Clash of Iron (45 page)

Publius looked at Ragnall as if expecting a reply.

“And…?” tried Ragnall.

Publius sighed “Aren’t you interested? Ragnall, aren’t you amazed that thousands of generations have lived on the same lands as us, all with lives and desires at least as complex as ours?”

Ragnall looked around at the stones and he felt it; the overwhelming weight, the overwhelming sadness of all those thousands of men and women stretching back in time, every single one of them just as important to themselves as he was to himself. Every single one of them now dead.

Publius continued: “Isn’t it simply stunning that right here, where we’re walking, people have walked for centuries, for millennia, all with their own problems, loves, hopes, hates … and yet we know nothing. They came, they lived for decades, then they disappeared, leaving no trace.”

“Apart from these massive stones?”

“That’s the point! These people were the exception! Most people are happy just to die and disappear into the long night. That’s why I really understand Caesar, even if I disagree with some of his methods. He doesn’t just want to achieve amazing things, he wants to ensure that everybody knows about him for ever after. Don’t you want that, too? I know I do. And I want to leave more behind than a mysteriously placed stone. Think, Ragnall. How important is your life? How much have you seen? How many emotions have coursed through your body and how many thoughts have tortured your mind? Do you want all that to be forgotten? Or do you want all your doings, everything you are, to be summed up in a thousand years’ time by someone looking at a big stone that you put somewhere and thinking, “Hmm, I wonder who put that there”, then going about their day? No, I’m going to be like Caesar. I’m going to become a general and I’ll win wars, and I’ll get a team of guys to follow me around and write what I tell them to write about me. In millennia to come, everyone will know my name, like we know Ramses, Romulus, Alexander, Ulysses…”

“How about Cran Madoc?” asked Ragnall.

“Who?”

“A British hero, as celebrated there as Alexander is in Rome.”

“Never heard of him.”

And that, thought Ragnall, is a problem. He was still keen to see Romans take over Britain and use whatever means were needed to achieve that, but it would be a terrible shame if the memories of men and women like Cran Madoc disappeared under the Roman sandal. He’d have to try to persuade Caesar to preserve the British culture and stories at the same time as introducing the Roman way of life. Thinking of Caesar …

“Shouldn’t Caesar be back with the other legions by now?” he asked Publius.

“They are delayed.”

“Delayed?”

“Caesar has gone to Lucensis or Ravenna – my reports differ – to meet Pompey and my father. Consensus is that he’s trying to save himself, prolong his campaigning and revitalise the triumvirate.”

“I see. And when is he coming back here?”

“I don’t know. It’s a big problem, though.”

“Because you don’t know what to do with the men?”

“That, and because we’re nearly out of food.”

“Just ask for more from the Veneti, surely?”

“The Fenn-Nodens. Veneti is a name the Romans have given them. We should have the respect to call them by the name that they call themselves. That’s the sort of thing I’ll sort out when I’m a general.”

Ragnall thought it was a bit odd to worry about calling people the right thing while occupying their land, taking their food and generally treating them badly, but he didn’t want a row. “Fine, sorry, general-to-be. Take food from the Fenn-Nodens then.”

“We’ve taken all we can from nearby. Some of the Fenn-Nodens have already starved, and more will. Luckily it’s only a few poor and weak so far. But if we took any more it would start to seriously impinge on people who matter and we’d have a revolt.”

“So what are we going to do?” said Ragnall, wondering if the chief concern of the people who’d starved had been whether the Romans had got their tribe’s name right.

“Other Fenn-Nodens towns and the rest of the Armorican tribes will give us food.”

“You reckon they’ll help? I’ve heard they’re not overly supplicant.”

“I reckon they’ll do whatever I tell them to do. Or, more to the point, what you tell them.”

“What I tell them?”

“Who better to send to demand food from the Gauls than Ragnall the super envoy? Half British, half Roman, all hero?”

Nauseous fear flooded in and washed away all happiness as he remembered his previous jaunt as an envoy. “Publius, please don’t send me. I didn’t achieve anything last time apart from very nearly being killed several times. I only survived because a German druid took pity on me.”

