by Jules Watson
Broc felt the hatred burn in him. These men were not the dreaded blueskins whose raids he’d been repelling for months, but they were still Alban – Dalriadans. They were all the same to him: bloodthirsty murderers, beasts who could not appreciate the benefits of Empire. As a green boy, Broc had sneered at them like all of his blood, but now, riding this windy land, the hatred had sunk deep into his bowels. He was green no more.
A man couldn’t be when hordes of tattooed men kept bursting from the trees, hacking with vicious blades, their eyes white; when his friend, a man he had diced with, and laughed with, crashed to the ground with a spear quivering in his guts.
Broc glared at the Dalriadan warriors jesting with each other in the drizzle. Though the Dux had deigned to meet with their so-called kings, these savages must be under no illusions about what the Roman areani really thought of them.
The door to the command quarters opened and men spilled out. Broc and his unit stood to attention as the Dux, a short, lean man, stalked past to the gate, his weathered face grim. Behind came the King of Dalriada, his chieftains, the King of the Carvetii at Luguvalium, and the cowed chiefs of the Maetae.
Kings. Chiefs. Broc’s lip curled. How they clung to their petty titles, their foolish notions of power. When he thought about the thousands of soldiers just like him patrolling the Wall, gazing out across the bare plains, Broc felt the vast power of the Roman army behind him, and knew these minor kings were doomed.
‘Looks like something got stuck in their gullets,’ the scout next to him muttered, rain dripping down his chin. ‘No smiles, no handshakes, no back-slaps.’
Broc glanced at him. ‘I heard the Dux say he didn’t expect them to take these new taxes lying down, anyway. You know he has something on his mind: we will be ordered into the saddle before dusk.’
‘Keep it down,’ an officer growled further along. ‘Some of these bastards speak our tongue.’
Cian waited on the road with the other grooms and shield- and spear-bearers, holding the black stallion’s bridle. Like them, he stared across the hills that rolled away from the Codicii fort, but unlike them, facing nervously north, he stood apart. Looking south.
From long practice his mouth formed a tight, contained line, revealing nothing. But his heart beat like a bird in a snare, and the more it struggled, the more he held it down. The muscles in his legs and arms all strained towards that road, urging him to break and run, to disappear into the hills, swift as a deer, racing for the Wall. He could feel every fibre tightening, yearning to be set free.
Then darkness washed over him. When he thought of running, his mind was filled with an image of Minna’s face the first time he saw her, her eyes swimming with unshed tears by Eboracum’s river. Another lost one, hurt and vulnerable. That’s all he could remember about her now through the red fog of his endless rage. And the barbarians had caused her pain, too, those bastards who stalked his own dreams. So he couldn’t abandon her – he had to protect her, or lay down his own life for being no man at all. He had to make it all turn out right this time. He could not fail, not again …
Then the other part spoke up, hard and gleaming as a sliver of bone in his heart. Run, you fool. There will never be another chance. Cian scowled and hunched into the wind, cursing himself with a passion. Weak and stupid, useless beyond all measure.
But he didn’t run. Instead he turned his back on the south, burying his nose in the horse’s neck, smelling the old, comforting scent of the animal, the lanolin and leather. And for once, he shut his ears to the hisses and taunts around him.
Outside the fort, Cahir mounted his stallion and said nothing to the man gazing anxiously from his own saddle: one of his southern chieftains from the Clutha river. The chief tried to speak, but Cahir held up his hand. ‘Not here, Finn. Wait until we are on the road.’
Around them the hundred or so Dalriadan and Carvetii warriors were mounting up, talking and laughing in a release of tension. But up on the walls the Dux and his officers remained still and watchful, their eyes hidden by the shadows of their helmets.
As the large party trotted away from the fort, Maeve’s father, Eldon, King of the Carvetii, spurred his horse to Cahir’s side. He was heavy-set and clean-shaven, with clipped, dark hair. Hunched in a hooded cloak away from the rain, he regarded his son-in-law with disapproval.
Cahir stared back with raised chin, ignoring the cold drops trickling in his eyes. Eldon’s nostrils flared, as if he smelled something unpleasant. He did not consider my wealth so when he handed his daughter over. Gold from Erin, amber from the north sea, tin from Kernow – that’s all Eldon had ever cared for.
