‘What’s Ambrosius about?’ Myrddion asked, once he had satisfied himself that his household in Venta Belgarum was safe and well. ‘The whole army seems to be on the move. And siege machines! What city is about to feel the wrath of Uther?’
‘Verulamium has been occupied by a detachment of Saxons who attacked as soon as the winter snows were finished. Apparently, their thane is a man called Thorketil whose ceols recently arrived from the north and sailed up the Tamesis river. He must have been certain that the Celts were thoroughly cowed, for he immediately took control of all the roads leading to and from Londinium and has been sending his scouts further afield with each new day. Verulamium never stood a chance. Thorketil’s strategy was very similar to Uther’s, for he attacked the civilians in the countryside and the hamlets until the citizens of Verulamium opened their gates and begged for mercy. May they take pleasure in their captivity! All news from the city has dried up, so only prayers to the Tuatha de Danaan can help the poor fools until we get there.’
‘What’s known of this Thorketil?’ Myrddion asked, for the name was not remotely Saxon in nature.
‘It’s said that he comes from the north of Frisia, close to Jutland, so perhaps he is more Jute than Saxon.’ Cadoc shrugged expressively. ‘He calls himself the Vessel of Thor and claims that the God of War fills his body and soul in battle and this inner strength brings success to his people. His fearsome reputation runs ahead of him, and
so the High King must stop him, if only to prove that the gods haven’t turned against us.’
‘So – we are bound for Verulamium?’
‘Aye,’ Cadoc replied as he hoisted himself back up onto the wagon. ‘For good or ill, we go to Verulamium.’
The healers hadn’t served at a battle since the Catalaunian Plain at Châlons, and Myrddion had hoped never to experience such carnage again. Still, his heart lifted as he rode beside the wagons, for they were setting off on the familiar journey that led to the old, recognisable patterns of violent death. He understood this small world of blood and violence where he fought with all his physical and intellectual strength to drive the twins of chaos away from his tents. Better this life of action than death, destruction and the strange dreams of foreboding he had experienced during the past few months.
Before the armies reached Pontes, where a tributary of the Tamesis river headed off to the north east, the cavalry broke away from the main force and began to ride direct to Verulamium at speed with Uther at their head. Myrddion was relieved to see the tall figure disappear into the wood, for although neither brother had approached him since he had joined the baggage train, Uther had eyes in the back of his head and would have been advised of the healer’s return almost immediately. At Pontes the rest of the army divided, the main body following the tributary towards Verulamium while a century, or a contingent of eighty men, remained with the baggage train, which could not stray off the roads with safety and needed to stick to the broad paths leading to Londinium. Left unprotected, it would soon have been stripped bare by the local Saxons.
Myrddion sought out the captain of the century when they paused to rest during the first evening. The healer took heart from the
fact that the soldier in charge was a hard-bitten, laconic Romano-Celt who had been raised in the Roman way and treated warfare as a matter of good logistics and ruthless maintenance of discipline. Then, with a jolt, he realised that Ambrosius must need the siege machines very badly to deprive himself of his most able troops to ensure their safe delivery.
‘And who might you be?’ the captain snapped as he strode from where he was checking the supplies and kit of the ten squads of soldiers who made up his command. He was short and very dark, squat in the body, and endowed with a heavily muscled set of powerful shoulders that were abnormally broad. A beak-like nose dominated his face above lips so thin as to be almost invisible.
‘I am Myrddion Merlinus, healer to Ambrosius,’ Myrddion replied crisply, wondering with a wry, internal grin if he should salute this professional warrior.
‘The Demon Seed! I’ve heard of you. So what do you want? I’m busy.’
‘May I ask your name, captain? We’ll be together for some time on this journey and, as I’m a civilian, I wouldn’t want to offend you by using the wrong military term of address.’
‘Septimus will do. Captain Septimus. Now, I repeat, what do you want?’
‘Will we go all the way to Londinium before we begin to head north? If so, we will be entering enemy territory and may be forced to fight every inch of the way to protect the baggage train. I know the siege machines have been broken down so they are more manoeuvrable, but we’d be crazy to march blithely into the dragon’s lair.’
‘Really? The High King didn’t leave any instructions that I was to consult you, or anyone else, so leave these considerations to your betters.’
