The Horse Coin

by David Wishart

  The warriors stretched the man so that his back was to the Druid and his arms were spread stiffly to either side like wings

  They stood, waiting.

  Dumnocoveros set the knife to his lips, then drove it its full length into Homullus's back a hand's-span beneath the left shoulder-blade. Homullus screamed. At the same moment the guards released him. As he fell forwards Dumnocoveros wrenched the blade free, and blood jetted from the opened wound, spattering his robe and the robes of the queen and her daughters.

  Still the crowd was silent.

  Dumnocoveros watched the dying man writhing at his feet, careful to miss nothing of the message which the gods were sending. Finally, Homullus gave a convulsive heave, drawing his knees up to his stomach; his right forefinger jerked, then curled slowly into the palm of his hand as a thread of blood trickled from his sideways-turned mouth, forming a small pool beneath his left cheek.

  Dumnocoveros nodded, once, in satisfaction, and raised the knife above his head. The silence broke in a barking roar that changed to the long, rolling thunder of spears beaten on shields.

  As the noise died Boudica stepped forward, drawing something from beneath her cloak. She raised her arms, turning until the whole of the host had seen the live hare that kicked between her palms. Then she threw it down into the clear space at the platform's base. The hare stumbled, righted itself and sprang away, running sun-wise. The warriors in its path cheered and leaped aside to allow it free passage, shrieking with joy as it raced towards the south. The host rippled like a field of barley caught by a gust of wind.

  Boudica stretched out her right hand, palm up, then clenched it into a fist and brought it down.

  'Follow the hare!' she shouted.

  The war-host of the Iceni roared, and moved southwards.

  Lucius Cudrenus, Trooper First Class of the Foxes' first century, dispatched to Coriodurum by Acting Commander Modianus, climbed down from his horse and pissed into the ditch by the side of the road. The royal dun couldn't be far off; ten miles at most, an hour's ride. He'd timed it nicely: when he got there the Eagles in the agent's escort would be cooking up their evening flat-cakes and settling down to wine and dice. Cudrenus grinned and with his free hand fingered the three delicately-weighted bone cubes in the pouch at his belt. He was looking forward to the dice game; the chance to skin a few Eagles of their pay didn't come often. The wine would be welcome, too: two hours since the Darusentum signal station, and his throat was dry as a Vestal's purse.

  He turned back to his horse. As he reached for her bridle the mare skittered nervously, flicking her ears. Cudrenus frowned. Then he caught the sound himself. It came from up ahead: a deep drumming, low and insistent, just on the edge of hearing. He looked up and saw the riders. There were fifty of them at least; warriors, and armed. The sun glinted on the tips of their spears.

  Mothers! Cudrenus thought numbly. Sweet effing Mothers!

  He gripped the saddle-horn and swung himself up onto the mare's back, hauling on the reins and digging his heels into her ribs, sending her galloping back the way he had come. He glanced over his shoulder. The riders were a scant quarter mile behind and closing fast. The first of them had pulled ahead of the rest, crouching low against their horses' necks and pressing their spears tight against the animals' flanks. Cudrenus's left hand fumbled blindly at the strap which fastened his shield to the back of his saddle. Stupid! he cursed himself. An effing war party behind me and I leave my effing shield tied up! There was no hope of slowing, either. His fingers caught at the metal fastening and he pulled, feeling the small plate that held the strap tight shift sideways from its groove...

  The shield spun away, clattering onto the road behind. Cudrenus swore, knowing that he was dead, that without a shield to cover his back it was only a matter of time before one of the natives' spears found him. He looked round. The leading riders were no more than two hundred yards off now, and his mare was already tiring. He couldn't outrun them. His only chance was to take to the open country. Hauling sideways on the rein, he kneed the mare in the flank and sent her over the ditch.

  She landed awkwardly, her left foreleg buckling. Cudrenus rolled free. He barely had time to stumble upright and draw his sword before the first spear took him in the throat and the second and third in the chest.

  Ecenomolios dismounted and walked over to the dead Roman. Loosening the cavalry sabre from the man's grip, he used it to hack through the neck. Then he fixed the head to his saddle and swung himself up behind it.

