Dreaming the Bull

by Manda Scott

  Efnís, dreamer of the Eceni, led the gathering. Alone of them all, he had seen the faces of the three among the enemy whose deaths mattered most to the tribes: Governor Scapula, the legate of the XXth legion and the decurion of the Thracian auxiliary who rode the pied horse. So that the others might know them as well as he, he offered his memories to the fire, each bound with the hair of a red mare to sticks of green hawthorn. In the smoke of their burning, others inhaled the essences of the men they hunted, letting them settle in their minds: a flash of a face seen in profile, the particular scent of one man in battle that sets him apart from the rest, the sound of a voice raised in command, or lowered in repose, the love of a father for his son and of a man for his shield-mates, the complex loathing of one who kills to cover his own self-hate.

  Nothing was clear, but there was enough of each man that, in the chaos of battle, the dreamers might find the loosened souls of those they sought and bring them fear or despair or a slowness of reflex that would give the warriors a chance to land a killing blow. It was the best they could do and it was not perfect, but it had worked in the past and, with the gods’ help, it could be made to work again.

  When it came to the last of the three, the decurion who rode the pied horse, Dubornos added his own sticks to the fire, similarly bound. He had taken four days to make them, sleeping alone with his memories of a time he would have preferred to forget, sharpening to a focused clarity patterns previously hidden in a fog of grief and anger, and then binding them with his own blood and tears to the green-cut branches of a berried hawthorn.

  If there had been a way to do it without remembering, Dubornos would have taken it, whatever the cost. After the burning of the fort, when it had been clear that Scapula was going to send his forces against the Eceni, Dubornos had organized the first salmon-trap and had believed it a success. Men and women of the Eceni and the Coritani had died in their hundreds, but they had sold their lives at an overwhelming price, fighting with a savagery unknown in the history of the tribes to destroy the auxiliaries sent against them. Dubornos had wept at those losses even while his soul exulted at the victory that had sent the handful of remaining enemy back to the fortress bearing the bodies of their fallen officers across their saddles. In the days immediately afterwards, before they had understood the nature and unthinkable extent of Scapula’s reprisals, his only disquiet, his single gnawing doubt, had been the frisson of raw hatred he had felt from the junior officer who had seen the danger of the salmon-trap and had later led the horses in over the barricade to save his surviving comrades, riding at the front on a pied horse that killed as savagely as any warrior.

  Dubornos had seen the horse long before he took notice of the man. When the auxiliaries had abandoned their mounts and fought on foot, there had seemed a good chance that the beast might be captured and brought into the breeding herds. Later, seeing it ridden, the regret at its loss had been greater. Only afterwards, when the hangings of the villagers began, had the temperaments of both beast and rider become clear. Dubornos’ one source of solace in the time of desolation and despair after the atrocities was that he had not instilled such unremitting hatred into Mona’s horse herds. In the making of his memory-sticks, he had bound the horse as closely as the rider, merging both into a single entity and marking it as evil.

  He leaned forward and placed the last branch in the heart of the blaze. Wizened berries shrivelled and burst. Flames wrapped the skin of his forearm and he felt no heat. The fire consumed the wood and hair, sending his memories to the gods and the waiting dreamers. There were few words that could do justice to the evil he felt from this man but he gave them as well, to flesh out the picture. He is tall and lean and his hair is black. He rides a pied horse that kills as he kills. With his own hands, he killed the children.

  Sighing, two hundred dreamers took in his words and gave them life. The air around the outcrop shivered in the heat. With smoke in their hearts and flame scalding their skins, the dreamers of Mona and the west drew a collective breath and, with it, began to bend their minds to vengeance.

  Dawn broke behind them, cold and clear. The dreamers’ fire died to glowing ash and the two hundred dispersed, scrambling down the mountainside to find and wake their warriors and give them the gods’ good will before battle. Dubornos sought the largest of the warriors’ fires and found it at the northerly end of the ridge above the waterfall that marked the broadest point of the river. Here, the honour guard of Mona had slept, sharing the fire with Caradoc and his Ordovices.

