The Encircling Sea

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  ‘Pick it up,’ she told him.

  Ferox took a step and swung, the gladius almost singing through the air as it sank into the pirate’s neck. He fell, hands now clasping his throat as the blood sprayed from it. ‘We haven’t got time to play games,’ Ferox said harshly. Brigita stared at him, her face filled with the same sort of rage he had felt a few moments ago, and then she nodded. She went over to the screaming man, waited for the right moment, and killed him with a neat thrust.

  The woman was stirring, pushing up, so that the remnants of her tunic fell away and she was bare. Although on its side, the lantern gave enough light for Ferox to see the little scar between her small breasts. A young man lay dead a few yards away, several bad wounds to his chest and stomach. Ferox guessed that he was the one they had heard moaning until it was cut short.

  Brigita went to the woman and held out her hand. She spoke words he did not understand, but they seemed to reassure her and she grasped hold and let herself be pulled up. The queen unclipped the brooch on her cloak and handed it over. Ferox guessed that the woman was young, perhaps sixteen or seventeen.

  Bran appeared, wide-eyed again, but it was hard to tell whether this was from the sight of another naked woman or the carnage around them. The released captive put the cloak around her shoulders, then searched in the grass until she found a long sword, blunt tipped, of the sort many tribesmen used for cutting. A little further on she found a belt and scabbard and she fastened these on.

  ‘Time to go,’ Ferox said, although there was no sign of the Red Cat. He would have to rely on the thief finding them. ‘She can come with us if she wants, or go and find her own folk.’ Although the boat on the beach was small, Ferox guessed that it had brought at least three or four others to the island.

  ‘No need,’ the woman said.

  Warriors came out of the night, the light from the lantern glinting on the keen points of their spears. There were a lot more than three or four. Ferox counted ten and thought that others were behind them. All were men, but it was clear that the woman they had saved knew them and trusted them.

  ‘You come with us,’ she said. ‘Give me your swords.’ There were two warriors behind him, and another in front. Any resistance would be brief and would probably doom Bran as well. He held out his sword, pommel first. Brigita brought her blade up when one of the men went to take it. The woman gently pushed him aside and came up to her. After a moment, the queen nodded and let her take the weapon. Ferox’s arms were pulled behind his back and tied there. The same was done to Bran, but not the queen.

  ‘Come on,’ the woman said, and led them up the beach. Soon they were climbing a gentle headland dotted with bushes and heather. It was higher than the fields around, and Ferox could see right across the island. There was a distant red light, which grew suddenly bright and strong.

  ‘That’s a ship,’ Bran said in a tone of wonder. ‘Their ship.’

  Ferox had great faith in the boy’s eyesight and hoped that he was right. The warriors kept going, and crossed two more rises before they came down into a cove with another beach. Several boats were drawn up on the pebbles, and dozens of warriors were squatting on the rocks at the edge of the beach.

  A woman’s voice greeted them, but it was hard to see the speaker in the gloom cast by the low cliffs. Then a tall, spare figure stepped out of the shadows.

  ‘Ferox,’ said a voice he had not heard for some time. ‘It is true then, you are here.’ A man held up a torch as Acco came towards him, his long beard and hair blowing in the wind as the light flickered. ‘I rather think I would be wise to have you killed.’

  XXV

  THE LITTLE DOG was lame, flea-ridden, and had lost most of one ear and several patches of fur. A stale smell of decay grew stronger as the druid tickled the animal under the chin and fussed it. The dog did not seem to mind, but it was panting for breath and did not respond apart from a few wags of the stubby remnant of its tail.

  Ferox always struggled to remember Acco’s features. Even now, with the old man only a few feet away, there was something indistinct about what little of his face was visible behind the beard and long hair. Both were filthy, as was the man himself, and his smell was only a little less pungent than the dog’s. Ferox found it much easier to picture the dog than its owner.

