. “Tell me before I throttle you with your own hair! Did you sell the arviragus to Rome?”
She faced him calmly, unimpressed by the rage she had seen so many times before, confident that in the end it would turn into fawning, pathetic apology.
“Yes, I did.”
“Aaah!” He stood, fists clenched before him, long legs quivering, red hair falling over one shoulder. “I did not believe. I did not want to believe! You…” Words would not come.
“Bitch?” she finished softly for him. “Caradoc called me that too. I agree with him entirely.”
“Why? Why? Every other indignity, Aricia, every other vileness. I have taken it all from you, but oh not this! A man of such miseries, such honor!”
That pernicious, meaningless word again. She shrugged. “I had to, Venutius. I couldn’t turn him loose again. It would have been the end of Brigantia.”
“You care nothing for Brigantia! You never did! Caradoc goes to his death so that you can at last warm your hands at the flames of revenge!”
“Think what you like. I did it, and I would do it again, and now get out. I’ve had no sleep tonight and I’m tired. Come and eat with me later—if you are in a better humor.”
He did not respond as he usually did to the faint hint of waiting pleasure. Suddenly he half-stumbled, half-leaped upon her. Taking her by the shoulders he began to shake her viciously, snapping her head back and forth, and she could not find breath to cry out. Her necklace broke and jet showered them, catching in his hair, tinkling to the floor. He began to slap her face. At the first blow she fell backward into the chair, gasping, screams gathering behind her throat as he went on striking her and madness flickered in and out of his eyes.
“You will kill me, you will kill me. Stop, Venutius!” she shrieked.
At last, when she felt the skin of her cheek and temple split open and he saw the blood appear on his hand, he stood upright, breathing coarsely, loudly, and she slid to the floor, weeping and cradling her aching face in both hands, the jet stones hard and gritty beneath her knees. He was weeping also, the tears pouring down his cheeks.
“Even now I cannot make an end of you!” he sobbed. “Aricia, Aricia!” Reaching down he took her hair in one big fist, hauled her to her feet, and, dragging her to the door, opened it and pushed her out into the bright sunlight and warm wind.
Her bodyguards came racing across the courtyard, their swords drawn, but they found themselves cut off from her by their own kinsmen, Venutius’s war band, who were planted stolidly in their way. The men eyed one another in silence. Venutius brought her to the middle of the stone-ringed yard and let her go. Still weeping, he began to remove his jewelry—the black jet from his arms, his throat, his waist, the cloak’s clasp from his shoulder—dropping the glinting pieces onto the ground. In one lithe movement he pulled his jet embroidered tunic over his head and it collapsed gently onto her feet.
“I repudiate Brigantia,” he whispered hoarsely, taking a little knife from his leather belt and quickly slicing across his broad chest. Blood leaped up to meet the blade from left collarbone to waist—slick, wet, and glittering in the sun, and slapping his palm against it he stepped closer to her and rubbed it into her face. “My blood!” he spat at her. He stooped and worked loose a clod of earth from the ground with the knife, breaking it in his strong fingers, then he slammed it against her cheeks. “The blood of Albion! You have slain us both. May I be cursed if I ever reach for you in love again.”
She stood with head bowed before him, her hands trembling upward to hide her humiliation, and he turned on his heel and strode out the gate, blood spattering the ground around him. Aricia slumped onto the tunic, still warm from his body. She made no sound, but the men watching saw shudders jerk through her limbs. One by one Venutius’s men sheathed their swords and followed until only her bard and her shield-bearer were left, squatting awkwardly in the dust, afraid to touch her.
The sun rose to stand at its zenith, and the sparrows, emboldened by the silence of the courtyard, fluttered down to scratch and squabble where Venutius’s blood had already taken on the color of the earth itself.
