Lady of Avalon (30 page)

“An omen!” Menecrates’ exclamation came faintly through the sudden roaring in Carausius’ ears. The gods had answered him; all his regrets fled away.

“The Lord of Heaven himself gives them into our hand. Forward! The Eagle has shown us our road!”

The deck shivered beneath his feet as one hundred and eight oars lifted and then bit into the sea.
Orion
lurched forward, rolled a little, and finally began to move more smoothly as the rowers found their rhythm and gathering momentum gave her headway through the waves. Behind her, the line of larger triremes followed, masts aligned so that it was hard to see how many there were. To either side, the lighter ships kept pace, holding, he was glad to see, their own columns in as steady a formation as good seamanship could achieve.

Carausius blinked and shaded his eyes with his hand. On the horizon the flicker of white showed again, and he grinned. “Come, my pretties, come on-you cannot see our numbers-tell yourselves we will be easy meat and come on!”

The enemy appeared to have heard him. As the rest of Maximian’s fleet came into view, he saw the severe shapes of the sails crumpling as they were hastily taken in, and white wakes exploding into froth as the ships shifted to oars. The wedge formation in which they had been sailing tightened, but they did not slacken speed. Carausius motioned to his trumpeter.

Menecrates snapped an order.
Orion
’s helmsman leaned on the rudder, and the deck tilted as the great ship began a smooth turn to starboard. The line of masts behind him shivered as one by one the other ships in the column followed and repeated his turn.
Orion
’s rowers continued their steady stroke, but the ships behind her were putting on speed, and the smaller, swifter craft in the outer two columns were flashing through the water and veering away to either side.

“Orion,” he whispered, “there go your hounds! May the gods give them good hunting!” The Roman Commander would seek to grapple and board in the traditional manner, whereby superior numbers might carry the day. The goal of the British fleet must be to destroy or disable as many of the enemy ships as possible before they came to grips with their foe.

They were closing fast. Carausius’ body servant brought him shield and helmet. The javelins had been brought up as well, and
Orion
’s marines were piling them at the after-and foredecks, while the slingers readied their stones. Now he could see the gleam of enemy armor on the deck of the oncoming trireme. He cast a last glance around him. As Admiral he could plan strategies, but it was up to the individual captains to judge, in a situation that changed from moment to moment, how to carry out the orders they had received. Now that the die was cast, thought Carausius with a curious relief, he himself was no more important than any other marine.

Orion
lurched as an order from Menecrates altered her course toward the smaller ship he had selected as her first prey. The enemy, seeing her danger, started to veer, and the chance to ram her bows was lost, but the British trireme’s momentum made collision inevitable. Portside oars swung high out of the water as the two vessels came together, and
Orion
’s newly sharpened ram sheared through her enemy’s waving oars and gouged a groove along her side. She was not destroyed but, for the moment at least, out of action. A javelin struck the deck and clattered past; then
Orion
’s oarsmen set to their work once more and pulled her out of range, driving onward into the mass of the foe.

Shouts and trumpets to either side told Carausius that the squadrons on his wings were beginning to envelop the enemy’s wedge from the rear; even light ships could do great damage by ramming from astern.

The next enemy, her attention engaging
Hercules,
noticed too late the new threat bearing down on her. Carausius leaped down to the catwalk and grabbed one of the struts, bracing himself as
Orion
smashed into her foe. Timbers shrieked and a few javelins came whistling over the side, but Menecrates’ men were backing oars, pulling
Orion
free before her victim could settle in the water and hold her fast. A marine fell with a javelin in his shoulder, but his companions held on to their weapons, knowing that the sea would avenge him soon.

A burst of yelling and the clash of arms told him that someone from another ship had managed to grapple and battle was joined. But
Orion
surged onward. Masts swayed on the water like treetops in a storm. Beyond them he could see the rocky bluffs that edged the shoreline, closer now.

A flight of slingstones buzzed past his head, and the lookout was knocked down. In a moment one of the marines hauled him upright again, swearing, with blood streaming from a graze on his temple. The ship from which the missiles had come was turning toward them, but not fast enough. A shout from Menecrates sent
Orion
charging toward her unprotected side.

They struck, shattered oars flying through the air like kindling. A hunk of wood punched through a rower’s neck like an arrow, and he collapsed.
Orion
’s bow dipped as her enemy’s weight bore down. Grapples came whipping through the air, but the marines managed to bat them away. For a few moments Carausius feared the two ships would be stuck together, but once more
Orion
managed to pull free. The shore was growing steadily closer. Carausius glanced up at the sun and realized that the afternoon tide must be setting landward. He grabbed the trumpeter by the arm and shouted in his ear.

