by Hume, M. K.
‘One way or another, Segedunum can only provide temporary protection until such time as we can move out into the surrounding countryside,’ Germanus advised Arthur as soon as an opportunity arose. ‘Too many women close together is a recipe for disaster. I tell you the truth, boy, when I say that women are notorious for measuring each man’s status by the size of his property and they’ll go to war over a stool or an iron kettle if they are left to their own devices for too long. These families need to be out in the countryside where they can live in their own cottages and work their own land. Otherwise, the women will replace Eoppa as your enemy.’
One stubby forefinger pointed towards a cluster of women who were drawing water out of the cisterns, while laughing merrily at the convenience of the Roman system of water collection.
‘They’re happy now! But just give them a little time and we’ll see what they’re like!’
‘I understand, Germanus. I have a feeling that Eoppa has already decided to attack us during the night, either in the late evening or very early in the morning. He’d expect that most of us would be drunk and burrowing into the breasts of our women then.’
‘A fair assessment. What do the captains say?’
Germanus and Gareth exchanged glances that were difficult to read, but Arthur knew that his two friends had a healthy distrust of Dene overconfidence regarding their own skills.
‘I’ve given orders for the unattached men to remain on duty on the palisades throughout the night. To be on the safe side, and because they’d not obey a veto anyway, I’ve given permission for those of our men with families to make merry during the night. However, I’ve extracted an oath from them that they’ll drink no more than two draughts of beer or mead on this most dangerous of nights. They can resume their celebrations at some future time when their families are safe.’
‘But will they obey these instructions?’ Gareth replied. Arthur was all too aware that most of his men would be tempted to break their oaths after such a long separation from their families. They had wrought miracles in order to bring Segedunum back to life; they had ploughed and laboured in the fields like slaves rather than warriors; they had lived like monks; and they had served their masters cheerfully and eagerly. Arthur had no complaints about their general behaviour.
But this night was special. There was a strong possibility that Eoppa would use this celebration as an opportunity to mount a direct attack on the fortress, and only Fortuna could know what events would transpire.
As the evening meal was devoured, and after the children were led to their beds in these strange surroundings, a festive air began to set hearts aflutter throughout the ancient fortress. Knud found his pipe and Rolf took out his harp, while a number of warriors and women retrieved an assortment of musical instruments from their possessions. The musicians began to play peasant tunes until the night was filled with the rousing music, and an old, outdoor fire pit was quickly filled with timber and lit, its sparks rising into the night sky. One of the men swung his wife into a vigorous dance, followed by more and more pairings, faces sweating, plaits flying and feet stamping.
Arthur was pulled into the square of dancers by a beautiful girl, her hair russet in the firelight, and he moved as gracefully as he could to the pumping sound of the music. But then he caught sight of Sigrid’s pale face as she watched him from the shadows. Inexplicably, he felt guilty.
As soon as he could extricate himself without causing offence, Arthur stopped a cheerful young warrior and exchanged places with him so adroitly that the pretty young maiden felt no slight. They swirled off into a ring-dance of young people as he melted into the crowd.
Sigrid was in the doorway of the commandant’s house, her chin resting on the heel of her hand. So engrossed was she in the revelry that Arthur was standing alongside her before she noticed his presence.
‘You startled me, Lord Arthur,’ she said and reluctantly dragged her gaze away from the dancing couples. ‘How may I help you? Is there anything that you need?’
‘Why, nothing at all, Sigrid! But isn’t it nice to see everyone smiling and happy?’
Sigrid wasn’t used to displays of affection or any open consideration from her master, so she had decided long ago that he disliked her.
‘You’re jesting, my lord, and it’s not kind to play such games with me. I’m sixteen now, and a woman full grown. I’d rather you didn’t trifle with me, for I know the workings of the world and the true value of a slave girl.’
Arthur was taken aback by the honesty of her response. As she watched his mind working, Sigrid’s eyes were painfully sad.
