Clash of Iron

by Angus Watson

  He also asked Lowa’s permission to become king of Dumnonia. The tribe’s leadership had always been rigidly hereditary, but Samalur had murdered his relations so thoroughly that Bruxon, a distant cousin of the royal line, had as good a claim to the throne as anyone, as well as the support of the more morally upstanding survivors of Samalur’s rule. He swore that he’d treat his people well and prepare his armies for the Roman invasion.

  Lowa was convinced. She considered telling Bruxon to wait for her decision, intending to discuss it with Drustan and Atlas. But some decisions had to be made quickly. It was for decisions like this that tribes had a sole ruler. So she sent Bruxon off, demanding that he and his army return home immediately and that he report back to her in four moons with the promised reparations.

  Chapter 5

  Nearly a moon after the battle on Sarum Plain, Lowa was walking down from Maidun Castle, bow in one hand, arrow-stuffed quiver bouncing on her back, on her way to win the archery competition. She’d considered the long-distance running race, which she might have won, and the mêlée scramble, in which she might have learnt something while not winning, but in the end she elected to enter the one event in which she’d definitely triumph. Now that she was queen, winner was a more appropriate look than plucky loser.

  Lowa had organised a few days of competitions, eating and drinking to mark the victory over the Dumnonians and the beginning of her reign with something that people would remember. More than that, she wanted her newly appointed captains – Atlas Agrippa, Carden Nancarrow, Mal and Nita Fletcher and more – to see others’ abilities and choose their own officers.

  Even more than that, perhaps, she wanted a break from the mind-knottingly tiresome and convoluted arse ache of running a realm. Zadar had left her with a thousand problems, not least how to reduce the crippling taxes that he’d claimed from tribes under his boot and free all the slaves he’d collected, while still feeding, housing and arming the army. The obvious answer would have been to disband the army, for a few moons at least, but that wasn’t an option. Even if the druids – including Spring – hadn’t all insisted that the Romans were coming, she still had the Murkans in the north to ward off. If they heard that Maidun was uprooted, they’d be on her like a starving dog on a dropped bucket of offal. But they didn’t matter so much. The Romans were coming and she had to be ready. The Dumnonians’ reparations would begin to plug the hole left by the removal of Zadar’s evil income, but not nearly enough. She should have demanded more.

  She could feel the party atmosphere humming from Maidun Camp, even that early in the day. The network of muddy tracks that linked the makeshift sheds and tents of the camp’s ever-growing population (another problem she had to deal with) was even thicker than usual with people running hither and thither with cauldrons, sacks of food, weapons, barrels of booze and all the other equipment essential for a day of games. On the flat land over to the west the football tournament had already started, with teams of ten trying kick an inflated bladder past the other team and into a goal-bucket. She’d never been a fan of football herself, or of any other team game for that matter.

  She saw Drustan emerge from the throng and head towards her, across the open land surrounding the castle towards her. She hadn’t seen him since after the battle on Sarum Plain, when she’d sent him away with Carden, Ragnall and a squad to free slaves from the ports and holding camps dotted around Zadar’s territory.

  “Lowa, might I have a word?” said the druid.

  Surely “Queen Lowa” would have been more appropriate, she thought, but at least he hadn’t shouted “Oi!” at her from a distance, like Spring had the day before.

  “The slaves?” she said, without breaking stride.

  “Most of them are home or on the way there,” Drustan said, following. He had to half jog to keep up with her. “A few are too injured or sick to move, so I left those in situ, as well as a few to look after them. But that’s not why I need to talk to you. Please can you stop walking? I do not want others to hear this.”

  Lowa stopped. They were on the track down from Maidun Castle, perhaps thirty paces from the edge of the Camp and the crowds, near where Lowa had crawled for hours, climbed into the castle and been caught by Drustan, on her way to assassinate Zadar. Funny, she thought, how time could move on so dramatically while geography stayed the same.

  There were a few flapping ears on the road, so Lowa walked off it and leant on the rough wooden fence of a corral. A few horses sauntered over, with muzzles raised in “how about plucking some of that better grass on your side of the fence for me?” enquiry. She ignored them.

  “I heard about your agreement with Bruxon and the Dumnonians,” said Drustan, leaning on the fence next to her.

  “Oh yes?” she asked, pushing away the nose of a persistent horse.

  The druid paused for an almost awkwardly long time, then said: “You made a mistake.”

  “Oh?” said Lowa. “And what would you have done? Executed all the able-bodied Dumnonians so that their crops rotted in the fields and the young and elderly starved? Or taxed them into weakness and starvation? We’ll need the Dumnonians, fighting well and willingly on our side.”

  “We will, which is why we need to know what they are doing, and why leverage over them would have been useful. You should have appointed their king, or at least forced a few advisors on Bruxon. You should have also demanded child hostages from him and their most influential families. Instead, a few days’ ride away, is a man we do not know commanding an army much larger than ours. You had an opportunity to have control over that army and you threw it away.”