In another moment the signal to disengage blared above the clamor of dying ships and men.
Orion
backed oars, drawing away, and the Romans began to cheer. But they did not know this coast and its tides.

As the British ships began to pull back, the Romans tried to follow them, but the enemy triremes, heavier and less well manned, moved slowly. The Romans shouted imprecations while their more agile opponents regrouped, waiting as the tide strengthened and drew their foes inexorably toward the hostile British shore. Roman captains realized their danger and began to turn their attention from battling men to fighting the sea. A few, already too close to escape, turned their prows shoreward, looking for a cove in which to ground. The others, oars thrashing the choppy waters, angled slowly away from the coastline, seeking the open sea.

Carausius waited, his brain busy with calculations of time and distance, as
Orion
paced her enemies, ready to cut off their escape if they should progress too far. Beyond the bluff the coast curved back into a shallow bay. As the Admiral glimpsed it, he spoke once more to the trumpeter.

The horn blared across the waves as
Orion
hallooed her hounds to the attack once more. Carausius pointed toward the largest of the remaining foes, and the deck dipped as the ship began to turn. Ever more swiftly flashed the oars, in the all-out stroke that can only be sustained for as long as it takes to close the last few ship-lengths that separate two foes.

Carausius could make out faces now. He saw a centurion whom he had served with on the Rhenus when both were little more than boys, and brought up his sword in salute. The enemy ship, seeing her danger, tried to turn; the Admiral glimpsed the carven sea-nymph that ornamented her prow. But she was rowing against the tide, whereas
Orion
had the force of the sea behind her. They struck with a rending crash that lifted both ships, spilling men overboard.

Carausius was flung to his knees, staring as armed men rained down around him. The impact had carried them halfway through the other vessel; no need for grappling irons to hold them fast this time, and no way that any strength of oars could pull them free. The rowers were already abandoning their benches and snatching up weapons. Then a sword flared toward him; the Admiral scrambled to his feet, bringing up his shield to guard, and all thought beyond the need to defend himself was swept away.

The men he was fighting were veterans of a thousand such me mêlées… They recovered quickly from the shock of the collision and began to regroup, cutting their way across the foredeck of
Orion
with deadly efficiency. Carausius took the shock of their blows on his shield and thrust with all his might. A glancing hit to his helm sent him reeling, but in the next moment a marine and an oarsmen locked in a death grapple fell against his opponent and knocked him overboard.

With a gasped prayer of thanks Carausius got back to his feet. Bodies thrashed in the water or lay tangled among the oars. Where there was room to stand, fighters hacked with sword or thrust with
pilum.
The fight had spread to the other ship, but he could not tell who was winning. He took a quick breath as he saw the bluff looming above them.

Its shadow fell across the locked ships, and a few men looked up, but most were too intent on their own struggles to see. And in another moment it was too late. The Roman vessel’s port side hit the rocks, slid upward on the swell, and settled back with a crackling of timbers. And
Orion
’s prow, dislodged by the impact, groaned and began to slide free.

The Roman ship was dead, but her crew could still carry the day by taking the fight to
Orion
. Carausius gritted his teeth and summoned the last of his strength as more legionaries leaped to his deck from the enemy’s settling rail.

He had thought the battle hot before, but now it was ten times fiercer, more desperate than any fight against Saxon pirates. Carausius’ sword arm began to tire; his shield arm ached from the shock of blows. He was bleeding from a dozen scratches; soon loss of blood would slow him down. They had floated free of the Roman vessel and were now themselves at the mercy of the tide; there was no man free to take the helm.

Dead men lay all around him, but a centurion and another man scrambled over the bodies and came in swinging. Carausius set his feet and prepared to defend himself. Perhaps he should have contented himself with planning the battle and stayed ashore; no doubt that was what Maximian had done. Young men never believed they could be killed, he remembered as a swordstroke slammed into his helmet, snapping the strap and knocking it away; or older men either, he thought as he forced his weary arm up to block the next blow.

He slipped in someone’s blood and went down on one knee. Glancing over his shoulder, he realized that the fight had brought him back to the Lady’s shrine. He sucked in breath and let it out more slowly, his desperation giving way to a great calm.
Lady, my life is yours,
his spirit cried.

A shadow rose above him, Carausius tried to raise his shield, knowing it would not be in time. Then he felt a quiver in the boards; the deck jerked, and the blow that would have split his head went awry. He glimpsed the man’s neck unguarded and swung; blood spurted in a crimson stream as the Roman fell.

