The Saxon Spears

by James Calbraith

  “The Romans think we are all the same people,” he tells me one day. We sit on the domus porch. I yearn to be outside as much as my injuries allow, now that the days have grown warmer and longer. “They call us all Saxons, not caring about our differences.”

  “It was the same here,” I say. “Perhaps if Rome had conquered Germania, the different tribes would all become one, just like the Britons.”

  “Perhaps — but we never gave them the chance,” he replies, grinning.

  “I was told the Franks were also our close kin.”

  He scoffs. “The Franks have lived on the river frontier for too long,” he says. “They have all but turned into Romans.”

  “The river frontier — you mean Rhenum.”

  “We call it the Rin. The Franks dwell on both sides of the river, in its northernmost reach. The Saxons — actual Saxons — hold the coast to the north of the Franks, then the Angles, separated from them by flooded marshes, and lastly, furthest to the north, is where we lived before we sought our refuge.”

  “Furthest from Britannia, too,” I note.

  He nods, sadly. “The whale-road is long and dark.”

  “The whale-road?”

  “The sea,” Orpedda explains. “In the poem-speak of our people.”

  I yearn to learn more about this poem-speak, but Paulinus clears his throat and gives Orpedda a warning look. He’s taking no chances this time. He is always present during our lessons and, using his limited knowledge of the Saxon tongue, makes sure that I only learn innocuous subjects like Iutish grammar or tribal geography. Orpedda is not just any Iute; he belongs to Horsa’s clan and, he told me, he led men into battle, in the Old Country. He would know far more about the customs and traditions of my people than Fulco. Knowing this, Paulinus will not allow a mention of anything that might lead me astray from the true Christian path — again.

  “What about the other tribes?” I ask, turning back to the less contentious matters.

  “The Danes, Svear and Geats lived to our north,” he replies, “and in the east, there were once many tribes — the Werns, the Durings, the Long-beards… But that was before the Riders came.” A grim shadow shrouds his smile. “Who knows what is left of them all now.”

  “The Riders — tell me more of them!”

  “That is quite enough of old stories for today,” interjects Paulinus. “Get back to the grammar lesson. I have to take care of something in the kitchen — but I will be back, so don’t get any ideas. Either of you,” he adds, casting me a suspicious glance.

  The woads bloom golden in the hills by the time I’m fit for a journey again. Not long before the Pentecost, Fastidius at last returns from Londin with news about our journey to the coast. I’m surprised to learn it has been delayed yet again; I was certain Catigern had already gone to visit the Iutes long ago, without waiting for my injuries to heal.

  “Things have changed. It is no longer just a trip to satisfy his curiosity,” says Fastidius. “It’s now an official expedition to Tanet, a delegation from the Dux and the Council to the Iutish chieftains.”

  “A delegation? Whatever for?”

  “Catigern has managed to convince his father of the importance of good relations with the Iutes,” he says. “They’ve been here for thirteen years, and we barely know anything about them — what do they want from us, what can we get from them… Having them here is a challenge and an opportunity at the same time. We’ve ignored it for too long.”

  “If the Council overlooked them for so long, what changed now?” I ask.

  “Catigern,” he replies. “It’s his new pet project, and whatever Catigern wants, Londin does, too. Not just the courtiers, but all the nobles and merchants in the city want to ingratiate themselves with his faction — even if it means mingling with the pagans.”

  “I had no idea Catigern was so powerful.”

  “He’s his father’s heir. Wortimer may talk louder and have more followers among the lowborn and the young nobles, but Catigern is the one with the real influence at the court.”

  Politics. I scowl. Courtiers, nobles, factions… It’s a world where Fastidius may feel at home, but with which I want to have as little to do as possible. A world where men are just assets, where comradeship matters less than influence, where a swift tongue means more than a strong sword arm. I fear it will not be long before this world engulfs me, just like it engulfed Fastidius.

  He notices my repulsion and asks me about it.

