The Circle of the Gods

by Victor Canning

  The next morning he had his men round up all the miserable people who still stayed in the town, bringing them limping and halting into the old Forum through the ruins of its monumental east entrance, to be greeted by his companions, mounted on parade and drawn up in line along the front of the shell which had once been the Basilica.

  Riding out from the center of his companions, the White One curvetting and restless beneath him, and with Lancelo holding the red banner of the white horse behind him, he spoke first in his own tongue and then in the tongue of his mother to them. Listening, Pasco smiled to himself for it amused him to recognize that in the warrior a great preacher had been lost. The smile went as he wondered why it was that war and bloodshed could silver a man’s tongue so readily where love of God and one’s neighbour so often left him dumb.

  Arturo spoke as though he were addressing a crowd of able-bodied, just-minded citizens and seeking recruits and support to his cause, which he called the Great Matter of Britain and for which, he proclaimed with sincerity, the gods of his country had fingered him as the chosen one to achieve. To his side must come the warring and jealous princes and kings and warriors of his own country, all men of good intent, to revive the greatness of the past, to restore peace and prosperity, and to order justice and free passage for all. But to this end there could be only one beginning—the barbarian Saxons of the east must be swept away, driven to the sea to seek their ships and the safety of their own countries.

  Although his companions had heard it all before, when he had told them of his dreams of this great progress which would give them fighting enough and also carry his message abroad, and had mostly latched their minds to the prospect of battle, there was something in his manner this morning, as he spoke to the miserable handful of old crones and broken men before him, that kindled a new fire in their spirits. A horse and a sword, the dust and sweat and blood of war had been promised and would be given them. But now they began to see the shape of a greater glory than their passion for battle had ever promised. They saw themselves now, each according to his faith, the picked of the gods or God. From that moment, though none showed it openly, there was a new dignity of the heart and a bolder, nobler edge to their allegiance to Arturo.

  As they rode out of Calleva, Arturo, loosening his neck scarf against the morning’s growing heat, turned to Pasco, who had come trotting up to give him company on his right side, and said, “And what does the good Pasco think of my preaching in the Forum?”

  Pasco smiled, wetting his lips with his tongue, and said, “The preaching was good. But the congregation was poor. What gain will you have for your cause in such few and wretched hearts? There was not a man among them with strength to raise a sword or any woman with her mind on aught but the hope of good pickings to fill her supper pot.”

  Arturo nodded his head. “Aie … that is true. But they have that which I need. Each mouth has a tongue and when they go into the countryside to steal or beg amongst the scattered country people they will talk of the strange company in Calleva this day. The story will pass and pass until it begins to blaze like a summer fire through dry grasslands. Although we quarter no more in towns, for their ruin and misery sickens my heart, there is none we shall pass without a herding of its wretched people to hear my words.” He paused for a moment and then added slyly, “Does it not say in your religion that in the beginning was the Word?”

  Pasco, surprised, raised an eyebrow and asked, “How do you know the disciple John so well?”

  Arturo laughed. “From a Druid priest who taught me well when he was sober enough to sit his stool without falling.”

  “Do not forget that since you have been baptized it is your religion as well.”

  “Nor shall I. A man cannot have too many gods to watch over him.”

  Polling up his horse sharply, Lancelo said, “Then let us hope they are all with us now.”

  From the top of the gentle hill which they had just crested he pointed ahead down the slope. At the bottom of the broad valley where the road crossed a small stream a body of about thirty men on foot barred the way in three ragged ranks.

  Arturo, reigning in, said, “They would have done better to have chosen this hilltop than the valley bottom. Sound the horn for Gelliga’s troop.”

  From inside his cloak Lancelo pulled his bullhorn and blew the four sharp battle notes and then a long fifth which was the call for Gelliga’s command.

