Ghost King (24 page)

'Not even with friendship?'

Prasamaccus placed his hand on Uther's shoulder. It was a touching gesture which Uther sensed, rightly, would never be repeated.

'I think, my lord, that kings never have friends - only followers and enemies. The secret is to know which are which.'

The Brigante hobbled away into the night, leaving Uther more alone than he had ever been.

At dawn Uther walked alone to the circle of black stones upon which Perdita had been constructed. The dawn shadows were shrinking now, and a cool wind blew over the plain. At the centre altar sat the man Pendarric, his large frame wrapped in a heavy purple cloak, sheepskin-lined.

'You did well, Uther. Better than you know.'

The prince sat beside him. 'The people of Pinrae cannot wait to see my back. And if they see it for too long, they'll plunge knives in it.'

'Such is the path of the king,' said Pendarric. 'And I know. You will find - if you live long enough - some splendid contradictions. A man can be a robber all his life, and yet do one good deed and be remembered in song with great affection. But a king? He can spend his life in good works, yet perpetrate one evil deed and be remembered as a tyrant.'

'I do not understand.'

'You will, Uther. The rogue is looked down upon, the king looked up to. That is why the rogue can always be forgiven. But the king is more than a man; he is a symbol. And symbols are not allowed human frailties.'

'Are you seeking to dissuade me?'

'No, to enlighten you. Do you wish to go home?'

'Yes.'

'Even if I tell you the odds proclaim you will die there within the hour?'

'What do you mean?'

'Eldared and the Saxons have linked forces. As we speak, fewer than six thousand of your troops are surrounded by almost twenty-five thousand of the enemy. Even with the Ninth Legion, your chances of victory are remote.'

'Can you get me to the battlefield?'

'I can. But think of this, Uther. Britain will be a Saxon land. They are many, but you are few. You cannot prevail for ever. If you stay in the Pinrae, you can build an empire.'

'Like Goroien? No, Pendarric. I promised the Ninth Legion I would take them home and I keep my promises where I can.'

'Very well. There is one other fact you should know. Goroien is dead; she died saving Culain. No, do not ask me why, but the Lance Lord is now restored to youth. One day he will return to your life. Be wary, Uther.'

'Culain would never harm me,' answered Uther, feeling a sudden premonitory chill as he pictured Laitha. His eyes met Pendarric's and he knew the king understood. 'What will be, will be,' said Uther.

*

Victorinus slashed his sword across the face of a blond-bearded warrior, who fell only to be trampled by the surging, screaming tide of men behind him. An axe crashed against Victorinus' shield, numbing his arm. His gladius ripped upwards to plunge deep into the man's side. A sword cannoned from the Roman's helm and down to slice into the leather breastplate. A spear took the attacker in the chest and two legionaries pushed forward to lock their shields before Victorinus. He leapt back, allowing them room. Sweat dripped from his brow, stinging his eyes. He glanced left and right, but the line held. On the hill to the right Aquila was surrounded, his seven cohorts forming a shield wall against the Brigantes. Victorinus and his six cohorts were similarly confronted by eight thousand Saxon warriors led by Horsa, son of the legendary Hengist.

This was the battle which the Romans had sought to avoid. Ambrosius had harried the Saxon army throughout their long march north, but had then been trapped at Lindum, his two legions smashed in four days of bloody fighting. With the three cohorts still left to him - one thousand, four hundred and forty men -Ambrosius had fled to Eboracum. Now Aquila had no choice but to risk the kingdom on one desperate battle. But he had left it too late.

Eldared and Gael had pushed the Brigante army of fifteen thousand men to the west of Eboracum, linking with Horsa at Lagentium.

Aquila had made one last attempt to split the enemy, attacking the Brigante and Saxon camps with two separate forces, but the plan had failed miserably. Horsa had hidden two thousand men in the high woodlands and these hammered into Aquila's rearguard. The Romans had retreated in good order and linked forces on a range of hills a mile from the city; but now the Saxons had forced a wedge into the Roman line, which had buckled and regrouped as two fighting units. There was no hope of victory now and the six-thousand strong Romano-British army was being slowly cut to pieces by a force four times as powerful. Men fought merely to stay alive for a few more blessed hours, holding to impossible dreams of escape by night.

'Close up on the left!' yelled Victorinus, his voice straining to rise above the cacophonous clash of iron on bronze, as the Saxon axes and swords smashed at the shields and armour of the Roman soldiers.

