Gaius opened his mouth; then thought better of it. Rheis said, “Is Agricola so formidable? Could he really conquer Britannia all the way to the northern sea?”
Ardanos grimaced. “The gossip in Deva may have some truth in it; between the wolves and the wild men I doubt that even Roman tax farmers could squeeze out much profit there.”
Dieda looked at Gaius with a sudden malice. “You who have lived among Romans,” she said, “perhaps you can tell us why they are carrying off our men and what will happen to them?”
“The provincial senators pay their taxes with the men of the levy. I suppose they will take them to the lead mines in the Mendip hills,” he said reluctantly, “and I know not what will befall them there.”
But he did know. The whip and poor feeding would be used to break their spirit, and the gelder’s knife to unman any who continued to resist. Those who survived the march would be set to work in the mines as long as they lived. A flicker of triumph in Dieda’s eyes told him she had guessed he knew more than he would say. He winced as Mairi began to weep. He had never met – or ever thought he would — anyone who could be subject to the levies.
“Can’t something be done?” she cried.
“Not this year,” the old man answered.
“Not much anyone can do about it,” Gaius said defensively, “but you can’t deny that the mines have enriched all Britain —”
“We can live without such enrichment,” Cynric said wrathfully. “Rome enriches at the top, and enslaves at the bottom.”
“It is not only Romans who have become wealthy —” Gaius began.
“You mean traitors like Clotinus?”
Rheis leaned forward as if to terminate a conversation that had become awkward, but Cynric would not be stopped.
“You who have lived among Romans,” Cynric said angrily, “do you know how Clotinus the White-Washed made his fortune? He guided the Legions to Mona, or are you too much a Roman to remember that once there was a holy place there – the Isle of Women – the holiest place in Britain perhaps before Paulinus came?”
“I knew only that there was a sanctuary,” Gaius said neutrally, his neck prickling again with that sense of danger. For the Romans, the destruction of Mona had been overshadowed by the catastrophe of the Iceni rebellion, but he knew better than to discuss Mona in the house of a Druid, especially since Agricola had mopped up whatever resistance might have been left there only last year.
“Here sits a bard at our own fireside,” said Cynric, “who can sing of the women of Mona so that your heart will crack!”
Almost simultaneously the Druid said, “Not tonight, lad,” and the lady of the house leaned forward. “Not at my table; it is not a story to be told while guests are trying to eat their dinner,” she said emphatically.
The suggestion, thought Gaius, was unpopular – or sufficiently political to make unsafe conversation. But he agreed with the bard’s sentiments; he had no wish to hear any story of Roman atrocities right now.
Cynric looked sullen for a moment, then said to Gaius in an undertone, “I will tell you later then. My foster mother may well be right; it is not a tale to be told at the dinner table, nor before children.”
“We would do better,” said Rheis, “to talk about our preparations for the feast of Beltane,” and Mairi and the girls, as if at a signal, rose from the table. Cynric offered his arm to Gaius, and helped him back to his bed. The young Roman was a good deal
more weary than he had realized; every muscle in his body ached, and though he was resolved not to sleep before he had thoroughly thought all this through, he soon found himself drifting off.
In the next few days, Gaius’s injured shoulder swelled, which kept him abed in considerable pain – but Eilan, who nursed him devotedly, said that this discomfort was nothing to the illness that could have come from such a dirty stake.
The only part of the day that was tolerable was when, two or three times a day, Eilan – who seemed to have appointed herself his nurse – brought him his meals and fed him, since he could hardly hold a spoon, let alone cut up meat. He had not been so close to any woman since his mother had died, and had never quite realized how much he had missed that closeness. Whether it was because she was female or because she was of his mother’s people, or perhaps from some sympathy of spirit that went beyond either, he found himself truly able to relax with her. In the long hours between her appearances, he had nothing else to think about, and each day, it seemed, he looked forward to seeing her more.