“Your ancestress, the queen of the Iceni, murdered women and children when she made war,” I replied, “or so I have heard. You exaggerate your likeness to us. And you are not Brigantic. Your ancestors were kings and queens, but of southern tribes. You would have no rights in any kingdom of the Brigantes if one did exist, and I do not believe you plan to set up an independent Brigantic kingdom with someone else as queen.”
“She is a queen, by birth and by wisdom,” said Arshak, angrily. “Why shouldn’t she be one in fact as well? The Brigantes would rejoice to have her.”
“And the Pictish tribesmen who invaded?” I asked.
“They would rejoice, too? Someone had promised them that the Romans would be busy with a mutiny, Gatalas’ mutiny. But Gatalas is dead, and so are most of them.”
Bodica’s eyes had narrowed dangerously. “Gatalas was meant to succeed! He should never have ordered his men to surrender. I made a mistake, I didn’t speak to him myself. So he didn’t realize that we could succeed, and he tried to spare his followers what he thought was the inevitable finish. I won’t make the same mistake again; I am speaking to you. We can succeed; if we dare enough, we will! Still! As for the raid, it was you who stopped it, and that, too, was because you didn’t know.”
“No,” I said bitterly, “it was because we had peace in Cilurnum. You meant me to be under arrest there, suspected of being in league with Gatalas, but my Roman officers trusted me, and left me free. I do not like these plans of yours, Lady. They are too full of lies, and too ruthless with your allies. I would not trust myself and my men to your good faith any more than I would lead them on horseback into the ocean.” I swallowed the rest of the wine in one gulp and handed her back the cup.
She looked at me without expression. “You won’t join us, then? You won’t even hear the rest of what I have to say?”
I shook my head. I was aware of Arshak turning back to his horse and mounting. “I have no proof of anything,” I reminded them both. “And what you have said has been under the bond of guest friendship. If you like, I will swear on fire, as well, not to mention this conversation to anyone. You will then have to see to it that I get no proof: that is a fair contest. Good health, Lady.”
“You are on the side of the Romans, then?” said Arshak, his voice harsh with both pain and anger. His hand was on the shaft of his spear.
“I am on the side of my own men, who trust me to do what is best for them.”
“Traitor!” shouted Arshak, drawing his spear from its holder.
I touched Farna’s sides and sent her dancing backward up the road, and as I went I pulled my bow out of its case. Arshak yelled and lowered the spear. I turned Farna, stringing the bow, setting an arrow to the string, and cantered her onto the verge, going back toward the chariot. Farna reared as I stopped her, the arrow fixed on Bodica. “Let me go back to Corstopitum,” I called to Arshak.
“Fight me!” shouted Arshak, trying to get his horse in front of the chariot. “Not her! Me!” But I turned Farna about and kept the arrow fixed on Bodica.
“I do not want to fight you. If we duel, the survivor will be charged with murder, and his dragon will suffer trying to protect him: I will inflict that on none of our men. I have offered you a fair contest. Accept it now, and let me go.”
“Go, then!” said Bodica. She stood very tall in the chariot, her blue cloak draped close about her shoulders, but the hood fallen from her head, flung back proudly against my threat; she raised her hand. “Go if you can!”
I touched Farna and started back to the road, holding the bow bent and the arrow on the string. But before I reached the paving, something seemed to fall like a fog over my eyes. I felt dizzy. Farna’s hooves rang on the stones, and she stopped, sensing something wrong. My hands, holding the bow, seemed suddenly very far away. As though I were looking at them from a distance, I saw the bow slacken. My fingers fumbled at the string, and I dropped the arrow. Arshak lowered the spear and stared at me in consternation. Farna blew softly and shook her head, puzzled.
Bodica tied the reins of the chariot to the post, climbed down, and walked over to me. I couldn’t move. She pulled the bow out of my hands as though I were a child. I tried to rouse myself; I fumbled at my shoulder for my sword-hilt, but couldn’t find it. Bodica gave me a shove, and I fell. I lay on my back, looking at the side of my horse above me, steaming in the cold, and beyond that, the gray sky and the few light flakes of snow. Everything seemed remote, as though I were looking at it down a long tunnel.
“What have you done to him?” cried Arshak.
“Did you think we could let him go back?” she demanded in return. “His Romanizing has cost our people a thousand lives already, and he’d do worse, much worse, now he knows we’re his enemies.”
“I would have fought him,” protested Arshak. “He’s good, but I could beat him.”
“Everyone knew you left Condercum with him. If he were found killed by the spear-and, dear heart, I believe he would be if you fought him-everyone would know that you did it, and what would happen to us then?”
“What did you do?” Arshak repeated. “He’s a prince of the Iazyges: he deserved to die fighting.” But he sounded halfhearted now.
I thought, with a mind that was numb and fumbling like my hands, how she’d handed me the wine. It had been drugged. Not the wine, she’d drunk some of that as well, and Arshak. The cup, my cup, the cup she offered in the sacred bond of hospitality. Had she been sure I’d refuse to join them, or had it just been a precaution? How could Arshak accept it? I tried to get up. I twitched over to one side, and fell back.
“He deserves to die,” Bodica answered Arshak. “That he was a prince of the Iazyges makes his Romanizing worse. Go back to Corstopitum, but stop on the way and do some hunting. Take off your armor. Say you and he saw a quarry, a deer or a flock of partridges, on your way back from Condercum, and decided to see who could shoot the most game. Say you lost him in the chase, and thought he’d be back in Corstopitum. It will look like an accident.”
“But…”
“He betrayed you, my white heart! Don’t you see that? My husband approves of him, and wanted to promote him above you. He would have become an adviser on all Sarmatian affairs and your lord. He would have ended up handing you over to my husband, and I couldn’t bear that, I’d die. Go, quickly. I can deal with him.”
“If it has to be, let me help. It’s too much for you to bear alone.”
“No! The road’s empty now, but who knows when someone will come along? We mustn’t be seen together. Just help me to put him in the chariot: I’ll do the rest.”
Arshak picked me up by the shoulders, slung me over my horse, and led her over to the chariot. I was aware of it, through the mist, but I could not move. It was the most I could do to pick my head up a little, and then I couldn’t hold it. I was put in the chariot like a corpse and shoved under the bench seat. I was aware, in the dim scent of damp leather and wood, of Bodica and Arshak whispering good-bye, and then the chariot jolted into motion.
It rolled over paved road for some distance, and I struggled in the mist and darkness, half-unconscious, half-awake. When I could think at all, I wished, stupidly, passionately, and irrelevantly, that I had succeeded that time in reaching the Jade Gate. It was cold. After a time, I realized that we’d left the paved road and were bouncing along a rougher surface. Again I struggled to get up, and couldn’t. I twisted my head, and saw beside me the edge of Bodica’s gown, her feet in the expensive shoes of embossed leather, and a mud track beyond. The chariot turned, and the mud was replaced by grass, green winter grass with a light sprinkling of snow. The chariot stopped.