Hero of Rome

VIII

It was the eyes, rather than the words, the chieftain thought. They made a man feel important, even a man who only held sway over a few farmsteads worked by his clan, a minor western sub-tribe of the Catuvellauni federation, and had little influence beyond his farthest field. The priest’s eyes were the colour of the old amber the chieftain’s wife coveted in the market down at Ratae, and hooded like a hawk’s. Not that the chief visited the place often. He preferred the smell of cowshit to the perfume of the Roman-lovers who lived there in their palaces. For the first time in a decade his fingers itched for a sword. He had once been a warrior. The amber eyes made him feel like a warrior again.

Gwlym studied the group around the fire. Most of them were too old or too young to be truly useful in a fight. But not too old or too young to hate or too old or too young to die. The old remembered the days before the Romans came, when any man with a shield and a spear was his own master. The young knew nothing beyond the boundaries of the little settlement but their minds were open to his subtle arguments and persuasion. He talked of life before the Romans: before the roads and the watchtowers and the cavalry patrols, and before the taxes which guaranteed that no matter how good the harvest their bellies would still be empty before winter’s end. He talked of the countless thousands marched off in chains to be worked to death in Roman mines, of the lands that had been stolen from them, and, to a growl of approval, of mighty Caratacus betrayed and brought low before being degraded for an emperor’s pleasure. By the end, their eyes blazed as bright as the flames of the council fire, and the young men — those few who could be forged into warriors fit to face a legion — clamoured for the weapons they needed to take their revenge.

They wanted to act now, but the time was not yet right. This was the art they had taught him on Mona. How to tend the fire and keep the flame burning until the moment it was needed. He looked at the faces round the fire again, seeking the man who would continue the work when he moved on. Not the chief; too many years at the plough and too ready to sacrifice himself and his people. No, he needed someone more subtle, more obedient. The quiet, dark-haired peasant three rows back. Young, but not too young. Watchful, intelligent eyes; determined, but not over-eager. Yes. He would talk to him later, alone.

‘Wait,’ he ordered. ‘Have patience. Organize. There will be a sign.’

And always they asked: what will be the sign?

And always he told them: the wrath of Andraste.

His mission had almost ended before it had begun, in the savage mountains of the Deceangli, for he could not risk contact with the people there lest word of his coming reach the Romans. Close to starvation, he had turned south and crossed into the country of the Cornovii just north of the Roman fortress at Viroconium, beyond the bend of the great river. There, he had forced himself to wait until he was beyond range of the daily cavalry patrols before begging food and shelter at a rough farmstead. Under the thatched roof, with the cattle lowing gently in the background, he had listened while the farmer, a man more used to conversing with his beasts, recounted news and rumour from a dozen miles around. Only when the tone and the manner had told him what he needed to know did he begin to talk.

The first farmer had passed him to another, and another, and from there he had reached the local lord, who told him of other lords of similar persuasion, with similar complaints and similar ambitions. He would arrive at a farm or a village after nightfall, gather those he could trust, and talk until it was time to sleep. The following day he would spend at the plough or the whetstone or gathering in the harvest. He used his skills as a healer to foster trust and to bind them to him, even though it placed his life in danger. Tales of a medicine man would spread and multiply where those of an itinerant farm labourer working for bread and beer would soon be forgotten. He was always at risk, but he was never betrayed.

By now he realized others followed the same path. Quite often he would arrive at a household to discover he had been preceded by another of his sect. No one said so aloud, but he could see it in the puzzled eyes, and in the answers they gave to his questions. All over southern Britain men like him were spreading a message: fanning the embers of an almost forgotten fire.