by Henry Treece
Marcus got up from the straw and said stiffly, ‘When a Tribune depends for his life on a Saxon, and a young girl at that, he has sunk low. He has ceased to be a man.’
She smiled and nodded at him gently, and watched as he turned and went towards the hanging door of the place. There he had to put out his hand to steady himself, but he missed the lintel and fell forward almost into the dark well of the stairway.
Then she jumped up and ran to him and dragged him back, shaking her head and smiling sadly. ‘Oh Marcus.’ she said, ‘oh, poor Marcus.’ He frowned a while, then gave up the struggle and let her help him to the straw. And as she was doing this they heard the sound of folk gathering down in the city square below, and then a great bull-like voice speaking through a leather trumpet, a Roman voice.
It said: ‘Citizens, men and women of Londinium, hear me, hear me.’
The crowd was silent, and then the voice went on: ‘Our Governor, Suetonius, bids me tell you this, and these are his words. The enemy are coming in great force to take this town. They will bum and kill and we cannot prevent them, for Londinium is a peaceful place and has no walls or fortifications. Nor have we enough soldiers to hold the enemy back. We have the militia, it is true; but they are few and poorly armed. We have a squadron of cavalry, but they are spent with riding across Britain and could scarcely face the hordes that come upon us. It was the hope of our Governor that the Second Legion would be here to protect you; but they are held at Glevum by their own enemies and cannot march out to our aid. The Fourteenth and Twentieth are on their way, but they cannot get here before the Iceni do. I tell you our case so that you shall know I hide nothing from you. Have courage, be brave, be Romans.’
Just then voices called out, asking what use bravery was if they were to be slaughtered like bullocks in a butcher’s yard. But the Roman herald ignored these cries and went on: ‘If a legion cannot hold a position, it moves to another one and draws the enemy with it. And this we shall do. It is the Governor’s intention to withdraw from Londinium soon and, with the help of the gods, meet the enemy at another place and so destroy all who stand against Rome. Citizens of Londinium, have faith. The tribes may bum our city, but we shall build another when we have defeated them, and defeat them we shall. Hail, Nero! Hail, Suetonius!’
There was little cheering down below, only a confused babble of voices and then a great shuffling of feet.
But Marcus was smiling now. He said to Gerd, ‘That was a true Roman speaking. They never surrender. They may withdraw to another place, but they never surrender. They will destroy the Iceni, do not fear.’
Gerd said to herself so as not to trouble him, ‘Aye, and they will leave the people to fend for themselves and be butchered and tortured. That is Rome, aye, that is Rome.’ Marcus did not hear her. He was fast asleep in the straw, breathing easily and smiling as though all was well in his mind now.
Dawn was coming across the broad river and striking into the cold room when Gerd shook him and woke him. Her face was pale and serious and her hair was tangled all over her shoulders. ‘I did not wake you before,’ she said, ‘but now I must, if you are to live. The army has gone. The city is almost deserted. All who can walk have followed the General out of the gates. Only the old and maimed are left to face the burners. I do not intend to burn with them.’
Marcus shook his head to clear it and said, ‘I do not thing that I could march far. I will try to get a weapon from somewhere, an old sword or an axe, and I will get you to tie me against the gates so that I do not fall down. Then I may be able to strike a blow or two for Rome. I may be able to avenge Tigidius, if Mithras will only smile on me, before the Iceni get to me.’
But Gerd slapped him quite hard across the face. ‘You talk like a fool,’ she said. ‘Now get up and lean on me. I have not looked after you so long to let you throw your life away uselessly. Come, come, you silly child, I have arranged with an old man I know to take us on his mule cart out of this place. He will not wait for ever. Come now.’
He began to push her away, but she was too strong for him and made him get to his feet. She even pinned his cloak about his head and shoulders to keep the chill morning air from him. And then she helped him down the creaking stairs.