  Men and women were waking, stretching sleep from cramped muscles, rubbing heather dew on their faces or seeking out the small streams that tumbled over the rock-strewn slope. A few slid down through the scrub towards the midden trenches. Others had clearly been awake longer. Ardacos, who led the warriors of the she-bear and was the left arm of the Boudica’s honour guard, crouched to one side near a blackthorn thicket with a dozen of his band. They smelled strongly of woad and bear grease and grey symbols swirled on their naked bodies, the result of half a night’s painting. The hafts of their spears were made of white ash, dulled almost to black by the blood of a bear, the blades were leaf-shaped and longer than any others on the field, and undyed heron feathers dangled from the necks. They pressed handprints in white clay on their shoulders and reaffirmed battle oaths to each other in a language that Dubornos, master of eight separate tongues and a dozen dialects in each, had never heard.

  Beyond the she-bears, Braint, the young woman of the Brigantes who led the centre of the honour guard in Breaca’s absence, bound the skull of a wild cat into the mane of her horse. Closer to the fire, Gwyddhien, who led the right flank, painted the mark of the grey falcon on the left shoulder of her battle mare above the serpent-spear of the Boudica. It was she whom Dubornos sought. He scuffed down through the tangling heather and stood nearby, waiting.

  Of all her people, Gwyddhien was the most striking. Always tall, the war-knot of the Silures tied in her black hair made her taller. Her skin was smoothly brown with few scars and none of them about the face. Her cheekbones were high and set wide, as was the way with some of the western tribes in whom the blood of the ancestors ran clear. One could easily see why another might find her attractive.

  The woman finished and looked up; she had known he was there. Dubornos gave the warrior’s salute and said, “Airmid sends you her heart and soul for the duration of battle. She walks where you walk and dreams as you dream.”

  It was the formal greeting between lovers when circumstances forced them apart in times of war. For a moment, Gwyddhien became less the warrior and more the woman. Her eyes were the greyed green of old hazel leaves made brighter by the frost of the dawn. When she smiled, they sparked as if struck by flint and iron.

  “Thank you.” Her salute was that of a warrior to her dreamer when the latter is of highest rank. It honoured Dubornos, intentionally. “Is Breaca well?” she asked.

  He would have left but could not; custom demanded that he answer. “She thrives, and the child with her. Her greatest regret is that she cannot join the battle.”

  “But she sends her other child to take her place and thus deprives you of the chance to fight.” Gwyddhien’s brows arched enough to make the statement a question without impugning its wisdom.

  “Cunomar?” Dubornos grimaced. “No. Breaca would have stopped him from coming but Caradoc had already said he could accompany us. He felt guilt, I think, at the amount of time he had spent with Breaca and the new babe and then that he had given his mother’s swan-hilted blade to Cygfa for the battle. He had to give something to Cunomar of equal worth, and permission to join him today was the only thing that would serve. The boy chafes at the bridle like a yearling that wants to race before its bones are set.”

  “He thinks the war will be over and he will have won no honour to match his parents’. In his place, I would feel the same.”

  “Maybe. But I think in his place you would have listened to your elders.”

  She stared at him,
nodding. “As you did at his age. Or older?”

  On the eve of battle, the past took root in the present. The breath soured in Dubornos’ throat. He would have turned away but Gwyddhien took hold of his shoulder and held him still, facing her. If he chose, he could read compassion in her gaze, or pity. Very badly, he wanted neither.

  Gwyddhien said, “Airmid sent you with the message for me. That should be proof enough that she holds none of your past against you.” And then, when he made no reply, “You should talk to her about it sometime.”

  “As she has talked to you.”

