Dreaming the Bull (32 page)

She would not. A legion and a full wing of cavalry camped in that fort and she approached it unarmed with a dead grandmother as her guide. The images of what Scapula did to captured dreamers came vividly to mind. Crucifixion would be better. She moved more quietly and ignored the mounting number of things that moved with her.

On her left, a she-bear grunted and she heard Ardacos’ reply. He had been her lover once; she would have known his voice anywhere, even when he was most fully a bear. Three more legionaries died, not knowing their assailants. The night became crowded with lost souls.

They crossed the rampart in a line, following the bane-moon track. Ardacos had placed a log across the ditch and pulled down the three-pronged stakes that guarded it. Within, bodies of men in full armour lay scattered to either side, their necks broken and their throats ripped in a way that did not speak of edged weapons. Through the rest of the camp, old fires burned dimly before tents pitched in perfect rows and columns; Rome slept, as it lived, in straight lines that numbed the spirit.

The elder grandmother guided Breaca past sleeping men. Airmid followed. The she-bears were shadows on
either side, ahead and behind. Other things moved in the dark and it was better not to ask what they were.

Quietly, the grandmother said, “The governor’s tent is in the centre, on the main path. He has pitched it over the grave of the serpent-dreamer. She is angry and disturbs his sleep. Airmid will disturb it more.”

Breaca stopped still on the track. “How do you know the ancestor is a serpent-dreamer?”

“I know everything.” The grandmother was scathing. “Why else do you think you’re here?”

“That’s it. In the centre, where the other trackway meets ours.”

The second track passed from east to west, darker than the surrounding night; amazing that the legion’s engineers had not seen it. The governor’s tent, placed directly over the crossing point, was twice as large as those close by and many times the size of those that sheltered the sleeping legionaries. Six men guarded it, three facing inward, three out. Two more patrolled the margins. Unlike the sentries on the ditch, none of these were half asleep. To get past them, all must die in the same breath. The she-bears hovered, awaiting orders, but even god-driven they were too few to achieve it without uproar.

The grandmother shook her head. To Ardacos, she said, “Not now. These are not for you. Keep watch for others and stop them if they come. Remember not to step on the trackways.”

Breaca asked, “How do we reach Scapula?”

“Airmid knows,” said the grandmother.

“She does not.”

The words came from behind. Breaca turned. Airmid stood away from the grandmother, her feet lined carefully on the dark moon’s track. Her eyes were widely black, staring at the elder grandmother. “You didn’t tell me it was the serpent-dreamer,” she said. “I’ve met her before; she guards the oldest of the ancestors’ sacred places on Mona. She is not safe.”

“Did you ask for safety when you called the dreaming? I never heard it.” The grandmother smiled blandly. “Are you afraid, Airmid of Nemain?”

There was a gap, which lengthened. The night became crisp. Airmid said, “Yes.”

Impossible. Airmid feared nothing and no-one.

The grandmother nodded. “Good. It’s time you remembered the humility of that. Even so, you must find a means to make this work or we return whence we came with nothing achieved but ten dead men.”

There were not yet ten men dead. Nobody said so.

It seemed, for a moment, as if they might turn back. Breaca said, “Airmid, if it can be done no other way, the she-bears and I will attack the governor’s tent. I have not come this far to turn back.”

“You would die.”

“I know, but we might kill—”

“No, you would die before you ever reached the tent and your soul would be held for ever by the ancestor. This is not warrior’s work.” Airmid spoke to Breaca, sharply, but her eyes were on the elder grandmother, engaged in another, deeper dialogue.

Answering it aloud, the elder grandmother said, “Your warrior carries the serpent-woman’s spear-head and she
fights under her mark. Is there not something in that you could trust?”

Tonelessly, Airmid said, “I didn’t know it was the mark of that ancestor.” She chewed on her lower lip. Presently, she said, “Breaca, with the stone spear-head, do you carry also the brooch in the shape of your serpent-spear, twin to the one you gave Caradoc?”

“Yes.”

Once again, Breaca sifted through the contents of her pouch. The brooch seemed small on her palm. Years ago, she had carved the wood for the mould and cast it herself in silver. Her father had been alive then and had helped her. Two months’ work had gone into its making and she had thought it the best she could ever create. The double-headed serpent coiled back on itself, looking to the future and the past. The war spear crossed and recrossed, pointing to paths in other worlds. Two threads in scarlet hung from the lower loop, first evidence of Caradoc’s love. The light of the old gods’ moon washed over it, turning scarlet to black, for death.

