Brigantia

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  Run now, Ferox thought, but knew they would not and he tapped Vindex. ‘Come on,’ he whispered, and stood, drawing his sword. The Ordovices were in the camp, jabbing with their spears and then one shouted, yanking back the blankets and then tipping up the log they concealed. One of the men on the bluffs screamed and fell, limbs thrashing like a speared fish and the shaft sticking out of his back. The four warriors in the camp yelped and scattered to avoid him.

  The dark figure behind them threw off his dark hooded cloak and in the same gesture raised a sword in one hand and a curved blade in the other. The steel gleamed, as did the polished helmet he wore. He started to run. There were shouts from the top of the cliff.

  Then the man in the helmet shrieked an unearthly cry, high-pitched and appallingly loud even over the distant roaring of the water. Ferox drew his sword as he ran and heard Vindex tramping across the grass beside him. He had explained the plan at length. Deal with the Ordovices first, then try to get at least one of their pursuers alive and find out who they were. ‘So whose side are we on?’ the scout had asked.

  ‘Our own, of course. Don’t kill either of them unless we have to. Not until we know why they have followed.’

  The warriors spun as the awful shriek echoed around the dell, but the man in the helmet was fast and the nearest one seemed frozen with surprise. He feebly thrust out his spear as the man came at him. The curved blade hooked the spearshaft aside, the man spun with the motion and drove the gladius in his right hand into the warrior’s throat. Thetatus, as Longinus and now Vindex would say. The man in the helmet spun again, moving fast with the grace of a dancer and dodging the enemy’s attacks, even though he was now in the middle of the three of them, no longer shrieking as he faced each in turn. His face shone, and Ferox realised that he wore a cavalry helmet with a face mask. Apart from the helmet he had no armour and wore a short tunic, his bare arms and legs pale.

  Ferox went to the left, Vindex to the right, and one of the tribesmen must have seen them because he shouted a warning. Two of the men turned to face them, leaving the other to fight the man in the helmet, who jumped nimbly back, avoiding a spearshaft swung like a club. A cry of pure fear came from up above and Ferox saw two men falling, locked together, one with his arms around the other’s neck. They slammed into the fire itself, flinging burning branches as well as sparks. The man in the helmet was closest and stumbled back, only just managing to block a savage swing from the spear at the price of losing his curved sica, which clattered against the cliff face. He grabbed his other wrist to add strength to the gladius. Then Ferox realised that he was a she, wearing high Thracian boots just like the woman in the arena.

  The shock nearly cost him dear as a warrior stamped forward and jabbed with his spear. Ferox had no shield, something he kept meaning to acquire, and leaped back, but slipped and fell. Vindex was busy with his opponent, and before he could get up the spear point thrust again, and he rolled to dodge it, losing grip of his sword. He rolled again, pushed with both hands and bounded up, but the warrior was standing over the lost sword, teeth bared in a grin. Ferox ripped off the brooch holding his cloak and swung the garment, the wool heavy from all the rain. The warrior kept his distance, watching and waiting for the right moment.

  The warrior facing the gladiatrix threw his spear. She batted it away with her sword, and it struck sparks off the rock behind her, but the man had flung himself at her and with a clang and a weird, distorted cry, she was driven against the cliff. She pounded the top of his skull with the pommel on her gladius, striking again and again and drawing blood, and yet still he clung to her, trying to wrestle her to the ground. Ferox swung the cloak again, snapping it with the motion, and hoped the man facing him would throw his spear for that might give him a chance. Instead the next time he swung the cloak the man tried to catch it on his shield and pull it away.

  Vindex drove his spear through his opponent’s stomach. At the same time the one struggling with the woman succumbed to repeated blows to the head and collapsed, one hand still gripping her tunic which tore away as he fell, exposing her breasts.

  ‘Bugger me!’ Vindex’s amazement was clear, but not enough to distract Ferox’s opponent, who lost his shield in the process, but plucked the cloak free from the Roman’s grip. The man grimaced again and thrust. Ferox grabbed the shaft, but his fingers slipped over the damp wood and came loose. Vindex was transfixed, and it was the woman who moved first, running as lightly as at the start of the fight, even with the front of her tunic hanging down over her belt. The warrior realised she was coming, must have been surprised when he turned his head and saw a silver mask and bare breasts, and Ferox grabbed his spear firmly this time. A moment later, the woman stabbed the long point of her gladius into the man’s eye. She twisted the blade, slipping it free as the warrior dropped forward onto his knees, and then she danced back a few places, glancing down at the two men who had landed in the fire. They were both obviously dead.

