The Dragon Lord

by David Drake

  Mael tugged circumspectly at the Dane's elbow. The two of them retrieved their weapons and stepped away with the quickly dispersing band of courtiers. Mael caught a final glimpse of Lancelot's face as the Gaul, too, strode toward his quarters. Lancelot's expression was as dead as a bowl of rendered fat.

  Chapter Thirteen

  "If we aren't going to do anything but stand here," Starkad complained, "I'm going to get some sleep." He threw his pack down for a pillow on a likely patch of turf and stretched out.

  Before dawn the recruits had been roused and marched to a store shed. There they waited behind four troops of Companions also being issued rations for the campaign. After that they were marched back to the corral for horses. Now they waited again on one of the drill fields, trying to quiet their unfamiliar mounts. In the near distance were the lights and murmuring of one of the line troops, also awaiting the order to march. Down the road from the headquarters building clattered a messenger, one of the staff officers who had dined with Arthur the day before. Maglos, the aging Briton in charge of the recruit troop, waved the courier over with a torch.

  "We're ready to mount," Maglos said.

  "No, you're not," replied the courier without dismounting. He was the squat man who had tried to restrain Lancelot. "You've been moved back from third to ninth start, after Theudevald's troop over there. Run your men through another kit inspection and make sure none of them are trying to carry their gold around in their blanket roll."

  "Second to the end?" Maglos shrieked. "Christ's bleeding wounds, you know how most of these sows ride! If you start me ninth, it'll be the bloody watch after midnight before I make camp!"

  "Well, better you and not everybody behind you as well," the staff captain said unsympathetically. "Check 'em out good. If any of these oafs panics because the Saxons are in the baggage and they're afraid they'll lose their loot—well, it'd be better for them if they'd banked it here with the camp prefect, and it'd be better for you if you'd never been born."

  Nodding, the courier rode off toward Theudevald's troop across the field. Maglos cursed and turned back to his own unit. The three other Companions of the cadre were murmuring among themselves. "Everybody on your goddamned feet for kit inspection," Maglos roared. Mael, already standing, pulled Veleda a little closer. His eyes were on the captain. Starkad, of course, ignored the shouting.

  "Christ, what sorry whoresons," Maglos said. His frustration was real as he looked down the line of parti-equipped men, many of whom were not able to ride or speak a common language. "I'm going to tell you people something, and I don't want anybody to think it's a joke," the Briton continued. "You aren't being marched to Lindum to fight. You're going because there won't be enough trained men back here to control you if somebody gets some smart-ass ideas about desertion or looting. You're a burden on the war, and we don't need any more burdens. So if any one of you—or all of you together—steps out of line for one instant you're dead. You're nailed up to a tree in less time than it takes to shit. Do as you're told, do just as you're told, and maybe some of you can live long enough to be worth keeping."

  Maglos and his men began working down the line of recruits one by one. His voice blurred by his cloak, Starkad said, "Why put so much of his army back here where it's five days' march to any place the Saxons are going to be? And five more damned days on horseback for me."

  "A safe place to train recruits," Mael guessed idly, his attention still on Maglos.

  "No," said Veleda unexpectedly. "One troop would be enough for a cadre and a guard, love. Arthur doesn't keep ten back here for training or for the Saxons. They're to keep the landowners in support."

  "Huh?" Mael said. "They do support him. They always have."

  "Together they have to support him," the woman agreed, "or the only question is whether the Saxons or your Irish kin will pick their bones first. But one by one, it's different. They're self-willed men, these magnates. They're powerful, each in his own right. Who's to say that one's grain levy wasn't excessive, or the weight of bronze for armor wasn't more than another's smelters produced?"

  "So if there's any trouble, Arthur sends in the troops and burns their roofs over their heads," Starkad chuckled, his eyes still closed. "Then the rest of them ante up."

  "He doesn't have to burn anything," Veleda protested. "If a delivery's late or the weight is short, Gawain or one of the other captains takes a troop or two to the landowner's villa. He just stays for a while. After feeding a hundred men and horses for a month, the landowner makes his next tax payment on time even if his children may have to go hungry. Arthur's taught him that they most certainly will go hungry if he scrimps the levy again. And there's no fighting or need for it. No one magnate is so foolish as to think he can drive off a troop of Companions, and no group of magnates is so foolish as to think they'd live for long if they did all rise and defeat Arthur."

