Claudius

XVI

The rider who met Caratacus at the base of the hill carried a green branch to show his peaceful intentions, but he was dressed for war, in a shirt of close-meshed mail that had been mended many times, and a polished iron helmet with cheek pieces in a style similar to that the Roman auxiliary infantry wore. He was in early middle age, and might have been handsome, but a sword or a dagger had removed the end of his nose and the puckered red flesh gave him an unwholesome look. The wound had also affected his speech, which had a curiously nasal quality that would have been comic but for the warrior’s evident dignity.

‘My lady awaits you at the top of the hill. Your escort should remain here.’ Ballan growled at this, but Caratacus nodded his assent. ‘You will meet her by the ring of stones.’

It was obvious from the way he presented the information that he was uncomfortable with the clandestine nature of the meeting, but, Caratacus thought, he wasn’t particularly comfortable with it himself. Yet there had been no other way. If her husband had known they planned to meet he would have taken steps to prevent it.

‘Is your lady alone?’

The man frowned. ‘No. That would not be seemly. Her sister accompanies her.’

Caratacus kept his face expressionless, but inwardly he cursed. Brigitha. Her presence was unlikely to help his cause.

He thanked the warrior and rode slowly towards the wooded hill. Cartimandua’s escort had set up camp near the edge of the trees and they looked on curiously as he passed. Ballan had been right. There were fifty of them, heavily armed and well horsed. The pony picked its way up a narrow path which snaked through the wood. He was glad he hadn’t worn his cloak. It was stifling and airless among the trees, and he could already feel the first prickles of sweat in his hairline. Small brown birds crept along the branches like acrobatic mice, and at one point he disturbed a deer, which bounded off through the ferns and leaf-clutter of the forest floor. It was a relief when he emerged from the trees and felt the summer breeze cool on his face. The slope was less steep here and off to his left he could just see the top of the standing stones the warrior had described. He felt a flutter of excitement in his belly and his heart beat faster. Fool, he told himself. She will have forgotten you long since, and you would do well to forget her. How long had it been? Certainly more than fifteen years. He knew he had aged; Medb made fun of the grey hairs in his moustache. At least she wouldn’t see that. It had only just started to grow again since his foolish spying mission to the Roman column. Would she look at him and see the lined face of an old man? She would have changed too. He might not even recognize her. Maybe she was fat? It happened to many women after childbirth and she was surely a mother more than once. No, not fat. Not Cartimandua.

He approached the rise that led to the summit and now he could see the standing stones clearly: eight of them in a ring, with another two, or possibly three, lying in the grass. A pair of horses was tethered near the closest and he could see the figures of two women among the stones, one tall, with raven hair, the other shorter and lighter. They turned at the sound of the pony.

The breath caught in his throat.

She had always been beautiful, in a way that made every man’s eyes turn to look at her when she passed. But it had been a youthful, girlish beauty and she had not fully understood the power it gave her. The woman who stared at him intently as he dismounted was probably the most beautiful he had ever seen.

‘My lady.’ He bowed at the waist.

‘Lord Caratacus.’ She acknowledged him with a slow nod of the head.

‘My lady Brigitha.’ He repeated the bow, knowing that Brigitha would expect nothing less than her sister.

Brigitha only stared at him. No welcome there.

What was it that made one woman beautiful and one plain? They were sisters, there was no denying it: the resemblance was there for all to see. Nose, eyes, mouth, all the same or similar. Yet in Cartimandua these things combined to create a whole that would take a man’s breath away, while in Brigitha, nothing. It was as if Brigitha’s flesh was cold and featureless, like a snowfield in dead of winter, while life and expression flowed from each pore of Cartimandua’s skin the way heat comes from the sun, and managed to entrance, to mesmerize — and to seduce. Close up, her hair was so black it almost had a sheen of blue. It hung down her back to her hips like a waterfall, and he could tell she had spent as much time on her appearance as he had on his. The grey hairs were there, a few of them, but that was the only real evidence of the years that had passed. The slim figure was fuller and none the worse for that; the eyes were clear, the same emerald green he remembered. She wore a full-length dress of material that shimmered as she moved beneath it. The colour matched her eyes almost perfectly.

‘Have you come here to talk, or just to look? Our journey was long and wearying. I hope it was not wasted.’ Brigitha’s voice was sharp and rough-edged. It reminded him of one of the flints the Old People had used for their arrowheads.

‘I am sure my lord Caratacus suffered as much, even though he is a man, and strong, while we are mere women.’ Cartimandua’s voice was as sweet and soft as her sister’s was bitter and hard. It sent a shiver of memory through him. ‘He only seeks to confirm that we are who we are, and not some impostors come here to capture him.’

Caratacus smiled. ‘If I was to be captured, lady, I could not have more agreeable jailers.’

‘Come, we will walk a little. Brigitha is with me to ensure propriety is observed, but she can do so as well from here as by our side. Is that not so, sister? If you see the slightest sign of improper behaviour on the part of my lord, you have my permission to swoop like a hawk and take his eyes out with your talons.’

The tone was pleasant enough, but Brigitha’s stony face made it plain she knew an order when she heard one.

Cartimandua walked towards the northern edge of the hilltop and Caratacus followed a few paces behind. When she stopped they could see ridge after ridge of high country stretching into the distance; a wind-whipped sea of green and brown and grey, frozen in time.

‘It is fine country,’ Caratacus said quietly.

‘Beautiful, yes, but not easy country to fill bellies from. Some of my people will starve this winter unless Esus sends us a good harvest. My Druids have prayed and made sacrifices, but these are troubled times, and the gods may have business elsewhere. What do you want of me?’