  “I don’t know, Fastid,” I reply. “It sounded like a fun idea when it was just you, me and Catigern going. But now, with all those nobles and rich merchants, it’s starting to sound like a burden.”

  He chuckles. “You needn’t worry about that. The nobles and the merchants are all leaving from Londin, along the Rutubi Road. You’ll be going with Father from here, down the eastern track. You won’t meet the others until Dorowern, just before Tanet.”

  “I thought you would be coming with us.”

  “I have too many duties at the cathedral,” he explains. “I can’t be away for that long, not before the Pentecost. But I will be praying for you.”

  “And what about Catigern himself?”

  “I don’t know. I’d assume he will go with the Londin delegation. But you never know with him — he likes to surprise.”

  And surprise us, he does. The day before our departure, Catigern arrives at Ariminum — with Horsa alongside him, both of them on horseback: Catigern riding a tall white mare, with brass bells jingling at its neck; Horsa — a small, sturdy pony, of a breed I don’t recognise at first.

  “A ship pony,” says Horsa, noticing the wonder with which I look at his mount. He barely resembles the modest man I met at the cathedral. With a seax and a shorter knife hanging at his belt, a mail shirt peering from under the leather tunic, and a thick band of sculpted silver on his arm, he now truly looks like a chieftain of a proud warrior tribe. He smooths his moustache and pats the pony on the neck. “The only breed that could fit on a ceol and withstand the journey.”

  I remember now… Or at least, I think I do. There were ponies with us on the ship — how could I forget it? A breeding pair, tied together and lashed to the deck at the back. So at least a few of them survived the journey, and spawned the offspring…

  I speak Iutish to Horsa now, at least I try to, showing off my newly gained skill. But I have a vocabulary of a frightened three-year-old, and my accent is rough. I constantly need to repeat myself for Horsa to understand me. It’s much easier the other way around.

  “You are coming with us?” I ask Catigern. “Why not with the Londin delegation?”

  “The Londin delegation is just a bunch of boring courtiers and officials,” he replies, confirming my earlier doubts. “They will talk of nothing but trade, borders, treaties — and palace intrigues. It would be as if I’d never left my father’s house.” He breathes in. “Besides, I’ve missed the open countryside.”

  I raise my eyebrows. The pervading smell today in the villa is that of piles of fermenting manure, made ready to spread over the cabbage fields. Is this what the city people find attractive about living in the country?

  “In truth, I also wish to discuss some matters with Master Pascent, away from prying eyes,” he says, lowering his voice. “We need his guidance at the court. He’s been away for too long.”

  I nod sagely, though I have no idea what he’s talking about. The Master’s dealings with the Londin court remain a mystery to me. It’s true that he’s been spending more time at the villa than before, but I assume he has simply retired, his duties taken over by Fastidius — who now lives permanently in the city, serving the Bishop.

  What advice might Catigern need from Master Pascent? I remember the Master used to deal with logistics and strategy back in the days when he and Dux Wortigern fought together in Armorica… Is there a new war brewing at the borders? Another rebellion? I can’t wait to eavesdrop on their conversation as soon as I get the chance.

  I offer to take his
horse to the stable, but Catigern strokes the mare’s neck and shakes his head.

  “Let her stay here for a while. She, too, needs some country air.”

  CHAPTER XI

  THE LAY OF WODAN

  There haven’t been so many people crowding the villa’s courtyard since Master Pascent’s birthday feast. An entire contingent of Catigern’s slaves and guards arrived from Londin yesterday. Soon after, a dozen Iutes, armed, armoured and itching for a fight, marched from the Forum to protect their Drihten, Horsa. Combined with Pascent’s own retinue of foot guards, horsemen and servants there must be at least thirty men gathered around the two supply wagons and the carriage in which I am to ride along with the Master and Lady Adelheid. Paulinus, who remains to take care of the property in our absence, observes these preparations with a worried look.

