Sword at Sunset (14 page)

‘Almost, but not quite.’

He shrugged. ‘You should know best; you are, as you have pointed out, the Count of Britain. Well, I suppose if you can finish the thing in one good sharp encounter, you may be back here
and snug in winter quarters before the bad weather sets in.’

‘Prince Guidarius, we shall not be coming back, neither before the winter sets in, nor after,’ I said.

He looked at me with his chin dropped. ‘Not – coming back?’

‘Not coming back.’

He seemed suddenly older, and as though there was less bulk inside his skin. I leaned toward him, making myself sound reasonable. ‘We should have gone in the spring, in any case, that you
know; and you will have no more trouble with the Sea Wolves through the winter. How then is it a worse thing that we go now?’

‘Next spring is half a year away.’ He made a small helpless gesture. ‘I suppose I hoped that you would change your mind before the time ran out.’

I shook my head. ‘You have two good leaders in Cradock and Geranicus, and I have broken in your men for you. They were brave men when I came, but a brave rabble; now they are trained
troops – even disciplined after a fashion – and will rally to you swiftly at need. You should be able to hold off the Barbarians for yourselves now; and the most crying need for me is
elsewhere.’

Silence hung between us for a long tight-drawn moment, and then he gave his plump shoulders a little jerk, as though to straighten them, and I thought I saw beneath the pouchy lines of his face
something of the fighting man he had been in his youth. I should not have to fear for the land between the Abus River and the Metaris after I was gone. ‘Then it seems that there is no more to
be said.’

‘Something more – I want four hundred of your men to march north with me.’

I thought his eyes would start clean from his head. ‘Roma Dea! Man, man, you have upward of a hundred of my best warriors sucked into the circle of those Companions of yours at this
moment! And you must have had as many more through the years! What further would you have?’

‘Four hundred, of their own choosing and mine, to go with me as auxiliaries, as spearmen and archers on this campaign. There will be – I have told you before – no more trouble
with the Sea Wolves for this year at least; and when the autumn’s fighting is over, and Earl Hengest safely out of Eburacum, I will send them back to you.’

‘Those that are left of them.’

‘Those that are left of them.’

‘And meanwhile, no man, not even you, my most war-wise Count of Britain, can say for sure
what
the Sea Wolves will do, for they are as unpredictable as the winds that bring them to
our shores; and my fighting strength will not stand the loss of four hundred men.’

I cut in on him. ‘No man, not even you, my most wise Prince of the Coritani, knows more surely than I do what is your fighting strength and what loss it will stand.’

The new strength in his face was gathering itself against me now. ‘It is enough for us to hold the Sea Wolves from our own pastures; why should I send my young men to fight in the
Brigantes’ country?’

Suddenly it was I who felt old and tired and helpless. ‘Because if we stand alone, state and princedom and tribal hunting run each within our own frontiers – state and princedom and
hunting run, we shall fall one by one, each within our own frontiers. It is only if we can stand together that we shall drive the Saxons back into the sea.’

I do not know how long we argued the thing; but it seemed a very long time. I think once he came near to offering me the whole four hundred, if I would return for another year when the
autumn’s fighting was over, but by that time we knew each other well – and he thought better of that particular offer before it was spoken.

In the end I did none so badly, for I came away with the grudging promise of two hundred, on my oath on Maximus’s great seal that they should indeed come back when the fighting for
Eburacum was ended.

The mist had crept up from the lower town, scented with wood-smoke and sodden leaves, and was making a wet yellow smoke about the courtyard lantern as I passed out again into the street. The
chill of it was on my own heart. How shall we stand against the Barbarian flood? What hope is there for us even for Ambrosius’s hundred years, if we cannot learn to stand together, shield to
shield, across our own frontiers?

