In the Shadow of the Wall (33 page)

Brude found that his skills as a healer were also in demand. He soon became the first person anyone called on when they were ill. In truth, he often felt helpless for his dwindling supply of herbs could not cure many things and he could do nothing to ease some ailments, but he remembered Tygaeus the physician telling him that the greater part of healing came from the patient themselves. “It’s all in the mind,” Tygaeus had told him. “If a patient wants to get better, they will, more often than not. Half the skill of healing is persuading them that what you are doing for them is making them feel better. Once they believe that, they cure themselves.”

So Brude would set bones broken in accidents, tend to cuts and grazes and do his best to alleviate the symptoms of colds and chills. He could do nothing about more serious illnesses or fevers except try to ease people’s pain. He was powerless to save a new baby, born prematurely to one of the fishwives. The child was sickly beyond his skill. He was more used to treating wounded men than newborn children and the baby died, which, although he knew it was a common occurrence, upset him. And all hecould do for one elderly grandmother was to make her comfortable before she slipped away in the middle of one cold winter’s night. Still, his efforts were enough to give him a reputation for healing, however little he thought he deserved it.

One day he was called to tend young Seasaidh, who said she had a bellyache, although Seoc spoke to him on the way to his home, suggesting that his sister was only claiming to be ill to get Brude to come to examine her. “She heard you examined Eilidh the other day,” Seoc told him, “I think she’s jealous.”

Seasaidh was lying on her low bed, moaning softly and complaining that her belly and head were sore. Brude knew that it could be genuine but when he felt her forehead, he was satisfied that there was no fever. After a cursory examination during which the girl watched him carefully with her big, dark eyes while he placed his hands on her bare belly, he mixed a bitter-tasting potion which he forced her to drink. It made her feel sick, as he had known it would and she threw up. “That’ll be you sorted now,” he told her cheerily. She wailed that he was cruel but she did not complain of any other illnesses after that.

In the dark nights of the early months after midwinter, they celebrated Imbolc and still Brude had not been able to speak to Mairead about Castatin. In winter time, when people tried to shun the outdoors unless they had to go out, life was often divided between those who lived near the shore in the lower village and those who lived in the upper village around the broch and farmed the land cleared from the forests. Brude was torn between wanting to speak to Mairead and knowing he had to try to avoid Colm. He considered asking Fothair to find Mairead and speak to her but decided it was his problem, not Fothair’s, so he stayed away from the broch and fretted.

Gradually, the days grew longer once more and the first signs of spring began to appear. It brought new buds, green leaves and also a trader, who came to the village accompanied by a train of pack ponies and three armed guards.

He was of the Votadini but travelled all the lands of the Pritani, both north and south of the Wall, buying and selling items wherever he went. Brude, like most of the villagers, made the trip up the hill to meet him and to see what he had. There was nothing much that Brude wanted but he spoke to the man, asking him if he could get supplies of herbs and medicines from the Romans. The trader was at first surprised, then astonished when Brude wrote out the names of what he needed on a small piece of faded parchment using a burnt stick as a pen. “You can write Latin?” the man asked him.

“Not very well, but they should understand this. If you can get them I’ll be grateful. I can pay in Roman coins.”

The trader gave him a quizzical look but did not ask any more questions. A customer was a customer after all. “I probably won’t be back this way for another year,” he said.

“And even that is doubtful,” the trader said. “Things are happening down south that make life tricky for travelling merchants.”

“What sort of things?”

“You haven’t heard? The emperor has come over from
Rome
. He’s brought a whole army with him. The Brigantes are crushed, the Wall has been repaired and he is marching north. The Novantae have been defeated and the Damnonii too. The Votadini submitted without a fight. Well, they never fight the Romans anyway, I suppose. The Romans reached the Wall of Antoninus, just before winter, so I dare say they’ll be heading this way soon.” Brude felt a shiver run through him. The Wall of Antoninus was, he knew now, the turf rampart that the Romans had built across the whole island, cutting through the land of the Damnonii. If the emperor had reached the northern wall already, then his army could easily reach Broch Tava in a matter of days. The trader did not seem too concerned for his own safety. “I have papers from the Romans which let me pass the Wall. All the same, I intend heading north for a few weeks yet, just to get well clear of any trouble.” Brude didn’t blame him.

He was troubled by the news and considered going to speak to Colm. He eventually decided against it because he already knew how Colm would react. Instead, he asked Seoc to get Cruithne to visit his home. The two of them arrived that evening and Brude invited them in. His mother, Seoras and Fothair were already there. He told them what he had heard from the trader. Cruithne nodded. “He told Colm as well.”

“What did Colm say?” Brude asked, relieved that the trader had passed on the news.

“He said he is not concerned. He says the Romans want friendship with him. They have sent him gifts before. If they have come to fight, this time, he thinks we are strong enough to see them off.” Cruithne sounded as if he, too, was confident of that.

“He has no idea what he is up against,” Brude cursed, exasperated at Colm’s attitude. “I doubt very much that they will come in peace this time.”

“They are only men,” Cruithne said. “They can die as easily as other men.”

Brude knew that Cruithne had no experience of Romans. He also knew that he needed to get them all to understand the seriousness of the situation. “Yes, that is true, but it is not that easy to kill them. Every Roman soldier wears armour and they practise fighting every day, for the soldiers have no other jobs except to train as a team, so you do not fight one Roman, you fight many of them, all of them working together.”