Caradoc was taken to the fortress of the Ninth at Lindum, just inside Coritani territory, he and Caelte chained to an oxcart and surrounded by two centuries of soldiers. His arrest had been so swift and secret that none but a handful of Brigantians and the soldiers knew, and the green countryside lay peaceful and empty as they passed. The centurion was plainly nervous. Caradoc watched him striding up and down the tight lines of his men, the sting of fear goading them in his raucous voice, and his own eyes often strayed to the tree-shrouded hills that dipped to meet the road. But Madoc did not crouch with his chiefs above the gullies and no Emrys waited to sweep away his chains. In a day and half a night the gray, comfortably solid block of the fort loomed ahead. The centurion mopped his brow and sighed with relief but the prisoners, chafed and sore, knew as the vast gates thudded shut behind them that all faint hopes of rescue were vain and their days of freedom were gone.
The praefectus came out to meet them, and half the soldiers stumbled from their warm cots to crowd the cart, eager for a look at a legendary man, but Caradoc gave them no satisfaction. He did not growl and shake his chains like a captive bear. He did not stand and rain foreign curses upon their heads. He did not even carry a shrunken head on his belt, and many of them went back to bed, disgruntled. He stepped down calmly, swinging his legs together so that the chains would not trip him and make him fall before his captors, and he followed the centurion and the praefectus into his cell, with Caelte behind him.
The room was small and bare. There was no cot, no table, and no window, and dampness rose from the hard floor. The chains were removed but only so the two men could be stripped and searched, and Caradoc, standing naked and shivering under the praefectus’s cool, cynical eye, saw the magic egg jerked from his neck and the pouch torn open. The soldier gingerly held up the egg, and the praefectus raised his eyebrows.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, sir. It looks like a lump of gristle from the guts of some poor beast.” He poked it, tossed it up and caught it. “What savages these people are!”
The praefectus held out his hand, and the egg was passed to him. He turned it over, sniffed it, then threw it contemptuously at Caradoc.
“Here, you cannibal, catch!”
Caradoc’s fingers closed around it. He held it fiercely, lovingly, his hand shielding it reverently from such ignorant blasphemy, and his face burned with shame on behalf of these unmannered men.
The torc was wrenched from his neck and Caelte’s was taken also, but this time the praefectus held them respectfully, running his fingers along their delicate curves.
“These things are beautifully made,” he said. “What odd fellows you are, you barbarians! I’ll keep the bronze one, but I suppose the governor will want the gold.”
Their clothes were slung at their feet and they were curtly ordered to dress, but they stood silently, incapable of movement, the nakedness of their necks finally bringing to them the full realization of despair. At another sharp word they slowly bent, picked up their breeches and tunics, and pulled them on, but Caradoc knew that clothes would no longer cover the bare, scoured bones of his soul, and the brand of his slavery flared out like an angry beacon in the night, invisible to Rome, but a roaring conflagration for every tribe to see. The chains were fastened again, and the centurion turned to his superior.
“Who gets
the reward, sir? Does my detachment?”
The praefectus laughed shortly. “No such luck! Cartimandua gets it, of course, as she gets everything. The governor can hardly refuse her. It’s so much easier to buy her loyalty, but all of us will breathe easier when she is dead and we can slap a praetor on Brigantia. She’s too deceitful, that one. She’d sell her own children, if she had any, to whoever would give her gold.” He was moving to the door as he spoke, and with his last words it was closed behind him and the prisoners found themselves in darkness.
Caradoc bent and felt about on the floor until his fingers touched the pouch. He picked it up, kissed the egg gently, and wrapped it away again, then sank down beside Caelte and closed his eyes. “More wisdom than any man…” What have I done to forfeit the protection of the gods? But he knew. He had not trusted his own judgment, that was all. So be it. He leaned against Caelte and they slept, their arms about each other.
