The Eagles Have Flown

by Henry Treece

  By early Spring the army was ready to move. Rumours had reached the British camp that Aelle had started to get his forces ready so as to make an early start in his campaign further inland, and that he was being joined by the men of the eastern coasts, the Angles, and even some of the more impressionable Cantwara.

  It was the plan of Artorius to ride south by the Fosse Way as far as Aquae Sulis, and having established a base camp there, to strike west along the Roman road to Venta Belgarum, raising what local troops he could on the way so as to re-establish such of the old hill-forts as were easily rebuilt. After Venta Belgarum, the British must attack as best they could, since scouts were daily bringing in varied reports, which ranged from the one that Aelle and his sons had sailed away to Brittany, to that which told how he had besieged and cut to pieces all men, women and children who had sheltered in the fort of Anderida. But the main thing was to get to the south as quickly as possible, and that Artorius bent himself to achieve.

  Cuneglassus, who was far too fat and lazy to ride to war, happily handed over his forces to the Bear, and arranged to stay in the midlands, collecting as many horses as he could against the day when Artorius might need replacements. Votiporix was to organise and train a new company, to follow Artorius as a second line of attack. Aurelius Caninus stood outside these arrangements and insisted on riding with Artorius, to share what glory might come in the first attack. The main body of horse, the Thousand of Artorius, were divided into smaller companies, led by Medrodus, Kei, Bedwyr and the captains. Festus rode in Kei’s company, for that was positioned immediately behind the personal cavalry of the Bear.

  Such were the plans; yet two things happened to change them before long. A night or two before the great ride was to begin, there was a great howling of horns and a golden-haired young chieftain rode into the camp at the head of a large troop of horse. Arrogantly, he announced himself as Maelgwn of Gwynedd, Lord of Anglesey, and said that he would take service with none but Votiporix of the Demetae. This seemed unusual to Artorius, who knew how antagonistic the Welsh chieftains were towards each other. Nor did Votiporix seem to welcome the idea. However, Maelgwn was British, after all, and promised a regiment of chariots within a month. This was a novel idea, for in all other parts of Britain the chariot had been forgotten as a striking weapon. Now it seemed a good idea, for such an instrument might strike fear into the hardiest of the Saxons, even those who learned how to withstand an ordinary cavalry charge. Artorius accepted the offer and the council meeting closed, though old Votiporix was heard to grumble with more than usual vigour on his way back to his tent.

  In the night there was the sound of many galloping hooves, which faded away before swords and lights could be found. Votiporix was discovered, stabbed through the heart, in his bed. As for Maelgwn and his company, they had disappeared completely.

  On the following day the Demetae withdrew their allegiance to the Bear and began their ride back to their own country, to take revenge on the Lord of Anglesey. Nothing that could be said would dissuade them. They even threatened to make war on Artorius himself unless he allowed them to go without hindrance.

  Festus, standing beside Kei and Bedwyr, watched them go, wailing, with their war-horns sounding mournfully in the damp hillside air. Their dead king, Votiporix, rode at their head, stiffly, lashed in the saddle, his long legs still hanging on either side of his shaggy pony, his three lead-horses walking sadly behind him.

  ‘That is the first set-back,’ said Bedwyr, who was often of a melancholy turn of mind.

  ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ said Kei, with a grim smile. ‘If they didn’t desert now they would have done so further south, when they smelled loot.’

  Festus looked from one to the other. ‘Is it an omen?’ he

  asked ‘I thought a sworn army always stuck together.’

  Kei shrugged reflectively. ‘You will learn, son,’ he said, and turned away to call in new troops to replace the Demetae.

  Three days along the road, when the great army was getting nearer the territory of the Dumnonii, Aurelius called a sudden council meeting and announced that he had changed his mind about the campaign. He said that it behoved him to establish order in his own domains of the south-west before he joined in the war against the Saxons. He said all this with an ingratiating smile, and straightway swore another and most solemn oath that he would join Artorius at Venta Belgarum within a month. The Bear, in full Roman armour and wearing his high, plumed helmet even in the tent of the King, said nothing at all throughout the whole proceedings, but merely bowed his head and then marched away.

