Calgaich the Swordsman (16 page)

"His grandfather was Tribune
Legatus Legionis
Rufus Arrius Niger of the Twentieth Legion. He returned to Rome some years ago.”

Ulpius whistled between his teeth. "Old Give Me Another! By the gods! He is now a Roman senator!”

"Would that save Calgaich from execution?”

"From execution, probably. But not from other punishment.”

Bruidge studied the Roman. "Such as?”

Ulpius looked sideways at Bruidge. "The scum of the legions are sometimes sentenced to the Games in Rome rather than to execution. Most of them are splendid fighters, despite their bad records, and they give the crowds their money’s worth. Sometimes, they may win their freedom by how well they perform.” Ulpius reached for Calgaich’s sword.

"Don’t touch it!” Bruidge warned.

Ulpius straightened up. "Why?”

Bruidge took a brand from the fire and knelt on the rushes. He examined the mark of the master swordsmith. Bruidge drew back in awe. "By Lugh,” he murmured. "It can't be, and yet it is—the Sword of Evicatos—my own father." A look of superstitious fear came over his face.

Ulpius also knelt down and eyed the sword. “I have never seen such a magnificent weapon.”

Bruidge stood up. He backed away from the sword. He shook his head as though he did not believe what he had seen. He returned to his seat and drained his drinking horn.

Ulpius looked curiously at Bruidge. There was a madness, he thought, in these strange, barbaric people of the north, who fought like the furies in battle and yet could be disarmed spiritually by their superstitions, and the fear of their dark and mysterious gods.

“Will you tell me of the sword, Bruidge?” the tribune asked.

Bruidge drank deeply. He stared into the liquor slops on the table as though he could read the future in them. At last he looked up at the tribune. “Listen well,” he said in a low, troubled voice. “I’ll tell you about that accursed sword. It was to be the Sword of Evicatos, my father. It was to be the mate to the great
laigen,
the hand lance, made by the same metalsmith who made that sword.” Bruidge told the tale between great gulps from his drinking horn, until at last his voice died away and he stared moodily into a dying fire.

Ulpius studied the half-drunken chieftain. “You actually believe that this sword is the Sword of Evicatos? Who was that metalsmith?”

“Who really knows?” Bruidge shook his head. “He vanished into the north and took that sword with him.”

“I think you know who he truly was,” Ulpius suggested.

Bruidge wiped the sweat from his face. “There are gods that sometimes walk the earth, Roman, and they are not always benevolent gods.
Aes Dana,
men of skill among my people, hold high status, a special place between the peasants and the warrior class. Workers in metal are viewed with awe. Our great god, Lugh of the Shining Spear, is a god of many skills—a wright, champion, harper, hero, poet, sorcerer, leech and
a craftsman in metal.
There is Gobniu the Smith. He is one of the Three Gods of Skill—
na tri de dana
—Gobniu, Credne and Luchta.”

“We have our Mercury,” the Roman said.

Bruidge nodded and looked sideways at the tribune. “Does he sometimes visit the earth in the guise of a human?”

Ulpius shrugged. “So it is said.”

Bruidge passed a hand across his eyes. “The man you saw here this night, he who is called Calgaich the Swordsman, is the true son of my elder brother Lellan. The strange smith who made both the Sword and the Spear of Evicatos, my father, had come from nowhere to Rioghaine. No one knew him; no one had ever seen him before. No one knows what happened to him in the land of the Picts.”

“You say that your brother Lellan was born early?”

“Ahead of his time by several months, in the dead of winter, during one of the worst storms known in the history of the Novantae.”

“Was
his father Evicatos?” the Roman asked quietly.

Bruidge looked quickly about himself. “I didn't say that!”

“If this fairy tale is true,” Montanas said, “then Calgaich the Swordsman is a strange breed indeed—one half of him being Celt, one quarter Roman and one quarter god or demon.”

“Whatever he is, Decrius Montanas, it would be a great waste to hang him as he deserves. He could be a featured attraction in the amphitheatre, and after all, that is one of the reasons we are in this damned fog-ridden land—to find more of these wild barbarians for arena fodder.” The tribune spoke in a low voice so that the brooding Bruidge could not hear him. Bruidge had no great love for the Romans.

“Remember that his grandfather is a Roman senator, Tribune,” the centurion reminded Ulpius.

Ulpius shrugged. “Even a Roman senator can't save a man who has been condemned for deserting the Eagles.”

