Wolfbane (Historical Fiction Action Adventure Book, set in Dark Age post Roman Britain) (60 page)

Unfortunately, though, Augustus had just walked into
his
room,
his
tavern, and that could only mean one thing. Hastily, he removed his best jugs of wine and placed them under the counter. He considered joining the jugs on the ground but his curiosity kept him standing.

Augustus was at first puzzled when he saw Pwyll in a struggle with two men. Had he had a fit? A seizure? But when the cruel eyes of Hal and Menw turned towards him (two men he could not stand), Augustus then knew. Menw was the first to his feet. Augustus stood facing him, then looked at the girls who by now had moved to the counter.

‘Leave, please,’ Augustus instructed them quietly. He stepped back to the door and opened it for them. As they scuttled, shame-faced through the door, he added, ‘And disgrace on you.’

Hal was standing now. He knew all about Augustus—knew that he had a reputation; had heard as well that the big bastard was a bit stupid and could be reasoned with, because fighting him was
definitely
out of the question, even with Menw to help him.

By now, Pwyll had scrambled to his feet and hitched up his crumpled hose. Augustus nodded towards the wine counter. ‘Go behind there with the tavern keeper, Pwyll. I’ll buy you a cup of wine when this is done with.’ He turned back to Hal and Menw.

They exchanged glances. Hal, jittery and unsettled by Augustus’ measured tone, attempted a compromise. ‘We were just having a bit of fun with him. L-look at him, w-we’ve not harmed a hair on his head.’

‘And I won’t harm a hair on yours,’ said Augustus. He nodded towards Menw. ‘Or his.’ Hal’s and Menw’s sigh of relief was audible to everyone in the room. They were about to thank Augustus for his clemency when he continued. ‘Now be good enough to step out of your clothes so we can get this matter dealt with.’

‘Hhh?’ Hal was wide-eyed and dismayed as the gravity of Augustus’ command sank in. He looked at Menw, whose expression, if it were possible, was even more haunted than before.

‘Yes, you heard me right,’ said Augustus. ‘I want you both to strip naked here before me, just as you would have stripped Pwyll naked.’ To emphasise the folly of refusing his request, Augustus let his hand drop to the stonemason’s hammer that hung at his belt.

Hal and Menw looked at Augustus who was two heads taller; looked at the meaty fist grasping the hammer.

They began to undress.

Moments later, they were standing naked before him, shuffling uncomfortably—their dropped hands preserving their modesty.

Augustus let out his breath in a disgusted
‘phh.’
He looked over to Pwyll and the tavern keeper. ‘Pour two cups of wine please ... one for me ... one for Pwyll.’ He looked with mock apology at Hal and Menw, as if he had committed the clumsiest of faux pas. ‘Oh,
I am
sorry … y-you didn’t think they were for
you,
did you?’ Hal and Menw blankly shook their heads. Augustus looked them over again, then turned to the tavern keeper, but now his tone was frosty. ‘
Why
were the women in here?’ he asked.

The tavern keeper pointed to Hal and Menw. ‘Those two wanted the women to watch Pwyll being stripped; they brought them in to laugh at him.’

Augustus nodded and pursed his lips as if enlightened. He looked back at Hal and Menw. ‘
Better
if there’s an audience, is it?’

Hal had no idea whether to nod or shake his head. Neither action would satisfy Augustus—he knew that. Instead, he merely shrugged his bare shoulders at him.

Augustus feigned bewilderment. ‘What?—you mean to tell me you
don’t know
? That’s strange, because you seemed pretty sure of it when I walked in.’ Crowd murmurings now came from beyond the door. The expelled women had spread the word that the giant, Augustus, had caught two renowned bullies; caught them trying to humiliate a man in the wine tavern. ‘Outside,’ said Augustus, pointing to the door. ‘You are both leaving this town and I want you to go now.’

Hal shook his head. ‘No … you can’t mean this. This has gone far enou—‘

‘OUT OF THE DOOR, I SAID!’ Augustus stepped towards them, his latent fury close to eruption.

Hal and Menw shrank from him, then edged themselves towards the door. He leant before them and opened it. And there they stood
;
naked as the day they were born—the snickering crowd facing them. Augustus kicked firstly Menw, then Hal into the street. Both men landed on their knees amongst the crowd—a crowd which had now started to jeer them.

