Glory of Rome: (Gaius Valerius Verrens 8)

by Douglas Jackson

  Owain slipped away before dawn and arrived on the ridge above the Ordovice camp as the sun rose. Below him, the rough meadow on either side of the stream was a mass of movement as men woke shivering to brush off the morning dew. No fires, because a single wisp of smoke would attract a Tungrian patrol like horseflies to fresh dung. They would force down the barley cakes with a scoop of water from the river, praying someone wasn’t pissing in it upstream. Ten or more distinct bands, some of whom would have been tearing out each other’s throats if he hadn’t ordered their leaders to make camp at opposite ends of the valley. He saw faces look up at his little group descending the winding track and a soft murmur rippled through the mass of men as they recognized the High King. Already the thud of axes was audible from the tree-lined slopes as the men tasked with providing timber got to work.

  Owain was tired and hungry, but he called his war chiefs together in a rough shelter beneath the trees. They sat in a circle as a serving boy handed round a leather bucket filled with thin beer. Owain waited till each man had drunk his fill before he began.

  ‘Madog?’ A short, savage-looking man in a leather jerkin and plaid trews looked up. He held a broad-bladed axe across his knees and his pale, narrow eyes glared at Owain from beneath a shock of dark curls. ‘You will take the east wall.’

  Madog’s craggy features creased into a grin. Owain had honoured him. Assaulting the wall facing the river was the most hazardous assignment of the night. His warriors would be hemmed into a narrow strip of marshland and forced to lie motionless in the muddy pools until the attack began. Owain didn’t need to stress the necessity for absolute silence. He could depend on Madog because he had a reputation for cruelty and his men feared him as no other.

  ‘A token of my esteem.’ He handed over a neck ring of pale yellow gold and Madog’s thick lips parted in a smile that revealed a single blackened tooth.

  Owain turned next to a tall young warrior with dark hair falling to his shoulders who sat to Madog’s left. ‘Tudfic. Yours is the south wall.’ The slightest nod of acknowledgement. Tudfic was here in his injured father’s stead. An Ordovice princeling of the most southern tribe, Tudfic had been one of the fiercest opponents of Owain’s policy of non-aggression. ‘Remember. A few men to pave the way, the others well back, but within rushing distance. Not a movement before you hear the signal.’ Tudfic shrugged at advice he clearly deemed unnecessary. Owain experienced a pang of concern. Should he send Cadwal to ensure his instructions were followed? No. Tudfic would regard it as an insult and might withdraw his men altogether. In any case, he had another job for his champion. He handed over another neck ring and Tudfic accepted it as his right.

  ‘Dafyd? The west.’ Another grin of consent. Dafyd, balding, with a grey moustache that fell below the level of his chins, was Owain’s closest ally in this company. They’d already discussed the attack and it needed no further debate.

  At a given signal each man would lead five hundred warriors to assault the walls. A thousand more would join Owain in an attack on the main gate and the settlement. ‘We will leave at noon.’ A risk, but one that had to be taken if they were to be in position at full dark. They would each travel by a different route, along ancient hill paths where the Tungrian patrols seldom ventured. ‘Tell your men to get what rest—’

  He saw Madog’s face freeze and felt a presence behind him.

  ‘You have done well, Owain Lawhir.’ Gwlym’s harsh growl was little more than a whisper, but its effect was as chilling as the first winter frost. ‘Soon men will call you Owain y Cedyrn, Owain the Mighty. With a host so vast Canovium will be nothing but a beech nut to your grindstone.’

  ‘You are accompanying the attack? I thought—’

  ‘You were solicitous for my health?’ The words had a mocking quality. ‘But the gods have provided me with the strength to join your warriors. When you have achieved your victory certain specific requirements must be met.’ Owain felt a moment of dread exacerbated by the druid’s next words. ‘I have further instructions for you, Owain Lawhir, but they will wait. First I will lead our brave spearmen in the Victory Song of Beli Mawr.’

