Dreaming the Eagle (32 page)

Cunobelin arranged himself on the far side of the fire. He was more visible than the smith had been but only barely so. His voice rolled out of the darkness. ‘I am not as young as I was and I have three sons. It is time for them to begin to administer their own lands. For this they will need their own coins.’

‘Really? And how long have your sons had lands of their own?’ He was discussing his birthright and he made it sound like a bull, or a dray horse of limited value.

Cunobelin said, ‘They have none as yet, but on my death each of my sons will require a territory that befits him. I have acquired some lands south of the great river amongst our cousins the Atrebates. Amminios will have those. The trading rights on the southern ports are his, plus the farms he has already inherited from his mother’s Gaulish kin. He has always had more interest in trading than either of his brothers and he will do well by this. To mark it, Heffydd has placed a boat on one side of the coin and Amminios’ name on the other with my barley sheaf above it.’

He turned the coin over. The torchlight flickered on the crude image of a boat, with many oars and two masts. Had Silla drawn the Greylag, it might have looked like this.

Cunobelin moved to the next coin. Tapping the ear of barley on the upper surface, he said, ‘As the eldest of my sons, Togodubnos is heir to the lands of the Catuvellauni.’ He turned the coin over. ‘From his mother, he inherits also the leadership of the Trinovantes. It is my wish that these two peoples remain together and I believe he is the one to sustain this. His sons will have it after him, through Odras. Her symbol is the moon. I have put it near his name, so that there is no confusion.’

Breaca knew Caradoc better than she had done; the complex layers of his character were more visible to her than they had been on the headland after the shipwreck, or even in the elder council. Nothing changed outwardly, there was no defining frown or catch to his breath that she could have pointed to and said, ‘This is what betrays you’, but it was clear that his father had landed a telling blow and that it was not the dividing of land that had done it.

On the surface, the grey eyes washed across hers, warmly. Caradoc smiled and nodded genially to his father and said, ‘I trust you sought Odras’ permission before you used her mark?’

‘Of course. Heffydd dreamed it and we took her the outlines before the stamp was cut. She had just given birth to her son, and was glad of this acknowledgement.’

‘She would have been.’ Caradoc picked one of the coins from the workbench and flipped it high in the air. It tumbled, spinning, onto his palm. He held it face up and both Breaca and Cunobelin could see the ship that was Amminios’ sign. ‘I hear the child is to be named Cunomar, Hound of the Sea. He, too, will need a boat one day.’

It was the only weapon he had and it drew no blood. Unimpressed, the Sun Hound said, ‘You gave your armband for his name? You should have asked me and I would have told you it for nothing. I had thought you were paying for the whelp. It will be a good one, worth the price. Odras still has the best eye for hounds.’

It did not seem likely that the armband had been given as the price of anything, but rather as the gift of one long absent to the woman whom he most values. And then it had been returned. Breaca remembered the warmth in Caradoc’s voice as he had addressed the young woman in the market place and the clash with his brother afterwards and suddenly it was hard not to walk out to fresh air and freedom, away from the complications of others’ lives. She held her place at the doorpost, waiting. They had seen only two of the three coins and the last was the one that mattered most.

Caradoc reached towards the remaining coins. The fire had died down and the metal shone less brightly. He lifted one and held it in his clenched fist, not yet looking at the surface. Softly, he said, ‘You have no need to make a coin for me, father. You know they have no value in the lands of the Ordovices.’

‘Nevertheless, a son of mine has value wherever he goes. And his mother’s memory must be honoured. These have your name on one side and the symbol of the war hammer on the other. I am told that Ellin of the Ordovices had no daughters and that you are her heir in the west until such time as another woman is chosen to replace you.’

His mother’s memory …

The one to observe is my sire. Watch him. It is an instruction in the dance of life.

The fire had sucked in all the air and burned it. Breaca’s fingers gouged into the wood of the doorpost. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.

Caradoc stood quite still, staring at the coin lying flat on his palm as if by doing so he held on to his place in the world. ‘There is news I should know of my mother?’ he asked. His voice was deeper and softer and shorn of all humour.

‘I’m sorry, but it is better that you learn it here than outside in front of others. Word came to us from the west only recently. Your mother is dead. She was taken by a spear in battle against the Silures and died with the end of winter. It was a warrior’s death.’

