The Eagles' Brood

XXVI

If there is a more unpleasant or unforgettable taste than copper in this world, I have never experienced it. Once, when I was a very small boy, I held a copper coin in my hand for a long time on a hot summer's day. My hand grew moist and sticky with sweat and that small copper coin, a humble as, seemed permanently stuck to my skin. I can remember Uncle Varrus shouting at me to stand back and stay clear of the cart he was driving that day, and as the great, noisy vehicle passed me, its solid wooden wheels dwarfing and deafening me, a sawn log fell from the back of it and rolled a little way towards me. I remember thinking that I was strong enough to carry that log to where my uncle had been stacking them all day long, but I needed two hands free to lift it and so I popped the warm, sweaty coin into my mouth. I am sure it was the shock of that violent, outrageous taste that stamped the details of that incident into my young mind for ever.

I think of that every time I grow deeply, stirringly afraid, for there is something about gut-churning fear that generates an illusion of that bitter taste. The same taste filled my mouth that evening as I approached the little valley in the hills. I had ridden my horse hard, all tiredness forgotten, since leaving the fort on my usual roundabout route. Now, as I neared the end of my journey, the shapeless fears that I had refused to acknowledge for the past several days got the better of me and I knew abject terror. What would I do if Cassandra were not there when I arrived? What would I do if she were there, but had been found and harmed, perhaps even killed? I almost killed my poor horse, flogging it mercilessly over the last three miles, but then at the start of the steep, narrow entrance to the valley, I had to dismount and walk, leading the unfortunate animal by the reins.

The first thing that struck me as I entered the bottom of the valley was the utter stillness of the place, and my heart swelled with an unbearable fear that disappeared in a wave of relief and joy as Cassandra came dashing from die bushes, her face ablaze with welcome. I had been gone from her for five days, and in the isolation of her silent world she could have had no conception of what I had been doing or what had been occurring within miles of her, for which I thanked God. Nevertheless, from the welcome she gave me, an observer would have thought she had not seen me in months.

Neither the fire in her hut nor the one in the clearing had been lit since I had taught her the lesson of the smoke, so I lit the interior fire now, as the late afternoon shadows changed to evening shades, and set out to gather more firewood while there was still enough light to find it by, thinking to myself that I was lucky to have arrived no later than I had, and that the daylight hours here in Avalon were very short.

That thought led me back to Cassandra's welcome and to an uncomfortable consideration of the means Cassandra must use to pass the time she spent alone between my visits. And that in turn gave rise to a series of questions that troubled me increasingly as I wandered far from the clearing in search of wood to burn. How did she spend her time? Living in a world of total silence as she did, how could she amuse herself? What did she do all day alone? And all night, on those long, dark evenings? Sunny days and fine evenings were one thing, I thought, but cold, stormy, dank and cloudy times must be quite another. Even this search for wood, I realized, would be a killing task on a wet, miserable day. In the past, fuel had always been plentiful here. No one had ever stayed in the valley long enough to consume the firewood that lay readily to hand. Now, however, with two fires burning night and day, every day, fuel was becoming hard to find. It had to be sought out, further and further from the clearing, and then carried, or dragged, back through the underbrush. And in my absence, Cassandra must do it by herself.

We made love in the firelight that night until I fell into an exhausted sleep from which I awoke twice with the image of my father's corpse in my mind.

It was late in the morning when I left to return to Camulod for the funeral rites, and the parting was more difficult for me than it had ever been before. My heart ached to leave her alone there by the little lake, and anxiety over my newly awakened recognition of her solitude plagued me all the way home. I knew the day would come soon when, one way or another, despite my own fears, I must bring her back to civilization and the company of others.

I found Titus and Flavius talking together in my father's day-room, Titus seated behind the desk, on my father's stool, and Flavius perched on one of the other chairs as they reviewed the arrangements they had made. Everything was well in hand, they told me. News of the funeral service had been circulated to everyone, and the event was scheduled for the third hour of the afternoon, which left me two hours, during which I had nothing to do but change into my ceremonial uniform and try to empty my mind of my concern over Cassandra while I prepared for the occasion, an unprecedented event for Camulod.

