by Manda Scott
The smile the governor directed at Prasutagos was genuine, possibly his first that day that was so. Reaching over the table, he clapped the king on the shoulder.
“My friend, your late wife was a delight to us all and I am sorry for her passing, but this one is a gem beyond measure and you should treasure her. A woman with a sharp mind who is not afraid to use it is an uncommon gift. My lady”—he bowed deeply to Breaca—“I will convene a council later tomorrow at which several officers recently in the west…”
He spoke, his mouth moved and there was doubtless meaning in the words, but Breaca heard nothing. The world shattered and fell to pieces in the face of the dark-haired man behind, whom the governor’s bow had revealed and at once concealed; the man with the head bandage who had recently served in the west. The man who, once, had been shipwrecked on the Eceni coast and lived through a winter in a roundhouse as a guest of Macha, first of the royal line of that tribe.
Graine reached up and placed her hand in her mother’s. Her small, cool fingers gripped fiercely and the pressure brought Breaca back to herself and to the meaning of the governor’s considered, amused reply.
“… as to your second point, only his grace the emperor knows when I may be recalled from my position here. I was honoured by the deified Claudius in being allowed to hold my first governorship for the full five years and I have a liking for your country such that it would sadden me greatly to leave Britannia early. I will do my best to stay as long as the law permits.”
He smiled at Breaca, showing white, strong teeth with a slight gap in front. “Does that answer both of your questions fully?”
“Your honour, it does, thank you.”
She could speak, which was good. The governor moved on to her left, which was not good at all, but inevitable, and to be faced with courage. Holding herself still much as Cunomar had done on the hillside, Breaca of the Eceni raised her head and looked full in the eyes the man she had known as Valerius Corvus, officer of the legions and friend to her brother.
In the strange, slow world of the forum, with its whorled marble floors and white plastered columns, Breaca was a girl again, standing outside her father’s forge in the mellow sun of late spring, polishing the naked newness of her serpent-blade. The air was warm and held more promise than any now in Camulodunum. The hank of lamb’s wool in her hand was greasy with lanolin and it blued the blade of a weapon that had never yet taken a life.
With the naivety of one who believes the world will never change, Breaca had laid her blade flat on her palms and offered it to the dark-haired Roman whom the gods had seen fit to throw from the sea at her feet. He had need of a blade; the elder council had met to try him and, once condemned, his death would have been the slow agony of a traitor unless he could fight in single combat against a warrior of the tribes. Caradoc respected him and had offered to fight. With courage and quiet pride, the Roman had come to ask for her sword so that he might not die unarmed. Because she did not wish Airmid to have to kill him, Breaca had offered it.
The day had been slow and peaceful and the world had not been at war. His eyes had been brown, like Bán’s, and painfully honest. Afterwards, when the elder council had freed him and he had not been required to fight, he had been Bán’s friend.
Now, feeling the burn of his eyes on her face, Breaca remembered that one fact most strongly: Valerius Corvus was a man of unshakeable integrity and a valued friend to her brother. Even so, if any man of the legions might know the true identity of Breaca, wife to Prasutagos, Corvus was that man.
Whatever his integrity, or his care for her brother, his duty would not allow him to keep the knowledge from his governor and there could only be one outcome of that. Graine may have been correct that the crosses by the theatre had not been built for them, but the men of Rome were ever resourceful; they could always build more.
The best way to hide is to be seen most clearly.
Only if those seeking do not know for whom it is they look. Breaca had not imagined that the gods would play such games as this.
The world became a smaller place and time ran slow. Graine’s hand lay still within her mother’s, warming a little, her fair child’s skin unbearably soft against the old sword calluses, made new again by a spring’s forging. Her hair was the rich, deep red of ox blood; it had been combed on waking to the gloss of horse hide and then furled again by the ride down the hill so that it lay in shining ropes to her shoulders. The top of her head came barely above Breaca’s waist. Her neck was slim and straight and achingly long, the skin a translucent milky white, bluing a little over the veins, like flint newly picked from a river. Her whole body weighed little more than a three-month-old foal. Even to imagine it bruised was hard; to see it in vivid colour twisted and broken by a rope should have been impossible but was not. In the early tales of the first hangings in the eastern steadings had come the stark truth that a small, lightweight child does not die quickly and might easily outlive her parents to die alone long after the rest of her family has gone. Crucified, she could live a day and a night before the gods brought the quiet of death.
