Clash of Iron

by Angus Watson

  Dug had been admiring the pulley and rope system that opened and closed his newly installed roof vents on Maidun’s longhouse. They were open only a little as the day was cold, but luckily the beeswax candles from his farm and his rearrangement of their sconces provided strong, even light and his repositioning of the hearth kept the cavernous room warm but relatively smoke-free. He’d been sort of listening, so he could sort of rerun the last bit of conversation through his mind. Had Bruxon been saying that he’d send a shout the moment the Eroo ships were spotted?

  “I think it’s a great plan,” he hazarded.

  Everyone nodded sagely apart from Lowa, who shot a “don’t think you fooled me” look at him, and Spring, who was staring intently at Maggot, which was fair enough. Maggot was an odd-looking fellow. Dug hadn’t seen him since Mearhold, when the druid had saved his life by cleaning his Monster bites with maggots. He was pleased to see him again, even if it reminded him of thousands of little beasts writhing around in his chest.

  There was possibly a flash of annoyance in Lowa’s glance, and that was fair enough, too. This was important stuff, and if he was going to sit on her council along with Spring, Mal, Nita and Queen Ula of the now itinerant Kanawan tribe, he should have been listening more attentively. He’d caught most of it, though. Bruxon’s informants from Eroo had confirmed Ula’s report and Grummog’s claim that Eroo was planning an invasion of Britain. The spies had added that the invasion was all but certain to come in the summer.

  “And the Dumnonians have in no way colluded with Eroo?” asked Lowa.

  Bruxon smiled. “No. As I said, Grummog lied to you, in an attempt to divide us, then conquer. Both you and Ula know and trust Maggot, I believe?” They nodded. “He’s been with us at Dumnonia for several years now, almost always at my side. If I can’t convince you of Dumnonia’s fidelity, then perhaps he can.”

  Maggot stood and bowed to all of them, flapping his wrists and jangling his bangles. “Your Dumnonian,” he said, “is like everyone else. He or she is not good, and he or she not bad. He or she is both. But he or she, he, in Bruxon’s case, has no plans to attack Maidun. He, as in me, Maggot, has seen Bruxon every day since shortly after you took Dumnonia’s arse on the battlefield, slapped it about a bit and handed it back all black and blue.” Dug looked at Bruxon. That was a forced smile on his face if ever Dug had seen one. Maggot continued: “And Eroo has not come to Dumnonia. I can’t say for sure, because anyone who’s sure about anything is a fool, but I’m sure as I could possibly be that Dumnonia is no friend of Eroo and Eroo is no friend of Dumnonia.”

  Lowa nodded, looking semi-convinced. “OK, Bruxon. Return home and prepare your army.”

  Bruxon and Maggot left, the latter jingling like a parade of decorated horses.

  “Well?” said Lowa.

  “I don’t trust Bruxon,” said Nita.

  “No,” agreed Lowa.

  “But that doesn’t mean he’s lying,” Mal offered.

  “That’s true,” said Lowa, “and I do trust Maggot.”

  “I don’t think,” Dug said, “that Maggot is to be trusted.” They all looked at him.

  “Oh, he’s a great guy and all and he saved my life and I like him. But he sees the world differently. He’s a bit like a god. I don’t mean that to blow smoke up his arse, I’m just saying he’s aloof from us normal people. If the whim took him, I think he could lie to anyone.”

  “He’s not lying,” said Spring. Dug looked at her. “I don’t know how I know,” she continued, “but I’m sure everything he said was true.”

  “Bruxon could be operating behind his back,” said Mal, “and presenting him to us as the perfect proof that he’s innocent, because he knows that you lot know him.”

  “Also true,” Lowa sighed, “but we’re going to have to assume that the Dumnonians are on our side, because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. The Murkans, Romans and Eroo are enough armies for us to deal with. Ula, you knew Maggot and must have seen a lot of the Dumnonians when you were queen at Kanawan. Do you have anything to add?”

