by Manda Scott
They finished on more ale and a story from Heffydd, the dreamer, involving a young hero shipwrecked on a foreign shore, who returned home with new companions. The mariners liked it, particularly the vivid, overblown description of the new ship granted by the overjoyed father. Caradoc sat it out impassively. At the end, he stood up and left the room while the others were still complimenting the singer. Presently, the seamen were invited to leave the circle and join in small clusters to discuss trading with certain of the merchants. Segoventos bloomed visibly and his voice swelled to fill the roof space. Dice and a handful of gaming boards were brought out for those not immediately involved in the negotiations. Breaca turned to find Cunobelin at her elbow.
“They will be well here for a while. We will visit the ship later when the torpor of the meal has passed. Meanwhile, the gods have held the good weather for us. There is wind, but no rain as yet. Perhaps you would care to visit our trading stalls and workshops? Our people would be grateful to meet you in person.”
“We would be honoured. Thank you.” She said it automatically; the formalities of conversation had come more easily as the meal progressed. Glancing round, she counted off those who could be relied upon to accompany her. Macha and Eburovic were nearby, enmeshed in an animated, if vacuous, conversation that allowed them to listen to others. Luain mac Calma was arguing with Heffydd; from the far side of the circle she could see the tension in him. The Trinovantian dreamer was subdued but not overtly angry. Airmid sat with Bán playing knucklebones, neither of them paying attention to the game. Further away, ’Tagos and Dubornos had been seduced by the gaming boards. Already, ’Tagos had laid his dagger on the ground at his side as a wager. She considered them, thinking. The Sun Hound grinned. “Let them stay. They will lose nothing of worth but their pride. In any case, you are safe here, or if not, two untried warriors will make no difference.”
It was what she had thought, repeated exactly as if she had spoken it aloud. The skin prickled down her spine and the mellow aftertaste of the meal soured in her mouth. She wished she had drunk less ale. The Sun Hound raised a brow. “The young people are busy. I think we need make no special exit. Caradoc is outside and the grooms hold your horses, waiting. Unless you would prefer to walk?”
“The Eceni very rarely prefer to walk,” she said, tightly. Airmid would have recognized the edge to her smile. “If they are ready, we should not keep them waiting.”
They made a small party: her family, including Airmid and Luain, accompanied by Cunobelin and his youngest son. Caradoc had relaxed since the end of the dreamer’s tale. His voice had mellowed and the savage glitter was gone from his smile. Sometime in the space between the meeting at the gate and the start of the meal, he had passed the hound whelp into someone’s care and regained his armband. She took care to comment on neither. He rode easily along the path, pointing out the things that were new or different: the layer of ashes strewn across the path to soak up the mud and make it easier underfoot; the line of ancient oaks left behind from the days when the dreamers held sway; the river in the far distance and the flat-bottomed barges that ferried merchants and their wares down to the trading ships moored in the deeper docks to the south. She studied him as they rode, seeking the small signs of danger she had come to know. He had seemed relaxed like this before the river race, and on the morning of the elder council, and neither time had it reflected the reality underneath. He glanced sideways at her, amused, and broke off from his description of barges. “Have you ever played the Warrior’s Dance?”
He asked it in Gaulish, for no obvious reason; everyone around them spoke it well and if they were overheard it would not give them privacy. Still, she answered as best she could in the same language. “The board game your brothers were playing when we left the great-house? No. Gunovic plays it but I have never tried. I am told it takes great subtlety.”
“It can, although not everyone plays it that way. Togodubnos, for instance, wields his pieces as weapons, marching them down the board like horses running down defeated warriors. Amminios can spend all day playing as if he is moving the pieces for the feel of them in his hand or the beauty of the patterns they make on the squares. One could almost forget he was playing to win.”
“But he does win?”
“Of course. Every time. He is unstoppable—like a butcher wreaking slaughter in the killing pens. It is painful to watch. If he loses, it is only to lull his opponent into a greater gamble.”
“Does he win even against you?”
They rounded a corner and met the wind face on. Caradoc narrowed his eyes against the sting of it, looking out past the workshops to the ruffled ribbon of the northern river. “The Ordovices have a saying: ‘A man gains no honour who plays at killing.’” He said it without rancour. “I have not played with my brother since I won my first spear. Before that, yes, he won against me from the day I was old enough to play until the day I was old enough to put an end to the games.” He smiled at her, brightly. “Competition is heavily encouraged in the court of the Sun Hound,” he said. “Losing is not. My brother does not take well to it.” He had changed his language, sliding easily into her own tongue and carrying it north to the broadest vowels and most lyrical form—the one least likely to be understood by his father. “The one to observe is my sire. He is the master but he does not play with a board. Watch him. It is an instruction in the dance of life.”
“I will.”
They rode on in silence. The wind blustered in from the side, clearing the thick dregs of ale from her head. The path to the trading stands was straight and lined on both sides by workshops and trading stores. Breaca counted four separate forges, marked by the heat of their fires and the paler colour of their smoke. In between them stood leatherworkers, potters, weavers and brewers, traders of salt and, yes, merchants offering the spices and sauces and olives and wine of which she had been warned. None of them was pressed on her and she was spared the discourtesy of refusing.
