The Blood of the Iutes: The Song of Octa Book 1 (The Song of Britain 4)

by James Calbraith

  This catches Basina’s attention. “Your father fought against Rome? Were you in this war?”

  “I was only a child,” I reply, and the interest in her eyes fades. “But I’ve heard plenty of stories,” I add hastily. “My father led the allied army of all fair-hairs against the Britons. I could tell you all about…”

  “Then you’re here against your king’s will?” asks Hildrik. There’s a brusque roughness to his question which takes me aback.

  “We stowed away on the Roman legate’s warship,” I reply. “I was hoping I could convince my father to help the Imperator this way.”

  “Maybe you could convince my father, while you’re at it,” he says with a wry smile. “Gods know I’ve tried enough.”

  He stands up and wipes his hands on the cloak. “I need to talk to my uncle. Are you coming with me, Basina?”

  “I’ll join you later,” she replies. “I want to hear Octa’s tales of the war.”

  A moment later, Audulf also stands up. “I think I’ll go look for my relatives. I’m sure I’ve seen some over by the stables. Gille, Ursula?”

  “I’ll stay,” says Ursula with a mischievous grin. “I also want to hear Octa’s tales of war.”

  “So, your fathers fought on different sides in this war?” asks Basina, once I finish retelling the Battle of Eobbasfleot.

  “My parents are magistrates, not soldiers,” replies Ursula. “My father didn’t take part in the fighting. Neither did my mother. But they were enemies.”

  The spit servant offers us slices of freshly roasted meat. Ursula bites into hers with vigour.

  “And now you are…” Basina looks from me to Ursula. “…lovers?”

  “Lovers?” Ursula chuckles. “No — just friends.”

  “Do you have a lover back in Britannia?” Basina asks me.

  I spit a piece of gristle and lick fat from my fingers. “Why have you come with Hildrik?” I reply with a question.

  “You heard me. My husband dishonoured himself with a failed campaign. I no longer wished to be with him.”

  “I know, but… Why Hildrik? Why not any other victorious commander? Why not whoever it was that defeated your husband’s armies?”

  She smiles. “Back home, I saw the tribes fighting each other for scraps of Attila’s legacy. But whatever treasures the Huns had, came from Rome’s chests. Trinkets, thrown at us by the envoys. The true power and glory is here, within the Empire’s borders. This is what the Huns came for, and countless others before them.”

  “And now you. Do you think that Hildrik’s Franks will be the ones to grant you the power you seek?”

  She shrugs. “If not, I will seek further. At least here, I am closer to the source of the power than I ever was in Thuringia.”

  “Then you don’t love him?” asks Ursula.

  Basina laughs “Love? I love gold. I love conquest. I love hearing the skulls of enemies crushed under victorious boots. And I will love the man who brings me the most of it.”

  Ursula tears off a strip of meat with her teeth. “So… Even our Octa here might have a chance, if he proves himself a capable leader?” she asks with a chuckle.

  Basina puts her hand on my shoulder and runs her finger under my ear. I shiver in bliss.

  “He’s young. Who knows what the future may bring him?” She stands up. “I must find my betrothed. I hope we can talk again.”

  I give Ursula a furious stare. She shrugs it off.

  “What a woman, huh?” she says after Basina leaves. “Almost makes me want to become a king, just to have a chance with her.”

  “What was all that about?” I ask.

  “Come now, Octa. I was only helping. I saw the way you looked at her.”

  “Every man with healthy eyes looks at her the same way. But she is the betrothed of our host. I’m not going to bring him dishonour.”

  “She didn’t seem to mind,” says Ursula, scratching her nose.

  “We need to leave this place,” I say, “before we get ourselves in trouble.”

  PART 2: FRANKIA

  CHAPTER VII

  THE LAY OF ODO

  I hear familiar accents as we cross the town’s gates. I see familiar-looking faces. It’s almost as if we are back in Britannia.

