Legions of the Eagle

by Henry Treece

  Gwydion looked at him sadly and said, “Father, can I be with you in the battle, if there is to be one?”

  The father smiled and clapped his son on the shoulder. ‘“There is time for that later, Gwydion,” he said. “For the moment, your task is to be a soldier of the wagon and guard your mother.”

  Gwydion could see that there was no point in arguing, and he said, “Will Math be with us?”

  “Of course,” said his mother. “We could not leave dear Math! Any more than we could leave you.” So Gwydion went away to eat his breakfast, and to tell the slave of the plan which they had to follow.

  A little later, since there were still many preparations to be made, Gwydion went to his father and said, “Father, it may be a long while before Math and I can go hunting with little Bel again. May we walk out among the hills for a while until the wagons are ready?”

  The warrior smiled and said, “You are a true hunter, my son. Nothing, not even battle, will stop you! Very well, but see that you run back when you hear three blasts on the war-horns, for they will mean that I shall set forth with the chariot to Camulodunum to meet the king, and that your mother’s wagon will start out to the place which we have decided on. Do not delay or they will go without you, they must obey my orders.”

  Gwydion bowed to his father and then called Math and Bel, and so they set off, to a warren that lay well to the south of the dark woods where Gwydion had seen the strange creature on the previous night.

  As they walked, with Bel dancing at their heels, Gwydion breathed the summer air deeply and said, “Oh Math, it would be terrible to go away and never come back to my land again.”

  But Math only smiled, a little sadly, and Gwydion didn’t raise the topic again, for he suddenly remembered that this was what had already happened to poor Math. He held the slave’s hand for a moment, as though assuring him that he was his friend, and then they went on. Soon Bel had smelled a rabbit and the two boys forgot their cares in digging frantically with their hands and with sticks, to try to find the hidden creature; but they were out of luck, and so passed on over the brow of the hill, that looked south almost towards Londinium itself. And there they paused and stood still in amazement, pointing and shading their eyes with their hands.

  Far away across the plain, so far indeed that its outlines were vague and unsure, their sharp eyes caught the movement of many men. First there was a long, sweeping line that fanned out on either side of a long thin column, and then, far back, behind all this, an irregular shape of isolated moving points of light.

  “What is it?” said Math, looking at Gwydion in fear.

  The other boy’s face was deadly serious. “I know what that is. I have had to draw diagrams of them in school. That is the Roman army—the cohorts in that column, the horse-riders, the Alae, on either side of them, and the baggage and siege engines coming up behind. That’s a Roman army, all right, I can tell you, and they mean business. There must be many thousands of men there.”

  Math said, “Ought we to run back and tell your father?”

  But Gwydion turned a look of amusement on him. “Why do you think father has got ready? My people know all about this; their scouts have been bringing them word for days, no doubt.”

  He began to tell Math about the Council meeting on the previous night, but pulled himself up short, for that would lead on to the strange man-god by the woodside, and Gwydion had secretly promised not to tell a living soul about that.

  Instead, he said, “Come on, this way, we’ll get a bit of hunting before the horns blow and we have to leave.” He tugged at Math’s sleeve and dragged him over the crest of the next hill; and then, without warning, he stopped and flung himself to the heather, pulling Math down with him and clapping his hand over his friend’s mouth to silence him.

  “Sh!” he said. “There are men over there, in the little hollow. Not Belgae!” Silently, the two boys crept slowly towards the lip of the hollow, Gwydion holding Bel tightly so that he should not give them away. They stopped behind a gorse bush which would shield them from the sight of those below, and then they looked down into the broad, ferny basin.

  Three men sat playing dice, which they shook out of a bone cup on to a sheepskin, hide uppermost, spread on the ground. The boys had never seen men like these before, They were stoutly built and immensely broad, and each had the same sort of face, square, determined, hard-eyed, merciless. One of them was bare-headed and the boys saw that his hair was shaven to the scalp, and, like his companions, his face was smooth and sunburnt.

  The two boys saw the round polished iron helmets with their hook-like chin-straps, the heavy leathern jerkins overlaid with plates of toughened metal, the short leather kilt composed of straps that hung down over a thick linen skirt; the stoutly soled marching boots; but most of all they saw the long oblong shield, the thin, vicious lance, the short, leaf-bladed stabbing sword. There was no need to ask who these might be, they carried their own name in their hard faces, faces which feared no man, no animal, no country in all the known world. These were men of the Legions, men who marched half over Europe and Asia under the Eagles, the greatest fighters that the world had ever known.

  Gwydion shrank back, “My father was laughing at them last night,” he said. “But these men are not like those he was describing.”

  Math said, “Begging your pardon, Gwydion, you Belgae are all the same. You laugh because you wish to make a good impression, not because there is anything to laugh at!”

  Gwydion gave him a stem look, but that did not prevent Math from grinning, all the same.

  “These must be scouts, come in advance to spy out the land,” said Gwydion. “They may have been about here for days, for all we know. Why, we might even have run into them when we were hunting yesterday. It is a frightening thought. I wonder what they would do, if they caught a boy?”

