The Boat of Fate (49 page)

The woods lay silent, velvet-black in the night Badgers snuffed and grunted; somewhere an owl called, quavering and high. The column picked its way cautiously; sword-hilts clinked, once a horse shied and snorted at some looming shape above the path. Round the trunks of the trees mist coiled in thick, slow-moving veils; more than one of the Palatini crossed himself as he urged his horse into the shadows. The infantry followed, stepping close behind the trailed lances. For a while, as the army breasted the southern ridge, ragged shapes of men showed fleetingly against the sky; then the valley had swallowed them. There was stillness again and quiet.

At the foot of the first slope a shallow brook meandered through the forest. Beside it, a pale shape resolved itself into the figure of a mounted Silurian. He straddled a white-faced pony, pointing silently to the farther path. As the last man splashed through the stream he lifted his head, hands cupped round his mouth. The owl call floated up again into the dark.

The camp sprawled confusedly at the foot of a smooth slope of ground, dotted here and there with clumps of gorse and bramble. The site had been chosen for its seclusion, and for the stream, not much more than a rivulet, that chuckled and splashed a hundred yards away; but the selection was ill-advised. With the dark, vapours rose from the damp ground, chilling the bones of men who already shivered with a variety of fevers and agues. The more energetic of them had rigged tents amongst the baggage carts that littered the slope, but mostly they lay in the open, wrapped in cloaks, tunics, whatever scraps of cloth they’d managed to find, or steal from their neighbours. The rest of the waggons, drawn into a wide half circle, afforded some measure of protection; between them, shielded from observation by their high wooden sides, half a dozen fires still smouldered. Now and again a burned-through log broke with a snap and crackle, sending up a brief shower of sparks; the sentries, leaning dozing against their spears, jerked up, alarmed, peered into the slowly drifting mist before settling their chins back on their chests. A child wailed fretfully; the sleepers tossed and muttered, wishing it was day.

It was a wearing business, this game of soldiering. At first, infected by a common enthusiasm for destruction, they had marched and fought with a will, spitting young and old alike on their new stolen swords, cheering hoarsely as settlement after settlement went up in a blaze of sparks and crashing thatch. They loaded themselves with spoils, drapes and clothing, weapons, brooches, coins, plate; treasures they had rarely if ever seen, let alone expected to own. As word of the destruction spread their numbers swelled; the homeless and hopeless of half the Province began flocking to them. Immediately, problems started to arise. The uplands of the west could not begin to support such numbers; the army was forced to move continually, foraging farther and farther afield for the bare essentials of existence. Faith is no substitute for a full gut; there’s little pleasure in slitting a man’s throat if you know he’s as poor as you are, that his hut won’t yield more than a dozen cupfuls of grain. Squabbles broke out among the victorious soldiery; a half-filled wine-skin, or the carcass of a sheep, became killing matters. Also more and more began to suffer from drinking tainted water; and the fainter-hearted started to drift away, in ones and twos at first, then in larger groups. None of them got far; the hillmen, who had been hanging on the flanks of the rabble for days, stalked them through the gorse, silent as shadows. These Silurians knew their business. There was no warning; you seldom caught so much as a glimpse of them. Just a flicker on the hillside, an arrow coming with a dark flash and
thunk
; and another man would fall over kicking, or kneel carefully and start to sick his blood out on the grass.

The mob pushed on, uneasy and disgruntled; for there were rumours, brought in by laggards, of a countryside on the stir. Arguments raged again. The bolder of the outlaws, still flushed by success, were for making a decisive stand; others, their spirits dampened by the rain, urged a retreat to the north. Cautious counsel prevailed, and the march was resumed. Through the blazing day that followed they kept up a gruelling pace. Needlessly, as it turned out; for when camp was finally made, and they dropped tiredly in their tracks, there was no sign of pursuit. But no Roman, not the Dux Britanniarum himself, could hold limitanei to such a chase; once over the Great River the troops would have turned back, satisfied at having dispersed the immediate danger to their homes. The army got to its rest well content.

