Dreaming the Bull (16 page)

He regarded Valerius from under white brows. Like the dreamers of the tribes, Theophilus knew the secrets of a man’s heart.

Valerius said, “I was leaving. I would not disturb him.”

“No, but perhaps he would disturb you.” Theophilus never spoke without need and always with words beneath the words. A new caduceus in gold glittered at his breast; a gift from the governor. Beneath it, his old one, carved in apple wood, hung from a leather thong. He touched this one with his thumb in the same way Valerius touched his brand. “The tribune is with him. Did you know?”

“I guessed. Even were he not, it is not my place to visit. I will leave and—”

“No. Don’t go.” The door swung back. The scent of citrus oils flooded out, and stale blood beneath. Marcus Ostorius Scapula, resplendent in white and scarlet, stood on the threshold. If they had made him emperor and dressed him in purple, he could not have looked more regal. He turned the full weight of his black gaze on Valerius and smiled, beautifully. “Duplicarius, come in. The prefect would be happy to see you.”

It was an order, disguised as an offer, and could not be denied, however much one might wish so to do. Inside, the room was quiet, the breathing of the man on the bed so shallow as barely to disturb the air. Corvus lay flat, white as the linen. Part of his scalp had been shaved, the better to treat the wound on his head. His chest was bound round with bandages. His right arm lay limply on the sheets, waiting for something with more will than he currently possessed to move it.

The door closed and the tribune was on the inside. The duplicarius was not to be left alone with his prefect. Valerius stood to attention at the foot of the bed. Corvus’ gaze swept over him and came back, too complex to read. He fought, openly, for composure and found it; against what pain could not be known.

“Julius Valerius…” Words cost the prefect breath and breath, clearly, was pain. Valerius settled himself to patience.

The governor’s son was less patient. He said, “You will know that the weather has improved and a ship has docked south of the fortress. It brings a message from the emperor commending the governor’s actions and supporting an
increase in the scale of warfare in the west. It will return with a despatch detailing the peaceful disarming of the loyal eastern tribes and the suppression of a revolt among the Eceni and their allies, the Coritani, with mention of the ferocity with which they fought and the extraordinary courage and discipline of our men in defeating them. It will be the last ship to travel the seas this winter. By spring the fresh reports must show a winter’s work. The prefect and I were discussing—”

The suppression of a revolt
… Valerius laughed harshly. The sound rang loud in the quiet room. Corvus’ eyes were black with pain. They fixed on his.

Ignoring their plea, Valerius said, “Forget the spring reports. By the end of winter we will have been overwhelmed. Those warriors of the Eceni and Coritani who survived the “suppression” are even now celebrating with the fox-singer on the success of his salmon-trap. They will not sleep in their roundhouses filling their bellies just because there is snow on the ground.”

“Duplicarius, you go too—”

“No. He has the right. We gave him leave to speak his mind once before. It’s fair he does so now as long as he is aware that his words are for this room only and would be considered seditious were they to be repeated in other company.”

Marcus Ostorius was no longer smiling. He was twenty years old and he could order any manner of punishment of a junior officer of the auxiliary wings and it would be carried out without question. His tone and his bearing said he could do so; possibly that he had already done so in other circumstances. He stood at the open window staring into the courtyard. Slanting sun slid across his face, leaving him
in shadow. Outside, a late cockerel reminded them day had long since dawned.

“Tell me.” He spoke without turning. “If you were the governor and you needed urgently to ensure that the united tribes were disunited, or at least did not press their advantage, would you consider pressing reprisals against them that are more severe than those already imposed?”

You would as well crucify their children.

“It is the only hope.” Valerius had thought of little else since his escape from the salmon-trap. “We could have talked with the elder council, perhaps, after the fort burned and before the battle but not now. If your father wishes to remain governor of a province still under Roman rule, he will have to single out at least one village and destroy it. There is no other way.”

“You had somewhere in mind?”

