By the time Rufus reached the forest edge the Druid had disappeared into the gloom. The young Roman kept the long British sword raised and at the ready. Old man he might be, but Rufus had no illusions how dangerous Nuada could be. He touched the charm at his throat and moved carefully into the trees. The trunks were close-ranked here, and the branches above him formed a continuous roof that starved the forest floor of light. As he cautiously advanced, he could hear the shuffle of his feet through the leaf-mould and the nervous sound of his own breathing. The trees and the rotting leaves gave off a distinctive but not unpleasant scent, and the whole atmosphere below the leaf canopy was somehow mesmeric. The word rang inside his head like a warning bell. He stopped. Listened. Was the feeling some Druid magic of Nuada’s? He shook his head to clear it and set off again, his eyes searching left and right, up and down, for any hint of danger.
A single sunbeam saved his life.
In the corner of his eye he saw it glint on one of the claws on Nuada’s bear paw as it was swung with lethal savagery at his head. The blow came from behind and Rufus only had a heartbeat to react; no time to bring the sword round, but he had to try. He ducked and swung in one movement. In the same instant his head exploded in a lightning rush of pain and he instinctively threw himself to the left, away from the attack. He lost the long sword as he fell and cursed himself for the carelessness that was about to cost him his life. Half blinded by blood, he fought his way to his feet, fingers scrabbling for the knife at his hip. His mind told him he wasn’t dying: the bear paw had only caught him a glancing blow — there was still hope. Suddenly a blurred figure filled what remained of his vision and he threw up his right arm to block the blow he knew was coming. He heard the unnerving crack at the same time as he felt the throat-filling agony as one of the bones in his forearm was shattered by the force of Nuada’s strike. Lost in a fireball of pain, he fell backwards, and the Druid was on him like a hunting leopard. Rufus could smell the carrion-reek of his breath and the stink of his body. He blinked away blood and was only just in time to wrap the fingers of his left hand round the Briton’s wrist as the bear claw descended towards his face in a killing blow. Nuada snarled a curse and his own left hand groped for Rufus’s throat, where his fingers closed like an iron ring as the young slave choked and struggled for life. He knew he had only seconds left and he ignored the pain in his right arm as he tried to dislodge the Druid, but his hand only flapped uselessly and the effort almost made him faint. He was dying.
But as he fought for consciouness, the weight on his chest vanished and he could no longer feel Nuada’s fingers at his neck. Which meant he was dead or…? He opened his eyes and saw the Druid sprawled a dozen feet to his left, where he appeared to have been thrown by some giant hand. Towering over Rufus, a great, grey mass that gave a gentle snort of affection blotted out what little sun the branches allowed through, and he felt warm dampness on his cheek. Bersheba? It was impossible. The questions flooded his spinning head, but he knew he wouldn’t find any answers today. It was enough that she was here. Enough to know that she had saved his life. He struggled to his feet, his useless arm hanging at his side, and her liquid brown eye caught his, full of compassion and, perhaps, reproach. And why not? After all, he had abandoned her again.
He heard a scuttle behind him, and turned to see Nuada disappearing into the trees. He stared into the murk. How many more innocents had he condemned by leaving the Druid alive? He shook his head and tried to work out the way back to the sacred grove. At the same time Bersheba brushed past him and ambled off, following the path Nuada had taken.
‘Bersheba!’ He put all the authority he could command into the order, but she ignored him entirely, leaving him swaying on his feet. He was still there when Ballan and Hanno found him minutes later.
‘You should be more careful when you walk in the woods, Roman,’ the squat Iceni said, eyeing Rufus’s battered scalp. Before Rufus could reply, a tiny figure darted from behind the Briton and rushed towards him. Forgetting his injured arm, he stooped to pick up his son and winced as the pain hit him like a hammer blow. Ballan stepped forward to retrieve Gaius, but Rufus shook his head, and shifted so he could hold his son in the crook of his left arm. For a moment, he revelled in the warmth of the little boy’s body and the gentle beat of his heart; the soft breath that caressed his cheek and the damp tears that mingled with his own. His body shook as he remembered what might have been. Gaius was engulfed in a blood-stained shirt retrieved from one of the dead guardians. Rufus studied his son, searching for some outward sign of his ordeal, but in the same instant the little boy lifted his face and his blue eyes shone in a smile of such untouched innocence that he knew there was no lasting damage.
