Camulod Chronicles Book 4 - The Saxon Shore

by Whyte, Jack

  "Merlyn," she said, her voice sounding very strange. "Where did you come from?"

  I barely heard her words, my mind and eyes full of the bareness of her body beneath the long, light mantle. The white smoothness of her belly and the skin between her breasts was slashed diagonally by the broad, black band of her knife belt, its five sheathed knives forming a line of overlapping crosses on her flesh. I raised my eyes to hers and saw the blankness there, the emptiness, and all at once I felt my guts contract in fear, so that I had to struggle to find the words I needed to say.

  "Shelagh, where are the others, the children? What has happened? Why are you here like this and who were these people?"

  The harsh tone of my voice must have penetrated her dazed mind, for her eyes widened and grew more alert and she turned her head quickly towards the man I had crippled, who now squirmed, screaming, on the hillside just above her and to her left. She looked at him and shuddered, then dropped her reins, crossing her arms over her bare breasts.

  "Safe," she whispered. Then her eyes quit the writhing wretch and turned back to me as her voice grew stronger. "The children are safe. I left them with Ludmilla and rode for help."

  "Like that?" I nodded towards her nakedness.

  She looked down at herself without interest or concern, then her hands moved again, drawing the edges of her mantle together so that they covered her thighs. "Aye, like this. There was no time."

  "No time? In God's name, Shelagh, what happened?"

  She shook her head, a terse, violent motion like a shudder.

  "We were attacked. By strangers, like these." She indicated the two men I had shot. "Julia and the children were attacked. Ludmilla and I weren't there. We had moved away, out of sight, but we heard their screams. Arthur and Bedwyr were both hurt, but not killed. Julia is dead."

  Julia's face flashed before my eyes and vanished, banished by the news that Arthur had been hurt. Shelagh's tone rang in my ears like a death knell. A thousand questions sprang into my mind, but I rejected all of them as they clamoured for my attention. There was no point in asking questions other than the most important one.

  "Where are they now?"

  Shelagh twisted around in her saddle to look back the way she had come, then faced me again, raising her hands to her face, which she squeezed and rubbed as though washing it. When she spoke again, I knew she had regained possession of herself.

  "Not far. I had thought them safe, but now I see I could be wrong. If there were these two, whom I had not seen, there might easily be others." She stopped, eyeing my bow and the quiver of arrows that hung from my shoulders. "You only have your bow? Where is your sword?"

  I jerked my head impatiently, hefting the bow. "This is enough to kill with."

  She thrust her hands through the front of the mantle, seizing her reins again and pulling her horse around, kicking him into motion. "Come quickly. It's not far."

  As I galloped behind her back along the narrow path, the light cloak fluttered high around her, fanned by the speed of our passage, but I saw nothing erotic in her naked loveliness. I was aware only of the vulnerability of her bare flesh and of my own unarmoured body, clad in a light tunic. And I wondered why she was unclothed and why the belt of knives that hung, as always, from her right shoulder did so beneath her cloak, rather than over it.

  It was less than a curving mile from where our paths had crossed to where the river ran, slow and somnolent, through the grassy glade that had been a favourite summer spot in Camulod for generations. We reached it in a far shorter time than I would have expected, and as we broke from the screen of trees surrounding the meadow I was already looking around for signs of life. There were signs of death everywhere. I saw four or five men's bodies scattered on the grass and noted that the only blood in sight lay spilled around them. Shelagh ignored the bodies, standing in her stirrups, looking about her. As she saw me look at her, she wrenched her horse to the left and sent him bounding down the gently sloping gradient towards the water, to where a giant elm hung outward over the wide swimming pool. I pulled up when she did, and saw a flash of immobile whiteness against the bank. I swung down from my saddle and ran forward.

