Dreaming the Eagle (28 page)

Ban ran his fingers across the flank that was closest. There, behind her ribs, he felt a ridge of tissue. The mare flicked her tail and stamped and he took his hand away. He worked his grooming wad down, freeing the clotted mud. The scars, thus revealed, stood out like chalk marks against the rich red of her hide. It was a wonder he had ever seen beyond them. He passed his hand down again, feeling the extent of the damage. ‘Did you know her?’ he asked.

‘No. I’ve never been with the Eighth. But I have known many like her. They live short lives and brutal ones. She is better off where she is. You could …’ He trailed off. In a quite different voice he said, ‘A crow. How very tactless.’

He named the bird in Eceni although they had been speaking Gaulish. Ban had been working under the mare’s stomach. He straightened. The Roman had moved. He was lying with his back against a small knoll, his fingers laced loosely behind his head and his eyes open, staring in grim fascination at a crow that hopped across the turf a spear’s throw from his feet. As Ban watched, the bird jabbed its beak into a pile of decaying horse dung and dragged out a worm.

‘Shoo it off.’ Ban lifted his arm, to throw the grooming wad.

‘No. Leave it.’ The Roman lay very still. Small pearls of sweat stood up on his temples. Tracks of it threaded down to the rim of his tunic. His jawline was tight, cording the muscles on his neck. For the first time, Ban saw fear in a way he understood. The implications of it sent a slick of cold down his back. Abandoning the mare, he walked carefully to the man’s side and sat down. He put a hand on the shoulder beside him and felt the muscles flinch.

‘How did you know the name of the bird in Eceni?’ he asked, gently.

‘Your sister told me.’ The man made no move to throw off his hand. ‘We saw one this morning, riding up to the greathouse, and I asked her. It’s my name, or something like it. In Latin: Corvus, the raven. It’s the name of my house.’

‘So we could have called you Corvus, instead of “the Roman” or “the foreigner” all this time. Why did you not tell us?’

The man smiled. His lips stretched tight over white teeth. There was no humour in his face. His eyes stayed on the bird. ‘With what is coming? With your dreamers seeing messages in the flights of birds and the patterns of leaves on the grass? Do I look insane?’

Numbly, Ban said, ‘They don’t see messages like that.’ He was beginning to feel sick and had no knowledge of what to do about it.

‘I know that now. I didn’t know it when I first came. Caesar wrote it and I believed him. I’m sorry …’ The man rolled his shoulders. It did nothing to ease the stiffness of his muscles. The crow speared another worm and tore it in two. The Roman shuddered, like a horse shaking off flies.

Ban said, ‘Who told you what is coming? Not Breaca?’

‘No. She is more generous than that.’

‘Dubornos then?’

‘Of course. He said the last man condemned by the elder council lived for a day and a half before the birds finally killed him.’ His voice was oddly hollow.

Ban wrenched himself upright. ‘He said what?’ The crow fled into the upper reaches of the beech, croaking displeasure. The Roman craned his neck to watch it.

Furiously, Ban said, ‘Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know. He couldn’t. It happened in his grandfather’s time. He wasn’t born then. His father wasn’t born then. It’s not true. And it won’t happen now. They will let you fight Caradoc, they must do.’

‘Must they? I don’t see why. I wouldn’t.’ The man’s eyes, unseeing, rested on the crow. As one emerging from a dream, he said, ‘The dreamers broke his limbs and bound him to the platform and opened his abdomen with a knife, crossing the cut so the crows and ravens could feed without hindrance. They said he lived a day and a night and on until dusk of the next day; that he died only when one of the birds tore at his liver and made it bleed. Even then—’

‘Stop it!’ The gorge rose in Ban’s throat. Swallowing hard, he said, ‘Dubornos may be mad but you don’t have to join him. It doesn’t matter what happened then. It was different. Verotagos had betrayed us to the Coritani. Six warriors died because of what he did, his father and his sister amongst them. We were in a war and losing badly. There were others who might have followed his lead. The dreamers were making a point.’

‘And what are they doing now, if not making a point?’

