The dark island, p.22
The Dark Island, page 22
But Morag answered, “I cannot see his face. I only know his smell and what his voice says behind the words he uses. Besides, Catuval is dead long since, and with these cattle loyalty dies when the master is not there to enforce it.”
Beddyr punched him again, but harder now. “We will not kill him, yet,” he said. “We must wait till we have rested and know the way we shall take towards Rome. That is good sense, brother. Yours is madness.”
Morag was still grumbling inarticulately when Gracchus returned and told them to follow him again.
“I have arranged for you to lie up in the farm,” he said. “I know the old woman who runs it. Her husband fell out of a tree last year and died straightway. I look after her and her young daughter now, when I can; see that soldiers don’t get billeted on them, and such like. They repay me as well as they can. They always accept my friends as their own.”
In the village the three moved under the walls of the huts, not daring to risk the open spaces. But no one was stirring at that time, except the Roman party, whose feet could be heard now from the road above the village as they marched towards the cliff.
The farm house was solidly built, some rooms of stone, others of wood; very different from the farmhouses in Britain. The windows were shuttered and the doors stout and well-bolted. Beddyr noticed these things as he was led into the low hall. It was a place where a man could feel fairly safe for a time at least.
In the hall, seated by the fire, the old lady was waiting for them; she did not rise when they entered, but touched her forehead with the back of her hand, in respect, for Gracchus had told her she was to entertain princes of the Belgic blood. Her daughter, a girl of sixteen or so, knelt beside the fire, stirring the broth-pot, Her black hair was heavily braided and her hands were fine, but her face wore the sullen look due to a heaviness of jaw that so often characterised the Parish. Beddyr had seen it among the Brigantes, and now it looked familiar, as if they were back in Evrauc again. But then the girl looked up and smiled, and Beddyr saw that she was a friendly thing who perhaps needed someone to talk to. It was a lonely spot for a girl of quality, he thought. And the old lady looked the domineering type.
Morag had strayed into the room and was sniffing. “I smell broth,” he said. “Bring me a bowl of broth, you lady, whoever you are.”
Gracchus turned and went to the door. “You will be safe here,” he said, “and when the coast is clear — perhaps tomorrow — I will set you on your way again. Rest here till I come.” Then he went out, and Beddyr noticed that the girl followed him with her eyes as though she loved him.
After they had eaten they were taken out into one of the Barns, where they lay among the straw through most of the day, on the off-chance that a squad of legionaries might decide to call at the farm. But when darkness came the old lady came into the Barn and told them politely that they might come back into the house and rest the night there.
In the flickering light of the fires they lay down on pallets of hay, draped over with old robes and the skins of deer. After a while a woman in a nearby hut began to moan, in sleep or childbirth, they did not know which. A man’s rough voice swore at her, telling her to be still, and so she was silent until the pains or the nightmare came back. Morag could not sleep but lay listening to her, his dull eyes wide open in the firelight. Then from the other side came the distant howling of a wolf. Morag saw his brother’s dark body rise, and he knew that Beddyr was sitting upon his pallet listening too.
After a while Beddyr became aware that the girl, at the other side of the room, was watching him, her eyes shining brightly as the last flames caught them. In a far comer the old woman lay huddled fast asleep and snoring from time to time. Morag saw his brother dimly stretch out his hand and beckon towards her, and, shading his eyes, he looked through the gloom and saw a quick movement from the other side of the hut. Then he lay back in his bed and pulled the coverings over him, biting his wrists as he lay in the darkness.
Beddyr watched the girl come towards him and saw that she had thrown off her shift. She stood still for a moment by the side of his bed, rising above him, her shadow thrown past him and onto the wall. Then she moved in beside him, gently, almost apologetically, a peasant beside a lord.