Bruidge emptied his drinking horn. The faces of the two whispering Romans seemed to swim in and out of his blurred vision. He did not trust Romans and especially this smooth-faced fox of a tribune. “I don't want Calgaich's blood on my hands,” he warned.

“That can be taken care of in the arena,” Ulpius said.

Bruidge smiled slightly. “I’d like to see that,” he murmured. He looked suddenly at Ulpius. “I want him out of here tonight. I do not want the Novantae to know he has been here.”

“What of the woodsman, Guidd, and the woman Calgaich brought with him?”

“I don't care, just so they are gone from this place. Do what you will with them. How soon will you leave for Luguvalium?”

“Our business here is now concluded. But Bruidge, what of Lellan and the two sisters, Morar and Bronwyn?” Bruidge shrugged. “Take them to Rome with you.”

“Lellan is old and feeble in health.”

Bruidge's hooded eyes held those of the tribune. “Perhaps he will die in captivity. The prison in which you hold him is damp and cold.”

“Then it doesn't matter to you?”

“Do not kill him, Tribune, or, by the gods, I’ll come to Rome and hunt you down. You understand?”

“I understand. My beloved uncle, Quaestor Lucius Sextillius, has taken quite a fancy to your two golden-haired women. The rumor in Luguvalium is that he wants to take Morar for his wife. How does that set with you, Bruidge?” Bruidge smiled a little. “It is all right. But he may regret taking her into his bed, Ulpius.”

“What do you mean?”

Bruidge waved a hand. “Just an idle thought.”

“She could do you a great deal of good in Rome.”

Bruidge shrugged. “More likely she could do herself a great deal of good in Rome.”

“He talks in riddles,” Decrius growled to Ulpius. Bruidge heard like a wolf.

“You will see, Centurion. I do not talk in riddles.” He buried his red nose in his drinking horn. Thanks to the gods, he thought, Morar will be leaving Britannia. God help Quaestor Lucius Sextillius!

“This woman of Calgaich's,” Ulpius said. “Is she another of these golden-haired barbarians?”

Bruidge looked at the Celt, Fidach. “You saw her,” he said.

Fidach nodded. “She is dark of hair and fair of skin. She was dressed in men's clothing.”

“But beautiful?" Ulpius queried.

“Yes. If Morar has the light and beauty of a sunlit day, this other woman has the soft, dark beauty of night.”

Ulpius wet his sensuous lips, and drank a little. "Take her, Ulpius, if you want her,” Bruidge suggested.

Ulpius stood up. "My thanks to you, Bruidge. Montanas will take Calgaich to my escort, which waits two days’ ride east of here. I’ll need a few men to help him.”

"I can handle him alone, Tribune,” Montanas insisted.

The tribune shook his head. "We can’t risk losing such a captive.”

Bruidge looked about the hall. "None of you shall speak of what happened here this night. If one word gets out, I’ll personally cut out the tongue of every one of you.”

Ulpius fastened his cloak about his throat. "I can understand now why you took over the chieftainship of the Novantae.”

"Because of the fact that my brother and I might not have the same father?” Bruidge shook his head. "The right of
tanaise ri
is mine by ancient custom, and the line of the mother is as strong, and sometimes stronger than that of the father among our people. But that is not why I took the chieftainship. Lellan could no longer lead the war spears. That is what is important.
He
can’t and
I
can.”

Ulpius and Montanas walked toward the door. Ulpius turned. He could not help himself. "But what of the son, Calgaich, Bruidge? Could
he
not lead the war spears?”

The blood rushed into Bruidge’s face. "Roman!” he cried. "Leave my hall and take that damned, accursed sword with you!”

"Pick it up, Montanas,” Ulpius ordered. "That’s an order, Centurion.”

Montanas picked up the weapon and hastily sheathed it in its bronze scabbard. He mumbled a prayer to Mithras as he followed the tribune from the hall. Something the drunken Bruidge had said came back to haunt the centurion at that moment.
There are gods that sometimes walk the earth, Roman, and they are not always benevolent gods
.

From somewhere beyond the
dun,
hidden in the dark shroud of the nearby forest, a wolfhound raised its voice in plaintive howling. Bron was still waiting for Calgaich.

