Dreaming the Eagle (59 page)

Already the killing had started. Ban saw two Praetorians die, their heads split from crown to jawbone and the grey matter of their minds spilling out. A blade scythed the air by his head. He ducked, stabbing out with his spear, the craving for death overwhelmed by a battle instinct that came from the core of his being. The weapon scored and was tugged from his hand by the falling body. He drew his borrowed sword. Screaming, the colt rose up and killed without effort as one born to it. Ban slashed out with his blade and felt it bite and had already turned away before the man went down. He sought Corvus amongst the crowd and found him, easily. A miracle happened and the Crow went where it was told to go, coming alongside the bay mare.

Spears flew like arrows, darkening the sky. The emperor’s horse went down, threshing. Corvus threw himself from the bay mare and offered it. Gaius mounted. The bay mare, too, went down, the emperor wailing like a child as one of the Praetorian guards pulled him clear of the heaving carcass.

Ban spun the Crow, letting him strike with his hind feet. Corvus held his shield high, sheltering his emperor from the rain of spears. Galba fought to reach them, cleaving skulls with his sword as if it were a hammer, his mouth opening and closing like a fish until he was close enough for the words to be made out, and the governor was saying what everyone had thought but had not dared voice. ‘Send him back. Send the emperor back. They will kill every horse from under him.’

Corvus was bleeding from a spear-wound on the arm. He sheltered Gaius as if he were a lover. A Praetorian shouted above the tumult, ‘The bridge is blocked. He cannot pass.’

‘Then lift him up. Pass him over the top. Does he matter or not?’ Ban found he was shouting in Eceni, the language of war. Men around him took no notice. He screamed it again, in Latin. ‘Send him back, across the top of the men, or he is lost.’ The colt killed, and Galba. A Chatti blade sang as it cut for the emperor’s head. Ban took the blow on his own shield and felt the bones give in his hand. A Praetorian took the Chatti head. Others had heard the cry and acted on it. The emperor was a glitter of gold, passing over the heads of men who raised their shields to shelter him and died as they did so. Corvus had still not remounted. The bay mare was gone. Ban reached down and grabbed his arm.

‘Get up.’

He could think only in Eceni. Corvus shook him free. In the same tongue he said, ‘Your horse won’t take it.’

‘You’re dead if you stay on foot.’ He spun the colt. The horse guard were over the river and it was hard to tell them from the Chatti. He nearly killed one and stopped in time and saw the same man run through by an enemy spear with a violence that ripped him from the saddle. Ban stabbed and hacked and grabbed at the reins of the newly riderless horse. ‘Get up, man.’ In Gaulish this time. The colt paced sideways to give Corvus space. Ban saw the run and the warrior’s mount, neatly done, and heard a bellow that was his name and turned into the raised blade of a tribesman who was not a horse guard and the world became black.

He woke to pain, and the scents of sandalwood, citrus and cedar, with an undertow of festering flesh. In time, lying with his eyes shut, he came to realize that the putrid flesh was his own, and the pain in his left shoulder and hand. With more time and some searching, it was clear that he was not a ghost and Iccius had left him. He opened his eyes.

The world was white, with sunlight in one corner. A frieze of Roman gods, of women with hair piled in high cones and clean-limbed youths, defined the junctions between walls and ceiling. A brazier burned in a corner, wisping smoke. The heat wrapped him like a blanket but did not make him hot, which was a relief. He had been, if he thought about it, very hot.

He lay on a low bed under a white linen sheet. A wide-rimmed pitcher stood to the side, half full of water. Experimentally, he rolled over and reached for it with his good arm.

‘I don’t think so. That might be a little optimistic yet.’ A man spoke accented Latin to a mind clouded with Eceni. Feet scuffed the floor and a lean, bearded face gazed down from a great height. A charm in the shape of a staff bound with snakes swung before Ban’s eyes.

‘Theophilus of Athens. Doctor to Gaius Germanicus. At your service.’ The man’s phrases were neatly clipped, like his beard. His voice was throaty, as if recently cured of a cough. He smiled, showing eye teeth crooked inward. Ban stared at him, unable to speak.

