The Phantom Queen Awakes (17 page)

And then he saw the woman beckon him and turn
away.

With a last look at Gederus, curled like a
newborn in his nest of blazing branches, he stepped down and
followed her. The time had come to close the deal.

****

Three days after the death of the Celt, the
cold finally broke and they marched west. The countryside burbled
and sang with the slow death of winter, the snow decaying to a
brownish slush beneath their sandals.

Rufinius marched in the front rank of the
column alongside Gederus, who did not seem in the least embarrassed
to show his gratitude to the small, rattish yokel whose
intervention had saved his life.

“Your accent,” Gederus announced as they
shared a skin of wine the morning after the fight. “You’re from the
country?”

“The Piano Grande.”

“You lucky devil!” Gederus beamed. “More
beautiful than all the buildings of Rome. Why on Earth did you
leave?”

Rufinius dropped his gaze, embarrassed. “I
grew up a vagrant, moving from farm to farm as the work demanded.
Shepherding, plowing, harvesting, cutting wood...And ever since I
could remember, people had been telling me how lucky I was to be
part of the glory of Rome. So I finally decided to go and find some
of it for myself.”

“And they sent you to us, you poor
bastard!”

The words had obviously been meant as a joke,
but something in the pained smile he got in return caused Gederus
to knit his brows together. “If you think this is bad, wait until
we reach the Silures’ territory. The most barren collection of rock
this island has to offer, but they’ll slaughter anyone who comes
near it. There are some hard fights ahead.”

Rufinius knew this all too well; it had been
almost the sole topic of conversation since his arrival. The
Silures were the most savage and hostile of the Celtic tribes,
refusing all civilization, choosing instead to flee westward into
the mountains and valleys. This was where the legion was
bound.

“How many battles have you fought?” he
asked.

“Fifty. Not including the paid fights. How
about you?”

He toyed with the wine skin, feeling the first
tug of jealousy. “None.”

He had not forgotten his deal with the woman,
but all his attempts to acquire the pendant had so far come to
nothing. Gederus never removed it, not even when he slept or
washed. He caught Rufinius staring at it as they relaxed in the
baths, soaking in the caldarium in the few hours before the legion
set out.

“A fine piece, isn’t it?” he said, lifting it
to the light and letting it spin slowly.

“Very nice,” Rufinius conceded, perhaps a
little too quickly.

What at first appeared to be just another
piece of Celtic knotwork was, in fact, a twisting golden serpent,
exquisitely detailed down to the scales on its back and the curve
of its fangs as it devoured its own tail. A single stone, black and
cold, marked its eye.

“Where did you get it?”

“A group of bandits surprised me on the road
in northern Gaul. The best of them was carrying it.”

“Why don’t you sell it?” The question sounded
awkward and loaded to his ears.

“Never sell anything you earn in a fair
fight,” Gederus replied firmly. “The man who beats me can take it.
Nobody else.”

Rufinius reflected on this as they marched.
What if, a few weeks from now, some Silure peasant was wearing the
thing?

He was still trying to concoct a means of
stealing it two days later, when the legion left the road and
struck out across country. The putrefying remains of winter made
the going hard. Twice they had to abandon their route and find
higher ground as they met rising flood waters and valleys blocked
by mudslides.

They were fording a river, white water surging
around their thighs, when the first attack came. The tree-line on
the far bank shivered and burst into a horde of screaming figures,
ghostly white and naked, the flash of bronze and iron in their
hands.

Rufinius, already preoccupied with keeping his
footing, froze, his hand at the hilt of his sword, his lungs
gripped tight by fear. With a bellow of fury, the first warrior
entered the water.

****

“
That happened to me, at the
start.” Gederus indicated Rufinius’ trembling hands as they sat
with the rest of the legion on the riverbank, their clothes
steaming.

Rufinius found it hard to speak. His mind was
still ruled by the memory of the vibration that had travelled up
the length of his arm as a man’s face opened in a blossom of red
meat and gristle beneath the point of his sword. The young warrior
had misjudged his attack, leaving himself open and Rufinius, seeing
his chance, had very nearly backed away from it. The idea of
releasing something as absolute and irreversible as death on a man
had terrified him. It still did. Only the threat of having his
ashes scattered in this alien wasteland had prompted him to action,
all notions of flight or mercy stillborn.

The few surviving Celts had soon fled,
surprised by their opponents’ overwhelming numbers and leaving the
corpses of their kinsmen to a trio of carrion crows circling
overhead.

“So what saw you through?”Gederus
asked.

Rufinius shrank a little under his comrade’s
searching gaze.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said,
glancing at the length of gold chain just visible around his
friend’s neck. “I had training...”

Gederus waved the words away. “Every man
fights for something, even if it’s just his pay. What is it you
fight for?”

He offered the first lie that occurred to him.
“For Caesar.”

“That’s very noble,” Gederus nodded, and he
began to relax. “But it’s crap.”

Rufinius searched frantically for any trace of
accusation in the words.

“We all took the oath when we enlisted,”
Gederus went on. “We all eat and sleep and shit for Caesar. But
tell me, when you were knee deep in that water with your enemy at
your throat, did you spare him a single thought?”

Rufinius opened his mouth to argue, considered
lying, then shut it again.

“You need something of your own to stand for,”
said Gederus. “Only a monster fights without cause. So I’ll ask you
again; what’ll it be?”

