by Henry Treece
Festus’s reply was to punch the other in the face, and then, to his angered surprise, he felt Wulf slip from under him, and, before he could regain his balance, he felt himself being raised in the air. The Saxon was far stronger than he had seemed and now the crowd’s anger was turning to derision that a Roman could do no better than this. Now Festus forgot his ruined home and only thought of his own pride. He kicked sideways with all his force and caught his adversary in the groin. Wulf gasped and loosed his grip for a moment, and that moment was enough for Festus. He lunged back and broke free of the encircling hands, then, while Wulf still groaned with the force of the kick, Festus took him by the plaits and dragged downwards with all his might. The Saxon fell forward, unable to save himself, and now when Festus leapt on him, the crowd saw that the Roman boy had drawn his knife and that his face bore the grim expression of one who had steeled himself to perform an act of blood.
Yet even as his hand was raised above his head, Wulf shouted out, ‘Strike then, Briton! Your folk have killed my father, who was no warrior but a farming-man. I am glad to die, if this is British justice!’
The hand of Festus stayed in the air, ‘Who killed your father?’ he asked, his anger fading suddenly. Wulf slewed round so that he looked up into Festus’s eyes.
‘A warband of British horse,’ he said. ‘We were coming from the market, the two of us, unarmed, when they rode us down. I tell you, we are of the Cantwara. We have been here for half of a man’s lifetime. We are no sea-raiders.’
Festus rose slowly from the boy’s body, his knife hanging at his side. ‘I shall not kill you,’ he said, ‘for I too have lost my father through the action of savages.’
The Jutish boy sat up and rubbed his head. His face was still deadly serious. ‘I do not ask for mercy,’ he said. ‘I ask only for a fair hearing, such as I would get in the Mote of my own folk. Let your headman judge and I shall be satisfied, be it white or be it black.’
Festus was about to appeal to Ambrosius, but at one glance he saw that the old man had long since lost interest in them and was now talking softly to the orator, who was getting ready to make an announcement. Festus turned back to Wulf, who had risen now, and was gazing dumbly about him. Then Artos came forward on the black charger until he faced the Jute.
‘You ask for justice. Then I give it to you. You are the chattel from now on of this Roman who has bested you in combat. You shall follow him and do in all things as he says. You are…’
Wulf ran towards the horse and clasped the great bronze stirrups. ‘Do not say that I am a slave, master,’ he cried, the tears welling up into his eyes.
Artos did not answer him, hut looked down at him in contempt. Then he kicked his stirrup-iron free of the boy’s hold and said with a strange smile to Festus, ‘You fight well, man, even if you are not as fair as a good Christian should be - at least, you fight like a Roman. Bring this Saxon dog to heel and put a thong on him. He is yours, under pain of death, should he try to escape. Now go to the kitchens and eat well, for you shall ride with the rest of us tonight.’
The black stallion swung round and Artos led his band of horse back through the archway, without so much as a nod to old Ambrosius.
Festus gazed hard at Wulf, then took him by the hand as gently as he could. The Jute looked back at him steadily, though his blue eyes were still swimming with tears.
‘Thank you for your well-wishing,’ he said quietly. ‘I know you mean well by me. But never fear, your slave will not serve you long. You must bind me with iron chains to keep me. I am as free-born as you are, and can count Woden himself among my ancestors.’
Festus felt himself growing angry again, but held back his words out of pity for this boy; and then the young officer had come down from the gallery and was holding them both by the arm. ‘I will take you to the kitchens,’ he said. ‘Eat well, for the journey you take is a hard one.’
5. The Road to the North
In the gathering dusk the long cavalcade passed through the gates of the town, three hundred strong, the riders muffled by cloaks of the old pattern that swept down below the stirrups, their lances lowered in a farewell tribute to Ambrosius as they clattered beneath the echoing archway and out on to the road.