Augustus followed and began to kick their skinny backsides down the muddy road. Several times, they would fall to their knees; then, after waiting with folded arms for them to get to their feet, Augustus resumed his kicking as he coerced them towards the gates of the city. Eventually, Hal and Menw had had enough, and began a stumbling run down the street. The crowd followed, shouting insults and pelting stones. The gates could not come soon enough for the two men.

Erec rode up towards Aquae Sulis with his woman Morgana by his side. Having spent the last six months at Brythonfort, training new recruits at the academy, Erec’s time had come again to assume his six-month tenure as steward of Aquae Sulis. Morgana’s saddle had been adapted to hold their three-year-old son, Girard, firmly in place—a wise move that had been partially successful in restricting the youngster’s boisterousness on the sixty mile journey from Brythonfort. Now as they neared the open gates, the infant’s keen eyes had spotted movement beyond the open gates of the city.

He turned to his father. ‘Papa … men are running towards us. They come to say hello.’

Erec could see for himself now, and bade Morgana to stop. He squinted into the distance, still not sure what was happening. ‘Stay here, please,’ he said as he spurred his horse into a trot towards the gates.

The son of a peasant, Erec had inherited his father’s genes, and when still only fourteen towered above the tallest man in his village. His athleticism was not lost on Arthur’s scouts, who, as well as checking that the lands around Brythonfort held no threat from Saxon incursion, looked out for boys of Erec’s stature. His parents agreed for him to go to Brythonfort (indeed it was deemed a considerable honour for any family to have a son selected for training with Arthur’s militia) and at the age of fifteen Erec left his village to take up his lodgings at the bastion.

Arthur’s faith in Erec had not been misplaced and the boy took easily and naturally to his tutorage. He excelled in all aspects of his training, and at the age of twenty-one was trusted to lead his first patrol from the gates of Brythonfort. They came upon a Saxon war party, intent on striking deep into the western lands. The party had strayed into Arthur’s protectorate and needed to dealt with. Under Erec’s leadership, and employing the Roman techniques utilised by Arthur’s standing army, Erec and his knights had ruthlessly sliced through the Saxon threat that day, leaving not one Germanic warrior alive.

Erec led many more patrols, and the result was always the same: total annihilation of his adversaries. The quality of Erec’s field craft was such, that he was asked by Arthur to take up the role of weapons instructor in the academy when only twenty-five years old. Erec had proven to be a tough but fair trainer. Five years had passed since that day, during which time many youths and men had graduated through the academy.

At about the same time Erec took up his post at the academy, the girl, Morgana (then twenty years old) began her employment as a cook. Her role was to assist the older women and ensure that the trainees’ hunger was satisfied at the end of each day. She soon caught Erec’s eye, and after a slow and awkward beginning—Erec having spent all his years since adolescence either training or fighting, and Morgana never having developed any romantic attachments, such was her age—they had fallen deeply in love. After a short courtship they had wed, and one year after that, Morgana gave birth to a son whom they named Girard, after Morgana’s late father.

Now as he approached the city, Erec thought of his son and considered the infant’s vulnerability in the uncertainty of the post-Roman world. Anything could happen at any time, he knew that. For now, Arthur had secured the western lands, but Erec was shrewd enough to realise that Britannia was volatile and always open to Saxon dominance—especially if the barbaric war bands came to realise that their fragmented approach to warfare had its limitations. Already there was rumour of troop movement,
from the north of all places
, causing Arthur to dispatch Dominic and Tomas at once to scout the situation.

The jeering crowd ended Erec’s contemplations and brought him back to the present. The people of Aquae Sulis seemed to be at unrest and that worried him.

As Hal and Menw ran from the gates, Augustus, with the throng behind him, boomed after them. ‘If I see you two here again I’ll strip you of your skin as well of your clothes. Get under the stones from which you crawled, you worthless…’

Augustus voice trailed away as he noticed Erec and, as ever, he was impressed by the knight. Only slightly shorter than he, but just as imposing, Erec was a handsome man, whose blonde braided hair fell to his jawline. A full beard covered his angular face; a face now full of concern.

Glad to see Augustus apparently in charge of
God-knew-what
, Erec shouted: ‘What gives here, Gus?’ He watched Hal and Menw run away from the city.

