The Lantern Bearers (book III) (29 page)

Aquila was kneeling over him in the road, his men all around them. ‘It’s Valarius,’ he said. ‘Get him back, lads. The devils! See what they have done to him!’

They took the old man up and carried him back through the gap in the dyke that he had so nearly gained, and on the British side of it, in the safety that was too late for him now, made to lie him down on his face. But somehow he got to his knees, looking up at Aquila with a twisted and sweating face that yet smiled a little.

‘Ah, the Dolphin! Five years is a long time, and it is good—to be—among friends again,’ he said, and sagged forward into Aquila’s arms.

‘Keep guard, in case they try to rush us,’ Aquila said to his men. ‘Valarius, in Our Lord’s name, what has happened?’

‘They won’t rush you—won’t—risk any sort of frontier trouble—not now,’ Valarius gasped. ‘I hoped to lie up till—dark before trying—to get across, but they—routed me out too soon.’ And then, as he felt Aquila’s hand near the wound, ‘Na, let be! There’s nought to be done, and—if you meddle with that—I shall die—shall die anyway, but—must talk—first.’

Aquila also knew that there was nothing to be done, not with an arrow deep-driven in that position. He eased the old soldier over, holding him with an arm under his shoulders so that no weight came on the barb, and propped him with a knee, listening to the harsh, agonized words that he gasped out with such desperate urgency. ‘Hengest has made—an alliance with Guitolinus—the Scots too, some Scots settlers from Southern Cymru—going to invade—invade—’

‘When?’ Aquila snapped.

‘In—half a month, by the—original plan. That leaves them—clear month’s campaigning time—may be more. Gambling on Ambrosius—not expecting anything so—late in the year. But knowing that I’m—slipped through their fingers with—maybe breath for a few words left in—my body, I think they’ll—come sooner.’

‘They swore on Thor’s Ring,’ Aquila began stupidly.

‘To the Saxon kind—an oath between friends is binding—to the death. An oath between—enemies is made to be kept until—the time comes for breaking it.’

‘Are you sure of all this?’ Aquila demanded.

‘I have been a hostage among them for five years—oh, my God! Five years!—Nobody troubles to keep a hostage in the dark. I know these things—beyond all doubt.’

‘Where will the attack fall?’

‘I—do not know.’

‘Do you know anything more?’ Aquila pressed him with merciless urgency, for it seemed to him that Valarius was beginning already to drift away from them. ‘Anything more, Valarius?’

‘Na, nothing more. Is not that—enough?’

Aquila looked up, singling out one from among the men around him. ‘Priscus, saddle up and ride like the hammers of hell for Venta. Tell Ambrosius that Hengest has made an alliance with Guitolinus and the Scots settlers in Cymru and intends invading, certainly in half a moon, maybe sooner. Tell him that Valarius has returned to us, and in what manner. Repeat after me.’

The man repeated his orders, and swung away, striding downhill towards the horse-lines. Aquila shifted a little, trying to find an easier position for Valarius.

‘Water,’ Valarius whispered.

‘Go and get it,’ Aquila said to the man nearest him.

Valarius lay looking up at the sky, from which the light was beginning to fade. Little clouds that had not showed when the sun was up made a flight of dim, rose-coloured feathers across the arch of it. The green plover were crying, and a little wind, cool after the heat of the day, stirred the grass along the crest of the bank. The men of the guard-post stood round in silence, looking down.

‘It is good to come back,’ Valarius said with a deep contentment. ‘The Saxon kind promised—that when the fighting joined, and the time for secrecy was done—I should be free to—come back to die with my—own people, but I was always—an impatient man. Is the—water coming?’

‘It will be here very soon,’ Aquila said, wiping away the stain of blood from the corner of Valarius’s mouth. ‘Is there any word that you would have me carry to Ambrosius?’

‘Tell him—I rejoice to have redeemed my debt.’

‘He has never thought of any debt,’ Aquila said. ‘I have told you that before.’

A queer little smile twisted Valarius’s mouth. ‘But I have—and I have told you that before … Tell him, all the same. Even if he has—not thought of it so—he will understand and be—glad for me.’ His last words were scarcely to be heard at all. He turned his head on Aquila’s arm, and began to cough, and more blood came out of his mouth; and the thing was over. So Valarius died with more dignity than he had lived for many years.

The man who had gone for the water came running with it in his leather helmet, and knelt down beside Aquila. ‘Is he—am I—?’

