The Wolf of Britannia Part II

by Jess Steven Hughes

  “Please forgive me for carrying out your wife’s last request, lord,” Fiona asked.

  “You had little choice in the matter, you had to obey her command,” Caratacus said. “It was the right command, Fiona, and you honored us both.”

  She went down on her knees to thank him.

  And for a fleeting instant, Caratacus hated her.

  *

  A day after Fiona had arrived with the devastating news, the king gathered his surviving chieftains for council in the little house. During the council a messenger entered with news that Rhian’s body had arrived.

  Caratacus would never forget that humid morning when her body, covered in a purple linen cloth, was returned to his headquarters in Chelmsford in a rickety wagon with an escort of freed prisoners.

  As he approached the wagon where Rhian lay, he suddenly felt the urge to flee. Caratacus had seen thousands of bodies, but now he wanted only to escape. This wasn’t just another corpse, it was his wife. He dreaded what he would find. For a moment, Caratacus stopped in the dusty compound and looked around, seeing chickens and pigs running about. They seemed oblivious to the chieftains and warriors milling in little clusters, all at this moment watching him. There was the smell of breakfast fires and the aroma of porridge and fresh baked bread on the warm breeze. Distant laughter drifted on the wind. He took a deep breath of these ordinary smells and walked quickly to the wagon.

  Caratacus pulled the sheet gently from her gray, pallored face. For a split second, he closed his eyes. He opened them to see the purple, swollen lips and bruises around Rhian’s eyes and on her jaw. One broken arm was splinted, yet still twisted at an odd angle. In the heat, her body was already beginning to putrefy. The sickening smell invaded his nostrils. Yet, all he could think of at that moment was how anyone could do this to Rhian, to his wife! He couldn’t help himself, he had to know it all, and drew the cover off her naked body.

  He mastered the sudden urge to cry, to rage at the heavens, to bellow like a wounded animal. Caratacus slammed one fist into the wagon’s splintery side and barely noticed the pain or the rapid swell of the knuckles. Desperately, he struggled to contain his grief. His love for Rhian had possessed him, but it took her death for him to realize how deeply it ran. He had been blind. But this was not the time for recriminations. Now she was with Teutates. Still, he cursed the gods for not waiting. He stared at her mutilated form, even after the women came to recover her.

  His thoughts rambled. He hated all that was Roman, no matter that the Batavians alone were to blame. They never would have committed this outrage if the Romans had not invaded our lands. May Taranis hurl an army of thunderbolts upon their accursed legions! It didn’t matter that the Roman dog executed her butchers or that the general had returned her body. By whatever method, whatever the cost, he was determined to destroy all Romans to avenge Rhian and all his people.

  *

  The following morning the women braided and perfumed her hair and crowned her head with a golden Greek diadem. The servants applied white powder makeup to her face, and she was dressed in her finest clothing. They laid her upon a ceremonial cart detached from the wheels of a chariot. Fiona and another survivor warrior reverently covered her in a gold-stitched, leather sheet, fastening it tenderly to the sides of the bier. She and the rest of her jewelry, weapons, and food for her journey to the underworld were lowered into the grave next to the detached chariot wheels. A great, silver cauldron, engraved with the pictures of shielded infantry warriors and cavalrymen, was the last item placed in her grave. They buried Rhian outside the village.

  Rhian’s burial gifts seemed incomplete. Caratacus realized she required a sword. His sword. Clud’s masterpiece that had saved her and served her so well against the assassin so long ago.

  “Halt! She must take this along.” The grave diggers waited. Caratacus unsheathed his sword and ordered it placed beside her.

  Even as the dirt filled the grave, Caratacus held his grief. This was not the time. He still had to fight.

  He knew only that he loved her still. The form below him was truly a warrior, but now he could only remember her beauty. Her softness. Her gentle embrace, and the passion in their love making.

  I will avenge her!

