by M. K. Hume
Caradoc’s brows rose and Cadal felt his own fists tighten at Maximus’s presumption. Roman arrogance never diminished.
‘The night is drifting towards dawn and we have much to do in the cold light of day. We should try to catch a little sleep,’ Caradoc suggested. ‘We’ll discuss the finer details before you make good your departure.’
Strangely, now that he was free to sleep, Cadal found his weariness was too great to let him drift off into nothingness. Instead, he found himself watching the full moon as it slid through the thinning cloud to bathe the poor, ramshackle ruin below it in a silvery light. For a moment, Anderida was silver-dipped and new, a wondrous place which had endless promise.
Then the moon was obscured by a finger of cloud and the illusion was broken.
The detritus of a battle is huge, messy and time-consuming. So many dead bodies pose a significant threat of disease in summer, meaning the dead must be burned or buried immediately. For several hundred Saxons corpses, incineration would be the only practical means of disposal.
But to burn several hundred corpses to bone and ashes required a huge quantity of timber. Much of Anderida had already been burned during the battle, but some dismantled huts, cottages and dried thatch provided a good basis on which to start building the separate pyres for the British and Saxon fallen. Caradoc sent a troop of cavalrymen into the forests to drag out dead trees to augment their supply of flammable material. Other warriors were given the task of building the large cairns on which the corpses would be placed.
The disposal of dead horses was a major concern. They were unwieldy and heavy to move, but they too posed a threat of disease. Cadal was given the task of dragging the dead steeds to a suitable depression away from the town where they could be stacked, incinerated and covered with sandy loam. Knowing the unpleasant task was essential, he set about it with a will.
Caradoc’s role was more difficult. The Dumnonii king insisted that all pomp and ceremony should be given to these warriors whose ashes and possessions would be returned to their wives, parents and children. One wagon was allocated to this herculean administrative task, and a courier was sent, post haste, to Venta Belgarum and King Gwaun ap Mairtin, asking for seasoned sailors and labourers to transport the ceols, laden or empty, back to Portus Adurni. As this message implied that the army had collected a large hoard of booty, Caradoc was certain that his request would be answered with alacrity.
This cynicism prompted several tribal jokes between Caradoc, his son and the Dobunni king. All three agreed that the kings of the alliance would appear like magic to claim their share of the spoils of war.
After two days of assisting with the movement of the corpses, Maximus bid farewell to the Britons, after reminding Caradoc of his promise and assuring his friend that he was looking forward to seeing him in Deva. With a nonchalant blast from their battle horns, the Romans rode away, to begin their long journey to Deva and the latest chapter in their ongoing battles with the Picts.
Caradoc’s men stripped the Saxons of any items of value or practical use. This grotesque task was dirty and frustrating, but another empty wagon was soon groaning under the weight of weapons, armour, furs and body jewellery. Still more were already packed with the looted wealth from the towns, villages and traders who had fallen foul of Ironfoot’s marauders. Several others had been laden with dried foods to feed the Saxon enclave on the Albis through their long and bitter winter. Caradoc insisted on taking these spoils for the survivors of the Saxon attacks in Anderida Silva, who otherwise would probably starve in the coming winter. In a landscape thick with oily black smoke, the eyes and mouths of the Britons were assaulted by the vile smell and awful taste of burning death. Day and night, flames flickered on the landscape as timber and corpses continued to burn down to ash.
Even then, the task was unfinished. While the ashes left after the incineration of the Saxons and the horses would be dispersed by the autumn winds, the remains of their fellow Britons required more care and attention. The British bones must be gathered and pounded into small fragments, then collected, mixed with the ashes and stored in a series of gold-plated boxes that Caradoc had taken from the Saxon hoard of stolen treasure. As most of the dead were from the Dumnonii, Dobunni and Regni tribes, three large boxes were required. Caradoc predicted that some of the other kings might complain that such valuable chests should be allocated to only three tribes and he was already preparing a strong response to any dissenting comments. The work went smoothly, but no one who worked on the clean-up remained untouched by the experience. Each man carried a mental picture of some dead warrior or of a trivial incident that touched them personally.
