Claudius

XV

Caratacus watched his brother with the unblinking stillness of a predatory animal. The scar between Togodumnus’s eyes flared red the way it always did when he was angry or uncomfortable. He had worn the scar for more than twenty years, since the day their father had encouraged them to wrestle together. Caratacus remembered the crunch as the cartilage in his nose was crushed by his brother’s fist and the feel of merciless fingers round his throat. The rock had been lying just close enough for him to reach. Enough strength remained to smash it into Togodumnus’s grinning, triumphant face. There had been a great deal of blood.

Their father had laughed.

‘Ballan tells me your men have been busy?’

Togodumnus shrugged. ‘I have many men. Am I supposed to know what each of them does every minute of the day? They get bored. They go off. They get up to mischief. You promised them a fight, but all we do is run away whenever the enemy gets close.’

Caratacus smiled coldly. The insult was clear enough, but he chose to ignore it. ‘The boy, Dafyd, ambushed the messenger I sent to the Romans.’

‘You should not have saved him from the fire. He was pledged to the gods. There are other messengers. Ballan would have done the job just as well. Better.’

‘It does not matter. Dafyd failed. Ballan found him lying in a stream with his guts hanging out.’ Caratacus watched his brother carefully and was rewarded by a slight tic in his right cheek.

‘Dafyd had the right to kill the Roman slave. If he did not have the skill, then he deserved to die,’ Togodumnus said coldly. ‘But I wish he had succeeded. The slave is the keeper of the beast. You have told us the beast is no threat to us. I believe you are wrong, but even if you are right and it is no weapon of war, you cannot deny it is a powerful talisman. Killing the slave would have weakened the beast. Anything that weakens the beast weakens the Romans.’

And that is why you ordered his death. Caratacus didn’t say it, but he knew by the look in Togodumnus’s eyes he didn’t have to. ‘You say you do not like running away. That is good. I have a mission for a commander who knows how to stand his ground. It will mean a fight, but I intend it to be a short, bloody fight. Then you will withdraw — not run away — withdraw in good order with your army and your honour intact. Here.’ He took Togodumnus to an area of scattered sand in the centre of the hut. Inscribed in the sand was a rough map. ‘You know the river, ten miles to the east? It is deep and wide, a good defensive line.’ Togodumnus snorted at the word defensive, but Caratacus ignored him. ‘We will not defeat the Romans here. We are not yet ready. I want you to buy me time. Delay the Romans for at least three days. Hold them on the river. You will have twenty-five thousand men; your Dobunni, Bodvoc’s Regni and the Trinovantes. I will give you Adminius and the Cantiaci as a reserve. More than half our strength. Wait until the forward elements of the legions cross, and smash them. Do not get entangled. Do not look for glory. A quick victory against an inferior force, then march north to meet me.’

Togodumnus looked up at his brother. ‘Where?’

Caratacus pointed to the northern edge of the map. ‘Here on the Tamesa, where the sweet water meets the salt. That is where we will combine and destroy the enemy. The river will be choked with Roman dead and the bards will sing of the deeds of Togodumnus and his brother Caratacus for a thousand years.’

‘Why three days? Surely it will not take three days to reach the Tamesa?’

‘Because three days is what I ask and what I need. Will you give me it?’

Togodumnus grunted. ‘I will give you it, but, by the wrath of Taranis, I swear this, when we reach the Tamesa my running days are over, brother.’

Caratacus smiled, and his expression was almost as wolfish as his brother’s. ‘All our running days are over.’

Togodumnus swaggered from the hut, shouting for his lieutenants, but Caratacus sat in silence, deep in his own thoughts. ‘You sanctioned this?’ he said, as if to himself.

‘Sometimes my greater duty is to my people.’ Nuada’s disembodied voice emerged from behind a fur hanging at the rear of the round-house. ‘Do you deny me that right?’

‘I deny you the right to thwart me, priest,’ Caratacus said, his voice the texture of river gravel. ‘You knew my designs, knew the place the Roman had in them, yet you still acted against my will, and with my fool of a brother?’