  “You do not approve, Father?” asks Catigern, gazing down on us from the height of his silver mare. In the two days he’s been with us, he has quickly befriended everyone on the property, from the kitchen slaves to the guards, but somehow, Paulinus remains resistant to his charms.

  “I don’t know the point of all this fuss, just to talk to some godless heathens,” Paulinus replies.

  “They might see the light of God yet,” replies Catigern. “Much like Fraxinus here. Perhaps they could even use your guidance in these matters.”

  Paulinus turns a gentle eye to me and rubs my hair with a smile. “It took me years to guide this one to the light. I doubt the Lord would give me enough strength to deal with an entire tribe of his kin.”

  He turns stern again, as Lady Adelheid and Master Pascent descend down the porch steps. Paulinus has been most vocal in his opposition to the Lady’s departure. “Why risk it?” he shouted. “It’s too far, and too dangerous. There are bandits in the woods. The weather can turn. What is the Lady going there for, anyway?”

  But even in this, he was overturned. Lady Adelheid was adamant in her desire to see the Iutes with her own eyes, to meet the people from whom the accident of divine providence had taken me and given me to her, and in the end, neither Paulinus nor Master Pascent had any say in the matter.

  The Lady and the Master stop before Catigern and bow.

  “We are grateful to you for organising this mission,” the Lady says. “I am convinced it will be to the benefit of us all, Britons and Saxons alike.” She casts a firm glance at Paulinus, who hangs his head.

  “Do not thank me, Lady,” replies Catigern. “I was inspired by your and your husband’s example. Truth be told, I never gave much thought to the plight of Iutes until I met young Fraxinus.”

  “Me?” I turn to him, surprised.

  “Seeing Horsa rush to your defence that Easter morning, even though he barely knew you… It opened my eyes,” he says, nodding. “The two of you showed me the Iutes can be more than just our allies — they can be our friends. Friends who will fight for each other not for money or power, but out of loyalty and love.”

  I know what he really means, what hides behind his lofty words — and I hate myself for knowing this. It’s all just more politics. More important to him than my well-being is that Horsa’s Iutes fought against his brother’s roughs, and that they did so not as my paid bodyguards, but as my worried kin. It would appear influence alone is not quite enough to prevail at Wortigern’s court. I wonder whether this is the real reason for our expedition to Tanet, whether Catigern needs the services of the Iutish warriors not to deal with some foreign threat, but with that of his own family…

  Another carriage arrives from the east, the last to join our caravan, this one also surrounded by its own small retinue of guards and servants. It stops just outside the gates — there isn’t enough space for it in the courtyard.

  “That will be Quintus, our nearest neighbour,” Master Pascent tells Catigern. “I hope you don’t mind, I’ve invited him to go along. He’s had some dealings with the Saxons in the south, his experience might prove useful.”

  Quintus. Instinctively, I glance at his retinue, searching for Eadgith’s red hair, but then I remember — it’s all in the past now, and there it must stay.

  “Not at all,” Catigern replies. Though his lips are curved in a polite smile, he looks to the carriage with suspicion. “The more the merrier, I’m sure.”

  It was a villa once, like Ariminum, only a far larger one, spreading for more than a mile across the entire eastern side of a deep river valley. I recognise the barrel-shaped roof of the great bath house, concealed under a canopy of vines and thorns; piles of rubble mark what’s left of the other buildings. Of the domus almost nothing remains standing, except for a red brick chimney corner, rising lonely over the bramble.

  Judging by its surroundings, the villa’s main industry was once wine-making, and I wonder if the wine served at Master Pascent’s birthday feast had come from here. A single plot of vines is still being maintained on the southernmost slope, the plants standing in neat rows on a rectangle of exposed chalk. But the rest of the vineyard is now an abode of starlings and sparrows, nesting in their hundreds in the tangled maze of wild vine and weeds.

