Shadows in the Night (30 page)

Titch scurried out, and Marius reached for his cloak. I got up too. I couldn’t stay inside if the action was beginning. I headed for the door.

“Better not, Aurelia,” Marius said. “You’ll be a liability out there. If they see you, they’ll try to kill you or maybe capture you.”

“They won’t recognise me. I’ve got Lucius’ old army sagum. With that on and the hood up, I’ll look like just another man.” The heavy military cloak would stand any amount of rain, and it brought Lucius nearer somehow. When I’d put it on, Albia exclaimed, “Gods, you look a sight!” which I took to mean the disguise was effective.

Albia had a cloak handy herself, but as she reached for it I shook my head. “You’re in command here, Albia. You’re the reserve, and don’t worry, you’ll get your share of the battle later. We’ll be lucky to beat the bastards off at the first assault.”

Outside, the wind and rain whipped fiercely around us, fit to knock us over, and we had to raise our voices to be heard above the noise. The blackness was so complete it seemed solid, and our fires and torches and lanterns gave pathetically little light. We checked the guards around the gate and the front half of the fencing; they were alert and itching for a fight. Marius went off to find Junius, leaving me alone in the forecourt, with the fitful firelight making huge shadows everywhere. I could find my way about without lights, but the inky blackness was unnerving. I decided to head for the stables to see if the horses were all right.

As I went towards the rear, where the fence backed onto the paddocks, I heard a raised voice and a string of choice curses. It turned out to be Junius, laying into one of the field-hands.

“Stupid bastard left the cover off this pile of fireballs and the rain’s got to them,” he snarled, pointing to a soaking pile of hay-bundles. “Ruined them! Sheer incompetence!”

“I never!” the man was protesting. “I never touched them, I swear I didn’t!”

“Well, somebody did. You were supposed to be guarding them, so if you’ve let someone else get at them, it’s just as bad.”

“We’ve plenty more bundles,” I said. “Don’t let’s waste time over it. What’s happening outside?”

“Not much so far. There were men moving about in the paddock, coming up to the fence, but when we started throwing fireballs out they pulled back. They haven’t gone far.”

There was a loud yell from the front of the house. “Here! This way! Tribune, this way, quick!”

Junius and I ran to the open ground between the bar-room door and the new gate. Taurus was there, pointing over the fence. “I heard something,” he said. I doubted it myself, in this wind, but there was only one way to find out. Without thinking, I started to climb up the big old oak tree. I’d climbed it ever since my childhood; I knew every toehold and handhold, though the clumsy, thick sagum kept catching as I went up. Soon I was high enough to look over the fence, but it was hard to make much out in the blackness. I could dimly see a group of figures manoeuvring something bulky from among the trees that bordered the road. It could have been anything from a small cart to a giant barrel. Someone was uttering rhythmic shouts, presumably giving the time for them to heave or push. “Fireballs at the front!” I yelled. Two of our farm boys clambered up onto the nearest platform, and a third began passing them lighted hay-bundles, which they tossed out over the stockade. By their blazing light I could see the attackers scatter, and I could make out that what they were moving was a large tree-trunk, roughly pointed at the nearer end. A battering-ram then, a very crude one, to be moved by the brute force of a team of men. Our stockade was stout, but the sections to either side of the front gate were vulnerable, because on the road side there wasn’t a ditch, just a few thorn-bushes on good firm paving.

Still, the ram would be slow to move, and we had bowmen. I’d station one of them by the gate on permanent guard, I decided, with orders to shoot at anything that moved, and to let loose occasional arrows even if all was quiet, to keep the besiegers at a respectful distance. Meantime I watched with pleasure how the fireballs’ light and flames were keeping the attackers back. I tried to count the men, nine, ten, eleven…and then my heart almost stopped. In the fitful light it was hard to be sure, but I could swear one of the attackers wore a skull mask. The Shadow of Death was leading his band in person.

