by Talbot Mundy
However, as the patrol drew near for the third time, he heard laughter. Then he heard one legionary mimicking a high-pitched voice. He could only catch fragments of conversation as the patrol went by.
“What did they do with him, Flavius?”
“Fed him and let him make himself a nest inside the woodstack. The funny little rascal said he was afraid of roofs and walls. Our Caesar took quite a fancy to him, joked about—”
Tros could not hear the rest. It was swallowed in the fog and by the heavy tramp of armed men. Silence, too sudden and intense for comfort, succeeded the jolt of retreating footsteps. The patrol had halted, a hundred, possibly two hundred feet away. Then came the sound of two men marching back, and suddenly the centurion’s form loomed out of the fog, his shield in front of him, wrapped in cloth to protect its decorations from the damp air.
“Who is here? What are you doing here?” he demanded, and a legionary stepped up from behind him, sword drawn, ready for emergency.
Tros said afterward that the gods did all the work that night, avenging Helma’s death. Yet he himself distinctly had a part in it. He sprang at the centurion and beat him to the ground unconscious before he could utter a cry. Caswallon ran the legionary through below the breast bone, and Sigurdsen’s great ax hit home into his brain. His cry, fog-smothered, might have reached the ears of the patrol, but that same second an explosion louder than a thunderclap split night asunder. Green, blue, yellow flame spurted above the rampart, and the sudden ensuing darkness hummed with flying lumps of wood. Then another explosion. Then another. Shouts, yells, a panic of armed men, which is worse than milling cattle. Two more explosions, flame, flame everywhere, sulphurous yellow and blue and green flame, burning with the stench of Styx.
The disordered patrol came charging through the fog to find their officer, but Tros, Caswallon, and the Northmen at their backs were gone straight at the camp, taking the ditch in two jumps, scrambling up the earthwork, cutting down a panic-stricken sentry — none remembered afterward who did that — then standing on the rampart for a moment, breathless, wondering what next.
Below was nightmare — fog, smoke, flame, tents and thatch afire; dark phantoms hurrying through it all, most of them with cloths around their heads, against the stench. Caesar’s tent, by a fluke of luck was standing, not on fire; the glare from the blazing, scattered woodpile threw it into high relief, and the stinking smoke coiled past it like a breath from the infernal regions. Then another explosion.
“I see him!” Caswallon yelled, and leaped off the rampart.
But he saw the wrong man. It was a general in a white cloak that he and Sigurdsen pulled down, gagged, wrapped in the folds of his finery, and bore away into the outer night.
Tros saw Caesar standing beside a trumpeter, who blew as if his lungs would burst, trying to rally the men out of their panic. Caesar was leaning on the trumpeter, leaning strangely. He fell when a Northman crashed his ax-blade into the trumpeter’s skull. Tros picked him up without a struggle, covered him in his own cloak, felt the body writhing in his arms and recognized the strained, convulsive movements of an epileptic.
“The gods!” he exclaimed. “The gods!”
Away then, and over the rampart, part of the way in the midst of a crowd of fugitives who gagged and coughed at the appalling stench and fled from the flame and the whirling wood. None paused to look at Tros. None challenged him. A last explosion split the darkness with a belch of stenching flame as Tros jumped into the camp ditch, Caesar in his arms; and there in the ditch he stumbled on Caswallon and Sigurdsen, grunting as they fought in the dark to subdue their captive without killing him.
“I have Caesar!” Tros gasped, digging his toe into Caswallon’s ribs. “Kill that fellow. Come on, hurry!”
Somebody, probably Sigurdsen, struck home into the struggling Roman’s neck. He had not surrendered; he could lay no claim to quarter. Tros gave Caesar to two Northmen, who took him over shoulder like a long grain sack. The others formed a flying wedge, Tros in the lead.
“To the shore! To the ship!” Tros hissed, and they were off. Three times they lost their way. A dozen times they had to halt and hide, holding their breath at risk of strangling, while shouting legionaries hurried past them through the dark fog, crying out the names of friends or of company commanders. Once they were seen and challenged; they charged behind Tros and slew — they never knew how many, Caswallon’s long sword and the Northmen’s axes licking through the fog like tongues of sudden fire.
