Eagle in the Snow: The Classic Bestseller

by Wallace Breem

  I watched him in silence. Then I said, quietly, “But you lived.”

  “Yes. I lived, if you can call it living?”

  “And so?”

  “In the end there were two of us left, myself and—but you would have forgotten his name, no doubt.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I would not have forgotten his name. I remember them all to this day.”

  “As I remember yours, noble commander. They matched us to fight at Eburacum. We were the spectacle for which everyone waited, and the commander of the Sixth Legion sat in the seat of honour. It was a holiday, and his daughter newly married, and he wished to celebrate by showing his—mercy. He gave me my freedom while the blood of my companion dried on my sword.”

  “I see. Where do you go now?”

  “Beyond the Wall to where Rome does not rule.”

  I leaned forward then. “Are you mad? What will you do up there, even supposing they don’t kill you first? What kind of a life will you live?”

  “That is my concern.”

  I said, harshly, “Julian, I have a villa and land in Gaul which I have never seen since we—since I was a boy. You can go to it; you can live on it; you can own it if you wish. I offer that much for the sake of a dead friendship. But don’t, I beg of you, go north of the Wall.”

  He looked at me then, and there was still nothing in the eyes of any warmth or human feeling. “I go north,” he said. “And no-one shall stop me.” The spear, that I had thought at first to be a staff, was balanced lightly in his hand, but he was standing carefully on the balls of his feet, and I knew then that he would kill me if I moved. Any other man I could have run down with a fair chance of success. But he was different. He had been a gladiator. They were trained to move with a speed that no soldier could emulate. They could pick flies off the wall with their bare hands. I knew. I had watched them do it.

  I turned my horse to let him pass. “You are a freed man under the law, as you said, and you may go where you will.”

  “I shall indeed.”

  “A word of warning, Julian.”

  He turned at that, and for a moment I thought I detected something in his eyes that was almost human. “Well?”

  “Go north by all means. But, if you do, then never come south again within spear range of my wall.”

  He said, tonelessly, “I will remember that. When I do come you may be certain I shall not come alone.”

  I watched him go up the track, saw him show his papers to the sentry and disappear from sight into the heather beyond. He had changed out of all recognition and perhaps I had too. I wondered what the Picts would make of him—a man with no hair.

  II

  SOMETIME in the middle of winter, on a stormy night, two men and a woman, mounted on ponies and riding for their lives, came in out of the heather and clamoured for shelter. They were allowed through and in the morning I interviewed them. By their dress and by the way they did their hair Saturninus thought they might be Vacomagi from the great mountains in central Caledonia—a tribe untouched by Rome since the days of Agricola. But we did not ask them. All were young. The woman was dark, with long black hair and skin the colour of warm milk. She was very beautiful. The two men were her brothers. I heard a confused tale of a tyrannical uncle, of the young lover slain in jealousy by this man, of the brothers killing him in his turn, and of a blood feud that had split the tribe.

  “There was a meeting of the elders, excellency,” said the younger brother in a tired voice. “We were proscribed and fled to avoid our deaths.”

  “Very well,” I said. “You may stay under the protection of Rome, provided that you are obedient to our laws. But what will you do now?”

  The elder brother said, nervously, “We can shift for ourselves. But our sister is another matter. Does your excellency, perhaps, need a woman to manage his house? She is a good cook and obedient and would give no trouble.”

  It did not seem to me an accurate description of her at all, but I understood what he was trying to say. “Thank you, no,” I said. “I have a wife and my household is full. I have no need of any servants.” The woman stiffened at that and put up her chin. There was, for a moment, an expression in her eyes that I could not read, and then she dropped her head and stared sullenly at the floor.

  They stayed in the civilian settlement for a while, and then the woman was taken up by my second-in-command and he asked my permission to marry her. The brothers were agreeable and the woman too, and I said yes without hesitation. She was a woman to turn men’s heads and already there had been fights in the settlement over her. Married she would cause less trouble.

  I could not have been more wrong.

