by Manda Scott
For every night of his childhood and most of his growing youth, Cunomar had seen his mother by firelight. Better than daylight, the dance of living flame opened her to him, as moonlight opens the hunter’s trail. From the first opening of his eyes, he had watched the softening light play on her hair and thought it a live thing, a river of copper, cascading onto the rock of her shoulder just for him.
Later, older, he had watched the wildfire come alive when she was near battle, had seen, and not yet understood, the quite different fire that filled her when she was close to childbirth, had watched, and mourned, the progressive damping of the flame through their last years on Mona and their time in the Eceni lands as she had grieved over the loss of the land and the exile, for ever, of Caradoc mac Cunobelin, his father. Always, it was at night that he had best understood what had touched her.
He studied her now by the light of Braint’s pyre and her hair was a river of fire again, and the wildfire shone in her and she was all that she had been and still everything was different so that he had no idea at all what had touched her, only that he regretted with every fibre of his being that he had not been a part of it.
He stepped forward, ignoring the heat, and reached up for her. Behind, scores of thousands of gathered warriors and refugees saw the Boudica’s bear-son greet the Boudica, framed by the Warrior’s fire and the night beyond, and the thunder roll of their cheering reached as high as the flames and joined the two horizons.
It was impossible not to be moved by it. Impossible, also, to speak. After a while, when they had shouted themselves hoarse and the waves of it were dying away, so that he thought he could be heard by her, but no-one else, he said, “We shouldn’t be here. I know that, and it’s my fault and I’m sorry, but I can’t undo what’s done. We need you now to find the victory within it.”
CHAPTER 39
I CAN’T UNDO WHAT’S DONE. WE NEED YOU NOW TO FIND THE victory within it.
Nobody could undo what had been done and Breaca had no idea if she could find victory, only that it was needed or the land was lost. Thus were the dark weft and the bright woven together; a war host of fifty thousand facing at best eight thousand legionaries, and the advantage all with the enemy.
… there is such a thing as god-luck … it is as necessary as any amount of training…
Valerius had said that, and had gone on to set a battle plan that was as solid as any man might devise. It was clean and easily learned and had the twists in it that might yet confound the enemy. He had given himself the most dangerous part of it and Breaca had not taken that from him, believing it their best hope of success.
She spoke to him of it, sitting by the fire when the spear-leaders had departed and the camp was settling to sleep. “Dubornos openly gave his life for this, to carry our need to the gods. Are you thinking to do the same in the battle tomorrow?”
He was leaner than when they had parted in Camulodunum, and his skin had seen more sun. His humour had become freer, too, so that she could see the many parts of him, dreamer and warrior, boy and man, Eceni and Latin, Nemain and Mithras in the dryness of his smile and the solemn quiet that had followed it.
Leaning forward, Valerius gave his attention for a moment to Stone, who lay across their feet, then said, “The gods guide, they rarely demand. It is up to each of us to listen to the whispers and make what we can of them. Dubornos has told them of our need and our sincerity with the magnitude of his gift. I would not presume to follow him. I will do what is needed tomorrow. As will you.” He paused and she thought he might leave and then, quite differently, he said, “In Camulodunum, you said that I should bring you the serpent-spear if you were whole when you returned. You’re as whole now as I have ever seen you. If you are ever to have it, tonight is the time. Shall I bring it?”
He was shy then, a boy offering his first-made carving to his older sister. The box he brought to her was as long as he was tall, but light. He laid it in the fire’s light and sat back, watching her.
She would have admired the box for its workmanship, but the night was short. Opened, a spear lay within, with a haft as long as her body of white ashwood and a long, narrow blade in the shape of a leaf.
Her heart had skipped a beat and come back to its rhythm faster. “Is this a true heron-spear, as the Caledonii use? I would not wish to cast one of those lightly on the morning of battle.”