  “I can’t add anything. I like Maggot too, but, like Dug said, he is odd. The only thing I can say is that the Eroo army is huge and brutal. I have no idea how you’ll stop it, but stop it you must – or flee. I’ve seen what Manfrax does to the tribes he defeats. His depravity has no boundaries. If we’re to stay here we must defeat him. But, honestly, I don’t see how we can.”

  “We will,” said Lowa. “Nita and Dug. I want you to continue with the army’s training. Mal, I won’t rely on Dumnonian shouts. I need someone I can trust on the coast, watching for the Eroo fleet. There’s a hillfort by the sea, about ten miles north-west of Gutrin Tor, called Frogshold. It’s an island in the marsh, but well connected by raised roads. Take two hundred cavalry and base yourself there. It overlooks the Haffen Estuary, which is the most likely place for an invasion. If they land to the north of you you’ll see them pass along the Haffen, but also send patrols south along the coast constantly, and send a shout at dawn and dusk every day saying that all is well. Unless it’s not, obviously. We’ll work out a code so that I know it’s you – Dug, can you do that?” Dug nodded. He already had a couple of ideas.

  “What if the people of Frogshold object?” Nita asked.

  “They won’t. I cleared the plan with them a moon ago. They will feed and shelter Mal and the cavalry. However, they are strange, independent people with no love for outsiders. That is why I’m sending you, Mal. You’ll need tact to maintain their support.”

  Mal nodded, looking far from happy.

  “Can’t someone else…” said Nita.

  “I’m sorry, Nita, but Mal is the best person for the task. And you need to stay here to help train the army. If we didn’t have at least three armies threatening us, any one of which could annihilate us, I’d worry more about your domestic bliss.”

  Nita nodded sadly.

  Dug looked at his feet. Lowa could have sent him instead of Mal, but possibly she didn’t want to disturb her own domestic bliss. Or possibly she thought Mal was more tactful, which he was, if Dug was honest with himself. He looked at Spring. She nodded sagely back. Her gaze had a strange effect. He felt faint for a moment, as if a wave of sadness from the future had just washed over him. It was probably nothing, he thought – most likely it was all that salted pork he’d had at breakfast having its revenge.

  “What do you think the Murkans will do when Manfrax lands? Can we get them to fight each other somehow?” Nita asked.

  “With any luck, Grummog will shore up his borders and stay put,” Mal answered.

  “Yeah, luck,” said Lowa, “That’s not something we can count on, going by the recent record.”

  Two days later, Carden, Atlas and Chamanca returned from Gaul on a British merchant boat whose captain was keen to avoid being pressed into the service of the Romans.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said Lowa when she heard their news. Dug thought that was a pretty accurate assessment. Caesar’s new ships would be ready to sail in a couple of moons, so the Roman invasion should coincide neatly with Eroo’s. What’s more, they didn’t have any useful information about Felix’s dark legion, other than that it looked formidable from a distance, appeared to be immensely powerful and had done for a lot of Nervee’s soldiers.

  “We’ve been to every chief in Armorica,” said Atlas to the hastily convened council. “There is resentment that could possibly be tipped into violence. However, the overarching atmosphere is one of resigned defeat. They’ve seen every other tribe that stood up to Caesar destroyed. Meanwhile, every tribe that has capitulated has not only been spared, but has also been given their less recalcitrant neighbours’ land, and had no taxes levied.”

  “As soon as Caesar has the land secure, he’ll start taxing the badger’s arse out of them,” said Dug.

  “They know that,” Atlas replied. “They are not stupid people. They’ve chosen the likely burden of paying tribute tomorrow over being raped, crucified or sold into s
lavery today. The rumours that Caesar has demons on his side are not helping them be any braver.”

  “You can sort of see their point.”

  “Indeed.”

  Lowa sat back to think. The council knew to be quiet. Dug looked at the returned Warriors. Atlas and Carden had been aged by their two years’ campaigning in Gaul – in a good way, at least on the surface. They looked about as tough as it was possible for Warriors to look. Dug wondered if he’d ever looked that formidable in his youth. You don’t realise that you’re at the peak, he mused, until you’re halfway down the other side and looking back up at it.