“He loved you then and does so still.” The elder grandmother said it. She sounded oddly peaceful. “Remember that now. Give it to Airmid with your spear-head and hold on to the memory of times when the serpent was not looped in black.”

“I don’t think I can.” There had been so much war. It was almost impossible to remember a time when the red thread had been new and the love it signalled fresh and unexplored.

“Think.” The elder grandmother stood behind with her hands on Breaca’s shoulders. “Think of the sea, and a boy washed up in a storm. Think of a river, and another, and another, and another.”

Breaca had not thought before that the moments of greatest joy with Caradoc, at least in the early days, had come beside water. Reminded, it was easier. She was a girl again, and dreamed a storm that broke a ship on a headland. In the flotsam lay a corn-haired youth, not quite drowned. His waking smile slipped into her soul.

Storm water had washed them together. In the river of the Eceni, winter meltwater nearly killed them again. Caradoc’s face rose above it, laughing.
We can’t rescue each other … not the point.
He submerged again, and came up in the spring, dry and dressed for travel. A cap hid the brightness of his hair and his cloak was dullest brown. She gave him a serpent-spear brooch cast in silver, the mark of her dreaming. No red thread bound it yet; she had not dared acknowledge the feeling. Still, Caradoc had known it for what it was, and had taken it, staring into the river water. Bán had been alive then, and had understood.

In late summer, with Bán long dead, the red threads hung limp as Caradoc’s voice said,
I still have the brooch. Whatever happens, it still means what it did.

Soon after, his daughter, Cygfa, was born to another woman and Breaca hated him for it, because hate was safer than love. Autumn brought them close in battle, with love and hate put aside to defend a greater need. In the middle part, with death on all sides, the red threads bound them and they made a child. The river had sung over the sound of their loving.

“We thought we could win, then,” said Breaca.

The elder grandmother said, “You can still win, Nothing is fixed. The gods do not create their people only to destroy them.”

“What must we do?”

“If you can destroy Scapula, that will be a good start.”

Somewhere close, Airmid said, “Breaca? Can you walk with me? We need to go round behind the governor’s pavilion. Here … take back the brooch. Use it to hold on to the memories. They are our gift to the ancestor-dreamer. If you can keep them strong, we’ll be safe. Come now. I’ll guide your steps.”

She held the memories, her gift. Caradoc was with her, a summer Caradoc, soon after Graine’s birth. They walked together, parents and child, in the circle of stones set by the ancestors. Hail ran ahead, hunting. In the Roman camp, Airmid guided her a long way round, past sleeping men, to the rear of the governor’s tent. Patrolling sentries passed them, not looking into shadows. The serpent-spear brooch was matt and dull. Only the red thread glowed with its own life, heart bound to heart, bloody in the dark.

They stopped at the back of the pavilion. Airmid counted aloud, softly. Breaca said, “What?” The single word slurred.

Airmid said, “The guards walk at the same pace and stop together in front of the tent. They will be away for three hundred heartbeats. If I can go in and come out in that time, we are safe.”

The magnitude of the risk came to Breaca. “I should do this,” she said.

“No. You swore to me you would not. Just hold the brooch and hold to the memories of life, not of death. It will be harder than you imagine.”

The sentries passed again. The skin of the tent hung loosely pale. Airmid said,
“Now,”
and stepped up to it. The guards heard nothing and did not turn.

It will be harder than you imagine.

The flint spear-head cut the side of the tent as cleanly as any knife, slitting down from knee height to the turf below. The she-bears entered legionary tents in this way, reaching in to cut the throats of the sleeping occupants. Dead men filled Breaca’s mind. White flesh and the froth of a last breath choked her. With an effort, she recalled Ardacos’ bear-dance on Mona, in the days when she had believed that he or Gwyddhien would be Warrior. Caradoc had been there. She fought to bring the shape of his face to mind, to lay it over the many kills of the she-bears. When that failed, she remembered Graine, who was alive and free, and then created Caradoc around the child, holding her. His smile came last. She tried to rebuild the fire in his eyes as he smiled at her.