  Dusk was falling as Owain and his war band reached the old hill fort at Pen-y-gaer to the west of Canovium. Roman engineers had once built a signal station within the collapsed turf walls, but it was long gone, the timbers overgrown and rotting beneath their covering of moss. The river twisted across the plain below like a discarded silver belt and he could just make out the fort and the settlement beneath a haze of smoke in the distance. Cadwal and his men would have been there for the last hour, mingling with the customers in the tavern. For the thousandth time he reassured himself he could trust Cadwal to succeed. The champion had the look and manner of a jovial bear, but he was the deadliest fighter Owain had ever seen, lightning quick with spear and knife. The men he led were similarly adept.

  It wasn’t fear that gnawed his guts, but the waiting. The waiting and the responsibility of leading such a vast host; the greatest gathering of Ordovice warriors since his father had joined Caratacus. As he waited for darkness and prayed that the other war bands remained undiscovered, he reflected on the puzzling instructions issued by Gwlym. Individual auxiliaries taken alive and kept for a special purpose. Certain civilian captives set aside for later use.

  Less than two Roman miles away, Cadwal unwrapped the pretty whore from where she’d attached herself to his waist. She was a big lass and on another night her attractions would have been a temptation, but not tonight. Four bearded Tungrians with swords on their hips sat in a corner drinking with a morose intensity, but they were accustomed to the changing faces of traders and paid Cadwal no heed. The owner was cleaning up and as he approached Cadwal tossed a silver coin on the table. ‘Is there anywhere we can sleep, friend?’

  ‘There’s a barn out the back and a couple of straw mattresses.’ The man smiled and swept up the coin, and nodded at the girl. ‘I’ll throw in a little entertainment for another. A night with Brana will set you up for tomorrow.’

  Cadwal grinned. ‘Nothing I’d like better, but this is my woman’s brother, Geraint. He has a big mouth and if she catches me straying again she’s like to take a shearing knife to my essentials.’

  As he led his packhorse into the barn Cadwal caught the eyes of the four traders already lying in the flickering shadows thrown by a single oil lamp. Two of them were slim, dark-haired young men who could have been brothers to Geraint, and were in fact twins, Idwal and Eurig. The two others were short and solidly built, one with a shock of red hair. Apart from their physique, what united them was their eyes, which reminded Cadwal of a hawk he’d once caught and tried to train to hunt. They held a piercing intense ferocity that made him wonder the Tungrians hadn’t slit their throats just in case. But without Bryn and Bran the attack wouldn’t go ahead.

  He went to the door and studied the fading light. The flame of the oil lamp fluttered in a draught. It was a ceramic type in the shape of a human foot, a style popular with the Romans. His eyes hardened as he reached up and snuffed out the flame.

  VIII

  Owain’s scouts led his warriors down the mountain in a compact column. He had always planned to make the final approach in darkness. His pathfinders had spent the last three weeks repeating the journey in daylight and dark till they’d fixed every stone and potential hazard in their minds. Sticks painted with limewash marked the most treacherous stages of the route and the scouts roamed the column whispering instructions.

  Not that he believed any of his warriors would stumble or fall aside. Apart from a few unblooded youngsters every man was a veteran of the night raid to steal cattle or sheep from his neighbours. Such raids were a rite of passage, almost a way of life among the Ordovice people. In times of drought or famine, rival tribes and clans would combine to carry out raids on a larger scale against Silurian border villages, taking slaves and supplies and slaughtering any who resisted.

  Owain marched at their front with the men who would make the actual a
ttack. A hundred to take and hold the gate, ten times that number to follow up the assault and subdue the defenders, who would by then – if everything went to plan – be under attack from all sides. Groups of warriors carried the trunks of carefully selected birch trees left with the stumps of their branches to act as makeshift ladders. Others hefted wood and wattle panels for crossing the ditches. Owain knew the defenders would have sown them with sharpened sticks angled to impale any man unfortunate enough to fall on them and thorn bushes positioned to slow the attackers’ progress while they were slaughtered. But that slaughter would only occur if he gave the Tungrians time to man the walls. Owain didn’t intend to let that happen.

  Which was why he had sent Cadwal in first.

