Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Who is here?” asked Commius, looking straight at Tros.

  At that Conops took a swift stride closer to his master, laying a hand on the hilt of his long knife. Gwenhwyfar laughed, and Britomaris nudged her angrily.

  “I am one who knows Commius the Gaul!” said Tros, returning stare for stare. “I am another who runs Caesar’s errands, although Caesar never offered me a puppet kingdom. Thou and I, O Commius, have eaten leavings from the same trough. Shall we try to persuade free men that it is a good thing to be slaves?”

  The chief who had brought Commius laughed aloud, for he understood the Gaulish, and he also seemed to understand the meaning of Gwenhwyfar’s glance at Britomaris. Commius, his grave eyes missing nothing of the scene, stepped down from the chariot and, followed by a dozen men with torches, walked straight up to Tros.

  His face looked deathly white in the torch glare, but whether or not he was angry it was difficult to guess, because he smiled with thin lips and had his features wholly in control. Tros smiled back at him, good nature uppermost, but an immense suspicion in reserve.

  Gwenhwyfar, clinging to her man’s arm, listened with eager eyes and parted lips. Conops drew his knife clandestinely and hid it in a tunic fold.

  “I know the terms on which Caesar sent you. I know who is hostage for you in Caesar’s camp,” said Commius; and Tros, looking down at him, for he was taller by a full hand’s breadth, laid a heavy right hand on his shoulder.

  “Commius,” he said, “it may be well to yield to Caesar for the sake of temporary peace — to give a breathing spell to Gaul — to save thine own neck, that the Gauls may have a leader when the time comes. For this Caesar who seems invincible, will hardly live forever; and the Gauls in their day of defeat have need of you as surely as they will need your leadership when Caesar’s bolt is shot. That day will come. But is it the part of a man, to tempt these islanders to share your fate?”

  “Tros, you are rash!” said Commius, speaking through his teeth. “I am the friend of Caesar.”

  “I am the friend of all the world, and that is a higher friendship,” Tros answered. “Though I were the friend of Caesar, I would nonetheless hold Caesar less than the whole world. But I speak of this isle and its people. Neither you nor I are Britons. Shall we play the man toward these folk, or shall we ruin them?”

  The crowd was pressing closer, and the chief in his chariot urged the horses forward so that he might overhear; their white heads tossed in the torchlight like fierce apparitions from another world.

  “If I dared trust you,” Commius said, his black eyes searching Tros’s face.

  “Do the Gauls trust you?” asked Tros. “Are you a king among the Gauls? You may need friends from Britain when the day comes.”

  “You intend to betray me to Caesar!” said Commius, and at that Tros threw back his shock of hair and laughed, his eyes in the torchlight showing more red than amber.

  “If that is all your wisdom, I waste breath,” he answered. Commius was about to speak when another voice broke on the stillness, and all eyes turned toward the rock. The old High Druid had climbed to its summit and stood leaning on a staff, his long beard whiter than stone against the darkness and ruffled in the faint wind — a splendid figure, dignity upholding age.

  “O Caswallon, and you, O Britomaris, and ye sons of the isle, hear my words!” he began.

  And as the crowd surged for a moment, turning to face the rock and listen, Gwenhwyfar wife of Britomaris came and tugged at Tros’s sleeve. He thought it was Conops, and waited, not moving his head, expecting a whispered warning; but the woman tugged again and he looked down into her glowing eyes. She pointed toward the house at the far end of the clearing.

  “Thither I go,” she whispered. “If you are as wise as you seem fearless, you will follow.”

  “I would hear this druid,” Tros answered, smiling as he saw the point of Conops’ knife within a half inch of the woman’s ribs.

  “He will talk until dawn!”

  “Nonetheless, I will hear him.”

  “You will hear what is more important if you follow me,” she answered; and at that, she left him, stepping back so quickly that the point of Conops’ long knife pricked her and she struck him angrily, then vanished like a shadow.

  Tros strode slowly after her, with Conops at his heels, but when he reached the gloom beyond the outskirts of the crowd he paused.

  “Am I followed?” he asked.

  “Nay, master. They are like the fish around a dead man. One could gather all of them within a net. Do we escape?”

