Age of Iron

by Angus Watson

  He sloshed out quite a lot of water crossing the hummocky meadow, but there was enough left for the child. He handed the box to her, then rummaged in his bag and fished out a nub of dirty bread.

  “Now be a good girl and stay here while I go into town.”

  “Why don’t you be a good girl and stay here while I go into town?”

  Dug sighed. “Because Bladonfort will be awash with Zadar’s troops full of vicory, and nothing makes men into bigger twats – fools – than being in a gang of other fools with whom they’ve just won a battle. It’s no place for a girl.”

  Not the safest place for anyone, he thought, but the sooner he joined Zadar’s army the better. He’d been fantasising recently about garrison work. Being on the losing side the day before had bolstered his desire for a life of violence-free indolence. Assuming he could get into the garrison of Maidun Castle itself – and he saw no reason why he shouldn’t, being a Warrior who was going to lie about a leg injury that would make him less useful in the mobile army – it would be a life of peaceful days, piles of food, gallons of booze, lots of sleep, a modicum of whoring and, who knew, maybe even a love affair with a comely milkmaid? He felt Brinna’s disapproving glare from beyond her watery grave and dismissed it. She’d always be his true love, but she couldn’t expect him to mourn for ever.

  “Stay under the trees,” he continued. “If you need more water, wait until dark. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “When tomorrow?”

  “Um … in the morning. Or maybe the afternoon.”

  “Will you get some hen’s eggs? Or duck’s?” Spring produced a bronze coin from her smock’s pocket. “That should be enough.”

  Dug took the coin and frowned at it. He didn’t like this southern “money” thing. Exchanging small discs of metal for food and services was plain weird. It wasn’t that it was a bad idea. Metal discs were less cumbersome than the iron ingots or salt cakes that he’d had to get used to on his way south and definitely easier to handle than the buckets of seal blubber, skins and kludge – a cheese made from seal milk – that had served the same purpose when he was a child. They were a bugger to carry to market to exchange for meat and wheat. He could remember it all as if it were yesterday – the clouds of biting midges, the sore arms, the sweaty chafing and the stink. The kludge would always slop out onto him and he’d smell of fishy cheese for days.

  So seal products, iron ingots and salt weren’t as portable as metal discs, but they were useful things in themselves. Coins weren’t. They were made from stuff that you dug out of the ground, so they were just pretentious pebbles. So how was it that you could swap them for useful things? They were unnatural and they were Roman. They were just a taste of the boring, sensible but deeply wrong Roman life that the druids said was coming.

  He looked at Spring’s coin. There was a crude picture of a horse on it, or perhaps it was a dog.

  “Is that a dog?”

  “It’s a horse, silly! That’s Zadar on the other side.”

  Dug turned the coin. A little bronze face with a gaping mouth looked back at him. “He looks like he’s giving a blow—”

  “Yes?”

  “—by blow account of something.”

  “It’s a bad picture. You can get at least a dozen eggs for a horse coin. Try to get more. Say that you got twenty in Forkton. You can share them with me, four for you and eight for me. You can have more if you get more than a dozen. I’ll find garlic, mushrooms and an onion, and I’ll get some cheese from somewhere.”

  “No, you won’t. You’re to stay within these banks, apart from getting water, which you do only at night. Got it?”

  “Sure!” Spring smiled.

  “OK, OK. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He patted the girl on the head and strode towards the low earthwork.

  “Dug?”

  He turned.

  “Can I have Ulpius’ mirror?”

  “What?”

  “The mirror you took from the man you killed with your hammer this morning.”

  “Ah that, yes. Well, no. Well you can, but I want to take it into Bladonfort to see how much it’s worth. I’ll give it to you after that.”

  “OK!” Spring skipped in a happy circle. “Thanks, Dug!”

  Before he knew what was happening, she’d darted forward and was hugging him, face pressed against his stomach.

