Читать книгу Red Queen, White Queen - Henry Treece - Страница 9

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As the long bronze horns blew over Glevum to give warning that the evening watch had begun, Gemellus walked quickly with the old Decurion to the place they had chosen for the fight. He was not afraid, only uneasy, and shivering unaccountably in the last rays of the sun.

A solitary curlew swung down over his head, crying mournfully, as he stepped on across the parade ground. He looked up at it for a moment with a wry smile.

‘Do not weep for the dead before they are cold, little friend,’ he said.

The old Decurion looked up and nodded.

‘When I campaigned in Belgium with your good father,’ he said, ‘there was an eagle who came every night and perched on our tent pole, chuckling to itself. Your father did not mind the bird, but I was brought up among superstitious country-folk, who often told me how the eagles followed Brutus until Philippi, and then deserted him. I thought that if we could keep that beast with us, while we fought the Belgæ, we might have good fortune. So one night I crept out of the tent and caught the creature. Aye, it pecked me cruelly about the head and chest, but I held it! Then I lashed it to the standard!’

Gemellus stopped for a moment and stared at the man.

‘You lashed an eagle to the Eagle?’ he said incredulously. ‘What happened, man? Did you have good luck?’

The old man shook his grizzled head.

‘Nay, lad,’ he said. ‘In the morning I went out and the damned thing had flown! What’s more, he had taken four medallions with him in his struggles, medals won at the bridge of Magan, the ford of Uxelledunum, the cross-roads of Treius! The only luck I got out of that was fifteen stripes with the whip! I’ve never trusted the birds since then! They are as false as women, lad!’

Gemellus smiled gently and remembered the fine Roman lady who had smiled at him outside the Mess Tent. As he strode on towards the place where he should meet Duatha, he recalled the girl’s swaying walk, the fall of her sky-blue dress, the little curl of black hair that hung in the nape of her neck, below the gold braid that marked her high rank. Lavinia, that was her name; the old man had told him so. It was a sweet name, he thought; though there was something about the girl’s curved red mouth which was perhaps not quite so sweet as her name, something that could be teasing, even cruel, he thought.

Then the old man pulled at his arm.

‘This way,’ he said hoarsely, ‘past the cubicles and to the right. There is an enclosed space behind the stables where men sometimes meet each other for these things.’

Behind the stables, where the war-horses were snorting and pawing in their stalls as though they already smelled blood, the dock and willow-herb grew high below the wooden stockade, enclosing the place, setting it apart, as though they preserved it from the eyes of tender-hearted men, reserved it for those whose trade was death. It was an unkempt place of green shadows and seclusion.

A dozen men waited there, some of them lolling on the ground. They were Celts of the various southern tribes, all Auxiliaries. They laughed and nudged each other as Gemellus appeared, calling out good-humouredly in their several dialects. The Roman could not understand their words, but there was no mistaking the expressions on their faces; expressions of mockery, insulting tolerance, even contempt.

Duatha stood in their midst, stripped to the waist and wearing breeches of red and yellow squares, tied tightly at the ankle with thongs of deer-hide. He wore no shoes.

And as he stood waiting, his golden hair caught in the nape of his neck by a ribbon, he swung his short-sword in circles which caught the last rays of the sun, creating circles of golden light about his head and shoulders. Gemellus thought for an instant that this young savage looked more like a Greek God than a poorly paid barbarian cavalryman. And there was something which Gemellus felt he had seen before, he did not know where, but which troubled him deep in his heart....

Suddenly Duatha turned and stared him in the eye, smiling wickedly. He raised his voice so that all should hear his words.

‘Hail, Roman, and farewell,’ he said lightly. ‘I who am about to kill you, salute you!’

He fell on one knee, touching the blade of his sword to his lips.

Gemellus walked on towards him, in that heavy-footed careless way that Roman legionaries adopted, to show they were used to it all, the marching, the endless foot-slogging, that they were professionals. He halted by Duatha and looked down at him, lazily, though his heart was beating fast.

‘Get up, man,’ he said. ‘You’ll catch cold down there. That’s the trouble with you Britons, you take too many risks for the sake of a bit of foolery.’

Duatha rose, his fair skin slightly flushed with annoyance. The men about him, sitting on the ground, stopped their jesting and looked up sharply at the Roman who dared to speak so to their young leader.

