“He’ll live for days!” said Sulla cheerfully, “These Picts are harder than cats to kill! I’ll keep a guard of ten soldiers watching night and day to see that no one takes him down before he dies. Ho, there, Valerius, in honor of our esteemed neighbor, king Bran Mak Morn, give him a cup of wine!”
With a laugh the young officer came forward, holding a brimming wine-cup, and rising on his toes, lifted it to the parched lips of the sufferer. In the black eyes flared a red wave of unquenchable hatred; writhing his head aside to avoid even touching the cup, he spat full into the young Roman’s eyes. With a curse, Valerius dashed the cup to the ground, and before any could halt him, whipped out his sword and sheathed it in the crucified man’s body.
Sulla rose with an imperious exclamation of anger; the man called Partha Mak Othna had started violently, but he bit his lips and said nothing. Valerius seemed somewhat surprized himself, as he sullenly cleansed his sword. The act had been instinctive, following the insult to Roman pride, the one thing unbearable.
“Give up your sword, young man!” exclaimed Sulla, “Centurion Publius, place him under arrest. A few days in a cell with stale bread and water will teach you to curb your patrician pride, in matters dealing with the will of the empire. What, you young fool, do you not realize that you could have made the dog a more kindly gift? Who would not rather desire a quick death on a sword, than a slow agony on the cross? Take him away. And you, centurion, see that guards remain at the cross so that the body is not taken down until the ravens pick bare the bones. Partha Mak Othna, I go to a banquet at the house of Dometrius – will you accompany me?”
The emissary shook his head, his eyes fixed on the limp form which sagged on the cross. He made no reply. Sulla smiled sardonically, then rose and strode away, followed by his secretary who bore the chair ceremoniously, and by the stolid guards, with whom walked Valerius, head sunken.
The man called Partha Mak Othna flung a wide fold of his cloak about his shoulder, halted a moment to gaze at the grim cross with its burden, darkly etched against the crimson sky, where the clouds of night were gathering. Then he turned away, followed by his silent servant.
Chapter .2.
In an inner chamber of Ebbracum, the man called Partha Mak Othna paced tigerishly to and fro. His sandalled feet made no sound on the marble tiles.
“Grom!” he turned to the gnarled servant, “well I know why you held my knees so tightly – why you muttered aid of the Moon-woman – you feared I would lose my control and make a mad attempt to succor that poor wretch. By the gods, I believe that was what the dog Roman wished – his iron-cased war-dogs watched me narrowly, I know.
“Gods black and white, dark and light!” he shook his clenched fists above his head in the black gust of passion, “That I should stand by and see a man of mine butchered on a Roman cross – without justice and with no more trial than that farce! Black gods of R’lyeh, even you I would invoke to the ruin and destruction of Rome! I swear by the bones of Cthulhu, men shall die howling for that deed, and Rome shall cry out as a woman in the dark who treads upon an adder!”
“He knew you, master,” said Grom.
The other dropped his head and covered his eyes with a savage gesture of pain.
“His eyes will haunt me when I lie dying. Aye, he knew me, and almost until the last, I read in his eyes the hope that I might yet aid him. Gods and devils, is Rome to butcher my people beneath my very eyes? Then I am not king but dog!”
“Not so loud, in the name of all the gods!” exclaimed the servant in affright, “Did these Romans suspect you were Bran Mak Morn, they would nail you on a cross beside that other.”
“They will know ere long,” grimly answered the king, “Too long I have lingered here in the guise of an emissary, spying upon mine enemies. They have played with me, these Romans – at least, so they thought – masking their contempt and scorn only under polished satire and subtle derision. Bah! I’ve seen through their baiting; have remained imperturbably serene and swallowed their insults. But this – by the fiends of Hell, this is beyond human endurance! My people look to me – if I fail them – if I fail even one – even the lowest of my people, who shall aid them? To whom shall they turn? By the gods, I’ll answer the gibes of these Roman dogs with black shaft and trenchant steel!”
He paced the floor a moment, his head bent in thought. Slowly his eyes grew murky with a thought so fearful he did not speak it aloud to the waiting Grom.
“I have become somewhat familiar with the maze of Roman politics during my stay in this accursed waste of mud and marble,” said he, “During a war on the wall, Titus Sulla, as governor of this province, is supposed to hasten thither with his centuries. But Sulla cares little for opposing the spears of the heather – so he sends Caius Camillus, who in times of peace patrols the fens of the west. And Sulla takes his place in the tower of Trajan, knowing that he has naught to fear there except an occasional raid by the wild Britons of the West. Ha!”
He gripped Grom with steely fingers.
“Grom, take the red stallion and ride North! Let no grass grow beneath the stallion’s hoofs! Cormac na Connacht has been brooding because there was no war – well, bid him mount for the slaughter! Tell him to sweep the frontier with sword and torch! Let his wild Gaels revel in slaughter. After a time I will be with him. But for a time I have affairs in the west.”
Grom’s eyes gleamed. Without a word he turned and left the presence of the king, who stepped to a barred window and gazed out into the moonlit street.
“Wait until the moon sets,” he muttered grimly, “Then I’ll take the road to – Hell! But before I go I have a debt to pay.”
The stealthy clink of a hoof on the flags reached him.
“He’ll pass the gates,” he muttered, “Not even Rome can hold a Pictish reiver! With the gold I gave him, and his own craft, he’ll find a key to every gate between this house and the heather! Now I’ll sleep until the moon sets.”
With a snarl at the marble frieze-work and Doric columns, as objects symbolic of Rome, he flung himself down on a couch, from which he had long since impatiently torn the cushions and silk stuffs, as too soft for his hard body. Hate and the black passion of vengeance seethed in him, yet he went instantly to sleep. The first lesson he had learned in his bitter hard life was to snatch sleep any time he could, like a wolf that snatches sleep on the hunting trail. Generally his sleep was as light and dreamless as a panther’s, but tonight it was otherwise.
He sank into fleecy grey fathoms of slumber and in a timeless, misty realm he met the tall, lean white-bearded figure of old Gonar, the priest of the Moon. And Bran stood aghast for Gonar’s face was white as driven snow and he shook with deep terror. Well might Bran stand aghast for in all the years of his life, he had never seen Gonar the Wise show any sign of any fear.
“What now, old one?” asked the king, “Goes all well in Pictdom?”
“All is well in Pictdom where my body lies sleeping,” answered old Gonar, “Across the void I have come to battle with you for your soul. King, are you mad, this thought you have thought in your brain?”
“Gonar,” answered Bran somberly, “this day I stood still and watched a man of mine die on the cross of Rome. What his name or his rank, I do not know. I do not care. He might have been a faithful, unknown warrior, of mine, he might have been an outlaw. I only know that he was mine; the first scents he knew were the scents of the heather; the first light he saw was the sunrise on the Pictish hills. He belonged to me, not to Rome. If punishment was just, then none but I should have dealt it. If he was to be tried, none but I should have been his judge. The same blood flowed in our veins; the same fire maddened our brains; in babyhood we listened to the same old tales, and in youth we sang the same old songs. He was bound to my heart-strings, as every man and every woman and every child of Pictland is bound. It was mine to protect him; since I could not, it is mine to avenge him.”