Red Queen, White Queen Read online

  Gemellus suddenly let his shoulders sag, let his feet plant themselves wide apart, let his face assume the annoyance which he felt.

  ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘I would wish to respect the daughter of my Prefect. Be generous enough to dismiss me now, please.

  The Lady Lavinia looked away from him and reached for the papyrus that lay behind her couch. When she had it in her narrow hand again, he saw that her face was pale and set.

  In a voice as cold as the wind that blew across the Sabrina from the western hills she said, ‘Very well, Decurion, what will be, will be. If you are too much the milksop to tolerate my pleasantries, what can I do? I am, after all, only a woman and - you are a big strong soldier—with a Celtic bastard for a brother!’ Gemellus said softly, ‘May I have leave to go now. Lady?’ Then, for a long moment, the Lady Lavinia surveyed the soldier, her eyes both narrow and cruel now.

  At last she said, ‘Yes, I suppose you must. I cannot imagine that your continued presence here would relieve my boredom. Though I might tell you that your brother, the Celt, is made of different stuff! He does not ask to be dismissed on the occasions when I have sent for him. On the contrary, it is I who make the plea, much as it goes against my natural grain to do so!’

  Gemellus turned from her, sickened. But before he had reached the door the Lady Lavinia said gently, ‘When you have killed the woman with the big breasts, come back here for your reward, Decurion. They tell me that you are to be a Centurion. Well, if you would like it very much, you may be the husband of Lavinia, daughter of the Prefect of the Second. You might even become a Tribune, who knows!’

  The soldier turned in amazement at these words.

  ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘you do not know what you are saying.’

  The Lady Lavinia replied evenly, ‘I know very well what I am saying, soldier. I am saying that I have never before met a simple Guardsman I could not seduce. To be married to one would set me a challenge, dear friend. I would enjoy breaking you in, as the men break in their stallions on the parade ground. Think of it, Gemellus, on your way back from the Icenian Queen.’

  And when he had gone to the barrack room, she rang the silver bell by her couch, and sent the little negro girl to fetch if the Tribune, Gaius Flavius Cottus, to her, urgently.

  8: Preparations

  In the narrow barrack room, three men crouched on the floor, sorting out their belongings. Some of these they put into a broad leather bag, which they hung on an iron hook in the wall. Others of their things, a goatskin water-flask, a pair of deerskin shoes so light that they could be rolled into a ball no bigger than a boy’s fist, a bronze medallion of Mithras slaying the bull, an alabaster box of ointment for the treatment of sore eyes… such things they rolled carefully into a narrow linen pouch which would be slung on the back.

  Gemellus pushed open the door and entered to see the three men sorting out their treasures. One of them was Duatha, he could see, in the flickering taper-light, but the other two he did not know. They turned towards him, on their haunches, their strange faces lit on one side by the wax-light. They were fierce faces, not faces the like of which he knew.

  Duatha came forward towards him smiling.

  ‘Hail, new brother,’ he said. ‘Now you shall meet the two who are to travel with us on this holiday jaunt. Here first is Aba Garim. Stand up, Aba, you lazy Arab swine, and let the Decurion look you over.’

  The man rose and inclined his head towards Gemellus, though the Roman noticed that his eyes were as quick as those of a fox; they did not fall when his forehead was bowed. They watched from under the thick black brows which seemed to meet above the man’s nose.

  And the nose was as predatory as that of a questing hawk. Below it, two long moustaches almost reached down to the Arab’s chest. And beneath them his sharp white teeth glimmered in the light.

  Gemellus said wryly, ‘Ave, friend! May we remain friends!’ Duatha laughed and said, ‘Expect no reply from him—he lost his tongue in Egypt when he was a young man. Not a bad thing, when one is out on a trip like this! It would be safer if most of the other foreign auxiliaries in the Second had enjoyed the same treatment. They talk too much after the wine cup has passed a time or two!’

  The man beside Duatha growled at these words, as though he agreed with the horseman.

  Duatha said, ‘This is Dagda, of the Ordovices. No man knows what his other name might be, if there is one. The Legion found him under a holly tree, shot through with four arrows—the greedy devil! They nursed him back to what you see now, Mithras knows why, and even gave him a place in the Troop of Horse that I lead, for my sins!’

