The Mistletoe and the Sword: A Story of Roman Britain Page 8

  Suetonius was unmoved by any arguments. That night the legions marched across the Thames and the last men of the last cohort fired the city-side end of the bridge as they passed over it. Soon the whole wooden bridge was burning, while dimly through its flames the legionaries could see the anxious faces of those who had remained in London.

  May Vesta, goddess of the hearth, somehow preserve the poor things and their homes, Quintus thought. But he had seen the ruins of Colchester, while the Londoners had not. Yet Suetonius was undoubtedly right; it was better to abandon one town rather than risk the certain loss of a province.

  The Romans marched some miles to a great open heath. Here they could camp in comparative safety, since there were no trees near them to harbour enemies and a loop of the wide river protected them on two sides. Suetonius’ forces had had no proper rest for days, and the general decreed a six hour respite.

  Quintus wolfed down his scanty ration of food--he had still not made up for the days of hunger--tethered Ferox to a bush, lay down on the ground, and instantly went to sleep.

  He was roused by a commotion near him, and shouts of “We’ve got him! We’ve got him--the filthy Icenian!”

  Quintus jumped up and, drawing his sword, ran toward a group of struggling figures. “What’s going on?” he cried, seeing two Roman sentries dragging a man’s figure between them.

  “It’s a Briton, sir, an Icenian by his tartan. He was sneaking around the edge of the camp. In broad daylight too, the stupid fool, he might know he’d be caught!” answered the excited sentry.

  A spy? Quintus thought, puzzled by something familiar in the big red-haired Briton’s sulky scarred face. The Briton let loose a flood of expostulation in Celtic, seemed to be explaining something, then suddenly came Latin words, “Quintus Tullius--I look for Quintus Tullius.”

  The sentries tightened their grasp on the man’s arms and cried sneeringly, “Well, you’re looking at him, you pig of a Briton. Though how’d you know his name?”

  “Quintus Tullius--” repeated the captive with a sort of angry despair.

  “I--” began Quintus, peering harder at the scarred face, when suddenly he recognized it. “Pendoc, the potter!” he cried, remembering the little hut he had taken Regan to, after the outrage on Boadicea.

  Pendoc nodded with relief and nodded again as Quintus finished by saying, “I am Quintus Tullius.” Pendoc had not known him. During the excited moment he had seen Quintus before, he had not examined the face of the helmeted young Roman.

  “Amicus!--friend!” said Pendoc, pointing to himself, and frowning over the Latin. “I have--message--Quintus Tullius.” He fished around in a deerskin bag he carried slung on his belt and held something out on his palm. Quintus stared and flushed brick red. On the great callused palm lay a lock of soft curly chestnut hair. “Regan,” said Pendoc, “wants--you.”

  The sentries gaped at Quintus’ astonished red face.

  “Where is Regan?” said Quintus, recovering and watching Pendoc closely. This might well be a trap, and this villainous-looking Briton did not inspire much confidence.

  Pendoc jerked his head backward toward the river. “Hiding in a coracle. Come,” he said in Celtic which Quintus understood.

  Quintus thought for a moment, then turned to the sentries. “I’m going to see what this is all about.”

  “Not alone, sir!” cried one of them.

  “No. That’d be foolish. You continue patrolling. I’ll take some men with me.” He roused three foot soldiers and explained briefly. With swords drawn and tense watchfulness they followed Pendoc down to a little bay in the river where reeds grew high.

  Pendoc gave a high whistling cry, like a curlew, and was answered by the same sound from the reeds, which quivered and parted.

  Regan stepped up onto the bank and looked at Quintus with anxious uncertainty. Her small face was pale and bruised. Her lovely hair was tangled. Her violet tartan was torn and dirty.

  Before Quintus could speak, she shook her head, signifying her understanding of the three other soldiers and the wary looks they gave her. “No--no,” she said. “There’s only us, Pendoc and me. I--I have come to you--for protection.” Tears filled her grey eyes and the trembling of her proud little mouth showed the effort it cost her to say this.

