Dreaming the Bull by Manda Scott Page A

warrior’s scars, they were a constant source of pride; to lose them at any age was unbearable, to lose them within sight of the long-nights, and adulthood, was something to kill for, whatever the cost. Valerius saw the rock in the girl’s hand, raised to strike.
    “Not now, damn you.” He had been holding the reins of his company’s horses. He threw them to Umbricius, who was near. “Hold them. Be ready to mount.”
    The pied horse was already moving. Valerius pushed forward and the crowd, as a mass, edged back. There were more of them now; men and women who were not warriors had joined the throng, watching in silent accusation. The girl thought she could still throw her stone, even having been seen. Valerius leaned down and caught her arm before she could raise it high enough. A tall, lean woman with the same black hair was already at her other side. In formal Trinovantian, Valerius said, “They have orders to make examples of the troublemakers. If your daughter wishes to die, she might choose a way that will not cause her family also to suffer.”
    He had not been sure he could remember the language until the need came. They stared at him, mother, child and the crowd behind, disbelieving their ears. The girl tipped her head back. In the same tongue, Valerius said, “If she spits, I will have her flogged. She will not survive it.”
    The woman wore eight kill-feathers, all broadly banded in gold, and had just laid the blade of her ancestors at the feet of the enemy with all the dignity she could muster. She could, it seemed, control her daughter as well as she controlled herself and that without words. The crowd parted and let themthrough and, when Valerius looked round, the other children, too, had gone. He drew his horse back and circled it to where his men waited. Stooping, he retrieved the reins from Umbricius, who stared at him. “Why did you do that?”
    Valerius had acted on instinct and surprised himself.
She reminded me of someone I once knew.
Aloud, he said, “She’s a child. If we had flogged her, she’d die.”
    “So? A child doesn’t pay taxes. Myself, I think she is exactly what the governor had in mind when he—”
    He stopped. Valerius had said nothing, nor needed to. Umbricius had crossed him only once and would not forget it. Frustrated, the man said, “So who do we take as an example when every one of the bastards kneels at our feet and gives us what we ask?”
    Valerius smiled grimly. “Be patient. There will be one. They won’t all give up that easily.”
    He believed it, although it was still not clear who amongst the Trinovantes might be prepared to take a risk. The tension increased after the children dispersed but the desperate theatre continued, as if each warrior had been schooled to the part. In a while, when the pile of gathered weapons had reached knee height, Valerius ordered the smith to bring his forging block into the open and break the blades.
    Big, broad and red-headed, the smith was the exceptional horseman who had first laid his weapons at Umbricius’ feet. He had seemed the most likely to rebel but even when ordered to break what his ancestors had made, he did not do so. Sabinius, who had once been armourer to the troop and understood the value of what was being destroyed, said, “He would make a good auxiliary, could we persuade him to fight for us.”
    Valerius said, “His grandsons maybe, or those who come after. This one will never be anything but an enemy.”
    Enemy or not, the giant was a methodical man. He broke each blade exactly in half, laying the hilts with their decorated pommels to one side and the blade-tips to the other. It was not fast work. A blade that has seen the wars of five generations, that has been tempered in the blood of a hundred enemy warriors, does not break easily. Some had to be heated before they would break and that took time. The harshness of burning metal caught at the throat and stung the eyes. The auxiliaries coughed and wiped