The battle would have been over by now had it not been for the Roman gladius. The weapon was a short sword, eighteen inches from hilt to blade-tip; it had been designed for disciplined warfare, where men would be required to stand close together in a tight fighting unit. But the Saxon and the Brigante used swords up to three feet long and that meant they needed more space in which to swing the weapons. This caused problems for the attackers as they pressed against the shield wall, for the longswords became clumsy and unwieldy. Even so, sheer weight of numbers was forcing the wall to yield, inch by bloody inch.

Suddenly a section gave way and a dozen Saxon warriors, led by a tall man with a double-headed axe, raced into the centre. Victorinus dashed forward, knowing the rearguard would be following. He ducked under the swinging axe and buried his blade in the man's groin. A sword lanced for his face, his shield deflected it - and his attacker died with Gwalchmai's gladius in his heart.

The rearguard advanced in a half-circle, closing the gap and forcing the Saxons back into a tight mass where the longsword was useless. The legionaries pushed forward, their own blades plunging and cutting at the near helpless enemy. Within a few minutes the line Was sealed once more and Gwalchmai, his rearguard reduced to forty men, rejoined Victorinus.

'It does not look good!' he said.

At the centre of the Roman square, the two hundred archers had long since exhausted their shafts and waited stoically with hands on the hilts of their hunting-knives. They had little armour and when the line broke they would be slaughtered like cattle. Some of them pushed close to the fighting line, dragging back the injured or dead and stripping them of armour and weapons.

Victorinus stared out over the sea of Saxon fighting men. Tall men they were, mostly blond or red-haired, and they fought with a savage ferocity he was forced to admire. Earlier in the battle some twenty Saxons had ripped their armour from their chests and attacked the line, fighting on with terrible wounds. These were the feared Bare-sarks, or naked warriors -called by the Britons, Berserkers. One man had fought on until he trod on his own entrails and slipped. Even then he had lashed out with his sword until he bled to death.

On the other hill Aquila calmly directed operations as if he was organising a triumphal march. He carried no sword and moved about behind the wall encouraging the men.

For two months now, Victorinus had experienced mixed feelings about the old patrician. He had been exasperated by his reluctance to take risks, but had always appreciated his courage and his caring for the welfare of the men under him. Under Aurelius he had been a careful and clever general, but without the charismatic monarch Aquila had been found wanting in the game of kings.

Three times the line buckled, and three times Gwalchmai led the rearguard into action to plug the gap. Victorinus gazed about him, sensing the day was almost done. The Saxons could sense it too; they fell back to regroup, then attacked with renewed frenzy. Victorinus wished the battle could fade away if only for a few seconds, so he could tell the men around him how proud he was to die alongside them. They were not truly Roman soldiers, merely auxiliaries hastily trained, but no Roman legionary could have bettered them on this day.

Suddenly thunder rolled across the sky, so loud that some of the Saxons screamed in terror, believing Donner the Storm God walked amongst them. Lightning speared up from a hill to the east and for a moment all fighting ceased. With the sun sinking behind him, Victorinus stared in disbelief as the sky over the distant eastern hill split apart like a great canvas to reveal a second sun blazing in the heavens. The field of battle was now lit like a scene from hell, double shadows and impossible brilliance blinding the warriors from both sides. Victorinus shielded his eyes and watched as a single figure appeared on the hill, holding aloft a great sword which shone like fire. Then warriors streamed out to stand alongside him, their shields ablaze.

And then the sky closed, the alien sun disappearing as if a curtain had been drawn across it. But the army remained. Victorinus blinked as he watched the new force close ranks with a precision that filled his heart with wonder. Only one army in the world could achieve such perfection . . .

The newcomers were Roman.

This thought had obviously struck the Saxon leader, who split his force in two, sending a screaming mass of warriors to engage the new enemy.

The shield wall opened and five hundred archers ran forward, the front line kneeling and the second rank standing. Volley after volley raked the Saxon line, which faltered half-way up the hill. A bugle sounded and the archers ran back behind the shield wall, which advanced slowly. The Saxons regrouped and charged. Ten-foot spears appeared between the shields. The first of the Saxon warriors tried to halt, but the mass behind pushed them on and the spears plunged home. From within the square the archers - with the angle of the hill to aid them - continued their murderous assault on the Saxon line and the Roman advance continued.