He turned to Ballan. ‘Britte?’
The Briton shook his head. ‘We would need a wagon. I-’
The Iceni was interrupted by an inhuman shriek that made Hanno fall to his knees with his hands held over his head. The cry was followed by a thundering of giant feet and a roar that almost shook the leaves from the trees. Ballan muttered a silent prayer and raised his spear to meet whatever terrible end the gods had decreed for him.
Did she remember Nuada from the day the Batavian shield wall broke? Was the scent of Britte’s dying somehow transmitted through the forest to her? Only the gods would ever know, but it was the Druid who paid the price. First Nuada scuttled into view at a speed Rufus wouldn’t have believed possible. He was followed moments later by a grey-brown shadow that dwarfed the man it pursued. Bersheba hunted the Druid through the forest as unerringly as a stoat chasing a rabbit. Nuada was exhausted, but he was agile and he dodged energetically, using one tree then another as a shield as he fled for his life. But if the Briton was nimble, Bersheba was nimbler still. She ghosted amongst the great oaks and the slender elders as easily as if she were in an open field, never quite narrowing the gap between herself and her quarry, but always giving the impression she had the ability. Time and again Nuada must have believed he had escaped, only to find Bersheba at his heels like some god-sent nemesis.
In other circumstances Rufus would have felt pity, but the memory of Britte’s death was too fresh in his mind and he only wanted it to be over. He covered Gaius’s eyes. As if she had read his thoughts, Bersheba increased her speed and Nuada, feeling her presence, panicked. His foot caught a hidden tree root and a despairing cry escaped his lips as he went down among the leaves and nettles. In an instant the elephant towered over him, her trunk held high, trumpeting her victory roar.
Nuada cried for mercy, but there was no mercy in the forest of the sacred grove.
With one swift movement, Bersheba lowered her head and hooked her left tusk below Nuada’s ribs. The Druid’s howls of agony split the forest as he squirmed like a worm on a bone hook and that terrible ivory spear bit ever deeper into his vitals. It was a mortal wound, but still Bersheba’s revenge was not complete. With a flick of her neck she tossed Nuada’s body high into the air. When he landed, she was on him in an instant, grinding his body into the forest floor with one great knee so Rufus could hear the Druid’s ribs snap like so many dried twigs. Still she wasn’t satisfied. Rufus had seen her do many things in their years together, but he had never seen her dance. She danced over the Druid for more than a minute, until his body was little more than a red pulp beneath her enormous pads.
When it was over, she stood by the body for a few more moments as if she were considering the morality of what she had done, and once she was satisfied she ambled through the trees to where Rufus stood, no longer a terrible, unstoppable weapon, but gentle Bersheba once more.
Rufus handed Gaius to Ballan and walked to Nuada’s shattered body. He looked down at the bloody smear on the ground and gingerly reached for what had once been the Druid’s cloak. It was there, as he knew it would be, and, amazingly, undamaged. He unpinned it and walked back to where the Briton held his son.
‘Here.’ He handed Ballan the brooch of Cunobelin, which so many sought and so many had died for. ‘T
ake it and do what you will with it. But do not keep it long, Ballan.’ He stared at the place where Nuada had died. ‘If it can kill a Druid, then no man is safe from its spell.’
He took Gaius’s hand in his, and, with Bersheba following, set off in the direction of the camp. Ballan watched them go, then looked down thoughtfully at the treasure in his palm.
XLII
Claudius stared out across the wide expanse of grassland Nacissus had chosen for the surrender of Britain. Was it worth it? He had invested the wealth of an empire to be here this day, had risked the lives of fifty thousand soldiers; his own life. Was it worth it? Yes. Definitely, yes.
