Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “And since then he has used me for his purposes, bringing me to Gaul because I knew my mother-tongue. Lord Tros, ‘like master like slave!’ I have had to be wicked, because Caesar is! Lord Tros, I will serve you as I never served Caesar!”

  She glanced at Helma, smiled with such meekness and such lustrous eyes that Helma was stirred to sympathy and rose from the bench, though Sigurdsen’s wife whispered and restrained her.

  “She is yours, too. Lord Tros, let me serve her!”

  Helma shuddered. She had not expected that. She shook her head. But Tros was in a quandary and given to strange, masterful impulses when in that mood.

  “You have joined your destiny to mine,” he said to Helma. “You shall do your part. Take charge of her, keep her until Caswallon comes.”

  Helma protested in a flutter of mistrust. She whispered to the other women, then seizing Tros’s arm, begged him to be more cautious.

  “She will betray us all! Let Britons guard her!”

  But Tros knew jealousy when he saw it. He laughed. “I have given you your task,” he answered.

  “Then at least a guard of Northmen!”

  “Zeus!” he exploded. But Helma saw the laughter in his eyes. “Are Northmen deaf? And you dumb? If they are my men, shall they not obey you?”

  She dropped her eyes, apologizing, pleased.

  “So be it. All, save Sigurdsen,” she answered.

  But when she looked up it was at Conops. She knew well enough she could manage Sigurdsen.

  “Heh? What was that? Who disobeys you deals with me!” Tros answered.

  He, too, suddenly faced Conops.

  “You! You see that woman? Helma her name is. She is my bride. You obey her, save and except only when her orders clash with mine!”

  Conops blinked. Helma smiled at him.

  “Oimoi! We were master and man. Now we are three and all the Furies shall overtake us!” Conops murmured.

  For which impertinence Tros took him by the ear and cuffed him. Over Helma there crept a new, visible sense of possession. Nothing that Tros could have said or done could have made as much impression as that speech. She had come into her own; she was his mate, his partner!

  Strangers they might be, with almost all to learn about each other, but Tros had laid a rock of confidence in place, on which to build the future, and her eyes glowed gratitude.

  CHAPTER 35. Tros Strikes a Bargain

  Ye who stipulate and haggle, will ye never learn that if ye give without price or stipulation ye are copying the gods, who give and ask not?

  — from The Sayings of the Druid Taliesan

  TROS slept until Caswallon came, full pelt, with a yell to the guard at the gate, reining in foaming stallions with their fore-feet over the porch and leaping along the pole between them into the house, Fflur following a moment later. The chief and Orwic were conferring when Tros rose sleepily and bulked through the leather curtains that divided inner room from hall. Caswallon eyed him swiftly, searchingly, then smiled and strode to meet him.

  “Brother Tros!” he said, embracing in the British fashion, one cheek then the other, each man’s right hand patting the other’s back.

  Caswallon thrust the pawing dogs away, pretending anger, and took Fflur’s hand, she watching Tros as if she could read thoughts before he formed them. Three children came and clung to Fflur, but she hardly noticed them, although they laughed at her because her hair was all blown from the chariot ride and she was mud-bespattered from Caswallon’s trick of driving through and over anything he met.

  “What is this about the Gaulish woman?” Caswallon asked, when he had waited for Tros to speak and Tros said nothing.

  “She was Caesar’s slave,” Tros answered. “She was not entitled to be anybody’s guest. Caesar insulted you, me, all of us, every Briton of the Trinobantes, when he sent a slave to intrigue among us as an equal.”

  “So,” said Caswallon, and tugged his moustache.

  He glanced at Fflur, but she looked away and gave him no counsel.

  “A slave, eh? Do you know that?”

  Tros laughed.

  “I will sell her to you, if you wish. She is mine, since Caesar sent her to beguile me. I will write you a bill of sale for her and sign it with Caesar’s name and seal. To make it full and binding I will wear his cloak that I took with his seal and treasure-chest. Do you want her?”

  He was watching Fflur sidewise, considering the drama that her eyes revealed. Suddenly he caught her full gaze and she nodded; they understood each other.