The last sentence was sharp and businesslike, and most certainly not from the Cartimandua he remembered. Her father had offered her as his wife, and she had visited Camulodunum for a season. They had fallen in love, but an alliance with the Brigantes was not foremost in Cunobelin’s mind. When the Dobunni king suggested Medb, Caratacus’s father had seen the opportunity to secure his western border for a generation. Cartimandua was sent home. Caratacus had almost followed her, but Nuada read his thoughts and had him chained in a hut until the black rage that filled his mind faded. He had wanted to kill his father.

‘The Romans will be here by the next harvest, or the one after that, and you won’t have to worry about filling your people’s bellies, because they will all be dead.’

‘Stop them, then, with your mighty Catuvellauni warriors. They believed they were invincible, if I remember correctly?’

‘I will stop them, but my warriors are not invincible, not against Romans. There are not enough of them, even with the Trinovantes, the Regni and the Atrebates by their side. How many warriors can the Brigantes put in the field?’

She did not have to think before she replied. ‘If I command it, perhaps fifteen thousand men, five hundred horse, two hundred chariots. It would take time. The chiefs would have to be appeased, their concerns soothed. But why should I command it? No one but the gods knows what will happen between this harvest and the next, or the next. Perhaps you overestimate the power of the Romans? In any case, what does Cartimandua of the Brigantes owe Caratacus of the Catuvellauni?’

The answer was nothing. She had given herself to him freely and pledged to be his wife, but when his father had spoken he had bowed to the old man’s will and allowed her to ride out of his life. He still remembered the resentful, tear-stained face that would not look in his direction when the Brigante retinue left Camulodunum. If things had been different, if he had been the man he was now, he knew he would not have let her go, even if it meant killing Cunobelin. But then he had been young. He had shouted and lashed out, torn at the chains Nuada had bound him with, but in the end he had done nothing to get her back. In six months he had forgotten her, married Medb and made another life. Happy enough in its way, but not the life he would have had with this woman.

‘With you by my side and with your warriors in my battle line we can defeat the Romans, destroy their army and send the survivors back where they came from, carrying such tales of horror as to make us safe from them for ever.’

She considered it, turned the thought over in her mind, calculating the risks and the advantages. She walked away from him again, taking the path along the contour of the summit edge. When she had gone a few yards, she looked over her shoulder at him in a way that sent a thrill through his body and set a fire in his stomach. The last time he had seen that look had been in his hut, in the week before disaster struck. Her eyes had glittered with sensuality and her bare flesh glowed like bronze in the light of the oil lamp as she offered herself to him. He shivered and fought down the wave of desire that threatened to overwhelm him.

‘There is another way,’ she said.

‘The only other way is to make common cause with the Romans. Would you have us give up our land to the invader?’

‘Not give it up. Rule it. Together we can rule Britain from north to south and east to west. Side by side we would be strong enough to force the Romans to come to terms. Offer them an alliance with a Britain that is strong and united, but no threat to their Empire.’

He was almost tempted, but knew that the Romans would never accept her bargain. They did not make bargains, they dominated. And they could only dominate the weak, not the strong. But he dared not dismiss her suggestion immediately. Better to discover exactly what was in her mind.

‘How could we rule together? You have a husband. I have a wife.’

‘If you put away Medb, I will deal with Venutius.’ The cold way she said it, unthinking and as pitiless as a farmer slaughtering a pig, made him suddenly glad that what was, was. It made perfect sense, she was right: together they would combine the strength and power to rule Britain as a single kingdom. It was what he had dreamed of. But now the thought sickened him.

‘I am sorry, lady.’ He bowed so she could not see the message in his eyes. ‘I have made my vows to my wife, and Caratacus of the Catuvellauni does not break a vow. It seems I must fight alone.’

‘It seems so.’ Her voice betrayed no emotion. Perhaps she had known it would end this way. But then why attend the meeting in the first place? ‘I too am sorry,’ she continued. ‘I had hoped Caratacus of the Catuvellauni was above petty things, and shared my vision for a greater Britain that could take its place in counsel with the Romans. I see I was wrong, but even so there is no enmity between us. I hated you for long enough, Caratacus. I do not hate you now. When you fight, you will lose. The Romans are too strong for any army you can field. Aulus Plautius has forty thousand veterans who have never been defeated, even by the hordes of Germania. But when you have lost, know this. There will always be sanctuary for you and your family with Cartimandua of the Brigantes.’ She smiled. ‘You have my vow on it.’

They walked together back towards the stones, where Brigitha waited.

‘Will you stay and dine with us, lord?’ Cartimandua asked.

‘No, lady, I must return to my people. I have a war to fight.’

When he reached the bottom of the hill, he shouted to Ballan and the scouts to get ready to move out immediately. They had erected a cowhide tent for him, and before they dismantled it he changed from the fine clothing he had worn for the meeting into the sweat-stained shirt and trews he had ridden north in. Somehow they felt cleaner.

Within twenty minutes, they formed up and moved out. He didn’t look back, so he didn’t see the slim figure who waved her farewell; he was too busy puzzling over the matter of how she knew so much about Plautius’s strength.

‘So we won’t be fighting beside the Brigantes?’ Ballan interrupted his thoughts.

Caratacus didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

‘Good. I never trusted the bastards anyway.’

The Catuvellauni war leader smiled. How fortunate he was to have this man by his side. ‘And did you have the opportunity to see the wondrous Cartimandua and form an opinion of her?’

Ballan spat. ‘Beautiful, but dangerous,’ he said firmly. ‘Almost as dangerous as my sister.’

They grinned at each other, unaware of the disaster overtaking the British cause a day’s ride to the south.