Not while I am alive to prevent it. The decision slid between other thoughts and did not seem unacceptable. In the early days of Rome’s purges, mothers had drowned their own children in the rivers to keep them from the legionaries. The Boudica had no river, but she was a warrior; she had killed often enough to know the many ways by which a life might end. Suspended in a cold, unnatural clarity, Breaca began to plan the means by which she might most swiftly bring about the death of her daughter.
Cunomar stood on her right. He felt the change in her but was too old to hold her hand. He leaned in slightly and his shoulder brushed hers. Valerius Corvus, the man of integrity who held all their lives in his hand, saw it and smiled. Cunomar, too, should die before they could take him; he had stood once beneath his own cross and should not do so twice. It would be more difficult, but not impossible.
In her mind, Breaca began to sing the death song of Mona, that is at once a gift of life to Briga and a prayer for a swift and easy death. In place of her own name, she uttered, clearly, those of her three children.
’Tagos stepped forward to sign his will on the governor’s table. Of the eight kings present, his was the last to be witnessed. Along the line, men and women shuffled, sensing an end to the tedium of rote-learned speeches and stilted Latin. As happened sometimes in the moments before battle, Breaca felt her skin grow thinner until the air around her was a river of languid, living sound that seeped into her blood. The dust-laden light of the forum became a patchwork of men’s breath, and, within it, their weapons shimmered.
She had no weapons. The loss pressed on her as it had not done in the six months since she had left her blade in the care of the dead. The space at her side where her blade should have hung let in the cold as if a child had left open a door in winter. The memory of the ancestors’ grave mound made dark the already dim light of the forum until the only shine came from the silver-bladed heron-spears that had been her gift to the governor. They hungered for blood and it could be a child’s shed in mercy as much as an enemy’s shed in battle, although neither was what they were made for. Breaca measured the distance from her place in the line to the yew-wood box lying on the table and knew that the officer Corvus watched as she did so.
Her eyes met his: always in battle she knew the one of the enemy who was most dangerous. He smiled a little, inclining his head, and lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug that conveyed at once an apology and a warrior’s honour. Breaca nodded back and the air became a blood-link between them. He was a man of integrity. She did not believe he would find it necessary to crucify children, or a warrior of Cygfa’s beauty.
At the table the secretary gave an order. The governor’s signature was shown to the crowd. ’Tagos’ will, copied onto two scrolls, was not read out. The content of a king’s last behest was rightly considered a private matter, not for discussion by his peers who were also his rivals in the constant compe
tition for the governor’s approval.
A sigh stuttered the length of the room, the exhalation of diplomacy forced beyond its limits. Outwardly, all was perfect. None of the infants had disgraced themselves. Of all those attending, only the young, prettily pregnant wife of Cogidubnos, king of the Belgae on the far south coast, had asked to be excused. Everyone else had waited it out and took the time now to stretch legs that were not used to long periods of standing.
A river of slow-moving bodies separated Breaca from Corvus. A slave pressed a goblet of wine towards her.
She shook her head and smiled, motioning down to Graine. “My daughter must relieve herself. If you will forgive me?”
Graine looked up. Her eyes were the eyes of the elder grandmother in the days before the old woman went blind. She smiled and pursed her lips and did not argue in front of strangers.
Breaca pushed on towards the door. Cygfa followed behind. She had fought too many battles with the Boudica not to feel another coming; her eyes asked questions that could not be answered but her body moved to the left and became a shield. Cunomar took the right as if born to it. For both their sakes, Breaca prayed as she had never done, that she might find at least one edged weapon before Corvus found her.