‘Do not expect me,’ Cahir hissed under his breath, ‘to bow my head to any stray demand of the Dux Britanniarum without due consideration. I am not some dog, to curl up at his feet and lick them.’
Eldon’s plucked eyebrows rose. ‘It is not a stray demand,’ he replied evenly. ‘If we enjoy the army’s protection then we must pay for it, son-in-law. They need the grain to feed the extra troops. After the recent Pictish attacks in the east, surely you can see the sense in what he asked?’
‘Protection,’ Cahir repeated, with a snort. He gazed over the rolling heath to the north, obscured by veils of drifting drizzle and mist. He longed to get back to his own lands, to leave these hills so scarred by blood and pain. ‘I do not think,’ he continued, meeting Eldon’s eye, ‘that you could class my relationship with the Roman administration as one of protection. After all, the Picts have not attacked us for at least a year now – they have been kept quite busy with their own raids on the Roman army.’ He smiled stiffly. ‘So what indeed am I paying for, Eldon? Perhaps to ward the Roman-kind away, rather than the Picts; to keep the Roman eagle from my door, not the Pictish wolf.’
Eldon’s clenched reins made his horse skittish. ‘Indeed you are, Cahir, and don’t you forget it.’ He glanced back at the disappearing Roman fort, its timber walls a dark blot on the rain-washed hills. Unconsciously, Cahir looked back, too, and fancied he could still see the outline of the Dux’s helmet.
Fullofaudes had been unfailingly polite when he told Cahir he was raising the grain tithe and tax on trade goods by an enormous percentage. His narrow face had remained pleasant, but scrape that thin patina away and the man had iron inside him, iron and ambition. Cahir understood him better than he knew.
‘Do not be foolish,’ Eldon went on darkly. ‘Resist and they will crush you. Instead, join us properly. Allow a Roman garrison at Dunadd, a Roman port, and you will enjoy the same privileges as we do. We can merge our two kingdoms,’ he lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘swallow the Maetae, the Attacotti, make us one block of power from the Wall all the way to the northern sea.’
The same privileges. Cahir scanned King Eldon’s clipped hair, his manicured hands, the soft, pouched belly.
But he knew it wasn’t differences on the outside that made them Alban or Roman any more, not with the mixed bloods. It was on the inside, the soul. It was Cahir’s pride in his lineage that made him Alban; his passion for the land, the old tales and old ways, a passion he kept hidden from all but his most trusted men, because if he spoke of it he would be opening himself to ridicule from some quarters and outright rebellion from others.
He nodded coolly. ‘I have heard you, father-in-law, but must make up my own mind. I am a king, after all, and have my people to answer to.’
Eldon frowned. ‘Think of my grandson Garvan; what he could inherit if you do it my way. And what you will bring to ruin, Cahir, if you follow some foolish path of your own out of misplaced pride.’
‘I am thinking. And I will take my own counsel.’
Eldon and his men peeled away to the west soon after, for Luguvalium. That afternoon, the Maetae turned off as well. Only then, as they crossed the wooded lands to the Clutha did his chieftain Finn come cantering back to Cahir’s side. The rain had cleared, bathing them in pale sunshine.
‘I won’t do it!’ he declared furiously. ‘I cannot!’ He glared at C
ahir, though there was fear behind his grey eyes. ‘No trade comes through our hills any more, for people are too afraid to travel when the Roman scouts scour the plains. Three sunseasons we have had too little sun and too much rain. The crop is pitiful, Cahir. We cannot do it. We will have hunger in the dun even without paying this.’
Cahir faced him in the saddle. ‘I know there is hardship,’ he said quietly. ‘But I will make sure you have enough grain. We have stores in Dunadd.’ Stores that are fast emptying, he amended silently. ‘I need some time to think of other options.’
‘And what about next year?’ Finn said harshly. ‘And the year after? Gods, Cahir, they are bleeding us dry!’ Anger was bright in his weathered face. ‘You can think, but I’m going to refuse. I’m not giving in any more.’
Cahir drew a deep breath. ‘I understand your anger and, by Hawen, Finn, I share it. But I need to buy time. There is no easy way out here, no clear path, and I cannot have your people’s blood on my hands.’
