Dreaming the Eagle (27 page)

Luain mac Calma was in his thirteenth year when the last Roman warship ran aground on the eastern coast. There had been no gathering of the elders then. The ship had foundered in Trinovantian waters and Cunobelin, war leader of the Catuvellauni and recently made leader of the Trinovantes, had ignored all requests to place the matter before the elders, choosing instead to put himself in good odour with Rome by returning both men and boats to the Emperor Tiberius intact. More than anything else in his reign to date, that one act had marked the Sun Hound as a friend of the enemy. Word had swarmed across the country like fire through dry grass, spreading west from the dun at which he held court, through the Catuvellauni as far as the Dumnonii in the western toe of the land, before turning right and running up the coast, through the Silures to the Ordovices and across the short, choppy straits to the sacred groves of Mona itself. Luain had been in attendance on the elders when the messenger arrived. He had seen the man given an oak leaf in gold for his services and seen his splay-hoofed gelding exchanged for a mare of far higher quality, in foal by a good horse. Beyond that, he had seen nothing. The elders had called the council with a speed that astonished him and when they emerged two days later, hot and grubby and short on sleep, not one of them felt it necessary to answer questions from a curious youth.

It was the first time mac Calma felt the timing of the gods pull against him. If the general Germanicus had waited one year more to lose his troops to the ocean, the young dreamer would have been a full member of the council and would have heard the laws teased out and examined, heard the balancing arguments made on both sides and understood the final judgement with its train of penalties and actions. As it was, he sat now on the edge of another council led by other people, and found that his heart sent him one way and his head the other, while the laws of the gods twisted both ways, or neither. Which was unfortunate, because they were asking him questions.

‘…if we may hear the thoughts of Luain mac Calma, Hibernian, more lately of Mona?’

It was the second time the elder grandmother had spoken his name and the sound of it brought him back to himself. She made a good leader of the council. For all the shrivelled skin and the lame leg and thinned-out hair, she had a voice that could reach the far edges of the circle and she carried the undoubted authority of age. In the hours since the horn had signalled the opening, she had ridden with great skill the delicate balance between the factions. She sat in the west, in the place of deepest dreaming. The badgerskin robe flickered patchily white in the darkness and the hawk-skin on her head took on its own life. Even from this far back, one could see the strength of the god in every gesture and if it cost her life-days to do it, there were few present who would notice and still fewer who would say anything afterwards.

‘Well?’ She was not a dreamer, but she had seen more years than any present and the effect was much the same. Her voice caught a place in his chest and made it vibrate. ‘You have heard the arguments on both sides. We are evenly matched. You are not of the Eceni, so cannot pass a final judgement, but you come to us from the great council of Mona; you know the laws of gods and men as well as anyone here and you have your own dreaming, which is not inconsiderable. It is known that you have dreamed on this. We can hope that you have an answer. Is it so?’

The tall dreamer rose to his feet. It was late afternoon. He had lifted the door-flap a long time ago to let in the light. The torches guttered, sending threads of black smoke up into the roof space. The scent of it filtered down, mingling with wool and leather and sweating humanity to create the familiar smell of winter and warmth and comfort. He breathed it in and looked round. They were tired now and wanted an answer. The young men wanted blood, even ‘Tagos. Surprisingly, he had sided with Dubornos on this. Caradoc had been evenly balanced and had argued better than the others; he had the makings of a good leader if he could be taught to curb his pride. Breaca had surprised him, and the Roman too. The Roman was long gone. He had asked to be excused not long after Breaca’s speech and his request had been granted. None wished to force him to listen to the words spoken against him. In the time since then, none had offered any new arguments although many had chewed over the ones already made.

Luain mac Calma stepped forward into the space reserved for the speakers. From here, he could see and be seen, hear and be heard. He nodded towards the elder grandmother. ‘I have dreamed,’ he said. ‘What I have seen will not be welcome and it has bearing far beyond the question before us now. Nevertheless, I believe there may be an answer within it.’ He touched a finger to the heron’s feather hanging at his temple and led them into the world of his dream.