  Chapter 11

  Despite Caratacus’s grief over the loss of Rhian, he had to concentrate his mind and all his efforts in defeating the invading Romans. After retreating under Caratacus’s counterattack, the Romans had dug in along the north bank of the River Tamesis and waited for the arrival of the Emperor Claudius. Caratacus received daily reports of the Romans’ aggressive patrol movements. They were pushing inland again along the north bank of the Tamesis, until reaching its mouth two weeks after Rhian’s death. Now they controlled access to and from the river.

  Caratacus’s depleted forces had withdrawn to the meandering River Chelmer and were scattered from north to south along its shoreline, where it bordered a scraggly, pine forest. Warrior tents and shelters clustered in a haphazard fashion among the trees, bushes, and by the river bank. Smoke from hundreds of cooking fires drifted upward creating a brown haze over the area. The king’s warriors constructed temporary corrals from tree branches for the surviving horses and cattle they had managed to confiscate and bring along for food. Men and beasts drank at the river’s edge, the same area where they eliminated their waste. Soon the stream became a churning mud hole, the current not moving quick enough to remove the filth. Sounds of hacking coughs mixed with the murmur of warrior voices, and baying of cattle and horses whinnying carried across the river and echoed through the forest.

  That evening while Caratacus waited for the rest of his army to arrive, he, Fergus, and Venutios sat on stools by a campfire. He heard approaching footsteps and turned to see a bare-chested warrior jogging towards them. The sweating man stopped before Caratacus, swatted the drifting smoke from around his face, and saluted. “I have good news, sire.”

  Caratacus sat straighter, alert. “That’s something I could use.”

  The runner grinned. “You have a healthy, new-born daughter. Congratulations, sire.”

  Speechless, Caratacus’s heart shot into his throat, but quickly he relaxed and a smile crossed his lips. After three still-born children by Rhian and the miscarriage that Dana experienced two years ago, finally, a child born alive. The gods be praised.

  “Healthy and alive?” Caratacus asked. “Are you sure?”

  The warrior bobbed his head. “Yes, my lord, the midwife told me that your daughter and Queen Dana are doing well.”

  Caratacus clapped his hands once. “Wonderful news.” He turned to Venutios on his left and Fergus on his right. “I have a child. She may be a girl, but one day she will rule after me.” First, he must drive the Romans from our lands.

  “Congratulations, sire,” Venutios said.

  “Aye, congratulations,” Fergus said. “May she grow up wise and beautiful.”

  Caratacus turned to the messenger. “What is my daughter’s name?”

  “Macha, sire.”

  The king arched his eyebrows. “A goddess of war? I think not, although I will train her to fight. A plain woman, no, that can’t be—not my daughter.”

  “The goddess is also associated with being queen and ruling tribes, lord,” Venutios said.

  Caratacus raised his hand curling it into a fist. “Yes, that’s it. Dana knows that one day our daughter will be queen.”

  The messenger stood taller.

  “Was there anything else, man,” Caratacus asked the messenger.

  “The queen said she looks forward to your return so you can hold your new daughter.”

  The king huffed. “Unfortunately, that may be awhile. In the meantime …” He turned to a passing retainer, flagged him down, and nodded to the courier. “Take this man to the nearest cooking fire and see that he is fed. He deserves a good meal.”

  The guard motioned to the messenger to follow him and departed.

  Fergus shook Caratacus’s hand. “May the
queen bare you more children, sire.”

  Venutios did the same. “That she may.”

  Caratacus grinned. “Thank you, my friends.”

  As eager as he was to see Dana and baby Macha, Caratacus still had to deal with the invading Romans. He must stop them. Now!

  *

  The morning after the last of Caratacus’s surviving forces had arrived, the king summoned the clan chieftains, including Fergus ap Roycal and his cousin, Venutios, who had arrived the day before with a contingent of five thousand warriors. Cartimandua, Venutios’s wife and queen of the Brigantes, refused to support Caratacus in his fight against the Romans. Venutios had defied her by bringing his own loyal followers to Caratacus’s aid.

  Included among the leaders was Caratacus’s new arch-Druid, Owen. He replaced Havgan, whose prophecy over the Romans proved to be false. Havgan had fled in disgrace to the Sacred Isle of Mona, on Britannia’s west coast, to be dealt with by his superiors. Slight of build, horse-face Owen wore a long, white tunic. A gold chain containing a disk resembling a half-moon hung around his long neck.

