Camulod Chronicles Book 1 - The Skystone Read online

  THE SKYSTONE

  Jack Whyte

  Whyte was born in Scotland and came to Canada in 1967. An actor, orator, singer and poet, his narrative poetry earned him two gold medals at the prestigious New York International Film Festival in 1991 for Best Writing and Best Narration. Jack Whyte's critically acclaimed A Dream of Eagles cycle includes the titles The Skystone, The Singing Sword, The Eagles' Brood, The Saxon Shore, and The Sorcerer Books I and II: The Fort at River's Bend and Metamorphosis.

  Copyright © Jack Whyte, 1992 All rights reserved.

  Publisher's note: The Skystone is based in part on actual events, but all the principal characters are fictional.

  To my wife Beverley,

  who always believed,

  but now can't, quite.

  INTRODUCTORY NOTE

  The term "historical fiction" indicates that there is at least a framework of factual material involved in the story being told in a novel. It seems to follow, therefore, that everyone who reads historical fiction should have a right to know — or should be accorded the privilege of knowing — how much of what he or she is reading is historically correct and accurate.

  The characters Caius Britannicus and Publius Varrus are fictitious, as are all their families, friends and relatives. They were all born of the author’s need to answer the question, "How could this, or that, have happened or come into being?"

  The events against which their fictional story unfolds, however, were very real, and the major imperial characters — Valens, Valentinian, Theodosius and Stilicho — lived and behaved as described herein. The time in which they lived, the latter part of the fourth and the early part of the fifth Christian centuries, was a period when world-shaking events took place; things that still affect our lives today,. sixteen hundred years afterward, owe their beginnings to the ideas and events that were developing at that time.

  The eighty-one-year period from 367 to 448 AD was among the most intense in the history of the province the Romans called Britain. At the start of it, in 367, Britain was still firmly Roman, and the Roman authorities still maintained written records. By the end of it, however, the four-hundred-year occupation of Britain had ended, the entire Roman Empire in the West was in ruins, and Britain itself, the western Empire’s richest granary, had been so thoroughly conquered by the Angles and Saxons that it would be known forever afterward as the land of the Angles — England.

  In the space of those eighty years, civilized life, literacy, education and Christianity were stamped out and the Dark Ages settled on Britain. They would last for two centuries and more, so that by the time the light of learning returned to Britain, great changes had been wrought, and legends had been born. The English longbow was then a fact of life, and people talked on long, dark, winter nights of a great champion who had led his people valiantly in ancient times, armed with a magic sword he had received from a woman's hand. It was the beginning of what would come to be known, over the course of centuries, as the Arthurian Legend. The Roman Army,

  The differences between the Roman army of antiquity and the modern army are differences mainly of names. The structures are comparable. A modern Army Group, or a Brigade, made up of several regiments, is the approximate equivalent of a classic Roman legion. The officer commanding the modern Brigade is a Brigadier General, and he is assisted by an adjutant or deputy, plus a staff of senior officers made up of the Colonels and Majors of each regiment. These are assisted in run by their company commanders (Captains) and subalterns (Lieutenants),who are backed up by their non-commissioned officers. In the Roman army, the commanding officer of a legion was called the Legate. He was assisted by an adjutant or deputy called the Camp Prefect, and a staff of six senior administrative officers called Tribunes. The original function of the Tribunes was to spread the call to arms and ensure that the citizens rallied to the Eagles in time to march and fight. Later, the Tribunate became more of a political tenure, a training ground for young noblemen waiting to go into the consular or civil services. Whenever a Tribune chose to distinguish himself militarily rather than serve his time administratively and get out, his success was almost preordained.

  There were normally twenty-eight legions in commission at any given time, and each legion was divided into ten cohorts. By the end of the third century, the first two cohorts of each legion had been expanded to Millarian status, which meant that each held 1,000 men and was the approximate equivalent of a modern battalion. Prior to that time, only the First Cohort had been Millarian. To the First and Second Cohorts fell the honour of holding the right of the legion's line of battle, and they were made up of only the finest and strongest battle-hardened veterans. Cohorts Three through Ten were standard cohorts of 500 to 600 men. Each Millarian cohort was composed of ten maniples, and a maniple was made up of ten squads of ten to twelve men each.

