In all that time, he spoke not a single, lucid word.
True to his promise, Caius kept the field workers at the villa after they had completed their normal daily toil. Fortunately, most of these men had been trained for the villa’s defence by Targo, so they were familiar with the swords, daggers, bows and axes held in the villa’s armoury. Rather than sleeping in the servant’s quarters, they planned to stand guard in the storehouses close to the villa.
Caius was also grateful to welcome a number of other men sent by the headman of the village. While lacking conventional weaponry, all the volunteers carried hoes, reaping hooks or other evil-looking farm implements. These men were sworn to the unwritten pact that existed between the Villa Poppinidii and their own homes.
For those souls who lived in these lands, any threat to one person was a threat to all. Besides, these villagers were almost in a festive mood for, after all, there are worse ways to spend a cold winter’s evening than in a billet in a warm barn with brewed ale to drink and a rich stew to devour.
The Villa Poppinidii had been built in the Roman tradition, with thick, earth-packed walls that offered scarcely a single egress for an enemy. Heavy wooden gates sealed off the villa proper, and clean light and air came via the gardened, open atrium that lay within the long rectangle of the villa’s structure. A colonnade surrounded this atrium and rooms opened directly on to the long, tiled corridor. The villa was almost impregnable.
But gates can be broken, and no place is totally secure. Cross-ventilation was provided from both long sides of the rectangular structure of the villa by a series of shuttered slits, half a man in height and an arm span in width, that helped to mitigate the summer heat. Here lay the villa’s weakness. That one such shutter should lie in the storeroom where the wounded man now lay was to be expected. That Julanna should choose to sleep in the chamber with the other shutter was a quirk caused by her dislike of enclosed spaces. Ector determined that these two rooms, and the central gate, must be guarded at all cost.
The villa was surrounded by outbuildings, including stables, piggeries, the servants’ quarters, an apple press, storage rooms and a cold room set in the ground, all of which were placed like chickens around the skirts of the villa. With the horse paddocks on the western side of the villa, there was little cover that could hide an enemy, but the apple, pear and lemon orchards could conceal an army approaching from the east.
Ector chose to keep his farm workers and the volunteers from the village within the horse barn and the granaries as a reserve for those defenders who were in the main part of the villa. From this outside vantage point, they could fall upon any foolish souls who assaulted the gates in a frontal attack. The villa’s women were barricaded into the servants’ building, the
rustica
, for safety.
As night fell, and flurries of snow began to fall, Frith decided to return to Gallia’s house, leaving a tired Licia to sleep with Julanna at the villa. But her patient needed nursing and care, so she informed Caius that Gareth would return to the villa and take her place, having learned the use of simples from his great-grandmother. The lad was sworn to protect Licia with his life, if need be, so not only would he guard one of the weakest spots in the villa, but he’d also assist Caius, if needed.
Before Frith made her slow way to Artorex’s villa, Ector stopped her and voiced some serious concerns.
‘The Villa Poppinidii can be readily defended, Frith, but Artorex’s house is isolated. If the Saxon raiders are unfamiliar with the villa, perhaps Gallia and her servants will not be detected, but I’d prefer that they were with us behind our thick walls.’
Frith sensed dark wings hovering over her. Danger threatened, she knew.
‘I agree, Master Ector. I will persuade my lady to seek shelter here.’
‘I am relieved, Frith. Indeed I am.’
As Frith hurried towards Artorex’s snug little home, her barbarian superstition warned her that the air with filled with black wings and the thickets with staring eyes.
The house servants had already bolted the gates and Frith had to pound upon the panels to gain entry. Once inside, Frith hurried to Gallia’s bedchamber where her mistress was lying, wan and tired. Her pregnancy had only reached the fifth month, but her child was unusually large and was sapping Gallia’s strength. Besides, the mistress had been subject to fits of black depression since the birth of little Licia, when Gallia wept for her lost kinfolk and swore that she would be better dead. Artorex and Ector had tried to comfort her when her dark moods came upon her, but she could only bear Frith to be near her. Even little Licia became an irritant, and Gallia would cry inconsolably that her daughter would fare better without her.
