Authors: Paul Bannister
Our journey across Gaul was as the augur had predicted, swift and smooth. This was because we covered much of the distance on the vast rivers of that territory. We used the Meuse until it closed on the Marne, portaged our two galleys on commandeered farm wagons, then sailed the Marne right down to the Seine.
We
saw the smoke from the cookfires of Busfeld’s army from 15 miles away, so many were there of the Huns, and after sending an emissary ahead to announce our intentions and identity, we made our approach openly, in full daylight. Busfeld responded by dispatching a party of horsemen to escort us into the camp, a directive conveyed to me in crude Latin by the cavalry commander.
I
eyed the escort curiously. They were short, stocky Asiatics, swarthy and with thin beards. They had small eyes, flat noses and savage, weathered faces. Huns practised cranial deformation, shaping their skulls with flat boards to elongate their heads and inspire fear, and most of our cavalry guides had such misshapen skulls. Many of them also carried multiple scars on their faces. I later learned that they slashed their own flesh when mourning a dead leader or comrade, to weep blood instead of salt tears.
The
horsemen’s equipment was unimpressive. They wore pointed caps, baggy leggings made from goat or deerskin and tunics of linen or rodent pelts. Much of their clothing seemed to be disintegrating and looked to be held together only by the embroidery and small coloured stone beads that adorned it. In cold weather, they wore felt or fur great coats, and often smeared their faces thickly with animal fat as protection from the cold or wet.
For
weapons, they carried reflex compound bows made of wood, bone and sinew that were almost as tall as they and that could kill at 200 paces or more. I noted that some of their arrowheads were not metal, but were shaped from animal bone or horn. The warriors all wore a large curved dagger horizontally across the belly, and carried an iron sword, long, straight and double-edged, hung vertically from the belt.
Elite
soldiers ornamented their sword hilts and bow staves with gold, and adorned their horse trappings lavishly. I saw that they all rode with careless ease, had full-foot leather-covered wooden stirrups, which gave them a steady platform from which to fight or fire their arrows and were so much in tune with their steeds that I wondered if they were the real half-horse, half-man centaurs of legend.
Their
horses, bred for endurance, were hairy little mounts with wide hooves and long heads, bushy tails and extravagant manes. They could live on the thinnest forage, and were trained to slash with their hooves or bite with their big yellow teeth, on command.
In
battle, the Huns wore metal-framed conical leather helmets with a forepeak and several layers of body armour of hard leather that was reinforced with sewn-on bone plaques. They used short lances and also carried lassos with which they could rope an enemy out of his ranks and drag him helpless to be slaughtered.
The
horsemen escorted us through penned herds of cattle, sheep and goats, past endless horse lines of small, neat-footed ponies and through their sprawling, stinking camp to a curious large round tent made from skins. There was no guard at the entrance, I noted.
Inside
was Khan Busfeld, seated and eating something greasy from a small cauldron. He was dressed like his men, in baggy deerhide leggings, leather jerkin and soft horseman’s boots too fragile for marching. He sported a thin beard that failed to cover his facial scars and wore a nondescript pointed felt cap above his shoulder-length hair. His status showed only when you noticed the impressively large garnet and gold armband above his elbow and the elaborately-gilded Scythian bow slung over his chair. He nodded to me, grunting, and I saw his eyes flicker appraisingly over my
segmentata
armour and other war trappings and take in my height as I towered over his stocky, short-statured men.
He
himself was an impressive size and we looked at each other eye to eye when he stood. He gestured hospitably to the pot of food. “Mutton with mint,” he said in passable Latin. “Excellent stew. Lord Imperator Arthur of Britain, you must try some.”
I
refused the meat, but accepted the hospitality. Our parley did not take long, and was devoid of the finer points of diplomacy. We consumed two skins of wine, and we understood each other. I told him of my battles with the Romans; he told me of a great Hunnic victory over them at a place called Hadrianapolis.
The
Roman general there had miscalculated the strength of the Goth cavalry, part of whom were away foraging, had marched his men for seven hours to confront the enemy, and had attacked precipitately. The assault foundered and broke on the Huns’ defensive wagon circle and the barbarian cavalry archers, returning, routed the exhausted Romans.
