The Eagle and the Raven

by Pauline Gedge

  “Greetings, Caradoc ap Cunobelin,” he said softly. “So we meet again. I told you that the day would come when you had need of me.” Caradoc took the thin wrist, feeling a jolt go through him as he did so. Above them the waning moon came out for a moment, leering through the trees, the pallid face of a drowned man, and the stranger raised his hand in a curious gesture, half-greeting and half-command. “Remember,” he ordered softly. Then he pushed back his hood and Caradoc found himself gazing into a lean, bearded face dominated by two bright eyes that watched him steadily. “I am Bran,” he said, and suddenly Caradoc was back in his room at Camulodunon and it was late, a dark night, and a Druid sat before his fire, the flames casting grotesque shadows on the walls. The fear that he had felt then came back, a tide of rootless anxiety, but now it was muted, faded with the years of disillusionment and dangers in between, and even as Bran smiled it flickered and was gone. The two men stood looking at one another, while around them the forest was hushed and the men, Silurian and Catuvellauni, blended quietly with the black tree trunks and waited.

  Bran had not changed, Caradoc thought. The beard was thicker, perhaps, and crisper, the cheeks more drawn under high bones, but the voice was still compelling, vibrant, and the eyes still caught him in their black points and held him prisoner. But Bran, searching Caradoc’s face, felt himself overwhelmed with pity and admiration. There was suffering in the wide, dark eyes and the lined mouth, but it was held tightly in check, and the hard, emotionless stubbornness that Bran had merely sensed in the lad all those years ago was now stamped clear for all to see. The sensitive lips were thinner, held in a grim line, and would smile only unwillingly. The high, proud forehead was furrowed by two great, slashing lines. For a moment Bran wondered if the budding clear-sightedness he had seen on that night had been extinguished by Caradoc’s bitterness, if the stubbornness had become only a reckless, suicidal hatred, but then Caradoc smiled slowly, his eyes narrowing, and Bran knew that his own intuitions had not played him false.

  “Yes, I remember you,” Caradoc said evenly. “I remember very well. You sat in my chair and prophesied, Druithin, but I was young and stupid and full of pride, and would not listen. I will not thank you for snatching me from the gladiae of Rome, for you have brought me and my kinsmen only the sorrow of division and the agony of dishonor, but I will ask you—what do you want of me?”

  “You know what I want, Caradoc.” The bronze rings tied in his hair glinted as he replied. “The Silurians would have left you to die. They care nothing for you or Rome or anyone but themselves, but I spoke and they listened. I want you to put yourself in my hands. The Romans can be beaten, but not until the tribes sink their differences and move as one.” He stepped closer. “I want you to be the arviragus, Caradoc.”

  Caradoc laughed, a harsh, croaking bark. “You are mad. The last arviragus of the people was Vercingetorix, and though he led two hundred thousand warriors, yet he was flung into the dungeons of Rome, living in darkness and filth for six years until Julius Caesar paraded him around the forum and then had him strangled like a sick animal. The Gaulish tribes remember him, but they fight no longer.”

  “Yes, he failed,” Bran said, “and we may fail also, and you, Caradoc, may end your days in the dungeons of Rome, emerging only to humiliation and death. But think carefully, as I have thought over the years. There is only one choice. Fight on, or surrender.”

  “Then there is no choice. I deserted my peasants, Bran, and my sister, and my Hall, because only thus can I live to draw my blade again. But I do so with no hope. Your dream is foolish. The men of the west will never unite.”

  Bran went on staring at Caradoc through the dimness, while the moon was veiled once more and the rain began to fall. “Caradoc,” he said, finally breaking the silence, “I am no seer, as I told you once before. Yet you are wrong. The tribes can be drawn together if the right man counsels them, a man with the power of reason, a man who can inspire loyalty. I do not dream. I think.” The fruit has ripened on the tree, he thought, and now we have plucked it before it could fall to the earth. “Will you attempt this thing?” he asked.

