by Manda Scott
It was the pain in his eyes that warned her. He was more than strained; almost, he looked as he had done at the paddock gates back in the Eceni lands, when she had refused to take from him her brooch. She searched his face for a reason and failed to find it. Confused, she said, “Have I changed so much? I am Warrior, but it was luck made me so. You could have gone for the horn, or Gwyddhien—even Braint had it in her to think and run—and I would be in the honour guard now, swearing my life for theirs. Or yours, if you had been prepared to give up the Ordovices for Mona.”
He had not been; of all those who had picked a black pebble and survived the tests, he was the only one not to have joined her guard. She had not been sorry; she could see the shape of a battlefield in her mind’s eye, with Mona on the right flank and the spears of the Ordovices making a solid wall on the left. The only questions were the names and numbers of the enemy and the timing of the battle but that was the future and the present was Caradoc, who was unsettled and unhappy and was staring at her now in a way that mixed disbelief with a dangerous, unguarded hilarity, as if he might begin to laugh and never stop.
“What is it?” she asked.
The clear, grey gaze raked her full length. “Do you really not know what you did?”
“I cast aside two years of Mona’s training and allowed myself to get so angry that it overwhelmed my reason. If Maroc knew how shallow grew the roots of his teaching, he would be horrified. It was nothing special. If Gunovic tells me one more time how proud my father would be, I will throw him into the straits.”
Caradoc raised a brow. His self-control was returning. Both were glad of it. “Would he not be proud?” he asked.
She grimaced. “The dead have the advantage of the living; they can see the truth of things. Eburovic would be more concerned, I think, that I did not give way to arrogance.”
“Which, being aware of it, you won’t.” He lifted one foot up on the rock and rested an elbow on his knee, thinking. Looking up, he said, “When you argued with Gwyddhien after Ardacos was wounded and ran down from the hill, why do you think I followed you?”
“You were oath-sworn. You had no choice.”
“No. I did it because it was so very clearly the right thing to do. I would not have gone against Gwyddhien and Venutios but when you did, the least I could do was follow. The same when you faced the dreamers’ fog and made the decision to fight; it may have been nothing special to you but none of the rest of us could do it. I have never in my life felt as helpless as I did then. Even on the deck of the Greylag as she broke apart and sank, I knew that if I could jump clear and swim, I had a chance. The power of the gods was everywhere and I did not believe I would die. Last night, the gods were nowhere and I was paralysed. I could hold the stand around Ardacos, I could lead the left flank of the advance, but I could not have faced the fog and made the decision to fight, and I did not run back for the horn.”
“But I am nothing like Venutios. I don’t carry the peace of the Warrior as he did.” The fear of it had gnawed at her soul since the morning. She had hidden it from Gunovic’s teary joy, from Maroc’s knowing smile, even from Airmid. She could not hide it now, before one who had been there, who must be made to understand.
He was gentle with her, as a man with a child on its first horse. “Breaca, you don’t have to carry the peace. What you carry is quite different. If you listen to the singers with the right ear, you’ll find that each of those chosen has brought a different quality to their time as Warrior. Venutios was the peace. It was a part of him; he spread it without effort, simply by being. You couldn’t do that even if you tried.”
“But then what will I carry with me? Anger? Is that what Mona wants? What she needs? Do you really think so? It’s what I felt when the dreamers’ fog was closing on us.”
“Was it? I don’t think so. It may have been at the start but it is not what we saw. What did you feel when you blew the horn to call the wedge? Don’t tell me anger. I won’t believe it.”
She might have done; it was easy, if untrue. She thought for a while, letting the notes of the horn blast afresh through her mind, and the pure, sweet moment after. In time, she said, “I felt as I did just before I broke Venutios’s blade—as any of us does when we cast a spear and it flies true and there’s that moment just before it hits the target when we know, with absolute certainty, that it will pierce the centre. It’s the battle joy that comes before the killing starts and the screams of the wounded. It burns through, like wildfire, and nothing can stop it.”