  Math smiled wryly. “I have never heard that the Romans were famous for their gentleness,” he said. “They are soldiers, and have no thought in their shaven heads but for fighting and looting. If they caught you, my dear friend, they would just strip the gold ornaments from your neck and arms and then.. And Math made the same gesture which the guard at Camulodunum had made the night before. Somehow, it seemed more horrible when Math made it, and Gwydion turned away.

  Just then, Bel gave a whimper and broke from his master’s hands. The dog had almost run into the hollow when he saw the strangers and turned back to the boys.

  “Come on!” said Math, already on his feet. “They have seen Bel and they will know someone is near. Look, they are coming up the slope!” There was no time to lose; the boys ran as fast as they could, and had just fallen into a fern-hung ditch as the first Roman javelin appeared over the top of the hollow. Covered with fernfronds, they lay still, Bel clasped securely this time, with Gwydion’s hand round his muzzle, shivering with excitement.

  At last, on either side of them, they heard the sound of heavy footsteps, and heard men swearing in some rough Roman dialect. Gwydion knew that they were wondering who might have been with the dog, and where it could have got to. Then he heard something which sent his blood cold. The leader of the scouting party had said, “What if they are in this ditch? Give it a prod, you men. We’ll soon see!” Then the boys heard the sound of those cruel javelin points thrusting through the fern fronds, coming down the ditch on either side, towards them. Gwydion actually felt the dry leaves shake a little to his side as the bright knife-edge cut through them. Then suddenly the thrusts stopped, when they were but a foot from the boys; and away from the distant hill came the long blasts on the war-horns that Caswallawn had told his son to listen for. The Romans paused and listened, then they spoke to each other hurriedly, and began to move away a little, debating what they should do. One man was for making a more thorough search of the hill; the others were all for probing the length of the ditch again, on the chance that they had missed their quarry in their first search.

  The boys lay still, almost choking in their efforts to be qu
iet under their layer of grass and fern fronds. The horn sounded again; that would be the final warning, Gwydion knew. The wagon would be leaving now, without them. Yet the Romans were still talking above them, and the boys knew well enough that these were men without mercy; not the sort to take pity on anyone, much less the children of the enemy they had come so far to destroy.

  It seemed like an eternity before the Romans concluded their argument and went a little distance away, to sit down and wait, for from what Gwydion could make out, they intended to hold their position on the hill until the cohorts had moved very much nearer; and then they would go down the hillside to meet them.

  Gwydion reached through the bracken and clasped Math’s hand, as though reassuring the slave that they must stay there and think of a plan afterwards.

  Then Bel began to struggle again and Gwydion’s energies were well occupied in keeping the dog still. He almost took out his heavy sling-shot, in desperation, to stun the dog, for he felt that even this might be better than all of them meeting a certain death. But luckily Bel became still again and Gwydion’s hand moved away from his belt.

  Gradually the sun climbed overhead and began to burn down into the ditch. The boys became almost unbearably thirsty. Then the soldiers began to whistle softly, and even to sing in low voices—songs which were not in Latin at all, but in a number of languages and dialects. In fact, the languages of the various countries in which these tough soldiers had marched during their many hard years under the Eagles. And some of the choruses sounded so inviting that once Math almost forgot himself and began to join in. Gwydion heard the sound start in his throat and wondered whether this would be the signal for the Romans to throw a spear or two into the ditch to make sure that no-one was hiding there. Yet even through his fear he sensed the power, the arrogance of Rome, that her soldiers should dare sing her songs while out surveying in unexplored enemy territory. These Romans were brave men, whatever else one said against them, thought Gwydion.

  Then at last, perhaps an hour later, or even more, a new sound came floating up the hill to the tense ears of the hidden boys; a low whispering rhythmic sound, a shuffling sound that at last resolved itself into a definite beat, a marching beat. It was the sound that had struck fear into half the world, the sound of an approaching Roman army. Mingled with this frightening sound of feet came the many other sounds of a moving army; the neighing of horses, the shouts of officers, the clash of arms and armour and the thin high screaming of the terrible Roman trumpets.

  Even Gwydion felt his pulses race as he heard this strange intoxicating sound. This was what his father would hear soon; this was the last sound that many brave men, on both sides, would hear before that fateful day was out.

  Then suddenly the Romans on the slope above them began to shout and cheer, and call out their regimental war-cries. Then the boys heard the thudding of their footsteps and their spears rattling against their shields as they ran, and they knew that their pursuers were gone.

  The lads waited for a while, and then slowly raised their heads above the ditch. No one was in sight, and a rise in the hillside blotted out their view of the plain below. They could not see the Roman army.

  At last Gwydion whispered, “It would not take us long to catch the wagon up, for they will go slowly, expecting us to follow. It seems a great shame to be so near a real battle, and not to see what it looks like? Shall we go down and see what is happening? Are you willing, Math?”

  The dark slave nodded his head. “But do not hold me responsible, Gwydion,” he said. “It is your idea, not mine.”

