by Manda Scott
“The gift of the Eceni,” said the youth, smiling. “With our honour for your position and our earnest desire to see returned the body of our murdered king.”
Naked to the waist, with the bear marks showing clear on his shoulders and back, Cunomar knelt in the filthy slush of Camulodunum’s main street and watched the procurator of all Britannia consider and discard three different responses to his gift and the request that accompanied it.
The man was a sucking leech, and to be despised, but he was not the governor and for that Cunomar was grateful. He had practised the speech through winter until he could, and did, recite it in his sleep. Clots of Latin crowded his dreams like crows at a battlefield and he had been inordinately grateful when the thaw came, and the time to act.
It had not been possible to know beforehand who would be in command of the city’s garrison when the thaw came and, faced with two alternatives, the decision to kneel before the procurator had been a late one, prompted by instinct: Corvus was not so lost in pride that he would object to being passed by, and the procurator was dangerous, and must be won over, or at least bound by some semblance of honour.
Watching now, Cunomar saw his guess proved right. Before the procurator could collect himself, Corvus stepped forward and, offering Cunomar his hand, helped him to rise.
“Welcome to Camulodunum, Cunomar, son of Breaca and heir to Prasutagos, king of the Eceni. We regret deeply the death of your king and offer our condolences to your mother and family. In the emperor’s name, we will return to you Prasutagos’ body as soon as we are able. In the meantime, it has been a long ride; you must be weary. If you would care to bring your honour guard and join us, we might offer you our city’s hospitality?”
It was neatly done. No man, however powerful, could readily countermand an offer made in the name of his emperor.
Cunomar bowed, as he had once seen an emperor’s son do in Rome, “Thank you. In the name of my people I—”
“No.” The procurator had recovered his voice. “Of course the king’s body must be returned, but before that we must examine his will, which became law on his death and has been allowed to go unattended. A copy is kept under guard at the governor’s residence. It should be read immediately to determine the size of the estate and the names of the beneficiaries.”
… the size of the estate and the names of the beneficiaries. Ghost winds spread down Cunomar’s spine. Through all the winter, that had been the one thing about which they knew nothing: no-one, in the steading or beyond it, had any idea of the content of ’Tagos’ will, or of how it might be enacted on his death.
Nor, it seemed, had Corvus, although he read the undercurrents in the procurator’s tone as easily as had Cunomar, and liked them as little.
“What hurry, Catus? If the king has been dead since the start of winter, then half a day more will not matter, and we have a guest who should be welcomed and made comfortable after his journey, before he escorts his father’s remains to their last rest. Would you have our visitors believe Rome incapable of the simple courtesies that are commonplace amongst the tribes?”
As skilfully as any strategist of war, the procurator closed the trap he had opened and none had foreseen. “On the contrary, prefect, I am doing my best for our young guest and he will be grateful. If the king has been dead that long, then there will be six months’ interest to pay on the monies due to the emperor. Would you deprive the imperial coffers of their due? Or impose on the king’s son any greater burden than the one under which he already suffers? If so, you have only to say. I defer, always, to your rank.”
That was risible. The procurator, clearly, deferred to no-one. Cunomar watched as the prefect pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked like a man fighting a monumental headache. “No,” he said. “I believe we should bow in this case to your greater wisdom. The records are kept under seal in the governor’s office. If you would care to lead the way?”
There was white marble on the floor of the office of the governor’s clerk, and on the walls and across the roof. The desk at which sat the governor’s clerk was of black marble and the candlesticks thereon were of solid gold, shaped like the heads of elephants, with the tallow tapers held in their coiled trunks.
Cunomar, who had spent two months as a prisoner in Rome and attended an audience with the emperor, recognized the ostentation of it, and the intent to impress. It was not a beautiful room, but the scent of money leaked from it, of a weight to stun the senses, so that anyone brought there would know that here was the wealth of Britannia openly displayed, and that this was only the clerk’s cold, stone-lined office, which was the least of Rome’s property.
The clerk himself was the smallest man in the room by a hand’s breadth, but he commanded the space as if he were the officer and the others in his service. Cunomar had watched as he winnowed down the accumulating throng of the venal, the fearful and the merely curious to those who had either the authority to insist, or an unimpeachable reason for entering his domain.
There were four in the end. The prefect was the governor’s highest representative and could not be dismissed. The procurator answered only to Nero and possibly outranked the prefect; certainly he outranked a clerk, however stately his office. Theophilus was present because the physician had cured the clerk’s gallstones in the winter and the man had not the will to send him out.
That left only Cunomar, who was a barbarian and should not have been allowed into the office in the first place and would have been left to wait in the antechamber with his warriors, but that he was also the son of the late king and had a right to hear the reading of his father’s will. He had smiled at the clerk, who was not used to dealing with the natives in any capacity, never to semi-naked young men with ornaments in their hair and scars across their bodies who smiled at him and flexed their shoulders so that the beast marks came momentarily alive. He had flushed darkly at the base of his throat, more as Cunomar’s smile broadened, and abandoned his carefully structured protest.
