by Jack Whyte
There was a soldier on guard outside my door, and I was grateful for his assistance as I stripped out of my filthy clothes and washed the grime of the battlefield away. By the time I had dried myself and changed into fresh clothes, Ludo had found me again, and had brought a huge bowl of meat and vegetable broth, "drinking temperature," he told me, and insisted on standing there while I drank it. It was delicious and invigorating and by the time I had finished it, I felt like a man again.
I thanked both of them for their trouble and went looking for Popilius. I found him in the centre of the main yard, supervising the clean-up crews. All the fires were thoroughly doused by now and there was little smoke left, although the entire fort stank like a charnel house. As I approached him, however, and before I could speak, a runner arrived looking for me, with word that Caspar and Memnon had come out to speak with me again. I had time only to learn from Popilius that there was still no sign of our cavalry returning, and that our death toll had now climbed above the seven-hundred mark. As I turned to leave Popilius, I noticed the ruins of the Council Hall for the first time. Nothing remained of it but the walls, and the sight of it triggered a thought. "Tiles, Popilius," I said.
"Commander?"
"Tiles, clay roofing tiles like the ones on the villa. Make sure we use them in future on all our roofs. No more thatch within the fort. Will you see to that?"
"Aye, Commander."
The two grotesques, Caspar and Memnon, were lounging in front of my uncle's doorway, awaiting my return. The sight of them stirred up the sour sickness in my belly again. They straightened up as I approached, looking me over from head to foot and I was glad I had washed and changed. The sneering smile was back on Caspar's face.
"Commander Britannicus. I am honoured that you should feel obliged to dress for us."
I cut him short immediately. "Shut your evil mouth for everything but our business," I snapped at him. "I have neither time nor patience to waste on you. You live or you die by the end of this conversation. There will be no further talk after that."
He smiled again at that, but his voice dropped low. "We will all live. Except, of course, our twelve unfortunate companions whom you have sworn to kill. Memnon and I have put our minds to work as you suggested, seeking a means of ensuring that our lives will not depend entirely on your personal goodwill. We believe we have a solution." He stopped talking, evidently waiting for some kind of response from me.
"Go on, I'm listening."
"Well, we have two problems. The first of these is caused by our companions, those same twelve men. We do not believe, Memnon and I, that they will trust us fully in disposing of their lives and welfare. Had they remained in ignorance of your aunt's importance in your eyes, our task would have been far simpler. You, however, brought her to their attention, so we can hardly be expected to persuade them to relinquish her to our particular care. They see salvation in her now."
"What's your second problem?"
"Ah, yes, the second problem. That concerns the release of your aunt and our unhindered departure from your lands. That one, we feel, can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. The first is far more pressing."
"How many hostages do you hold?" The question had been burning in my mind for hours.
"Eleven, plus your aunt. Nine women, two men—all servants."
"Have they been harmed?'
He made a face, indicating a lack of both knowledge and concern. "The men have been subdued; the women, used. In war that happens."
I said nothing. I was unsurprised and unconcerned. I knew my aunt's serving women. They could survive the humiliation of mere carnal abuse. It would be unpleasant but none of them would die from it. I was thinking furiously about how to separate the twelve men from the others, and the more I thought about it, the more insoluble the problem appeared. It was unthinkable that these men would be foolish enough to separate themselves voluntarily from Aunt Luceiia, whose value was now known to them. I felt anger and frustration building up in me, arid cursed myself for not having seen the futility of trying to bargain my way out of this situation. There seemed to be no way out. I would have to release all of them, and still rely on Caspar and Memnon for Aunt Luceiia's safety. The realization sickened me. But then my frustrated silence gained me an unexpected reprieve. Caspar himself presented me with the only possible solution.
"How badly do you want these men of mine? Alive, I mean."
"Explain yourself," I answered, trying to school my face to show nothing even while my interest quickened. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said," he responded. "If you want them alive, you will never have them. Dead..." He wiggled his fingers fastidiously. "That might be., .achievable."
"How? My men could never get close enough to surprise them."
"No, but Memnon and I could."
"Twelve of them?" I heard the scorn in my own voice. "Twelve men who don't trust you in the first place?"
A small frown appeared briefly between Caspar's brows and he hastened to correct me. "When I said that, I meant simply that they would not trust us to deal with you for their lives. They are not depraved enough to think that we might kill them ourselves. These are simple men, Commander."
I felt my skin break out in goose-flesh at the calmness of his voice. I swallowed hard and fought to keep the loathing out of my voice as I continued speaking. "How could you do that? Physically, I mean? How would it be possible?"
Caspar smiled. "That is our business and you may leave it to us. Our bargain was that you would trade the Hibernian prince for the twelve men and the other hostages, was it not?" I nodded in assent. "Well then, I have merely to return and say I suspect you of planning something to undo our efforts, and to suggest that we separate the hostages, one to each man, except for myself and Memnon. Any one of them, at random, may guard your aunt. Then we will move them into separate rooms for strategic safety. It will be done. They will believe me, since one of them will have the old woman. Once they are...separated, Memnon and I will remove them, one or two at a time.. .Efficiently."