When I had last spoken with Titus, Flavius and Popilius, before leaving for Avalon the previous day, I had outlined my wishes for the ceremony. I had admitted freely that I was improvising, never having seen or experienced a military cremation. In the interim, however, Lucanus, who had followed the Eagles longer than any other officer now alive in the Colony, had produced several documents on the subject of military funerals in ancient times, and in my absence the four of them had decided to adhere to the procedures outlined in these records.

Flavius now informed me that Popilius, as primus pilus, would officiate at the ceremony, since this was a military occasion and not a religious one. The entire garrison of the Colony, excepting only a skeleton crew of guards, would be on parade in full dress uniform. Titus, as titular Legate and acting Commanding Officer, would inspect the troops, while Lucanus, as Senior Surgeon and now die senior serving officer surviving, would deliver the eulogy. Popilius would head the Centuriate, as was his right, and would supervise the order of the ceremonies, direct the honour guard, and attend to the lighting of the fire that would consume the corpse.

The pyre itself, Flavius assured me, would burn well and quickly. It had been built upon an iron grid mounted on an altar of stones to ensure strong, clean ventilation, and its timbers were solid, seasoned and dry—massive, hand-hewn beams torn from the interior of the Council Hall and drenched in pitch to make them burn the hotter. Gratified and impressed by the thoroughness of their planning, yet depressed by the prospect ahead of all of us, I thanked them for their efforts and left them, making my way out into the main courtyard. The work of cleaning up was almost complete already, and I could see where reconstruction had begun in several places, although no one was working there this afternoon. The grim pyre that would consume my father's body dominated the entire area, standing alone in the centre of the great yard. This was the first such pyre I had seen, and I could only presume that Lucanus's documents had contained some details on the building of such things. Fascinated, I approached it and gazed into its heart.

It was a massive, five-layer bed of square-cut timbers, each two handspans thick. Three of these layers, forming the top, bottom and middle strata of the bed, were made of beams cut four paces long. The two remaining layers, laid crosswise between the three long ones, were shorter—only three paces long. The beams were spaced evenly on all five levels, leaving a latticed pattern of air vents to feed the flames. Every beam had been soaked in pitch, and the smell of it caught at my throat. Above this bed, our carpenters had built a box, an oven, of the same materials, open at one end to receive the iron box that would contain my father's body. The roof of this box, too, was three layers thick, the timbers arranged the same way as those in the bed beneath. The heat generated by this pyre would be intolerable. My father's flesh and bones would melt and dry into dust long before the flames burned down and the ferocious embers settled into ash.

Pensive and disturbed afresh, I left the place and walked out through the main gate, nodding in passing to Marcus, the centurion of the guard. Below me lay the new camp built by Popilius and his men. To my right, far off in the southern distance, I could see the enormous pit dug by our Cornish prisoners to hold their dead. The pit on my far left, much smaller, though still enormous, would hold our own dead thousand. The smallest pit, almost directly below me, on the northern side of the new camp, would hold our officers. Nothing moved on the plain, and I realised that Popilius must have kept his burial parties working through the night, for there were no bodies to be seen, and the pits themselves seemed to be almost filled.

Donuil joined me as I stood there musing, and waited beside me patiently until I spoke to him. He had come to ask my permission to attend my father's funeral, and I was both surprised and touched that he should wish to do so. My father had shown him little tolerance in the brief time they had known each other. I told him I would be glad to see him there, and again we stood in silence for a time.

It was only as I turned to re-enter the fort that I noticed he was frowning, mulling something over as he gazed into the distance, looking at nothing. I asked him what was troubling him and he began, hesitantly at first, but then with increasing confidence and conviction, to tell me about his continuing concern that we had missed something vitally important in our dealings with the two dead warlocks. Their baggage, according to Donuil, should have contained a cornucopia of black arts. I assured him again that all of their possessions had been searched thoroughly and nothing sinister had been found, but he was unconvinced. He asked me whether their iron-bound chests had been found, and when I told him there had been no such chests he shook his head in emphatic denial. He had seen those chests with his own eyes, he swore, in his father's Hall, and they were the most precious things the warlocks owned. Caspar had told his father, in Donuil's hearing, that they went nowhere without them. If the boxes had not been brought into Camulod, then the warlocks must have hidden them before their arrival. They must have stopped somewhere on the road.

