by Hume, M. K.
‘I pray you’re right, master,’ Snorri added. The circle of captains seemed a little happier.
That night, before sleep overtook him and he was forced to endure another visitation from the she-dragon, he made a ruthless decision. If Bran had destroyed Gawayne’s descendants, then he and Ector were the last survivors of the line of King Artor. The destruction of the whole Otadini tribe was an unimaginable solution to the thorny problem of succession to a throne. But the Britons were outnumbered, so even Bran’s grandiose dreams could hardly delude him into believing the Celtic kings could defeat their many enemies. At best, Bran and his son would be the undisputed leaders of the Western Alliance centred on Cymru; but Arthur hated to think that Bran had grown so deluded.
As the Last Dragon, Arthur was now presented with a conundrum where he must be divorced from his family forever. His living kinsmen were men of straw and Bran would be of no use to him in a new world that was about to be born out of the ashes of northern Britannia. Except for his immediate family, Arthur would throw his lot in with his Dene followers. The redoubtable Taliesin wanted to use Arthur to carve out an impossible kingdom from the old rags of glory; Bran wanted him dead for obvious reasons; the other kings wanted to control him like a puppet; and most of the noble lords would choose to use him as a bulwark between themselves and their enemies.
Like his father, he would be goaded into an early death, driven by forces that cared not one jot for him as a man or as a king.
Arthur made his decision. He would build his own kingdom, but he would never use his father’s name to achieve this ambition. If Bran got in the way, then Bran would die.
Thorketil was in his element during the winter. His bow brought down so many deer and wild oxen that the warriors, under the tutelage of Ingrid and Sigrid, were kept busy smoking, salting and drying meat. In the few weeks before the winter solstice, Arthur had ordered the soil broken by the two ploughs they had brought with them, and the warriors uncomplainingly took the place of horses or oxen to draw the heavy ploughshares. They had all known that the earth would freeze once the snows came. The first steps in agriculture had begun and every man felt his heart begin to lighten.
The winter that year was particularly vicious, with snowfalls deeper than the height of a man. But the Dene warriors, used to even colder winters, were unperturbed. Snowshoes, skis and hastily built sleds were quickly constructed and the men roamed ever further through the forests and the snow-covered agricultural lands.
The few women in the fledgling settlement were all slaves who had accompanied their owners. For one reason or another, their owners had been reluctant to sell them and had opted to bring them on the voyage, forcing Arthur to place them under his personal protection. Aware of the difficulties, Ingrid ensured that the women stayed out of sight once the light was gone and kept them working hard within the confines of their own secure area. Courtesy of a few wild sheep that had been caught, Arthur was surprised to hear the comforting thud of a loom and the whir of spindles. There was little enough wool to keep the slaves occupied on this task, but many other preparations needed to be made before the ships sailed for Skandia in the early spring. Arthur grew more and more impatient to find his family.
Meanwhile, the warriors had little time to fret for distant kin during the hours of daylight. Roofs must be made sound after every rafter had been checked and, if necessary, replaced. Soon, room by room and building by building, the fortress was being dragged to some semblance of order.
The clearing of paths had provided enough firewood to last throughout the winter and spring months, except for some sturdy fruit trees that had grown up in the most improbable of places. As for the floors in the barracks, the patient Skandians found coarse terracotta paving lying under the several feet of guano and earth that had accumulated since the Romans deserted their fortress. Arthur’s warriors were amazed at how the buildings seemed to have escaped the ravages of time.
The curative powers of nature were remarkable. Like the apple tree in the atrium of the commander’s residence, one resilient pear tree had forced aside several fired bricks in the foundations of one of the granaries and its skeleton now awaited the warmer months. Arthur lacked the heart to chop it down, for good fruit trees were hard to find.
The bats were another matter entirely. The Dene shared an intense dislike for bats with the local population, so the small nocturnal animals had to go. The deep guano deposited in the granary during their long occupancy was remarkably fecund, and Arthur was eager to shovel up the mucky wealth. For some time, he feared he would have to kill the whole colony before they would relinquish their hold on this warm and dry resting place. Eventually, he realised the granary would have to be sacrificed if the humans were to force the bats to move to more amenable quarters. And so, after ensuring that every entrance to the fortress buildings was barred, the granary was left open to the winter weather. Affronted, the colony of bats left at dusk and failed to return.
‘Will they die, Arthur? I’d hate to think that we’ve sent them off to perish in the cold.’ Sigrid’s face was wet with tears as she watched the final bats fly off into the west.
Arthur took her determined little chin between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Don’t worry! They’ll find a deserted barn or another set of Roman ruins to colonise before morning. They’re flexible little buggers!’
‘So they’ll be safe and well? Even the little ones?’
‘Even the little ones!’ Arthur felt the urge to kiss her upturned nose, but he resisted. He could hardly enjoy the pleasures that had been forbidden to his own warriors.
Scruples can be painful constraints, he reflected as he left the girl to her own devices. Nearby, her mother smiled knowingly.