“I...don’t know.”

Gederus coughed, spat and stood up. “Well I
suggest you decide before we run into any more Celts. I’d be sorry
to lose you.” He started towards the point where the column was
reforming.

Rufinius remembered the sight of him striding
calmly through the waters to meet the charge, his sword and dagger
at the ready, silently marking up each of the attackers for
death.

“I don’t want to die here,” he called after
him.

Gederus paused. “That’s as good a reason as
any.”

“And what about you? Why do you
fight?”

“Honestly?” Gederus hoisted his features into
a lopsided smile. “Because it’s the only thing I’m good
at.”

****

As the legion moved further west, crossing the
brown and turgid expanse of river that marked the fringe of the
Silures’ territory, the frequency and savagery of the attacks
increased.

Every time the alert was sounded, Rufinius
felt the same paralyzing fear that had gripped him in the water.
But whenever he drew his sword, the killing became a little easier,
his thoughts a little clearer, until he found something approaching
calm in those frantic, deadly contests. Gederus explained the
phenomenon to him as they marched.

“When you’re fighting a man for your life, it
shakes out everything that’s not essential. You stop caring if your
woman really loves you, or who owes you money, or where you’re
going to sleep tonight. You just want him to die so you can go on
living.”

Rufinius nodded, relieved that someone else
had understood this first.

“And when you realize how much of yourself
you’ve abandoned,” Gederus continued, “you start to see what’s
left. And that’s the real you.”

The sensation grew in him like a weed; the
need to put down and destroy the enemy before they could do the
same to him. Every Celt he butchered prolonged by a fraction the
separate contest he played each night against Gederus, lying awake
in the hope that this time, his friend might finally be careless.
But Gederus never once failed to bind the chain around his wrist,
falling asleep with the pendant locked securely in his
fist.

Two games; one soft and subtle, full of smiles
and false conversation; the other brutal and honest, played with
swords and blood and luck. He only had to win this first game once.
But he could not escape the burgeoning fear that, sooner or later,
somebody else would beat him at the second.

At last they reached a broad river valley at
the foot of steeper hills. The battle here was long and savage and
it was twelve hours before they finally drove the Silure warriors
to higher ground. Before the sun set, their Centurion announced
that this was where they would make their mark; a fortress, to dam
up the mouth of the valley and control access to the river until
reinforcements could be called for.

Within a week, the defensive wall was in place
and, the very next day, it started to rain. It came in torrents,
filling the air until even breathing had to be done with the face
tipped downwards. The foundations of the new buildings inside the
wall began to disintegrate and the river burst its banks, filling
the valley with its fetid, sucking waters.

For Rufinius, this came as a tremendous
relief. If they could not cross the valley, neither could the Celts
and that one, deadly game could be put on hold. So it was with a
cold shock that he received the news that Gederus was to be sent
into enemy territory.

“The Centurions want to mount an attack as
soon as the waters recede,” he explained as they huddled round a
meager fire. “I’m going across to scout out their
defenses.”

Rufinius considered for a moment, then formed
the words with a slow dread. “Let me come.”

The Centurions, impressed by his performance
to date, offered no objection so, before dawn the next morning,
both men stole out into the rain, which had lessened to a stubborn
drizzle, and followed the valley to its narrowest point.

Fear gnawed at Rufinius like a fire at dry
timbers but he could not bear the prospect of seeing the key to his
prison carried off into those hostile peaks, never to
return.

They forded the river with difficulty and made
their way in silence through the dark and sodden valleys beyond.
What they found there filled them both with a leaden certainty
about the legion’s prospects.

Every wind-blasted peak was crowned with a
fortress, ready to rain down arrows on every side, while teams of
warriors stalked like specters between the withered, stunted trees
that clung to the slopes.

Filthy, cold and soaking wet, he and Gederus
turned towards home. They were halfway there when the first cry
went up.

“Have they seen us?” Rufinius asked,
panicked.

A chorus of voices rose in response, arrows
diving into the soil around them. Then they saw the warriors
coming, wild and hard at their heels.

“Run!” spat Gederus.

Their flight was confused and directionless,
and it was pure chance that finally brought them to the river’s
edge, the alien calls still loud in their ears.

As they struggled through the surging water,
Rufinius experienced a moment of startling objectivity ― the two
contests had converged. The final moves must be played now, or he
stood to lose everything.

Gederus reached the bank and hauled him free
of the torrent. Turning to hurry onward, he realized Rufinius still
held him by the arm.

“Give me the pendant.”

“What?”

“Please.” He held out a hand, the fingers
flexing impatiently. “I need it.”

Gederus pressed a protective hand to his
chest. “What for?”

There was a splash as the first of the Silures
entered the river.

“Just give it to me!” he shrieked.

Gederus pulled away, his countenance
hardening.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, but if
you don’t come with me now I’ll cut you down and carry your corpse
home.”

“Then do it!” With fumbling fingers, Rufinius
drew his sword. “Fight me for it.”

Gederus looked him over and for an instant
might even have accepted the offer, but a glance at the opposite
bank was enough to convince him to shake his head and step
away.

And that was when Rufinius slashed open his
cheek.

The two men staggered apart, eyes wide.
Rufinius felt his hands begin to shake while, with deliberate calm,
Gederus drew his sword and leveled it at his friend’s
head.

“Do you really want to do this?”