The Eagle of the Ninth [book I]

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  Marcus set his bundle carefully on the table. ‘We have brought back the Hispana’s lost Eagle,’ he said, rather muzzily, and very quietly crumpled forward on top of it.

  XX

  VALEDICTORY

  TOWARDS evening of a day in late October, Marcus and Esca came riding up the last lift of the Calleva road. Having learned at Eburacum that the Legate Claudius was not yet returned, they had pushed on south, knowing that they could not miss him by the way, to wait for him at Calleva.

  They were rid of their beards and reasonably clean once more, and Marcus had had his hair clipped short again in the Roman manner; but still clad in the tatter-demalion clothes of their adventuring, still gaunt and hollow-eyed and disreputable, they had more than once needed the permit provided by Drusillus to save them from the awkward charge of having stolen the army post-horses on which they rode.

  They were tired, bone tired, and without any glow of triumph to warm the leaden chill of their tiredness; and they rode with the reins loose on their horses’ necks, in silence save for the strike of shod hooves on the metalled road and the squeak of wet leather. But after many months in the wild aloofness of the north, this gentler and more friendly countryside seemed to Marcus to hold out its arms to him, and it was with a sense of homecoming that he lifted his face to the soft grey mizzle, and saw afar off, beyond the rolling miles of dappled forest, the familiar and suddenly beloved outline of the South Downs.

  They rode into Calleva by the North Gate, left the horses at the Golden Vine for return to the transit camp next day, and set out on foot for the house of Aquila. In the narrow street, when they turned into it, the poplar trees were already bare, and the way slippery with shrivelled wet leaves. The daylight was fading fast, and the windows of Uncle Aquila’s watch-tower were full of lemon-pale lamp-light that seemed somehow like a welcome.

  The door was on the latch, and they pushed it open and went in. There was an air of most unwonted bustle in the house, as though someone had lately arrived or was expected to arrive at any moment. As they emerged from the narrow entrance closet, old Stephanos was crossing the atrium towards the dining recess. He cast one glance at them, uttered a startled bleat, and all but dropped the lamp he was carrying.

  ‘It is all right, Stephanos,’ Marcus told him, slipping off his wet cloak and tossing it over a convenient bench. ‘It is only the Golden Vine that we are sprung from, not the realms of Hades. Is my uncle in his study?’

  The old slave’s mouth was open to reply, but nobody ever heard what he said, for his voice was drowned by a frenzied baying that rose on the instant. There was a wild scurry of paws along the colonnade, and a great brindled shape sprang over the threshold and came streaking across the floor, skidding on the smooth surface, ears pricked and bush tail flying. Cub, lying dejectedly in the colonnade, had heard Marcus’s voice and come to find him.

  ‘Cub!’ Marcus called, and sat down hurriedly on top of his cloak, just in time to save himself from being bowled over like a stoned hare as Cub landed with a flying leap on his chest.

  They slid together off the bench with a resounding thump. Marcus had his arms round the young wolf ’s neck, and Cub thrust against him, whining and yelping, licking his face from ear to ear with frantic joy. But by now news of their return had burst through the house, and Marcipor came scuttling with dignified haste to one door while Sassticca ran in through another, still clutching a large iron spoon; and somehow, between Cub’s joyful onslaughts, Marcus was turning from one to the other, greeting and being greeted. ‘You have not got rid of us, you see, Marcipor! Sassticca, it is like the flowers in spring to see you! The nights that I have dreamed of your honey cakes—’

  ‘Ah, I thought I heard your voice, Marcus—among others.’

  There was a sudden hush; and Uncle Aquila was standing at the foot of the watch-tower stairs, with old grey-muzzled Procyon at his side, and behind him, the dark, austere figure of Claudius Hieronimianus.

  Marcus got up slowly, one hand still on the great savage head that was pressed against his thigh. ‘It seems that we have timed our arrival well,’ he said. He started forward at the same instant as his uncle strode to meet him, and next moment they had come together in the middle of the atrium, and Marcus was gripping both the older man’s hands in his.

  ‘Uncle Aquila! Oh, it’s good to see you again. How goes it with you, sir?’

