Dreaming the Eagle (65 page)

‘Not this year.’

The gathering cracked apart. It seemed that even the youngest warriors - particularly the youngest - had known of it, or had dreamed it, or had seen it in the movements of merchants along the coast.

‘He’ll come in the spring - if he ever comes at all—’

‘Caligula did not have the courage to attack and Claudius is the lesser man. He has no stomach for a fight he knows he will lose. Caligula at least had accompanied his father to the army; this one knows nothing—’

‘It’s all for show. Rome does not care what lies beyond the encircling Ocean; they need only feed the imaginations of their people’

Only the dreamers sat silent, and the two sons of Cunobelin. The rest clamoured like gulls, fighting over the midden scraps. Behind them, real gulls in their thousands rode the turbulent winds beyond the salt marsh, whitening the sky. The sea rolled beneath them, too gently for the time of year. The sun fell on the polished waves and shattered, blinding bright. A horn sounded distantly and the gulls moved at its command, flashing like shoaling fish as they wheeled and dropped to settle on the water. In an ordered fleet, each one raised a wing to catch the wind. Invisible currents sailed them in to beach on the marshes. Their eyes were red, bleeding, and when they shook their heads the spatter of it stained the sand. Above them, a war eagle soared on a thermal.

‘Breaca?’

She had slipped from the rock. Airmid knelt in front of her. Maroc was at her shoulder. He was the Elder now - had been so since midwinter when Talla died - and it changed the feel of him. His eyes carved hollows in her skull and let light into her soul. Calmly, as if it were part of an interrupted conversation, he said, ‘Breaca, the gulls have not yet come.’

She could see that. Exhaustion drained her. She nodded, lacking the will to speak.

Caradoc was closer than he had seemed. The summer had tempered him, bleaching his hair paler than the straw and making smooth leather of his skin. The complex grey gaze studied her with a warrior’s judgement. She expected no less. In the four years since she had sat the grey mare on a hilltop and put aside anger and hurt in the face of a greater threat, she had reached a pragmatic accommodation with Caradoc that worked for both in their service of the land and its people. He treated her as a distant half-sister with whom there had been an unhealed family rift, no longer spoken of. She treated him as she might have done Amminios if, after losing the Warrior’s Dance to Ban, the middle brother had joined his siblings in the war against Rome and proved himself a competent leader of men; with respect and a necessary distance. Now, he crouched on his heels with his palms on his knees and she felt the pressure of his scrutiny.

From her left, Maroc asked the single necessary question. ‘When do the white sails make landfall?’

She stared up, lacking an answer. Airmid came to kneel at her side. Airmid’s dream in the night had been of herons by the thousand, killing all the frogs, and she had been gathering the courage to tell it. The gulls were worse, but not for her. ‘Look at the sun,’ she said. ‘It will tell you.’

Breaca closed her eyes to think. The day had been too bright and the sea too smooth - god-smooth, not the real thing. She had not seen the sun. She shook her head.

‘The shadows then.’

She looked down. The answer lay at her feet in slanting shade. ‘Afternoon, midway between noon and dusk.’

It was not what they wanted. Maroc sucked on a tooth and Breaca was a novice again, learning to read Latin and doing it poorly. Shame flushed from her neck to her hairline. Patiently, Airmid said, ‘Not that. Look at the sun’s angle. What is the time of year?’ The sun gave no answers. In her mind, Breaca looked at the turf and at the leaves on the small, wind-weathered birch that grew alone on the rise behind. The grass was harsh and brown and crusted with sea salt. The birch was near naked, a thing of straggled silver bark and sparse, sun-green leaves.

She opened her eyes. The real grass was less brown, the birch had more leaves, but their colour was the same. A strong wind would strip them and make the tree of her dream. ‘Not long from now. A month. Maybe less. After the first storms of autumn.’

The warriors had fallen silent. Those of the Dobunni whose grandparents had rejected the gods made the sign to ward against evil. Others raised a palm for Briga, or Nemain. Gunovic watched her like a hound guarding its whelp. With clear regret he said, ‘Breaca, are you sure it was this year? Could it not be next?’ He was a man of integrity; he could do no less than ask the questions that seemed obvious to him.

She glared, unreasonably angry. ‘Would the gods send warning now of danger a year away?’