Life in the fortress was peaceful and uncomplicated, and even Snorri was convinced that Arthur’s settlers had escaped discovery. The Dene scouts had seen no evidence of strangers by the time of the first spring thaws, so Arthur ordered the captains to select skeleton crews and make their preparations for the return journey to collect the warriors’ families and their worldly goods, plus whatever staples were needed for those who remained at Segedunum.
But Fortuna is black-hearted, and the man who trusts her is a fool.
Shortly after the fleet left, Arthur had taken his snow shoes and left the fortress several hours before sunrise. He took no food and no light on his lone night patrol, trusting to the Dragon Knife and his mailed shirt to keep him safe. The men on sentry duty watched as their master slid through the southern gate; Arthur had insisted that sentries should remain silent in case their positions were discovered by infiltrators. One of them secured the gateway as soon as he was safely into the line of trees.
Arthur had no idea why he chose to leave a warm pallet behind him and risk freezing his backside off on a one-man patrol during the dark hours before dawn, but he had been insistently taunted by the warning inside his skull throughout the night, so he eventually decided that to ignore it might be more foolhardy than responding to it.
Memories of Arden Forest came back to Arthur as he slipped from shadow to shadow until he found a tall oak tree that would allow him to observe the area to the rear of Segedunum. Hoping he hadn’t forgotten his climbing skills, he began the noiseless ascent.
Halfway up the tree, he reached a secure fork that was hidden from below. If he sat still with his back against the trunk, he was virtually invisible.
One hour passed. A second hour drifted by, while he tried to ignore his cramped leg muscles. A third hour had almost passed when a shape moved in an adjacent tree, only thirty yards from his hiding place. The silent screaming in Arthur’s ears was very loud now. The figure seemed to unroll itself from its perch until he could see a man as he slide, to the ground and followed the spreading roots towards a long fissure in a streamlet where his footsteps would be disguised by running water. In the stillness of the dark morning, muffled Anglii curse
s sounded quite clearly when the dark shape took a sudden step backwards into the water.
‘By the black tits of Don, why do we have to keep getting our feet wet all the time?’ the man snarled.
Another body appeared from a position near the narrow waterway, while the first man cursed again with alarm. ‘Aethelthred, you shit! I almost pissed myself! Can’t you give a man a bit of warning before you appear from under his fucking feet?’
‘Shut up, you babbling fool. I’ve had to endure your blathering for three weeks and I’m growing very tired of it. If you don’t like your duties, you can tell Eoppa about your problems and see where that gets you.’
The second voice was lighter and crisper. Arthur guessed that the second man was probably of a higher caste than the first.
‘Fuck you, Aethelthred! I hope you catch the lung disease and die,’ the first scout complained.
‘Has there been any news from the fortress?’ Aethelthred demanded.
‘Nothing! It was nothing last night, and it’ll be nothing again tomorrow night. This whole business has been a waste of time. For great, hairy savages, this lot are surprisingly stupid.’
Arthur held his breath in shock because he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t been intercepted and killed. But suddenly he realised. Thanks be to all the gods, but you’ve been sleeping when you should have been awake and patrolling this area. You should have seen me, you arsehole, and now you’re lying to your jarl to cover up your damned incompetence.
‘Let’s hope they’re truly stupid and aren’t here to mount an attack on us. We could find ourselves in a hopeless situation. What’s the latest death count from the Yellow Disease?’
‘Two hundred, at the last and best guess.’
‘Sweet Jesus of Nazareth! Have we lost that many? Let’s pray there aren’t too many more. Now, pick up Egbert and Harald and report back to the captain. Then you’d best get yourself some sleep while we have the chance.’
‘Oh! And before I forget, the bats seem to have gone!’
‘Sometimes I think you have porridge for brains, Ingwy. What fucking bats?’
This idiot has been in that tree since nightfall, Arthur thought furiously. But he’s alert enough to notice that he hasn’t seen any bats during that time. Shite! How long have we been under observation, and why haven’t our scouts spotted their tracks?
Then Arthur was forced to be fair. These scouts were using the stream to disguise their footprints, and seemed to be using basic woodsmen’s precautions to hide their movements. The closeness of his escape made his hair rise at the nape of his neck.
Ingwy hissed out his observations to Aethelthred. Cursing Ingwy’s sudden bout of caution, Arthur strained to catch their words.
‘They’re up to something in there . . . but only Wodin knows . . . most of them speak bad Anglii . . . I think they’re probably Dene because I heard the word Heorot, and something called Justinian’s . . .’
Aethelthred replied but Arthur missed what he said. Fortunately, Ingwy wasn’t so careful.
‘Are you deaf? Fuck me! What is it about you Wessex Angles? You said to count the number of boats – or whatever they are – moored down near the old Roman wharves! There’s at least a dozen vessels that are missing from the earlier count.’ Ingwy was almost shouting as two more scouts materialised from out of the watercourse.
The words were suddenly cut off as the four figures disappeared like wraiths into a line of black willows.
