Dark North mkoa-3

by Paul Finch

  Lucan surveyed him grimly. “I believe I warned you this could happen.”

  Maximion nodded. “That is so.”

  He seemed less devastated by the disaster than his comrades. He gave an air of frank, weary acceptance.

  “You say you know where I can find Felix Rufio?”

  “I’ve a good idea.”

  “Now would be the time to tell me.”

  “I had no love for Felix Rufio before, and I have even less now. But I have a price. The whipped dogs you see around me are the sole remnant of my command. These men have fought hard. In the cause of an arrogant madman, I agree, but nevertheless, they showed loyalty and courage. They do not deserve the fate they fear will befall them.”

  Lucan cast his eye over the clutch of prisoners. They remained seated, heads bowed. None could meet his gaze. It was possible they’d seen him wreak his gruesome execution on the small band who had assaulted Bedivere, but more probably they had been fed propaganda by their Emperor about the doom facing any who fell into Arthur’s grasp.

  “If their surrender is genuine,” Lucan said, “if they make no effort to escape or resist, they have nothing to fear. They will be held as prisoners. Once the war is over, the common men will be released. Those of rank and title may be held for ransom, but they’ll not be mistreated. That is not the way in Camelot.”

  Maximion nodded. “Such things I have heard. But can you give your guarantee?”

  Lucan turned to the centenar whose platoon stood guard over the group. “These are your prisoners, captain?”

  The centenar nodded warily. “That’s correct, my lord.”

  “I need a firm guarantee that none of these men will be harmed.”

  “That’s the rule across the entire army, my lord.”

  “I need your guarantee regarding this particular group.”

  “Of course.”

  “If any of them are hurt, you and your men will answer to me. Is that understood?”

  The centenar looked a little disconcerted. There were few in the royal household who had not heard about the Black Wolf of the North. “As I say, my lord… of course.”

  “This one” — Lucan pointed at Maximion — “is now my prisoner. Cut him loose.”

  “As you wish, my lord.”

  Lucan strolled away, leading Nightshade by the bridle. Maximion limped after him, rubbing at the weals on his wrists.

  “What of your three sons?” Lucan asked.

  “Only one was present today. I know not where he is, but I fear the worst.”

  “Where is Felix Rufio?”

  “He fled the battle early.”

  “How early?”

  “During your second charge. His cohorts were demolished by it. I think he also took one look at you… scything through his ranks like a black whirlwind, and his nerve broke.”

  “He fled the field alone?”

  “Some of his men went with him. Maybe thirty. His closest companions.”

  “And where will Rufio and these thirty companions have fled to?”

  Maximion shrugged. “Wherever he is, it won’t be long before he learns that Emperor Lucius is dead and the dream that was New Rome in ashes.”

  Lucan was surprised. “Surely you’ll rally to fight us again? You still have forces in Brittany.”

  Maximion shook his head. “Most of the Senate and the High Command — those beyond the Emperor’s select band of flatterers — were questioning this reconquest long ago. The sheer cost of maintaining it, even had Albion surrendered, would have been prodigious. It won’t take much to persuade those who are left to go home in peace.”

  “And where is home for Felix Rufio?”

  “He owns two houses, to my knowledge. One is in Rome, one in Tuscany. You’ll easily locate both, and he knows that. Hence there’s only one refuge left for him now — his ancestral home, Castello Malconi in the mountains north of Italy.”

  “He has a castle as well?”

  “His family are the Dukes of Orobi. His mother, Zalmyra, currently holds the title. She presides over Castello Malconi, which guards one of the highest passes.”

  “So he abandoned his troops to the slaughter… and ran home to his mother?” Lucan looked genuinely perplexed. “And this is the creature my wife abandoned me for?”

  “Be warned, Earl Lucan. Zalmyra is no ordinary mother. She has many cruel arts at her command.”

  “No matter,” Lucan replied. “So do I.”

