Rome would be victorious. It was the end.
Caradoc winced against the belief that their life of freedom had been shattered, but after a moment the pain receded and a new, pitiless stubbornness began to harden within him. Something of himself, some vestige of his youth, some boyish innocence that still believed that honor was all had gone forth with the howling of his anguish, and he felt the red-ringed, bleeding hole that its passing left within him.
“Tell me,” he whispered, his voice trembling with intensity. “What were the magic words this animal used to lure good men into slavery?”
“He told them that we had no chance. He said that the Second Legion even now surrounded us, deep in the woods, and in the morning we would be wiped out. He said that if they surrendered they could go home to plant, and breed cattle, and there would be good trade as before.”
“Mother.” It was a word of utmost, soul-emptying contempt. Caradoc sat down suddenly and the two chiefs sat with him. The remaining chariots should now be rolling toward the water, but Caradoc waited in his timeless moment of hell, unable to think or feel.
“Lord,” Cinnamus said. “I am sorry, but there is more. Will you hear it, or shall my mouth be stopped?”
More? What more could there possibly be? The knife could turn no more. There was no more blood to flow. Yet he said, “I will hear it.”
“In the night the Dobunni came. Boduocus has been promised his old boundaries and he will fight against us, for Plautius. The Atrebates are here also. They have a new ricon, approved by the emperor, one Cogidumnus. We have lost all.” Cinnamus spoke in a monotone, his voice not betraying any emotion, but the strong hands hidden under his cloak pressed together as if hanging onto life itself.
And I slept, Caradoc thought, his mind calm now, hiding from his rage and bitterness. By the Great Mother, I slept. The earth has split under my feet, the sky has fallen about me, and… He turned around quickly to find Mocuxsoma. “Does Togodumnus know all these things?” he asked.
“I do not know, Lord,” Mocuxsoma replied, shaking his head.
“Well find him and tell him and bring him here. Run!”
He and Cinnamus sat in silence. Tog and I have sown these seeds and the crop has sprung up a thousandfold, Caradoc thought. Raids, insults, murders, and all the time the steady push—outward, always outward. If I had been ricon of the Atrebates, what would I have done? The answer came without hesitation. I would never have sold my people into slavery. I would rather have offered myself to the sacred arrows.
Togodumnus came leaping down the path, his chariot behind him. His face was ashen. “No words, my brother!” he shouted. “First we must kill Plautius, then Adminius, then this Cogidumnus, then Boduocus!”
Caradoc laughed, in his face rudely and loudly. Slowly, wearily, he got to his feet, put on his helm, and walked to his chariot. He picked up the carnyx. “I love you, you poor mad fool,” he said. He blew one long, harsh blast and the remaining chiefs came out of the trees. They were grim-faced, their eyes, filled with impending death, looking toward Caradoc with reproach.
“A red morning!” he shouted, grief choking him. “A blood morning! We ride in honor, my brothers!”
They picked up speed, thundering out of the wood and onto the flat land beyond, while the incursus sounded and the standards of Rome surged to meet them, but there was no hope. The legions were before them, the Dobunni and the Atrebates to the right and left, and they crashed headlong to meet their doom, crying, howling, their swords held high. Valiantly, the Cantiaci swung in behind them.
Caradoc dismounted and ran, and a tall warrior swung to meet him—a Catuvellaunian, brown-haired, his dark blue eyes now bloodshot. The tears ran down Caradoc’s cheeks as they hewed at each other and the warrior fell to the ground. Who will purify me from the blood of my people? he thought, turning, and suddenly a great, terror-stricken cry went up from his men. Caradoc looked. Behind them all, out of the woods, poured a host of iron-clad legionaries, fresh and vigorous, and the wail of fear grew and swelled into panic. It was Vespasianus and the Second, muddy, wet, triumphant. Everywhere the Catuvellauni began to cast away their weapons, running here and there, and the Romans and their own countrymen flowed over them and cut them down like rabbits.
“Stand and fight!” Caradoc screamed, but they were seized with the animal terror of death and did not heed him.
Cinnamus ran to him, dodging the wide slash of a Dobunni sword. “Run, run, Caradoc!” he shouted. “Back to Camulodunon!”