The silence held them tight. A log shifted slightly on the fire. Outside, the rain, which had been falling for some time, began to beat more heavily on the roof tiles. Inside, they stood in a place of utter quiet, broken only by the soft sounds of breathing. The Sun Hound leaned forward a little, moving into the light, the better to see and be seen. His features displayed just the right proportions of sorrow and dignified regret - the mix of a man who has lost a woman he loved, of a war leader who must maintain the dignity of his station and of a father who cares for his son’s welfare.

Only knowing the nature of the game was it possible to see deeper and Breaca was not certain she knew enough to see it all. Cunobelin had not done this on the spur of a moment; coin moulds are not drawn and cut in a morning. He must have known of the death since the end of winter and he could readily have sent someone north to the Eceni lands with news. He had not kept it a secret until now without a reason. In this dance, the final winner was the one who found that reason first.

‘Who else knows this?’ asked Caradoc, quietly. His thinking was faster than hers and there were other things at stake. Odras had told him the name of her son and the identity of its father but not the news of his mother; he would need to know why she had not spoken.

‘Heffydd knows. No-one else. The messenger who brought the news is dead.’

Gods. The thought rocked Breaca as nothing else had done. He has killed to keep this silent.

‘Who?’ They were not playing games now. The layers of pretence had curled back like bark from a birch log, laid wet on a fire. Cunobelin was frowning and watchful. Caradoc stood upright, his fingers splayed on the forging block. Strands of hair, dark with sweat, clung to his brow. He asked his question again, spacing the words, giving each one due weight. ‘What was the name of the rider who brought the message?’

His father said, swiftly, ‘It was a woman. One of your mother’s sister’s kin. She died in a fall from her horse as she was returning with my death-gifts and news of your safety. The warriors of my honour guard who had accompanied her rode on to complete her journey.’

Breaca thought, I have seen Caradoc ride. The Ordovices fall from their horses no more than do the Eceni. And then, His father has oath-sworn men in the land of the Ordovices. Why?

Caradoc said merely, ‘Her name?’

‘Cygfa. Her mark was the swan.’

The swan was a powerful dreaming; the bird carried word from the gods of light and sun to Nemain of the waters and those who dreamed it were favoured by both. By itself, the name meant nothing to Breaca and she regretted that she had not listened harder to the kin-deeds of the Ordovices when they were told by the fire. Caradoc closed his eyes and she believed that he prayed. The firelight played on his cheeks, cutting deeper shadows in the hollows beneath the bones. The spark of danger was gone from him and it seemed certain that his father had just made the killing move. Time, then, for the Eceni to enter the game.

Letting go of the doorpost, Breaca stepped forward into the circle of torchlight. She played the game openly, after the manner of Togodubnos. In this place, it was not safe to do otherwise.

‘Why did you tell him now?’ she asked. ‘It would surely have been possible sooner.’

She was a guest. She could appear naive and could display, even, a little righteous anger. The guest-laws limited how he could answer.

The Sun Hound turned, frowning. He had counted her an observer, not a player. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘to receive news like this, I felt it best that my son be amongst his own people.’

Caradoc laughed, harshly. The smith had left the bellows beside the fire. The young warrior pumped the handles, raising the heat in the core. With his face turned away from her, he said, ‘He had to tell me himself to make the right impact. He needed me malleable and open to direction. My father has dreams that one day the house of the Sun Hound will extend from the eastern shore to the west and that his grandsons will rule it together. He wishes me now to ride west and take leadership of my people.’

My people, not my mother’s people. It was not said by accident. The fire lit him harshly from below. His face became a skull, flaring with the gods’ light. His hair, this once, was not the brightest part of him. He looked up at his father. ‘Is that not so?’

‘Close enough. Will you do it?’

‘No, and if I did, they would not accept me. You forget that the people of the war hammer pass the line of their rule through the women, as do the Eceni. It is not a question of a man stepping in to take over before they choose another woman; it will be done already. Cygfa has younger sisters who will have succeeded her, and even if she had none I am your son and I carry the bloodguilt for her death. From the moment I cross the border, I am dead.’

‘That is not so. The woman died in an accident. My men will attest to it.’