Augustus scratched at the curly hair that grew from the back of his neck. ‘Nothing worth much of a mention,’ he replied. ‘Just two bullies with nowhere to live anymore and without a shred of clothing to wear.’

Erec cast an indifferent glance towards the now-distant exiles. ‘Hmm ... never liked them anyway ... too smart for their own good.’ He slid from his horse and embraced Augustus as the crowd dispersed. ‘Good to see you, man, but it’s not the best of news; word is out that Guertepir has gone northwards in numbers.
And
... listen to this, my friend; it’s also been reported that some tribe from beyond Hadrian’s wall—most likely the Votadini—have travelled to Deva. It seems that things are about to get interesting.’

CHAPTER FOUR

As soon as the traveller had arrived at Brythonfort with news of Guertepir’s journey northwards up the western peninsula, Arthur had dispatched Dominic and Tomas upon the road.

Two day’s travel saw the pair bypass Aquae Sulis and reach Corinium. From there, they took the network of lesser roads, westwards, until reaching the shoreline of the western peninsula—the route taken by Guertepir. For two further days, they stuck to the road as it passed through wood, field and marsh. Whenever passing a homestead or small village, they took care to blend into the adjacent countryside, having no wish to endure any lengthy conversations or explanations of why they were on the road. Although they expected no problems from the folk living on the western peninsular, many of who were Desi exiles of Hibernia, they nevertheless knew them to be curious folk when seeing strangers.

It was the bellowing of cattle that first alerted Dominic and Tomas to the movement ahead of them. Garbed in russet cloaks of broken weave, both rangers had no trouble blending into the shrub cover that pushed shoulder-high from the ground twenty paces from the road.

‘That sounds like
a lot
of cattle,’ said Dominic, as he lay on his belly below a twisted winter bramble.

‘Far too many for any of the small farmsteads
we’ve
passed,’ said Tomas, nodding towards a cluster of buildings that lay within a fold of ground nearby. ‘That family yonder can only have twenty cows at the most, and that seems fairly typical.’

As they watched, a billowing of dust rolled up the road. The first of the cow herders rode through the miasma, emerging as if creatures spawned from a desert land. Their presence caused Dominic and Tomas to shrink a little further into the shrub cover.

‘Under all that shit, they’re Guertepir’s men,’ Dominic said. ‘I can tell by their bearing on those horses ... typical Hibernian riding style.’

‘So, they’re here to herd cattle?’

‘More likely to steal them. It’s what Hibernians do when scraping for gold. Looks like Guertepir’s extravagances have caught up with him’—he gripped Tomas’ arm and pointed to the nearby smallholding—‘maybe we’re about to find out.’

As they watched, a larger group of horsemen emerged from the swirling cloud and made for the homestead. Dominic, who had been to Guertepir’s ringfort recently, strained to recognise them; strained to recognise Guertepir. But he could not recognise any man before him, the dust was far too thick for that.

At the farm, the riders were met by three men and two boys—probably a father and sons, thought Dominic. Arms were raised as a squabble ensued, then the man fell to the ground. As his sons stooped to attend him, a thin reedy scream sounded above the lowing of encroaching cattle. ‘The bastards have killed the father,’ said Tomas. ‘Look ... the mother has arrived.’

Tomas made to gain his feet, but Dominic put a restraining hand upon him. ‘No! Stay hidden. There’s nothing we can do here; not against so many men.’

Released from their pen by the riders, the twenty cows from the homestead had already blended with the main body of cattle and begun to move with the herd.

An unending movement of cattle and men continued to amble past Dominic and Tomas. Dominic squinted as he peered through the dust and attempted to count the riders. Such were their numbers that the procession continued for much of the morning. Dominic frequently exchanged looks of astonishment with Tomas as the extent of the cattle theft became apparent. When the last of them finally passed by, another large body of men emerged from the dust.

‘What the…’ began Dominic.

‘They’re not Guertepir’s men. Even I can tell that,’ said Tomas.

‘No,
they are not;
they are Britons from beyond the wall; I’ve seen their horses and livery before when I worked for Rome. Will also rode with me then, and we ventured northwards with the legions as far as the Antonine wall. Their shields bear the sign of the juniper and that makes them  Votadini, but what in hell’s name are they doing this far south?’

