“And how should I do that?”
“If you know not that, then you are not one to command men. Now, I thank you for the apple and cheese. I would have thanked you more had you carried a wineskin. The gods be with you.”
As he turned to go Arturo said, “It is in my mind, for all your talk, that the gods did indeed send you to me. How else could you have recognized me whom you last saw as an infant just able to stand and walk?”
Merlin smiled. “You could have answered that for yourself were your mind not idle. You sprawl on the grass cudding your cheese, your tunic flung wide open to cool yourself from walking. Need I say more since I have seen you naked many times in your mother’s arms?”
Arturo smiled ruefully, and said, “No.” With one hand he rubbed the strawberry-coloured birthmark below his left ribs. Then with a frank, friendly smiled, he went on, “I thank you for chiding me. Your words will stay with me.”
He stood for a long while watching the receding figure of Merlin move away along the tree-edged ridge. When the man was finally lost to sight he turned and gathered up his gear. A glance at the westering sun gave him the direction he wanted and he set out.
He reached Corinium on the evening of the next day while there was still a couple of hours of daylight left. The streets were crowded with people and the troops from the nearby camp. Market booths and stalls were open and the rutted roads were busy with the carts of country folk and packhorse trains carrying army supplies. As he made his way toward the east gate he was with other people pressed back to make way for a patrol of cavalry moving through the city. A young man who led the party was wearing a leather war helmet plumed with dyed horsehair, a bronze-plated cuirass taking the dying sunset light dully, and knee-length boots, and was armed with a scabbarded broadsword. About his neck was knotted a blue scarf with its ends swinging freely to the motion of his horse Similarly coloured scarves were worn by all the men in the patrol and also by the dismounted cavalrymen who walked the streets on leave. Arturo had no need to ask about the scarves for he knew that they were the mark of the man of the Sabrina wing of Count Ambrosius’s army. He decided that when his day came all the men of his army should wear the white and red scarves of the banner he had seen in his dream.…
A small boy, his skin as brown as sun-dried earth, wearing only a ragged pair of short trews, directed him to the house of Paulus the carpenter. It was a dwelling place that stood with its back hard against a section of the ruined city wall and was no more than one large living room and cooking quarters with a rough ladder that led to a communal bedroom above. The workshop was a faggot-thatched open shed to one side of the house.
He introduced himself to Paulus, a white-haired man in his sixties, wearing a leather working apron, the stubble of his face hoared with sawdust and all about him the sweet smell of worked wood and shavings. He was accepted at once and with few questions. Paulus lived by himself, but a neighbour’s wife came in once a day and cooked a meal for him in the evening. The old man made a place for him at the table and while they ate questioned him about the welfare of his nephews. When he heard of the death of his brother at the hands of the Saxons, he said, “God rest his soul.”
Arturo said, “You, too, are of the Christos people?”
“Yes, and there are many in this city. It is said, too, that Count Ambrosius is one of us, but I doubt it more than pretense, for the Count is ready to be all things to all people so long as they will serve his ends.”
“And those ends?”
Paulus paused from dipping a bread crust into his stew and said, “He dreams of a conquest of all Britain with himself wearing the purple of emperor.”
“And what is wrong with such a dream?”
Paulus shrugged his shoulders, poured ale into Arturo’s cup and said, “Nothing—except the man who dreams it.”
“Men say that openly here?”
“Go into any tavern or drinking court and you will, as the night lengthens, hear many of his own soldiers and cavalrymen say it. They long for action and he gives them drills and marches and mock battle—and now that autumn is well with us it is clear that there can be no campaigning this year. This winter many men will drift from him back to their homes. It is two years since the army marched east and south. Two years—and that is a long time for warriors to content themselves with sword and spear drill. Go into the country to the villas and the farms and you will hear strong words against Count Ambrosius. Although the land is rich and is tilled in peace the crop levies to feed his men are high. I ask nothing of your business here, but take heed of your speech in this city. You like this stew? ’ Tis hare … I have a friend who passes through often who always brings some fine gift.… So, my brother Amos is dead, eh? And by a barbarian. Thank God they come not this way. Hare stew, I like it well. But not so well as venison—though ’tis seldom my friend brings that. Such game gets rarer the longer the army stays …” The old man suddenly broke off, leant back and smiled, saying, “I ask your forgiveness. I rattle away like a gossip from the pleasure of company for I am much alone.”