“The first village that sparked the revolt: those who attacked the Thracian troop. If you hang the entire population and make as many of the nearby Eceni as you can find come to watch, they will spread word to the rest. Let it be known through them and through Prasutagos that for every legionary or auxiliary who dies henceforth, an entire family, picked at random, will die. They have raised the stakes with their killing of the scouts and their ambush. The governor must raise them so high, so fast, that the people themselves will not allow the dreamers to continue their war.”

Marcus Ostorius frowned. “Is it the dreamers’ war? I thought the one with the fox mark was one of their bards.”

“He was, although he bore the arms of a warrior and I saw him fight. Even so, the singers and the dreamers are as one. The warriors follow their command, not the other way
round. The dreamers are set against us now and they have the warriors behind them. Our hope of survival rests in our willingness to do more harm to them than they can do to us. If we can’t, then we should take the next ship back to Rome.”

“It is easy to say.” Marcus Ostorius turned abruptly from the window. “But you are asking the men to kill women and children without the scent of battle to give them heart. Would you do it?”

Valerius looked at Corvus. “If my decurion ordered me to. Or my prefect.”

Marcus Ostorius closed his eyes briefly. Opening them, he said, “Regulus is dead. You have no decurion. Replacements must be found for him and for all those others who died. At least some of the promotions will be made on the basis of exceptional valour and the leading of men. If you were to be promoted to decurion, say, of the second troop of the Thracians, third in command of the wing, would you lead them in service of the governor, whatever the order?”

Valerius’ world swam. All of his adult life—all of his life that now mattered—he had served under Corvus, prefect of the Quinta Gallorum. He had been part of his troop almost since it was first formed. If he had few friends, he had men at whose sides he had fought in battle, whose lives he had saved, whom he trusted to save him, men he knew as intimately as brothers. All but two of these were Gauls. Longinus and the Thracians fought under a Roman prefect who had ordered the hanging of a pregnant girl, a prefect who, above all else, was not Corvus.

In Valerius’ mind, his own voice said,
I believed it would be
constructive in the development of my career.
Corvus, breathing easily, laughed as he replied,
I’m sure it will be.
Neither of them had imagined that the development of his career would require him to leave the wing that was his home and the man who led it. Neither of them had wanted it to, until now.

In the hospital, in a quiet room, he needed badly to sit.

From the bed, Corvus said, “Marcus…?” and the tribune raised a lazy brow and, smiling, said, “Of course. I’ll be outside when you need me.”

The door closed and they were alone, a newly made decurion and the man who was no longer his prefect.

A bench had been placed next to the bed. Valerius sat on it without asking leave, then stood, remembering his place, and sat again at Corvus’ nod.

Silence held him. What does one say?
I saw you die and if my world had not already ended, it would have done so then. But I am unable any longer to feel either rage or grief or love, but can only mourn their loss. It is the curse of the gods and the one god cannot lift it. Can you forgive me? Can we be as we were, knowing I cannot feel?

No point. His answer stood in the felt presence of the tribune on the far side of the door and the single informal name spoken as a quiet request: “Marcus?” Very few beyond close family would have been granted the right to call the governor’s son by his first name.

Reaching forward, Valerius lifted Corvus’ limp right hand and felt a tremor of intended movement. In his mind, he could see how it would heal, given time. That much was good.

In a while, when he had more control of himself, he looked past the hand to the face beyond it. What had once been an open book was closed beyond any power of his to open.

“Why?” he asked.

He did not mean the promotion, but it was easier for Corvus to answer as if he did. He said, “Your actions on the battlefield were seen and reported to the governor. Both the attack on the dreamer and the fetching of the horses were acts of outstanding courage and an example to all the ranks. These things cannot be put in the despatch—nothing can be seen to outweigh the tribune’s actions—but they can be rewarded.” Corvus’ gaze became more keenly focused. “I didn’t know you could command an entire troop of horses by voice alone.”

“I didn’t. They followed the Crow. All I had to do was point them at the barrier where the warriors were thickest and the auxiliaries least and trust they would jump over. The Eceni will not kill a riderless horse. They don’t have it in them.”

