Arthur Imperator (11 page)

XXII Piddock

Matters
moved as swiftly as the couriers I sent out from Londinium. I summoned Guinevia urgently back to Chester, where I was going to be very soon, for I needed the information she could gather from her psychic spying. I ordered the cavalry tribunes to move their forces from the training grounds near Aquae Sulis to Londinium. They should be readied for action on the southern downlands which favoured their movements and which were where the Saxons were gathering. The Narrow Sea fleet that was based in Portus Chester, where it could take advantage of double tides each day, I ordered moved to Dover to intercept and sink incoming Saxons before they set foot on Britain.

I
gambled on the security of the west country, and moved most of the garrison at Caerleon north to Chester, where they would re-equip and continue north to the western end of the Wall. There, they would join the strong force which I had already dispatched from Chester. Meanwhile, apart from a small garrison to hold the fortress, the troops at Eboracum were to cross the Wall at its eastern end, scout the dispositions of the rebel Picts and form a pincer with the combined legions from Chester and Caerleon.

The
movements would strip our western garrisons nearly bare, but we could put horses and ships against the Saxons in the southeast, and catch the Picts in the north between a crushing hammer and immovable anvil. The rest was in the hands of the gods. I just hoped they were listening, I thought morosely as I hastened back to Chester. Events seemed to show that they were not. 

It was a long and bloody summer of fire and sword. The British fleet took a bad battering, but it turned back a wave of ironclad Saxons, and many brave men struggled and drowned in their armour as the longships sank in the straits. The Suehan sea raider Grimr, who was now serving Arthur, distinguished himself time and again. By chance, it was his ship that caught and engaged the galley of the Jute Alaric, the man who had found Grimr stranded on a Frisian island. Alaric wanted revenge for the death of his commander Web and led his raiders in a mead-maddened charge over the gunwale, killing the Suehan captain Bjalf in the first moments of the battle, but Grimr’s men had prevailed and vengefully took no captives that day. Alaric died hardest, drowned slowly on the end of a rope towed behind their ship, but his was not the last death that day. 

When
the invaders’ flotilla turned back, Grimr followed them at a distance and after dark, sent a fireship into their fleet. It destroyed four ships, took a score of lives and blunted the Saxons’ willingness to sail against us again at any time in the near future.

On
the downlands, the cavalry tribunes Lycaon and Cragus had some success, too. They shattered a Saxon shield wall with their charging line of horses and their tactic of racing infantry to the attack as they clung to the cavalry steeds, but the relatively raw equestrian force had not inflicted the heavy casualties needed to inflict a decisive loss on the Saxons. Equally, the British infantry was a force too small to take on the greater numbers of invaders. The weeks of skirmishes ended without conclusion, but the fleet’s victories meant at least that the Saxon threat did not grow, and each land encounter left the cavalry more experienced and confident.

In the north, the pincer movement failed. The nimble Picts escaped Arthur’s trap, retreating quickly into the heather before they could be surrounded, and although Arthur’s troops took a number of captive Votadini, the tribes dispersed to fight another day. Worse, Allectus had learned through his spy network of Guinevia’s viewing of his treachery, and suspected her father the chieftain of betrayal.

In
vengeance Allectus executed him by boiling him alive. The seer had seen and felt her father’s agonizing death, and it had driven her to near-madness. She had survived the kidnap of herself, her nurse and her son. She had witnessed the deaths of her guards, and survived that. However, the serpent of vengeance that had been dormant had stirred when she learned that one of the kidnappers who had abused her was still alive. Her bruised mind that had once rejected the idea of vengeance was changed when she saw the images of her father, her own beloved father, dying in agony in a boiling cauldron. 

The
men who plotted against her lover Arthur had condemned him as a traitor and had given him an unbearable death. Guinevia could not take this latest horror. She did not know if her father had betrayed Arthur, but she knew his fellow chieftains had certainly betrayed him. She knew too, that treachery was rampant. Arthur had been betrayed by Allectus his treasurer, and she herself had been stolen and abused brutally. The game was cruel, so she could be cruel also. She would, she decided, use her new power to exact punishment.

The
once-gentle Druid became fearsome in her quest for vengeance, and turned to the old druidical ways of sacrifice. She slaughtered a Pictish slave as offering to her witch goddess Nicevenn and swore to give that leader of the Wild Hunt the heart of Allectus in return for his death. A coldness had permeated her once-generous spirit, and the only time Guinevia seemed to be her old self was when she cradled her child, crooning and murmuring, but Arthur was dismayed to overhear just what blood-freezing promises she was making to the toddler, and wondered for his lover’s sanity.

Elsewhere in Britain, the Hibernian raider Muirch Iron Sword, who had persuaded his crew to allow three women warriors into their raiding party, had joined forces with the brigand bishop Candless and his troop after confronting them at the sack of a coastal abbey.