  We are back on the coast — a day’s march further north than Epatiac, in the small harbour town of Bononia; or rather, what’s left of it. The town itself, protected by two remaining walls of a Roman fort, rises on high land above a broad river estuary. Looking down, I see remains of houses, fortifications, temples and basilicas, and, further downstream, stone wharves and port warehouses. An entire sunken city spreads below us, several times greater than current Bononia, swallowed by the ravenous Narrow Sea. One of the few structures still standing is a mighty lighthouse, maybe even greater than the one at Dubris on the other side of the sea, overlooking the ghost of the harbour from the top of a nearby cliff. The maze of ruins makes it impossible for any ship larger than a ceol to penetrate further upstream, to where the moorings now are, and so, what looks to once have been a mighty harbour, capable of supporting an entire war fleet, has been reduced to a small Saxon port.

  It is the Saxon and Iute voices I hear everywhere on the town’s narrow streets and market place. This is a Saxon town now, but unlike any in Britannia — the Gauls had abandoned it as soon as the port ceased to function, and the Saxons simply moved into their place, to live among the wealh ghosts. It is a clear day, and I think I can see Cantia’s shores on the distant horizon, though it might be just the trick of the sun and clouds. It would be easy to change my mind now, to reconsider my mistake, hire a ship from the harbour below and go back home. Forget the brief escapade ever happened. Forget Basina’s dark eyes, gleaming like garnets in the hilt of Hildrik’s sword…

  I look to my companions. They seem content. They are well rested, fed on roast pig and ale. We haven’t yet suffered any great hardships on our adventure, other than being led in chains through northern Gaul for a few days; but that now seems a harmless setback, which served only to whet everyone’s appetite for more exploits. They expect me to take them further on, to southern Gaul, as promised; what I haven’t told them yet is that I have no idea how to get there — wherever “there” is. And even if we do reach some southern port, how would I find Legate Aegidius and the Imperator’s army again?

  One thing’s certain — we are not going to get anywhere near southern Gaul from Bononia. The small ships that land here ply only the Narrow Sea. And it is not why we are here. I agreed to come to this town as a favour to King Meroweg. I’m here as his representative, to send off the freed Iutes back home, and to welcome a ship arriving from Britannia. A ship sent by Rex Aeric.

  “That looks like one of the royal ceols,” remarks Gille, pointing to a small vessel being drawn out on the beach.

  “Too small,” I say, remembering the size of The Swallow. “But it’s one of ours.”

  “How many warriors can fit on something like that?” he asks Audulf as we descend the cliff path. “Twenty?”

  “I doubt my father is sending warriors,” I say. “He promised ‘assistance’. Knowing him, it’s just some supplies and iron for weapons.”

  There’s a man on the beach, waiting for the ship to reveal its load. Tall, with long black hair with specks of grey in it, bound by a diadem of gold and silver, wearing a purple-trimmed cloak marked with an emblem of the Imperial Eagle.

  “I thought we were the ones supposed to meet the ship,” I wonder out loud. “What’s a Roman official doing here?”

  “I’m no Roman,” the man replies. “I’m a Gaul, and I’m a friend of Rex Aeric. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

  “If you are Rex Aeric’s friend, you should recognise his son,” says Audulf.

  The stranger stares at me with a puzzled frown. “Little Octa?”

  “Clearly, not so little anymore,” I say, annoyed. “And who might you be, to be so familiar with me? I don’t remember ever meeting a Gaul like you.”r />
  “No, I don’t suppose you’d remember. We haven’t seen each other in… what was it, six years? So, you finally came to see the famous Gaulish horses!”

  “You’re Odo!” I recall at last. “The cavalry Decurion!”

  “The very same.” He bows and, in response, so do my friends, though they appear confused. “Now that we remember who we are, how about answering the second question?”

  “We come on behalf of King Meroweg,” I reply. “What about you?”

  “I own this wharf,” he says, nodding towards the ceol. “And everything on it.”

  The crew lowers a gangway from the deck, and a Iute sailor emerges, leading a pony in full tack. Another pony follows, then another, until a whole score of them stands in a row on the foreshore.