Thus four men stood like errant children before the marble desk as the clerk searched for, found and read the roll of parchment that Prasutagos, by the emperor’s grace king of the Eceni, had signed in front of witnesses on the day Eneit had died.
A part of Cunomar lived for ever in the elder cave of the Caledonii where he had first met the she-bear. There, lying under hot knives for three days, he had learned what it was to school his mind and his body to the service of the gods.
That knowledge served him well in the chilled marble office of the governor’s clerk. It blurred his senses and resharpened them so that he could smell the almost-victory in the procurator, and the wary honesty of Corvus, the prefect, and the more pragmatic despair of the physician. The bear marks on his shoulders burned as if newly made and his guts churned with the prospect of a battle he did not fully know how to fight, but could not afford to lose.
Believing him the best, his mother had sent him, and, believing himself the best, Cunomar had accepted the gift of her trust and come. He believed it still, depending on his bear-honed instincts to tell him how to act when the time came. All that was required of him in the waiting between was that he hold himself ready and not give way to his fear. He eased his shoulders up and back, spreading the tension. The clerk looked up as he did it, and the black points of his eyes flared open.
The man swallowed, drily, and, slowly, as if to an idiot, said, “You are the king’s son?”
Cunomar smiled purely to see the man flush again and said, in faultless Latin, “I am his son in name only. I am not of his blood.”
“I see. That would explain it.” In the chill of early spring, in a room clothed in stone, the clerk was sweating lightly. His gaze flickered from the procurator to the prefect and back. It was not clear whose patience would fray first, only that neither man was inclined to be kept waiting any longer.
Corvus spoke first. “Clerk, if we could have the detail of the king’s bequest, without any of the interjections to gods or emperor, we
would be more speedily gone from your office.”
The clerk hesitated, weighing the needs of the law against the more urgent need to be rid of the men who had invaded his office. At length, dropping his eyes to the document in front of him, he said, “Leaving out the lists of horses and gold and land and subjects, it is clear that the king makes no mention of his son in his will as would have been proper, but instead leaves half of his estate to the emperor, long may he be blessed, and the other half … to his two daughters.”
Cunomar had not expected to be mentioned. A part of him exulted in the honouring of Graine and Cygfa while the rest began to plan how it might be possible to keep ’Tagos’ “estate” to a minimum. Too late, he felt the procurator’s silent triumph on one side and Corvus’ equal despair on the other.
Looking up, he saw something unspoken but tangible pass between Corvus and Theophilus, the physician. They both turned to face him and he read pity in their eyes, and a wish to help and no way to do it.
Theophilus nudged him. The procurator was speaking and Cunomar had not heard. “I’m sorry?” he said.
The man spoke again, in a child’s easy Latin, spacing the words. “Your sisters, the daughters of the king, are they married?”
Within the space of a sentence, they were in combat, as plainly as if the blades were already blooded. Because the gods loved only the truth, Cunomar said, “The Eceni do not marry. We see no value in it.”
The marbled silence fell apart. A single tear of wax dripped from one of the elephant-borne candles onto the clerk’s table. The noise it made was less than the falling of a feather and sounded loud to them all. Corvus winced. Theophilus shut his eyes and tapped his forefingers to his lips.
Decianus Catus, procurator of all goods and monies owing to the emperor, and Nero’s civil representative in the province of Britannia, laughed openly.
“Then they are orphaned and must, of course, be made wards of the emperor who will undertake the onerous burden of managing their goods and property. He will be happy to find suitable husbands for them in Rome. Many men, I am sure, would be glad to wed the daughter of a barbarian king, if the dowry be large enough. A portion of the Eceni revenues would persuade even the dullest of senator’s sons to—No!” The procurator stepped back, cracking his hip on the clerk’s table. Shrilly, “Would you offer violence in front of a prefect?”
“I offer you no violence.”
It was true; Cunomar had not moved. Three days under the bear knives of the Caledonii kept him still against every fibre of instinct and the hot, curdling need to kill that he had seen in his mother and never yet felt in himself. That it had showed, however briefly, in his eyes, or on his face, was regrettable. He did what he could to find the quiet in his soul.
In that, he had help. Theophilus was behind him; he could feel the physician’s hand in the small of his back and hear in Eceni the soft murmurings of the invocations to Nemain that came before battle. Corvus, too, was closer than he had been, so that his shoulder met Cunomar’s and his weight kept him steady. The prefect said, “If he had made a move, I would arrest him. He has not moved.”
“He is a barbarian and knows no civility.” The procurator would have died in battle; his fear showed too openly. Sweating, he said, “They kill without care for the consequences. Philus is proof of that. The emperor’s property must be recovered with all speed or they will secrete it. Prefect, if it is to be done swiftly, I will need armed support.”
“Which you have. As you were careful to show us earlier.”
“A single century of former legionaries is not sufficient.”
