The Eagle and the Raven

by Pauline Gedge

  “Have you paid for the beer?”

  “What with? You took it all.”

  Valog reached gently into Llyn’s purse and took out three coins. “He won’t mind, Publius. He can win it back next time.” They left the money on the table and together eased Llyn out the door and onto the street. Publius cursed. A light rain was falling, but Llyn leaned against the stone wall of the tavern and smiled vacantly into the night. “I’ll walk with you as far as the street of spicesellers,” Valog said. “Come, Linus. And keep your mouth shut. I want no more Druithin maxims tonight.” They put their arms around him and started up the street, now lit only by such pale light as came from the windows of those who were not yet in bed.

  The rain was cool and refreshing, and Llyn rolled his face to it, letting his feet go where they were led, that tiny, untouched part of him still whispering of oak woods and hot firelight. “The crooked path seems straight to those who walk it,” Bran’s voice droned on. Llyn’s head whirled. Death is an illusion. Truth is an illusion. Reality…reality is anything you want it to be. And freedom… He began to laugh, quietly at first, but then growing louder, unable to stop.

  When they reached the corner where he had left Eurgain and Chloe, Valog bid them both a good night and strode quickly away. Publius took Llyn’s arm and swung it around his own neck. “I don’t know why I do this for you,” he said, knowing the answer to his own question.

  Llyn staggered beside Publius, humming under his breath. “If you sing I shall drop you and run!” Publius hissed, but Llyn did not sing. He went on humming, one or two citizens passing them with anxious glances. They came out onto the edge of the Forum and after skirting it safely Publius departed without a word, leaving Llyn standing, swaying, still humming softly. Above him, the slopes of the Palatine boasted the sumptuous sprawl of patrician homes, their frail lights glinting out and in as the wind stirred the trees that filled their gardens. He began the long, slow climb to his father’s house, following the curving line of the stone wall and alley. But halfway up he knew that he could not go on, and he lay down with his face to the sky. The rain had quickened. It pattered over him enquiringly and he listened to it strike the leaves of some hidden tree. How many times, he thought, have I lain under the oaks straining past these notes for the sound of foreign soldiers? How many times have I seen blood dilute Albion’s rain, dying her ferns and flowers scarlet? Albion. He said the word slowly to himself. You exist somewhere, in a place of greenness and silence, but I find it hard to believe that the world is not made of unrelenting stone, of ceaseless noise. Perhaps Albion is only a pretty story. He spread out his arms, feeling his tunic weigh heavy with water. The fabric stuck to his skin, but it was a good feeling, clean. Gladys is forgetting, he thought.

  Fear brought him clumsily to his knees and he scrabbled to his feet and went on, groping in the darkness, until he came at last to his father’s gate and the porter’s lodge. He did not have the strength to climb the wall but the porter heard him slip against the iron gate and came out, greeting him and opening for him without raising an eyebrow. He reeled through, hearing the gate click to behind him, and then under his feet there was grass and over him the branches of trees. His father’s graceful portico loomed majestically ahead, gray pillars like the trunks of dead willows, and he sensed rather than saw the soldiers who did duty under their shadows. He bowed to the house profoundly, saluted with a mocking wave, and wended his way around it, still cupped in trees, until he came to the wide terrace and the lawn dotted with rose beds, alive with the monotonous music of the fountains. He crossed the lawn and came to the chest-high wall where on a bright day one could lean and look down and out over the whole of the city. You reward us with the insult of your pardon, he thought. You answer our desperate cries with the soothing poison of riches and hold us down while we eat it. Emrys, Madoc, have you forgiven us yet for living on? I took my first head when I was only a little boy. How strange that I should remember that. I carried it to the well and watched it sink. Madoc was amused. Something in me died that day, and Madoc was amused. Madoc. Emrys. He began to say their names aloud like some spell, gripping the wet stone with eyes closed. All the names he could remember, those he had fought beside, those who had died, those who had given all so that he could stand in a Roman garden with a house of unimaginable magnificence behind him, and be painfully drunk on Roman beer. He raised his voice and the names flowed faster, then he scrambled up onto the wall and began to shout.

