by Talbot Mundy
“Remember, I pledged you to secrecy!” the Gaul retorted.
“Hah! When you have my pledge, you may depend on me,” said Tros. “My tongue is mine!”
Commius’ eyes glittered coldly.
“I have seen men with their tongues torn out for saying less than you have said,” he answered.
Caswallon entered, standing for a moment with the moonlight at his back, until they yelled to him to shut the door and keep the bats out. He strode to the fire and threw a faggot on. His eyes looked full of laughter.
“Commius,” he said, “I go north in the morning. Will you come with me?”
“I have a boil,” said Commius. “It irks me to ride in chariots; and I would as soon die now as try to sit a horse before the boil is healed.”
Caswallon had to turn his back to hide some sort of emotion. “You must be my guest then in my absence,” he said over his shoulder.
“You are a prince of hosts,” Commius answered, bowing and smiling leanly.
“Then when I return after two or three days, I will find you here?”
“By all means,” said Commius.
There was a gleam of something like excitement in his eyes.
“You know this is Britomaris’ house,” Caswallon went on. “I have sent word to him that I shall leave at dawn. He and his wife Gwenhwyfar will be here soon after daybreak.”
Commius was breathing very slowly. Almost the only sound came from a dog that cracked a bone under the table.
“Is my meaning clear to you?” Caswallon asked. “Britomaris pays tribute, but he is not my friend. You say you are my friend.”
“Never doubt it. I am proud to be,” said Commius.
“And you are my guest — here — wherever I may be. Britomaris will try to plot with you against me. Will you be for me, or for Britomaris — and Gwenhwyfar?”
“Over and above all laws is that of hospitality,” said Commius without a moment’s hesitation. “Even if my sympathy were not yours, as I think you know it is, I must nevertheless uphold you while I am your guest.”
“Good,” said Caswallon, turning with his back to the hearth and his hands behind him, legs well apart to avoid a dog that had taken sanctuary between his feet to gnaw a bone in safety. “I call you all to witness how I trust our friend, Lord Commius. I bid you all to trust him in like manner — exactly in like manner.”
Commius stood up and bowed, and the men who sat at table murmured his name politely, raising their tankards to drink to him. But their eyes were on their chief, although no sign that a stranger could have noticed passed between them. Two or three times Commius looked as if about to speak, but he thought better of it, and it was Tros who spoke next:
“I am weary. Do the Britons never sleep?”
“I had forgotten that,” said Caswallon. “Aye, we had better sleep. Do we? We are the soundest sleepers this side of the grave! But Lud pity those who sleep a minute later than I do in the morning, for I will prod them out o’ blanket with a spear point! So away with all the kitchen-stuff, and one last drink!”
The women cleared away the dishes and the cloth, but left the table, for two men needed that to sleep on. The others laid their blankets on the floor, quarreling a little as to who had precedence.
Tros received two huge blankets and a pillow from Fflur, who led him and Conops to an inner room where she kissed him good night.
“Is your man with that one eye watchful?” she asked.
“Better than a dog!” said Tros.
“Bid him guard you against Commius. The Gaul will lie on the fireside seat in the outer room, but the others will sleep like dead men. I know murder when I see it in a man’s eyes. Be sure he means to kill you one way or another. He believes you know too much about him.”
“I fear no knife of his,” said Tros.
“Yet you fear,” she answered. “What is it?”
“I fear lest he will run to Caius Volusenus, and cross to Gaul, telling Caesar I have joined with your husband. I fear for my father’s life. Commius would sell me and my father, and another dozen like us, for a pat on the back from Caesar.”
“You need not fear,” she answered. “Caswallon is awake. Commius will not return to Gaul — not yet. But be on guard against his knife, if he ever suspects that we suspect him.”
She spread Tros’s bed for him with her own hands, and called to one of the women to bring a pile of fleeces for Conops, bidding him spread them before the door as soon as it was shut.
“So you may both sleep,” she said, smiling, “and if one tries to open in the night he must awaken Conops. Can you shout loud?” she asked.