  Twenty-Two

  King Arthur pitched his main camp at the south end of the Vale of Sessoine, and for several days after the battle his army scoured the surrounding woods and valleys for Roman survivors. They also located the main Roman baggage train, which had simply been abandoned. Arthur was able to replenish his material losses several times over — not just weapons, munitions and other armaments, but also medicines, foodstuffs, and sacks of pay in gold and silver.

  His men spent dismal hours working on the battlefield, extricating those too badly wounded to stand or walk, and taking them to the hospital tents, though these were already overloaded with groaning, bandaged forms and thick with a miasma of sweat, blood and despair. Chief physician Morgan Tud and his staff worked tirelessly, repairing what damage they could. Where possible — usually in cases where mangled limbs must be amputated — they offered the patients cheap wine laced with gall. This was so bitter that many at first refused it.

  “If it was good enough for Christ on the cross…”27 the grey-bearded doctor would sternly say, insisting they take a draught.

  “It wasn’t,” the patient would whimper. “Our Lord refused.”

  “Because he was man enough to endure his pain,” the doctor would reply. “That option is also open to you.”

  The matter of the deceased was even less easily resolved. Large companies of troops were employed sorting out the corpses, laying their own dead in long rows which priests could say Masses over before burial. The Romans, they piled in mountains for cremation though they too, at Arthur’s insistence, received holy rites first.

  The holding of prisoners was also a tricky issue. Captured Roman grandees were installed in the separate camps of the British lords and captains who had taken them, and were given comfortable quarters, including private tents, changes of clothes, good food and clean water, though in nearly every case they were also put in leg-irons — a state of war still existed. The ordinary prisoners were herded into special pens made with the hafts of their own pikes, roped into fences. They were fed from great cauldrons with thin soup or gruel, which had been taken from the Romans’ own baggage train and which Arthur suspected was all they had been fed on before.

  The only hostage in Earl Lucan’s camp was Tribune Maximion, who washed and shaved and allowed the gash on his arm to be stitched, but insisted on wearing his own clothes, soiled rags though they were. He cut an isolated figure, his ankles manacled together, watching without seeing as the knights and men-at-arms went about their duties. On the second day, he was summoned to Earl Lucan’s pavilion.

  Lucan was seated in a blackthorn chair which his men had pilfered from the baggage train. He’d dispensed with full armour, and now wore a mail shirt over leather breeches, and cross-strapped riding boots. Maximion was given a stool, and sat. Two of Lucan’s knights stood in attendance, Turold and Gerwin — they too were stripped to shirts and breeches, but leaned on their ungirt longswords.

  “The accommodation is to your satisfaction?” Lucan asked.

  “It’s certainly more than I expected,” the Roman replied.

  “Enjoy it while you can.”

  “I wouldn’t say I was enjoying it, my lord.”

  Lucan gave a wintry smile. “Compared to what may lie ahead, this camp is the lap of luxury.”

  “I see.”

  “When we last spoke about Felix Rufio, you gave an impression that you held little admiration for him.”

  Maximion shrugged. “I never admire folly. Not even the folly of a child.”

  “How wel
l do you know the Malconi family?”

  “I only personally know Rufio and his uncle, Bishop Malconi. But they are all cut from the same cloth — they are vain, ambitious and treacherous.”

  “In short, typical of the Roman gentry.”

  “How well you think you know us.”

  “I’ll be blunt, tribune… my war with New Rome has now become personal.”

  Maximion looked surprised. “It wasn’t from the beginning?”

  Lucan ignored the remark. “At the first opportunity I intend to divert from this army, and pay a visit to Castello Malconi and this fearsome woman, Duchess Zalmyra.”

  “You won’t get near the place.”

  Lucan’s eyebrows lifted. “Is it so hard to find?”

  “It won’t be easy for one who doesn’t know that region. And, as I’ve already told you, she is a mistress of dark lore. Not only that, it’s now late July, and in high Liguria the autumn comes early.”

