Calgaich the Swordsman (18 page)

Lutorius shook his head. There was no escaping this madman of a centurion. How he had lived through as many battles as he had without getting a legionnaire's spear or sword in his back during the press of combat was beyond Lutorius.

The wind shifted and one of the Asturians leaned over the crumbling wall. Sound carried well through the mist. He heard the chink of a horse's bridle. A man coughed somewhere out there in the drifting wool.

The decurion scaled the ladder at a beckoning signal from the Asturian. “What is it?” he whispered.

“Horses. Men. Five or six of them.”

The decurion leaned over the low wall on the courtyard side and pointed out positions to his men.

A harsh voice hailed the fortlet. It was Tribune Ulpius Claudius. A small party of horsemen appeared before the gate. One of them held a rope in his hand. The other end was noosed about the neck of a man on foot. The prisoner's wrists had been bound together across his lean belly. A broken spear shaft had been thrust across his back through the crooks of his elbows. His face was masked with dried blood and his torn leathern tunic was darkly stained with it.

Ulpius dismounted stiffly and limped over to Montanas. “That barbarian swine helped the woman escape,” he explained with bitterness, “and he killed my best horse. Have him strung up for flogging! I’ll have the hide and flesh from his bones!”

Calgaich heard the voices in the courtyard. He tested the ring bolt set in the wall. It came loose and he jerked it free, catching the rusted chains so that they did not clatter on the flagstones. There was only one exit from the room, through the open doorway that led to the courtyard. Calgaich catfooted to the narrow slit window beside the door. He muffled the chains inside his cloak.

Two of the Asturians untied the prisoner, then lashed his wrists together. They threaded the end of the rope through a ring inset on the wall above the prisoner’s head and drew it up tight.

"Lutorius!” the tribune snapped. "Where is that damned wine bibber?”

Lutorius came forward and saluted Ulpius. "Here, Tribune.”

"Make a cat. I want you to start work on his back. The gods know you’ve had enough experience in the business.”

Lutorius grinned crookedly. "Both in the giving and the receiving, sir.”

Lutorius found some extra bridle reins and tied the ends together about a piece of branch. He slit the free ends and bound sharp-edged stones to them in lieu of the usual leaden pellets. He strode to the prisoner and ripped the leathern tunic off his back.

Calgaich narrowed his eyes. There was something familiar about the prisoner.

Lutorius threaded the short lengths of leather between his fingers. He looked at the tribune. Ulpius nodded.

Lutorius spread his stocky, hairy legs and expertly eyed the prisoner’s back. He idly swung the lash back and forth and then suddenly, with a solid slashing stroke, he set to work. He struck from right to left and then from left to right, but he was not putting his full weight and strength as yet into the cruel task. Each stroke of the cat drew a sharp, grunting ejaculation from the prisoner. The blood began to run down his back.

"Caledonian swine!” the tribune cried. "Scream, pig! Beg for mercy! Hell and furies, Lutorius! Lay it on, damn you! I want to see the color of his bones. Kill my best horse, you barbarian dog! You’ll pay for that! Make him feel that he is dying, Lutorius.”

There was little chance that Calgaich could get out of the guardroom and behind the Asturians to reach the gate. The wall guards could see every movement within the courtyard. Calgaich needed a weapon; anything with which to strike at least a blow or two to win his way out into the concealing mist.

Lutorius stopped his work. His breathing was harsh between his teeth. He looked at the tribune. The tribune

jerked his head at Decrius Montanas. The centurion walked to the prisoner and drew back his grizzled head to look into the bloodstained face. The prisoner opened one eye to look at the centurion through his mask of blood. He spat full into the centurion's face.

"Guidd!” Calgaich cried.

Calgaich dropped his cloak and ran through the doorway, freeing his chains to their full length. He crashed between two of the Asturians to send them sprawling, then he swung out his right arm. The chain whipped out to strike Ulpius Claudius across the chest. The chain thudded against the Roman's bronze corselet and drove him backward. Calgaich hit Lutorius with a fist and flattened him on the ground. Decrius Montanas freed his sword. He jumped aside, with his feet planted wide apart, to await Calgaich’s charge. Calgaich swung his left arm outward. The chain whipped around the centurion’s neck and Calgaich jerked back on it with all his strength to dump Decrius on the ground.