  I can tell at one glance: these aren’t just any ponies; these are the moor ponies. The finest treasure the Iutes possess, worth more than their weight in gold. I recognise my father’s wisdom; anyone could provide Meroweg with men or swords. Only the Iutes could offer him these mounts.

  “It feels like a waste to have these ponies ridden by the Franks,” I tell Odo.

  He nods. “I know what you mean. The Franks have their own mounts that they know and love. They will not appreciate these little beasts.”

  One more gift emerges from the ship’s hold: a large, iron-bound chest. Odo orders it opened. I peer inside and see twenty fine seaxes, twenty lance-heads, and a stack of helmets and mail shirts. I pick up one of the seaxes and swish it around. It’s a long blade, of the kind my mother used to make, good for fighting on foot as well as from horseback.

  “It’s enough to equip a full wing of cavalry,” says Odo. “All you need now is men.”

  “And an officer to lead them,” I say, giving him a pressing look.

  “Don’t look at me,” he protests. “I fought my last battle at Eobbasfleot.”

  I turn my gaze towards the freed Iutes, waiting to board the ceol before it sails back to Britannia. Though there are some civilians among them, at least half of them are mariners, and a Iute mariner is as good a warrior as any. In this remote part of the world, with no king or Gesith to command them, I, the aetheling, am the only one whose orders they should heed. All of it is almost too much of a coincidence — if I was as superstitious as an average Iute, I’d almost think it’s the gods telling me what to do next…

  “I know that stare,” says Ursula. “You’re thinking of doing something mad again.”

  “I’m just wondering… Wouldn’t it make more sense if, instead of just four unarmed younglings, what we offered to the Imperator was a battle-hardened cavalry squadron?”

  “Your father sent these for the king of Franks, not for the Imperator.”

  “And I will bring them to the king of Franks — with a band of warriors to carry them. This is my best chance to prove myself, to erase the shame of that dark night. None of these Iutes will have heard about my embarrassment. They only know me as their aetheling — and will follow me like they’d follow my father.”

  She shrugs. “Listen, we already told you we will go with you wherever you take us. Neither I nor Gille have any reason to return to Britannia in a hurry — and Audulf seems glad to be here, in his home land. The only person you need to justify your decision before is yourself. If this is what helps you pretend there’s another reason why you want to go back to Tornac…”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  At Odo’s signal, we charge onwards. There’s no formation, no wedge or line, just four riders on four ponies crossing the swampy meadow in a haphazard manner, raising fountains of mud. We reach the line of hay bales, each stacked to the size of a warrior, and strike.

  Only I and Audulf reach the hay with our swords. I slice through the top of the bale and let the pony’s momentum push it forward, before turning back for another strike. Gille tramples the hay under the hooves of his pony. Ursula misses by a few inches, then stops and whacks repeatedly at the bale until there’s nothing left of it. Audulf does the same.

  “Break!” shouts Odo. “Turn for another charge!”

  Ursula and Gille heed the order, but Audulf struggles to make his pony move. I ride up to him and pull on the reins. At last, his pony rears and canters back, with Audulf holding barely on its back. Fortunately, the ponies seem to have received some cavalry training back in Britannia; they certainly know what they’re supposed to be doing better than we do. Eventually, we manage to execute the second attack, this time more or less in single line, before returning to the grassy knoll where Odo stands.

  He rubs his eyes with a sigh. The other group of four riders, selected from among the freed Iutes, ride out to the field, as servants set up the hay bales again.

  “Gille — good control, but your enemy will not be a bale of hay, but a man with a spear. Ponies don’t have the chest of a war horse. If you charge like this, your mount will get skewered on the blade,” Odo says. “Audulf and Ursula — your main weapon as a rider is speed and manoeuvrability. If you stop to fight, or to finish someone off, you’re dead. Always be on the move. Always turn.”

  We nod eagerly, but I can see Odo’s exasperation with our lack of talent eating him inside. We may all be decent riders when it comes to simple travel, but we were never trained to fight on horseback; even the Hiréd prefer to dismount for fighting — one of the reasons why my father had such a hard time dealing with Haesta’s mounted mercenaries.