  Without looking back Arturo sat on the White One and watched the men at the valley bottom. Many a time the maneuver which must come now had been made in mock attack from the forest hill down to the stream at the Villa of the Three Nymphs. Many a time this situation and others had been drilled and redrilled into men and horses. But now across his path stood his first real enemy, and on this bright morning there awaited him his first real attack. His breath quickened a little with pleasure. The moment had come sooner than he had thought, but it was more welcome for that. He looked back and saw Gelliga leading his men at a gentle trot away from the road and up the hillslope to the left to stop just short of the skyline. Keeping to the road came Durstan’s troop, to ride openly onto the crest and halt in four ranks of six behind Arturo. Farther back the remounts and baggage horses were being taken well away to the right flank.

  Durstan rode to Arturo’s side and said, “They cannot know our strength or they would not stand so bunched and ready for plucking.”

  “There are many things they will learn. Now let us see what days and nights of aching backsides and sore thighs have done for us.”

  Pasco, steadying his restless, sturdy hill pony, sat and watched. The men were Saxons and were a rabble, though well-armed. They were, he guessed, the war party of a scattered community of outcasts or adventurers who had moved away or been banished from the settled lands of the Saxon shore. There were many such pockets along the line of the valley of the River Tamesis and these communities often lived in uneasy peace with the native British of the district. The rumour of Arturo’s coming must have spread ahead of him. They stood now to dispute his way.

  The skirmish was brief and to be repeated with variations dictated by ground and chance many times to come in their advance eastward. Lancelo’s horn sounded the long, high, whickering call to advance. Durstan’s troop put their horses to the gallop and charged down the slope toward the Saxons, who waited their coming with heavy, sharp-pointed, single-edged seramasax swords drawn and their small round shields raised, not for defense so much as for striking at the face of their enemy once he was brought to ground to fight foot to foot. Arturo and Lancelo stayed on the hilltop.

  Seeing him restraining the impatient White One, Pasco smiled to himself. This was no full battle that needed him at the head of his force. Both Durstan and Gelliga knew his mind, and he would take away no part of their pride of command. Also, too, Pasco guessed, more than the pleasing blood-surge of moving into action, he would be drawing a greater pleasure from seeing the long hours of cavalry attack-drills at the villa now pass into reality itself, where a hamstrung horse could send a man to the ground to meet the swinging scramasax and the face-smashing shield and—if the gods were unkind—have a ready seax dagger sharp-slit his throat.

  The dust clouds rose behind Durstan’s troop as it swept down on the Saxons, and the unruly barbarians, eager for fight, broke ranks and ran to meet it. But the moment the troop was within a spear’s length of the foremost Saxons, every horse swung to the right and raced across the front of the enemy as though their riders had suddenly lost heart. A great shout of triumph went up from the Saxons as they turned and chased them, calling taunts and bellowing their derision.

  It was then that Gelliga’s troop came over the hilltop and charged at full gallop down the slope to take the Saxons in the rear. Hooves thundering, tails and manes flying, the morning sunlight bright on drawn swords and helmet crests and streaming crimson-and-white scarves, the troop, with Gelliga and the great-handed Borio leading its center, spread out into a homed crescent and scythed its way
into the rear of the Saxons. Some turned to meet their foes and died with wound in throat or chest, but most were killed from behind and went to their end not knowing they carried the death mark of those who die with their backs to the enemy to be banished forever from Woden’s hall.

  In a short while the attack was over and the few Saxons who had survived were running away from the road and along the stream and over the marshy ground where they were left free from pursuit. Amongst the companions there were few injuries. One had taken a spear thrust in the shoulder, another a slash from a seax which had cut through the hide cross-gartering of his leg and scored his calf with a long though shallow wound, and others had cuts and bruises of no importance. But one horse had had its windpipe and neck artery slashed with a sword and died as Gelliga’s troop re-formed. It was left for the crows and kites and foxes and rats to pick clean. None said a word to the companion who had ridden it, for there are no words that can pass with any comfort to a man who has lost a loved mount. He sat by it, stone-faced, until the party moved on and then took his remount and cantered to his place in his troop column. Behind the troop came the baggage party, its cart and pony packs loaded with the pick of sword and knife and axe and the meager plunder taken from the bodies of the dead Saxons.

