Clash of Iron (46 page)

There was something he didn’t like about this next town, though. Its name, Sea View, was unimaginative at best. There were no roads leading to it, apparently because the inhabitants went everywhere by boat and didn’t see the need for one, so for the last few miles they had to march single file along a path, which felt exposed; he expected a Gaul to pop out of the scrub and stick a spear in his midriff at any moment. When they arrived at the town, they had to wait for the tide to go out so they could cross the sand causeway that led to it.

All these difficulties added together to produce something that felt a lot like defiance; exactly the sort of defiance that might make them refuse an envoy’s demands and cook him alive in whale blubber.

Hundreds of Armoricans gathered on Sea View’s wall as the Romans approached. Ragnall told the century to hold and rode to the gate with the two envoys. He scanned the impudent Gaulish faces poking up behind the palisade. And saw Carden Nancarrow. Carden ducked as soon as Ragnall spotted him, which made Ragnall all the more certain that it had been him. He was about to tell Titus and Quintus what he’d seen when an inner voice bade him remain silent, at least for now.

He explained to the gatekeeper what they wanted and promised that the soldiers would remain a hundred paces away. The gatekeeper disappeared. They sat on their horses, Ragnall squirming slightly under the hate-filled glare of the several hundred Gauls. He had no idea what to do. He was certain that it had been Carden. Carden and Atlas had advised the Germans how to fight the Romans, so the chances were that they were both here, doing the same again, and Sea View was preparing to attack his delegation, or at least capture it.

So all sense said that he should warn Titus and Quintus. They could all have ridden on and sent a legion to destroy the town. But for some reason he stayed quiet. It wasn’t because Carden had saved his life by choosing him to catapult into the lake – he was pretty sure that Carden’s competitiveness had been the sole reason he’d tried so hard to ensure Ragnall survived his flight – and it wasn’t because he wanted to undermine the Roman mission. He wholeheartedly and unreservedly believed that Roman conquest would benefit Britain immeasurably. It was, he decided, purely because Titus and Quintus had been such pricks to him. He was going to get his own back.

When the gatekeeper returned and said that Chief Vastivias would grant them an audience, Ragnall said: “Jupiter’s bollocks!”

“What is it now?” asked Quintus, voice dripping with contempt. That resolved him.

“I’ve left my purse where we were waiting for the tide to go out,” he said. “I remember where I put it. I went into the bushes to … well … I had to stash my purse somewhere safe and I forgot to pick it up.”

“You can get it when we’ve finished here,” Titus snapped.

“Sorry, I must go back now. That purse contains coins given to me by Caesar himself. I’ll catch up with you in the town. Surely you’re capable of beginning negotiations without me? You know how close I am to the general. He’d be upset if I lost his gift.”

Quintus and Titus looked at Ragnall then at each other. He could tell they were unconvinced, but what could they do? He’d called their competence into question and he’d rolled the unbeatable friend-of-Caesar dice.

“All right,” said Quintus. “But Publius will hear of this.”

“I will tell him myself,” said Ragnall, pulling his horse around.

The two envoys rode through the gate. The heavy wooden doors closed behind them. Ragnall rode back to the legionaries. They parted to let him through and he rode away along the beach.

What had he done, he thought? He felt both thrilled and ashamed that he had betrayed Rome. Not Rome, he corrected himself, just those two cocks who deserved everything they got.
Being boiled alive in whale blubber? They deserve that for being a tad uncivil?
asked yet another little internal voice.
Oh piss off
, he replied.

D
ug lay on the wonderfully wet, cold ground, eyes closed, panting like a dying dog.

“Come on, Dug,” Atlas’ voice said from somewhere above him.

“I’m dead. Leave me alone.”

“Up, Dug. It was your idea that I train—”

“I know, I know.” Atlas was right. If they could whip every soldier to the peak of physical fitness, their chances of beating any army would increase massively. And leaders, annoyingly, had to lead by example. He clambered to his feet.

