Dreaming the Bull

by Manda Scott

  The room lacked air, or there was too much and the pressure of it crowded the lungs; either way, it was hard to breathe and harder still to think. Forewarned, Dubornos pressed a hand to the wall for support and did not try to speak. Caradoc, who had had no such warning, stared and went on staring. The will that had commanded armies kept his hands from reaching out to touch the man who faced him. That will could not keep the shock from his voice.

  “Bán?”

  “Bán of the Eceni, brother to the Boudica?” The officer shook his head. “Absolutely not. I am Julius Valerius, decurion of the First Thracian Cavalry. Bán died a long time ago at the hands of Amminios, brother to Caradoc. I am not he.”

  In denial, he made it fact. Stripped of the armour, he was his mother’s son; his hair was hers, the high cheekbones and lean contours of his face, the length and beauty of his fingers, the smile that began in mischief and had once ended in joy. All these combined made him the child they had known and all were soured beyond imagining to shape a man they could not begin to know. Still, he was Bán.

  If the guards had slain Cunomar and Cygfa and thrown their heads at his feet, Caradoc might have managed himself better; that at least was within the realms of his imagining. The dignity, the wrappings of self-control so carefully nurtured to sustain him through the coming day, fell away, raggedly. His gaze switched from the figure lounging in the doorway to Xenophon and back again. On the third pass, his eyes settled instead on Dubornos. A glimmer of intellect returned to light the wreckage of his mind. “You knew,” he said. “How long have you known?”

  “Since the mountainside when we were taken. I wasn’t certain at first, but then he gave me his knife to release Hail from life because he couldn’t remember the words of the invocation to Briga. Who else in the world would have done that?”

  From the doorway, the too-familiar voice said acidly, “You knew before that. At the salmon-trap in the Eceni lands five years ago, you knew me as well as I knew you.”

  Dubornos shook his head. “No. I knew only that you hated me, not who you were or why you felt so. I had spent too many nights warding the dreamers as they strove to recover your lost soul and return it to Briga’s care. In the chaos of battle, one does not expect to see that same soul living and fighting for the enemy.” For nearly two months he had lived with the knowledge of this and had chosen to forget. Faced with the living reality, the enormity of it left him dry-mouthed. “Do you think if I had known you, I would have rested until you were dead? We loathed you, believing you fully Roman. How much more so had we known the depth of your betrayal?”

  “How much indeed?” The black eyes mocked him. “I’m disappointed. I really thought you knew who I was. All those years of vengeance, wasted.”

  Dubornos hissed air through his teeth, unable to speak. Distractedly, Caradoc said to him, “Why did you not tell me?”

  “What point was there? Would you go to your death better knowing that Breaca’s lost brother had lived beyond Amminios” attack and had returned to slaughter his own people? Would Cunomar live better afterwards knowing that his own uncle was the one who had enslaved him? The boy has worshipped the memory of Bán Harehunter, saviour of Hail, since he was old enough to hear the tales at the fire. It would do him no good to know the great deeds of the past are wiped out by the calumny of the present.”

  He had spoken with intent to wound and saw his effort wasted. Valerius lounged, smiling, in the doorway, untouched and untouchable.

  Caradoc was more direct. Until then, they had been speaking Latin, as a courtesy to Xenophon. He changed now to Eceni and, speaking as an elder, giving due weight to his words, said, “Bán, son of Macha, brother to Breaca. For the boy you were, for your own sake and your sister’s, I would gladly have given my life. For the evil you have become, if your emperor did not hold the lives of my children as hostage, I would kill you where you stand.”

  “I have no doubt you would try.” The man who was Bán and yet not Bán replied in Latin, pointedly. “Which is precisely why your children did not die on the hillside above the river that marks the site of the governor’s last resounding military victory. There are more ways to defeat a man than simply to kill him in battle.”

  It was a practised taunt, the edge dulled with inner repetition. Baldly, Caradoc said, “Scapula is dead.”

