The King's Cavalry (4 page)

V - Views

Bishop Candless was impatient, and somewhat fearful. He knew that the emperor’s mother was scooping up all the holy relics she could, zealously industrious as a new convert to Christianity, and he wanted to get his hands on something before she cleaned up the market. He had been in contact with the church leaders and seemed to have agreement to visit Rome to take some holy relics back to Britannia, but, just as Arthur was doubtful of his reception, so too was Candless hesitant, and for the same reason.

Arthur had personally executed the Roman general who had invaded Britain, and that general, Constantius Chlorus, was the father of Constantine, who was the current emperor, or was at least, Candless corrected himself, one of the claimants to be emperor.

Would Queen Helena punish Candless for her husband’s death, or would Constantine himself order the Britons punished for his father’s execution? The bishop had no way of knowing.

At least, he thought, Arthur as king-emperor had a better chance at immunity. If he, a mere bishop, went to Rome, he could be accused of almost anything and sent for crucifixion, or
, at best, to be thrown off the Tarpeian Rock. He would have a better chance of surviving if he went with Arthur, but now the king was reticent about whether he really wanted to go, even if it meant defying Constantine’s polite summons. But… Candless really wanted some relics to validate his new church and to attract streams of donative-carrying pilgrims. It really is selfish of Arthur not to put himself out, the danger can’t be that great, he thought peevishly.

Finally
, the Pict’s warrior blood won out. Candless resolved to go whatever the cost or danger. If he died, he would one day die anyway, he shrugged. But he had high hopes he could so impress the Romans they’d cooperate. Had not Caratacus the Briton been taken in chains to meet his new masters, and had he not so stirred them with his courage and arguments that he had been freed to live out his days in Italia?

The bishop set about
organising his entourage for the springtime weeks of journeying across Gaul, the Alps and Italia, and gave careful thought to his display of pomp. Too much could encourage greed and possible seizure, too little could arouse contemptuous dismissal. He would wear his alligator hide breastplate and a sword, he thought, and he would ensure that every man in his train wore the red cross and white surplice of the Christians.

A week later, he was riding out on a cleric’s palfrey, leaving Bononia at the head of a procession of mules, monks, guards and baggage carts. Bishop Candless was on the last part of his journey to find holy relics.

Guinevia watched him go. The sorceress was standing on the landward ramparts of the citadel where she had been pacing, wondering about the welfare of her teenage son, Milo, the agreed heir to the throne of Alba. At the youth’s wedding just a few months before, the Pictish king, Kinadius, and the British emperor, Arthur, had sealed in blood an agreement of peace between their countries, and had joined Milo and Kinadius’ daughter Sintea in marriage.

As Guinevia’s son, Milo had legitimate claim to the throne, for the Picts practised matrilineal succession, and the sorceress was by birth the daughter of a Pict chieftain with royal blood. But, regal or not, she was a mother whose 14
-year-old son was far distant, and she fretted for him. “I’ll view his actions,” she thought, and returned to her chamber, calling for her body slave.

She took out a silk-wrapped block of smooth, black obsidian, a volcanic glass that helped her focus her mind and send it abroad, and settled to quiet her thoughts. The slave readied her wax tabulum and stylus, preparing to scribble down the thoughts her mistress spoke aloud.

Guinevia looked into the obsidian’s depths, relaxed her mind and body and waited for the swirling fogs in the glass to part… She saw Milo, tall and golden, walking with his young bride Sintea. Behind them was a stretch of water she recognised as the familiar Tay. The couple looked calm and content, the glimpse of them was brief but reassuring and soon, too soon for Guinevia, the scene faded.

Her slave read back the few remarks the sorceress had muttered – it was best not to analyse matters while viewing them but merely to speak thoughts aloud. Guinevia had learned that if she psychically ‘saw’ something large and green it might be a tree, a mossy wall, or even a close view of a green cloak. Interpreting her vision while it was ongoing could be misleading, she had discovered. Better to analyse it all after the remote, mental view was ended.

“I’ll send to Arthur and tell him all seems well,” she thought, and settled again to look into the obsidian.