  Caradoc woke suddenly, thinking that he heard Togodumnus calling to him. He had returned from the palace too uneasy in mind to go to bed and he had been dozing in a chair beside the pool of his wide atrium, lulled by the spatter of raindrops on the water. Now he sat upright, still half in a dream, and there it was again, the high voice of his brother, shouting for him over the noise of rain running down his gutters and swishing over the paving of his terrace. He groaned and stood up, turning to seek his bed, then the voice came again—Tog’s defiant, imperious voice, but the name he heard was Cinnamus’s. For a long second, dread tingled in his fingers and pricked cold on his scalp. Tog was dead. Tog had been dead a long time, and none knew what body his soul now inhabited. He woke fully and half-ran across his yellow tiles, through the colonnade, out into the rain-washed garden of the peristyle, and under the cloistered walk. He ran down the terrace steps, slippery and black with water, across the lawn that squelched under his feet, and then he halted. Tog was standing on top of the wall, a lithe, dark shadow against the darker sky, his hair streaming out behind him, his arms flung wide, names pouring from his mouth. It was Mocuxsoma now, the dead calling to the dead, a summons to this alien garden, a judgment. Caradoc stared wildly, his heart drumming against his ribs, then the figure teetered, regained its balance, and Caradoc let out a sigh. Fear piled on fear tonight, he thought, walking forward. Agrippina and now Llyn. Anger started within him. He reached the wall.

  “Llyn. Get down. And stop shouting.”

  Llyn peered at him. “You are not dead,” he slurred, then he turned to face the city. “Rome!” he screamed. “Murderers!”

  Caradoc reached up, grasped a flailing arm, and jerked his son roughly from the wall. Llyn came down in a tumble of naked wet legs and sopping, flapping tunic. Caradoc bent, and shaking him viciously, set him on his feet.

  “You are drunk again,” he said vehemently. “I feel a sickness when I look at you, Llyn. Where is your honor? Your pride?”

  “Where is yours, Ricon?” Llyn sneered, rocking to and fro, his face pale and twisted. “You should have slain us all and then yourself when you first saw this marble and damask prison. They are dead! Dead! They believed in you and now they are dead so that you can live here and grow fat on Claudius’s largesse. You had a price. The tribes didn’t know that, did they? Did Cin know? Rome paid it. Rome has seduced you.”

  Behind him, Caradoc heard a flurry of movement as his servants came hurrying, some with knives, and his wife sped toward them barefooted, her white and blonde hair loose and her robe clutched tightly to her breast. He did not turn. He stood looking at the rain-darkened, stringing hair, the half-glazed brown eyes, the slack, sullen mouth, then he bunched his fist and drove it into Llyn’s jaw. Eurgain cried out as those watching heard the crack of his knuckles connect with his son’s face, and Llyn thudded backward onto the lawn. Caradoc reached down, grabbed him by his tunic, hauled him up, and dragged him toward the nearest fountain. Then with one swift movement he kicked Llyn’s feet from under him, pushed him hard, and Llyn toppled into the cold, clear water. He came up spluttering, his hands groping for the green and white stone rim, and when he had found it Caradoc squatted before him, taking a handful of slick hair and winding it until Llyn exclaimed in sudden pain.

  “They did not fight for me,” Caradoc whispered, his voice shaking with rage. “They did not die for me.” He flung out an arm, pointing over the wall to where the invisible city lay waiting for dawn, his extended finger rigid, and he jerked Llyn’s head around. “It is t
here!” he shouted. “It will not go away, no matter how much beer you swill! It has broken better men than you or I, and it will go on breaking them long after you and I have gone! It gloats to see you destroying yourself.” The stiff arm began to tremble with an intensity of rage. “If you wish to kill yourself, then do it as a warrior, with a sword, not as a craven peasant, with a flagon. Grow up, Llyn!” All at once a memory smote him. Cunobelin stood over Togodumnus, rubbing his knuckles as Tog lay stunned from the blow, but before he could hear his father’s words, Caradoc stood up and forcibly sent the remembrance back into the past.

