Dark Age

by James Wilde

  Mato sniffed the air again. ‘Nearly there.’

  Lucanus sensed the anticipation in those standing rigidly around him, all eyes following the flow of the river as it twisted and turned. They’d come so far, suffered so much. At times it had seemed that would be the pattern for the rest of their lives, until death ultimately claimed them. Running. Hiding. Afraid.

  When their boat rounded the final turn, Londinium presented itself to them. Under a pall of smoke from the fires of homes and workshops, the city sprawled on the north bank behind a towering ragstone wall. It was as impressive a defence as he’d heard. As high as four men standing on each other’s shoulders, it incorporated around a score of semicircular towers, each with a platform for ballistae. The wall also loomed up along the banks of the Tamesis, to deter any raiders from the river.

  Inside those vast defences, he imagined the grand forum, basilica and amphitheatre, the bath-houses and temples and palaces that he’d heard so much about, with the fort against the north-west wall. Finally, a chance to reclaim a small portion of the life they once knew.

  He nodded and grinned and looked to Mato. He felt surprised when he saw that his friend’s expression was dark, and he followed the other man’s gaze to the vicus just beyond the city walls. The vastness of the settlement took his breath away. It dwarfed the home of merchants and smiths and hard-working folk that had huddled against the wall of the fort at Vercovicium in the north. And as he stared, he realized that something was amiss.

  Close to Londinium, the homes and workshops were well built. But further away the vicus was a shamble of poor shacks, tents and structures that were little more than leaning branches. Fires glowed everywhere, the trails of smoke twisting up to an oppressive fug that hung over everything.

  And everywhere, people. More than he’d ever seen in his lifetime. Crowds shambling along the narrow tracks among the dwellings. Families hunched around those fires, filthy, their clothes hanging off them in rags. He saw hollow eyes, hollow cheeks, faces ragged with despair. Hunger. Want. Sickness. His nostrils flared at the vile stink of too many people piled on top of each other in too small a space.

  In the distance, columns of refugees trudged from the hills, more arriving by the day, by the hour.

  ‘We should have known,’ Mato muttered. ‘We could not have been the only ones who heard Londinium was the last haven.’

  Lucanus could feel the weight of the silence at his back. He didn’t look round.

  Children gambolled along the muddy river’s edge, waving and shrieking with excitement as the boats drifted in. Beyond, folk trudged to the bank, staring, too weary and broken to register any emotion.

  From each boat, a man splashed into the shallows and secured the vessel to a mooring post.

  ‘Put on your crown,’ Amarina muttered at his elbow.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Put on your crown.’ Her voice cracked, and when he glanced at her, her green eyes were flashing.

  ‘Heed her,’ Myrrdin murmured.

  From his cloak, Lucanus pulled out the gold circlet that Myrrdin had given him that day in the land of lakes when he’d been chosen to be the Head of the Dragon. Raising it high so all could see, he lowered it on to his head, watching the reflected sunlight that shimmered off it flicker across all the faces turned towards him, driving out the dullness of hardship.

  Myrrdin thrust his way to the front. He dropped into the water and leaned on his staff to lever himself up to dry land. Sweeping one hand back to Lucanus, he boomed, ‘Have hope, brothers and sisters. For the first time since this war began, have hope. For here is the Pendragon, the great war-leader of old, who will build an army the like of which Britannia has not known in an age. The Pendragon, who will defeat the invaders and lead us all out of the dark.’

  Lucanus felt Amarina’s hand shove into the small of his back. Stirring himself, he dropped into the water and waded up to Myrrdin. He knew his role. Drawing Caledfwlch, he stabbed it towards the sun. ‘With this sword of the gods, I will lead that army.’ His voice soared above the distant sound of hammers and bawling babies. ‘I will defeat our enemies. This is my vow. Once again you will be free to live the lives you once had.’

  At first there was only silence. Then faces brightened, eyes gleamed with tears and long-buried emotions rose up. A desperate, kindling hope. A lone cheer echoed. But then it spead like a forest fire, springing from lips to lips, until it raged across the entire crowd, seemingly across the entire vicus.

  Lucanus felt humbled.