Except for the cursed dampness of the ground; and the owls that called all night long, eerily, round the camp. As the hours wore on it seemed the birds drew closer, startling the nervous from their sleep. They sat up, huddled in their blankets, grumbling and scratching themselves. Above, the faintest wash of grey light heralded the dawn; the air struck raw and chill. They rose, kicking their snoring neighbours as they passed, stumbled to the fires to hold their hands out over the wavering warmth.

As the light increased the tall shapes of the waggons ceased to be flat pale silhouettes, took on form and solidness. Men stood yawning, glancing up at the mist. High to the east cloud streaks showed faintly through the pall, touched with pink by the rising sun; the fires, stirred into life, sent up columns of smoke that swirled slowly, mixed with the thinning vapours of the marsh.

By degrees, the outlines of the surrounding land became visible. Then, man after man turned to stare. A silence fell, broken at last only by the clear high piping of a bird.

Along the brow of the eastern slope, shoulder to shoulder and impassive, stretched my cavalry. The sun, a blind bright eye, glared behind them, throwing long shadows forward against the mist. To the rear the infantry massed solidly, spear-points catching and winking back the reddish light. In the van, above the centre of the line, the Labarum hung silhouetted and stark; beside it gleamed the golden boar.

The silence, that had descended so abruptly, was broken with equal suddenness. A confused scurrying began among the opposing force. Men ran shouting, grabbing up weapons; women called shrilly; children bawled. The many voices blended into a sullen murmur, like the distant noise of a sea.

I sat my horse silently. Behind me, more than one of the hastily levied auxiliaries exchanged anxious frowns with his neighbour. Only the Palatini stayed motionless. They knew, too well, the force and crashing shock of a charge of heavy cavalry. That force, properly directed to its target, will burst through nearly anything. They waited, as I waited, for such a target to form.

And now, above the Bacauda line, rose an obscene parody of the Standard on the ridge. It moved and mocked, jabbed on a pike-end, waving slowly in the early light; its fair hair gleamed, hung round the shaft in spikes and clotted tufts. The answering murmur that ran through the German ranks was no less terrible for its quietness. For a barbarian, and a farmer to boot, might not set much store by his woman; little enough time for love, with fields to hoe and sturdy young to raise. None the less it is a notable thing to see her head laugh at you from a stick.

The lines would now no longer be held. I rested my hands on the neck of the horse and turned to the man at my side. ‘Riconus,’ I said. ‘Destroy me those people.’ I turned my mount then, walked it from the line of charge.

In the quiet the champ and fretting of a bit, the scrape of a drawn sword, sounded clearly. Men glared right and left, fidgeting with reins, eyeing the ground between them and the enemy as they plotted their course through the hummocks and bushes of the slope.

Who first raised the cry nobody could afterwards say. Reedy and thin it was, like the calling of a ghost, but growing magically, strengthening as it spread from mouth to mouth along the line. The shout that for a thousand years had borne the arms of Rome to battle, while a village in a marsh rose to be the terror and glory of the world; heard now from the throats of Gentiles and barbarians, swept away finally in the long drumming, the rising thunder-roll of hooves as the lance-tips dipped, the whole mass of horses and men, steel and flesh and bone, surged at the crest, fell like a stone across the intervening slope.

‘MARS, VIGILA ….‘

The charge struck the Bacaudae like an unspent wave. They barely served to check it. Everywhere, men reeled back under the shock. The line of horsemen rolled forward, jamming the struggling mass against the waggons. I saw one heavy cart flung bodily on to its side; another, struck by the full weight and press, reared on end, spilling its screaming top-load into the ashes of a fire. Instantly, the screaming redoubled; and smoke rolled up, obscuring the centre of the fight.

The slaughter wouldn’t perhaps have been so total had not a chance javelin, one of the very few hurled, brought down Astyr, a stocky, cheerful cousin of Riconus, who was riding on his immediate right. The shaft, flung with the strength of desperation, struck him full in the face, burst out a hand’s-breadth through skull and helmet. He plunged headlong, killed instantly, but his shriek still rose to the skies. It was the first loss the Celts had suffered in battle; and it drove them temporarily insane. Placed as they were at the tip of the charge, their speed carried them clear through the mob into the dead ground beyond. No other cavalry could have checked, but Riconus turned them. I heard his long yell, saw the boar Standard surge to one side. The little knot of men flung themselves with appalling fury on to the enemy’s flank and rear. The horses, butting chest-deep, tore swaths through the Bacauda ranks; the swords fell and whirled, red-stained by the morning light. The wing of the battle thus assailed rolled back towards the centre, and the whole fight degenerated to a boiling confusion. The Bacaudae, attacked from front and rear and fatally hindered by their own baggage train, began to panic. Waves of men bolted forward, up the hill. They collided, at the run, with the infantry still pouring down.