  Caradoc’s gaze left the Druid’s to find the leaf-strewn ground at his feet. Arviragus. No, it was impossible. But better to pursue the impos sible than to turn and die at Camulodunon, or even to gather the few chiefs he had left and to fight the legions alone. The Silures intended to resist Rome to the bitter end, that was obvious, but what of the Ordovices, the Demetae, the Deceangli, the other tribes of the west? He was not a child any more, he did not shudder when their names were mentioned, but he still felt a vestigial reluctance to pass into their ragged, snow-shrouded mountain fastnesses. They would fight on, he thought, with or without him and his chiefs, for no commerce with Rome had softened their swords. He looked up. Bran had not moved, and the black eyes still regarded him almost indifferently. Caradoc knew that he had made his decision, knew what he must say, but all at once the words stuck in his throat. He knew that an arviragus was not like other men, and that if he agreed he would become something unrecognizable even to himself. He felt alone, imprisoned by the darkness, and by the cool rain that trickled down his neck and dripped from the hem of his cloak, and he sensed the wights and demons who were standing behind every tree, watching him, their pronged, horned helms monstrous in the poor light. The weight of his choice seemed to stretch before him with more consequences, more infinite, twisting roads of fate than he could comprehend, and it bore him down. He swallowed, meeting Bran’s eyes, and the current of strength seemed to flow once more from the older man and he squared his shoulders.

  “I will come,” he managed huskily and as he said it, he thought he saw pity or sympathy flit across the lean face.

  Bran nodded, turning abruptly to his men. “Good. Jodocus, bring up the horses. We must ride swiftly if we are to put many miles between us and this place before the battle is over and the Romans turn to seek you.” He issued more orders, then swung back to Caradoc, who had not stirred. “How many chiefs did you bring?”

  “About one hundred.”

  “Your family? Your son?”

  “Yes.” The questions were sharp, businesslike, and Bran left him, striding to where horses were being led from somewhere in the dimness behind the morose and silent Silurian chiefs.

  Caradoc went to his men. “We will go with them,” he said. “Cin, you take little Gladys on your horse. There are no wains. I’ll take Eurgain. Llyn, you can ride, but remember that if you tire and fall off, no one will stop. Would you rather sit behind Fearachar?”

  Llyn was shivering, his cloak pulled tightly around him, but he answered arrogantly. “Of course not, Father. I will not tire, and I will not fall.”

  Caradoc nodded and walked to where Eurgain stood. Her hood was back. Her fair hair was plastered to her face, her breeches clung sopping and cold to her long legs, and the blue eyes flew to him, smoky gray with fatigue and stress. He kissed her, pushing the wet hair from her cheeks. “They want me for arviragus,” he said. “They want me to unite the tribes, but if I can only fight beside the Silurian chiefs I will have accomplished something. What do you think?”

  “If the Druid did not believe that you could do it he would never have spoken for you or come all this way,” she replied. “It is worth a try, my love.”

  “You know what it will mean.”

  “Yes, I know.” She unwrapped her arms and embraced him. “Be glad, Caradoc. We are still free, still alive. What other days of unlooked-for hope wait for us under the shadow of the mountains?” Her voice shook with something, excitement or fear he could not tell.

  “I think in spite of everything you will be happy to see these mountains,” he chided gently, and she stepped away, snuggling her arms inside her cloak again and smiling at him.

  “I feel a great peace,” she said. “Here we are, cold, hungry, without tuath or tribe, while all around us the world has gone mad. Yet at the thought that I will at last see the land I have heard of only in tales, my heart pou
nds as it did on the day we shared the cup of marriage!” There were other truths behind the words. Be cheerful, she was saying, have courage. We belong to each other whether the world ends or staggers on. He answered her smile, the grim, pure line of his mouth curving for a moment, then he left her and mounted the horse standing ready for him as Cinnamus and Caelte swung to ride beside him. Fearachar handed up little Eurgain and he settled her before him, her head against his wet chest, her eyes half-closed in utter weariness. “I’m hungry, father,” she murmured, but he did not respond, knowing that she would sleep for many hours yet, and their fast would not be broken until well into the morning. Looking back he saw Llyn pick up the reins of his mount and Fearachar nudge his horse close to check the harness. Then Bran turned, raised a white clad arm, and they began to move. Caradoc eased his daughter’s weight closer into his shoulder. The west, he thought. There is magic in those words, spells of fate and deep rivers of mystery. I have changed, already I feel it. Farewell, Gladys, my sister. May the wine of the next world bring you forgetfulness and peace. Farewell, Camulodunon, tortured ruin of my heedless youth. Ah, Cunobelin, Togodumnus… Togodumnus…