“Aye, like a sailor!” Conops assured her with a nod.
“Shout then, and at the first alarm; and if the intruder takes flight, go to sleep again. Let there be no slaying in my house.”
CHAPTER 6. Concerning a Boil and Commius
It is wiser to take a liar at his word and oblige him to eat his lies, than to denounce him and too soon expose his enmity. It is wiser to seem to believe than to boast of your unbelief. Lies, like the moles, can burrow faster than ye dig. It is wiser to let them creep into the open.
— from The Sayings of the Druid Taliesan
ALMOST the next that Tros knew, day was breaking through the shutter chinks and there was a great row in the outer room — shouts, oaths and laughter. Caswallon was keeping his promise to rouse late sleepers with a spear point. Dog barks and the high-pitched laugh of children added to the din. The table upset with a crash. A dog yelped. Then there came a succession of grunts and thuds as one man after another was thrown, laughing and protesting, through the front door.
“Are we all awake?” cried Caswallon. “Come and wrestle with me, Tros! Let us see if your back is stronger than I can break!” So Tros rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and went and wrestled with him on the dew-soaked grass before the door, two dozen men admiring; for the horse-grooms and the herdsmen came and looked on, laughing like lunatics and offering to bet their freedom on the British chief.
But neither had the best of it, and they were locked in a grunting knot of arms and legs when Fflur came and summoned them to breakfast. Caswallon’s oldest son, aged sixteen, promised on his honor to break Tros’s neck the moment he was old enough.
“Gods! But he will have to fight a man!” laughed Caswallon, rubbing his woad-stained skin. “Yours is a neck worth breaking, Tros!”
They washed in tubs of water that the women set outside the door, combed their hair carefully, and went in to the business of eating, which was serious, devotional and too faithfully performed to allow much conversation. Commius, making notes on tablets, which he thrust cautiously into his bosom, was the last to the table and the first to use his mouth for anything but eating:
“You Britons,” he said, “are you irreligious nowadays? In Gaul, our people all worship at sunrise. That is the first act of the day.”
“Before strangers?” asked Caswallon. “No wonder the Romans have subdued you.”
“What can the observance of religion have to do with that?” asked Commius.
“All,” said Caswallon, “everything. If an enemy learns your thoughts, he is a fool if he can’t throw you down and pin you under him. Religion not kept secret is weakness. Tell me my thoughts, Commius!”
Tros chuckled. Commius assumed the vaguely pained look of a financier who discovers that some one knows as much as he does. Caswallon studying him shrewdly between mouthfuls, which he washed down with beakers of warm milk, proceeded to amuse himself.
“You tell me you have a boil. Then I know where to kick you, don’t I?”
“Would you kick your guest?” asked Commius.
“No,” said Caswallon, “and I would kill the man who did. But let us suppose you were my secret enemy; for I have met such men, who spoke me fair and did me evil when my back was turned.
“Let us suppose you were my secret enemy. I know you have a boil. What would be easier than to lance that boil for you, and to
put a little gangrene on the knife? You see, two can play at being secret enemies!
“It is just so with religion, which is why the druids keep it secret, and why we practice it in secret, and why Caesar hates the druids, and why I like them. Caesar never conquered Gaul until he slew the druids first. He will never conquer me, because he does not know my thoughts. Tell me my true thoughts, Commius!”
But before Commius could answer, Fflur put a word in:
“Ah! But what if the boil were feigned?”
She did not look at Commius; she was putting salt on an enormous skillet- full of fried eggs that one of the women had brought for her inspection.
“If the boil were feigned,” said Caswallon. “Bah! What fool would pretend to have a boil? The truth would be too easy to discover. A dangerous man would pretend to have a tooth-ache, or the bellyache. We risk offending the honorable Commius if we carry such a theme too far. And by the way, Commius, shall I send for a druid to come and make you easier? They are very clever with their little knives.”