  Quintus became a regular visitor to our fort, and did much to cheer up Aelia during the cold months of rain and snow. Spring came early that year, and then summer burst upon us in a blaze of heat. Aelia was very pale at this time and a little unhappy, I think, but I put it down to her remorse at having lost one of the ear-drops I had given her, though I had told her a dozen times that it did not matter. To give her a change I arranged for her to spend some months in Eburacum and, after much argument, she agreed to go. At the last moment she changed her mind and wanted to stay, but Quintus, who had ridden over to try our new wine and who was lounging on the steps, agreed with me, so she gave in to our persuasion. I missed her badly but I was soon to be glad that she had gone.

  The trouble began in July on the night of the full moon. I was in the office, working late, when my adjutant, Vitalius, came in. There were beads of sweat on his face and he had the look of a man who has talked with demons.

  “What is it?” I said. “What’s the matter, man?”

  “We have been betrayed, sir.”

  “Sit down. You look ill. Tell me about it.”

  He licked his lips. “It’s that woman, the wife of Gaius. She knew I was married. She’s been on at me for weeks, pestering me, asking me—she wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  “And so?”

  “I love my wife.” He stared at me defiantly. “I do. But—but she is very beautiful and—and in the end I forgot myself.” He buried his face in his hands and his shoulders shook at the memory of the betrayal.

  “Is that all? Does Gaius know?”

  “No. At least I don’t think so. Afterwards, she threatened to tell him unless I helped her. She said I could have her always if I helped her.”

  “What help does she want?”

  “There is a great conspiracy. The tribes of the far north have promised to join with the men between the walls. She is a spy. She came with her brothers for that purpose. Their story was false.”

  “What else?”

  “They have been bribing and suborning the auxiliaries. All the Brigantes among the garrison will mutiny when the time comes. The province is to be freed for ever from Roman rule.”

  “Boudicca had the same idea.”

  “It is true. I swear it. The tribes have taken the blood oath. And they have allied themselves with the Scotti.”

  “How many men in this garrison will stand by us?”

  “Less than half.”

  Now I, too, was afraid.

  “When is the rising timed for?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “We have twenty-four hours then in which to save something from the wreckage.” I spoke lightly and he said, incredulously, “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “I believe you—though not about the Scotti. When have the Picts and they ever been friends?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Never mind. On whose side is Gaius? Don’t tell me. I can make a good guess.”

  “What shall we do?”

  “Get your sword,” I said, as I buckled on my own. “I am going down to the house of Gaius and you are coming with me.”

  We went out silently, through the gate and across the hard packed turf to the settlement. Most of the huts were in darkness, but through the open door of a wineshop I glimpsed a girl with lank hair,
dejectedly sweeping up oyster shells that lay scattered on the floor. Moving quietly, we went round the back of a timber framed house, along the colonnade and up the stairs to a room where a torch burned in a bracket high on the wall. They were both there, sitting together on a couch, and they had the look of people who have just been making love. Gaius rose as I entered and his face went white as he saw my sword. But the woman beside him did not move.

  “Gaius,” I said. “I have proof that your wife is a spy and a traitor. She is also a liar and an adulteress. Now prove to me that you are not a traitor also.”

  He stared at me, licking his dry lips. “How?” he said at length, and the one word told me that Vitalius had not lied.

  I held out a knife to him. “Kill her,” I said. “Now. With this.” He took the knife, stared at it blindly for a moment and then let it drop to the floor. “I cannot,” he said. “If you kill me for it, I cannot.”

  He looked at me, anger and despair on his face. “I should have had your command,” he said. “It was my right. I had looked forward to it all those years. And you took it from me—a man half my age.”

  “Kill her,” I said. “And I will forget the rest.”

  He shook his head. In his own way he was a brave man.

  “I love her too much,” he said.

  I nodded to Vitalius and he moved and struck awkwardly so that the point went in against the breast bone, slid off with a terrible grating noise, and then broke. Gaius screamed and went down onto his knees like a praying christian, the blade clutched in his hands. Vitalius pushed the sword home then and Gaius fell sideways to the floor.

  I turned to the woman. “He sent you,” I said. “I might have known it. He knew I cared for women like you; women with dark hair and a white skin. And if I had not already been married it would have been me and not Gaius you would have worked upon. Is it not so?”