  From that day they moved no longer directly to the east. Staying south of the Tamesis, which hereabouts took a great loop northward, they travelled in zigzag fashion, meeting little opposition. Wherever he could find a British village or settlement, no matter if it contained only a handful of people, Arturo would stop and, with his companions on full parade behind him, make his declamation as he had done at Calleva, so that the news of his presence and progress ran before him. To his delight now and again men of worth who had long deserted Count Ambrosius and Vortigern to return to their homes came to join him. Welcome they were when they came mounted and armed, but those who carried only the clothes they stood in and the itch for action were mounted and supplied with arms and such war gear as Arturo’s force took from the Saxons in their path.

  By the time Arturo reached the town of Pontes and the now south-curving Tamesis he had almost the makings of a third troop of horse under his command. Sitting one evening on the riverbank by the side of the ford which they would cross the next morning—for the old timber bridges had long been wrecked and pillaged for the sake of their timbers—he knew that far and near now the name of Arturo and his companions was working in the minds of more and more of his countrymen like a ferment in the honey and water of new mead. On this progress he commanded no force large enough to fight great battles, but he would have blazed his name and intent across the country to catch the eyes and ears of every man who longed for true leadership and an end to his present misery, and so bring many of them to his side. With that, for this year, he would be content.

  As he sat there a thin summer drizzle began to fall and suddenly from the smooth surface of the rolling Tamesis a great salmon, running the river to the spawning beds of the headwaters, leaped like a great bow of silver into the air. Seeing the fish, he remembered the story of the goddess Latis, who wept and brought the rains to fill the rivers to bring back her warrior lover who deserted her each year to go to the sea as a salmon. Remembering this, he thought suddenly of Daria, who sat now and waited for him—Daria, who grew more and more absent from his mind if not from his heart.

  He had then a black sense of shame that he, whose eyes watched always for signs from the gods who controlled his destiny, saw now a sign from the peaceful, gentle Latis which should not have been necessary.

  He rose and with the Latis rain dewing his face went into the camp and found the youth Felos.

  Arturo, the shame still clouding him, said, “Go to Marcos. Tell him to give you a horse, weapons and food. Ride back to the lady Daria and give her all the count of our days and progress. Then, returning, bring with you all news.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Say that I am well and bear her always in my thoughts and heart.”

  “Yes, my lord. And where will I find you, my lord?”

  Sharply, Arturo said, “Only the gods can say. But”—he smiled, to ease his tartness—“find me and from that day you and your brother Barma shall ride as companions.”

  Felos, beaming, raised his hand in salute and was gone at a smart trot to find Marcos.

  Three weeks later they rode out from the great elms which crested the high ground to the northwest of Londinium. They were now a company of two troops of thirty-two horse, each still commanded by Gelliga and Durstan, and a reserve troop of fifteen horse commanded by one of the new companions, Cuneda, from Lactodorum in the country of the Catuvellauni, a man of forty, built like an ox, black-bearded but without a hair on his head. Their camp servants had increased and they now had two carts, the second taken from a burned-out farmstead which they had repaired and fitted with runners to carry their food supplies and grain for their horses—though, the grass being abundant and sweet at this time of the year, their mounts needed no more than a few handfuls of corn a day. Five of the companions bore wounds which, under Pasco’s care, were fast healing; and two companions had been killed the day after leaving Pontes when, riding ahead of the column as scouts, they had been ambushed by a band of robbers and cutthroats who stripped them of clothes and weapons and disappeared into the thickness of the surrounding forest where none could follow them. They were buried where they lay and, as Pasco finished his prayers for them, Arturo turned aside and rode alone with his grief, knowing it to be the beginning of a burden of the soul which he must from now on learn to endure as the never-ceasing lot of a commander of men.

