In the Shadow of the Wall

by Gordon Anthony

  Three men lay on the hard, earthen floor. Brude recognised them, although they had been badly beaten. One of them looked at him with sullen eyes. It was Oengus of Peart. “You are keeping Gartnait’s son as a slave?” he asked in surprise.

  Colm nonchalantly kicked out at Oengus, forcing him to squirm back against the wall. “It’s what he deserves. He stole my bull and my son.”

  “Won’t Gartnait cause trouble for you?”

  font color="black">Colm laughed. He was enjoying this display of his authority. “I am stronger than Gartnait now,” he said. “If he wants his son back, he will have to pay in cattle, gold or silver. But I doubt he will bother. He has other sons.” He sounded as though he didn’t care one way or the other what Gartnait did.

  Brude looked at the other two men. Cet, the small man, had a swollen eye and was nursing his left hand. Fothair, the tall man, was lying down, eyes closed, only the slight movement of his chest showing he was alive. His clothes were ripped and bloody. Crude bandages had been wrapped round his chest and his left leg. Brude noticed that Colm was watching his face to see how he reacted, but Brude had been a slave for long enough to know how to maintain a blank expression. He had asked Colm not to harm Fothair yet he was the worst injured of the three. Brude reckoned that was deliberate.

  Colm ushered him outside again, leaving the three men under the care of the guards. As they walked slowly back to the doorway of the broch, Brude had an idea. “Those slaves! Are they for sale?”

  Colm was surprised. “What? Those three? Perhaps. For the right price.”

  “I could do with a slave,” said Brude. “I’ll need to build a place of my own and an extra pair of hands would be useful.”

  “If you can afford one of them, you can have him,” said Colm. He sounded as if he was sure Brude could not afford the price. He seemed amused. Brude guessed Colm was setting a test of some sort and he suspected that he was probably failing it. Still, Fothair had been hurt because of him and he could not let it rest. “Why don’t you come down to the village? I’ll show you what I can offer,” he suggested.

  Colm hesitated. He was the head man and others should come to him, but Brude was supposed to be his friend and he was in a good mood so he agreed, although he signalled for the giant Cruithne to follow them.

  At Seoras’ house Brude asked his mother to bring some food and water for Colm, which she did less than graciously while Brude brought out a bolt of fine, red-dyed linen and some gold rings. Colm was impressed despite himself. He agreed that Brude could have one of the men for his personal slave. “I’ll have the small man sent down,” Colm told him. “I’d prefer to keep Gartnait’s son myself.”

  Brude shook his head. “You can keep both of them. I’ll take the tall one, Fothair his name is.”

  “He’s half dead,” said Colm scornfully. “He will probably die on you.”

  “I’ll take that chance. can always buy the other one from you if he does die.”

  “You have more of this stuff?” Colm asked, indicating the cloth and gold.

  “Not much now you’ve got that lot,” Brude admitted as amiably as he could. He knew that he had paid well over the usual rate for a slave but he felt he owed Fothair something. By now he was convinced that Colm had singled him out precisely because Brude had asked him not to. And although Colm’s expression betrayed nothing, Brude reckoned he had known from the start that Brude had wanted to buy Fothair. All of this was a way for Colm to show Brude who was in charge.

  Colm stood, passing the cloth to Cruithne to carry while he pocketed the gold rings himself. He looked at Brude thoughtfully. “Things have changed since you left, Brude, you have seen that. But you have changed, too. You are not the Brude I remember.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Brude shrugged. “We were both very young then.” He was tempted to say that Colm had changed too, except that Colm was basically as he remembered him. He wondered why they had ever been friends. Yet for the sake of that old friendship he said, “We all change as we grow older, Colm, but that does not mean we cannot still be friends, or at the very least not enemies.” He did not give Colm a chance to reply. “Speaking of enemies, you should know that I heard the emperor has come to Britannia. The Romans may come here.”