  Gwyddhien shrugged. “Of course. Did you think she would not? You are the foremost singer of Mona, she one of the strongest dreamers, and yet you speak only when the need is overwhelming. The distance between you has been clear from the day you first came to the island. I asked about it only before the invasion, when it was necessary to know on whom we could truly rely. She named you as one of those whom she trusted most closely and, having seen you in her company, I questioned it. Even knowing the whole story—particularly knowing the whole story—there was no possibility I would think less of you for it.”

  “Why not? I do.”

  “I know. That’s why we’re speaking of it now. We all make mistakes in our youth of which we are ashamed. The difference is that the rest of us can forgive the ignorance of the child we were and believe in the honour of the adult we have become. You were fifteen years old when Amminios’ eagles ambushed Breaca and your people in the valley of the Heron River, you had barely passed your long-nights and had never seen battle. Warriors with more kill-feathers than any died that day. Breaca’s father was one of the Eceni’s foremost warriors and they cut him down like a hunted deer. Your father was injured, ’Tagos lost an arm and Bán was killed and his body taken; Breaca herself was lucky to come out alive. The gods guided you then as they guide all of us, always. If you had not feigned death, you might well have died with the others.”

  ‘But at least I would have died with honour.”

  Gwyddhien looked beyond him down into the valley to where the river ran cold and white. She chewed on her lower lip in the way Airmid did when she was thinking.

  Presently, she said, “It might do you some good to think how many battles you have fought since that day with exceptional honour, how many lives you have saved, how many others have relied on your strength and your presence in the worst of times. You have been central to so much. If the gods had wanted you dead, you would be dead. They do not and you should care about that if you don’t care about yourself. You carry your shame into battle and it changes who you are. One day, it will slow you when the enemy is fast. I would prefer that not to happen. As would Airmid.”

  Of all she said, the last words burned deepest. Before the singer could reply, a horn sounded nearby. Bear claws rattled in rhythm against the hollowness of a skull. A falcon screamed from another fire, a sound to chill the hearts of the enemy. The morning came alive with moving warriors, riding and running in waves down the mountainside. Dubornos felt himself pushed apart from his fellows, a husk with his tongue glued stiff with the shame of the past.

  Gwyddhien lifted her sheathed sword from a rock and looped the carry-thong over her head. A spear and shield hung together from her saddle bow. Each bore a frog, painted green, the mark of Airmid’s dream. Her hand once again gripped Dubornos’ shoulder. He felt the prints for half a day.

  “You have chosen the path of greatest courage,” she said. “We all honour you for it.”

  “I do what I must.”

  “I know. That doesn’t make it easy.” In her mind, the warrior was already riding the slope down to the river, rehearsing the many varying plans of battle. With a clear effort, she brought herself back, turning to face him. “We will be on the right flank. If you need help to guard the child, get word to me. I will send whoever I can spare. Remember that.”

  “Thank you. I will.”

  Cunomar was the only one below fighting age on the mountain. His peers, without exception, had accepted the need to stay at home; in this battle, there were no children carrying water or tending to the horses, no hostages to Rome who might need protection, except this one. He crouched alone on the far side of his father’s fire. Hail lay beside him, an unwilling guardian. The great hound’s soul remained on Mona with Breaca and the newborn infant. As it had not been with Cunomar, the bonding at Graine’s birth had been immediate and complete. The hound mourned her absence, visibly, as did the boy, if for different reasons.

  Around the pair, warriors finished their last preparations for war, and Cunomar looked on stonily. It was Cygfa whose presence upset him most. His half-sister was nearing her long-nights. For months now her first bleeding had been expected and it was widely agreed that, once adult, she would be a warrior of a calibre to match their father. She had trained since infancy amongst her mother’s people, the Ordovices, and the warriors of the war hammer were known across the land as the most ferocious of the west. Later, Cygfa had joined her father on Mona and trained in the warriors’ school, learning sword and spear moves from men and women considered the best of any tribe. When the time of the battle had come and she had not yet gained her spear, the elders had agreed that she could attempt to win it in fair combat, as Breaca had done. Her mother, Cwmfen, fought in Caradoc’s honour guard and Cygfa had been granted permission to ride at her side.