  Cadwal didn’t have to give any order. The six men rose together and crept to where their packs lay beside the resting horses. Sure fingers unfastened the leather straps and searched the contents by touch until they found the weapons hidden among the wool and the furs. Cadwal and the dark-haired twins pulled out long knives similar to the short swords Roman legionaries carried. Cadwal would have preferred a spear, but he reckoned he’d find one quickly enough if things went to Owain’s plan. Geraint retrieved a short, odd-shaped object in a leather sack. Bryn and Bran emerged with the slings that had made them famous in song and story for their deadly accuracy. Each slinger also carried a pouch filled with lovingly polished lead spheres the diameter of the top joint of a man’s thumb. Idwal and Eurig picked up the straw mattresses they’d been lying on and Cadwal led them silently from the barn.

  He’d taken the noisy departure of the Tungrians from the tavern as his signal, waited for the count of a hundred and then the same again. It was early in the sentries’ stint and their minds would still be partly within the barrack room. The six Ordovice warriors wore dark clothing and slipped unseen from one shadow to the next as they approached the fortress gate. Owain had wanted to send more men, but Cadwal had insisted they would only attract attention. If it couldn’t be done with six another four or five would make no difference. He paused. Somewhere out there in the night thousands of men should be on the move, but all he could hear were the usual nocturnal sounds of owls and nightjars. Still, no point in worrying. He had his own job to do.

  A pair of torches illuminated the gates, closed nightly at dusk. Owain had chosen the main gate because the settlement, what the Romans called the vicus, had encroached close to the entrance. The first house on the east side, where a cobbler did business on the ground floor, lay just outside the circle of light cast by the torches. It had been built on Roman lines, with shuttered windows on both floors, but roofed with thatch instead of tile. The men crouched in the shadow of the building. Cadwal nodded to Geraint and he moved forward with the twins. There’d been a dog which would have complicated things, but it now lay in a ditch with its throat cut. A pity, Cadwal thought; he liked dogs. Soft rustling and the snap of wood. A choked-off cry from inside the house.

  Cadwal slipped towards the door. It opened a moment later and Geraint beckoned the three men forward. Cadwal stepped inside with Bryn and Bran at his back. The sharp metallic scent of new-shed blood made his nostrils twitch. An infant’s cradle lay on its side just visible in the gloom, the motionless contents spilled on the earth floor. The mother and father side by side, their pale faces like twin moons at the centre of a pool of spreading darkness.

  ‘Upstairs,’ he told the two slingers.

  The upper storey of the house was at the same level as the palisade above the gate. Cadwal carefully eased the window shutters open. It seemed a long way to the walls. He studied his two companions. He’d seen Bran put a lead slingshot between a man’s eyes at forty paces, but could they do this? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, but they pushed past him to stare at the gateway through the open window. The two guards talked quietly together in the open tower above the gate, their faces visible as pale circles in the light of the torches below. Bryn and Bran exchanged a glance and carefully unwound their oiled leather slings. Cadwal would have stayed to watch them, but he had work elsewhere. He ran downstairs and slipped out into the street.

  Geraint and the twins were crouching in the shadows outside the torchlight when he joined them. And waited. He muttered a soft curse as the two guards drifted apart. Behind him he thought he could hear the whisper of dozens of running feet in the distance, but the sound faded long before the men at the gate became aware of it. Cadwal closed his eyes and thanked Taranis. They weren’t alone. He saw the glint of a helmet as the second guard moved back into view. Cadwal sensed he was laughing.

  The two impacts were so close they sounded like one. A distinct snap like two stones clicking together. The heads disappeared. Cadwal winced at the clatter of a helmet on the wood floor of the tower. But he was already on the causeway leading to the gate, veering at the last moment to approach the section of wall to the left. He put his back against the rough wood and clasped his hands in a cradle. Idwal had been following close behind. Now he ran forward with a straw mattress in his hands and placed his bare foot in the cradle of Cadwal’s fingers. One quick heave and Cadwal’s enormous strength boosted him upwards so the Ordovice could throw the mattress across the sharpened ends of the wooden timbers and clamber over. Cadwal cursed at the clatter of feet on the walkway behind the palisade. Above him Idwal cried out, anticipating a blow, but another slingshot found its target and Cadwal heard the sound of a falling body. Idwal disappeared from view. Cadwal looked to his right to see Eurig slipping over the rampart, similarly boosted by Geraint.

  He stood by the gate, breathing hard, his heart thundering. Logic told him the noise must have reached the other guards, but there seemed to be no immediate reaction. Quickly now. Every second counted.