  “If you are my friend, Tros,” said Fflur in her quiet voice, “you will keep that woman from Caswallon.”

  “What is to be done with her?” asked Tros.

  But instead of answering, Caswallon let go Fflur’s hand and strode a dozen paces up the hall and back again.

  “Tros,” he said at last. “She was swift, she was swifter than death! She came by night in a chariot, with a tale of shipwreck and the friendship of the men of Hythe. She said nothing of Skell. By morning she had won half Lunden. She came to visit me with more than thirty young bloods fawning on her. She showed me Caesar’s letter, and she spoke of you.

  “In an hour, nay, in less than an hour, she had offered to betray both you and Caesar. She gave me that letter, and I burned it. It was Latin, and besides, you had been my friend. I did not choose to let my eyes see proof against you. Then — we were alone then — she spoke to me of you and Fflur.”

  “He believed it!” Fflur interrupted. There was almost hatred in her eyes. “He took that woman’s word that I, the mother of his sons, was—”

  “Fflur!” Caswallon did his best to smile, but the ire in her gray eyes chilled him. “You heard what the druid said. Did he not say an evil woman can corrupt the strongest man in a little while? Did the druid not say I was no more to be blamed than if I took a wound in battle? Have I not begged your forgiveness until my tongue stuttered against my teeth for lack of words?”

  “Yes, words!” Fflur answered. “But you turned that woman loose to make worse mischief. You let her go and live with—”

  “Should I have kept her in my house?” Caswallon almost yelled at her.

  “No,” said Fflur.

  “Should I have killed her? What would the druids have said to that? What would half Britain have said that is forever urging me to listen to Caesar’s terms. Lud knows, it’s hard enough to rule, without new excuses for dissensions. I had to say I would take time for thought. And before I could think, those Northmen came plundering the river villages.”

  Tros tried to pour oil on the waves of argument.

  “The question is, what shall be done with her.”

  “That which should have first been done with her!” Fflur answered. “Send her back to Caesar with a whipping, in a dress turned inside out and a whip in her hand as a gift to Caesar! Bid her tell him that is Fflur’s reply to Rome!”

  Caswallon shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. His blundering, good- natured, gentlemanly sense of statecraft pulled him one way, his affection for his wife another.

  “Fflur is forever positive,” he grumbled, taking Tros by the shoulder. “But what would you do? Half my kingdom favors listening to Caesar. Shall I ride it over them?”

  Tros threw his hands behind him, legs apart, as if he stood deciding issues on his own poop.

  “Let us hear Fflur. What says Fflur?” he answered.

  “Lud! I have been hearing Fflur since—”

  Fflur interrupted. She went to Caswallon’s side and held his hand, then burst into speech as if a ten-day dam were down, word galloping on word with sobs between:

  “He is the best man Britain ever had! Bravest of them all! Generous — too just to every one except himself! They take advantage. Kindness is weakness in a king. He should rule, and he won’t! I told him when to kill Skell, but he did not even hunt him out of Britain. Now Skell is back again. They say Caswallon’s friends are hunting him. Orwic bade them—”

  “I thought of that,�
� said Tros.

  “Yes, but it is your fault Skell is living, Tros — yours! You should have killed him when you had the chance. What kind of friend do you call yourself, if you can’t slay Caswallon’s enemies! Now Orwic says Skell has escaped them. Do you know what that means?”

  She paused for breath, mastered a sob-shaken voice, and forced herself to speak with the slow, measured emphasis of tragedy:

  “Skell will go — has gone to Black Glendwyr’s place. Glendwyr craves Caswallon’s shoes. Glendwyr leads the cowards who live by Caesar’s leave. Skell will urge Glendwyr to revolt. He will speak of that Gaulish woman; he will lie about her; he will magnify her rank; he will tempt Glendwyr to win Caesar’s good-will by befriending her and overthrowing you!”

  She almost struck her husband, she was so bent on compelling him to understand his danger.

