Reign of Iron (41 page)

She watched the tiny figures at the back of the Roman army to see their reaction. One of them rode up to the foremost and it was a joy to know that at that very moment a translator was telling Caesar what the shout had said. A glance to the west – yes, there it was – would confirm the words and it pleased Lowa greatly knowing that Caesar was certain to be rattled – mostly by hearing that his camp was on fire, but also because he’d have just realised that the barbarian British had not only killed an entire legion with almost no loss to themselves, but also had a more advanced system of communication than he did.

“Roman ships destroyed!” came the next shout. The Maidunites cheered more loudly.

The queen’s shouter looked at Lowa, eyebrow raised. Lowa nodded and the shout went out again.

M
al had thought the Romans would retreat on hearing their fleet and fort were ablaze to rebuild their bridgehead. Lowa had disagreed. Annoyingly, she was right. Shortly after the second shout, Mal saw riders gallop up to the little command group at the back of the Roman army. Shortly afterwards the Romans trumpets sounded and the remaining legions rolled forwards. All four of them.

All the archers that could fit on the walls were there and ready. Three partially broken scorpions had been fixed and the carpenters had managed to create four more from parts of smashed ones, so there were twenty-one scorpions primed and ready to shoot. Roughly one per thousand Romans, Mal calculated.

The Romans rumbled forwards. Shields went up to form their tortoises well outside scorpion range, not that shields would help them much against a scorpion arrow. He saw that they had a new battering ram, at least that’s what he thought the great wooden shed on wheels must be. He walked over to the left of Big Bugger Hill’s wall, the part over the gate nearest the approaching ram, and told the three scorpions there to prepare to shoot it.

Behind him, the body of the fort was emptying. All the Britons who couldn’t fit on the walls were pouring out of the south gate on the far side of the fort from the coming Romans. He had a while before the Romans were in range. He asked Taddy to shout for him if the Romans started running and walked around the wall to check the retreat was working as well as Lowa had intended.

On the south wall, he shook his head in wonder. If you could call a retreat glorious, this was it. For a couple of thousand paces away from the hillfort, along the flat land between two low ranges of hills, Lowa had ordered two wide, parallel roads to be constructed. On the westward road a stream of empty carts was bouncing towards the hillfort. Each was light but well made, drawn by four horses. On the eastern road, the same type of carts were trundling away, each one carrying thirty troops.

Nearest to Mal, fifty paces behind the hillfort, the western road looped round to become the eastern road. Here was the mounting area. Two wide bridges allowed troops to cross without hampering the flow of the carts, and meant that both sides of the cart could be loaded with passengers at the same time, so that they hardly needed to slow down. The whole idea had apparently been Dug’s – the big, dead one, not the child. He and Lowa had often sat late into the night coming up with ways to defeat the Romans. Mal smiled. Dug had always been one for buggering off away from a fight as fast as possible and this rapid, brilliant way of removing as many people as possible from a battle as quickly as possible was truly the work of a brilliant coward. It was just a shame—

“Mal! Mal!” It was Taddy Ducktender, hollering from the far side of the hillfort. “They’re coming!”

“You should have let me kill him,” said Tertius, leading Spring outside to the better light as Ferrandus ran up with warm water, cloths and pots of who-knew-what to clean and treat her cut, swollen face.

As they eased her into a chair she said: “I shouldn’t have. You’d be in trouble and he’s not a bad man. He’s had a bad time, that’s all.” She had to hold her hand back from slapping herself in the face when she realised she’d spoken Latin. But neither of them seemed to have noticed.

“What’s all that smoke?” she asked in Latin, thinking never mind, she really wanted to talk to someone other than Ragnall, even if opening her mouth hurt her entire face. She thought that her secret would be safe with Tertius and Ferrandus anyway. If, indeed, they actually noticed that she was suddenly speaking their language.

“Burning. Quite a big British attack apparently, or at least an effective one. All the warships and half the transports are gone. Couple of hundred garrison troops killed, mostly by the elephants that are meant to be on our side, so they’re saying.”

“You don’t seem too upset.”

“Not our job to be upset!” said Ferrandus. “But this,” he said, moving his head around Spring’s face and peering at her like a crow looking for the best place to peck an apple, “this it is our job to be upset about. Are you injured anywhere else?”