“That’s it.” He was intent, in a way she had seen him only rarely before. “You carry the wildfire, the battle joy; you blaze with it. When you stood up in the dreamers’ fog, it was as if someone had lit a pitch-torch and thrust it in our eyes. When you led the wedge, you could have been poured from the forge of the sun, you burned so brightly. Gwyddhien was not the only one who would have died for you then, but we didn’t follow you believing we were going to die—we shared the battle joy, the moment of certainty. Ask anyone in the wedge—we knew, with absolute conviction, that we could hit the old honour guard and live.”
“Nobody lives in the front rows of a wedge.”
“But we believed we could, and that was enough to make us try.” He was not saying it out of pity, or the need to curry favour. There was no irony in his voice, taking away from the meaning. He offered his honesty as a gift and his eyes, holding hers, held an integrity that told her he believed it, if nothing else. He was leaning forward, close enough to touch. The wind and the evening sun were both at her back. Her hair blew across his, copper thread laid across corn, and the sun welded them together. The decision, then, was simple. She reached up and took his hand. “You have a brooch that was given once as a gift,” she said. “Perhaps it is time—”
She stopped. The fire had died in his eyes. The strain she had seen before returned, magnified. Fortuitously, or perhaps not, the man on the jetty made the horses move so that the harness jangled in deliberate and unsubtle reminder of the need for haste.
Caradoc was not one to take the easy path, even when offered. Ignoring the interruption, he said, “I can’t, not now. I’m sorry, truly. If I had known there was a chance you would…”
Each time she thought she knew him, there was more. This she should have expected. She said, “You have someone else? Someone amongst the Ordovices?”
“Yes.”
His hand was still in hers, cold suddenly and too white. She squeezed it, kindly, and made herself smile. “She is fortunate. I wish you well of her, and she of you. You and I are still oath-sworn, are we not?”
“Yes.”
“Then that will be enough. I have learned as much from Airmid; lovers may come and go but the oath that binds a warrior to her dreamer—or to another warrior—lasts beyond all of these. Come on.” Standing, she freed her hand from his and turned him by the shoulder. “The ferrymen are waiting and it doesn’t do to keep them long. Go now. We will meet at your father’s funeral and see what can be done to cull the poison that is Amminios. That is the thing that matters most.”
Saying it, she could believe it was true.
CHAPTER 20
The death platform stood at the top of a small rise to the north of the dun. A pack of red brindle hunting hounds with harsh coats and wary eyes lay guard about the base. Three men with the mark of the Sun Hound painted on their forearms and the black spear of mourning on their brows laid green boughs and grass over a fire pit the length of a man’s body. Dense, fragrant smoke rose and billowed beneath the platform, seeping through to the linen-wrapped body above so that, even downwind, it was hard to detect the taint of decay.
Breaca pushed her mare close to the nearest upright. A blanket of pre-dawn mist hovered at knee height, hiding the ground. Smoke obscured the sky. Between them, they trapped her in an otherworld of whiteness and death. Echoes of the dreamers’ fog sent cold fingers down her spine that took time to shake off.
She was not the first to visit the dead. Others
had been before her, bearing gifts for the journey: a shield in leaf-thin bronze with flying herons on the boss swung against one of the pillars; a rope of red coral hung in loops from the woven hazel of the platform; a silver horn clashed against it, the sound muffled by the mist. Everywhere there was gold: rings and coins and armbands hung suspended in the smoke. The wind and the rising heat of the fire played games, spinning them slowly. The smoke dulled them all to baser metal.
Her own gift was a torc of woven gold bought from Gunovic for just this occasion. The metal was not worked with the skill of her father, but it was as close as any living smith might achieve: intricate without being fussy and well worth the price. She reached up from the saddle and tied it under one corner of the platform where the smoke would not blacken it too soon. The oldest of the fire-tenders nodded approval.
A rider emerged from the mist behind her. She backed the mare away from the platform and waited. Even had she not been expecting him, his size would have given him away. He was broader in the shoulder than she remembered and his hair was streaked with grey but otherwise he had not changed.
“Togodubnos, greetings. Your father is well honoured in death.”