‘I know that I’m your slave, master,’ she mumbled, unable to meet his eyes. ‘I’m grateful for the respect you’ve shown me. I was longing to dance.’
‘You’re not just a slave to me, Sigrid. I never wanted to make slaves of any of you, but I couldn’t guarantee the safety of your family if I hadn’t taken you. If you only knew the long nights—’
Sigrid placed her hand over Arthur’s mouth, as if she feared what he might be about to say. Her eyes were even more miserable than before. Impulsively, Arthur responded by capturing her hand and kissing each finger in turn, although she tried to pull her hand away from his grasp.
‘Listen, Sigrid. Tomorrow night when I am once again the leader, I may not be able to find the words to express my feelings for you. But tonight, I’m able to speak the truth. I’ve cared for you for a long, long time, although I know that I’ve often been selfish. I could have granted manumission to your mother but feared that your family would suffer without a man to protect her. As my slave, I’m supposed to protect you, rather than seduce you, so I haven’t known what to do with you. I haven’t been happy when I’ve been away from you, and I’ve been equally unhappy when you are close, but beyond my reach!’
Sigrid had opened and closed her mouth to speak on several occasions.
‘My lord! . . . Arthur, I’ve loved you for years, so I don’t give a damn about how honourable your behaviour might be. You’re such a blockhead, Arthur, and our friendship has suffered because of your stupid scruples.’
Then, to make his position even more difficult, she slid into his arms, while pinning him against the doorframe, her long brown legs and small conical breasts pressed against him. His body responded immediately, so she giggled with amusement as her hand sought him out.
‘Behave, Sigrid,’ he managed to blurt out. ‘I cannot marry a slave. In fact, the day may be approaching when I’ll have to marry a suitable woman for the sake of a throne. Think, girl! You’ll gain nothing from our friendship but unhappiness.’
She had pinched him then, hard enough for the sudden pain to be a fine balance of eroticism and sadism. He felt an urge to bite her long neck until the blood began to flow and then feed off her as if he was a feral beast. Half-defeated, he closed his eyes as her hands moved and her lips found his sensitive nipples within his jerkin.
‘Woman!’ he warned her thickly. ‘A man can only have so much willpower and mine is leaking away far too quickly. Go to your mother – now!’
‘No!’ she replied in a determined voice. Then, before he could push her away, she began to slide soundlessly along the passageway while leaving him in her wake.
Arthur followed her, acutely conscious of her feet padding over the tesserae floor. When she reached his doorway, she fumbled awkwardly with the latch and Arthur heard her curse like a soldier for a short moment, then the door swung open and she disappeared into the black maw. By the time he arrived, she was almost invisible within his darkened bedchamber.
Half-blinded by lust, Arthur heard the door close behind him. Sigrid stood naked alongside his sleeping pallet with the dull light from an oil lamp behind her. Despite his best intentions, Arthur caressed her body with his eyes. Shades of ivory tinted her skin; her hair was a river of palest white gold, her eyes were the bluest of blue; she
was every young man’s dream of perfection. She was his now and, by choice, she would never belong to any other man.
‘I’m virginal, my lord, although several men have cause to speak castrato because they tried to take me against my will. I belong to you for life, regardless of what you may decide to do with me. If you should reject me, I am determined to die with my maidenhead intact. The choice is yours.’
What could Arthur do?
In the end, just as Sigrid and her mother had planned, Arthur took Sigrid’s maidenhead in his large and rather uncomfortable bed. Ingrid had spread rose petals and small daisy flowers over the pallet and Arthur fell asleep with the scent of a garden crushed into her creamy flesh.
The warning knock at Arthur’s door came at a time when Segedunum seemed to be sleeping, totally silent. Putting his hand over Sigrid’s mouth, he clambered to his feet and searched for his clothes and the Dragon Knife secreted under the pallet.
‘Be careful, my love,’ Sigrid whispered. ‘I’ll wait for your return, no matter how long your business takes.’