  When Ferox was young, the druid had sometimes visited his grandfather and spoken to the boys who were being trained with him. In his mind’s eye, he could recall the silence that greeted Acco’s appearance, the fear that swept over all of the boys, who the rest of the time tried to parade their fearlessness. The druid must have been younger then, but already seemed old. He never shouted, or even raised his voice, and yet it was filled with power and menace. Ferox remembered the soft words that somehow were always clear, but in his memory the druid himself was a vague shape in a grey robe. It was almost as if the man walked on the green earth and at the same time saw into the Shadow world. Some of the boys swore that this was so.

  Ferox looked at the druid and wondered whether they had been right. The sky had cleared, but dawn was coming and the stars beginning to fade. Most of the warriors were preparing to leave in their long boats, their wooden frames covered in stretched hide. A few were still on shore, watching in case the pirates came, but it was clear that they did not really expect this. Acco sat on a folded cloak laid out on the beach and played with his dog. A warrior stood on either side of him, each holding a spear, its butt resting on the pebbles. Ferox’s arms were still tied behind him as he sat cross-legged in front of the druid. Bran was a short way away, gnawing the last meat off a sheep’s rib. No one had offered Ferox any food. Brigita sat with a cluster of young men and a few women, who kept themselves apart from the others.

  ‘The Romans are here,’ Acco told Ferox. ‘Two galleys and three other ships carrying men. They will be landing by now, in the bay on the far side of the island. That will take a while, and then they will attack the dun held by Cniva and his men. I would guess that they will begin the assault in three or four hours, although it is possible that they will surprise me. Brocchus is a prudent man, but he will be angry, and that young fellow Crispinus is impetuous.’

  Ferox said nothing, and hoped that his face was impassive. Acco always seemed to know all – or almost all – of what the Romans had done and were about to do, so he was not really surprised to hear him speak in this way. The druid watched him. ‘Do you have nothing to say?’ he asked after a while.

  ‘I am glad they are here. Glad they burned Cniva’s ship so that he cannot escape.’

  ‘They did not.’ There was another pause. Acco sighed. ‘I had almost forgotten how mean the Silures are when it comes to spending words. Your grandfather would be proud of that about you, at least.

  ‘The Romans did not destroy the ship. These men did. Some of them, anyway, and two were killed in the act. These folk are from the other islands and the mainland. They are poor, their life hard, and the Harii steal or extort more than they can afford so that their life becomes even harder.’ There was a slight pause, as if he hoped that Ferox would be impressed by this new detail.

  Acco sighed. ‘Stubborn, just like all your kin. When I learned of the Roman expedition, I hurried here. In the past, they lacked the strength to resist. The Harii and Usipi are many and well armed. It has taken them years to repair their trireme and make it seaworthy again, but in that time they have raided in captured merchant ships or simple wooden boats. These men could not hope to burn all their boats and strand them forever in this place, and they feared to stir them up to greater anger. Cniva is a bad man.’

  Ferox thought about the plot to take Cerialis and his wife and burn them as a sacrifice. Acco had helped the Stallion, and then slowly killed the man as an atoning sacrifice when he failed and was beaten. A lot of people had died because of the druid’s plans and more would die. Ferox flexed his wrists. The rope had worked a little loose. Trying not to be too obvious, he twisted his fingers back, feeling for the knot. If he could only get fre
e he might just grab one of the spears and drive it through the old man.

  Acco smiled, his beard parting to show his broken and blackened teeth, as if he read the centurion’s thoughts. ‘I really should have you killed,’ he said. ‘I had hoped that you might have come to your senses, but I can see that you have not. You will keep your oath to an emperor who cares nothing for you or your kin, and to an empire that is smothering the world. So be it. I tried once to persuade you to join me and you refused. I shall not waste more breath on that.’ The druid stood up. The little dog started to rub against his leg and he gave it a gentle kick. It scampered away, breath loud with effort.

  ‘Sometimes a cur is too used to the leash ever to be free,’ Acco said.

  Ferox felt the rope rubbing his skin raw as he struggled.