  'Well, well. Will you look at that, now?' Docilis said. 'Three whole sixes.'

  Julianus Gratianus, nicknamed 'Tadpole', looked, and spat into the fire. Wordlessly he slid his last copper coin across towards the grinning Docilis. Masavo did the same with one of his, but he did it with better grace: Masavo had more coins left.

  'Cleans you out, Tadpole, does it?' Docilis was adding the coins to the pile in front of him.

  'Screw your effing grandmother,' Gratianus said sourly.

  'No need to be like that, boy. It's only a game.'

  Gratianus got up without a word and tucked his empty pouch into his belt. Masavo chuckled.

  'Bad loser,' he said to Docilis. 'Ba-a-d loser.'

  'It's clouding over.' Docilis was looking up at the sky. 'Rain tonight, maybe. Best cover up the beacon.' He jerked his thumb. 'Loser's job, Tadpole.'

  Gratianus didn't argue. He sent another gob of spittle into the flames of the small cookfire and began to climb the ladder to the wooden platform. Masavo was already gathering up the dice for another throw.

  'Very bad loser,' he said.

  Docilis laughed.

  Gratianus reached the platform that held the signal beacon, sixteen feet above ground level and eight higher than the palisade. Docilis had been right: the wind was freshening from the north, and it already had a touch of dampness. He pulled the hide covers across the dry brushwood and took the lighted torch from its socket. His hand was already on the ladder rail when he saw something move in the darkness below. He stiffened, watching.

  The movement was not repeated.

  'Hey, lads,' he said, pitching his voice as low as he dared.

  'What is it?' Docilis's voice, cautious.

  'Come up here a minute. Something's going on.'

  'Screw it, you bugger. Just fix the effing beacon. We're not biting.'

  'I'm serious. I think we've got trouble.'

  Out in the darkness, a dog-fox barked, but Gratianus did not relax. Slowly, carefully, he reached out a hand and pulled the covers from the oiled wood.

  The night erupted with yells. Figures swarmed over the parapet, figures with painted faces, clutching spears and knives.

  'The beacon!' Docilis was shouting. 'Tadpole, light the effing beacon!'

  His right hand shaking so much he needed the other to steady it, Gratianus thrust the torch towards the brushwood; just as a thrown spear from below took him beneath the jaw and smashed through the roof of his skull.

  Below him, the others died, too.

  29.

  Tigirseno crouched among the low grass of the dunes, his eyes on the mainland opposite where the Wolves' army had been gathering since dawn. Beneath him the strait lay calm and glittering in the sunlight, bright as a newly-polished blade. From this distance the barges looked like roaches. He had tried to count the men as they boarded, but there had been too many.

  He swallowed, trying to control his fear. It will be different this time, he told himself. This time I will fight.

  The warrior beside him, Cartivel, nudged his shoulder.

  'You all right, lad?' he said.

  'Why don't they come?' Tigirseno could hear the nervousness in his own voice, and it made him feel ashamed.

  Cartivel's teeth flashed in a grin, white against the blue of his war paint. Old as he was – forty, at least – he was still a big man for an islander, broad as a door, with the scar of an old sword-cut on his forehead.

  'They'll come soon enough,' he said. 'And when they
do we'll make them wish they hadn't. The gods are with us today. Look there.'

  Tigirseno followed his pointing finger. Above one of the sandbanks a flock of gulls dipped and whirled, feeding on the small fish caught by the retreating tide.

  'Trust the birds, lad,' Cartivel said. 'They know. These heavy boats can't come too far inshore, not laden like that. Their warriors'll have to wade the last stretch, and the sand's treacherous. It'll gulp them down or hold them firm while we spear them. Trust me, it'll be as easy as catching fry. Besides, we can't lose, not with the holy ones with us.'

  Tigirseno looked towards the higher ground where the Druids stood. Their chanting had begun at dawn, rising and falling like the slow beat of waves, eerie and inhuman. When it had started the hairs on his neck had lifted and the saliva dried in his mouth. After the ceremonies and sacrifices of the past few days, the barrier was thin as a nail-paring already. Now the Druids were breaching it altogether. When the Wolves came, the gods' anger would break over them and they would die, all of them, body and soul forever.