  ‘Strangely enough, it goes the better for seeing you safely home once more, even in the guise of a Tiber rat,’ said Uncle Aquila. His glance went to Esca and back again. ‘In the guise of two Tiber rats.’ And then after an instant’s pause, very quietly, ‘What news?’

  ‘I have brought it back,’ Marcus said, equally quietly. And that was all for the moment on the subject of the lost Eagle. The four of them were alone in the atrium, the slaves having slipped out to their own duties when the master of the house appeared, and Uncle Aquila gathered both young men after him with an imperious gesture to where the Legate, who had drawn aside from their meeting, was quietly warming himself at the brazier. In the general shifting Cub circled for an instant to thrust his muzzle into Esca’s hand in greeting, then returned to Marcus again. Procyon greeted nobody, he was a one-man-dog to the point of seldom appearing conscious that other men existed.

  ‘He has done it!’ Uncle Aquila was announcing in a kind of triumphant grumble. ‘He has done it, by Jupiter! You never thought he would, did you, my Claudius?’

  ‘I am—not sure,’ said the Legate, his strange black eyes resting on Marcus consideringly. ‘No, I am not—at all sure, my Aquila.’

  Marcus saluted him, then drew Esca forward from the outskirts of the group. ‘Sir, may I bring to your remembrance my friend Esca Mac Cunoval?’

  ‘I already remember him very well,’ said Claudius with a quick smile to the Briton.

  Esca bent his head to him. ‘You witnessed my manumission papers, I believe, sir,’ he said in a dead-level tone that made Marcus glance at him anxiously, realizing suddenly that there had been no real homecoming for Esca in this return to a house in which he had been a slave.

  ‘I did. But I generally remember men by other things than the papers I may have witnessed for them,’ the Legate said gently.

  An exclamation from Uncle Aquila cut across the little exchange, and looking round, Marcus found the other staring at his left hand, which he had unconsciously curved about the precious bundle which he still carried in its sling. ‘That ring,’ said Uncle Aquila. ‘Show it to me.’

  Marcus slipped off the heavy signet-ring and passed it to him. ‘Of course you recognize it?’

  His uncle stood for a few moments examining it, his face unreadable. Then he gave it back. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, by Jupiter, I do recognize it. How came you by your father’s ring?’

  But with Sassticca’s voice rising near at hand, and one or other of the slaves likely at any moment to come through the atrium about their preparations for dinner, Marcus could not bring himself to start on that story. Slipping the ring back on to his finger, he said, ‘Uncle Aquila, could we leave that—with all the rest, for a fitter place and season? It is a long story, and there are many doors to this room.’

  Their eyes met, and after a pause, Uncle Aquila said, ‘Aye, well. Both matters have waited long enough for an hour to make little difference. You agree, Claudius?’

  The Egyptian nodded. ‘Most assuredly I agree. In your watch-tower, after we have eaten, we shall be safe from interruption. Then Marcus shall make his full report.’ Suddenly his face crinkled into a thousand-creased smile, and with a swift change of manner that seemed to draw a silken curtain over the whole affair of the lost Eagle, shutting it decently from view until the time came to take it out again and deal with it, he turned to Marcus. ‘It seems always that I visit this house at a happy hour. The last time, it was Cub who came back, and this time it is you, but the reunion remains the same.’

  Marcus looked down at Cub, who was leaning against him, head up and eyes half closed in ecst
asy. ‘We are glad to be together, Cub and I,’ he said.

  ‘So it seems. It is almost past believing that a wolf should be so much a friend. Was he greatly more difficult than a hound, in the making?’

  ‘I think he was more stubborn; certainly fiercer to handle. But it was Esca rather than I who had the making of him. He is the expert.’

  ‘Ah, of course.’ The Legate turned to Esca. ‘You come of the Brigantes, do you not? More than once I have seen Cub’s brethren running among the dog-packs of your tribe, and wondered how—’

  But Marcus heard no more. He had stooped quickly, and was running an exploring hand over the young wolf, suddenly aware of something that he had not really taken in, in the first flush of home-coming. ‘Uncle Aquila, what have you done to Cub? He is nothing but skin and bone.’

