by Jack Whyte
We held a short council of war for the benefit of our junior officers and then Uther and I retired to our leather campaign tents, exhausted by the day's journey, and hoping against hope that we had built our campaign around the correct supposition: that Lot could not know our true strength, since we ourselves did not know it, having had no opportunity to conduct our census. If we were wrong somehow, if Lot had assessed our true strength accurately, then we would be riding back to Camulod without the advantage of surprise.'
We headed back towards Camulod the following morning by a longer, more circuitous route than the one Uther and I had taken on the way out, making no attempt to hurry. It was essential that we arrive no sooner than Lot, and our best estimates indicated that he would strike against the fort either the following day, the third of our schedule, or the one after that. Uther wanted to have our forces within striking distance of the Colony by dawn on the fourth day. I would have preferred to wait one day longer, to allow Lot the time to assess his position and commit himself to a course of action that we could then disrupt.
As it turned out, however, neither of us had a choice. We had miscalculated by one entire day in Lot's favour, for he had arrived with his army on the plains of Camulod midway through the afternoon of the day we left, and as we made our leisurely way southward, his forces were battering brutally at the fort itself.
His unexpected arrival took my father and his defenders totally by surprise. A large number of infantry, almost a full cohort, were busily at work throwing up a defensive breastwork and ditch at the bottom of the hill. Popilius himself, our senior warrant officer, was commanding them, and faced with a decision either to abandon the incomplete breastworks or remain there to defend them, he chose the latter. Approximately a mile to the north of his position, to his left, another large party of troops was involved in removing everything useful from the buildings of the villa farm. The officer in charge of this operation was a young man, but a wise one. By the time he was apprised of the rapid approach of Lot's advance parties, it was already too late for him to retire to the fort in safety with his men, so he took immediate steps to strengthen the main building of the villa to the best of his ability. By overturning the wagons they had been loading and using them as barricades, he and his men were able to construct a defensible perimeter, and there they remained, a potential thorn in the side of Lot's advancing army.
The fighting on that first afternoon was savage. Lot's army was largely undisciplined, each unit paying heed only to the most basic orders of its local commanders. His soldiers, if they could be called such, were all unruly individuals, and their first assault on the villa's defenders turned into a disorganized brawl, quickly and effectively won by the defenders, who fought as a unit and drove their attackers off to lick their wounds as darkness began to fall. Instead of allowing his men time to relax after beating off their assailants, however, the young officer in charge took advantage of the weakness he had perceived in the enemy's lack of discipline and led his men through the darkness, in a hard and bitter fight, to join Popilius's cohort a mile away. Hearing the noise of the fighting, and guessing what was happening, the veteran Popilius flung out his men on his left flank along the hillside, until they made contact with the fighters from the villa and enabled them to gain the comparative safety of the unfinished breastworks.
In the meantime, under cover of the darkness, the opportunity arose for Popilius to withdraw his men completely from their unfinished camp and get them up the hill in safety to the fort. Instead, he sent a courier up the hill to inform my father that he intended to hold his position and defend it against Lot's rabble. His major problem, he pointed out, would be the danger of being outflanked and infiltrated by Lot's people, who might attempt to climb the hillside on either side of his position, and start shooting arrows into his men from above and behind. My father sent out two squadrons of bowmen to guard his flanks, and at the same time he sent out three of his best riders to break through Lot's cordon and find us, warning us to get back sooner than we had planned.
These messengers were to tell us that Picus himself would be holding back his own cavalry. The brunt of the initial defence would fall on the shoulders of Popilius and his infantry. As soon as we put in an appearance, my father would loose his own seven hundred cavalry in a frontal attack, down the road and into the centre of the enemy.
One of these three messengers found us just after noon the following day and we immediately began a forced march, cursing the caution that had sent us so far north needlessly. My father had estimated the strength of Lot's army at around four thousand, a number that surprised me and added greatly to my sense of having erred badly. The urgency of a quick return had become immediately and devastatingly obvious.
Late in the afternoon, heavy grey clouds began piling up in the west, and we could see lightning flickering among them. The heat grew more and more oppressive as the storm drew closer, so that I found myself anticipating the chill of the rain that was sweeping towards us. My pleasure was short-lived. The downpour was awful, blowing against us in torrents, soaking everyone and everything completely and almost instantly, and turning the soft earth under the hooves of our thousand horses into a bog, so that headway was almost impossible. I had never seen such heavy rain, and it showed no signs of abating. The clouds were so thick that they blocked the sun completely, so it seemed we rode at night, although we knew there were still several hours of daylight left. We had no option of resting to wait it out, however; we had to keep moving as quickly as possible, and what had started as a leisurely march quickly degenerated into a nightmare ride, with horses slipping and falling everywhere, terrified by the savagery of the storm, the glare of the lightning and the chaotic noise of thunder, wind, rain and battering hailstones.