  He looked back. The night was already thinning. The path behind him wound about the bole of a great, gnarled oak and vanished. The trees closed in and made a wet, green wall, clothed in the first mists of morning. You cannot go back, they whispered to him. The way is no longer open. Those days are over. He turned again, kneed his horse, and vanished like a gray ghost with the fleeing shadow of the night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  GLADYS sat alone in the Great Hall listening to the thrumming of rain on the roof. She sat hunched against a wall, her knees up, and her arms wrapped about her legs. She was crying quietly, while through the vents far above her in the thick darkness a capricious summer wind moaned. One lamp still burned, high and lonely, but the far reaches of the echoing room were shrouded in blackness, and she could only sense the tall, carved pillars marching across the empty floor, the cold hearth, and the great shields and crossed spears still hanging where they had hung for years beyond counting. The soft noises of a night almost spent served only to make the stillness in the deserted Hall more poignantly endless. No fire would ever again roar its warm, friendly greeting to tired chiefs who gathered around it, sniffing the meat, chattering of the raid that had ended well. No chieftain would ever again rise from his place, with the light glittering on his golden torc, and his bronze bracelets and brooches flashing as he flung out his arms and shouted for Council. The Hall was a shell, an empty cup from which the sour dregs had been poured, never again to be filled. Gladys felt it complain, moaning gently in reproach and resignation. It was settling into its dreams of days gone by while the unseen tendrils of nostalgia writhed from the corners, mingled with the strange leaf patterns of the dead Trinovantian craftsmen, curled about her with vines of memory and passionate regret.

  “Mother,” she whispered into the sad quiet, “Mother.” And the whisper ran around the walls and came back to her, bringing with it dead voices from the past, dead faces, gone, all gone. She caught a mouth open in a great shout of laughter, a shy, quick smile, a contemptuous, tossing head, and then the eyes of Sholto, wide with shock, filling with an astonished pain and reproach like the sudden rush of water when a dam gives way. She groaned, putting her forehead to her knees. I ache, she thought. Mother, how I ache! Come dawn, come death, I cannot live another hour with these memories. Her eyes throbbed and her face burned with the dry roughness of weariness and too many tears. She began to doze, hearing the last lamp crackle and go out, hearing the rain ease, and sensing that the dense darkness of the Hall was thinning. She slept a little, lightly, dreaming that she was lying on the edge of the ocean. The little waves were washing around her, licking her face and the tips of her outstretched fingers, and through the cool sand came the pulse of the rumbling surf. She woke suddenly, refreshed, and stood and flexed her stiff limbs, aware that the rain had stopped and pale new sunlight crept apologetically under the skins of the doorway. She buckled on her sword, went to the water barrel and plunged her face and hands into it, then pushed the skins aside and looked out on the morning.

  The fires had died. Only sullen, impotent embers glowed where the huts and houses had been, and the sun fell bright through air no longer murky with smoke. She saw beyond the wall to where the Romans were already astir, cooking their wheaten porridge and squatting easily in their thick short leather tunics, their legs bare and their iron helmets lying in the grass beside them. The centurions moved among them with swagger sticks tucked under their arms, and the optios strode behind. Before Gladys turned away she saw, far back, a group of cavalry officers go by, the sun glinting from their polished harness, the plumes on their helmets bouncing gaily. She walked around to the rear of the Hall, and moved from hut to hut, greeting the peasants who stared at her darkly and muttered as they felt their empty bellies grumble. Then she went back and sat before the door, her eyes on the rinsed blue sky, and her skin warmed by the sun. Presently the peasants came to her. They were barefooted and sturdy and they squatted in front of her with questions in their eyes. She tried to count them as they filled the large open space and flowed between the heaps of dead ash. Two hundred? Three? She wanted to laugh. She rose at last, raising an arm for silence, while beyond them a trumpet blared and the soldiers put away their spoons and dishes and reached for their helmets and weapons. She did not mince words. “Trinovantians!” she called. “My brother and the chiefs of my people have left Camulodunon. They go to fight in the west. They have left me to lead you this day.”

