Lady of Avalon (12 page)

“I’ll be glad to take my oath at last,” said Arius. “Regular armor will feel like a summer tunic after this, and I’m tired of listening to the regulars giving us catcalls when we go by!”

Gawen wiped his mouth and handed the dipper back to the other man. Arius was from Londinium, wiry and quick and incurably sociable. To Gawen, unskilled in making friends, he had been a gift from the gods.

“Wonder if we’ll be assigned to the same cohort?” As they neared the end of their training, Gawen was beginning to worry about what came after. If the tales the older men traded in the wineshops were not told just to scare them, regular Army life might be worse than training. But that was not what kept him wakeful.

He had spent half his life preparing to pledge himself as a Druid, and then he had run away. How could a single summer commit him to an oath which might be less sacred but would be just as binding?

“I’ve vowed a red cockerel to Mars if he will put me in the fifth, with old Hanno,” Arius replied. “He’s a wily old fox, they say, who always gets the best for his men!”

“I’ve heard that too,” said Gawen, taking another sip. He, who had deserted his own gods, had not dared to pray to the gods of Rome.

The next file came down to drink. Gawen handed over the dipper and clambered back up to the line. As the men formed up again, he gazed northward, where the white road snaked across the hills. It seemed a fragile barrier; even the milefort he could see in the distance looked as puny as a child’s toy in the midst of that expanse of rolling hills. But the road, with the deep ditch of the
vallum
behind it, marked the
limes,
the limit of Empire. Some dreamers among the Army Engineers said it was not enough, that the only way to keep southern Britannia safe would be to build an actual wall. But so far it had worked. It was an idea, like the Empire itself, thought Gawen suddenly, a magic line which the wild tribes were forbidden to cross.

“One side doesn’t look much different from the other,” said Arius, echoing his thought. “What’s out there?”

“We have a few observation posts up there still, and there are some native villages,” said one of the other men.

“That’ll be it, then,” Arius answered.

“What do you mean?”

“See that smoke? The tribesmen must be burning off the stubble from their fields.”

“We had better report it, though. The Commander will want to send out a patrol,” said Gawen. But the centurion was giving the command to form up. No doubt Rufinus had seen the smoke as well and would know what to do about it. Gawen shouldered his pack and took his place in the line.

That night the fort buzzed with tales. Smoke had been sighted elsewhere along the border, and some folk said the war arrow had been seen among the tribes. But the legionary command did no more than send out a cohort to strengthen the auxiliary forts along the
limes.
They were entertaining brother officers from Deva who had come up for the hunting. Rumors were rife on the border-no need to put everyone on alert just because a few farmers were burning their fields.

Gawen, remembering Tacitus’ account of the rebellion of Boudicca, wondered. But there had been no recent incident to set off the tribes-only, he thought, the ever-present tramp of hobnailed sandals on the Roman road.

Two nights later, when the hunting party was well on its way, fire blossomed suddenly in the hills above the town. The men in the fortress were ordered to arm up, but the legionary second-in-command was away with the Commander, and the camp prefect had no authority to order the troops to march. After a sleepless night the troops were told to stand down, leaving only those on guard duty to watch the plumes of smoke drifting across the dawn sky.

The recruits in Gawen’s cohort found it hard to sleep, but even the veterans were not allowed to sleep long. The scouts that the prefect had sent out were returning, and the news was bad. The “idea” of a barrier had not been enough after all. The Novantae and Selgovae warriors had broken the border, and their Brigante cousins were rising to join them. By noon, the sun rode bloody through a smoke-palled sky.

Quintus Macrinius Donatus rode in late that night, covered with dust and flushed with excitement, or perhaps with anger at having missed his hunting. Man was a nobler prey, thought Gawen, who was on guard duty when the Commander came in. But, considering the numbers of tribesmen who were said to be out there, perhaps the hunters would become the hunted soon.

