The Eagles' Brood cc-3

by Jack Whyte

  "So?" I said, tentatively. "That's a big circumstance."

  "Aye. It is. So be it. Marcus Ambrosianus made the attempt on my life and died for it. He was convicted post mortem of insanity because the circumstances surrounding his actions dictated that he had to be insane. I had done him no wrong. But consider this, if you will. How can I put this?" He plucked at his lower lip, then continued. "I had been in his house for more than three months. He was an old man. He had a beautiful young daughter of perhaps thirteen, fourteen, no more. I had heard my physicians speak of her in wonder. Apparently her hair was so white it appeared to be silver. They told me she was a real beauty, the type : that men fight over. Now, you have to understand that,, although I was badly wounded, I was not out of action in J other respects. My wound was to my mouth and neck. The rest of my body was functioning normally by the end of a month. I wasn't much older then than you are now. You understand me?"

  I nodded. "Did you ever see the girl?"

  "No, but she had been in my room, and I had heard her voice. She came with her servants on a couple of occasions. Anyway, I had been having dreams...recurrent dreams. Always the same, and always very...pleasant. I slept very heavily every night, but one night I dreamed that I awoke to find myself being, well, ridden's the best word to describe it, I suppose, by a woman. I couldn't see her through my', bandages and I couldn't move. She took me to completion and was gone, without a sound. I slept again and when I woke, I remembered and checked myself to see if it had really happened, but there was no sign of anything having occurred. It had been pleasant, extremely so, as I said, "but it was a normal enough dream, and I dismissed it... Several nights later it happened again, and again there was no sign of anything having taken place; in fact, this second time, I wasn't sure if I had had the dream or not. It happened again about a week later, mid in case you are beginning to think I am wasting your time, let me reassure you that I am not. Thereafter, it happened every night for a week and then every second night for another week. On some of these occasions I was barely aware of the dream, on others it was quite vivid. And on one particular night, when my bandages had been removed, there was a moon and I saw my dream mistress."

  "His daughter!"

  "No, and I was quite disappointed, because I had convinced myself she was the dream mistress. But this was a stranger. A true dream-woman. I had never seen her before. I didn't see her clearly, but I saw enough to know that I did not know her. She was merely a woman in a dream."

  "And the dream never changed?"

  "Never. I would struggle awake to find myself sheathed in her. I never remembered going to sleep again."

  "Did you tell anyone?"

  He smiled at me ironically. "What? That I was having erotic dreams?"

  "So? What happened?"

  A brief headshake, then, "Nothing. The dreams stopped, and I forgot them. About a week or so later, my host attacked me."

  I blinked at him, frowning. "You never dreamed that dream again?"

  "Never. From the night of the attack, I started sleeping more lightly, as you might imagine. I heard every sound in that house. My strength started to come back to me more and more quickly and, as I've told you, I was out of there in a matter of weeks."

  "What happened to the daughter?"

  "She left, after the funeral, to live with relatives in Danum. I never saw her again."

  "So what is the point of the story? How did the old man find out you were dreaming of his daughter? Was it witchcraft?"

  He snorted. "Aye, it was, of a kind. He never did find put I dreamed of his daughter. He never knew I dreamed." My father sucked in a great breath through his nostrils. "There is, however, a sequel to the tale. Many months later, shortly before I left Lindum to return to Londinium prior to setting sail for Italia, I saw a woman who resembled my dream- woman so much that it astounded me. We were in a crowded market-place and I saw her over the heads of the crowd between us. I tried to reach her but could not. I then tried to follow her, at least, but I lost her among the throngs of people in the street, so I went back to the market and found the merchant at whose stall she had been buying trinkets. I wrote him a note, asking him who she was." He looked me in the eye. "The fellow couldn't read. And I could not speak. I had to find someone who could do both. It turned out she was the young widow of Marcus Ambrosianus. She was pregnant."

  I felt the small hairs on my arms and at the back of my neck prickle in horror and it must have showed on my face, for he barked his short, abrupt laugh. "That shakes you, eh? It shook me, too, at the time. That woman was black with the guilt of murder and I was the instrument she used, and yet the circumstances did not include her at all. The old man may have been mad with grief and wounded pride, but he was no more insane than I was.

  "I told you they fed me with tubes. I had been drugged, through my food, every night and used like a stud bull, but Ambrosianus could not have known that... Somehow, he found out that his wife was amusing herself with me, and under the circumstances he had no other option than to believe that I was her willing partner." He paused for a moment, looking at me keenly before continuing in a clipped, emphatic voice. "You must understand I am not denying that I might have been perfectly willing, had I had any say in the matter, but the old man interpreted the evidence of his own senses and concluded that I was putting horns on him in his own house while enjoying his hospitality.

  Had I been him, I might have handled it a little differently, but the whoreson in that bed would have been dead!" He leaned over the table and took the knife from my hand. "How would you have interpreted the 'hard facts' had you been him, Caius?"

  I was chagrined, my voice reduced to a whisper by the enormity of what I was only now realizing and appreciating. "I see what you mean, Father."

