Dreaming the Bull

by Manda Scott

  Caradoc was wounded. Valerius could see from the way his horse moved that his right hand no longer controlled the reins. He pulled away from mac Calma. Our Gauls? Impossible. All Gauls were sworn to the emperor and Rome. A blade streaked across at eye height and the impossibility of Gaulish allies would have killed him if he had thought about it more.

  Thinking kills. Unthinking, he knocked his attacker from his horse and then reached low from the saddle to slice the man’s leg below the chain mail, leaving the great vessel spewing blood and his enemy clutching his last moments of life. Is life less precious to the grown man who understands what he has to lose…? I think not. He was becoming detached so that a part of him floated above the battle, watching and judging. As always at such times, the ghosts had gone, which was unfair; if Valerius were going to die, he wanted them there to witness it. Savagely, he called them back and his heart rejoiced when they came.

  Instinct pulled him to the right-hand end of the line to where Caradoc had slid from his horse and was fighting side by side with Cwmfen, using his body to guard Math, who was strapped to her back. Dubornos was wounded but still used his sword to good effect. He knelt at Cwmfen’s side, lacking the use of one leg. Weakened and without shields and proper armour, none of the three could live long.

  Valerius was about to dismount and join them when a shield grazed the knuckles of his left hand, the grip pressing into his palm. He had swung his blade halfway to the side before he understood and slowed its arc. He took his eyes off the enemy long enough to look down and found the Belgic boy, who had neither ridden nor sailed but who might, once, have seen battle, or heard of it around a fire in the winter in the days when he was free. The boy smiled and was, indeed, Iccius, who had died in a hypocaust. The pain in Valerius’ chest might have been enough to kill him had not a ringing, many-voiced battle cry from the west jerked his mind away from the past.

  Our Gauls. A dozen horsemen charged at a full gallop into the chaos. They bore spears and long swords and good shields and, screaming to their gods, they carved into the Roman auxiliaries as blades into meat. In a single pass, five of the enemy died. Our Gauls. Warriors still loyal to Mona and the old gods, who would risk their lives in defence of a dreamer who travelled often to Gaul and those who rode with him.

  Our Gauls. Mithras! I thank you.

  The slave-boy was standing in frozen stillness among the plunging horses. In Belgic, Valerius shouted, “Give me your arm. Come up on my horse. They must know you are one of us.”

  The boy clutched at his sleeve and was hauled up. He weighed less than Iccius had ever done, even after Amminios had gelded him.

  A loose horse passed, foaming white at the mouth, its eyes wide with fear. Valerius grabbed the reins and tore it round, bracing his weight against it. Dragging it beside his mare, he forced a way forward. Behind him, the slave-boy whimpered once and was silent.

  On the ground, Caradoc was holding his blade two-handed, carving air, but not cleanly. Valerius used the free mount bodily to block a Roman attacker. Thrusting the reins forward, he shouted, “For you! There’s a chance now. Mount if you want to live.”

  The warrior’s reply broke apart in the chaos. “No … Dubornos has … greater need.”

  The second wave of the incomers was on them, attacking at random. Valerius ducked and slashed and realized late that he had not forgone his decurion’s armour and was beset by those who were ostensibly his allies. Mac Calma shouted violently in Gaulish and the strikes against him lessened. In the cramped space in front of the rocks, Gauls fought other Gauls and only by the blue-stained heron feathers flying in handfuls from the hair of the newcomers could friends be told from foe. Marullus’ Romans were pushed to the margins and, not knowing what to look for, did not see the distinction, and so could not kill.

  “Get to the boat!” It was mac Calma, singing his single litany.

  Light-headed with fatigue, Valerius laughed. “You need a new chant, dreamer.”

  He swung round. Dubornos mounted the gelding he had caught. His leg was bleeding, but not broken. Two horses were brought, one each for Caradoc and Cwmfen. Cygfa joined them, white-faced and cursing, shepherding a raging Cunomar who wanted to kill even if he died trying to achieve it. A pack of howling, blue-feathered Gauls surrounded them and escape seemed possible, but for the sudden crash of the falling sky as Marullus, who had kept clear of the fray to give orders, now, at the last, committed himself and came crashing through.

