Red Queen, White Queen Page 3

  At a long oaken trestle-table in the middle of the striped tent sat the men who had but recently cantered into the garrison from their scouting expedition in the hills. They ate and drank noisily, slapping each other on the back or the shoulder or the behind, pinching the legs of the British girls who moved from place to place with the broad wooden dishes of meat and barley bread, and the thick green glass amphorae of red wine.

  One of the men, a blackbearded ruffian with half an ear missing, muttered ecstatically to a little red stone effigy which stood by his plate, his eyes closed, his hands clasped across his hairy chest. Another drew the sign of the fish in red wine on the rough oaken board before he set to and gobbled up every morsel of his dish of beef. Yet another, a sallow-faced man of the distant ice-lands, tied and untied knots in a short length of deer-thong, so calling upon himself the benevolence of his own white-pelted God, when next the time came to ride towards the screaming enemy.

  Duatha Ambrosius sat at the head of the oak table, smiling cynically along its length, surveying his riders much as a farmer might survey a herd of prize hogs before sending them to a market where the bidding might be keen. He ate sparingly, but the horn cup at his right hand seldom stayed full for long at a stretch, and the red-haired Hibernian slave who stood by his chair often shrugged her thin shoulders with weariness as once More she obeyed his gesture of the hand and refilled his cup.

  Somewhere in the long tent a tribesman began to strum at a small harp, beating out a slow rhythm which gradually silenced all the Celts among the Company of Horse.

  ‘Give us the Black Bulls of Mathonwy!’ shouted one man, spilling his wine over the back of the Berber who sat beside him.

  ‘Aye, the Black Bulls!’ shouted another, beating his dagger hilt downwards on the thick board to emphasise his request.

  In a high nasal voice, like that of a woman mourning her dead, the singer began his song.

  ‘Ah, the Black Bulls of Mathonwy, he sang,’

  ‘They crop the gentle pastures.

  The raven halts above their heads

  Admiring their strength;

  The snake pauses beneath their feet,

  Envying their skill;

  Only the herdsman pays no homage,

  For he is the son of a King,

  His hair is gold, not black,

  And though he has but one horn—

  It is more deadly than the two of the bulls;

  At least, I met a Princess

  Carrying her pride in a shawl

  Who told me so! ‘

  As the man came to the end of his song, the Celts at the table roared again with laughter, though they had heard the silly chant countless times, and began to explain its point to the dark-skinned men beside them.

  As the laughter rose to its highest point, a long slim shadow fell across the opening of the tent and a woman, slim as a willow-wand, looked inside at the horsemen, her pale though lovely face set in the stylised expression of dignitas. A little smile of amused contempt played about her delicately painted lips. She turned and spoke to the tall officer in the golden breastplate who stood behind her so that all in the tent could hear her words.

  ‘I do declare, Tribune,’ she said, ‘but these messenger-boys bring us no new songs! I think I have heard them all a hundred times, and never any variety! If I hear the Black Bulls of Mathonwy again, I shall ask my father, the Prefect, to disband the lot of them and send them back to their pig-sties without more ado!’

  The Tribune smiled at the lady’s words and waved his gold-ringed hand before his fine nose, in an insulting gesture.

  ‘They would not notice the difference, my Lady Lavinia,’ he said. ‘The stench would be exactly the same, I warrant!’

  The talk stopped about the table. The horsemen were Auxiliaries, and not full Legionaries, and were often used to carry despatches from one part of the battle-field to another, in addition to their employment as lancers and shock-cavalry. To them the term ‘messenger’, however, was one of abuse, for they regarded themselves as warriors first and last.

  Yet this young woman was the only daughter of the Prefect, one who had been born in Rome, the Mother City, and so wore about her a glamour stronger than that which her fragile flowerlike beauty gave her by nature. She might say what she wished about them—call them ‘messenger-boys’ or swine, as she willed. She was, after all, of a noble clan, a Patrician. But the Tribune was not. The secret had leaked out one night that he was the son of a wealthy Byzantine financier, and despite his curled black hair and his silken-maned white charger, his prestige had waned with the knowledge. To the horsemen he was simply ‘The Money-lender’, not Gaius Flavius Cottus any longer.