The town walls were lined with citizens, whose torches flung their orange light on the solemn horsemen. Long shadows flittered over the smooth surface of the road and away into the coarse meadowland that bordered the town’s bounds. Both citizens and soldiers were silent, as though now that the expedition was on the march everything had changed, had become more serious, more deadly, even, as indeed it had. Now the early gaiety and bravado had seeped away and all the watchers saw was a troop of men who might never return to their homes. A chill breeze had blown up from the marshland near the river, and the cavalrymen buried their faces in their dark blue cloaks, at once becoming like sinister shadows themselves since the white of their faces was hidden.
Here and there a woman or a child ran out into the road, to give a last farewell, or to wish luck to someone they loved; but generally it was a grave leave-taking, for there had never been such a one before, and no one, not even Artos, the Bear, knew how it would all turn out.
He rode at the head of the column, scorning to wrap himself in his cloak, bolt upright in the saddle, and staring ahead through the dusk. The white banner was fixed by his right foot, in a cup attached to the stirrup-iron, and he rode with his hands resting lightly before him, on the horn pommel of the saddle, his reins dangling, for he directed his charger by pressure of the knees since, in battle, a horseman needed both hands free - the one to hold his round ox-hide buckler and the other his lance or sword.
When the last baggage-wagon of the force had rumbled under the great gates, the dozen trumpeters who rode immediately behind Artos blew out a last long blast, that, to some of the shuddering watchers on the walls, sounded more like a dirge than the defiant challenge of a conquering army.
The young officer who had helped Festus stood above the gate, now in full command of the small garrison that was left behind to man the citadel. He watched with moist eyes. ‘There are those who ride tonight for the last time,’ he said to a greyfaced old decurion who stood beside him. The old man, who had seen service across the length of Europe, nodded gravely. ‘I’d sooner them than me,’ he said with a smile. ‘I wish I were going with them,’ said the officer. ‘But I wasn’t picked.’
The decurion said, ‘They’ll need a man like you to patch up the pieces when the Bear fails, sir. Ambrosius knows what he is doing.’
The officer said, ‘I wonder. He is very old now and is only too glad to hand over the authority to a strong man like Artorius.’
The decurion said, ‘Which way are they going, do you know? Someone said by the Icknield Way.’
‘Yes,’ said the officer. ‘It’s an official secret, but everybody seems to know! That’s always the way among the Celts, but not among the Romans proper! Yes, they strike south beside the river till they get to the Icknield Way, then east on to the Ermine Street.’
The decurion mused. ‘What do they do next?’
The officer said, ‘They strike on north, some say into the Military Zone beyond the Abus, to pick up troops there.’
The old soldier said with a shrug, ‘It seems a strange thing, to march north when the enemy lies mostly in the south! ‘
The officer shrugged too. ‘But that’s war, isn’t it! And you can never explain it to the ordinary soldier - he always thinks the officers are incompetent or witless.’
The decurion smiled at this, but wisely said nothing. He blew on his hands then and having saluted went on his patrol round the walls, with the secret feeling that now the garrison at Magiovinium would need to keep a strict guard, whatever they had done before.
The officer watched him go, then he looked over the wall as the last of the wagons rolled through. ‘I hope the lad has luck, whatever happens to the others,’ he said. ‘Poor Adrianus, he would be proud of his son if he could see him no
w.’
Festus was riding a small moorland pony, the only mount available, since horses were very scarce in the south now. He had been issued with a military cloak, but wore no armour beneath it, as the men did. Even his lance was one which had been retempered, and so did not carry the bright sheen of the true soldier’s. But he did not mind. Soon they would meet the enemy, he thought, and then he would equip himself from the fallen foe. He knew so little about the Saxon that he did not realise the poverty of their equipment. The average Saxon marauder went dressed in the rags he stood up in, and with no other weapon than a knife or an axe, or at best a sword beaten by the smith out of any old length of iron that lay about.
Walking beside Festus, with a thick thong binding his wrists to the boy’s saddle, was Wulf. The kindly young officer had found an old cloak for him too, so that the boy should not suffer too much in the night air. The Jute walked with his head down, the heavy dew already trickling from his long plaits and on to his shoulders. Festus, turning in the saddle, thought that he looked the picture of misery and spoke to him once or twice before the other boy answered him, and even then he only answered in quiet monosyllables.