  It was Julia. She lay face down in the water, bereft of all humanity and grace, her long hair drifting slowly about her head, one ankle caught in a snag of tree root on the bank. Her bare, white buttocks thrust obscenely upward above the surface of the water, stained with blood in the crease, and a great diagonal slash high on her back gaped open, ragged-edged, washed clean by its immersion and eloquently fatal. My chest ached with the pain of my discovery and I moved instinctively to rescue her, but I knew she was dead and that my first task must be to find the others. Grimly, I spun on my heel and ran back to remount.

  Before I was upright, Shelagh had kicked her horse forward again, pulling it round to the right and heading uphill, back towards the fringe of the forest that surrounded the clearing. I stayed close behind her, urging Germanicus to greater speed as we bounded up the steepening slope and into the undergrowth, climbing steadily until we breasted the first hill and Shelagh stopped, holding up her hand. As I drew level with her she stood in her stirrups again, calling Ludmilla's name, and was answered immediately by a cry from farther down the hill, deep within a dense thicket. We rode forward slowly, picking our way among trees and saplings, and as we went, the three oldest boys, Arthur, Gwin and Bedwyr, came running to meet us, calling at the tops of their voices. They were all safe, although Arthur had a blood- filled lump the size of a goose egg on his right temple and Bedwyr's left arm was heavily bandaged in a blood-stained cloth. Gwin seemed to be unharmed. Ludmilla emerged from the brush behind them, holding little Luceiia and Octavia by the hands. Behind her came the youngest boy, Ghilleadh, his eyes wide and staring, his face streaked with dirt and tear tracks.

  Once the initial storm of greetings had passed and I had ascertained that they had been in no other danger since Shelagh's departure, I turned to Shelagh herself. In deference to the children's presence, she had closed her cloak modestly, holding it tight around her, its edges twisted in one hand.

  "Your clothes," I said. "Where are they?"

  She tossed her head, indicating the slope behind us. "Up there somewhere."

  "Find them, and dress. I'm going to see to Julia."

  As soon as I said his mother's name, young Bedwyr's face crumpled and he began to weep, moaning deep in his throat, and Ludmilla swept him into her arms, comforting him and making crooning sounds of grief and sympathy. Arthur stiffened, his shoulders hunched, then raised his hand to the huge lump on his forehead, covering it with his palm, and turned away from all of us.

  "Arthur." He turned towards me. "Where are your horses?"

  The boy swallowed hard, visibly fighting to keep from breaking into tears as had his friend. He shook his head. "I don't know, Merlyn. We tethered them where we always do, at the top of the meadow, but I don't know if they're still there. I didn't see them after the men came. They might have stolen them." His lip trembled.

  "No," I said. "I doubt that. They're probably where you left them. Come back with me. You can collect them while I do what I have to do."

  His crumpled features straightened when his body did and he stepped towards me, his hand falling away from the swelling on his brow now that he had something to do, but before he reached my side he stopped and turned back towards the others. "Bedwyr," he called, his voice firm now. "I'm going to get the horses, do you want to come?"

  Bedwyr, who had been weeping inconsolably on Ludmilla's breast, raised his tear-streaked face and turned around but made no attempt to move away from his source of comfort.

  "We're going to need some help," Arthur continued. "They may be scattered."

  Gwin had not moved since I had spoken first to Arthur. Now he turned his head towards Bedwyr, saying nothing. Bedwyr looked from Arthur to him, wiping his runny nose on his sleeve, then knuckled his eyes and looked back at Arthur.

  "You want me to?" he asked.


  Arthur smiled, and I realised that I was watching him with awe, seeing an eight-year-old boy behaving like a seasoned commander. "Are you coming?" was all he said.

  Bedwyr nodded and snuffled again, blinking his eyes clear of the last tears, then stepped away from Ludmilla and began to make his way up to where we waited. Arthur glanced at Gwin. "Good," he said. "Let's go."

  As we re-entered the meadow, I took care to turn left and uphill, leading the boys up to the spot where they had tethered the horses and away from where the body of Bedwyr's mother floated in the sluggish stream. I spotted a flash of whiteness back among the trees and Arthur saw it, too, as soon as I did.

  "There's one of them," he said, and I heard relief in his young voice.

