Dreaming the Serpent Spear

by Manda Scott

  In the camp, more fires were being lit. Valerius’ outline became sharper. His face was still impossible to see. Only his voice could be read.

  Thoughtfully, that voice said, “If you kill me now, Civilis and his Batavians will be lost to the war host. I think they would be useful to protect our backs while we assault Camulodunum. Even if we wipe out every officer and serving man in the camp, there are still four cohorts of the Ninth left behind in winter quarters.”

  It came late to Cunomar that Valerius had chosen the path of greater danger in coming to meet the Boudica’s son unarmed and alone in the dark; or it could be made to seem so afterwards to those who might choose to use it.

  Noiseless, he slid his knife back to its sheath. The firelight played across his face. The elders of the Caledonii had spent a winter teaching him how to school his thoughts so that nothing might show to an enemy, even one taught on Mona to read the minds of men laid bare in their eyes. Thus armoured, he said, “The she-bear do not kill unarmed men, whoever they may be.”

  “Thank you.” A thread of amusement came and went in the dry voice. “Is there a reason why your sister Cygfa could not be the one to lead the war host if your mother proves unfit? She would seem to me admirable in every respect.”

  Cunomar was not expecting that. He had never considered his sister a threat. It took him a moment to remember why. “My mother was shown the final assault on Rome in a fever-dream. Cygfa was on the right wing, and Ardacos on the left. Dubornos is a dreamer who fights as a warrior and he was not seen anywhere else. It could have been him, but he’s too damaged by Rome’s inquisitors ever to lead the host.”

  “I see. And so of all those close to your mother, you are the only one left to take that place if she can’t. Apart from me.”

  A fire flared on the edge of the camp, brightly. A small, deliberate movement brought Valerius’ face from shadow so that, at last, he could be seen. He looked exhausted and ageless. Neither, or both, may have been true.

  He said, “We should be plain about this. I have no wish to lead the Eceni now or later. But I will not let one man’s search for personal glory destroy the war host, or lead it to ruin. The future of our people and our land rests on this war. They matter more than your vanity, or mine.”

  Thus were their private lines of battle drawn. Cunomar said softly, “And I will not let one man’s treachery destroy what my mother has given her soul to build. You forget, I was with you in Gaul when you betrayed the men you had fought for.”

  His eyes fed on the other man’s face. He believed — he was certain — that he saw a flicker of grief, or doubt, or fear, break through Valerius’ mask of control. It was worth the comfortless night, just for that.

  Raised voices in Latin broke the moment. Torches flared at the camp’s margins. It became necessary to move quickly and silently into the shelter of the trees and there to wait, pressed to the cold earth, until a tent party of eight armed men had gone past, thrusting light and iron into the undergrowth.

  A long silence passed after they had gone. Cunomar pushed himself up to a crouch and brushed the dead leaves from his face. Nothing moved around him. He had no idea if he was still in company, or alone. Into the dark, he said, “It was not a search for personal renown that brought the she-bear here tonight.”

  “What then?”Valerius was very close. His voice was distant, as if he had been sleeping, or dreaming.

  Cunomar said, “There are two thousand legionaries in there. To attack it with thirty-eight she-bears would be madness. We had intended to enter in secret, and kill only the legate, as the Boudica killed the governor in the days when my father was held captive in Rome.”

  “Unless you had been caught, in which case you, too, might have been taken captive to Rome. You should consider some time that the Boudica’s son might be worth more to Rome alive than dead. I don’t think this emperor would find it in his heart to offer a pardon.”

  Clouds broke apart then, and allowed the moon to reach them. By the sudden light, Valerius looked as much like his father as he had ever done, and he was, without question, exhausted. He said wearily, “If we may consider tonight? We need to give the warriors another chance to fight in the morning. They need greater experience of battle before we assault Camulodunum. The veterans of the Twentieth who call it home won’t be strung out in a line with a marsh at their backs, they’ll be defending the land that was their prize for twenty-five years with the legions. They’ll fight like bears turned at bay and even with a battle-hardened army we’d be hard pressed to defeat them.”