Arthur waited almost half an hour, just to be certain.
Finally, satisfied that the landscape was utterly still, he unfolded his numbed legs and climbed down from the oak.
He limped for several paces while his blood began to flow down into his feet. Then a chorus of birds sounded in the hidden crown of a tree high above him. The first burst of feeble light had reached their roost and the small creatures carolled their joy at the advent of a new day.
Arthur felt his heart lighten; he was in his homeland and would soon find solutions to their problems.
Is this Eoppa a man of common sense? I’ll swear allegiance to the devil himself if such a promise wins us the right to any empty land we can use. I’ll not despair until all hope of a reasonable solution is lost.
Almost jauntily, he strode through the small wood. He had no intention of weakening now, not when everything he wanted was so achingly close.
Even so, he decided to re-organise his defences so that his command could cope with a prolonged siege. As a first priority, he decided to restore the protective ditch and to prepare his warriors for the prospect of a major skirmish. Nor would it hurt if the jarls were told of their failure to notice infiltrators in their midst.
Several birds broke from cover in front of him with a great clatter of noise as he approached. The tendrils of light caught the red-gold of his hair in an aureole of fire. Like some ancient sun god, Arthur approached his fortress with purposeful footsteps, his heart suddenly light. Something fortuitous was surely coming their way.
Mercifully, the warning voice in his head had become totally silent.
CHAPTER XX
TO DANCE WITH THE DEVIL
The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledgeof everything and power over nothing.
Herodotus, Historia, Book 9
Well into the morning, the Dene ships negotiated the river in a long serpentine tail as the north-eastern towers came into view. The cry went up in the fortress as soon as the first ship hove into view. They had come: the women had come!
The ships carried sails woven with bright emblems and, as he gazed down at them, Arthur wondered if those brilliant symbols had been touched up especially for this triumphant moment. The sun was bright and strong, while daffodils grew in every dell and damp rockery. The most gifted singer would have struggled to find a day that was more dew-washed and beautiful for the fleet’s return. Seagulls screamed, wheeled and waited for any bounty cast out from the vessels while on the decks women and children, wearing their best clothing, stood in huddles with their fair heads catching the light.
‘They are ever so brave, Gareth,’ Arthur said to his companion who, as always, was standing phlegmatically behind his master.
‘What do you mean, Arthur?’
‘Look down at those women. They’ve left their families, their homes and everything that is familiar and safe, because their men require this sacrifice from them. Would you do the same for a woman? Would Snorri? Or Ragnar?’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Gareth replied decidedly.
Arthur was certain that the fortress was under observation, so he detailed a skeleton crew of unattached warriors to man the battlements and act as lookouts while the families were reunited and the most essential stores were unloaded. Everyone who could be released was permitted to make his way to the crumbling old wharves with hands full of flowers and faces that were wreathed in smiles. Regardless of the feeling that prying eyes were watching from every coppice and the tops of every tree, the Dene warriors were determined to enjoy the arrival of their families.
But as soon as the initial greetings were completed, willing and enthusiastic hands began the mammoth task of unloading the ships and carrying everything up to the fortress. It was time for the crews and the guards to begin the back-breaking task of storing these long-awaited necessities.
Arthur stood in the tower above the southern gate and looked down on the gaggle of chattering families entering the fortress for the first time. With nervous care, the women avoided brushing against the scrubbed walls of the entrance as if they might pollute this huge old structure with their skirts. Their happy chatter was cut off abruptly by the ruler-straight paths and the refurbished buildings which Arthur’s warriors had made cheerful with flowers planted beside the doorways and in elongated garden beds.
‘Segedunum is a daunting place for our new arrivals,
isn’t it?’ Arthur commented to Gareth. ‘So much stone! So much order! I’d bet that there’d be at least one good wife out there who is telling her husband that this place isn’t very cosy.’
Arthur and his captains had been preparing for the allocation of accommodation for the non-combatants for several weeks. Concentration on such mundane tasks took their minds away from the pressing concerns of what lay ahead. Meanwhile, the Anglii silence was nerve-racking because Eoppa had refrained from moving against the Dene. In fact, he made no sign that he even recognised that invaders had taken up residence on his doorstep.
Arthur smiled a secretive smile – and waited.
Meanwhile, barrels filled with seal oil were placed inside the ditch in carefully prepared positions, so the oil could be set alight if the Angles should be so unwise as to make a full frontal attack. Still more barrels were positioned throughout the fortress where channelled water could be stored in the event of a protracted siege. As well, the defensive ditches outside the walls had been cleared of any growth that would offer cover to an attacking army. Forever obstreperous, Ragnar had grumbled that Arthur’s precautions would prove useless if Eoppa was determined, but Arthur’s only response was that same sweet and annoying smile.
One of the first requirements of the new arrivals was to have their treasured possessions moved up to the fortress where they could be placed into temporary storage. Ever-thoughtful, Germanus was heard to say that the limited room available would soon set the women to bickering.