  “I know. I brought the news to Narcissus. Doubtless I will follow him. The dreamers have their mark now; it won’t take them long to find those of us they hate most.” Valerius smiled, wolf-like. “It is good to think you will have made the journey ahead of me. I would have hated to die with Amminios’ favourite brother still living.”

  Dubornos laughed. “Are you insane? No-one could believe that Caradoc ever lived in Amminios’ favour. They loathed each other and everyone knows it. Amminios betrayed all of us to Rome. Caradoc and your sister were each sworn to kill him on sight. If he had ever had the courage to return to his father’s dun, he would have died within the day.”

  “Bán believes otherwise, does he not?” Caradoc had control of himself again. He settled back on the pallet. His eyes searched the other man’s face, absorbing those things that had changed and those that had not. “The last time we met,” he said carefully, “you defeated my brother in a game of Warrior’s Dance as long and hard-fought as any battle. Afterwards, I swore to attend your long-nights and speak for you before the elders. I learned the details of your death—we really did believe you dead, I will swear that by any god in whom we can both trust—only when I returned to Eceni lands in fulfilment of my oath. In none of that would you have had reason to believe I held any love for Amminios. You knew the depth of hatred between us.”

  “But still you betrayed my sister, my father—all of us—to him before you left to take ship for Gaul.” He was a child again; they all heard it.

  “No.” Caradoc was standing now, his head high, his anger no longer restrained. With quiet force, he said, “Whatever Amminios told you, whatever you chose to accept, you cannot believe that I would have damaged Breaca. I won’t allow it. Your sister is my heart and soul, the rising of my sun in the morning. She has been from the first meeting and will be until I die and beyond. I would no more betray her than I would cut the throat of our newborn daughter. If Amminios told you otherwise, he was lying to hurt you.”

  “Or he was telling the truth to achieve the same end?” Valerius’ lip curled. “The sons of Cunobelin were ever famed for their quick ways with words. You may squirm now to save your dignity but I overheard your brother speaking of it to his factor at a time when he had no idea I was listening. He had no reason to lie; you have too many to count. In this, I choose to believe the dead before the almost-dead.”

  “You would believe Amminios over me?”

  “Yes.”

  It was said with perfect certainty. Only his eyes, at last, betrayed the first edge of doubt.

  Dubornos took a step towards him. “Bán, you don’t believe—”

  Caradoc said, “But he does, he needs to. His life has turned on this, hasn’t it, Valerius?” He spoke in Eceni, the single Latin name harsh in the flow of rounded syllables. “What other lies did Amminios tell you? Did he say that your family were all dead and there was nothing to come home to? That you would be blamed, perhaps, for the defeat at the valley of the Heron’s Foot? He could lie so well, my brother. I know; I grew up in the shadow of his tongue. I took to the sea at twelve to escape it. But you had no escape, did you? Amminios had closed all the routes. What would you have done if you had known at the time that Breaca was still alive after the battle? Would you have come home to find her, to fight at her side in the invasion? Even to die for her?”

  He spoke to a ghost. Bán stood in the doorway, bone-white, his eyes black holes in his skull. He swallowed and opened his mouth and no sound came out.

  Caradoc said, “If you had the chance now, would you still—”

  Dubornos laid a hand on his shoulder. “Enough. Stop now. He knows. There is nothing to be gaine
d by making it worse.”

  Bán—Valerius—found voice enough to laugh. “Worse? There is nothing you can say that will make anything worse. You are lying—every word confirms it, and it counts for nothing. It would be amusing to talk more, but the emperor orders otherwise. The crowds must be entertained and they find the death of others most engaging. Very soon your dying will begin. Eventually, it will end. Afterwards I will continue to serve my emperor and my god to the best of my ability until your cursed dreamers—”

  “Stop.” Caradoc could still lead, effortlessly. The once-Eceni stopped in mid-sentence, his mouth agape. A flash of anger gathered and fell away as Caradoc said, “Listen…”

  Dubornos listened and, unwilling, heard. Time had moved on. The citron sun had passed beyond the limits of their window. Outside, a half-century of men marched at parade pace up the hill towards the palace. A cartwheel squealed, wanting oil, and halted outside at the end of the corridor.