“So far.” He smiled a brief greeting. The ritual welcome of the delegation had been performed in full when they arrived at dusk the night before. There was no need of formality between them; as Warrior she was his equal and even without that their past bound them close enough to speak openly in private. He said, “We will take him to the grave mound tomorrow. Luain mac Calma designed the place where he will lie. If the sun shines, Cunobelin will go to his resting place encased in living gold.”
“And even if it does not, the majesty of his wake-march will still be greater than anything the world has known.” She had seen the preparations; there had never in all the histories of all the tribes been a funeral on the scale of this one. If nothing else, the number of mourners and the variety of tribes from which they came made it unique.
He said, “I hope so. That is the intention. Whatever mistakes he made in life, my father brought security and unimagined wealth to more people than any one man has done before. We owe him a last remembrance even if we cannot keep his peace.”
Hail ran to her, breasting the sea of mist. He had killed and eaten; the marks of it showed stickily dark at his throat. He carried the back quarters of a hare, sacred to Nemain, and delivered it into her hand. If it was an omen, it was a good one. Togodubnos watched as she slid the bloody meat into the pouch on her saddle.
“Togodubnos, I am unarmed.” She spread her arms, lifting the edges of her cloak to show the unadorned belt underneath. “I left my weapons with the gate guards when we arrived last night. Even had I not, this is your father’s time. While his body lies aboveground and for the three days of his funeral, I will honour his peace.”
He nodded. “Of course. I expected no less.”
“Then what is it that disturbs you?”
He eyed her, carefully. “I have heard,” he said, “that you made a vow before the standing stones of Mona that you would challenge Amminios and kill him or die in the attempt. Is it true?”
“It is. And I have heard that Caradoc has sworn the same. If you listen in the dun, you will hear warriors of a dozen tribes taking odds as to which of us will kill the other for the privilege of fighting Amminios alone.”
He smiled, faintly. “That would be a challenge worth watching.”
“But it will not happen. Caradoc and I are oath-sworn and cannot fight. Even if that were not the case, the pledge to kill Amminios was taken in youth and in anger when I first arrived on Mona. I have grown since, and in any case I am no longer Breaca of the Eceni, free to act as I alone see fit. I am the Warrior and Mona is my first regard. If the opportunity presents itself, I will kill Amminios, but I will not seek him out. Nor, I think, will Caradoc; he, too, sees the bigger picture.”
“That would be good.” Togodubnos walked his horse away from the platform. Breaca pushed the grey mare to follow. At a safe distance from the listening ears, he said, “Amminios is here. He, too, has given up his weapons, although he uses gold to speak where a blade may not. Without question, he will ride south as soon as he may. If that were to happen and we were to pursue him, there is a risk that he might flee to Berikos of the Atrebates or to Rome.”
It was old news; only the immediacy of the threat was new. She said, “Can you stop him?”
“I don’t know. When the risk is all or nothing, then, no, I don’t think so, but I believe that if he is offered something he may take it, rather than lose the whole. I propose to offer him stewardship of the largest of the ports on the south bank of the sea-river; it is not the only prize, but it is the greatest of those he seeks and it would be better than nothing. If he takes it, we may avoid war.”
The plan had the feel of his father about it, but that did not make it bad, or unacceptable. She said, “How will you ensure that he takes only what he is given?”
“I will ride south with him. I will take a small force; my honour guard and perhaps two hundred others, enough to match those spears he may muster directly, but not to outface him, or provoke the Atrebates to battle before we are ready.”
“What will you do if he turns you down and runs to claim the oaths of the spears in the southlands?”
“Follow him and try to reach the spears before he does.”
“And if he arrives first?”
“Then we have lost. At best, we will spend the winter preparing for war against the Atrebates; at worst, we will face Rome.”
He rested his palms on his saddle and looked out over the land that was now his sole responsibility. He was not a slow thinker and he did not lack education or the means to interpret what he knew. Above all, he had been instructed daily in the game of Warrior’s Dance by the man who had made it his life’s skill. He was not a natural player, but he had learned more than most men. He looked at her and made his offer.