A white-haired old man dressed in greasy hides sat on a cart outside, bobbing up and down with terror. ‘Hurry, hurry,’ he croaked. ‘I have just heard that the tribes have pushed into the town lower down the river. Get on the cart now or I must leave you. Hurry, or we shall be dead. If I were not a good man, I should not wait.’
Gerd helped Marcus up among the piles of hide and the sticks of furniture that the old man was trying to save. She said coldly, ‘You save us not because you are a good man, for in truth you are one of the biggest rascals in Londinium, Gyrth. You save us because you know that if you did not, my cousin Brand would come looking for you one day, and he would ask a question or two before he knocked you on the head with his axe.’
Gyrth whipped the tired mule along the street and shouted back, ‘That red-handed pirate! That sea-wolf! I am sorry down to the cellars of my heart that I ever promised him to look after you. See where it has got me! I could have been away and safe an hour ago, if I had not waited for this lazy dog of a Roman at your bidding.’
They went along narrow lanes and not down the wide roads. They saw few folk, only old ones who sat at their doorways waiting, as though they had given up all hope and did riot wish to be saved.
Gerd said sternly, ‘My cousin Brand set you up in trade here, didn’t he? He brought you over from Frisia in his ship, didn’t he? Well, man, show some gratitude and stop bleating like an old sheep.’
When they had gone for an hour along the river, they turned northwards and soon ran into lanes where the hawthorns and alders grew thickly and hid them from view.
Then Marcus raised himself and looked back. In a dull voice he said, ‘Smoke is rising from the city. It is a doomed place now. They will leave nothing of it standing, and no folk alive.’
Gerd was trying to comb her hair as they jolted along the rutted lane. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and you thought you could save that old midden-heap! The more fool you, it was not worth saving. Now lie back and try to get some rest. I will wake you if you need to be woken.’
[23]
The Midland Forest
But she did not wake him through that day. She did not think that he needed to see the burned villages, or the smoking waste of Verulam. He slept deeply with exhaustion, though the groaning old cart bumped cruelly across fields and through water-splashes. Once she turned back his shirt and looked at his shoulder wound. It was still red and angry-looking, but was healing well now; and the bruise on his chest had changed from blue to a yellowish colour. She said, ‘Ula Buriash knows his trade. He should have been a doctor. That should have been his trade.’
Old Gyrth looked back and said, grumbling, ‘I wish we had him here now, he could give me something for my aching back. I have not gone so far and so fast for many years. I shall never walk upright again after all this jolting.’
Gerd clambered over the load in the cart and almost threw the old man aside. ‘Give me the reins and the whip,’ she said. ‘When a man gets too old to drive a cart, he is too old to live. I must tell my cousin Brand what a fine fellow he set up in business,’
Gyrth put his hands together and said, ‘I beg you, Gerd, do not be so hasty. I am not complaining. I was only putting forward a point of view. A man has the right to do that, hasn’t he? You would not deny him that, would you? Saxons believe in free speaking, don’t they V
Gerd drove the cart up a grassy slope to be away from the lane now. She said, ‘Oh, go to sleep and let me get on with what must be done. I like your silence better than your speaking.’
It was late afternoon before they halted. By then even Gerd could see that the mule would fall in its tracks if they did not rest. Now they had come out of the farmland, and away from all roads and lanes. They were at the edge of the great forest that stretched o
n northwards almost to Lindum and the Abus. So she drew in under the oak boughs and woke Marcus up.
‘We shall rest a while,’ she said. ‘The mule will graze and we will go into the wood and see if we can find something to eat. There might be a young deer we could run down, or a stupid hare that will sit still while we throw a stone at him.’
Old Gyrth nodded. He said, ‘While you are away, I will make a little wood fire inside the glade here so that no one will see the smoke. And if you do not find some meat to cook, at least keep your eyes open for berries or wild apples. They would be better than nothing.’