  A firm hand gripped his arm, and Myrddin urged him forward. The crowd parted as he strode into the stinking settlement and that jubilant din engulfed him. The news must have rushed in like the incoming crowd, for as he marched towards the city gates with his men trailing behind him folk sped to line the way. The waves of cheering never faltered.

  As he swept into the vicus proper, a hook-nosed man dressed in makeshift leather armour with an old sword hanging from his hip stepped in front of him. He looked from Lucanus to Myrrdin and bowed. ‘Your army is gathered here, what few heeded your call. But the numbers are growing by the day. The barbarian horde made it impossible to reach you, but we prayed that you would find your way to Londinium.’

  ‘Once we’ve established a base in the city, we’ll meet and discuss our plans,’ Lucanus told him.

  The man’s face fell. ‘They’ll not let you in.’

  ‘They must.’

  He shook his head. ‘The gates are closed. The city is overcrowded already. There’s not enough food to go around. Sickness sweeps through the vicus, and the governor fears if it gets within the walls it will be the end. Folk are dying here, Pendragon. They came in hope, and there is none. They are falling by the hour. There’s not enough time, or men, to bury them. Every night the bodies are carried out of the vicus and burned. Our only chance is to defeat the barbarians, and soon. Otherwise, I fear few of these folk will survive the winter.’

  Lucanus felt sickened, but he nodded. ‘We’ll find a way through this.’

  His words seemed to comfort the man, for now. As he marched on, he murmured to Myrrdin, ‘Is this it, then? We have fought our way here only to rule over the slow death of all hope?’

  ‘There is always hope, Wolf. You embody it now, don’t forget that. The Dragon will rise.’

  ‘I’m starting to believe I made a mistake in trusting you, wood-priest. It seems to me that your plan is all that matters, and that you’d sacrifice everything, all these folk, all of Britannia, to see it put into place.’

  Myrrdin said nothing.

  Lucanus stiffened his spine and strode on. They crossed a narrow bridge over a small river running down to the Tamesis. Folk from the vicus tramped behind them, as if unwilling to allow their saviours out of their sight. As the walls loomed up, he looked along the parapet and saw the silhouettes of many men gathered there. Soldiers in helmets, by the look of them.

  Finally the cheering died away as Myrrdin stepped up to the gate and hammered his staff on the blistered wood. ‘Open up,’ he commanded. ‘Open up for Lucanus Pendragon and the army that will finally win this war.’

  ‘Away with you.’ The voice resounded from the rampart, punctuated by harsh laughter. Somebody hawked up phlegm, and the gobbet splattered at Lucanus’ feet.

  ‘You think these walls will keep you safe from what lies out there?’ the Wolf called up.

  A long moment of silence hung in the air, and then another voice said in a harsher tone, ‘Away. We can’t support any more.’

  Lucanus drew his blade again and looked along the length of it to those shadows along the wall. ‘We have no fight, you and me. We’ll stand shoulder to shoulder and hold back that wave of blood and iron about to crash upon you. No one knows the barbarians as we do. We’ve been among them. We know their tactics, their weaknesses. You have one chance left to save the day. To live. Take it.’

  ‘Let them in.’

  Lucanus frowned. Did he hear a familiar note in that voice?


  After a moment, the gates rumbled open. A cadre of soldiers darted out, swords drawn, to hold at bay the crowd of desperate, hungry folk gathered at the back of the new arrivals.

  ‘Make haste,’ Lucanus urged. He swept his arm to send his men and the refugees through the gates first in case they were denied entrance once he’d stepped inside.

  At the end of the column, he marched under the arch and into the city.

  Instantly, he felt assailed by the life in Londinium. He choked on a reek worse than the vicus. Overflowing middens and backed-up ditches. Smoke and sweat. The street ahead was thronged. His ears rang at the din. The clatter of hammers, the belch of furnaces, citizens shouting to be heard. He could see from the bodies jammed into the street that they had already taken in more than the city had been designed to hold.

  That thick bank of smoke drifted across the sun and for a moment twilight rushed in.

  The gates boomed shut. The cry of despair that rose up from those left outside drove a spike through his heart.