“It is in my mind that if the Warrior of Mona and her honour guard were to be part of the force that rides south with Amminios, those whose minds were inclined to war might be moved to reconsider. It could tip the balance in our favour.” His gaze was honest and open, lacking both Caradoc’s irony and Amminios’s malice. With a small shrug, he said, “I am aware what this would cost you personally. If you would prefer not to spend time in my brother’s company, I will not think less of you for it.”
“No, but I will.” The sky overhead began to brighten. The great plates of mist sank and thinned as the air warmed. Down in the dun, men and women of two dozen tribes woke, rose and, each in their own way, greeted the dawn. Breaca of the Eceni, Warrior of Mona, felt the fire of the morning sun rekindle the fires of her soul. She reached out and gripped the arm of her friend and ally.
“Give me warning when you’re preparing to ride. We will be with you.”
The funeral spanned three days. Just before dawn on the first day, Cunobelin, Hound of the Sun, friend to Rome and protector of his people, was carried from the platform to the grave mound in a chariot driven by his eldest son. Red horses drew it and the red hounds ran at the sides. The harness mounts were of bronze, mirror-bright and inlaid with amber and coral, the body was bound in cloth of gold, and the great yellow cloak was laid on top.
Togodubnos drove the chariot at walking pace, following the traditional route taken by the rulers of the Trinovantes for uncounted generations. Small changes had been made to the landscape in the spring before the Sun Hound’s death. Gorse had been planted along the route and it flowered now, so that the chariot and its tail of mourners passed along an avenue of yellow; dandelions made an acid carpet through the grass.
The procession that followed was longer and more dignified than any that had gone before it. The royal lines of every tribe attended, each bringing the foremost dreamers and singers of their people. Mona alone had sent a delegation of two hundred in addition to the Warrior and her honour guard, half of them dreamers. Behind them rode the people o
f the Trinovantes and the Catuvellauni, and behind them the merchants from Gaul, Iberia, Greece and the three Germanies who had made their fortunes trading at Cunobelin’s ports.
At the grave mound, the deceased was laid to rest on a bier of oak, surrounded by more wealth than had ever been seen in the realm of the dead. Luain mac Calma, who had responsibility for what was to follow, was visibly uneasy. For the best part of three months he had been directing the engineers and carpenters of the Trinovantes in their construction of the wooden chamber that would house the departed body and then of the grave mound that would sit over it. For the three days before the funeral, he had overseen those bringing into the chamber the shields, weapons, food and gold with which the departed soul was honoured, ensuring that each piece was placed at the right angle to achieve his ends. On the first day of the funeral, in the dim light before dawn, he ordered the pallbearers who carried the body from Togodubnos’s chariot to take their lord into the chamber and then he closed the entrance behind them with a vast flap of stitched hides, sealing the interior from view.
The moments of waiting were long and tense. Three nuggets of raw gold had been embedded in the turf above the entrance of the chamber, one beside the other, a hand’s breadth apart. The rising sun caught the edge of the first, palely uncertain. With time, and the absence of cloud, the glow steadied to a focused point of fire. The second joined it and the third. When all three glittered like glowflies, Luain ordered the hide to be stripped aside, exposing the heart of the mound and the body lying in state within it to the dawn.
The result was blinding. As the cover fell away, the full face of the risen sun blazed through the entrance, glancing off each piece of polished gold, reflected and multiplied until the man, the cloak and the bier on which he lay were encased within a sheath of living light so radiant that it made mere gold look coarse. Pure sunlight washed out of the darkened mound and drenched those who stood watching, raising a single unconscious gasp of wonder. It was a testament as much to Luain mac Calma’s skills as a diplomat and counsellor to the dying man as to his achievements as an engineer. If the Sun Hound had need of an accolade, or a single symbol to show his reconciliation with the dreamers—if those dreamers had need of a sign to show that they walked with the gods and the rulers of the people—then both needs had been satisfied. It was as perfect a passing as any could ask for and not one of those present would forget it, or tire of retelling the moment to those whom the gods had not called to be there. They stood in respectful silence until mac Calma signalled the horns to blow and they filed back whence they came.