Arturo raised his cup to the old man and said, “Talk, my friend, for there is much that I would like to know about this place and the cavalrymen here.”
Chuckling with pleasure, Paulus drank with Arturo and began to talk again, never flagging, but always ready to take a new line when Arturo put a question to him.
That night Arturo lay long awake while the old man snored gently in his cot. He was in Corinium and here, and in the country around, were cavalrymen, many of them owning their own mounts, who longed for action. But he had nothing to offer except a share in his dream to create a company whose fame and success would eventually bring the Prince Gerontius and Count Ambrosius to sue for his help. How many men, he wondered, would have the vision to see what he dreamt and for the sake of it go into the wilderness with him? He groaned gently to himself. If ever a man needed the help of the gods to direct him he was that man.
The next morning he left Paulus to his work and wandered abroad in the city. It was market day and the old ruined Roman Forum was crowded with stalls and benches on which vegetables, game and meat, crockery and pots and pans, and woollen cloths and belts and buckles and leather goods were laid out for sale. Wandering through the crowd, Arturo noticed that there were few army men about. Most of them were held at stables and cavalry drills until late in the afternoon… the same training exercises which he, as a troop commander, had known endlessly at Isca.
Walking now from stall to stall, he saw clearly that there was more for sale here, and a richer variety of goods, than had ever appeared in the Isca markets. The penned poultry and cattle were plump, the cloths and fabrics rich, and much of the pottery and bronze and iron pans and cauldrons of a finer work than the people of Dumnonia knew. Count Ambrosius, whose writ ran from the Sabrina plains north to Glevum and beyond to Deva, held in his power a fat and rich land. Maybe because of all this the Count had grown over-content and was loath to stir away—but amongst his men there had to be those who suffered a restlessness and a lust for war and action which full bellies could not assuage.
As he turned from a stall hung with loops of gaily coloured clay beads his eye was caught by the bright blue of a long, belted robe worn by a young woman who worked her way through the crowd, a straw-plaited basket hanging from the crook of her right elbow. A stallholder shouted some pleasantry to her and as she turned her head to reply her eyes were briefly met by Arturo’s. For a moment or two, like the sudden glare of sun between racing clouds, she smiled at him, a warm, friendly and, he imagined, a beckoning smile. As he met it the whole purpose of his business here in Corinium was reft from him. The sharp thought went through him that it was long since he had held an Iscan girl in his arms, or felt the warmth of full red lips beneath his own. Hardly aware that sudden impulse was moving him to action, he moved forward through the crowd to follow the young woman. But at this moment the market throng pressed back upon him, trapping him against the side of a stall,
to make ground for the passage of a herd of cattle being driven to the slaughterhouse on the far side of the Forum.
When he stepped free from the press at last the young woman had gone and he made no attempt to search for her. He needed no woman. Men and horses were his need. He turned away to waard the north gate and left the city. A little way along the Glevum road he climbed a grassy knoll crested with two beech trees and sat down, looking across at the camp of the Sabrina cavalry wing through air which was hazed with the dust kicked up by three troops of horse at drill. He was angry with himself for even momentarily being stirred by the sight of a pretty face. The gods had brought him here for matters of far higher import.