  Dug disentangled her arms, said goodbye, climbed the bank and headed off downriver. He could feel her watching him from the trees. With any luck the after-battle rage would have dissipated by the two days he reckoned it would take for her to be certain that he wasn’t coming back. He was glad he hadn’t killed her. The world was a better place, he thought, with her in it. That was why he had to leave her. He liked her. The idea of taking her with him and protecting her did appeal, but he knew he’d end up getting her killed. Better for her, and him, that they went their own ways.

  He walked downstream along the river, following an increasingly well worn path. It was early still but already getting hot. He stopped to pull off his ringmail shirt. A fiery wave of body odour made his eyes water. He toyed with the idea of a swim, but he was starving. Good thing he’d got half his Barton pay up front. He’d have a feast in Bladonfort.

  He thought about crisp-edged mutton or perhaps a fatty duck. His mouth filled with saliva and he swallowed. Maybe duck, then mutton. And he had the girl’s coin as well. That would cover a few drinks. He felt a twinge of guilt. No, screw her. He hadn’t killed her when he should have done. She should be grateful for that. Helping others got you killed. Britain was no place for sentimentality. Not his fault. He had things to do. She’d hate it where he was going. She’d be all right.

  He walked on, a tune in his head and his step jaunty.

  He felt slightly bad about taking the mirror, but it was his. He’d killed the guy. She’d just asked for it. You couldn’t go about giving people everything they asked for. Danu would agree.

  It looked like the valley had once been pasture on both sides of the river, with oak trees for shade. Now there were stumps and wild grass untrimmed by grazing. The bones of a cow jutting from the grass confirmed his theory, and told him that the land had been pillaged more for pleasure than necessity. Only the wanton would leave good marrow behind.

  After a mile he stopped to look at a burned-out fortified farm on the far side of the river. Its once substantial defences – a ring ditch and a palisade – hadn’t been substantial enough. The thatch on the main house had been burned away but its charred timber skeleton was still in place. Must have been raining heavily when they set fire to it, or the timbers would have gone too, thought Dug. The stilted grain storage huts were smashed open, long picked clean by birds. Grass had grown wild around the banks where peacefully munching animals would once have kept it trim. Stone outbuildings had been semi-demolished, most likely by opportunistic neighbours after building materials once the attackers had left. The walls that separated the small rectangular fields around the farm were mostly collapsed. Dog eat dog, thought Dug, then other dogs eat the remains of the half-eaten dog.

  He pictured massed assailants breaking down the palisade in a rainstorm while a terrified family fought back, desperately sending their children into the woods with the household valuables, knowing the attackers would have thought of that and would be guarding the escape route, but having no alternative. Now the family would be dead or enslaved.

  Things really were in a mess and Zadar’s army was the only safe place. Which had to be wrong, since it was Zadar’s army that had caused the mess. But you can’t change the course of the river, as Brinna had always said, so just jump in and let the flow take you where it will.

  Dug thought about Brinna and the farm where he’d once lived, and then pushed the thought away. Never get attached to anyone. No friends, no lovers. Simpler that way. Brinna, Kelsie and Terry were in his past now. As was the strange little battlefield looter that he hadn’t killed. Spring.

  He was about to walk on when a young deer em
erged from the ruins of the farmhouse. It stood in the long, sunlit grass and stared at him. Dug considered taking it down with a slingstone. He could swim the river to get the carcass – or even walk back to it; there must be a bridge fairly soon – and sell it in town. But he didn’t. The deer watched him walk away along the river, his mail shirt slung over one broad shoulder, hammer swinging from his hand.

  On the road from the east to Bladonfort two oxen ambled along, drawing a cart. Dug finished stashing his helmet and ringmail a few paces into the trees. They’d be an encumbrance in town and, by his reckoning, he had to come back this way to get to Maidun. He kept his hammer though. You never knew.

  He jogged up behind the cart. Never stand when you can sit. It was old and heavy with four solid wooden wheels rather than the lighter but much more expensive spoked variety. The oxen’s harnesses were decorated with carved bone and polished bronze, however, more typical of a wealthy person’s tack.

  “Going to town?”