  Chamanca looked healthier, fitter and, if anything, younger than when Dug had seen her last. She was wearing the same leather shorts and metalled chestpiece as when Dug had first seen her, unconscious on the arena floor. He realised he was staring, but she really did have the sort of figure that made you forget to breathe. As did Lowa, he reminded himself, looking away.

  “We’ll have to spark another war in Gaul,” said Lowa finally, “and when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘you’.”

  “Oh no,” said Carden, “I’ve already seen more of Gaul than any honest British man should have to.”

  “It does seem the only answer,” said Atlas. “The question is how.”

  “You said that the Romans have taken hostages?” Lowa asked.

  “They’re not calling it that,” said Chamanca, “but, yes, they have the chief’s children and other valuable captives from every Armorican tribe. The Gauls gave them up as soon as they were asked.”

  “And yet the Armoricans have no Roman hostages?” Lowa said.

  “Surely they must?” said Dug. A swap of hostages was exactly that – a swap – each tribe sent valued members to the other, guaranteeing mutual non-aggression and good treatment of each other’s captives. It was a whole different thing when hostages were taken in battle and ransomed, but that wasn’t the case here.

  “Nope,” Chamanca shook her head. “That’s how shit they are. They just handed them over, not a sword drawn.”

  “Be fair,” said Carden, “the Gauls have seen everyone who stood up to the Romans tortured, killed or enslaved. You can understand—”

  “They’re still shit,” Chamanca interrupted.

  “They have been idiots not to take Roman hostages,” Lowa said.

  “Yes, we know that, but under the circ—” said Atlas.

  “And that’s what I’d like you to persuade them. Convince as many Armorican tribes as possible that they need Roman hostages to guarantee the safety of their own and to give them a negotiating position.”

  “You don’t know the Romans, Lowa,” said Carden, “they don’t see others as equals. They can take hostages, but they won’t give them.”

  “So we get the Armoricans to take them.”

  “As in capture Romans? Capture one Roman, the rest of them will go totally fucking bear shit.”

  “I think, dear Carden,” said Atlas, “that that is rather her point. And it isn’t a bad one. When should we leave? Today?”

  “You’re not leaving, I want Carden and Chamanca to go. You’ll stay here and help with the army’s training.”

  “We’ll need Atlas, he speaks Roman the best,” said Carden, looking like a child explaining why his favourite toy shouldn’t be donated to a younger sibling.

  “She’s right,” said Chamanca. “Atlas should stay. He has led troops in one battle against the Romans and planned another that the Nervee would have won if it hadn’t been for Felix’s tricks and monsters. He understands the way the Roman army works better than we do. We, on the other hand, have charm and looks and will better persuade the Armorican chiefs that they need to risk their very existence and take Roman hostages.”

  Lowa nodded. “Carden and Chamanca will go to ferment the rebellion and see if they can find out more about Felix’s legion. Atlas will stay and show us how we’re going to beat the Romans. If you could tell us how to defeat the Murkans and Eroo at the same time, that would be handy.”

  Chapter 4

  Ragnall and Publius marched along the avenue of standing rocks near Karnac. Ragnall would have liked to stroll, but Publius didn’t do strolling. There were thousands of the stones, ranging in size from not-quite-liftable boulders to menhirs the height of a man and taller, all arranged in long, irregularly spaced lines. Local legend said the stones were an invading army that their druids had petrified shortly after the War of the Gods. The explanation did not convince Publius, who was a rational man, despite whatever it was he’d seen Felix do in eastern Gaul. He was nevertheless both fascinated and irritated by the stones.

  “If you’re going to go to all the bother of moving these rocks here from Pluto knows where, and heave them into a pattern, why make it such a shoddy pattern?” he asked Ragnall. “It would have taken nothing, just string, pegs and a modicum of organisation, and they’d have nice neat lines instead of this mess. I mean if you’re going to all this effort, why not do it properly?” He was almost pleading.

  “Barbarians aren’t like Romans. They’re not so obsessed with straight lines and uniformity. They like irregularity.”

  “No. Can’t be. An irregular pattern is not a pattern. It’s unnatural. Humans like conformity. Nobody with any sense could have built it.”

  “Maybe it really was an invading army and the druids really did turn them to stone?”