‘Gallia!’ Frith murmured. ‘Wake up, Gallia! Lord Ector believes that a Saxon attack is imminent and wants us to go to the villa for protection.’
Gallia opened her sleepy eyes. ‘We’ve never had trouble with Saxons before, Frith, and our house is remote from the villa. I’m so weary, I’d rather remain here where I can rest.’
‘I know you’re tired, my precious, but we must go. Let old Frith help you into warm furs and we’ll leave this house. If you’re too weary to walk, your manservant can carry you.’
‘I dreamed of Artorex as I slept, Frith. He’s riding into danger - and I know he’s going to die.’ A small tear glistened on Gallia’s cheek.
‘No, sweetheart! No! He won’t die, I promise.’
Gallia shook her head like a broken wooden doll. ‘He’s in danger, Frith. I saw him in a dreadful swamp, surrounded by corpse fires.’
Frith tried to shatter Gallia’s fey mood with any means at her disposal. The slave gripped her mistress’s hand and shivered at the icy coldness of her flesh.
‘All the more reason to keep yourself and your babe safe,’ Frith replied, trying to warm Gallia’s hands between her own palms. ‘He’d want to ensure that you were protected.’
‘There’s no point, dear Frith. Licia is safe and I’m certain we’ll not be found here on the edge of the forest. I’m quite prepared to let fate take its course. I don’t want to leave - so I won’t, no matter what you say. Go, dear Frith. Please, I just want to sleep.’ Gallia’s small mouth was set in a mulish pout.
‘Please, Gallia!’ Frith persisted. ‘Don’t be obstinate! This house is difficult to defend, so we must leave. If you don’t want to think of your own safety, then consider your servants and your unborn child!’
‘It’s far too late, Frith. Let the servants go to the villa if they wish. The Saxons will be watching us anyway, if they are here, and they’ll see us if we attempt to reach safety. They’d intercept us on the track. Whatever the gods decide will happen, whether I’m at the villa or here, in my own home. As long as Licia survives, nothing else matters.’
Gallia turned her face to the wall and fell into a light doze. Frith wanted to scream at her and shake her shoulders until her mistress acted sensibly.
But the barbarian slave knew, through her ancient, alien blood, that Gallia had sensed a change in the tenor of her world. When the three travellers came, she felt the patterns move and alter. Something dark was impelling Gallia to act foolishly, but Frith had no idea how to force her mistress to her senses.
‘Heaven help us,’ Frith thought aloud. ‘We will all die!’
Not for a moment did the old slave consider leaving her charge, although her heart fluttered in her withered chest as if it would leap out of her rib cage.
Gallia’s personal servants also refused to return to the villa, or even to venture into the Old Forest for safety.
Gareth was also proving difficult. Frith was forced to spend many minutes persuading him to leave Lady Gallia and return to the villa to protect Licia.
Gareth had grown into a strong youth who was utterly devoted to Artorex and his family. While he wasn’t particularly tall, Gareth’s appearance was imposing because of the strength of his bone structure, the unusual blondness of his hair and his quick intelligence. Like Frith, he had a streak of creative sensitivity that gave him an acute sense of beauty; like Frith, he was stubborn to a fault, and was impossible to move once his mind was set - as it now was.
‘If I were a Saxon, I’d attack this house first,’ he hissed, to avoid alarming the house servants. ‘You need at least one other man here to protect the house.’
‘Someone must protect Licia in the main building,’ Frith pleaded. ‘Who else but you, my grandson? I’ll not fail my oath, and nor should you.’
Only an appeal to Gareth’s sense of duty could have forced the young man to return to the villa proper. Frith kissed his firm, sun-reddened cheek, tousled his lovely hair and blessed the lad, for he was leaving her to protect her beloved Licia. Frith’s heart told her that she’d never see her great-grandson again.
Fortune favours the brave, but it especially protects those who are prepared.
At a little before midnight, the villa was attacked by Botha and his trained warriors.
The total force, less than twenty men, came with stealth, creeping from the orchard through the shallow, newly fallen snow like blots of spilled ink on the white scroll of the earth. Carefully, with muffled weapons, they encircled the main building, while Botha sent three young men to destroy the distant cottage on the far side of the fields that had been found by his scouts in the late afternoon.