  “The weather does not concern me. Nor does my ignorance of the region… because you, Lord Maximion, will be showing me the way.”

  Maximion looked surprised. “You wish me to accompany you?”

  “As my prisoner, you must earn your keep. And acting as a guide in your own country will hardly be taxing for you.”

  “I won’t do it if I’m to be chained like an animal.”

  “The chain can be removed if you give your word as a Roman officer that you will not try to escape.”

  Maximion pondered. “I’ll give you my word. There’s no shame in that. Thus far, you’ve been a fair captor.”

  “I’m always fair with those who serve me,” Lucan replied. “But to those who oppose me I am the perfect opposite.”

  “I don’t know when you plan to embark, but before we do, I’d like permission to leave your camp and search this bloody field for my son.”

  Lucan nodded. “You may search tomorrow. But listen, tribune… you have given your word, so now I will give mine. If you fail to return to my camp at dusk, I will hunt you down and kill you. They call me the Black Wolf of the North. Have you heard this?”

  “I have.”

  Lucan’s steely eyes gleamed. “When I have killed you, I will hunt your son in Brittany and I will kill him as well. And then I will hunt your other son, wherever he is in your disintegrating empire, and he too will perish. Do you believe this?”

  “Yes,” Maximion replied, earnestly.

  “Good luck on the morrow. I’ll have your shackles removed at first light, and you’ll be issued with a ticket of leave so that none other may lay hands on you.”

  All through that night, bands of unarmed Roman soldiers approached Arthur’s camp, waving improvised white flags. Many who were wounded had become feverish with infection, while others — after a couple of nights in the surrounding mountains, wet, cold and hungry, with wolves howling and no sign in the vale below of the mass hangings and decapitations they’d been led to expect — were only too willing to be put in custody.

  At mid-morning the next day, Lucan was summoned to the royal pavilion, where a Council of the Round Table was to convene. His mail and mantle had been cleaned, as had his wolf-fur. Most of the rest of the senior knights were in attendance, mailed and in their finest livery.

  King Arthur received them with Kay and Bedivere seated to either side of him. Bedivere was still ashen-faced; the stump of his left hand was bound with bandages and covered by a leather glove. Many others bore lesser wounds. None of their brotherhood had died in the battle, though they had lost many retainers; Lucan’s own household of sixty knights was down to fifty, with only forty fit for duty. Griflet had lost all of his, and had begged absence from the Council to mourn.

  “Gentlemen, your attention,” Arthur said, presenting a parchment. “I have here an estimated tally of casualties. In total, we have eight thousand dead, and sixteen thousand wounded, many of whom may still expire. Several hundred are still unaccounted for.

  “The army of New Rome, however, suffered an even more grievous loss.” He glanced up, grave-faced. “Gentlemen… to the best of our knowledge, some fifty thousand Romans lie slaughtered.”

  There were subtle gasps. The battle at Castle Terrabil, when the insurgent forces of King Rience of North Wales and eleven Irish princes were crushed, had long been thought Arthur’s bloodiest battle, and yet only forty thousand perished that day, and that between both armies.

  Arthur continued: “Among the butcher’s bill we must include over three hundred men of very senior rank. Emperor Lucius Julio Bizerta, Duke Ardeus Vigilano of Spoleto and Prince Jalhid Yusuf ibn Ayyub of Cyrenaica are the foremost of these, along with some nine hundred men of middling title.”

  “God help us,” Lancelot said slowly. “We’ve depopulated the Roman nobility.”

  “Not entirely,” Arthur replied. “They still have several legions in central Brittany. Breton irregulars attack them relentlessly and they have sent negotiators to seek terms. King Hoel and his deputies have ridden to meet them. But they are still a cohesive and well-armed host. In addition, there are numbers of legionaries still on the loose here in France. We cannot assume they will surrender until they actually do. Therefore we remain in arms, here, until such time as the threat is removed… whereupon we will break camp and march south.”

