Red Queen, White Queen Page 15

  And when they had laid out a bed for her, of ferns and grasses, and had built her a hearth-place for her fire, Gemellus said, ‘You will wait for us here, my lady? You will not move from this place?’

  The girl bowed her head and said, ‘I shall obey you, husband, Though I wish to be at your side in your danger, as a woman should, I shall obey you in all you have commanded.’

  They left her the greater part of the provisions which they carried, dried meat, barley flour and a flask of mead. Duatha started a fire for her and left a heap of kindling by the hearthstone so that she should be warm.

  Then Gemellus said, ‘At dusk, tomorrow, we shall carry out our orders, in the summer palace of Boudicca. We shall then be picked up, if all goes well, by the cavalry of Quintus Petillius Cerialis. The command is that we should be taken to the fortress of Lindum to make our report, but have no fear, we shall not leave you here. Either Duatha or I will come here to fetch you. And if we may not do that, then we shall send a trooper of the Ninth to escort you to us, wherever we may be. Is that understood, dear heart?’

  She nodded and then fell on one knee before Gemellus.

  ‘May the lord of light, Lugh, the sun god, smile on you and bring you good fortune. If you do not come for me tomorrow night, I shall know that Lugh has hidden his face behind a cloud and that you are dead, I shall not stay to grow old in this place, but shall find some way of following you into the Place of Darkness, husband.’

  Gemellus could find no words to say, but bent and kissed her. Then he turned and the two men went over the hill towards the east. Duatha did not speak to the girl, and did not turn back once to wave a farewell to her. The little hut was quickly lost among the trees.

  Soon they saw the low and rolling highlands of Boudicca’s territory, stretching before them on the skyline like an immense snake that wound its way across the land. And as they trudged on, over turf that had grown soft and in the recent downpour, a light started up here and there the length of the hills, travelling for a short space, dying down, then springing into life once more.

  ‘The fiery cross is out,’ said Duatha. ‘She is raising the tribes! We have not come a moment too soon, brother. Tonight there will be feasting in the settlement, and we shall perhaps be able to slip in among the tribesmen without suspicion, for many fresh faces will be seen. She is raising the tribes who have never before been into Icenian territory.’

  As they still walked, leading their one horse over the treacherous slopes, Gemellus said, ‘I have a small talisman in my pouch, an agate medallion which my father sent home from Alexandria, any years ago. It is such a charm as is worn by the Greek physicians as a sign of their trade. Since my hair is dark and my features unlike those of the tribes, I think I might pass as a wandering healer, until we can get into the Queen’s presence. I have a little knowledge of the everyday medicines that heal a broken finger or open a man’s bowels! And we must pray to Mithras that no more difficult cures lie ahead of us.’

  Gemellus put on the medallion, and slung his dark cloak over his rough jerkin. Duatha, half-contemptuously, made his hair rough, and streaked his face with mud, as though he were a low-born serf, a guide to the doctor.

  Both of them slipped their little red-hilted daggers inside the waistband of their breeches, so as to be ready at any time.

  Gemellus gazed at his in awe before he hid it away ‘Death is an incredible thing, brother,’ he said, almost smiling at the grim thought which had come into his mind. ‘Great warriors slash at each other for hours with axes, and go home supper with no more than a cracked shoulder or a dented skull. But this little bodkin, pretty enough to stick in a Roman lady’s hair, has only to be inserted gently for an inch or so, in the right place—and then all is finished!’ Duatha snorted at these words. ‘When you stand face to face with Boudicca, friend,’ he said, ‘it would be well for you to forget such polite manners. For a woman such as she is, the knife will need to be driven in, again and again, as hard as the arm will drive it, to the hilt and—beyond!’

  Then suddenly, out of the growing darkness, came a thunder f horses’ hooves. A score or so of horsemen swirled round them, waving swords, and shouting. Some of them carried resinous boughs to serve as torches. The ornaments on their horses’ harness clacked and jingled, as though they were decked for a Feast Day. Men and beasts wore streaming red ribbons in their hair.