  ‘I shall not kill you today,’ the druid said. ‘Others may, but I shall not, because it is possible that you can be useful and do a good deed for a change. Have you seen Cniva’s stronghold?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He did not build it, of course, and just stole it from the folk who lived there, but he has made it stronger. It lies on a headland, and the two encircling walls do not go all the way around because there are cliffs too sheer for anyone to climb. Your leaders will throw their men at the walls because they have no other choice and because they hate the enemy so much. Cerialis will wish to avenge his wife, even once he knows that she is safe.’

  Acco smiled, and Ferox guessed that he had betrayed his surprise and relief at the news. ‘A woman?’ the druid said, as if musing. ‘And a fine woman at that.’ He stared down at the centurion. ‘That would explain much.’

  ‘The Romans are good at storming cities,’ Ferox said, trying to change the subject. ‘You must know that.’

  ‘Yes, but they will not have all of their equipment to help them. If they have any sense they have brought ladders, or perhaps they can make some. It will not be easy.’

  ‘More men would help.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ the druid said, ‘but I doubt it, and these warriors have already risked much. They will not join your men, so you Romans must fight your own battle and pay the blood price. You may win and you may not.’

  ‘It is better if we win.’

  Acco flung his arms wide and raised his voice just a little. For someone so softly spoken it was akin to screaming. The dog started to howl. ‘It would have been better if Romans had never unleashed this evil on us in the first place. They are here because of you. They have killed and raped, stolen food that could not be spared and when they first came they brought a plague that killed whole families.

  ‘Rome is evil and she spreads evil across the lands. Even here, no one can escape her.’ Acco dropped his arms and seemed to calm. He kicked the dog into silence. ‘These men have risked their lives to trap the Harii and Usipi on this island. Now it is up to the Romans to wipe this stain from the earth. All must die, for such evil must be punished. They made the sickness, so they must cure it.

  ‘Others feel differently.’ The druid waved a hand towards Brigita and the cluster of young warriors. ‘It is their fight, for their reasons, and it is up to them to tell you if they choose. They will fight it in their way, not yours, but my heart tells me that you should go with them. You have a task to perform on this day, and so I shall not kill you. Do not presume that I will be so indulgent the next time we meet. You have chosen your path and must follow it to the end.’

  ‘Don’t we all do that?’

  The druid ignored him. ‘I foretell that it will be a bitter end, that you will suffer much and lose all that is most precious to you. And for what? Oaths sworn to Rome and its emperor?’

  ‘An oath is an oath,’ Ferox said, quoting his grandfather, ‘and a faithless man is nothing.’

  Acco must have recognised the words. ‘The Lord of the Hills was a greater man than you will ever be, and yet he failed, and gave in to Rome at the end. He should have fought until his last breath.’ The druid drew a short bronze knife from a sheath on his belt. He ran the blade across his palm, and tipped his hand on its side so that the blood ran down. ‘He was the greatest of the Silures.’ Acco rubbed his hand across Ferox’s forehead. ‘You are a Roman, and one day soon you will die with all the others.’

  Ferox blinked because some of the blood had got into his left eye. Once it was clear he stared up at the druid.

  ‘Death is the middle of a long life,’ he said in Latin, for he knew that the druid spoke the language.

  Acco licked the cut on his palm and then spat onto the pebbles. ‘What would a poet and a Roman know of such things?’ He said no more and simply strode away towards the boats. The spearmen went with him. ‘Dog,’ the druid called, without look­ing back, and the little mongrel scampered awkwardly after him. The smell of the old man and his pet lingered after they had gone. Ferox wondered about his last words, for it seemed that he had known the saying came from Lucan’s Pharsalia, although the poet claimed that this was what the druids believed.

  The warriors pushed the long slim boats out into the water and then jumped in. Acco sat in the stern of one, his back to the beach and he did not glance back. The great red ball of the sun rose above the horizon ahead of them, while overhead the gulls burst into a frenzy of harsh cries, one calling out and others answering. A single long canoe remained on the shale.

  Bran untied him, and they sat there, waiting. After a while Brigita came over to them. ‘Come,’ she said.