“No.”

“You’d tell me if you were?”

“I would.”

“Good, and these aren’t so bad. What did he hit you with? A cushion? If all the British men are as tough as him we’ll have this island by lunchtime tomorrow.”

Spring giggled. “It’s the British women you need to worry about.”

“If they’re all like you, you’re right.”

“Most of them are even more frightening.”

“Talking of frightening,” said Tertius, “I’m going to go and find Ragnall.”

“Don’t hurt him,” said Spring.

“I don’t take orders from you,” said the praetorian as he walked away, still apparently unfazed by her sudden linguistic ability.

He came back a short while later. “Not great news, I’m afraid.” He caught Spring’s eye. “But you’re looking a lot better! It’s like nothing happened! Ferrandus might be a complete idiot when it comes to almost anything else, but he does know how to patch people up.”

Spring giggled again. She hadn’t felt like such a little girl since the peaceful times with Dug. She knew he was lying; she must look like she’d lost a fight with a bag of hammers, but Ferrandus’ cool water presses and herbal salve had reduced her swollen lips a great deal and made everything a lot less sore.

“What’s the bad news?” she asked.

“I caught up with Ragnall at the medicine tent,” replied Tertius. “When he’d gone a doctor told me that he’d been asking … Hang on a minute! Why are you speaking Latin?”

“Ah,” said Spring. “That.” She felt heat spread up and through her cheeks.

“Juno’s big brown arse!” laughed Ferrandus. “I hadn’t even noticed. I’ve been chatting away to you! Have you been able to … Of course you have! You’ve been able to understand us this whole fucking time … ever since the beginning, right?”

Spring grinned and nodded then greatly enjoyed watching the two men looking at each other, their mouths open in unison, both saying “Fuck!” then looking at the floor, trying to remember what they might have said.

“Don’t worry,” said Spring, “you’ve both been perfect gentlemen. Not like the first lot.”

“How long have you been able to speak Latin?” Ferrandus was shaking his head.

“Maybe ten years?” said Spring.

“And Ragnall doesn’t know?”

“He doesn’t.”

“Well I’ll be…”

“Would you mind…”

“Keeping it quiet?” said Tertius. “Sure. Ferrandus won’t spill your secret either.”

“I don’t take orders from you, but by happy coincidence I’m not going to tell anyone,” Ferrandus pouted.

Tertius smiled. “Yes, well, to business. Ragnall was at the medical tent looking for Quintus.”

“Hercules’ piss,” said Ferrandus. “Blokes don’t like it when little girls beat them up. Apart from Tertius that is, who loves it.”

“Not as much as you like little boys who—” Tertius looked at Spring. “Ah. Sorry.”

“It’s OK, it really is. I do think you Roman soldiers are all very strange, but I’m used to it now.”

“So then,” said Tertius, “he got us to tie you up, and then he attacked you when you were helpless?”

Spring wrinkled her nose. A scab cracked and she felt blood trickle.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Tertius, as Ferrandus leant forward and dabbed her newly opened wound with a cloth. “Sorry to ask, I just wanted to be sure of what the fucker is guilty of before we hunt him down and pack him into his own scrotum.”

“No, you should leave, he’ll probably be on the way back here already with Quintus and a gang. You should both leave.”

“Nope,” said Tertius

“Seriously. They’ll kill you to get to me, but they’ll still get to me. If you’re not here, same thing happens but you don’t get killed. Makes sense, no?”

Both men looked at her, shaking their heads. “No,” they said in unison.

“Then let me go. Take me to the edge of the camp and set me free.”

They looked at each other. Tertius shrugged and Ferrandus nodded. “All right.”

“You’re going to free me?”

“Yup.”

“Oh good! That is good. Just let me get my—” She stopped and looked at the praetorians. They both looked very sad. Realisation dawned. “What will happen to you if I get away?”

“Possibly washing-up duties for a week,” said Tertius.

“Or, more likely, crucifixion,” Ferrandus added.

“Idiot!” Tertius punched him on the arm.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“I’ve another idea,” said Spring. Escape had been right there, but she couldn’t let these men die for her. “There’s somewhere in the camp you can take me where I should be safe.”