  At last he heard the muted rumble of a wooden bar being withdrawn. The gate shifted a fraction and Cadwal put his shoulder to the seasoned oak to help it along. Behind him the sound of more movement. A mass of men carrying spears and painted shields raced across the causeway with no attempt at stealth. The gate opened to reveal the broad sweep of the cavalry parade ground and Cadwal stepped back to allow the first attackers to pour through the entrance. In the same instant Geraint slipped a short trumpet from its leather sack, put it to his lips and blew a long, blaring challenge.

  In the darkness outside the fort walls the very earth seemed to rise up as Madog, Dafyd and Tudfic urged their warriors forward. Owain’s men surged through the settlement in the wake of the vanguard, while others battered in the doors of the houses and shops and rounded up the inhabitants.

  Inside the fort the guards at last raised the alarm. The distinctive bray of a Roman cavalry trumpet echoed Geraint’s blast. Roused from their beds, auxiliaries dressed only in tunics and armed with swords burst from the neatly spaced barrack blocks and sprinted for their assigned defensive positions on the walls. Too late. The Ordovice warriors had already swarmed across the ditches on their makeshift wattle bridges and over the undefended parapets.

  Eurig threw Cadwal a spear dropped by one of the dead guards and Owain’s champion stepped into the line hastily formed by the first men through the gate. He took his place behind two overlapping shields and waited for the first rush of defenders. They came in a makeshift, staggered line that broke against the Ordovice shields. The heavy cavalry spathae they carried were brutal weapons when wielded from horseback. Long, edged bludgeons that could crack a man’s skull like an egg or cleave neck and shoulder. On the ground only an exceptionally strong man could wield them with any skill. The auxiliaries hammered desperately at the enemy shields, but they carried none of their own to fight behind.

  Wielding his spear two-handed, Cadwal darted the iron point at an exposed throat. A bearded auxiliary went down in a spray of blood. Another took his place, stabbing the point of his spatha at Cadwal’s eyes. Owain’s champion swayed back and the man with the shield on his left shifted it slightly and stabbed through the gap with a curved knife, ripping upwards and twisting the blade so the Tungria
n’s entrails were torn from his stomach. The blood drained from the man’s face in a heartbeat. He dropped his sword and turned away, trying vainly to cram his vitals back into his torn body. More and more Ordovice warriors poured through the gate, joining the line and forcing the auxiliaries back over their dead and dying comrades. The defenders were equally hard pressed from the north and west flanks, only holding their own among the barrack blocks on the eastern side where Madog battled to break down their resistance.

  The Tungrian commander, a prince of the tribe brought up and trained in arms by Rome, struggled into his helmet and armour, trying to make sense of the chaos. Timber buildings to the west of the principia blazed in a single enormous beacon. In the diabolical shadows cast by the flames he was able to make out overwhelming enemy numbers that might have struck fear into a lesser man. His first instinct was to fight his way out, but the Celts beset his command on every side leaving no obvious line of retreat. Testudo? If even a quarter of the men had shields he would have ordered them to form the armoured carapace that was the Roman army’s defence of last resort, but barely one in ten had snatched up a scutum as they ran from their barracks. He called his second in command across.

  ‘We must buy time, Priscinus. We’re losing too many men. The patrol beyond the river must be able to see that.’ He pointed his sword to the glow above them. ‘They’ll send to Deva for reinforcements. Have the signaller sound form square.’ He saw the look of dismay the decurio shot him. ‘Just do it,’ he hissed. ‘It’s our only chance.’

  Priscinus shouted the order and a new blast of the cavalry horn rang out above the clamour of sword on shield, screams of mortal agony and barbarian roars of triumph. The Tungrians disengaged as best they could and trotted back to the centre of the parade ground to form a ragged square in three ranks, a prickling hedgehog of swords and spears. Priscinus and his commander stood at the centre in the midst of a carpet of wounded men who groaned with pain and cried out for water. The decurio cursed the day he’d been sent to this place. Another month and they were due to hand over to an infantry cohort. Another year and he’d have retired with a pension and enough put away to buy the farm he’d always coveted. They both knew it would take reinforcements from Deva at least two days to reach them. Priscinus reckoned they might last two hours if Fortuna favoured them.