Red Queen, White Queen Read online

  But to old Gruoch, long past the years of his lust, she was none of these things; she was a greedy, power-driven libertine, who lived for nothing but her own desires. There was the warm damp scent of earth about her, and that frightened the old man, making him feel a dry stick, powerless to hurt and to control. He fell on his thin knees before the Queen and bowed his white head.

  ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘have mercy.’

  Boudicca the Queen gazed down on him, half-smiling, as though she wondered whether it was worth while to hurt this used-up man-thing. Then she pushed him with her naked foot in the chest, suddenly and ruthlessly. He sat back on his haunches, wondering what was to happen.

  She had forgotten the old man already and looked over his head at the other tribal chieftains.

  ‘This rain will cease before dusk,’ she said like one in a trance. I have willed it so.’ When the world is dry again, send out the fiery cross among the tribes. Let young men ride on stallions to all the meeting-places, and let the tribes gather. Let them be told that Rome is about to fall, that the Legions will crumble before the chariots. Let all be gay, laughing and gay. Let the musicians come with their harps and their pipes. Let the families ride out to see the destruction of Rome in Britain in their wagons, the men and women and children; aye, even the sucklings. And let the wagons be bright with feast-ribbons and the horses’ manes be braided with red. Tomorrow, at dusk, we shall move towards the West like a great wave. All that stands before us shall be swept away!’

  The two chieftains bowed their feathered heads and went quickly from the place. When the Queen Boudicca spoke in that fashion, a wise man did not hesitate in fulfilling her word.

  Only the old man, Gruoch, still sat on his wizened haunches, gazing up at the Red Queen.

  She lowered her eyes and noticed him again, after a while. She shook her wild head and then smiled at him, as though the trance had left her.

  ‘What are you doing there, grandad?’ she asked gently. You are sitting in the wet. It is not good for you.’

  The old man said, ‘I am no longer a man, Boudicca. That is why I sit here I am too weak to stand against you.’

  Wearily the ravaged queen raised him up by the arms and sat him down on the tumbled bed beside her.

  ‘Gruoch, old friend,’ she said, ‘I wish there were a man strong enough to stand against me.’

  And the old man gazed at her pale impassive face, wondering what she meant, But he did not dare speak.

  25: The Cavern

  At last the thunder died away, and then the rain came down even worse than before. It seemed as though the world would never by dry again, though the sun shone for a thousand years.

  Sheltered between two overhanging bushes, the shaggy horse stamped with impatience until at last he seemed to fall into a standing dream of endless green plains dotted profusely with black mares. He seemed strangely content in the wet world which surrounded him.

  Within the cave, Gemellus and Eithne sat together, for warmth, shuddering in their wet clothes. It was long before the Roman leaned away from the girl and begged leave to strip off his tunic and jerkin. Eithne watched him as he pulled the sodden clothes from his body and then said, ‘That job is only half done, Roman!’

  Smiling, she unpeeled her own tight-fitting woollen garment, without false modesty and began to wring it out.

  Then suddenly she turned and said, ‘Now we are alike, Roman and Briton. No one would know which was which, would they? Nakedness makes all equal.’

  Gemellus forebore to mention that her tribal tattoo-marks would have distinguished her from any Roman lady of fashion. The women of the Patrician families were known to suffer many things gladly in the cause of beauty—but they did not give their bodies up to the tattooer.

  Yet he nodded and said, almost shyly, ‘Yes, we are alike.’

  Once, when he was a little lad of eight or so, he remembered sitting on the banks of the Tiber one bright Spring morning with a small girl who had been swimming near the green banks of the river. She had told him to take off his tunic and come into the green water, which swirled about the rocks just there. And they had sat together on one of those rocks, letting the water froth about their legs, chatting happily about trees and fishes and horses, until an old peasant woman, with a basket of washing under her arm, had stopped and had shaken her stick at them; her plain face suddenly livid with outraged modesty.