  An explosion of rage greeted her as she knew it would. The peasants got up and surged toward her shouting, with sallow, dark, contorted faces. Hunger and fear fanned their anger at this betrayal, but she stood her ground, shouting for silence again and again until they ringed her, still muttering but no longer yelling, a menacing, seething mob. “They will come back!” she lied but her voice carried no conviction and a tall, muscular man pushed his way to the front. His black hair was tangled, his arms were scarred and bare, and his hands were like twin clubs.

  “They will not come back,” he sneered contemptuously. “Cowards! The Catuvellauni at last are showing what they are. You should have gone too, Lady, and saved us the trouble of killing you before we go ourselves. Did you think that we would stay and fight for you?” He spat at her feet. “My father was a chief, and his father before him, until Cunobelin came and took away his torc and dishonored him by making him till the soil. Now the Catuvellauni are destroyed, and once more Camulodunon belongs to us.”

  “Listen to me, you fools!” she shouted. “If you want Camulodunon back you must fight for it. The Catuvellauni were hard masters but the Romans will be harder. They come to enslave you anew. Stay and fight! Then even if we are conquered we can still say that we were not defeated without honor. I give you back your freedom! I give you back your honor-prices, all of you! I swear by the Mother, by Camulos, by the goddess, that if you stay and we are victorious you will once again be masters of this land!” She lowered her eyes and her voice to the burly, glowering man before her. “Come and stand beside me,” she said. “If you are a chief, act like one, fight like one, and if it is to be, die like one.” He stood there chewing his lip, and seeing his indecision, she pressed him desperately. “If you have any honor left, you will fight. If not, I will fight and die alone and you will be proved to be what Cunobelin called you— stupid cattle!”

  His eyes suddenly flared. He grunted like an irritated bull, then he took one step and stood beside her. “We will fight!” he said. “If we win we will sacrifice you to Taran and take this place for our own. If not…” He grinned at her. “If not, we will die as warriors.”

  Impatience tugged at her. She unsheathed her sword. “I agree,” she called. “Spread out now. Climb the walls. Take your slings. The soldiers will be ready to break through today and you must keep them from breaching the walls. I have no food or beer to offer you. Every
thing is gone. But if you win you may feast on Roman food tonight.”

  They ran then, unwinding their slings, spreading out as they began to scale the walls, and she left the belligerent chief and walked to where the gate once stood, feeling no shame at having used them. She knew that they would never inherit Camulodunon, and neither would she, but at least their blood would be spilled with honor, and they had lived without honor for more than forty years. How have they borne it? she wondered, slipping her arm into her shield while beyond her the incursus sounded and the troops surged forward with a great shout. I have been without honor for only a few weeks, but already I am half-dead with the load of my guilt.

  Above her she saw the Trinovantians pulling stones from the rim of the wall, fitting them to the leather slings, whirling them and letting them fly, and she heard cries outside, and angry curses. But she knew that for every Roman struck there were fifty to take his place, and soon the wall would crumble. Already she heard the grate of spade and pick, saw the earth move in a dozen places, while the deafening cacophony of war battered in her ears. Then directly in front of her a hole appeared, a spade rang on rock, withdrew, and a hand began feverishly to tear at the loose earth. She ran forward, coolly raised her sword, and struck the fingers from the palm. She heard the man scream but immediately more hands were there, and to her right and left more holes were widening, as though rabbits had gone mad and were burrowing in a frenzy to reach the air. Above her the sun beamed down, filling the beleaguered town and all the valley beyond with a dazzling, blood-warming heat. High beyond sight two larks trilled and piped, but Gladys, in a final, drenching sweat of momentary terror, hewed at the first head to appear almost at her elbow and then swung desperately, as behind her the legions began to pour into Camulodunon. The peasants had retreated from the walls, fighting with knives and fists and teeth, a ferocious madness on them, dying without sound, and Gladys turned and fled back up the path to the Great Hall and the shrine of Camulos, her feet matching the rapid thudding of her heart. She whirled at the door to the shrine, flinging her shield away. Snatches of old prayers and incantations flitted through her mind, and she stood panting, leaning on her bloodied sword, and watched the rape of her home.