Carausius struggled to get upright, supporting himself on his sword. No living man stood near him. He levered himself to his feet and realized that the shore was no longer moving. The soil of Britannia herself had reached out to save him;
Orion
was aground.

On her deck, the fighting had ended. The survivors straightened, and beneath the blood, Carausius recognized them as his own men. Other ships still floated just offshore, and most of them were British as well.

I am alive!
He stared around him, gripped by a great wonder.
We have the victory…
And on the face of the statue in the shrine he thought he saw a smile.

That night, the larger British vessels anchored in the shallow waters of the cove with their prizes in tow, while the smaller ships were run up on the sandy shore. The men made camp in the meadow above and shared their provisions, and as word spread through the countryside, wagons came lumbering down to the sea bearing food and drink for the celebration.

They had enthroned their commander on a pile of driftwood covered with cloaks taken from their enemies. Carausius told himself he ought to be giving orders, making new plans, but he was lightheaded with blood loss and the wine that someone had found on the enemy flagship. And he was too happy. The evening was beautiful, and the men, his men, were the bravest and best that any commander had ever led. He beamed upon them all like the setting sun, and they returned his warmth with praises that grew ever louder as the wine went round.

“They won’t sneer at us now for provincial clods!” cried an oarsman.

“British ships are the best, and so are her crews!”

“Shouldn’t have to take the orders of some idiot in Rome,” muttered one of the marines.

“These waters belong to Britannia, an’ we’ll defend ’em!”

“Carausius will defend them!” The shoreline echoed with his name.

“Carausius for Emperor!” cried Menecrates, brandishing his blade.

“Imperator, Imperator…” Man by man, all the fleet took up the cry.

Carausius felt himself overwhelmed by their emotion. The Eagle of Jupiter had led him into battle, and the Lady of Britannia had saved him. He could doubt no longer, and when the men of the fleet raised him on their shields to acclaim him Emperor, he lifted his arms, accepting their love, and their land.

The rider ahead of her reined in and looked back inquiringly, as if he had heard her sigh. Teleri managed a smile. In the two years since Carausius had been acclaimed Imperator, Allectus had become a good friend to her. He did not have the stamina for long marches, and he was no sailor, but behind a desk he was a wonder, and an emperor, even more than a commander, needed such men around him in order to survive.

It amazed her, sometimes, that Carausius had maintained his position for so long. When he accepted the Army’s acclamation and proclaimed himself Imperator, she had expected Rome to descend with fire and sword before the end of the year. But it would appear that a lord of Britannia could rebel with more impunity than a general from any other province-at least he could if he ruled the seas, and had the favor of Avalon. Still, it seemed to her that even Carausius had been surprised when Maximian, having lost the sea battle, had responded to his proclamation with a stiffly formal letter welcoming him as a brother emperor.

No doubt the Romans had their reasons: Maximian’s peace with the Franks had not lasted; he was still trying to keep their clans from overrunning Gallia, as well as pacifying the Alamanni on the Rhenus, and Diocletian was fighting Sarmatians and Goths on the Danuvius. There were rumors of trouble in Syria as well. Rome had no men to spare for fighting elsewhere. So long as Britannia did not threaten the rest of the Empire, the emperors must think they could afford to leave her to her own devices-and defenses. And Carausius himself was learning that there was more to ruling Britannia than defending the Saxon Shore.

Teleri cast an anxious glance toward the grey line of masonry that undulated across the hills. On the other side of that line the Picts ran free, and for all that they were as Celtic as the Brigantes on this side of the Wall, the wild tribes of Alba had laid a terror upon the hearts of their Romanized cousins that was as great as the fear the southern British felt of the Saxons, and had lasted far longer.

Teleri pulled the hood of her heavy cloak forward as the fog thickened, contracting the world to a patch of road surrounded by a grey blur. Moisture darkened the sand that surfaced the road, and beaded on the heather. If this kept up they would have to light the torches, even though it was only midafternoon. Their guide stopped, holding up his hand, and she halted her own pony, listening. Sounds were difficult to distinguish in such weather, but something was coming…

Her escort spread out around her, spears ready. They could fight, but it would be madness to flee when even on the road they could scarcely see their way. Straining, she made out a rhythmic tramp and jingle, too regular, surely, for the undisciplined clatter of Pictish horsemen. Closer and louder it came. Allectus reined his horse back to block the road before her. Teleri heard the scrape of steel as he drew his sword. She wondered how well he could use it. She knew he had been practicing with one of the centurions, but he had not begun his training until two years ago. Still, his determination to stand between her and danger pleased her.