7. Horses and Men
Arturo sat on his knoll for over an hour, watching the cavalry drills. He heard that Count Ambrosius had formed his cavalry into wings—the old Roman alae—of sixteen troops with each troop holding thirty-two men and had even named the commander of a wing in the old style of praefectus. From the size of the camp and the number of mounted men drilling he guessed that this Sabrina wing was no ordinary ala of around five hundred strong. This seemed more like an ala milliaria of twenty-four troops, each of forty-two men—around a thousand men in all—and no doubt commanded by a tribunus. Maybe it was yet far from its full complement of men and horses, but it was a larger force by far than any that Prince Gerontius could muster. Clearly the ambitions of the Count ran high and matched his pride in the ancestry he claimed for himself. He was a man full of nostalgia for the great days of past Roman glory, of Roman blood himself (though that was common enough now in this country), who longed to restore the glory of the old Empire.
Tired of watching the cavalry and overwarm under the midday sun, he slipped off his tunic, made a pillow with it for his head, and lay back, staring up at the sky. Men there must be, he thought, drilling out there on the plain, who longed for real not mock action and must know that it could not come this year for it was far too late for campaigning. To tempt any of them to his side he had nothing to offer. Now, if ever before, he needed help from the gods or some sign from them that there should be no death of hope. He shut his eyes and silently called on them, willing them to hear him, his teeth grinding with his fervour as he mutely named them … Epona, Nodons, Coventina, great Dis, father of all … great gods and small gods he named, battle gods and house hold gods… Badb and her brothers, and was tempted to call, too, to the Roman gods, for surely they held lien and interest still in this land, but turned away from the thought for fear of offering his own native deities.
He was brought from his silent fervour by the sound of horses’ hooves behind him. He sat up to see a man riding one pony and leading another up the knoll and, after a brief nod to him, dismount and hitch the ponies to a beech branch.
He came across to Arturo, carrying a drinking skin, and sat down by him. Without a word he drew the stopper from the skin, drank, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, then the mouth of the skin, and handed it to Arturo, saying, “A gift is the best greeting. Drink.”
Arturo took the skin and drank. Expecting mead, he found that it was wine. Handing the skin back, he said, “I thank you.” Then prompted by a wry sense of humour, he went on, mocking his own newly passed fervour, “If you bring a message from the gods then I will give you double thanks.”
For a moment or two the man eyed him without replying. He was small of stature with a pear-shaped face, brown as a ripe chestnut and, as Arturo had noticed when he had walked across to him, bowlegged as though he had come into this world riding a pony and had seldom set foot on ground since. His eyes were as dark as polished sloes, his hair darker and tightly curled, his cheeks cleft with deep wrinkles and his thin lips, at this moment, drawn back tight over firm white teeth in an amused, houndish smile. Driving the wineskin stopper home with a quick smack of his palm, he said, “And what kind of message wants young Arturo, son of the Chief of the tribe of the Enduring Crow?” He nodded at Arturo’s bare shoulder as he spoke. “Nay, look not surprised. You would not know me, but many a time I have seen you at drill in the river readows below Isca town. And many a mount your old friend, Master Ricat, has bought from me.”
Arturo pointed a finger at the long knife which the man wore in the belt about his hide surcoat and said, “What charity stayed your hand as I drank? You could have slit my throat and claimed my blood price.”
“Stolen or honest-come I deal in horses, not men’s lives, no matter the price. But you would do well when you take the sun to keep your tribal sign and the birthmark below your ribs hidden.”
Ignoring this, Arturo asked, “What do men call you?”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “A hundred names, mostly vile. But seldom my own, which is Volpax.”
“Then, Master Volpax—and I have indeed heard of you—the gods sent you. They know I need horses.” He nodded toward the beech trees. “Not mixed-breed ponies like your dun-coloured mare there with a black tail.”
“You shame my mare. On a long march she would outlast many of those overstuffed, overcosseted cavalry horses out there.” He nodded to the plain where the last of the dust was settling as the troops rode away to quarters. “So you need horses? Have you found some silver hoard that you can afford to buy them?”
“We have no need to buy them.”