I looked at him in irritation when he said that, my patience with this superstitious blather rapidly deserting me. "They did," I replied. "You were there when my father mentioned it. Uther stopped his men to allow them to clean up before riding into Camulod." He looked at me then and shook his head wryly before reminding me that my father had spoken in Latin, which was incomprehensible to him.

We walked together as far as my quarters, and as we walked I mulled over what he had said, wondering how much of it was fact and how much Celtic fancy. Those chests would be valuable, indeed, if they existed and if we could locate them. I decided I would speak to Uther about that stop on the road, if I ever saw him again. And then I wondered again where he was, knowing how he would mourn my father's death and regret missing the funeral.

I found Lucanus waiting for me in my quarters. He glanced at me critically and asked me how I was feeling. When I told him I was well, but not looking forward to the proceedings of the next few hours, he looked relieved.

"None of Us are," he said. "Titus asked me to come by and speak to you. He forgot to mention one last suggestion when you spoke together earlier. He thinks it might be fitting if you were to wait with the Lady Luceiia at her house, and bring her to join the proceedings when everyone else is assembled. He will send an honour guard to escort the two of you as chief mourners."

I agreed to do that, thanked him for his courtesy and set about dressing.

I can remember almost nothing of my father's funeral, apart from scattered impressions that struck me at the time and stayed locked in my mind: the silent presence of the dense- packed crowd, bearing their own grief over lost loved ones and their palpable aura of bereavement; the heavy sound of iron-shod feet marching in slow cadence to the throb of martial drums; the brazen fanfare of horns and bugles as the funerary bearers, eight senior centurions, slid the riveted iron coffin into the nest prepared for it among the pitch- glazed timbers; the creak of Popilius's heavy, polished- leather, ceremonial armour, as he stood at attention by my side; the spitting noise of the pitch-soaked torch as he stepped forward to light the pyre; and then the solid, roiling tower of smoke that ascended in yellow, grey and purple belches while its base was devoured and displaced by the searing, furious heat of the flames that glazed our eyes and beat against us even where we stood, behind the circle of the honour guard, twenty-five paces distant. And I remember the noise, the all-embracing, all-consuming, demented sound of the roaring, hissing flames that ate my father.

I know rain threatened, yet the sun shone throughout, but I remember nothing of that. I know, too, because he told me later, that Uther arrived back during the funeral, and, seeing the pall of smoke from afar, led his exhausted men at the charge against the attackers he immediately assumed were there. When they divined the true reason for the billowing column of smoke, he and his men approached quietly, leaving their mounts outside, and stood unnoticed at the rear of the crowd, which was already starting to disperse.

When it was over, I walked home in silence with Aunt Luceiia, then returned to my own quarters, where I removed my armour and slept for hours, awakening only after dark, refreshed and hungry.

I was surprised to find Uther in the refectory, eating alone. We greeted each other soberly. He told me how sorry he was about my father, but I merely nodded—there was nothing to say—and went to help myself to some food. I cut a thick chunk of mutton from a still-warm carcass on a spit over the glowing embers of a fire, and a substantial slab of bread to rest it on. The remains of some kind of vegetable stew, cooked in a meaty broth, were congealing in a pan by the fire. It looked unappetizing, but I spooned some of the lukewarm broth over my bread and mutton and took it back to where Uther sat. He pushed his platter away as I sat down, but stayed while I ate my own food, and as I ate, he talked, telling me of his pursuit of the fleeing remnants of Lot's army. He and his men had been merciless, killing every one of Lot's people they caught—he estimated the numbers they had slain in the course of two full days' pursuit in the hundreds. Finally, however, he had called in his forces and abandoned the chase when he learned from a dying Cornishman that Lot had never left the south-west.

He had heard the story of the; sorcerers and their hostages since his return, and his mention of it reminded me of Donuil's concern. I pushed away the remnants of my own food and sat back, looking around for a wine jug. There was one on a neighbouring table, and when I checked it I found it still half full. I took two cups, swilled them out, and poured for both of us. Uther held his high.