For a moment nothing moved. Then shapes seemed to precipitate from the gloom, and a detachment of legionaries strode out of the mist, and came to a precise halt before her.

“Gaius Martinus, optio, from the garrison at Vindolanda, detached for escort duty to the Empress.” He saluted smartly.

“But the Lady Teleri has an escort-” Allectus began.

“We’re here to reinforce you on your way into Corstopitum,” the optio said dourly. “Last night the Picts broke through at Vercovicium. The Emperor has gone after them, but he sent us to make sure you got safely to shelter.” The man looked as if he resented having pulled guard duty when his comrades were out having all the fun.

Carausius had wanted her to stay safely in Eburacum, and now Teleri understood why. She had always thought of the Wall as a barrier as unbreakable as the mists that surrounded Avalon, but that ribbon of stone looked fragile against the expanse of the moors. It was only a work of men, and what one group of men built could be breached by another.

By the time they reached Corstopitum, darkness was falling and the mist had turned to a fine, soaking rain. The town was well sited on the northern bank of the river, where the military road crossed the old trackway into Alba. In earlier years its population had been increased by the numbers of craftsmen brought in to produce military supplies and those who managed the imperial granaries. But to Teleri, riding up the High Street toward the hostel, with moisture seeping down her neck and aching thighs, the place seemed sad. Many of the buildings had been abandoned, and others were badly in need of repair.

But over the years every emperor who came to inspect the Wall had stayed at Corstopitum, and the official hostel was both spacious and comfortable. If it had no mosaics, the planked floors were covered by thick rugs striped in the manner of the local tribes, and there was a crude charm in the hunting scenes some soldier-artist had painted on the wall. Dry clothes and a glowing brazier gradually drove away the chill, and by the time Teleri rejoined Allectus in the big dining chamber, she had recovered enough to listen to his worries with some sympathy.

“The Emperor is a strong man, and our gods protect him,” she responded when for the third time he had wondered if Carausius had found shelter. “A man who is accustomed to balance on a heaving deck in a howling storm will not be troubled by a little rain.”

Allectus shuddered and then grinned at her, the lines of worry that usually made him seem older than his years disappearing.

“He can take care of himself,” she repeated. “I am very glad you are here with me!”

“It has worked out well, our partnership.” He sobered, but his face still held the boyish look that had made her heart go out to him. “He has the strength and power to make men follow him. I am the thinker, who calculates and remembers and anticipates what the man of action has not time to see. And you, my lady, are the Sacred Queen. Yours is the love that makes it all worthwhile!”

Love? Teleri raised one eyebrow, but kept silent, reluctant to trouble his faith. She had loved Dierna, and Avalon, and they had been taken from her. Carausius came to her bed more often now that he was Emperor and needed an heir, but she had no child. Perhaps a baby would have drawn them closer together; as it was, she had learned to view her husband with respect, and even some affection, but duty was their primary bond.

Did she love Britannia? What did that mean? She was fond of the Durotrige lands where she had been born, but she had seen nothing on these northern moors to make her love them. Perhaps, if she had been allowed to study the Mysteries as long as Dierna, she would have learned how to love an abstraction as well.

But it was Dierna’s ability to care for abstractions that had sent Teleri into exile. Teleri had no more wish to be Empress of Britannia than she did to rule Rome itself. To her, they were equally unreal. She no longer even dreamed of freedom. She wondered suddenly if she was capable of caring deeply for anything anymore.

The next word they had of Carausius came barely an hour before the Emperor himself arrived, lying in a horse litter with a great gash in his thigh where a Pictish horseman had got in under his guard.

“I can fight well enough on shipboard, even when the deck is leaping beneath my feet with the swell,” he told them, wincing as the Army surgeon put a new dressing on his wound, “but to fight from the back of a horse is something else again! But we stopped them, and scarce half a dozen got away to tell their chieftains that the British Emperor will protect his lands as well as ever they were when they belonged to Rome.”

“But you cannot be everywhere, my lord, even if you could stick a horse as well as a Sarmatian. The strength of the Wall is in men, but they must have something to defend. The last Emperor to refortify was Severus, and that was two generations ago. This whole region needs rebuilding, and we don’t have the funds to bring in new wood and stone.”