  And his words and gesture offended the men at the oaken table.

  Duatha stood up, a little unsteadily now, and called out, his rich baritone voice made thick with wine, ‘Hail, Lady of the Sun. May our ears never be deaf to your wisdom.’ Then he bowed, slowly and insolently, towards the Tribune. ‘And hail, noble Soldier,’ he went on. ‘May we see you, one day, in the foremost rank when the arrows are flying wild, your golden breastplate shining, your voice encouraging us, the lesser ones, to ride forward and to add yet another leaf to the crown of laurels worn by Rome!’

  Many of the rough riders about the tables gazed at Duatha in astonishment, only half-understanding the drift of his pronouncement. Some of them actually believed that he meant what he said, and they were amazed that the Celt should lavish such words on an officer whose cowardice in the face of the enemy was notorious through the Camp.

  But the Tribune, Gaius Flavius Cottus, was not deceived. He sensed the challenge in this drunken young fellow’s words. So did the young woman, the daughter of the Prefect. And she waited, almost breathlessly, to see what might come of this, her lips half-parted, her heart beating strangely fast of a sudden.

  For the count of ten the two men glared at each other, the officer glowering, the swaying Celt smiling, his blue eyes as cold as the Northern ice. Then the dark eyes of the Tribune fell away and he said quietly, ‘There are ways and means, my friend. And sometimes the word kills as surely as the lance, you will find.’

  He turned abruptly on his heel then, and only as a second thought remembered the beautiful woman who stood beside him. He gave a shrug of apology and began to lead her towards the tent-flap. But she hung back a little while.

  ‘That savage has quality,’ she said, so that Duatha might hear her. ‘Surely he is the son of a king?’

  For an instant her eyes met those of the horseman. His face was impassive, but he allowed his smile of derision to deepen the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth.

  The girl raised her eyebrows in annoyance and then turned away from him.

  ‘Come, Gaius,’ she said, ‘he is not as courteous a man as I had expected. He does not take praise well. The son of an Irish cowherd, no doubt.’

  The Celt heard her words, and though his face flushed with a sudden anger, he bowed low behind her in mock reverence.

  At the tent flap, the girl paused again and said, ‘Yet he stands well, Gaius. Surely you might find him some more useful an employment than riding about the countryside with that pack of ruffians?’

  Slowly and audibly the officer said, ‘Yes, Lady, he shall be found employment—just as soon as it may be arranged. And it will be very soon, I have reason to think.’

  At the door, they met Gemellus and the old Decurion, who gave way before them, bowing low as the lady passed.

  With a strange smile, Lavinia touched the Tribune’s arm.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘here is another one of them—as like the other in there as are two peas from one pod, save that this one is dark and the other fair.’

  The Tribune nodded, without noticing the kneeling Roman, and passed on. Gemellus gazed up at the lady in astonishment that such a great one should notice him on his first day in the camp. She saw his look of surprise and smiled down at him.

  When she had gone by, the old man nudged him and sa
id, ‘May the Lord of Light preserve you now, Gemellus! That one has ruined more good soldiers than all the savages of Caledonia! And with far less bloodshed!’

  But Gemellus only gazed after the woman, for she was very beautiful in the way great Roman ladies were beautiful, and his heart suddenly warmed to all things Roman.

  But as he stepped inside the long tent, his thoughts were dragged away from the memory of that fine face and those long white arms bright with gold. Duatha was still standing, leaning on the table and staring towards the tent flap, his repressed anger bursting forth against the two who had hurt him.

  ‘Romans,’ he was saying, so that all could hear, ‘Romans are the scum of the world, the lapdogs of Fortune! The offal of Greece, the scavengings of Etruria…, Romans are the cast-off breeches of Egypt, nothing more!’

