‘Good. Now give me that flashy brooch that’s holding your cloak closed. Don’t worry, you’ll see it again in another place…’
Calgus unpinned the brooch, an intricately worked gold replica of a shield, decorated with a swirling pattern, a polished piece of amber in place of the shield’s metal boss, dropping it on to the outstretched palm. The hooded man turned away, calling back a parting comment over his shoulder while his companion backed away beside him, sheathing his sword and taking the bow from its place on his shoulder. He nocked an arrow and lifted the bow in readiness to shoot, deterring any thought of pursuit.
‘You will see me again, Calgus, but not before you have your people in the field with death in their hearts.’
The two men merged with the forest’s shaded depths and were lost to the king’s eyes. He stood staring after them for a long moment before turning back to his fallen companions.
‘Death in their hearts, Roman? That won’t be hard to arrange.’
1
Februarius, AD 182
One of the front rank spotted them first, a good three dozen men silhouetted against the afternoon’s bright skyline where the road rose to surmount a ridge that crossed their path in its long descent from the Pennines’ eastern shoulder. He shouted a warning in a voice made hoarse by urgency. The small detachment’s commander, a veteran watch officer with a face seamed by experience, stopped in mid-stride and followed the man’s pointing arm, taking a moment to measure the depth of their predicament. When the road had risen to its previous vantage points he’d seen no other troops in front or behind them, just the plodding mule cart they’d passed an hour ago, now far behind them. That many barbarians would make short work of his sixteen men, and the legionaries’ heavy armour ruled out any chance that they could outpace their ambushers back down the road to the south. Dropping his pack on to the verge, he drew his sword and pointed with it towards the distant enemy. Unless he kicked his dithering troops into activity quickly the tiny unit would shatter before the barbarians got within spear-throw.
‘Piss buckets and shields! Form a line!’
He kicked one of the nearest men in the backside to reinforce his point. Hard.
‘Fucking move!’
The legionaries shed their pack yokes at the roadside and fumbled to free shields slung across their backs with fingers turned numb by fear, quickly forming a thin line across the road. Helmets, previously hanging round their necks, were slid over their heads, the cheek-pieces adding a much-needed martial brutality to faces suddenly pale with terror. The watch officer stalked out in front of them, sword still drawn.
‘Eyes on me! On me!’
The legionaries unwillingly dragged their gaze away from the advancing barbarians, now streaming down the shallow slope a few hundred paces away.
‘Don’t worry, you lot are so pretty compared to the local girls, this bunch are probably looking for a shag rather than a fight.’
One or two of them smiled wanly, which was better than nothing.
‘And they fucked up by giving us time to get dressed up for the party. So, when I give the order, throw your spears, air your blades and get ready for them to hit your shields. Use your shields to throw them back! Don’t leave the line. They want you to fight alone, outnumbered three to one, or to run so’s they can spear you in the dog blossom. Your best chance…’
He slapped a man whose eyes had wandered back to the advancing Britons.
‘On me! Your only chance is to stay in the line, and keep parrying and thrusting like you’ve done a thousand times in drills. They will give it up once they know we won’t be a pushover. I will be behind you, and I will step in for the first man that falls! Spears… ready!’
Stalking round to the line’s rear, he looked at the ground, gauging from the number of spreading dark patches in the road’s dust how many of his men had already lost control of their bladders. There was enough piss steaming in the winter’s chill air that their ability even to wait in line for the barbarian charge was hanging in the balance. They would all be dead inside of five minutes, he realised, mentally shrugging his shoulders and getting ready to give a decent account of himself. The men that the detachment was escorting had dismounted from their horses, the stocky veteran and his younger, taller companion something of a mismatched pair. Bloody civilians. At least they had a means of escape.
‘If you’re going to ride for help, this would be a good time!’
The older man, a legion veteran if the watch officer was guessing correctly, simply smiled back, green eyes twinkling out of a weatherbeaten face still ruddy despite the prospect of imminent death. He was evidently in his late forties, and from the quality of his clothing comfortably well off, cloak pulled across his chest and draped across one shoulder in the military style. While the younger civilian had accompanied the detachment since leaving the fortress at Dark Pool, three days’ march to the south, the older man had ridden into the small fort that had sheltered them the previous night, arriving well after the sun’s setting. His apparent lack of concern at the danger of meeting robbers on the road had caused more than a few raised eyebrows among the more experienced troops, despite the chain-mail vest beneath his cloak, the short infantry-pattern sword hanging at his waist and the purposeful way in which he conducted himself.
‘I’m Rufius, formerly an officer with the imperial Sixth Legion. I never ran away from a fight in twenty-five years of service, and I won’t break that habit now… Besides, we’ll see this lot off easy enough.’
The watch officer nodded slowly.
‘Fair enough. What about you?’
The younger man shook his head grimly, too tense for humour, drawing a long-bladed cavalry sword with a glimmer of polished iron. The watch officer wondered just how much use that was going to be, given that its owner seemed to be barely out of his teens. His voice when he spoke was strong enough, though, without any hint of the quaver that might have been expected given the circumstances.
‘Marcus… Marcus Valerius Aquila. I won’t be running away either.’
The veteran soldier alongside him nodded approvingly, unsheathing his sword, and gestured to the legionaries’ line.
‘Shall we?’
The watch officer shrugged, turning back to face the oncoming warband.
‘It’s your funeral. Stay with me, you’re now my reserve. When a man goes down, you go into the line in his place. Right, detachment, spears ready to throw… wait for it!’
The barbarians’ trot had become a run now, closing the remaining distance between them quickly. Half a dozen of them were carrying axes, great tree-cutting blades that would cleave a man down to his waist or lop off a limb, armour or no armour. They were close enough for details to stand out now, lime-washed hair standing stiff from their heads, blue patterns swirling across their faces and jewellery flashing brightly in the afternoon’s pale sun, close enough for their harsh battle cries to raise his neck hairs. This was no chance encounter, but a tribal warband dressed and tooled up for a fight, probably fired up by the local beer too, eyes wide and teeth bared in snarls of eager anticipation. The detachment’s line shivered, more than one man starting to shrink backwards at the prospect of imminent brutal death. Before their collective breaking point was reached the veteran stepped up to their rear, dimpling the skin of the rearmost man’s neck with the point of his sword. He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, loudly enough for the detachment to hear him above the growing din of the approaching barbarians.
‘Back in line, sonny, or those blue-nosed bastards won’t get the chance to do you.’
More than one man looked round at him wide eyed, while the legionary in question inched forward again. One or two of the older salts, the men that already knew, and with grim resignation accepted, that their lives were about to become short and interesting whether they fought or ran, smiled in quiet recognition and raised their shields slightly in unconscious reaction to the voice of command. The watch officer nodded his head with respect, keeping his eyes on the charging barbarians and raising his voice to be heard above their harsh cries.
‘Wait for it… Spears…’
As the watch officer opened his mouth to order the spears thrown, in the last seconds before the Britons