“No.” He lifted it for her, balancing it across two fingers. For the first time in her presence, the maker in him shone through, eclipsing the dreamer and the warrior. “The blade isn’t silver and I have made no feathers to bind at the neck and alter its flight. Airmid carved the serpents of the haft.”
“And you have brought the sun into the iron of the blade,” she said, in wonder.
Such a gift she had never received. She held it closer to the fire and saw the curls of sun-red copper beaten into the blue iron of the blade, so that it drew in the fire and made it brighter. She saw the serpents that curved in living patterns along the wood, and the smooth running lines of the hound beaten in copper into the iron of the blade.
She stood and tested it; the balance was perfect. The song was subtle and took some time to hear over the crack and spit of the fire. When at last she reached it, or it her, it was the song of her own soul, set in counterpoint.
She said, “‘Find the mark that is ours and seek its place in your soul.’”
“I’m sorry?”
“The ancestor’s prophecy. This was the third task: I was to gather and arm a war host, then find the warrior with the eyes and heart of a dreamer; both of these are done. The final task was to find the mark that is ours — mine, the ancestor’s, Briga’s — and seek its place in my soul. I thought I was to come to understand it more and had been struggling to do so. Now…”Breaca lifted the blade and let its light glow soft before the fire, “you have given it to me.”
She sat down, feeling weightless. “I don’t have the words.”
“You don’t need any.” His smile came from his own soul, shorn of all irony.
They sat with the blade and the hound and the fire. A long time later, Breaca said, “Three tasks and three answers. A life might end on the completion of that.”
“Or it might be only beginning.” Valerius lay back with his hands laced behind his head and one knee cocked up. His eyes sought hers and held them. “Tomorrow is the culmination of all that we have lived for, you and I. It is still possible that we may all come through it alive.”
He was the brother she had lost and was only now beginning to find. He was balancing better the two broken halves of himself. His own hound had returned, the dream of Hail that ran at his side. She was coming to learn that it was only there to be seen when he was in most danger, or had opened his soul most widely to one or other of his gods. It lay between them both, a long, warm, intangible shape made of uneven light and shadow. She rested a hand on her knee and could feel the coarse hair that ran the length of its neck.
She said, “It is true that the gods guide and do not demand, but they also protect, I think, or give each of us the means of our protection. Don’t forget that in the heat of battle.”
A while later, when the hound was less easily seen, Valerius said, “And the gods give us their luck, which is in you. Don’t forget that, either, in the heat of battle.”
He rose some time after that, and went to talk to Longinus and Theophilus, who were waiting for him with news of a tent that the refugees from Verulamium, or Canonium, or Caesaromagus had found in their wagons. Thinking to honour him, they had erected it and lit a brazier inside, so that the once-Roman who had burned their towns in the name of freedom could sleep in comfort as did the legions’ generals.
Breaca and Airmid joined them in the ring of others admiring aloud the fine-dressed hides and the neat double stitching of the seams and the way the light from the brazier made shadows on the walls. It was a good way to end the night, to laugh with friends and to come away again after, to sleep by the last heat of Brain
t’s fire.
Or not to sleep, but to sit with Stone at her side and think.
… the gods give us their luck, which is in you…
Breaca stared into redness. The pyre fell in on itself again. The heap of ash was down to shoulder height. She let her gaze soften until all she could see was red.
As if he asked it again, she heard in the flames Venutios’ question and wondered whether she might yet escape its answer. As if she held it again, she felt the stone that had crushed Dubornos’ skull and released his soul from his body. As if it were real, and knowing it was not, she watched the horned moon become full and saw the hare that was on its surface step down onto the earth. Soft wind breathed on the embers that had been Braint. Fire soughed and sighed and became, distantly, the belling of hounds, picked for their voices, and their speed. They hunted without cease, but did not kill.
Stone raised his head and whined softly and laid it down again to rest. From behind, Airmid murmured, “You should sleep. The battle will need you sharp and awake.”