  The fear, so long held at bay, rushed to return. Dubornos swayed, light-headed. Bán stared at him for a lingering moment and then spoke past him to the physician standing at the back of the cell.

  “Xenophon, you should not be here.”

  “And you should?”

  “Yes, of course. Forgive me; I became diverted by the amusements of our captives. I am to lead the prisoners in the procession and escort them to the tribunal. Claudius commands it. He requires a man who speaks both Latin and Eceni to translate the final speeches.”

  They had been speaking Latin for over half their conversation, faultlessly. Caradoc said, “We need no translation. Claudius knows that.”

  “Nevertheless, it will be done. The emperor wishes his defeated barbarian savages to be truly barbarian. It goes against the grain to execute a man who speaks Latin better than half the Senate.”

  CHAPTER 22

  I am Julius Valerius, decurion. I am sworn to the infinite Sun. Mithras, Father, help me.

  The words ran in Valerius’ head, marking time with the beat of the small drum by which each part of the procession was driven. They gave him little solace. No part of the emperor’s triumphal parade was going to plan. At the most mundane level, the white, blue-eyed mare he had been loaned was afraid of mules and riding her close to the prisoner’s mule-drawn carts took more than half his attention. Beyond that, he was assailed on all sides and it was not only the prisoners who were the enemy.

  From the procession’s first creaking progress, the crowd lining the parade route had been difficult. The vast majority of Rome’s population had already gathered under awnings on the plains in front of the Praetorian camp where the culmination of the parade was scheduled to take place in the third hour before noon. The thousands who had lined the via Tiburtina were the dregs of the city, those lacking either the influence or the money to gain a worthwhile stance on the plains.

  They had been enough to hamper the procession’s progress. In the beginning, it was the quantity and quality of the precious metals on the carts that had caught the crowd’s attention. Every item of gold and part-gold taken from the tribes of Britannia and presented to the emperor, his wife, his sons and his freedmen had been loaded onto eight long, low-sided platforms, the better to be seen by the people. The morning sun had made of them a lake of flocculent butter, each item lost in the dazzle. Torcs of twisted gold wire hooked through others of hollow metal sheet embossed with wild animals and scenes of battle; enamelled armbands a hand’s breadth wide gleamed near delicate, intricate necklaces of gold and silver, amber and pink coral; silver mirrors thrown in at random made moons in the shining day.

  It was an impressive display. Inspired by it to holiday mood, slaves, lesser merchants and their filthy, snot-nosed children had run alongside the procession or, easily outrunning the mules, had taken short cuts through back streets to come out ahead and watch the carts pass again.

  Captives had followed the spoils, providing even greater entertainment. First had come four carts of women and children destined for slavery. Those bearing the scars of battle had been placed on the inside, that the people might not readily see the evidence that barbarian women fought alongside their men.

  Nearly two hundred men followed, all acknowledged warriors. Already some wore gladiatorial armour, if not yet their weapons. Their public combat, in pairs or groups, had been scheduled for the following day. A hundred tall Numidians had been hand-picked to fight against them. Thus would the two barbarian ends of the empire be brought together, each demonstrating their inferiority to Rome.

  Last in the procession came the family of the rebel king, Caratacus; his wife and two children had been granted a cart to themselves. The two women were dressed in modest white linen, moderately clean. They stood upright with commendable dignity and had not been chained. The boy Cunomar swayed between them. A beautiful, almost feminine child, he bore the marks of recent bruising about his face and his hands were bound behind him with cord; an afterthought, or an emergency measure against a child’s instinct to fight his captors. Women in the crowd cooed as he passed and some of the younger men blew noisy kisses. His face became paler and more fey as the cart ascended the hill.

  The family was followed at the last by Caratacus himself, the barbarian king who for so long had spurned the rule of Roman law and would pay the price. For a while, the crowd had been impressed by him.