Gerd turned on him sharply and said, ‘You get on with your fire and keep your advice to yourself, old sheep. And if anyone comes, get behind a bush. Don’t run out to greet them and tell them about your bad back. If they are Iceni they might give you an even worse one.’
The forest was very still. Soon the trees were so thickly grown that it was quite dark among them. But from time to time they came upon little clearings where pools stood or streams trickled and the grass was a deep green, not like the dusty brown hay of the fields. They sat down to rest in such a glade, with the amber rays of the sun striking in shafts over their shoulders and turning all the leaves and boughs to a deep golden colour. They drank from the water and nibbled a handful of berries. And while they sat there a young hare came from a clump of ferns and sat up to look at them more closely. Marcus said, ‘Well, now is our chance. I think I might have him down from this range.’ But Gerd put her hand on his arm and shook her head. ‘I have a mind to let this one go,’ she said smiling. ‘We may be hungry, but it seems a shame to rob this one of his life. He has not had it long. I think we owe it to him to spare him, as the gods have spared us.’
Marcus clucked his tongue and the young hare heard it and shambled away on legs that seemed too long for his body. He said, ‘I always thought that you Saxons were a wild savage folk, yet you shrink back from hurting the little beast.’
Gerd began to wash her hands and face in the water and to look down at her reflection to see that her hair was tidy. She said, ‘What you Romans think of us hardly matters. Romans do not understand us because we like to live privately in the forests and not in crowded cities. We prefer to be among trees and not in musty old houses. Besides, I liked that little hare. I liked the way it twitched its nose. Why should I kill it because I am hungry? There is no more to say. Eat your berries and we will go back to the old man. The mule will be rested by now. We must see that the fire is stamped out and the ashes scattered among the bushes, or someone may follow our trail.’
But when they got back to the edge of the wood there was no fire to stamp out, and no mule either. They followed the tracks of the wheels for a while in the grass and then lost them when the ground got harder.
Gerd looked up at Marcus with a wry smile. ‘The old sheep has left us,’ she said. ‘He has gone on alone to save his tattered old fleece somewhere else. Well, at least he got us safely out of the city, so that is something to be thankful for.’
Marcus said, ‘Yes, it is something.’
He stood silently for a while with the setting sun at his left hand, then pointing before him towards the forest he said, ‘The north lies where I point. If we go that way through the trees we must sooner or later strike the Watling Street that runs across country.’
Gerd said, ‘Why do you wish to get back on to a road, having been at such pains to get off one? Are you Romans so much in love with roads that you cannot bear to be out of sight of one?’
Marcus smiled at her. ‘I do not like roads any more than you do,’ he said. ‘I have marched along too many of them in my time. But somewhere along that road will come marching the Fourteenth and Twentieth Legions, ten thousand of them and more. And where they are, we shall be safe. Our troubles will be over.’
Gerd plucked a grass stalk and began to chew it. She said, ‘You may be safe with them, but they will take me for British and I do not think that they will be any kinder to me than the Iceni would have been. To me a Roman spear is just as sharp as any other sort.’
Marcus took her by the hand and said, ‘I shall tell them who you are and what you have done for me. They will listen to the son of Ostorius the Tribune.’
But now Gerd pulled away from him, her face set, and said, ‘Perhaps it is right for you to go back to your people. But they are not my people. The best they would do would be to set me working in their camp kitchens and treat me like a slave. My folk are free-born and not slaves. I could not bear that. I should hang myself with shame - then all this wandering would have been to waste. I might as well have stayed in the city and have let the Iceni do it for me.’ Marcus felt his chest and shoulder aching again and grew impatient. ‘Look, girl,’ he said, ‘you are talking about people you do not know. Many of the Twentieth look like you, sound like you, and even think like you. Some of them may even know your cousin Brand.’