“We?” Volpax’s eyes widened and he grinned wolfishly.
Arturo smiled. “The gods have sent you to an honest and reliable partner. There are hundreds of horses quartered around the barracks of the Sabrina wing. You could work alone and take a few, or you could work with some rogue helper who would betray you when you trimmed his share—which you would.”
“It is always a temptation, I agree.”
“With me it would be different. I can betray no man without betraying myself. And we would draw no daggers over sharing for out of every three horses we take I would keep one. Remember this, too. I know a horse from an overstuffed hay bag. And, like you, I can talk their soft language at night to gentle them and cut their hobbles or headropes while you ride a mare in season down the lines for them to follow.”
Volpax chuckled. “You know the tricks.”
“Why not? You probably played them at Isca against us. I say, although you do not know it, that the gods have sent you.”
Volpax pursed his lips, his eyes hooding with thought, and then said, “I would not quarrel with that—for it is a sign of distinction. But it is beyond their power to make up my mind for me. I will think on what you say.” He stood up, the wineskin swinging from his left hand. “You stay in Corinium?”
“I do. At the house of Paulus the carpenter.”
Volpax shook his head. “You are too open—even with me. There is a blood price on your head. Every man knows the taunt you have flung at Gerontius and Count Ambrosius.”
“I am open with you alone—for the gods sent you.”
“Let us from now keep the gods out of this. I have an affair which takes me to Glevum. I shall pass this way again in three days’time. Be here then at midday and I will give you an answer.”
“You have my promise. And I thank you in advance for your answer, Master Volpax.”
For a moment Volpax seemed on the point of protest. Then with a slow shake of his head he turned and went to his ponies. But as he mounted the dun, he called, “Stay close to Master Paulus. Keep away from the drinking places and wenches, and forget that you ever met me or heard my name, Comrade Arturo.”
Arturo sat and watched him ride away down the Glevum road. He could have wished to be going with him for he would have liked to see the city. Then he rose and began to make his way back to Corinium. The gods were with him. There was no doubt of that. One horse in three. That meant stealing sixty to gain twenty mounts. And three hundred to have a hundred … Aie, but that was looking too far ahead. All great matters began small.
He began to whistle gently to himself. The gods had truly marked him. But for all that, they were stern and devious masters. Had they not momentar
ily tempted him that morning with a glimpse of a young woman in blue? He could have pressed after and searched for her and never have met Master Volpax. No, until he came again to the beech knoll in three days’time, he would keep close to old Paulus.
For the rest of that day and the one following, Arturo never went beyond the yard where Paulus was content to have him either helping or sitting on a stool as he worked. Toward sunset on the evening of the second day, while Arturo helped Paulus stack a pile of rough-cut planks, a voice from behind them called, “Master Paulus!”
Arturo and Paulus turned. Standing in the open front of the thatched shed was a young woman and one glance told Arturo that it was the girl in the blue robe whom he had seen in the market. Unaware almost that he did it, Arturo ran his fingers through his sweat-tousled hair and then drew his open tunic about him and belted it.
“Mistress,” said Paulus, shuffling past Arturo, “if you come with a complaint from your father about his tool racks tell him that they will soon be ready.”
The young woman shook her head and said, “He sends no complaint. But a summons to a meeting of the city’s tradesmen and crafts workers called now because of a new demand by the Count’s warden to raise the levy once again on the free work we give to the calvary camp.” She smiled. “They meet now and will talk until dark and drinking time and it will all come to naught.”
“Aye, that is so. And I shall wake with a sore head from drinking in the morning. So be it.” He shrugged his shoulders and moved away to his house.
But when he had gone the young woman stood her ground, her dark-red lips curved in an almost mocking smile which, for some reason that baffled him, suddenly irritated Arturo so that he said, ignoring courtesy and ceremony, “Some mornings since you smiled at me in the marketplace, and now you stand as though there was something you expected from me.”
The Circle of the Gods Page 12