Aquila shook his head. ‘You are just too late.’ He felt under Valarius’s body, and snapped off the projecting arrow-shaft, knowing that there was no more harm the barb could do him now, and laid him down at the foot of the bank among the long, tawny grasses and the late harebells that looked almost white in the dusk.

A
FEW
evenings later the British war host was encamped within the turf banks of the ancient hill fort a few miles east of Sorviodunum, knowing that tomorrow’s battle was for life or death.

Aquila, checking just below the crest of the great western rampart on his way down to the horse-lines, saw the slow heave of the downs westward like a vast sea in the windy dusk. Below him, below the encircling rampart on its isolated hill, the shallow valley dipped away, rising again to the wave-lift of downs on the far side. As he looked away north-westward along the line of them, he could just make out, even now, the gap in the hills where the road from Sorviodunum came through on its way to Calleva; the gap beyond which, somewhere, the hosts of Hengest were encamped, waiting, as the British were waiting, for dawn. Behind the ancient turf fortress the land fell gently, dark-furred with thorn scrub, as were all the skirts of the downs, to the low flatness of reed and willow and alder brake, the stray gleam of water where the river marshes crept in among the hills. Ambrosius had chosen his position well: the marshes and the thorn scrub and the hill slopes to guard the British flanks, the road from Venta to Sorviodunum a few miles behind for their supply line.

Only three days ago, the whole frontier had gone up in flames. The break-through had come just below Cunetio, and Hengest with Guitolinus and the Scots had swept like a flood through a broken dam down the road south, hurling back the British skirmishing bands sent up to clog their advance and slow them down while the main defence made ready. A few hours since, and a few miles short of Sorviodunum, they had swung south-eastward for the gap in the downs where the Calleva road passed through. Once through that they would be free to march on Venta itself, or, more likely, sweep down the broad river valley the last few miles to the head of Vectis Water, so cutting Ambrosius’s little kingdom in two. Free, that is, save for the British standing in the way, the hastily gathered host of lowland foot-soldiers and mountain cavalry, the bowmen of Cymru and a few untrained, late-joined companies from the nearest fringes of the Dumnonii.

Ambrosius had called in almost the whole of the British host, staking everything on this one great battle; for Ambrosius, as well as Hengest, knew how to be a gambler. If they were beaten now, that was the end. ‘I can’t afford to fail once,’ Ambrosius had said, years ago, ‘because I’ve nothing in reserve with which to turn failure into victory.’ It had been a curb then, holding them back; now it was become a spur. An odd change, that, Aquila thought, listening to the confused hum of the camp behind him. Five years ago the mood of the British camp had been somehow deadened with long waiting. It should have been worse now, worse by five years, but it was not. Maybe it was a kind of desperation, the knowledge that this time there could be no agreed peace, that nerved them. But whatever it was, Aquila had felt the change of mood at once when he rode in at noon with his own men; had felt something rising like a dry wind through the whole host. Unaccountable were the ways of men, and still more unaccountable the ways of hosts that were quite unlike the ways of the men from which they were made.

Aquila turned and went on his way. The whole camp was throbbing like a lightly tapped drum as he went down through it. Men came and went, horses stamped, he heard the ring of hammer on field anvil where the armourers were busy on last-minute harness repairs; arrows were being given out from the fletchers’ wagons, and the smoke of many cooking fires spread and billowed across the darkening hill-top before the rising wind.

There was a fire down by the near end of the horse-lines, and some of his own men gathered about it. And there, standing a little uncertainly on the edge of the firelight, he found Flavian.

Flavian was wearing a weather-worn leather tunic too big for him across the shoulders, and he must have been to the armourers’ wagons, for a long sword in a plain wolfskin sheath hung at his side. The wind was blowing his dark, feathery hair sideways across his forehead like a pony’s forelock, and the five-year-old scar showed white in the wind-driven firelight. To Aquila, stopping abruptly in his tracks at sight of him, he looked very surprisingly like a man.

‘Flavian! What do you suppose you are doing here?’

‘I came out to take my part against the Saxons,’ Flavian said, and came a step nearer into the firelight. He was as tall as his father already; a tall, grave boy with level eyes. ‘They were saying in Venta that every man who could carry a sword would be needed.’

‘Every
man
, yes,’ Aquila said.

‘You always said that I should have my shield when I was fifteen, Father.’

‘You have miscounted. You are not fifteen yet.’

