Camulod Chronicles Book 1 - The Skystone

by Whyte, Jack

  "So, Roman!" He was glaring, narrow-eyed, at Caius. "You are surprised that I am a king. Why?"

  He spoke in Latin. Caius looked at me in surprise, and then turned back to him. I did not know the temper of this man, but I hoped Caius would be forthright.

  "We —" Caius's voice was husky. He cleared his throat angrily and spoke again, this time with his own voice. "We once had kings in Rome. We threw them out, abolished them. "

  "You abolished them? Why?" His voice was soft.

  Caius looked him straight in the eye. "They were unworthy. They used their kingly power to subjugate the people. "

  "To subjugate the people. That is good. " A pause, then, "Your people subjugate the world, Roman! "

  Caius considered that. "That is true. "

  "But that is different? When did you last have kings, Roman?"

  "Long ago. "

  "Before the Empire?"

  "Before the Republic. "

  "But before the Empire?" His voice was rich with sarcasm.

  "Aye. Long before. "

  "And you found them unworthy because they tried to dominate you. So you got rid of them. What was it you said? You... abolished them. And then you turned around yourselves to dominate all men. " It was well put. Caius had no answer. I decided I was well out of this. The big Celt spoke again.

  "Roman, you have set out in the past four years to establish yourself as a force upon my borders. Why?"

  Caius shrugged his shoulders. "My name is Caius Britannicus. Call me that, or Britannicus. "

  "Why? Do you dislike 'Roman'? You have not answered me. Why are you setting up a military force upon my borders?"

  "We were unaware that you had borders. Or that our Colony was close to them!"

  "Colony? What is this, this Colony? Are you trying to anger me, Roman?"

  This "king" was being nasty with a purpose; I felt sure of it. And I felt that Caius knew it, too. If he felt anger, he was concealing it well.

  "Have you ever met a king before today, Roman?" Caius's response was curt. "Several. I liked none of them. They were all petty tyrants. Every one. "

  I winced inwardly, gritting my teeth. Tension was knotting my stomach.

  "And I? Am I a tyrant? Have you heard stories of my tyranny?"

  "No, I have not. I had not even heard of your kingship, as you know. What do you want of me?"

  "Much, Roman. " Ullic was eyeing Caius steadily. "My people tell me you are training an army on my threshold. Why? What, or whom, do you look to conquer now?"

  "Conquer?" Caius's fists clenched by his sides, and I could now see the anger seething in him. He glanced at me, looking grim, and then turned his eyes back to Ullic defiantly. "We look to conquer nothing. We seek only to defend ourselves!"

  "Against whom?" Again the sarcasm in Ullic's voice was heavy, but now Caius seemed determined not to respond to it.

  "Not against whom, King Ullic, against what, you should ask. " His voice was as condescending as it could have been. In response to his tone, Ullic's voice was lower, more menacing.

  "Against what, then, Roman, do you arm yourselves?" Caius said nothing. "Answer me, Roman, and take care. " His voice was soft now. "I do not like liars. "

  Caius told me later that the moment of truth that comes to each man had caught up with him then. Something inside him, he said, quailed, and he was deathly afraid to say the words he suddenly knew to be true. He had to clench his teeth and swallow to quell a surge of vomit in his throat, feeling like a small boy caught with a guilty secret. He knew what he had to say. He knew the truth.

  "I am no Roman!" It came out as four toneless, disconnected words. I could not believe what I had heard. As for Ullic, he looked at Caius sardonically, his right eyebrow climbing high as Caius's own was wont to do from time to time. Then he moved his eyes slowly down the toga-draped length of the man facing him.

  "Your pardon, Caius Britannicus! I cannot think how I could make such a mistake. How I could think you Roman?" He bowed slowly from the waist. "But, if you are no Roman, what are you? You're no Celt!"

  "I am a Briton, as are you!"

  Ullic laughed, a roaring bark of laughter. "A Briton? You? Boudicca was a Briton, man! So was Caradoc — Caractacus, your people called him!

  They and their people lived only to fight the likes of you! They were Britons! You are a foreigner. An invader!"