“Now,” said the men, “we’ll see some action. Those blue-painted fellows will never know what hit them. The Legion will send them scampering like scared rabbits back to their holes in the hills!”

But for another day nothing happened. The Commander was waiting for more intelligence, ran the rumors. Some said he was waiting for orders from Londinium, but that was hard to believe. If the Ninth was not here to guard the border, why was it stationed at Eburacum?

On the third day after the breaking of the border, the legionary trumpets sounded at last. Even though they had not yet taken their oaths to the Army, the recruits’ cohort was divided up among the veterans. Gawen, because of his woodscraft, and Arius, for some reason known only to the gods of the Army, were attached as scouts to the cohort of Salvius Bufo. Even if there had been time for it, neither of them was complaining. Bufo was neither the best nor the worst of the centurions, and he had served for a number of years in Germania. Whatever protection might come from his experience, they would have.

There were a few groans from the regulars when the recruits joined them, but to Gawen’s relief, Bufo’s sharp order to “save it for the enemy” quieted them down. By noon they were moving out, and Gawen began to bless the long training marches that had hardened him to the weight of his pack and the steady tramp up the Roman road.

That night they built a fortified camp at the edge of the moors. After three months in barracks, Gawen found sleeping out oddly disturbing. This marching camp was ditched and palisaded, and he lay in a leather tent crammed with men, but he could hear the night sounds above their snoring, and the draft that crept under the side of the tent carried the scent of the moors.

Perhaps that was why he dreamed of Avalon.

In his dream, the Druids, priests and priestesses together, had gathered in the stone circle on top of the Tor. Torches had been set on poles outside the circle; black shadows flitted across the stones. On the altar a small fire was burning. As he watched, Caillean cast herbs onto the flames. Smoke billowed upward, swirling northward, and the Druids lifted their arms in salutation. He could see their lips moving, but he could not make out their words.

The smoke from the fire grew more dense, glowing red in the torchlight, and his wonder deepened as it shaped itself into the figure of a woman armed with sword and spear. Face and body shifted from hag to goddess and back again, but always the smoke that swirled upward was her flowing hair. Swiftly the figure grew; the priests threw up their hands with a final shout, and a gust of wind carried it out of the circle and away to the north, followed by a host of winged shadows as the torches flared and went out. In the last moment of illumination, Gawen glimpsed Caillean’s face. Her arms were outstretched, and he thought she was calling his name.

Gawen woke, shivering. A glimmer of pale light showed around the edges of the doorflap. He got up, picked his way across the legs of his tentmates, and slipped through the doorway. Mist lay heavy on the moors, but the growing light was filling the sky. It was very still. A sentry turned, one eyebrow raised in inquiry, and he pointed toward the privy trench. Wet grass soaked his bare feet as he made his way across the enclosure.

As he returned, a harsh cawing tore the silence. In another moment the mist was darkened by black wings. Ravens-more than he had ever seen together at one time-flapped up from the south to circle the hill. Three times the black birds flew over the Roman encampment; then they winged off to the west, but he could still hear them crying even after they had disappeared.

The sentry had his fingers splayed in the sign against evil, and Gawen felt no need to apologize for trembling. He knew now the name of the Raven Goddess to whom the priests of Avalon had prayed, and he needed no Druid training to interpret the omen. They would face the warriors of the tribes in battle that day.

The sharp crack of a breaking branch behind him brought Gawen around, heart pounding. Arius looked up, his face flaming, and gestured an apology. Gawen nodded and, still without words, tried once more to demonstrate how to pass through the tangle of juniper and bracken without a sound. Until now he had never realized how much he had learned from the Lady of Faerie. Reason told him that a few moments of instruction could do little for a city-bred lad like his friend, and if the Brigantes were out in force, the Roman scouts would hear them before they were heard. But he still jumped every time Arius made a sound.