Gareth and Germanus met him outside his room after he’d donned a mail shirt and a leather tunic braced with dragon-embossed brass plates. Arthur’s chest glittered dully, but his eyes were gleaming in the semi-darkness. He was feeling warm and loved, and marvelled at how cheerful he felt to know that someone would be awaiting his return.
‘We have a problem, Arthur,’ Gareth began without preamble.
‘A large force of Anglii warriors have taken up positions around the fortress,’ Germanus added.
‘How many of them are facing us? Have you alerted the captains? How about the boats? Have they been secured?’
Arthur’s questions came with the rapid-fire rhythm of his heels as they thudded over the stone-flagged floor of the commander’s villa.
‘There’s no real way of knowing yet. We only left a skeleton crew of single men on guard – remember? The captains are waiting for you in the south-west tower. That’s where the Angles were first spotted.’ Germanus’s voice was crisp, unemotional and unhurried.
‘I want Thorketil up there, and one of his best bowmen in each of the other three towers, Gareth. Carry him up the stairs if you have to. I need them all in place as quickly as possible.’
Gareth was appalled. ‘I can’t carry the Troll King, Arthur. The man is seven feet tall, and he’s a monster.’
‘Just get him to the wall, Gareth,’ Arthur sighed. ‘We’ll figure out some way of getting him to the top of the tower.’
And then the tower doorway lay before them. Arthur and Germanus bounded up the stairs to the ramparts.
With six of his captains beside him, Arthur stared out into the pre-morning darkness. The hour was very late and the moon was sinking down into the heavens. Although summer was coming, the early morning still held a chill and Arthur could see faint tendrils of fog in the deeper hollows of the ground outside the fortress. The moon was large and full, dangerous because it shed so much pearly light. A single torch burning below the parapet of the tower allowed Arthur to clearly see the faces of Ragnar, Snorri and the others.
‘Where are the rest?’ he asked tersely.
‘I’ve allotted men to each of the other towers and a number of places along the covered parapets. I know this is the only gate that opens and shuts, but I’d still like to know what’s going on behind our backs,’ Snorri grunted. When he had been dragged from the arms of his newly arrived wife by Germanus, the helmsman had been dreaming of his children and the farmland he had selected. Terrified by the interruption, his woman had responded by bursting into tears, so the bluntly spoken helmsman wasn’t happy.
‘Let’s see what we’re dealing with before we start jumping to conclusions,’ Arthur advised. Just then he heard a commotion at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the tower. ‘That sounds like Thorketil climbing the stairs.’
A series of oaths warned the captains that someone was dragging himself up the tower by brute force. When Thorketil, bright red in the face, arrived at the top, with Gareth grunting behind him as he assisted the big man, he heaved himself into the partial light like a shaggy cave bear, seemingly more beast than man.
Arthur beckoned to the man-mountain as he shouldered his way to the front of the rampart and was able to stare down into the ditch that surrounded the fortress.
‘You were watching when we placed the barrels filled with seal oil in the ditch, my friend, and I agreed with you that they’d be an expensive gamble if they couldn’t be used against our enemies. The time has come. You also noticed that we broke some of them open so there are pools of oil in a number of places. You and your other marksmen must rain fire arrows down and set them alight, preferably with our Anglii friends nearby. Will you summon Rufus?’
Thorketil whistled in two high-pitched patterns and, within moments, Rufus joined him. ‘Where do you want him, Arthur?’
Arthur explained that he wanted one archer in each of the major towers, and what he required of their marksmanship. ‘I want our bowmen to discover the enemy’s concentrations around those parts of the fortress.’
Rufus nodded grimly and was gone.
‘You can use the torch to light your arrows, friend, and I’m pleased to find that you’ve anticipated the need for them. Let your magic work again and we’ll destroy these Anglii bastards.’
Thorketil lit a fire arrow from the torch, waited until the soaked lint was well alight, and then used his huge bow to send the burning arrow into a clump of long grass to the left of the southern gate.