Some
15,000 Romans were killed or captured, including Maximian’s own imperial guard, and the barbarians’ way lay open to Illyrica and Cisalpine Gaul. Busfeld detached his Huns from the Ostrogoth and Vandal horde he mistrusted and moved further north, aiming for the rich pickings of Gallia Comata, the ‘Long-haired Gaul’ of the Belgic low countries, Armorica and Aquitania.
I
met Busfeld with his horde of Huns and Burgundians alongside the wide Seine river just before he moved west to lay siege to the rich city of Aureleanum. We talked of an alliance with the Franks, Gauls, and others against the Romans and he wondered aloud what tribute I would be paying him. That made me bristle, then laugh aloud.
“You
have no room left in your overloaded plunder train for a few ingots of British gold,” I told him, “but in friendship, I will give you a fine horse and two couples of the best hunting dogs.”
Busfeld
stared at me coldly and it took a deliberate effort to restrain my hand from reaching for Exalter’s hilt. Then he laughed, grabbed me by the shoulders and said: ”British hunting dogs, only British ones!”
I
made a mental note to send a messenger to my contact in Britain, Sucia Silvestria, who bred the world’s best hounds, to ship some to Gaul. Quite how she’d get them to a Hun warlord busy devastating the country, I did not know, and the same went for shipping a Frisian stallion to him from those northern islands. Sometimes, the details of a pact can be difficult. I learned later that Khan Busfeld never got the animals. Before he could receive them, he died of a nosebleed. Ironically it was on his wedding night.
That
was in the future. Two days after sharing wine with him, I was leading my small troop, mounted on horses that were a parting gift from the khan. We were trotting west across Gaul and into Armorica.
Queen Emiculea Reatina, ruler of the Kingdom by the Sea, received us in her airy palace of Mons Tumba, a dazzling structure atop a sea mount surrounded by wide tidal flats. “I dreamed that you were coming,” she said simply. “The Druid Guinevia came to me as I slept, to tell me.”
I
started at the mention of my lover’s name. “How is she? And our son?”
Emiculea gestured. “Arthur, I do not know. She seemed strained. She wanted to tell me of your approach. I sense that she wanted to send you a message, as I would have been warned of your arrival anyway.”
Obvious
enough, I felt, as the only way to her citadel that was capital of Armorica and the adjoining land of Aquitania, too, was across a sea-washed causeway that was under surging tides half the time. Her kingdom was ancient, vast and wealthy and had close connection with Britain through Celtic heritage, trade and language. In fact, I had a fair claim to the queen’s throne through my father’s jarldom and as Imperator of Britain, but she viewed me with a calm that told me she knew I had not come to pursue that ambition. I asked her for discretion, and she assured me there were no loose tongues in her citadel, no spying eyes to bring down the Romans on me, and on her people.
The
widowed queen, slight and dark, had held her position since her husband’s death not just as incumbent ruler of the Veneti, Pictones and Osismi who populated the rocky western lands, but as a powerful Christian monarch who had encouraged a group of hermits, followers of the teachings of Benedict of Nursia, to establish a monastery on her island capital.
This
public display of Christianity had garnered her huge support from one of the continent’s largest populations of Jesus followers, and I hoped to recruit them for my campaign against the Romans who persecuted their faith. I told her of my devout Bishop Candless, who even now was taking the gospel of holy war around Britain’s Christian temples - she frowned and I hastily corrected myself. “Churches,” I said.
Candless
had been so blessed by the saints that a pilgrim had given him the four nails from the True Cross, and he had been granted a vision of another, more sacred icon which would come to him. I was not yet empowered to tell the good queen what exactly that was, or just when it would come to Candless, but this would be a relic of such sacred power that believers would flock to follow it against the Romans. Which reminded me that I had heard of an evangelist called Benedict who had a great following and whose influence might be useful to me.
I
asked Emiculea about him. “Benedict is a holy, holy man, Arthur,” she said firmly. “He was educated in Rome but turned away from that city of debauchery and founded centres of religious learning everywhere, all of them under his strict rules of prayer, fasting, service to others and hard work.”