  “I trust Bruxon.” Lowa realised how lame it sounded as she said it.

  “Because he looks trustworthy?” Drustan’s blue eyes sparkled at her from his tanned, wrinkly face, wreathed in curly white hair. Her solo decision to be lenient towards the Dumnonians had made good sense at the time, but shortly afterwards she’d asked herself the questions that Drustan was asking now.

  “Decisions made quickly and alone are wrong more often that those made with long thought and good advice,” said Drustan. “I understand why you acted alone, but there are ways of consulting those close to you, while still having onlookers think that all commands come directly from you, formulated solely by you.”

  “Yes,” said Lowa. “None of the great kings and queens that the bards tell us about are nearly as renowned as the committees that advised their every move.”

  “Every one of those kings and queens had advisors, Lowa. When Cran Madoc holed Grang Bilton’s boats before the attack to retake Caer Madoc, do you think that was his idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was not. The plan was constructed by a group of people, as are all the best plans – like your battle with the Dumnonians. You listened to your advisors, Ragnall particularly, with impressive humility before the battle on Sarum Plain, showed great sense in choosing the most feasible plan, and won a marvellous victory. The bards will tell of it for the rest of time, but history ignores inconvenient and boring details, so the story of the council before the battle will die with people who were there. It will suit history much better to say that you were the great warrior queen and the plan was yours. Ragnall will not get a mention.” Drustan reached down to pluck some grass, which he fed to a grateful horse. “But I stray from my point, which is that the indulgence you showed to Dumnonia may yet sink Maidun. Hopefully not.”

  Lowa knew he was right. The stupidity of her impulsive clemency made her feel a little sick with shame. The druid took her sleeve and looked her in the eye. “All I ask is, please, next time, think long, and talk to people before you make major decisions.”

  Drustan walked away, leaving Lowa leaning on the fence. Was he meant to request permission to leave her presence, she wondered? She didn’t want to be a dick about it, but it was important that she had respect, and part of that came from how people saw other people interacting with her. Should she get petitioners and supplicants to kneel when they spoke to h
er? Probably not, but some show of fealty was surely apt? Most people, she realised, did treat her with a hefty dose of deference. When she’d had Mal and Nita Fletcher brought before her to thank them for their roles in the rebellion and give them positions of command, they’d pretty much crawled with abasement.

  The difference, she realised, was that they hadn’t known her well before she was queen. Perhaps her reign would be more successful if she got rid of all those who she’d been close to in her pre-regal days – Atlas, Carden and others. Of course she wasn’t going to kill them, but there were other ways of getting people out of the way.

  Thinking of people she knew well, if Drustan was back from sorting out the slaves, it meant that Ragnall was back, too. She didn’t want to see him. She’d enjoyed some times with him, liked him quite a bit, and was grateful for his plan for the battle of Sarum, but his seemingly unconditional affection bugged the crap out of her. What had once been puppyishly appealing now made her want to punch him in the face.

  “Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! Whoooo-oop!” Spring jumped up and down along with the rest of the crowd in the arena, apart from Drustan, sitting next to her, who clapped politely. They’d all known Lowa – Queen Lowa – was going to win the archery, but still that had been an amazing shot. Amazing. Although she couldn’t help but feel sorry for the squirrels.

  “Is there a squirrel Otherworld?” she asked, sitting back down next to Drustan.

  “What do you think?”

  “That answering a question with a question is a cop out, and that there probably is an Otherworld for squirrels. Their souls have to go somewhere when they die. Perhaps they share ours? They’re not going to like it much when Lowa gets there.”

  “You’re certain that the Otherworld exists?”

  Spring looked at kind, clever old Drustan, then down at the ring. Since the slaves that used to do such things had all been freed, members of Lowa’s cavalry – whom everyone was calling the Two Hundred because it sounded like an improvement on Zadar’s Fifty – were clearing arrows and rodent corpses ready for the wrestling. Spring was looking forward to the wrestling most of all. Dug was going to fight. He hadn’t intended to, but the prize for first place had convinced him. It was enough gold, he’d said, to get his seaside farm started somewhere miles away up north. Spring had told him she’d use her magic to make him win, and then it could be their farm and she could come and live with him. He’d said no, she mustn’t use magic to help him, and she couldn’t come north with him because everyone needed her here. She’d come up with the brilliant idea of him getting his seaside farm in the south, then she could live with him and be near Maidun if they needed her. And the weather was better, and the people nicer. Dug has said that farms cost much more gold in the south, but he hadn’t said no, and he’d definitely looked as if he was considering it. He’d still forbidden her to use her magic, though, and had said quite emphatically that she couldn’t be more wrong about people being nicer in the south.

  It was a good thing he didn’t want her magic, because she didn’t think she’d be able to give it to him. She wasn’t as certain as she’d been before the battle on Sarum Plain, but she was pretty sure the magic wasn’t with her today. She’d felt that it might have been the day before, when she’d gone boar hunting with Dug, but she’d had nothing to do with it. Funny how it worked.