  “I know what the druid will say,” Tros answered. “I could say it myself. What that woman has to say to me, I know not. Though it may be she has set an ambush.”

  Conops chuckled.

  “Aye! The kind of ambush they set for sailormen on the wharfsides of Saguntum! A long drink, and then—”

  He whistled a few bars of the love song of the Levantine ports:

  Oh, what is in the wind that fills

  The red sail straining at the mast?

  Oh, what beneath the purple hills

  That overlean the Cydnus, thrills

  The sailor seeing land at last

  Oh, Chloe and—”

  “Be still!” commanded Tros. “If there were no more risk than that, my father would be free tomorrow! Which way went the woman?”

  Conops pointed, speaking his mind as usual:

  “That Briton who came in the chariot — Caswallon — fills my eye. But I would not trust Commius the Gaul; he has a dark look.”

  “He is anxious for his Gauls, as I am anxious for my father,” Tros answered. “He hates Caesar, and he likes me; but for the sake of his Gauls he would stop at nothing. He would bring Caesar to this island, just to give the Atrebates time to gather strength at Caesar’s rear. Nay, he may not be trusted.”

  “Master, will you trust these Britons?” Conops asked him, suddenly, from behind, as he followed close in his steps along a track that wound among half-rotted tree stumps toward the cattle fence. Tros turned and faced him.

  “It is better that the Britons should trust me,” he answered.

  “But to what end, master?”

  “There are two ends to everything in this world, even to a ship,” said Tros darkly; “two ends to Caesar’s trail, and two ways of living life: on land and water. Make sure we are not followed.”

  The dogs barked fiercely as they approached the fence, and Conops grew nervous, pulling at his master’s cloak.

  “Nay, it is a good sign,” said Tros. “If it were a trap they would have quieted the dogs.”

  He turned again to make sure no one was following. The torchlight shone on the High Druid’s long white robe and whiter beard, and on a sea of faces that watched him breathlessly. The old man was talking like a waterfall. They were too far away now for his words to reach them, but judging by his gestures he was very angry and was in no mood to be brief.

  “On guard!” warned Conops suddenly as they started toward the fence again, but Tros made no move to reach for his sword.

  It was the woman Gwenhwyfar, waiting in a shadow. She stepped out into the firelight that shone through a gap in the fence and signed to Tros to follow her, leading around to the rear of the house, where a door, sheltered by a rough porch, opened toward the forest.

  She led the way in, and they found themselves in a room whose floor was made of mud and cow dung trampled hard. There was a fire in the midst, and a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. She spoke to a hag dressed in ragged skins, who stirred the fire to provide light and then vanished through an inner door.

  The firelight shone on smooth mud walls, adzed beams, two benches and a table.

  “Your home?” asked Tros, puzzled, and Gwenhwyfar laughed.

  “I am a chief’s wife; I am wife of Britomaris,” she answered. “Our serfs, who mind the cattle, live in this place.”

  “Where then is your home?” asked Tros.

  She pointed toward the north.
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  “When Caswallon comes, we leave home,” she answered. “The power to use our house is his, but we are not his serfs.”

  Gwenhwyfar’s attitude suggested secrecy. She seemed to wish Tros to speak first, as if she would prefer to answer questions rather than to force the conversation. She looked extremely beautiful in the firelight; the color had risen to her cheeks and her eyes shone like jewels, brighter than the gleaming ornaments on her hair and arms and breast.

  “Why do you fear Caswallon?” Tros asked her suddenly.

  “I? I am not afraid!” she answered. “Britomaris fears him, but not I! Why should I be afraid? Caswallon is a strong chief, a better man than Britomaris; and I hate him! He — how strong is Caesar?” she demanded.

  Tros studied her a moment. He gave her no answer. She sat down on one of the benches, signing to him and Conops to be seated on the other.

  “You said Caesar will make himself master of the world,” she remarked after a minute, stretching her skin-clad legs toward the blaze. She was not looking at Tros now but at the fire. “Why did you say that?”

  Suddenly she met his eyes, and glanced away again. Conops went and sat down on the floor on the far side of the fire.