The hind fed on a young larch, reaching up to tug on the new foliage with her tongue. Her breath warmed Ban, carried on an eddying breeze. A woodpecker drummed on the bark above his head. A magpie screamed obscenities from an upper branch. Hail shifted at his side, his tail thumping twice on the ground. The deer flicked ears as big as a boy’s hand. She stopped feeding. A spray of larch flicked upwards. The magpie screamed again.

A voice behind him said, ‘Do you not need a spear to make the kill, Ban harehunter?’

He had no need to turn. The voice was as familiar as the light, careful tread had been. ‘I have Hail,’ he said. ‘And this.’ He tapped the handle of his belt knife. It had long been a source of pride that he did not need a spear, that he could stalk closer to the quarry than any other and kill before it began its flight. He pushed himself clear of the holly bush under which he had been lying. The deer watched him with limited interest. Turning, he said, ‘I don’t hunt with three dogs to every spear as others do.’

The Roman sat with his back to a small ash. He looked tired. The crow’s feet at his eyes had deepened with the strain of the day. He nodded, as if a boy’s hunting was an important consideration in his life. ‘You mean, as Dubornos does. I would not think that of you. But this deer lives.’ He said it as a question, with a brief upturning of his brows.

‘It’s Nemma’s friend. She raised it from a calf. To kill it would be like killing one of the horses.’ Ban grabbed a branch and hauled himself to his feet. The deer flicked her ears, snuffing the breeze for a scent of barley meal, or salt. ‘See, she is not afraid of us. Not even of Hail.’

‘I see.’ The man made no move to stand. ‘So have you caught something else?’

‘No. I followed another deer, a young buck, but it didn’t seem a good day to kill.’

Ban sat down with his back to the same tree as the Roman. The man did not question why it might not be a good day to shed blood without reason and Ban did not feel the need to explain. Today, such things were obvious. Hail lay between them. Remarkably, the man pulled a twist of smoked hide from his tunic and gave it to the hound. The cracking of dried skin filled the clearing. Ban watched, chewing on a nail until his impatience overcame him. ‘Why are you here?’ he asked. ‘Is it over already? Have they decided?’

‘Hardly.’ The man smiled, crookedly. ‘They will be in there until night falls. It would not surprise me if they were still arguing at dawn tomorrow. I came away when I had spoken. It is better for Luain if he does not have to translate for me. I asked if I could come out for some fresh air. They trust me enough not to run now so they let me go.’

‘But you could run. The horses are there. Today of all days you would be long gone before the hunt began. They would not know you were gone before they came out.’ Ban did not have to say, ‘I would not tell them’; that was understood between them.

‘I could.’ The Roman had thought about it; that much was clear. He stared at the hind, who stared back. As if to her, he said, ‘Where would Igo?’

‘South, to the Trinovantes. They are friends to Rome. The Sun Hound has returned lost seamen to Gaul before.’

‘Perhaps. But it would not help the enmity that exists between the Sun Hound and his son and, in any case, I have given my word to abide by the ruling of the council. I would not go to the gods an oath-breaker.’

There was nothing to say to that. Ban sat awkwardly and dug his toe into Hail’s flank. The silence lengthened. In the clearing, the hind stripped off the last of the new larch and wandered, softfooted, into the deeper wood.

The man stood. He peered south through the trees, angling his hand against the sun. ‘Why don’t we go and see the horses that came off the ship? The red mare is gentling now. She might let you mount her.’

It was something to do. They followed the deer track until it met the wide swathe of the trackway leading south towards the horse fields. Hail led, searching out rats’ nests and deer tracks with unfocused abandon. The breeze was warm, lifting their hair and blowing away the clinging scent of smoke from the greathouse. For Ban, it could have been an ordinary day, but for the knot in his stomach and the difficulty he had with swallowing. He asked, ‘What else did Caradoc say?’

‘What he was always going to say: that it is not myself who is the danger but what I represent. He was very generous in his estimation of me. I was to understand that if I would agree to remain with the Eceni, or to travel west with him to the Ordovices, then he would vote for my life and the granting of land and horses.’ ‘Would you not agree to it?’

‘To avoid the death they have planned for me, I would agree to anything asked of me by a man, but I would not swear it on oath before the gods and he knows it. He would not swear to stay in Rome if our positions were reversed.’

‘Why not stay? You could be happy here.’

‘Perhaps. But I would no longer be me. Who we are depends on where we are. Some people are not so readily transplanted.’