“Come on! Next time I won’t be so gentle. Do you want to let your badgers down?” Atlas had split the army into companies, each comprising a hundred men and women. Every company had been given a name and a capable or well-known leader. Dug hoped he filled both of those categories, but he hadn’t been impressing himself much recently with his capabilities. Everything was more tiring than he remembered it being last time he’d trained for war, a decade and a lifetime before. He’d been given the command of the badger company, which amused everybody for some reason.

Dug didn’t give the tiniest crap if he came last in a long-distance running race, but he knew that his company would be upset if it lost, so he clambered to his feet.

Atlas set off at a run, following the hundreds of men and women who were already halfway up the hill. At the top, ahead of everyone else, was an unmistakeable blonde figure, jumping on the spot and shouting at the rest of them to catch up.

“Should have stayed on my farm,” panted Dug as he lumbered up the slope.

“T
hey have done what?” shouted Publius.

“Sea View has taken Quintus and Titus as hostages.”

“How dare they!”

“They’re saying that we have some of them hostage, so it’s only fair that they take some of ours as collateral.”

Publius looked like he might hit Ragnall, but instead he shook his head.

“And why didn’t they take you?”

“I had to go back along the beach. I’d forgotten something.”

“Forgotten what?”

“A purse of coins. We had to wait for ages for the tide to go out before we could get to the town. I’d had to … visit the bushes, so I stashed the purse, forgot it, then remembered it as the gates of the town opened.”

“Convenient. Can you show me this purse?”

“Here you go.” Ragnall reached into his toga pocket and took out his purse. It hadn’t been left behind in a bush but nobody knew that, and he had visited the bushes while they waited, and was sure that witnesses could be found to say that. He surprised himself with his skill at deception. Giving Publius a hurt look. “I’m sad that you needed to see it.”

Publius seemed to deflate. “I’m sorry, old man. You’re right. It’s just that six more envoys have been taken by two other towns and we don’t have nearly enough food yet.”

Ragnall gripped his shoulder. “That’s all right, I understand. What are you going to do?”

“There is only one thing to do. That’s what’s put me in such a bad mood, I suppose. I’m going to have to kill some of our hostages.”

“Might that not cause more problems than it solves? I don’t know how much I’d welcome an invasion that killed members of my family.” Ragnall thought of Lowa killing his family, which made him think of Carden on the wall. He felt very guilty. He really should have told the other two about him and now it was too late. If he told Publius he’d seen the Briton, he’d be signing his own execution warrant. And now he was defending the hostages? What had got into him?

“I know, I don’t like it either. There’s no joy in killing women and children, and it could snowball into a full-scale rebellion, but it’s standard practice. If I don’t kill at least one hostage for every one of ours that they’ve taken, Caesar will want to know why.”

“Is he on his way?”

“No. They’re saying in Rome that his political machinations are as difficult and dangerous – and as brazen – as anything he’s ever done on the battlefield. I’ll send a messenger about the envoys, but I don’t expect him to rush back.”

T
wo shouts echoed over the hills that day. The morning one came from Mal from his lookout on the mound of Frogshold to say that there was no sign of the Eroo invasion. The second one, from the north, said that the Murkan army had left Mallam and was marching south.

More shouts came over the next two days. The Murkan army was fifty thousand strong, which made it nearly twice the size of the Maidun army. It was mostly infantry, with about five thousand cavalry and no chariots.

“The problem,” said Lowa, “is not knowing what Eroo is doing, how big its force is, where its force is … If Grummog is headed for Maidun, then we should ride out to meet him nearby.”

“On Sarum Plain,” Dug replied. They were in Lowa’s hut, eating a breakfast of eggs and bread. Sarum Plain, where she’d defeated the Dumnonians, was the obvious spot: wide and flat, favouring their chariot-heavy army.

“If he’s stupid enough to go that way,” she said. “He’s a canny fucker.”

“But if he heads for the Haffen Estuary and links with the Eroo army when they land…”

“Then we’re in trouble, even if we can persuade them to a battleground that suits our chariots.”

“So the answer is…”

“To take the army north,” said Lowa. “Defeat the Murkans before Eroo lands.”

“And if Manfrax does come in the next couple of days?”