Dominic counted seven hundred riders (again all well-armed) following the cows. Eventually, the last of them passed by, leaving Dominic and Tomas watching the empty road. When the dust finally settled, they got to their feet and ventured from the shrubbery. Southwards, in the distance, they could see the dust cloud that followed the mass movement of men and cattle.

Dominic sighed resignedly as he nodded towards the farmstead. ‘Looks like Guertepir has changed
their
lives forever.’ Fifty paces from them, a woman wept at the side of the fallen man. Dominic and Tomas went to them. The woman shrank back as they approached, whilst the sons sprang to their feet.

Dominic held up his palms in non-aggression. ‘Do not be hasty. We are not with the raiders, but we saw what they did.’

The woman’s wretched face was an amalgam of dust and tears. She looked at Dominic, then beyond him. ‘And who is he who rides with you?’

Startled, Tomas and Dominic looked behind them. Sat upon a mule, bumping down the track towards them, was a monk.

Dominic’s mouth was agape. Chance meetings with past acquaintances were rare in Britannia, but Dominic
actually knew
the youth who now approached him; knew him as Ingle, the young monk from Hibernia.

Ingle’s own face rivalled Dominic’s in incredulity as he got close enough to recognise him. ‘What in the Lord’s name are you ... ’ His voice faded to silence when he saw the group of homesteaders surrounding the dead man. By now, his sons had lifted him from the road and started to carry him back to their hut. The woman, too preoccupied with her grief now, turned from Dominic’s group and followed her sons.

‘The raiders killed him,’ said Dominic in response to Ingle’s questioning look. ‘He wouldn’t give up his cattle so they just killed him; there’s nothing we can do for them now.’

Ingle slid from his mule and embraced Dominic, his voice respectably subdued such was the gravitas of the scene. ‘Well-met Dom, believe it or not but I was seeking you out ... well, seeking out Brythonfort anyway.’

Dominic turned towards Tomas. ‘This is my companion, his name’s Tom. We were sent to watch proceedings here.’ Ingle and Tomas (two youths of a similar age) exchanged nods. Dominic continued. ‘Now perhaps you can tell me what the hell possesses a monk from Hibernia to ride alone in the middle of nowhere this day?’ Before Ingle attempted to reply, Dominic noticed him glance at the sack that lay over the rump of Tomas’ horse. It occurred to him then that Ingle looked half-starved. ‘No don’t answer me yet. We’ll eat first. You can tell me what happened when your belly’s full.’

Ingle began his story after the meal, telling of how he had come to Britannia; one of  a group of eight monks led by Rodric—an admirable man known to Dominic from his trip to Hibernia. Their mission was to convert the pagan people of Deva and its surrounding countryside. It was Ingle’s second trip to Britannia in two years and one he had greatly looked forward to. At first things went well, and Ingle enjoyed his incursions into the green lands around Deva, meeting people whom he came to regard as friends. He was popular amongst them such was his cheery disposition and mischievous sense of fun. Consequently, was able to convert many of them to Christianity.
They are reluctant to offend you by saying no
, Rodric had laughed.

Ingle told Dominic and Tomas how life had been austere but pleasing for the monks at Deva, until the arrival of Cunedda and the Votadini, that was. With no garrison or militia to defend their town, the people were left with little choice but to accept the inflow of men from the northern lands. No blood was spilt and the men took up residence in a quarter of the city that was mostly ruinous and weather distressed. Indeed, when their leader visited the monks on his second morning, Ingle had found him to be stern yet unthreatening. The man—a pagan—insisted the monks did not bother them with the nonsense of Christianity and Rodric had readily agreed to this, knowing that conversion often took months or even years to achieve. But another man who walked with the leade
r
—
the one named Abloyc—really bothered Ingle; troubled him to the extent that he voiced his concerns to Rodric. Rodric, a shrewd and clever man, also felt the bad energy radiating from Abloyc, and counselled caution as far as the man was concerned.

Then things changed. Another group of men turned up at Deva, these having approached from the west, along the northern shoreline of the peninsula. Ingle feared that a savage battle was about to erupt, but Cunedda, the leader of the Votadini, left the city and went to parley with an envoy of the newly arrived men. When Cunedda returned he met with Abloyc and debated with him late into the night. Ingle witnessed Cunedda leave with much of his army the next day. Curiously, he had joined with the other force and travelled behind them, westwards, along the northern coastline of the peninsula.