  “We’re not going home, sire?” Bors asked.

  “We’re going to Rome,” Arthur said, simply. A tense silence followed. “Gentlemen… let us be under no illusions. The aim of New Rome’s mission in France was to lure the kingdom of Albion into war. They sought, unprovoked, to destroy us utterly. The architects of that scheme are still alive, wallowing in their ill-deserved wealth while so many better men, of their nation as well as ours, are wallowing in their own guts. This cannot — nay, will not — be tolerated. We shall camp outside the city of Rome and I will demand the miscreants be handed over.”

  “And if they refuse, sire?” Bors wondered.

  “We’ll put the city under siege. I doubt they’ll be equipped to withstand one, while we — thanks to the generously donated cargo train of the late Emperor Lucius — have fodder and water for years.”

  “Sire… by ‘miscreants,’ I take it you mean the ambassadors who deceived us at Camelot,” Sir Gareth asked.

  “That’s correct. I’ll have a gallows prepared for each of them.”

  “But three of them were churchmen. The Holy Father will never countenance the punishment of clerics by lay authorities.”

  Arthur smiled as if he had anticipated this. “The Holy Father, I’m sure, will respond to reason. I understand he has concerns about the Moorish influence along the North African coast. How could he not? The Moors are pagans, and their presence in that region grows daily. However, as we speak, Sir Gawaine is at the Court of the Franks in Paris, where he entertains King Childeric and his nobles with drinking contests and tales of his bawdy adventures.”

  There were snickers among the knights. This was all too believable.

  “My latest information,” Arthur added, “is that Gawaine has befriended his prisoner, Prince Priamus, brother to the late Jalhid. Prince Priamus now has sole rulership of Cyrenaica, for which he is most grateful. When he returns, if we wish it, he will be a moderating influence among the Moorish emirs, of whom our Holy Father is so nervous.”

  “‘If we wish it,’” Bedivere reiterated. “Those are the important words.”

  “And the cost to the papacy of this moderating influence?” Lancelot wondered.

  Arthur smiled again. “The defrocking of those two-faced scoundrels, Bishop Severin Malconi of Ravenna, Bishop Proclates of Palermo and Bishop Pelagius of Tuscany. The lay-ambassadors, I suspect, will be handed over for much less.”

  There was a long silence as they absorbed the plan. No-one relished the prospect of remaining in arms for a long siege in Italy, but most, like the King, suspected that it would not be for especially long.

  “If that is all, gentlemen,” Arthur said, “return to your posts.”


  They left the royal presence with a general clatter and noise, muttering together as they walked away, leaving only Lucan behind.

  “Sir Lucan?” Arthur asked.

  “Sire,” Lucan said, “you have everything well in hand.”

  “Your approval is most welcome.”

  Lucan shuffled his feet. “As it appears there’ll be no more hard fighting, might I suggest that my usefulness is past?”

  “You may suggest it. I won’t necessarily agree.”

  “My lord,” Bedivere interrupted. “I strongly advise that our… comrade be kept in harness. We do not know the fighting is over.”

  Lucan glared at his brother, but said nothing.

  “I take it, Lucan, you have a private matter you’d like to resolve?” the King said.

  “That is so, sire.”

  “You wish to detach from the army and go your own way?”

  “Now would be the ideal time. While the trail is still warm.”

  “I object to this most strongly,” Bedivere said.

  “On what grounds?” Lucan demanded.

  Bedivere levered himself to his feet. “You know what grounds, Lucan. Revenge has no place at the Round Table. You’ll sully yourself, and all the rest of us.”

  Lucan turned to Arthur. “My liege, I have the right to seek satisfaction.”

  “You didn’t get enough satisfaction on the battlefield?” Bedivere asked. “That foul sword of yours must have drunk ten gallons of blood.”

  “I must take the matter under consideration, Lucan,” Arthur said. “I’m not sure we can spare you yet.” But Lucan didn’t immediately withdraw. “Is there something else?”