  “Glendwyr will say you let the Northmen burn three villages. He will say you sent Tros against Caesar, to irritate him when you should have sought peace. Father of my sons, Glendwyr will be in arms by tomorrow, with all the malcontents! I know it! I know it!”

  “Pray Lud he is!” Caswallon answered.

  “What have you done to be ready for him?” Fflur retorted. “Glendwyr has been brewing treason all these months. Did he help us against Caesar on the beach? Not he! He saved his men to use them against you! Who helped this woman to reach Lunden with such speed? Skell? Whence should Skell get relays of swift horses? I tell you, Glendwyr did it!”

  “How do you know that?” Caswallon asked frowning.

  “A druid said so.”

  “Lud rot the druids! They carry tales like kitchen-wenches!”

  “The same druid told me that the woman came to Lunden in Glendwyr’s chariot,” Fflur went on, tight-lipped with anger, her eyes blazing.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “I did. You didn’t listen. You were in love with her dark eyes. You said no woman should be refused a hearing and you refused to hear me!”

  “Mother of my sons, Lud knows my ears are full of your rebukes,” Caswallon answered, comically sorry for himself. “Peace, will you. Silence! Let us hear Orwic.”

  Orwic looked bored and smiled wanly, as usual when there was reason to be deadly serious, stroking his moustache as if good grooming were nine points of any problem.

  “They’ve looted Skell’s house. I think they’ll burn it. Skell was gone, though, and they can’t find him. Fifty or sixty others have gone, too. I daresay Fflur is right: They may have followed Skell to Glendwyr’s place. But that needn’t spoil the funeral. Glendwyr lives too far away to interrupt that.”

  “By Lud! He shall not interrupt it!” Caswallon exclaimed; and Fflur sighed, as if it were no use trying to make her husband recognize danger.

  She turned away and left them, making for the room where Tros had installed Helma and all his Northmen with the woman from Gaul under their close surveillance.

  There was presently much talk from beyond the wrinkled curtain, while Caswallon, Tros and Orwic stood face to face considering what next to say to one another. They three stood in silence for a long time.

  Suddenly Helma came to them, blinking at the sunlight through the great door. Her combed hair hung like spun gold to her waist, lighter and fairer than gold might be, yet not so colorless as flax.

  “Marriage or funeral first?” Tros asked. “By your god Lud, Caswallon, I would hate to see you buried in my father’s grave. Yet if I were Skell — and if this Glendwyr is the man Fflur thinks he is — there would be more buryings tonight than the druids have prepared for! Yet if you die, they must bury me too, because I like to stand with friends. I would rather leave this girl a widow than dowerless. There is kings’ blood in her veins.”

  He laid a hand on Helma’s shoulder.

  “My Lord Tros,” she said, “you are my protector, and you have done me greater honor than befalls a-many prisoners. A while ago I cried to my brother Sigurdsen to slay you on your own ship. Shall I speak now, or be silent?”

  “Speak,” said Tros, half-bowing to Caswallon for permission.

  “She of Gaul-Caesar’s woman,” Helma began, and Caswallon swore under his breath; he was sick of that subject. But Tros pricked his ears. “She combed my hair, swearing she would serve me, speaking presently of Caesar, and of you, most highly praising you by inference, contrasting you with Caesar. So, a little at a time, she found out that I know little concerning the Lord Caswallon; and that if I must choose, I should follow you, refusing to acknowledge him. Thereafter for a long time she was silent, while she dressed my hair.

  “When she began to speak again she asked about those of my people whom the Lord Caswallon had made prisoners in the fighting in the woods. She knows they are now in a great barn near the stables within the wall that surrounds this house. I think she overheard the command to bring them here.

  “She said she supposed I could influence them, and for a while after that she talked of a dozen things — mainly of Gaul and the fate of Caesar’s prisoners.

  “Then, when she had done my hair, she sat at my feet making a great show of humility, and cried a little, and then exclaimed how much better destiny had treated me than her, me, who am to be a great sea-captain’s wife, and she but a slave.

  “But after a while she held my hand, studying the line across the palm, saying darkly I should feel the contrast if the noble Tros were slain before what I hoped should happen.