Scapula motioned and the guards saluted and went out, then he rose from his desk and came around to the front, leaning back against it, his arms folded. His gaze slowly traveled the little group before him and they stared back rudely, the girls with a wide-open, frank fascination, the young man with hostility, and the woman with steady, courageous eyes. She was of average height, too thin, as were all the women of the west, the men too, for that matter. Her hair was thick and dark blonde, braided loosely in plaits that fell to her green, breech-clad knees, and wisps of escaping fronds curled on her wide forehead and about the brown cheeks. Her mouth was firmly closed, a warm, well-defined mouth, and her eyes, netted in fine laugh lines, were deep blue and composed. An intriguing woman, he thought. He barely glanced at the Druid who waited calmly, his white-sprinkled blond hair falling about his shoulders and his hands thrust into the deep sleeves of his grubby white tunic. He was a nonentity, a small fish caught by accident as the net drew tight about the giants, and Scapula unfolded his arms and hooked his thumbs into his belt. He had eaten well that morning, he was digesting his food with no pain, and the auguries had never read better.
“Now then,” he said brightly. “We will not waste time on introductions. I know who you are. I have some questions I wish to ask you, and if you are wise you will answer me quickly.” There were blood stains on the woman’s tunic. He had not noticed them before and he eyed her again, a rapid surge of disgust bringing pricks to his stomach. Animals! They lived like animals, they fought like animals, but thank the gods they did not reproduce like animals.
“Where is your husband?”
She smiled faintly. “I do not know.”
“Of course you know! Where were you going when you were captured, if not to him? Now answer, Lady. Where is he? Did he go north or south when he slipped across the river? Hmmm!”
“Don’t tell him anything, mother,” Llyn interposed smoothly. “If he is so clever, let him find out for himself.”
Scapula turned his head sharply and Llyn’s dark brown, knowing eyes grinned impudently at him. A feeling of perplexity stole over him, as if often did. The longer he stayed in this magic-ridden, wet country the less he understood it, or its inhabitants. Just when his decisions were made, his policies clear, a mood of anxious confusion would take him like a sudden fog rising in his brain, and he knew that he could remain here forever and still be as ignorant as a child unrolling its first scroll. Here was a lad no more than seventeen yet a torc glowed about his neck, his sword was notched and well-used, and Scapula felt himself in the presence of a man with more experience of life than his own second. He despised them all, the blood-crazed chiefs, their unappetizing, uncouth women, people who did not spare even their children in their suicidal wars.
“If you interrupt me again,” he said, “I will have you removed and whipped. No purpose is served by your rudeness.” He looked back at Eurgain. “Did he go to Venutius? Or is he bound for the coast?”
“I told you, I do not know,” she insisted. “He will go wherever there is sanctuary.”
“There is no sanctuary left for him anywhere,” he replied testily, “except in the west or with Venutius, but I have heard that Venutius and Cartimandua are reconciled again. So did he go back, with the other western chiefs?”
She said nothing this time. Her gaze dropped to the floor and he surveyed the bland, self-contained face with impatience.
“Lady, it can make very little difference whether you tell me now, or not. Before long he will know that I hold you and his children, and he will give himself up.”
“No, he won’t!” Llyn shouted. “Scapula, you are a fool! He is more than a man, he is arviragus, and he will let us all die, and he will fight on!”
Scapula signaled to his centurions. They moved to lay hands on Llyn but he whirled and marched from the room ahead of them, and as the door closed Scapula went behind the desk and sat, leaning back.
“If it makes no difference whether I tell you,” Eurgain said mildly, “then why do you persist in asking me? Llyn speaks the truth. Caradoc will not come running to you like a trained dog just because you hold me. I am not innocent,” she went on, her voice rising at last in anger. “I know very well that I face death, perhaps death with torture. Llyn knows it too, and the girls. But the girls really do not know where Caradoc is, and Llyn and I cannot be broken.”
“Brave words,” he remarked. “And probably true. So l will tell you where your husband is.”