  "I hope so. And don't lose sight of the fact that I said I might have been her willing partner, given the chance. The point is I didn't have the chance—or the choice. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, in the final analysis I was not guilty of the sin for which he condemned me."

  I dropped my face into my hands and combed my fingers across my scalp, heaving a deep breath. "So where does that leave us with Uther?"

  The voice that answered me was gentler than I had ever known it. "Waiting to see how the girl reacts when she is well again and you confront him with her."

  "And if he is guilty?"

  "Then he pays the price."

  "And?"

  My father tossed back the remnants of his mead and stood up, reaching for his helmet, and indicating that our conversation was over. "And nothing, Caius. You know as well as I do, the price for violation of a woman in my command is death."

  XI

  To this day, I find it hard to believe that the confrontation between Uther and Cassandra never did occur. I have no explanation that a rational judge could accept as perfectly plausible. It simply worked out that, for one reason after another, the two were never brought face to face in my presence.

  The first and most important of these reasons was that I was provided with genuine grounds for more than reasonable doubt of Uther's guilt by no less a person than my Aunt Luceiia, who had no suspicion of any suggestion of Uther's involvement in the matter.

  I was summoned to her quarters on the afternoon of the day my father told me his story, and I went to meet her feeling guilty over my recent neglect of her. Aunt Luceiia was a very old woman by this time and she seldom ventured beyond "the family rooms," as she called her living quarters. From the age of six or seven, through the descriptions in my uncle's books, I had known another Luceiia. Therein I had met her when she was twenty-five, before she became wife to Publius Varrus, and thus she had remained in his writings over the years, unmarred and unimpeded by their passage. In reality, however, more than forty-five years had passed since then, and although the Luceiia Britannicus who lived today showed more than a slight resemblance to the raven-haired beauty of those writings, her hair was now snowy white and her face, still beautiful with its high
- cheeked, sculpted lines, was deeply etched by the passage of time. I had not seen her since the day we returned front patrol, when I had stopped by to pay her the obligatory call to mark our safe return. I found her this afternoon, sitting in the light from the glazed window that was her greatest pride, a far more splendid aperture than the one in my hut, being made from four large and carefully fitted sheets of glass so fine that it was almost fully transparent.

  As soon as she heard my footsteps, she turned to me and waited with upraised arms for her kiss. I embraced her and she squeezed me fondly. "Oh, you feel good when you're not all wrapped up in armour! I forbid you ever again to wear armour when you visit me, although I suppose that means I'll never see you at all, now that I've given you an excuse."

  I took the rebuke as it was intended, gently. "I'm sorry, Auntie. I know I've been neglecting you, but I've been really busy. There's much happening."

  She released me from her embrace but continued to hold my upper arms, leaning back slightly to gaze up into my face. "God, how those words sound familiar! That was Publius Varrus's favourite song! But at least he did come home to me, from time to time. He was not like you, staying away and breaking an old woman's heart while he tried to break a young one's hymen."

  "Aunt Luceiia!"

  "Don't Aunt Luceiia me! I've heard all about you, young man. And you needn't pretend to be shocked, either. One of the few privileges of being an old woman is that you don't have to worry about what people think of you, and another is that you can still remember what it's like to be young. Would you rather have me pretend that I don't recall what life is like? Or that I have never known passion or a man's love? That would dishonour me, as it would Publius Varrus. Here!" She grasped me by the wrist and pulled me down towards her. "Kneel down, boy, I have things to say to you."

  Smiling, I knelt in front of her and she leaned close to me, directing her words straight into my eyes. "I—am— alive! Do you believe that, Nephew?"

  I laughed aloud. "Of course I believe it, Auntie. What's the matter? Don't you?"

  "Oh yes, Nephew, I believe it, but there are too many people around here who do not seem to. They all tippy-toe around me as if I'm not here, or as if I'm. asleep, or dangerously ill, and they are afraid of disturbing me. Even worse, some of them seem to think I am a piece of furniture that remains in the spot where it is placed and is not supposed to communicate anything other than its presence—and that mutely! Hmm!" She nodded her head and stamped her foot emphatically. "But I know what goes on around here," she continued. "More than most people think I know. For one thing, I know about that poor girl in the stables."

  My heart almost stopped at the unexpectedness of this. I looked at her for several heartbeats, trying to mask my dismay while she grinned at me with a look of pure triumph. How had she found out? And how much? I forced my voice to remain calm, as I asked, "What do you know, Auntie? What about her?"

  "I know who did it."

  I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. 'Then you know more than anyone else. Who was it?"

  "Remus."

  "Who?" The name meant absolutely nothing to me.

  "Remus. The priest."

  "What priest, Auntie?"

  "The strange one. You know! Remus, the one with the cold eyes. He is an evil man, that one."

  I took a deep breath. "Aunt Luceiia, I have no idea of who, or what, you're talking about."

  "Of course you do, Caius, or you've simply forgotten him. I am talking about the priest, the Christian priest they call Remus. At least, he calls himself a priest. You met him here, the day you got back from your last patrol."