Candless
had arrived from the landward side, drawn by the smoke plume of burning farm buildings. He walked into the yard where Muirch had the abbot stretched across a hurdle. The Gael was beating the churchman’s bare backside with the scabbard of his sword to encourage him to reveal where the community’s silver was buried.

“Ye’ll
have to do better than that. We clerics have leather arses and knees from all our pew-polishing and kneeling,” Candless called out. 

Muirch
interrupted the beating, which he was quite enjoying, having during his boyhood endured a few priest-administered thrashings himself.

“Who
are you?” he asked, genuinely astonished that anyone would walk in on a group of raiders. It was even more surprising that the bold intruder was dressed in the habit and cross of a Christian monk, although he noted the fellow did have a useful-looking sword at his hip. 

For
his part, Candless, while confident that he and his handful of scar-knuckled brawlers could handle any sailors, was equally astonished to see women among the marauders.

The
belted bishop ignored Muirch’s challenge. “Who,” he said, “are these harpies?” His instinct to dismiss the two tall Celts and the diminutive haruspex was a mistake he never repeated. Flame-haired Karay and blonde Jesla both bridled. They easily overtopped Candless as they closed on him, but his eye was taken by the slight figure of Caria the Sybil. She advanced, hissing as she high-stepped towards him, and levelled two fingers directly at his eyes.

“Guard
your tongue, monk!” She uttered the warning in a monotone as if reciting a lesson. “Render respect to those who have powers you cannot imagine.” Candless stroked his beard as if pondering the problem, then spat derisively on the ground.

“Aye,
I’ll do that,” he said, “as soon as a woman is my master, and when dragons fly out of my arse.” 

The
words were hardly spoken when Karay bludgeoned him on the temple with her swung elbow. The blow dropped him like a sack of grain.

“Pay
attention to what she’s saying,” she said in calm, reasonable tones. “She’s helping you.” From his position, stunned, supine and with two menacing Amazons looming over him, the bishop saw the force of their argument.

He
sighed and nodded. “You have a point there,” he mumbled.

That
night, as the sea raiders and the bishop’s brigands sat around the fire in the abbey’s refectory, Muirch and Candless discussed their next move. The two groups had agreed to join forces. The bishop and his men had knowledge of the border country south of the Wall, the raiders had the numbers and the longship that would allow them swifter escapes and greater surprise. Candless nodded at the three women, who were talking together.

“Why
bring a witch?” he asked Muirch.

“She
can terrify a village into submission all by herself, with magic,” said the Hibernian.

“Superstition!”
scoffed the bishop, rubbing the iron of his sword hilt as a precaution.

“No,”
said Muirch, “she really does magic. She even foretells the future. Wait.” He walked over and spoke respectfully to the three women and Candless saw the sybil Caria nod, although reluctantly. Moments later, she rose and left the hall, and the matter seemed closed.

An
hour later, the incident had escaped Candless’ mind and he was concerned with fumbling at the shift of a red-eyed girl who was the recent widow of one of the monks. A booming noise echoed from the refectory ceiling and interrupted his concentration. He looked around to see the sea raiders looking apprehensive, although he noticed that the two Celt women seemed relaxed and were exchanging knowing glances. A movement in the dark doorway caught his eye, and the girl on his lap screamed. A ghostly, glowing figure moved into the room, and a ripple of movement among the men showed they were gripping weapons and touching iron against evil.

Candless
squinted through the gloom beyond the firelight and distinguished the slight shape of the seer Caria. Her lips glowed like white fire, streaks of the same eerie luminescence circled her eyes and striped her face and hands. She did not speak, but pointed her fingers, forked and glowing in the semi-dark outside the firelight, right at Candless. The bishop shifted uneasily and she bared glistening bright teeth that shone like moonlight. Then, to his astonishment, she exhaled a cloud of ghostly white flame at him. It hung in the air for seconds before the eerie glow faded to nothing.

Candless
shrank away and a mutter of curses and imprecations to one-eyed Odin showed that all in the room were reacting to fear of the unknown. The sybil stayed silent. Without speaking a word, she spun on her heel, arm still outstretched to encompass the crowd. It was a threat or blessing, they did not know which, before she flickered soundlessly through the doorway and disappeared into the darkness outside. 

“Did
you see that?” the bishop, awed, asked Muirch.

“Aye,
seen it before, too,” he nodded. “She has some power, that one. She can raise ghosts, she can hear their echoes as they adhere to places, and she’s able to turn herself into a part ghost, too. It makes me shrivel, and I did not dare refuse her or the other witches who wanted to come.”

Across
the room, the two Celt women had their heads together, arms around each other’s shoulders, near-helpless with suppressed laughter.

“She’s
done it again,” Jesla spluttered. “A mouthful of crushed clams and you can glow in the dark! Have some piddocks, my dear.”