  Maglos had reached them. Mael, knowing that Biargram's shield, the only thing of note he had, was hidden back in the barracks, was relaxed. Pointing at Veleda, the Briton snapped, "What's she doing here?"

  "Waiting for the fools in charge of this botch to get moving," Starkad rumbled before Mael could get control of his tongue. "Then she'll tell us goodbye. And until you do get moving, just leave us alone. Neither I nor my friend ever left a fight for fear of losing our bedrolls."

  The captain froze. He might in his frustration have carried the matter on, had not one of his cadre tugged at his arm. "Theudevald's troop's moving out," he reported, pointing.

  Maglos sighed. "Prepare to mount and form column of fours," he ordered. "We won't get the word for another half hour—but it'll take that long for some of you hogs to get straight."

  When the horn finally blew, Mael leaned over his saddle and kissed Veleda again. The Greek in the rank behind cursed as his horse balked to avoid the Irishman's. Starkad turned and stared back. The curses stopped as the Greek's throat froze.

  "I'll think of you," Veleda said. "Of you both." Then she was gone and Mael and Starkad were headed into the first of five days of brutal route marching.

  The ten troops of the Western Squadron were being sent off at half-hour intervals, interspersed with lightly escorted strings of remounts. There was no baggage train. Without fanfare, wagon loads of supplies had been sent forward weeks earlier to supplement the sparse forage available at the edge of the War Zone. The rations of biscuit, cheese, and dried meat which each man carried were for use after the battle, when the pace of flight or pursuit might not allow normal measures.

  The squadron followed Roman roads for the most part. Cracked by subsidence, rutted by centuries of wheels gouging their surface, the roads were still straight and broad and as useful to Arthur's army as they had been to Hadrian's. The troops crowded civilians to the side and off onto muddy shoulders to curse at the miles-long road-block. Where the civilians were driving animals to market, the cursing became mutual. The column, regular enough at the start, began to bunch and straggle. One of the horses in Mael's troop found itself in the midst of a flock of sheep. It suddenly went into a whinnying funk. When the horse bucked him off, the rider broke his neck by landing on a milepost instead of the mud.

  "First blood to Aelle," Starkad laughed. But the next time his own mount shied, the Dane sawed his reins as if he meant to pull the horse up on its hind legs.

  Near noon the forlorn hope reached the prearranged bivouac site at Pen-y-Gar. In theory the rear guard should have joined them in three hours or so. Actually it was long after sundown that the hard-faced Companions chivvied in the last of the recruits. Streams to ford had caused confusion and delay. Hamlets along the route were built out onto the ancient roadway, narrowing it to the width of one horse and leaving the flagstones slimy with offal. All the recruits were fighting men, but a good number were not riders. Even the ones who were used to horses were unready for a regimen of fifty miles a day. Saddles became weapons which pounded and chafed. Toward the end, two of the recruits had to be tied to their pommels. When the c
ords were cut, the men fell as if heart-stabbed.

  That first night the recruits were too late for a hot meal and too tired to care. If they had been less exhausted, they would have mutinied. As it was, even the failure to place guards as ordered was the response of inability rather than disaffection.

  The next three days repeated the first. Mael had less trouble than most of the other recruits. He had ridden since childhood and was in as good condition as any man in the army. Starkad rode by dogged stubbornness. Others were able to make the journey; therefore he would. The Dane spoke very little after the first hours, dismounting mechanically at Mael's direction and swallowing food as if unaware of its taste or texture. Starkad was not a natural horseman, but his strength and sense of balance were enough to keep him mounted. Graceless, hulking, and silent, the Dane looked like a bear on horseback. Even in their most savage ill-tempers, none of the other men mocked the spectacle he made, however.

  * * *

  At twilight of the fourth day, the squadron entered the walled city of Leicester. The population was already swollen to triple its usual size by refugees, the troops of the Southern Squadron who had been pulled north for this thrust like those of the West, and the jackals who always batten on soldiers nearing combat. There were whores and their pimps, gamblers, ale merchants and silk sellers. Men need release as death approaches. Each has his own way of seeking that release, and the cost no longer matters.

