Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “Nor shall you see inside this,” he remarked, and rolled a leaden ball across the floor. But the ball sounded hollow, and the Roman noticed it.

  “Neither heavy nor hard enough,” he said with an air of long experience and began examining the ship again. Tros considered he had seen enough, took his elbow and led toward the door.

  “They tell me Caesar likes scent,” he said, as if revealing confidences. “That lead ball shall hold a nosegay to remind him of the Roman housewives dumping ordure from the house-tops at election time. I am told he has had experience of that.”

  He led the way into the outer room, Caswallon following, and the Roman faced him when he shut the door.

  “Caesar is a man of full experience,” he said. “There is nothing new that you can show him, Tros. He has eaten crusts, and he has worn the purple. Rome spewed him forth. Rome fears him. Rome shall worship him.”

  “I have heard that Cato, who is a very noble Roman, speaks of him as ‘that woman!’ said Tros.

  “Aye, and Cato will live to rue it!”

  Marius, resenting Tros’s grin, strode along the room to where Helma had set three chairs together at an angle near the fire. He sat in one of them, then rose and bowed to Caswallon to be seated first. Caswallon laughed, accepting mead from Helma in a silver tankard that had once been Caesar’s, with his left arm elbowing the Roman back into the chair.

  “Wisdom to Caesar!” he said, drinking deep. “If he knew what trouble kinging it can be, he might let well enough alone. Gods give him, what was that word, Tros? Gods give him nous, whatever that means.”

  “Virtue,” said the Roman. “Caesar has ten men’s share!”

  Tros passed mead to Marius, but did not drink with him. The three sat down, the firelight in their faces, and there was a long pause while they watched the sizzling meat, and sniffed and eyed each other sidewise, Helma laying platters on the table, studying the Roman all the while as if her blue eyes could burn holes in him. Caswallon was the first to speak again, setting his tankard bottom upward on the floor by way of hint to Helma:

  “Now, Tros, out with it. This Roman comes with a message of peace from Caesar. He says Caesar prefers to be friendly.”

  “Let him leave you alone then,” Tros retorted. “Was he friendly to the Gauls? To the Belgae? To the Germans? He said so, but did they? Was he friendly when he landed on the Kentish coast and slew half-a-thousand Britons? Bid him prove you his friendship by coming no nearer than Gaul!”

  Caswallon nodded, stroking his long moustache. “But he says the Romans want to trade with us. My men are eager for trade. They call me a snail of a king, with a shell that I crawl into when anything new wants to happen. This man Marius has been quite frank. He says Caesar’s hands are full enough already, so that he doesn’t want another war but does want popularity in Rome. He says that if Caesar can open up trade with us Britons, that will improve his political chances because the rulers of Rome think of nothing but money.”

  “Whereas you Britons think of nothing but horses and hunting,” Tros answered. “You are far too hospitable, and you think other people are like you. You fight the Northmen one day and make friends with them the next, and that may work with Northmen, but it won’t work, I tell you, with Romans. Trade? Aye, if plundering is trading! Rome gives nothing, and takes all. She plants her eagles, and around them a colony of soldiers from some other conquered land, who take for themselves what they think they need and send the rest to Rome. Trade? Tribute! I tell you, Rome is a monster that is eating up the world — vicious, stupid, proud, cruel. She has but one virtue.”

  “Name it,” said Caswallon.

  Tros eyed the Roman, studying him a full minute before he spoke.

  “She can breed and train men like this one. This centurion and his fellows are all the virtue and all the strength that Rome has. They are true to Rome. They lie for her and die for her. They believe in Rome. They are Rome! The rest is money-lenders and a rabble. If you, or any of your men believed in Britain and were as loyal to her as this centurion is to the seething cesspool that he is helping to poison the earth, you would be a power instead of all at odds and at the mercy of the first invader.”

  The Roman and Caswallon grinned, each at the other and at Tros. They were both men who enjoyed plain speaking.

  “You are using this man’s argument,” Caswallon said, swallowing mead again. “Marius says that Caesar will undertake to guarantee my kingdom, and to make all the other tribes submit to me.”

  “In return for what?” Tros asked.