  The leader of the troops, a young man, little more than a boy, kicked his horse forward and held down his torch so that it almost touched the face of Gemellus. The Roman did not flinch, but gazed back at the boy, staring into his wild eyes.

  ‘Who are you?’ said the boy, ‘Why do you travel towards the summer pavilion at this time?’

  Gemellus bowed his head slightly and said in a Celtic which he took pains to speak with a thick foreign accent, ‘I am Thoramion Krastos, physician of Alexandria. I travel through this wretched land to make my fortune, friend, for I hear that you folk are plagued with marsh fevers and sore eyes. This is my guide, a simple man of the Silures, fit only to lead my horse and to carry my bags of gold—when I have gained them! Which is not yet.’

  The young man turned away from the scrutiny of Gemellus and said, ‘Shall we kill them, men?’

  Another rider, hardly older than the leader, leaned from his saddle and drew his riding-switch lightly across Duatha’s neck.

  ‘Let us take back their heads, as a gift to Boudicca!,’ he said, laughing.

  Duatha’s right hand itched to draw the red-hilted dagger and to strike down this young brave, who rolled drunkenly above him. But another man spurred forward then, a burly warrior, wearing the bull’s-horn helmet and carrying a javelin.

  ‘Are you a fool, Cradoc?’ he shouted roughly at the young leader. ‘Are you a fool or a leader? I will not ride in the warband of a fellow who cannot drink a pot of mead without going out to take the first head he sees. Leave them be, I say, take them to the Queen and see what she will do with them. If this one is a good physician, as he looks like to be, Boudicca may have a use for him. That is my counsel, Cradoc; disobey it if you please’, but if you do, I shall take with me a dozen of my tribesmen. Then your warband will look a foolish one.’

  The young leader glared at the man in the helmet for along instant. But at last he nodded and said, ‘You counsel well, Uncle Gwyn; I will take them to the Queen. She shall decide what is to be done with them.’

  Then he gave a sharp, high-pitched order, and the troop of horse fell into two long files, one on each side of Gemellus and his brother. So they were brought to the encampment of the Red Queen.

  28: The Road South

  A long column of horsemen cantered along the road south from Lindum Colonia, their red plumes nodding in the watery sunlight, their deep blue cloaks swinging behind them with every movement of their horses. Before them rode a half-troop of musicians, men with the kettle drum and the great bronze horns; but they did not play. Their work would begin when the cavalry had cut the enemy to ribbons; then they would thunder out the glory of Rome, and their high-pitched trumpets would scream out in triumph that the Legions were indestructible and eternal. But now they were silent, waiting their moment.

  The man who would lead this paean of triumph, a grizzled veteran of forty battles, polished the bell of his trumpet on his cloak hem and said to the drummer who rode beside him, ‘My grandfather carried this horn at Philippi before me, when the javelins fell and Brutus saw that his number was up. One day, I hope-my grandson will blow it when I have gone, though Mithras knows where there will be any place left unconquered by Rome when he has grown big enough to hold the trumpet!’ The drummer, a sly, long-nosed Etruscan, said with a smirk, ‘Don’t worry your grey head about that, grandfather! Rome may fall next week—and you may be nothing but a head nodding on a stick before tonight is out!’

  The trumpeter nodded, without feeling. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘what you say may be true, when all is said and done. But if I die, and if Rome falls, it will be the wish of Mithras. And no on
e can fight against the gods. That is the first thing a man must learn.’ Then he stopped polishing the trumpet, and began to whistle a jaunty little marching song, which travelled back along the column, each rider taking it up, until it reached the cavalry themselves, and then the foot-soldiers, and at last the sleepy-eyed men who walked alongside the many ox-wagons that carried the field-kitchens and bedding. Long after the old trumpeter had forgotten that he had started the song, the last cohort of the vexillation of two thousand men of Quintus Petillius Cerialis were still whistling it.

  ‘When you join the Legion, lad,

  You get a golden pound;

  A sword that’s nicely sharp, lad,

  And a shield that’s nice and round.

  ‘You think that heaven has come, lad,

  That this is the life for a man;

  But you’ve jumped out of the fire, lad,

  In to the frying-pan!