  “Take him out of there and put him to bed,” he ordered the servants, then he walked quickly back into the house, Eurgain striding beside him. When he stood under the shelter of the colonnade he slumped and turned to her sadly. “Llyn is right,” he said. “I should have killed us all as my ancestors would have done, and awakened the conscience of this city.”

  “Rome has no conscience,” Eurgain replied. “Rome would have been astonished, and then laughed, and would not have understood. Do not reproach yourself for Llyn’s unhappiness. We have all had to learn to survive.”

  “Only Gladys has learned,” he said bitterly, “and I sometimes wonder when I listen to her how deep she has allowed the lesson to go. I have never heard her express such passion as she did last night when she asked Caelte to sing. We all play games, Eurgain, like everyone in the city. Should I blame Llyn for being himself?”

  “Are you going to talk to Gladys in the morning?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t think. Go to bed, Eurgain.”

  She left without a word and he sat suddenly on the floor, his back against a pillar, listening to his servants coax a sick and angry Llyn toward the stairs. I refuse to feel sorry for him, or for myself, Caradoc thought firmly. He must determine not to lie down under the blows of fate. He must learn to fight.

  In the morning he told Eurgain and his daughters what had passed between himself and the empress. They were reclining at a table in the triclinium, eating bread and fruit while the early sun blinked lukewarm on Eurgain’s silver dishes and a damp breeze, full of newness and vigor, stirred the hangings beside the windows. Llyn’s couch was empty. He seldom rose to share the first meal of the day with them. They could hear their morning guards outside dismiss the night sentries, and the gardener trundled by, his cart full of spring seedlings. They finished the simple meal in silence, then Caradoc sent out the servants and sat upright. In a few words he told them what Agrippina had said. “Gladys,” he asked his daughter, whose face had begun to flush pink with anger, “did you know what the emperor is planning for you?”

  “No. At least, I had heard rumors, but he has said nothing to me about it. Oh the poor old man! Agrippina sits there like a crouching cat, waiting for him to die so that she can spring into his place with Nero in her jaws, and those damn Greeks fawn upon him and suck him dry! Well, I will not cease to visit him. He needs me.”

  “He is not a poor old man,” her mother put in gently. “He would not be emperor of Rome if he were, Gladys. I think you must be careful to see him as he is, not as you wish to see him. He is aging, certainly, and plagued with infirmity, but he has a mind as subtle and deep as Agrippina’s. You feel sorry for him, but you should fear him also.”

  “I have tried to, but I can’t. He is good to me, and kindly, and we say many things to one another. I comfort him.”

  Caradoc and Eurgain exchanged glances. Then Caradoc said, “Gladys, he could not protect you against the empress whether he knows it or not. He might try. He might surround you with soldiers, appoint tasters for your food and women to sleep with you by night and companion you by day, but sooner or later Agrippina would kill you. It is as simple as that. I think she is right when she says that we are blunderers. We have no business being in the palace at all. We are like sheep to be led astray and slaughtered.”

  The younger Eurgain looked sharply across at her father, but Gladys had begun to answer him and her gaze dropped back to her plate. “I will refuse an adoption if he asks it,” Gladys said. “I love him, but I have only one father. But how can I refuse to go to him when he sends for me? He will be hurt. His fondness will turn to anger.”

  “Not if he really loves you in return,” her mother pointed out. “Tell him that you need more time for your studies. Tell him that your tutor is becoming tired of filling his time in gossip with the steward.” None of them considered telling Claudius the truth. All believed that he was probably well aware of the ambitions nurtured secretly within the hearts of the members of his family, and it did no good to speak them aloud to him.

  “He will miss you,” the younger Eurgain said softly. “He looked for Aunt Gladys’s honesty in you, and he found it. Octavia is honest, but timid. She will not give him much affection, out of fear of the empress. Agrippina wants no one close enough to Claudius to turn his affections from Nero.”

  “And then there are the Greeks.” The voice was Llyn’s. They turned to greet him and he came into the room, pale and grinning wryly. “I have been listening to you all, standing outside the door to keep the servants ears away. Really, you are all too careless.”

  “You are a fine one to talk!” Gladys retorted. “I know what happened last night. The whole city was subjected to your insults.”