Ban was weeping. Hot tears of anger and frustration streaked his cheeks, pooling at his collarbone. ‘It’s not like that. You have done nothing to offend the gods. You even stopped Dubornos falling into the pool. They would have skinned him first, before they broke his limbs for the platform, if he had gone into the water. He was trying to upset you. Don’t let him do it.’ He made himself think, seeking a source of reassurance. Only one came to mind. ‘Have you spoken to Airmid?’

‘No. It hurts her to look at me. She does it, but the effort is painful to watch. I don’t think it would help either of us to start threshing through the details.’

Ban knelt. He took the man’s hands in his own. He made himself look through the eyes to the soul that rested inside. The will that it took made him calmer. ‘Corvus, listen to me. They will not do that. If you have to die, it will be fast. There are ways to angle the knife so that it pierces the heart before anything.’ He had never been told it, but in the deepest part of his soul he knew it to be true. He made a cutting motion upwards to the base of the breastbone and felt the short shock of the other man’s breathing. His hand moved on down to where he knew the old wound to be, at the side. Touching the pit of it, he said. ‘I promise you, it will be faster than a spear in the side could ever have been. Was that so bad?’

The man twitched a small smile. ‘No. I didn’t feel it until later. But then I was busy and I didn’t expect an attack from that side. My vexillarius was supposed to stop it coming but he was already down.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He raised his arm too high. A spear took him in the space beneath it, where he had no armour.’

‘Did he die?’

‘Eventually. The field medics had him for a day or two first.’

‘A day or two?’

‘Four.’

‘And this would be worse?’

‘Maybe not.’ The man laughed, short and hard and bitten off before the end. ‘Thank you for that.’ He freed his hands from between Ban’s palms and lay back on the turf where he had been before.

Looking up, Ban saw that the crow had gone. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth of the sun and tried to be calm.

‘At least you don’t have prisons here,’ the Roman said, dreamily.

‘I couldn’t bear that, not being able to see the sky, or hear the birds. They say Julius Caesar kept Vercingetorix in an underground dungeon for years before he had him killed. The man was broken long before they brought him up into daylight.’

Ban shuddered. The red mare moved around, grazing near his feet. He reached out and touched her, for the feel of something real beneath his fingers. ‘Why would he do a thing like that?’

‘Because he could. Because he wanted to make a point. I suppose because he was a general and he had seen enough men die in the field to know that there are few things you can do to a man that war cannot do worse. It’s true. I had forgotten …’ The man sat up, slowly, and looked round. ‘Do you hear a horse?’

Ban did. They turned together, sitting on the knoll. The figure that emerged from the forest was too distant to see clearly but a banner of red hair and the reckless speed marked Breaca as clearly as if they had recognized her face. The Roman pulled himself to his feet and watched her go. ‘It’s your sister,’ he said. ‘She’s borrowed your dun colt again.’ He spoke lightly, as if her choice of horse was the most interesting point of it. Breaca reached the corner of the wall and gave the colt his head. He was half-brother to the filly that had been taken by Amminios. He wasn’t as good, but he was close. He ran almost as fast as the grey mare.

‘She’s very angry,’ said the Roman. He stood very still.

‘She’s unhappy. It is not necessarily because of you.’

‘And that is why Airmid and your father have followed her?’

Ban looked back to the trees. Airmid stood with Luain mac Calma on the trackway. His father was not there. It was a mistake that had been made often in the last month by those unfamiliar with his family. Today, it was not important. He let it go. ‘That’s Luain, the dreamer. He brought news from Mona that Breaca did not want to hear. He will have spoken it formally at the council, to seek the approval of the elders.’

The Roman nodded, absently. ‘Would she leave before the vote?’

‘No. They would only discuss it after.’ Ban felt sick again. Down at the trees, a flash of gold caught the late afternoon sun and Airmid turned as if someone had hailed her. ‘Caradoc is there,’ he said.

‘Then he will have news.’ The Roman sat down, suddenly. Ban stood and raised his arm. Luain mac Calma saw it and waved, pointing. Caradoc emerged from the trees and began to walk up the slope towards the yew log that blocked the gateway to the lower field. He walked fast, not quite running; it would not take him long to reach them. The red mare nudged Ban and he did not reach for her as he would have done.

Caradoc vaulted the log, easily. Hail saw him and trotted down the slope to greet him; the young warrior, too, had found ways to get on the right side of the hounds.

