Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  There was no iron in her voice; nothing but challenging laughter. Caesar had not picked a thin-skinned fool to pave Rome’s way o’ conquest.

  Conops came out of the house with Caesar’s scarlet cloak and draped it on Tros’s shoulders, Helma assisting to arrange it, half-guessing its significance although she did not know that Tros had looted it along with the Roman’s bireme.

  The young Britons who had appointed themselves Cornelia’s body-guard began to whisper to her. One of them grew bold and raised his voice:

  “Tros, your insolence insults us all!”

  Tros sneered; his mood was cynical. Orwic came out of the house to stand behind him. Orwic being in authority just then the crowd grew still, until Cornelia spoke in Latin:

  “Caesar’s cloak, Tros! You foreshadow Caesar! He will take that for an omen when I tell him Tros sat cloaked in imperial scarlet on the porch of Caswallon’s house.”

  “They talk Latin,” some one shouted. “Tros is Caesar’s man!”

  There were more than a hundred people by that time on the green before Caswallon’s house, not counting the stable-hands and other serfs, who were hardly to be reckoned with, not daring to offend their betters; some were men who had come too late to fight the Northmen, jealous of the victors’ spoils and very anxious to assert themselves.

  A tumult began, a few of them denouncing Tros as an intriguer, some shouting that Caesar’s message should be heard. A noisy, small group, nearest to the gate and safety, denounced Caswallon. Orwic swore under his breath, using the names of a dozen Celtic gods. Tros whispered to Conops:

  “Bid my Northmen gather themselves behind the house and enter it from the rear. Take charge of them. Add yourselves to Orwic’s men. Be swift.”

  Then he turned to Orwic.

  “Now or never,” he said, with a careless shrug of his shoulders.

  “Is Caswallon king in Lunden? Gently, boy, gently. Not yet. Leave this to me. I will show you who rules this end of Britain!”

  He stood up, letting his face light with laughter, gathering Caesar’s scarlet cloak around him. He addressed Cornelia, but in a voice that all the crowd could hear, and he spoke slowly, in Gaulish, as if answering her speech, and taking care that all should understand him, in spite of his foreign accent:

  “Aye, woman! This was Caesar’s cloak. You, who were Caesar’s light o’ love until he sent you to cozen me, were not so very clever when you recognized it! I am told you brought me a letter from Caesar. I am told Caswallon burned it. I am told you are warning the Britons not to listen to Caswallon until they first hear me. I am Caswallon’s guest!”

  He could hear the tramping through the house behind him as the Northmen came with Conops to reinforce Orwic’s men. There was a noise of weapons being lifted from the racks.

  “Caesar sent you to me — Are you ready, Orwic?” he whispered. “March out and surround her when I give the word! — You are mine, Cornelia. I will see that none perverts you from right conduct in the realm of him who is host to both of us! Come!” he commanded, beckoning.

  Cornelia appealed to her escort, too late. Orwic took the cue and rushed from the porch with forty men-at-arms behind him, twelve of them Northmen very anxious to repay bruises done at horseplay. It was risky work; the Northmen, fierce enemies a day ago, were likelier than not to cause indignant bloodshed; safety lay in doing the work so swiftly that there would be no time for a crowd without a leader to decide whether it really was indignant or was half amused.

  Conops and the Northmen surrounded Cornelia; Orwic and his Britons who thrust themselves between the Northmen and her British escort, joining spears before them like a fence-rail, forcing the astonished escort back on their heels. And while Orwic accomplished that, Tros shouted, throwing up his right arm, shaking Caesar’s scarlet cloak to distract attention to himself:

  “Ho, there! Caswallon’s friends! There is a rat named Skell who brought this Caesar’s woman to cheat away your freedom! Where is Skell?”

  Caswallon’s friends were fewer than his enemies in that crowd, but the impulse of surprise was in their favor. By the time Cornelia had been hustled into the great hall in the midst of a group of grinning Northmen, who handled her none too gently, the loyalists had started a diversion, shout and counter-shout, that served until Orwic’s summons on a silver bugle brought a dozen chariots from the stable to clear the green of friend and enemy alike. The crowd did not even try to stand against the chariots, although the front ones had no scythes fixed to the wheels. But there were two chariots in the rear that could have mown a crimson swath.