For almost a minute the only sound in the hut was the harsh sawing of Nuada’s breathing. ‘I fear the great beast. I have dreamed of it each night since we learned of it, and each night its power grows greater. If killing the beast’s servant diminished that power, then I would use even Togodumnus to that end.’

Caratacus gave a humourless laugh. ‘There are greater powers to fear than the elephant, Nuada. The information that boy carried to his masters will help me destroy them. If he had died, Taranis would have had another messenger at the next sunrise.’

‘Togodumnus?’

‘You. Now get out.’

When the Druid was gone, Caratacus called for Ballan, and prepared himself for the long journey north. To an old love and a new hope.

She knew he was coming and had agreed to meet him. He was confident he could persuade her of the justice of his fight, but he feared the effect the shadows of their past might have on her judgement. She had always been wilful, he remembered. When she was angry, logic played no part in her calculations. Yet she was a queen, and if he could convince her that her people’s cause would be advanced by joining him, surely she would act in their best interests. But she was also a woman. What could he give her, and — a shiver ran through him — what would she ask?

The way was easy and they were in Catuvellauni country for the first twenty miles, but Ballan rode as if he were in the very heart of the enemy. He had argued for more warriors, but Caratacus insisted on the minimum escort. He did not want it known that while his people were fighting in the south, their king was riding north. They had compromised on a dozen men, all, including himself, dressed in rough peasant clothing.

‘You are going to get us all killed,’ Ballan complained as they rode together. ‘It was a mistake to let the elephant man go free. Now the Romans know where you are they will try to kill you.’

Caratacus smiled. Ballan: always watching, always thinking. ‘The Romans know where I was. In any case, this is my land. I will know when the first Roman sets foot upon it. Take heart. No Roman sword will reach me with you at my side, Ballan.’

‘It is not a Roman sword I fear, lord.’

They rode north, beyond the boundary stone of the Catuvellauni, and into the land where no man’s hand ruled. Ballan’s vigilance increased with each mile they travelled, for this was the haunt of thieves, bandits and incorrigibles who had been exiled from their communities, whose crimes were so terrible they would receive a welcome from no other tribe. They were desperate men, who lived on the very edge of subsistence and took from whomever they could. Even a dozen men might be prey for them. It was hilly country now, and as unwholesome as those who inhabited it: low crags with sharp scree-scarred crests and deep gullies that might have been chopped out by a giant’s axe.

‘Ambush country,’ Ballan spat, and weighed his spear in his hand. ‘Do you feel it?’

‘How long have they been watching?’

‘An hour, perhaps longer.’

‘Will they attack?’

‘I hope so.’ Ballan grinned. ‘My spear hasn’t tasted blood for too long. It will rust away if you don’t find me some Romans to kill.’

‘Your spear will never rust, Ballan. I hear it is in constant use. How many is it now?’

Ballan roared with laughter, his broad frame shaking and his guffaws echoing around the hills. ‘Six. Four boy brats and two useless girls. And you?’

‘Only the two.’

‘Medb keeps you too close to home.’

‘Will she be safe?’

Ballan knew Caratacus was not talking about his wife. ‘From them or from you?’

Caratacus gave him a hard look that told him he was on dangerous ground.

Ballan shrugged. ‘She’s not stupid enough to travel with twelve miserly warriors. She’s a real queen and she’ll have a real escort. This scum won’t touch her.’ He kicked his horse ahead, leaving Caratacus to ride onwards accompanied only by his thoughts.

Twice, they saw sign of the bandits, but something in the way the thirteen rode must have made the thieves wary, for they reached the standing stone that marked the southern boundary of Brigantia unmolested. The barren hills fell away behind them and they were in gentler, greener country, where small, fast-running streams cut across their path, identifiable from far off by the thick vegetation which fought for position and the promise of water on their banks.