“But riderless horses will kill the Eceni?”

“Only if they feel themselves attacked. It’s in their training.”

“And a horse, which has no conscience, will act by its training. For a man to do so takes more courage.” Corvus’ voice had roughened, losing the brittle bite. Reaching out with his good left hand, he asked, “What did it cost you?” Almost, his face was as it had been.

I knew you were behind the barrier and that you would die. I would have made you proud of me, this one last time. The curse has not destroyed my pride, or yours. It was my gift to you, freely given, and your black-eyed tribune has stolen it.

Valerius shook his head. “Nothing.” He let go of the hand he was holding and drew himself back. Where Corvus had just recently hidden, he too, took refuge. “Why must I
join the Thracians when I have served these last nine years with the Gauls?”

The brittleness returned, and the layers of rank between them. Corvus said, “The first troop has need of a decurion. It’s an obvious promotion for you, a clear demonstration that your actions were seen and valued. You are a good example. If we are to survive the winter, we will need men to show initiative when it counts, and clear courage.”

“Regulus also died. I could remain with the Gauls.”
I would still serve under you. Please let me?

“No. This is best. The decision is the governor’s but I believe he will take advice from the tribune.”

And, doubtless, from the prefect whose life his son has so valiantly saved.

Valerius could have said that last aloud but his courage was not so great and he found that, after all, he did not wish to be flogged and demoted to the ranks for the sake of gaining the last word. He let go of the hand he had been holding and smoothed down the bedlinen. “I should go,” he said. “The tribune waits outside and should not be made to stand for longer than necessary. I wish you good health and a swift recovery.”

He was by the door when Corvus spoke.

“Valerius?”

“Yes?” He turned too fast. He had not passed beyond hope.

“Longinus Sdapeze will be made duplicarius of the first troop, serving directly under you. Theophilus swears he will be fit to ride by the end of winter. He’s a good man. If you take care of each other, we may all come out of this alive.”

The child was born on mona, in late summer, when the fighting was at its height.

Mona was safe. The governor, Scapula, remained intent on subduing the Silures. His pride would not let him stop, nor his oath to the emperor, nearly four years old and not yet fulfilled. He had not yet turned his attention on the dreamers and their island; or, more likely, had not yet gained the military mastery that would allow him to strike that far north and west. Every spring for four consecutive years, the IInd legion had held the very southern tip of the land against attacks from the Durotriges while the XXth had marched out of their winter encampments and done their best to push their line of forts further west into Siluran territory. In places and at times they had succeeded. As often, they had failed.

The mountains of the west had become a constant battleground. Corn was planted and harvested now only by the very young, the old and the infirm: all those who could not hold a weapon in war. Horses were bred in favour of cattle
to replace the many lost in the fighting. Game became scarce. In those places where Rome gained ascendancy, the legions hunted to extinction all that lived within easy reach of their forts. Their indiscriminate felling of the forests to supply timber and firewood ensured that those beasts which had fled would not return. In the occupied lands of the east and south, grain, which had once been freely owned by those who worked to plant and harvest it, became the property instead of tax collectors or of the Roman veterans who owned the land but ordered others to farm it. Starvation stalked the months of winter in ways it had never done before the invasion.

On Mona alone, life continued as close to normal as was possible with the legions less than two days’ ride away beyond the straits and the mountains. Dreamers and singers still took apprentices from amongst those tribes who chose to send them. Those not under the Roman yoke sent more than they had ever done, feeling a greater need to be close to the gods. Those who lived under the shadow of the legions sent few and in great secrecy and each one came knowing that if their calling were discovered, their family, at best, would hang.

In the same spirit and with the same fears, girls and boys nearing adulthood who showed the spirit and potential for war journeyed west to pass the rites of the long-nights in safety and afterwards, if their acts and their dreams showed them worthy, to train at the warriors’ school. The luxury of ten years’ tuition was denied them; many went into battle after their first year, but some few older ones remained on the island to hold the core of the school together.