  Dagda shambled to his feet and saluted Gemellus. He was a hunched and ungainly creature, whose hair and eyes and lips were of such a pallor that they seemed to have been bleached by a perpetual sun. His hands hung almost to the cross-garters above his knees, and his feet splayed out as though he suffered from some deformity of the ankle-bones.

  He bowed to Gemellus and then said in a high, fluting voice, ‘Greetings, Roman. May we have good fortune together! And may you be granted the infinite power of keeping your brother quiet. He is a too-talkative fellow who needs restraint. Look to it, Roman, and you will merit my good opinion.’

  Gemellus gazed in amazement at the creature, who looked like an imbecile and spoke like a Senator!

  Duatha laughed and said, ‘Take no notice of this one, brother; he is a fraud, with his castrated voice and his long words! He has not fingers enough to count the men he has killed in single fight, and in any case, he is such a liar that one could not believe whatever he said.’

  Dagda said gently, ‘Duatha Ambrosius Ennius, Caesar-to-be, no doubt, in some uncountably future time, is an indefatigable humorist. If I were his equal in rank, instead of being his cavalryman, I would knock him down, just for the fun of it, and cut off his ears one dark night! But alas, I must obey him; I who was once a Druid! Well, almost a Druid, let us say! I had mastered the first twelve arts, but I had not yet begun on the last twelve when my chieftain decided to express his disapproval of the old religion by having me used for a target when the young men wanted arrow practice!’

  Duatha said, ‘Sit down, Dagda! You are a dolt and a liar! Let us hear from you henceforth only when the Roman commands.’ But the smile on his face as he spoke those words told Gemellus that Duatha was fond of Dagda, that he trusted him, relied upon him. And Dagda’s answering grin confirmed that opinion.

  So Gemellus met the men with whom he was to travel across Britain, to strike down the woman, Boudicca, the Red Queen who was bent on striking down Rome, because of her wish to avenge the treatment she and her family had received from

  Decianus Catus, Procurator General, the lapdog of Nero.

  9: First Day

  At dawn the four men walked out of the stockade gate of Glevum, nodding backwards as they went, half as a sign of acknowledgement to the sentry’s salute, half as a goodbye wish to Nodens, the god who overlooked that particular terrain alongside the river Sabrina.

  They were dressed like peasants, or woodmen, in short leather tunics and thick frieze breeches, caught in by a thong at the ankle. On their feet they wore light deerskin brogues, and on their backs rolled like a long sausage, a heavy plaid in nondescript tartan. Each man wore a Phrygian cap of soft doeskin, to keep off the sun and to keep out the rain. They carried oaken staffs, but did not bear weapons openly.

  The weapons they carried were hidden in the linen pouches slung from the shoulders of the two leaders; two slim daggers, Rome’s present to Boudicca.

  The old Decurion stood at the gateway and watched them go. He called out to Gemellus, ‘I don’t know what you fellows are about, Roman, but I have a pretty good idea! You don’t live here for as many years as I have done without learning to read the omens! But whatever game you’re cut on, may Mithras give you luck! When you come back, I will wring the neck of a white cock at the camp shrine!’

  Then, quietly, to the young guard at the gate, he added, ‘Though I cannot say t
hat I reckon on paying for a cock for that purpose, friend. I think my money will stay in my pocket.’

  The young man, freshly out from Gaul, said sarcastically, ‘They are just four horsemen, going on leave, Grandad! What’s in that to moan about? You old chaps are all the same, always moaning. Wait till you’ve seen a few things, eh?’

  The Decurion swallowed hard and turned away.

  ‘Maybe, son,’ he said, ‘maybe.’

  He recalled the stand of the Second at the bridge of Magan, when the men on either side of him fell with javelins in their chests; he remembered the Heights of Cwmrann, when he had stood for an hour over the body of Gemellus’ father, while the arrows whirred above him and the swords rose and fell, rose and fell, always red, always red…

  He turned back to the guard then, and the tears stood heavy in his eyes.

