by Manda Scott
The morning fell to frantic planning during which Valerius found that he knew more warriors by name and ability than he would have imagined. More important, he was coming to know which would follow him grudgingly, but well, and which would try to kill him out of hand at the first opportunity. The hound walked at his side as he strode from the great-house to the armouries and back again. Those warriors who acknowledged it were, he found, those he could trust most. The few who made the ward against evil were the most dangerous.
Just after noon, he called a meeting in the great-house, summoning the captains of the shield-groups, so that each warrior was represented, even if the place could not house them all. He had the door hides pegged back and the wall wattles lifted. Light streamed in, brighter than the fires.
He could have walked among them; Breaca would certainly have done so. Valerius, the ex-auxiliary officer, chose to stand on a levelled oak stump, so that he was lifted head and shoulders above the rest and could be seen from the back. He wore chain mail and an old cavalry cloak, stolen in Caradoc’s time and used in ambushes, and his banner hung behind him on the wall. He had painted the mark of the war hound on cloth in the red of unclotted blood on a grey background and had hung it between two willow stalks so that it could be seen from all parts of the great-house.
If the shape had been a little different, it would have matched exactly the red bull of the Thracian cavalry under which Valerius had once fought for Rome. When he mounted his podium, he met a silence so heavy the air was poisoned. Not one warrior present doubted who he had been; they had not expected him so to revel in it.
Valerius had addressed troops before battles greater than this one; he knew how to touch them, however much they loathed him. Casting his voice to the outer edges of the gathering, he said, “You know who I have been. You know also what the Elder has made me. I am sworn to him as you are; we have no choice in this. Until Braint returns to take her place as Warrior—and I wish that as much as you do—you are oath-bound to follow me.”
So much they already knew. Valerius watched how they reacted and revised again his notion of whom he could trust.
He said, “Braint is taken and must not reach the fortress of the Twentieth alive. We bring her back, or we leave her dead. Those are our choices.”
They must have known that as well, but they did not want to hear it from him. If their wishing it could have killed him, Valerius would have fallen dead.
It did not, and he went on. “The cavalry wing is not camped in the long pass by accident. This is a trap and only the first half has been sprung. They were the bait that captured Braint, and she is the bait for a greater prize—which is you. The governor knows the courage and honour of the sworn spears of Mona and he seeks to destroy you so that he may take the island safely.”
Valerius flattered them and they despised him the more for it. He said, “They will, therefore, be waiting for us—but perhaps not only them. It may be that this is the greatest trap of all. We have to consider that this may be the beginning of the final assault on Mona: that the governor seeks to draw the entire mass of our warriors out into a single pass, allowing the legions to march on Mona unopposed. I do not intend to let that happen.”
One or two of those listening had considered this, most had not. Valerius felt the texture of the air change. The hound came to his side and more of them acknowledged it than before.
Valerius put his hands behind his back. As Caesar addressing his troops, he said, “There are three paths clear before us: first, we can bring Braint back alive, which is the best we can hope for. If that fails, then second, we can kill her and know she died cleanly, which would not be good, but would also not be the worst that could happen. Or, third, we could abandon her and instead expend our lives in the defence of this island and all that is on it, allowing the evacuation to continue until it is complete or the last of us falls, whichever comes first.”
He spoke at the end, not into uproar—such a thing could not happen in the great-house of Mona—but into such exhalations of distress that his last words were as lost as if they had shouted him down.
When the space was quiet he spoke again, dropping his voice so that they had to strain to hear, and the last of those shuffling was forced into silence.
“There is a fourth choice: that we divide the warriors of Mona, that the greater part of you remain here, defending the strait against the legions. If we do this, then a smaller party of only six hundred warriors will ride with me to the valley where Braint is held, offering the cavalry full battle. With your help, this is the path I intend to take.”
He had them now, as the hare has the hound, focused beyond all distraction. The quality of their attention could not have been more different. Valerius raised his hand and lowered it stiffly like a blade. The edge split the air in front of him, making a line through their ranks. Unconsciously they swayed aside from it with the greater part to his right.
He addressed himself first to this larger part. “You have the defence of Mona. I leave you under the command of Tethis of the Caledonii. Tethis, both sides of the strait must be protected. How you achieve that is up to you.”
It was a popular choice. Tethis was widely believed to be Braint’s natural successor, the Warrior-in-waiting whose position Valerius had usurped. He would have liked to have kept her with him, but she was one of the few who could be trusted to balance courage with pragmatism in defence of the island. Tethis would not waste lives in pointless charges or hopeless acts of heroism, but she would still send warriors to their deaths if it meant defeating the enemy in the end.
For a moment, the floor was hers. She commanded her warriors neatly, drawing order from the havoc. She chose for her shield-mate a squat woman of the Cornovii whose brothers had died at Valerius’ hand and who would have flayed him and kept his body living for a month sealed in clay, feeding him daily to prolong his death, if only the Elder had given her the chance. Too many of her kind still abounded in the six hundred Valerius had kept for his own troop, but if he had left them all behind, he would have been left to charge the auxiliary camp with half a hundred spears.