Duatha said, ‘Romans take risks, also; there is one here now who is taking the final risk of all.’

Gemellus flung off his short woollen cloak and peeled off his tight tunic. He stood as bare as his opponent, as he swung his own short-sword in the air to get the balance of it.

And when he was satisfied that his muscles were working freely, he half-turned to Duatha and said quietly, ‘I have served under a hard master, Celt. The Emperor Nero, my master and yours, did not promote me until I had served a month with the gladius in the arena. You may feel the weight of my sword, should you doubt me. It is the one the professionals use, over there in Rome. But perhaps you would find it a little heavy.’

Duatha took the heavy sword and flung it high into the air. It caught the sun’s rays as it swung over and began to fall. Duatha caught it easily and swept it round his head in a great arc of light.

‘Not bad,’ he said as he handed it back. ‘But hardly the sort of weapon I would choose if I met a fast-moving opponent.’

Gemellus said, ‘Once it has bitten, there is no more fast moving. No more moving at all, indeed.’

Then Duatha made a sign to the men about him. They stood and formed a wide circle on that green place of death, positioning themselves an arm’s length away from each other.

Gemellus and Duatha stood in the centre of the circle. The war-horses were still. Even the birds of the air were silent. Gemellus suddenly heard the distant rushing of the river, the lowing cattle on the far hills beyond the village, even the soughing of the wind in the woods high above the fortress, half a mile away.

Then, with a start of fearful recognition, he heard the pulse of his own heart. And a tall tribesman called sharply, ‘On guard!’

For a moment, Gemellus wondered why he was there, fighting this young man whom he had only recently met. He wondered why his life should suddenly have become so difficult, when it had seemed so easy at last. He wondered what his dead father, the Centurion, would have said about a soldier who engaged himself to fight to the death on his first day at a new station.

And as he thought these things, Duatha moved about him like a golden cat, feinting here and there with his short light-bladed sword, never coming within distance, but always about to do so, as tightly-wound as a spring, full of nervous energy and the threat of death.

Gemellus held his ground, turning round and round, flat on his feet after the Roman manner, never taking his eyes off the Celt.

Then suddenly, what Gemellus had feared happened.

Duatha seemed to fall forward, as though he had lost his balance in a lunge. Gemellus struck sideways where the man’s head had been, and felt his blade sweep unsatisfied through the air. And before he could regain his stance, he saw the Celt rise, under his guard, and cut upwards.

Gemellus was conscious of a burning sensation in the right leg. He glanced down to see that his leather breeches were slit open from knee to groin. A razor-thin line of red gleamed against the pallor of his skin. But it was nothing; it did not really hurt.

He grinned and said, ‘He who takes first blood, may not always live to take last.’

Duatha laughed in his face and thrust forward viciously. But this time, Gemellus slipped away, ever so slightly, to the side and thrust up his own sword. The hilts came together, locked for an instant as the men faced each other closely.

And Gemellus suddenly stood still, gazing in amazement at the sight which met his eyes. For his own hand lay next to that of Duatha, in that grim tableau, and the hands were the same hand. Though the hairs of one were golden, the other black, yet they were the same, in contour, bone and muscle.

Gemellus thought, “This is my hand, the black one; and that is my hand, the golden one. Why is this?”

And as his mind grappled with the question that had come to him so suddenly, Duatha gave a thin, high laugh and sliding his blade from the other, slashed downwards at the Roman’s arm.

Gemellus thought, “May the Lord of Light watch over me.” But his body worked so rapidly, trained as it was to combat, that he had acted even before his thought was complete.

With the brutal routine side-kick of the legionary, he swept the Celt from his feet so that the blow fell, without causing hurt, a foot from his shoulder. And as Duatha rolled sideways on the tussocky grass, the Roman bent over him to give the finishing blow.

His sword was poised, like the grim weapon of Fate, in the bloody sunset; his arm was about to fall; the men about him were silent, wide-eyed and fearful, when from behind them all came the high commanding voice of another man.

‘Stop! If you strike that blow, you shall be crucified on the highest tree of Glevum before the sun sets!’

All turned to see an officer, standing on the hillock that overlooked that desolate spot, his blue cloak floating behind him in the breeze of evening, the red horse-hair plumes of his helmet nodding like those of some avenging God.