But to his dismay Ingle bumped into Abloyc later that morning. Cunedda had left him behind with five hundred of his men to retain a presence in the city. It took Abloyc very little time before he approached the monks, and that was when things started to go wrong for them. Now free of Cunedda’s restraining hand, Abloyc began to push the monks around, deriding them for their “
nonsensical creed”
and “
mad hair and skirts
.” He forbade them to leave Deva, and one morning when they met for prayers, Rodric was not with them. Abloyc struck Ingle for his insolence when he enquired of the whereabouts of Rodric, and later that morning they found him cut, tortured and dead by the city walls. The distraught monks lifted him and buried his body at a small gravesite inside the city.

After this, things became far worse. Abloyc insisted they report to his quarters every day and wait on his every need. Always, they were derided and belittled by him and his circle of lackeys, and one by one the monks disappeared. In the four days since Cunedda had left the city, Abloyc had reduced the monk’s numbers by six, until only Ingle and an older monk named Constance remained.

Ingle knew it was time to get out or die. Under cover of darkness, he waited with two mules beside the walls of the city. But Constance, who had been serving Abloyc that night, did not show. Ingle feared the worst and decided to leave without him, knowing that his own life was very expendable at that moment. His intention was to travel westwards along the northern coast until reaching the port at Segontium from where he hoped to find a boat to take him back to Hibernia, but when reaching the port he was forced to hide when learning that Cunedda, who had passed that way, was gone. Three hundred of his men remained at the port to act as a blockade against invasion from Hibernia.

Therefore, Ingle found himself in a dilemma. He could not go back to Deva, for there he would be surely killed, and now he could not home. He thought of Maewyn, the boy from Britannia who now trained as a monk in Hibernia. The boy had told him many tales of his life in Britannia; told him of Brythonfort and its safe haven and strong king. Indeed, Ingle had already met three worthy men from Brythonfort: Dominic, Withred and Flint. He decided to travel south along the road that led from the port. His intention was to somehow reach Brythonfort and find sanctuary there. He soon realised the road was the same one taken by the two armies, and after two days travel he saw a swirling dust cloud before him. He also noticed the empty fields beside the road where cattle had once so obviously grazed. The armies had been amassing a herd as they headed south; that was apparent to him, and soon he could actually smell the cattle as he caught up with the slow moving mass of men and cows before him. From then on, he had been extra careful to remain at an unseen distance from them.

‘And then you saw us,’ said Dominic, who had listened intrigued and without interruption to Ingle’s story.

‘And what a totally unexpected and astounding sight for sore eyes you are,’ said Ingle.

Tomas lay propped on one elbow on the floor as he chewed on a hard tack biscuit from his pack. ‘You did well to get away when you did,’ he said. ‘I too was under the yoke of a wicked man; for a full two years he beat and abused me before I found Dominic in the woods and escaped.’

Ingle looked at Tomas and liked what he saw. He guessed his age to be sixteen and could see he was confident yet unassuming. Enveloped in his dusky cloak, he looked every inch the young tracker; a smaller (far less wrinkled) version of Dominic, in fact. And his eyes were striking ... so striking. Penetrating and intelligent as they were, they also had a hollow depth to them. Ingle could tell that Tomas would never forget his two years of servitude. What he had endured he, Ingle, could only imagine.

‘I don’t think I would have lasted two days, let alone two years, with Abloyc at Deva,’ said Ingle. ‘I suspect I’m the only monk who survived. I’m not sure if he disliked monks or just liked killing.’

Dominic got to his feet and looked at the sky. ‘I’ve a feeling we might find that out before long, but for now we still have half a day of daylight before us. Time is important now and we need to get back to Brythonfort and report this.
Any
movement of armies is bad news in these troubled times.’

‘You know who leads the armies, then?’ asked Ingle.

‘Yes, now I do. The cattle thievery points to Guertepir, and the juniper emblazoned shields to the Votadini from above the Wall. What they are doing together is a mystery, but worrying nonetheless.’ He looked at Tomas as the youth climbed onto his horse. ‘Troubled times lie ahead, lad. Only the Gods know what this will lead to. Looks like we’re going to be in the saddle for some time yet.’