Camulod Chronicles Book 3 - The Eagles' Brood Page 4

  Titus reined close to me. "How are you feeling, young Merlyn? Tired?" I tried to smile at him, nodding my head. "I thought so," he continued. "You had a long run there." I nodded again. "Why don't you come and ride with me? Then, if you fall asleep, at least you won't fall off the horse."

  He must have read the gratitude in my face, for he brought his horse right alongside my pony and lifted me up in front of him. I looked around me to see if any of the others were laughing at me, but no one was paying any attention at all, and I fell asleep almost immediately, cradled in the grip of Titus, my protector.

  I awoke a long time later to the sound of horns, and there in the distance were the walls of Camulod, crowning their hill and overlooking all the valley below. I was a very stiff and sore little boy by then, and I remember it took all of my determination not to cry out in pain as Titus handed me down to the willing hands that reached for me in the courtyard of my uncle's villa. I had a hot bath, and my tiredness overcame me in the course of it. I have no memory of being . put to bed. The next morning, however, I awoke with all my normal vigour, remembering that my father, the Legate Picus, had come home, and hoping that he would stay. He did. He was home this time for good.

  Stilicho, my father's Commander-in-Chief, had been recalled from campaigning against the Ostrogoths by his former ward, the Emperor Honorius, and had returned to do his master's bidding, only to be summarily executed for an alleged plot to usurp the Empire for himself. My father had remained behind, facing the Ostrogoths with Stilicho's. army, completely unaware that the same schemers who had brought down Stilicho had condemned him, too, so that Picus Britannicus was a Legate one day and a hunted outlaw the next.

  Thanks only to a timely warning and the loyalty of his own veterans, he had been able to make his escape ahead of the men sent to kill him. He had then crossed the continent with a small band of officers and men, and returned to Britain, where he was now safe from the displeasure of the Imperial Court.

  Any hopes I had in my small boy's heart of being with my father from that time on were doomed, however. From the time he returned to Camulod, the military activities of the entire Colony increased. Uncle Varrus gave up supreme command of our forces to my father, who immediately set out to upgrade and improve the standard of everything we were involved in, from strengthening the Colony's defences and intensifying the ongoing building activity on the walls, to a major increase in the frequency, and the thoroughness, of mounted patrols around our outlying territories.

  In the spring of that year of 409, the realities of large- scale invasion were becoming inescapable. All parts of the coast around our Colony were reporting heavy raids, and rumours abounded of strong parties of raiders—armies composed of many shiploads of warriors—pillaging towns, killing the men and keeping the women for their casual use, and then fortifying the towns themselves as bases for sorties into other parts of the country. Word came that one such base camp had been established to the south-east of us, in a village protected from surprise attack by its location on the upper rise of a low hill. According to the report that reached us via a wandering priest, three raiding groups had combined their strength and had occupied and fortified this place. Now, from the security it offered, they were terrorizing the land for miles around.

  I was in the Armoury, listening to a conversation between my father and my uncle, when this news arrived. My father had been talking in his slow, laborious way of the need to build turrets in the walls of the fort to hold ballista, scorpions and other artillery pieces of the kind used by Stilicho's armies. Siege warfare had progressed considerably since the days of Caesar's campaigns in Gaul and Iberia, he said, but most of the brilliant innovations were being developed in defence against siege engines. Castellations at intervals along a wall, jutting out in front of the main line, allowed defenders to pour down murderous fire on their attackers, and the effectiveness of these castellations increased with the concentration of them in any stretch of wall.

  Look at the forts of the Saxon Shore, he was saying. They were impregnable simply because of the way they were built. Siege engines could not get near them: That was what we needed to do with Camulod. We must add towers to jut out—far out—along the front, where they could protect the weakest spots in our defences; towers that would allow our soldiers to maintain supremacy, no matter what an attacker might bring up against them; towers that were strategically placed at the salient peaks of the hill of Camulod, and from which defenders could look down and in, towards the shallower gradients.

