Patrick (3 page)

A strong arm encircled my waist, and I felt myself lifted from the ground. I kicked the heels of my boots—aiming for his knee or groin. Instead, I caught his thigh. He gave out a roar and threw me down on the ground. I hit hard; for a moment I could not breathe.

Gasping, gagging, I squirmed onto my knees and tried to gain my feet. I heard a whiffling sound behind my ear and felt a jolt that seemed to take off the back of my head. I was lifted up and hurled facefirst into the dust. Flaming black stars burst before my dazzled eyes. My head was filled with the sound of a thousand angry hornets.

Hands grasped me by the hair and arms. I was yanked upright and half dragged, half carried away down the hill. When my vision cleared somewhat, I saw that I was being lugged toward the shore. I tried to wriggle free and received a sharp cuff across the side of my face.

As we descended to the coast, I twisted my throbbing head around and saw, over my shoulder, a dirty red-orange glow in the sky. Our villa was aflame. I cried out at the sight and struggled once more to free myself. “Mother!” I screamed. “Father!”

My shouts were silenced by a crack on my skull which rattled my teeth like dice in a cup and knocked all sense from me. My stomach, bladder, and bowels emptied themselves at once, and all strength fled. The raiders bore me up between them and dragged me down to the sea.

I
LAY ON THE
strand with a mouth full of sand and the roar of the sea in my ears. Knowing I should get up and run away while it was still dark, I lacked both strength and will, and instead writhed on the beach, panting and groaning, my eyes squeezed shut against the pain. The darkness was filled with rushing and shouting and cries of terror, but I paid no heed to any of it. Gradually, the frenzy and noise receded, and I sank into a dark, empty silence.

Sometime later I opened my eyes on a dawn raw as an open wound, to find that I was lying on a heap of rotting seaweed with no memory of how I came to be there.

My horse threw me,
I thought. Boreas had thrown me and bolted. I must have crawled down to the strand from the road. Or maybe I had fallen and rolled down. We were at the inn—my friends and I. But where were they now? And why had they deserted me when I needed them?

These thoughts, fragments only, circled lazily in and out of my hazy memory. There was something else…the sound of breaking glass…a cry for help…someone whimpering…the moon glowing red through a dark pall of smoke.

Smoke…

With the word came the scent in my nostrils—and with that, the awful memory of what had happened: the attack…the villa ablaze…my home destroyed.

I raised my head, which started a cascade of pain. When
it passed, my vision cleared and I looked around. In the dim dawn light I could make out the huddled forms of others nearby. I heard the sound of sobbing and carefully turned my head to the left, where a young girl was sitting—knees to chin, arms wrapped around her legs, hugging herself, rocking back and forth, whimpering in her misery. Her eyes were closed, and tears glistened on her thin, dirty face.

“Who are you?” I croaked. The voice which issued from my mouth was as dry and feeble as an old man's, but the girl opened her eyes and gazed at me.

“I thought you dead,” she said after a moment.

“Not yet,” I gasped.

She regarded me with an expression that said she was far from persuaded.

“Where are we?”

“They killed my mother,” the girl replied, her lips quivering. She sniffed back the tears. “They came for us at night. I don't know what happened to my father.”

“Where are we?” I asked again, raising my voice slightly. Even that sent spasms of pain spinning though my head. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth.

“Are you injured?” asked the girl.

“My head hurts,” I replied between breaths. When the pain subsided, I opened my eyes and said, “What is your name?”

“Drusilla,”

“Do you know where we are?”

She shook her head slowly. The entire side of her face was a mass of purple-black bruises; her hair was matted with dried blood, her slender arms streaked with soot and dirt.

I looked beyond her to some of the other survivors farther along the beach. I made to call to them, but the pain in my head began as soon as I raised my voice, so I desisted until I could make myself heard without setting the waves of agony thundering through my poor battered skull.

Carefully, I turned and looked back up the rising slope to the top of the cliff, then along the strand to the right and left.
The coast seemed vaguely familiar. I guessed we were no great distance from Bannavem. The enemy seemed to have gone, and I thought that if I could get to my feet and gain the clifftop, I might yet reach home.

“Drusilla,” I said, “I'm going to climb up to the road. I need you to help me.”

She looked at me sadly and shook her head again. The resignation in her expression angered me.

“Why not?” I demanded. “We have to try at least.”