  CHAPTER 3. Gwenhwyfar, Wife of Britomaris

  Beware the ambitious woman! All things and all men are her means to an end. All treacheries are hers. All reasons justify her. Though her end is ruin, shall that lighten your humiliation — ye whom she uses as means to that end that she contemptuously seeks?

  — from The Sayings of the Druid Taliesan

  TROS made no answer for a long time, but stared first at the fire and then at Gwenhwyfar.

  “Send that man away,” she suggested, nodding toward Conops; but Tros scratched his chin and smiled.

  “I prefer to be well served,” he answered. “How can he keep secrets unless he knows them? Nay, nay, Gwenhwyfar; two men with three eyes are as good again as one man with but two; and even so, the two are not too many when another’s wife bears watching! Speak on.”

  Her eyes lighted up with challenge as she tossed her head. But she laughed and came to the point at once, looking straight and hard at him.

  “Commius spoke to me of Caesar. He said he is Caesar’s deputy. He urged me to go with him and visit Caesar. Britomaris is a weak chief; he has no will; he hates Caswallon and yet bows to him. Caesar is strong.”

  “I am not Caesar’s deputy, whatever Commius may be,” said Tros. “But this I tell you, and you may as well remember it, Gwenhwyfar: A thousand women have listened to Caesar’s wooing, and I have been witness of the fate of some. There was a woman of the Gauls, a great chief’s daughter, who offered herself to him to save her people. Caesar passed her on to one of his lieutenants, and thereafter sold her into slavery.”

  “Perhaps she did not please him,” Gwenhwyfar answered. And then, since Tros waited in silence, “I have pearls.”

  “You have also my advice regarding them,” said Tros.

  Gwenhwyfar waited a full minute, thinking, as if appraising him. She nodded, three times, slowly.

  “You, who have lost all except your manhood and the clothes you wear!” she said at last, and her voice was bold and stirring, “what is your ambition?”

  “To possess a ship,” he answered, so promptly that he startled her.

  “A ship? Is that all?”

  “Aye, and enough. A man is master on his own poop. A swift ship, a crew well chosen, and a man may laugh at Caesars.”

  “And yet — you say, you had a ship? And a crew well chosen?”

  Tros did not answer. His brows fell heavily and half concealed eyes that shone red in the firelight.

  “Better be Caesar’s ward, and rule a kingdom, than wife of a petty chief who dares not disobey Caswallon,” Gwenhwyfar said, looking her proudest. “Caswallon might have had me to wife, but he chose Fflur. There was nothing left for me but Britomaris. If he were a strong man I could have loved him. He is weak.

  “He likes to barter wolf-skins on the shore with the Roman and Tyrian traders. He pays tribute to Caswallon. He does not even dare to build a town and fortify it, least Caswallon should take offense.

  “He obeys the druids, as a child obeys its nurse, in part because he is afraid of them, but also because it is the easiest thing to do. He is not a man, such as Caswallon might have been — such as you are.”

  She paused, with parted lips, looking full and straight at Tros. Conops tapped the dirt floor rhythmically with the handle of his knife. A man in the next room began singing about old mead and the new moon.

  “It is a ship, not a woman that I seek,” said Tros, and her expression hardened.

  But she tried again:

  “You might have a hundred ships.”

  “I will be better satisfied with one.”

  She began to look baffled; eyes and lips hinted anger that she found it difficult to hold in check.

  “Is that your price?” she asked. “A ship?”

  “Woman!” said Tros after a minute’s silence, laying his great right fist on his knee, “you and I have no ground that we can meet on. You would sell your freedom. I would die for mine.”

  “Yet you live!” she retorted. “Did you come to Britain of your free will? Where is your freedom? You are Caesar’s messenger!”

  She got up suddenly and sat down on the bench beside him, he not retreating an inch. Not even his expression changed, but his shoulders were rigid and his hands were pressing very firmly on his knees.

  “Do you not understand?” she asked.

  “I understand,” he answered.

  Suddenly she flared up, her eyes blazing and her voice trembling. She did not speak loud, but with a slow distinctness that made each word like an arrow speeding to the mark.

  “Am I not fair?” she asked, and he nodded.