“Maybe later.” Breaca was as sharp and awake as she had ever been in her life. Impossible to imagine ever sleeping again.
“Do you want help to reach to the heart of the fire?”
To have the understanding even to ask that question was a gift beyond measure. She reached back and found Airmid’s arm and squeezed it. “Maybe later.”
They sat in silence in the circle of their family. Graine lay curled in her cloak. After a while, Stone joined her and she made him her pillow, never waking from sleep. Cygfa sat up talking to Gunovar somewhere near a small stand of hawthorn. Hawk slept with the bear-blade of Eburovic as his companion. Cunomar and Ardacos and those who followed them were gone; somewhere within earshot, the skull drums of the she-bear played their discordant rhythm, just far enough away not to disturb the rest of those who needed to sleep.
Valerius was still awake, sitting up with Longinus and Theophilus. She could see his outline in silhouette, and the growing tension that lacked any obvious reason. He shifted a little, and she saw that the hound had left him again and he sat alone staring out into the night as if waiting for something, or someone.
She had thought that, and then who it might be, and was going to go over to speak to him when the night stirred and she was too late.
“Valerius?”
A voice called it from the dark beyond the fire. Breaca watched her brother stand, slowly, as if, now it had come, he would rather have continued to wait. Huw came into the light, the young slinger with the scarred face who was now Warrior of Mona. Brilliant metal flashed between his two hands.
Valerius did not take what was offered: a small statuette of the falcon, Horus, dented on the head, with one eye made of jet. He stood with his head bowed, staring at his clasped hands, and did not move.
It was Longinus who asked, “Where is he?” He had no need to give a name; he, too, had been waiting.
Huw said, “On the other side of the ridge. The scouts have him. They’ll kill him if you give the order.”
“No!” Breaca said it, standing now. “Valerius, is it Corvus?” and then, when he gave no answer, “Go. He was a friend before this began. He may be again when it’s over. It’s not for us now to turn our backs on friendship.”
And then Longinus said it again, kindly, and with other threads in the weave, “Go. I’ll wait here, where there’s warmth. There’s a long night yet before the day begins; we can mend then whatever might be broken,” which was enough finally to unglue her brother’s feet and set him moving into the dark beyond the fire.
He felt sick, which was ridiculous on the eve of battle. He had thought Theophilus might offer to come with him and had not been sure he could find the voice to send him back. He was grateful that had not been needed. He followed Huw through the dark, blindly, and chose not to think of where he was going or why.
They came to a place where a small stream ran along the base of the ridge, and a hazel stood on either side. He had marked them for the spear-leaders for the day to come; not because they were useful for cover — there was no cover to speak of in the open plain in front of Paullinus’ valley — but as rallying points, easily seen by all the warriors.
“Here.” Huw pressed the small Horus into his hands. “I’ll not be far,” and faded back to the shadow of the ridge.
The night was empty. He might have been alone under the stars, except that there was a faint scent on the breeze that he would have recognized anywhere, at any time, in the blind heat of battle, on the cold of a winter’s mountain, in a throng of drinking legionaries in a filthy tavern in a Gaulish sea port — or here, at the edge of an ordinary plain on which the future of a province would be decided at daybreak.
He said, “Why are you here?”
“To see you.” Corvus was sitting on a rock with his bare feet in the stream. Coming so recently from the firelight, it took some time for Valerius to see him. The water was first, making silvered furrows around his ankles, then the slow revelation of a man.
He looked more tired than he had at Prasutagos’ steading, when he had sent the procurator’s veterans away and so saved Breaca’s life. His hair carried more silver than it had done in the years of his youth and he was, perhaps, a little thicker in the waist. Beyond all of those, he was the same man who had been shipwrecked on the Eceni coast twenty-three years before, the same officer who had lifted a boy from slavery and brought him into the cavalry.
They stood on opposite sides of the stream, and words would not bridge it.