*

Far away, under the snow-smoothed slopes of Yr Wyddfa, the sorcerer Myrddin was also peering into his viewing tool: a deep, black pool of water contained in an ancient and large iron cooking pot. The vessel was an old, old Druidical artefact and had seen some sinister uses that included child sacrifice and several ritual drownings of men.

Myrddin used it on a regular basis to view and even to communicate telepathically with other magi. Most ominously, the sorcerer also practised necromancy, the art of communicating with the dead, and he had been ruthless on occasion, calling up spirits to do his bidding. Famously, he had enlisted Boadicea, the long-dead queen of the Iceni, to lead a chariot attack on the Romans at their landing place on the shore at Dungeness.

Awestruck British charioteers had galloped alongside the shade of the queen who had once led a blood-soaked rebellion and, inspired that they could not fail, had overwhelmed the legionaries. Later, they discovered a number of Romans dead on the shingle but without a mark on their bodies, proof said the British, that the dead queen’s ghostly arrows had killed them.

Now Myrddin, who used magic on a daily basis, was viewing the realm. He peered into the water’s dark depths to take an eagle’s view of the eastern shores, which were free of Saxon invaders. He glimpsed King Kinedius out boar hunting with a handful of retainers, he saw Arthur pacing the battlements of Bononia and, further afield, Constantine in his purple-trimmed toga walking through Rome with an entourage, passing the Baths of Caracalla. No hint of disruption, not a murmur of war or plague unsettled his visions, but the sorcerer knew from the tingle at the nape of his neck that trouble was afoot.

VI
- Vallis

The reports had come back to me at Bononia. My scouts had captured a couple of dozen Roman heavy horses but more importantly had contacted several horse copers who had herds for us to buy. Some were in northern Belgica, the rest would gather at Vallis, King Stelamann’s stronghold. Most of the steeds were Frisians, which was exactly the breed I wanted, heavy horses that were strong enough to carry an armoured man but nimble and intelligent enough to be trained as fine war mounts.

In all, I wanted about 700 horses including remounts to supplement the herds I already had. The Frisians’ numbers could be made up with some Nisean horses, taller beasts that came from Persian stock and were elegant animals to ride, and there was also a scattering of Noric horses. These were heavy Roman draught animals from the province of Noricum
, in the alpine piedmont area, where one or two breeders had introduced a stud to cross into the Frisian strain.

With that report in my hand, I was eager to go east to inspect the horses and begin training the heavy cavalry that would be the world’s finest. I called in my aide Androcles and issued the orders needed to put our cavalry column together for travel to northern Belgica. We didn’t have enough steeds for all our men, so instead of riding or marching, we’d take the faster means of travel. We would sail there through the straits of the Narrow Sea, staying discreetly out of sight of the coast until we had passed the River Scheldt, where the
Emperor Maxentius’ Romans still maintained a small garrison.

They had pulled back from Forum Hadriani and the outfall of the Rhine, but we would land first in the island chain off Frisia where our scouting party would meet us with some temporary mounts. From there we would be guided to the horse
copers and their herds. With what horses we purchased in northern Belgica, we would make the journey south, along the Meuse river to Vallis to inspect the next offerings.

My expectation was that we could land in Frisia without alerting the Romans to my presence, as it and the possibility of plunder of gold and horses might be too tempting for them to withstand.

Once we had spent a few weeks in Germania we would have the horses sufficiently trained to ride them back across northern Gaul to Bononia, and with our own cavalry force and the supplemental troops of King Stelamann, we should be able enough to withstand even a strong Roman patrol’s attacks. So that was the plan, simple, direct and, I hoped, flawless. Fate’s spinners must have been hooting with laughter.

*

The first part of the plan went reasonably well, although the Frisian horse traders had only a few mounts for sale after meeting with a Hunnic commander several months before. He had taken most of the available steeds, but the few we did purchase were fine animals. I sighed and plotted our route to Stelamann’s fortress.

We crossed the Rhine at Albanianis, on a bridge over the white water for which the town was named and moved steadily west and south to the old Roman frontier town called Hercules Camp.