At last Festus could stand it no longer. ‘Wulf,’ he whispered, so that no one should hear him. ‘Wulf, if I cut the thongs what will you do?’
The Jute seemed to think for a time; then he said simply, ‘I shall run away and go back to my own folk.’
Festus said, ‘My people will kill you if you do that. The laws about slaves are very strictly observed.’
Wulf said, ‘I do not wish to fight anyone, least of all my own folk, and I do not wish to be a slave, even to you.’ Festus, who was by nature hot-tempered, was also very warm-hearted and quickly forgot his enmity for most people, as is the way of quick-tempered boys in general. He bent from the saddle and said, ‘Wulf, I am going to cut the thong. When I have done so, push me from the pony to make it look convincing, take my knife, and gallop away. They may not catch you in the darkness if you head westward, over the rough ground. The pony will be able to beat the chargers on that sort of terrain.’
Wulf did not answer, and so Festus slashed through the thong and then sat upright, waiting to be pushed over. But nothing happened. He passed the knife down to the Jute and waited for it to be taken from his grasp. But still Wulf made no move. At last Festus turned and saw that his slave was still walking beside him, as though bound, and that his head was lowered even further. In the sudden flash of a torch, he saw that tears were now running from Wulf’s eyes, adding to the wet from the dew, which still trickled from the boy’s fair hair.
6. The Blood Eagle
For lads who had never experienced such things before, that ride through the darkness was a nightmare. The mist came up thickly from the river, in a milky shroud the height of a horseman. It would have been possible for any wandering marauders to take cover in such a mist and to spring a surprise ambush on the troop, whose hoof-beats must have been audible for at least half a mile on the metalled road and in the stillness of the night, a stillness only broken by the snorting of the chargers, the coughing or whispered curses of their riders, and the sudden frightening shrieks of the screech-owls that floated along the hedge-sides in search of their dusk-time prey.
But nothing happened then, though once, when they had left the river valley and gained the Icknield Way, the boys at least suffered a shock. At a place where the road dipped, to become a sunken lane, with boughs and creeping plants almost meeting above their heads, Festus looked up once and saw shadowy forms running alongside them, above eye level. Once, in the torch-light, he saw a pair of bright eyes glaring down savagely, only a few feet from his own, and saw the bright head of an arrow, trained on the trooper who rode beside him.
He leaned over and drew the man’s attention to it, but the cavalryman only shrugged and then hunched himself still deeper within his heavy cloak, as though to indicate that his life lay in the lap of the gods, and that if he was to be shot in the darkness, then shot he must be. After that, Festus said no more, but followed the man’s example. When they came out on to the upland road again, the trumpets sounded and the cavalcade halted for food from the supply-wagons. Whatever the men said about Artos in those first few days when they were new to his ways, they all agreed that he looked after his troop’s bellies, even if he seemed to think that they needed no more sleep than he did, which was very little. Here and there, on the hillside, the troop lit fires, to warm themselves a little before riding on, and then Festus learned that they had just passed through an ambush of Bacaudae, wandering landless men, one-time peasants who had revolted and pillaged the villas which they had once served. This ambush had failed because the rogues had discovered at the last minute that the force they had intended to slaughter and rob was far too big for them to manage.
Actually the Bear had been the first to sense an ambush and had despatched a dozen horsemen by a side lane to come up behind them. They had been successful only in capturing one wretch, who could not slip away as quickly as his fellows because of a broken leg which had been badly set and which troubled him in the night-damp. He was hauled, shivering, before Artos, who interrogated him personally, and, so some of the riders whispered, had passed his sword through the man after he had told his mumbled story. Festus shuddered when he heard this, but Wulf only said, laconically, ‘Your captain is right. So perish all traitors!’
Festus said to him, ‘But you are not a Christian, Wulf. Artorius is, or is supposed to be.’