  “Go!” Valerius screamed it in his battle voice, in Eceni, as he had never screamed before. “Go for the ship. Marullus is mine. To get me, he will let you go.”

  There was no time to see if he was obeyed. The centurion was a bull, inward and outward, and he swatted Gauls as a bull crushes summer flies and with as little care. Men fell before him and around him as he ploughed his horse through the battle lines to get to the man he had called son, whose life he had chosen not to take these past fourteen days.

  The stolen shield saved Valerius. The first blow of the centurion’s blade cracked it, but did not break through. The power of the strike numbed his arm. The second swiped sideways for his head and he might have died but the mare slipped on the blood-slick shingle, going down on one knee, and the sweep of the blade missed them both. She was a good mare. Valerius heard her grunt as she rose and knew the bone had broken in her forelimb, or the tendons split. One last time, he dragged hard on her mouth and she gave him what he needed, rising high on her hind legs. The Belgic boy slipped backward to safety. The mare caught the back-swing of Marullus’ blade, taking it full in the side of the head, splitting bone and muscle down to the teeth. She screamed hoarsely and toppled. Crimson blood spumed from her nose. The sword wedged in her, held fast in the bone, and the centurion, loath to let go, was pulled off balance. Valerius was already clear, dropping the shield, rolling on the shingle, bruising the entirety of his back, rising with his blade still in his hand. Longinus would have liked that. Longinus would never hear of it. Marullus was above him, still in his saddle, still off balance, bellowing.

  Knowing himself lost for all time to the god and the legions, Julius Valerius Corvus, first decurion of the Prima Thracum, struck into the unguarded face of the man who had branded him, who had taught him the litanies, who had given him a reason to live when there was none. Marullus died, despising him, and was added to the ghosts. A shout in Latin recorded it and the Romans on the margins of the chaos, seeing him die, abandoned their discretion. No longer attempting to discern friend from foe, they began instead to attack every Gaul within reach. On the pebbles of the shoreline, the mare died, thrashing.

  “Come!”

  It was shouted in Gaulish and repeated in Eceni. A hand dragged on Valerius’ sword arm, pulling him along beside a running horse. Other hands caught him under the armpit and he was raised up and thrown bodily on the back of a mount. The battle fell behind and behind and he dragged himself upright and took control of the reins and saw the Belgic boy held safe by Dubornos and was glad it was not Caradoc and then they were on the spit of land with the rocks and the seaweed and the pinpoint barnacles lit fire-bright by the oarsmen’s lamps. Only because he could ride no further, Valerius braced himself against the saddle, ready to dismount. His mind would not allow him to consider where he might go when his feet met the beach.

  “You’re not coming!”

  Surprised, he looked up. His new horse was footsore and had trouble on the wet rock and turned only slowly. Before it was fully round, he had realized that it was Cygfa who had spoken and that she was weeping. She would never weep for him.

  From over his right shoulder he heard Caradoc’s voice, held unnaturally steady, say, “I can’t come. I’m sorry, truly. I can’t, not like this.” The warrior’s right arm hung at his side. It might still have movement, but it would never again raise a shield.

  “You must. The warriors of Mona, of the Ordovices, of all the united tribes, will accept you, whole or not. You can still come. You must. Without you, we are n
othing.” She was whispering, to get the words out past her grief. They hushed into the sea.

  “No. They may accept, but they will not respect.” Caradoc spread his left hand. The fingers crooked inwards on both and they shook as one with palsy. “Cygfa, I don’t do this to hurt you, I swear it. If we were not at war, I would return without hesitation, but I can’t lead a battle as I am. Better that they know I am free and in Gaul and that they believe me whole. It will be said I stayed to fight while you escaped. Word will be spread later that I am alive and it will give heart where my presence will not. I’m sorry.” It was a prepared speech, as Valerius’ to Marullus had been. One could not tell how long ago he had prepared it.

  The dreamers, evidently, expected this. Dubornos showed no surprise. Luain mac Calma took no part in the exchange taking place an arm’s length away and instead watched the skiff on one side and the battle beyond, where a line of Gauls was slaughtering the remnants of Marullus’ men.