They reached the door. Armed with a valid excuse, Breaca smiled at the guards, who smiled back. The smooth flow of those leaving became briefly turbulent on the steps leading out of the forum as men and women stopped to speak to old acquaintances, so that it was harder to keep formation than it would have been in battle.
Breaca looked back and saw a dark head, marked with a bandage, reach the top of the steps and look round. Urgently, she sought escape and took it, stepping sideways into a blind-ending alleyway running between the governor’s house and its neighbour that already stank of many men’s urine.
Graine, released, played her necessary part, raising her tunic to squat in the dirt and it seemed that Breaca had not actually lied to the sentries; her daughter did need to come outdoors. Unbidden, the warriors who were her brother and sister set themselves at the alley’s entrance; Cunomar decorated a wall not far away. Cyfga leaned idly against the opposite corner.
Privacy was impossible: others joined them, and for the same need; the alley was the first obvious gap after the steps. An elderly, white-haired Atrebatan warrior delayed his business for long enough to stare at Breaca, frowning. “I have heard tales of the heron-spears of the Caledones,” he said, “but never seen one. Is it true they are cursed?”
Breaca shook her head. A winter spent in Prasutagos’ company had taught her a faculty for duplicity that Mona had never done. “Only if you’re a bear and their dreamers want your teeth and pelt for their winter ceremonies.”
“I see.” The Atrebatan gazed at her thoughtfully. “Perhaps, then, the governor will use them to hunt the she-bears. I hear they are still active in the west and he will be grateful for any help he can get. I must remember to congratulate him when the opportunity presents itself. Your daughter wishes to speak to you.”
Graine had completed her mission. Standing, she slipped her hand in her mother’s again, squeezing on and off in a signal that Airmid might have recognized, but Breaca did not. The child’s ox-blood hair had picked up the dust of the alley. Smoothing it down so that her hand fell, as if naturally, on the nape of her daughter’s neck, Breaca led her back out into the open, away from the prying eyes of a man who had once been her enemy. Berikos of the Atrebates, who had once betrayed all of Britannia to Rome, stayed behind her to add his own measure of piss to the tainted mud.
Cygfa waited near the alley’s mouth. Cunomar was behind. Corvus was not in sight. The space in front of the governor’s mansion was filled with milling delegates and their Roman hosts and it was impossible to pick out one bandaged head amongst the crowd. Breaca took a guess and led her daughter towards the left.
They were slowed by the crowd. Twisting her neck under her mother’s hand until she could look up properly, Graine said, “Berikos only thinks he has seen you before. He isn’t sure.”
A dreamer with such power should not be made to die so young. Closing her eyes, Breaca said, “Does he know where he thinks he has seen me?”
“No. He is old and confused and his attention is mostly with the governor and the trading rights he seeks from him. But the Roman with the bandage on his head knows.”
“He does. He was a friend to your uncle Bán long ago, before he was taken away. He knew all of us then, even your father. He offered to speak for Bán at his long-nights, but—”
“Look, he’s coming now.”
Too late, Breaca looked directly at the steps to the mansion. Corvus was a stone’s throw away, walking straight towards her, while managing to look as if he had no real goal. There was nowhere to go, no chance to run that would not leave a seven-year-old child to the mercy of the legionaries.
Crouching, Breaca made a show of re-settling her daughter’s tunic and unpinned her cloak. The brooch that held it was newly made in bronze, an old shape, that could from some angles be a spear-head and from others a hunting owl. The iron pin was half the length of Breaca’s hand; not long enough to pierce an adult heart, but enough to kill a child if used swiftly and accurately. The weight of the metal settled in Breaca’s hand and the pin angled forward.
“Graine, please know that I—”
“I do know. And I love you. But we have not yet been betrayed.” Graine stood very still. Her wide eyes were the colour of clouds after rain, as Caradoc’s had been, with her own haze of sea-green at the inner edges, where grey met the central black. It was not possible to look into them and think of a life ended.