  Ferox still had hold of the spear and spun it around so that the point was towards her. Vindex, breaking free of his happy stupor, drew his sword.

  ‘I don’t want to kill you.’ The woman’s voice was distorted by the small mouthpiece in the mask. She spoke in the language of the tribes.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Vindex said. ‘Can we be friends?’

  ‘Why are you following us?’ Ferox asked. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To help.’ She stood, balanced perfectly on the balls of her feet, ready to take her sword against either of them. ‘I could have managed all four if you hadn’t shown up.’ It was hard to tell her tone because of the mask, but she sounded matter-of-fact. Ferox saw a small darker mark on the skin between her breasts.

  ‘All four?’ Vindex asked mockingly.

  ‘They were only men.’ She was slim, fairly tall and had dark hair tied in a ponytail hanging down from the back of her helmet. It swung every time she switched her guard to face the other man.

  ‘Did the Mother send you?’ Ferox asked. He had seen that mark before, just this summer, a little scar between the breasts, a sign that a woman was one of the initiates of a cult of fighters who lived far away on a tiny island off the Caledonian coast. Boys and young women from Hibernia and the northern tribes went there for three years or more to be taught by the Mother, a woman who had been a skilled warrior, but was now sworn not to kill or to lie with a man and instead devoted her life to training her charges. A few months ago he had seen one Mother killed and another take her place.

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s my sword.’ Ferox had just realised that she was carrying his gladius.

  The woman swung the blade so that it hummed through the air. ‘It’s a good one,’ the oddly muffled voice conceded.

  Ferox lowered his spear, though not so much that he could not easily bring it up to parry or attack. ‘Take off your helmet and tell us your name.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, love.’ Vindex gave the leering smile that was his only smile. ‘Let us see you. Judging from your tits you must be a rare beauty.’

  The woman used her left hand to snatch up the torn front of her tunic.

  ‘Pity,’ Vindex said.

  There was an odd noise. Ferox wondered whether she had tried to spit in contempt, forgetting that she was wearing the mask.

  ‘Drop the sword,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk.’

  ‘Yes, come on, love. There’s two of us and one of you. The odds aren’t good.’

  ‘Do you want me to wait for another ten to join you?’

  Vindex snorted with laughter. ‘I like her. But look, lass, we did just save your life.’ He took a pace closer. The woman darted forward, thrusting the sword so that the point was at eye level. Vindex jumped back, tripping over the corpse of the man he had killed and sprawling onto his back. ‘Bugger!’ he gasped as he landed. The woman turned back, sword facing Ferox.

  ‘I have saved your life twice, centurion. So we are still not even.’

  ‘You saved me from the fi
re,’ he said, and it all seemed so obvious now. ‘And stole my sword. That’s once.’

  ‘In the amphitheatre. I threw the spear down to you.’ She had switched to Latin, the words fluent and vaguely familiar, although it was hard to be sure.

  ‘I thought you threw it at me.’

  ‘If I had, we would not be having this conversation. You offer a big mark. I would not need to be Camilla to strike you at that distance. Your frame is a large one.’ The words were precise, well chosen and correct, so that the mention of the Volscian warrior maid from the Aeneid sounded entirely natural.

  ‘Fat arse,’ Vindex said softly, and started to laugh.

  ‘Show some respect,’ Ferox said, and thrust his spear into the ground. He raised his hands to show that they were empty. ‘This lass might well be your next high queen.’

  ‘Salve, Flavius Ferox.’ She reached up with her left hand, letting the front of her tunic flap down.

  ‘Lovely,’ Vindex said.