For the space that a man would need to count fifty he lay still, his heart racing with the unfamiliarity of a warm body beside him; it seemed that he had been a warrior so long, so long accustomed to the harsh embrace of an iron breast-plate and the chafing of a shield-strap that his senses had unlearned their sensitivity to touch. Then her hands moved over his shoulders and down his arms, across his breast and down his stomach; stroking, feeling the hard muscles tightening and then relaxing, knowing the harsh wolfish power that lay in them, waiting for the last touch to set it free. And when that touch came, suddenly and almost wickedly, Beddyr swung towards her and clutched her so fiercely that she would have screamed but for the old woman snoring in the comer.
Then at last they fell away from each other and for a space lay still. When they were aware once more of other things outside themselves, they heard the woman moaning and the wolf’s cry corning from the spinney just outside the farm stockade. The girl shuddered and reached out her arm again towards Beddyr as though for comfort. And so again his body possessed her, brutal, as though, warrior-like, he would destroy her.
And at last the girl bit her lips until the blood ran slowly down her chin, and she wondered that a man could so approach a god and yet walk on the simple soil of Gaul! And in the end, when the night began to seem a long tunnel through which a haycart tried to pass, but so overladen that many men had to push it from behind and the bales scraped so strongly against the walls that the stones began to fall and the tunnel to crumble in, then Beddyr pushed her away roughly and said, “Go to my brother. He is weeping and needs comfort.” And when she listened she heard Morag’s sobs and then knew that Beddyr was sleeping again, his head flung back, his arms dangling at the sides of the pallet.
And she lay beside Morag, trying to be still, trying to let the rest of the night pass quietly by. Then Morag turned to her and put his arms about her and rubbed his rough face against her breasts. And she waited; but there was nothing. Only his low voice seeming to call for a mother and the hairy face nuzzling her breast. And at last he was still and the crying stopped and she crept quietly from his bed and went back across the room.
But even while she was putting on her shift again, feet sounded on the earthen pathway to the house. She sat up in alarm, for she knew the sound of Roman marching-boots, and she could hear that these men were armed as javelin clanked against shield-boss in the dark. So she rose quickly and ran across to Beddyr, shaking him and whispering that he was to be silent. He sat up, puzzled, then he heard the feet and shook Morag into life again. The girl pointed to a wall-hanging and told them to go through and hide in the straw. Then, as she was shaking the old woman, they heard the spear-butts hammering on the door and they lifted the hangings as she had said.
Behind the rough matting they found a stout door, which opened easily. They shut it quietly behind them and found that they were once more in the barn they now knew so well. Morag went to his old place and covered himself completely. Beddyr saw that his brother was hidden, then he squeezed himself behind a wagon into a heap of sacking and lay still. From the other room they heard the women’s voices, as though suddenly wakened from sleep, querulously arguing, demanding to know why good citizens of Rome should be treated in this fashion. And they heard the reply of the centurion in charge, and they knew that this was a man who would not be baulked by so much as an inch. For a while the argument went on, and Beddyr remembered enough Roman to know that they were all discussing the two pallets by the fire that they had so recently left. The girl was saying that they had been made up to accommodate a cousin and his wife who were supposed to be visiting them from the Ardennes. The centurion asked where they were, and the girl answered that they had not arrived. Perhaps their horse had gone lame. A soldier answered that it could not be as lame as her story, for the bedding was still warm!
Beddyr felt the hackles rising on his neck as the man said these words. But then he heard the girl laugh and say that she had had the coverings on her own bed, since it was a chilly night, until she had heard their knock, then, thinking it was the cousin and his wife, and not wishing to appear inhospitable, she had flung them back onto the other bed as she went to open the door.
The centurion laughed at this, but Beddyr shivered at the laugh, for it was that of a man who knew the truth in his heart but could not prove it for the moment.
Then he heard the house door bang again and feet marching round the side of the Barn to the door that led onto the stackyard. Then he felt a cold blast of air and could see the light of torches flickering on the beams above his head. For a time no one spoke, then he heard the voice of Gracchus. “They must be here. This is where they hid through the day. I know that. I looked in through the window and saw them before the sun went down, both of them, the blind one and the big one.”