  ‘Come out of there, you filthy ones!’ she had shouted. ‘If you do that the birds will peck out your eyes and the maggots will eat the marrow of your bones! Come out, I say, you nasty things!’

  They had thrown a stone at the old woman and had shouted out rude things about the pig-manure on the hem of her skirt.

  At last she had gone away, cursing them, but Gemellus had always recalled that incident with shame and revulsion.

  Now he sat, flank to flank, with the Celtic Princess, Eithne, as the rain beat down, feeling her warmth melting into his side. He noticed that he was breathing faster than was his custom; as though he had been running for a long time.

  Then he noticed that she too was breathing as though she had been running.

  He said, ‘Princess Eithne, what is wrong with you? You are breathless.’

  She turned towards him suddenly and gave a little gasp. Her arms went about him and he did nothing to stave them off from his body.

  She said in a hoarse voice, ‘Do not call me Princess, Gemellus. I am Eithne now. I am hardly that—for I am woman.’

  And the two came together as Mithras had decreed, in spite of themselves.

  And the rain still lashed the hillside, filling the dried-up river bed at last, so that it flowed for the first time for many months, strongly, frothing about the jagged rocks, fulfilling its purpose.

  And at last, when they had slept locked in each other’s arms, Eithne sat up and listened.

  ‘Hark, husband,’ she said, ‘all is silent now. The storm is over.’

  But Gemellus looked at her tenderly, his eyes suddenly clouded.

  ‘No, dear heart,’ he said. ‘I fear it has only just begun,’

  26: Duatha

  Later, as they went on through a world freshened by the storm, Eithne leaned down from the horse and said, half-fearfully, ‘There are more things in life, husband, than war. What would it matter to us, to you and me, if Boudicca conquered the whole Roman world? Why should we concern ourselves, provided we were safe together in some pleasant place where we could love each other and forget Rome?’

  Gemellus walked like a man in a confused dream. For the first time in his life he had known the tenderness of true love, he told himself. Though he had not wanted Eithne before, now he had been swept along by a force that seemed to be outside himself and the girl was the only desirable woman in the world for him. He walked under, a spell which he did not wish to break.

  Yet to surrender himself to that spell would threaten his status as a Roman, as an individual even. Gemellus had always known self-sufficiency, as a man and as a soldier; now his very identity was threatened by his new love for Eithne the Princess.

  He could find no words to use, and walked on silently, merely gripping her ankle as she rode, as if to keep some contact with this tender human creature who had fallen in love with him, and who had, almost against his will, caused him to give his heart to her.

  It was while they travelled thus that they surmounted a little hill and descended into a narrow declivity. Seated on a boulder, his head buried in his arms, was Duatha. Ten yards away from him lay the body of his horse, its neck twisted round so unnaturally that it was immediately apparent to Gemellus that the creature’s neck was broken. A newly-displaced shower of stones and rubble at the foot of the gully showed that the horse had tried to leap the gorge and had fallen back.

  Gemellus ran to his friend and called his name.

  Duatha looked up, dazed and dispirited.

  ‘The gods are against me, brother,’ he said simply. ‘Mithras struck me down in full leap. What is t
here more to tell?’

  Slowly he rose to his feet, and gazed at Eithne.

  ‘I think I was jealous, Princess, that you should prefer my brother, the Roman, to me. Now I see that the gods willed you to love him, and punished me for my jealousy. Pardon me, Lady; and from now on, I shall count myself fortunate to be allowed to act as your friend and protector. I, Duatha the Prince, have given my word.’

  And in the narrow gully, Duatha the Prince kneeled in the mud and kissed the hem of Eithne’s riding cloak, as though she were a great queen, to whom homage was due.

  Gemellus went to raise the Celt, but Duatha turned to him and, looking up, said solemnly, ‘May the black crows take my eyes, and the eagle my entrails, if I betray you again, my brother, in word or deed.’