  “I should show you how to use the light lance,” he says, “but it would take weeks to learn how to use it properly. If you must, just use it as a javelin, or a club. Better yet, don’t use it at all. You’ll only hurt yourselves. Well done, Seawine!” he shouts as one of the riders executes a perfect charge-and-turn.

  He’s one of the few Iutes who have some skill in riding. The other one is Odilia, the shy girl who stared at me so keenly on that first day, after our failed rescue attempt. She hails from a small farm on the outskirts of Robriwis that we’d pass in our races; she’d watch us play while she toiled at her family’s fields.

  “I wondered what you were all doing,” she told me. “I didn’t know you were the king’s son, but I knew you had to be a noble to have so much free time to play. I wished I could play with you.”

  “And now, here you are,” I said, smiling. “A Iute warrior in aetheling’s service.”

  I watch her make the same mistake as Gille — charging straight at the hay doll, instead of to its side, for a sword strike — but she’s keen to try again, and so are the others, though they fare much worse.

  I did not order them to follow me, even though I had the power, if I wanted to — I asked them to join me as volunteers, though I could not tell them what missions I would take them on, or what spoils we could count on winning.

  “I was thinking of turning to mercenary work anyway,” Seawine replied to my request, while the others nodded in agreement. He had a natural authority about him, which made him overnight a leader of the freed captives. “Those pirates took our livelihoods, and with the situation in Britannia as it is, there’s little chance for a brave, honest man to win himself some gold.” He shook the newly gifted seax in his hand to confirm the gravity of his decision.

  I was hoping for a handful — I got them all, even the old woman from Leman; I had to send her and a few others, too old or too frail to be of any use, back to Cantia, but enough of them remained for the “cavalry wing” of my imagination to come true. A dozen freed slaves, the four of us — that left us with four ponies in reserve and to carry supplies, a proportion Odo said was proper for a well-equipped squadron.

  “I can’t teach you anything more here,” he says, observing the riders. “You can’t build a cavalry unit overnight. You’ll just need to train with these few manoeuvres every day, until you’ve perfected them, and hope for the best.”

  “Are you sure you can’t come with us?” I ask.

  “I’m done with war,” he says. “Hopefully, where you’re going, what I taught you shou
ld be enough. Most tribes here are like the ones in Britannia — they don’t fight well on horseback. Just pray that you don’t stumble on any horse archers. There are still some left in Gaul, roaming the countryside like hawks.”

  “We will try to stay out of their way,” I say and smile. “Right, you lot,” I say to the others, “back on those ponies, and let’s try again. The day is still young.”

  “I will let your father know what I saw here,” Odo says as I turn away. “I’m sure he will be proud.”

  The forest reminds me of Andreda.

  The great Roman highway, paved with crushed limestone, gleaming white, skirts its northern edge; to our left spread the fields, pastures and farms, scattered among the moors and hills, smouldering slag heaps and smoking chimneys of the smelters. To our right rises a dense barrier of ancient, gnarled oaks, sprawling hornbeams, and slender, silver beeches. Though the spring sun is high up, it doesn’t penetrate beyond the first few lines of trees and scrub. Anything could be hiding in that darkness; and though our guides assure us there are no bandits in these woods, at least not in large enough numbers to threaten us, I find it hard to stay calm. There’s no way a forest like this isn’t teeming with outlaws, runaway slaves — and worse.

  I would be even more concerned if it was just the handful of us, riding down this exposed stretch of highway. We are a vanguard of a greater force, a troop of infantry led by Hildrik. Our mission is the same as Haesta’s and his mercenary band a few years ago: to patrol the frontier along the Rhenum River and intercept any Saxon or Aleman incursions; they continue to harass the villagers in that region. It’s not a particularly exciting or glorious expedition, but neither I nor Hildrik expect our small army to stay long on the Rhenum border. King Meroweg has greater plans for this summer’s campaign season, and the skirmishes with Saxons should only serve as combat exercise for Hildrik’s troops, and as a way for my cavalry wing to gain experience and unity. As Odo said, we should have little to fear from the Saxons.