“No,” Commius answered. “It will burst soon of its own accord.” Followed boasting with excruciating details, by a man who claimed that he had ridden from Cair Lunden all the way to Pevensey, with boils so bad that, although he was weak with pain, a horse could not throw him because he had stuck to the saddle. And that naturally led to rival reminiscences, including one by Tros, concerning a man who grew such calluses from friction on a rower’s bench that when he was ashore, running away from King Ptolemy’s press-gang, six arrows stuck into him like feathers in a bird’s tail without his even knowing it.
So breakfast broke up in a storm of anecdotes, not all of them polite, and Commius was able to avoid attention to himself by simply keeping silence.
Then there was a clatter of hoofs and wheels outside, and a dozen serfs entered to carry out the bedding and other luggage, while Caswallon and his friends went outside to inspect the horses.
There were ten magnificent gray and white teams yoked to chariots, whose sides were built of wickerwork and wheels of bronze; and there were twelve more horses for the escort, mostly stallions, squealing and rearing with excitement.
Caswallon mounted a gray stallion and put him through his paces while the luggage chariots were being loaded, exhibiting such horsemanship as made the sea-wise Tros gasp, until the owner of the horse complained that there would be no strength left in the animal and Caswallon, jumping the horse over a chariot, vaulted to the ground beside him.
There was very little leave-taking from Commius, who stood in the door and bowed his pleasantest, pretending he was sorry not to make the journey with them. The only man he had much conversation with was Conops, to whom he gave a gold coin surreptitiously; but Conops, thanking him effusively, displayed it in his right palm so that Tros and the rest might see and draw their own conclusions.
Fflur did not kiss Commius, although from the hostess a kiss was customary. Caswallon shook him by the hand, signing to his wife and children and the other women to make haste into the chariots. His last remark sounded almost like a warning:
“Remember, Commius; you are my guest. Britomaris and Gwenhwyfar pay me tribute. They are not my friends.”
Then they were off, with Tros up beside Caswallon and Conops on the floor, bracing his feet against the chariot’s wicker sides that squeaked as Caswallon wheeled the team and sent it headlong at the open gate, with dogs barking, serfs shouting, the rattle and thump of the other chariots wheeling into column one by one, and then the thunder of the hoofs of the escort kicking up the dust a hundred yards behind.
For a long while Caswallon drove as if driving were life’s one employment and speed the apex of desire, stooping to watch how the horses placed their feet. He never once glanced back at Fflur, who drove her own chariot with equal skill, her long hair flowing like a banner in the morning breeze and the heads of three children bobbing up and down beside her. At last he eased the pace a little and glanced at Tros sidewise, smiling:
“There will be fun with Commius,” he remarked. “I like to see a fox caught in a trap. He will plot with Britomaris, who does exactly what Gwenhwyfar tells him, as long as she is there to make him do it. That will be treachery, he being my guest. Some men of mine, and a druid, will pick a quarrel with him. He having been my guest, they will spare his life. Alive, I can use him. He is no good dead. And they will spare Britomaris and Gwenhwyfar because I have so ordered it, for I can use them also.
“But they will fasten the fetters on Commius, and the druid will look for the boil, since it is his duty to attend to that. Finding none — the fool should have bethought him of a bellyache — the druid will denounce him as a liar. We have failings, but there is this about us Britons: When we have proved a man a liar, we disbelieve whatever else he says. Thus the harm that Commius has done by too much talking when he thought my back was turned will be undone.”
“I see you work craftily,” Tros observed.
“A man must, if he proposes to remain a king,” said Caswallon. “Kingship is the first of all the crafts. This Caesar who has conquered Gaul is bold and treacherous and fortunate and rather clever; but is he crafty?”
“Very,” Tros answered. “If kinging is a craft, he is the master craftsman of them all.”
“Has he a Fflur?”
“No. Women are his tools, or an amusement”
“Then I will beat him!” said Caswallon.
And at last he looked back at his wife, who laughed and waved a hand to him.