Fuming inwardly, Myrddion produced his map case containing the
charts he had drawn when they passed through the outskirts of Londinium a year earlier. He unrolled the precious hides on the soft grass near a covered fire and hunkered down on his haunches to point out a broken line west of the city.
‘This is little more than a goat track, but it bypasses Londinium and brings us out just south of our destination. There are no rivers to cross and it would be possible to widen the path to allow us to pass. The Saxons would not expect us to take this route, and I’m reasonably certain they don’t even know of its existence. If we were to travel by night as well as by day, we would reach Verulamium shortly after the main force, a feat that would surely impress Ambrosius with your efficiency.’
Septimus looked at Myrddion’s crude map with scepticism. He moved it with one work-calloused finger so he could examine it from a different angle. From his expression, it was obvious that he had little reading skill.
‘What if the path becomes impassable?’ he grunted.
‘Call yourself a Roman?’ Myrddion joked, hoping the dour little man would take no offence. ‘Caesar built a road through the deepest forests of Gaul, plus bridges, as he chased the barbarians back across the Rhenus. Your engineers are more than equal to the task. The High King needs siege machines and his best troops if he is to survive this campaign, and I promise you that if we don’t follow this road, our small force will be annihilated.’
Septimus bridled, but his eyes narrowed in thought. ‘You know the way?’
‘I know where the path starts, and where it finishes,’ Myrddion replied. ‘I’ll happily take the chance if it ensures the safety of the women who are travelling with me.’
‘I’ll make up my mind when we get to the place where the path starts,’ Septimus retorted, before rising and stalking away from the fire.
‘Lord
of Light, give me strength!’ Myrddion muttered sardonically at the Roman’s equivocation as he picked up the scroll of maps.
The soldiers round the fire-pit had been rolled up in their thin blankets attempting to sleep like all sensible men of war when the conversation had started. Now they opened their eyes and watched narrowly as Myrddion’s tall figure strode off.
‘I smell lots of tree felling and digging,’ one of the older soldiers snapped. ‘Sod that black crow, boys, for he’s too clever by half. Still, I suppose digging’s better than dying defending these sodding siege machines.’
‘You’re such a ray of sodding sunshine, Targo. Why didn’t you stay in Hispania with the legion instead of signing on to fight with Ambrosius? God knows you’re old enough to seek a quieter life.’ The younger man, who came from Eburacum and had escaped with his parents when the Saxons first arrived in the north, had a more sanguine view of army life.
‘If you’d been to Hispania, you wouldn’t ask such a stupid question. The place is overrun with Goths, Visigoths, Vandals and Mithras alone knows what else. Old Gaul is divided up like your old patched tunic, Tullo, and they’re all trying to kill each other. As for Italia – shite, it’s done for, and all sensible men are trying to find a nice quiet part of the world where they can retire in peace.’
‘So why are you here, Targo? It seems to me that we’ve got our own problems.’
‘I didn’t fancy going to the east. It’s all too strange and mad out there in the wilds – the people are all god-crazy.’ The scarred veteran made the age-old circular action with one finger near his temple. ‘I figured if I came as far into the west as I could I might have an easier life, but here we are off to war again. At least I understand this time which side I’m fighting on, which is nice for a change.’
‘And the High King is away from that Pict whore. Ambrosius has gone
moon-mad over that woman,’ one of the other warriors muttered. His dress was like the armour of his fellows, largely Roman in style, but the plaits in his hair marked him as a tribesman born and bred.
‘Aye, Blaise,’ Targo grunted dourly. ‘The brothers are odd. Too much mixed blood, I reckon.’ The old soldier seemed oblivious of the implied insult to all the Celts in his vicinity. Accustomed to the Roman’s pungent and pointed observations, his fellows swallowed their bile, because the ageing warrior usually spoke sense. ‘Neither of them appears normal in the way they approach their dealings with women. Their types seem to go clean mad when they fall in love, and their balls turn their brains into mush.’
‘Go to sleep, you sons of whores.’ Septimus appeared and poured a helmetful of water onto the fire, which hissed like a dying snake. ‘You’ll get to exercise something other than your tongues when the dawn comes tomorrow.’
‘When this little exercise is over, I’m going north,’ Targo sniped to the empty air where Septimus had stood only a moment before. ‘It might be cold, but I’m right sick of marching.’