“So you’re lucky.”

“I’m a bad envoy. I was sent to make peace and it ended in battle and slaughter.”

“Which was exactly what Caesar wanted. You’re a brilliant envoy.”

Ragnall sighed. “Do I have to do it?”

“I’m sorry, Ragnall, but you’re our best chance at persuading the locals to give us food. This time will not be nearly so dangerous. You’ll be one of three envoys, and I’ll give you my second best century to protect you.”

“What’s the best one doing?”

“Protecting me.”

“OK.” Ragnall sighed and gently kicked a menhir. Thousands of generations may well have walked this very field, but he doubted if any of them had had as tough a life as he had.

C
hamanca spat as they rode from the town.

The Romans had sent envoys to demand food from every town and village in Fenn-Nodens territory. She and Carden were staying ahead of the envoys, pointing out that it was the perfect opportunity for the tribes to take high-level Roman hostages, a reasonable move to counter the high-level Armorican hostages that the Romans already held. The Romans, they said, expected their envoys to be taken hostage and would respect the Armoricans all the more for doing so.

So far their pragmatic reasoning had met only short-sighted cowardice. It didn’t surprise Chamanca, it was the same lily-liveredness that had led to the hostages being given up for nothing in the first place, but she was still disgusted. Most of the leaders whined about the invincibility of the Romans and the protection of their people being their foremost concern. A couple promised to think about taking the envoys hostage, but Chamanca could tell that these were the same as the promises that Galba of the Soyzonix had made to Atlas. By Fenn, there were few people she hated more than those who said “yes” because it was easier than arguing. One tribe tried to capture them to hand over the Romans. That hadn’t ended well for the tribe, and Chamanca had got to drink some blood. That had been pleasing, but not helpful.

Her mood perked up as they approached the next town, a place called Sea View. Like all the towns they’d been to so far, it was a semi-independent part of the Fenn-Nodens tribe, under the wider union that comprised the Armoricans.

They rode on firm sand round a sweep of beach, the only way to reach the town and impassable at high tide. At its far end the sands rose up into the peninsula that held Sea View. The town was protected on its land side by a deep ditch and a wall topped by a doughty palisade. The isthmus it occupied was a cliff-fringed finger of land, with a scoop cut out halfway along on the side they were approaching from. Within the scoop was a small, walled harbour, defended by stone towers above its entrance. Surely, thought Chamanca, such an excellently placed and neatly defended settlement was proud enough to stand up to the Romans? It would be nigh-on impossible for any army to break the town’s defences. The defenders would only need to hold the wall until the tide came up and drowned the attackers. If the town wall was breached in the brief window when the tide was low enough to allow an army to approach, the entire population could escape by boat.

“I can see why they called it Sea View,” said Carden.

“I think it’s dumb,” said Chamanca. “You call this one Sea View, surely every town with view of the sea should be called the same? It’s like calling a person ‘Has Head’.”

“So you can’t deny it’s accurate.”

They rode on.

It took her a while to persuade Sea View’s guards to open the robust looking, newly renovated gates and let them in. That pleased her. These Sea View Armoricans didn’t seem quite as wet as the rest of them.

Inside the gates, a road led along the spine of the peninsula. Either side of it were large, well-maintained huts, stout storage sheds and busy workshops. The gate guard escorted them to a clear circular area in the centre of which was a towering, excellently carved stone statue of a beautiful woman with large breasts and a fish’s tail, whom Chamanca took to be Leeban, goddess of the sea. Standing on short plinths all around her were various marine oddities.

“Wow!” said Carden, stroking a polished whale skull that was taller than him. “How big was this fish?”

“Biggest I’ve ever seen!” called a hearty voice. “I’d like to say that we caught the cove, but, sadly, he swam on to our beach and died there, despite the children singing at him to return to the brine. He must have been driven to take his own life by some terrible, terrible woe, to withstand the children’s noise. Their caterwauling would have sent me as deep as I could dive within a heartbeat, no matter what watery misery was waiting for me!”

