Arthur Imperator (23 page)
Authors: Paul Bannister
Upriver,
on the southern bank, Cragus’ heavy cavalry had stormed into the Saxon camp, emerging from the gloom to throw torches of blazing pitch among the sleepers’ tents. Drunken, dazed Saxons were staggering out to the confusion of thundering horses, flames and shouting soldiery. As they began to form a ragged shield wall, our own infantry emerged from the dark, in wedge formation and shoulder to shoulder behind their big heavy-bossed shields, to clash against the Saxon line.
First,
the rear ranks hurled volleys of heavy iron-bladed javelins over their comrades’ heads, then the front wedges crashed into the Saxons’ ragged line.
They
smashed shield to shield, stabbed and thrust with long spears, pushed the Saxons back and when one fell, stamped him with their nailed boots as they moved forward, leaving him to the next, onward-pressing rank to slaughter. Our determined formations split the Saxons and they fell back. That was when Celvinius’ light cavalry charged in, hacking and stabbing, driving the broken line back still further. But there were far too many Saxons to be defeated in minutes, or in a single charge. Even as their fragmented shield wall collapsed, another was forming to the rear, under the bellowed commands of King Skegga himself.
I
saw him there, for I was now across the river, on the Saxon’s right flank, unnoticed. With me, I had a small force of archers and infantrymen, a group of Suehan sailors armed with crossbows and spears and a tall wizard in a long grey gown, and I hoped it would be enough to defeat a Saxon horde.
The
enemy had formed a long and competent-looking shield wall that would surely wrap its ends around our own, surround and hack our warriors to the ground. My small force could only be useful if we had some magic. And that was when Myrddin saved Britain. I nudged him, he gave an impatient wave and the battalion of archers he had drilled for the previous few days, and which surprisingly included the two Celt huntresses who were Guinevia’s slaves, raised their bows.
Myrddin
caught my glance at the two women and grimaced. “Needed every archer,” he said. I looked again. Was that Guinevia and several slaves with lighted oil lamps in their hands? Before I could ask Myrddin, he dropped his upraised arm and with a sound like harps being plucked, the archers released their specially-prepared arrows fizzing into the sky above the enemy.
Explosive
fire dragons rained down on the Saxons. The effect was devastating. Our troops had seen a demonstration and had been given instruction, but even for them the sight of the oriental devil-fire was awe-inspiring, and they halted. The effect on the Saxons was stunning. Many dropped their shields and turned to run, and that was the moment when the British centurions began the shouting: “Punor, Woden, Saxnot!” they bellowed. Our ranks took up the war cry they had been taught, beating the enemy ears with the evil names that threatened death.
A
second rain of crackling fire dragons exploded overhead, and again the chant of the names of the most dreadful of Norse demons erupted in the dawn gloom. Some Saxons turned to locate our small group of archers, and Myrddin produced more magic. He looked like a ghost. He had smeared his face and hands with the luminescence of the piddock shellfish and he breathed its fake fire at the Saxons who were running at us. It halted them like startled deer.
At
that moment, Grimr’s crossbowmen fired their bolts, each with its fire drake tip of flaming, crackling salt petre, level into the hostiles’ ranks. A few men fell, but the sparking, fiery bolts’ real impact was from the comet-like trails they made when they flew directly into the Saxon mob. With the bellowed names of fearful demons in their ears, the ghostly face of the fire-breathing wizard and the meteor trails of fire both smashing into them and dropping on them from the skies, the superstitious Saxon host broke and ran.
Our
British cavalry, led by dragoons on the heavy Frisian horses galloped in, each horseman supporting a foot soldier who clung to the man’s stirrup leathers. A few yards short of the enemy ranks, the infantry dropped clear. The horses crashed the line, the dragoons stood in their stirrups and slashed the big spatha swords around them, the foot soldiers who seemed to have come from nowhere ran into the gaps and the Saxons broke.
Soon
the dragoons were hacking and plunging through the fleeing Saxons like reapers in a wheat field. The lighter cavalry went in as they had trained, in the Parthian way as horse archers, galloping in then turning to fire over their mounts’ rumps to deliver volley after volley of arrows at short range, then retreating nimbly if needed.
