The Mistletoe and the Sword: A Story of Roman Britain Read online

  “Yes, Suetonius, I think so,” said General Petillius gravely. “Our need is too desperate for quibbling. Quintus Tullius, come here.” When Quintus had obeyed, Petillius said in a low voice, “Do you trust this girl completely?” Quintus answered from deepest instinct. “Yes, sir. There’s much she doesn’t say, but what she does say is true.”

  Petillius nodded. “These Britons keep the most extraordinarily exact moral balance sheets. They pay back precisely each good or evil done them. You rescued the girl in the Icenian city, so she saves you from Boadicea. You shelter her from Boadicea, so she will guide you to Gloucester. They’re all like that--and if”--his face darkened--“that thrice-cursed fool of a procurator had not committed those outrages on the Icenians, we wouldn’t be in this fix now.”

  “No, sir,” agreed Quintus, and he glanced toward Regan who was conversing with the governor.

  Petillius saw the look and said half sharply, half smiling, “Here now--you haven’t got any unduly tender feelings toward that little British savage, have you?”

  “If I had, sir, you may be sure they’d not be returned. She operates only, as you say, from a strict sense of justice.”

  “Quintus,” said his general, laying a stem hand on his arm, “I needn’t tell you that the success of your mission is of supreme importance, that the whole fate of Rome here may depend on it--that no sentimentality must be allowed to intrude for a second....”

  “No, sir,” said Quintus, solemnly tightening his square young jaw. “You needn’t tell me.”

  An hour later, a party of three nondescript Britons trotted out of the fort on shaggy little native ponies--Pendoc first, his gangling feet almost touching the ground beneath his shaggy plaid trousers, his coarse sandy-red hair blowing around his shoulders in the sea breeze that had cut the heat; then Regan in her violet tartan tunic, her head and lovely hair all hidden by a rough linen scarf; and Quintus last. If the situation had not been so grave, Quintus would have been .laughing wryly at himself, and there had been a momentary twinkle in his general’s eye as he gave Quintus a folded, sealed parchment, the official message from the governor to General Valerianus of the Second Legion, and then rehearsed last instructions.

  Regan had done a thorough job of metamorphosing Quintus from a Roman officer, by commandeering a few garments from the Regni village outside the fort. Quintus now wore long dirty wool trousers, fastened at waist and ankle by thongs, and a plaid cloth tunic so faded and soiled that the pattern was unidentifiable. A point Regan insisted on. Most Britons could recognize many tartans as belonging to this or that tribe, and Quintus, posing as a Silure from far distant Wales, must provoke no doubts. She finished his costume with an ancient cloak of mangy otter skins, held at the neck by a spiral iron brooch. His weapon was a clumsy spear tipped with one of Pendoc’s flint heads. Regan spent several concentrated moments on the problem of his short hair and clean-shaven face, which were so unmistakably Roman, and solved it by means of a horned British helmet to which she stuck wisps of black horsehair. “That is all right,” she said critically, surveying her achievement. “The Silures have strange customs which no one quite knows. But your face! All Britons have beards.” She frowned a moment, then seized a charred log from the hearth fire. She rubbed the charcoal on his chin and upper lip. “That’s better, as though you were growing it, which you must. Try to keep your face hidden in your cloak.”

  “Don’t worry,” Quintus had said dryly, staring at himself in a polished shield. “You’ve done a perfect job. My own mother wouldn’t know me.”

  “Your mother?” said the girl quickly, as though startled from the business-like efficiency she had been showing.

  “Yes,” said Quintus with faint irony, “I have a mother--in Rome--a very dear and good one. Also a little sister, Livia.”

  “Is it so . . . ?” said Regan with sudden gentleness. “I had not thought of you as--as--of your life before you came here. My mother died when I was ten, just before I went to Boadicea--sometimes I have so longed--I thought Queen Boadicea...”

  She snapped the sentence off, the soft look left her eyes. She turned briskly to speak to Pendoc, who had gathered in the ponies.

  Poor little thing, thought Quintus, this time understanding her cool abruptness, she’s had a hard time. But in pursuance of his promise to Petillius and also of a vow he had made to Mars, Quintus resolutely shut his mind to tender thoughts of Regan. He would treat her like a boy, on this wild mission to the west.