  From the corner of his eye, he sensed someone pushing their way down the stone steps from the top of the wall. He turned and stiffened.

  A familiar face indeed: pale skin with a sweep of freckles, piercing eyes like a midwinter moor. Once centurion of Vercovicium, now deserter and the man who, as much as anyone, had allowed this invasion to happen, and now had the blood of all those innocents who had died on his hands. Quintus Domitius Falx.

  ‘Surprised? You shouldn’t be,’ Falx said with a grin. ‘In the hell that is Britannia, all roads lead to Londinium, Lucanus. You’ll find many old friends here.’

  Falx, who had hunted down and stolen the boy Marcus from them.

  ‘I should kill you now,’ the Wolf growled.

  PART TWO

  City of the Dead

  At his best, man is the noblest of all animals.

  Separated from law and justice, he is the worst.

  Aristotle

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Summer’s End

  ‘ONE NIGHT HE will come to my house, and then I’ll cut off his cock and feed it to him.’

  Amarina was cleaning her nails with her knife. She whisked the blade in the air as if imagining the act of slicing, and then leaned back against the wall on her stool. Her lips curved, but Lucanus looked into her green eyes, like pebbles on a beach, and knew this was no lie. Amarina never forgot a wrong, and it was Falx who had snatched her and Marcus and offered them up to the merchant Varro. But though she hated Falx, Lucanus knew her deepest loathing was reserved for Varro’s dwarfish assistant Bucco, who had left her for dead in a pool of her own blood.

  Lucanus’ thoughts flew back to the first time he had seen that dwarf. All had thought him a tool mercilessly exploited by Varro. But in truth Bucco had only been masquerading as the downtrodden servant and it was he who was the true master in that relationship. Bucco, as cruel and savage as any barbarian, despite his stature, who would inflict any torture on those who stood in his way.

  ‘We can never forget,’ Mato said. ‘But this isn’t the time to be fighting among ourselves. Justice will catch up with Falx sooner or later.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ Myrrdin mused, ‘he gave us entrance to the city and provided us with these fine comforts.’ He swigged back wine, and then waved the goblet at the small, dark room. The centurion had found a few of them this house, no doubt throwing the previous occupants out on the street. Here were Amarina, Decima and Galantha, the wood-priest, Mato, Apullius and Morirex, old man Menius and Aelius. It would be cramped, but they would have space to plan and gather their strength. The rest of Lucanus’ men and the refugees had been sent to the south-eastern corner of the city and told to find a place to camp. But the centurion had, at least, promised them food to fill their bellies.

  ‘Falx is not to be trusted. Ever,’ Lucanus said.

  As if in answer, the door crashed open. Lucanus turned to see the centurion standing there. Falx smiled, then thought better of it. ‘I understand your feelings. We’ve had our differences—’

  ‘Differences? You certainly have a way with words.’ Amarina was smiling at him.

  Falx levelled his sword at her. ‘Keep that witch away from me.’

  ‘We will be opening a new House of Wishes here in Londinium, the three of us,’ she went on, nodding to Decima and Galantha. ‘You should visit us. It will be a night you will never forget.’

  She stood up, swung her cloak around her shoulders and stepped out into the sweltering street. The other two women followed. Through the door, Lucanus could see the shadows lengthening fast, and the three companions were quickly swallowed by the gloom.

  Instantly relaxing, Falx kicked the door shut, walked across the room and poured himself a goblet of wine. ‘We always understood each other, Lucanus. We did good business in Vercovicium, made a little coin—’

  ‘Until you went too far, robbed your own men, and left the wall unguarded when we needed it most.’ Lucanus swallowed bile. ‘And until you snatched Marcus.’

  ‘I’ve made mistakes—’

  ‘I should gut you now.’ Lucanus’ hand twitched towards his sword as grief stabbed his heart once again.

  ‘I’ve made mistakes, like any man.’ Falx swilled back the wine. ‘When I took Marcus to that fat slug Varro, the world was falling apart and none of us knew if we would see the next sunrise. Survival, that’s all I saw it as. And I was wrong to do it. I’m not a learned man. A humble soldier, who’s given his life to Rome. Would you forgive me?’

  ‘No,’ Lucanus said.