  In the morning Aurelius slept on even after his guard had called him three times. His closest friends then entered the royal presence to find that their King had apparently died in his sleep. Artorius expressed his grief in formal terms and said that he had no wish to see the body. But Kei and Bedwyr went to look at the dead King, so as to make sure that ‘the Dog’ had indeed died and would be capable of no further treachery.

  Festus was with the men after they had seen Aurelius. They were smiling rather darkly and would not tell him why for a time.

  Then, as though to put the boy out of his misery of curiosity, Kei said, ‘Something strange happened to Aurelius “the Dog”, my boy. He died of an attack of stomach trouble through overeating, they say. It left three red marks on his neck, one on one side, two on the other.’

  He looked hard at Festus, and Bedwyr said, in his solemn way, ‘So be warned, boy. If you eat too much, wrap your throat up when you go to bed.’

  Festus rode alone for a while, remembering the mutilated hand of Artorius. Then the trumpets sounded again and the company moved on, the Dumnonians positioned between the troops of Artorius and one of the fiercest of the captains.

  Artorius, at the head of the great company, was as impassive as ever, though all men saw that his right arm was bandaged as though he had suffered a knife cut.

  3. The Four Days of Dubglas

  Festus was sitting alone at the edge of the wood, the sun now warm on his back, a piece of bread and a pannikin of water by his side. But he disregarded them, although he was hungry. His eyes stared ahead, towards the clouds that built up over the hill, great white fluffy things against the blue of the sky.

  Kei, sitting near him polishing his great helmet, which was sadly scarred and dented, called out gently, ‘Eat your food, lad. You will get used to these affairs in time. The main thing is to keep your own strength up. A hungry soldier is no soldier at all.’

  Festus tried to smile, but whenever he looked down at the bread he felt sick again. At last he got up and walked into the shade of the wood. But then he had to turn back again for among the rank weeds and the tangled briars lay things which he wanted to forget. And it was the same wherever he looked, for the battle had been a fierce one and had lasted until dawn, with no quarter asked or given on either side.

  Festus sat down again. ‘They were brave men, Kei,’ he said. ‘We were too many for them, that is all.’

  Kei seemed to look about him before he answered. ‘Yes, the Cantwara are a brave folk,’ he said. ‘No one would deny them that. But they were fools, Festus. They should have retreated into the woods and we would have been powerless. It is a pity that we cannot fight together, on the same side, we and the Jutish men. Now that would be an army to fear! With it we could take back Rome!’

  Then Kei began to polish his helmet again, hissing like a horse-groom. In the great meadow between wood and hillside, the victorious British army, the Cymry, were sprawled, some eating, some sleeping, some binding up their comrades’ wounds. The Jutish dead lay where they had fallen. They were pitifully unprepared for this onslaught of trained cavalry; not one in twenty wearing armour of any sort, and few of them carrying more than rough lances and round wooden bucklers. No prisoners were taken in that battle. Even those fugitives who had tried to escape along the riverside were hunted down. The blood-thirsty Cymry had ridden into the middle of the stream to finish off the survivors.
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  As Festus remembered this, he realised how intense must be the hatred of the British for their invaders. Had he asked Kei about this, the answer might have disillusioned the boy; for Kei knew as well as any that few of the Cymry at that stage of the warfare had any conception of what Rome had stood for. He knew that many of the men who had performed the bravest deeds in that night’s battle fought only for their own gain, and not for any high ideal of unity and civilisation. ‘Yet, what does that matter, as long as we men of good faith achieve the way of life that we know to be good,’ Kei would have said. ‘Later, when things have settled down again, and Artorius has power in the land, we can bring back the Roman civilisation that has been destroyed.’