  CHAPTER V

  When they had left the coast and the pastures of the Regni, they plunged into a great forest, and Quintus soon realized how impossible it would have been for him to make any time at all without Pendoc’s and Regan’s help. Pendoc, who lost most of his sulkiness once they were away from the Roman fort, was particularly helpful and by means of an occasional grunt, or the twist of his scarred lip that passed for a smile, even showed pleasure at being back in his own country, which he had not seen since he had been sent to the Icenians with Regan six years before.

  The trails through the forest seemed absolutely invisible to Quintus, but Pendoc knew what to look for--a tiny spot of blue woad on the directional side of an oak trunk, or three pebbles arranged like the huge stone dolmens they sometimes passed. These dolmens consisted of flat table stones supported by upright stones, and Quintus asked Regan about them.

  “I don’t know,” she answered, hesitating. “They were of the old, old time, longer back than memory.”

  “Druid stones . . . ?” he persisted. “Like the great circle at Stonehenge--is that what you call it?”

  The girl turned around on her pony and looked at him. “Romans understand nothing about the Druids,” she said quietly. “Your governor, Suetonius, has tried to kill them all. . . .” She started to say something else but seemed to change her mind. “Quintus, why are you interested in the Druids?”

  Following Pendoc, they jogged along in silence amongst the great trees while Quintus considered. The feeling between them was more natural, less tense and, now that he was no longer garbed like a Roman soldier, Regan had lost much of her defensiveness. They seemed very close and he decided to tell her of the quest later, when they stopped to eat and rest

  That evening just before moonrise they camped by a brook, under an enormous ash. Pendoc lit a small fire and they heated a stone for a griddle. They had ground wheat in their leather pouches, which Regan mixed with water and baked in cakes on the stone. Pendoc disappeared downstream to spear a fish. And Regan suddenly repeated her question. “Why do you ask about the Druids?”

  “It is because of my great-grandfather, Gaius Tullius,” Quintus began slowly. “I can’t manage the Celtic words for such a long story ...” he added thoughtfully.

  “No,” she said with a faint smile. ‘Though we are each learning the other’s language fast. Tell it in Latin, I think I can understand.”

  “It was in Julius Caesar’s day,” he began. “You know who he was?”

  He heard her sigh. “Yes. The first Roman general who came here to conquer us. Oh, why can’t we all live in peace! Why did Rome want our island too when it has all the world besides!”

  Quintus was taken aback. For a moment he could not think of the answers to that, so natural did it seem to him that Rome must rule everywhere. Then he took a deep breath and explained to her the benefits the Roman Empire brought to conquered nations, the, more advanced education, the prosperity that came from increased trade with other countries, the better health everyone would have because of Roman cleanliness and sanitation, the social justice meted out by wise Roman law, and the advantage of a strong overrule in keeping the tribes from warring amongst themselves.

  She listened patiently awhile, not quite understanding the complicated words he had to use to explain these things; then she said with a small rueful laugh, “Yes, well--I suppose there must be fighting, because men have always fought. It’s true our tribes here fight each other. I see that you believe in what you grew up to believe. It is
so with us all. Tell me of your great-grandfather, Quintus . . .” She put her arms around her legs, rested her chin on her knees, and gazed up into his face while the firelight flickered over them.

  He began the story which had always so fascinated him and she listened quietly until he came to the place where Gaius tore down the mistletoe, and trampled on it. Then she gave a gasp and cried, “Ah, it’s no wonder the Druid priests killed him! Oh, Quintus, don’t you see--I don’t know your Roman gods, but they are sacred to you--if someone profaned them, trampled on them--wouldn’t you be afraid and want revenge to appease the angry god?”

  “But a plant is not a god,” objected Quintus.

  Regan frowned and wrestled with the problem of expressing her belief. “No, but the mistletoe is sent from heaven to rest high in the great oaks which make our temples. The mistletoe berries are the life sap of our great god, the sun. Lugh is his name, and without him we should all die.”