The two days that followed were filled with the usual turmoil of a war host making ready for the march; rations and gear being issued and packed in the great leather-topped pack panniers,
sheaves of arrows and spare weapons issued and checked, horses brought in from autumn pasture and fitted with new leather foot shackles, armor and war gear given a final overhaul to make sure that
all was in perfect order; and all day and all night Lindum rang with the deep bell-clink of hammer on armorer’s anvil and the neighing of excited horses from the makeshift picket lines.
During those two days also, there must have been many partings in and around the old fortress city. By this time upward of a hundred of the Companions were, as Guidarius had said, men from the
Coritani, and many of the others had girls in the town. A few (God knows I had always tried to hold them back from that when I could) had married since we first made our headquarters there.
Partings heavy with promises to come back one day, or send for the girl ... Partings taken lightly with a kiss and a bright new necklace and no promises at all ... Yet it was not all partings, for when
we marched out at last, the strength of our baggage train was increased by twoscore or more of hardy girls, riding in the light carts that carried the mill and the field forge, or walking with a
fine free swing, their skirts kilted to their knees, among the drivers and the laden pack ponies.

It is not an ill thing for a war host to carry a few women with it, so that they be hardy and fierce enough to fend for themselves and not drag on the men; for their cooking has its uses, and
their care can mean the difference between life and death to the wounded. The trouble, of course, with a few women among many men starts when several men desire the same girl at the same time, or
when one man wants one especial girl for himself against all comers. That is when the Brotherhood starts to break. Dear God!
That is when the Brotherhood starts to break.
I let it be known
through the war host that at the first whispering of trouble over the women to reach my ears, I should abandon the whole gaggle of them wherever we might happen to be. Then I let the matter
rest.

The young chieftain and the hunter who had brought me word of Hengest’s coming acted as our guides. For the first three days the hunter led us northwestward, by the road and then by
looping marsh ways that followed the firm ground among the reedbeds and winding waters and thickets of thorn and sallows, where left to ourselves we should have been hopelessly lost within an hour,
and where, even as it was, the horses were often fetlock deep in the dark sour-smelling ooze. One twilight we passed the burned-out remains of a Saxon settlement that had been our work in the
previous year, and something – a wildcat, maybe – screamed at us from the ruins. After three days we began to pull up out of the marshes, into softly undulating country and low hills,
where the wind over the dead heather made a sound that was harsh in our ears after the softer wind-song over the marshes that we had known so long. And on the fourth evening we struck the road from
Lagentus to Eburacum and turned north along it. The hunter was out of his territory now, and turned back to his own hunting runs, and the young chieftain entering his own countryside took his place
as guide.

Two marches northward the road crossed a river by a broad paved ford, covered by one of the gray derelict guard posts that still stud the countryside. And there we met the Saxon war host under
its white horsetail standards.

Whether they had wind of our coming and were advancing to meet us, or whether they had thought to come down behind us in the old Lindum position and take us unawares, I do not know; nor does it
matter now. We joined battle at first light of a squally October morning, the rain sweeping across the sodden wrack of last year’s bracken. They had the advantage of ground, their left flank
on the soft ground by the river, their right guarded by dense thorn scrub. They outnumbered us badly, thanks to Guidarius, and the rain slackened our bowstrings, while of course it had no effect on
the hideous little throwing axes with which many of them were armed. On our side we had the advantage of cavalry, which on that narrow front did no more than even the odds. By midday it was over; a
small, wicked, bloody business. Neither of us gained the victory, and both were too badly mauled to fight again that year.

Hengest and his war host fell back on Eburacum and we on Deva that men still call the City of Legions. It was an obvious choice for our winter quarters, with wide grazing behind us and the
cornlands of Môn none so far away. But it cost us something to get there, and more than one of our wounded died on the road. We got through at last, none too soon, and rode into Deva in a
full gale from the west and driving rain that was already turning the dried-out summer moors into oozing mosses; men and horses alike blind weary and on nodding terms with starvation. We were used
to living on the country but among the mountains in October the living is not rich for man or beast.