‘We rest here. The meeting is not until four hours after first light and we do not have much further to go.’ Caratacus studied the pretty brook, its clear waters gurgling musically over sand and gravel and the shadowy forms of trout and minnows sheltering beneath the willows that drooped lazily over its banks. They found a small pebble beach by a shallow pool where they could water the ponies, and set up camp twenty paces upstream in the shadow of an old, gnarled oak. The men unfolded their blankets and laid them out in a circle, with Caratacus at the centre. Ballan formed three watches of four to stand guard. They made no fire that might alert another to their presence, but ate fire-hardened corn cakes with a few sips of honeyed ale to sustain them through the night. Caratacus fell asleep with the sound of running water in his ears. For some reason he dreamed of butterflies.

He rose with the sun, and, as Ballan readied his men for the journey, he walked downstream to the horses and unstrapped the pack from his mount’s back, laying its contents carefully by the riverbank. He shrugged off his soiled riding clothes and, naked, slipped into the stream. The sun was warm on his back, but the water was cold, and he gave an involuntary gasp as it reached his groin. He scrubbed his body with clean, white sand from the river bottom. So many scars. How close he had come to death in those days of his youth when any slight had been worth a fight and any risk worth taking if it meant cattle, or gold, or women. The puckered white skin where the spear point had pierced his thigh when the guards on the Iceni village had proved more watchful than he thought; the long thin line where a Durotrige sword had opened the fleshy part of his breast. And the one he never boasted about, not even to Ballan. The little dimple on his right buttock, to remind him of the Silurian arrow. Had she been worth it? Dark-haired and spitting like a wildcat, but with translucent skin that shone like polished marble. He tried to conjure up her face, but couldn’t.

He returned to the bank and dried himself down with his blanket. The pack contained a finespun woollen tunic in a rich, dark green that was the mark of the Catuvellauni royal house, and a pair of full-length trews striped in the same green and a creamy white. When he’d dressed, he fastened a belt of heavy gold links round his waist, and from a loop on his left hip hung the ceremonial sword. The scabbard was made of bronze, but it had been polished until it glowed bright as gold. Both it and the grip were decorated with what looked like rubies, but were actually iron studs covered in scarlet enamel. He had visited the smith in his foundry on the hill at Camulodunum and had wondered at the skill and care he lavished on the sword. It had a dangerous beauty, but he would never carry it in war. The decorated hilt was too uncomfortable to hold for any length of time and the slimness that made it so pretty also made it too light to be truly a killing weapon.

Finally he picked up the torc of thick, interwoven strands of gold. It had a familiar, comfortable weight to it when he placed it round his neck. Now, he thought with a satisfaction he would have condemned in another man as false pride, I look like a king and not some travelling vagabond.

They were still six miles from the meeting place, but with time to spare, so they rode at a pace that was easy on the ponies. There was a festive air that hadn’t been apparent the previous day, the escort shouting to one another and bantering. Ballan’s scouts had been on constant duty shadowing the legions since the first word of the landing. They had spent long hours in the saddle, or immobile on a hilltop, always on the watch for an enemy ambush or an unwary patrol they could ambush in their turn. To be so far from danger was a blessed relief, and it showed. Not in Ballan, though. The Iceni was as alert as ever, his eyes darting from trees to hilltop, left to right, never resting.

‘Lord!’

Caratacus urged his pony to where the scout waited on the crest of a ridge. Ahead of them, perhaps three miles distant, was the distinctive hill they had been told to look for. Long and low, it had the hunched shoulders and pointed snout of a sleeping boar. Its lower slopes were carpeted with trees, but the summit was bare. Caratacus thought he saw the gleam of sun on metal, but he might have imagined it. His eyes met Ballan’s.

‘So then,’ he said solemnly.

Ballan hefted his spear, weighing it in his right hand. He nodded. ‘So. I have long wished to meet this famous beauty. It is my experience that women and power do not mix well, though my sister Boudicca would spit me with a dagger if she heard me say it. They tell me that this one will prove me wrong, but we will see.’

He kicked his pony into motion, and Caratacus followed him down the slope, his eyes never leaving the distant hill where Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, waited.