Cadal stumbled across a particularly gruesome group of bodies that were clustered around, and under, a pair of dead horses. The find had touched his heart. It was obvious that two tribal horsemen had been ambushed by a group of five huge Saxons who had gutted the first rider’s horse. The beast had fallen, trapping the first Briton under its flank.
A second Briton had ridden madly towards them in an attempt to save his comrade. Cadal could read the desperate speed in the splayed legs of his horse and the long scrape on its legs and side showing how it had been brought down from a long sword stroke, delivered from below. The Saxon who disembowelled the horse had died under its thrashing hooves with his long knife still gripped in his hands. Cadal could see the perfect imprint of the horse’s iron-shod hoof in the very centre of the Saxon’s forehead where it crushed the skull and drove shards of bone directly into the brain.
The second of the British warriors had fought hard over the prone body of his comrade, killing two of the four Saxons as he waged a ferocious struggle for survival, only to be cut down by an axe blow on the left side of his skull.
His comrade, the first Briton, was killed with a deep, contemptuous, slice to his throat that almost took his head off. However, before he died, he had taken one last throw of the dice. With the bottom half of his body pinned to the ground by the weight of his dead horse, and having only a short knife to protect himself, he struck upwards at his Saxon killer in a final act of defiance.
The knife blade was stained with congealed blood so Cadal checked the bodies of the two Saxons who had survived the initial attack.
The smaller of the two hulking Saxons had received a hideous wound to the eye socket. But the shortness of the blade had allowed the Saxon to live, despite the gross wound.
Then, with a grin of satisfaction, Cadal realised that the two remaining Saxons had been killed by a volley of arrows that had pincushioned them from a distance. He felt a grim elation that they had been denied a good death, for they had been executed by common Dumnonii archers. Peasants, one and all, had killed those proud warriors.
Cadal realised that this story was unremarkable, but it had been written in blood and human flesh. Like Maximus’s dream, he would find that every night was a replay of the small skirmish that had killed all seven of these men. But, each time, he would search for some new solution that might save some British lives. Sometimes he despaired, and the Saxons survived and continued to kill, again and again.
For those men who were forced to bear individual and personal burdens, the week passed very slowly. But even the greyest of days comes to an end and the worst winters are always followed by a spring. At last, all the terrible tasks had finally been completed and the Britons departed in a long cavalcade that headed off into the west.
Llew halted his horse and looked back, although he had sworn to himself that he would relegate Anderida to the past. The Dobunni king had put away his youth in the fierce battles that had taken place at the eastern gate, the town square and the headman’s hall. No longer a tyro, he had learned the intricacies of strategy at Caradoc’s knee and he was grateful for the influence of that canny old man that would assist him when he planned his own battles in the future. The town gaped open like a ruined skull with the crown torn away. Several bu
ildings to the south and west had survived to bake in the summer sun. Rain had yet to wash away the stains of fire and soot on any of the structures that were still standing. Piles of rubble filled those laneways where stone walls had collapsed and the black rafters were lifting their vertical skeletons upwards to the sky. Then, from the ruins, seemingly dead and stripped of all hope, movement flickered between the collapsed buildings and a closer examination told Llew that dogs and cats had emerged from whatever hiding places had protected them. Now, they sought food, digging into the midden near the edge of the swamp and around the cremation pits in the hope of tasty morsels.
Scavenger birds were also in evidence around the soft and muddy soil of that midden.
‘The corpses of the villagers must have been hidden in there,’ Cadal said to Llew as he halted his horse beside the Dobunni. Llew followed his pointing hand to the many predatory birds that were digging into the piles of garbage without fear.
‘Do you really think so?’ Llew asked him, dumbfounded at the thought that they had camped so close to a mass grave.
‘I do,’ the prince sighed. Then his heels dug into the ribs of his horse and the beast sprang away.
Llew also booted his horse into a canter and rejoined Cadal as the forest embraced and enclosed the cavalcade.