The young chieftain came with us, carrying a wounded shoulder, to see us well into the mountains, but would come no farther. His own village was scarce a day’s march eastward, he said, but
when we came back in the spring, he would rejoin us. We gave him one of the pack beasts to ride, for he was weak with the wound; and he rode off on his different way from ours, turning once to wave
from the skyline before his own hills hid him from view. I have wondered sometimes whether he reached his village. We never saw him again.

chapter eight

I
DID NOT KNOW
D
EVA WELL, BUT THERE HAD ALWAYS BEEN
friendly dealings between Arfon and the City of Legions; and I had been
there once or twice when I was a boy, and again when we brought up the Septimania horses, and the last time only a few years since when I had seized the chance in an open winter for a flying visit
to Arfon and Deva to see for myself how things went in the breeding and training runs, instead of sending Bedwyr or Fulvius in the spring, as I had done in other years. So now, as I heard
Arian’s heavy hoofbeats crash hollow under the gate arch, I had a sudden sense of refuge and return to familiar things. And certainly it seemed that Deva remembered me. The people came
running as we rode wearily up through the weed-grown streets toward the gray frown of the fortress; only a handful at first, then more and more as the word spread, until when we clattered in
through the unguarded Praetorian Gate, half the city was running at our horses’ heels, calling greetings and shouting for news.

In the gale-swept parade ground I dropped from Arian’s back, staggering as my cramped legs all but gave under me, and stood with a hand on the horse’s drooping rain-darkened neck, to
look about me while the rest clattered in and dismounted likewise. I had thought that the old fortress might be already full of squatters from the city, but save for a few ragged ghosts that came
spilling out from odd corners even as I watched, the place was as empty as the Legions had left it. The drift away to the country which was thinning most big cities nowadays had perhaps come about
more swiftly at Deva, because Kinmarcus, who had no more liking for towns than had Cador, had gone back to make the capital of his little border princedom at the Dun of the Alderwoods where his
forebears had ruled before the Eagles came. The town was dying in its sleep, as a worn-out old man dies; and meanwhile there was room to spare for everybody, and no need to spill uphill into the
deserted fortress.

Bedwyr and Cei were beside me, still holding their weary horses. Gwalchmai was busy among the mule carts as they rolled in with the wounded. ‘Get some of the barrack rows cleared out and
the men under cover,’ I said. ‘We shall have to use some of the spare barrack rows and the main granary for the horses – there’ll not be stabling for above sixty; this place
hasn’t been used since before the Legions took to cavalry.’ I turned on a soldierly-looking old man leaning on a finely carved staff, whom the townsfolk had made way for as for one in
authority. ‘Old Father, do you command here?’

His straight mouth twitched with sudden humor. ‘In these days I am never sure whether to claim the title of Chieftain or Chief Magistrate; but it is true that I command here,
yes.’

‘Good. Then we need wood for the fires, food for ourselves and fodder for the horses. As you see, they are in no state to be turned out to graze at the present. Can your people manage
that?’

‘We will manage that.’

‘Also fresh salves and linen for the wounded – the little man over there with the crooked foot will tell you what he wants, and whatever it is, for God’s sake give it to
him.’

‘To the half of my kingdom,’ said the old man. He glanced about the throng of staring townsfolk, and changing his tone so that it might have been another man who spoke above the
booming of the wind, quickly and without fuss called out this one and that and gave them their orders. Then as men and women scattered to do his bidding, he came, leaning on his staff, to stand
beside me in the little shelter that the end of a barrack row gave from the driving rain. ‘It will be some time before the fodder can come, there is not so much fodder in Deva as will feed
this number of horses, and we must send out to one or two of the big farms for it; but it will come.’

‘You are good hosts,’ I said, tugging at the thongs of my iron war cap and pulling it off.

‘Maybe we should be worse hosts to strangers, but are you not of the breed of the Lords of Arfon?’ (I smiled inwardly at the careful way that it was framed.) ‘And do not your
brood mares graze as it were under our very walls? We count you as a friend – as Artos the Bear, before ever we remember you for Artorius, Count of Britain.’