“Where?”

“To the one other person who knows I can speak Latin.”

“Who’s that? Caesar?” said Tertius.

Spring shook her head.

“Ah!” Ferrandus slapped his forehead. “I bet I know who it is.”

“Who?” Tertius pursed his lips.

“Remember that posh bird who brought her back after she castrated Quintus? That one with legs all the way from her feet to her cun— Sorry. The one with the legs?”

“Clodia Metelli?”

“Give that praetorian a truffle-stuffed mare’s vulva,” said Spring.

A
s soon as the Romans were in range of the scorpions, they sped up into almost a sprint, while maintaining their tortoises. It was what Lowa would have ordered, too. The quicker they came, the quicker they’d be in the shadow of the wall and safe from the scorpions.

Mal shouted: “Shoot!” The scorpions bucked and twenty huge arrows flew at the Romans. One missile bounced off the top of the wheeled roof protecting the ram without doing any damage to the ram or its draught oxen. Two others dropped short but the rest scythed into the Roman ranks. Many fell but others stepped over their comrades’ destroyed bodies and filled the gaps with their own shields. The formations that had been hit were a little more ragged, but their pace didn’t slow for a heartbeat. They came within arrow range, and Lowa gave the order to shoot, even though she knew it would have little effect on the shielded legions.

By the time Mal had the second bolts primed, several hundred legionaries and the battering ram were at the wall, safe in its lee from scorpion fire. The archers were raining standard, non-burning arrows but these were finding few fleshy targets. Lowa’s arrows were spearing feet and ankles revealed under shields, but none of the others had anything like her accuracy.

Under the protection of shields, she could see legionaries clearing away the caltrops and other devices that filled the ditch. She wondered if that was common practice or whether Yilgarn had tipped them off to the unusual number and variety of traps. The latter, she suspected.

“Shoot scorpions! Pour fire on ram!” shouted Mal. Scorpion bolts slammed into legionaries further back. Men and women stationed over the gate hurled the few remaining fire buckets onto the ram’s protective roof, followed by their last salvo of fire arrows.

The moment this second volley of scorpion bolts was loosed, the legionaries parted, leaving a clear swathe open for a couple of dozen carts, each pulled by four oxen armoured in thick leather, all galloping towards her wall.

What in Bel’s name was this? The carts were piled high with what looked like earth. Was it earth? Or was it some incendiary material that Lowa didn’t know about? Great Danu’s shits, she hated a mystery.

Behind her the fort was empty of Maidunites. Carts were waiting for the troops on the wall. The transports carrying the rest of the infantry away to safety were already out of sight. Way beyond them, surely clear of danger, were Keelin and little Dug.

The Roman carts came into her range. She shot the front right oxen of the foremost cart between the eyes. It stumbled and went down, but the other three kept driving forwards and the cart kept coming, albeit a great deal more slowly. There was smoke rising from the hooves of all the oxen. The Romans must have stuffed red-hot iron barbs into their feet, she realised. That was one way of keeping an animal running as it strove to escape the pain, although not great if you were planning for that animal to walk again.

The other Maidunite archers had no effect on the beasts. Lowa shot a second animal on the foremost cart and that stopped it, but the rest, goaded by the legionaries on either side, crashed into the wall.

Lowa tensed for the explosion and a tower of flame, but nothing happened. The mighty palisade, which had taken hundreds of men and women a year to build, stood firm against the assault.

She peered over the edge at the mass of flailing oxen and smashed carts. It
was
earth – or little more than earth, anyway. Each cart had been packed with boulders, wood and soil. She looked along the clear swathe between the legionaries. More carts were coming, at least double the number that had already hit the wall. Lowa saw their plan.

There was a shout from the Romans. Twenty paces out, all along the wall, men popped up from behind shields and slung stones at the Maidunite archers. Several archers were hit, but by the time Lowa or anyone else had taken aim the slingers were back behind shields. The archers all strung arrows and watched, ready for the next slinger unveiling, but a small group popped out, took out a few archers and ducked back behind shields before any of them were hit. This happened again and again. It was like the game at fairs and festivals when you had to hit one of six woollen rats with a mallet as they appeared briefly from their holes, except these rats could kill you.