  Tigirseno knew this; he knew it absolutely. Even although the Romans were enemy, the thought of what that meant made him shudder in sympathy.

  There was a rustling in the grass behind him, and the sound of footsteps. He turned quickly. Greca, Cartivel's daughter, was coming down the slope carrying a stoppered jug and a wicker basket. She was tall and dark, and she was the most perfect thing Tigirseno had ever seen.

  Cartivel had turned too.

  'What the hell are you doing here, girl?' he said. 'You should be safe in the hills at Mamucium.'

  Greca set the basket down. 'My place is with my menfolk, Father,' she said. She did not look at Tigirseno, but he could feel her eyes.

  Is it, now?' Cartivel laughed, reached up and tousled her hair. 'Aye, well. Your mother would have said the same, and you're her daughter right enough. But you go straight back. Now, you hear?'

  Greca bent to uncover the basket. 'There's bread and cheese, and mead in the jug,' she said. 'I thought you'd prefer it to sheep's milk.'

  'Greca, you will go. Now.'

  She sighed and shrugged. 'Very well, Father. Bring me back a wolf-pelt.'

  'Aye. Two, if I can. Now be off with you.'

  They hugged, and Cartivel kissed her forehead. She half-turned.

  'Tigirseno...'

  He looked directly at her for the first time, but whatever she had meant to say the words had stuck in her throat. Laying the jug against a tuft of grass so it did not spill, she walked away. The sun caught at her hair one last time and the dunes swallowed her.

  Cartivel had picked up the jug and was pulling out the straw bung.

  'She's a wild one with a mind of her own,' he said. 'Just like her mother was. She was right about the mead, though. Before a battle's no time to be drinking milk.' He passed the jug over. 'Here, boy. You'll fight better with some of this inside you.'

  Tigirseno drank. The mead was strong and thick, with the flavour of thyme. He set the jug down.

  'Is she promised?' The words came of themselves, and even in his own ears they sounded harsh and arrogant.

  Cartivel picked up the mead-jug. He took a long swallow and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes were on Tigirseno's, speculative.

  'No,' he said. 'Or not that she's told me of, anyway.'

  Tigirseno's mouth felt dry, despite the mead. He drew himself up straight and clenched his hands to stop them shaking.

  'Then I ask you for her,' he said.

  Cartivel's eyes widened, and he whistled through his teeth. 'You choose a strange time to do your courting, with half the Wolves in Britain snapping at our throats.'

  'That's as maybe.' Tigirseno reddened. 'Your answer?'

  The big man shrugged. 'Aye, take her if you want,' he said. 'I doubt she'd pay me no heed if I said otherwise in any case. The vixen made her own mind up five minutes after she saw you.'

  'Your hand on it?'

  Cartivel laid aside his spear and stretched out his hand. They shook.

  It was only then that Tigirseno remembered Doinos, and the kite; but the thing was done, and he would not have had it otherwise. After all, even seers could be mistaken...

  From the dunes to the right, someone shouted. Tigirseno looked back across the strait.

  The Wolves' barges had begun to move.

  From where he waited with the Foxes two miles down the coast on the mainland side of the strait Severinus could hear the chanting only as a distant murmur.

  'You understand what they're saying, sir?' His acting second, Valens, was an Iberian from Laminium, and he had no Celtic. Severinus noticed that he was fingering a bluestone amulet on a cord round his neck.

  'No.' He glanced round at the soldiers nearby. They were sitting quietly in huddles, and more than one had the fingers of their left hands crossed in the sign against witchcraft. 'Forget it, Valens. It doesn't matter.'

  'Aye, sir.' Valens went back to staring across the estuary to the empty shore beyond.

  Severinus looked up at the sun. The attack had been timed for mid-morning to coincide with the period of slack water between the tides. His instructions were clear: when the signal came he was to swim the horses over with the unmounted part of his cohort clinging to their manes and bridles or using their shields as rafts. Once across and in command of the beach he was to form up and provide skirmishing support to the main army's flank.

  That would be the easy part; waiting for the signal was far more difficult.

  'You've fought the British before, Centurion?' he said.

  Valens turned, his seamed face breaking into a grin. 'Aye, sir,' he said. 'Off and on.'