A bloodied decurion cantered up to me, leading Corvus, and I climbed onto my war mount’s back. So, I became a cavalryman again, and Exalter and I went to taste blood. My heart was singing. I knew we had the measure of our enemies, and we did. We sent many to the feasting halls of Asgard that morning.
A
good portion of the invaders’ horde tried to fight their way across the Trent, hoping to escape south, but our infantry held them, and just at a time when our line was weakening, Candless and a cohort of Picts arrived to reinforce it. I told him later that I thought he had abandoned us, but he simply grinned that no Border reiver would pass up the chance for loot, and the Saxons must have made a fine collection from the soft southern people, must they not?
By
the time full daylight broke over the scene, the Trent was pink from the blood of floating corpses, and the Humber was washing bloodless white bodies out to the open sea. Hundreds of refugees had stumbled into the marshlands and a long column of disarmed Saxons was being made to pass under the spear, sign of their new status as slaves. I had the usual decisions to make about executions. Defeated soldiers do not always make good slaves, they are strong men and desperate. The old Romans either killed them or sold them as gladiators, but the latter course was not really viable to me. I ordered most of the big Saxon warriors killed. Regrettable, but necessary.
Some offered gold in return for their lives, but our men took that anyway. The camp followers, wives, children, whores were rounded up and penned. Slave traders would arrive soon enough to fill my coffers, as the southern slave dealers had an unending appetite for fair-skinned females.
I
ordered all of the Saxon warlords executed publicly, and set the example by hacking off the head of King Skegga myself. He died bravely, asking to hold his sword as he knelt to Exalter, for dying with sword in hand would admit him with honour into the mead hall of Odin.
Some
of Candless’ Picts wanted to inflict the ‘blood eagle’ on Skegga, but I ruled that execution was enough punishment for the Saxon king. The eagle is a brutal torture that involves severing the ribs at the spine, then dragging the victim’s lungs out of his opened back to make warm, bloody wings over his shoulders. That death is one of suffocation, if the victim does not die of shock and blood loss.
I
declined to use it. Torturing one invader would not deter the next, and might lead to worse atrocities being committed on our people by vengeful raiders.
My
decision was simple. I was Imperator and a British jarl. I was not just a lord of war, I had united the tribes of Britain and I had a nation to build and protect. I needed to come to terms with the Christians, who wanted to oust our pagan gods, I had an uneasy peace with the Picts, and had quieted the Hibernian sea raiders. My greatest fear was the return of the Romans. I had defeated them once, and had escaped their wrath another time, but my enemy Maximian would return. I had executed a Caesar and he and his armoured legions would not forgive, or forget.
And,
the Saxons would invade again, it was inevitable. British cavalry, ships, magic and spears had saved us once. Could it happen again? I had only a mind-wounded sorceress and an eccentric wizard to help me, our gods were being supplanted and the white Rat of good fortune had vanished. In the reeking smoke of that killing ground, as wounded men were out of their misery or others had their lives ended because they were too dangerous, I decided that I should gamble. I should take my battles to the enemy’s territory and force the Romans’ hand while they still fought on their eastern borders. Only then could I defeat them convincingly, and settle Britain’s peace.
I
needed to invade Gaul.
Although
this trilogy begins by following the general outline of the life of Carausius, the narrative of the second book necessarily must take liberties with history. In
Arthur Britannicus
we read how a soldier became admiral, and then emperor. This was Carausius, a Menapian from what is now Belgium, whose Roman enemies claimed he was of ‘the humblest birth.’ Or, he may have been nobly born, perhaps even the son of a Roman administrator.
Carausius’
later actions in referencing poetry on his coinage indicates a higher level of education than would be expected from a peasant upbringing. Some sources attribute Roman ancestry to him, which may be supported by his name, a classic Latin one. Some sources say he was a British or Irish prince.
Even
by Roman historians’ disparaging accounts, he was a skilled river pilot who joined the Roman army and became a successful soldier, then admiral of Rome’s British Channel fleet, based in Boulogne/Bononia. The evidence also points to him being a charismatic leader.
Around
284 CE, he was accused of diverting pirate loot to himself and was summoned for court martial and likely execution, which may have been a political move to rid the emperor Maximian of a rival. Carausius’ response was to seize power in northern Gaul and Britain, places where he commanded legions as well as a fleet.