Presently, when Tethis and her warriors had departed, he addressed the six hundred who remained. His speech to them was short, detailing his battle plan with riding order, weapons and battle calls given crisply, as if they were a cavalry wing long under his command. They hated him for that, too, but could find no fault with it. At the end, he led them outside and stuck his standard in the ground, scoring a mark on the earth to the north-east of its shadow.
“It is now shortly after noon. We meet when the shadow hits the mark. Make what preparations you need, say whatever goodbyes are useful. I am not going to squander your lives, nor am I going to give you the opportunity to be heroes. We will outnumber the auxiliaries by one hundred horse which means we should not fail, but still, some of you will die and some will fall and so will also die. Be clear on that: I do not intend to mount a second rescue mission. We leave no-one, no-one, alive on the field when we retreat. I will not have the details of the evacuation of Mona given to the inquisitors of Rome. Anyone who cannot be brought back will bleed their last on mountain soil.”
He looked around. Nobody moved. “Good. Those who are not here at the meeting of the shadows will be left behind. If you find that, after all, you cannot stomach my command, you can choose to remain with Tethis. The rest, I will see here shortly.”
Three warriors out of six hundred chose to remain with Tethis and take part in the defence of Mona. The remainder crossed the straits to the mainland with Valerius. Mounted on the far side, they ranged behind him in close order and kept his war-hound banner in view, but they lacked the order and discipline of the, Roman cavalry and Valerius yearned for the clear battlefield communications of his past.
The bay mare he rode was one of their best, for which he was grateful. An ex-cavalry mount stolen in an earlier raid, she stretched her back and came lightly into hand and pricked her ears towards the campfire smo
ke in the distance. She had the feel of speed and a love of battle and Valerius loved her for it.
He crooned and scratched her neck for encouragement and pushed her forward up the first real incline of the mountain. The afternoon yawned towards evening, warm for the time of year. The morning’s mist had lifted. Heather, not yet in bloom, covered the steepening slope. Below a certain line, the ferns unfurled, ready for spring. A skylark lifted high above the rock-strewn peak of the mountain, singing into the waiting silence.
The waiting silence.
Valerius slowed the mare and lifted his hand. The young Siluran slinger who had first brought news of Braint’s capture rode at his right hand, bearing the banner.
Valerius said, “We split the force here. Can you remember the signal?”
“Of course.” The boy was named Huw. He was related distantly to Caradoc on his mother’s side, and tetchily proud of it.
The signal was a simple one; a youth could not learn the complex signalling of the Roman cavalry in a morning. Huw waved the banner once, sunwise. The grey of its background merged with the grey of the sky so that the war hound spun and danced as if alive.
At the sight of it, Valerius’ group divided into two; the larger part rode on under the command of a badger-haired warrior of the Durotriges, heavy with kill-feathers and the marks of war. Breaking into a canter, they passed along the foot of the mountain, in a line that would bring them, curving, to the valley’s mouth.
Thirty warriors remained with Valerius. At least in part, they made an effort to conceal themselves.
“Have they seen us?”
Whatever his heritage, Huw was anxious and trying to conceal it. His were the skills of ambush, not open warfare.
Valerius’ attention had been on his hound, which ranged a little ahead. Still watching it, he said, “Of course. They are meant to. If we’re lucky, I have been recognized. If we’re twice lucky, a man I once knew is still leading the Ala Prima Thracum. If we are lucky beyond all reason, he will remember a tactic I once used to rescue a standard-bearer who had been taken captive by the Silures in the southern mountains.”
“Then if he remembers it …?”
“He may believe that I will use it a second time here. In which case, we can tell where he will direct his men. Or he may be more clever than that, in which case we are all riding to our deaths. Did you want to turn back?”
“No!” The boy flushed hotly. “I would never turn back.”
“Unless I order it, which I may well do …” Valerius narrowed his eyes, shielding them against the watery sun. “Do you suppose that’s a signal fire up on the hillside, or just the mist setting early for evening?”
It was a signal fire, seen equally by both sides, but, with luck, not read equally by each.
The valley in which Braint was held was arrow-shaped, with its tip to the north. There, two steep-sided mountain ridges came together to form the blind end of the arrow’s point. At its southern end, the mouth was wide enough to take a hundred horsemen ranged in a line abreast, with a spear’s length between.
Between, the land was flat, as if a river had once scoured it, and almost clear of boulders, so that horsemen could gallop hard without fear for the safety of their mounts. Longinus had picked his site well and had camped in the open where no troops could come at him without warning. Throughout the morning, Mona’s scouts had reported that the auxiliaries’ tents were huddled in a cluster one third of the way in from the wider, southern end as they had been at Braint’s capture. Amongst other things, the signal fire confirmed them still there.
Valerius urged his cavalry mare up the hill towards the northern point of the valley. His band of thirty followed in single file, leaving a gap from nose to tail. From above, for those expecting to see it, they could look like a cavalry patrol, riding under column orders, making every effort not to be seen.
A rockfall blocked the path. Valerius halted in the shelter of it, unable to see the mountaintop, or be seen from it.