‘We always wondered where the people of Anderida had gone,’ Cadal mused in a depressed monotone. ‘The only possible place was the town midden.’
‘But from what we’ve seen, the Saxons don’t care about any rites for enemy dead. Why would they have buried all those men, women and children?’
Cadal was angry. If any of the Saxons had still been alive, he would have enjoyed killing them all over again. ‘They were as aware as we are of the diseases that come from rotting corpses. But they must have buried them in shallow graves because the dogs could still smell the meat. I suppose they’ll eventually expose the bodies. Ugh!’
‘If Maximus is the kind of man he appears to be, the birds and beasts will dine well on the Picts, Hibernians and Saxons in the north of Britannia. Let us hope that his sword remains sharp and true,’ said Llew.
‘Aye,’ Cadal replied. Then both men fell silent, lost in their separate thoughts, as the long train of wagons and warriors worked its way along the tracks through the black woods. At least the forest shadows remained cool and comfortable as they headed towards Venta Belgarum and the callous greed of foolish men.
CHAPTER XV
A JOURNEY INTO TIME
By convention there is colour, by convention sweetness, by convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and space.
Democritus, Fragment
‘The world is rarely as it seems, petal,’ Caradoc warned his daughter, as she sat in the saddle of her quiet mare with a dreamy expression on her face.
‘It will be exactly what I wish it to be,’ Endellion replied distantly, playing with a drooping bouquet of wildflowers that had been picked from the hedgerows. With her long and slender neck, her head seemed to droop under the weight of long, unbound hair. The Dumnonii king was dumbstruck with pride in his changeling child.
Father and daughter rode at the head of their thirty-strong guard, a supply wagon and another heavy-duty cart that carried the essentials required by dignitaries for a journey of state. The guardsmen’s cloaks, bright with the Dumnonii check, were a sight to be seen as the warriors trotted along, with their proud faces held high and their horses curried and buffed to a brilliant sheen. Even the horses used in the traces of the wagons were well presented, as befitted beasts used in the train of a major tribal king.
Ostensibly, the two Dumnonii aristocrats planned to visit the tribal centres of Gwent, Dyfed, Powys and Gwynedd. They would then move on to the Roman garrison at Segontium and, finally, the city of Deva, the neutral trading centre where the legions had guarded Roman interests in Britannia for hundreds of years.
Endellion’s presence was explained as an opportunity for her to be seen by the local kings who might be prepared to ally themselves with the powerful Dumnonii tribe at some time in the near future. This ploy had worked well with the queen and Prince Cadoc, but Cadal remembered the pact between Caradoc and Maximus, so he was aware of his father’s guile. In a private discussion with Caradoc, Cadal was particularly scathing in his arguments against his half-sister undertaking such a potentially dangerous journey.
‘I’ve already made my decision,’ Caradoc told his heir bluntly. His face was set in uncompromising lines. ‘I made a promise to Endellion that she would be given a treat if she behaved herself during our absence in Anderida. She did exactly as I asked, so I’m keeping my word to her.’
‘And what if one of the kings decides that she’s perfect for his son? Do you plan to betroth her to one of the Cymru lords?’
Cadal suspected that a suggestion of marriage and an eventual parting from his daughter would enrage the old man. On cue, Caradoc’s face reddened with temper and his eyes glittered.
‘She’ll not be promised. She’s far too young!’
‘That’s nonsense, Father. Endellion is eleven now and she’ll soon have her moon blood. She’s almost ready to make her wedding vows. You can’t lock her away forever.’
The king rose angrily to his feet. His forefinger poked at Cadal’s chest until his son wanted to take the offending digit and snap it like a twig. As his own temper rose and he heard less and less of his father’s tirade, Cadal decided to stop his teasing now he was certain that Endellion wouldn’t become a pawn in Maximus’s game.