  “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  He didn’t, but neither did he completely discount the idea. “I’ve seen some strange things, and they say that magic was more powerful in the old days. Who’s to say it wasn’t? Who’s to say they couldn’t turn an army to stone? Maybe they could.”

  “If these stones are an ancient marching army, then why are they such different shapes and sizes?”

  “Because it was an army of talking animals?” Ragnall laughed. “That’s one’s a fat wolf. That one’s a rabbit riding on another rabbit’s back.”

  Publius punched his arm. “Nice one, Ragnall! But, joking aside, what’s really amazing to me about these stones is that they’re like a frozen moment in the time of people thousands of years ago.” He stopped and pointed at a rock the size of a sheep. “Look at this one. To bring it here must have taken many people’s effort, and while those people were levering it into place, all around them other people were rolling other stones into their slots. Perhaps a boy rolling this rock was in love with a girl rolling that one over there,” Publius pointed to a distant stone, “but in between them, working on that stone there, was her father, staring with hatred and planning to murder the boy. Then perhaps he did murder the boy, sparking generations of vendetta which were ended when another boy and girl fell in love. The whole saga lasted hundreds of years, yet still it happened ages ago and is long forgotten.”

  Publius looked at Ragnall as if expecting a reply.

  “And…?” tried Ragnall.

  Publius sighed “Aren’t you interested? Ragnall, aren’t you amazed that thousands of generations have lived on the same lands as us, all with lives and desires at least as complex as ours?”

  Ragnall looked around at the stones and he felt it; the overwhelming weight, the overwhelming sadness of all those thousands of men and women stretching back in time, every single one of them just as important to themselves as he was to himself. Every single one of them now dead.

  Publius continued: “Isn’t it simply stunning that right here, where we’re walking, people have walked for centuries, for millennia, all with their own problems, loves, hopes, hates … and yet we know nothing. They came, they lived for decades, then they disappeared, leaving no trace.”

  “Apart from these massive stones?”

  “That’s the point! These people were the exception! Most people are happy just to die and disappear into the long night. That’s why I really understand Caesar, even if I disagree with some of his methods. He doesn’t just want to achieve amazing things, he wants to ensure that everybody knows about him for ever after. Don’t you want
that, too? I know I do. And I want to leave more behind than a mysteriously placed stone. Think, Ragnall. How important is your life? How much have you seen? How many emotions have coursed through your body and how many thoughts have tortured your mind? Do you want all that to be forgotten? Or do you want all your doings, everything you are, to be summed up in a thousand years’ time by someone looking at a big stone that you put somewhere and thinking, “Hmm, I wonder who put that there”, then going about their day? No, I’m going to be like Caesar. I’m going to become a general and I’ll win wars, and I’ll get a team of guys to follow me around and write what I tell them to write about me. In millennia to come, everyone will know my name, like we know Ramses, Romulus, Alexander, Ulysses…”

  “How about Cran Madoc?” asked Ragnall.

  “Who?”

  “A British hero, as celebrated there as Alexander is in Rome.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  And that, thought Ragnall, is a problem. He was still keen to see Romans take over Britain and use whatever means were needed to achieve that, but it would be a terrible shame if the memories of men and women like Cran Madoc disappeared under the Roman sandal. He’d have to try to persuade Caesar to preserve the British culture and stories at the same time as introducing the Roman way of life. Thinking of Caesar …

  “Shouldn’t Caesar be back with the other legions by now?” he asked Publius.

  “They are delayed.”

  “Delayed?”

  “Caesar has gone to Lucensis or Ravenna – my reports differ – to meet Pompey and my father. Consensus is that he’s trying to save himself, prolong his campaigning and revitalise the triumvirate.”

  “I see. And when is he coming back here?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a big problem, though.”

  “Because you don’t know what to do with the men?”

  “That, and because we’re nearly out of food.”

  “Just ask for more from the Veneti, surely?”

  “The Fenn-Nodens. Veneti is a name the Romans have given them. We should have the respect to call them by the name that they call themselves. That’s the sort of thing I’ll sort out when I’m a general.”