The owner of the voice strode up. He was an overweight man, perhaps fifty years old, with red facial hair, a very large nose and a small helmet perched on a tapering head. Escorting the man, judging by their boar necklaces, were two Warriors and an elderly man with a long grey hair and beard in an off-white robe, who had to be the druid.

“What makes you think the whale was a ‘he’?” Chamanca asked.

The tiny-helmeted man leant back with a hearty laugh, wiped his eyes and said: “We males have a mystical instinct for these things, I think. And there was the tiny giveaway of his penis, longer than a fishing boat!”

“Ah.”

“Ah, indeed! Now, I’m Chief Vastivias. You are Carden and Chamanca, from Britain. You’ve come to persuade me to fight the Romans.” Chamanca was pleased. It took no great intelligence network to know who they were or what they’d been doing, but it was still more than any other chief had managed. “Before you begin, allow me to introduce my Warriors and our druid.”

The Warriors were Modaball, a man even fatter than Vastivias, with long red hair in pigtails, bare-chested above bizarrely high-waisted blue and white striped trousers, and Bran, a short man with a wily eye and a big blond moustache. The druid was Walfdan. He nodded formally to Carden, then took Chamanca’s hand and kissed it. Chamanca took Walfdan’s hand and kissed it back, which caused a good deal of amusement.

“Now, tell me why I should risk my village,” boomed the chief.

Vastivias listened intently to Chamanca’s arguments, stroking his russet moustache. For the first time since their mission had began, she felt that her points were being heard and considered, rather than pre-emptively dismissed.

When she was done, he sent them away and consulted his Warriors and druid, before calling them back that afternoon to say that he agreed. He conceded that they had been foolish to give up hostages so readily in the first place. They would capture the Roman envoys and keep them until their own people were returned. Vastivias had already sent riders to other chiefs to suggest they did the same. His own men, said Vastivias, would have a better chance of persuading them than a pair of odd-looking foreigners.

That made sense, so, with little else to do, Chamanca and Carden settled in at Sea View to wait for the Romans and help with the hostage taking. As usual, Carden made friends easily. He spent the days with Bran and Modaball, hunting boar, eating boar and drinking. Chamanca envied his effortless sociability, but only to a degree. She didn’t need or want to make friends all over the place. She had a self-imposed rule about not drinking friends’ blood, so the fewer friends the better. She spent the time assessing the town’s constructions, evaluating its defences and talking to its people to try to understand their military capabilities.

Every evening there was a feast on long tables in the central clearing. There wasn’t room for all the townspeople, so they took it in turns to come, but, as Vastivias’ guests, the Britons were invited every night. Carden tucked into the food like a man who’d been told that he wouldn’t eat again for a year, and even Chamanca had to admit that the Sea View’s chef’s roast boar was almost as good as blood.

P
ublius sent three delegations of three envoys, each accompanied by a century of legionaries. Ragnall did not take to his two fellow envoys, Titus Sillius and Quintus Velanius, or, more accurately, they did not take to him. Officially, he was in charge, but Titus and Quintus didn’t accept that a former Briton could be in change of a man born Roman, so they did their best to undermine him at every turn, disobeying his orders even if it put them out to do so. If he ordered a stop, for example, they’d carry on and halt in a less favourable place a mile up the road. He tried to talk to them about it, about anything, but they ignored him.

He tried talking to the legionaries but that was almost as difficult. Eventually, their centurion took him aside and quietly explained that someone as high ranking as an envoy was not meant to converse with the common soldiery.

So it was a drudgeful trip and he missed Publius’s company, but this envoy duty was still at least a thousand times better than riding along that valley into Hari the Fister’s camp on his own.

The Armorican leaders, thank Makka and Mars, were nothing like Hari the Fister either. All of them capitulated immediately to all demands, and already food wagons were rolling towards the Roman camp at Karnac. Sure, there were surly faces among the peasantry, and a shouted insult here and there when the odd brave shouter was absolutely certain that he or she couldn’t be identified, but, for the most part, the tribal leaders greeted them like deeply indebted Roman restaurant owners welcoming a pissed party of purple toga-wearing diners.