  She fumbled with the straps to undo one side of the face mask, the first time any motion had been clumsy, but it was a hard thing to do one handed. Persisting, it came loose and the chin strap followed. There was more of her usual grace as she plucked mask and helmet off with one motion and let it fall onto the grass. Claudia Enica smiled. ‘You have taken a while to work that one out.’ Hand now free, she covered her chest again with her torn tunic. She took a step towards him, until the tip of her sword pressed lightly against his mail shirt. He did not move back. ‘You really did. You were almost a disappointment, Flavius Ferox, after all that I had heard. And would not that be terrible, disappointing a lady. Of course it would.’ Her voice changed, and even in the firelight so did her face, and it was easy to imagine the ornate hairstyle and heavy makeup of Claudia, the Brigantian princess raised as a Roman noblewoman.

  ‘Oh shit,’ Vindex said, the truth sinking in and no doubt remembering what he had just said.

  ‘Why are you here, lady?’ Ferox used one arm to nudge the sword away from his stomach. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘Blunt as ever.’ Her voice took on a harsher air and she switched back to the language of the tribes. ‘And still slow to catch up. Try not to disappoint me again after all the trouble I have gone to. Well, among other things, I am trying to stop a war.’ She stepped closer, staring up at him challengingly. ‘Is that enough for the moment?’

  Vindex sat up and sucked in his breath. ‘Sounds like we’re hum…’ He stopped, remembering whose presence he was in. ‘Omnes ad stercus,’ he said instead. ‘I mean,’ he spluttered, realising that the lady spoke Latin. ‘I mean to say, that is… We are at your service, my lady.’ He stood and bowed. ‘My sword is yours, my life at your service.’ It was an old oath among the Brigantes and their neighbours.

  ‘Thank you, Carvetian. Your service is accepted.’ She did not turn and kept her eyes staring straight at Ferox. ‘And I suspect you are right. We probably are humped.’

  Vindex laughed so much he had to sit down again.

  XVIII

  Enica rode well.

  ‘She’s Brigantian,’ Vindex said, as if that should be clear to anyone. ‘Of the royal house, granddaughter of Cartimandua and Venutius – of course she can ride. Bet she can drive a chariot too. They say Cartimandua was better than any man, rivalling the heroes of legend. The women of that line are special.’ Ferox had never heard his friend speak in such admiring tones of anything, let alone anyone.

  She did not dress for the journey like a Brigantian or a Roman. After sending Vindex to fetch their horses and telling Ferox to drag the body of her servant out of the fire and carry him to the chasm, she had vanished behind the rocks. When she joined him by the river she was wearing baggy trousers and a long-sleeved tunic, with another short-sleeved one over the top. She had kept her felt boots, and girded the tunics with a wide leather belt.

  ‘I suppose you had better have this back,’ she said as she handed him his sword in its scabbard. She had the sica on her left hip and a plainer gladius on the right.

  ‘Thank you.’ If she had the blade, then she must either have been in the warehouse and led him out or known who did. Ferox nodded at the corpse. He had rolled the man up in a blanket, leaving only his face exposed. ‘I have seen him before.’ It was the scarred man who had brought the first message that night he had been ambushed in the amphitheatre.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We should talk.’

  ‘Later.’ Enica put two fingers to her lips and kissed them, then leaned over and pressed them to the dead man’s forehead. ‘Give him to the river. It is the best we can do.’

  Ferox obeyed, lifting the body and walking over to the brink of the chasm. He let the man fall, saw him vanish into the foam, and part of him half expected the woman to step up behind and push him over as well. When he turned he saw that she was already on her way back to the camp. As soon as Vindex returned with their mounts, they set out, riding north for an hour before they made a cold camp. They left the Ordovices to lie and hoped no others would appear seeking revenge. Before dawn they woke and set out once more.

  Enica dressed like a Parthian and rode like one as well, her grey seeming to respond to her merest thought without need for any gesture. At times she did not even hold the reins, merely looping them round one of the pommels on her saddle. Before she swathed herself in a hooded cloak the next morning, Ferox saw that her trousers were russet, her tunics a pale blue, and all of them from silk.

  ‘Any fool can be uncomfortable,’ Enica told him, noticing his surprise. ‘Lice don’t seem to like it, which means it’s also the best way to keep free of them.’ Ferox wondered whether that was true. Vermin were simply a fact of life. You could cull them now and again, smoke them out if you did not mind your clothes reeking of charcoal for a month, but only really be free of them if you lived close to a good bath-house, used it often, and changed every day. Otherwise, lice were like the weather, sometimes a torment but usually bearable.