“True,” said Carausius, “but the population here is less as well, and many buildings have been abandoned. The stones from the structures we demolish will serve to strengthen the rest. They will be smaller, but stronger-” He bit his lip as the surgeon bound a dressing over the wound. “Just like Britannia…” he finished rather quickly, beads of perspiration standing out on his brow.

Allectus shook his head impatiently. “Is it bad?” he asked as the surgeon began to put away his instruments. “Will the wound do any lasting harm?”

The surgeon, an Egyptian who still went wrapped in shawls and mufflers after decades away from his native sun, shrugged and smiled.

“He is a strong man. I have treated many worse wounds from which men recovered to fight another day.”

“I will take charge of your sickroom,” said Teleri. “When an empress orders, even an emperor must obey.”

The surgeon nodded. “If he lies still and lets his body heal he will do well, but there will be a scar.”

“Another scar, you mean…” said Carausius ruefully.

“It is what you deserve for risking yourself in an engagement that any cavalry commander with five years’ service could have led as well!” commented Allectus severely.

“If we had one to spare,” answered the Emperor. “That is the problem. Now that the taxes no longer go to Rome, Britannia is more prosperous, but that only makes her more tempting to the wolves, whether they come by land or by sea. The men of the southern tribes have been forbidden to bear arms for so many generations that they are no use as a militia, and most will not leave their homes to serve in the Army. The same thing happened, I am told, in the early days of the Empire in Rome.”

“And how did they solve the problem?” asked Teleri.

“They recruited soldiers from newly conquered barbarian lands whose sons had not forgotten they were fighting men.”

“Well, I hardly think Diocletian will allow you to raid his recruiting grounds,” said Allectus.

“True…but I will have to find men somewhere…” Carausius fell silent, and did not protest when the surgeon ordered the others out so that he could rest.

He would be a bad patient when the first pain faded away, thought Teleri. He looked oddly helpless, lying there, and she felt an unfamiliar pang of compassion for his pain.

Throughout the winter, while his wound was healing, Carausius brooded on the problem of how to balance his resources of money and manpower. His government had prospered wonderfully under Allectus’ hand, but money was no help laid up in his treasury. He must use it to buy men. The wild tribes of the north were the old enemy, unacceptable to the people of Roman Britannia even if they would have hired out to an emperor. He knew he must look elsewhere.

More and more often Carausius found himself dreaming of the sandy heaths and reed-bordered marshes of his own country across the Channel, and the rich soil of the fields that had been wrested from the sea. The men who made those fields were solid and steady, but good fighters, and there was never enough land for the younger sons. Surely, he told himself, if he sent a message, some would answer his call.

And as for the Saxons: Their coast, east of the land of the Jutes and facing the northern sea, was as hard a place to make a living as the Menapian lands. When they went out raiding it was not for glory only, but because the booty they took would buy food for the hungry mouths at home. If he came to them as a countryman, he might bind them by a treaty, and if he purchased the safety of his own lands with tribute, he would not be the first emperor to use the taxes he collected to buy off his enemies.

When he returned to Londiniun, he would do it. This was the only solution he could see.

On the ides of the month of Maia, three sails appeared off the southeastern coast of Britannia. In the past years, even the lowliest shepherd lad had learned to recognize the patchwork-leather sails of a Saxon keel. Alarms clanged in the villages, then fell silent as the longships sailed by.

The lookouts at Rutupiae, remembering their orders, watched in grim silence as the boats entered the estuary of the Stour and made their way upriver under oars. As the day was ending, they came to Durovernum Cantiacorum, the tribal city of the Cantiaci, with its newly built walls glowing pink in the light of the setting sun.

Carausius watched from the porch of the basilica as the German chieftains marched up the High Street with their warriors, closely escorted by legionaries bearing torches, uneasily aware that they might have to defend these ancient enemies from the hatred of the inhabitants of the town. If the Saxons noticed the tension they gave no sign of it, or perhaps the occasional grins as they looked around them indicated they considered the danger a challenge to be enjoyed.

But Carausius had issued his invitation in terms they could understand, and if he forgot how to speak to them, the young Menapian warriors whom he had brought over from Germaina Inferior to be his bodyguard were there to assist him. To reinforce the message, he had had clothing made for himself in the German fashion: long trousers, gathered at the ankle, of fine wool dyed a rich gold, and a linen tunic of blue much ornamented with bands of Greek brocade, with armrings and a torque of gold. From its belt, glittering with golden medallions, hung a well-worn Roman cavalry sword, to remind them he was a warrior. And over all he had draped a mantle of the imperial purple clasped with a brooch of heavy gold, to remind them that he was an emperor.