Fifty years before we arrived, the place had seen the departure of the last legion, the Minerva, not so long after Julianus had reinforced the walls. We found most of the castrum in fair condition, including a small temple to the Batavian god, Magusanus, and made offering to him, discreetly stacking our red-crossed, Christian shields inside the fort walls before a troop of us, all outward Christians, all privately pagans, paid our respects. It was a relief to me to do so openly, as I was tormented by the thought that the true gods might bring disaster on me for my outward faith to the Christian god.

Spiritually refreshed, we marched on through the land of the Tungri and Eburones to their walled capital
, Tungrorum, which was a one-time Roman administrative centre on the road from Cologne to Bavay. These were fertile lands, with handsome villas and burial tumuli dotting the landscape and the city’s importance as a crossroads was underscored by an eight-sided pillar marked with distances to other cities across the continent.

I had looked it over. “To Rome: 854,000 paces,” it said. That was 54 days’ unhurried marching at about 15 miles a day. My troops could halve that time almost without effort, I knew, but there would be no need for it. I had no intention of going to Rome. Now Bavay, that was different, I thought as we trotted south to our rendezvous with King Stelamann. We’d pass through that town on our way home, and I remembered the place’s welcoming thermal baths, fine aqueduct and beautiful forum. The place was awash in temples, too, seven of them, even one to the fearsome god Bel. I had good memories of Bavay and I looked forward to a visit on our way north, with a fine horse herd, I hoped.

Grabelius interrupted my daydreaming. “That must be Vallis, Lord,” he said, pointing to a distant hilltop fortification.

“Probably,” I said, jolting back to the present, and kneeing my horse to quicken his pace.

In a matter of a couple of hours we were clattering into the courtyard and the king himself was out to welcome us. I slyly watched Grabelius’ stunned reaction. Stelamann was tall, and looked even taller from the way he fashioned his hair into long, lime-paste-supported spikes. This bristling mane was accompanied by a whitened, drooping moustache and a bared chest full of swooping, curling tattoos. A lethal-looking, long dagger, leaf bladed and bone handled, hung from his belt and his checked trews were tucked into long, soft, leather riding boots.

I’m a big man, but Stelamann’s spiked hair made him even bigger and when we embraced, clasping forearms Roman-style, he seemed a giant,
overtopping me. “Welcome, king,” he rumbled.

“I am glad to be here, brother,” I responded.

“You come at a hard time,” he said, “and you may need that great sword of yours,” nodding to Exalter at my hip.

Quickly, he sketched the political situation. The Romans had been retreating from their old frontiers under pressure from the Germanic tribes but recently had been reinforcing their troops in Colonia, called Cologne, on the Rhine. This was only a few days’ hard travel north and east of Stelamann’s kingdom and he was expecting demands for tribute that would be backed up by the legions’ spears. “We might well find ourselves shield to shield with the Romans again, soon,” he said gloomily. I grunted.

“We’d best get our heavy cavalry organised, then,” I said. “Have you got horses for me?”

He had. Grabelius and his cavalrymen were in awe. The copers had brought in some fine animals, black and dark brown Frisians with white stars; long-maned and with feathery
, silky hair on the lower legs. These were powerful horses with long arched necks and well-structured shoulders, muscular hindquarters and deep chests. One or two were taller at the shoulder than a man’s head height, all were fine large beasts that towered above the standard, sturdy near-ponies we were used to seeing as cavalry horses.

Quirinus had done well, scouring the region to get such a herd together, and sending envoys south into the
alpine meadows of Noricum to bring back several score of the heavy horses that were used as draught animals there. The traders who heard of the British gold on offer had also brought some Nisean horses, bay, chestnut and as brown as seals, that were robust, heavy-hoofed and powerful. They were easily distinguished from the other beasts by the horn-like, bony knobs on their foreheads, and were prized for their comfortable, silky gait as the world’s smoothest-riding horses.

Our cavalrymen were ecstatic, and the days and weeks passed in a welter of saddlery, training, grooming and exercising as the horses and men worked together to meld into a fighting force unlike any the world had seen.