He shrugged, unconvinced. Maroc, who should have known the answer, said nothing.

Beduoc said, ‘We should still bring in the harvest. The gods do not give luck to warriors who ride to the battleground starving, on unfed horses with hounds whose hearts are set on hunting rather than the battle ahead.’

Around him, others nodded - men and women who had more to lose than a single life and less than a nation. Not one of them led less than a hundred spears. They were weary of waiting. They turned as one on those clustered round the speaker’s stone and their message was clear.

‘Go.’ Togodubnos spoke for the others. He turned his shield to face them so that the mark of the Sun Hound, gold on white, gave weight to his words. ‘Take your warriors. All those who have corn still standing should ride home now and bring it in. I will return to the dun. If the moon turns and you have not enough for winter, send word to me there. The granaries of the Trinovantes are far from empty. I will ensure that stores are sent to those who need it.’

Airmid asked, ‘If you are north of the sea-river, who will keep watch here for Rome?’

Caradoc did not rise. Quietly, from his place crouched by the rock, he said, ‘I will stay, and the oath-spears of the Catuvellauni; they are not needed at home.’

He led that people now, having been granted the blood-oath by his brother after the battle against Berikos. He had spent his last two summers amongst them and his daughter saw him only in winter. If her mother wished otherwise, none knew of it. Once, in a moment of careless inattention, Breaca had reminded him of a pledge that his child would grow knowing more of her father than Caradoc had known of Cunobelin. The strength of his anger had surprised her, and her response to it. In nearly four years, it was the only time they had argued. She had never mentioned the matter since.

Caradoc was looking at her, pensively, as if he read the stream of her thoughts. He said, ‘Those of the Atrebates who owe me allegiance will join us. They have few warriors and a great many who tend the fields. As, I think, does Mona?’

‘Of course.’ She nodded. He knew it, as did Togodubnos, but it needed to be said again, as often as was necessary, in front of those who might harbour doubt. ‘The elder council has given its word; the warriors of Mona will remain in the east until the war begins or winter closes the Ocean. We will return in the spring and each year until the threat has passed.’

‘Thank you.’ Caradoc smiled a little. To the wider gathering, he said, ‘Any others who choose to join us will be welcome. When the legions come, we will send runners. Then will be the time to arm yourselves and ride.’

Gunovic asked, ‘You still believe they are going to come?’

‘Oh, yes.’ His gaze was bleak. ‘They, too, are waiting for the harvest. When the corn is in and they can feed the legions on the profit of our labours, they will come.’

XXVI.

THE RAIN FELL LIGHTLY, FINE AS MIST. THE DANDELION SEED Head trembled. A single wisp shook free and launched upwards, catching the breeze. Others jigged looser in their moorings. Breaca lay on her belly and watched them. The judder took on a rhythm, like ripples on still water. In the trees, a magpie shrieked alarm. Behind her, an owl called in daylight. At the sound of it, Hail flagged his tail from side to side and turned an ear backwards. Breaca wiped her palm clean on the grass and signalled the beech wood at her quarter. A shadow-mass of grass-stained lamb’s wool and muddied skin sprinted forward to lie panting at her other side: Braint.

‘They’re coming.’ The girl’s voice was hoarse with excitement and haste and the need for concealment.

‘I know. I can hear them. How many?’

‘Twenty riders with spears and swords and big shields. They guard as many others on foot armed with spears.’

‘A hunting party?’

‘It must be. You have left them nothing else to eat.’

‘They can eat fish.’

‘Exactly.’ The girl grinned, teeth flashing white in the mud of her face. She was of the Brigantes, who ate only meat and corn, and she loathed the taste of fish. She squirmed back down below the brow of the slope and knelt up. ‘There were no hounds and no slingers,’ she said. ‘Can I go?’

‘Yes. Take Ardacos. He’s expecting you.’

The girl merged with the scrub. Presently, the dandelion puffball shuddered to a new rhythm. Breaca tapped Hail on the shoulder and they moved sideways and down to where the grey mare was tethered with the other horses, feet bound with sheepskin, harness and muzzle muffled with rags. She stripped the rags away and mounted. Hail ran on one side; Gwyddhien, quietly undemonstrative, took the other. The honour guard of Mona followed. They were thirty, twenty-two of whom had shared the choosing on Mona. The remainder came from the warriors’ school, picked to broaden and strengthen the skills of their peers.