Behind them all Gaul seemed aroar. The burning booths and woodstack threw a lurid light over the camp, and in the distance from the other camp beyond the river came a stream of torches as the famous Tenth made haste to run, row, swim, roaring to Caesar’s aid.
Caesar lay still on the Northmen’s shoulders when the epileptic fit had spent itself. He was no longer rigid, but unconscious when they laid him in a boat at last and Sigurdsen uncovered his white face.
“Is he dead?” Caswallon asked, in an awed voice sharp with disappointment.
“Not he!” said another voice. “His time hasn’t come. You can’t kill him. You daren’t.”
Eough jumped in over the boat’s bow as they pushed off.
“Horse-Dung Tros, I have come for my women and children,” he remarked. “You must send some men to bring those other boats and row them all ashore.”
Thereafter only Eough spoke curtly, giving the direction, seeming to know the way by instinct through a fog so dense that a man could hardly see his hand stretched out in front of him.
Eough was the first up the ship’s side, counting the dark herd of heads that murmured to him from the ship’s waist.
“Hurry!” he said, “Hurry!” stamping his feet nervously. “Fill the boat with Northmen, Fish-Oil Tros! Send them to bring all four boats back and take my people in one journey. We must all be gone by morning. If the Romans catch me, they’ll torture all of us! Hurry! Hurry! Yes, I’ll go and show the fools the way.”
CHAPTER 51. Ave, Caesar!
Slay him? Shoot your arrows at the moon, ye impotently envious! He who hath earned a destiny shall run his course, though earth, air, fire and sea were all in league against him. If the backbone of his vanity be virtue, shall your weakness slay his strength before its time? Ye accuse him of vice. Is it worse, because greater than yours? Ye accuse him of treachery — ye mice that nibble through the bins of honesty. Ye say he plunders — ye who steal each other’s good repute, boasting of deeds ye never dared nor did! Ye accuse him of ruthless avarice, ye who lend of your plenty at interest and enslave the debtor’s children! Is his evil greater than your evil, so that ye fear him? Look then to your little evil, which is fearful because it is little. Slay that, lest it betray you when the hour of his destiny sendeth him forth to test your manhood.
— from The Sayings of the Druid Taliesan
WITHIN the longship’s midship house where the mast rose through the peaked roof, there was a thwartship table. On that they laid Caesar and watched him by the light of a flickering whale-oil lamp.
Helma’s dead body lay astern under the little steering deck, in all the state Tros could provide, covered with his purple cloak and watched by her brother Sigurdsen. The remainder of the crew were forward, their low-pitched, awe-struck voices blanketed by the fog and by the sucking of the calm sea overside.
Caswallon fretted, biting at his lip; fretted for no other reason than that he could not honorably fight a man recovering from epilepsy. He believed that epilepsy was a visitation from the gods. Tros knew that Caesar had conceited theories of the same kind, suffering the inconvenience of ever more frequently recurring fits with a complacency that grew more smug as he advanced in years, in notoriety, in influence and in the estimation of his men.
As the pupils of his eyes at last expanded and the rigor of the seizure lessened with returning consciousness, not moving yet, but breathing easily and seeming to grow aware of his surroundings, Caesar smiled. Caswallon was about to speak, but Tros made a
gesture and they continued to watch so silently that they could hardly hear each other’s breath.
Caesar’s characteristic first motion was toward his bald head with the forefinger of his right hand. Then he felt at his pallium, as by instinct, making sure his thighs were covered decently. He felt at his head again and frowned. There was no wreath there. Consciousness of baldness irked him.
None spoke yet. Tros was the first whom he stared at, and he recognized Tros almost instantly, but no fear traced itself on the pallid face. Rather, his eyes grew distant and more dignified. Then he looked at Caswallon curiously.
“Who are you?” he asked, speaking Latin. Caswallon understood the question, not the words.
“I am Fflur’s husband. I have come for her,” he said in Gaulish, and Caesar understood that language well enough. A whimsical smile flitted over his lips.