The freak storm lasted for almost three hours, and by the time the clouds finally began to break, our force was totally demoralized. It had been impossible even to shout to each other during that time, and every man had been immured in his own private hell, suffering the agony of cold, wet clothing and armour, exhausted by the relentless struggle to keep his horse upright, moving and sane. The first break in the clouds showed us the pink and purple high sky of the setting sun, which took with it our only opportunity of finding warmth and dryness that night, for all the wood in the land lay soaked. We settled our minds to the prospect of a long, miserable night.
Uther made his way to my side. "What do you think?"
"About what? I don't think I'm capable of thought. It's a mess."
"We all know that, Caius." There was a measure of asperity in his voice. "I didn't come to you to hear you crying! I want your opinion as an officer. Is it better to stop here and rest or to ride on? We've still got a long way to go and it's getting dark."
I made myself think, and it turned out to be easier than I expected, for a memory of Uncle Varrus sprang into my mind unbidden. I took a long look around me, as far as I could see. We were in the bottom of a shallow valley and as the land rose to my right it flattened out slightly before rising again to a heavily treed hillside. A picture emerged in my mind of a boat burning.
"Who's our quartermaster?" I asked Uther.
"We have three. Why?"
"Send them to me. We'll stay here tonight. The rain's gone. We'll move up to the high ground there and see what we can do about getting dry. Pass the word for one man in every two to start gathering wood. Enough for four large fires, big enough to dry us all off."
"Are you mad?" Uther's voice sounded shocked. "Fires? Everything's soaked! How in the name of Hephaestus are you going to light them?"
"Publius Varrus's way. That's why I want our quartermasters."
He looked at me in silence for a while, then shrugged his shoulders and rode away, signalling to a centurion. Very soon thereafter, everyone was out of the valley and up on the high ground. Within half an hour four large piles of wet wood had begun to take shape and I had spoken with the quartermasters in charge of our commissary supplies. They, too,
thought I was mad, or at least profligate, but they produced the oil from our rations, poured it over the sodden wood and set it alight, and in what seemed like no time at all, our entire force was clustered around four massive conflagrations. I had no fears at all that these fires might be seen by unfriendly eyes. We were still a long, long way from home. The effect on our men was magical as the chill slowly thawed from their bones and their clothes began to steam. After a while, smaller fires began to appear apart from the larger ones, and the commissary staff began doling out food. The night was warm, too, and most of the men were almost naked as they waited for their wet clothing to dry. Leather legionary tents sprang up like mushrooms and out of chaos and demoralization came order, new resolve and comfortable rest. I was determined to make the most of this mood of renewed optimism, and I kept the men moving in relays to gather fresh supplies of wood, giving the roaring bonfires no chance to die down.
It must have been close to midnight when Uther approached me again, an excited look on his face. I was surprised to see him still awake and told him so, but he just shook his head briefly in that characteristic way of his, managing to convey the triviality of my thought in one gesture. "We're blind, Cay. Stone blind and foolish."
"Why? And how?"
"I've been racking my brain trying to think of the quickest back to Camulod come daylight. I imagine you have too?" I nodded and he went on, "Well, it suddenly hit me! Where are we and why are we here?"
"You mean here and now?"
"Yes, I mean right here and right now, and don't even bother trying to think about the answer, because I'm going to tell you. We are in the middle of nowhere, travelling a confused route from the camp to Camulod because we have to remain hidden, correct?"
"Correct. So? What's your point?"
"My point, Cousin, is that we are behaving like idiots. There is no need for secrecy now. Lot is at Camulod and all we have to do is get there as quickly as possible...And there's a road less than seven miles to the east of us that will take us within five miles of Camulod! We can mount a forced march down an open road now. No need to go on blundering through this damned forest."
I had jumped to my feet as he was speaking. "By the Christ! You're right, Uther! I am a fool!"
"Well, you're hardly lacking for company."
"Seven miles to the road, you say?"
"At the most. Perhaps half that far. I don't know. I've never been so far off the road in these parts. I know the last villa the Atribatus brothers bought is somewhere to the south-west of us—that was the last new property the Colony acquired—but exactly how far away it is—again, I don't know, perhaps ten miles. But from there, it's only eight miles to the road. We've been swinging in an arc. We must be close to the road right now."
I headed for my horse. "I'm going to find it right now."
"In the dark?"
"You're fire Mind. It's a clear, moonlit night."
"Wait then. I'm coming with you."
So we rode together and once away from the firelight it was easy to find our way between the clumps of trees that dotted the landscape. The road was less than two miles from our starting point, stretching black and straight and open from north to south. We rode straight up onto the roadway and sat there laughing at each other, until Uther spoke.
"Well, what do you think?"
"No need to think. I know. If we roust out our column now, we can be within a few miles of Camulod by dawn."
"My thoughts exactly. What are we waiting for?"
We galloped back to our camp like a pair of excited boys and roused everyone. The fires and the heat of the summer night had undone the damage of the storm and all of the men had managed to obtain some rest. There was some alarm and panic when we clattered in, but soon every man in the place was gathered around us as we sat there on our horses. Uther held up his hands for silence, and when he had it he looked at me in inquiry.
"Go ahead," I told him. "It's your show."