‘You took a sword-cut to the shoulder. The bone is broken and the wound is not good. These men,’ he grimaced, ‘they do not keep their weapons clean.’ Ban remembered the giant who had tried to kill him - the knotted hair, the shoulder-cloak of human skin with hair woven across it, the trophy head with its foetid flesh. He imagined such a man taking time before battle to rub sand along the length of his weapon. He grinned, and stopped because it hurt him to do so.

‘Yes. Also a crack to the jaw. I would recommend silence for the immediate future. And the left hand - no, don’t move it - the left hand would be pulp had you not held within it a lead tablet which-Be calm, will you?’ The eyes held a humour that undermined the sharpness of the command. The strange, hoarse voice said, ‘The man to whom it applied died in the first moments of the battle and you had not dropped the tablet, therefore the blame for his death does not rest with you. Nevertheless, I believe it would be better if our emperor were not to find out that you rode onto the battlefield armed with a curse and therefore I have thrown the thing into the river. The gods of the Ubian may do with it what they will. You, in the meantime, will lie still when you are told to and you will stop trying to move that hand if you want to retain its use in later life. You have a crack along the small bones which will heal if you give it time. There are many of your comrades who would wish to be as lucky.’ Long fingers closed on Ban’s wrist and forced him back onto the bed. The dry voice continued above him, numbering the wounded and the dead. ‘One hundred and fifteen of the Chatti dead for the loss of eighty-seven men of the Fourteenth and Twenty-second, forty of the Praetorian Guard and thirty-three of the emperor’s new horse guard. Not a single horse guard wounded. These men fight to the death or not at all. Of the injured, twenty Praetorians, fifteen boys of the Twenty-second, barely out of swaddling …’

Ban’s mind came back to him in pieces, throwing disconnected images of battle, of Corvus, of Galba, of Gaius Germanicus whimpering as horse after horse died beneath him. He had not offered the Crow, would not have done so if asked; that fact would have been noted. He wanted to ask if he had a future and did not know how. Better, in any case, to ask if death came swiftly in that future, or with pain spread out before it. The legionaries from Rome had been all too ready to detail the deaths visited upon those who incurred the displeasure of their emperor. They did not say what happened to an Eceni ex-slave who denied the emperor a horse. As the doctor examined the wound and re-dressed it, inflicting

a thousand small, bearable pains, Ban’s imagination filled the gap and made clear the greater one that was the loss of Iccius. The euphoria of the morning had gone and left only emptiness in its place. He should have died; he had crossed the bridge expecting to die and when the Chatti had come he had thrown the chance away, responding instead to the imperatives of battle. The doctor moved from his shoulder to work on his hand and pain enfolded him, pressing down. Ban sank into it, praying to Iccius to take him.

Darkness came and went. Light became purple with yellow swirled through it. He saw horses with wings and others with human torsos. Voices passed him, shunting words along like cattle in a market. He watched them go and made sense of it after.

‘He has a fever from the flesh wound. Beneath it, the collarbone is broken in two places and if the centre part between the breaks festers it will never heal. I have given him poppy to hold him still while I treat the infection. The emperor may wish him dead, but not of his wounds.’

‘Does the emperor wish him dead?’

‘The day I know what the emperor desires before he tells me is the day I will have joined the gods.’

He did not know whose the second voice was. He thought maybe Corvus, but his ears had slurred the language until all Romans sounded the same.

Later, he dreamed of the Crow. Of men catching the colt, and, herding it into a corral, of others trying to remove a gore-splattered harness and saddle. He felt a presence near him that smelled of blood and horsesweat and tried to reach out, to say that young Sigimur, one of the Batavian lads, too young to sign up but ready to help, was the only one who could get near the beast without dying. He opened his mouth and moths flew out with wings of brown silk and bodies as broad as his thumb. He watched them circle. On the wings of one was written Sigimur’s name. It surprised him, because he could not read Batavian.

‘Wake up. Will you wake up, lad?’

A cool hand lay on his good shoulder. He tried to open his eyes. A godly hand pressed down on them, sealing them shut. He tried to summon the moths again, because they had helped him, but they would not come.

‘My lord, I’m sorry. I don’t think—’

‘Let me see him. He will know the presence of his emperor.’

He knew the voice, if nothing else. Miraculously, the god released his eyes. Those gazing down on him sucked at his soul. Fear prevented him from retreating back to the dark. He felt his bowels loosen and saw the nose above him wrinkle in distaste.