  For an instant Quintus smiled at what seemed to him such foolishness; yet Romans too had a god of the sun, Apollo, and the thrill of conviction in her low voice touched him. “We may not agree on that,” he said gently, “Yet Britons believe in proper funeral rites as Romans do. You must see why my family is sure that Gaius’ fate has given us bad luck for years and why I’d like to find the spot where he lies.”

  “Yes,” she said after a moment, “I see that. It would be the same for us. And wherever this sacred oak is on the plain ahead, you may be sure he will be there still--the Druids would not touch him.”

  He glanced at her curiously. “You seem to know a lot about the Druids, Regan. I mean you speak with such certainty.”

  The moon suddenly topped the trees and shone down on them. It dappled her face with silver as she turned and answered, not in the reserved way she usually did, but in a rush, mixing Celtic and Latin words together. “I want to tell you something! This trip Pendoc and I are guiding you on, it isn’t only because I--I wanted to help you. You will not be harmed--I gave you my word on that. And I will show you how to get to Gloucester, if you really wish it. But first--” She stopped and began pleating, the folds of her tunic, back and forth. “First you must go to my grandfather.”

  “Your grandfather! But, Regan, I thought you had no people left now in the world.”

  “None but my grandfather. He will be at this time in the Great Temple of the Stones. In Stonehenge.”

  “WHY?” asked Quintus, astounded. “I don’t understand at all.”

  “Because my grandfather is the Arch-Druid of Britain,” she said solemnly. “He will be at Stonehenge for these days of Lugh’s festival.”

  “Jupiter Maximus . . .” whispered Quintus, gaping at her. “You really are the most extraordinary girl. Just as I begin to think I know you, I find out something new and startling.”

  As though telling him her secret had relieved her, Regan gave a sudden smile, cocked her head and--as nearly as he could be sure in the moonlight--looked at him mischievously. “I have heard,” said Regan in a demure voice, “that a little mystery makes a woman more attractive.”

  Quintus, with a shock, rearranged all his thoughts and burst out laughing. That little flash of feminine coquetry startled him as much as her previous revelation, and it delighted him. Too much so, he realized at once, remembering his vow to Petillius and Mars. Sitting in the secluded forest moonlight with a girl like this was dangerous. He discovered that he had quite unconsciously moved nearer to her, and it was with relief that he heard Pendoc crunching through the bracken behind them. The potter dangled three fish from his spear and threw them down triumphantly on the moss beside Regan.

  Regan pulled her reserve over her at once like a cloak and with her little iron knife set about cleaning, scaling, and then broiling the fish.

  They ate in hungry silence. After a while Quintus, throwing the fish spine over his shoulder into the forest, said, “Regan, why do you insist upon taking me to this Arch-Druid. It’ll delay me, and--” He did not like to seem to doubt her word that he would not be harmed, but she might very well be overestimating her influence with her grandfather.

  “Because,” she answered, “he is very wise and powerful. And because”--she hesitated--“we do not know the way further north toward Gloucester.” Again there was the curious pause before she said slowly, “Conn Lear must tell you how to go.”

  “WHO--?” cried Quintus. “Conn Lear--that was the name of the Druid priest we met on the road the first day in Britain. Is that your grandfather! But Suetonius ordered him captured; he sent one of his tribunes!”

  “Nobody can capture Conn Lear," said Regan, wiping her knife and putting it in her pouch. “He is a magician, he can see things--and do things that others can not.”

  Quintus thought of the strange power of Conn Lear’s eyes, of the numbed helpless way he had let the old man escape, and he fell silent trying to rally his courage. He tried to remember what the Arch-Druid had said that day--that the omens and auguries were bad for the Romans, that he came only to warn. Well, the omens were right, so far--Quintus thought of the slaughtered Ninth Legion, of the massacre in Colchester and London. While he had been talking with Regan, the seriousness of his mission to Gloucester had been submerged in other thoughts, but now it stabbed him with fierce reality again. His mind darted here and there, exploring the possibilities of stealing off from Pendoc and Regan; beating his way to Gloucester alone somehow. And he knew that it would be foolish. He trusted Regan and had committed himself to her guidance. He must continue to do so. But when the three of them had wrapped themselves in their cloaks and curled up beneath the tree, Quintus’ brief doze was an uneasy one.