From outside the centurion said, “Your story had better be a truthful one, Gracchus, I don’t like bringing men out at this time of night on a fool’s errand. Prod the straw, my lads, and see if this dog is lying! No, start from one end and work to the other. That’s it!”
Beddyr heard the men grunting with effort as they moved slowly down the Barn, and he waited trembling for Morag’s scream. But nothing seemed to happen. And still the feet moved down the Barn. Then the centurion said, “It looks as though you will know the Roman lashes before breakfast, my friend. Three hundred should give you an appetite, eh?” And he heard Gracchus say, “You Roman bastard, do you think I would lie about this? They killed my lord, Catuval. They put him into their battle-line and let him die! But for them he would have been living now. He would be my chief still — not a snivelling Italian like you, who can neither read nor write, nor even hold a sword correctly!”
Beddyr heard the centurion roar, and then the prodding into the straw seemed to stop and there was some scuffling. “Hold him!” cried a sudden voice. “He’s armed!” Then there was a scream, and the centurion said, “Cut him down; the man’s mad! Here, let me get to him. Stand back, I have my sword! I’ll show him whether I can hold it correctly — and we can let the reading and writing wait!” There was nervous laughter, and the voice of Gracchus starting to cry Catuval’s battle-charm. Then his voice went very low and he began to gurgle in his throat. For a moment no one spoke in the Barn. And at last the centurion said breathlessly, “Roll him over there. Yes, take his helmet and arms; they will come in. We can leave the women to dispose of the body. Less expense for Rome!” There was laughter, and the centurion said in a softer voice, “Well, Gracchus, can I hold a sword, think you?” But this time no one laughed.
And Beddyr sat stark, listening to the silence swirling through the low place, beating in waves on his eardrums till it sounded like the throbbing of his own heart or the sea.
Then he heard the centurion say, “All right, lads. There’s nobody here. Gather the others from the house and make your way back to camp. There will be no roll-call for you in the morning.”
Beddyr heard the sound of marching footsteps outside, and then there was silence in the room beyond the wooden wall. He sat still, on and on, waiting, for he sensed that there was still someone in the Barn. At last he could bear it no longer and slowly moved his head so that he could look below the wagon. The centurion was still standing over the body of Gracchus, muttering now. “You bloody fool! Now I shall have to make out a report — and you were right, I can’t read or write! I could have stood the bit about the sword if you had not said that! Oh, you Celts, will you never learn when to keep your stupid mouths shut!”,
There was something in the man’s tone that appealed to Beddyr. This centurion was a warrior of his own sort, he thought. Then the man seemed to look up suddenly, straight into his eyes, and Beddyr sank back into the shadow again.
Then the centurion said, “That was a rat, if I ever heard one,” and the man’s feet shuffled through the straw towards him. Beddyr sat, turned to stone, like a rabbit as the stoat closes in on him. He saw a long spear-point stab beneath the wagon, a foot to his right side, and heard the Roman curse.
Then a pink mist seemed to come over his eyes and a strange smell came into his nostrils and ran down the back of his throat. And he felt his teeth meeting through the sacking and his nails breaking against the wooden floor. And the white-hot point slid easily into his groin and through the lower part of his stomach. But he had fainted away before he could scream through the thick fabric that filled his mouth.
Then the soldier went through the door with his torch and the cold air swept through the Barn again. And Morag crept slowly from his hiding-place across the floor in the darkness, calling his name again and again, reproaching him for lying still, telling him that the Romans had gone. That they were safe now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Through the autumn and the winter Gwyndoc unlearned the past and became, as well as he was able, a beast of burden, dragging in logs from the fuel-yard, heaping up the great kitchen fires, scooping the mutton grease from the iron pots and emptying the privies with hands that had once worn gold and glistening stones.