  … like bears turned at bay …

  It was inconceivable that Valerius could know of his nightmare. Stepping out of the moon’s light, Cunomar said, “We can’t take on the column again as we did today. They’ll be waiting for it.”

  “Obviously. So we have to take them as they begin to break camp.” Valerius sank to a crouch. He drew a square in the soft loam with his finger.

  “This is the camp,” he said. “We are here, on the western edge. Longinus and Civilis are inside now, spreading lies to the legate. Unless you can suggest something better, this is what we will do…”

  A series of horn calls shaped the morning.

  Cunomar waited within the shelter of the trees with the she-bear spread out on either side of him. In the night, when he had called them back to him and whispered what Valerius had asked of them, Ulla was the one who had said what the rest had not. “I would rather we had done as you first planned, but there’s no going back now. Valerius has given us the best part, and the rest of what he wants to do is sound if the men within the camp can do as he says.”

  If. Everything hinged on that. Cunomar lay in the cold morning, watching legionaries light fires and cook barley cakes for breakfast. Around him, the whispers of the spear-leaders echoed Ulla’s doubt and made it stronger.

  More than the destruction of the IXth, Valerius’ fragile standing with the war host depended on the success of his plan. If the she-bear fought well and made it happen, they would bolster his cause as much as their own. If they failed, they would damage their own reputation as much as Valerius’. The bitter irony of that did not make their morning any warmer.

  Inside the Roman camp, the hum of activity was already sharp; the remaining men of the IXth legion had woken before dawn, if they had slept at all. The morning’s activities, the striking of tents, their packing, the dismantling of the camp, progressed faster than usual, as they strove to make themselves ready for the road.

  Cunomar had lain by an uncounted number of night camps in the western mountains, watching the same pattern unfold: always the centuries who had arrived first were first to pack their tents and leave, while those who had marched in last were left to fill the ditches and cover the fires.

  Usually, the men talked, or sang, or whistled as they worked. In the clearing at the edge of the ancestors’ trackway, they worked in a silence that pressed in from the edges so that every clatter of a shovel and flap of a falling tent echoed to the trees and back.

  A single centurion stood near the western edge of the camp and prayed aloud to Mars Ultor, god of the legions, that the men of his century caught overnight in the forest were, even now, marching down the track to join their legion.

  Ulla had no Latin. Cunomar, who had lived two years in Rome, put his mouth to her ear and translated for her, the words no louder than a breath.

  The threefold notes of a cavalry horn shattered the silence, and the prayers, and the muttered translation. The noise rose and looped and rose again, exactly as Valerius had said it would: Three notes rising, falling and rising again are the signal of a party under attack by overwhelming numbers, in urgent need of rescue. It’s a long time since I last blew a horn but then even a cornicen under attack might make a mistake. If I can make it sound even halfway authentic, the camp should fold into chaos.

  It must have been more than halfway. With a sliding sense of urgency gripping his bowels, Cunomar watched the camp fold very rapidly in
to chaos.

  The silence was abandoned: men shouted and ran and shouted again; horses were gathered; horns blew with no obvious coherence. Wait for one long note blown on a rising scale. That’s Civilis’ call to the Batavians to mount and be ready to ride.

  The note came, soaring up to greet the dawn. Half of the Batavians were already mounted; theirs was the apparent failure, theirs the need to recover their honour. Civilis was amongst them, a white-haired fury, shouting orders that could be heard far into the forest.

  Cunomar kept watch on Longinus, who was calmer, and stood with Cerialis. There was a moment when a decision hung in the air. Cunomar saw Valerius’ soul-friend tilt his head in deference, and make a small gesture with his hand, taking in the cavalry and the ancestors’ trackway. Very soon after that, the decision was made.

  Cerialis is impulsive. All he needs is a moment’s quiet encouragement to tip him into action. Longinus is there to give that word. If he can do what we need, the legate will lead the cavalry charging out and on up the trackway.