Suddenly close behind me I heard a branch creak. There was someone else up here! I froze with horror for a couple of heartbeats, then I collected what was left of my courage, pulled out my knife and twisted round, calling out, “Keep still or I’ll slit your throat.”

A familiar voice said, “It’s only Titch, Mistress. This is a brilliant place to keep lookout. I’ll send someone up here to watch, shall I? You’ll be needed on the ground.”

The boy was right, and I should have thought of it myself. I said “Good idea,” and started on my way down.

Taurus helped me down the last few feet. The paving was slippery with rain and I was glad to steady myself against his shoulder. “I haven’t seen you do that for a year or two, Mistress.” He gave me his slow smile. “You haven’t lost the knack though.”

“Titch,” I said, as the boy landed beside me, “tell Junius I want one of the bowmen permanently covering the front gate. They mustn’t get that ram any closer.”

“Aye, Mistress,” he said, and vanished into the dark.

“Aurelia! Aurelia, here! The horses!” That was Hippon’s voice, sounding desperate.

“Mistress Aurelia, come quick!” Milo’s shrill shriek carried from the stable yard above the storm.

I raced for the stable block; even in the dark I knew the way well enough to run. As I came near I could hear the horses were panicking, calling each other and trampling around.

“They’ve broken in somehow,” young Milo panted. “Look!”

Two horses lay dead on the ground, their throats cut. The rest of the animals were milling about, too close to a stampede for my liking, with Hippon and the stable-hands trying to calm them.

“Go and help quieten them,” I said to the boy.

Junius came hurrying over. He took in the scene and swore. “Nobody could have broken through, we’d have seen them.”

“Shadow-men!” I exclaimed. “Well-named. Who’s supposed to be on guard in the yard here? Marsus?
Marsus!
MARSUS!” But there was no reply.

Then Milo screeched again, from the other side of the horse pen. “Dead! He’s dead!” I hurried to him through the circling horses, my heart pounding.

Marsus lay spread-eagled on the ground, bleeding profusely from a hole in his belly, with half his guts spilling out of it. The milling horses were managing to avoid trampling on him, but it was close.

Who’d done this? My mind started to race, but there wasn’t time to think about it. I wanted to be sick, but there wasn’t time for that either.

I knelt down by his head. He was still conscious, but not for much longer, by the look of him. I took his hand.

“Marsus, you’ll be all right. We’ll carry you inside where it’s warm, and Albia will patch you up. Just hold on till we get a stretcher.”

“No.” His voice was more or less a whisper; I had to lean so close I could feel his breath on my face.

“Don’t waste…men. I’m done. But listen, Mistress….”

“Yes?”

“The tribune did this. I tried to stop him….” His voice tailed off.

“Which tribune, Marsus? Which was it?”

But there was no answer, nor ever would be. He was dead.

The tribune….

O holy Diana, I whispered, help us! Help us now!

Before I could even find someone to move Marsus’ body, I heard shrill triumphant yells from outside the fence, and then an animal screamed. The bastards were butchering the mules in the paddock. We hadn’t been able to bring all the stock in, so the less valuable mules were still out there. I clambered up onto one of the log platforms and looked over, unable to see anything; but the yelling and the animal noises told me where the enemy were, and they were too far away for the fireballs to reach them. I pictured my tough reliable old mules, being chased and killed by the barbarian savages. I hoped one or two of them landed some hard kicks as they were caught. I cursed like a fish-wife, hurling insults over the fence, but the wind whirled my voice into oblivion, which made me feel even more helpless, and angry tears came to my eyes.

“Fire! Fire! Bring water here!” That was Albia, and it sounded as if she was near the slaves’ quarters, out behind the bath-house. Gods, what now?

I raced towards her voice, and she wasn’t hard to find because indeed there was a fire, inside the slave block, and the smoky flames lighted my way. Several of the farm-hands were busy with buckets of water and it didn’t take long to douse the flames, but it was clear someone must have started the blaze deliberately. And surely nobody had broken in here, so near the buildings? It must have been done from inside. By whoever had killed Marsus? One of the tribunes—but which?