His
ambition was to extend his military sway beyond Boulogne, even to Rome itself, but he was frustrated by Maximian, who was tasked with bringing the renegade to heel. The Roman’s first endeavour, in 289 CE, was a failure. The new fleet he had built was either destroyed by storms or more probably was defeated by the seasoned flotilla Carausius took with him when he defected to Britain.
Carausius
reinforced his military position there with the popular support he gained by tapping into the Britons’ discontent with their avaricious Roman overlords, and he skilfully used propaganda on his coinage to suggest he was a messiah returned to save the nation.
The
self-proclaimed emperor became the first ruler of a unified Britain, and entrenched himself behind the chain of forts he built along the south-eastern coast. These Saxon Shore fortifications were intended to guard against an expected Roman attempt to retake Britain as well as to repel Saxon or Alemanni invaders.
Maximian
had to wait four years after that failed invasion before he could drive Carausius out of Gaul. He retook Boulogne, besieging it and sealing the harbour against relief or escape by sea. The city fell in 293 AD, the year of Carausius’ demise. The loss of the port and the weakening of Carausius’ position probably caused a power struggle with his chief functionary Allectus, and led to the usurper emperor’s death that same year.
He
had ruled a united Britain for seven years when he was either assassinated by Allectus or, more probably, betrayed by him at a battle near Bicester. Allectus, whose identity is obscure (the word itself simply means ‘chosen’ or ‘elected’) took power, and announced himself as ‘consul’ and ‘Augustus arrived’ on his coinage. He began work in 294 AD on a great building in London that went unfinished, as his reign lasted for only three years.
A
Roman expedition defeated him after a sea battle off Chichester, and a land engagement near Silchester. Constantius Chorus now Caesar, landed in Britain after the fighting was over and signalled his triumph with a famous medal declaring himself ‘Restorer of the Eternal Light’ (‘
Redditor
lucis
aeternae’
) implying ‘Restorer of Roman power.’
Imperator
Carausius was the first British ruler to unite the kingdom, and deserves his place in history for that, but he actually is best known for his fine coinage. On exhibit in the British Museum are some of the 800 Carausian coins that were among a hoard of 52,500 Romano-British pieces of silver and gold discovered in a Somerset field in the summer of 2010. Such coins, the Penmachno headstone and a single milestone uncovered near Carlisle are the only known memorials of Britain’s lost emperor.
Of
course, the narrative of this second book is fiction. The real Carausius died by Allectus’ actions, but as Caros/Arthur he may indeed have driven out invaders and brought Britain peace. (See ‘
Legend
and
links’
)
Readers
may note that some ‘modern’ technology was used by Arthur hundreds of years before Europeans adopted it. This is not impossible. Myrddin learned of fireworks from his magi, who had contact with trader Chinese. They in turn had been using ‘fire dragons’ since the second century before Christ, although it was only much later that gunpowder was developed.
Similarly,
Myrddin may have heard of the L-shaped stirrups that appeared in India about that same time 400-plus years earlier, or of the later circular and triangular stirrups that are known to have been in use during the First Jin Dynasty of the third century AD, or 700 years before the Normans’ Conquest and their devastating ‘first’ use of mounted warriors who could stand to fight from horseback.
Also,
I should make a small apology for the use of some modernisms in this book. In the interests of clarity and to prevent the need frequently to thumb back to a reference page, I opted not to use many possibly-unfamiliar Latin place names from Britain or France, making just a few exceptions that are intended to retain the flavour of the narrative. Two of those exceptions are Eboracum, which is 21st century York, and Bononia, the French seaport of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Portus Chester is modern Porchester; Colchester or Roman Camulodunum, appears as itself; Chester was once Deva, Snowdoun is modern Stirling and Eidyn’s Burh is better known to us as Edinburgh. There is a fine hillfort to the city’s east, at Dunpelder, where Arthur waited for his forces. The harbour on the Severn estuary, Abonae is modern Sea Mills; Aquae Sulis is Bath, and Dumnonia is of course Cornwall.
Generally,
the Romans did not name their roads, so their great highways were only named by later generations. The famous ‘Streets’ of Watling, Ermine, Dere, Stane and Akeman are well enough known, as is the ancient Fosse Way, which was once the Romans’ frontier rampart of western Britannia. It was not until the first decade of the 21st century that archaeologists traced the Nont Sarah, a trans-Pennine military road that had been forgotten.