  It was at this point in the discourse that Titus interrupted the meeting, bringing in a messenger with news of the raiders and their fortified base to the south-east. I knew as soon as I saw him that he was one of the wandering priests who spread the Gospel of the Christ throughout the countryside to all who would listen. He was a tall, skinny, bearded man dressed in a simple homespun robe and clutching a shepherd's crook,- the symbol of his calling. He stared in awe at the splendour of the room as he came forward to greet the two occupants, for he was unaware of my tiny presence on the floor behind my father's chair. Both Uncle Varrus and my father listened without interrupting while he told his tale. My father had only two questions: "How far to this place? And how many Saxons?"

  The man was unsure of the distance, estimating it at between twenty and thirty miles, but he had himself counted no less than two hundred men in and around the village in the space of two days. My father thanked him and nodded to Titus, who took the priest to find someone who could show him the way to the kitchens. When the doors had closed behind them Uncle Varrus spoke.

  "Twenty to thirty miles. That's not too close. They're nowhere near our lands."

  "No, Publius, you're wrong. They're far too close. A hundred miles would be too close."

  "How do you mean? That's three days' march for that rabble, maybe four or five! A boatload landing to the north or south of us tomorrow could get here sooner."

  My father shrugged. "Granted. But they wouldn't. Not unless they were desperate. They'd be too far from their ship, their base. Don't you see it? That's what's important, Publius! These animals have made themselves a base camp on solid ground. You heard the priest. It's fortified. That means it's solid. They don't have to worry about somebody finding it and sinking it. And they have women, too. With enough food and sex, they'll be in no hurry to go back to where they came from. Enough time to relax and enjoy it, and they might decide to stay. Enough time to grow strong and plunder all the countryside around them, and they'll start striking out for new hunting grounds." He stopped and shook his head, then continued. "I don't like this at all. Not one little bit of it."

  The door opened and Titus came back into the room.

  "Well, what do you think, Titus?"

  Titus nodded and spoke.

  "Alaric's Visigoths, General. I was thinking of the time they jumped us in Thrace. Once burned, I tend to be wary of fires." .

  "Good man. Exactly what occurred to me. Tell Publius. Sit down."

  Titus turned to my uncle, seating himself as he did so. "The Visigoths were doing the same thing in Thrace, Commander. They'd storm a town, kill the men, keep the women, and keep them in order by threatening the children. Then they'd pretend to be citizens—changed their clothes and their weapons. We rode right through one of those towns without suspecting a damned thing. Two days later, we met Alaric head on, and just when we needed and expected it least, these people hit us from behind. Damn near cost us the battle and it could have cost us a lot more in men and horses than it did. We thought we had cleaned out ' all the lands behind us, but they were there all the time. An expensive error." '

  My father spoke up again, his voice very guttural and almost unintelligible. "Safe base, Publius. Never had one there before. Used it like a catapult. Almost destroyed us."

  "So what are you suggesting?" Uncle Varrus asked.

  "An expedition. Burn the whoresons out!"

  My uncle looked upset. "That's easy to suggest, but how would we go a
bout it? The village is fortified, the priest says. What can your cavalry do against fortified positions?"

  "Bowmen."

  "What bowmen?"

  My father nodded emphatically. "Ullic's people. Those bows of theirs. Pick these people off like pigeons."

  "But how, Picus? I don't follow your logic."

  Uncle Varrus was at a loss and I could see my father becoming more and more frustrated by his inability to speak clearly. Finally, however, he spat out one word. "Trickery!"

  "Trickery? Trick them, you mean? The Saxons? How?"

  "Get them out into the open. Alexander's tactics. Surprise them. Draw them out. Damn this throat! Get me a drink, Titus. Something to write with, too."

  He wrote for what seemed to me to be hours, with the others reading over his shoulders, and I could see the excitement growing in them as they read. Uncle Varrus clapped him on the shoulder at one point, his voice pitched high with excitement.