  'Any advice for a first-timer?'

  The grin broadened, and Severinus felt the man relax. 'You'll be all right, sir,' he said. 'Just remember the buggers have no style. They'll come at you screaming like bloody madmen but it's all show, they haven't the sword-sense of a rookie. Even Rubrius there could manage the best of them without breaking sweat.' He raised his voice. 'Eh, Rubrius?'

  One of the nearby soldiers, a small, monkey-faced man with a cavalryman's bow legs, looked up. 'Piss off, Centurion,' he said cheerfully.

  Valens laughed and there were chuckles from other men in the group. The tension eased.

  'The British are no problem, sir.' Valens had turned back to Severinus. Now he spoke more quietly. 'It's these Druid bastards that are worrying the lads. Give them swords to face and they'll get stuck in, but no one can keep his mind on the job with a pack of effing priests singing his balls off.'

  'Listen to me, Centurion,’ Severinus said. ‘Druids are nothing to be afraid of. We drove them out of Gaul and if they had any real power they would've used it long since. And I'd back the Foxes against all the curses in Britain any day of the month.'

  Valens grinned. 'Well, maybe you're right, sir. We'll see it through anyway. Even so, I'll be glad when it's over.'

  'Commander!' Rubrius was pointing.

  Severinus turned. A thin column of smoke, broken in the middle, was rising from the direction of the fort.

  'Here we go,' he said.

  The barges were turning south-west, moving along the coast towards the mouth of the strait, their oars beating in a fast, synchronised rhythm like the legs of a water-beetle. All around him Tigirseno could hear men cursing as they leapt to their feet, breaking cover and stumbling along the dunes to follow the barges' line. Tigirseno was cursing himself. The Wolves would find it easier to beach further down the coast where the sand-flats began in earnest, and there would be few warriors already in place to stop them: they were already past the centre-point of the hidden army, and even the closest of the tribesmen would be hard pressed to reach the landing point in time.

  'Belenos, the tricky bastards!' Cartivel swore. 'Run, boy! Don't wait for me!'

  Picking up his spear and long shield, Tigirseno ran. Beyond him the chanting of the Druids faltered and died away.

  Severinus drew his sword as Tanet breasted the s
hallows and her hooves found firm sand at the shore's edge. Paullinus's tactic had obviously succeeded, and there were no more than a hundred enemy warriors defending the line, scattered along its length in a ragged, broken chain. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the arm of a man ahead and to his right go back. Almost without thinking, he brought his shield over Tanet's poll as he would have done in the Knot, catching the thrown spear full on the armoured boss. Then he urged Tanet forwards, clear of the water, aiming her straight at two defenders who were running down the beach towards him. The first raised his spear as Tanet's chest caught him on the left shoulder, spinning him round to fall beneath the hooves of the following rider. The second was armed with a sword. As he swung it back, Severinus brought his sabre down hard above the man's right ear. The man screamed and fell; and Severinus, trying not to think of the bloodied corpse he had left behind him, urged Tanet up onto the beach proper.

  There were other spears, and other faces, but Severinus fought mechanically, and later he would have no memory of them. All around him now the cohort's mounted third were safely on shore, fanning out in a protective screen for the still-struggling infantry. With only isolated groups of the enemy to deal with their movements were leisurely, made with a parade-ground neatness: short, brutal cuts to the neck and head, or punching thrusts delivered from the shoulder that left the opponent screaming in the sand with half his face gone. Within minutes the principal groupings had been hacked apart, stragglers were being ridden down and the sand-flats were strewn with bodies. By the time the infantry had come ashore the battle, such as it was, was over.

  Valens brought his horse across to where Severinus was waiting. He was bleeding from a shallow cut on his left thigh.

  'Bloody amateurs.' He spat in disgust. 'We could've been riding in to a picnic for all the fight that lot put up.'

  'Still worried about your Druids, Centurion?' Severinus was breathing hard. Beneath him, Tanet shifted.

  'No, sir.' Valens grinned. 'The lads neither. What are the orders?'

  Severinus looked up at the dunes. 'Form the men up on the high ground, cavalry first. Then we move up the coast. Casualties?'