He breathed the heady air, felt the power grow in him, and turned to survey the might of Rome. They formed three sides of an enormous square that seemed to stretch for miles across the flat plain. Four legions and their attached auxiliary units were on parade — the Eighth, Ninth, Fourteenth and Twentieth — an army forty thousand strong, even without the Second Augusta and the bulk of the cavalry, who had marched west after the fleeing Caratacus. The fourth side of the square consisted of the Emperor’s reviewing stand with three cohorts of his Praetorian Guard forming a wing on each flank of the huge structure of purple and gold.
To the front right of the stand, in which Claudius and the politicians who had accompanied him took their ease, Rufus stood beside Bersheba, resplendent once more in the golden armour. He was aware of the spectacle around him, but his mind was still numbed by what had happened in the forest, his head filled with the obscene vision of Britte’s last moments. Poor Britte, who had asked nothing but a full belly and a warm bed. He would miss her. A fanfare rang out and he realized the presentations that would precede the surrender were about to begin. He was close enough to the Emperor to see the pride on Frontinus’s face as he marched up on behalf of the depleted ranks of the Cohors Prima Batavorum to receive the unit citation from Claudius’s own hand, and the sadness in his eyes as he remembered the absent comrades who had truly earned it.
‘None deserves it more.’ Rufus flinched as Narcissus spoke the words from a few feet behind him. ‘You should be with them, you and Bersheba. The feat of the river rats and the Emperor’s elephant is still the talk of the army. They’re saying the Batavians swam the Tamesa in their full armour like a shoal of leaping fish.’
‘Verica should be out there too.’ Rufus didn’t particularly mean to say it, but when the words came out of his mouth he didn’t wish them back. ‘He earned his place among the heroes. Even you wouldn’t deny that?’
Narcissus gave a hurt sigh. ‘Verica did his duty, Rufus… as we all did. Verica is the past while Gnaius Hosidius Geta, the horse-faced tribune you see before you, is the future. Geta will receive the honours poor Verica earned and more, but in life he has not done half the service for the Emperor that Verica has in death.’ They watched Geta march up to Claudius to receive his prize and Rufus was puzzled when the Roman’s face went pale. ‘Overwhelmed by the Emperor’s generosity, and well he might be,’ Narcissus explained. ‘The first occasion in our history someone not of consular rank has been awarded the triumphal regalia. They tell me Vespasian is quite put out.’
Rufus tensed and Narcissus moved to one side; the last of the honours had been dispensed and the Emperor was approaching. Rufus touched Bersheba’s flank and the elephant bent her knee so he was able to vault smoothly on to her back just in front of the gold-embossed howdah with its bearded image of Mars, of whom Claudius was now the earthly embodiment. A set of wooden stairs was hurriedly brought forward and the Emperor carefully took his seat two feet behind Rufus.
‘Take her forward — close enough for them to smell her,’ he ordered.
Ten kings, Narcissus had promised, and from a grass-clad mound in the centre of the wide plain ten kings and two queens had watched in wonder as all the terrible power and the awesome glory of Rome marched past. Forty thousand men moving as one behind the eagles of their legions. Forty thousand spear points glittering in the morning sunlight. Forty thousand reasons to obey.
Now the rulers of Britain shifted uneasily as Rufus manoeuvred Bersheba’s huge bulk towards them, bringing her to a halt a few feet from the kneeling line so each was forced to stare upwards at their new Emperor as he sat atop a living mountain of gold that blinded them with its lustre. One by one they rose to pledge their loyalty to Rome.
Cogidubnus was first, head held high and secure in the knowledge that his people would prosper. Adminius, who had watched his rival with undisguised hatred, followed to reap the rewards of his perfidy. Of the others, Rufus recognized Prasutagus of the Iceni, and Bodvoc, the Regni king, who had the glazed eye and unsteady feet of a drunkard. One king did not look like a king at all; a small, wiry figure in shabby clothing whose eyes darted nervously and who looked as if he believed Bersheba was about to devour him.
And finally the delicacy that made the rest of the banquet seem like ashes on the tongue. Rufus felt the Emperor shift in his seat as Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, walked barefoot across the sward until she could almost touch Bersheba with her outstretched hand. She wore a shimmering gown of translucent blue that hinted at transparency but didn’t quite achieve it.