Suddenly Caradoc found himself doubled over and running, running, darting, stumbling, caught in the confused uproar, his chief running beside him. They gained the shelter of the trees but kept on, their breath coming in gasps, their sides searing with pain, and all around them, in the sun-dappled drowsiness of a summer morning the Catuvellaunians fled.
“Llyn!” Caradoc blurted, but Cinnamus urged him on. “He and Fearachar have gone,” he managed, and still they ran, their legs aching, their lungs burning, hot and dry, their limbs pumping with waning strength, surging, stumbling forward until the noise of the carnage faded and the trees stood tall in the gentle silence and at last they fell to the wet grass and lay with eyes closed, no longer caring whether they lived or died.
For two days they stumbled through the wood. One by one other chiefs joined them, tattered shocked survivors without horses, food, or weapons, stunned and incapable of words. Together they trudged along the paths that had seen them pass before, gaily bedecked, their horses’ harnesses ringing and their spirits high.
Near dusk on the second day they rounded a bend and saw another group, five or six chiefs sitting on the bank, heads and hands hanging, a crude litter lying before them on the path, two branches with a cloak slung between. Suddenly Caradoc’s heart constricted, and he ran forward, his legs shaking with the effort. He came up to the litter and knelt, and Togodumnus slowly turned his head. Blood was matted in his long brown hair and caked about his mouth. One shoulder was a mess of bone and pulpy flesh, and Caradoc, lifting the covering cloak with nerveless fingers, saw deep wounds about his chest, his hip. He was lying in blood, steadily oozing blood that spattered the earth like bright coral and stained Caradoc’s hand as he let the cloak fall back. Tog’s face was gray and old. The spider lines of laughter about his eyes and mouth had become the caprices of a swift-drawn knife, deep and pitiless. He opened his mouth to speak and a slow bubble of blood welled between his teeth and burst to trickle down his cheek.
“Caradoc,” he whispered. “Who would have thought that it is so hard to die? Ah, Mother, it hurts, it hurts.” The black, bruised fingers found the ragged edge of Caradoc’s sleeve. “I spit on death.” He tried to laugh and another gobbet of dark blood spewed from his lips. “The mighty Catuvellauni are no more. I am glad…glad…to die now. Fire me high, my brother, fire me well.” A great spasm of agony gripped his face then, the muscles slowly tautening and the eyes widened, filled with a lonely terror. “I do not think that I can bear it.”
Caradoc could not answer. Late sunlight streamed onto the path, shafting down in golden glory, and the birds whistled and piped in the green-halled vastness around him, but he could think only of the free-dancing, wild-leaping spirit now huddled before him, maimed and broken. The eyes that tried to focus on him were full of incoherent sadness and a new, dark knowledge, but Togodumnus’s indomitable, flaming spark of life fought on. He tried to speak again, but his strength failed him and he gasped, struggling for breath. Caradoc rose. “Pick him up,” he ordered, not ashamed of the tears that poured down his face. They went on, Caradoc pacing beside the litter, Cinnamus behind him, and the other chiefs walking silently in the rear.
When the sun had gone and the chill of evening rose from the ground they stopped, hunger gnawing at their empty bellies. Caradoc spoke sharply to the litter-bearers who stumbled in their faintness, but Cinnamus said, “It does not matter, Lord. He is dead.” Caradoc fell beside the shadowed form and took hold of the limp hand, covering it with
his own and leaning over the bloodied face. Togodumnus gazed past him into the star-studded sky, a slight, serene smile on his lips, and Caradoc cast his cloak over his face and sank to the ground, weeping quietly. The chiefs sat or lay in silence beside the path, watching the last ricon of the House Catuvellaun mourn for his kinsman.
They reached Camulodunon late on the fourth day, bearing their burden. The first gate had been deserted, and stood wide, but the gateguard of the second saw them coming, straggling like sick cattle across the dyke, and he ran for help. Men and women came rushing from the huts, spilling out of the gate, welcoming them with cries and tears, and taking the litter from their weary arms. Eurgain, hearing the commotion, stepped out of the Great Hall with Gladys beside her. The filthy, staggering group of men climbed slowly toward her and she waited, her eyes frantically searching and her hands pressed together. Then she saw him, his hair tangled about his thin face, and his eyes black holes of suffering. With a shout she flew toward him and fell on her knees, embraced him, felt his quivering hands on her hair. “Eurgain,” he said. Then his legs would not hold him anymore and he sank before her and wrapped his arms about her. They clung to each other eyes closed, while the first shocked wailing began for Togodumnus and the gate was swung shut and bolted fast.