  For Cunomar, that alone would have been unbearable, but then Breaca had made a gift to the girl of the shaggy, wide-hoofed war horse that had carried her as the Boudica through the invasion battle. The beast, known as the bear-horse for the length of his pelt and the shape of his nose, was sire to half of the best youngstock on Mona but his passion was war and he had not seen enough of it. Breaca rode the grey mare for preference, even when the animal was old enough to be turned away to pasture. Granted now to Cygfa, the bear-horse revelled in the smells and portents of war. He stood with his head high and his ears up and only years of training in the need for silence before battle kept him from screaming his challenge to the morning. His presence, together with the swan-hilted blade that had been Caradoc’s gift to her, made Cygfa one of the best mounted, best armed warriors on the field. Cunomar hated her and let it show.

  Dubornos skirted the fire towards him. “Good morning.”

  The child nodded but did not answer. His gaze was fixed on the two warriors on the far side of the fire. Cygfa stood with Braint of the Brigantes, braiding her hair at the sides. In the splendour of the dawn, the pair could have been sisters, or two of the three parts of Briga: the one dark-haired, dark-skinned and scarred from battle, the other fair of hair and skin and unblemished. All they lacked was the grandmother, grey-haired and lame. Cygfa had not yet killed and had no right to wear the black crow feather at her temple but Gwyddhien had given her a falcon’s grey-barred tail feather with the quill stained black and red to bring on Briga’s luck and Braint was showing her the proper way to fix it. They laughed together and the noise rolled down the mountain like the ring of iron on stone. Cunomar scowled and his mouth moved in a clear, if silent, curse.

  Dubornos perched on a rock at his side. Childless, he had never learned the ways of reaching children and searching his own past for aid had proved little help. He chose, therefore, to address the young as if they were already adult. Often, he was successful. With Cunomar, he could never tell how it would be.

  “Your sister rides for the first time into battle,” he said. “It won’t help her if you wish her ill. Nor you if she dies and you have no chance to call back your curse.”

  Amber eyes flicked sideways and away. “She won’t die. She’s as good as father, everyone says so. She’ll carve the Romans into meat for the hounds.”

  It was a subtle insult, carefully honed. The legions were rumoured to feed the dead of their enemies to their hounds, one more atrocity in their manifold tally. No warrior of the tribes would ever countenance such a thing.

  Dubornos said, “That does not become you. If you
dishonour Cygfa, the slur extends also to your father and her mother. Would you wish that on them when they go to fight Scapula and the decurion of the Thracian cavalry who rides the pied horse?”

  The mention of the two greatest enemies in one breath had the effect he desired. With his shield hand, Cunomar made the complex gesture that unmade all curses. “They will win,” said the child sullenly. “And you and I will have sat here through the day, watching, while others earn their kill-feathers and make the tales that will be told at the fire.”

  If it was hard for a grown man who was oath-sworn of his own free will to keep back from the front line, how much harder for a child who did so only because he was ordered by his father? Dubornos reached in his pouch for the knuckle bones he carried as perpetual distraction. He cast them on the scorched turf by the fire and studied the way they lay. “We can only pray so,” he said, drily. “Meanwhile, it will be some time before battle is joined. Would you care to play?”

  CHAPTER 15

  “Did you know there would be so many of them?” Longinus Sdapeze sat his chestnut mare, resting his forearms on the front of the saddle. The entire wing of the First Thracian Cavalry stretched out behind him in rows of eight. Julius Valerius, outwardly recovered from his encounter with his god, sat at his side, studying the enemy and the geography of a battle site that was not of his choosing, nor would ever have been. It was the salmon-trap of the Eceni all over again, but then they had known from the start that it would be; the inquisitors had found that out for them. Their advantage, such as it was, lay in this forewarning and the other news gathered from spies and fallen warriors. Valerius could only wait and judge its accuracy as the battle progressed.