Dreaming the Hound

by Manda Scott

  The she-bears took up the shout, and Gunovar; none of them knew who the stranger was, only that life was ending and this man had come to watch it and Ardacos, whom they revered, clearly hated him.

  Airmid looked on, distractedly, as if recently woken from dreaming, or perhaps not woken at all. She said three words to Gunovar and both of them shouted it. “Traitor! Nemain bind you!” Their trained voices carried over the she-bears’ and roused more amusement in the men guarding them, which was understandable; they had shouted in Latin.

  The messenger—Valerius—ignored them as he had ignored the bleeding body of the Boudica lying prone beneath his horse’s feet. Without dismounting, he presented himself as was proper to the procurator, neatly and only a little out of breath.

  “The governor sends his greetings and his word.” The message satchel at his shoulder was sealed with wax and the elephant-seal of Britannia, that it was death to break unbidden. “If you would care to read the message privately?”

  “Thank you.” The procurator clearly did not care to do so at all if it interrupted his morning, but could not be seen to say so. He delayed, while the messenger’s companion ploughed through the gateway leading three pack horses. The newcomer swept off his helmet to reveal a mass of astonishingly rich russet hair.

  The veterans made space for the incomer, pleasantly jocular, and there was a small moment of chaos when too many horses took up too much space and Valerius’ horse, which had been ridden hardest, threw its head restlessly against the hold of the reins and jumped sideways, so that it jostled the procurator.

  The emperor’s collector of taxes was not used to being jostled, and was deeply afraid of the horse. He ducked sideways, swearing. “Carefully, man. Can’t you get that beast—”

  The sword-blade that rested along his throat was polished and honed and it had already broken his skin. The black eyes of the man above it were the epitome of vicious, lethal arrogance. The man in messenger’s dress, who had just this moment been so polite, said with freezing clarity, “My horse is battle trained. If you move, I will have him kill you. It will be spectacular, and faster than you deserve, but … I really don’t think so. Driscus, call your men into order. You will die first if they assault us. Thank you, Longinus …”

  For this last, he cast his voice past the procurator to the mercenary veterans gathered beyond the stanchion. Not quite fast enough, they had seen the risk to their patron and would have come to his aid, but for the fact that Driscus, their leader, had also moved too slowly and had been relieved of his sword in a single swift manoeuvre by the cavalryman with the russet hair and was staring at the point of it, a little crosseyed. Blood drizzled from a horizontal cut on his forehead. His men shifted uneasily, and waited for an order.

  “Better.” Valerius nodded, pleasantly. As if the procurator did not exist, he looked past the empty stanchion to the swordless mercenary. “Driscus, I may have grown my hair since you last saw me, in which case you are forgiven for not remembering the man who had you flogged three times in one winter for being drunk on duty, but I am devastated that you don’t remember the horse that took the better half out of your sword arm and put you under the care of Theophilus for a month.”

  The man Driscus stared and frowned and stared, then, “Valerius? It can’t be. You’re dead. You died in Gaul. Corvus told us. I paid two sesterces towards your memorial.”

  “You flatter my memory.” Valerius sketched a salute. “Even so, I am not dead. Anyone who wishes to risk losing their arm to the Crow-horse can come close to test it. Or you could make better use of the time and pack whatever gold you have collected and leave now for Camulodunum.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the prefect, Corvus, of the Ala Quinta Gallorum, is on his way with three cohorts of legionaries and he is not at all happy at having to break his journey west to deal with a tax collector who has grossly exceeded his powers. This—” He swept his blade in a horizontal arc. A dozen mercenaries ducked, unconsciously. “—is the family of a king. They have done nothing but properly mourn the death of the man who ruled them.”

  “They attacked the proc—”

  “They were goaded. We have a witness who will swear to it on his life.”