At last they rested in the Great Hall, sitting ranged about the walls, heads lolling back in an exhausted indifference, watching the servants scurry to stoke the fire and carve meat for them from the haunch of roasted beef. Caradoc, too, rested against the wall, but his eyes had closed as soon as he had sat down, and Eurgain sat quietly beside him, her arms folded on her knees. Gladys came gliding across the floor to squat before him, but neither woman spoke. The Hall was hot. Sun beat down upon it, and the fire sent a suffocating mixture of smoke and sizzling fat drippings out into the dry air. Every now and then Caradoc shivered and drew his cloak tightly around him. At length Fearachar ran up, bearing a platter heaped with meat and bread, porridge, and boiled peas, and a jug of beer. Caradoc stirred, opened his eyes and sat up with effort as Fearachar set the plate before him. He began to eat, slowly, carefully, even though he was famished, but he drained the jug in one long gulp and Fearachar left again to refill it. A low, halting spatter of conversation began around them as the chiefs, revived by food and drink, talked to their freemen, and Caradoc felt his blood begin to flow again sluggishly, unwillingly, and his head began to clear. He mopped the last of the gravy from his plate, loosened his cloak, and turned to Eurgain.
“Llyn?” he asked, his eyes anxious and his voice still not strong.
“He returned last night with Fearachar. He and the girls are with Tallia in the house.”
He nodded gratefully and then the starved, hollowed eyes left her and found Gladys. “And you? How did you return home?”
“I found a cavalry soldier in the woods, Caradoc,” she answered quietly. “He was wounded. I killed him and took his horse. What happened there by the river? How was it that we dishonored ourselves?” Her tone was wondering, bereft of bitterness. The time for recriminations, regrets, or anger was long past, and she, like the remnant of the cowed, puzzled Catuvellaunian tuath, hung suspended in stunned hopelessness. Caradoc answered shortly, scarcely aware of what he said, his head buzzing for want of sleep.
“We were betrayed by one of our own kin, we were tricked by the enemy, we were set upon by our own countrymen. Is it any wonder that even Camulos and the goddess deserted us? We were not dishonored, only outnumbered and surprised. We will fight on.” Outside, the wails and keening of Togodumnus’s mourners came to him, rising and falling, a fitful, stricken wind, and his mind pressed with the plans and decision that had to be made.
Eurgain began to speak rapidly, her eyes filling with angry disagreement, but he lifted a finger and put it to her lips, rising stiffly, standing with one shoulder against the wall. His legs still felt like straw husks.
“I call for Council!” he said, and the talk died away. “Slaves depart, the rest of you come close. I cannot find the strength to raise my voice.”
All gathered around him and he surveyed them grimly, pity and rage filling him. They looked like a pack of sick, emaciated, and mangy wolves, tamed by hunger and hardship, but their eyes raised to his face in trust. Faintness swept over him, but he fought it down, the new, callous stone of calculation and determination heavy in his breast. “I will not speak of the unspeakable,” he said, “nor of the passing of my brother. We are the Catuvellauni. We do not surrender. The tuath shall fight until the last of us falls. If anyone wishes to leave Camulodunon while there is still time, and flee into the west or go to the Druids on Mona, I will not deprive him of his honor-price or decree him a slave. Are there any who wish to go?” He stopped speaking to gain strength but no one moved. No eyes dropped guiltily, no hands quivered in sudden betrayal, and he felt a weak, pathetic surge of renewed pride waft toward him from the cavernous, desolate eyes that met his own.
He began again, his voice filled with cold decision. “Then we will prepare for another fight. I want the gate torn down and the hole filled with earth and stones. Is Alan here?” His farmer freeman stood. “Alan, see that all the cattle, the others, as well as mine, are driven into the woods to the north. Set a few peasants to guard them. If necessary they will all be slaughtered. I want no Romans feasting on my honor-price.” Alan nodded and sat down again. “Vocorio, you and your freemen find all the farmers and peasants you can and bring them within the defences. Most of them will have hidden themselves in the woods, but round up those who will come. There are plenty of empty huts.” Images of the chiefs who would never ride home flitted quickly across his mind, but nothing could help them now and he did not want the survivors to think back on them and their fate, not yet, and so he let the sorrowful picture go without speaking of it. “Mocuxsoma,” he called, returning to his vision of what had to be done. “Burn the bridge across the dyke. Do it immediately. The peasants can cross on logs. And all of you, scour the town for weapons. Any thing will do as long as it can be used to kill Romans. But for now, go home and rest this night.”