  What if they turn round and come back? Cunomar had asked.

  Civilis’ men may block the trackway. If they fail, or decide they can’t fight their own kind, we’ll be stranded on foot against Batavian cavalry. I would suggest that we all run into the forest and don’t look back. Valerius had grinned as he said it, so it was hard to tell if he were serious.

  Cunomar, who had decided he was almost certainly very serious, nevertheless had no real intention of leading his warriors into the forest. Watching the sudden, clashing order that descended on the cavalry as their legate joined them, he allowed himself at least to consider the option.

  Even by the standards of Rome, the exit of Petillius Cerialis, riding at the head of his cavalry to the rescue of his stricken cohorts, was impressive.

  A flurry of trumpet calls announced his departure. The notes had barely died when the signal was given for men on the ground to clear the palisades that blocked the gates. As the last one was freed, the legate and two hundred and fifty horsemen of the Batavian cavalry burst from the gates in a hammer of furious vengeance.

  They went from standing to racing, all on fit corn-fed horses who knew the sounds of the horns as well as any men, and strove to answer them; all but two, which went lame within the first five hundred paces and had to be pulled up. Just beyond the margins of the forest, Cunomar watched Civilis and Longinus, swearing roundly, drop back and away from the rest.

  These men are my friends. They have risked a slow death for this plan. I would appreciate it if your warriors could refrain from killing them afterwards. Valerius had not smiled as he said that, and the edge to his voice had made it perfectly clear he was serious.

  Nobody killed Longinus or Civilis. They stood at the side of the track and appeared to confer, then, with evident dejection, turned and began the slow, lame walk back towards the night camp.

  Their comrades continued to race on down the track, and so did not see the half-wing of Civilis’ Batavians, their former comrades, who stood silent in the tangled forest, their hands over the soft muzzles of their mounts lest one of them call a greeting and give them away.

  The sound of the cavalry’s passing faded to silence. The forest caught the hum of the camp and reflected it inwards so that the dell became an echo of men’s voices, staccato shouts rendered musical in their repeats.

  Cunomar eased himself to his feet and drew his knife. “Not yet.” He said it to himself and then, in a whisper that passed down the line, “Not yet.”

  In the dell, a column of infantry formed within the ring of the palisades and prepared to march, even as the men of the rearmost cohort were filling in ditches and taking down the last of the staves. A lone horn sounded. A blade hilt clashed on a shield boss, sharply. The column of men started forward, heading north, following their legate in case he had need of them in the fight against the Eceni. The rescue of Camulodunum was abandoned, temporarily, for the greater need of the IXth legion.

  Like ants on a trail they passed in fours, fresh and eager as the horses had been, and as ready to fight. Their nailed boots struck equally the dewy turf and sharp on the stones of the trackway. The marching song was the same as they had used the day before, with a new verse, made in the night, that praised Civilis and a lone Thracian cavalryman for their courage.

  Cunomar watched them greet Civilis and Longinus as the two men led their lame horses back towards the camp.

  “Not yet.”

  The full count of men had marched into the forest when the first of them died.

  The Batavian cavalry surged in from the trees, blaring false horn calls that left the marching men confused for the few heartbeats it took to annihilate their formation and prevent them from forming defensive rings. The Eceni war host surrounded the remains of the camp, with its ditches filled in and the palisades packed and the struck tents lying like stunned moths on the floor of the dell.

  “Now!”

  Cunomar’s she-bears, as had been promised in the night, took the first, and so the greatest, part. At his word, they hurled themselves through the part-dismantled gates of the night camp, falling on the remaining century of legionaries who had not yet begun to pack, but stood with shovels and staves in their hands, and used them as weapons.

  The fighting was bloody and brief and when it was over, the men of the first and second cohorts of the IXth legion lay dead and there were more of them than there were dead Eceni by five or six to one. None of the Batavians, and only two of the she-bear, had died.