The Jute looked away as he answered, ‘When it comes to killing a man it is the steel that matters, not the religion behind it.’
By dawn-time they had reached the great Roman road that led northwards, even as far as Pictland, some said. It had once been a fine thoroughfare, but was now rutted and cracked, and whole stretches of its surface had been pushed up by weeds.
In the thin pale dawn-light Festus looked down at the road and said, ‘Do you know who made this, Wulf? ‘
The Jute shrugged. ‘My people say that the god Armin created it. I know no more.’
Festus laughed and said, ‘The Roman legions built it, my friend. One of my own ancestors helped to make it.’
The Jute smiled and said lightly, ‘I thought our god couldn’t have made it. He would have put down a road to last.’
Festus ignored that jibe, for he knew that it was well meant; and in any case his attention was taken off Wulf’s words by a sudden trumpet call that commanded them to halt. A villa lay to the east, half a mile away from the road, and Artos had sent a foraging party of a dozen riders to get what they could in the way of provisions or plate from the owner, since often these men were in reality very wealthy and evaded the tax-gatherer by keeping clear of the towns. They lived on their own land, and were self-sufficient, for they did not need money when they grew their own corn, wove their own cloth, brewed their own beer or matured their own wine.
The long line of horsemen waited impatiently, some of the horsemen laying bets as to how much gold or silver plate their comrades would find buried under the dairy floor, or hidden up the chimney….
Then, without warning, the foraging troop came cantering back, some of them pinching their nostrils together and blowing hard in the characteristic gesture of soldiers who have encountered something unpleasant.
The waiting column saw the scouts ride up to the leader and watched as they waved their hands about and pointed back towards the villa, in explanation of their quick return. Then at last, when even Wulf was half-dead with curiosity, the whispered message came back that the villa was nothing but a burnt-out shell and that all within it, men, women and children were dead. Festus heard the words, ‘The blood eagle,’ being passed on from mouth to mouth.
‘What is the blood eagle?’ he asked Wulf, in genuine ignorance. The Jutish boy looked at the ground. ‘It is something that Saxons do,’ he said. ‘My own folk do not do it any longer, though they used to, when they first came. It is not a thing I would talk about.’
&n
bsp; 7. The Horsemen under the Trees
For the next two days, until the small army had put some distance between itself and Magiovinium, Artorius insisted that they rode by night and bivouacked by day, so cutting down the possibilities of a surprise attack from either side of the great straight road that led to the north. As he explained to them in one of his daily councils, or as he rode back and forth along the lines while they were on the move, to their right hands lay the sea and the many settlements of north-folk who had moved inland from the coast; on their left hands lay the great forests, as yet unfelled, and offering ample cover for any lawless men, northmen or renegade British, who chose to attack. He did not need to stress the danger of that countryside, for everyone could observe it with his own eyes; a wild and desolated terrain, it was, where men went in fear of their lives, and where no man dared cultivate the soil any longer. It seemed that, wherever possible, men of good sense had dismantled their houses and had gone into such cities and townships as still possessed a thick wall. Here and there, it is true, the troop saw smoke curling from the chimney-holes of isolated buildings, where some die-hard old farmer still carried on defiantly, his sword beside him as he sat at the table or as he lay in bed, no doubt; but such places were usually so tumble-down and poverty-stricken that Artos ignored them. He could not risk losing even one of his picked band in some casual foray with a farmer who was willing to fight any man rather than surrender a crust of bread.
And it was a picked band, every one of whom had seen bloody hand-to-hand service. The Bear had collected his three
hundred from wherever he had travelled, not only from Magiovinium, and had also requisitioned for them the best horses he could find in the length of the land. His chosen comitatus, which rode about him at the head of the column, were a dozen men who had sworn on the most sacred oaths, and by a wide variety of gods for they were not all Christians, even the most Roman of them, to fight and to die for him. Not one of them expected ever to reach a ripe old age, but they were like the old standard-bearers in the great days of the Empire, dedicated men, who, in effect, had pledged themselves to be slain one way or another.