They strung out in a line - grey-cloaked ghosts riding padded horses uphill through a quiet wood. In the month since, the meeting on the salt flats, they had lived exclusively off the land, lifting the weight of their presence from their hosts, the Cantiaci. In that time, even more than the summer that had gone before, the sun and the wind had annealed them, forging a leathern uniformity that made each alike, but for height and the colour of their hair. They were well armed with fresh-bladed spears and good swords and shields of bull’s hide marked with the serpent-spear. Most wore iron helmets, save Breaca. From the beginning of the battle against Berikos, she had known that her hair was her best standard and that her warriors would fight strongest who could see her most clearly in the field. It was more striking now than then; the summer sun had burnished it to a fiery gold-threaded copper that flared even under cloud. In the brief time since their landing, the Romans had come to know and fear it.

The warriors reached the edge of the beech wood and fanned sideways to make a single line abreast. Dismounting, they stripped the sheepskin padding from their mounts’ feet, discarding secrecy in favour of sure footing and speed. Breaca signalled and five of their number slung their spears behind, shook loose their slings and opened the pouches of river stones at their belts. They were her secret weapon; trained and led by Cumal who was master of the sling. On a good day, they could fell a man and his mount in the space of two heartbeats. Leaning down, Breaca placed her palm flat on the serpent-spear painted in red on the grey mare’s shoulder and prayed to the elder grandmother for a perfect day.

The riders were Gauls; that much could be seen from their size and the sallow gold hair falling in long braids beneath their helmets. In all other respects, they were armed and armoured as Roman cavalry, with spears and long swords and curving oval shields painted black with thunderbolts and the mark of the eagle in gold. They saw Braint gathering wood in the open and thought themselves blessed by the gods. She had cleaned the mud from her face and unbound her hair and her tunic flapped in the wind above her belt, showing one brown-nippled breast as she bent for another branch. The Gauls yelled from a distance. The girl screamed and dropped her wood and sprinted for the beech wood, gathering her hair behind her as she ran. She was the best runner of her age group on Mona but the Gauls were mounted and she was not. Breaca, watching from her high vantage in the beech wood, clenched and unclenched her right hand, swearing a slow death to any one of them who touched her.

The girl scurried amongst the trees, and when the Gauls next saw her she was in the company of a man, her father perhaps or her brother; he was neither big nor obviously armed. They were both mounted and fled up a clear-felled valley with woods on either side and a steep rise at the far end from which there was no escape. The Gauls howled thanks to their gods. In the woods above, a grey mare stamped and was silenced. A white-flecked hound crooned a war threat, too low for hearing, and the hair rose on his neck like a mane.

The girl and her father reached the end of the valley and turned at bay. This late, it could be seen they were, in fact, both armed but that only added to the sport. The Gauls slowed and called to their comrades, the hunters, whistling them back from the trail of a deer. These were smaller, swarthier men and they swore viciously in Latin until they saw the girl. Then one of them made a jest in Gaulish about feasting on human flesh. On the slope above, a wheaten-haired youth of the Coritani bared his teeth and said, ‘That one is mine.’

The first of the Gauls was within a spear’s throw of Ardacos when the sling-stone spun down from the heights and dashed in his brains. His companion took his eyes off Braint’s sword arm and died with his throat cut, whistling air. The would-be cannibal choked soon after on the end of a thrown spear from the neck of which hung the feathers of a red hawk.

The Gaul who led the group was not a stupid man; his was not the first patrol attacked and he had read the reports of those of his predecessors who had escaped with their lives. Shouting orders, he spun his horse to face the wave of grey-cloaked warriors, looking urgently about for the flame-hair who led them - and found it, too close. He raised his blade high to fend off a killing stroke to his head and saw it turn at the last moment to strike, impossibly fast, for his neck. In a final act of stubborn courage, he looked beyond the blade to see whose hand killed him, and, wide-eyed, saw what none of those who had survived had been close enough to report. His last sight in this world was the face of the goddess, fiercely radiant, framed in wildfire, and the white-speckled hound who fought at her side.