I shuddered in spite of myself and tried to turn it into an angry shrug. "No," I snapped, "I will not allow that. It is too dangerous. My aunt could be killed."
"She will not be harmed, believe me. Memnon and I have means at our disposal for the silent dispersal of death.. .means of which you could never conceive.. .All we require is time. When we are done, we will open the doors again and you can count the bodies as we throw them out. After that, you will release your captive to us and we will send out the hostages."
"No! Hostages first, and then you get the Scot."
"Commander!" Caspar's voice seemed filled with genuine pain. "You must show a little faith. The Scot is our passport home to Lot. The other hostages mean little or nothing to you, you have said as much. We will still have the old woman. What difference can it make at this point?"
I gnawed on my lip, but I was prepared to concede on this point. "Probably none," I admitted finally. "Very well. That's how we'll do it. How long will it take you to get rid of the twelve men?"
"Two hours, perhaps more. It will have to be done cautiously."
"Aye, I believe you. So be it. Get about your work. I have no wish to discuss the how of it with you now or later." I watched him walk away, hearing Donuil's words in my head: "These people deal only in death." A wave of faintness and nausea swept over me and I stood there gritting my teeth until it wore off, after which I signalled a centurion who had been standing behind me, out of earshot, watching everything that went on. He came smartly to my side and I indicated Uric's bowmen who still held their watch in a semicircle around the yard.
"Centurion, I want you to relieve the bowmen here. They've been standing guard for hours. Replace them with our own soldiers. They are to stand watch vigilantly, but make no move towards the house. Inform me immediately if any noise is heard from within. If the silence holds, I expect the doors to be opened again in a matter of hours.
Send runners to find me w
hen that happens. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Commander." He repeated my instructions verbatim and I left him to carry them out as the first drops of rain started falling from the afternoon sky, which had turned leaden without my noticing. I glanced up and saw that the clouds were heavy and unbroken. Rain would provide a mixed benison. It would settle the flying ash and douse the last of the smouldering timbers within the fort, but it would also make life unpleasant for the men on burial duty and for the soldiers working to enlarge the camp on the plain below.
I made another tour of Camulod, this time seeing far more than I had taken in on my previous circuit. The damage did not seem as extensive as I had feared earlier, although it was bad. The Council Hall was completely destroyed, of course, and so was the larger part of the stables. Most of the storage buildings were intact, however, and so were the bath houses, the kitchens and the large dining hall. The officers' quarters and the sick bay had escaped entirely, which I already knew, and the major portion of the common barracks seemed unscathed, although the entire section of buildings against the north wall—mainly barracks, tanneries, and barrel-makers' cooperages—had been gutted. The large building that housed the centurions had been badly damaged—again the northern part, which was the cavalry centurions' quarters. The huddle of buildings in the centre of the fort seemed to have burned in places and survived in others, with no apparent pattern to the damage. The potter's shed and warehouse were untouched, as were the two main forges, but the wheelwright's shop was gone from between the forges and the ale-maker's store behind the potter's warehouse had been burned out.
I saw Popilius by the main gate and crossed to him, and as I did so die heavens opened. The noise of the torrential rain striking my helmet was deafening, and we had to shout into each other's ears to make ourselves heard. He had a final report on the casualties, up to the flight of Lot's army. In all, we had lost close to nine hundred dead. Of that number, two hundred and thirty-nine were colonists and non-belligerents: old men, women and children. Another hundred and ninety- two were cavalry casualties, and the rest, some four hundred and sixty men, were infantry. In addition to these losses, he informed me, we had another hundred or so seriously wounded who were not expected to survive, and there were more than three hundred dead horses on the field below. As soon as I heard this last item, I realized that I had made no provision for the burial of horses, but he had already taken care of the oversight and there were teams hauling them away even now.
The numbers apalled me. Nine hundred dead and another hundred marked to die! That, added to the other casualties we had sustained over the previous few weeks, meant that our overall strength had been severely depleted. I added the numbers quickly in my head: more than fifteen hundred men in all; almost one-third of our total fighting strength gone within a month! Popilius was still shouting in my ear, talking about enemy dead, but I had missed the gist of what he was saying, except for the number. I stopped him and asked him to repeat Lot's total losses. Almost four thousand. Good but not enough.
Suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, the cloudburst died away and the sensation was as though a fog had sundered. I had been staring towards the main entrance gate, seeing nothing through the driving rain for long moments, and then I found myself gaping in almost superstitious awe at the apparition that confronted me in the open gateway. Two gaunt, dark, ravaged figures stood there, leaning on staves, looking like the very harbingers of death, until I recognized the taller of them as the leader of the zealot priests my father had banished from our lands months earlier. As I watched him, still powerless to move or say anything, this priest looked all around the littered yard and raised his staff high in his claw-like hand, pointing it to the sky. His shout broke on my ears like the screech of a rusted hinge.