  Her eyes softened for a moment, then she went on:

  “Caswallon was the first and is the last who shall deny me! I can be a good wife — a very god’s wife to a man worth loving! Caesar can conquer Caswallon, but not alone. He will need my help, and yours. Caesar made Commius a king over the Atrebates; and what was Commius before that? Caesar shall make me a queen where Caswallon lords it now! And you — ?”

  “And Britomaris?” asked Tros, watching her.

  “And you?” she said again, answering stare for stare. Her breast was heaving quickly, like a bird’s.

  “Oh, Tros!” she went on. “Are you a man, or are you timid? Here a kingdom waits for you! Yonder, in Gaul, is Caesar, who can make and unmake kingdoms! Here am I! I am a woman, I am all a woman. I love manhood. I do not love Britomaris.”

  Conops stirred the fire.

  “Do you not see that if you are all a woman you must oppose Caesar?” Tros asked. “Then — let Caesar outrage! Let him slay! He will have done nothing, because your spirit will go free, Gwenhwyfar. Caesar plans an empire of men’s bodies, with his own — his epileptic, foul, unchaste and hairless head crowned master of them all! Whoso submits to him is a slave — a living carcass. Hah! Defy him! Scorn him! Resist him to the last breath! The worst he can do then will be to torture a brave body till the braver soul goes free!”

  His words thrilled her.

  “Well enough,” she answered promptly. “I am brave. I can defy Caesar. But I need a braver chief to make the stand with me than Britomaris. If Caswallon had taken me to wife — but he chose Fflur — perhaps it was as well — you are nobler than Caswallon, and—”

  “And what?” asked Tros.

  She answered slowly:

  “A bold man now could conquer Britain. The druids — I know them — the druids would support one who opposed the Romans. They fear for their own power should Caesar gain a foothold. The druids trust you. Why? They do not trust me. Tros — Strike a bargain with the druids. Slay Caswallon. Seize the chieftainship, and raise an army against Caesar!”

  “And Britomaris?”

  “Challenge him!” she answered. “He would run! I have the right accordi
ng to our law, to leave a man who runs away.”

  “Gwenhwyfar!” Tros exclaimed, getting up and standing straight in front of her. “It is Caesar, and not I who has the falling sickness! You and I lack that excuse! Know this: I will neither steal a wife from Britomaris, nor a throne from Caswallon; nor will I impose my will on Britain.”

  She stood up, too, and faced him, very angry.

  “Have you never loved?” she asked, and though her eyes were steady, the gold brooch on her breast was fluttering.

  “Loved? Aye, like a man!” he answered. “I have loved the sea since I was old enough to scramble down the cliffs of Samothrace and stand knee deep to watch the waves come in! The sea is no man’s master, nor a bed of idleness! The sea holds all adventure and the keys of all the doors of the unknown!

  “The sea, Gwenhwyfar, is the image of a man’s life. If he flinches, if he fails, it drowns him. Is he lazy, does he fail to mend his ship or steadfastly to be example to his crew, there are rocks, shoals, tides, the pirates, storms. But is he stanch, he sails, until he reaches unknown ports, where the gods trade honesty for the experience he brings! I seek but a ship, Gwenhwyfar. I will carve a destiny that suits me better than a stolen kingdom and a cheated husband’s bed!”

  She reached out a hand unconsciously and touched his arm:

  “Tros,” she answered, “Caswallon has some longships hidden in the marshes of the Thames. Take me — take a ship, and—”

  “Nay,” he answered. “Caswallon owes me nothing. He who owes me a good ship is Caesar!”

  “And you think that you can make Caesar pay?” she asked. “Take me to Caesar, Tros; between us we will cheat him of a ship! With you to teach me, I could learn to love the sea.”

  He stepped back a pace or two, would have stumbled backward against the clay hearth if Conops had not warned him.

  “None learns to love,” he answered. “Love is a man’s nature. He is this, or he is that; none can change him. I am less than half a man, until I feel the deck heave under me and look into a rising gale. You, Gwenhwyfar, you are less than half a woman until you pit your wits against a man who loves to master you; and I find no amusement in such mastery. Make love to Britomaris.”