  “Drustan,” she said, pulling on his woollen poncho, “what did I do that time in the arena to Dug and Lowa? How did I do it? How does magic work?”

  Drustan paused, looked like he was about to speak, then paused again. Spring sighed and looked around. Most of the other spectators were taking advantage of the gap in proceedings to nip out of the arena. The tramp of their feet beat a cheerful rhythm, overlaid by the music of laughter and good-natured shouting. The air was sweet with the smell of cider and roasting meats. Zadar was dead, the Dumnonians were defeated and the sun was shining. These were happy times.

  Still no answer from Drustan, though. Spring was about to poke him to check he was alive when he said: “I don’t know.” Then he was quiet again.

  Spring shook her head a little, not so much that he would see. She’d hoped for a better answer than that. Especially when it took so long in coming. She looked down at the arena. The first two wrestlers were walking on. Neither of them was Dug. Both of them were bigger, younger and fitter looking than him. Dug, she was sure, could have beaten both of them at the same time.

  “What I think I know,” Drustan continued eventually, “is that magic comes from the gods.”

  “Which gods? Where are the gods? How many are there? How did I get magic from them?”

  Drustan looked at his hands and Spring’s head bobbled with impatience. It seemed to her that she and the druid moved through time at different rates. She reckoned she could fit in ten years’ worth of doing stuff before he’d even begun to think about lunch.

  “Many lifetimes have been spent pondering those questions,” Drustan said finally and slowly, “and many more will be. Fruitlessly, in my opinion. I’ll tell you what I think about the answers, then I will tell you what I know about your magic.”

  “Okay!” said Spring. She had time. While Drustan had been talking, Spring had also been listening to a woman in the arena shouting out the rules of the wrestling, and announcing that Dug Sealskinner would be given a bye to the third round, since he’d fought so well in that very arena just recently against Tadman Dantadman. Atlas Agrippa the Kushite had also been given a bye, since he’d won the last wrestling competition. Well, Dug hadn’t been in the last wrestling competition and Atlas wasn’t going to win this one, thought Spring.

  “So, where are the gods?” said Drustan. “Perhaps they are all around us, in the air. Perhaps they are the air, the water and the earth. Perhaps they are fire. Most likely, I think, is that they are on a different world, watching us. I suspect that world is separated from ours by something other than geography. The world of the gods is perhaps like the world we see in the reflection on a lake. It is there, but we cannot go there, nor imagine how we might. Our physical essence simply does not work there. Their world is close to ours, however and perhaps, to bring the analogy back on itself, it mirrors ours.”

  Spring nodded as the crowd clapped politely, and wondered why adults so often took such a long time saying: “I don’t know.”

  In the arena the first fight had been won by one man throwing another out of a circle twice. That was the game. Get the other one out of the ring, best of three wins. The first fight had been a two-nil, one-sided affair, hence the crowd’s less than wild celebration of the result – all apart from one knot of ecstatic cheerers whom Spring took to be the victor’s friends and family.

  “How many gods are there?” Drustan continued. “A lot. There is so much utter evil and so much absolute good in the world, and so much in between, that it must be the work of many gods, as differing in personality as we are. If there were only one god, as some will have you believe, then that god must be raving mad.”

  “OK,” said Spring. This next fight looked like a good one. It was Chamanca the Iberian against a large but worried-looking man.

  Drustan seemed to realise that he wouldn’t have Spring’s attention, and paused while the Iberian used her attacker’s momentum to send him flying out of the ring twice. He hobbled off, clutching his whacked balls to much laughter and cheering from the crowd.

  “Now, what do I know about how you use your magic?” Finally, the bit she wanted to hear. “It is not like a spigot in a beer barrel, which you can turn on and off at will.”

  “Yes.” Spring hoped he was going to tell her what it was, not just what it wasn’t.

  “It is connected to the gods.”

  “Uh-huh” That was a bit better, but hardly a surprise.

  “It is linked to love and death.”

  “What?” He’d only gone and told her something she didn’t already know! Why hadn’t he started with this bit?

  “There are two types of magic, it
seems, both of which are stronger in you than in anyone I have heard about since ancient days.”

  “How are they linked to love and death?”

  “Patience, Spring. I call the two types passive and active. Passive is thoughts and abilities that come to you. So, for example, you are unusually good with a sling. It seems to me that that is a passive magical ability. Chamanca’s speed when she fights is another example as is, possibly, Lowa’s prowess with a bow.”

  “I’m not that good with a sling. I’m not much better than Ragnall.”

  “He is much older, he is trained and he was the best with a sling on the Island of Angels. You are ten years younger, have perhaps a tenth of his strength and you haven’t been trained by the Island of Angels’ best. You should not be nearly as good as him, let alone better.”

  “Hmmm. That’s an ability. What about the thoughts?”

  “Have you ever simply known that someone you love is in trouble?”

  “Yes, and something told me what to do. A voice in my head, but not like a voice. More like a feeling. But it didn’t grow like a feeling, it was just suddenly there.”