We got the fire out, and before we’d finished that, there was another assault on the fence, near the front gate, about as far from the slave block as it could be. And I began to see a pattern in the attacks. The Shadow-men couldn’t get over our stockade quickly, but they had only to threaten to break in, sending small groups of attackers one after another at different points outside the compound. By constantly changing their focus of attack, they could force us to race from end to end of our enclosure to oppose them. That, combined with the damage being done by the traitor inside, would be enough to wear us down and break us. Good, sound tactics, and they almost worked.

I felt chaos closing in on us. It was dawning on me that, for all our hard work and brave words, we might not be able to hold the barbarians off. We lurched from one crisis to another, managing, just barely, to survive. The roaring of the wind in the trees, the challenges of our enemies outside the fence and the answering yells of our own men, the scared neighing of the horses, and the fact that we were more or less blind in the blackness combined to make one violent, terrifying nightmare. I was frightened beyond anything I’d ever experienced before.

By now all our men and quite a few of the women were outside. There were about fifty of us, against perhaps twenty attackers. The fire-balls kept them at a distance, and a dozen times our people poured down boiling water; one well-aimed deluge produced a satisfying scream, which we answered with a loud cheer. Yet even with superior numbers we couldn’t guard everywhere at once. They knew it, and I knew it. They were managing to stretch our resources very thin, too thin to last long. All I could do was rush from one part of the compound to another, encouraging the men, making sure there were plenty of hay-bundles, and trying, in between whiles, to watch what the tribunes were doing.

Eventually we got our first real taste of blood. One of the natives, braver than the rest, flung a heavy sheepskin on top of the big front gate and clambered onto it, protected from the spikes. He sat astride it, taunting us and boasting what he’d do to us when he jumped down. But he never jumped. Taurus ran forward, brandishing an axe, and we heard his yell of triumph as he swung it at the man’s dangling leg and severed it clean through at the ankle. Simultaneously one of our bowmen put an arrow into the native’s chest, and he let out a howl and pitched backwards onto his side of the gate. His foot fell on our side. In the exhilaration of the fight, it was wonderful, and even better when Titch ran forward, picked up the foot, still in its crude leather boot, and hurled it over the gate.

We all joined in with shouts of triumph; you could have heard us in Eburacum. But when eventually we paused for breath, there was a new sound outside in the big paddock, a high rhythmic shouting. Not a slow chant for moving a battering-ram; this was fast and angry. Close at my side, Albia’s voice came out of the dark. “Druids! Relia, it’s Druids cursing us!”

“I know.” I couldn’t catch the words of it, but it was Druid chanting, and they must be repeating their vile ritual curses over and over. So, I thought, the Druids have come with the young fighters, hoping to reclaim their holy place. It was a horrible sound and it made me shiver. I pulled myself together with an effort.

“Let them rant and rave!” I shouted. “We’re Romans, and Romans don’t fear the old gods!” Fine words, but my next thought wasn’t so brave. We’re not all Romans. Most of our people are natives, and maybe they do fear the old gods….

What saved us were two things, which happened quite close together. A loud, confident Roman voice—Brutus—began a familiar chant in return. “Eagles win! Romans rule! Eagles win! Romans rule!” It was a war-cry so old it was probably shouted at Hannibal and his elephants, and its solid rhythm was enough to drown out the Druid curses. Soon we were all yelling it at the tops of our voices, as if by the sheer noise we made we could force them to retreat. Our spirits lifted, but even as I felt this, some separate corner of my mind wondered if we should be making such a din; it would prevent us hearing what the enemy were up to. Reluctantly, I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled, and the comforting chant stopped.

And then the second thing happened. Over the Druids’ cursing we all heard the shrill, triumphant crow of a rooster.

Dawn! The one thing that could save us! Suddenly I realised that the clouds were splitting apart, and the faint glow of starlight showed above us. And to the north-east, the horizon was no longer jet-black but grey, and getting brighter with every breath we took.