  “You’ve run away from Boadicea?” Quintus asked in amazement. “You want ROME’S protection?”

  She bowed her head, while a long sigh that was half a sob shook her. “Quintus, could I speak with you--alone?” He hesitated yet a minute, then said to his three men, “Stand over there--keep a sharp lookout.” As they obeyed* he turned back to Regan. “Tell me,” he said gently, “what’s happened to change you like this?”

  She found it very hard because she was frightened and ashamed. She spoke in a mixture of Latin and Celtic, but as he helped her with questions he began to understand.

  Regan’s part in his escape from the British camp had been discovered. Suspecting something was amiss, Navin had not gone back to the victory feasting after they had seen him on the ramparts that night. He had crept down behind them and watched.

  “But why didn’t he stop me from escaping?” Quintus cried.

  “Because he thinks you are a good man though a Roman. He did not want you to be tortured.”

  “But then why did he tell Boadicea what you had done? Why did he capture you?"

  “Ah,” she said with a bitter sigh, “that is different. I’m a Briton. I was betraying my people and disobeying my Queen. He felt I must be punished, though not--” Her voice sank, and terror thickened it as she went on very low, “Navin did not want me to suffer in the way Boadicea commanded I should.”

  He saw how painful all this was to her but he felt he had to know exactly what had happened. As they stood there by the river reeds, the three soldiers watched curiously. Pendoc squatted on the ground and chipped at a flint spear point, while Quintus continued his questions. He was appalled at her answers.

  When Bodicea had heard from Navin how the girl had managed Quintus’ escape, the Queen’s anger had been fiendish. All the maternal kindness she had previously shown to Regan had vanished in an instant. She had called the girl dreadful names of which “hypocrite” and “traitress” were the least. With arms upstretched to the skies she had cursed Regan, and she had decreed that since Andraste, the goddess of victory, had been defrauded of her rightful sacrifice, Regan should take Quintus’ place in the sacred grove. There would be first the torture of the hooks, and then of fire. Andraste’s victims were enclosed in wicker baskets and slowly burned alive on her altar.

  Quintus stopped the girl violently when he heard this. “That’s enough,” he cried. “It’s past, you’re safe now. Don’t think about it! But how did you get away?”

  She moistened her lips and said, “Navin. He’s not quite like the Icenians, not so fierce and cruel. Boadicea put me in his charge, and he called Pendoc, who was my father’s friend. Navin found us a coracle and let us go. He didn’t care where we went, or even if we drowned, but he gave me a chance to live. I couldn’t think where to go--we came down to the Thames seeking you, for I have no other friend now. From the river we saw the legions camping. I sent Pendoc to try and find you.”

  Quintus was silent, thinking of the girl’s extraordinary story, the days of sailing down the coast in the coracle, of the horror she had escaped, and of Navin, and his savage code of retribution, which was tempered and civilized by the years he had spent in Rome. And yet Quintus knew that in actual battle Navin would show no mercy. Then a new thought struck him. “What will happen to Navin, since Boadicea must suspect he let you go?”

  “Nothing, I’m sure,” she answered. “Navin will give some excuse that she won’t dare question. Navin is chief of the Trinovantes and commands many thousand fighters. She needs his support.”

  “Ah,” assented Quintus, “I see. Is Boadicea still planning to march on London?”

  “Her forces must be nearly there now,” said the girl with a frightened glan
ce down the Thames. ‘They were to start right after the--the sacrifice to Andraste.” She had been answering him steadily, but now she swayed and gave a little gasp.

  “Poor girl--you’re exhausted,” said Quintus remorsefully, steadying her. “Come, we’ll go up to the camp. I’ll take care of you, Regan. You need fear nothing any more.” A brave promise that he prayed he could fulfil.