"Here's to your father, my Uncle Picus," he said, in a low voice. "He was a man among men. There are not many left of his kind. I wish I had come home two hours sooner." I joined him in the libation and we sat in silence for a while, until he asked me, "What are you thinking?"

"About the sorcerers." I had been sitting staring into my cup. "Caspar and Memnon. And their master, the spider, Lot. That whoreson will die at my hands. I have sworn it by my father's death."

"Then we had better ride together, Cousin, and it will be a race, for I've sworn the same oath."

I looked at him and we smiled together. "Then he's already a dead man," I said. "How had you planned to kill him?"

"Slowly, with any means at my disposal. Slowly and painfully. I want him to know at his end that he is dying, to know it is by my hand, and to beg me for the deliverance of death. And I'll refuse the whoreson."

I laughed for the first time in days, but I was far from amused. "You're almost as bad as he is!"

"No, Cousin, I am not. Lot is a pestilence who should not be alive." There was no sign of humour in his eyes. "Perhaps I was exaggerating about the manner of his death, but not about the certainty of it. This world will be a better place rid of his filth." He wrinkled his nose. "But you were thinking of the warlocks. Why? They are already dead. What profit dwelling on them?"

"Did you guard them closely on the journey here from Cornwall?"

"Guard them?" He raised his eyebrows in surprise at the question. "Well, yes and no. I detailed a man to keep an eye on them because I didn't like or trust them, but I didn't exactly chain them up. They were, after all, supposed to be ambassadors of some kind."

"Aye, they were that, indeed. Ambassadors of death."

"I had no way of knowing that at the time."

"No, you did not, nor could you. I'm not blaming you. But you did keep them under watch?"

He responded with a tiny shrug of one shoulder. "To a degree, yes. But they gave us no trouble, and we were on the move all the time. There was no real need to watch them closely."

"What about when you stopped?"

He looked at me warily, his curiosity stirring. "We stopped only to eat and sleep. What are you digging at, Cay?"

"Their baggage. Did you notice how much they had?"

"No. I could not have cared less about them, let alone their baggage. I had other things to worry about. They had their two servants, and two extra pack horses. Four men and six horses in all. My only concern was that they kept moving and didn't interfere with our progress. They did. Why? Did I miss something?"

"You may have. Young Donuil swears those two went nowhere without two particular, iron-bound, chained and locked boxes. Do you remember seeing anything like that?"

He shook his head, sticking out his lower lip. "No, but I told you, I paid no attention. What was in these boxes?"

"I don't know. They didn't bring them into Camulod. Donuil swears they contained the secret tools for their black arts."

"You mean magic?" Uther's tone was openly sceptical.

"Of a kind. The magic of venom for arrows, certainly, and God knows what else besides."

"Shit and corruption!" The scepticism had vanished.

"You stopped that morning before coming into the fort Can you remember exactly where that was?"

"Of course. At the crossroads by the big, shattered ash tree, about five miles out on the east road, where the forest thins out for a space. I let my men clean themselves up in the brook there."

"Then that's where they must have hidden the boxes. Who was the man you detailed to watch them?"

"Gareth, one of my own men. But they couldn't have hidden anything, Cay. They didn't have time. We didn't stop for long enough."

"Long enough to defecate?"

"Yes, of course. Some did, but—" . "Then that was long enough. I didn't say they buried the boxes, Uther, only that they concealed them. You can be sure they had planned their move, probably in their own heathen tongue, long before the opportunity arose."

Uther was frowning suddenly. "Wait a moment, wait a moment.. .There was a disturbance of some kind, now that I think about it...Something to do with the horses. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, because it was over quickly. That might have been when they did it. There was something about redistributing the loads." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Cay, I can't remember."

"Your man Gareth should remember. Where can we find him?"

Uther gazed into his cup and swallowed a draught before answering, "We can't. He's in the common grave, down on the plain. He was one of the first of my men to go down."

"Damnation! Anyway, I know the place. I'm going to go and look around there tomorrow. I'll take Donuil with me."

"I'll come too." He stood up. "I know exactly where . they were, and where the disturbance occurred. If they did hide anything, it must have been near there. If the boxes exist, we'll find them. But now I'm going back to sleep. I had a few hours earlier, but I haven't had a decent sleep in days. What about you?"