So far, they had tracked a tangle of hoofprints to the smoking ruins of an isolated farmstead. It had been a prosperous place; among the ashes they found fragments of red clay Samian dinnerware and stray beads. There were also several bodies, one of them headless. Turning a corner, they flinched from the glassy stare of the head, which had been hung by the hair from a dagger stuck into the door. The farmer had obviously done well under Roman rule, and had consequently been treated as an enemy.

Arius looked a little green, disturbed as much by Gawen’s ability to interpret the scene so swiftly as he was by the evidence. But the Brigantes had gone on, and so must they. The enemy had risen first near Luguvalium and were moving toward Eburacum along the
limes.
If they turned southward, the scouts who had been sent out in the other direction would sound the alarm.

Bufo’s orders had been clear. If Gawen and Arius did not sight the enemy before midmorning, they must assume the Brigantes were heading eastward, along the natural route toward Eburacum. What they needed now was a vantage point from which they could see them coming, and warn the Romans who were taking up position to defend the town. Gawen cast an experienced eye over the terrain and led the way uphill, where some ancient torment of the earth had thrust the soil upward. Rock jutted out from the cliffs like bared bones.

When they reached the gnarled pines at the top of the crag, they mopped the sweat from their faces with their legionary scarves, for the day had grown warm, and began to gather wood for a signal fire. Behind them, a grassy vale made a natural highway for anyone seeking the rich lands nearer the sea. It was very quiet. Too quiet, thought Gawen as he gazed across the valley. His skin twitched. Whether the rebels continued their raiding or headed homeward, they had to come this way. Maybe they had scouts out too, he thought, pulling back behind a tree. Maybe they were laughing already, planning how to pick off these Romans who had so foolishly ventured away from the safety of their walls.

Beyond, the land fell away to the north in long swales, veiled in smoky haze. It reminded Gawen of the way the land beyond would sometimes be hidden by the mists that surrounded Avalon, as if the isle had withdrawn from the world. Borderlands could be like that too. For half a year he had lived entirely in his father’s world, but in this place, which belonged wholly neither to Britannia nor to Rome, he was becoming uncomfortably aware of his own mixed allegiances, and questioning whether there were any place where he truly belonged.

“I wonder if the new Emperor will do anything about the rebellion,” the voice of Arius came from behind him. “This Spaniard, Hadrianus…”

“No emperor has visited Britannia since Claudius,” answered Gawen, still gazing over the countryside. Was that a dustcloud, or smoke from a dying fire? For a moment he half rose, squinting, then settled back again. “The Brigantes would have to make a pretty good showing to merit his attention…”

“That’s true. The British can’t coordinate worth a damn-even when they had a leader, at the battle of Mons Graupius, they lost. That was the last stand of the tribes.”

“That’s what my father thought,” said Gawen, remembering the pride with which his grandfather had talked about his son’s military career. “He was there.”

“You never told me that!” Arius turned to him.

Gawen shrugged. He found it hard to think of the elder Gaius as his father, even though he had only to compare the portrait that Macellius kept in his study with a bronze mirror to know it must be true. At Mons Graupius his father had fought bravely. Despite his training, when it came to his own challenge Gawen wondered how he would fare.

“Unless they have found a new leader of the caliber of Calgacus, I don’t think they will be dangerous for long,” he said aloud.

Arius sighed. “No doubt it will be all over as soon as the Ninth catch up with the Brigantes. It will be reported to Hadrianus as no more than a border skirmish, if at all. The battle won’t even have a name.”

No doubt…,
thought Gawen. In the past three months he had become intimately acquainted with the discipline and strength of the Roman Army. Despite their individual courage, for the tribesmen to stand against them would take a miracle. For a moment his dream of the Lady of the Ravens flickered into memory, but surely that had only been a night fancy. The iron tread of the Legions was the reality of the daylight.

“And then it will be back to barracks for us all,” Arius went on. “And
exercises
…What a bore!”

“They made a desert, and called it peace…,”
Gawen quoted softly. “Tacitus said that about the pacification of the north after Mons Graupius. After this, we may be glad to be bored.”