  ‘We have done nothing to Cub,’ said Uncle Aquila in accents of acute disgust. ‘Cub has been breaking his own wilful heart for his own amusement. Since you left, he has refused food from any but that chit Cottia, and since her going, he has preferred to starve. That brute has been deliberately dying in our midst with the entire household buzzing round him like blowflies round a stranded fish.’

  Marcus’s caressing hand had checked on Cub’s neck, and something seemed to twist and turn cold inside him. ‘Cottia,’ he said. ‘Where has Cottia gone?’ He had scarcely thought of her, save twice, in all the months that he had been away; but it seemed a long, long time before his uncle answered.

  ‘Only to Aquae Sulis for the winter. Her Aunt Valaria discovered a need to take the waters, and shifted the whole household, a few days ago.’

  Marcus let go the breath that he had been holding. He began to play with Cub’s ears, drawing them again and again through his fingers. ‘Did she leave any word for me?’

  ‘She came to me in a fine flaming passion, the day before she was swept away, to bring back your bracelet.’

  ‘Did you tell her—about keeping it?’

  ‘I did not. Some things are best unsaid until the need comes for saying them. I told her that since you had left it in her charge, it seemed to me best that she keep it until she came back in the spring and could give it into your hands. I also promised to tell you that she would guard it well through the winter.’ He held one great blue-veined hand to the warmth of the brazier, and smiled at it. ‘She is a vixen, the little one, but a faithful vixen.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marcus. ‘Yes … sir, with your leave I will take the Cub and feed him now.’

  Esca, who had been answering the Legate’s questions about the taming of wolf-cubs, said quickly, ‘I will take him.’

  ‘Maybe if we both take him, we can wash off some of the journey while we are about it. We have time for that, Uncle Aquila?’

  ‘Time and to spare,’ said his uncle. ‘Dinner will doubtless be put back to Jupiter knows what hour, while Sassticca ransacks her store shelves for your benefit.’

  Uncle Aquila was perfectly right. For Marcus’s benefit, Sassticca ransacked her store shelves with joyful abandon; and the sad thing was that it was all as good as wasted. To Marcus at all events, that dinner was completely unreal. He was so tired that the soft light of the palm-oil lamps seemed a golden fog, and he tasted nothing of what he ate and scarcely even noticed the handful of rain-wet autumn crocuses which Sassticca, proud of her knowledge of Roman ways, had scattered on the table. It seemed odd, after so many meals eaten in the open or squatting beside peat fires, to eat at a civilized table again, to see the clean-shaven faces of the other men, and the tunics of soft white wool that they wore—Esca’s a borrowed one of his own—to hear the quiet, clipped voices of his uncle and the Legate when they spoke to each other. Very odd, like something out of another world; a familiar world, grown suddenly unfamiliar. He had almost forgotten what to do with a napkin. Only Esca, clearly finding it strange and uncomfortable to eat while reclining on his left elbow, seemed real in the queer brittle unreality.

  It was an uneasy meal, eaten without lingering and almost in silence, for the minds of all four were on one subject, carefully shut away behind its silken curtain, but making it hopeless to try to talk of something else. A strange home-coming meal, with the shadow of the lost Eagle brooding over it; and Marcus was thankful when at last Uncle Aquila set down the cup after pouring the final oblation, and said, ‘Shall we go up to my study now?’

  Following the two older men, and once again carrying the Eagle, Marcus had mounted four or five of the watchtower steps before he realized that Esca was not coming up behind, and looking back, he saw him still standing at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘I think that I will not come,’ Esca said.

  ‘Not come? But you must come.’

  Esca shook his head. ‘It is between you and your uncle and the Legate.’

  Followed as ever by Cub, Marcus came down the few steps again. ‘It is between the four of us. What maggot has got into your head, Esca?’

  ‘I think that I should not go to your uncle’s private sanctum,’ Esca said stubbornly. ‘I have been a slave in his house.’

  ‘You are not a slave now.’

  ‘No, I am your freed-man now. It is strange. I never thought of that until this evening.’

  Marcus had never thought of it either, but he knew that it was true. You could give a slave his freedom, but nothing could undo the fact that he had been a slave; and between him, a freed-man, and any free man who had never been unfree, there would still be a difference. Wherever the Roman way of life held good, that difference would be there. That was why it had not mattered, all these months that they had been away; that was why it mattered now. Suddenly he felt baffled and helpless. ‘You did not feel like this before we went north. How is it altered now?’