  Before he could prevent himself, Gemellus had walked to where the Celt stood swaying and, planting his feet well apart, had struck him across the face with the back of his hand.

  ‘I am a Roman,’ he said, ‘and so was my father before me. Whose son are you, pig of the middens?’

  The next instant the long table was overturned. Men tumbled everywhere, gladly, most of them delighted that the day should be enlivened with a quarrel such as this promised to become.

  Gemellus felt himself being flung backwards and then realised with hurt pride that the Celt, despite his lithe build, was amazingly strong, and as quick as a cat.

  But he had not grown up on a Roman farm for nothing. A farm where the village lads spent their evenings in the rough and tumble of peasants the world over. As Duatha rushed forward to grasp him by the throat, Gemellus slipped sideways and kicked out at the Celt’s legs, taking him by surprise and throwing him off balance.

  Duatha went down heavily, striking his head against the edge of a stool, and lay still for a moment, the blood suddenly flaring across his cut forehead.

  Gemellus stood above him now, half-sorry that he should have done this on his first day in the garrison.

  Then Duatha opened his eyes and shook himself, like a dog coming out of the water. He looked up at the Roman, then smiled, slowly and deliberately.

  ‘We are soldiers,’ he said. ‘Let us not act like angry brothel guards, friend.’ Suddenly Gemellus bent and held out his hand, to help this smiling soldier to rise; but Duatha shook his head.

  ‘I am not offering you friendship, Roman,’ he said. ‘I am offering you combat to the death, with whatever weapon you care to choose. What shall it be, think you, Roman?’

  Gemellus shrugged his shoulders now and said thickly ‘I have no wish to kill you, Briton, but it must be as you desire. I leave the choice to you. The outcome will be the same, whatever we choose.’

  The Celt smiled at the other’s words, recognising in them the Roman’s desire to put on a good face.

  ‘Very well, Roman,’ he said, ‘we will use the short-sword. It is your weapon, no doubt, and I would not seek any advantage over you.’

  Then, as though Gemellus did not exist any longer, he turned away from him and began to drink with his companions

  4: Combat and Summons

  As long as bronze horns blew over Glevum to give warning that the evening watch had begun, Gemellus walked quickly with the old Decurion to the place they had chosen for the fight. He was not afraid, only uneasy, and shivering unaccountably in the last rays of the sun.

  A solitary curlew swung down over his head, crying mournfully, as he stepped on across the parade ground. He looked up at it for a moment with a wry smile.

  ‘Do not weep for the dead before they are cold, little friend,’ he said.

  The old Decurion looked up and nodded.

  ‘When I campaigned in Belgium with your good father, he said, ‘there was an eagle who came every night and perched on our tent pole, chuckling to itself. Your father did not mind the bird, but I was brought up among superstitious country-folk, who often told me how the eagles followed Brutus until Philippi, and then deserted him. I thought that if we could keep that beast with us, while we. fought the Belgae, we might have good fortune. So one night I crept out of the tent and caught the creature. Aye, it pecked me cruelly about the head and chest, but I held it! Then I lashed it to the standard!’

  Gemellus stopped for a moment and stared at the man.

  ‘You lashed an eagle to the Eagle?’ he said incredulously. ‘What happened, man? Did you have good luck?

  The old man shook his grizzled head.

  ‘Nay, lad,’ he said. ‘In the morning I went out and the damned thing had flown! What’s more, he had taken four medallions with him in his struggles, medals won at the bridge of Magan, the ford of Uxelledunum, the cross-roads of Treius! The only luck I got out of that was fifteen stripes with the whip! I’ve never trusted the birds since then! They are as false as women, lad!’