  "Aye, and the others will be close by," I answered. "Go you now and collect them, but be cautious. They were cut loose, perhaps injured, and may still be panicky. Take your time. I'll join you in a little while."

  I sat and watched them until the woods swallowed them, then turned my horse around and went down to the river.

  Julia was already cold with death, and with the chill of the water. I dragged her body gently to the bank and laid her on her back, concealing the huge wound that had killed her and the bloodied evidence of her violation. She bore no visible signs of violence in front, save for a split lower lip and single large bruise high up on her face. Any other evidence had been washed away by the river. I found her clothing scattered nearby and covered her decently, fighting the urge to scream aloud in rage and grief as I closed the glazed, empty eyes that once had been so warm and lively, full of love and life and joy. Lucanus, I knew, would be as griefstricken as her husband Hector. Kneeling beside her, I bowed my head in a prayer, then stooped to kiss her cheek, after which I covered her face and made my way up to collect the boys, who had found all the horses.

  Moments later, we were on our way back to Camulod, riding in silence, for the most part, since there was little merit in discussing what had happened at that time. The attackers had been strangers. The younger children were too young to know what had occurred, and the older boys, I believed, too fragile to listen to a discussion of death and rapine that had taken one of their mothers. Shelagh and Ludmilla had their own thoughts to occupy them and I, God knew, had mine.

  Two hours had passed since our return to the fortress and I had done everything I could think to do. The frantic activity stirred up by our arrival and the news we carried had finally died down, to be replaced by a strained atmosphere of expectation as we waited for the first reports to begin corning in. The children, all six of them, were under the care of Lucanus and Ludmilla, safe in the Infirmary and confined to bed for observation, as Luke termed their quarantine. In fact, they were being isolated for their own protection from the rumours and speculation, now being embroidered upon and argued over by everyone who still remained in Camulod.

  The garrison was out already, scouring the countryside for strangers, only a holding force remaining in the fortress. Ambrose had taken overall command of that operation, coordinating the search from the Praesidium. Dedalus, Quintus, Benedict and Rufio had each been assigned a quadrant of our lands to search, radiating outward from the fort, and their cavalry was supported by eight infantry contingents, two under the nominal command of each of these four but controlled by their own officers. Fast riders had also been dispatched to each of our perimeter outposts to spread the word to seal our borders, permitting no one to exit from our lands. If there were interlopers still alive in Camulod, they would be found.

  Hector, the one most intimately injured by this day's events, had ridden out with Dedalus to the scene of the attack, to bring his wife's remains home, under guard. No one had been able to dissuade him from going. Dedalus, on the same sweep, would also seek the man whom I had wounded in the groin and if the wretch was still alive he, too, would be sent to Camulod for questioning.

  Now there remained only the matter of Shelagh's account of the day's events. Two separate matters had vied within my mind for attention throughout all that I had done that afternoon, and I had kept them in check successfully only by a single-minded effort of sheer will. The first of these, by far the more pernicious, was that I might even now be passing on my sickness to my friends; the other was occasioned by the fact that there had been four, perhaps five slain men there in the glade by the river, and no explanation of their deaths.

  I drew a deep breath before knocking on the door to the quarters occupied by Donuil and Shelagh, and moments later it swung open and Donuil stood looking at me, his face unreadable. He had taken Shelagh away shortly after the chaos of our arrival began to die down, both of them white-faced and badly shaken by the narrowness of her escape from death. Now there was silence in the room behind him.

  "How is she, Donuil?"

  He shrugged and stepped aside to allow me to enter. Behind him, his wife sprawled in a stuffed armchair, her legs spread and her head tilted back, eyes closed. There was colour in her cheeks now, nevertheless, and in one hand she held a cup containing what I had no doubt was her own fiery, homemade mead. Her belt of knives lay on a nearby table, dropped in a careless heap. I glanced at Donuil, who merely shook his head, then I moved closer to her.

  "Shelagh?"

  She opened her eyes and looked up at me, heaving a great, deep sigh before straightening up, blinking her eyes as though to clear them of sleep.