  “They have arms. We have—”

  “Yes, I saw. They have iron bars, Driscus. Every steading from here to the far southern coast has a cache of iron bars. They trade with them, they turn them into hoes and bridle bits and the pathetic cheese knives we let them hunt with. If you’re going to name as traitor every smith who keeps a stock of iron bars, we are going to be excessively busy this spring, and frankly, I think the Governor has bigger things in mind.”

  Affronted, Driscus said, “They killed Strignus. And Titus Castellius.”

  Valerius laughed. “And is that supposed to be somebody’s loss? A child with a bent twig could have killed Strignus on his better days. And Castellius was probably raping their children, in which case he is very much better dead than he would be when I’d finished with him.”

  There was a dry, aching pause, as several dozen mercenaries remembered very well exactly how Valerius had treated men who raped the native children, and each held his breath and prayed to all the gods that his neighbour would not choose to say something foolish.

  “Yes. Right.” Driscus cleared his throat. “So then what should we—”

  “He’s lying. Are you insane? He’s lying and he has no power to enforce any of this. In the name of the emperor, I order you to disarm him. The man’s quite clearly—” The procurator had found his voice. He lost it again on the point of Valerius’ sword, and the hard black eyes above it.

  Valerius said, “Lie down. Face down, and don’t move.”

  Very few men had the mettle to ignore that voice and the procurator was not one of them. Even had he been, the order was underscored by the unmistakable sound of a troop of horses riding hard along the trackway, coming closer.

  “That will be Corvus,” said Valerius pleasantly. “And his personal cavalry troop. You can, of course, accuse him also of lying. I will be pleased to bear witness to it later at your trial. In the meantime, you will lie down and you will not speak unless spoken to.”

  The procurator lay down.

  Very shortly, Corvus rode in through the gates at the head of his personal troop of cavalry, living proof that Valerius had not been lying. He brought with him the Coritani hawk-scout, who had a wrap of bloodied wool around his throat and a blackened swelling at his lip and would not look at Valerius. Cunomar should have been amused by that, and did not have the strength, or the breath to spare that was not used for praying.

  The prefect had pushed his horse easily as hard as Valerius had done ahead of him. He led his small troop of twenty hand-picked riders into a compound thronged by newly nervous mercenaries and their silent, watchful prisoners. His men had been given prior orders. They rode in double file through the gates and divided on entry, half to the left, half to the right, forming a semicircle of armoured iron that blocked the exit from the steading. Every second man dismounted and handed his reins to the rider on his right.

  Corvus’ attention was on Valerius, and had been since he rode in. They faced each other as stags might, meeting on the boundaries of the rut; or as enemies on a battlefield, who have fought for years without meeting, and, having finally done so, find each other not as they supposed.

  Without shifting his gaze, Corvus said to his men, “Find their packs and search them.”

  The mercenary veterans of Camulodunum had been promised wealth to excess if they marched to the aid of their procurator. The steading of the late king of the Eceni had not proved as rich as they might have expected, but, as was normal on any campaign, they had taken a judicious share before submitting the rest to the inventory.

  Emptied onto the beaten earth of the compound, their packs revealed a magpie’s horde of gold and silver, of enamelled armbands that would fetch a good price in the markets of Rome, of brooches and god-offerings and nec
klaces and, in one, a child’s brooch of a wren, wrapped in wool for safe keeping.

  The search of the few buildings still upright revealed also the presence of the king’s two daughters, who were in urgent need of a physician’s care—if they were not deemed traitors, in which case they could hang and finish what had been started.

  The captain of the cavalry said as much to his prefect, who nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose, and with his gaze still on Valerius, said, “Driscus, you were a bad armourer and you make a worse centurion but sadly that’s not a capital offence, unlike theft of the emperor’s property, which most certainly is. It is your great fortune that I have a war to attend and do not have the time to hang you and your rabble personally. You have until the remainder of my cohorts arrive to marshal your men and leave. I suggest you do so with more professionalism than you demonstrated on leaving Camulodunum.”