  Cygfa said, “Mother? Will you not return to your people?”

  Cwmfen was behind Caradoc. Enemy blood stained her face and arms, but no tears. She shook her head. “I stay with your father. Math must grow knowing his father as well as his mother. He needs both of us to teach him who he is and what lines he has come from. It is better like this. We will hear word of you and you of us.”

  “Then I’ll stay with you. I’ll guard you and my brother will grow knowing his full family.” She did not suggest that Cunomar should stay.

  “No.” Caradoc reached for her arm. “You must sit your long-nights. Mac Calma says it’s not too late, but that it can’t be done in Gaul. The gods no longer live here as they do on Mona.”

  Valerius watched the change in her, the sudden swamping wave of a hope that had been buried so deeply for so long that she had forgotten it was there. Her father had not forgotten, nor her mother, and nor, perhaps, had Luain mac Calma, who could see what she might have been and might yet be. The understanding of that filled her, visibly.

  She glanced sideways at the dreamer, who nodded. Caradoc smiled, at what cost was not clear. “See? It is better this way. Go now. You must sail and we must ride.”

  He reached for her other arm, no longer the clasp of a warrior but the full embrace of father for daughter. The careful mask of his composure broke open. Tears made clean tracks on his cheeks. His hand went to his shoulder, to the serpent-spear brooch that was all that remained of Britannia. He unhooked it and pinned it to Cygfa’s tunic. The red threads on the lower loop were entirely blackened with his blood. Kissing her, he said, “I have no blade to give you—mac Calma will see one is made for you that is fit. Take this, and take heart. While you live, my soul and your mother’s fight the enemy through you.”

  “Father…” Cygfa lifted his hand to her cheek. Through streaming tears she said, “We will drive them from the land, every one. Then you can come home again.”

  Caradoc smiled brokenly. When he could speak, he said, “We will wait daily for that news.”

  His gaze moved back beyond Cygfa to where Cunomar watched, forlorn, abandoned, unspeakably angry and lost. He had entered the battle a boy and emerged the same, lacking a single kill. Until Caradoc spoke, all of his attention had been on the fighting behind them. Valerius, watching, saw that Dubornos was holding the boy’s horse and that three of the blue-feathered Gauls had been ordered expressly to watch over the lad and keep him safe.

  “Cunomar, you fought well.” Caradoc was more controlled now, enough to pass off a lie with some credibility. He drew the knife from his belt and held it, hilt out. “I have no sword to give you, but take this, as if it were one. Mac Calma will see it made real.” He stopped, searching for words. Those that came were not prepared. “Your mother … your mother will know this is right. Stand at her side in my stead. Protect her for me.”

  He knew his son well. The boy’s face had collapsed at the sight of the knife and the hollow praise for his actions. In the name of his mother, he pulled himself together and sat straighter in the saddle. For the first time, he took his eyes and his attention completely from the fading battle at the rocks. He had been born on Mona and grown amongst its ceremony. He made the salute of a warrior to a member of the elder council, perfectly.

  “While I live, she will not take harm,” he said. “In Briga’s name, I swear it.”

  The gathered adults witnessed the oath with due solemnity.

  Their parting was swift after that. The Gauls took the horses. The oarsmen, who were for the best part also Gauls, helped the warriors to board the skiff. Philonikos chose to accompany Caradoc and was wished well by Dubornos, who had been closest to him. The Belgic boy, wretchedly confused, was given the same choice and, perhaps not understanding, said in his fractured Gaulish that he wished to remain with Valerius, wherever he went. Where Valerius was going was not clear to any of them, least of all the man himself.

  Mac Calma made the decision for him. “If you stay, our Gauls will kill you. They don’t believe me that you are not of Rome.”

  “They’re right. I’m as much of Rome as any man they killed tonight.”

  The dreamer smiled crookedly. “Then if you wish to die, you may stay on this beach. If you wish to live, you can at least board the boat. We have five days’ journey, perhaps more. Decisions can be made and broken a dozen times in each day, and if you really want to die Manannan will take you.” When Valerius did not reply, mac Calma said, “If you stay, the boy Iccius will die with you. I do not have the power to make them let him live.”