The decurion darted in, striking with his long-bladed
spatha,
the auxiliary cavalry sword. A chain whipped around his sword wrist and then it was jerked backward and upward. The sword flew through the air to strike against the wall. The next sweep of chain caught the decurion across his privates and he doubled over in agony. The rest of the Asturians had drawn their swords. They danced about in futility, not daring to close with the mad barbarian.

"Tullus!” the tribune shrieked. "Drop me this madman!”

One of the Spaniards on the wall reached inside his cloak. He withdrew his sling and looped a leaden ball in it. He eyed Calgaich, waiting for him to get away from the wall so that he could get a clean shot at him.

A semicircular ring of cavalrymen had formed around Calgaich, just, beyond reach of the whistling chains. He knew there was no chance to break through that metal-tipped ring. He lowered the chains to the ground.

Guidd turned his head. "Escape, if you can, Calgaich.”

"No chance, old wolf. We can only die together.”

It was quiet now in the courtyard. The cold dawn wind whispered through the mist.

Tullus came softly down a ladder, out of sight of Calgaich. Now and then feet grated on the ground as the Asturians waited their chance. They had Calgaich cold, but none of them wanted to die with him.

"I want him alive!”' the tribune ordered. He looked at Calgaich. “Stop fighting. Tullus can break your thick Caledonian skull from forty feet away. Come! Surrender, and I'll stop the punishment of the one-eyed man."

Calgaich laughed. "I'd sooner trust a hungry wolf, Roman."

“By the Lord of Light," Ulpius vowed.

Calgaich studied the tribune. There was a slight scar between the man's dark eyebrows, the sign of the Raven degree of the cult of Mithras. Lutorius caught Calgaich's eye. The
calo
nodded.

“Give me a sword, Roman," Calgaich urged. “Come! Try Calgaich mac Lellan! The winner takes all."

Montanas came forward. His hard eyes never left the scarred face of Calgaich. “Let me try him, Tribune," he requested. “I’ll fight him for you."

“I can do my own fighting, Centurion." Ulpius shook his head. “No. We have need of this madman elsewhere."

Calgaich held up his arms. “By the Lord of Light," he reminded the tribune.

Guidd fell heavily to the ground as he was cut loose. Calgaich cradled the woodsman in his arms. “Steady, old wolf," he murmured. “By Lugh of the Shining Spear, that perfumed Roman pig will pay the full blood price for this."

Calgaich saw the greaved legs of the tribune close beside him. He looked up into the eyes of the Roman.

“Look you, Calgaich mac Lellan," the tribune said. “Only by the grace of the gods are you two still alive. The grace of the gods and that of Ulpius Claudius. Why your uncle let you live back in that filthy hall of his is beyond my understanding. How you got past his Pictish allies off the coast is also beyond understanding. You seem to be a man who laughs in the face of death, barbarian. But, now you are again in
Roman
hands. The arm of Rome is long and strong, and
no
one escapes its punishment. Remember, too, your father is in Roman hands, and that bloody, worthless thing in your arms is also our prisoner. I have sworn by the Lord of Light that you will not die, at least not while in my custody. I want no more attempts to escape. If you do try again, the life of that man lying there is at once forfeit, and should you succeed, the life of your father is then forfeit. Do I make myself clear?”

Calgaich nodded. He stood up. "The woman, Tribune. Where is she?”

Ulpius shrugged. "Somewhere in the hills. Pericol! She fought like a man! She drove a great war spear clean through one of the Saxons who had come to take her, and sorely wounded Maelchon, the Pict.”

Calgaich could not help but grin.

Ulpius nodded. "I
knew
that would please you. Your one-eyed hound there killed another Saxon in the escape. We pursued them into the hills. We rounded them up. One-Eye there fought so that the woman might escape. By Zeus! He killed my Spanish mount! For that alone I should have him flogged to death.” His voice rose high and then broke.

"By the Lord of Light, Tribune,” Calgaich again reminded Ulpius.

Ulpius became calm, although at times there was almost an hysterical quality about the man. "Lutorius!” he shouted. "Bring salve and bandages for this one-eyed man.”

The sun was tipping the hills to the east of the fortlet when the small command got ready to leave for the ride south. Calgaich and Guidd had been mounted on transport mules, with their ankles tied together by ropes that passed under the bellies of the beasts.