  Caius's response was immediate and vehement. "Not so. King of Pendragon! I am a Briton, born and bred of generations born here in this land. True, my name is Roman, and my loyalties, the facile ones, have been Roman — until now! And true, no Celtic blood flows in my veins. But I am of Britain by my name, Britannicus; and I am Briton by birthright!" Ullic folded his arms in front of him during this outburst which could hardly have surprised him more than it did me, and leaned his back against one of the great stones that stood behind him. His eyes were fixed on Caius.

  "Huh!" he said. "All right, for the sake of argument, I will call you Briton from now on. The original Britons were a tribe of Celts, you know. Your people all but wiped them out completely. But I will call you Briton, for now. You have yet to tell me why you train an army at my door! What is it that you seek defence against?"

  Caius answered him squarely. "Against the end of the world. "

  "The end of the world. " I heard amusement in Ullic's tone this time.

  "The Roman world. " Caius corrected himself.

  "I must be dull of wit today. Explain that. "

  I found myself nodding my head slowly in agreement with Caius, willing him on.

  "The Roman's day is over, " he said. "The Empire cannot survive much longer. It must fall. Soon. "

  Ullic shook his head, pityingly. "But how can this be, friend Briton?

  Rome is Eternal. All the Romans tell us so!"

  Caius shook his head. "No. Rome is finished. The day will come, soon now, when the hordes outside will venture in. Rome no longer has the strength to keep them out. "

  "And? So? How does this end the world?"

  I looked at him in disbelief. Was he being humorous? Or could he really fail to see beyond the fall?

  "When Rome falls, the world falls, King Ullic. " Caius spoke slowly and with great deliberateness. "The law ceases to exist. The army is no more. The cities starve. Their citizens go wild. There will be nothing to protect this land of Britain from invasion by people who will make the Roman invaders seem like children at play. Not a thing. Except the strengths her people build themselves. That is why we have moved onto your borders. We didn't know you had borders, but we do know that we can hold the land we have, and we can defend it against marauders for as long as we have to. "

  Ullic was silent for a space of minutes, staring Caius in the eyes. Slowly, he turned his head to look at me, and I was aware that I had not spoken since we met. And then he turned back to Caius and smiled, and he was transformed from a figure of menace to man of great appeal and charm. It was astonishing. He held out his hand to Caius, and, mystified, Caius shook with him.

  "Caius Britannicus, " he said, "you may well be the first of a new race. The non-Celtic Britons. Defend your land, and you defend my back. Defend my back, and I'll protect yours, too. Cymric! Send out the signal to prepare a feast! Our meeting here is done. Now we must tell the others what we have achieved. "

  Seconds later I heard the blowing of a horn and then the sounds of cheering. I was in a state of shock, as was Caius. I felt an idiotic smile painted across my face as Ullic stepped across to me, his hand outstretched. I shook with him, feeling the giant strength in his mighty fingers.

  "Publius Varrus, " he said, "we will have to change your name. You should be a Celt, with the love of iron that you have. "

  "King Ullic... " I rasped, my voice dry from tension.

  "Ullic will do. The 'King' is for display. I will be King again later. Now is the time for eating... " He stopped, staring across my shoulder.

  "Britannicus, you train your men too well. They still stand at attention. Wil
l you not allow them to stand down?"

  "In a moment. Tell me, Ullic, why did you toy with me? It's obvious you knew the answers to your questions before you ever asked them. Was this fair?"

  Ullic was smiling broadly now. "Fair? You mean just? Britannicus, I did not know you! I had to take the measure of the man. Varrus I knew about. But not Caius Britannicus. You hold your counsel closely to yourself. And so do I. Thus, if I were to know you, I must meet you face to face, and at your distinct disadvantage!" He grinned a giant grin. "I have met Romans whom I truly did not like, you know. "

  Caius smiled back at him, and I felt relief flooding over me like cooling water.

  "We can be friends, I think, Sir King, " Caius said through a smile.

  "We will be friends, I know, Sir Briton!" He placed an arm on each of our shoulders and led us out from among the stones of Stonehenge into the brightness of the morning sun.

