Roman - The Fall of Britannia (32 page)

----

Prydain
struggled into consciousness, aware of strange voices within their
small encampment. Realising he could be in danger, his hand reached
slowly to his belt to retrieve his Gladius, only to find the weapon
missing. He took a deep breath and spun off his stomach to sit up
with his back against the tree trunk and stared at the scene before
him. The previous night there had been only him, the children and
the woman. Now, with the sun only just over the horizon, their
number had increased to over twenty people and most worryingly,
there were armed men. There was a heated argument going on between
them and Prydain suspected his fate would hang on the
outcome.

Though there was
no sign of the children, Prydain could see the woman near the fire.
She looked up and after a moment’s hesitation, retrieved something
from the embers, before getting to her feet and walking towards
him. She knelt down before him, and with a smile, offered him a
leaf package, scorched from the heat of the fire. Prydain opened
the parcel, and as it came open, his taste buds flared with the
enticing aroma of the roasted fish within. He looked at the woman
again, returning her smile before carefully picking the flesh off
the bones of the trout, hope growing that they were hardly going to
feed him, if they intended to kill him.

He finished the
fish, a bit disappointed that there wasn’t any more, but the hot
food made him feel much better and he realised things were looking
up. The old men seemed to have reached an agreement and they stood
silently as he finished his meal. Finally, one of the older men
stepped forward.

‘
Come!’ he said and beckoned Prydain to follow. Though he
didn’t understand the word, the gesture was recognisable and
Prydain got to his feet to follow the group, but as he stood, the
golden Torc with the bird of prey pendant fell from within his
tunic and landed at the feet of the warrior. Both men stared at the
ornament for a few seconds before Prydain looked again into the
warrior’s face, this time seeing only anger and rage. Before he had
even the slightest chance to explain, he was smashed across the
head from behind and as he sunk into unconsciousness, the last
thing he heard was the sound of the woman screaming at his
assaulter before the darkness mercifully took him from the
pain.

----

Chapter 25

Gwydion and Cody
had ridden all day from Caratacus’s camp, following the trail that
led back toward Khymru. He had heard tell of the slaughter of
Bragus’s tribe several days earlier and knew that somewhere behind
him Caratacus’s army was locked in battle with the Roman invasion
force. As they rode, a village appeared in the distance and the two
men decided to stop and rest. Hopefully, they could trade for some
food as there was still two days travel left before they reached
the isle of Mona. They rode up to the palisade and approached the
closed wooden gate. An old man’s face looked over the wall and
Gwydion addressed him in the Catuvellauni tongue.

‘
Greetings, old man,’ he said. ‘We would talk with your
chief.’

‘
He
fights alongside Caratacus,’ answered the man. ‘State your
business.’

‘
We
seek shelter for the night and some food if you can spare
any.’

‘
I
know your accent, stranger,’ he said, ‘what tribe are
you?’

‘
Deceangli!’ answered Gwydion, ‘but we come in peace and share
a common enemy.’

‘
These are dangerous times, Deceangli,’ said the man. ‘Our
gates remain closed to all who are not of our clan, and there is
not enough grain for our own children. I fear we cannot
help.’

‘
Understandable,’ said Gwydion. ‘We will be on our
way.’

‘
Wait!’ shouted the old man. ‘I see you have two spare
horses.’

‘
What of it?’ asked Gwydion.

‘
We
could do with the meat,’ answered the old man, ‘and we have
something to trade that you may be interested in.’

‘
Which is?’

‘
A
Roman!’

----

Inside the fort,
Prydain turned his head away from the glaring sunlight streaming
through the door of the empty stone granary that had been his
prison since his capture. The unexpected glare hurt his eyes and
after days of darkness, was as painful as the many punches he had
received from his captors. Usually they came at night, two or more
and often took great pleasure in using their fists or boots to
remind him of his position. He squinted at the silhouettes of the
two men striding toward him and cried out as they grabbed the
bindings on his wrists to lift him to his feet, almost wrenching
his arms out of his sockets in the process.

‘
Shut up, Roman,’ snarled the man in his strange language. ‘It
looks like your Gods smile on you this day.’

They dragged him
out of the granary and over to the stockade gate where a group of
old men gathered around a horse. The leader looked at Prydain and
then to the horse.

‘
It
is a fair deal,’ he said, ‘let him go.’

‘
I
say we keep him.’ said another. ‘We will get more for him from
Caratacus.’

‘
No,
we need the meat,’ said the old man indicating the animal. ‘This
will feed our children for a week. Open the gates, the deal is
done.’

Two men lifted
the bar and eased the gate open just enough for a man to step
through.

‘
Go!’ said the old man and pushed Prydain to the gap. Though
confused, Prydain needed no second invitation and stumbled quickly
through the gate and away from his captors.

Gwydion watched
as the prisoner stumbled toward him. He was unshaven and his
clothes were soiled, but apart from that, he wasn’t in too bad a
shape. Prydain stopped short of the mounted men, waiting for
something to happen.

‘
Water,’ gasped Prydain, ‘do you have any water?’ He pointed
at the skin hanging from Gwydion’s saddle.

Gwydion
unfastened the skin and threw it to Prydain who unfastened the neck
and drank the sweet contents as fast as he was able. The warriors
waited patiently, staring at the wreck of a man.

‘
Food,’ ventured Prydain when he finished, ‘I don’t suppose
you have any food.’ He mimed putting food into his
mouth.

‘
Don’t push your luck, Roman,’ said Gwydion.

Prydain stopped
in surprise.

‘
You
speak Latin,’ he stated.

Gwydion didn’t
answer.

‘
Are
you going to kill me?’ asked Prydain eventually.

‘
Why
would I kill you, when I have just saved your life?’ answered
Gwydion.

‘
Saved my life, how?’