“We can do that as well,” Seoc said, trying to support Cruithne. “We practise with our spears and swords. Colm sees to that.”

“I know,” said Brude. “If it was a fight between the men of Broch Tava and any other village in the whole of the islands of the Pritani, I would back you to win. But tell me this, how many warriors does Broch Tava have?”

Cruithne and Seoc looked at one another. They began naming warriors, counting them on their fingers. After a while, they came up with a figure of seventy-three, although that included some men who lived in outlying farmsteads.

“A Roman legion has over five thousand soldiers,” Brude told them. “They have cavalry as well. And the emperor would not come with only one legion. He will bring at least two, possibly more. On top of all that, the legions have auxiliary troops who fight for them but who are not Roman citizens. The emperor will bring at least the same number of them. If they attack, it won’t matter a damn that they are not Roman citizens, because they fight like Romans and they can kill you just the same. So you and your seventy-three men would face perhaps twenty thousand soldiers. I don’t care how good you are, Cruithne, even you couldn’t beat that many.”

Cruithne’s brow furrowed. Brude could tell he was having trouble visualising just how many men made up twenty thousand. “That is a lot,” the big man conceded. “So what do you suggest we do if they come?”

Brude took a deep breath. Cruithne had got quickly to the heart of the matter. If they could not fight and win, what choices did they have?

“If they come by land, you do not fight them. You send most people to hide in the woods and you welcome them. Offer them friendship and submit to whatever they want, without resisting. That won’t be pleasant, for the Romans usually want pretty much everything, but if they think you are friendly they may leave you alone. That is how the Votadini have survived for generations.”

“And if they come by sea?” Cruithne asked. “What then?”

“Take shelter in the broch. They won’t have any weapons capable of knocking it down if they come by sea. Either way, though, don’t fight them! Fortunately I’ll be able to speak to them. Perhaps I’ll be able to persuade them we are prepared to surrender to them. They will take some tribute and then they will hopefully leave us alone.”

“That is not how a warrior should behave,” Cruithne said with some feeling. “To submit without a is not in our nature.”

“I know,” Brude agreed. “But if you resist they will simply kill everyone or take them as slaves. We cannot beat them in a straight fight. There is no shame in this. If you met a bear in the woods you would not fight it, you would let it have its way.” He remembered Cruithne’s drunken boast from the year before and added, with a laugh, “Well, you might try to fight it, my large friend, but most of us wouldn’t.”

Cruithne nodded. “I hear what you say, Brude. I will think on it, for you have experience of these Romans and you have shown yourself to be a man of your word. There is, though, one big problem with your plan.”

“I know. Colm.”

“He will never agree. He thinks we can beat anyone.”

“Then you have to think of a way of making sure I speak to the Romans before he starts a fight with them.”

“That won’t be easy,” said Cruithne. “I don’t like going behind his back. He is our lord.”

“I know. Perhaps I should leave here and go to find the Romans first.”

Fothair spoke for the first time. “That would really get Colm to like you, wouldn’t it? Going to the Romans to represent his village. He’d probably start a fight with them, just to spite you.”

In the end they all knew that there was not much they could do except try to persuade Colm not to fight and somehow get Brude to speak to the Romans, if they ever did reach Broch Tava. As plans went, it was pretty poor, Brude knew, but he could not think of any alternative.

As things turned out, his fears seemed to be unfounded. Spring came, the Beltane festival passed and he counted himself thirty years old and still there was no sign of the Romans. Colm let it be known that he thought the Romans were afraid of the power of Broch Tava, which was either stupid bravado or an attempt to undermine Brude and make him appear afraid.

The villagers went about their daily lives, ploughing their fields, sowing seeds, grinding corn, fishing and tending their livestock; the never-ending work of getting food in their bellies, while others made pots or spun their yarn and wove clothes and blankets. While daily life continued, Colm flexed his muscles by leading another strong war band to Peart to extort some tribute from Gartnait, who paid without a fight. Brude began to think the Romans had decided to stop when they reached the Wall of Antoninus Pius and that his fears were Pius and td groundless. He hoped they were.

Gruoch needed timber for the boats he was supposed to build for Colm, so Brude and Fothair would walk the woods, chopping down trees, using Brude’s mule to drag the wood back to the village. It was hard work but Brude enjoyed it and it was something he could do that kept him in shape.

For an hour or so each day he sparred with Fothair, helping the tall Peart man to slowly improve his fighting ability. They always did this out of sight of the village in case anyone saw them because Brude thought he would have a difficult task explaining why he was teaching a slave how to fight. Like his sessions with young Lucius in Rome, though, they were not enough to make a huge difference to Fothair and served more to keep Brude sharp than anything else. He sometimes questioned himself as to why he wanted to keep his skills honed when he had vowed not to fight or kill, unless he had no choice. He persuaded himself it was because it kept him fit and because it was the only real skill he had.

They hauled the wood back for Gruoch, also bringing firewood for others in the village. Most things were done by barter rather than coin and the firewood they chopped and stacked was exchanged for bread or fish. Gruoch told Brude he would have a job for life chopping wood because Colm’s grandiose plans for a fleet of ships to raid the lands south of the Wall were coming along only slowly. Gruoch knew how to build a small boat for fishing but Colm wanted larger ships and Gruoch admitted he was struggling. “I need more men, more nails, more tools, and more rope,” he complained to Brude. “Just about the only thing I’ve got enough of is wood, thanks to you. It will take all year to build this damn thing and Colm wants six of them.”