  I allowed our men to break ranks and stand down as soon as we emerged from the temple. Ullic's men had already lighted fires and were preparing food. I saw casks being unloaded from the wagons and heard voices raised in song. A party of Druids had joined the gathering and their white robes gleamed in the strong sunlight.

  The remainder of the day was spent in feasting. There were footraces and contests of all kinds, including a demonstration by our men of Roman drill, swordplay and spear-throwing. The Celts were throwers, too, as well as archers, and the championship went to one of them, a skinny stretch of a man who threw a Roman pilum fifteen paces further than his nearest rival.

  As the sky began to darken, a great fire was built up of logs the Celts had brought with them on a cart, for there were no trees on the empty plain. One of the Celts produced a stringed instrument much like a Roman lyre and began to play, and a Druid priest stepped forward and sang to the sound of the strings. His voice was magical — clear, vibrant and possessed of enormous strength. We were enthralled when, at one point in the song, everyone else joined in and the music soared to a great crescendo, dying off suddenly to leave the Druid's voice shining alone. They sang in their own tongue and none of us could understand a word, but we had never heard such beauty coming from human throats. Again the Druid reached that certain point, and again everyone joined in.

  "What are they singing?" I asked Ullic.

  "A song about our land — our mountains and our lakes. "

  "It's magnificent. I must see your mountains some day. "

  "You will."

  "That Druid sings too well to be a priest. "

  He looked at me and laughed outright. "Too well to be a priest?" He guffawed. "That's why he is a priest, man! It's their art! Druids are trained from boyhood to protect the history of our people in their songs. They are our history, Varrus... the Druids are our history! They are our pride, our bards, our singing joy in life, man. That's why they are Druids. That's why they ARE!"

  I was somewhat taken aback by the force of his contention. "You mean they know your legends? All of them?"

  "Nay, man! Not legends. History!" The singsong lilt of his liquid Celtic language had infiltrated his Latin heavily, making our Roman language musical — no simple feat. "Legends are what you people have. A legend is a story told by strangers, changing form as it is passed from mouth to mouth down through the years until the people that it happened to would never recognize it. Look here, " he said, "let me try to explain to you. Each time something great, something momentous, even something funny happens that is worth recalling, one of our Druids sings it as a song. And then that song is learned, word upon word, perfectly, and passed on. It is intact, you see. It does not change — the details never vary. That is the sacred trust of the Druids. They are the bearers of our history-. "

  "But... All of it? How many songs are there?"

  He shrugged. "Who knows? Thousands, I should think. Thousands and thousands, maybe. "

  "How then can men remember all of them? A man's mind cannot hold so much!"

  "Rubbish, Varrus! Who knows what a man's mind can hold? Have you ever met a man whose mind was full up?"

  "No, I don't think I have. " I smiled at the thought. "And yet, thousands of songs, you say?"

  "Aye. and hundreds of Druids. They don't all sing the same songs, you know. There are some great songs every Druid knows, but each has his own that he is taught in boyhood, perhaps even some he made up himself, that he will teach to others, passing them on. It is their art, you see." I shook my head in wonder and listened once again to the song; the voices rose to one more crashing climax and then were still. It had become quite dark, and another Druid now stepped into the firelight, bearing his own instrument. A silence fell, and he began to sing. There was a ghostly, fragile beauty to the song he sang, and as it went on, verse after exquisite verse, I found myself lost in the texture of the melody. He varied the strength and power of his voice widely, now soft and plaintive, now alive and strong, now angry, suiting his facial expressions to the mood. And then I noticed the faces of these men who sat and listened, enraptured by his song, and was astounded to see many weeping shamelessly. As his voice finally died away, the silence that ensued seemed unnatural; no one spoke, moved or applauded.

  Ullic rose to his feet and stepped into the firelight. He looked around him at his men and mine and began to speak. As he did so, Cymric, our official interpreter, seated himself between Caius and me and translated for us; I saw many more of Ullic's warriors doing the same for our men. He spoke to them as an equal, but with great authority. He told them the details of our meeting at Stonehenge and went on to say that, from this day forth, we were no longer to be known as Romans. We were Britons, born in this land like them, proud of this land and ready to defend it against their foes and ours. He told them that if and when the legions were withdrawn, there might be numbers of them left behind, and that, if these should turn to banditry, we were prepared to fight them, too, Romans though they might nominally be.