“Then we’ll be in the right place. We can use Gutrin Tor or Frogshold as our fort and supply via Forkton if necessary.”

“Which one do you favour?”

“They’re both similar mounds protruding from the marshes, but Frogshold is better fortified and nearer the coast, so probably Frogshold. But the main thing, do you agree with me that we should mobilise and march now?”

“Yup,” he nodded.

She’d known that was the answer, but it was good to have Dug to agree.

“So that’s that,” she said. “We go to war today.”

B
ran appeared at Chamanca and Carden’s open hut door at dawn and asked them to come to the central clearing. They walked through the misty morning and muted sounds of a village waking up and found Chief Vastivias, Walfdan the druid and Modaball the Warrior debating hotly. Vastivias was stabbing the air with a finger, Modaball was windmilling his arms and Walfdan was stroking his beard.

“Caesar has killed my son and my daughter,” said Vastivias when he saw them. “In fact, he didn’t even have the balls to do it himself. A deputy gave the order. Caesar is in Italy.”

“Ah,” said Carden.

“I am sorry,” Chamanca added.

Vastivias nodded. “I could say that it was your fault and that we should boil you in whale blubber right now, but you were right. I made a mistake when I gave them as hostages without taking any in return. Their blood is on my hands, not yours. And on Caesar’s.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Chamanca.

“I’m going to destroy the Roman army and kill Caesar. I’m on the brink of sending out riders to gather forces. There’s only one Roman legion in Armorica – five thousand men. We will take them without too much bother. Then Caesar will come with more men, and we’ll kill all of them, too.”

“It won’t be easy defeating even the one legion,” said Carden. “They don’t fight like decent people. They link shields so they’re like a giant crab with a thousand claws.”

“We will smash them!” said Modaball, jumping on the spot, the fat on his chest and arms rippling.

“I’m sorry, but you won’t,” said Chamanca, “no matter how brave and skilled your warriors are. The Roman battle tactics are difficult to beat, impossible if your army is not coordinated. You Armorican tribes tolerate each other and coexist peacefully enough, but there are too many chiefs for you to work together on the battlefield. No matter your total numbers nor your passion, you will have many small groups attacking the Romans, rather than one coordinated army. And that, I am sorry to say, is exactly how to get wiped out by the Romans.”

“What a load of boarshit!” Modaball puffed out his chest. “I could take the whole lot on myself. I could—”

Vastivias put a hand on Modaball’s arm. “Quiet,” he said. “It does not make us shy to listen to an independent, prudent voice, especially when our blood is boiling. Are we cowards if we circle a lion and wait for an opportunity with the spear rather than putting our head in her mouth? What do you suggest, Chamanca?”

“Last year, King Hari the German used attrition, the piece-by-piece destruction of their forces. Had he carried the strategy through, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because the Romans would have been defeated last year. However, he became frustrated, committed all his forces into one battle – a much larger force than the Armoricans might muster – and he was destroyed by a smaller number of legions than you will face when Caesar returns. I suggest you learn from his fatal mistakes. Watch the Romans in Karnac. Any Roman leaves the base, he does not go back. You have an advantage over King Hari in that your Romans are already short of food. It won’t be long before they’re starving. Their morale will dissolve and they will have to retreat.”

“And when Caesar’s other legions return?” Bran asked.

“Fenn-Nodens towns have been built well, in good locations, and are almost all defendable. So you hold out. You have wells, your food comes from the sea. You are perfectly placed to resist, much more so than any of the other Gaulish tribes that Caesar has defeated. And if the Romans do breach your walls, you have boats, so you sail to an ally. You could go to Britain even. You will be welcome in Maidun’s lands.” Chamanca hoped this was true. It probably was. She continued: “The Romans do not have the numbers to garrison your towns, so when they leave, you return.”

Vastivias shook his head. “And rebuild our smashed buildings? Not to mention our smashed pride.”

“Buildings and pride will be a great deal easier to restore than the lives of your people should you attack the Romans head-on. Stone, wood and swagger are disposable. Your riches, your lives and your children you can take with you on your boats and save for another day.”