  He flopped down on his couch. Caradoc pushed bread to him but he shook his head. “I think you should all insist that Gladys be adopted by Claudius,” he announced. “She would move into the palace and before long be betrothed to sweet little Britannicus, that paragon of all Roman virtues. I will court Octavia, and together we will do away with Nero. Sooner or later, probably sooner, Claudius will die. Now where does that leave us?”

  The younger Eurgain smiled. “It leaves us in control of the Roman Empire.”

  “Exactly.” Llyn picked up a bunch of grapes, sniffed them, and put them back. “Without Nero, Agrippina would be a broken branch. What a delirious thought! The House Catuvellaun, ricons of Rome!”

  “What would you do?” Caradoc asked him, amused, and slowly the blithe, teasing light went out of his eyes.

  “I would withdraw the legions from Albion and Gaul, set fire to this city, and go home.”

  Silence reigned. Then Eurgain spoke. “Llyn is right about the Greeks,” she said evenly. “You see them only as feasters and parasites, Gladys, but most of them are powerful and capable men, doing more than their share of governing. Claudius relies on them, and often with good reason. They hate you already, for they are continually probing the future. They see what Llyn sees. Even if Agrippina softened toward you, they would not.”

  Gladys flung down her napkin and rose. “You are right,” she said loudly. “And I am sometimes deathly afraid of that city within a city on top of the hill. I will try to explain to Claudius why I can come to him no more.”

  “Explain to him today, Gladys,” Caradoc warned, and she nodded, thin-lipped, and left them.

  Llyn yawned. “I suppose you want me to tell you today that I have mended my ways,” he said to his father. “But I can only say that perhaps I will think about the words you hammered home with your fist. Do you realize that you were just my age, Ricon, when I was born to you?”

  “Yes, Llyn,” Caradoc answered him gently. “I know. But that was my life. You must live your own.”

  “Platitudes!” he snorted. The two women rose.

  “You will have a chance to think about it very deeply, Llyn,” his mother said. “We are going to spend this summer on the Silvanus estate.”

  “Oh,” said Llyn. “With or without the emperor’s permission?” He got up and shouldered past them, and they listened to the echo of his angry feet rebound on the pillars of the atrium.

  Claudius stood still and watched her come swinging to him under the trees, the long, healthy stride of a country girl undisguised by the graceful folds of her red tunic. She had changed since the day when she faced him for the first time, he reflected, but she would change no more. He knew
that also. The heart of her was as solid and innocent today as it had been then, though it had been overlaid by fear and awe. It was that heart which drew him, called forth in him the young boy who fifty years before had been shy and innocent, a lover of books, a dreamer. He had thought that youth was dead but then she had come, with her fearless smiles, and something in him had reached out to her. They had told him that the barbarian women were all killers, that she had blood on her hands, but for once he had not believed it. Of the mother certainly, and the elder sister probably, but not of Gladys. She had been trained, in their savage way, to kill, but somehow he knew that her sword had remained clean. He had blood on his own hands, plenty of it, and it distressed him no more than the thought that his wife’s fingers were also red. But the young, insecure, unloved child who had grown to be the most powerful man in the world held out to this fresh girl a hand as eager and pure as her own.

  She met his welcoming smile with a broad grin of her own, and on coming up to him she kissed him. “Emperor,” she said. “I am wearing the emeralds again, isn’t that foolish? But I like them so much. How good the gardens smell this morning, after the rain! I cannot bear the heat of summer.” She took his arm and they strolled along the path, his court behind and before. “I have only an hour, little one,” he said, “But you will stay and eat with me tonight? Gladys, I want you to come to Capri with me this year when Rome gets too hot to bear. Bring your family if you like.” She did not let go of him, but he felt her grip tighten. “I can’t,” she replied, and in her voice he detected regret mixed with something else. Fear? “My uncle has invited us to his summer home. I expect father will soon request permission from you to go.”

  “Well, I will refuse. You can all come to Capri this year. The sea air will do you good.” His stutter had become more pronounced and he stopped walking in order to wipe his mouth. Gladys let go his arm. He was upset today, and she knew that she should attempt to calm him before incipient irritability turned to anger, but there were things to say that could only annoy him further. She swallowed, her throat dry.