"This chaos is heaven's judgment on Godless men!" The vigour of his shout stopped all men who were within the sound of his voice. People on all sides stopped whatever they were doing and looked around to see who was making' this disturbance, and die priest knew they were listening and his voice grew even louder. "Look on the power of the Lord of Hosts and be ashamed and walk in terror! They that mock His word will be cast down..."
I heard no more, for I was running, fumbling for the sword beneath my water-sodden cloak. My feet felt like lead and I seemed to be running through high, wet grass that tugged at me and hampered me, slowing me down to a dreamlike, struggling crawl. The priest's companion saw me coming and tried to step between us, his eyes wide with alarm and fright, but I picked him up like a baby and threw him aside as though he were weightless, and then my hands closed around the scrawny throat of the still-screaming zealot. I drove him back, hard, against the wall on one side of the gate and still he shouted and spat, his adam's apple wobbling beneath my thumbs. I smashed my right knee hard into his groin and threw him sideways and he fell and lay face down, buttocks in the air, one hand clutching his testicles, his neck stretched, dirty grey and inviting like a duck's neck on a chopping block. My sword came easily into my hand now and I swung it high and brought it hissing down as someone's shoulder crashed into my ribs and dashed me backwards into darkness.
XXIV
I awoke to the sound of a door opening, and I heard Popilius say, "How is he?"
Another voice, this one belonging to the medic, Lucanus, answered him. "Still asleep."
"Will he be well when he wakes?"
"I think so. He was exhausted. His father's death was hard for him to take."
"So was that whoreson priest. I should have let Merlyn kill him."
"No, Popilius, you did the right thing. He will thank you when he wakes up."
"Hah! You think so? I doubt it. Few men earn thanks by felling their Commanders, especially when they knock them cold in front of their troops."
"Nonsense, this was a special case. Commander Merlyn was not himself."
"Aye, perhaps. We'll see. What was that stuff you made him drink? He's been asleep for more than ten hours."
I heard Lucanus rise to his feet as he answered, "A potion to bring on sleep. He needed it."
I opened my eyes. I was on my cot in my own quarters and they were standing by my table, looking at me in the light of a flickering lamp. Lucanus spoke to me before I could move. "Don't try to move, Commander Merlyn. It might hurt."
I blinked at him and tried to speak, but my tongue was clogged. I swallowed, thickly, thinking that I could feel no pain. I tried again. My voice sounded rusty. "Why should it hurt?"
"Because I drugged you. Your head might be sore. Your body will ache too, because of all the bruising you sustained yesterday, one way and another."
I closed my eyes again. "Internal bleeding," I said. "You said that is what causes bruises, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did." I could hear surprise in his voice that I should remember.
"What news of Uther? Has he returned?"
"No, not yet." Lucanus turned away from me, picking up a jug from beside the bed. "There's been no word of him at all, but you know Uther better than I do. He will not come back until he has decided there is no further profit in following the enemy." That was true, and I accepted it.
"Popilius," I said, "When you attacked me, as I was about to kill the priest, I was awaiting a summons from my uncle's house. What did you do about it?"
"Nothing, Commander. I didn't have to. It has not come yet. The house has been silent since you left. The watch has changed twice and is about to change again."
I lay motionless, my mind racing as I tried to imagine what might have happened in the house where the hostages were held. I gave up. "The watch is about to change again? What hour of night is it?"
"The last. An hour before dawn."
I swallowed again and Lucanus brought me some wine mixed with water, which eased the pain in my throat. "Why did you stop me from killing the priest, Popilius?"
He did not answer for several moments, then, "The man is mad, Commander. It would have been murder, and you would have regretted it, I thought, no matter
what the provocation."
I absorbed that. I had been mad myself for a short time there in the rain.
"You had time to think all that?" I asked him.
"Well, no, Commander. I didn't have time to think it, not in words. I just knew."
I took a deep breath and could sense Popilius holding his breath. "Well, your instinct was sound, my friend," I aid.
"What you did was correct. I would have regretted the killing, surely. We will speak no more of it, you and I. Forget it happened, but accept my thanks."
I raised my head cautiously without ill effect and brought myself gently to a sitting position before lowering my feet carefully to the floor. Both men watched me carefully; neither moved. I took a deep breath.
"How do you feel?" Lucanus asked.
"A few twinges here and there," I answered. "Popilius is a large man."
"It was not only Popilius. You had some imperial purple bruises when they brought you here."
I grinned, tentatively, stretching gently as I did so. "Yes," I said, remembering the battle on the plain, "I rolled around quite a lot yesterday. Have you two been awake all night?"
Lucanus's face actually broke into a smile. "No, Commander. We have both had some sleep, though not as much as you."
"Good." I moved a shoulder joint exploratively. "I could use a steam. The bath house wasn't burned. Does it still work?"
"Aye, Commander." Popilius was smiling too, relieved that I bore him no grudge.
"Then I'll try it, if the furnaces are hot. If I am summoned, that's where you'll find me. By the way, where is the priest now?"