  I remembered then that there had been a priest in the room when I had last called, but I had paid no more attention to him than I would to any other cleric, which is to say I had ignored him. Aunt Luceiia was always being visited by ecclesiastics on the search for alms and charity, and I had long since stopped paying attention to any of them. They were simply a fact of Aunt Luceiia's life. She was a very religious woman. I swallowed again, hard.

  "You called him evil. Why would you say that about him?"

  "Because he hates women."

  I began to relax, feeling a superior smile invade my face. "Come now, Auntie! How does that make him evil? I can think of a dozen men I know who have no liking for women." Ludo's face had popped into my mind immediately.

  "Caius, listen to me," she snapped, utterly impatient with my male obtuseness. "Listen to what I am saying. I know men, and what they like and dislike. That one hates women. He cannot conceal his hatred. He tries to dissemble it, but it comes out. I am not suggesting the man is effeminate; I am saying he is depraved."

  I was frowning by this time. "Auntie, I remember seeing him, but I don't remember anything about him. Who is he? Where will I find him? And why would you think he could do such a thing? I mean, disliking women, even hating them, is one thing, but beating a girl almost to death for no reason other than that is another matter altogether. Particularly if the man is a Christian priest."

  Aunt Luceiia sat erect and began to pleat a fold in her gown, looking down at her hands almost primly. "You know Bishop Patricius?" I nodded, and she continued. "He is a pleasant man, and well-meaning, but he is not half the man his predecessor, Bishop Alaric, was." Alaric had been a dear and lifelong friend to my great-aunt and all her family and I knew him well from their writings. "I saw that the first time I met him, but I could not condemn him for that. God makes very few Alarics. Patricius will be an able enough bishop, but not an inspiring one. He lacks the human insight Alaric had.

  "Anyway, Patricius came here to visit me, and he brought this Remus with him. I did not like him then. He disturbed me, but I said nothing to Patricius. Remus returned that same day you and Uther did, and I sent him away. I am not normally discourteous or inhospitable, but he offended me deeply and so I banished him. I told him to leave my house and this fort immediately and never to return. I threatened to call the guards and have him escorted from the main gates, but he left before I could do so."

  I was impressed. The man must have been a boor indeed to have such an effect on my aunt, who was the most gentle- natured person I had ever known.

  "What did he do to offend you so deeply?"

  "He was himself, that is all. He refused to accept a drink from the hands of one of my serving girls. He dashed the cup from her hands and told her to stay away from him, that she was unclean! Unclean, Caius! In my house!"

  "I see. So what did you do then?"

  "I threw him out. Told him to leave immediately, not just my house, but Camulod itself. He was unwelcome here and would remain so."

  "And you threatened to call the guards?"

  "Yes."

  "But you didn't?"

  "No." She shook her head. "I told you, there was no need to. He left."

  "And? That was all of it?"

  "No, not quite. That was all that happened, but there was something else that I dismissed at the time because it was unimportant: He walked with a slight limp, and instead of a staff, he leaned on a curious stick, strongly made and shaped to fit his hand."

  "Sweet Jesus! Why have you waited so long to tell anyone this?"

  She threw up her head, in mute protest at my outraged tone, her face betraying a strange mixture of resentment and guilt, and the asperity of her immediate response showed me how deeply conscious she was of having said nothing about this earlier. "Because I did not know until this afternoon that the girl had been beaten with a stick. When I heard that, I sent for you at once. It was late in the afternoon when this man Remus left here. Almost dusk. I think now he might have lingered in the fort and spent the night in the stables."

  "Might have!" I was on my feet. "Auntie, you did well to make the association with the stick and tell me this. How well, you may never know. But I wish you had screamed for your guards at the time this happened. Excuse me now, I have to find this man." I kissed her on the cheek and almost ran out of there.

  A search of the entire f
ort, backed up with intensive questioning, produced only five people who had seen this priest, and all of them had seen him on the way to Aunt Luceiia's quarters. No one had seen him leave again, and no one had seen any sign of him after that. I sent out patrols to scour our entire territory in search of him, but it was hopeless. He had had three days and three nights to remove himself and we found no trace of him, nor was anyone resembling him ever seen again in our lands. Proof of his existence had, however, established reasonable doubts of Uther's guilt in my mind, and I was glad of them. There was another suspect, the only one, as far as Aunt Luceiia was concerned, and I did not undervalue her judgment.

  Notwithstanding all of that, a secondary reason for my failure to confront Uther with Cassandra was the fact that life in Camulod quickly returned to normal, which meant that a messenger arrived, begging our help against a raiding party of Saxons to the south-east. My father had just returned from a patrol sweep, and so I was sent out with a flying column to do what I could against the raiders. They were long departed, safely back at sea by the time we arrived, however, so after remaining for a day with the villagers, doing what we could to help put their lives together again, we headed back to the fort.

  Uther had returned during my absence, offering no explanation of where he had been, but accompanied by twenty of his father's bowmen, and had already left again, this time on a routine sweep of our territories in the southwest. I was glad to have missed him by several hours, for even with my reasonable doubts established, I still did not relish the thought of meeting him face to face with my remaining concerns unresolved.

  "How was he?" I asked my father.

  'The same as ever, just Uther. No guilt in evidence, if that's what you mean."