Grey. They are grey, the colour of clouds after rain, and the left one droops slightly, from a sword-cut to the brow, where an auxiliary struck down, back-handed, before Gwyddhien killed him. The man had pale red hair and when he died, he … Grey. Caradoc’s eyes are grey, the colour of clouds
…

“Are you sure they were not black? They would be better black, for vengeance.” The voice was older than the elder grandmother’s could ever be. It offered an opening and a path forward without resistance. “Black,” said the ancestor. “Vengeance is black. Is that not what you want?”

“Love is red.” That voice was Airmid’s, faint. “The threads on the serpent-brooch were red, for love.”

The ancestor laughed softly. The sound was a snake, smoothing through grass. “But your warrior has not killed this past month for love. Each man slain has gone to the otherworld with her hate carved on his soul. Even those who
wander godless and lost tonight know the name of the one for whom they died. The warrior knows that, if you don’t.”

The ancestor’s voice carried more power than the others. She alone knew the reality by which Breaca lived.

“Vengeance.” The word was a gift. “If you want me to kill for you, should the governor, too, not go slowly to his death knowing for whom he dies and why?” An image of Scapula came clear in the dark, racked by endless pain. “Is this not what you crave?”

“Yes.”

“Would this not let you rest if it came to pass?”

No
. The elder grandmother answered before Breaca could, or it may have been Airmid, or perhaps the two were one.
We want Caradoc alive, and the children, only that. We do not live for vengence.

It was not true. It could not be made to be true. For two months, Breaca had lived only for revenge. It was not possible so suddenly to let it go. She felt the suck of the ancestor and the loosening hold of the elder grandmother.

“Black,” said the ancestor. She spoke past Breaca to the elder grandmother, as an adult speaks to a child. “Black is not for vengeance alone, but for all death. It is not wrong to crave the death of another, only to deny what you need. You should know that. Let the warrior give me the black and I will do what she and you both want.”

“Breaca, no.” Airmid spoke clearly. “The one called must live free of the taint of vengeance, or it will destroy him. Think of Caradoc as you would have him live. A lifetime’s love should not be overshadowed by a month of hate.”

She tried. In the darkness she did her best to build Caradoc, layer by layer, striving to make him brighter, more
alluring than the promise of Scapula’s dying. A lifetime’s love should not be overshadowed by anything, but she had hated Rome for as long as she had loved Caradoc. Love and hate combined were the foundation on which she fought and lived and breathed and she did not have the power to pull them apart.

Think only of Caradoc
, whispered the elder grandmother and, aching, Breaca said, “I can’t.” The darkness drew her in. Hate was easier than love, and hurt less, and she could have it, here, now, without the terrors and impossibility of hope. The ancestor beckoned and Breaca, only partly unwilling, followed into a place that was for ever black.

“Bán’s eyes were black. You loved him once. Think of him.”

The new voice was Macha’s, mother to Bán. Always, she had the power to command. Now, she offered a lifeline and did not allow it to be refused.

Breaca reached for it, striving to remember.
Bán’s eyes were black, resonant, like the hide of a black horse, or a lake in the night, or a crow’s wing at the shoulder, where the colour is most dense. They were charcoal and jet and he did not live for revenge but
—“Bán’s dead,” she said aloud. “Why would the ancestor want him?”

“He is who he is. He is the red and the black together. Trust me. Remember all of him. Call him.” The ancestor spoke with Macha and the two together were unassailable; no-one living could withstand them.

Breaca was not a dreamer; she had no training in the calling back of those who had gone to be with Briga. Knowing nothing else, she drew together the many memories of her brother and breathed them to life.

A small boy sat opposite her in the women’s place,
grieving over a near-dead hound puppy. His hair was the same colour as his eyes and both reflected the fire of women’s dreaming. “His name is Hail,” he said. “I can heal him. Let me try.”

In a whelping hut in Cunobelin’s dun, an older Bán, and wiser, sat opposite Amminios and challenged him to a game of Warrior’s Dance with the slave-boy Iccius as the winner’s prize. He had fought the game as he later fought the battle, with the fire of absolute purpose and an intelligence that outplayed a man whose life had been spent in games and hard-fought wagers. Her pride had matched her love for him, both of them overwhelming.