‘I think-‘ Ban stopped. What he thought did not matter. The Roman’s attention was focused entirely on the man walking up the hill towards them. His skin was grey where before it had been brown and sweat ran freely from his temples. His hands were clasped at his knees, tightly. Ban tried to swallow and found his mouth too dry. His senses expanded overpoweringly. The rush of his heart pulsed in his ears, deafeningly loud. The mare straddled to urinate and the spiked, earthen smell of it, normally so familiar, made him heave. His skin tingled; every place where his tunic touched him became a deep-rubbed sore. The flashing gold of a man’s hair became the source of the sun in a world gone suddenly mad. He rubbed the palms of his hands on his tunic and regretted it. ‘Is this how it feels before battle?’ he asked.

‘Yes, but in battle one has a weapon, and at least the illusion of choice.’

‘Of course.’ And there was no choice. By now it would have been decided whether they would let him go to his death as a warrior bearing a borrowed sword, or if Dubornos held enough sway to see him die broken on the platform. They should have discussed the ways to escape such a fate and had not. Caradoc passed behind a whitethorn hedge and was out of sight for the space of two strides. Without moving his eyes, Ban drew the knife from his belt and held it out on the flat of his hand. ‘Take it,’ he said, shortly. ‘It gives you choice.’ The hilt made a brief pressure on his palm and was gone.

The warrior was close. Hail trotted at his side, grinning. The man reached down as he would with his own hound, fondling the great ears absently. A spear’s length from the Roman, he stopped. The world stopped with him. Ban felt his throat clench and the tears burn at his eyes. He tried to speak and nothing came. The Roman was still, like a statue. His face was quite white.

For one moment longer, they held like that, then Caradoc threw his arm out in the salute of one warrior to another and inclined his head and it was enough.

It was more than enough; words would not have been better. Ban looked away, his eyes still burning. Beside him, he felt the man draw in a breath so deep it might have been his first in the world.

In the space after, he swore, softly - a long stream of foreign words in the middle of which Nemain was invoked as a saviour and then Briga, whose bird was the crow. When he ran out of words he looked up at the warrior.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me why?’ He spoke Gaulish, out of respect.

‘Mac Calma spoke of his dreaming.’ Caradoc crouched neatly on the turf. ‘And then Airmid told of hers. They are our two most powerful dreamers and what they saw was the same. It is not you that we have to fear and your death will do nothing to stop an invasion, if one is coming. Knowing that, it was only damaged pride and the memory of your ancestors’ actions that called for your death. Neither of these was enough. The dreamers would not do it.’

‘You mean Airmid would not do it?’

‘No. None of them would. They said so and it swung the vote. Some still voted against, but the majority was with you.’

‘And you? May I know which way you voted?’

It mattered to him, one could see it. Caradoc nodded. His eyes were alive with a striking humour, brighter than they had been since the day of the shipwreck. ‘You may,’ he said. ‘It has changed since the day of our first meeting. When the sea threw you up at our feet, I would have killed you, you know that. Even after your actions in the river, I would have voted for your death because I believed it necessary to preserve our people. But the dreamers spoke against it and I trust them. If they say there is no reason for your death and that it would offend the gods to kill you, then I believe them. I voted to let you go and I am glad there were more of us than the others.’

‘What about Dubornos? He will not be glad.’

‘No. Not in the least, but you are still a guest. If he kills you, it is murder, which also draws the dreamer’s death, and he will not take that risk. You have the right now to wear a sword but I suggest you don’t do so unless you want him to challenge you. That would be … complicated.’

‘Indeed. Thank you.’

In the lengthening silence, the Roman brought his hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had done that in his first conversations with Ban, when he was lost for words and they had run out of useful hand signals. He said, ‘And now? Do you give me a horse and tell me where to ride?’

‘If you wish.’ Caradoc pushed himself to his feet. ‘On the other hand, if you want to get home before your daughters bear granddaughters, then you will allow us to escort you south to the port beyond my father’s dun and take a merchant ship from there.’

The Roman laughed, loosely and not very controlled, so that one could read in him the first waves of relief, barely held. ‘Could you say that again in Latin?’ he asked. ‘I think my Gaulish is failing me. If nothing else, I have no daughters, no children of any kind - but are you telling me that you will ride into the city of your father and your brothers? I thought you were at war with him?’