  She stood up and smiled. “Yes,” she said. “He came to my people, and I took him into my house, and we planned it together. He is a warrior among warriors. He has the power. It is a great gift to make others see what you wish them to see, to make others believe what you wish them to believe. I know, I can feel his power flowing into me when I touch his hands. My people know that he is descended from the Old Ones. That is why they believe him to be a god.”

  I stared at her. I did not understand.

  “He is only a man,” I said.

  “You are wrong. He is not like other men. Who but he could have done what he has done? He has united the three peoples and together they will destroy this Rome of yours. He will become the God-King and I, who have served him with my body, shall be his Queen.”

  “What three peoples?”

  “The Picts and the Scotti and the Saxons are at one in this thing. Though you know all now, it is still too late to stop him. You of the Roman kind are all doomed. The Eagles will die. He has said so.”

  I hesitated. She was so very beautiful. She had spirit and courage and she had great intelligence. I hesitated again and she saw me hesitate, and laughed. “I shall wait for him,” she said. “If need be I shall wait for him until he joins me. We are of the same web, he and I.”

  I remembered Julian. He had loved this woman and had hated Rome. I did not hate Rome. I was a soldier and I loved Rome—that city I had never seen. So I killed her.

  Though it was against the law we buried them secretly beneath the house and told no-one. I hoped that the mystery of their disappearance would puzzle the disaffected and perhaps make them hesitate. Whether I succeeded or not, I do not know. It made no difference in the end.

  Just before sunrise I issued my orders to those I could trust. Quintus, who had ridden over at my request, was in attendance.

  “They won’t attack the Wall itself,” I said. “The north face is too steep, too rocky. They’ll infiltrate by the Burn Gate and the two flanking mile castles. The Arcani will let them through.”

  Saturninus said, “The settlement is the danger. Its buildings provide cover up the southern slope and all the way to the fort.”

  “Evacuate it at dusk and then burn it.”

  He said, “We are very short of missiles. The mule train is late as usual.”

  “The drivers are probably sleeping it off in a ditch,” said Quintus, drily.

  “Use the stones we quarried to build that new granary. They only need breaking up a little. Quintus, I must leave it to you to warn Eburacum. Say a prayer to Epona that your horsemen get through.”

  Saturninus said, “I have a married sister at Aesica. We must warn the other forts, sir.”

  “Not until dark. We cannot spare the men.”

  He nodded in silence. “And the pay chests, sir?”

  “Oh, block up the strong room, of course. If anything goes wrong the money will still be there for our successors. They won’t want to use their own burial fund on us.”

  Quintus looked at the sky. “It will be a fine day. We shall not have to shiver for long.”

  Later that morning I altered the dispositions of my troops and sent the suspected ones out of camp upon patrols. In the afternoon I began to block up the south portal of the east gate; and all the while the air was thick with a great rasping buzz as the centuries sharpened their swords on the iron rim of the stone tank by the north gate. Then, as night fell, I paraded my few men and we stood to arms along the Wall. I lit the signal fires and they flared up into the night, but no answering flare came from the mile castles to our right and left. Then a glow-worm shone faintly in the west, and I knew that Vindolanda had caught our message; but from the east came no answering signal. The Arcani, faithful in their treachery, waited in silence for their friends.

  “At ease,” I said softly, and the men leaned against the parapet and rubbed their hands gently against the hafts of their spears. We had done all that we could. There was nothing left to do now except wait, and the waiting was not for long.

  They came at dawn, and the scarlet disc of the rising sun was an omen that foretold the deaths of those who stood against them. The savage violence of their first silent rush carried the defences at many points. Mile castle after mile castle opened its gates and they streamed through to burn huts, destroy the young and old, and make slaves of the women who did not die beneath the violence of their lust. Then they moved on to crush the few forts and towers that dared to stand against them. Their ships came in from the sea like hungry wolves, Scotti on the east coast and Saxons on the west. They outflanked the forts who resisted and their men poured ashore like a spring tide and overwhelmed them. The wounded and the dying, the living and the dead; all were flung contemptuouly from the walls. Their bodies choked every ditch and every well, and there was blood and smoke and fire through the whole land.