‘I shall be in a month’s time,’ Flavian countered, quickly.

There was a small silence, and then Aquila asked, quietly, because he did not want to shame the boy in the hearing of the men round the fire, ‘You did not come without word to your mother?’

Flavian shook his head. ‘No, sir; Mother sent me.’

Again there was silence. They looked at each other through the smoke of the windy fire, through the barrier that had always been between them. They had never got back to where they had been in the sunny courtyard five years ago. The whole summer had gone by before Aquila returned to Venta again, and by that time it had been too late. Just for the moment Aquila had thought that the boy had come to him of his own accord. But Ness had sent him …

‘Very well, then,’ he said, with no softening of his stern manner. ‘I take you. Did you ride Whitefoot?’

‘Yes, sir, but—’

‘Where have you picketed him?’

‘In the same row as Falcon, sir, for the moment, but—’

Aquila’s brows snapped together. ‘For the moment?’

‘Yes; you see—’ Flavian hesitated, and his father saw him swallow. ‘Sir—when I got here, they told me you were in council with Ambrosius, and I had to picket him somewhere until I could see you and ask your leave. Sir, I want to take my sword to Artos and ask him to let me ride in his wing.’

Aquila was wincingly aware of his own men gathered about the fire and looking on, listening. ‘At least this time you have thought fit to ask my leave in the matter,’ he said coldly. ‘I suppose that I should be gratified by that.’

‘Then I may go to Artos?’ Young Flavian was already poised to be away in search of his heart’s desire.

‘No,’ Aquila said, ‘I am afraid not.’

‘But, sir—’

‘
I am afraid not
.’

For an instant Flavian seemed about to fly out at him with some furious protest, but he choked it back, and asked in a tone as quiet as his father’s, ‘Why, sir?’

Aquila was silent a moment. He was letting this tall, almost unknown son of his go into battle before the time that he had meant to, but at least he would keep him close to himself. It was not jealousy, it was a feeling that he would be safer there. He knew that that was confused thinking, a Saxon arrow was as likely to find him in one part of the battle as another; but somehow he felt that he owed it to Ness, who had sent him his son on the eve of battle.

‘Possibly one day I may give you my reasons,’ he said at last. ‘For the present, I fear that you must accept blindly the fact that I forbid you to take that sword that you have come by to Artos.’ He waited for an answer, and then as it did not come, said sharply, ‘Understood?’

Flavian stared straight before him, no longer looking at his father. ‘Understood, sir.’

‘Very well. You had best join yourself to Owain’s squadron; tell him I sent you. You will find him by the lower fire down yonder.’

Flavian drew himself up stiffly in the Roman salute that he had seen some of the old soldiers give; and turned without another word, and walked away. Aquila, watching him disappear in the dusk, thought suddenly and painfully of all the things he would have liked to say to the Minnow before his first battle.

In the darkness before dawn, suddenly a spark of red fire woke on the black crest of the downs, signalling to the watchers in the British camp that the Saxons were showing signs of movement. The hosts of Ambrosius rose and shook themselves, and turned themselves to the business of the day. Dawn, when it came, was a wild one, a fiercely shining, yellow dawn that meant storm and tempest; and the wind that had been rising all night was sweeping like a winged thing down the valley; and overhead the great, double-piled clouds racing from the west were laced and fringed with fire. And from the topmost spray of the whitethorn that grew high on the ancient ramparts a storm cock was singing. His song, fiercely shining as the morning, was sometimes scattered by the wind, sometimes came clearly down to the waiting cavalry on the slopes below.

Aquila heard his song, a song like a drawn sword, cutting through the formless sounds of a gathering army. From here on the slopes of the fortress hill he could see the whole battle line strung across the shallow trough of the valley; the main body of spears in the centre, where in the old days the legions would have been, the long-bow men behind them, and on either side the outspread wings of cavalry and mounted archers. The wild, changing light splintered on spear-point and helmet-comb, picked out here the up-tossed mane of a horse, there a crimson cloak flung back on the wind, and burned like coloured flame in the standards that the wind set flying: Pascent’s standard, a mere flicker of blood red above the far cavalry wing; his own with the silken dolphin that Ness had worked for him when first he came to command a whole wing; and away down in the midst of the host the great, gleaming, red-gold Dragon of Britain, where Ambrosius in battered harness and cloak of the proud Imperial Purple sat his huge black stallion with a knot of his Companions about him.