Back on the two hills, the Romano-British army fought with renewed vigour. No one knew, or cared, where this ally force had originated. All that mattered was that life and hope had been restored.

The Ninth Legion reached the bottom of the hill. The men left and right of the fighting square pulled back to create an arrow-shaped wedge at the centre which pushed on towards the Raven banner, where Horsa directed the Saxon force.

Inside the fighting wedge Uther longed to hurl himself forward, but good sense prevailed. As with the Saxons, the great Sword of Cuno-belin would be useless at present. Yard by yard the Saxons fell back, unable to penetrate the wall of shields; they began to throw axes and knives over the wall. Severinus bellowed an order and the second rank of the square lifted their shields high, protecting the centre.

The early advance began to falter. Even with the addition of almost five thousand troops, the Britons were still outnumbered two to one.

On the western hill Aquila read the situation and signalled to Victorinus - raising his arm, bent at the elbow, and making a stabbing motion into the joint with his other hand. Victorinus tapped his breastplate, showing he understood; then he summoned Gwalchmai.

'We are going to attack,' he said and the Cantii grinned. This was the sort of madness a Briton could appreciate. Outnumbered and trapped, yet holding the high ground, they would throw away their only advantage and hack and slash their way into the enemy ranks. He turned and ran back to the waiting archers.

'Arm yourselves!' he yelled. 'We march!'

The archers moved forward, stripping breastplates from the dead, gathering swords and shields.

Gwalchmai ran along the line shouting instructions, then Victorinus pushed his way to the point at which the wedge would be formed. This was the moment of most extreme peril, for he would have to step in towards the enemy and the two men either side of him would turn their shields outwards to protect his flanks. If either failed, he would be isolated in the midst of the Saxons. A sword lunged for him but he turned it on his shield and disembowelled the warrior. Gwalchmai's hand descended on his shoulder. 'Ready!' yelled the Cantii.

'Now!' bellowed Victorinus, stepping forward and slashing open the throat of a Saxon warrior. The line yielded at the angles of the square. Victorinus, swinging his sword in a frenzy, forced his way deeper into the enemy line. The man to the left of him went down, an axe embedded in his neck. Gwalchmai hurdled the body and took the dead soldier's place. Slowly the wedge began to force its way downhill.

At the same time Aquila ordered his square to attack. The Brigantes fell back in dismay as the wedge clove the centre of their line.

In the midst of the battle, Uther watched the British cohorts struggling to join him. The battle ground was condensing towards Horsa's Raven banner and the Red Dragon of Eldared. Uther moved back alongside Severinus.

'Order your archers to drop their shafts around the Dragon standard. That is where Eldared and his sons will be standing.' Severinus nodded, and within moments a deadly hail of barbed arrows began to flash from the sky.

Eldared saw his closest carle fall beside him, along with a score of warriors. Others ran forward to raise their shields over the king.

The battle had now reached a point of exquisite balance when the three Roman forces, heavily outnumbered, were still closing slowly on the enemy banners. If they could be held, or pushed back, Eldared would have the day. If they could not, he would be dead. It was a time for courage of the highest order.

At the Saxon centre Horsa, a blond giant in a raven-wing helm, bearing a longsword and rounded shield, gathered his carles and launched his own attack on the new enemy.

But Eldared had no wish to die; in his mind there would always be another day. With Gael beside him he fled the field, the Brigantes streaming after him. Horsa looked at his fleeing allies and shook his head; he had never liked Eldared. He glanced at the sky.

'Brothers in arms, brothers in Valhalla,' he said to the man beside him.

'Let the swords drink one last time,' replied the man.

The Saxons charged, almost cleaving through the wedge, but fury and courage were no match for discipline. The Roman line swung out like the horns of a bull, encircling the surging Saxons. Victorinus and Aquila linked forces behind them and the battle became a massacre.

Uther could contain himself no longer. Pushing his way to the front line, he snatched up a gladius and a shield and stepped into the fray, cutting a path towards the giant Saxon leader. Horsa saw the fighting figure of the silver breastplate and black-plumed helm and grinned. He too pushed his way forward, shouldering aside his own warriors. Behind him came the banner-bearer and a score of carles. The men to the left and right of Uther fell. The prince stabbed an attacker with his gladius, which became embedded in the warrior's side. Dropping his shield, he drew the Sword of Cunobelin and began to cleave his way forward with slashing double-handed strokes, moving ever ahead of the square.