‘
How
long do you think your captors would have kept you alive before
getting bored and feeding you to the pigs?’

Prydain
shrugged.

‘
They have not killed me yet, perhaps I am worth more alive
than dead.’

‘
I
agree there,’ said Gwydion, ‘but it is only the fact that you
apparently saved a chieftain’s children that has kept you alive
this long. Now they are fed up and want rid of you, so at great
personal cost, you now belong to me.’

Prydain
sneered.

‘
From imprisonment into slavery,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I was
better off as I was.’

‘
No,
not a slave, Roman,’ he said. ‘Something far more valuable than
that.’

Gwydion
unwrapped Angau from its leather covering and after stringing the
bow, removed an arrow from his quiver. He looked around carefully
before selecting his target. Without speaking, he caught Prydain’s
eye and indicated the nearby tree line. Prydain followed his gaze,
not understanding the point of the exercise. Gwydion drew back the
bowstring before letting the arrow fly toward the trees. Two
seconds later, a wood pigeon fell from a limb, speared by the
arrow. Prydain was amazed; he had never seen such a
shot.

‘
You
are a much easier target, Roman,’ he said, ‘and worth more to me
alive than dead, but if you try to escape, then you are of no more
value than that bird. Do you understand?’

Prydain nodded
his head slowly, the warning was clear.

Gwydion nodded
toward Cody who threw a noose around Prydain’s head, pulling the
slip-knot tight around his neck. Gwydion rode toward the tree line
and without dismounting, stooped low from the back of his horse to
retrieve the speared pigeon. He extracted the arrow and threw the
bird to Prydain.

‘
Eat
sparingly, Roman.’ he said. ‘We will be moving fast and will have
little time to hunt.’

Prydain stuffed
the bird under his tunic before Cody tugged at the tether and
forced him to trot behind the Celt’s horse as the group sought a
campsite for the night.

----

Chapter 26

‘
Miss, you must eat something,’ pleaded Willow, stirring the
bowl of broth she had prepared. ‘Please, just a little.’

Gwenno stayed
where she was, curled into a foetal position on her mattress,
scrunching her cape beneath her chin and staring blankly at the
wall. She had been there for the last two days, since the guards
had caught her in the woods, trying to escape for the third time in
a week.

‘
I
don’t care,’ she said.

‘
But
you must eat, Miss,’ encouraged Willow, ‘or you will make yourself
ill.’

Gwenno turned
her head to look at the girl kneeling at her bedside.

‘
Make myself ill?’ she asked. ‘We wouldn’t want that would we,
Willow? Perhaps I would become so ill I might die, then what would
the Druids do? What would they do for entertainment then,
Willow?’

‘
Perhaps it would be for the best if I was dead,’ she
continued. ‘That way there would be no need for you to take part in
their sick rituals and I wouldn’t have to relive the terror filled
nightmares every night.’

‘
Don’t say that, Miss,’ said Willow, ‘don’t wish yourself
dead.’

‘
Why
not?’ asked Gwenno raising her voice. ‘Because that is what I will
be soon enough, and do you know what?’ She grabbed the girl’s arm,
making her look at her. ‘Do you know what, Willow? I don’t care
anymore; I’ve had enough of dying a thousand times before waking up
every morning and realising that I have to relive it for another
day. Why don’t they get it over with, Willow? Why do they torture
me with the waiting?’ Tears flowed from Gwenno’s eyes as she looked
pleadingly at the younger girl, as if waiting for an
answer.

Willow looked
back at her through tears of her own.

‘
Oh,
Miss,’ she said, ‘I wish I could help, but since you ran away
again, they have posted guards around the whole village. There’s no
way through anymore, we would be caught in a few
minutes.’

Gwenno placed
her head in her hands and sobbed quietly as Willow looked on,
distraught at the anguish she was suffering. Willow was confused,
as though she fully understood that sacrifice meant the end of this
life, everyone knew it was simply a gateway to the next. A place of
beauty and plenty, living alongside the Gods where hunger and pain
were unheard of, and everyone lived forever. She struggled to
understand why Gwenno was so upset, for only the royal and the
sacred were even given the chance to undertake the great journey.
Had she been lucky enough to be of high birth, she would have
welcomed the chance with open arms. Willow gently stroked Gwenno’s
hair until the sobs finally fell silent. She sat back, her sleeping
mistress’s head lying in her lap and for the next hour she
considered her options, until finally, she formed an
idea.

----

Gwenno woke into
the silence of the hut and looked around the fire lit gloom for
Willow. The hut was obviously empty, but she could see the
handmaiden had left a small cauldron of the broth in the embers at
the side of the fire. She made her way over to the pot and ladled a
few spoons of the soup into a wooden bowl, before walking to the
door to peer between the slats. Outside, there were three guards
around the clearing, each watching the hut to ensure she could not
escape. She sipped on the soup as she watched and soon the monotony
was broken when she saw Willow approaching, carrying a bundle in
her arms. The girl was allowed past and ducked into the hut,
slightly surprised to see Gwenno on her feet.

‘
Hello, Miss,’ she said, ‘I am so glad you’re feeling better.’
She swerved around Gwenno and made her way across to the corner to
place her package on the table, indicating for Gwenno to join
her.

‘
Come and see,’ she said excitedly, ‘I have a present for
you.’

Gwenno sighed,
before joining Willow at the table.

‘
What is it?’ she asked.

‘
It’s beautiful, Miss,’ she said, ‘and very, very precious.’
Willow untied the hemp wrapping and unfolded the flaps to unveil
one of the most beautiful things Gwenno had ever seen.

‘
Oh,
Willow!’ gasped Gwenno, ‘it is beautiful.’ She reached down and
gently picked up the fabric with both hands, lifting it up to feel
the luxury against her cheek.