  “In return for a few trading posts, my friendship and permission for a Roman official to reside in Britain.”

  “Alone?”

  “No,” said Marius. “Roman officials abroad have to have a bodyguard of Romans to support their dignity.”

  Tros laughed aloud, with scorn that made the Roman glance at him.

  “Caswallon, that is Rome’s way. First a messenger, like this one, honest as the day is long, believing every word he says. Then an envoy. Then a resident official and his body-guard, which grows. Then a little irritation, woman trouble maybe, and a few stones thrown into the residency. Rome protects her man. More troops. Resentment. Riots. War. A puppet king imposed in place of the offending one. Tribute. Rebellion. Drastic punishment. A colony of time-expired foreign soldiers and a Roman governor. Peace, if you call it peace to be obedient and pay the taxes that support the Roman mob! As I sit here and lie not, I have warned you.”

  “Tros, you are a fool,” said Marius without heat. “You will defy Rome when you might reap her rewards. Your reward would be greater than mine, and at less price. I am a Roman born. I have fought her wars and trod her dusty roads all ways across the world and back again. I have sweated, bled and starved for her. And I am fifty years old. All I am is a centurion. How old are you? Not half my age. How much have you starved and bled and sweated? Yet you can become a Roman and command a fleet by simply giving your allegiance to Caesar!”

  “I admire Caesar. I despise him. I fear him because of his power, which I am too fearless to submit to. I loathe him, and I believe he is the ablest man who ever called himself a Roman. Do you understand me?” Tros asked.

  “No,” said Marius.

  “Then you will never understand me,” Tros retorted. “Let us be friends until tomorrow. Let us eat together.”

  “Not yet,” said Marius. “My message first. I am a Roman.”

  He set down the helmet he had been holding between his knees, loosened his sword-belt and undid the buckle at his throat.

  “I love Caesar,” he said, almost grimly. “Yet I do not expect too much of him. It is what I can do for Caesar that is important, not what he can do for me. If I can bring you over to him and persuade Caswallon, my reward will be that I have well served Caesar.”

  Tros grinned and nudged Caswallon. “Did I not say Rome can breed centurions?”

  “Caesar,” Marius went on, “is no mean man, whatever else you may think of him. He can forgive his enemies. You seized his bireme and his treasure.”

  “Aye,” Tros interrupted, “and I pick the bireme’s bones to build a finer ship. I use the treasure to pay the builders.”

  “Caesar knows that,” said the Roman. “You are not the first man who made plans against him. Two-thirds of his army are men who were in arms against Caesar not long ago. Those who fought against him hardest, he admires most, and it is they who are the most loyal. Tros, you have done Caesar more damage than all the Britons did when they opposed him on the beach. You can be his best friend. Why not?”

  “Because I do not wish to be,” Tros answered. “I am a free man.”

  “I, too,” said Marius. “I am a Roman citizen.”

  “That is no honor in my eyes,” Tros retorted, “for I know Rome. She is a thief that camps on seven hills, selling what she calls her peace to the highest bidder. The mob that is her master sells its votes. Her senators buy praetorships and consulates. She swarms with all the riff-raff of the ear
th. Her statesmen are all money-lenders and her judges merchants, auctioning privilege in the name of justice. She has no beauty of her own, no art but what was filched from Greece, no honor. Only pride and greed.”

  “Caesar will change all that,” said Marius. “He needs brave men, of such ability as yours, Tros, to support him when the day comes that he strikes. For he will purge Rome when he has made Gaul safe. Now you are Caswallon’s friend, and he is under the thumb of his wife, Fflur. You tell him honestly whether you think he can resist Caesar if Caesar should declare war on him in the name of the Senate and the Roman People.”

  “I have told him,” Tros answered, watching Caswallon’s face.

  But Caswallon was watching the meat on the spit.

  “I agree with Fflur,” said Tros. “I have offered to help him resist Caesar.”

  Caswallon came suddenly out of his reverie and slapped his thigh so hard that Helma jumped and the slave-girl smashed a dish.

  “Lud’s blood!” He looked hard at the Roman. “You invite me to become the ward of Caesar. Let us put it this way. I invite you, Marius, to become my henchman! I am a king. Caesar is no king.”