  Colm gave him a mocking look. “Let them come. Their army left these lands many generations ago. When they come now, it is to bring gifts of silver and fine jewellery.”

  “The Romans have been here?” Brude was surprised.

  “Of course!” Colm laughed. “They often sail up the coast. They stop here, from time to time, seeking our friendship. The Romans are not as strong as you imagine, Brude. And even if they do come as enemies, we are strong here. They cannot defeat us in our own home.”

  Brude stared at him. He was about to argue, to tell Colm of the things he had seen, to tell him that a Roman legion had over five thousand armed men and siege weapons that would soon demolish his stockade and smash even the thick walls of the broch in time. The broch offered spurious safety at best, Brude knew. When he was a boy, he had thought it was the strongest fortress in the world. Now he knew differently and his expert eye recognised that it was poorly sited. The high ridge to the south east blocked the view to the sea, even from the top of the tower where the watchmen could see for miles in any other direction. The ridge was too narrow for the broch to have been placed on its summit without a huge effort to dig out a flat base, so the men who had originally built the broch generations before had taken the easier option of building it on the flat land to the west of the ridge. Experienced Roman soldiers would soon have th mocksiege weapons dragged to the top of the ridge, allowing them to shoot down onto the broch from the higher ground. Or they would take the longer option of waiting for the broch to run out of water because the nearest stream was a hundred paces away and people cooped up inside would soon be forced out.

  Despite its failings, which were obvious to Brude, Colm apparently still believed the broch was a fortress. Brude wanted to tell him that if the emperor was coming he would bring more than one legion with him. The Romans, he knew, were masters at dividing and conquering their foes, which was why they often paid silver to men they thought might help them, or at least not oppose them. But if the emperor came in war, the Boresti would only have two choices; surrender or die.

  He wanted to say all of this but he knew that Colm would not believe him, could not conceive the true might of Rome because he had never really seen it. Brude realised that his relations with Colm were already strained, although he did not fully understand why. Arguing with him now would not help and would probably change nothing anyway. “Maybe you’re right,” he conceded. “They probably won’t come this far.”

  “Of course not. But one day I might lead another raid to plunder their villages and towns.”

  Again Brude looked at him in astonishment. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. Don’t you remember what happened the last time?”

  Colm laughed. “Of course I remember. But next time we will go by sea. I intend building ships to take us past the wall. That way we can raid and be gone before they can catch us. Even the Romans can’t put soldiers on the sea.”

  “Yes they can,” countered Brude emphatically. “They have ships too, you know.”

  Colm was not impressed. “I can understand your fear, Brude. You spent a long time as a slave. You are bound to be afraid of the Romans. Not all of us are.”

  “Of course I’m afraid of them,” Brude retorted. “I’ve seen what they can do. Not as individuals but as a people. They are far stronger than you think. That force that defeated our tribe thirteen years ago was only one small part of one legion. The emperor has thirty legions under his command and the empire is bigger than you can possibly imagine.” Brude stopped because he was growing angry and he could see from Colm’s expression that he did not, or would not, understand. “Oh, you can do what you like,” he said disgustedly, “but don’t count me in your plans.”

  “I wasn�
�t intending to,” replied Colm coldly. “Anyway, the last raid was not entirely a failure. Those of us who survived came back with enough booty to make us rich men.”

  Brude asked the question he knew Colm was waiting for. “How did that happen? I heard that everyone ran like scalded cats.”

  “Oh, we did,” Colm admitted. “But later we went back and crossed the wall further east while the Romans were hunting down the Selgovae. We found a rich farmhouse and some very wealthy merchants. When we got back across the wall we bought lots of sheep, cattle and other goods from the Votadini. I came back with enough wealth to make me the most important man in this village and I’ve been head man ever since.” He jabbed Brude’s chest with his finger. “I don’t intend that you will take that away from me.”