  The longer process of stripping the bodies of their armour and weapons, of emptying the packs of food and clothing and scraps of iron that might be melted for sword blades, extended far into the day.

  Near midday, Cygfa came to sit beside Cunomar as he stripped the body of the last centurion to die. The man’s blade had broken, so hard had he used it, and his shield boss was crushed beyond mending. A scatter of dead warriors lay round him, all with wounds to the head or chest. Blood leaked from beneath his armour, and from the killing gape in his throat where a blade had finally won under his helmet.

  “He fought well.” Cygfa sat on an upturned shield and watched her brother unbuckle the man’s greaves. She, too, was bleeding. A shallow cut on one thigh leaked dark blood; two on her sword arm more brightly.

  Cunomar said, “I saw you kill him.” He loved Cygfa. On the day they had been released from the procurator’s execution, he had sworn in front of Ardacos that he would protect both of his sisters for the rest of their lives and his against the ravages of Rome. Cygfa had never needed his protection, but it had helped him believe she would recover. The needling pain in his chest was not worthy of her or of him. Graciously, he said, “He would have killed a dozen more if you hadn’t come in so fast.”

  Cygfa shrugged. “He was tiring, and Dubornos was keeping his attention. I didn’t come to talk to you about that.”

  The elders had taught him to face his pain directly. “About Valerius, then? Did he give you the white-legged colt?”

  Of all those on the battlefield that day, two had stood out: Valerius on his Crow-horse, the half-Roman who fought for the Eceni with the carelessness for his own life that marked the truly great and set them apart from the rest; and Cygfa, soul-daughter to the Boudica, bright-haired daughter of Caradoc, who fought at the other side of the field on a white-legged black colt that was clearly cut from the same stamp as Valerius’ notorious pied mount.

  It was not as savage as the Crow, but it answered Cygfa’s thought more readily than any horse had ever done so that the two were welded to one, and drew eyes from all quarters, the bright flame of her hair rising high over the black-on-white of her new mount. Cunomar had seen it, and had tried not to see the horse as payment for her earlier actions; he did not wish to be a man who begrudged others their good fortune, least of all his sister.

  Cygfa grinned, a sight so rare that in itself it gladdened Cunomar’s heart. She said, “Valerius heard a rumour that I was going to fight hi
m for it and made me a gift of it before I could make the challenge.” She ran a hand through her hair, sobering. “I didn’t come to talk about that, either. It’s Valerius. I—”

  “You support him as leader of the war host. I know. Everyone knows. You made it plain at the gathering.” It had hurt at the time. Now, with the success of battle behind him, Cunomar was glad only that they were both alive to talk about it.

  “Everyone else can know what they want.” Cygfa wiped grime from her face, replacing it with more. “You can know that I support the man the gods have fashioned for us who is, just now, the best we have if Breaca cannot lead.”

  Her eyes were on him. Cunomar laid the pair of greaves carefully on the pile. With similar care, he said, “Just now?”

  They knew each other well, these two children of Caradoc; they had faced death in Rome together, and two years in exile after their pardon by the emperor Claudius. They had shared the chaotic escape through Gaul and the stark, stripped moment on a beachhead when it became clear that their father was too broken to return. They had come back to Mona and made it their home and left it again to travel east with the Boudica. Only they two knew what these things had cost, or what it was to fight as the child of a warrior the whole world revered, to have to carve a name that was not always spoken in comparison to what had gone before.

  Through the full weight of that, Cygfa said, “Leadership is not only about courage. No-one doubts you have that, and these past two days you showed it to any who might not have seen. But a leader sees the greater picture and knows that lives matter more than glory. A leader would not have brought three dozen warriors to assault a night camp alone, leaving behind the three thousand who needed experience in battle. There is time yet. Breaca’s still healing. She couldn’t be here, but she’ll lead us against Camulodunum. Sometime after that, we will see who leads beyond it. I will support you then if I can believe you will not lead us into heroic disaster.”