“So you are Fflur’s husband. What a title!”
Again he spoke Latin. Caswallon lost the gist of the remark, but Tros, who understood it, set his face hard. He plucked Caswallon’s sleeve and drew him to where the sailcloth curtains closed the rear end of the cabin.
“Men with the falling sickness,” he said in low tones, “recover swiftly when the fit has spent itself. They tell me Caesar’s brain is even more than usually active after an attack. Are you willing to abandon Fflur to the Roman’s mercy, say for a week or two?”
Caswallon shook his head. He seemed surprised that Tros should ask the question. Tros nodded, now sure of his ground at any rate.
“I would have given the same answer, were she my wife. But I warn you, we have a difficult part to play against a master strategist.”
Caesar sat up on the table, smoothing his pallium and leaning back against the mast.
“Give me a napkin,” he commanded. And then, when Tros had passed him a piece of linen and he had wiped the dry froth from his lips, “Where am I?”
It was Tros who answered.
“You are at sea, in my ship. You are the Lord Caswallon’s prisoner.”
“Very well,” Caesar answered in Gaulish, “I will deal with him.” He eyed Caswallon with a very piquant curiosity. “What are your terms?”
Caswallon paused, stared steely-eyed at him, then spoke deliberately:
“Had you been a man, you should have fought me hand-to-hand. That would have been the end of you.”
Caesar smiled.
“And I suspect the end of Fflur then also,” he intimated with a dry nod. “Let me see. Unless my memory plays tricks, your wife is in one of my camps at Seine-mouth. Marcus Balbus, I think, is in attendance on her. A very safe man, Balbus. I would like a drink.”
Tros gave him red wine in a silver cup. He drank a little of it and returned the cup with a gesture as if Tros were his servant. “It is very cold here,” he said then. “Have you nothing to cover me?”
Tros pulled a heavy blanket out from underneath the table. Caesar wrapped it over his knees and shoulders. Caswallon, bridling at the Roman’s air of confidence, spoke again and his voice was harsh. He had none of Caesar’s sarcasm and did not know how to assume it.
“I have heard you described as a woman. I do not fight women.”
“No,” Caesar interrupted, “you are a woman’s husband. I heard you say so. Now if you will name the amount of the ransom, we will make arrangements to procure the money with all speed, so that I may get away from this abominably cold ship. Then you can run away back to your island, where I will presently come and teach you what it means to submit me to this indignity. Name the ransom. I will pay it.”
“How will you pay for the life of the Lord Tros’s wife, whom one of your soldiers slew?” Caswallon asked him.
“We will see,” said Caesar. “I will deal with Tros when his turn comes. Name the amount of my ransom.”
Caswallon blew a great snort.
“Ransom! You would wring the money from the Gauls. I am no enemy of the Gauls or of the druids that I should turn you loose on them to extort money to pay me. First, you shall sign an undertaking never again to invade Britain.”
“Are you the king of Britain?” Caesar asked.
“I am king of the Trinobantes.”
“Precisely,” said Caesar. “The chief of one small tribe. You have no authority to speak for Britain then, have you? With your, ah, kind permission, I suggest we should confine ourselves to actualities.”
He smiled, rearranging the folds of the blanket, apparently as unconcerned as if he were discussing last week’s murderous games in the arena.
Caswallon glared, and glanced at Tros. But before Tros could put in a word Caesar was speaking again, his voice well modulated, calm, amused.
“I suggest you should keep me prisoner and see what comes of it. That may be the best way to teach you and your Britons a lesson. You have made more trouble for me by sending over your emissaries to stir up the Gauls against me than I intend to tolerate. Your wife may stay in Gaul and you may carry me to Britain. I am curious to see your country.”
Tros let a bitter smile escape him. Caesar, too, smiled almost imperceptibly and his eyes betrayed that he knew he held the winning hand. Caswallon tugged at his moustache. Both he and Tros felt rather like small boys in the presence of their superior and both resented it, but before either could speak Caesar’s calm voice filled the silence.