Without a word she stretched out one leg to reveal an iron shackle tight around her skinny ankle. Glancing quickly down at my own feet, I saw that I was shackled, too. Cold, hard drops of sweat stood out on my throbbing temples as I beheld the iron rings and chain.

I grabbed at the chain with my hand and loosed a strangled cry of rage and frustration. Captive! The word beat in the pulse of my broken head. Captive! I had been taken prisoner. My vision dissolved in tears of helplessness, humiliation, and defeat.

After a moment I swallowed my distress, drew a deep breath, and turned to the young girl once more. “Listen,” I said, “we can do this if we help each other.” I rolled onto my knees and held out my hand. “Here. Take hold of me.”

She crawled to where I was kneeling, took my hand, and allowed me to help her to her feet, whereupon she took my elbow and held me up while I tried to stand. The movement brought a rush of nausea, and my stomach heaved, but there was nothing to vomit save the bile which burned my throat. I stood bent double until the rippling ceased, then wiped my mouth with my sleeve, put my arm around Drusilla's bony shoulder, and we started forth one painful step at a time—like blind beggars hobbling uncertainly over alien ground.

I coaxed Drusilla along much as I would a skittery colt: soothing her with reassurances, telling her she was doing well and that we would soon be free once more. Together we crept to the foot of the cliff; here the ground was covered with shattered slate, fallen from the rocky cliffs above to
form mounded heaps. The flat rock tilted and slipped beneath our feet like smashed tiles, and we fell; I struck my knee on a sharp edge, and the impact set the pain beating in my head like a drum. I knelt there gasping for breath until the pain receded.

When I was ready to go on, Drusilla helped me to my feet and we continued.

The cliffside rippled with many eroded ravines and shallow furrows filled with brush and small shrubs. Although these little valleys were steep, I thought we might at least have branches and suchlike to hold on to as we climbed. We made our way to the nearest defile. “I'll go first,” I said. “Follow me, and do what I do.”

On elbows and knees I pulled myself up, grasping stones and sticks and clumps of sea grass, wriggling like an eel through the undergrowth. It might have worked, too; we might have succeeded but for the dogs.

We had just begun our ascent when there came a shout from the beach, and then I heard barking. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw two huge brown hounds bounding toward us, growling as they came. Behind them ran three raiders carrying spears; two others stood on the strand watching.

The dogs were on us in an instant. Drusilla screamed. One of the beasts snatched at my leg as I kicked out. It seized me by the cloth of my trousers and began pulling. I slid down the defile and lay curled on the broken slate with my arms before my face to protect my head and throat until the handlers came and pulled the hounds away.

No doubt they would have punished us more severely for trying to escape, but their hands were full—what with the dogs and spears—so they cuffed me halfheartedly about the shoulders a few times and hauled us back to the beach where, with a whack on the arm with the butt of a spear, they shoved me back down on the sand. Drusilla began sobbing again, and my head pounded with such ferocity I could not see. I lay on my back with my eyes squeezed shut, moaning, bereft in my misery.

In a little while the sun rose full and with it the tide. When I stirred myself again, I saw there were more raiders on the beach now—fifty, maybe sixty or more—standing in a clump, many leaning on their spears in postures of fatigue. They seemed to be waiting for something…. With this thought I turned my eyes to the sea as the first sails came into view: three brown-and-red squares billowing in the light morning breeze, gliding around the far headland and into the bay. These were soon joined by five more, and then seven.

Fifteen ships! Even if most were not fully manned, it still meant five or six hundred warriors. I reckoned that Guentonia boasted but two centuries, Lycanum only one, and Bannavem none at all—fewer than three hundred soldiers for the defense of three towns. While it is true that a trained legionary is worth five or more barbarians, even legionaries cannot be three places at once. Bannavem was lost before the battle ever began, just as Darius had said.

The first of the ships came close to shore, and one bedraggled knot of captives after another was led out into the surf: men, women, and children—whole families ripped from their beds in the dead of night and marched to the coast. I looked for any familiar faces among the first unhappy passengers but saw no one I knew.

And then it was my turn. Two raiders came, and without a word I was pulled to my feet and dragged out to a nearby ship. The cold waves washed around my legs, and then I was roughly hauled over the side like a fish. Drusilla tumbled in after me, and we huddled together in the bottom of the boat. When the shallow hold was full, the warriors turned the ship and pushed it out into the bay. I heard the hull grind against the sand and hoped for a moment that we would be grounded and unable to sail. Then a wave lifted the ship, the sail puffed out, and we slid away.