  There were no Saxons save prisoners within fifty miles of Leicester. That did not keep the farm families from pouring in to the protection of the walls. The civilians knew only generalities: Aelle was moving north—or was it west? Arthur was gathering his whole force to block the Saxons. To the households on lonely farms, there was little to choose between the two sides on the march. Either might loot and rape, would perhaps kill and burn. . . . Better to hide in a city where only one side was to be met, where the officer's eyes were sharper. At any rate, there were more potential victims and the resulting better chance of being overlooked. Leicester stank of excrement and animals sickened by hard driving and lack of fodder. The streets were choked with people, moving and eating and trying to sleep. The householders kept their doors locked and prayed for deliverance.

  Like the stench, rumor was everywhere. The recruit troop dismounted in what had been the market square, now converted to their bivouac—the Southern Squadron had usurped all the permanent quarters available. Mael heard one well-dressed townsman saying to another, "Yes, they massacred every man of the Northern Squadron. Only half a dozen managed to get out with their skins. Geraint himself was captured. It won't take Aelle a day to storm Lindum, now—and how long do you think we can last in Ratae with Lindum gone?"

  The speakers passed on, ignoring the hundreds of armed men around them. Mael grimaced and said to Starkad, "Just tents for us. Anything I can get you?"

  "A drink and a cunt," the Dane replied with unexpected animation. The city—always a place of excitement to a countryman like Starkad—seemed to have revived his spirits. The Dane nodded at the warren of streets leading off the square. "Bet we can find both of them out there pretty quick."

  Mael frowned. "How about the horses?" he asked.

  "I can't drink 'em," Starkad grinned, "and I'm damned well not going to try to fuck 'em either if there's better stuff around. If somebody wants to steal mine, he's welcome to it."

  Mael looked around the milling throng. Nearby was a Lombard recruit he knew slightly. "Vaces," the Irishman said, putting his hand on the Lombard's shoulder, "get my horse and my friend's here fed and stabled, will you? I'll make it worth your time."

  "Hey, why me?" the other man yelped, but Mael could already see Starkad disappearing into an alley. The Irishman followed him with only a hand waved back at Vaces.

  Leicester had inns, but they were stuffed with officers. There would always be entrepreneurs ready to care for the lower ranks, though. One of those benefactors had set up in what had been a fuller's shop before the influx of soldiers. The owner and his family now kept to their living quarters upstairs—the trap door in the ceiling was bolted. The ground floor was rented to a Moroccan at an exorbitant rate. The Moroccan, of course, was getting his profit quickly from watered beer and a percentage of the dice game in the corner, despite the expense of the three bouncers who kept a semblance of order.

  Noise bloomed even out into the street, and within the big room it was at first hard to think. There was no furniture except the rough-sawn bar. Behind that barrier, the Moroccan and a vacant-faced girl dipped beer from open tuns. The bare walls echoed the din of a score of languages. Virtually all of the customers were armed; it was not a dive in which a civilian could have survived had one been foolish enough to enter. "I'll get it," Starkad rumbled to Mael as he eyed the press around the bar.

  A blond veteran with bandages on his left foot stood near them. When his ear caught Starkad's accent, he brightened and said, "Hey! Danish?"

  "Yeah, a long time ago," Starkad agreed watching the Companion sharply.

  "Hel take it, we're next to brothers here in this snakepit," the blond man said. He thumbed coins out of his purse. "I'm Tostig Radbard's son, got a squad in the Northern Squadron. Geraint sent me back here when I got gimped up at Lindum." Tostig gestured at his injured foot. "Thing is, I can't even fight my way up to the bar with this. I'll buy if you'll bring me one back. No, two—stuff's so pissing thin it's not worth it to drink one at a time."

  Starkad clapped the other Dane on the back. "Sure, I'll bring you beer and you don't need to worry about paying," the big man said, his momentary suspicion forgotten. He began to bull his way to the bar, ignoring the curses of the men he thrust aside.

  "What did happen at Lindum?" Mael asked Tostig. The Irishman and the Dane were about of a size. The blond man had obviously seen his share of service.