  During the next days, while the legions in full retreat marched south, Quintus caught only occasional glimpses of Regan. She and Pendoc had been put amongst the London refugees and everyone’s private emotions were swamped in the physical strains and necessities of reaching the fertile lands and friendlier people along the Sussex coast. The Regni tribe under their King Cogidumnus was a small, peaceful one, close-knit with Gaul across the water, and more Romanized than any of the other tribes. The Regni welcomed the legions as best they could and provided them with grain and fruit and flocks. But obviously this situation could not last indefinitely and the army was cut off from all its usual supplies by Boadicea’s forces to the north.

  There were two small trading ships in Portsmouth, the harbour. Some of the refugees sailed for Gaul on them, and the governor sent desperate messages asking for reinforcements to be sent him. But he knew it must be weeks before help could possibly arrive.

  In the meantime Boadicea and her growing army could--and doubtless intended to--massacre them all.

  The morning after the Romans arrived on the coast, the sun rose broiling hot in a hazy coppery sky. The men were restless, anxious, reflecting the uncertainty felt by their superiors. Quintus spent some time with Ferox, currying him and removing a stone from his hoof, then, there being no orders or special duties to stop him for the moment, he yielded to a desire he had been suppressing on the march.

  He walked from the camp to some little bark-and-leaf shelters that the remaining civilians had set up in a corner of the ramparts Here he found Regan on her knees by a large mortar, pounding wheat with a stone pestle. Pendoc was near her, shaping flint into spearheads. She looked up as the young Roman approached and smiled politely though her eyes were shadowed and heavy from weariness.

  “It’s hot, isn’t it!” said Quintus inanely, suddenly embarrassed. He had thought a lot about her. His heart swelled at the thought of how she had fled to him for help. As he looked at her now, she seemed grateful, but ashamed and unhappy too--probably tom by a feeling of disloyalty to her own people. Despite her smallness and softness there was always a shell of reserve.

  “It is hot,” she agreed, continuing to pound the grain. She was flushed; damp tendrils of hair stuck to her forehead, but she looked extremely pretty. Were it not for the watchful Pendoc, Quintus would have taken the heavy pestle and crashed the stubborn grain for her himself. But a Roman standard-bearer would look ridiculous doing menial woman’s work, and Regan probably would not admire such softness--although it was hard to know what she thought. And the more he looked at her, the more he wanted to know.

  “Can’t you stop that, for a moment?” he said imploringly. “Walk down to the beach with me--there’s a breeze, and--Quintus broke off as a trumpet blast resounded through the fort.

  He jerked around and listened carefully to the call. “That’s assembly,” he explained to Regan. “The governor’s going to make some announcement, I guess. I’ll have to go.” He heaved a sigh, as the realization of the Romans’ grave predicament returned. “I’ll see you later?” he asked with unmistakable longing. She gave him only a dark, unencouraging look, and bent to her pounding.

  So she doesn’t like me! Quintus thought hotly, as he walked away. Well, what of it? She had had a right to his protection and she was safe enough now, as safe as any' of them in this menacing country. He certainly was not going to force unwelcome attentions on her, attentions, moreover, that were forbidden by Roman law. She is nothing but an ignorant little barbarian after all, remember that, Quintus told himself, and stalked on to the parade ground.

  The officers were assembling; the prefects, the tribunes, the centurions; the lowlier standard-bearers and Optios. They formed a semicircle in front of the striped tent that was topped with a gilded eagle. The governor stepped out. Behind him were the generals of the Twentieth and Fourteenth legions, and Petillius Cerealis, who no longer had a legion.

  Suetonius climbed into a chariot and began to talk earnestly. Beneath the glittering helmet, his heavy red face was drawn with fatigue and worry.

  “Roman officers,” he began to the tense listeners, “I shall speak frankly. We are in a tight and shameful situation. We’ve retreated as far as we can without quitting the island completely, which is, of course, unthinkable. Rome has never tasted total defeat nor will she now. But we are not yet nearly ready to engage the British forces.” He paused. “I have just received terrible news. The spy I left on the southern bank of the Thames has just come to me.” He stopped again and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Boadicea has totally destroyed London,” he said in a harsh dragging voice. “She massacred all those we left behind. When the spy left, the Queen was apparently bound for the town of St. Albans, where she will doubtless do likewise.”