In that moment, even the Tribune, Gaius Flavius Cottus, looked splendid, his dark face lit by the dying rays, a sardonic smile fixed on his lean face, making it suddenly the mask of retribution.

Gemellus lowered his sword and stood to attention. Duatha got up sullenly from the ground, muttering and shaking his head in anger.

Then the Tribune came down the hill and stalked slowly towards them. And as he passed through the stockade, the men saw that a woman followed him closely. It was Lavinia, daughter of the Prefect of Glevum himself.

Gemellus dared to look up, and observed the stiff cold smile on her face. She was a true Patrician, he felt, one who had five hundred years of nobility behind her, to justify all she did, all she said, all she thought; one whose face had been moulded from birth almost into certain expressions sanctioned by polite custom, by ritual. And now she assumed the masklike expression of gravitas.

But the Tribune knew no such training. His dark face was flushed with anger and contempt. His lips carried a white froth of rage, and he spat as he spoke.

‘You cattle!’ he stormed. ‘You cows! Who are you to kill each other on my duty-night? Why should I take the responsibility of your stinking hides? Who, by Mithras, are you, that you should spill your filthy blood on the ground at a time when I am in charge of this station?’

Duatha shifted his feet on the ground, uncomfortably now. Gemellus saluted and stepped towards the Tribune one pace.

‘I am Gemellus Ennius, Decurion, sir,’ he said. ‘I am posted here from Germany, to take up a command in the Second Legion. My father held the rank of Centurion with this Legion.’

The Tribune looked down his long nose at Gemellus and said, ‘Then you are a fool, a dolt and a gutter-brawler, unworthy of a fine father. But at least, God help you, you are a Roman. But this dog, this savage dung-eater, is not a Roman! He is a beast and a bastard!’

The Tribune, Gaius Flavius Cottus, stepped towards Duatha and struck him again and again across the face with his riding-switch.

And as he struck, the Celt stood stock-still, like a statue cut from alabaster, his face without expression, the red weals appearing as if by some supreme act of conjuring each second.

The men in that green place of death stood silent as ghosts, each one afraid, each one suddenly dominated by the power of Rome.

Gemellus noticed that as the Tribune struck and struck again, the woman still smiled coldly, watching all, not moving, her face set so stiffly in its mask of gravitas that nothing seemed to be happening in the world.

Then he saluted again and said, ‘Sir, I am a Roman, as you say. I should not have accepted this man’s challenge. The fault is mine.’

Gaius Flavius Cottus suddenly stopped striking the Celt and turned to the young Decurion. The Tribune’s face was creased in an expression of sly vengeance.

‘So,’ he said, ‘you intend to play the noble Roman, do you, you dog? You wish to gain the good opinion of this rubbish, these sun-begotten spawn of Europe? Very well, Gemellus Ennius, you who allege that your father was a Centurion with this Legion.... Very well, you shall be their brother! You shall taste what it is like to live with such scourings of the middens of civilisation!’

Then he turned abruptly and strode towards the door in the stockade.

‘Guard,’ he shouted. ‘Take these two to the Prefect immediately. Say that I have sent them to carry out the task which was commanded. If they attempt to resist arrest, run them through the bowels with your spear. You need not report that occurrence to me. But see that it is entered in the Duty Book.’

He turned away from the guard who came running up, and took the lady by the arm, turning her away from the knot of men who stood silent behind the stables.

Gemellus stared fixedly before him. Yet he saw the lady incline her fine head, ever so slightly towards him, before she allowed herself to go with the officer.

It was as though she had signified her approval of his futile effort to help Duatha. Yet it was the merest movement, nothing more than a lowering of the eyes. The smile was still fixed on her finely chiselled features.

As the guard took him by the arm, Duatha said to Gemellus, ‘Thank you, Roman. But keep your pity for yourself, you will need it now.’

Gemellus began to stride out, in time with the soldiers who escorted them. He half-turned to the Celt and said, ‘I do not pity you, man. You are old enough to look after yourself. But one day I will rub that Tribune’s nose in the dirt where it belongs.’

Duatha said quietly, ‘You will never live as long as that, my friend. You are a Roman, yes, but like me, you have no mastery over yourself. And like me, you are doomed.’