  “And now swiftly!” said Tros, when Orwic strolled back to the porch trying to look self-possessed. “Where are those Northmen prisoners Caswallon took in the fight in the forest?”

  “What of them? There are only three-and-twenty, some of them pretty badly hurt,” said Orwic.

  “Where are they? I know mobs! Your Britons will say that it was Northmen who snatched that woman away. They will kill those three-and-twenty. Then, they will come to kill my twelve and Sigurdsen. Then me, then you!”

  “Bah! Who cares if they kill Northmen!” Orwic answered.

  “I for one! Blood-lust grows. They will kill Caswallon next! Smuggle those prisoners to this place. Start a hue-and-cry at Skell’s heels; that fox will give them a run to keep all Lunden busy! Send for Caswallon then, and bid him hurry. Bid him bring Fflur with him!”

  Orwic hesitated, but Tros took him by the shoulders.

  “Am I friend or enemy?” he thundered. “Boy! That woman will win Britain for Caesar yet unless you act swiftly!”

  Orwic yielded only half convinced and hurried away to instruct his friends, shutting the great gate and posting guards to keep another crowd from forming. Tros strode into the house, swaggering as if he owned it. Cornelia was seated near Caswallon’s great chair under the balcony at one end of the hall; her dress was ruffled and a little torn, but she was laughing at the men who stared at her, and she mocked Tros, gesturing at Helma:

  “Ah! You seize me, when you have that beautiful fair-haired prisoner! What use for poor me, when—”

  “I have a use for you,” Tros interrupted, and the hall grew still. You were Caesar’s slave. Now you are mine!”

  She was startled, but the scared look vanished in an instant; she had the professional intriguer’s self-control. It was Helma who turned pale and came and stood beside Tros, watching his face.

  “Tros,” said the woman of Gaul, speaking Latin, “Caesar has told me you are proud and full of guile, and a great keeper of rash promises. You promised him enmity. You wrecked his fleet. You forged Caesar’s name and stole your father from the grip of three camped legions.

  “That was an indignity to Rome as well as Caesar. You sunk Caesar’s boats; you slew his men; you ducked Caesar himself in the tide at Seine-mouth. So you kept your rash promise.

  “Yet Caesar’s magnanimity is greater than the malice that pursues him. He is willing to forgive. He offers you full recognition by the Roman Senate and command of fifty ships, if you withdraw your enmity and promise him allegiance! I am Caesar’s messenger, not your slave.”

  Tros answered her in Gaulish:

  “When I need fifty of Caesar’s ships, I will take them without his leave or Rome’s!”

  But that was for the Britons’ ears. He had in mind more than to bandy words.

  “Tros—” she began again.

  “Silence!” he commanded.

  Then he pointed to the door of an inner room between the great hall and Caswallon’s quarters. Helma bit her lip, and several of the men-at-arms laughed loud. But Tros kept on pointing, and he looked imperious in Caesar’s scarlet cloak.

  So Cornelia rose out of her chair, bowed, smirked almost imperceptibly at Helma, and led the way in through the door, glancing over-shoulder in a way that gave Tros pause. He beckoned Helma.

  “Bring your brother’s wife and the widow!” he commanded.

  So three Norse women followed Tros into th
e dimly lighted room; and one of them knew Gaulish. There were benches in there for men-at-arms, and one chair, on which Cornelia sat uninvited, arranging her draperies to show the shapely outline of her figure.

  Tros slammed the door and slid the wooden bolt in place, with a nod to Helma and the other women to be seated on the benches. He seized Cornelia’s chair then and dragged it into the shaft of light that fell through the one small window. He craved sleep and had not time to waste.

  “Turn your face to the light,” he commanded. “Keep it so. Now, no evasions. I am in no mood to split thin hairs of courtesy.”

  “Truly, Tros, your courtesy is thin,” she answered. “Caesar is never discourteous, even to his enemies. I was told you are a prince’s son. Where you were born are manners thought unmanly?”

  “Answer this!” He rapped his sword-hilt on a table that he dragged up to the window-light. “What was written in Caesar’s letter that Caswallon took from you and burned?”