Something
rang a bell, and I recalled a story the Pictish bishop Candless had told me one night over pots of ale. One of Benedict’s rules, he said, was that monks in a community must share everything. Nobody was to have personal possessions. Of course, one wayward monk broke the rule, and on his deathbed confessed that he still had three gold pieces that he had brought with him into the monastery as a novice years before.
The
abbot ruled that the rule-breaker must not be confessed or given absolution until he had true repentance, and the monk died, unshriven. He was buried, said Candless, in unsanctified ground and the monks threw in the three gold pieces with the body.
For
a month, the monks prayed for their dead brother. On the 30th day, the dead monk’s ghost appeared to the abbot, glowing with saintly light. He had, he told the churchman, found his repentance in Purgatory and Jesus had forgiven him.
The
abbot, said Candless, then ordered the body to be disinterred and reburied in holy ground. It was an example, Candless explained, of the order’s strict observance of the monks’ vows, and of God’s mercy. I thought privately that the abbot probably had his convenient dream to retrieve the gold pieces, but I never said that aloud. Even pagans can be discreet.
Queen
Emiculea was pleased when I referred to Benedict’s rules and offered to give me a tour of the ecclesiastical buildings of the island. I accepted, thinking that I’d rather assess the fortifications, but any examination was better than none. There were a number of towers and a curtain wall ringing the accessible sides of the island, and palisades of sufficient strength around the steep crags of the rest. The causeway was protected by an iron-bound drawbridge guarded between towers and double gates, and a bailey in near-impregnable situation topped the mount. The two small harbours were well protected and promised guarded sea access even during a siege.
Mons
Tumba had deep wells, strong walls, and a trained garrison. It had well-stocked granaries, a smithy, armoury, bakery and everything else needed for self-sufficiency in a very long siege.
It
would be difficult for any besieger to take the island, as the tidal currents were fierce and would sweep away most siege works or equipment, and additionally engineers had worked to create a moat by diverting a small river that flows into the bay there. They had dug deepwater channels right under the island’s walls, making it difficult even at low tide for an enemy to approach.
All
in all, I concluded, this would be a stronghold better than my old one at Bononia, where the Romans had cut off our harbour by building a mole across it at low tide, sealing off the city from seaborne relief. It was a worthwhile survey.
As
for the buildings, the monks had grabbed several prime spots for themselves and their temple and I noted sourly that Mithras and the other old gods had no obvious places of worship, but I kept my mouth shut. I needed the Christians’ help, so that week, I attended their temple and knelt patiently through several chanting sessions. I even stayed mute and allowed myself to be choked by incense fumes and sprinkled with water. All the time, I was quietly clutching the Hammer of Thor amulet I kept hidden under my shirt.
Emiculea
spent several evenings gently attempting to persuade me that baptism into the Christian cult would be politically a good thing, and had not an Angle king not only converted, but had 10,000 of his subjects be baptized just two Christmases ago? I countered that, in conscience to the memory of her late husband, that good pagan, I could not so easily abandon the gods of my ancestors, but I would consult Guinevia on the matter. Fat chance, I mused. My pagan witch would likely hex me into a toad or slug before she’d let me become a Jesus follower. I smiled, and thought how I missed feeling her snuggling against me, snuffling sleepily against my neck, like a puppy.
Finally,
I made agreement with Emiculea. She would commit her forces to an alliance with me, with my Christian forces under Candless, with the Huns, Franks and a motley collection of Gallic tribes that I had brokered to oppose the Romans. In return, I pledged assistance should her enemies threaten.
It
was now the tenth month, so we would ready ourselves through the winter, and strike in the earliest part of spring, while the Rhine was still frozen and the Romans were busy keeping back the Alemanni who could walk across it.
I
ordered my men to ready for our journey back to Britain. We’d make the week-long march north towards Bononia, find a ship or two for the troop of us, and slip across the narrows of the strait before the winter was properly upon us and made sailing so dangerous. In the corner of my chamber, I did not notice the white rat, sitting up on its haunches and staring red-eyed at me.