He wanted to say more, to talk about glory and honor, but even his thoughts had an empty, mocking ring and he dismissed them, sinking once more to the skins. He felt nauseated with weariness and with the unendurable tragedy of the past few days. Fire me high, Tog had said, fire me well. Pain stabbed at him as the words came back to him in Tog’s own faltering voice. Tog. Feckless you were, and lawless, digging into the rich basket of life with both eager, greedy hands. Yet, I loved you. You were linked with the high stars, blown gloriously, impulsively on the winds of the heavens while I… He looked down at his filthy, shaking fingers. While I am chained to the earth and my hands will never touch a star. Only a sword. Only a bitter, cruel sword. He battled his emotion, swelled now by his exhaustion, and he finally looked up. The Hall had emptied. He forced himself to look at the two women who waited.
“There is no hope, is there?” Eurgain said.
“None at all,” he replied brutally. “We are finished as a tuath and as a free people. Eurgain, I want you and the children to go into the west. I will send Caelte and his freemen with you, for I do not think that we shall ever again sit here in the nights and listen to his songs.”
She had been expecting just such a request and she replied emphatically. “No, Caradoc. This time I will not cower behind my children. I do not want to pass into the west, knowing that none but I and my family are survivors of the great Catuvellauni. Such loneliness could not be borne.” She took his hand and kissed it and Gladys looked away, feeling a great isolation engulf her for the first time in her life. “If we are to die, my husband, then let us die together. I Iove you and will not live out my life without you and among strangers.” He kissed her, too tired to argue, but warmed by her words, and they rose together and went out of the Hall, leaving Gladys sitting in emptiness, her sword heavy about her waist, and scalding, salt tears burning her brown cheeks.
So the last warriors of C
amulodunon prepared for their end. They worked quickly and grimly in a town whose once cheerful, light-filled huts stood silent and waiting, whose paths and open spaces lay forlornly silent in the thick heat of the summer afternoons. The rites for Togodumnus were held in the same drugged, resigned quiet, and the crackling of his pyre was the only sound for a day and a night while the sky clouded over, great thunderheads moving majestically in from the coast to bulk heavily above the town, and lightning flared spasmodically over the ripening fields. Caradoc felt nothing as he thrust the torch into the dry brushwood on which his brother lay. There was no room left in him for grief or sorrow, and he could not speak of the youth that had been, for the days of raiding and light-hearted stealing, of drunken pranks and half-earnest sparring, belonged to another age. Once there had been two brothers, growing up under a mighty ricon, with friends and cattle, with loves and hates, but they had no reality, they belonged to one of Caelte’s songs, to part of an old, sweet dream. No one wept as the flames caught hold and began to feed. All of them, the chiefs, their women, the sullen Trinovantian peasants, heard in the roaring fire the hot and pitiless words of their own coming deaths, and they stood dumb and passive, as if seeing their own bodies consumed.
The gateway was blocked, the cattle driven deep into the woods, and the peasants housed unwillingly by dead men’s hearths. The country and the river lay deserted. And still the Romans did not come. Gladys took a coracle and disappeared one day, alone, leaving no word. Llyn wandered in and out of the Great Hall, up and down the paths, morosely scuffing the dry dirt, and the little girls played desultorily with Gladys’s seashells, while Tallia sat in the shade. Eurgain and Caradoc walked the walls day after day, blonde hair and dark mingling on the hot winds, choked with words they could not say. Cinnamus crouched in the lee of Camulos’s shrine, polishing the sword that already gleamed fever bright, murmuring incantations over and over to the god that brooded angrily within, and Caelte, his gentle, humorous face serene, stood outside his hut and strummed his harp, making new songs while the sun drowsed in his music and watched his long, supple fingers move in its light.
The Eagle and the Raven Page 22