  ‘For that bloody pound gets spent, lad,

  And that sword’s a frightful weight;

  You’ve got to polish that shield, lad,

  Till it shines like a silver plate!

  ‘Then you start to think of home, lad,

  And your mother by the door;

  And all you’ve got is an aching heart,

  And a pair of feet red raw!

  ‘But you wouldn’t change your state, lad,

  For Caesar’s golden throne;

  When once the Legion’s got you

  You’re there till Kingdom Come!’

  The Legate, Quintus Petillius Cerialis, heard the song and smiled, a hard wintry smile. He remembered being taught that very song, as a young recruit whose feet were still blistered with marching in the heavy caligulae, and whose crutch was rubbed almost raw by the thick leather breeches of those days. It was out on the plains of Macedonia, he recalled. The man who first taught it to him was a one-armed swordsman, who refused to accept his discharge and go on pension in a Colonia. The Legate’s brows were puckered as he tried to recall that man’s name, but it evaded him. He had known so many men since that day, been to so many camps, fought in so many battles. It was a name like Tillius Gratus’, but not quite,… Something like that, but with a slightly foreign tang about it…. He came from Heraclea, the Legate remembered, and claimed to have fourteen children dependent on him—in various places throughout the Empire!

  The Legate gave it up; perhaps he would recall the man’s name later on…. He began to hum the song, and then to whistle it, in time with the maniple of foot soldiers which marched just behind his horse.

  The Tribune who rode beside Quintus Petillius winked to his companion.

  ‘Hark at him.!’ he whispered. ‘That’s the sort of man he is. Once a ranker, always a ranker!’

  And their fine aquiline noses curled in distaste that their Legate should act like any common soldier marching in sweaty leather with his iron cooking-pot slung over his shoulder on a javelin.

  A little while later, when the Legate had stopped whistling, the Senior Tribune leaned over towards him and said seriously, ‘Where do you propose halting for the night, sir?’

  The Legate stared back at him, in surprise, then said with a sudden light in his faded eyes, ‘ “Peneus Granus, ” that’s it! That was the man!’

  The Senior Tribune arched his brows and said, ‘The man, sir? What man?’

  The Legate looked away from him, over the marshland that stretched on either side of the straight Roman road.

  ‘The man who taught me that song, you dolt! The one-armed father of fourteen!’ he said. Then he began to whistle again, happily now, and the men who marched behind him winked and nudged each other, whatever the Decurions said, and took up the-tune once more.

  And one soldier said aloud, so that the ranks about him had no difficulty in hearing his rough voice, ‘By Bacchus, but I’d march into the belly of Hell if old Quint rode before me, whistling that tune!’

  The Legate heard these words and half-turned in his saddle, to look at the speaker. The officer’s face was as hard and stiff as stone, but his words were not.

  ‘I’ll take you up on that, soldier,’ he said quietly. ‘You and me, we’ll have a go at making Hell the next Province to be occupied, when we’ve done with this bitch tomorrow night!’

  The legionary waved back at the General and called out, ‘Right, Quint boy, I’ll be waiting for you. And mind you make me the first Governor of the damned place when we have taken it!’

  As he turned back, the Legate said, ‘I’ll do that, boy; now get back into rank and wipe your snotty nose. It looks bad in a soldier to go into action with a cold!’

  The Tribunes stared away in disgust from the Legate, surveying the dreary landscape.

  That night the soldier who had called out was tied to a tentpole and given fourteen lashes, one for each year of his service, by the Centurion in whose Company he marched. But he did not mind; the General had spoken to him, and that was worth fourteen lashes; it was something to tell his children and his grandchildren, one day, when he got round to having a family.

  Quintus Petillius did not know about this. If he had known, he might have flogged the Centurion himself. But he did not know anything much, for just north of Icenian territory, he had fallen from his horse with a sudden seizure, and only narrowly escaped being trodden on by the following horses.

  The Senior Tribune smiled with satisfaction as he left the Legate’s tent.