  "By God, Picus, that might just work! It'll frighten them to death at first and then tempt them to death afterwards! It's brilliant! We have to get word to Ullic and Uric immediately. I wonder how many bowmen they have now? Well, we'll soon find out. This will be our first chance to try both sets of troops together."

  My father spoke again, his voice much clearer now. 'Tell them, lots of arrows."

  King Ullic himself came, with my uncle Uric and fifty- four bowmen. It took them ten days to reach us, for they had to be summoned, and then they had preparations to make before they could set out. Titus was the messenger who rode to them with word of what was afoot. He took three horses and rode practically without rest, covering the journey of four days in three, over mountainous terrain all the way, and then he rode straight back again with the word that my grandfather's people were coming at his back. By the time they arrived, the plan of campaign had been made and all the arrangements were in place. A council of war was held on the night of their arrival, from which Uther and I were banned, and the expedition set out early the next morning.

  Two hundred and eighty men rode out from Camulod that day, mounted on the pick of our herds. Uther and I watched them go, the first formal military expedition to be sent out from Camulod; the first manifestation of a new force in the land of Britain.

  My father rode at their head with Uther's father and Titus. King Ullic rode further back, with his contingent of bowmen, who were mounted for this expedition on our large horses. Used as they were to their small mountain ponies, many of them would be suffering by the end of the forty-mile ride. Each of them carried two quivers of arrows, with the exception of their king himself, who was now too old to pull his own mighty bow.

  At the very back of the contingent rode a party of men who looked very different from the others. Uncle Varrus had spent much time experimenting with a new shield suitable for mounted men to carry, ever since the weight of his own shield had bruised his thigh in the charge at Vegetius Sulla's villa years before. Now most of our cavalry carried circular or oval shields slung across their shoulders as they rode. The men at the back of the column, however, all carried the great, heavy scutum of the Roman legionary, and each scutum had a selection of throwing spears and javelins fitted into the leather slings at the back. They made an incongruous addition to the group, but they were there for a purpose.

  Uther and I climbed to the top of the walls and watched them until they disappeared among the trees in the distance. We were sick with disappointment at being left behind, but we assured each other that the day would come when we would not only ride out, but would ride out at the head of such parties.

  IV

  Camulod seemed dead and deserted after the departure of the troops. They took with them even the pleasure of the games that normally filled our free time, so Uther and I went our separate ways, he to the stables and I to my uncle's Armoury, where I perched myself on my cross-chair and gave myself up to imagining the outcome of their, expedition according to the little I knew of the plan drawn up by my father and the others. It was to be two weeks before they came riding home again, battered and bloodied, but jubilant and victorious.

  Uther and I tried our best to stay close to the leaders that homecoming night as they recounted all that had happened to Uncle Varrus and the other council members who had gathered to hear their news, but it was very late by the time the gathering had assembled and Occa found us and dragged us off to bed. We scrambled to hide from her, but succeeded only in attracting the attention of my father, who had neither the time nor the patience to accommodate small boys that night. We were dispatched to bed in a disgust so profound that neither one of us as much as thought of spying on Occa, which we usually did as she prepared herself for bed.

  We found out about the battle the next evening from Titus, who had become the best friend Uther and I had among the grown men of Camulod—with the exception, of course, of Uncle Varrus, Uther's grandfather. Titus approached us as we fought each other with wooden swords and shields, and stood watching until I found an opening in Uther's guard and smacked him soundly on the top of his head with the flat of my blade, far harder than I intended to.

  With a roar of rage, Uther threw down his weapons and came for me with his bare hands, murder and tears in his outraged eyes, and in a second we were rolling on the ground in mortal struggle. Titus pulled us apart and held us, struggling and kicking, one at the end of each of his strong arms.