  A layer of stone rubble from the villa has been reused as foundation for the large timber building of a mansio, a roadside inn, where our caravan arrives for the night, having travelled along an old dirt track that follows the southern ridge of the Downs. There are too many of us for the inn to accommodate, and so the guards and the servants set up tents on the sodden ground outside, by a low wall of bare stones once marking the property’s border.

  Quintus alights his carriage and gazes at the inn and the ruined villa with a disapproving scowl.

  “I knew the owners of this place,” he tells me. “They were friends of my father’s.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “They died defending the old shrine at the Crossroads.” He nods back to the west and I recall Fulco’s retelling of that bloody battle. “Then the mob overran this land and penetrated deep into the valley.” He points north, towards the ridge. “I remember when the villas stretched along the river from this ford all the way to where it joins the Tamesa. Dozens of villas, dozens of noble families. All of them gone…” he adds, wistfully.

  “Did they all perish in the rebellion?”

  “Some survived, but they didn’t want to stay here anymore — it’s become too remote, too full of painful memories. Even if they wanted to come back now, it’s too close to the bandits’ lairs in Andreda.”

  So the same thing happened here as at that hillfort where Fulco and I stayed the night on our way to Weland’s — only on a greater scale. As my eyes follow the line of the river, I notice a trace of an old road leading north, and remnants of a wooden pier; it doesn’t take much to imagine this stream being used by barges filled with amphorae of wine and oil from the villas in the valley, heading for the Londin market, and further still, to the trade ports on the Continent, when that trade flourished. All is quiet now, and empty, save for the rising chorus of starlings gathering below the clouds for the night.

  “But you stayed?” I ask.

  He gives me an indignant look. “I am a good Christian. I have nothing to fear from the serfs — or from ghosts.”

  “And the bandits?”

  We both glance nervously at the dark band of Andreda Forest, looming on top of a ridge across a narrow strip of marshland, too close for comfort.

  “They wouldn’t dare to cross the hills,” he replies. “They fear the Dux’s power.”

  “We’re not across the hills now,” I note.

  He pats me on the back. “Look at all those guards,” he says, gesturing towards the tents. “We’re in safe hands from those pagan filth.”

  There is an odd quality in how he says these last words. Not so much the loathing I’ve heard from the people in Londin or from Paulinus, but more… fear?

  “Haven’t you been dealing with the pagans in the south yourself?” I ask.

  “Just because I do business with them, doesn’t mean I have to like them,” h
e scoffs. “At least the Regins know how to keep them in their place. Let me tell you,” he adds, casting an irritated glance towards Catigern and Horsa, standing deep in conversation beside their mounts, “you wouldn’t see a Saxon talking to Comes Catuar as if they were equals.”

  Even though we sent news of our arrival a few days ahead of us, the family running the inn are clearly overwhelmed by our presence. There’s barely enough food to serve us all, and that’s not even accounting for those camping outside — the guards and the slaves are carrying their own rations.

  “Most of the nights we have to deal with a single carriage-worth of guests,” explains the landlady, as she puts a bowl of green moretum paste before us on the table. She’s a tall, buxom woman in her forties, her once-flaxen, now greying hair is braided in a crown. She looks Saxon, though she speaks in good Vulgar Tongue with only a hint of an accent. “Sometimes, not even that. We haven’t had anyone of noble birth staying here since… Oh, three years ago, at Easter.”

  “I’m surprised you have enough guests around here to keep the business going,” says Catigern, dipping his wedge of flat bread in the moretum. It’s a simple dish of herbs and cheese, but one that’s ennobled through its link with the Roman past. It’s strange to see it served here, in the middle of the abandoned wilderness.

  “Oh, we’re not doing this for profit,” says the landlady. “We live off the land. We keep this place a safe house for the pilgrims.”

  “The pilgrims?” I ask.

  “People have used this road for centuries to travel to holy places along the Downs,” the landlord says quickly — a balding, round-headed man with narrow eyes, swarthy skin and a black, curly beard. I wonder if the two have any children, and if so, how do they look… “The gods may have changed but the habit remained.”