King Stelamann was glad to host our troop, recognising its military worth and enjoying the security it gave against any Roman approach and I was content to see the cavalry force forming into a viable unit before we began our trek back north. I twice had messages from Britain that all was well and in those early days of summer, by the beautiful River Meuse, I was satisfied to see my cavalry take shape. Sadly, the peace did not last.

Maxentius’ administrators had intercepted
cargo of timber, grain, charcoal, hides and walnuts that King Stelamann had sent downriver to the trading post at Forum Hadriani, and they sent a patrol to investigate the king’s granaries and warehouses and to levy taxes on them. By chance, the mounted squadron arrived on a day when almost all our cavalry was out to the south on an exercise, so they did not see the horse lines, but they did eyeball the uniform rows of military tents and could form an estimate of the absent force.

I was downstream from the tent lines, working with two of my troopers to dig a latrine trench. It was a fine day, I was clad only in my trews and boots, was dirt-streaked and sweating. A yell from the garrison sentry on the ramparts alerted us to the arrival of the Roman patrol, about 40 of them, on hardy moorland ponies. I glanced up, shrugged and carried on digging. Tax collectors. By chance, the Romans had approached from the side where we three men were working. The officer at the head of the column rode his mount to us and looked down.

“Get out of there, you,” he said, “and take me to whoever is in charge here.” The two troopers with me grinned and I thought to go along with the joke. “Yes, sir,” I said, climbing out of the hole. “Please follow me, sir, this way sir, please sir.”

The Roman caught the slavish insolence and struck me across the back of the neck with his vitis, the vinewood staff that is symbol of a centurion’s rank. I spun around and he backhanded me again across the face, temporarily blinding my right eye. The pain sparked the overwhelming rage that welled up in me in familiar form, a buzzing, irresistible force that makes seconds seem like minutes. The world brightens and slows to underwater pace, my senses are heightened and quickened, and that sweet fighting madness swamps my will. I am invincibly faster,
stronger and more skilled and I joyfully surrender to the emotion.

Without conscious thought, I cupped my two hands under the Roman’s dangling foot and heaved to tip him off his horse. The man catapulted upwards, clean out of the saddle, to crash
, helmeted head first, into the ground on the other side of the pony. Before he even landed, I was ducking under the horse’s head. Then I was on him, hands around his throat. He struggled half-upright, putting me behind and above him. It took an instant. My right hand was around his neck and grasping my own left bicep and my left hand went in practised way against the back of the man’s helmet.

One short, vicious heaving twist upwards, sideways and back produced a sharp crack as the vertebrae separated. The man’s spine snapped and his head lolled. I dropped the body, noting dispassionately that he had blood running from his mouth where he had bitten deep into his tongue. His troopers were sitting their mounts, gaping and still. Then the spell broke. The first few kicked their horses forward at me, my two men were scrambling out of the trench and I was diving back towards it, to grab a weapon of some kind.

All I could find was a wooden spade but it badly hurt two of the legionaries before I went down under the flat of a gladius’s blade. It came from the right and made a clunking noise on my skull. I never saw it coming through my blinded eye, but somebody wanted me alive for a slower death than my two troopers had received on the Roman spear points that bright morning.

The movement and jolting brought me back to consciousness and I found myself staring one-eyed up at the stars, bound and laid out in the bed of a farm wag
gon. Alongside me was the body of the centurion I’d killed. To judge by the stiffness and pain through most of my body, I felt he had the better of it, but all I could do was grit my teeth and wait for matters to improve.

Some
things did get better, others got much worse, and three days later, we arrived at their great castrum in Mainz where the sullen troopers had to explain their centurion’s death and where I expected to receive mine. One positive I could take from the situation, I thought as I was pushed into a stone-built cell, was that the Romans had no idea who I was. Another plus: I knew the town. I had been here before when I was recovering from wounds and I had friends among the XXII Primogenia legion that was stationed here, almost all of them Mithraists. If I could get word to them, I might have a hope.