Huw was at his side, pale and very still. His sling hung from his hand, a forgotten appendage. His pouch of pebbles bulged.
Valerius said, “Braint has been seen and is alive; the smoke would have been black if she were dead. So we go on, as we planned. Huw, give the standard to me and your horse to Nydd.”
Nydd was of the Ordovices and several years older than Huw, but his hair was the same dense, highland black and his tunic, by design, carried the same green flash at the shoulders and hem.
The horse that changed hands was a flashy grey with black points; by far the most easily noticed by watching cavalry riders who valued horses above gold or women. Eceni-bred, it was branded on the off-side shoulder with the mark of the serpent-spear. If Longinus still retained the services of the Batavian scout who could read the battle honours on a legionary standard at a thousand paces, then he would know that the warriors who rode with Valerius’ standard were all mounted on the best that Mona could provide. If he remembered anything, he would remember the reasons for that.
“Huw, do you remember the signals and how to act on them?”
“Of course.”
“What do you do if the enemy cavalry attack you before we have freed Braint?”
“I run back to here, take the spare horse and escape. Under no circumstances must I allow myself to be caught because you don’t want to have to do all this again tomorrow for a slinger whose courage exceeds his discretion.” He was a good mimic; he sounded almost like Valerius. Anger and affronted pride had brought the colour back to his cheeks, and he looked less sick.
Valerius smiled. “Very good. Braint’s life depends on you. I trust you can do it.”
The Silures were renowned for their skills as trackers and hunters. Huw set his jaw and wrapped the strings of his sling more carefully round his wrist. “I know what you did and who you were,” he said. “I am doing this for Braint. I won’t fail her.”
The boy became a smudge of green and brown among the heather and then less than that. A short, sweating wait later, a small stone, less than might have been dislodged by a settling crow, cracked onto the rocks above Valerius’ head to show he was in place and had, if nothing else, remembered the first of his orders.
Nydd held the standard. To him, Valerius said, “Keep beside me, ride where I ride. If we are attacked, I will defend you. If the war hound falls, we have no way to signal to Huw and he will die. If he dies, Braint dies to the inquisitors at the fortress. Do you understand?”
Nydd was older than Huw, and had fought more battles. He did not flush. “I have killed enough Roman standard-bearers. I know what happens when they fall.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
Valerius led his column out from the rock cover and felt the watching eyes more keenly than before. There was satisfaction in their touch, tinged with disappointment that he should repeat old manoeuvres; Longinus expected better of him than that.
They climbed steeply north along a goat track too narrow for any sane rider. At a certain point, where the bracken ceased to unfurl, they dismounted and led the horses over rock that even the goats chose not to attempt. Two of the older Silures had lived in these mountains as children; their memories of youthful dares were the foundation of Valerius’ plan. His relief in finding their memories sound lasted him most of the climb up the mountain.
They reached the top, where the two ridges met at the valley’s point, and, for the first time, looked down into the open plain spread out below. The path down was as unappealing as the one up and the drops on either side were terrifying in their steepness.
When all thirty warriors had joined him and remounted Valerius said, “Nydd, let the standard fall to the east and then bring it up again. Make it look as if it has slipped and you have caught it.”
The standard-bearer did as he was bid, neatly. For the space of ten breaths, there was peace. The horses shifted a little under their riders, finding safer footing. A crow circled and landed on a stunted, wind-blown oak. Valerius’ war ho
und whined and snuffed the air. Then a horse screamed, not one of Mona’s, and out of the peace came, briefly, chaos, and then pandemonium.
At the far southern end of the pass, nearly six hundred warriors rode line abreast into the mouth of the valley. Because Longinus had, indeed, remembered the strategy of the past, a full wing of five hundred Thracian cavalry were waiting for them. The clash as the two came together carried across the straits to Mona.
On the high mountain, above the carnage but not beyond the noise, Valerius raised his hand. He waited a moment, offering prayers to both of the gods who held his heart, and swung it down.
“Let’s go.”
Above everything else, the warriors of Mona knew how to ride. Their horses were as sure-footed as any in the world and they lived for war. If need demanded, they could gallop down a mountain and not break a leg. Valerius’ bay cavalry mare was branded from Iberia, and she was as good. He set her to the steep slope down and, for a while, there was nothing to be done but lose himself in the vertiginous incline of the path and the need for speed and the improbability of reaching the valley’s floor alive. The closer they came to the foot of the mountain, the fewer stones blocked their path and the faster they were able to go until all thirty were riding line abreast along the valley’s floor, far behind the lines of battle, and the horses were racing for the joy of it.
Valerius pushed his mare until her mane flagged back in his face and his eyes streamed with the wild wind of their running. His heart matched the rhythm of the gallop, wild with elation, and he shouted encouragement, reminding the mare of the greatness of her forebears and of the foals she would one day carry. Once, as a child, he had dreamed of this, or something close, and the exultation filled him each time. However jaded, however drunk, however careworn or weighed with responsibility, for the duration of each battle’s ride Valerius of the Eceni was free and the world was at war without him.