  ‘It makes you conspicuous,’ he said. He guessed that with the silks, the princely grey horses, the young woman was probably wandering around with the equivalent of a hundred years’ pay for a legionary.

  She gestured with her hand, splaying the fingers like a fan as she passed by her face. ‘I am conspicuous.’

  ‘That you are, lady,’ Vindex said admiringly.

  She smiled at him. ‘The Carvetii are a courteous folk. Sadly, the Silures mistake silence for wit.’

  The tracks to the north were hard to find, and they got lost more than once or came to a dead end beyond which the horses could not pass. At first they said little, although Vindex sang softly for much of the way. He did not have a pleasant voice, but he sang stories of the old days, of the proud kings and magical queens of the Brigantes, of feasts and rivalries, contests and battles. Enica smiled at him often. Now and again she caught Ferox’s eye and then she would screw her face up in a scowl, mocking him.

  Twice Ferox saw a warrior up on the peaks above them, squatting beside a boulder, watching as they passed. He was not sure, but thought that it was the same man each time, and a nimble man on foot could easily have kept pace along the heights, given how slow and winding were the paths they took. At noon they reached a bridge, much like the other one, save that it had been deliberately broken. There were tracks of around thirty or forty horses; the mud was too churned up to be more precise. The horses were heavily laden and all much the same size, and the prints left by the men who had dismounted showed hobnailed caligae. Cavalry had come here, crossed over and then ripped up the planks, piling them neatly on the far bank.

  ‘I’m guessing you are not with them,’ Ferox said.

  ‘I am with you, centurion, hadn’t you noticed?’

  Ferox ignored Vindex’s chuckle. ‘Then who are they? They cannot have been far behind you all this time.’

  ‘Is it my fault if men follow me?’ The voice was pure Claudia, in spite of the Parthian rig and swords at her belt. She sighed. ‘You can be rather
dull, do you know that? I had always understood the Silures could look at tracks and tell you what colour eyes the wife of the rider’s cousin has. No? Pity.

  ‘They are Brigantes, since your art fails you so lamentably. Men from the royal ala, and led by my brother.’

  ‘And what does he want?’ An arched eyebrow prompted him to add, ‘My lady.’

  ‘At last, a tiny piece of courtesy. Maybe there is hope for you after all, Flavius Ferox. My brother does not want what I want. He never really has, since the days when I followed him around and his pride took daily insults because his little sister was better than him at everything.’

  ‘Apart perhaps from modesty?’

  ‘That is merely a fancy way of telling lies. Why should I deny the truth? I thought that at least was something Silures understood?’

  ‘You need to tell me what is going on, my lady.’

  ‘Do I?’ She gave him a coy look. ‘Do I really? Perhaps later.’

  ‘I could make you,’ he said, growing tired.

  ‘You could try.’ She walked her horse away from the river. ‘Had not we better move on? As we climb nearer the source of the stream there is bound to be a spot narrow enough to cross. Come along.’

  ‘I am not your whisperer, lady.’

  ‘Indeed not, Achilles can be amusing. He is also one of the finest bookkeepers in all the lands. Vindex?’

  ‘Yes, lady.’

  ‘If this fellow insults me again, will you be kind enough to kill him?’

  The scout gave a broad grin. ‘Happily, lady.’

  ‘If he is a only little rude, just chop something off.’

  ‘Happy to oblige.’ He rode after Claudia Enica. Ferox stayed where he was, and after a moment Vindex turned back and leered. ‘You don’t have to come.’

  Soon they were leading the animals more often than riding. Claudia Enica kept pace and showed no sign of being more tired than either of the men. They kept climbing and eventually reached a wide plateau. The stream was smaller there, chuckling along at the bottom of a gully. After a search they found a spot where it was only a few yards across, and the banks looked firm on either side. Vindex insisted on going first, and whispered in his horse’s ears before he put her at the jump. The mare sailed over, landing well. Before Ferox could offer to help, Enica took both her greys over at the same time, riding one and leading the other on a long rein. They were superb animals, smaller than Frost and Snow, a pair of matched greys given to Ferox by King Tincommius, but alike in many ways. He wished he had either of those mounts with him now, but one was lost and the other still recovering from a wound.