The
women laughed. “Even that old Roman Pliny wrote about them and angelwings. They’re good to eat and they go luminous like sea foam when you squash them. These stupid, stupid men!”

Karay
snorted: “Did you see that she’d smeared her face with the stuff, too? I hope she washes it off before anyone works out the trick.”

Jesla
laughed again. “That won’t happen. The next time I meet an intelligent man will be the first time I ever met one,” she said. 

XXIII Aqua

For
me, the summer had been spent on horseback, shuttling between the Pict campaign and the Saxon one at opposite ends of the kingdom. It was weary work, cantering for hours on end, but the fine roads made it possible to cover long distances in remarkable time. I’d never come close to matching the 500 miles in 24 hours that the emperor Titus once covered to be with his dying brother, but I could ride from Chester to Londinium in less than three days, thanks to relays of horses, good roads and fine summer weather.

And
I needed to be in several places, and often. There was much work to do to reinforce the fleet, and as the autumn days drew shorter, bringing misty mornings and chill nights, I gradually drained away the forces opposite the Saxon encampments, relieving them from patrols and skirmishing to return to their holdings, plant their winter crops and ready their beasts for the coming cold. 

My
campaign tent was pitched on the heights above the Roman camp that guards the crossing of the Medway River, and the sight of the waterway made me consider how close we were to finishing building the Car Dyke. That channel was coming along well, with hundreds of slaves worked on the excavation. It is a waterway that stretches from north of Londinium through Granta to Eboracum, and it would be a vital transport link for the next campaign against the Picts. In the longer term it will help to drain the fenlands and give us valuable crop growing areas, too. Another use is a military one, for it runs alongside the north road and creates a minor defensive line against invaders. I did not then realize just how vital it would become.

Next,
my thoughts turned across the Narrow Sea. Our spy network was severely reduced since the traitor Allectus’ defection, for he had been my spymaster. An old ally, the Frankish ruler Gennobaudes, who’d been forced to become a subject king of the Emperor Maximian had been useful, and his couriers brought secret dispatches of the Roman’s activities. The news was not good. Rome’s legions were making progress subduing the Alemanni over the Rhine, and had also inflicted severe punishment on the Visigoth horse tribes beyond the Danube. Gennobaudes warned that Maximian was already planning to recapture his old colony of Britain, and that a threat from a combined force of Danes and Jutes was also brewing. The spring, he warned, would be a dangerous time for me. 

I
sent Gennobaudes gifts of gold and three couple of hunting dogs with my request to be kept informed of Maximian’s shipbuilding efforts, knowing that the emperor would use the shipyards of the Rhine and Meuse where Gennobaudes held sway. I thought I might have success repeating the fireship attack that had crippled a previous Roman fleet there. It would be a question of good timing, to catch as many near-complete vessels as I could, and information would be vital.

Other
things were on my mind, too, and one was the sad state of my woman Guinevia. I had seen her only infrequently as I staged through my headquarters in Chester, and her health was poor. She was having nightmares after her kidnap, was a semi-recluse and rarely left a chamber she had created that was lined with mirrors and divining tools, including a deep and dark water tank in whose depths she would seek visions. She claimed she communed with the dead, and had mental converse with Myrddin, her wizard mentor who lived leagues distant. She was slipping away into an occult realm and seemed to be only partly of this world. I thought that maybe a new home would bring her back, and ordered my major domo to create a suitable place for her. He decided to engage as designer the mosaic artist Claria Primanata, with whom Guinevia had bonded in the past, and I sent a silent prayer to the gods to bring back my lover’s mind.

Then
I had to move to military matters again. I had to find what Allectus was planning, I needed to deal with the increasing raids by the Hibernians, who had sacked a handful of settlements and church holdings south of the Wall. There was, too, unrest among the Christians in the southwest, plus pirates in the Narrow Sea who were preying on our traders, unprotected since the fleet was occupied with the Saxons. 

Added
to all that, the Cornish Dumnonians were forging an alliance with other Gaels from Hibernia to break the fragile truce I had formed with some of the British tribes. I sighed so gustily that my hounds raised their heads from their paws to see what I was doing. Tomorrow, I’d take horse to Granta, checking on progress of the dyke, then cross the limestone region of central Britain where all this had started, when I had found the lost Eagle in its cavern. I called for an aide to give instructions and arrange an escort for the journey and wondered if I had lost the good fortune the Eagle had brought me. As I eased my weary limbs I did not notice the white Rat crouched in the lee of the tent. That would have brought me comfort. Another long stretch in the saddle, I thought, but maybe the last for a while. I was wrong.