  The bulk of the legion's command was provided by the Centuriate, from the ranks of which came the centurions, all the middle-and lower-ranking commissioned officers of the legion. There were six centurions to each cohort from Three through Ten, making forty-eight, and five senior centurions, called primi ordines, in each of the two Millarian Cohorts. Each legion had a primus pilus, the senior centurion, a kind of super-charged Regimental Sergeant Major. The primus pilus headed the First Cohort, the Second Cohort was headed by the princeps secundus, and Cohorts Three through Ten were each commanded by a pilus prior.

  The Roman centurion was distinguished by his uniform: his armour was silvered, he wore his sword on his left side rather than his right, and the crest on his helmet was turned so that it went sideways across his helmet like a halo.

  Each centurion had the right, or the option, to appoint a second-in-command for himself, and these men, the equivalents of non-commissioned officers, were known for that reason as optios. Other junior officers (princi-pales) were the standard-bearers, one of whom, the aquilifer, bore the Eagle of the legion. There was also a signifer for each century, who bore the unit's identity crest and acted as its banker. Each legion also had a full complement of physicians and surgeons, veterinarians, quartermasters and clerks, trumpeters, guard commanders, intelligence officers, torturers and executioners. Cavalry.

  By the end of the second century AD, cavalry was playing an important role in legionary tactics and represented up to one-fifth of overall forces in many military actions.

  Nevertheless, until the turn of the fifth century, the cavalry was the army’s weakest link.

  The Romans themselves were never great horsemen, and Roman cavalry was seldom truly Roman. They preferred to leave the cavalry to their allies and subject nations, so that history tells us of the magnificent German mixed cavalry that Julius Caesar admired, and which gave rise to the cohortes equitates, the mixed cohorts of infantry and cavalry used in the first, second and third centuries AD. Roman writers also mention with admiration the wonderful light horsemen of North Africa, who rode without bridles.

  Fundamentally, with very few exceptions, cavalry were used as light skirmishing troops, mainly mounted archers whose job was patrol, reconnaissance and the provision of a mobile defensive screen while the legion was massing in battle array.

  Roman cavalry of the early and middle Empire was organized in alae, units of 500 to 1,000 men divided into squadrons, or turmae, of 30 or 40 horsemen under the command of decurions. We know that the Romans used a kind of saddle, with four saddle horns for anchoring baggage, but they had no knowledge of stirrups, although they did use spurs. They also used horseshoes and snaffle bits, and some of their horses wore armoured cataphractus blankets of bronze scales, although there is little evidence that this form of armour, or armoured cavalry, was ever widely used.r />
  Until the fifth century, and the aftermath of the Battle of Adrianople, it would seem that almost no attempt had been made to study the heavy cavalry techniques used in the second century BC by Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. It was that renaissance, allied with the arrival of stirrups in Europe somewhere in the first half of the fifth century, that changed warfare forever. In terms of military impact, the significance of the saddle with stirrups was probably greater than the invention of the tank.

  Proper and place names

  Most of the names used for characters in this novel would have been common in Roman times. The following is a guide to phonetic pronunciation:

  Caesarius

  [Cee-zary-us]

  Caius

  [Kay-us]

  Claudius

  [Klawdy-us]

  Flavius

  [Flavey-us]

  Gaius

  [Guy-us]

  Luceiia

  [Loo-chee-ya]

  Plautus

  [Plough-tus]

  Quinctilius

  [Kwink-tillyus]

  Quintus

  [Kwin-tus]

  Seneca

  [Sen-nic-a]

  Tertius

  [Tershy-us]

  Theodosius

  [Theo-dozy-us]

  Valentinian

  [Valen-tinny-an]

  Vegetius

  [Ve-jeeshy-us]

  The land the Romans called Britain was only the land we know today as England. Scotland, Ireland and Wales were separate and known respectively as Caledonia, Hibernia and Cambria. They were not recognized as part of the province of Britain.