  “Very well,” said the Belgic boy, “I will take the blame. Come on, we must keep our heads down, I don’t know quite where the soldiers are. They sounded close, but with as many men as that, the sound of their feet would be bound to sound near, even though they were a mile away.”

  And so the two boys made their way down the hill in order to witness the battle of Camulodunum, and the invasion of Britain by the great general, Aulus Plautius, with almost sixty-thousand men; though they were not aware of this; nor would it have meant a great deal to them had they been aware.

  5. HA! AMONG THE TRUMPETS

  Under the summer sun that day the fate of a country was to be decided, and the two boys, watching from a hillock over half a mile away from the conflict, gazed with set faces, their hearts beating with excitement. Even Bel was caught up in this frenzied atmosphere and, as trumpets blew from the Roman side and the long war-horns howled from the Celtic side, the small hound leapt on his thong-lead with an excitement as pronounced as that of his young master, whining and scratching the springy turf, as he tried to break away and run from this immense turmoil which now seemed to approach and now retreat from the watchers on the hill. Down there it seemed that half the world had assembled to do battle, for the plain was now dark with a multitude of men.

  The Roman cohorts were in position now, the sturdy, loud-voiced centurions and decurions pushing and beating the headstrong legionaries into the formation they required; the noble young officers, with their red horse-hair plumes floating in the breeze and their blue cloaks puffing out behind them like smoke, galloping from company to company, calling out now and again, and pointing here and there with their gilded staffs or long cavalry swords.

  The infantry of the Legion was in place, solid and waiting, each man bearing his shield well before his body, his long lance held up and slightly pointed forward, ready for the command to advance.

  Then a great hush settled over the tumultuous preparations,

  for there was a series of blasts on the long silver trumpets, and line after line of Roman archers marched forward, past the waiting ranks of infantrymen, accompanied by cheers as they went, each man with his head held proudly and erect, to take up their positions at the very front of the foremost line, protected only by one rank of shieldmen,

  Gwydion watched them in admiration, as did the various groups of Celtic tribesmen who sat, here and there, facing the Romans, on the broad plain. Gwydion looked over towards his own massed countrymen, and recognised many of the tribes by the colours of their tunics and plaids; Cantii, Trinobantes, his mother’s own people, the Atrebates, even certain groups of Iceni, who had always spoken well of Rome in the past; but he noticed that there were no Brigantes, even though their old queen, Cartismandua, had been one of the first to promise help to Caratacus when his great father, Cunobelinus, had died a year or so before.

  These tribes were all spearmen and swordmen and archers. The cavalry were out of sight, behind that high hill which lay over towards the city. So were the chariots, which would be led by the king himself. These would not go into action until the crowding, jostling footmen had had their opportunity of slaughter and plunder, for that was a standing agreement between the battle-leaders of various tribes.

  Then, far from the rear of the Roman multitudes, came riding men in coloured skin tunics, and high sheepskin hats, each one with a feather, and usually a heron’s feather, stuck in its point. Gwydion stared at them, at their long horn bows and little shaggy ponies, and he gasped. For now he knew what that man was whom he had seen in the wood that night— a Roman horseman, a wild rider from Scythia, and not a god at all! And as his mind went back, he wondered whether the man he had seen was a spy, or a deserter from Rome, a horseman who was tired of serving a heartless Empire that, at the end of his twenty years of service would offer him little more reward than mere citizenship of Rome…. But Gwydion’s thoughts were rudely shattered then, for, with a wild skirling of horns and beating of gongs, the Celts opened the attack, moving swiftly down the hill in small vicious groups, like a great cloud shadow on a sunlit day, harrying the enemy at various points and in various ways, some with the spear, some with bows, and some with knives, at close quarters. Yet though the tribes always left heaps of dead, their own and those of Rome, behind them, the formation of the Legions did not falter, and the shield-wall stayed, as solid as before.

  Here and there among the widespread tumult th
e boys saw the tribesmen tearing off their clothes and armour and, singing a wild death song, begin to dash across the stony plain towards the stolid ranks of Rome, Sometimes, as these madmen approached, their enemies cheered them on, and even laughed at them, until they fell, pierced by sword or javelin, a yard or two from the impregnable shield-wall.

  This sporadic fighting might have gone on for long enough, with the archers and the shaggy horsemen waiting, smiling superciliously, and the great gold Eagle of the Legion still shining proudly in the afternoon sun; but then something else happened. Suddenly there was a shower of rain, which beat down out of the summer sky without warning, and in the midst of it appeared a great, brightly coloured rainbow that seemed to arch itself immediately over the Celtic tribes. A great whisper of wonder rose from the armies, a sound like the hissing waves of the sea on a rocky shore; and the massed tribesmen seemed to shudder as they drew back and fell to their knees, many of them, offering thanks to their gods for this omen of victory. Then the shower passed as suddenly as it had begun and the rainbow went with it, leaving the battlefield a place of great stillness and expectation.

  Then, before the footmen of the tribes could regain their feet to attack again, there came the high wailing sound of the king’s own war-horns, the signal for the chariots, and to the wonder of the boys, there rose above the hill the many-coloured pennants of these carts of death.