After a while, Corvus cleared his throat and asked, “Do you still have your mad horse?”
“Yes. And Cygfa has his grandson. He has the spirit of his grandsire, but isn’t quite as mad.”
“Gods … With two of those on the battlefield … we should leave now.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
The false levity withered. The river ran yet between them. Valerius leaned in and set the bronze Horus on a rock mid-stream. Its jet eye glared at him. He said, “This is yours. You should have it back.”
“Thank you.” Corvus made no attempt to take it. “It’s travelled a long way to be here.”
“From Alexandria?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me his name.” Valerius had no idea why he said that. There had been years when he could have asked and the answer would have been given freely.
Corvus said, “I am not sure I ever knew his real name. He called himself Alexandro.” He said it in the soft, southern way, sliding the consonants across the root of his tongue. He smiled, thinly, so that the river caught the reflection of it. “I was his Hephaistion.”
“You loved him that much?”
“I thought I did. Love was … very different then. Simpler.” Corvus reached to turn the falcon round, his fingers tracing the dent in its head. “I was nineteen. I thought I knew everything there was to know of life and love and all the things between them.”
“And now?” Valerius asked it softly.
“Now I know nothing and know that I know nothing. No … that’s not true.” Corvus drew a short breath and hissed it out, shaking his head. “I never know what to say in your company any more. For gods’ sake, must we sit like this with a river between us when it will all end tomorrow?”
It was hard to speak, but necessary. “There’s room here,” said Valerius, “and equally on your side. I can cross or you can. I don’t think there’s room for both of us and the Horus on the stone in the middle.”
“No.” Corvus barked a laugh. “No, there isn’t. So then, shall I cross or will you? It seems to matter. What do your gods tell you?”
“That it should never have come to this.” Valerius’ voice snagged in his throat. “Wait, I’ll come over.”
He got his feet wet, and stubbed his toe, and landed like a thrown fish on the far bank and lay laughing, shakily. He was weeping, which felt better than he might have supposed.
With the heel of his hand, he sm
eared the wet from his eyes and sat up. “I’m supposed to be leading the right wing tomorrow. I doubt they would follow me if they saw this.” He could say that, and lose nothing; it would be obvious from the opening of the battle lines.
Giving as little away, Corvus said, “Then we’ll meet. The Quinta Gallorum are set to hold the left.”
“There is still time to change it.” Valerius thought about that. “But we won’t. We will do what we must because there is no way now to change the things that really matter.” He sat up. Tears leaked down the line of his nose, as if a tap had opened and could not be closed off. He reached out, fuzzily, and took hands that waited for him. “Quintus Valerius Corvus. I loved you more than I knew. I would never have thrown it away so lightly if I had known what it meant.”
The hands that lay in his were still and cool and only a small tremor betrayed them. Corvus said, “Someone told me once that men are doomed to learn through pain until they can find a way to learn through joy. It seems we have a lot to learn, each of us.”
“We do. Was that from him?” He nodded to the Horus.
“No. But it was of that time. A woman. She was to Isis what you are to Mithras. And now, I think, to Nemain? Or is it Briga?”
“Nemain.”
“It must be hard to hold true to them both at once.”
“Impossible. I am still two people in one skin. I imagine I will always be.”
“But one soul, and that Eceni and that is where the treasure lies.” Corvus lifted Valerius’ hand and traced the lines of the palm with one finger and said, “You know that if I could restore to you all that is lost, I would do it.”
“I know. Thank you.”
Without speaking, they had moved, and sat close, so that it was possible once again for Valerius to tip his head sideways and find a shoulder waiting, as it had always waited, and the weight of a cheek on his crown and to feel an arm round him and the steady — so very steady — rhythm of a heartbeat that sang to his own. The gods were there, quietly, without conflict, so that it was possible to be young again, and know nothing except the simplicity of love, and at the same time to be older, and know that there was everything still to know.