The grass flared up quickly.
Thirteen pairs of eyes peered into the darkness, but Arthur was the first to recognise the outline of a barrel that had been tipped over and spilled to allow seal oil to spread along the bottom of the ditch.
‘An excellent target,’ Thorketil breathed, as he sent a second arrow to wing its way into the general area of the barrel.
The spilled oil ignited into a flare of scarlet, gold and white that panicked the clusters of men in its path who struggled to avoid the sudden trails of flame that tickled their ankles and set a good twelve feet of ditch to burning. Another flaming arrow speared down from the tower and struck a barrel that was still sealed. The heat generated from the brush around this container was such that the oil exploded outwards with a great splatter and a gout of flame that caught several men in its path. Burning, they fell to the earth, where their friends encased them in blankets and used loose earth to suffocate the flames.
One whole side of the wall was burning now, so Arthur felt justified in squandering so much of their precious lamp oil. The captains feverishly began a head count to gain some idea of the numbers of enemy warriors ranged against them.
Meanwhile, Thorketil anticipated Arthur’s requirements and turned his attention to the southern section of the eastern gate. The light from one of the fire arrows exposed another unopened barrel, but Thorketil was forced to use several more arrows to set it ablaze. Meanwhile, Rufus worked industriously with his bow and most of the northern side of the ditch was now burning.
But the Angles had no intention of retreating. Their warriors merely drew back a little from the flames, seeming totally unconcerned. An older man stood at the edge of the ditch so that the light played on his grey beard; it was obviously King Eoppa.
The old man was an easy target and, for a brief moment, Arthur considered ordering Thorketil to bring him down. Then he realised that two of Eoppa’s warriors were flanking their king with heavy shields at the ready to block any arrows once they saw Thorketil draw on his bow. Arthur pointed out the king and his guards and the Troll King nodded in immediate understanding.
Eoppa was neither particularly tall, nor overtly strong, nor handsome, nor noble in appearance. In a crowd of his peers, he could easily be overlooked, except for the integrity that seemed as essential a part of his nature as breat
hing. Arthur had expected a soldier or a barbarian, a man well used to the disciplines of power and the ruthlessness that authority brings. What he saw below him was a man who was loved by his warriors, and who loved his men in return.
‘How many men does he have, Gareth? Can you check with the other towers and ask them for their head counts.’
Gareth ducked down into the stairwell. When he returned, short of breath, he looked considerably happier than when he had set out.
‘We estimate that Eoppa has approximately three hundred and fifty men, give or take a score or two,’ he panted. ‘To be honest, I expected he’d have more, especially considering the time he’s had to assemble his forces.’
Arthur stared out into the darkness. The fires were guttering and the ditch was plunging into darkness again, but he could feel the presence of the Anglii warriors as they stood and waited. He knew that they promised a red death to any men who were so unwise as to open the gates and try to escape the siege.
‘The Yellow Disease, as they call it, has cost Eoppa dearly, Gareth. An Anglii warrior called Ingwy provided that item of information, so I must remember to thank him for his loose tongue one of these days.’
As one, the six captains in the tower looked at him with curiosity.
‘So! What do we do, Arthur?’ Snorri finally asked when his commander failed to make any further comment.
‘I plan to return to my bed. Nothing’s likely to happen until daybreak, unless you think that Eoppa might decide to climb the walls. Put out sentries, and then we’ll rest. It would be best if our warriors remained fresh in case Eoppa decides to take action.’
Most of the captains filed away to have their own discussions with their underlings, but Snorri lagged behind, his dissatisfaction written clearly on his face.
‘We are surrounded by enemies who can obliterate our ships at will, master, and yet you’re content for us to go to bed until the morning. The others won’t say anything, because you’ve led us to victory after victory, but these men have risked everything for you. Not only will they die if this adventure turns to disaster, but their women and children will as well. I feel I have the right to know if we’ve risked everything for nothing. Do you have a plan that I can repeat to our men and their families?’