  "Hey!" He roared at us. "What good is there in training you to fight and be leaders if you are going to try to kill each other? There's no room for fighting between you two!" Abruptly, he bent his elbows, pulling us both against him, our faces cheek to cheek close to his own, which looked ferocious, glaring at us both. "I thought you might have preferred to hear the tale of how we fought the Saxons, but if you'd rather waste your time fighting each other, I'll leave you to it and go and dally with a woman, instead."

  Our quarrel was immediately forgotten. "Tell us, Titus, tell us, please! We weren't really fighting," we squealed, almost in unison.

  "Well, are you sure you want to hear? The tale might bore you." We protested immunity to boredom. "Very well then, come with me. It's getting late and this story needs a fire."

  We followed him out of the gates onto the open hillside, where he stopped and looked to left and right. "Over there." He nodded to a spot that had been used as a campsite. "There's a fire pit, and logs to sit on, but no wood. Scatter, infants, and find fuel for our flames."

  We were gone in a flash, returning with armloads of firewood from the great heap piled against the walls. Titus had found some kindling in the time we were gone and had crossed to borrow a burning log from another fire close by. We watched him, breathless with anticipation, as he fed dried grass and twigs to the glowing ember, blew it into flames and slowly built the fire until it could live on its own. Finally he was satisfied: he piled some good-sized logs onto the fire and straightened up to his full height, looking out across the plain below us in the growing dusk.

  He hitched at the armoured kilt of leather straps around his waist and turned to us. Neither of us had spoken in a long time. We sat there staring at him, waiting for his story.

  "Where can I start? Two stalwart warriors like you should be told everything. Someday it will be up to you to lead our troops." He was half joking—we could see it in his eyes—but then his face grew serious and he seated himself on a log across the fire from us. The flames were dancing high now and the logs sparked crisply.

  We sat there listening to the crackling of the dry wood for long moments and then Uther cleared his throat. "The Saxon fight, Titus."

  "Ah, yes. The Saxon fight! That's why we came out here, isn't it?" He paused yet again, remembering, and we hung on his silence, our eyes never leaving his face. "Those Saxons had a real stronghold there," he finally said. "We watched them from a small wood on the opposite side of the valley, and believe me, we were impressed. The priest who brought us the news of these people told us they were quartered in a fortified village on a hill.
We had been hoping he was wrong, or just being an inaccurate civilian, and he was. The place was actually built on the end of a long ridge that stuck out into the marsh beneath it like, a finger. That made a big difference. Can you tell me why?"

  Uther was quicker than I to answer. "A hill is easier to defend than a ridge—against us, anyway."

  "Why?" Titus was deadly serious, not a note of condescension in his tone.

  "Because our horses can attack along the ridge better than they can from below."

  "Good man. So we had one problem solved. Caius, what was our other problem?"

  I thought hard, just to be sure that my first reaction had been the right one. "The marsh. If it was too wet, you wouldn't be able to cross it."

  "For what purpose? You're right, but why would we want to cross the marsh?"

  'To get to the bottom of the hill, to get the Saxons to come down against you and take their attention away from the ridge and our cavalry."

  His eyes went wide with mock admiration. "Splendid! You should make a great general some day, my lad."

  "Not as great as his father," Uther grumbled, ill-naturedly, I thought, until he went on, "He hasn't got the legions."

  Titus grinned. "Well, perhaps not, but neither does his father now, yet what he planned, and the way he made it work, was brilliant. It was more than that; it was sheer, absolute genius."

  He shifted to a more comfortable position on his log and threw some more wood onto the fire, watching it catch and blaze until I had to ask, in an agony of frustration, "What did he do, Titus?"

  "Forgive me," he grinned, "I was remembering. We watched from the woods for an hour or so and then fell back to where we had set up camp, about two miles back in a valley that was secure. Ullic's people spent the rest of that day and night making their own preparations. About an hour after it got dark, your father dispatched me with a dozen men down into the valley to test the firmness of the ground. Remember, it had been raining hard for days."