Her eyes flew to his and he held them steadily, watching carefully for a sign of betrayal as he continued. “He has fled to Venutius in Brigantia, and there I will seek him.” It was a guess, intended to catch her off guard so that in her reaction he could read the truth, but her eyes did not falter or change expression and he was reminded of all the Druids he has seen die with the same blank faces. He wanted to smash that bottomless superiority, to feel bones crack under his knuckles, and to see the gentle mouth contort in agony, and as the color mounted in his neck he put his hands together and leaned over the desk.
“I will get him,” he said deliberately, “and when I do you will all go to Rome, and after a time you will all be executed. If it had not been for your mad husband the whole of this country would now be at peace, the Silures would not now be hunted down, the Ordovices would still be wandering contentedly in their precious mountains with no cares. You are criminals, all of you, as blind to responsibility and morals as the rest of your kin, and your fate will be the fate of any common thief in the city.” He swallowed hard, forcing down the gush of rage, thinking of all the months of doubt and sleepless nights behind him, all the good men lost forever, all the progress at a stand still, because of one man and this ragged, haughty family. The two girls were still gazing at him with dumb, wide eyes as though they were half-witted.
“Let me tell you something, Scapula,” Eurgain said. “I do not care where he is. All I care is that he is free, and will remain free until he can gather yet another army and open yet another campaign. Whether I live or die is meaningless to me, and to him, if the west is to go on fighting. You have never understood what it is that you fight. It is not bodies, Roman, it is souls, and that is why Caradoc must stay free, and that is why you will not be victorious.”
He opened his mouth to reply, color now blazing to the roots of his gray hair, but a knock came on the door and irritatedly he called, “Enter!”
His secretary came in, saluted, and held out a scroll. “A dispatch, sir, from Lindum.” Scapula waved it away. “I am busy, Drusus. Put it with the others and I’ll look at it after lunch.”
“I am sorry, sir, but it’s very urgent. The rider is waiting outside for your answer.”
With an exasperated grunt Scapula snatched it. The sun had left the room and was standing high in the center of the sky, and though the shutters were open it was stuffy and hot. While Scapula broke the seals and scanned the scroll, Eurgain looked out the window.
So familiar, the blue-tinged haze of the wooded hill folding down to meet the river, the road, now paved, that left the gate and meandered throu
gh spacious oak groves and on to where the barges and coracles used to rock at anchor. Her mind’s eye drifted to the estuary, a wide, reed-choked pool of ruffled water where the snipe and sandpipers picked their way on thin stick-legs, and then the sand, and the white cliffs, and the caves where Gladys would lie listening to the surf come rolling in. Nostalgia blew toward her on the flower-scented breeze and she looked determinedly back to the governor, now on his feet, his hands trembling as he clutched the stiff scroll. Suddenly he flung it onto the desk.
“Mithras!” he whispered. “It is not possible! At last, at last!” he almost ran from behind the desk and Bran took one quick step toward her as Scapula came to a halt, his face thrust close to hers, his eyes beaming.
“I have him!” he exulted, breathing heavily. “Lady, prepare to say farewell to Albion! He walked right to the door of Cartimandua’s house, can you see it? He and his bard, and she wasted no time in turning him over to the praefectus at Lindum. His gods have deserted him, and my prayers have been answered. Caradoc! In…my…hands!” He emphasized his words gleefully, one clenched fist pounding on the tough palm of his other hand, then he straightened, went back to his desk, and sat down.
“Drusus, please ask the messenger to wait a moment and then show him in here. I want the rebel conveyed to Colchester as quickly as possible, before his chiefs wake to what has happened and try to rescue him.” He rubbed his hands together meditatively, smiling. “Now for you, Druid. Drusus, bring in the guard.”
The secretary went to the door, and Scapula continued. “Under the law you must die, but of course you knew that. The emperor has ordered the extermination of all of you, on grounds of sedition. If you have any message to this lady you had better give it.”
The Eagle and the Raven Page 52