  Gemellus smiled gently and remembered the fine Roman lady who had smiled at him outside the Mess Tent. As he strode on towards the place where he should meet Duatha, he recalled the girl’s swaying walk, the fall of her sky-blue dress, the little curl of black hair that hung in the nape of her neck, below the gold braid that marked her high rank. Lavinia, that was her name, the old man had told him so. It was a sweet name, he thought; though there was something about the girl’s curved red mouth which was perhaps not quite so sweet as her name, something that could be teasing, even cruel, he thought.

  Then the old man pulled at his arm.

  ‘This way;’ he said hoarsely, ‘past the cubicles and to the right. There is an enclosed space behind the stables where men sometimes meet each other for these things.’

  Behind the stables, where the war-horses were snorting and pawing in their stalls as though they already smelled blood, the dock and willow-herb grew high below the wooden stockade, enclosing the place, setting it apart, as though they preserved it from the eyes of tender-hearted men, reserved it for those Whose trade was death. It was an unkempt place of green shadows and seclusion.

  A dozen men waited there, some of them lolling on the ground. They were Celts of the various southern tribes, all Auxiliaries. They laughed and nudged each other as Gemellus appeared, calling out good-humouredly in their several dialects. The Roman could not understand their words, but there was no mistaking the expressions on their faces; expressions of mockery, insulting tolerance, even contempt.

  Duatha stood in their midst, stripped to the waist and wearing breeches of red and yellow squares, tied tightly at the ankle with thongs of deerhide. He wore no shoes.

  And as he stood waiting, his golden hair caught in the nape of his neck by a ribbon, he swung his short-sword in circles which caught the last rays of the sun, creating circles of golden light about his head and shoulders. Gemellus thought for an instant that this young savage looked more like a Greek God than a poorly paid barbarian cavalryman. And there was something which Gemellus felt he had seen before, he did not know where, but which troubled him deep in his heart….

  Suddenly Duatha turned and stared him in the eye, smiling wickedly. He raised his voice so that all should hear his words.

  ‘Hail, Roman, and farewell,’ he said lightly. ‘I who am about to kill you, salute you!’

  He fell on one knee, touching the blade of his sword to his lips.

  Gemellus walked on towards him, in that heavy-footed careless way that Roman legionaries adopted, to show they were used to it all, the marching, the endless foot-slogging, that they were professionals. He halted by Duatha and looked down at him, lazily, though his heart was beating fast.

  ‘Get up, man,’ he said. ‘You’ll catch cold down there. That’s the trouble with you Britons, you take too many risks for the sake of a bit of foolery.’

  Duatha rose, his fair skin slightly flushed with annoyance. The men about him, sitting on the ground, stopped their jesting and looked up sharply at the Roman who dared to speak so to their young leader.

  Duatha said, ‘Romans take risks, also; there is one here now who is taking the final risk of all.
’

  Gemellus flung off his short woollen cloak and peeled off his tight tunic. He stood as bare as his opponent, as he swung his own short-sword in the air to get the balance of it.

  And when he was satisfied that his muscles were working freely, he half-turned to Duatha and said quietly, ‘I have served under a hard master, Celt. The Emperor Nero, my master and yours, did not promote me until I had served a month with the gladius in the arena. You may feel the weight of my sword, should you doubt me. It is the one the professionals use, over there in Rome. But perhaps you would find it a little heavy.’ Duatha took the heavy sword and flung it high into the air. It caught the sun’s rays as it swung over and began to fall. Duatha caught-it easily and swept it round his head in a great arc of light.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said as he handed it back. ‘But hardly the sort of weapon I would choose if I met a fast-moving opponent.’ Gemellus said, ‘Once it has bitten, there is no more fast moving. No more moving at all, indeed.’

  Then Duatha made a sign to the men about him. They stood and formed a wide circle on the green place of death, positioning themselves an arm’s length away from each other.

  Gemellus and Duatha stood in the centre of the circle. The war-horses were still. Even the birds of the air were silent. Gemellus suddenly heard the distant rushing of the river, the lowing cattle on the far hills beyond the village, even the soughing of the wind in the woods high above the fortress, half a mile away.