‘Your men, I am sure, will say what they have been ordered to say, but faced with the dreamer’s death even they may find it in them to tell the truth. If you are guilty, I am guilty. It is the law.’

Breaca said, ‘Caradoc, you were with us through the winter. You had no idea what was happening and no means to stop it. Luain carries the authority of Mona. He will absolve you of the bloodguilt.’

It might not have been the right thing to say but she had witnessed Caradoc’s sense of honour and it was too easy to imagine him riding west to pay the price in his father’s stead for an act he could not have prevented.

‘Thank you. We may have need of that.’ Speaking to her, Cunobelin said, ‘Caradoc misreads my dream. I am not so enamoured of Roman ways that I think only of grandsons ruling. If the Ordovices pass their line through the women, that is their choice. But they will still need a man to sire their daughters. I may have only sons, but there is no reason why I should not have granddaughters.’

Caradoc laughed, openly. ‘So I am to be a stud horse for hire to the highest bidder? I don’t think so. Togodubnos may accept that and Odras may have allowed it, but the women of the war hammer choose their own men and I doubt they would choose me even were I there to make the offer.’

Three of the nine coins were his. He scooped them up now and dropped them, one at a time, like falling sunlight, into the whitehot core of the fire. They held their shape for a moment and she saw the war hammer, rendered better than the ship or the horse had been, and the outline of a head drawn from the side in the Roman fashion. It lengthened as the coin melted and then, with one last pump of the bellows, burst into flames. The air was filled once more with the bite of burning metal. Breaca sneezed.

Caradoc pushed himself away from the fire. His composure had returned, however thinly. He addressed his father with the formality of a singer in the place of the elders. ‘Thank you for your news. I will leave it to you to pass it on to my brothers and … those others who might wish to know. I will discuss my position with the dreamer from Mona. If Breaca is correct, I will accept his absolution. I have no wish to die early, nor by that manner. But I will not return to the Ordovices. Cygfa’s sisters will make their own choice when the time comes to bear children. I will have no part in it.’

‘You would become landless, without kin?’ It was said baldly, the ultimate threat.

‘Yes, if the gods will it.’ In a gesture as clear as any in the convoluted figure they had danced, Caradoc stepped past Breaca towards the door. To his father, he bowed, ‘With your leave, and that of Segoventos, I will pursue my career as a merchant seaman, as you advised me.’ His smile mocked. ‘You have, after all, just given us a boat.’

In the stunned silence that followed, he looked out of the doorway and turned back frowning. ‘Ban’s gone,’ he said to Breaca. ‘And the horses.’

XIII.

THE WEATHER WAS NOT GOOD. A LIGHT RAIN BEGAN TO FALL shortly after Breaca and the others ducked under the low lintel of the coin forge. The door-skin fell into place behind them and blocked the warmth of the fire. Ban reined the red mare back under the shelter of an ageing, fire-struck oak tree, tugging the dun colt after him. The horse-boy joined them soon after, squatting down on the edge of the track where the mud was least and his tunic would not stain. They sat for a while, not speaking. Ban thought of his-new hound whelp and what he might do with her. She was special, a prize worth five days’ uncomfortable riding, more tangible and therefore more valuable than the look in Amminios’ eyes when he had seen the red mare.

Ban had seen the bitch who was the dam, and that was very good because it let him see how well she would turn out. It had happened in the morning, shortly after they had arrived. They had been walking towards the dining hall when Caradoc had taken him aside and given him the whelp, pointing out a wicker-walled hut in which the dam was likely kept. He had been right; the hound bitch lay inside on a bed of fine straw and her pups stumbled and playfought around her. She was an elderly bitch but not too old and her milk ran well. The whelp, when returned to the bed, had found its feet and pushed its way through her litter-mates to the teats. It took after its dam; both the colour of aged slate with a scattering of white hairs along the flanks and a white flash at the chest. The head was good and broad and the ears well set on top of it. The dam had a rough, thorn-defeating coat and the whelp showed the first signs of it in the bristle around her muzzle. She was not Hail, but she would be an excellent brood bitch for later; better than the young brindle he had traded at the horse fair who had proved good on the hunt but barren to the dog. He had been about to pick up the whelp to look in her mouth and check that she was whole when the door had opened suddenly. The hound bitch had raised her head and thumped her tail on the ground in greeting.