A shadow crossed theirs. Still lost in the surety of her daughter’s gaze, Breaca asked, in slow Eceni, “Will the Roman with the bandaged head betray us, do you think?”
From behind and a little to her left, Corvus said in the same language, quietly, “Not if he is not forced to.”
The green-grey eyes released her. Graine drew a shaky breath. Breaca let herself look past the pin in her hand. Cunomar lounged at the entrance to the alley, keeping watch to left and right. Cygfa was close, standing amongst the crowd, guarding her left side. Caught in the crush of her own whirlpool, Breaca said, “What might force him?”
“An action on the part of a woman who was once a warrior which could be considered an act of aggression against Rome.”
Berikos passed them by, staring curiously. In Latin, Corvus said, “The governor is genuinely grateful for the gift-spears. In every way, you are a credit to your father and his craft.”
“Thank you.” Breaca began in the same language and changed back to Eceni partway through. “I will never be what my father was, but I may be good enough to teach his skills to my children. Do you still have the blade that he made for you?”
“I do. I keep it safe in honour of better times.” Corvus looked weary. Age had thinned his face and added more scars, but the core of him was the same as it had always been. Looking down, he laid a hand on Graine’s head. “Is this your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“She’s exquisite. You and her father must be proud.”
It was what the governor had said, more or less, but spoken with a knowledge and an integrity that the governor’s words had lacked: Corvus knew the identity of Graine’s father where the governor could not have done.
The Roman officer knelt, took the spear-head brooch from Breaca’s hand and repinned her daugher’s cloak. Happy that it was secure, he smiled as any adult smiles to any child.
Graine was not any child; he had been watching her through the ceremony and should have known better. The cool sea-green dreamer’s eyes had locked on his before he could look away. She frowned a little, and, for a moment, looked achingly like Airmid.
When her brow cleared, she said, distinctly, “Valerius Corvus, you have been good friend to my mother’s brother, the traitor whom she once loved. Because of it, I would make you a gift of my horse. She is the fastest we have ever br
ed. You and she will do well together.” She used the formal language of Mona’s council, learned at Airmid’s knee. The word she used was the one that signified a gift between battle partners, or from sister to brother.
Corvus stayed very still. A muscle beside his eye twitched. In a while, he looked up at Breaca. “Is this so?”
“You would know better than me. You were a friend to Bán when you were with us; I am prepared to believe you were so afterwards when he fought for Rome. As to the horse,” Breaca shrugged, “She’s the best mare I’ve bred yet. She was my gift to Graine at year’s turn, to be the beginnings of her own herd. If she chooses to give her to you, it’s her right. Do you have a good battle mount?”
Corvus grimaced. “Not any more. I had a good black colt, son of a horse called the Crow out of a Trinovantian mare. Riding him was like riding black lightning, but he was killed under me by a woman of the Silures who went on to break my skull. I have a remount to replace him; a good-hearted gelding but without the fire of the black colt. I would not ride him into any battle that I wished to ride out of alive.”
A handful of his fellow officers passed by. Corvus’ knees cracked as he rose. He patted Graine on the head. His face conveyed polite interest in the child of a client king’s wife. In Latin, he said, “The governor wishes us to assemble at the new theatre. Have you seen it?”
They were not going to die. Corvus, the man of integrity, did not find that his duty demanded it.
The understanding came slowly. Relief left Breaca hollow. She breathed in the cold and the stink and the noise that was Camulodunum. Graine’s shoulder pushed into her thigh as a hound’s might have done, for reassurance. Corvus, prefect of the legions, who had been Bán’s friend, gazed quietly into the middle distance, where a sow rooted in a sty, and waited while the governor’s guest brought the fractured parts of herself together.
From the new stillness of her mind, Breaca found the right words to answer him. Formally, as he had done, she said, “Perhaps you could guide us to our first view of the theatre? We have not yet had the pleasure.”