  She smiled and tossed her head. “I gave it to the Lord Caswallon. He had manners. He was too polite to take it from me!”

  “What was written in that letter?”

  “Since the letter was burned, what matters what was written in it!”

  Her dark eyes dared him.

  Tros drew his sword, his great chin coming forward with a jerk. He let the sword-point fall until it touched her bare throat.

  “Answer me.”

  Her eyes turned slightly inward as she looked along the swordblade toward the marvelously steady hilt, but she did not wince. The sword-point pricked the skin. She did not even flinch from it.

  “I will not tell! And you dare not kill me!”

  Tros let the sword-point fall until it touched her naked foot between the crossed thongs of her sandal. A dancing-woman’s foot was where her fear might lie closest to the surface. But she laughed.

  “Before these women, Tros! What would the Britons say to you? Caesar may torture women, and you might — though I think not, for I see a weakness — but the Britons don’t even whip their children. Would Caswallon forgive you if you should nail my foot to the floor of his house?”

  Tros owned to the weakness she divined in him. He could kill, in cold blood or in anger, but the very thought of torture made him grit his teeth. The half of his hatred of Caesar was due to his contempt for Caesar’s practices; he liked the Britons because they did not practice cruelty.

  But he could be cruel in another way. Compunction that prevented torturing man or woman implied no inhibition against mental terrorism. He could hardly bear to see a fish gaffed if the hook would serve, and could not kill a cur like Skell unless his own life were in danger, but he could be as ruthless as the sea, as practical as fate in matching means to ends.

  His eyes changed, and the woman noticed it. He glanced at Helma.

  “Bring my man Conops!” he commanded, and he set his swordpoint on the floor between his feet, to lean on it and wait.

  He did not have to wait long. As Helma drew the bolt, the door swung inward. Conops lurched into the room, shielding his head with his arm, in fear of the blow he had earned by eavesdropping, too wise in his master’s ways to offer an excuse.

  When the blow did not fall he peeped over his arm, then dropped the arm, blinked his eye and grinned, knowing danger was over. Tros’s punishments were prompt, or else not meted out at all.

  “News?” Tros asked him.

  “None, master. Only I heard say they are hunting Skell; and a chariot went for Caswallon.”

  “Caswallon is coming, eh? Have you a wife?”

  Tros knew the answer, but he chose that Cornelia should learn the truth from Conops’ lips.

  “No, master — surely you know that! The last woman I—”

  A frown convinced him he had said enough.

  Tros turned to Cornelia.

  “This man is no beauty, is he! He is not well-bred. His manners are of the fore-peak quality. He disciplines a woman with a knifehilt. He is single. He is old enough to marry. He would serve me better if he had a wife to keep him from longshore escapades. I will give you to Conops to be his wife — his wife, you understand me? Conops is a free man, he can own a wife.”

  He had her. She was out of the chair, indignant, terrified, appealing to the other women, ready to scream, in a panic, struggling to control herself. Tros’s threat was something he could easily fulfill, since she was his by all the written and unwritten laws.

  If she should claim that she was Caesar’s slave, then Tros, as Caesar’s enemy, might do as he pleased with her by right of capture, she having been sent to use her wiles on him, not on Caswallon. If she should declare herself a free woman, she might fool Britons but not Tros, who knew the Roman law and knew the dreadful penalties that even Caesar, who had sent her, would be forced to inflict should she be returned to him branded, a slave who had claimed to be free.

  If Tros should make a gift of her to Conops, the Britons might be offended, but there would be no chance of their interfering. Marriage by gift was binding, all the more so if the woman were a slave or a prisoner of war. She would not become Conops’ slave because he might not sell her; she would be bound to him for life, promoted or reduced to his rank — considering it promotion or reduction as she pleased — in theory free, in practice a sailor’s drudge. Conops was as much alarmed as she was.

  “Master!” he exploded. “What use is she on a ship? Why, she can’t even cook! She’s—”

  “Peace, you drunken, blabbing fool! When I give you a wife, you’ll take her and be grateful, or I’ll break your head! Think yourself lucky to—”

  But she who had been Caesar’s light o’ love could not face life with Conops.