  They left the camping place while the dawn light was still grey. The shadows were weird and wavering beneath the great overhanging branches, and as they emerged into a clearing they heard the long-drawn howl of a wolf. Quintus’ shaggy pony snorted and trembled, its ears pricked forward. He soothed it as he would have Ferox, whom he greatly missed. Pendoc made a queer sign with his fingers to ward off evil, and Regan said, “The wolf howls with joy that he won’t be sacrificed on this day, as he would have been in the old times.”

  “Sacrifice of wolves?” asked Quintus, glad enough to talk, for the uneasiness was still with him.

  She nodded. “Once many beasts were burned in wicker baskets--and not only beasts but humans too, like--like--” She stopped and shut her eyes.

  Quintus knew she was thinking of Boadicea and the terrible rites for Andraste.

  Then Regan went on with her usual composure. “My grandfather does not believe as Boadicea does though he put me in her care because she has much learning and was a cousin of my father’s. The Icenians are not of the true religion--nor were those wild Druid folk that your governor, Suetonius, killed on the far isle of Anglesey. Conn Lear is merciful.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it,” said Quintus as lightly as he could, and would have asked more questions, but Pendoc suddenly reined in his pony and said “H-sst!”

  The three of them grew very quiet--listening. There was a confusion of guttural voices up ahead. Pendoc’s eyes narrowed and he indicated by a gesture that they should move cautiously to the right and slip by unobserved. Quintus nudged his pony with his knee, but unfortunately the little beast scented a mare in the group ahead and let out a loud whinny of greeting.

  Instantly the voices were stilled. “Hide your face,” whispered Regan to Quintus, who pulled up his cloak. And the next moment a dozen British warriors galloped through the trees with spears drawn.

  Quintus wheeled his horse in front of Regan and clumsily drew his own spear, wishing passionately that he had his familiar sword. “Wait!” called Regan in Celtic to the warriors. “Wait! We are friends, we go like you to the Feast of Lugh. Lugh, god of light!” This was a shot at random since this Belgic tribe, which she recognized by the tattooing, might be only a band of wandering marauders, in which case nothing would stop them from stealing the ponies at least. The leader of the band had a swart
hy vicious face, with blue stripes on his cheeks, and he held his spear high aimed at Pendoc.

  “We kill strangers who seek to spy upon our sacred feast . . .” growled the leader, but his spear arm dropped. His little red-rimmed eyes shifted from Regan to the two men. “You are not of our tribes. Your clothes are strange!” he said uncertainly.

  “But we are not strangers!” cried Regan. “Look at this brooch! Look well--She pointed to the bronze and enamel pin that held her mantle. “What do you see?”

  The little eyes peered warily, then the horn-helmeted head jerked up. “I see the mark of the ruby serpent,” muttered the man with a touch of awe. “It is a Druid sign.” He bowed his head in a gesture of reverence. His companions crowded around gaping at Regan. Then suddenly the leader raised his spear again.

  “But how did you get this?” he cried. “Perhaps you’ve stolen it! And this man . . .” Quick as light his spear darted out and tore the folds of cloth down from Quintus’ chin. In the same stroke he tipped the British helmet off Quintus’ head. It rolled on the ground, the long tresses of horsehair trailing.

  “Sure, this is no Briton!" shouted the warrior staring at the clean-shaven face and short curly black hair. “By the sacred fires of Beltane I think it is a--”

  “A Silure from Wales,” cried Quintus, feigning outraged dignity, and praying that his Celtic was recognizable. “You have insulted a Silure!”

  “Yes,” cried Regan quickly. “Is this the hospitality Conn Lear teaches you? You should be ashamed to mistreat those who come in peace to worship at the Feast of Lugh.”

  Above the long dangling moustaches and wisps of matted beard, the tattooed face looked perplexed. Regan gave him no time to think, but said, “We go straight to Conn Lear now. Follow if you like,” and dug her heels into her pony’s flanks. The three started forward. The band of Belgics let them go, then closed in behind them, muttering to themselves.