‘Perhaps nothing is ever clear.’ Finn wrapped his reins around his meaty wrists. ‘But when our ancestors fought against the Romans at the Hill of a Thousand Spears, was that an easy way out, Cahir? They did it against all odds – in fact, they didn’t care about the odds. They fought because they had to, for their own pride, their own blood!’
For a moment Cahir was silent, trying to steady his heart. ‘I have listened to the bard tales more times than I can count. Eremon was wise as well as brave. He did care about the odds. He thought, mistakenly, that they were in his favour, which is the only reason he agreed to fight the Romans. He thought, Finn, he did not act rashly.’
Finn looked as though he’d been slapped. ‘He acted boldly, with honour, and all I care is that he acted.’ Abruptly, he wheeled his horse. ‘I’m going to ride with my own men, and get as far away as I can from these Roman scum before I vomit up their damn wine.’
He rode back to the rear, avoiding Cahir’s eyes.
The riders split as they approached the Clutha inlet, Finn and his men turning for their dun. He saluted grimly to Cahir, and Cahir nodded and turned away, smouldering with shame.
He was ashamed he had not taken a lance and driven it through the Dux as he sat there at the council table with that smug smile. And if I had, I would already be dead, and my people led to Roman slavery. Cahir stretched his throat to the sea air coming up the valley from the west. Sometimes the royal torc sat heavy around his neck, an honour and a burden both.
Donal and Finbar were, as always, only a few steps behind. ‘You did the right thing, lad,’ Donal said softly. These two – ruddy, balding Donal and greying Finbar – were still warriors to respect. They did, however, retain the disconcerting habit of seeing the young man in Cahir; the boy who had been idealistic and excited about life.
‘Did I?’ Cahir glanced at them. ‘My heart is with Finn, but we don’t have the forces for battle against the Romans. There it is.’
Finbar scratched his stubbled chin. ‘There are no easy answers, lad. But we are all here alive and hale, so we’ve played it well so far.’ His grey eyes were opaque, though, and he adjusted his sword-belt with a grim hitch.
Behind, the proud warband was a mass of sodden men, their flashing jewellery and arm-rings dulled, their hair dripping and clothes muddied. Ruarc, Mellan and their friends had subsided into glowering silence. Cahir wondered what action they thought he could take in a fort of hundreds of Roman soldiers, with thousands more on the Wall a few miles away.
What would Eremon have done? He set his face to the north, where the highlands rose in a dark line over the Clutha. Would he have found a way out?
Whenever Cahir asked that question, however, and yearned for an answer, it never came. Nearly three hundred years had passed since Eremon and Conaire lived. Cahir had no doubt they would be enjoying a blessed life in the Otherworld now, leaving behind only the pressure of questions unanswered and the gnawing shame of failure.
In the dark inside him, he wondered if he simply was not worthy of Eremon’s counsel, or whether it was just that Eremon was too far now, too distant in time to give any aid to the man who had ascended his throne.
A young man who needed that wisdom, that comfort, and instead was alone.
One of Finn’s warriors caught up with Cahir and his men two days later, in a narrow valley in the highland mountains.
They were watering their stallions in a rushing stream when the slopes of the glen reverberated with the sound of a horse being whipped madly along the path behind them. Cahir’s heart stopped when he recognized the rider, and even as the man threw himself to the churned mud at his feet, he was bracing himself for the blow.
The warrior stammered out his story as his tears fell on his shaking hands.
Finn had only just arrived home when Roman soldiers came from the Dux demanding the tax from the harvest on the spot. There was no room for compromise. The soldiers formed a ring around the gates of the dun, their javelins readied. Finn went up on the walls and threw their demand back in their faces, saying his people would starve.
Without warning, a Roman javelin skewered one of Finn’s men to the palisade. Roaring, the chieftain leaped to his horse, exhorted his warriors to follow, tore open the gates and charged the Roman line.
Cahir’s eyes glazed over as the tale spilled out. He saw nothing before him but Finn’s proud face, his defiant expression. The warriors threw themselves on those lances with their chief, the messenger finished huskily, and there they all died. The Romans took the grain and rode away without a backwards look.