  ‘Well,’ he said to the officer under him, at least he is out of the way now. We shall have no more of this death-or-glory stuff, Rennius. I refuse to put the lives of two thousand men into danger. I shall send a maniple of footmen and two Companies of horse down there, not a man more.’

  The junior officer looked at him in alarm and said, ‘But, Tribune, you will be acting against his orders.’

  The Tribune pulled a leaf from the vine that crawled across the wall near which they stood.

  ‘I will take the consequences,’ he said. ‘The Legate is a sick man. His mind is wavering, you heard what he said to me today about a father of fourteen teaching him a song? He’s in his dotage, friend. And you can’t let a man in his dotage march two thousand trained soldiers to their certain deaths! I will answer to the Senate, never fear!’

  The junior officer stared at him doubtfully.

  ‘But the mission from the Second Legion, sir,’ he said. ‘We must be strong enough to break into Boudicca’s lines and rescue them, in the confusion that will follow her death. With the number you mention, we shall never get near enough to them to pick them up.’

  The Tribune looked back at him with a glassy eye.

  ‘The Second Legion is not my affair,’ he said coldly. The Second Legion can rot for all I care. I am concerned only with the Ninth, my young friend, do not forget that. As for the mission, the four men of the Second are expendable, aren’t they? What are Celts for but to use in affairs like this? Well, what are you standing there for?’

  The junior officer saluted and went back to his tent.

  He thought about what had been said to him for ten minutes or so, and then he fell asleep, still wearing his body armour, for like all the others he was tired out.

  And tomorrow would be a big day; yes, a very big day.

  29: Mission of the Heart

  That night, at dusk, just about the hour when the soldier hung gasping to the tent-pole as the lash came down, the hour when the young tribesman leaned from his horse to draw his riding-switch across the neck of Duatha, the small side-port of the fortress of Glevum opened gently, and two figures emerged, cloaked in black down to the ankles, and leading a small white pony such as a lady might ride.

  One of the cloaked figures was slightly taller than the other, and moved with a stately grace which was not that of a man, even a young man of a good family, a Tribune, say.

  When they were well clear of the garrison, the taller woman mounted the white pony, and they passed down between the huddled houses, and so over the hill, setting their course towards t
he oak forests of the midlands.

  Neither of them spoke for a long time. But at last, when the countryside had begun to change, and they were clear of any patrolling legionaries, the taller woman pulled back her hood and said to the one who led the pony, ‘Marissa, we have jumped the first hurdle! Now we must keep going on and on towards the east. We must not stop until dawn, for I would kill myself rather than face my father again after running away like this.’ The Lady Lavinia’s negro maid nodded in the moonlight and said, ‘I will keep going, lady, until I drop, if it is your wish.’

  The Lady Lavinia smiled and said, ‘I know you would, Marissa. But I must not tire you out; I shall need your help. We will take it in turns to ride the little pony, and then, when at last we do reach this woman Boudicca’s settlement, we may still be fresh.’

  They travelled on then for a while without speaking. But at last the Lady Lavinia halted the pony so that it might drink at a little stream which flowed between two rocks. As she waited, she flung back her black cloak and made a step or two in the moonlight, like a gay dancer.

  ‘Do I look like a tumbler, Marissa?’ she said. ‘Do my boy’s clothes suit me? The trousers pinch terribly! I can’t think how the boys tolerate such restriction!’

  The little negro maid nodded her head and smiled whitely in the wan light of the moon.

  ‘You look beautiful, Lady,’ she said. ‘If I were a Roman lady, I could fall in love with such a fine young man! But what a shame that you should have cut off your lovely hair!’

  The Lady Lavinia said lightly, ‘That will grow again, Marissa! And one must suffer a little in the cause of love!’

  Then she mounted her pony and they passed over the wold and so down into the forest that lay, dark in the moonlight, below them.

  In his narrow bed, stuffed with horse-hair, in his narrow room, plastered with cow-hair and lime, the tired Prefect of the Second Legion lay staring up into the blank darkness.

  He was weary of life, weary of command, weary of the folk of this world—yet chained to life and folk and command until he died.