“You owe your life to Fflur,” he remarked. “You sleep deep, friend Tros, and with the shutter off the thong — a compliment to me, no doubt, but dangerous! Commius stirred three times. Twice he was at your window. He carries poison with him, which he bought from a woman near the seashore where he landed when he first came. One drop on a man’s lips in the night—”
“Who watched him?”
“Fflur heard him and she roused me. So it happened there were two kings at your window in the night — and twice! — each lying to the other as to how he came to be there! We agreed that from that spot there was the best view of the moon’s eclipse, and that the cry of a strange night-bird had awakened both of us.”
“There is no reason why Commius should fear me,” said Tros. “I am not his enemy.”
“There is no reason why Gwenhwyfar should fear me, and I am not her enemy,” Caswallon answered. “But, man or woman, it is all one when they plan treachery. They are like a wolf then. None can say why they pursue this victim and not that one.
“But perhaps it would have suited Commius to have it said I poisoned you. You were sent by Caesar, Tros. Thus Caesar would have a plausible excuse for quarrel with me. But let us hear what the one-eyed fellow says.”
Conops exhibited the gold coin, tossed it in air and missed it as the chariot bumped a hillock. They had to stop to let him recover it, and the escort galloped up full pelt to find out what was wrong.
“He said,” Conops remarked when they were under way again, and he spat on the coin and polished it, “he said, if I should remember to tell him at the earliest moment all that is said and all that is done while my master is out of his sight, he for his part will remember to advance my cause with Caesar, who has many lucrative employments in his gift.”
Tros laughed. Caswallon glanced down at Conops half-a-dozen times.
“I will buy that man from you,” he said at last. “How much in gold will you take for him? Or shall I swap you three for one?”
“He is a free man,” Tros answered.
“Oh. Then I would kill him if he offered to change masters.”
Caswallon lapsed into one of his silent moods, merely waving with his arm occasionally as they skirted mud-and-wattle hamlets, beautifully built, invariably fenced about with heavy tree-trunks, clean and prosperous, but containing no stone buildings and no roofs other than thatch.
There were sheep and cattle everywhere, and great numbers of horses, all carefully watched and guarded against w
olves by herdsmen armed with spears; but there was surprisingly little grain, or stubble to show where grain had been, and such as there was, was fenced as heavily as the villages.
The main road seemed to avoid the hamlets purposely, but here and there the villagers seemed to have repaired it, and wherever there was much mud it was rendered passable by tree-trunks felled across it. There were no bridges whatever, but the fords were good and were evidently kept in order.
They changed horses at a village that Caswallon called a town, where a hundred armed men, very variously dressed, lined up to salute the chief in front of a big thatched house with painted mud walls. They saluted him more or less as an equal, calling him and Fflur by their names and gathering around the chariots when the formal shouting with their spears in air was finished.
The man who owned the house was a long, lean, fox-haired veteran with a naked breast covered with woad designs, whose wife was young enough to be his daughter. But she knew how to play the hostess and to command the village women, who brought out bread and meat and mead for every one, turning the half-hour wait into a picnic.
They all seemed much more impressed with Tros than with Caswallon and wanted to know whether he was one of Caesar’s generals or an ambassador.
But Caswallon warned Tros to keep silence, so he pretended not to understand their speech; instead of talking, he and Conops kissed the girls who carried mead to them, and that started a kissing riot that kept everybody busy, while Caswallon talked in undertones with the red-haired man and the group that stood about him leaning on their spears.
Then Caswallon mounted the rehorsed chariot and addressed the crowd, standing very splendidly and making his voice ring until even the giggling girls grew silent and the children gaped at him.
“Caesar will not come yet; but he will surely come!” he told them. “Get ye to work and harvest all the corn. Make double store of dried meat. Increase the sheaves of arrows. Mend the chariots, and let no blacksmith put on fat in idleness!
“When the invader comes there shall be a sudden call to arms, but until then, he who wastes time leaning on his spear is a traitor to his wife and children! When Caesar comes, he will lay waste the land, as he has laid all Gaul waste; he feeds his horses in the standing corn and burns what he does not need. So get ye the harvest in! It will be time enough to lean on spears when I send warning.”