  The carter hadn’t seen Dug coming. He jerked in surprise, startling his oxen to a stop. He turned, eyes wide in a long, pink, cleanly shaven face below a mushroom of curly blond hair. His eyes narrowed, and he peered at Dug like an inquisitive but partially sighted sheep.

  “I’d love a lift into town if you’re going that way?”

  “Yes, all right. Jump up,” he said eventually. He had a surprisingly refined accent. Dug clambered aboard and settled on the driving bench next to him.

  “Ya!” The carter flicked the reins, the oxen strained and the heavy cart creaked forward.

  “Business in town?” Dug asked.

  “It’s market day. My workers left a long time ago, so now I drive into town myself with what we managed to hide from Zadar’s collectors.”

  “Things that bad?”

  “Not from around here?”

  “I’ve come from the north.”

  “You should go back. My father knew Zadar, so our land hasn’t been totally ruined – yet. But I made the mistake once of treating a passing group of Zadar’s soldiers with less deference than they thought they deserved, so we lost all our livestock and almost all our workers. Hence you find me driving a three-quarters-empty cart to market when two years ago you would have found me falconing on my estate while my workers drove three full carts to town. Bit of a comedown. Still, there are people who have it much worse than me. As you’ll see.”

  They drove on in silence until they reached a hill. The falconer-turned-carter asked Dug to jump down for a while. The cart was meant for four oxen and the two beasts were struggling. Dug leaned two-handed against the back of the cart so that it looked like he was pushing as the oxen plodded uphill. As they climbed he felt an increasing niggle that someone was watching him – that he was being followed. He spun round. Nothing there but an empty road. He climbed back up at the crest.

  “This used to be pastureland, full of sheep,” said the carter.

  The farmland sloping down towards Bladonfort was churned, dried earth. Instead of sheep, there were people. A few walked around listlessly, but most sat around on the ground among the crappiest tents Dug had ever seen. Babies cried. Children stared glumly. The stench of bodies, excrement and disease was gag-inducing. A few skinny men approached to beg for food. They were dressed in scraps of wool and leather, sluggish with hunger. The carter ignored them.

  “We’d be mobbed if I helped any of them, and besides I’ve barely enough to keep my family alive.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They’re people who have no place in Zadar’s new Britain. He’s taken their homes, their herds, their crops; enslaved their relatives … If you’re on Zadar’s side, things are OK. I sort of am, so things are sort of OK. If you’re not on his side…” The carter gestured at a woman holding a baby. The mother looked up. Bright blue eyes stared accusingly from her grime-smeared face.

  “It’s not Zadar who gives me the willies,” continued the carter, “as much as his druid, Felix. I’ve always been wary of druids. I get one in from the village sometimes when an animal is sick, and she seems to know her stuff, but I don’t like talking to her. It’s like she’s looking into my head. And she’s a well-meaning druid who uses the gods’ magic to heal. The stories I’ve heard about Felix – from plenty of reliable sources, mind you – would make your hair curl. I saw him once. Ill-looking fellow. They say he’s the child of the worm god Cromm Cruach and a wolf. I can well believe it.”

  They passed piles of rubble and the splintered shards of ruined buildings. These had been smelters, tanners, wheel makers and other artisans, the carter explained. A roadside pub which had been lovely in summer was now just shattered spars and two dogs fighting over a rag.

  “All the businesses have moved inside the walls,” said the carter, nodding towards Bladonfort’s approaching palisade. “Stay out here and, well, you can see what’s happened.”

  “What’s that queue for?” Dug nodded at a long shuffling line leading to two tents which stood out tall and neat among the desolate camp, like white mushrooms growing from a cowpat.

  “Slavery,” said the carter, eyes never leaving the road. “Zadar’s men. The people here would rather be well fed slaves than starving free men. Every day they queue. The strong ones are accepted. The weaker ones are sent away.”

  “To get weaker.”

  “Not necessarily. You can sell even a malnourished child for a couple of days’ food. Rome won’t buy an ill child, but some druids will read anyone’s entrails. Sell your child for food early, before you’re too sick yourself, and you might get your strength up enough for the slavers to take you.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “Yup.”

  “Can’t do anything about it though.”