  ‘But,’ he almost shouted, ‘when you have seen what I have I seen, may God give you more modesty!’

  The young guard clucked with amusement at the quaint old chap, and began to think of the Celtic girl he had arranged to meet in the village that night. What were four men? What was an old beggar with a scarred face? No doubt he had been in some tavern brawl once, or perhaps he had fallen from a hay wagon and got himself trodden on….

  The guard was a realist. Only the girl was real.

  A mile out of Glevum, where the road wound down between high hedges, and the ground was thick with white dust, Duatha said to Gemellus, ‘There is a call I must make before we go on. If we turn to the right a little further on, we shall come over a hill to a village by a stream where the willows grow. I must call there.’

  Gemellus said lightly, ‘Another girl, Comrade?’

  Duatha said as lightly, ‘No, brother, my mother. The woman who was loved by the Centurion, Gemellus Ennius.’

  Gemellus gave a little start and turned his eyes from those of the Celt.

  Duatha touched him gently on the shoulder and said, ‘She will welcome you, Roman brother. She will recall him, the Centurion, all the better for having seen you. And there is something there which even you will want to see, and having seen, will not forget.’

  Gemellus swallowed his pride and said, ‘What is that, Duatha Ennius?’

  ‘The place where our father is buried, friend,’ said the Celt, and then walked on without speaking again.

  The village lay between a stream and a hunched, gorse-covered hill. There were perhaps a dozen wattle huts, no more, and a stone-walled well, overshadowed by a great chestnut tree, gay with white candles.

  Gemellus said, ‘What do men call this village, friend?’

  The Celt smiled and waved his hands wide, as though to express an impossibility of description.

  ‘Men call it “The Village with no name” in our language, brother,’ he said. ‘What can I say more?’

  Then a little red-haired boy who had been fishing in the stream saw them coming over the hill, and ran towards one of the larger huts calling, ‘Mother Centennial, Mother Centennial, Duatha comes! Duatha comes with three others, Mother Centennial!’

  Duatha said drily, ‘That is my half-brother, Penran. His father was a King of Ireland, they say. I never met him.’

  A wave of sickness passed over Gemellus. He spoke before he could put the rein on his words.

  ‘Your mother, Centennial, seems very popular,’ he said. ‘One might almost say populous!’

  Duatha bowed his fine head slightly and answered, ‘Yes, Mother Centennial is so good a woman that all men know her. The most diseased beggar, or the young tribesman in trouble, all come to her and know that she will do what she can.’

  Once again, the tongue of Gemellus leapt forward, for his heart recalled his fine father.

  ‘One can easily guess what it is she does for them’ he said.

  Then his head sang and he found that his two hands grasped bunches of grass. There was a hard feeling in the flat of his back.

  He said, ‘I am sorry, Duatha, that I spoke so.’

  And Duatha bent to pick him up.

  ‘I am sorry that I knocked you down, Roman,’ he said. ‘You were not prepared for the blow, and it ill becomes a soldier to take such an advantage, unless on the field of battle.’

  Gemellus smiled and said then, ‘I should have done as much, had we walked over the hill above the farm of Asculum, and you had spoken so about my mother. There are no hard feelings, friend.’

  Then they went down to the hut where Centennial lived.

  And as they went, down past the tethered cows and the hobbled stallions, folk came to the low doors of their hovels and smiled or waved at the young Celt—women in many-coloured shawls, old men with their hair worn in the tribal manner in two long plaits, sometimes young men who had hurriedly put on their bull’s horn helmets, not that they expected war, but because they wished to show Duatha that they too were warriors.

  Gemellus said, ‘Your folk give you a warm welcome, Celt. They seem a friendly people.’

  Duatha said, ‘My mother is the daughter of a chieftain of these folk, and so I am a Prince—though you Romans have always laughed at me for calling myself so. My people are welcoming their Prince, then, you see; for I am the only one of the family old enough to bear arms. As for the village being friendly, well, that is a matter of opinion. If you had come in armour, after nightfall, you might not have got over the hill in safety, for these people still set their guards at night—though they have nothing to steal. The Roman tax-gatherers have seen to that.’ Then they were outside the hut where Duatha’s mother lived, a long low building, from the rush roof of which the blue wood-smoke curled lazily towards the hilltop. Three white doves sat on the gable, purring to each other wisely. An old dog lay asleep by the wall, taking advantage of the new day’s sun.