  "Same thing always happens when the Saxons come play with us," Tostig chuckled. "We killed 'em by the shit-load and sent the rest off screaming for their mommies." The Companion was speaking loudly, but Mael had to strain to hear in the surrounding racket. "Two weeks ago, Aelle marched north with his whole levy. Must'a been ten thousand of 'em. We're based at Lindum, right? But we pulled back to Margidunum and the fort there. There's only five hundred of us and that makes the odds a little long, even for Geraint.

  "So the Saxons throw up earthworks to blockade Lindum. And the people in Lindum don't do anything, and we don't do anything—and the Saxons get pretty damned hungry. There wasn't a goddamn thing to eat bigger than a field mouse left outside the city. You know the Saxons; they couldn't organize a supply train from the rear any better than they could've flown to Mikligard. So after a week, Aelle went back home with all but a couple thousand farmers. Them he left at Lindum to keep the place bottled up. He'd be ready to move the main body as soon as something happened on our side."

  Tostig chuckled again. "Only what happened is, we caught the blockading force at dawn with their pants down. They hadn't even set up outposts, much less built a proper stockade against whoever might come up from the rear. We slaughtered Saxons from Lindum to the River Dubglas. I don't know half a dozen besides myself of our boys who aren't ready to ride again today. And I could if I had to."

  Starkad, three mugs of beer in each hand, pushed his way back in time to catch the last of what Tostig was saying. "If you hadn't been in such a hurry to do it yourselves," he remarked as he handed the drinks around, "the bloody Saxons wouldn't have had time to get their shit straight again, like I hear they have now. The army together could've cleared Lindum and then gone through Aelle's whole kingdom before he got his breeches laced."

  Starkad's tone was friendly, but the criticism made the Companion bridle. "Bloody general, have we here? Knows more'n Geraint or the Leader himself. Well, let me tell you what it's like, buddy. We can beat a Saxon army any goddamn time we like—you'll see that in a day or two or I'm no fucking squad leader. But there's a lot of them. Not just the soldiers, but back home. And we've got three squadrons,
maybe fifteen hundred men counting every bugger and ass-wipe.

  "We can beat 'em—" Tostig paused to slurp a long draft from one mug. The vessels were terra-cotta, unglazed and already dark with the brew oozing through the porous material—"because we're mounted, we're armed, and we're trained. And all the training in the world doesn't matter a fuck if you're trotting down a lane and some hick behind a hedgerow puts a pike through your back. Or you're riding some bitch in a stable and her husband cobs you with a wooden hay fork. That's why the Leader knows what he's doing."

  Mael waited for Starkad's reaction. To his relief, the big Dane only laughed and downed his own beer. "Well, you've had your fun already," Starkad said to Tostig. "You ought to be willing for the rest of us to have some, too."

  Relaxed, the three men finished the round. Starkad fetched another. As they drank he asked Tostig, "You want to come with us and find a whore?"

  The Companion shook his head. "Hard enough to get a drink," he explained. "Damn if I'm going to try to get into a knock-shop. Not with a bum foot and a thousand extra troopers in town."

  Bawling happy good-bye's, Starkad led Mael out into the street again. The night air was cool and the relative silence itself palpable. "You know, I'd just about settle for a bed to sleep in," the Irishman suggested.

  "Balls," said his friend. "Now, if you were a whore, where would you be?"

  They followed several narrow streets blindly, meeting other soldiers as drunken and confused as they were. All the doors were barred, the windows uncompromisingly shuttered. "Look," Mael protested, "this is a pretty good district and we sure as hell aren't supposed to be in it. If we run into the Watch—"

  "Then we'll ask them where to find cunt," finished Starkad good-humoredly. "Anyway—"

  There was a scream from the house beside them, a two-story structure of brick and tile. The front door flew open and a woman darted two paces into the street. The man chasing her seized her hair in his left hand and tugged her to a stop. He raised his bloodstained sword. Mael recognized his face in the moonlight; it was the Herulian recruit he had watched Lancelot pulp a few weeks before. Without thinking, Mael grabbed the raised sword arm and yanked the Herulian back into a knee in the kidneys. The weapon clanked to the cobblestones. Mael heard a grunt behind him. He turned. A second Herulian, this one wearing the medallion of a trained Companion, had started out of the house to his friend's assistance. Starkad hit him in the pit of the stomach with his axe helve. The struggle was over seconds from its start.