He had been able to smile and wave as the entourage carried his sister away. Beside him, his wife and his mother gossiped about what kind of man Caradoc would choose for his daughter, for once in agreement over matters of dowry and suitability. Cadal shook his head at the strange thought patterns of women. His wife and his mother couldn’t be more different in personality, but both ladies succumbed to sentiment, greed and gossip whenever decisions on the marriage bed were required. The queen had convinced herself that Caradoc had finally decided to see sense and would use this pretty by-blow as a useful tool to negotiate a profitable marriage.
The journey had started well, with the first destination being Llew ap Adwen’s town of Corinium. But before they reached that fair city, so close to Cymru and its many castells, word reached them that Llew was visiting the small town of Verlucio with his wife. Verlucio lay a short distance off the Roman road leading to the north, but it was blessed with light forest, sweet water and flat agricultural lands. With a pleasant outlook, the small town was quiet and peaceful.
Llew proved to be the perfect host. His wife, Llian, was a red-haired beauty from one of the important clans of the tribe, but a woman who was reputed to suffer from extreme shyness. She avoided the company of guests to their town, a disability that must have been awkward for Llew, given that Corinium was situated at the crossroads of a major trading network, so poor Llian was occasionally forced to welcome her husband’s guests in her soft, deprecating voice. Verlucio was the perfect haven for such a timid queen.
But Caradoc was soon to discover the reason for the queen’s crushing shyness.
When they were sitting beside each other at the feast of welcome for the Dumnonii party, Caradoc had been surprised to notice that Llian’s wimple covering her hair had slipped. He spotted many strands of grey in her dark-red hair, so wondered if her age was the reason no children frolicked in Llew’s hall. The Dobunni king was childless.
More than one young ruler had found himself married to an older woman in the past, or had become embroiled in an ultimately childless marriage for the sake of close ties between neighbouring tribes. Usually, the king would cast off his older queen in favour of a younger, fertile woman once a little time had elapsed.
Ever the diplomat, Caradoc made a conscious decision to remain courteous at all times.
After several days of rest and en
tertainment, Llew suggested that Endellion might enjoy the exotic amusements on offer in Aquae Sulis, which was arguably the most Roman of all the trading centres in the isles of Britannia. Caradoc quickly came to the conclusion that his daughter would enjoy everything about this rich and important town.
So, on this leg of their wanderings, Caradoc had enjoyed introducing his lovely child to the wonders of Aquae Sulis, famed for its healthy mineral baths, its wealth and its epicurean delights. Endellion was charmed.
Several miles from the town walls, the thoroughfare had been widened, and the repairs to the road had been so expertly cobbled that very little shuddering and bouncing could be felt through the huge wagon wheels. Endellion’s excitement mounted from the moment they reached the well-maintained road.
The usual outer settlements of houses and shops had sprung up outside the city’s walls, no dirtier than those found outside any established Roman settlement. In fact, these premises were cleaner than most. The shop owners, common whores and housewives were clean, rosy-cheeked and were clad in neat Roman apparel, although their dress was a little old-fashioned. Even the finery of the gaily dressed whores filled Endellion with a delicious sense of guilty pleasure and envy.
Now that womanhood approached, Endellion had begun to interest herself in female adornment, so cosmetics were fascinating mysteries to be studied. Unaware of her father’s intense scrutiny, Endellion raised her hands to her lashes to check their length and curl. One gloved finger rose to her lips and felt their dry texture after more than a week of travel.
Caradoc read the thoughts passing through the child’s pretty head, and he was concerned.
The citizens’ welcome to Caradoc’s cavalcade was warm and open. As always, the whores attached themselves to saddle leathers and gazed up at the embarrassed faces of young warriors with practised innocence, but they refrained from screaming out any lewd invitations while they were on the roadway. Peasant women bearing baskets of steaming washing, or offering displays of vegetables for sale, gave smiling welcomes at the newcomers who set up camp in a grassy field outside the town gates. No town would ever welcome armed men within its walls, although Caradoc decided to take his daughter to one of the many luxurious inns that catered for noble travellers who came to Aquae Sulis to sample the healthy, life-giving waters.