‘Down.’ Rufus was surprised by the command; this had not been part of the order of ceremony. But an Emperor’s order was an Emperor’s order. He touched Bersheba’s shoulder and she went to her knees, allowing Narcissus to help Claudius from the howdah.
He gestured to Cartimandua to approach. She really was strikingly beautiful. In a way she reminded Claudius of Messalina, only darker — and more dangerous. ‘Welcome, lady. Your fame and your devotion to your people have reached our ears.’ Narcissus handed him a long, cloth-covered bundle. ‘A gift, Queen Cartimandua, from your Emperor’s own hands, in recognition of past loyalty — and future service.’
Cartimandua bowed her head and accepted the parcel, but her eyes were puzzled. She slowly unwound the cloth wrapping and the Emperor was rewarded by a gasp of what might have been either admiration or outrage. The gift was a sword; a beautiful ceremonial sword in a bronze scabbard that had been polished until it glowed bright as gold. Scabbard and grip were decorated with what looked like rubies, but she knew were not. She recognized the sword. She had last seen it on Caratacus’s hip and though she did not know it, it had been found among his possessions in the aftermath of the battle. Perhaps the gift would do after all. She smiled her thanks and turned smoothly to return to the line of rulers, making certain all could see the worth of the Emperor’s gift. As she went, her eyes fell on the flame-haired figure who had stood emotionless by her husband’s side throughout the humiliation of the parade and the oath-taking. Boudicca of the Iceni gave a little half-smile that could have been mistaken for pity, and pushed the green cloak that matched her eyes back from her shoulders. For a moment, Cartimandua was dazzled by a blaze of light. When her vision cleared she recognized the golden brooch at Boudicca’s throat; the brooch in the shape of a boar with a ruby for its eye.
Narcissus saw her stiffen, and understood the reason for it. How..?
‘Two formidable ladies. I am glad I have neither for my wife.’ The Greek nodded dutifully at Claudius’s comment, though no one knew more than he that the Emperor would have been better served by either than the wife he had. ‘Ten rulers of Britain I believe you promised me,’ Claudius continued. ‘Though I think I counted eleven. Who was the little man, the one who smelled of the sea and was dressed like a street urchin?’
‘Why, Caesar, that was the most important king of all.’
Claudius stared at him. Narcissus was allowed licence beyond other courtiers, but not so much as to mock his Emperor.
‘King Donnal rules the Orcades,’ the Greek explained.
‘The Orcades?’
‘Islands, I am assured, at the edge of the known world. He must have been at sea for weeks. Apparently his island was once visited by Roman ships which brought gifts. He considers himself a client of the Empire.’
�
��And why should the king of a few fishermen trouble the Emperor of Rome?’
‘Because, Caesar,’ Narcissus said with the utmost patience, ‘King Donnal’s submission extends your dominion to the very ends of this land and beyond.’
The realization dawned on Claudius slowly. Now he could go home.
XLIII
‘I am sorry for your loss.’
Rufus raised his head sharply and stared hard into Narcissus’s eyes. They were sitting in the Greek’s tent, which had been moved back among those set aside for Claudius’s closest aides.
‘Your son is well?’
‘He is well, but no thanks to you.’
Narcissus winced. He was forced to acknowledge that, this once, he had been wrong. He’d thought to spare them both a painful confrontation over Togodumnus’s brooch. If Ballan had retrieved it, Rufus would never have known. What was one more lost treasure in a camp full of thieves?
‘I should have realized Cogidubnus would seek the brooch out and that he would calculate you were the source of my knowledge. Owning it would have given him a hold over the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes, perhaps the Dobunni too, and King Cogidubnus is an ambitious man. He has petitioned Claudius to create a new title — King of all the Britons, no less. Of the Druid’s movements I knew nothing. That was a lapse on my part, for which, I repeat, I am sorry.’
Rufus had a vision of Nuada’s predator’s eyes and shivered. Narcissus had recognized the power of the brooch’s symbolism, but he had scoffed at its so-called magic. Rufus was not so sure. He wondered at its potential in the hands of a woman like Boudicca. Perhaps it would have been safer with Caratacus. He said none of this. It didn’t matter any more. They were going home. Narcissus had just completed packing his effects when Rufus had arrived.
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