  ‘That was at the beginning. I had not had time to—understand. I knew only that I was free—a hound slipped from the leash; and we were going away from it all in the morning. Now we have come back.’

  Yes, they had come back, and the thing had got to be faced, and faced at once. On a sudden impulse Marcus reached out his free hand and caught his friend’s shoulder, not at all gently. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘Are you going to live all the rest of your life as though you had taken a whipping and could not forget it? Because if you are, I am sorry for you. You don’t like being a freed-man, do you? Well, I don’t like being lame. That makes two of us, and the only thing we can do about it, you and I, is to learn to carry the scars lightly.’ He gave the shoulder a friendly shake, and dropped his hand. ‘Come up with me now, Esca.’

  Esca did not answer for a moment. And then slowly his head went up, and his eyes wore the dancing look they always wore in action. ‘I will come,’ he said.

  When they emerged into Uncle Aquila’s watch-tower, the two older men were standing over the wrought-iron brazier that glowed red in its alcove at the far side of the room. They looked round as Marcus and Esca entered, but nobody spoke; only the rain whispered softly, delicately, against the narrow windows. The small lamplit room seemed very remote from the world, very tall above it. Marcus had a sense of immense depths dropping away beneath him in the darkness, as though, if he went to the window, he might look down and see Orion swimming like a fish below him.

  ‘Well?’ said Uncle Aquila at last; and the word fell sharply into the silence, like a pebble dropping into a pool.

  Marcus crossed to the writing-table and set his bundle down upon it. How pathetic and shapeless it seemed; a bundle that might contain boots or washing. ‘It has lost its wings,’ he said. ‘That is why it bulks so small.’

  The silken curtain had been drawn back now, and with it was gone the brittle surface of ordinariness that they had kept all evening. ‘So the rumour was a true one,’ the Legate said.

  Marcus nodded, and began to undo the shapeless mass. He turned back the last fold, and there, amid the tumble of tattered violet cloth, the lost Eagle stood, squat and undignified, but oddly powerful, on its splayed legs. The empty wing sockets were very black in the lamplight which kind
led its gilded feathers to the strong yellow of gorse flowers. There was a furious pride about the upreared head. Wingless it might be, fallen from its old estate, but it was an Eagle still; and out of its twelve-year captivity, it had returned to its own people.

  For a long moment nobody spoke, and then Uncle Aquila said, ‘Shall we sit down to this?’

  Marcus folded up thankfully on one end of the bench which Esca had drawn to the table, for his unsound leg had begun to shake under him. He was warmly aware of Cub’s chin settling contentedly on his foot, and Esca sitting beside him, as he began to make his report. He made it clearly and carefully, abating nothing of the stories told him by Guern the Hunter and by old Tradui, though parts of them were hard in the telling. At the appropriate places he handed over to Esca, to speak for himself. And all the time, his eyes never left the Legate’s intent face.

  The Legate sat leaning forward a little in Uncle Aquila’s great chair, his arms crossed on the table before him, his face, with the red weal of his helmet rim still faintly showing on his forehead, like an intent golden mask against the shadows behind.

  No one moved or spoke at once when the report was finished. Marcus himself sat very still, searching into the long black eyes for their verdict. The rain sharpened to a little impatient spatter against the window. Then Claudius Hieronimianus shifted, and the spell of stillness was broken. ‘You have done well, both of you,’ he said; and his gaze moved from Marcus to Esca and back again, drawing them both in. ‘Thanks to you, a weapon which might one day have been used against the Empire, will never be so used. I salute two very courageous lunatics.’

  ‘And—the Legion?’

  ‘No,’ said the Legate. ‘I am sorry.’

  So Marcus had his verdict. It was ‘thumbs down’ for the Ninth Legion. He had thought that he had accepted that from the night when he had heard Guern’s story. Now he knew that he had never quite accepted it. In his heart of hearts he had clung, against all reason, to the hope that his own judgement was wrong, after all. He made one desperate appeal for his father’s Legion, knowing as he did so, that it was hopeless.