  And then in the doorway stood a woman, corn-haired and smiling, her strong body wrapped about in a tartan of many colours, her brown arms encircled with thick bands of gold. She suckled a young baby at her heavy honey-coloured breast. Gemellus guessed her age to be almost forty, yet she was still good to look at. It was as though one gazed on a Goddess of fertility, for behind her, half in the shadows of the hut, stood children, perhaps six of them, all smiling, all seeking shelter in their mother’s skirts, shy children of love and gentleness.

  The woman called out in Celtic, ‘Greetings, my son, Duatha Ennius the Prince. And greetings to your friends, whoever they may be, if they are men of peace.’

  Gemellus, who had learned Gallic, like all other Romans of the Imperial Guard, understood her words easily, and bowed his head in acknowledgement. Duatha fell on his knees before his mother and kissed the hem of her plaid. The other two soldiers, Aba and Dagda, knelt behind him in deference to their leader and to his mother.

  Then Centennial, mother of Duatha, looked up from her son towards the Roman, and gave a sudden start, as though she had seen a ghost standing before her in the sunshine. Her blue eyes widened and she clutched at the baby at her breast, as though she had been in danger of dropping him.

  But the spasm passed and she stood by the doorway to let her visitors enter. Yet as Gemellus passed her, she gazed intently into his face, as though trying to find an answer to the problem which troubled her mind.

  When they were settled about the hearthstone, sitting on sheepskins, eating sweet barley-cakes and drinking milk still arm from the udders of the cow, she said almost shyly to Gremellus, ‘You, who are the friend of my son, are a true Roman, are you not?’

  Gemellus nodded, as courteously as he could, to this soft-spoken queenly woman who had known his father, the Centurion.

  His reactions towards her now were not those which he had felt before, in the camp at Glevum. Then, he had seen her as a soldier’s whore, a hanger-on of the Legion, whose very existence was an insult to the memory of his own mother.

  Yet now, having seen her, having sensed the warmth and yet the strange savage dignity of her presence, he felt differently. His father, Mithras rest him in whatever purgatory he might be for hi
s sins, had gone to this woman and had lived with her in this very hut, perhaps. After many years away from his own family in Italy, the Centurion had come to this village and had fallen under her spell.

  Gemellus felt that now he was almost able to understand why his father had done this, almost, but not quite, for a man’s first duty is to his family, and though the temptation be great he must obey that duty or be condemned.

  And as Gemellus thought these things, suddenly recalling the sad look on his mother’s pale face on the days when she waited for the message that never came, Duatha spoke for all to hear.

  His words were brutally clear, yet he spoke them with a smile, as a surgeon might use a knife-making a wound yet wishing well to the wounded.

  He said, ‘This Roman is the true son of the Centurion, Gemellus Ennius, of the Second Legion, my mother.’

  The woman gave a little cry and sat down on a wooden bench in the shadow of the wall, her head lowered. Aba Garim signalled to Dagda, and the two rose and went down to the little stream.

  At length Centennial raised her head and said softly, ‘I think I knew that, as soon as I saw you, son of Gemellus. It was as though your father stood before my door again, as he stood the first time I saw him….’

  She paused for a moment and then said, ‘Though not quite as I first saw him, for there was a difference, praised be Mabon, for your sake.’

  Gemellus gazed at her, wondering what she meant. But the tears were running down her cheeks and he did not press her for an explanation.

  The morning passed slowly, and Gemellus and Duatha played with the children, bathing in the stream or fighting with sticks. Gemellus drew water from the well for three old women dressed in black, who thanked him in a Celtic so broad that he did not understand it. Duatha told him then that they were hand-maidens of the Druids from the oak grove beyond the hill. He made some jest about them being rather ancient maidens, but Gemellus noticed that even as he jested, he kept his fingers crossed, so that his words would not be taken seriously by the vengeful gods of the place.