  It was almost noon before all the leaders had gathered in his headquarters tent, identified by multicolored streamers limping from wooden poles and a bronze wolf looking fiercely from the top of a standard. The place was on a clear rise above the river. During the summer months, mornings warmed quickly in southern Britannia. Sweat rolled down the side of Caratacus’s weather-beaten face and neck, disappearing inside his green and gold, tartan tunic.

  The king and his men gathered inside near the goat-hide map marked with Roman positions. Tent flaps opened on the sides to allow in sunlight and what little breeze that drifted in from the British Channel. Fergus ap Roycal and Owen stood to his right, Venutios on his left, and the rest of the leaders stood to the king’s front.

  For a second, Caratacus remained quiet as he wiped the sweat from his face and then the side of his breeches with his hand. Grim faced, he studied each leader and hardened himself. “I have decided to regroup and withdraw our forces north to Great Dumnow.”

  Venutios, in his late twenties and clothed in a scarlet and white tunic with matching breeches, gestured toward Caratacus with a calloused hand. “I don’t understand—you’ve kept the Romans in check.”

  Fergus ap Roycal and the other perspiring clan leaders who surrounded Caratacus murmured in agreement.

  “Have I, Cousin?” Caratacus said. He gestured toward the entrance. “I’ve received reports that even as we stand here, the Ninth and Fourteenth Legions are moving through the Great Forest north of Durolitum. It’s their intention to outflank us, turn west, and march straight for Camulodunum.”

  There was a stir and murmuring from within the group of chieftains at this revelation.

  Venutios’s deep-set eyes focused on Caratacus. “Why don’t we fall back to Camulodunum? We still have more than enough warriors to stop them.”

  “Think of this,” Caratacus said. “We’ve lost nearly all our cavalry forces.” He glanced beyond the opened side of the tent. “We don’t have enough companies to guard our coast and river defenses from attack. If we made our stand there, we’d be trapped like rats in a ship’s hold.”

  Fergus ap Roycal, the tall, mustached giant of a chieftain, lowered his balding head. His raven eyes locked onto those of Caratacus. “Then where exactly do you plan to fight them?”

  Caratacus glared back, holding his ground. “We move to the forest near the road to Camulodunum.” He broke eye contact, turned to the other leaders, and explained the army would be close enough to defend the fortress without being trapped inside.

  “Yet,” he continued, “we’re close enough that if General Plautius attempts a landing from the sea, we can meet them on the beaches and throw them back before they gain a foothold. Of course, many of the merchants there would welcome a peaceful entrance to Camulodunum by the Roman dogs.”

  The slit eyes in Fergus’s leathery face narrowed. He spat on the chalky ground. “I’d rather see the stronghold destroyed than see those fat, fucking merchants living off Roman gold.”

  “I agree,” Caratacus said, “but too many poor people depend on the merchants for their existence—they’d never survive as peasant farmers or fishermen. I won’t tolerate any more unnecessary loss of life, nor the destruction of a prosperous town. If we fail, we resort to other means of fighting Rome. We’re still raiding their supply columns, destroying hordes of food and equipment—we’re far from finished! But should we be defeated, we will take to the hills and forests. The bastards will never know peace.”

  *

  Two mornings later, a battle raged along the narrow, muddy banks of the Chelmer. The Romans broke through the British lines. Caratacus ordered a retreat when their resistance began to crumble. Taking Owen, Fergus ap Roycal, and Venutios with him, Caratacus withdrew the army northward, circling west behind the Roman forces. Once in the clear, he halted his armies near the great marshes of the Fens. Those wounded wrapped their injuries in whatever cloths available, while warriors with minor wounds used thick cobwebs to absorb the blood. Sounds of the dying echoed through the scattered ranks. Although their comrades tended to them as best they could, many men died from their wounds as they lay among the bushes on the chalky ground.