  Suetonius shut his eyes for a second and clenched the rim of the chariot. A choked murmur came from the ring of officers.

  Suddenly Suetonius raised his head and shouted as though up into the sky, “By Mars, by all the sacred gods of Rome--WHERE is the Second Legion? Why does it not come!”

  The hot sun beat down on the silent group in the fort A bee hummed lazily and winged off over the ramparts.

  The governor continued on a lower note, “When in Wales I first heard of the revolt, I sent a trusted messenger straight down to Gloucester. I sent another before we left London. And we’ve heard nothing. It’s true the legion may be on its way. I propose to march north cautiously and try to intercept it. And yet I feel there’s something wrong. I’ve called you together because I need a volunteer. No wait--” he added sharply as several hands went up. “This will be a mission of great danger. The man must travel secretly direct from here over a hundred miles of unknown country. We’ve built no roads through that land and the Belgic tribes there have never been tamed. It will mean traversing the sacred places of the Druids. True, I’ve exterminated most of that filthy priesthood on the island of Anglesey, but not all, I fear. I think some still lurk near the monstrous ring of stones to the west. This mission is one of almost certain death--I know a Roman will not cringe from this, but I need other qualifications as well as sheer courage, or it will be the waste of a man.... Who volunteers...?”

  Hands were raised again, more slowly, but Quintus broke ranks and stepped forward eagerly. “I do, sir. Quintus Tullius Pertinax, standard-bearer, third cohort of--of the Ninth!”

  The governor’s heavy-lidded eyes roamed over the faces of the other volunteers, then returned to Quintus. Suetonius leaned over and whispered something to General Petillius, who nodded and sent a quiet smile of recognition to Quintus.

  “And why,” said the governor, “are you so eager to undertake this mission?”

  Quintus could not say that he was hurt by Regan and eager for any action, nor explain at this inappropriate moment about his quest--his heart had jumped when he realized that this mission might take him through the very place he had longed all his life to reach. But there were other reasons and he told them.

  “I’ve seen something of the Britons, sir, and have plenty of personal reasons for hating them--besides wishing to avenge the Ninth. I speak and understand some Celtic and I think I could get through to Gloucester--”

  He saw from the general’s face that he was not convinced. The pondering gaze turned again toward an older man, a tribune, whose hand was raised.

  Suddenly a girl’s clear voice rang out. “O Roman Governor, may I speak?”

  The astonished officers made way, as Regan walked through with perfect composure and stood before the governor’s chariot.

  “What’s this?” growled Suetonius, frowning at Regan. “O
ne of the refugees?”

  Again General Petillius explained in a quick aside, for Quintus had earlier reported Regan and Pendoc’s arrival to his general.

  “Oh,” said Suetonius with heightened interest, “you’re the girl who fled from Boadicea? Well, what is it, maiden?”

  “I have understood most of what you said, O Governor,” said Regan carefully. “But not Quintus Tullius, nor anyone, will ever get to Gloucester in the way you ordered.”

  “Why not?” said the governor sharply. “How do you know?”

  “Because no Roman could. There are trackless forests--there are strange things that happen--” she broke off suddenly. “It was once my country--I was born in the sacred plain to the west--so I know.”

  So that’s where she came from! Quintus thought, amazed, and was more astonished as her quiet little voice went on.

  “But we will help. Pendoc and I. Quintus shall dress as a native. He is dark so we will say he comes from the land of the Silures across the mountains in Wales. We will speak for him. And we will”--she hesitated--“we will set him on his way. I will not harm my own people, but I will do this much for Rome.”

  “Well, I’ll be--” murmured the governor, looking down at the small resolute figure with a certain admiration. Regan’s clear grey eyes looked back at him steadily.

  “If she weren’t a Briton, I might--It almost seems like a sensible plan. ...”