  Gemellus placed his arm about the other’s shoulder and said, ‘Brother, it seems that our destinies are locked together, like the links of a chain. Let us leave it at that, and serve each other as comrades in all ways and at all times.’

  They said no more, and, after a hurried meal of barley porridge, mixed in the water of a little stream, they began the long rise which would lead at last to the plateau where the Icenian queen had ordered her summer palace to be built.

  Towards dusk, they halted again, and sat beneath a gnarled hawthorn tree to make their plans. This was the end of the fourth day; on the evening of the fifth, they must have taken the life of Boudicca, so that Rome should not crumble into decay.

  As they said these words to each other, both Gemellus and Duatha looked down to the ground, half-ashamed, half-wondering why they had allowed themselves to be made the instruments of her death.

  First Duatha spoke, saying, ‘I am a Celt, as she is. Yet I have sold myself, like any assassin, to the men she has offended. It is not my quarrel, it is Rome’s. Yet now I put my own head in danger. Why is that?’

  He spoke like a little child, suddenly puzzled about something which it had never questioned before.

  Gemellus answered, ‘I understand you, brother, and the only answer I can give you is that a soldier, once he has taken his oath of service, must lose himself in his duty to his Commander. Yet, as I feel at the moment, it is not easy to recall one’s oath, to remember that one has a duty to Rome greater than ones duty to oneself. I say it now as a child repeats his lessons in grammar, for duty and service were taught me from the cradle and I know no other way of life. But now I have come to doubt that teaching….’

  He looked at Eithne as he said these words, and she returned his look, smiling.

  But at last he said, ‘It will be simpler if we carry out our orders. What faith, what pride could we have in ourselves if we did not do, or did not even attempt to do, that which we have set our hands to? To break faith with Rome, for either of us, brother, would be to destroy something within our own hearts. We should be less of men,’

  Suddenly Duatha rose and stalked away, leaving the others. He walked quickly, as though unable to stay in their presence any longer.

  Eithne looked at Gemellus in concern, and at last the Roman got up and followed the Celt.

  Duatha was leaning, his head against a rock, in silence.

  When the Roman came up to him, putting his arm gently about the man’s shoulders, Duatha turned towards him, showing a face so moved by emotion that it appeared a travesty of the gay young warrior it had reflected before. The tears stood in his eyes as he looked at Gemellus. He was not ashamed of them, and made no efforts to wipe them away.

  ‘Brother,’ said the Roman, ‘what is it? Is it the memory of Dagda and Aba Garim, Duatha?’

  But Duatha shook his head. ‘They have gone,’ he said, ‘and there is no bringing them back now. They had their life and it is over. A soldier becomes used to losing his friends.’

  And as Gemellus gazed at him, wondering, the Celt suddenly grasped his hands hard, tightly, almost fiercely.

  ‘But he can never become used to losing a brother!’ he said, in a tone as hard and as fierce as his grip. ‘A brother who came to him out of the darkness, and now will return to the darkness again.’

  The Roman looked into his face, not knowing what to answer. He did not need to find words, for Duatha spoke again, almost torrentially now, the dam of his control broken down by his grief.

  ‘All my life I have tried to create a Duatha Ennius I could be proud of, a man the world would come to respect. Remember,

  I am the bastard of a Roman soldier. Nothing more. Though I Call myself a Prince, that is no more than air, wind after a banquet. There are little Princes, aye and Kings too, under every hedgerow in the West, As I played with the others when I was a Child, and heard them calling me “bastard” behind my back and “Prince” to my face, I told myself that one day I would make them treat me with respect. When the cowherds called out to each other, “There goes the foreign manikin that sprang up like a mushroom after the Roman stallion had passed, ” I wept silently and swore to make them bow the knee to me at last. If I could become a Roman, a citizen, with army rank, I could shut their mouths for ever; I could make them respect me. That dream filled my youth. I was prepared to work for it for twenty years under the Eagles, riding the length and breadth of the country. Then, when you came to the Legion and I found a brother who was a true Roman, I felt that I had climbed another step, had drawn a little nearer to my dream…. Yet now, I am nothing again. I have lost my friends, I see myself once more the little manikin that sprang up like a mushroom after the Roman stallion had passed. I shall never be otherwise, I know now. Nothing but a messenger boy for the real soldiers of the Legion; one who is sent on this errand and that, until he takes an unlucky arrow for his pay, and so relieves Rome of the responsibility of giving him citizenship and of paying him a life pension!’