  Brude decided he had best try to make amends for his earlier outburst. He really had not meant to fall out with Colm like this, not on his first day back home. He took a deep breath. As calmly as he could, he said, “Colm, I just want to be home. I am pleased that you have done well for yourself and I bear you no ill will. I have no intention of doing anything more than living as peaceably as I can.”

  Colm gave him a satisfied nod. He still liked to win. “Very well, we shall speak no more of this. But there is one more thing,” he said, a hint of iron in his voice as he pressed home his advantage. “I hear Mairead was here yesterday.”

  “Yes, she came to thank me for finding your son.”

  Colm nodded but his eyes were hard. “She’s my wife, Brude. I want you to remember that.”

  Brude returned his stare and nodded. “I know that, Colm. I won’t forget it.”

  Fothair was in a bad way. Brude and Seoras carried him down the hill as gently as they could but he was badly hurt and the journey was agony for him. When they reached Seoras’ house Brude laid him on the bed he had asked his mother to make up, then set to tending his wounds. His mother insisted that was work best done by a woman but Brude assured her he knew what he was doing. He fetched some of his most prized belongings from his pack, a selection of delicate instruments and some small leather pouches, each one tied and with the name of its contents inked on the side. He set them out beside the bed. Kneeling, he stripped off Fothair’s dirty clothes and washed his wounds. There was a jagged gash on the tall man’s left side, at the foot of the ribcage and another, deeper stab wound on his left thigh. Brude checked them and, selecting a small pair of tweezers from his instruments, he carefully picked out the fragments of wool or cloth that had been forced into the wounds.

  Fothair groaned. Brude took a pinof some dried herbs from one of the pouches and told his mother to mix it into some hot water as a drink.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Something to make him sleep. Mix it well, please.”

  While he waited for the drink, Brude fetched some cloth from the one remaining bolt he had and asked Seoras to cut some long strips for bandages, then he began mixing together some more herbs from other pouches with warm water to make a paste to which he added a dab of the honey he had brought from Peart.

  “What’s all that?” Seoras asked as the smell of the herbs wafted through the cottage.

  “Juniper and mint to help keep the wounds free of infection. Some comfrey to help heal the cuts and a balm to stop the bleeding.” He worked as he spoke, making sure the paste was mixed to the consistency he needed.

  His mother helped him lift Fothair’s head and make him drink the bitter potion she had brewed. Fothair grimaced, trying to resist but Brude pinched his nose to make him swallow and the medicine went down eventually. Brude waited for a while to let it take effect, then went back to cleaning the wounds. The one on Fothair’s side looked bad but was actually of less concern than the deep one on his thigh, which was still oozing blood. Satisfied that they were as clean as he could get them, Brude applied the paste he had mixed to each one then tightly wrapped them in the bandages Seoras had cut. “His bandages are better quality than my clothes,” Seoras observed, trying to brighten the mood.

  Fothair’s breathing was steadier now. Brude checked him over and found that two fingers of his right hand were broken. He reset them, which made Fothair jump and cry out, then he attached some small twigs which he bound up as splints.

  He knelt back, satisfied he had done all that he could. “We’ll give him another drink in a few hours to keep him asleep. That’s the best cure for him at the moment.”

  “Where did you learn all that?” Seoras asked him, impressed at Brude’s competence.

  “Rome,” Brude replied. “I saw a lot of injured men and I watched the healers working. I even had to get some treatment myself a few times.”

  “I saw the scars when you were washing,” his mother said. “How did you get all them?” Concern was evident in her voice.

  idt="0" width="19" align="justify">Brude had not realised she had been watching him but he supposed that she would rarely let him do anything without watching him now that he was back after she thought he had been lost. He shrugged off the question. The scars were old ones. “I was in a few fights,” he explained.

  He watched Fothair throughout the day, checking for signs of fever and was grateful when there were none. He mixed another sleeping draught around midday, forcing Fothair to drink it to keep him asleep. By late afternoon the big man was stirring again and opened his eyes. He tried to speak but Brude made him be quiet until he had fed him some fish soup his mother had made, followed by some oatmeal cakes.