  We had talked long that day, he, Britannicus and I, he said. The alliance that we formed between us now was to be no mere alliance of convenience. We were to seek true brotherhood, and if our people chose to intermarry, such marriages would be welcome. This was news to me, and to Caius, I could see, but I found myself admiring the vision of this man Ullic. He was no fool. He told his men that we would send our soldiers to their mountains, to train their people in the Roman ways of fighting, and that they in turn would teach us their Celtic ways. And he ended by asking them to welcome us as brothers and neighbours to this new land of Britain, soon to be free of foreign Roman rule.

  As soon as he had finished, one of his men leaped to his feet and burst into a song that was taken up by everyone before the second line. It was obviously a song of welcome and of celebration, and its stirring tune swept us along. When it ended, they cheered us, and just as I was beginning to feel that we should reciprocate in some way, Caius stood up and walked to the fire. I wondered what was in his mind and what he would say, but I would never have believed, even after his outburst of the morning, that he would say or do what he did. He stopped in front of the fire and looked at the faces watching him expectantly.

  "Thank you!" he said. "Today, I stopped being Roman. " And then, in front of them all, he stripped off his beautiful toga and threw it on the fire. There was an astounded silence, and then a roar of approval, in the middle of which Ullic stepped up and draped his royal cloak around Caius's shoulders. Caius thanked him, smiling, and held up his arms for silence. When it came, he cried, "Any of my soldiers attempting to do what I have just done will be court martialled immediately. " There were cheers and laughter and whistles from our men. He waited for silence again.

  "Seriously, my friends. It is a foolish man who does not learn from history. Roman weapons and armour are the best ever devised for waging war. We will keep them. Perhaps we will change the colours. I like this red.

  " He indicated the cloak he was now wearing. There were more cheers and shouting, and a new cask of ale was hauled into the firelight. Before
it could be opened, however, Ullic spoke again, lifting his voice high.

  "Drink and make merry all you want tonight. But I want to be on the road before daylight! Thyrrwygg, it is your duty tonight. See to the sentries!" He waved and quit the fireside, beckoning to Caius and me to join him.

  "Caius." I said, shaking my head in wondering admiration, "that was inspired, burning the toga! How does your mind work? I could never plan something like that. "

  He just smiled at me and squeezed my shoulder. It was years later that he told me the gesture had been totally unpremeditated. He enjoyed inspiring awe as well as the next man.

  Within the hour, I was sound asleep.

  XXXII

  It often used to seem to me that Bishop Alaric had a God-given, almost mystical ability to anticipate our celebrations in the Colony and then to pre-empt them with other news of greater moment. He did it again on this occasion, arriving at the Colony before us so that he was there on our return and bringing news that quite eclipsed our own. Magnus Maximus, self-styled Emperor of Britain, Gaul and Iberia, was dead. The revolt was over. Theodosius was in command again.

  To give him his due, Alaric restrained himself until dinner time, keeping his momentous news to himself until we had had an opportunity to exult over our own. When he did deliver his information, after our meal was complete, the news stunned me.

  "How did he die?" I asked Alaric. "Was it the Frankish horsemen?" He shook his head. "No, Publius. Theodosius himself had him executed. The news has just arrived. What did you last hear of him? Maximus, I mean. "

  "That he was installed in the Germanic lands and hoping to claim Illyricum. That must have been two years ago." Caius answered.

  "At least." Alaric nodded a head that was noticeably whiter than it had been the last time I saw him. '"Last year he invaded Italy, and Valentinian fled to Thessalonica to escape him. He had lived in dread of Magnus since Magnus killed Gratian, the other silly co-emperor, in Gaul. With Valentinian gone, Magnus crowned his own son co-emperor, to rule with him, making four emperors again. Folly! But he was a real threat, and they took him seriously. Not only Valentinian but Theodosius, too, recognized the boy. "