  “Nope.”

  They reached the town. The carter nodded to a gatekeeper, who shouted a command for a drawbridge to be lowered across the river, which had been narrowed between banks of cut stone. The heavy wooden bridge creaked down on thick ropes and thudded into place. The cart trundled across.

  “Badger’s bumholes,” said Dug, looking around. The contrast was striking. Bladonfort’s eastern market, which he’d heard was the biggest and best in the world, was thriving. Men and women in colourful clothes strode around purposefully. Children and dogs dodged between their legs. A couple of druids were wailing their usual rants about the coming Romans. Vendors shouted their wares from stalls piled with all manner of goods. Music from at least three different bands filled the air, and was that a bear’s roar he heard? Somehow the town wall kept out the stench of the destitute. Here it smelled of freshly baked bread and roasting meat, albeit mixed with the underlying ming of decaying food you always got in markets on hot days.

  “I’m going this way,” said the carter, nodding to the road that ran along the town wall.

  “Oh aye. Thanks for the lift then and good luck!”

  “Good luck with what?” The carter shook his head, not looking at Dug.

  “Dunno. Life, I suppose.” Dug jumped down and walked into the crowd.

  It was indeed a very large market, and if there was a bigger one in the world he didn’t know where. He wandered past stalls selling embroidered woollen clothes, rivet-decorated bronze bowls, jewellery of shale, iron, bronze and tin, wooden spinning whorls, bone bobbins, ornaments and tools carved from antler and bone, clay crucibles and other metal-working equipment, iron weapons and armour, and a vast array of pottery, from plain fire-baked everyday pots to highly decorated kiln-fired vases. Further on, stalls creaked under huge piles of vegetables. A row of pigs’ heads eyed him calmly from a butcher’s stall.

  It was slow work pushing through crowds of shoppers, but Dug was in no rush, and the multitudes of well-off customers meant that the stallholders didn’t hassle him. He couldn’t abide the aggressively pleading patter of salesmen.

  The difference between the beggars outside and these well fed people in their new leather, wool and linen outfits made him philosophical. Nothing but a wall, an a
ccident of birth and the whims of a few powerful people separated this opulent happy throng from the misery outside. How come everyone agreed that this was OK? They didn’t, but everyone with the power to change things was on the lucky side. And who was he to complain? He had a pocket full of coins. He could have given some of them, one of them even, to the downtrodden people outside. But he hadn’t. He wanted to drink, eat and sleep in a soft bed, so he needed his coins. If he’d had more coins, it wouldn’t have changed anything. He’d have just wanted better food and a bigger bed.

  Dug darted a glance over his shoulder. It felt like he was being followed again, but there was nobody there but market-goers, a few of whom eyed him suspiciously. The feeling that he was being followed probably came from feeling guilty about taking the girl’s coin. A laughing throng drew him to a dancing bear. It wasn’t really dancing. It was staggering between two men with sharp sticks and two huge snarling dogs straining on chains. It looked ill and confused. Its fur was patchy, its movements erratic, its arse hair caked in a mat of its own excrement. The animal’s eyes caught Dug’s. It was the same look as the woman with the baby had given him. Around it all was laughter. Free, natural, unforced, pure laughter, directed at this unfortunate animal. A woman next to him in a flouncy white cloth cap bent over, hooting and beating her knee with mirth. How could they laugh? There was nothing funny here. Dug hated them for their mindlessness. See something that’s meant to be funny, laugh loud and laugh long. They were more like trained animals than the bear was. He might have envied their simplicity, but he wasn’t in the mood. They were cattle, stupid cattle, following the herd, questioning nothing, doing what they were meant to do. Perhaps worst of all, they were all doing better than him by pretty much anyone’s measure.

  That’s enough depressing shit. Time for a drink. There were several inns around the lower market, but he’d heard of a better place with rooms up in town, where the people might not be any less offensive but they would be quieter. He was too old for the shouting of rowdy youths and bards blaring trumpets so loud you couldn’t hear a word anyone said. He left the bear tormentors and the market, and headed up through tightly packed wooden buildings.