  But now the sun had grown in power; everyone was tired and drowsy. Bees began to hum, in and out of the wood, and in the branches above the boy’s head, wood-pigeons began their ‘purr-purr’. Festus sighed deeply and lay back in the fern. Before a minute had passed, he was fast asleep.

  Kei stopped in his polishing and looked down at the lad. Then, with a sad smile, he shook his head as though in doubt, and took up his burnishing-pad again. The helmet must shine brightly when the captains assembled in the pavilion of the Bear that night, to discuss where they should next attack Aelle.

  But that council-meeting was not to be held. Hardly had Kei resumed his rubbing at the helmet when a horseman came over the brow of the hill, bearing a white cloth at the end of a stick to denote that he was a messenger, and spurring his tired pony without mercy.

  Kei watched the man gallop to the tent of Artorius and saw him dismount and pass inside without announcing himself, as if the business he was on was of utmost urgency. So Kei flung down his helmet and, like the other captains who had been watching, ran to the leader’s pavilion without more delay.

  And so it was that, even before the sun had climbed to the midday sky, Festus was awakened by a firm band on his shoulder. Kei was speaking to him, his red face serious, his deep voice carrying a note of anxiety.

  ‘Come on, lad,’ he was saying. ‘We must mount and ride north without our dinner today. The enemy are out in full force on the Dubglas to the north of Anderida Silva. There’s a day’s hard riding before us, and no time to lose.’

  Festus rubbed his eyes, still sleepy. The sun was hot now and the sounds of bees and doves turned the woodside into a murmuring dream.

  ‘Oh, I could sleep for ever, Kei,’ he said.

  The warrior tugged at his long moustaches. ‘Do not say such words,’ he whispered. ‘The gods might hear you and misunderstand your meaning. Come now, the army is almost ready to march.’

  So, weary and wounded, yet still elated by their easy victory of the previous night, the Cymry set forth, breasting the great hill and coming once again into the wide-spreading forest, Anderida Silva, that covered the southern lands between Medway and coast. That day Artorius sent his officers through the companies to count the numbers of his horsemen. They rode back to him with the report that the Battle of Glein had cost him two hundred men and almost the same number of horses.

  The Bear smiled, grimly and said, ‘We slew two for one then. That is good play when one has the advantage in numbers. But from what I hear, we shall be more equally matched this time, and against an enemy that has settled itself in.’

  These words were true; a force of Saxons, with some Cantwara, were encamped on the northern bank of the Kentwater, between two Roman roads that ran south as far as the river. The Bear’s scouting-parties returned to say that the enemy position was a good one, for they could not be smashed in a cavalry charge, since they had the protection of the river, and moreover they had two good roads, at cither end of their long encampment, by which supplies could come to them, or by which, should the occasion arise, they might retreat still further northwards.

  ‘How many men have they? ‘ asked a gaunt captain, who carried his sword-arm in a sling,

  ‘Almost twice our number, soldier, ‘ answered the scout. ‘The greater will be our honour, ‘ said Artorius, bending once more over his maps and charts of the district.

  That night the Cymry bivouacked on the fringes of the wood, watching the distant camp-fires of their enemy, even hearing their drinking-songs, which mingled strangely with the hooting of the owls overhead.

  No trumpets were blown the following morning; appointed men went from troop to troop shaking the riders and warning them to cat quickly for the hour of battle was almost at hand. Orders for the day were passed from mouth to mouth, just as secretly. Then, at a low whistle, the troop moved forward through the trees, mounted, and galloped the last hundred yards down the slope to the swiftly flowing river. This was a battle of trial and error, the Bear had decided. He hardly expected the first attempt to succeed, and, riding in the forefront of the line, was hardly disappointed at the setback his men received.