I pulled myself up the side and looked out over the rail at the slowly receding coast. Black plumes of smoke rising into the clear morning sky marked the ruins of Bannavem;
around the countryside smaller gray-white columns indicated other burning villas—of which Favere Mundi was but one of many. I wondered if my parents had escaped or whether my bullheaded father had stayed to fight to the death. I wondered what my friends would say when they learned I had been taken. I wondered if I would ever see my homeland again.

Leaving the bay, the ship bounded out into deeper water, and more of the coastline came into view. Away to the south, in the direction of Lycanum, a great, heavy dark cloud of smoke hung like a continuous storm above the gentle hills; and to the north more ships—and still more, strung out all along the coast. I stared in disbelief at the low knifelike hulls, and the full extent of the attack broke over me: it was not a raid, it was an invasion.

Sadness such as I have never known descended over me as I watched the land of my birth slowly shrink and shrink, growing ever smaller until at last the green headlands disappeared beneath the clear horizon. My heart felt as if it would crack in two; I wanted to cry, but, stunned by grief, I could only stare in dry-eyed wonder.

Out on the open sea, the breeze stiffened, the sail snapped taut, and the sharp prow bit deep into the waves. I settled back in my place and turned my attention to our captors. There were eight of them aboard ship: big men all, well muscled, and dressed in coarse handwoven, voluminous trousers dyed red, orange, or brown. Most were bare to the waist, with long hair that they wore in one or more braids down their naked backs. Their beards were shaved except for mustaches, which they wore untrimmed. Two had smeared pitch on their faces, chests, and arms in rippled stripes; three had armbands of gold, and all wore torcs around their necks: one of silver, the rest of bronze or iron. They were filthy brutes, one and all.

My fellow captives sat slumped against the sides of the boat or curled on the narrow central deck. Sunk in despair, they did not lift their heads. Young and old wore the same
witless, dead expressions. Most were, so it appeared to me, farmhands and servants. I knew none of them. They stared with dull eyes at the far horizon, mute in resignation, patient as cattle awaiting the slaughter.

The pilot of the boat was an older man with a blackened stump on the end of his right arm where his hand should have been. He worked the steering oar keeping one eye on the sail and one on the sea. Three other ships traveled in our wake, and the waves, running smooth and calm, seemed to fly beneath the prow. We sailed through the morning, and while our captors talked among themselves and drank from wineskins and the water stoup from time to time, none of them spoke so much as a word to any of us nor offered us anything to drink.

After a time, the tedium of the voyage began to tell. I dozed, awakening once to find that Drusilla had fallen asleep with her head against my chest. My first instinct was to push her aside, but I restrained myself. Her troubles, like mine, were just beginning, and I did not care to add to her distress by even such a trivial act. I was thirsty, but there was no relief, so to prevent myself from thinking about it, I went back to sleep.

I woke again later with a burning thirst and decided to do something about it. Gently shifting Drusilla aside, I rose unsteadily and made my way to the water stoup. One of the guards saw me as I dipped the ladle; he challenged me, but, ignoring him, I drank my fill and then turned and offered the ladle to the captive beside me. The guard, angry now, came to where I stood and snatched the water away from the man. He shouted something at me and pushed me aside, but the pilot called something to him. An argument ensued, which ended with the truculent guard being forced to fill the ladle and pass it along to the captives until everyone had been given a drink.

I crawled back to my place and dozed again until sunset, when I awoke and saw, against the crimson and purple sky, the low humps of an island far off in the west. I thought this
our destination, but when the island had drawn close enough, the pilot turned the ship, and we proceeded on a northerly course. The sky held the light long, and the sea remained calm. I lay back in my place and listened to the ceaseless swish and surge of the waves against the hull. It was a tranquil sound, and the light of the rising moon turned the sea to liquid silver. Stars in wild abundance filled the sky bowl with glittering light.

How, I wondered, could heaven look down upon such a great calamity as if nothing had happened? Was not the desecration perpetrated on my homeland worthy of God's consideration?

Yet, the moon rose in perfect serenity in a calm, untroubled sky; the peaceful stars turned in their slow, steady arcs; the sea spread out like a friendly meadow—and all as if the catastrophe of the day were of such small consequence as to be unworthy of heavenly regard.

The more I thought about this, the more absurd it seemed and the angrier I became. That the distress of so many innocent people should fail to provoke even so much as an angry retort from the Ruler of Heaven and Earth was an outrage.