  Nine young men sat in a circle at the edge of the beach, a few in trousers and the rest in the tunics of the kind favoured by Hibernians. Six of them had smooth chins, not yet requiring the touch of razor, and the other three were not much older. One had cultivated a thin moustache, and he might have been seventeen, but no more. He was the only one wearing a mail shirt, although several others had bronze or iron helmets, all of them simple bowls with stubby neck guards and cheek pieces. All had stout shafted spears lying on the ground beside them, several with large, jagged edged blades, and a couple of slim javelins. All of them had swords, mostly the long slim blades of the tribes, some pointed and some blunt.

  The three women were a little older, although none were much more than twenty. One had blonde hair and wore a scale cuirass, alternate scales gilded and polished bright. Another was a redhead, in a short cuirass of horn and hide of a type Ferox had seen now and then among the Sarmatians on the Danube. He wondered how it had travelled to this faraway place, because the wearer had the look of the Creones about her. The third woman was the one they had saved from the pirates. Her tunic was badly torn, and her repairs had left it as little more than a skirt. It left her breasts exposed, and it was odd that no one, with the exception of Bran, paid any attention, for she was a handsome woman, if stern, her brown hair plaited and made into three coils.

  All three women wore short tunics, and had bare legs apart from the soft calfskin boots that covered their shins. The red­head and the blonde had helmets resting beside them, and both were wrapping their long plaits into a tight ball so that they could put them on. All three women wore swords at their belts, similar in fashion to those of the young lads, and like them had a spear and a pair of javelins. Shields were a mixture of shapes and sizes, from the little square and round ones favoured by many northerners to big oval and hexagonal ones.

  If Ovidius had been here he would no doubt have spouted Herodotus and spoken of amazons. In truth, the boots and tunics did give them something of the look of those mythical female warriors. Their skin was fair, almost the white of so many paintings, since they were all Britons or Hibernians. Ferox had seen Brigita fight and knew her skill, and in this place there seemed nothing at all unnatural about a band of warriors including both women and men. All of them, even the ones who were no more than boys, moved with the care of long hours of training, never wasting effort and doing what they wanted to do and no more. They were not soldiers, and in some ways reminded Ferox more of gladiators or even athletes.

  Sitting in the middle of t
he circle was a silent figure covered in a long, hooded cloak. Brigita led him between a couple of the sitting warriors. ‘These are my sisters and brothers,’ she said, and then stopped suddenly. He looked at her, then at the hooded and cloaked figure, but no one said or did anything. The gulls were still shouting.

  The queen placed her hands on either side of his face and stood on the balls of her feet to kiss him. It was sudden and more than a little aggressive, as well as pleasant. It was a long kiss, and then it was over and she stepped back. ‘I was curious,’ she said. ‘I am not curious anymore.’ The warriors, male and female alike, laughed, sounding much like a group of children.

  ‘Enough games.’ The voice was husky without being manly. Throwing back her hood, a woman stood up. She was not especially tall, and her arms were big enough to suggest strength without seeming out of proportion. Her hair was a dark blonde, long and unbraided, her eyes a deep brown, and her skin darker than was common among the tribes. Ferox wondered whether there was some Roman or Mediterranean blood in her family, for it was more than the shade that came from long exposure to sun and wind. He guessed that she was less than forty, perhaps a good deal less, although it was hard to tell. She wore a simple tunic in a drab blue-grey, had a sword at her belt and the same boots as the other women, but had neither armour nor helmet.

  ‘This is my mother,’ the queen said, bowing her head.

  Ferox guessed that it was a kinship of oaths, like her brothers and sisters.

  ‘My name is not for you,’ she said gruffly. ‘Some call me a witch or hag.’ The lines of her face were strong, not pretty or soft in any way, and yet striking. ‘These are my children, bound to me by oaths and come to learn from me if they prove worthy, as others have come in the past to learn from my mother and all the mothers back until the start of all things.’

  ‘I had often thought that you were a fable,’ Ferox said. ‘And feel now as if I was walking in a song.’

  ‘Then the song must carry us with it,’ she said. ‘It is time for a reckoning. Your people attack the dun from the land?’