Although his hearing returned to some extent, he was no longer sure that he understood what he heard, and held his head to the side if he was spoken to, which at first was seldom; a broken lord has few friends, and Gwyndoc was to find that in Brigantia the Belgae had none. Until the other slaves and serving-women gradually accepted him, he was something of a figure of fun. His dialect was unfamiliar and his speech thick and blurred, to make it worse. Often the same women who crept to his side beside the great fires at night taunted him by daylight that his teeth were broken and his right leg lame. He had the Roman spearbutt to thank for the one; for the other, the witless kindness that had left him lying too long at the edge of the roaring furnace.
As Gwyndoc moved away from the lashes to fill or empty kitchen-bowls, it was his leg that perhaps troubled him most. He remembered the days not so far away when he would have been faster in the field than any of them; when he could have leapt fully armed into the saddle from the ground; when he could have danced the midsummer festival through without feeling the slightest fatigue. Then he would rub his withering limb and weep, and the old hag who supervised the kitchen-women would nudge the one next to her and pointing at him cackle that the chieftain was thinking about Caradoc again! She would tell him not to worry, that Caratacus was probably grinning down from a pike along the Appian Way now, and not thinking about his Belgae at all! Either that or he was dining in some rich Roman hall, taking his pick of the scented women and laughing that he had ever ridden with those woad-painted savages, Gwyndoc and Beddyr! Then, after the women had laughed at him and the men had grinned, Gwyndoc would perhaps spit at her, or name her as a dried-up cow with poisoned teats, and this would be enough for her to call in one of Jagoth s henchmen with a whip.
Later, when he was lying among the kitchen offal, stilt with wounds, he would weep again, and would dream of the things he would do to the old woman when he was free once again.
But at last even this dream left him. As the snow came and the floor was daily thick with slush and the air streaming with drying skins, he began to forget freedom and to believe that this was now his life, that never again would he see the world beyond the tall pine stockade. And soon he began to forget what that world was like altogether.
Only at night, when the pain from his leg kept him awake in spite of his exhaustion, could he picture Ygeme and the children clearly. Then his tears were bitter and sore, for he felt that they had deserted him; and he began to yearn for a sight of Bryn and Caradoc, just a glimpse of them, no more, if the gods would allow it, from a distance, if need be, or through a window - sometimes when they were playing or talking or just sitting still by the fire looking up at their mother. But when he thought these things his tears would come more painfully than before, and he would roll on his wet pallet, cursing and muttering, until the slave-master on duty would kick him in the mouth to quieten him.
At last Gwyndoc began to answer to his new name. The Cripple, and the day that he first did that was the end of his old pride; thereafter he was one with the other lice-ridden, inarticulate creatures who struggled and screamed for the half-eaten garbage that was sent back from the feast-tables of Cartismandua.
Only once while he was a kitchen-slave did he see the queen who had betrayed Caradoc. It was the middle of the long winter and without warning she decided to inspect the kitchens. Jagoth himself came down among the spits and fires, ordering that this and that should be done before the great one appeared. Gwyndoc shrank from him in fear, as all the others did, and stumbled here and there to carry out his orders. In one dank comer of the place a slave-woman lay groaning in labour, bearing the child of a palace guard who had often visited her through the cold nights. She made the mistake of moaning while Jagoth was making his final rounds, and it was given to Gwyndoc to drag her outside into the knee-deep mud of the stackyard so that Cartismandua might not be disturbed by the noise. But before the queen came the woman took a chill and died, howling, before the day was out.
As the slaves waited, dressed for the occasion in coarse linen tabards, Gwyndoc heard the woman’s thin high voice, mingled with the lowing of cattle, and for a moment the mist cleared in his head and he had a sudden blinding picture of Ygeme just before Bryn came, and for the space of five breaths his arms and hands and shoulders ached to slash and crush and crumble all about him, slaves and their masters and even the great one, Cartismandua. When his head was whirling and the red mist was crossing his eyes again, a slave-woman standing by him seemed to sense what was going on in his heart and punched him sharply in the side. “Keep still,” she whispered hoarsely. “If you move when she comes they will think you are going to attack her and they will hold you while Jagoth cuts the sinews of your wrists and ankles! Keep still, lover!”