  Gemellus nodded and said, ‘Brother, we are all in the hand of fate. Sometimes we see that fate clearly, in moments like this, but most often our eyes are mercifully blinded by our dreams. Yet now that you have seen clearly, Duatha, can you not snap your fingers at the old dream and find another, one that you can be sure of grasping in your hand?

  The Celt said, ‘I am not a wise man, as you are, brother, yet I had reached that same thought myself. As we rode last night through the woodland, away from the camp of the Brigantian Prince, I suddenly knew that I loved Eithne, the Princess. And I told myself that with her as my wife, and Drammoch as my father, I could respect myself again and make others respect me too. But in the morning the dream faded, for I saw that Eithne was not for me. I saw that she was in love with you. And now I have lost a brother and a wife. All I have is a little red knife to take to Boudicca, and the chance of my death in giving it to her. Do you wonder that I weep? ‘

  Gemellus stepped away from him a pace, whistling with surprise.

  ‘So, you are in love with Eithne!’ he said softly. ‘Does she love you brother, think you? ‘

  The Celt shook his head. ‘If you were not here, she would love me, Gemellus. But your presence blinds her eyes to other men. I tell you, Eithne will never give herself to another while you are alive.’

  Acting on some uncontrollable impulse, and hardly meaning what he said, Gemellus answered, ‘The answer would seem to be that I am in the way, brother. Why did you not kill me?’ Duatha suddenly punched his clenched fist at the rock wall by which he stood. Then he looked at the bruised knuckles and the blood which welled up from them.

  ‘I came near to doing that, brother,’ he said simply. ‘It came strongly into my mind to do that, but I rode away instead.’ Gemellus stared at him, shocked, and then, recollecting himself, turned and said, ‘Let us go back to the place where we left the Princess Eithne. We cannot ask her to choose between us, for it seems that her choice has already been decided. But we will put this problem into higher hands than our own. We will offer it to the gods and let them decide.’

  Duatha came close to him and asked, ‘How shall that be, brother?’

  As they approached the hawthorn tree where the girl still waited, Gemellus answered, ‘We d
o not need her help any further in guiding us to the summer pavilion of Boudicca. We will find her some sheltered place and leave her there until the fates have decreed which one of us should escape alive from the thing which we are pledged to do.’

  The Celt asked, ‘What if we both die, brother? Or what if we both survive?’

  Gemellus answered, ‘If we both die, then the problem is solved for us at least. Then Eithne must learn to forget us in another husband. She is young and fair; she will not find it difficult to fall in love again. If we both come out of this affair alive, brother, then the matter is settled, for she has made her choice, and that is something which no man should meddle with.’

  Just before they sat down again beside the waiting girl, Duatha’s lips curled with irony. ‘What if I come to hate you, brother,’ he said, ‘and put my knife into your back in the blind fury of a moment’s passion? What then?’

  The Roman turned and stared at him gravely, until Duatha’s blue eyes fell away from his scrutiny.

  ‘I should not go into the darkness alone, brother,’ he said in a whisper that Eithne could not hear. ‘I should grapple you to my heart with my last strength and take you with me to answer to Mithras. That is what I should do. But I know in my heart that I shall not need to do it.’

  27: The End of the Day

  In a sheltered spot, where a clear rill flowed between two oaks, and a great moss-grown boulder acted as a windbreak, the two men set up a little shelter of boughs and bracken. Eithne watched them doing this, her face set and impassive. She made no attempt to help them.