He grinned and raised his voice. "Hear me!" The silence grew more attentive. "You all heard the news today. Lot is at the gates of Camulod. The storm last night delayed us badly, and we will be hard put to come to Camulod before tomorrow night, taking this route. And if we do not come, our friends and families will die." Nobody moved or spoke. Uther looked at me again and then continued. "We have been blind, soldiers of Camulod. The road the Romans built is less than two miles from where we stand. If we go now, we can be close to Camulod by dawn. What say you?" The roar of surprised approval raised goose-flesh on my body. "So be it. Leave your supplies and tents here and mount up. Bring only what you need for fighting. The commissary wagons will stay here and follow later. We have a lesson to teach the usurper from Cornwall. We leave within the quarter-hour!"
XXI
We arrived back at Camulod in the heavy darkness before dawn and immediately deployed our men within the fringes of the forest that framed die great military practice plain at the foot of the hill. Uther had sent out some of his Celts earlier to range ahead of us and try to determine what had happened during our absence, but to a major and alarming extent we could see for ourselves.
Camulod was burning with a lurid, awe-inspiring glare that lit up the entire top of the hill, and we could hear the noises of a continuing battle at the bottom of the hill, around the hastily improvised fortifications that Popilius had been building, when Lot's army arrived: On our right, to the north, fires still burned sullenly in the wreckage of the villa. Even from more than two miles away, the scene resembled a madman's vision of Hades and bitter, acrid smoke blown on the breeze caught at the throat.
"Well?" Uther's voice was rough and abrupt in my ear. "What's our move?"
I shook my head, my mind in a turmoil from the evidence of destruction in front of us. I was fighting against tears of anger and frustration and had to swallow hard several times before I could trust my voice to answer him. "I don't know, Uther, I don't know. It's too dark. If we attack now we will have only the firelight to guide us. There could be any number of men out there, hidden in the darkness."
"Aye, there could be." His voice was taut and rough with his own rage. "But the whoresons will never expect to find a thousand of us smashing at their ears. Let's hit them now."
I was strongly tempted to agree with him, but then I remembered we had scouts out there in the darkness and became freshly aware of the silent army at our backs. They had been warned under pain of court martial to make no noise that might betray our presence. I realized that throwing our men into a night attack would be wasteful for several reasons. I jerked my head in a negative. "No, Uther. If we move against them now, we lose our initiative. They won't see our strength, and I want them to see us—a thousand fresh horsemen. Fresh to this fight, at least. Fresh to them. We have to wait for daylight and for our scouts to come back."
"Come back? They may all be dead, Cay! That's Camulod burning up there! Your father is up there, so is my grandmother."
"Uther, I know that." I wanted to scream at him, but managed to keep my voice low and urgent. "Do you think me blind and a fool? But the choice is simple: either we attack now in anger, in darkness, as a blind rabble, and risk achieving nothing, or we wait for an hour and attack in daylight when our strength can be seen by Lot's people and by our own. Lot obviously thinks he has the battle in his hand, or he would not have his men fighting through the night. He is trying to wear our people down, but he is wearing his own down, too. Come daylight, they will not be ready to withstand the sight of a fresh army of cavalry at their backs. Our people, on the other hand, will take new heart at the sight of us."
He was unconvinced. "But what about the fort? It's burning, Cay. They must be fighting up there, too. " "I hope not," I responded, showing my own uncertainty. "But if they are, there is nothing we can do to help them. There are two armies between us and them."
"Damnation," he exploded, "There must be something we can do!"
I reached across and grasped his shoulder forcefully, trying to make him acce
pt the truth of my words. "Nothing right now, Uther! Accept it. Nothing useful. Not before daylight. In the meantime, we can try to draw up a plan of attack." As I said this I heard the sound of a low-pitched challenge, answered immediately, off to my right, and then a small group of figures came towards us out of the stifling blackness. All were on foot and all save one were ours. The exception was a young squadron leader who had remained in Camulod with my father and Titus when we left. Uther and I swung down from our horses and went to meet him, Uther reaching him a fraction ahead of me and greeting him with the question that had sprung into my own mind. "How did you find us? How did you come here?"
The young man saluted both of us. "Commander Uther, Commander Merlyn, the Legate Titus sent me out of the camp at nightfall to wait for you here. I had to make my way along the side of the hill towards the villa and then circle the enemy to get here."
"Alone?" I interrupted him. "You came alone? What if you had missed us in the dark?"
"No, Commander," he interrupted me without being aware of it, "not alone. There were three of us. One stayed to the north of the villa to await you there in case you had not already passed. A second stayed half-way between there and here, and I came on alone. The Legate had no knowledge of the time of your arrival, but we all hoped that it would be tonight."
"Where is the Legate now?" This was Uther. "What happened up at the fort?"
The messenger shook his head. "I have no idea, Commander. I was with the force the Legate brought down the hill to reinforce the camp on the plain yesterday, but whatever is going on up there only began tonight, after we left to look for you. There was nothing amiss before that."
"How strong is the camp on the plain?" I asked, only too aware of how little we knew of the true state of things. "Can they hold out?"