  “So I questioned her, pretending credence in her art of reading what is written in lines on the palm of the hand, although I know such stuff is witchcraft, and a lie invented to entrap fools. Presently, having made much talk of voyages, and money, and — I think she said — five sons, she grew excited and very earnest, saying there was a grave disaster impending, that I might prevent if I were wise enough. And she said there was wisdom written on my palm, but too much overlaid with other lines that signify a willingness to submit to whatever fate may inflict.

  “She was very full of guile. It was little by little, holding my hand and forever pretending to read it, that she hinted and then spoke more plainly, and then urged. She said it was written in my hand — mine! — that a revolt is coming, and that you, her protector she called you, would be slain unless I bade the Northmen seize you and carry you to safety elsewhere.

  “I questioning, she seemed to go into a trance. She stared at the wall, her body rigid and her breath in gasps. She spoke then of men who will revolt against the Lord Caswallon, intending to slay him and set another in his place. She said my destiny, and yours, and hers lay with the new man, but she did not name him.

  “She spoke of tonight’s funeral. She said she could see me left in this house with the Northmen and a very small guard of Britons. She said she could see me leading away the Northmen through the woods, guided by her and a Briton, toward men who made ready to attack the Lord Caswallon.

  “She said she saw the funeral, and you beside the Lord Caswallon. Men seized you, she said, because she and I insisted, and they bore you off to safety in the woods. But the Lord Caswallon, and the rest, she said they slew.

  “Then she came out of the trance and asked me what she had been saying. She said she never can remember afterwards what passed her lips when those strange spells possess her. So I told her what she had said, and she seemed to grow afraid, asserting that a god had spoken through her.

  “Then she urged me to be guided by the voice of her trance, saying she understood now what it all meant, how a certain Lord Glendwyr, who had lent her chariot and horses to reach Lunden, would attack the Lord Caswallon and himself become king.

  “She said, ‘Let us plan so that all the Northmen in a band together shall seize the Lord Tros and convey him to safety, since neither you, nor he, nor I, nor the Northmen owe the Lord Caswallon anything, but the Lord Glendwyr will be glad to have us with him.’”

  Tros and Caswallon met each other’s eyes.

  “How long have you known this Northwoman of yours?” Caswal
lon asked.

  “We have all lived many lives and destiny plays with us like pieces on the board,” Tros answered. “I know the truth when I hear it.”

  He drew Helma closer to him in the hollow of his left arm.

  “Truth when a woman speaks?” Caswallon answered. “Phagh! I grow sick of these cross-purposes! This is but a trick again. Northmen are all liars! This is a plan to gather all the Northmen in one place. They would gain my confidence, then break for liberty. Caesar’s woman has had no time to learn Glendwyr’s plans, suppose he has any. And who would trust Glendwyr against me? Not more men than I can snap my fingers at.”

  He snapped his fingers, then flexed his muscles and threw his shoulders back.

  “Give me one good excuse to burn Glendwyr’s roost!” he exclaimed.

  But Tros grinned. It was an aggravating grin, as he intended that it should be.

  “I have heard you say, ‘Fflur is always right!”’ he answered. “Caesar’s woman has had five days. Caesar, himself swifter than the wind to snatch advantage, doubtless picked her for her swiftness. Zeus! Have you and I not seen how swift she is! And it may be that Caesar knew beforehand of Glendwyr’s plans.”

  “Caesar has spies, and there are Britons who trade back and forth with Gaul, as for instance the Atrebates, who are not your friends, Caswallon. Why, they tell me that half the Atrebates live in Gaul.

  “Would it be wonderful if Caesar should have learned about dissension in your realm? Rome’s very life is staked on other folks’ dissensions! So is Caesar’s. A dead dog smells the same whichever way the wind blows! If he can keep Rome by the ears, faction against faction, for his own advantage, will he not do it here?”

  Caswallon turned and paced the hall a time or two, the blue-veined skin of his face and neck looking deathly white against the hangings. He chewed his moustache; his fingers worked behind his back as if he were kneading the dough of indecision. Tros let go Helma, almost pushed her from him.