  The ancient towns of Roman Britain are still there, but they all have English names now. What follows is a guide to phonetic pronunciation of Roman place names, with their modern equivalents. They are numbered to correspond to the map provided.

  1

  Londinium

  [Lon-dinny-um]

  London

  2

  Verulamium

  [Verr-you-lame-eeyum]

  St. Albans

  3

  Alchester

  4

  Glevum

  [Glev-vum]

  Gloucester

  5

  Aquae Sulis

  [Ack-way Soo-liss]

  Bath

  6

  Lindinis

  [Linn-dinnis]

  Ilchester

  7

  Sorviodunum

  [Sorr-vee-yode-inum]

  OldSarum

  8

  Venta Belgarum

  [Venta Bell-gah-rum]

  Winchester

  9

  Noviomagus

  [Nowy-oh-maggus]

  Chichester

  10

  Durnovaria

  [Durr-no-varr-eya]

  Dorchester

  11

  Isca Dumnoniorum

  [Isska Dumb-nonny-orum]

  Exeter

  12

  The Colony

  13

  Camulodunum

  [Ca-moo-loadin-um]

  Colchester

  14

  Lindum

  [Lin-dum]

  Lincoln

  15

  Eboracum

  [Eh-borra-cum]

  York

  16

  Mamucium

  [Mah-moochy-um]

  Manchester

  17

  Dolocauthi

  [Dolla-cow-thee]

  Welsh Gold Mines

  18

  Durovernum

  [Doo-rove-err-num]

  Canterbury

  19

  Regulbium

  [Re-goolby-um]

  Reculver

  20

  Rutupiae

  [Roo-too-pee-ay]

  Richborough

  21

  Dubris

  [Doo-briss]

  Dover

  22

  Lemanis

  [Leh-mann-iss]

  Lympne

  23

  Anderita

  [An-der-reeta]

  Pevensey

  The Legend of the Skystone

  Out of the night sky there will fall a stone

  That hides a maiden born of murky deeps,

  A maid whose fire-fed, female mysteries

  Shall give life to a lambent, gleaming blade,

  A blazing, shining sword whose potency

  Breeds warriors. More than that,

  This weapon will contain a woman's wiles

  And draw dire deeds of men; shall name an age;

  Shall crown a king, called of a mountain clan

  Who dream of being spawned from dragon's seed;

  Fell, forceful men, heroic, proud and strong,

  With greatness in their souls.

  This king, this monarch, mighty beyond ken,

  Fashioned of glory, singing a song of swords,

  Misting with magic madness mortal men,

  Shall sire a legend, yet leave none to lead

  His host to triumph after he be lost.

  But death shall ne'er demean his destiny who,

  Dying not, shall ever live and wait to be recalled.

  BOOK ONE - Invasion

  I

  Today is my sixty-seventh birthday, a hot day in the summer of 410 in the year of our Lord, according to the new Christian system of dating the passage of time. I am old, I know, in years. My bones are old, after sixty-seven summers. But my mind has not aged with my body. My name is Gaius Publius Varrus, and I am probably the last man alive in Britain who can claim to have marched beneath the Eagles of the Roman army of occupation in this country. The others who marched with me are not merely dead; they are long dead. Yet I can still recall my days with the legions clearly.

  I have known men who refused to admit ever having marched with the armies. Whatever their reasons, I regard their refusal as their loss. I remember my legion days frequently, with affection and gratitude, because most of my lifetime friends came to me from the legions and so, indirectly, did my wife, the mother of my children and sharer of my dreams.

  There are times, too, when I think of my army days with an echo of incredulous laughter in my heart. I remember the foul-ups and the chaos and all the petty, human frailties and fallibilities that surface in army life, and my options are clear: laugh at them, or weep.

  I remember, for instance, how I spent the afternoon of another summer day, more than forty years ago, back in '69. That day was my last as a Roman soldier, and I spent it leading my men, and my commanding general, up a mountain and into an ambush.