  “I will tell, Tros!” she said, and sat down on the chair again, shuddering. “You will not give me to that one-eyed thing?”

  Tros nodded, grunted. He hated to bargain with her, but on the other hand it would have gone against the grain to ruin Conops by imposing such a wife on him.

  “What Caesar wrote to you, Tros, it was meant that the Lord Caswallon should read. It was supposed that some one, some druid, would know Latin and translate it to him. But the lord burned the letter.”

  “What did Caesar write?” Tros thundered at her. “And why in Latin?”

  “He wrote, Lord Tros, that he trusted you, as agreed between you and him at Seine-mouth, to stir up the Britons against the Lord Caswallon; in return for which he promised, as agreed, to confer high command on you as soon as sufficient Britons should recognize the advantage of welcoming the Roman legions into Britain. He concluded by reminding you of your pledge that there shall be no opposition to his landing on the coast of Britain when he comes again. And he charged you, to that end, to support the Lord Caswallon’s enemies.”

  Tros stroked his beard and pecked with his sword-point at the floor boards.

  “Why did he write those lies?” he demanded.

  But he knew why. He knew she was telling the truth. He knew Caesar’s methods.

  She recovered a trace of her former impudence.

  “Who am I, to know Caesar’s mind?” she answered, and Tros recognized something else, that she was ready to betray any one for her own advantage. He clutched Conops’ arm and pulled him forward.

  “Answer me in full, or—”

  “Caesar hoped that any of several things might happen. The Lord Caswallon might kill you, which would be payment for your impertinence at Seine-mouth. Or the Lord Caswallon might mistrust you and put you to flight, when you might fall into Caesar’s hands and be crucified.

  “Or, learning of the Lord Caswallon’s mistrust, you might turn against him in self-defense and, joining his enemies, start rebellion against him, setting Briton against Briton, which would make invasion simpler. Or, you might be sensible and, accepting magnanimous forgiveness, take command of Caesar’s fleet, making use of your great knowledge of the British coast to forward an invasion.”

  “Or — ?”

  Tros knew there was somet
hing left unsaid. He jabbed his sword into the floor, pulled back the hilt and let it go until it hummed. She understood him. She must speak before the humming ceased.

  “Tros, I am trained. I sing and dance. Some men are easily tempted. Caesar thought—”

  “Continue! What did Caesar think?”

  “I am not sure I know what he thought.”

  “Then I will tell you. Caesar thought I might be fool enough to accept his promise from your lips! I might be fool enough to turn against Caswallon, might be fool enough to captain Caesar’s fleet awhile, fool enough to come within his reach and serve him, until usefulness was spent and he could pick another quarrel, crucify me at his leisure. You were to beguile me and betray me to him at the proper time!”

  “Lord Tros, I could not have done it! I could not betray a man like you! I was Caesar’s slave. Now I am yours. I would rather be yours. You are not wicked, as Caesar is! Lord Tros, I will be your faithful slave. I will betray Caesar to you! Only no degradation! I am not a common slave.”

  “I pity you,” Tros answered. “Pity shall make no fool of me nor a successful rogue of you! Answer my other question: Why did Caesar write in Latin and not Gaulish? He knew the Lord Caswallon knows no Latin.”

  “Ah! But if the letter were in Gaulish, the Lord Caswallon might have been sharp enough to understand it was a trick to turn him against you.”

  Tros laughed in spite of weariness and anger, sheathing his sword.

  “Who sups with Caesar needs a long spoon!”

  She tried to take advantage of his changed mood, gazing at him with dark, lustrous eyes that verged on tears.

  “Lord Tros, you said you pity me. I was free-born. Romans destroyed our city when I was a young child. I was sold, and they took me to Rome. Do you know what that means? To save myself from the worst that can befall a woman I strove to become so valuable that for their own sakes they would not throw me on the market.

  “A dealer had bought me; he had me taught to dance and sing; he began to make use of me to entertain his customers; and so I learned intrigue.

  “Once, when Caesar was in Rome, I was sent to coax him to buy man-slaves. I entertained him, and he bought, at above the market rate for such cattle as I offered. Then, thinking better of it, he returned those man-slaves to the dealer and kept me, at the price of three of them.