  Hardly had the Cymry reached the gently-sloping banks of the river when arrows came down as thick as rain. It was then obvious that the enemy had been aware of the presence of the British army and had men waiting for this assault. Riders toppled from their high saddles to left and to right. Wounded horses reared and screamed, caracoling in agony, bringing down those who pressed on behind them. For a while, all was confusion. Now secrecy was of no account and Artorius ordered the war-horn to sound the withdrawal. Back in the woods, the Cymry tried to repair the damage done, which was more to the horses than to the men, since all of the original troops of Artorius and Medrodus were wearing chain-mail, and so were largely invulnerable to all arrows which struck at the body. The other levies, however, those of Cuneglassus and Aurelius, had suffered very heavily. A hundred and forty men had fallen in that short ride over the green and fatal meadow.

  Artorius decided to rest until dusk and then to make the attempt again. After an anxious afternoon, when many of the men tried to get in some sleep, the second ride to the river began. This time the Cymry led their horses over the green slope and mounted only the moment before they entered the water. Once again, the Saxons were waiting and had arranged pine flares along their side of the river bank, so that the first sound of the approaching enemy caused a long line of lights to spring into life, in which horses and riders cast huge shadows. This time, however, the hail of missiles was not so deadly, for the Saxons mistook the shadows for the men, very often, and the Cymry retired to their own bank with only ten men lost - though once more the horses suffered such casualties that a dozen of them had to be destroyed on landing. Festus, who had been in the first attack, was now so weary and dispirited that the thought of the horses being pole-axed made him burst into tears.

  Kei came up to him and said, meaning to be reasonable, ‘If you would only put one horse out of its misery, you would never cry at it again. It would seem an ordinary thing, once you had done that.’

  But Festus walked away from him, certain now that Kei understood him no better than anyone else, and that even he was almost as callous as the Bear, or Medrodus. So ended the first day of Dubglas.

  The second day was less eventful. The Cymry were suffering a severe shock to their morale after the easy victory at Glein. Artorius decided to give them as much rest as possible.

  That evening, before the river flares were lit, a hundred archers of the Cymry crept down to the river bank, and sent flight after flight of arrows among the reeds on the other side. So sudden was their attack that no archer could have replied. Under this continuous and protective rain, a hundred picked men of all companies swam over, having pledged themselves to kill an equal number or not to return. After a long wait the Cymry saw their black and dripping forms struggling up the river bank again and clustered about them for their reports. It seemed that the Saxons, over-confident after the repulse of the previous evening, had been content to leave the archers among the reeds as their sole defence, and had settled down to an evening’s feasting. The chosen hundred had surprised them entirely, for already half the camp was in a sad state of drunkenness, they said. The hundred, running amok among the largely
unarmed enemy, must have accounted for twice their own number, only losing eight men themselves. As these assassins returned, they saw the far banks of the Dubglas littered with the bodies of archers who had perished under that surprise attack at the start of the evening.

  This news so heartened the British that many were all for attempting the river crossing straightway; but Artorius only smiled wryly, and warned them to sleep lightly that night, for it was not the custom of the Saxon to forgive a defeat.

  True enough, a little before dawn, the warning horn blew loudly and all men leapt from their beds, sword in hand; but few of them were needed. The attacking party was a small group of young berserkers who had jumped naked into the river to avenge their friends and relatives. The archers stationed at the edge of the wood picked them off as they ran across the meadow. Only one evaded the shafts and reached the fringe of the wood where many captains were standing, the Bear in their midst. When the young Saxon raised his arm to strike at them with his short knife, Bedwyr knocked him down with the haft of an axe and then sat on him. Artorius tried to question the youth, but he refused to give any answer at all. He merely struggled vainly and wept, and, when his arms were loosed, tore his hair out in great handfuls.

  Artorius, impressed by the bravery of the Saxon, had new clothes put on him and sent him back to the river, with a promise of free passage for his courage.

  But the young warrior did not seem to understand. He spat in the face of the captain nearest him and then ran like a hare to the water, zig-zagging as he went, to dodge the arrows. At the river bank he looked back to see the archers laughing at him, and only then did the truth of the situation dawn on him. He gave a loud cry and jumped into the river. Although he rose again, he made no attempt to swim, and must have been drowned for no one saw him rise out of the water at the other side.