  Traps are never pleasant spots to be in, God knows, but the one we sprung that day was the worst I ever encountered in all my years of soldiering. The heathens who caught us seemed to materialize out of the living rock. Savage, terrifying creatures, half-man, half-mountain goat, they took us completely by surprise in a high, rocky defile in the very centre of the rugged spine of mountains that runs the length of Britain. We had been climbing for two days, picking our way carefully and, we thought, in secrecy through valleys and passes away from the major crossing routes. We wanted to arrive unannounced on the western side. The few officers with horses, myself included, had been on foot most of that time, leading the animals. We had just entered this defile and mounted up, thankful for the reasonably level floor it offered, when we were crushed by a torrent of massive rocks from above.

  The three men I had been talking to were smashed to a bloody pulp before my eyes by a boulder that fell on top of them out of nowhere. They never even saw it. I doubt if any of the men killed in that first apocalyptic minute saw death approach them. I know I was stunned by the suddenness of it. It did not even occur to me at first that we were being attacked, for we had sighted no hostiles in more than a week and expected to find none there, so high in the mountains.

  Those first plummeting boulders caused carnage among our men, who had just bunched together on the narrow, rocky floor, exhausted after a long
, hard climb. The mountains, which had until then heard only panting, grunting breath and muttered curses, were suddenly echoing with the roar of falling rock and the panicked, agonized screams of maimed and dying men. And then the enemy appeared, dropping, as I have said, like mountain goats from the defile walls above us. Britannicus, my general, had fallen back from the head of the column only moments earlier to chivvy the men behind us, and as I swung my mount around, I saw his helmet's crimson plume about thirty paces distant, swaying as he fought to control his rearing horse. The cliffs directly above him were swarming with leaping men, clad in animal skins, and I began flogging my horse, willing the frightened beast to fly me over the men packed around me to a spot where I could organize some effective resistance.

  It was hopeless. There was no room to do anything. In a matter of seconds, it seemed, the entire length of the defile was a mass of snarling, angry men locked in hand-to-hand fighting. This was a fight that, whichever way it went, would be won by brawn and guts, not by tactics. I was using my horse as a battering ram, forcing my way through the struggling mass of bodies, stabbing right and left with a spear I had snatched from a falling man, but it was like one of those dreadful dreams when nothing works properly and everything slows down except the forces threatening you.

  The narrow floor of the cleft we were in was bisected for a third of its length by a ridge of rock that was sharp as a blade on top, and I reached one end of this ridge just as my horse sagged under me, fatally wounded but unable to fall immediately because of the press of bodies. I managed somehow to throw myself from its back before it did go down and found myself standing on the ridge above the struggle, unchallenged by anyone. I looked to my right and saw Britannicus, his teeth bared in a rictus of pain, less than a spear's length from me, an arrow in his thigh above the knee. It was a red-flighted arrow, very pretty, and it had pierced him cleanly, pinning him to his screaming horse, which, like mine, did not have room to fall. As I watched, a hand came up out of the press below and grasped the protruding shaft, pulling it downward. He screamed, and his horse lurched and went down on that side, crushing his pinned leg beneath it. I have no recollection of crossing the space between us. The next thing I remember is standing on the hindquarters of his horse, directly above Britannicus, looking for a clear space to jump down into. The masses parted and I leaped, only to take a spear thrust in the chest in mid flight so that I fell backwards on top of him. My breastplate had deflected the spear's point, but I saw its owner set to try for me again. I tried clumsily to roll to my right as he stabbed and this time felt the point of the spear lodge between the plates of my armour, beneath my shoulder. I rolled back again frantically, throwing my weight against the shaft, and managed to wrench it from the man's grasp as one of my own men plunged a sword beneath his arm. He went to his knees and died there, his eyes wide and amazed. As he began to topple towards me, I was already on my feet again, ignoring the spear, which had fallen beside me, and drawing my dagger. My sword was gone. A hand grasped my left shoulder, tugging me violently around before I could find my balance. I swung blindly, finding a naked neck with my blade and falling again, hearing a voice inside my head cursing me clearly for not being able to stand up.