The smoke from the burning waggons had thickened now; it drifted low across the field, shot with streaks and flashes of flame. Through it, as it were in isolation, I glimpsed details that will always stay engraved on my memory. I saw a woman, already streaming, hold up a baby to ward off a sword-cut. The blade passed through the child unchecked, carried away her cheek and jaw. The next blow, mercifully, finished her. I saw a man, spitted on a lance, held writhing in the embers of a fire till his head burst and blackened, and he died. Nearer me a creature minus his forearms humped his way industriously up the slope. Behind him through the grass dragged pale-red snakes of entrails.

The din, the yelling and shrieking, clash and ring of weapons, reached a peak. The Standards waved and bobbed, now glinting, now seen as shadows against the smoke. Then, almost it seemed without transition, the whole mob had broken and was in flight. Men swarmed between the baggage carts, beating and clawing each other in their terror, flinging down swords and daggers as they ran. After them raged the cavalry. The blades swung; victim after victim doubled over, rolled jerking on the grass. The battle became a confused and frantic flight, fanning out across the sloping ground to the rear.

From the tumult rode a man on a grey horse. He moved diagonally towards me, swerving his mount between the clumps and tussocks of grass. After him, at reckless speed, pounded a dozen of the Celts. I saw the gleam of pale hair; then I was riding madly to cut him off. As I rode I yelled,

‘Ulfilas . . .!’

He saw me, but there was no time to check or turn. I struck him at full speed; his horse went down in a flailing of hooves, throwing him headlong. He was up in an instant, coming at me. I swung my shield, heard it connect. He drove for me; I parried and cut, felt the blade bite home. Then it seemed a red mist descended on my sight, so that the men and horses wheeling round were reduced to shadows. His sword flew across the grass, his hand still gripping the hilt. I stood over him and panted, seeing the earth fly, feeling the blade jar through him into the ground. It took a long while for the mist to clear. Then, suddenly, it was gone, and the world was empty.

I stepped back. I said, ‘Flog him.’

Riconus stared down at me, his eyes white with killing. He said, ‘He’s dead.’

‘Flog him,’ I said. ‘He’s not dead to me.’

I would, I think, have carried out my scheme; stamped his bones into the earth, and sown the place with salt. But a distant wave of shouting made me turn.

Beyond the battleground the land rose to a wooded ridge. The first of the fugitives, in their stumbling flight, had almost reached it, but none of them gained the cover. As they neared the trees, line after line of men debouched into the field. They carried great targes, starred and strapped with bronze. Their cloaks and leggings were of bright plaid; and each warrior bore a massive sword. The blades glinted briefly; and the Bacaudae crumpled into the grass. Horns bawled from the wood; the ranks paced forward steadily; and behind them, like creatures from another world, I glimpsed the ancient scourge. Black-robed women, their hair wild and long, ran and leaped. Some carried snakes and torches; others, naked, stroked themselves with fire.

I had found King Ossa.

I heard Riconus swear. He galloped from me, beating at his horse. All across the field dazed men turned to stare. The Celts, riding at wild speed, homed on the glittering boar. Behind them, still more or less disciplined, were the lancers from Glevum; the rest boiled into a mob that jostled and was still. The armies faced each other, silently.

I stared. Way off were other riders; strung out across the grass, and coming like the wind. They were moving at right angles, heading for the gap between the forces. I saw the leader, glimpsed her streaming hair.

We met in the dead ground between the ranks. What expression her face wore I won’t attempt to say. Finally I turned. A man had ridden forward from the opposing ranks. A barbaric helmet, decorated with boars’ tusks and inlaid with gold, covered his face to the chin, but there was no mistaking his voice. He sat a while impassively before he spoke. She turned to me, translating mechanically.