She smiled at this. ‘They will say little that is good about him,’ she said. ‘He has never gone out of his way to make them like him. But I think he would like you. I think that you are his sort of man. Look, Marcus, why do we not go to the south and find our way to Vectis? We could take ship with him, we could persuade him to go anywhere you wished, anywhere he could find good pickings. He would do it, I promise you. He would do anything for me. He would sail as far as Alexandria if I asked him.’
Marcus gazed at her strangely then. ‘Alexandria,’ he said. ‘Do you know, I have a sister there. I would love to see her again, and joggle her baby about on my knee. I have not seen my sister for most of my life.’
Then suddenly he came out of his dream and said, ‘But she would not know me now. She has other things to think of. No, we will do as I say. My duty is to the legions. We will go north. And I swear to you on my honour that you shall be well treated. Come now, before the light goes altogether.’
So Gerd sighed and then shook her head. But when she saw that he was determined to make his way through the forest she followed him, and before long they were back among the dark trees.
They were able to walk for an hour before the light went at last, and the strange darkness of the midland forest came down on them. Marcus began to stumble over roots and bang himself against tree trunks. Gerd had always lived in forests and seemed to sense the overhanging boughs and the sudden hollows even before she came to them. She took the Roman’s hand and guided him for a time. Then at last she stopped and said in a whisper, ‘This is as much as we should do.’
He said, ‘No, we must press forward, girl. I still have strength enough to go on, if you will lead me. We still have some distance to cover.’
But she held him back. ‘This is where we stay tonight,’ she said firmly. ‘If we go on, we shall never arrive anywhere. Look behind you.’
Marcus turned, and along the way they had come he sensed the rustle of stealthy movements. He even thought he saw dark shapes flitting from bush to hush.
He said, ‘What is it, Gerd?’
She said grimly, ‘If you wait a little, you will see their eyes, and then you will not need to ask. I thought I scented them half a mile back, but now I know.’
Then Marcus saw the glint of amber eyes, at waist level all round him among the undergrowth. ‘They are wolves,’ he said. ‘I did not know there were wolves here. But how silent they are.’
Gerd said, ‘Aye, they are silent enough when they are tracking, but they will howl shortly when they begin their rush. Come on, into this oak tree with you. They are not the best climbers in the world, these wolves. There are some things we can do better than they can.’
Now he did not argue with the girl, but clambered up where she told him and then drew her beside him. As they stood on the first stout branch, there was a sudden fierce rush below, then a dark shape flung itself up towards them. Marcus felt something brush against his foot, heard the snapping of jaws, and then the thud as the wolf fell down on to the turf.
‘That was too close,’ he said, ‘we must
climb higher, friend.’
In the darkness Gerd said, ‘Aye, some of them are good leapers; but that one did not know his trade too well. An old dog-wolf would have had you down by now, but that was only a youth at the business.’
Marcus shuddered suddenly. Then he heard a rustling beside him and at last Gerd said, ‘I have taken off my shift so that we can use it as a rope to climb with. Now hold the end of it and I will go up first and draw you afterwards. I have yet to meet the oak tree I could not climb. Come now, the pack is gathering.’
Marcus began to protest, but the Saxon said, ‘Save your breath for climbing, man. We are in the dark. I shall put it on again when we are safe. Move your legs while you still have legs to move.’
And when they were high up in the thick-leaved tree, he gazed down again. It seemed that a thousand glowing sparks were twinkling below him on the forest floor.
Then Gerd said, ‘That is what I call a legion - though what its number is I do not know or care. Here we are safe in this fork of the tree. We can lean back and wait till the daylight sends them slinking away. Let me bind your belt round the bough so that you do not slip off, in the night.’
He felt her strong hands fastening him safely. Then he said, ‘By Mithras and all his Lights, but I do not know what I would have done without you. I wish that Tigidius could have met you, Gerd, he would have fallen in love with such a woman.’
In the darkness Gerd sighed impatiently. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘but he would have been too late. Now go to sleep, if you can. There may be much to do tomorrow.’
[24]
Strange Feasting