  We held our fort for two long days of continual fighting, till we were cut off and surrounded by the very men who had once called themselves my soldiers; men whom I had liked and trusted and helped; men whose griefs I had shared and whose happiness had meant the world to me. The fort was a shambles, and somewhere beneath the floor of a gutted hut in the settlement outside lay a woman who had smiled even as I killed her.

  Twice I heard his voice outside the walls, crying hoarsely to his men, though I never saw him—this man who had become a god. He cried for our destruction but I was too exhausted to feel hate, too angry to feel pity. Vitalius was gone and Saturninus wounded. The tribesmen were even now burning brushwood against the oak doors of the fort, the granaries had been set on fire and the north wall had been abandoned to the enemy and our crumpled dead. Suddenly I could stand it no longer. I had no stomach to fight for a lost cause, a general who was dead (they showed us his head upon a pole) and a wall that had been betrayed. With the remnants of my men, Saturninus and I cut our way out through the smoke and set off for Eburacum.

  The road to the south told its own story. It was lined with bodies, little groups of men who had held on, as we had, and then retreated stubbornly, still fighting until they were overwhelmed. At Bravoniacum we found
the supply fort gutted and the remnants of the Ala Petriana, our finest cavalry, among the blackened bodies. It was there that Quintus joined us, riding a tired horse. He was quite alone. At Maglona we made contact with the Second Ala of Astures. They had suffered few casualties and so we marched the rest of the way to Eburacum under their protection.

  There we learned that a Saxon fleet had landed in the southeast; the great sea forts that Quintus knew so well had been silenced; betrayed by treachery from within, overcome by violence from without. And somewhere among the broken catapults, Nectaridus, Count of the Saxon Shore, lay silent in the company of his men. In answer to Fullofaudes’ summons the Second Augusta, at Isca, was already marching across Britannia but, harassed by raids and ambushes, their progress was slow. A grey-faced decurion who had pushed on ahead alone told us bluntly that they would never reach us in time. His worst news he kept to the last. The Attacotti, a confederacy of tribes from Hibernia, had landed at Mona, and they were even now pouring through the mountain passes into the undefended centre of the island. The Twentieth, cut to pieces, had fallen back on Viroconium, and behind them Deva, unguarded save for a handful of veterans, was already a wrecked and smoking ruin.

  Fullofaudes said, “If they destroy us, then they will destroy the Second also. We stand or fall alone. Go back to your legate and tell him to hold Ratae and to keep contact with the Twentieth until he hears my news. If it is good I will send fresh instructions. If it is bad he must make his own.”

  We went out against them the next day, and the enemy so out-numbered us that we could not count the odds. All day we fought and twice I saw a painted man on a white pony whom I knew, but I never had the chance to find out if indeed he had become a god. By nightfall we were beaten, Fullofaudes was dead with all his staff and the barbarians were in the streets of Eburacum. Our officers were dead too, so I took command and withdrew the Sixth down the road to Londinium, while Quintus screened us with the remnants of the cavalry. There we stayed, penned in like sheep behind the walls, and hoped that Rome would remember us.

  All that autumn they ravaged the land. The Second fell back and held fast to Corinium, while the villas were sacked and the harvest rotted in the fields for lack of men to gather it. They took the grain from the barns and all the food that people had stored against the bad days. They took the cattle and the ponies as plunder and drove them north. Houses were stripped of their valuables and they killed all who protested at the theft. The roads were empty of traffic; there was no trade; and the towns, shut in upon themselves, began quietly to starve. And as always it was the women who suffered most. In the spring we had news that the barbarians were splitting up, that the war-bands were getting smaller and that many were beginning to move north again. The Picts began to quarrel with the Scotti and both, in turn, began to quarrel with the Saxons. When I heard that news I began, as out of a long darkness, to see a faint pin-prick of light that was the dawn of hope. They had made him a god but he had failed after all in his great purpose. The barbarian conspiracy was near its end.