  Below them now the silver loops of the Tamesis snaked away eastward to the sun-blazed spread of its estuary, and at their feet lay the once great city of Londinium. Only a few wisps of smoke rose from its houses. It was a dead city; for these days, without true commerce or trade, there was no gain or security to be found in it. People in these times drew away from towns and settled where a living was to be found, in their hovels and sparse communities close to their poorly cropping fields and cattle grounds.

  Arturo sent two of the companions to ride down to the city gate close to the ruined fort at the northwest comer of the walls to bring him back news of the place. When they returned they reported that the two western gates, though unmanned, were open and in good repair, that the fort was empty and that the great wooden bridge over the river was broken and gapped in many places and would give no crossing. There were people in the half-ruined city still, but they were a miserable set of wretches. Where there had been greatness and the noisy bustle of commerce and trade, and the ring of horses’hooves and the clank of armour as well-furbished and well-ordered troops had garrisoned the great fort and the walls, there was heard now only the scavenging cries of the kites and the carrion birds and the barking of dog packs that roamed the alleyways and deserted houses. And that they were there was due to one thing. The slow sickness had swept through the city since the beginning of summer and although it was now almost abated, the streets and houses still held the corpses of the dead, lying as they had fallen to make a feasting for all the city’s carrion eaters.

  Hearing this, Arturo was for a while in two minds whether he should risk his company in such a place, but then the conviction came strongly to him that since the gods had led him thus far under their favour, that favour would still run only if he entered the place and raised the white-horse banner for all to see so that the report of his coming would spread like a great ripple across the country. This was Londinium Augusta, once sacked and burned by the great Queen Boudicca, greater than Camulodunum or any other city, the capital, and his country would one day become great again.

  He left the reserve troop of horse to guard the baggage train and with the rest of his companions, Lancelo carrying the white-horse banner before them, he rode down to the city and entered it through the most southerly of the two western gates. Men, women and children, dull-eyed from the slow sickness, lay in the gutte
rs and doorways and gave them no greeting as they waited their deaths. Hooves clattering on the broken paving and rubble of the streets, the crows and kites rising in wild flight from the bodies that here and there littered their way, the dog paeks retreating from them, snarling and barking, they moved along the Tamesis side, past the ruined warehouses and collapsed river stockades, the gulls and river birds, disturbed from their low-tide feeding, flighting from the beaches. Past the broken and burned and pillaged Londinium bridge and the ruin of the great river palace they went, and then swung north to breast the rising ground and finally rode in proud formation into the old Forum and drew up in a long line of horse across the face of the ruined Basilica. With them came a growing drift of miserable men and women with nothing to lose but their lives, which for most would be a happy release, ragged, half-starving and moving like famine-weary cattle.

  Arturo rode forward a little and to these, as though they were proud, well-set citizens he made his declamation. When he had finished there was for a while a low muttering amongst them and then it died as the sound of a slow flurry of passing rain dies before the wind. Arturo and his men rode away and the crowd stayed where they were, no strength or curiosity in them to fire their wasted limbs and weak spirits. Helmet plumes tossing, the white-horse banner before them, the companions passed from the city, splashing over the summer-low river, past the ruined baths, past the shells of once noble buildings with their broken statues and defaced and cracked tablets of dedication, and out into the clean air and the green grass of the hillslopes where the rest of the company awaited them.

  At Arturo’s side Lancelo said, “Can such a city ever live again?”

  Arturo, stiff-faced, moved by all he had seen, said with curt emotion, “Under the gods, someday, it must and will.”

  The next day, at low tide, they forded the river well above the city and the column turned south to begin a great sweep which should bring them westward to move along the fringes of the great forests that rolled northward from the shore line of the country of the Regnenses, from the sea towns of Anderida and Noviomagus.