  "Merlyn," she said, showing no surprise. "Is everything in hand?"

  "Aye, for the time being."

  She indicated the deep couch across from her, and I sat down. Donuil remained on his feet, merely resting his buttocks against the edge of the heavy table.

  "You want to know what happened," she said, a statement rather than a question. I nodded, and she squeezed her temples between the thumb and fingers of her free hand.

  "So do I, Merlyn, so do I . . . I knew you'd come, so I've said nothing yet to Donuil, for I knew I could only go through this once . . ." She shook her head, frowning slightly. "It was sudden, unexpected, and I had no time to think or plan; none of us did . . ." She glanced towards her husband. "Donuil, please sit down. I won't be able to think clearly with you looming over me like that."

  Expressionless, Donuil moved quietly to sit beside me on the couch. Shelagh waited until he was settled, then spoke in a voice that made it seem as though she were talking to herself.

  "From the beginning, then . . ." We sat in silence while she evidently marshalled her thoughts. Then, snatching another deep-drawn breath, she launched into her tale.

  "We should all have been taken in the first attack. The only thing that saved us was the lazy indolence of a hot summer afternoon. It was peaceful, hot and beautiful, the slightest breeze imaginable coming once in a while to fan us. The boys were fishing and Julia was showing the girls how to knit, using straight twigs that I had cut for them. They had all been playing in the water earlier, but had grown tired of it. . .

  "I was sitting against a tree, a little way from Julia and the girls, peeling a willow branch with a knife, and Ludmilla was lying beside me. I thought she was asleep, but she had been watching me, and suddenly she suggested that I might like to practise with my knives. She can never see enough of that. She has been fascinated by how I can throw them ever since the first time she saw me do it.

  "The thought was already in my mind when she spoke, so I was willing, but I knew that as soon as I produced the knives the boys would be all over me, wanting to be allowed to throw them, too, and I had no patience to put up with all the fuss of that. It was too hot. And so I told Ludmilla that if she wanted a throwing lesson I would give her one, but we would have to slip away together to where we could have peace and quiet, safe from the boys. I strolled over to Julia and told her where we were going, and then Ludmilla and I simply wandered off, betraying no purpose until we were out of sight.

  "There's a place I know of, where I've been before; a big, dead tree stump with heavy bark, about the height of a man and a perfect target. We went ther
e. It's about a hundred and fifty paces from the riverbank, just over the brow of the hill. . .

  "Anyway, once we were there, I showed Ludmilla how to hold a knife and throw it, but she found it more difficult to grasp the trick of it than either of us expected—some people simply aren't attuned to things like that, I suppose. Anyway, she ended up sitting close by, watching me as I practised, and an hour or so went by. And then we heard the screams."

  She stopped, and her eyes changed colour, or intensity; I did not know which, only that they had changed. Donuil and I sat motionless. She sighed again, a ragged, uneven sound this time, then swallowed audibly.

  "There were five of them, big, dirty-looking men. By the time we reached the edge of the meadow, still among the trees, there was nothing we could do without endangering ourselves and making matters worse. Arthur was lying on the ground, unmoving, and young Bedwyr knelt on the grass beside him, holding his own arm, blood streaming through his fingers. Two men were each holding two of the other children, one in each hand. The two little girls were screaming, and so was Ghilleadh. Gwin, the only one of the three older boys uninjured, was fighting to break free and as I looked, the man who held him let him go, then smashed him with his fist, behind the head. The boy went down and lay there as though dead."

  I interrupted, unable to contain myself, since I knew the boys were well. "What about Julia?"

  Shelagh looked at me, her face as cold as stone.

  "She was fighting, down on her knees, her skirts over her head, muffling her cries. A naked man stood over her, his feet on either side of her head, holding her hands together by the wrists, behind her back, forcing her face against the ground. Another knelt behind her, gripping her by the waist, pulling her against him, violating her. A third was tearing off the remainder of his clothing, laughing like a demented thing, preparing to take over when his friend had done—"