  It was the name that made the difference, although later Valerius railed against so flagrant an abuse of his past. At the time, he knew only that he could not see the child die again whose ghost he still carried with him and so the decision was made.

  “Stop.” Valerius had turned to board the skiff when Caradoc grasped his arm. It was easy now to see the man in him; the god had never looked so broken. The cloud-grey eyes were bloodshot and held a world of pain. The courage it took to keep them level could not be measured. Caradoc held out his hand. “Give me your knife,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Your knife. The one with the falcon head. Give it to me.”

  Waves brushed the shingle. A night gull cried. An oarsman grated his blade on the sand. Slowly, Valerius drew his knife from his belt and held it out on the flat of his palm.

  Caradoc touched the shaking fingers of his left hand to the weapon but did not lift it. He said, “There is a challenge amongst my mother’s people, the Ordovices, to test the truth between warriors. Two hands clasp the knife-hilt. Each strives to strike the other in the throat. Only one walks away alive.”

  Valerius barked a laugh. “The Ordovices were always known for their savagery.”

  “Perhaps, but it has its place. I swear to you now, on the hilt of your blade, that I did not betray you to Amminios, that I never at any time in your childhood wished you ill, that I took joy in your joy and heart in your love, that I respected the power of the dreamer you were and the warrior you could become. I would have spoken willingly before the elders at your long-nights and felt myself honoured to be asked. I still would.” Caradoc was neither a dreamer nor a singer but his words carried their power. His eyes burned. They were not the god’s eyes. In a different voice, he said, “If you doubt me, we will take the challenge. Mac Calma is not empowered by our elders to oversee it, but Cwmfen is.”

  “You think she wishes to oversee your slaughter?” The mere suggestion was ludicrous. Valerius was weary from the battle, but not incapacitated. Caradoc was on his feet only because his will would not let him fall; he was in no condition to hold a knife. Valerius said, “You have the chance of life in Gaul. Do you wish to leave Cwmfen to rear a child without its father? That is not what you just told your daughter.”

  “I would not have my son grow to adulthood with his father accused of treachery.”

  “Worse things have been said of men.”

  “Not of me.”

  They stood apart
on the shingle, with a knife-blade between them. Behind, the battle ended. Valerius heard a man die, and then the silence of spent warriors who will stand a while when the danger is over, until they can find the strength to walk. He had seen it on both sides, sometimes in the same day, when the battle has gone beyond the endurance of everyone left on the field and no-one can win.

  Caradoc said gently, “Bán? You have to choose. You can’t go back to Breaca believing that I betrayed you.”

  Your sister is my heart and soul, the rising of my sun in the morning. She has been from the first meeting and will be until I die and beyond.

  The child who had been Bán had not seen that. The man who was Valerius had spent fifteen years denying it.

  Valerius closed his hand around the knife’s hilt. Slowly, he removed it from Caradoc’s grip. “You think I could go within reach of my sister if I had killed you? She must have changed a great deal.”

  “She hasn’t.” Caradoc smiled. “Then you believe me?”

  You would believe Amminios over me?

  Yes.

  He could lie so well, my brother …

  “I won’t kill you to prove a point.”

  Fingers stronger than he imagined closed on his wrist, crushing skin onto bone. Cloud-grey eyes burned with a fire he had thought long spent. With quiet intensity, Caradoc said, “But do you believe me?”

  The ghosts were gone. His god did not watch over him. Alone in a crowd of strangers with no-one left to help him, Julius Valerius abandoned the certainty that had sustained him since before he joined the legions.

  “Yes,” he said, “I believe you.”

  CHAPTER 27

  “It’s a ship!”

  The gale whipped the words out over the sea. It caught the unbraided parts of Breaca’s hair and spread them like sea-wrack about her face. It lifted spray from the waves and dashed it onto the rocks at her feet, and over the fire, and her cloak, and her face, and she raised her arms and let it cover all of her, saltily sweet. Laughing like a child, she shouted to Airmid over the noise of the wind and the water. “Look! Near where the sun hits the sea. It’s a ship. Graine was right. It’s Luain’s ship!”