  Bigger than the others, his cart was drawn by two grey geldings with black trappings and black feathers in their brow bands. The horses were pale, almost white, and someone with more imagination than experience had painted swirling whorls on their quarters and flanks with deep grey-black river clay to represent barbarian woad. Later, a legionary who had served in the invasion forces and knew more of what he was about had added the sinuous lines of the serpent-spear in ox-blood red on their outer shoulders.

  The man himself stood tall in his chains, his eyes straight ahead, as befitted his rank. His dress was pure barbarian; his tunic, breeches and cloak were of rough wool in loud Gaulish check with his only armour a leather corselet stitched about with the crudest of metal plates, some so poorly polished they could have been lead and not iron. His brother, standing alongside, was a poorer imitation, the lesser in all respects, including his inability or unwillingness to maintain a dignified silence. He spoke constantly to the officer at his side, ignoring his status as prisoner.

  From Valerius’ perspective, the trouble had started in earnest when Dubornos began to pass comment on the things around him. They had been crossing an intersection. Sunlight leaked between tall buildings, the houses piled on houses that kept the populace of Rome concentrated within an easy walk of the forum. Here, costs had been cut and margins creamed; the windows were placed so close together that a whore could lean out of one and offer her services to a man at the other and he, if he were daring and chose to believe the building might remain upright for the duration of the transaction, could clasp her hand and accept. Along the length of the street, mortar flaked from the lintels and gaps with streaks of green slime below showed where roof tiles had slipped and gutters failed.

  Dubornos had said, “I have seen two grandmothers walking the streets, both lame, neither supported by a youth to be their eyes and limbs as would happen even now in the tribes.”

  The soft, rolling Eceni fell into the crowd and was not welcome; those for whom his death was the day’s entertainment resented being excluded from his pleadings. Someone hissed. Others began the low, pulsing groan that greeted the loser of gladiatorial combat.

  Ignoring them, Dubornos said, “Were you not the eyes and limbs to the elder grandmother after your sister sat her long-nights? Does it not shame you to be part of this? Does your god look on and feel his people well cared for?”

  “My god is not your—” It had been a mistake to answer. Silence had been Valerius’ best—his only—defence. The mare jerked her head and a small cheer rose from a different part of the crowd, congratulating the captive on his strike; not all of the city’s population favoured the l
egions.

  Whatever their allegiance, the masses wanted most an excuse for a riot and were close to finding it. A hand’s length of firewood bounced on the edge of the cart near the mare’s eye. She skittered sideways, her hooves sliding on the metalled road. Her hindquarters knocked up against a doorway and hit something soft. A woman screamed from low down underfoot.

  Caradoc, who had been silent since the cart had left the prison, said distinctly, “Watch yourself, fool.” The tone of it stung.

  Valerius hauled on the reins, swearing in Thracian. The mare backed out of the doorway, lifting her feet too high. Beneath them, bleeding freely but still living, the drunken, par-blind beggar-woman who had chosen it for her night’s rest lay on her back with her legs splayed, yammering incoherencies. Her left leg was withered from the thigh down. Her left wrist, which had been whole when she lay down to rest, was broken.

  “Help her, god damn you!”

  It was said in Eceni, but the meaning was clear to the entire crowd. Somewhere, a man laughed coarsely. “Go on, decurion, get her up. Look what she’s offering. How can you resist?”

  A small group of youths near to the old woman began to cat-call, as they would a prostitute out alone too late.

  “Bán, for god’s sake—”

  I am not Bán. I am Julius Valerius. Your gods are not my god.

  In the time it took to think this, to repeat it, seeking certainty, Valerius lost control of the crowd. Caradoc’s voice had cracked like a whip above the tumult, losing him what small sympathy his position might have garnered. The crowd booed. From the rear ranks, someone made the sound of a horn blowing the legionary order to advance.

  The driver of the captives’ cart, who had been chosen for his youth and beauty before any ability to deal with complex matters of imperial decorum, let the grey horses idle to a halt. Caught by the noise, the teamsters driving the mule carts did likewise; their orders had been to keep the procession intact. The cat-calls, trumpet-noises and whistles grew to a common jeering, gathering rhythm with volume.