They stopped at the forges as they passed. At the first, the smith offered her a dagger with a stone in Eceni blue inlaid on the cross-piece and a dolphin leaping on the pommel, and she accepted. The second remarked on the serpent-spear brooch at her shoulder, which she had made. She would not give it away, but offered to come back and cast one similar in his workshop. The third made much of her torc and, on finding that Eburovic had fashioned it, insisted her father remain at his forge to discuss methods for drawing gold and perhaps to engage in some practical experiment. Cunobelin, who was required to approve the visit, gave his consent without demur. Shortly afterwards, Macha was similarly seduced by a weaver who remarked on the fine stuff of her tunic and then Airmid by a woman bearing a small child whose urgent need for vervain was all too apparent. Luain mac Calma went with her, to help in the healing.
Soon they were four: Breaca and Caradoc, Bán and Cunobelin. None or all of it could have been orchestrated, and there was nothing to do but nod and smile and listen as the Sun Hound demonstrated the overwhelming wealth of his kingdom.
The fourth forge was set back from the path on the other side from the rest. A slight, blond boy with astonishing blue eyes stood ready to take the reins of their horses. Cunobelin dismounted and threw him the reins as if he were no more than a hitching-post. To Breaca, he said, “This is the mint. We strike our coins here. If you would care to join me inside? I believe you would find it interesting.”
The one to observe is my sire. He is the master but he does not play with a board.
“Thank you. I would be honoured.” She slid down from the grey and passed the reins with a nod of thanks to the horse-boy. The mare balked at the strange hand on her bridle and had to be calmed. Cunobelin waited beside her, his hand on her arm. His features were clear and free of guile and she could see how he had won an entire kingdom by charm alone. They were at the door when he turned back to his son.
“Caratacos? You, too, would find it of interest.”
Caradoc shook his head, smiling. With perfect courtesy,
he said, “I doubt that, Father. I have never been one for the use of coins. They lose their value too easily.”
“Nevertheless, Heffydd assures me these are different.”
“Heffydd? A man who knows me well.” His brows arched to his hairline. “Nevertheless, in this he is wrong.”
“I think not. And it would upset him to hear that you think so.”
“Indeed?”
Breaca had the sense of watching hounds fight for pack precedence, or deer clash horns in the rut, except that, here, the circling and snarling and gouging of turf was done with minor inflections in tone and the dip or rise of a brow. The Sun Hound, it seemed, had won this particular round although she could not have said why. After the briefest of pauses, Caradoc swung his leg forward over the dun colt’s neck and dropped lightly to the ground. Bán moved in to take the colt before the horse-boy could grab the reins.
The Sun Hound ducked under the lintel and led the way into the forge. The interior was dark after the afternoon sun. Breaca let her eyes rest on the warm edges of the fire until she could see and then squinted past it to the corners. A smith stood near the back wall, a featureless shape in the gloom, invisible but for the scorched, fire-puckered frame of his apron. The fire itself was white-hot in the centre; the man had been working his bellows and had only recently stopped. A mould stood ready but she could see no crucible of molten metal. The smith stepped forward.
“Now, my lord?”
“If you please.”
Grains of gold, ready weighed, were already seated in the mould. She had never seen the process of casting coins, nor believed it useful to learn; true traders knew the value of their goods without the need for gold as intermediary. For the sake of form, and because it was the reason she had been invited, she made a show of studying the tongs and the way the smith angled the bellows to draw the heat of the fire across the tip of the mould. In doing so, she used the time to watch Caradoc and his father and to feel the pressures growing between them. She had not been disarmed and the smith did not have the look of a fighting man. If it came to it, they were two against one, three if she counted Bán, and their horses would fight with them. The smith drew his mould from the fire. She eased a step backwards, closer to the door.
“It is done. Now we must stamp the two faces of each.”
The mould was cooling fast. At a tap, nine discs of shining metal fell out to scorch the workbench. The smith lined them up on his block and moved across swiftly, placing a stamp on each and tamping down with his hammer. He changed stamps for each side, creating different faces. The metal glowed, hotly. Wood smoke added to the drifting threads of burned metal so that she felt more at home than she had in days. It was not a safe sensation. Breaca focused on the fire and was glad of the hiss and fizzle of steam as the smith doused his work.
“They are complete, my lord.” The smith stood back, moulding to the shadows. Nine parts of the sun flared on his workbench.
They were coins, nothing more. Breaca had seen a few; Dubornos had an armband with one set in the face of it. The horse worked on its surface was childlike and she had not paid it great attention. These, however, were more weapons than coins. Cunobelin and his son leaned over to look, each affecting more interest in the gold than in the other.
The smith had expected more than silence. “It may be difficult to see them clearly,” he said. “Here, let me set the torches.” Light flared in the darkness. The smith was a thinner man than she had realized and more nervous. The acid bite of his sweat sharpened the air.
“Am I right in thinking they are not all the same?” Caradoc made it such a question as a man might ask his friends on seeing a strange flower bloom at dusk—pointless, but polite.
The question was not for the smith but the man was too nervous to notice. “If my lord please, there are three different designs, as commanded by my lord your father.”
Caradoc said “Three?” rather sharply, and the smith knew he had overstepped the mark. Cunobelin sighed.
“Thank you, craftsman. You may go.”
The smith left, hurriedly. He did not look like a man whose worst hurdle was behind him. He was not, however, Breaca’s greatest concern. Caradoc was leaning back on the forging block by the workbench, his legs crossed at the ankles and his thumbs hooked in his belt. “Why three?” he asked. “I thought all lands were one land and all coins one coin.”
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’s 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 before; 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’s 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 faceup and both Breaca and Cunobelin could see the ship that was Amminios’s 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 marketplace 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 remain
ing 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.”