I yawned. "I don't know. I'm yawning, but I don't feel sleepy, and yet I'm bone tired, does that make sense? I think I'll take a walk to digest this meal, and then get some more sleep myself."

"Good. Hammer on my door when you get up. We'll break fast together, find your young heathen and be on the road early. We should be able to find those things, if they are there, and be back here by noon. Good night to you. Sleep well, Cousin."

I bade him good night and walked outside to the main courtyard. An honour guard detachment still ringed my father's pyre, which now smouldered angrily, glowing bright red and blue in the blackness of the night. I walked through their circle and stood close to the fire, even now feeling its fearsome strength tighten the skin of my cheekbones and bare legs as I peered into its heart, seeking the iron coffin that contained the remains of the man who had sired and shaped me. I knew it was there, but I could not see it in the incandescent brightness. I offered up a prayer for my father's soul and stood there a long time, silently remembering.

Finally I stepped away from the fire and back through the ring of guards into the darkness, but I carried its heat with me for some time as I walked in the coolness of the night. At length, however, the heat wore off and the chill of the darkness reminded me that I was lightly dressed for night-time walking. I made my way back to my quarters and climbed into bed, where I slept dreamlessly.

We found the warlocks' boxes the following day, with almost no need to search. Uther led us directly to the spot where the disturbance with the horses had occurred, and we struck into the woods immediately. Donuil, who had been driving Uncle Varrus's sprung, two-wheeled cart, left it on the road to follow us on foot. We found the boxes less than twenty paces from the road, hidden in a small gully cut by a streamlet. Donuil jumped down into the gully immediately, catching his clothes on the wild brambles that filled the place and cursing at the thorns that clawed at him. The image chilled me instantly.

"Donuil!" I shouted, "Get out of there!"

He looked at me in amazement, as did Uther, but he turned and climbed back up out of the hole. I slid from my horse and drew my sword, using it to hack away the brambles that choked the hiding-place, kicking them aside until the boxes were uncovered. When I had cleared the space around them completely, I knelt on one knee beside the boxes, peering closely at them, ignoring the heavy chains that bound them and concentrating only on the wooden cases. My presentiment had been right. I looked up to where Donuil stood watching me. "Come down now, carefully, and look at this." When he had joined me, I pointed a finger where I wanted him to look. "Recognize that?"

He shuddered in loathing as he saw and recognized what I had found. "One of them," he whispered, staring wide eyed at the sharp, black thorn that was lodged in the woodwork of the case.

"Aye, and there are more. Anyone finding these boxes and trying to remove them would not have lasted long. Uther, come and look at this."

Uther jumped from his horse's back and came down to join us. I pointed again to the thorn. "See that? It's first cousin to your poisoned arrows. A prick from that, and you're a dead man. Those are the thorns that Caspar used to kill his twelve men, one thorn, one man."

He grimaced. "Come on, Cay. Are you serious? That's not possible."

"Try asking those dead men to agree with you. I'm telling you, Uther, these little things are deadly."

He stooped closer to peer at the one I had shown him, prepared to be impressed in spite of himself. "They don't look deadly, do they?"

"That's why they work so well."

His eyes were now moving over the boxes. "How many of them are there?"

"Too many. Eight that I can see, but there's probably a score more of them around all four sides and the top of each box. There wouldn't be any on the bottom."

"How do we get them out?"

"Cautiously," I said. "One at a time."

I used the point of my knife to dislodge the thorns, and I handled each of them with great respect, thrusting them, one at a time, point first into the packed earth of the stream's bank. Eventually, the task was complete and the boxes were safe to handle. Uther wanted to open them immediately, and so did I, but I had doubts. The care with which the outside of these things had been protected worried me. Anyone patient enough, and knowledgeable enough, to work his way through the maze of thorns, chains and locks around these boxes would be ill advised, it seemed to me, to simply throw open the lids without further precaution.

We carried the boxes intact to the racing cart and took them back to Camulod, where, in spite of the curiosity and impatience of the others to see what they contained, I stored them in my quarters until such time as I could approach the problem they presented calmly and examine their contents with an open mind.