Decrius Montanas rode from Rioghaine that night after moonset. Behind him Calgaich rode between two of Bruidge’s mercenaries. His ankles were tied together by a rope which passed beneath the belly of the horse. A stick had been thrust between his elbows and behind his back and his wrists had been tied together by a rope that passed across his middle. Now and again Montanas would look back at Calgaich, but when their eyes met it was usually the centurion who looked away first.

In the post-moon darkness a shadowy figure moved swiftly on the trail behind the mounted party. Bron was following his master.

The firelight flickered against the crumbling courtyard walls of the long-abandoned Roman outpost fortlet and reflected from the light body armor of the hard-bitten Asturians who formed the
turma,
or thirty-man unit of auxiliary cavalry, temporarily commanded by the Centurion Decrius Montanas. The Asturians were nervous. The fortlet was hardly defensible, and it was a distant thirty-five Roman miles to the northwest of the great Fort ala Petriana and also Luguvalium. If the unpredictable Novantae attacked, there would be no help from the cavalry garrison at Fort ala Petriana.

The Asturians off duty stood about the cooking fires in the courtyard. Now and again one of them would glance toward the old guard room where Calgaich lay chained to the wall by his wrists.

Some of the older men who had served along the Wall of Hadrian knew of Calgaich the Swordsman. He was renowned among the auxiliaries for his courage and great fighting skill. They knew he had deserted the Eagles, not once, but twice, and that he had been given the lash for that first offense. The second time he had vanished into the north country, and rumor had said he was fighting as a mercenary for a Hibernian king. They were sure now that he was being taken to Fort ala Petriana to be executed.

Thank the gods that Tribune Ulpius Claudius had not ordered the
turma
to escort him deep into the wild, isolated country of the barbarian Novantae. The tribune had been either a fool or a man of great courage to go there accompanied only by the centurion Decrius Montanas, even though the chieftain of the Novantae had granted them safe conduct. The Novantae could not be trusted beyond a spear’s cast. The doubled sentries on the walls of the outpost peered into the dark and windy night, envisioning those hairy barbarians behind every tree and bush. They knew well enough of their silent approach, their swift and furious charge out of nowhere, and their deadly killing skill.

Lutorius, the broken-nosed
calo,
or body servant and cook, of Decrius Montanas, nodded to the sentry at the entrance to the guardroom. “Food for the wolf,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

The guard grinned. “Watch out he does not bite,
calo
.”

Calgaich looked up as the
calo
entered the guardroom through the doorless entrance. It was obvious that he was not of Spanish blood like the Asturians of the
turma,
and he did not wear their uniform.

The
calo
grinned at Calgaich. “Does a captured wolf eat Roman rations?” he asked in mongrel Gaelic.

Calgaich nodded. “I’ve eaten such rations before,
calo,”
he replied quietly in Latin. “I once served with the Ulpia Torquata, the Double Battalion of Britons.”

Lutorius spat to one side. “Auxiliaries,” he sneered. “I was a
legionnaire!”

Calgaich studied his broken nose and his drink-puffed features. “What legion kicked you out for drunkenness?”

The servant flushed. “I served ten years in the old Twentieth,” he replied bitterly. “Ten years in the Drunken Lions, and in the first cohort at that. It wasn’t really much of a drunk that cost me my retirement. I had spent only two days in the Crown of Bacchus with an imported Syrian whore who could teach even a legionnaire new tricks, by Zeus!”

“Was that
all
that happened?”

“Well, there was also a little matter of my refusing to pay my bill,” the servant admitted. “There was a fight about that, of which I remember little, except that the saloon keeper got a broken head. Then the legion guard was called out. That’s when the fighting really got started. I laid two of them out with a chair and was throttling another when some bastard broke a chair over
my
head.”

“He broke your beak?”

The man grinned. “Hellsfire no! I got that from Old Give Me Another in my early days in the legion. I was with the old Fifteenth Legion then, the Apollinaria, and a helluva fine unit, Caledonian! That was in Cappadocia.” He looked down at Calgaich’s food bowl. “Eat, Caledonian! I swiped some of the pig meat from the tribune’s personal stores and put it in that soup. If he ever found out he’d kick my rosy ass all around the courtyard.” Calgaich tasted the food. “Thanks. Where is the tribune now?”

“Who knows? Back in the wilderness somewhere. One of the barbarians who helped bring you here said the tribune was looking for a woman. A foreigner, he said.” Lutorius laughed. “The man is mad. The stews of Luguvalium are full of some of the finest spintrians in whoredom! I should know!”