  “He will be,” said Marius darkly. “Kings kiss his hand.”

  “I am a king who neither does nor will do that,” Caswallon answered. “Will you be my subject?”

  “No,” said Marius.

  “Nor I Caesar’s, nor Rome’s! You say you love Caesar. I have no respect for him. He sends you to speak me fair, but behind your back he sends a swarm of spies who lie to my men, set my counselors against me, bribe brother kings to accuse me and, Tros says, some Romans call Caesar a woman. Is that true?”

  “He is the greatest man who ever lived,” said Marius. “He is a greater than Alexander of Macedon.”

  “I never heard of Alexander. Where is Macedon? No matter,” said Caswallon. “This is my answer to Caesar. Let him fight me for my realm. Me, hand-to-hand. There is an island about midway between my shore and his. I will meet him there, if he is man enough, and we will have it out with swords or any other weapon that he pleases. That is the way we Britons settle arguments. Now let us eat.”

  He got up and strode to the table, sitting there and rapping on it with his dagger-hilt to make the slave-girl hurry. Marius shrugged his shoulders, unbuckled his bronze armor, laid it in a corner and sat at the table beside Tros, looking ill at ease on the unbacked bench. The Romans liked to sprawl at meal time.

  “I will not take that answer,” he said calmly. “We Romans are not so easily put off with words. Not that Caesar could not defeat you easily with any weapon,” he added, breaking bread and dipping it in the gravy Helma set before him.

  He refused the meat, and hardly tried to conceal disgust at the enormous slices that Caswallon ate.

  CHAPTER 39. The Gist of Skell’s Argument

  The Eternal Law is simple. Which of you has seen a she-wolf bring forth doves and suckle them? Who saw a bear beget colts, or an ill wind cherish the young buds? Nevertheless, ye look for wisdom from hirelings’ lips that are wet with the spittle of greed. But of him who bendeth the bow of his will, and who layeth the arrow of resolution against the string of purpose, ye ask treason against his High Ideal.

  — from The Sayings of the Druid Taliesan

  CASWALLON took the Roman away when the meal was finished, to be entertained in the great house on Lud’s Hill, Lunden Town, a few miles distant. The Britons were nothing if not hospitable; friend or enemy, it was all one while the feasting lasted. They galloped away in Caswallon’s chariot in a whirl of snow, the Roman draped in a horse-blanket and Caswallon making the woods ring with shouts to the plunging team.

  Tros watched the bars set back in place, gave orders for the night to Conops and strode away alone to where great bonfires burned in front of a vastly longer building than the one he occupied. Helma watched him through the door and followed, half-smothered in a blanket of British wool. But Tros did not know that. The fires sizzled as the snowflakes damped them and the wind blew in biting gusts, howling under eaves and through the picket fence. It was British weather — raw, dark, melancholy.

  “Not fit for a dog,” Tros muttered, glad for that once he was not at sea, flailing his arms across his breast to warm himself.

  “Skell!” he shouted. “Skell! Where in Hades are you?”

  The door of the long building opened, and Skell stood in the opening with the warm light behind him, dressed in British trousers with a long leather smock to his knees. But he did not look like a Briton, any more than Tros did.

  “No lies now,” Tros greeted him. “Your beard’s dry. You’ve skulked indoors all evening.”

  Skell came forward, leaving the door open, pulling a leather hood over his head. Within there was a babel of men’s voices. Some one roared to him in Norse to shut the door, and a moment later it slammed like a thunderclap, leaving Tros and Skell in darkness.

  “What sense watching on a night like this?” Skell asked. “Who would venture out?”

  “Am I out or in?” Tros growled. “Didn’t I tell you to patrol the yard?”

  Skell kept silence, shrugging himself against the bitter wind, facing the same way that Tros did, toward where the scaffolding rose gaunt against the close horizon. Neither of them saw the door open again softly, nor heard it close, because the wind howled.

  “Here I have nearly ten score war prisoners, surrendered rebels and prison scrapings. Because you are a natural born snooper, I set you to watch them. Do you know what obedience means?”

  Skell laughed. It was a mean snicker, like a jackal’s.