  Fothair’s eyes were brighter and more alert by the time he had finished but he was still sleepy from the drinks Brude had mixed and weak from losing blood. “Why are you doing this?” he managed to ask.

  “You’re my slave now,” Brude told him. “I don’t want you to die otherwise you’d be a waste of what I spent on you.”

  “The others? Oengus? Cet?”

  “I couldn’t afford them.”

  Fothair studied him for a moment, “Why me?”

  “Because you’re bigger, tougher and smarter than the other two. And because it annoyed Colm.” Brude was a little disappointed in himself at how true that last bit was.

  Fothair tried to laugh but gasped in pain when he did. “I suppose if I live it will annoy him even more,” he managed to say.

  “I’m sure it will.”

  “Then I’ll try to live. But I don’t think I’ll make a very good slave.”

  Brude smiled and said, “I don’t know whether I’ll make a good master. I’ve never had a slave before.”

  “You won’t have one for long either,” Fothair told him. “I’ll run as soon as I can.”

  “Wait until you’re better before you try that. You won’t run far in the state you’re in just now.”

  Brude made him drink another potion and waited until the big man fell asleep, his chest rising and falling evenly.

  “Will he live?” his mother asked him.

  “If the wounds stay free of infection, I think he will. I’ve seen men survive worse.” He had also seen men die from lesser wounds that had become infected, but he thought it best not to mention that.

  “What is he to you anyway?” asked Seoras. “Do you know him?”

  “I only met him yesterday,” Brude said. “But I like him. And this is partly my fault. Colm did this because I asked him not to hurt him if he caught him.”

  “That sounds like Colm,” Seoras agreed, his voice grim.

  The feast was held outdoors in the wide space in front of the broch where the ground was relatively flat and even. Wooden tables had been set up on trestles around a massive cooking pit over which two freshly slaughtered lambs and a calf were roasting. Stools and chairs had been hauled from the houses and jugs of ale and uisge beatha were brought out. Colm sat at a long table, Mairead on his left, with Brude in the position of honour on his right. The hostility of the morning was gone and Colm was in expansive mood, especially after he had toasted Brude’s return with a tumbler of uisge.

  Brude was wary of drinking to
o much. He had been young when he left and had only rarely been drunk. During his years as a slave strong drink was a luxury usually denied him although he had in the later years tried some of the Roman wines. Still, he knew he was not used to alcohol, and certainly not to the potent uisge, so he decided to restrict himself to only sipping at some ale.

  Practically the whole village was there, both the upper and lower parts of it. Excuses for feasting were always welcome and everyone wanted to take part. A group of young men began playing some music, beating on drums while two played wild, intricate melodies on small flutes. Brude saw Caroc, the smith, still frowning at everything, drinking from an enormous mug. Seoc was there and the giant Cruithne too. There were others he recognised now, mostly the older women. His mother reminded him of their names and who they were related to. She was sitting beside Brude with Seoras to her right but young Castatin wormed his way into a seat to sit next to Brude. The boy spluttered when he tried some uisge, tears coming to his eyes, much to everyone’s amusement. “It does that to me too,” Brude whispered to him.

  The drink flowed as the sun slowly dipped t the horizon, turning the sky a glorious red. Torches were lit and candles were set out on the tables. The meat was carved and passed round, then more drink was poured. The music became more fragmented as the musicians grew more and more drunk and the evening air filled with laughter and the growling and yapping of dogs that prowled beneath the tables, fighting over dropped scraps.

  Brude was happy. Not drunk, but happy and relaxed. Then Mairead leaned forwards and said, “Brude, you must tell everyone what happened to you. We are all dying to know and you will have to tell the tale a hundred times unless you tell us all now.”

  Brude looked across at her, saw that she really did want to know. Colm was not pleased but played the part of a magnanimous host and made no objection, especially when others joined in the demands for Brude’s story.