  Addressing the mercenaries, Valerius had spoken the soldiers’ patois, the loose, louche language of the legions, broadened with Gaulish and Thracian and the throaty Batavian of the crack cavalry units. Corvus spoke the senate’s Latin, that made gutter scum of all beneath it, and did as much damage to the veterans as the words. Driscus had coloured, deeply, long before the prefect finished speaking, and was twisting the leather end of his belt in his hand by the end.

  Given leave to move, the leader of the procurator’s three veteran centuries had things to prove, and he did his best. The order with which his men marched out of the Eceni steading was not militarily perfect, but it was considerably sharper than when they had marched in.

  A number of small things happened as the last of them left. The Coritani scout was sent to take water and what help he could offer to the king’s daughters. The captain of the prefect’s cavalry, who had been with them, remounted his horse and ordered his men to do likewise. Twenty seasoned troopers gathered on restless horses and rode out through the gate, to wait on the far side. Jarred into action, Corvus finally wrested his gaze from Valerius and looked down at the woman who, since his arrival, he had sheltered beneath the feet of his horse.

  “Breaca?”

  She was dead; Cunomar was certain of it. From the moment the prefect had first ridden in, she had not moved, and the rise of her breathing could no longer be seen, obvious or not.

  “Breaca?” Urgently now, Corvus dismounted and knelt beside her and pressed his fingers to the side of her neck and then stood and drew his own water canister from the side of his saddle and dribbled a little into the corner of her mouth. “Breaca?”

  She coughed, and so was alive.

  Cunomar swayed in the chains that held him. At his side, Ardacos cursed and was weeping. Airmid took the last of three steps forward and dropped to her knees at Breaca’s head and took the water skin that was offered her and poured it more carefully now, so that the water was swallowed, and spoke and was answered, in a whisper too hoarse to carry across the compound, so that only the word “Graine?” could be heard with any clarity and Airmid’s answer was lost in the further coughing fit that followed.

  “Valerius?” Corvus had stepped back and remounted.

  Valerius’ black eyes were unreadable. He said, “Thank you. I wasn’t sure you would come. This is more than I can repay.”

  Corvus said, “I came for Breaca. And her daughters. In the minds of the legions, you are dead. It would be best if you remained so.”

  “Then you have helped a ghost find solace, for which he is grateful.” Very slowly, Valerius leaned forward and offered his arm in the soldiers’ greeting, that is at the same time a farewell, and an encouragement to battle. “I am sorry to have brought this on you,” he said.

  After a brief pause, stiffly, Corvus took the offered arm. “True solace?” he asked.

  “As much as the gods ever give it. I have missed you. I will miss you still.”

  “And I.”

  They would not weep, either of them, and the air cracked for need of it. Cunomar wept for them, through the pounding pain in his head and the rawness of his throat, and did not know why he did so.

  A crow called and they broke apart, as if ordered. Corvus swung his horse. He paused at the gates to salute the cavalryman with the russet hair and said, “Longinus, I have your memorial stone. If you ever wish to see it, you have only to re-present yourself to your quartermaster as living.”

  The cavalryman saluted in his turn. “If I ever find the company of ghosts displeasing, I will do so. Thank you.”

  At no time did Corvus mention, talk to, or even acknowledge, the procurator, lying rigidly terrified beneath the Crow-horse’s front feet.

  Nobody moved, nobody spoke. Slowly, the sound of cavalry horses, ridden hard, became quieter.

  Cunomar stood still, so very, very still, so that not one link of the chains that bound him chimed against another.

  Still they waited, until the sound of the crow gathering thatch from the broken roof of Airmid’s hut was louder than the staccato whisper of distant horses, and then a little longer, until eventually Valerius said something in a language that was neither Eceni, nor Latin, nor Gaulish, and the cavalryman with the russet hair nodded and walked to Gunovar and freed her.

  She was a smith and had not been badly harmed. With the cavalryman’s help, she began to work her way round and strike off the slave fetters that held the she-bears.