A deathly hush fell over the Dalriadan warriors, as the stream thundered between its rocks. The hill-slopes pressed down on them, the wet bracken red as blood, the peaks glowering far above, shrouded in cloud. They followed him home, was all Cahir could think. They knew from his face at the council table that he was resistant, and so they followed him and forced his hand. They gave him no way out.
Nausea roiled in his belly. Finn had lived fifty years – years of fighting, loving and loyalty – but this man mattered less to the Dux than a swatted gnat. For Fullofaudes did this solely to send a warning to Cahir himself. He knew it in his heart, where this outrage, this sorrow, was lodged now like a barb.
‘Then we will ride back!’ Ruarc pushed the others aside, his face contorted with fury. ‘We will hunt down every one of the Roman dogs and stake them to the ground with our spears!’ He brandished his lance, the fox-tails tied to its haft swinging. A cheer went up, and, in an instant, seething anger turned to anticipation and excitement.
Cahir pulled his shattered mind together. Gods, yes, that was exactly what he longed to do: bury his sword in a Roman belly and twist it on its hilt. It was so compelling, so compulsive. But no, no. He shook his head to clear it. Too dangerous, too soon. His best warriors were here with him, the defenders of Dunadd. ‘No!’ he bellowed. ‘That is not my order!’
The war-shouts died. Ruarc turned to him with a feral smile. Cahir knew then that he wanted this confrontation. ‘You call yourself our king?’ Ruarc screeched. ‘Your own chief gets slaughtered by the Roman-kind and you will do nothing? You will turn your back and let them kill us without fear of reprisals?’
Fury coursed through Cahir’s body: at the Romans, at Ruarc, at himself. ‘That is what they want! We go back there and attack the fort and the Dux’s army will be upon us, riding us down to Dunadd. Dunadd. Think, for one moment in your life! Of course they are watching us; of course he will have hundreds of soldiers at the ready, outnumbering us by many times! We would be walking into a death-trap; he wants the provocation.’
Ruarc barely heard him, his temper set free. ‘No! We whine and bow our heads enough. It’s time to fight back, time to show we are Dalriadans, Albans, warriors of the gods Lugh and Manannán and Hawen!’ He pointed at Cahir. ‘And I say we have been led by a coward long enough!’
The warriors gasped and murmured, drawing back, catching the reins of the nervous horses. Ruarc and Cahir were left alone on the ed
ge of the rocky defile that fell to the foaming stream.
Cahir’s body had tensed from crown to feet: this cub needed swatting back into place. At least now he could release his rage, not to kill but to disarm, to subdue. With a roar that bounced off the valley sides, he snatched his sword from its scabbard, the pain over Finn flooding him. ‘On, then, come on! You challenge me enough with your words, now do it with your blade!’
Uncertainty flickered over Ruarc’s face. Yes, come on, Cahir thought, crouching low. Slowly, Ruarc unsheathed his own blade. As a boy he had watched Cahir duel many times, and once witnessed him repel a Pictish ambush. In his cocky pride, though, perhaps he had forgotten. Or he might think Cahir was getting old. If so, he was a fool, for the king’s sword-arm was strengthened by years of suppressed frustration, enough to override an eleven-year age gap: Ruarc was only twenty-one, Cahir thirty-two. He wasn’t creaking and stiff yet, he wasn’t grey, he wasn’t beaten. But he was furious and ashamed.
Snarling, Ruarc and Cahir circled each other. But Cahir gave Ruarc no time to think, leaping in so suddenly with a bellow that Ruarc was taken completely by surprise. Forced on the defence he stumbled back, desperately blocking his king’s sword, until Cahir tripped on a loose rock and Ruarc plunged into the breach.
Back they staggered, forward they lunged, sliding down the muddy slopes and skidding on pebbles. The warriors were entirely silent but their eyes followed every move, the tide changing between Ruarc on the attack and then Cahir.
Cahir was in a towering rage, but after many years of practice could hold his mind clear and cold. Ruarc, however, was all passion and fury, and that made him sloppy. Suddenly, he tried to get under Cahir’s defences with a risky and hopeless leap that the king merely sidestepped. The sodden earth gave way at the side of the path and Ruarc stumbled to one knee. Cahir was on him in the next breath, flicking the younger man’s sword away so it tumbled through the air, its point digging into the soil.