Читать книгу Red Queen, White Queen - Henry Treece - Страница 14
ОглавлениеPreparations
In the narrow barrack room, three men crouched on the floor, sorting out their belongings. Some of these they put into a broad leather bag, which they hung on an iron hook in the wall. Others of their things, a goatskin water-flask, a pair of deerskin shoes so light that they could be rolled into a ball no bigger than a boy’s fist, a bronze medallion of Mithras slaying the bull, an alabaster box of ointment for the treatment of sore eyes ... such things they rolled carefully into a narrow linen pouch which would be slung on the back.
Gemellus pushed open the door and entered to see the three men sorting out their treasures. One of them was Duatha, he could see, in the flickering taper-light, but the other two he did not know. They turned towards him, on their haunches, their strange faces lit on one side by the wax-light. They were fierce faces, not faces the like of which he knew.
Duatha came forward towards him smiling.
‘Hail, new brother,’ he said. ‘Now you shall meet the two who are to travel with us on this holiday jaunt. Here first is Aba Garim. Stand up, Aba, you lazy Arab swine, and let the Decurion look you over.’
The man rose and inclined his head towards Gemellus, though the Roman noticed that his eyes were as quick as those of a fox; they did not fall when his forehead was bowed. They watched from under the thick black brows which seemed to meet above the man’s nose.
And the nose was as predatory as that of a questing hawk. Below it, two long moustaches almost reached down to the Arab’s chest. And beneath them his sharp white teeth glimmered in the light.
Gemellus said wryly, ‘Ave, friend! May we remain friends!’
Duatha laughed and said, ‘Expect no reply from him—he lost his tongue in Egypt when he was a young man. Not a bad thing, when one is out on a trip like this! It would be safer if most of the other foreign auxiliaries in the Second had enjoyed the same treatment. They talk too much after the wine cup has passed a time or two!’
The man beside Duatha growled at these words, as though he agreed with the horseman.
Duatha said, ‘This is Dagda, of the Ordovices. No man knows what his other name might be, if there is one. The Legion found him under a holly tree, shot through with four arrows—the greedy devil! They nursed him back to what you see now, Mithras knows why, and even gave him a place in the Troop of Horse that I lead, for my sins!’
Dagda shambled to his feet and saluted Gemellus. He was a hunched and ungainly creature, whose hair and eyes and lips were of such a pallor that they seemed to have been bleached by a perpetual sun. His hands hung almost to the cross-garters above his knees, and his feet splayed out as though he suffered from some deformity of the ankle-bones.
He bowed to Gemellus and then said in a high, fluting voice, ‘Greetings, Roman. May we have good fortune together! And may you be granted the infinite power of keeping your brother quiet. He is a too-talkative fellow who needs restraint. Look to it, Roman, and you will merit my good opinion.’
Gemellus gazed in amazement at the creature, who looked like an imbecile and spoke like a Senator!
Duatha laughed and said, ‘Take no notice of this one, brother; he is a fraud, with his castrated voice and his long words! He has not fingers enough to count the men he has killed in single fight; and in any case, he is such a liar that one could not believe whatever he said.’
Dagda said gently, ‘Duatha Ambrosius Ennius, Cæsar-to-be, no doubt, in some uncountably future time, is an indefatigable humorist. If I were his equal in rank, instead of being his cavalryman, I would knock him down, just for the fun of it, and cut off his ears one dark night! But alas, I must obey him; I who was once a Druid! Well, almost a Druid, let us say! I had mastered the first twelve arts, but I had not yet begun on the last twelve when my chieftain decided to express his disapproval of the old religion by having me used for a target when the young men wanted arrow practice!’
Duatha said, ‘Sit down, Dagda! You are a dolt and a liar! Let us hear from you henceforth only when the Roman commands.’ But the smile on his face as he spoke those words told Gemellus that Duatha was fond of Dagda, that he trusted him, relied upon him. And Dagda’s answering grin confirmed that opinion.
So Gemellus met the men with whom he was to travel across Britain, to strike down the woman, Boudicca, the Red Queen who was bent on striking down Rome, because of her wish to avenge the treatment she and her family had received from Decianus Catus, Procurator General, the lapdog of Nero.