  Dazed, and still not entirely believing, Cunomar put his wrists together and shuffled forward. He leaned his forehead on Ardacos’ shoulder, because he could, and he loved him, and he was too tired to stand unsupported and all of these things were entirely acceptable, and he was utterly unprepared for the violence that erupted beyond the stanchion.

  “No!” The procurator’s scream was higher than a child’s, and as futile.

  He was not appealing to a human agency, with heart and soul and mind that could be moved. Valerius’ pied horse had lifted its forelegs from the ground and reared high and stood there for a moment, taller than any man; the embodiment of vengeance, driven by the warrior who sat erect on its back and, with a quiet word and a touch of his heel, brought the beast down again, hard, onto the Roman scrabbling to escape beneath its feet.

  Valerius’ one word was the last quiet and the steady rear the last thing that was steady. The horse’s feet smashed into the procurator and the man screamed and the sound and the feel triggered an explosion of savagery that eclipsed any seen that morning.

  Moved by a hatred that went beyond anything of man, the pied beast threw itself high to the sky and came down again on the bleeding body and again and again and again, screaming its passion so that the procurator’s voice was lost, as his body was lost in the chaos of bones and flesh and teeth until nothing was left of the man who had ordered the flogging of the Boudica and the rape of her daughters but a carrion-mess of bloody viscera and the white fragments of skull within it.

  “Valerius, stop. Stop. It’s over. You can stop.”

  The russet-haired cavalryman had more courage than Cunomar. He stepped in close beside the raging horse and reached up to its rider, holding his arm in the brief moment when the beast was down, before it threw itself up again.

  “Stop. Your sister needs your help. The children need your help. This isn’t helping.”

  The horse became still and stood sweat-washed and shuddering as if it had raced and won. Valerius was not sweating, or shaking, but sitting very still, white-faced, looking beyond Cunomar to the hawk-scout, who had come out of the hut that sheltered the Boudica’s daughters, and then to Airmid, who still knelt beside Breaca.

  Something he read in her face reached him. He dismounted and knelt, finally, at the side of his sister, who lay within a spear’s length of the horse that could have killed her. He laid a hand to her head, and then to her heart, and then bent to press his ear to her chest.

  Rising he said, “Longinus, get water. Hawk, get whoever is free and can walk and seal the gates and bring the crosses down and use them to build a barricade. If Driscus has second thoughts a
nd marches back up from Camulodunum, I’d like to believe we have a whisper of protection.”

  Valerius knelt then, in the filth beside the woman against whom he had fought for so long, and lifted her in his arms with the care of a lover and stood and looked around to find some building that had not been destroyed, and took her at last to Airmid’s hut on the western side of the clearing where, if nothing else, there was water from the stream, and shelter under the broken thatch.

  “Is Breaca awake?”

  “I hope not.”

  Yes.

  She wanted to speak, but her mouth would not move to the commands of her mind.

  Airmid was close by, and had been since the first touch of her hands beneath the stanchion and her voice which had said all that was necessary: “Graine is alive. Corvus is here. All will be well,” so that it was not necessary for Breaca to climb out of the well of peace she had found.

  The blackness came and went. Hands wrapped her hands, cleaning each finger of the dirt and blood that had become ingrained. Later, someone laid something cool and wet across the ruined flesh of her back. She flinched violently and groaned aloud, not finding words, nor even seeking them, and the cool went away, but not the wet. More of it dribbled on, slowly, so that each drop warmed and soothed before the next came and in time the steady patter became bearable.

  Above, voices rolled back and forth. She listened to the tone if not the words until it was clear that Airmid had asked a question, but not who had answered, except that it was a man, and that he cared for her.

  Some time later, when the sun had moved and there was less heat in her back, the same man said, “She needs to move as Cunomar and the others who were flogged with him are moving.”

  Airmid said, “She’s not ready.”

  Patiently, “Then we have to make her ready. If she lies as she is, her back will stiffen as it heals and she’ll be hindered as a warrior.”

  A new voice, gruffly male, asked, “Will she care?”

  “I believe so. You could always ask her.”