“I suppose you used that dwarf to carry pitch and sulphur into my camp. Clever, very clever! Well, if the dwarf was not killed, my men will catch him, and it may amuse me to make use of him to set your town on fire when I come there with my army.”
“We are wasting time,” Tros said in an undertone, but Caesar heard him and looked pleasantly amused.
Time was all-important. If the fog should lift —
Caswallon drew himself erect, bumping his head against the roof-beam, which in no way increased his self-control. He spoke his mind deliberately, harshly:
“You are a reptile! If you were less or more, you would never have sent Marius and Galba to enjoy my hospitality and work this treachery behind my back. I loathe you. I could vomit on you. But you hold the mother of my sons. You are not worth one hair on her head, but because I honor her you must go free in exchange for her, although it shames me that I must pay for her with such a vicious beast as you. Your vile heart looks out through your eyes! So, no more words. You shall go free. But no Roman shall bring Fflur to me. You shall write me a letter and sign it, passing me in to the camp where Fflur is, releasing to me Fflur and those other prisoners whom your lying envoys took, passing us out with military honors, unmolested, free to go where we will and unaccompanied. And while I go to bring Fflur, you shall remain here at the sword-point of the Lord Tros.”
Caesar. watching both men, smiled. He seemed to be hardly interested in Caswallon’s speech, hardly to have heard it. It was Tros’s face that amused him. Tros, realizing he had forgotten something, ground his teeth. Aboard that ship there was neither stylus nor tablet nor a parchment they could write on! Caswallon, realizing the predicament and swearing under his breath, rummaged among the contents of a shelf beneath the table.
“So you will have to take me with you to your island or else set me ashore unless you elect to kill me,” said Caesar, summing up the situation cheerfully.
His smile was condescending, but it vanished instantly.
“You lie!” Tros answered. And he solved that riddle swiftly, drawing his long sword. Its point touched Caesar’s throat. “Your tablet!” he commanded. “Tablet and stylus! They hang by a cord under your cloak.”
He was guessing, but he had guessed right. Caesar produced them. The waxen tablet lay in a fine silver case that contained stylus and ink to smear over the indentations on the wax.
“Tchutt-tchutt! Remember dignity!” said Caesar. “Bad manners, Tros, are never creditable.”
“Write!” Tros commanded. “Write that you are the Lord Caswallon’s prisoner. Thereafter, add what he told you to write.”
“Oh, of course, if you wish,” Caes
ar answered, but he had begun to look amused again. “You understand, I have only your words for it that you will release me afterwards. Don’t you think my officers might possibly demur? I suggest you might do better to listen to a proposal from me.”
He rose from the table, yawning to hide the fact that he was shivering from cold. He was a little weak still, his knees inclined to tremble, and he sat down again with great dignity, rearranging the folds of the blanket.
“I think we would do better to deal with individuals by name, so I will write this letter to Marcus Livius, who is in, ah, in attendance on the, ah, on the lady and who is in my confidence. Livius will appreciate my feelings. He will avoid publicity. We are close to the shore? Very well. Livius will conduct the, ah, ladies and gentlemen to the shore, as close to this ship as possible.
“One of you may accompany him if you wish; the other may remain with me, and I am sure I shall enjoy the society of whichever of you can tolerate mine for that hour or two. The exchange will take place on shore, and you may take my word for it that there will be no indiscretion on our side, provided there is none on yours. Thereafter, I will give you two hours to be out of sight of land!”
“Write!” Caswallon ordered, pointing at the tablet. But Tros said nothing.
“Two hours,” Caesar added by way of afterthought, as if he were conceding something for the sake of generosity, “from the time the fog lifts, which it usually does soon after daybreak.”
He coughed. The cold fog filled the cabin. Then he wrote in his beautiful, firm hand with the tablet on his lap, Tros holding the lamp for him. When he had done he passed the tablet to Caswallon who gave it to Tros to read. Tros nodded.
“Bring ink and parchment when you come,” he whispered.
Two minutes later a Northman crew went overside to row Caswallon ashore, and Tros faced Caesar alone. At the end of a minute or two of silence he sat down on the table and Caesar made room for him, leaning his back against the ship’s side with his legs stretched straight in front of him.