‘My lord, he is not yet fully recovered’

‘Clearly, Theophilus. You may leave us.’

The emperor was attended by his horse guard. The stench of them had been muted by frequent use of the baths but there remained a taint of lanolin and poorly tanned leather. Gaius gestured and two stepped forward with the carved, eagle-backed chair. The emperor sat at the bedside, angled so that his head was in sunlight. Ban tried to push himself up in the bed and was forestalled.

‘No. Don’t rise. We are aware of your afflictions.’ The grey eyes drank deep. ‘You are afraid. That is good, but not necessary. I have not come to inflict more pain.’

Had he been born among the Eceni, Gaius might have been a dreamer, such was his prescience. The man was smiling at him, which was worse than the stare. A clammy hand touched his forehead. He held himself rigid and did not flinch.

The strange, arid voice said, ‘The physician is competent else I would have disposed of him years ago. He nursed us through our illness but he believes he alone is capable of healing. We know that Alexander, our ancestor-in-spirit, spent as many hours in the hospital tent as he did on the field and his men recovered the better for it. It is for this reason they followed him to the ends of the earth and won him an empire. You will recover better for our presence.’ The hand withdrew. It did not seem likely that healing would result.

The grey eyes were eating his mind again. Gaius said, ‘Would you follow us to the ends of the earth, act as our interpreter in the lands of the barbarians and serve as a shining example to all that the barbarians can be civilized?’

Ban wanted to say, ‘Only under compulsion,’ but his voice betrayed him. He opened his mouth but could make no sound. He shut it again, feeling foolish. The emperor nodded as if a thought had been confirmed.

‘No. Not yet, we can see that. Be still. We do not punish men for honesty, only for lying to save their skins. A craven life is not worth living, but you have shown yourself far from craven. In our defence, you were prepared to sacrifice everything - your honour, your life, your horse’

The Crow? The image smashed his mind. Without the Crow, he would truly be dead.

The hand descended on his shoulder, pushing him back. He was not aware that he had risen.

‘Be still when you are told to. You were prepared to sacrifice your horse. You did not succeed. He is alive and is being tended by the boy who knows him. You spoke the child’s name in your delirium … Good, you can smile. We did not think it impossible.’

His vision blurred at the edges. Fog invaded his mind. The gods sealed his eyes.

The voice said, ‘It was on my orders that the physician did not give you the news of your horse. I wished to bring word myself. With your aid the Chatti were defeated and you will find us munificent in our thanks. We have had medallions struck for those who fought in our defence. Yours will be presented when you can stand to receive it - at which time you will also be confirmed in your posting as an auxiliary in the Ala Quinta Gallorum, a position which-Lie still. We understand your gratitude and will ensure that you have the opportunity to repay us fully when you are fit to do so. There is one more gift, greater than any posting.’ The acid voice sharpened. It may have been that the emperor smiled. ‘We believe that your people can be brought within the boundaries of civilization and that you are the first of many. To mark this, we would make of you a Roman citizen. You will leave behind you the name which means white and all that it represents and you will be known henceforth as Julius Valerius, the first name for your emperor, the second for your sponsor. It is an honourable name and you will bear it with pride.’

The chair on which the emperor had been seated was pushed back, the leopard feet scraping the floor. A cloak in purple fanned the air above his head. From an impossible distance, Gaius said, ‘Galba was wrong. The lands of the barbarians will fall to him who has the courage to take them. We are that man. We would have your assistance as interpreter and guide in the lands of Britannia. We would have you come willingly, however, not under compulsion.

‘We have a duty to inspect the other garrisons along the Rhine. It will take ten days. At the end of that time, you will be fit to travel. You will come with us to the far northern coast of Gaul. There you will see that which may encourage you to join in our venture.’

XXIII.

THE SEA WIND LIFTED BAN’S HAIR, SPREADING IT BEHIND HIM. THE salt spray soaked it. The trireme bucked beneath his feet, breaking the spines of the oncoming waves. Behind him, three banks of oarsmen sang as they rowed with a high pipe wailing above. The sail, which would have powered them more smoothly than the oars, if more slowly, remained furled. A loose corner snapped in the wind.