‘So Caradoc will vote against you?’

‘Of course. He was always going to do that. He was more pleasant about it than Dubornos.’

‘Dubornos? Ha!’ Ban grimaced. ‘You saved his life. He should be grateful.’

‘I saved his life, therefore he hates me more than he has words to express. He was purple with anger. I thought he might fall into fits from the passion of it.’

‘That would have been good.’ In spite of himself, Ban grinned. ‘They might let you go if you managed that.’

‘Maybe I should have smiled at him harder.’

They reached the paddocks. An old yew trunk as wide as Ban was high blocked the entrance to the first field. Great plates of orange fungus grew from the bed of furred moss and lichens that patched its surface. They clambered over and walked up the hill to the last and largest of the paddocks. A beech tree, generations old, stood in the centre amidst the scattered leavings of such mast as had not been stolen by squirrels or collected by the children in the autumn. The herd grazed nearby, or stood in its shade. Ban and the Roman strolled up to sit beneath it. The red Thessalian mare saw them coming and raised her head. She had rolled recently and was coated in mud. At Ban’s whistle, she left the safety of the herd and trotted over to meet them. As always when he saw her move, the boy was speechless. Even on that first night coming out of the sea, her stride had been longer than any he had seen and she had floated across the shingle on cushioned air. Now, with the winter behind her, she matched his dream so closely that it raised the hairs on his arm.

The Roman sat on the turf, watching. ‘She’s learning to trust you,’ he said.

‘I think so.’ Ban nodded. In the beginning, newly off the boat, she had rolled her eyes and kicked at the sight of him. For half a moon, Luain mac Calma and - oddly - Airmid were the only ones she would have near her. All through the early part of spring, Ban had sat still in the slush and the mud with barley meal scattered around him, waiting for her to take the first steps in his direction. Recently, she had begun to come to his whistle. He carried a twist of salt and a comb inside his tunic. Sitting beneath the beech, he emptied the salt onto his palm and held it tight in a fist so she had to tease his fingers open to reach it. When she was done, he brought out the comb and began work on her mane; it was not as tangled as her tail so he was less likely to scare her. Hail quartered the empty field behind them, searching for mice. The Roman lay back on the grass, cushioning his head on his hands and closing his eyes to the sun.

Ban asked, ‘What did Breaca say?’

He did not necessarily expect an answer. For a while, it seemed he would not get one. He worked on with his grooming. The mare grazed peaceably and did not kick as he moved to her hindquarters and drew the comb down her tail. Each day, he passed small boundaries such as this. Beside him, the Roman stirred.

‘Your sister said that if they condemn me for what I am, not who I am, then your people will have sunk to the level of Rome and the taint will never clear.’ The man opened his eyes and stared at the open sky. ‘She insults me and still votes for my life. I think she hates me as much as Dubornos does, but what she does with it is different.’

‘She doesn’t hate you. She is not Dubornos. You saved her life, too.’

‘True. But she has a particular sense of honour and I have offended it.’

Ban did not ask how. He would get it later from Breaca if it mattered. He pulled a handful of grass, twisting it into a wisp, and began to work the mud from the mare’s hide. Since the winter, she had not been fully clean. It seemed a good day to change that.

‘Did you know she was pregnant?’

‘What?’ Ban looked down, surprised.

The Roman was lying with his head beside the mare’s hind leg, staring up at her udder. ‘The mare,’ he said. ‘She’s pregnant.’

‘Oh. Yes. To a black Pannonian horse with a white star. Luain mac Calma told me. She was in season when he bought her and he took her to be covered straight away. The foal will be born in the month after midsummer. Airmid says it will be black with white on its face and I will ride it in battle.’ He did not mention his dream.

‘Then she must be right.’ The man grinned, suddenly. ‘You might do better to ride the mare. She has seen enough battles.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She has the brand of a legion, see?’ He reached back to point out a mark on her neck; a jumble of angular lines and cross bars showed sketchily through the mud. ‘LVIIIA - the Eighth Augustan. If you clean all the mud off her sides, I’ll bet the white flecks on her flank there will turn out to be the spur marks. She has been ridden hard. Either her rider hated her, or he had trouble on the field and needed to leave it quickly.’