“I would beg to differ.” Corvus was frigidly polite. “The king’s son has listened to you traduce his sisters and has shown admirable restraint. However, if you believe you need additional men to approach his mother in her mourning, then you will have to recruit them. I have three cohorts of men at my command and have orders to lead them west to the governor’s aid. Titus Aquilius, primus pilus of the Twentieth legion, will remain here with a single century at his disposal. There is no question but that you outrank him. If you wish to order his troops to escort you north, leaving him with no-one with whom to police the affairs of Camulodunum, then you must of course do so. I will advise him to require that you sign a memorandum of your order in front of witnesses so that if and when the veterans run amok, or one of the natives drinks overmuch and cannot be restrained, it is clear why he was left unable to act.”
Corvus leaned against the clerk’s marble desk and toyed with the soft, pooling wax beneath the elephant’s head. In Eceni, thoughtfully, as if reciting a litany, he said, “Son of the Boudica, I can do no more. Keep safe your father’s legacy. Do not throw away your life, as he did not.”
Looking up, he said in more formal Latin, “Cunomar, I am sorry for the behaviour of my countryman. The offer of our city’s hospitality remains, for you and your honour guard, while the procurator arranges his affairs. I believe you should travel north with him, and that he would want that.”
“He would indeed. He will, in fact, insist that the ‘king’s son’ and his rabble be kept under armed guard until we can take them back whence they came. If you wish to feed them as they wait, you may do so, but if you let even one of them go, you will answer to the emperor for it.”
The procurator pushed past and opened the door. Outside, Unagh and the other seven of Cunomar’s honour guard waited in the cold marble space of the antechamber. Beyond that, in the square that surrounded the governor’s residence, eighty armed men of the procurator’s command waited on his word.
Left with Corvus and Theophilus in the clerk’s office, Cunomar examined and then discarded all the possible paths of action. Every one of them led to disaster; for himself, for his she-bears, for his mother, for the war host that, even now, she was raising.
Keep safe your father’s legacy. Do not throw away your life, as he did not. Corvus was as much a warrior as Cunomar; he had seen the paths and the deaths at the end of each and had tried, in his own way, to avert catastrophe. He had failed.
Cunomar had watched the dignity with which his father faced his own death in Rome. As the procurator’s men formed into a line and eight of them came into the office to escort him out, he found something close to that dignity within himself so that he could bow and say to Corvus, “Thank you. The prefect has always been a friend to the Eceni. My mother holds you close and will continue to do so, whatever now befalls our people.”
CHAPTER 33
THE GOD CAME TO VALERIUS IN THE SHAPE OF A BLACK BULL, holding the moon between its horns, or perhaps as the moon, holding fast a bull on the sickle edge of its blade.
He saw it by the light of the fire, standing near the edge of the field. It stayed there as he got up and went to find what had drawn him out. The hound walked at his side, more substantial under the old moon than the new.
The bull was a solid thing of flesh and blood, alive with the power and passions of spring. It ambled over to the thorn hedge and snuffed at Valerius’ hand and curled a long tongue round the edge of his palm for the taste of his salt sweat.
He stayed with it a while, listening to the wind in the hawthorns and the whisper of the gods, and then went back to the fire and roused Longinus who rolled over sleepily and, much as the bull had done, caught his wrist and kissed the heel of his hand.
“You smell of cattle.”
“There’s a bull in the field.”
“Ah.” Longinus tried to turn round and could not. “Is it red?”
“No, black. And real, but we need to move.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Awake now, Longinus sat up. Through ten days of travel, he had regained most of the weight he had lost after the battle and the haggard press of pain was gone from his eyes. He shook the sleep from his head and drank from the beaker of water that Valerius offered him.
He looked over the hedge at the bull, which looked back. “I didn’t know the bull-god still spoke to you since you desecrated his shr
ine.”
“I restored it. That’s different. And it may not be Mithras. we’re in Eceni territory now. The ancestors of this land knew the god in the form of a bull long before the legions brought their All-father from Persia. At least you can stand; that’s good. Can you run, do you think?”
“If I must. It was my head that was injured, not my legs. Where are we going?”
“To find ourselves weapons not made by Rome. We’re not going far, but we need to be back here before dawn.”
“Why can’t we ride?”
“The place we’re going is guarded. The horses can’t go there.”
Longinus shivered. Nothing of man would guard a place against horses, but not men. “But we are invited?” he asked.
“I hope so.”
They ran and then walked and then ran again. The moon rose high in the sky and the night was no longer young.
Valerius felt a tremor through the soles of his feet, the whisper of Nemain made manifest, tinged with undercurrents far older. He followed it forward, letting it guide his reason. Falling behind, Longinus stumbled on a thorn root. He was slowing and clearly in pain.
Valerius pushed through a thicket of briars and berry bushes with an open landscape beyond, cast in muted silver and black. It looked as he imagined the lands of the dead, which was not a good thing to think of.
He stopped by a solitary birch and waited. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized it was so far. We can rest for the day once we’ve got the blades and are back at the fire.”
Longinus reached him, breathing hard and holding his side. He grinned, tightly. “Don’t apologize. If we’re going to fight, I need to be fit.” He closed his eyes and leaned back against the birch. “I take it we are going to fight?”