‘How long have you been a soldier, Targo?’ Blaise murmured sleepily from his cocoon of blankets.
‘Shite, boy, I’ve no idea. My old father sent me off to the legions when I was eleven. Must be thirty years or more since then. Too long by far!’
The night became still and quiet as the mounds of soldiers slept by turns and the sentries stood in the shadows of the trees, invisible in the darkness. The camp was full of small sounds of violence as the night hunters went about their bloody business of survival, but the larger predators knew to avoid the place, for the things that rested there reeked of blood-letting, old death and the promise of new killing.
Myrddion
halted at a point where a faint trail led off on the left of the Roman road. Septimus approached at a trot and the healer pointed into the waist-high grass and saplings through which a goat track led into the north.
‘The wagons can pass through this mess, as long as we’re careful,’ he explained. ‘But it would be best if some scouts and engineers moved ahead of our convoy to warn us if the track becomes difficult to traverse.’
Septimus looked at the main Roman road, flattened by the passage of many feet and beasts, and then stared with profound doubt down the overgrown path. Only a fool would cheerfully exchange one for the other.
So that makes me a fool, he thought sourly. ‘Very well, healer, we’ll give it a try. I’ve been thinking about being ambushed along the way and my back is beginning to prickle already. We’ll trust to your pathway.’
With the practical efficiency that was the stamp of his leadership, Septimus sent a contubernium of ten men ahead as forward scouts along the route his force would be taking. He then divided sixty of his troops on both sides of the convoy to warn of any Saxon ambush. Another contubernium of ten men was assigned to protect the rear, prudently placed to prevent unfortunate surprises. Once his men were dispersed, Septimus ordered Cadoc to turn his wagon onto the track.
‘Thank all the gods in the Otherworld that we ditched those sodding oxen,’ Cadoc called to Myrddion, who had urged his horse alongside the team. ‘Those useless slabs of brainless meat would be hopeless in this terrain.’
After the spring thaw and the warming of the earth, the path was overgrown with new growth. There had been plentiful rain, so the close air under the trees was alive with gnats, disturbed wasps and other winged insects that Myrddion couldn’t name. Their stings and
bites made a misery of the journey for soldiers, beasts and drivers alike, so Myrddion cautioned the men to smear any exposed flesh with mud to ward off the worst of the swarms.
No marshes impeded their progress, but on several occasions the party was forced to push the wagons through deep, clinging mud beside ponds of standing water. To unfamiliar eyes, the scene was pretty, with wild flowers, sedge and water weed in those places where the sunlight broke through the forest cover. Dragonflies caught the sun’s rays in little prisms of blue, gold or green, while the noontime air was hushed, except for the sound of insects and the low hum of wings. Myrddion wondered at the peace and tranquillity of this quiet world, which was only rarely disturbed by the odd cowman or shepherd as he drove his beasts to market. The purveyors of war’s ugly trade did not belong in this beautiful glen where the shadows were deep and the dark blue and green hues of the trees and leaves burgeoned soft and new after winter’s long and frozen silences.
After the second day’s hard slog, the soldiers were almost too exhausted to eat their cold rations before they rolled themselves into their thin blankets and curled up under the wagons. Myrddion was covered in mud from head to toe because on several occasions the wagons had become bogged down, and only saplings under the heavy wooden wheels could provide the traction that allowed the heaving, sweating men and horses to move the dead weight. Too tired to wash, Myrddion walked up the narrow track that had almost succeeded in doing what few armies ever could – break the resolve of Roman military might.
Frustrated, he kicked at a rock on the roadway and swore crudely when the obstacle didn’t move. Not only did his foot hurt, but the rock was one more problem that might have to be dug up before they could continue their journey. As he massaged his foot, Myrddion considered the problems of battle and the difficulties of protecting baggage trains.
‘They
are always the object of the enemy,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Money, machines, food, weapons, healers – the rear is where the most valuable components of a war are kept. And it moves so damned slowly. Ambrosius and Uther go charging off to Verulamium without spare rations or any other supplies needed to fight a protracted battle. They take only the basic materials of war – the men who fight and die, and the arms they need to protect themselves. There has to be a better way of managing logistics.’