  Falx shrugged. ‘Fair enough. Then will you at least work with me, in common purpose?’

  ‘And what would that be?’ Mato asked. ‘Filling your coffers?’

  ‘Coin will be worth nothing in the afterlife. The choices are clearer now. Live or die. I want to live. I’ll wager you do too, all of you. You’re good men, you Grim Wolves.’ He eyed the others, sneering a little at the sight of Aelius wiping his father’s face. ‘Not so sure about the rest of you. But I’d rather have you at my shoulder than my enemy’s. We need some good men, Lucanus. Let me tell you, this place is a pit of shit, ruled over by jolt-heads who don’t know their arse from their elbow. It was bad enough when I first got here, and they’ve let it grow worse by far. Do-nothings who pray and whine, and wish like children that Rome will suddenly send a legion to the gates to save us all. Wishes won’t fill bellies or gut barbarians, Wolf. You know that as well as I do. We’re on our own here, and if we are going to live we have to see to it ourselves.’

  Much as he hated him, Lucanus knew the centurion was right. ‘How many men have you got to defend the city?’

  Falx shrugged. ‘This is the madness that has gripped this place. No one has done a head-count. The rabble are barely organized. The governor has sealed himself in his palace with his advisers and slaves. No one ever sees him any more. All we have are messengers demanding this or that on his behalf; half-hearted orders; whims. But nothing gets done, and there is no punishment for it.’

  ‘We have an army.’ Aelius had finished mopping his father’s brow, and Lucanus was surprised to see the old man’s eyes sparkling in a manner that he had not witnessed since Vercovicium. ‘You have Lucanus to thank for that,’ Aelius went on. ‘He is a great man now, a leader of men, as his father always believed he was.’

  Falx nodded. ‘I know your worth, Lucanus. And I’ve heard from the folk in the vicus that an army was gathering here. They are raw, though, yes? Farmers. Merchants.’

  ‘But they won’t run at the first sign of a fight.’

  ‘I cannot argue with you there.’ The centurion stepped to the door. ‘Walk with me. I’ll show you what kind of place you’ve found yourself in.’

  Lucanus strode behind Falx into the dusty street. His skin prickled from the heat rising off the buildings. There was no breeze and the air was dry, but he could at least hear himself think now that the din had died down a little as the day wound towards its close.

  Falx led
him through the shadows to the river wall. They climbed the stone steps to the top and Lucanus looked to the south. The Tamesis was a river of blood in the light of the setting sun. He could see a sturdy bridge crossing to the south bank where a settlement sprawled, but much of it seemed to have fallen into ruin.

  Lucanus turned to the west and looked back along the way they had come. His thoughts flew over that rich, green land to where the fires burned and the war-bands of the great horde came together and swept towards them.

  ‘When he was in his cups, the merchant Varro used to spew words about the legend of the King Who Will Not Die,’ Falx said in a low voice, eyeing him askance. ‘Whoever controlled the bloodline held the ultimate power, he would say time and again. He thought that boy of the woman you took a fancy to, the married one, was key—’

  ‘Marcus is dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Falx bowed his head for a moment, and Lucanus felt his anger rise again. ‘But know now that I’ve got no interest in those stories, whether they’re the fantasies of fools or there’s any truth in them. Who cares about power and gold and kings that may or may not be born in days yet to come? Every day now is about living to the next dawn. That’s all that matters.’

  ‘We have work to do,’ Lucanus agreed. ‘But don’t ask me again to forgive.’

  Falx nodded. He turned and leaned against the stones to look back across the town. Here and there torches flickered into life. The stink of pitch rose up. Pointing to the western wall, he went on, ‘When you arrived, you crossed the River Fleet and passed through the Ludgate. North of that is the Newgate, and the Aldersgate, and then the fort set against the Cripplegate. The temple precinct is over there. Plenty of places to pray for salvation. We have many of those Christians here and they have their own churches. They don’t like us bowing our heads to the old gods, or going to the Temple of Mithras up there by the Walbrook, but what are they going to do about it?’ He shrugged. ‘They’ve given the Temple of Mithras over to Bacchus, but there’s still a part of it we can use. Everything changes.’