Lycaon
had remained with a portion of the cavalry to monitor the Saxons as they began establishing their winter camp northwest of Dover. All seemed quiet, the skirmishing had ended, the season for fighting was over. Cragus had left him, taking the greater part of the horse squadrons back to the training camp in the grasslands south of Aquae Sulis. The grazing there was good and the men could rest and repair in preparation for the depths of winter and the expected spring campaign. Nobody fought in the snow and ice, and the commanders opted to release almost all of the troops to go home and plant the winter wheat, slaughter and salt the beasts they could not keep stabled and tend their holdings. Our decision brought disaster.

I was in Chester when I got the news. Under cover of night, the Saxons had daringly brought a fleet of longships down the Narrow Sea, slipping past our depleted flotilla. A strong force of their warriors had landed and advanced undetected to within a mile of Lycaon’s cavalry lines where he watched the Saxon winter quarters. The two sets of invaders had coordinated attacks and our pony soldiers had been caught in a pincer like the one I had recently failed to execute against the Picts. Only a few dozen Britons had escaped, our horses were in the hands of the invaders, Lycaon was a badly-wounded prisoner and the butcher’s bill of our dead was lengthy.

Worse,
I knew, was that the combined Saxon forces would not be content to huddle in huts on the southeast hills for the winter. They would make the march on Londinium, snow or no snow, take the city and winter in proper buildings, safe behind city walls.

I
had to rouse my legions, drag every last cavalryman back from his hearth and home and get them to the Thames. And even then, with my men tired from days of marching, with my cavalry a shadow of itself, there was no guarantee we would be strong enough to defeat the Saxons.

Mentally,
I reviewed the chessboard of my forces. A strong contingent was at Eboracum, returned there from the Pict campaign. The problem was one of time. The Saxons were a day’s march from Londinium, the troops in Eboracum would take five days to march there, and would arrive exhausted. Then I remembered a successful tactic I’d used in Gaul. I’d deploy soldiers by water. 

I’d
put as many as I could on barges towed by horses and mules, and race them down the Car Dyke waterway, which was virtually completed. With couriers going ahead to organize relays of beasts, we could move the troops almost nonstop for several days, and have them arrive close to Londinium relatively fresh. My aide Androcles sent those orders at once.

Couriers
also sped to Londinium to order as many men as possible to the Medway crossing. I gambled that the Saxons would try to cross the Thames east of London. If we could hold them, delay them at the Medway, we could save the city, but only if the troops from Eboracum arrived in time.

The
gods were kind, at last. Eboracum has a good trade on its River Ouse, and we found both watercraft to take us south and beasts to pull the vessels. We stripped the ships down to their shells, loaded our troops and sent them riding a bow wave of water down the length of Britain. The bargees were skilled. They knew that once the horses got up to a canter, the water washing back from the sides of the dyke created a rolling wave on which they could surf their craft, and the troops could be moved effortlessly at far more than their marching pace.

Better
still, they only needed to halt every eight or ten miles to change horses, through daylight, night dark, daylight and dark again. It was a magical journey, and I exulted. I had put myself in the lead barge, and to stand in its bows under a three-quarter moon, hearing the thud of the horses as they galloped, watching the white wash of the canal surf, and feeling the rush of wind on my face was exhilarating. I knew we would surprise the enemy with our fantastic speed. We disembarked the men at the end of the Car Dyke, a half day’s march north of Londinium, reasonably fresh, without them having had to march a step. It was the most rapid deployment of troops Britain had ever seen, and it was only possible because of the new waterway, and the great road alongside it which let us bring fresh horses and mules to meet us and then race the convoy south.

It
would have been a close-run race that we might have lost, but a naval squadron under the Suehan Grimr had spotted the beached longships of the invaders and had burned them, then intelligently sent scouts ashore while he prowled along the coast to find the force which had moved inland. Our sailors could not match the Saxons’ numbers, but they did burn their lightly-guarded winter quarters. The smoke from ships and barracks brought a halt to the raiders’ advance when some hurried back to protect their loot. Others halted, refusing to go on in case their comrades looted their own treasures, and the whole army ground to a standstill. The delay gave our Londinium troops time enough to hurry to the Medway and establish themselves in the old Roman fort there. By the time the Saxons returned, our troops were ready for them to hold the river crossing. It bought the vital time we needed until our northern troops arrived in Londinium to reinforce the city’s defences. Only then did our Medway garrison make a fast retreat to the city, and we slammed the gates shut in the Saxon’s faces. 

So
it was an angry, frustrated group of Saxon war lords who found themselves literally out in the cold. Enough Britons were inside Londinium’s city walls to hold them off, more were arriving by the day, and the Saxons’ winter quarters and their ships were burned. We did not even have to fight. The invading horde turned aside to find food and shelter, taking with them several score of unfortunates who had not raced for safety quickly enough. We watched the Saxons trudge away to the east and finally, with a sigh of relief, I knew that the winter campaign would not have to happen. The blood, pain and smoke would come with the spring. For now, we could regroup. Once again, I straddled a horse and turned its head to the north.