Ulpius fastened his cloak about his throat. "By the way,” he asked Calgaich, "how did you get free this morning?”

Lutorius looked up from where he was loading one of the pack animals. He didn’t know how Calgaich had done it, but he felt sure that somehow he had unintentionally helped the barbarian.

In one sentence Calgaich could have placed Lutorius’s back under the lash. He did not trust the man, but a poor friend among the Romans was better than none at all. "There were some sharp stones in the guardroom,” Calgaich replied. "I dug out the wall ring to free myself.”

Ulpius studied Calgaich. "I saw no sharp stones in there.”

Calgaich smiled. "There was only one, Tribune.”

They rode from the fortlet. The mist was being swallowed up by the rising sun. From somewhere within the mist there came the plaintive howling of an animal, followed by a series of sharp barkings.

Montanas looked back over his shoulder. “I’ve never heard a wolf howl during the daytime in this accursed country,” he observed.

Ulpius shrugged. “Everything is backward here.”

Guidd looked sideways at Calgaich. He shaped the name "Bron” with his lips. Calgaich nodded.

When the cavalcade vanished over the first of a series of ridges, a great brindle wolfhound rose from a hollow beyond the fortlet and trotted steadily along the rough track on the trail of the Romans and their prisoners.

When Bron had disappeared over the first ridge, a lone rider appeared in the north. Clad in a boy’s rough skins, with her long, dark hair piled up underneath a disreputable leathern cap, and with a great war spear slung across her back, Cairenn the Ordovician
cumal
rode south on the track of the Romans and Calgaich mac Lellan. Bron was her only escort. Cairenn had made her choice. There was no past to return to, only the hope that the future would reunite her with Calgaich. Nothing existed—Morar, the Romans, Bruidge—beyond that wish and her fear of the enveloping night.

The Wall of Hadrian was across the river extending to the east where it vanished into the distance. The cavalcade approached the bridge, which spanned die river in a series of graceful timber arches. Ulpius Claudius dropped back from the head of the band of cavalrymen and prisoners. “See the long arm of Rome, barbarian?” he asked Calgaich with deep satisfaction. “The Wall of Hadrian I It has stood there for two hundred and fifty years. It spans eighty miles from the Northern Sea to this point. Seventeen forts, eighty castles—one every mile—and one hundred and sixty signal towers. A masterpiece of engineering. There is nothing else like it in the world.”

“Why, Roman?” Calgaich asked dryly. “Why is it here?” “What do you mean?”

“If there is no other wall like it in your empire, there must have been a great need for it here alone.”

Ulpius was puzzled. “It has kept your people in check, Caledonian.”

Calgaich smiled crookedly. “We have been across your wall many times. My grandfather, Evicatos the Spearman, led the tribes almost to Londinium in his time.”

Ulpius laughed. “And where is he now?”

“There will be others.”

The Roman shook his head. “The wall still stands. Your people are still beyond it. It has served its purpose well. It is a tribute to the power of Rome.”

Calgaich spat to one side. “It seems to me, Roman, that all Rome itself is a fortress, beyond whose wall are we barbarians, in the hundreds of thousands. How much longer can your empire stand against them?”

“It is her destiny to rule the world. If by any chance

you barbarians should succeed in overrunning the empire, and the very thought is utterly ridiculous, the lights will go out all over the world, and it will revert to barbarism. Can’t you fools see the great wisdom of Rome? Her magnificent cities? Her unconquerable legions? Her roads, bridges, aqueducts and fortresses? Her trade? The Roman Peace that has brought happiness to all peoples? What have you barbarians to offer that can replace the great gifts Rome has given the world?”

Calgaich looked over his shoulder toward the distant purple hills. “The freedom with which every man is born,” he answered softly. “We don’t need your wisdom, your cities and all else you offer in the guise of gifts. What good are they to a man if he knows that the heel of Rome can rest on his neck for the span of his life and that of his children?”

“Many peoples have accepted that heel. It can be a benevolent heel, barbarian.”

Calgaich shook his head. “You’d never understand, Roman. Your great civilization is really nothing but an enslavement. You create a desolation in the world and call it peace.”

“Many of your own Britons have accepted our ways, and, I might add, with more alacrity than many other peoples.”