wilful, he remembered. When she was angry, logic played no part in her calculations. Yet she was a queen, and if he could convince her that her people’s cause would be advanced by joining him, surely she would act in their best interests. But she was also a woman. What could he give her, and — a shiver ran through him — what would she ask?
The way was easy and they were in Catuvellauni country for the first twenty miles, but Ballan rode as if he were in the very heart of the enemy. He had argued for more warriors, but Caratacus insisted on the minimum escort. He did not want it known that while his people were fighting in the south, their king was riding north. They had compromised on a dozen men, all, including himself, dressed in rough peasant clothing.
‘You are going to get us all killed,’ Ballan complained as they rode together. ‘It was a mistake to let the elephant man go free. Now the Romans know where you are they will try to kill you.’
Caratacus smiled. Ballan: always watching, always thinking. ‘The Romans know where I was. In any case, this is my land. I will know when the first Roman sets foot upon it. Take heart. No Roman sword will reach me with you at my side, Ballan.’
‘It is not a Roman sword I fear, lord.’
They rode north, beyond the boundary stone of the Catuvellauni, and into the land where no man’s hand ruled. Ballan’s vigilance increased with each mile they travelled, for this was the haunt of thieves, bandits and incorrigibles who had been exiled from their communities, whose crimes were so terrible they would receive a welcome from no other tribe. They were desperate men, who lived on the very edge of subsistence and took from whomever they could. Even a dozen men might be prey for them. It was hilly country now, and as unwholesome as those who inhabited it: low crags with sharp scree-scarred crests and deep gullies that might have been chopped out by a giant’s axe.
‘Ambush country,’ Ballan spat, and weighed his spear in his hand. ‘Do you feel it?’
‘How long have they been watching?’
‘An hour, perhaps longer.’
‘Will they attack?’
‘I hope so.’ Ballan grinned. ‘My spear hasn’t tasted blood for too long. It will rust away if you don’t find me some Romans to kill.’
‘Your spear will never rust, Ballan. I hear it is in constant use. How many is it now?’
Ballan roared with laughter, his broad frame shaking and his guffaws echoing around the hills. ‘Six. Four boy brats and two useless girls. And you?’
‘Only the two.’
‘Medb keeps you too close to home.’
‘Will she be safe?’
Ballan knew Caratacus was not talking about his wife. ‘From them or from you?’
Caratacus gave him a hard look that told him he was on dangerous ground.
Ballan shrugged. ‘She’s not stupid enough to travel with twelve miserly warriors. She’s a real queen and she’ll have a real escort. This scum won’t touch her.’ He kicked his horse ahead, leaving Caratacus to ride onwards accompanied only by his thoughts.
Twice, they saw sign of the bandits, but something in the way the thirteen rode must have made the thieves wary, for they reached the standing stone that marked the southern boundary of Brigantia unmolested. The barren hills fell away behind them and they were in gentler, greener country, where small, fast-running streams cut across their path, identifiable from far off by the thick vegetation which fought for position and the promise of water on their banks.
‘We rest here. The meeting is not until four hours after first light and we do not have much further to go.’ Caratacus studied the pretty brook, its clear waters gurgling musically over sand and gravel and the shadowy forms of trout and minnows sheltering beneath the willows that drooped lazily over its banks. They found a small pebble beach by a shallow pool where they could water the ponies, and set up camp twenty paces upstream in the shadow of an old, gnarled oak. The men unfolded their blankets and laid them out in a circle, with Caratacus at the centre. Ballan formed three watches of four to stand guard. They made no fire that might alert another to their presence, but ate fire-hardened corn cakes with a few sips of honeyed ale to sustain them through the night. Caratacus fell asleep with the sound of running water in his ears. For some reason he dreamed of butterflies.
He rose with the sun, and, as Ballan readied his men for the journey, he walked downstream to the horses and unstrapped the pack from his mount’s back, laying its contents carefully by the riverbank. He shrugged off his soiled riding clothes and, naked, slipped into the stream. The sun was warm on his back, but the water was cold, and he gave an involuntary gasp as it reached his groin. He scrubbed his body with clean, white sand from the river bottom. So many scars. How close he had come to death in those days of his youth when any slight had been worth a fight and any risk worth taking if it meant cattle, or gold, or women. The puckered white skin where the spear point had pierced his thigh when the guards on the Iceni village had proved more watchful than he thought; the long thin line where a Durotrige sword had opened the fleshy part of his breast. And the one he never boasted about, not even to Ballan. The little dimple on his right buttock, to remind him of the Silurian arrow. Had she been worth it? Dark-haired and spitting like a wildcat, but with translucent skin that shone like polished marble. He tried to conjure up her face, but couldn’t.
He returned to the bank and dried himself down with his blanket. The pack contained a finespun woollen tunic in a rich, dark green that was the mark of the Catuvellauni royal house, and a pair of full-length trews striped in the same green and a creamy white. When he’d dressed, he fastened a belt of heavy gold links round his waist, and from a loop on his left hip hung the ceremonial sword. The scabbard was made of bronze, but it had been polished until it glowed bright as gold. Both it and the grip were decorated with what looked like rubies, but were actually iron studs covered in scarlet enamel. He had visited the smith in his foundry on the hill at Camulodunum and had wondered at the skill and care he lavished on the sword. It had a dangerous beauty, but he would never carry it in war. The decorated hilt was too uncomfortable to hold for any length of time and the slimness that made it so pretty also made it too light to be truly a killing weapon.
Finally he picked up the torc of thick, interwoven strands of gold. It had a familiar, comfortable weight to it when he placed it round his neck. Now, he thought with a satisfaction he would have condemned in another man as false pride, I look like a king and not some travelling vagabond.
They were still six miles from the meeting place, but with time to spare, so they rode at a pace that was easy on the ponies. There was a festive air that hadn’t been apparent the previous day, the escort shouting to one another and bantering. Ballan’s scouts had been on constant duty shadowing the legions since the first word of the landing. They had spent long hours in the saddle, or immobile on a hilltop, always on the watch for an enemy ambush or an unwary patrol they could ambush in their turn. To be so far from danger was a blessed relief, and it showed. Not in Ballan, though. The Iceni was as alert as ever, his eyes darting from trees to hilltop, left to right, never resting.
‘Lord!’
Caratacus urged his pony to where the scout waited on the crest of a ridge. Ahead of them, perhaps three miles distant, was the distinctive hill they had been told to look for. Long and low, it had the hunched shoulders and pointed snout of a sleeping boar. Its lower slopes were carpeted with trees, but the summit was bare. Caratacus thought he saw the gleam of sun on metal, but he might have imagined it. His eyes met Ballan’s.
‘So then,’ he said solemnly.
Ballan hefted his spear, weighing it in his right hand. He nodded. ‘So. I have long wished to meet this famous beauty. It is my experience that women and power do not mix well, though my sister Boudicca would spit me with a dagger if she heard me say it. They tell me that this one will prove me wrong, but we will see.’
He kicked his pony into motion, and Caratacus followed him down the slope, his eyes never leaving the distant hill where Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, waited.
XVI
The rider who met Caratacus at the base of the hill carried a green branch to show his peaceful intentions, but he was dressed for war, in a shirt of close-meshed mail that had been mended many times, and a polished iron