  “No more than I, will they desert or play tricks,” he said, stamping his feet to keep warm. “They’re well enough treated and know when they’re well off. Do they want to return to the prison? Do they want to be outlawed and hunted like wolves? Who would feed them, if you don’t? Go and count them. They’re all there.”

  “Have I ever threatened you?” Tros asked him.

  “Not since Caswallon turned me over to you. No need, Tros. I’m grateful. Caswallon would have killed me if it hadn’t been for you. I’ll serve you faithfully. I’m sorry I went in out of the snow. I’ll—”

  “Listen! Look!” said Tros and shook a fist like a club under his nose. “I can’t watch all the time, and you, you dog, have nothing else to do! Next time I catch you skulking or neglecting to obey my orders I will take you by the neck and beat your brains out against the nearest baulk of timber! Do you believe me?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Tros. I’ll—”

  “Get your bearskin. Patrol until midnight. Bring me word at once of anything that happens.”

  Skell slunk off looking licked, and Tros watched him until his back was lost like a shadow in the gloom beyond the bonfire light. “Zeus guide and govern me!” he muttered. “I will have to kill a man before long unless I can find some better way. That Skell has been up to mischief. Nobody trusts him. Nobody likes him. What then was he doing in the Northmen’s hut?”

  He opened the door and strode into the long, low building. There was instant silence as he slammed the door shut behind him. Two long rows of Northmen, seated on benches at a rough board table, turned their heads to stare. Beside the blazing hearth sat Helma, still hooded in the blanket, warming her feet at the fire.

  “Sigurdsen,” said Tros. The giant rose from the table-end and strode to meet him, pulling down the leather sleeves over his bare arms. The others sprawled over the table nearly naked to the waist and went on talking. They had a section of a ship drawn on the table in charcoal, and were studying it in the fitful firelight and with the aid of a great ship’s lantern that hung overhead.

  Tros led Sigurdsen toward the fire and sat down on a stool facing Helma, but he took no notice of her and she did not speak. Sigurdsen sat on a hewn log with his back against the wall, arms folded. He looked vaguely quarrelsome, alert for an excuse to start an argument, and rather sullen meanwhile.

  “What was Skell saying?” Tros asked him.

/>   Sigurdsen scratched at the back of his head, as he always did before trying to speak Gaulish, all the speech they had in common. He had been trying to learn it ever since Tros took him prisoner, but he was slower than most Northmen at the trick of thinking in an alien tongue.

  “Never mind what Skell said,” Helma interrupted, throwing off the blanket. “I am your wife. Listen to me.”

  As his wife, no man could deprive her of her right to speak her mind. He made a wry face, smiled at himself and submitted.

  “Lord Tros,” she said, “who is that Roman?”

  “Caesar’s man.”

  “He bids for your friendship?”

  Tros nodded.

  “You heard us,” he answered. “You heard my speech, you heard Caswallon’s message that he sent to Caesar.”

  “Aye, and I heard the Roman refuse to take the message,” she retorted. “Now these fools” — she glared at her brother Sigurdsen and at the forty men who pawed the charcoal marks on the table-top— “talk of forcing you to join Caesar’s fleet.”

  Tros stood up suddenly, legs apart, his eyes on Sigurdsen. The Northman shook Helma’s shoulder, growling angry streams of words that meant nothing to Tros, but he was aware that the other Northmen listened to them and were much too ostentatiously not listening. They pored over the drawing on the table like a lot of scullions sorting dry peas.

  “Sigurdsen says” — Helena watched Tros’s face as if all destiny depended on his mood, as in fact it did as far as she and her countrymen were concerned— “we are homeless, you and all of us. He says you are the chief, having conquered him, but now we are one great family. What profits one, must profit all, and a danger to one, is a danger to all. We build a great ship, and you are to command her. But he asks, how shall we keep the sea in that great ship, if the Romans close all ports against us and if the Roman fleets pursue us like hounds after a hare?”

  “So that is the gist of Skell’s argument!” said Tros, his arms akimbo. “No Northman ever heard of Romans until Skell came in out of the wet!” It would have gone hard with Skell if he had chanced into the room that minute. But Helena was not afraid.