Ignorant of Gallia’s peril, Gareth was closeted with the wounded courier who had, by now, lapsed into a coma. The youth half-sensed the approach of Botha’s warriors, although he only heard a mere scrape of metal against stone, but all his faculties were immediately alert. Through the bolted shutters, he saw fur-cloaked men moving stealthily in the moonlight. Two of the men were carrying blazing torches.
‘Awaken!’ Gareth screamed. ‘Awaken! We’re under attack.’
And then, after latching the storeroom door, he raced to the great bronze gong in the colonnade with its large hammer that had been provided to warn the occupants of the house of impending threat. As the metal sent out its deep knell of warning, Ector awoke with an oath.
The alarm had not been struck since starving wolves had attacked the villa some twenty-five years earlier. Ector felt the old fires of battle stir in his thinning blood.
‘Awake!’ Gareth continued to scream from the colonnade as the attackers began to batter at the shutters and the main entry door to the villa. Caius and Ector had slept fully dressed, with weapons beside their beds, and they now ordered the house slaves to danger spots inside the villa while they protected the right colonnade themselves.
Ignoring his instructions, Gareth abandoned his patient to his fate and scurried to Julanna’s apartments. He was determined that he would defend Licia with his life if need be.
He found Julanna clutching the two children to her shivering body as an iron pommel beat against the wooden shutters. The face of the mistress was as pale as parchment, and she cried thinly in fear. Gareth sent all three females into the small, windowless room that linked Julanna’s apartments with her husband’s sleeping chamber.
‘Keep the bars secure on the doors, no matter what you hear,’ Gareth ordered, a long knife made by Bregan in one hand. ‘And you must keep the children silent - for my sake.’
Gareth didn’t know that four of the attackers were already dead, killed from behind by the village recruits as they tried to break in through the narrow front doors of the villa.
He didn’t hear the bloody death rattle as his patient’s throat was cut when the villa’s defences were breached through the window of the recently vacated storeroom. Nor did he realize that Ector and Caius, supported by the house servants, were already engaged in desperate combat in the colonnade.
He was certain, however, that every attacker who entered the windows of Julanna’s chamber would die.
Gareth easily killed the first intruder, as the warrior was pressed against the wall, half inside and half outside the slit in the window, in an ungainly attempt to clamber through. With speed on his side, Gareth cut the warrior’s throat with one carefully measured slash, before stepping backward to avoid the jet of arterial blood that arced across the room.
Fortunately for Gareth, the second intruder slipped on the spilt blood as he leapt through the breach, so Gareth was able to blind the intruder with another quick slash of his knife across the man’s eyes. This warrior, bleeding profusely, roared in mingled pain and rage, and struck out with his sword in the confined space, but Gareth dispatched him easily with a wicked knife thrust from behind.
Gingerly, Gareth peered out of the broken shutter. This side of the house was now free of attackers, but he could clearly hear the sound of vicious fighting from across the atrium.
‘Keep the door barred, and remain here until I return,’ Gareth ordered through the door that should keep Julanna and the children relatively secure.
When she disobeyed him, he thrust a discarded sword into her shaking hands. Her eyes widened when she saw that the boy was covered in fresh blood. Then, her hands steadied as she hefted the heavy weapon, and Gareth registered a new hardening in the eyes of his mistress.
‘Don’t let the children into the bedchamber. Latch that door,’ Gareth roared, before he sped away across the atrium on naked feet that left a bloody trail behind him on the mosaic floor.
Four huge warriors were forcing Ector and Caius to retreat inexorably towards the locked entry doors when Gareth ran up behind the attackers. The bodies of four house servants lay on the tiles where they had fallen after being cut down like ripe grain. Caught between the intruders and the metal-bound entrance, father and son had little chance of survival.
From behind, Gareth hamstrung the warrior closest to him with one quick slash. The man screamed and fell to the ground, while the warrior in close combat with Caius dropped his concentration, and his sword arm, for one brief, lethal moment.