  The night after his forces had withdrawn from the Fens, Caratacus gathered his chieftains and Owen for another war council. They stood in the shadowy light around the small bonfire outside the king’s tent. A few of the chieftains, including Fergus ap Roycal, had rags covering cuts and slashes to their arms and shoulders.

  “After we bury our dead, I’m going to disband the army, except for a select group of warriors,” Caratacus announced.

  A gasp went through the men.

  “But why, Cousin?” Venutios asked.

  “We will no longer fight the enemy on their terms. They’ve slaughtered too many of us. We can fight the Romans more effectively by using harassment and hit and run warfare.”

  “Is this wise, Great King?” Owen asked.

  “What about the rest of the army?” Fergus ap Roycal questioned. He glanced back to his retainers who hovered outside the circle of leaders.

  “It’s too big for what I have in mind,” Caratacus answered.

  “They would rather fight and die in the open,” Venutios said.

  “It is the honorable thing to do,” Owen added.

  “That’s exactly what the Romans want,” Caratacus said. “There is no honor in that. It is a waste of good men. Britannia cannot afford the deaths of thirty thousand more warriors.”

  “If you scatter the army, how can we stop the Romans?” Fergus questioned.

  “With a select group of no more than one or two thousand of our best fighters, I can attack where they least expect,” Caratacus said. “We’ll raise chaos with their supply lines and couriers. They’re going to have to spread their men very thin to protect their gains. It’ll keep them from taking any more of our territory.”

  “Aye, they’ll be too busy chasing ghosts,” Fergus ap Roycal added.

  Venutios spat. “Better a few loyal followers than an army of traitors.”

  “Then we are in agreement?” Caratacus said. He eyed Owen, who frowned but nodded.

  “Aye!” the chieftains exclaimed.

  “Each of you will select your most loyal men,” he said to the chieftains. “Disperse the rest to their villages. If we have a need to recall them, we’ll meet in Caleva. We’ll return there now to plan our next move. Something tells me we’re to have an early fall and winter. Send them home to bring in the harvest while they can, we’ll need it.”

  *

  Ten days later, Caratacus returned to Caleva. It was late afternoon with the sun sliding behind the trees in the forest beyond the hillfort. He and his retinue pulled up their horses before his home within the moated compound. Dana held baby Macha swaddled in a fur blanket. Three servants, who stood behind her, waited on the covered porch at the front of their large, whitewashed wattle-and-daub hous
e. An ankle-length, emerald and yellow, tartan skirt covered her willowy figure. Small looped earrings, glistening in the afternoon sun, hung from thin earlobes from beneath the close-knit, wiry, auburn hair that crowned her head. Silver armlets in the shape of mythical dragons, clasped above the elbows, circled her slender arms. A smile radiated from her delicate face.

  Caratacus dismounted and tossed the reins of his mount to an awaiting groom. He stepped toward Dana, hugged her, and then looked at baby Macha’s tiny face, wide, alert eyes and thick hair, bright as the rays of the rising sun. “She’s beautiful.”

  Dana’s smiled. “She is.”

  Caratacus looked away, noise as loud as a roaring avalanche filled his ears. His vision became fuzzy. Shaking his head vigorously, he attempted to clear his sight and hearing before facing Dana.

  Dana’s smile disappeared. She stared at Caratacus, and then her eyes searched the members of his party. “Where is Rhian?”

  Caratacus shook his head and stepped towards her. “I have bad news, Dana. Our beloved Rhian is dead.”

  She gasped. “Dead?”

  “Killed in battle,” he answered in a voice little more than a whisper. “Let’s go inside, and I will explain everything.”

  Dana turned to a servant behind her, nodded the young woman forward, and placed Macha in her hands. “Take good care of my little one.” Tears welled within Dana’s eyelids and placed a hand to her face. She turned and darted into their house, her servants following her.

  The king dismissed his entourage and entered his home. Inside the warm circular room the smell of baked bread permeated the air. Flames from the center hearth glowed brightly while strands of smoke drifted to the ceiling and escaped outside through the straw-packed roof. He motioned for the serving women to leave.

  Dana ran to Caratacus, and he held her close, smelling the scent of lavender on her body. Shaking, she no longer held back, but wept.