I can see all this from the top of a tall, steep cliff that forms Mosella’s left bank. It stretches all along the great bend in the river’s course, in which the city itself is nestled, and guards Trever’s approaches from the West like a solid wall of blood-red rock; the gentler slopes are covered in a patchwork of the same dense, dark wood as the rest of Arduenna, and oddly regular rectangles of empty land, especially on the south-facing stretch. I remember Pinnosa mentioning Mosella’s wine, and I recognise these patches as remnants of vineyards, overgrown now with vine and brush.
Everything I see from the clifftop confirms Odilia’s reports. The barbarian army set up several camps around the city, the two largest ones to its north and south, on the grounds of old cemeteries, cutting across the main highway from Mogontiac to Mettis. A smaller one guards the eastern road, disappearing into the hills, the slopes of which are covered with more vineyards.
On my side of the river, past a heavily fortified bridge, the road hugs the shore for the most part, but a spur winds up the slope to my north: the road to Coln. It is down this spur that Odowakr will come down upon the city. I can’t yet see his band, but I know they’re there, hidden in a bend in the road, waiting for something, I don’t know what, before showing themselves to the city’s defenders.
But there is something else Odilia wouldn’t have been able to see from the ground. Trever’s mighty wall encompasses more than just the densely built-up streets in the centre — it stretches from the remains of an amphitheatre and what I’m guessing might be a chariot-racing stadium — though it’s the first time I’ve seen such an edifice — in the east, to the swampy banks and wharves of Mosella in the west; most of the land enclosed within consists of fields, pastures, farms and orchards, enough to keep Trever sustained almost indefinitely. Now I understand why the Saxons are not particularly worried about keeping their ring around the city shut tight. No siege can break Trever’s spirit — the enemy will have to eventually break through the walls.
Nevertheless, some of the city folk don’t seem to put much hope in the walls’ ability to hold the barbarians at bay for long. A thin stream of refugees flows down the last stretch of road still free of the Saxons: the southern branch of the highway along the riverside. As Pinnosa explained, though it leads to the city of Remi, it’s an arduous journey, even longer than the one we just made from Coln. It’s not surprising, therefore, that only a small number of Trever’s inhabitants have as yet decided to embark upon it.
“Something’s happening over there,” says Odilia, pointing south of the bridge. I too, now, spot a commotion on the road. A large carriage, with golden trimmings glistening in the sun, surrounded by what looks like an armed retinue, is trying to make its way towards the city, through the crowd of refugees packed on the narrow approach to the bridge.
Odilia, Ursula and I climb down for a closer look. The moor ponies take to the wooded slope like mountain goats. For a time, we lose sight of the city and the road below, hidden by the trees and the undulations of the earth. By the time we emerge onto another clearing, the commotion has grown to a panic. I now see it is not the carriage that is causing it; it only added to the original chaos, caused by the flow of refugees being reversed back into the city. I look to the south, to see in the distance a large troop of warriors, marching fast towards the bridge.
“Saxons,” says Odilia.
“They must have crossed Mosella further upstream,” I say. “They’re shutting down the last way out of the city.”
“This has to be what Odowakr’s been waiting for,” says Ursula. “We need to let Hildrik know.”
“You ride back, tell him what you saw here. Be quick.”
“What about you?”
“We still have an hour or so before we have to march out. I want to check something first.”
Ursula turns and begins a climb back. Odilia stays to keep me company. We dismount and come closer still to the edge of the slope, to take one last look at the city below. The walls may appear mighty from a distance, but Trever, too, fell to Attila’s Huns. I want to see what the passing of the barbarian horde did to its defences. I spot great gaps in the wall, filled with rubble and dirt. The round towers are crumbling, roofless, their windows gaping, charred. Even the bridge itself is in disrepair, the wooden deck raised on a lattice of wooden trusses over the black stone piers is full of holes, and one entire section of its span, nearest the city walls, is hanging in the air, supported only by thick ropes attached to timber poles and to the wall of the gatehouse on the city-side shore.
A small detachment of riders in crimson cloaks sallies forth from that gatehouse, rides past the disordered crowd and sets up a thin screen at the rear of the fleeing city folk.
“This won’t hold them long,” Odilia whispers.
I chuckle. “Are you a strategist now, too?”
Her cheeks turn beetroot red. “Apologies, aetheling,” she mumbles.
“Don’t apologise when you’re right,” I say. “Look, they’ve stopped.”
The approaching Saxon band pauses but does not retreat. The barbarians clearly aren’t keen on fighting their way through a Roman cavalry, no matter how few of them there may be — but they also have their orders, which must be to link up with Odowakr’s forces further up the road. This gives some respite to the refugees, and soon a semblance of order is restored to the fleeing crowd.
“I never asked,” I say, as the situation on the road below calms down, “what was a peasant girl from Robriwis doing on a ceol heading for Leman?”
“It was your fault, aetheling,” she replies.
“My fault? How?”
She looks away and stares at the road below. “You and your friends. I watched you so many times over the years as you raced past my farm every summer. I kept wondering about the different life you all led. I didn’t know why I had to toil in the fields, while you had time to ride around on ponies; I didn’t even know why you were only there in the summer, and disappeared after harvest…”
“My father moves between courts,” I reply. “In autumn, we all go to Leman.”
“I managed to find out that much,” she says. “And I figured that the different life you all had was somehow connected to that place. Leman,” she repeats the word with an almost pious awe, and then laughs. “I thought it had to be some great palace at the end of the world, where all the nobles lived. I learned there were a few ships going there from Robriwis, and I stowed away on one of them, not really knowing what I’d do once I got there.”
“And now you’re here. A warrior, hundreds of miles from home, further away than any Iute has ever been.”
“I’m no warrior. Not yet. I’ve heard songs about warriors. My father told me of how they are welcomed into Wodan’s Mead Hall by the silver-haired waelcyrs when they die…”
“Was your father a warrior before he turned a farmer, then?”
“He fought at Crei,” she says. “And… died fighting Wortimer, early in the war. My mother’s new husband is just a farmer. I wish I was more like my father. I wish the waelcyrs would come for me when I die.”
“You’re doing fine, Odilia.” I lay my hand on her shoulder. “Your parents would be proud. Both of them.”
“My mother must be worried sick,” she says. “I never told her where I was going…” She notices my hand and stirs. “My Hlaford…” Her cheeks turn red again.
I move the hand away, but she reaches out and holds it.
“Sometimes…” she whispers, licking her lower lip, “I would hide in the bushes by the shallow pond on the bend of Medu, and watch you from there.”
“Shallow pond…” I try to recall. “We would bathe there after the race.”
“And more.”
Now I remember — it was on the bank of the shallow pond that I first lay with Ursula.
Odilia’s boldness excites me. She no longer turns her gaze away; instead, she stares at me in a clear challenge. She is a plain-looking girl, with chains of freckles around a slightly
squashed nose and large, watery-grey eyes, but there’s a fire in her which shines through those eyes that reminds me of the fire in my own soul. I lean down to kiss her. She responds in kind, but then pulls back, and for a moment I fear I misjudged her intentions — but she only moves away to remove her tunic and lie down on the dewy moss, offering her small, pert breasts to me. A ruby crescent of arousal blooms around her neck, and another, smaller one, on her face, along the line of freckles.
Hastily, knowing how little time we have left, I accept her offering, just as the Saxons and the Romans crash into each other on the road below.
In any other land, it would’ve been impossible to hide a hundred-strong warband from the enemy’s sight for long, especially one that already is aware of our presence and expects an ambush. But the Arduenna wood is so dark and dense, the hill slopes so riddled with folds and nooks, that at times, we can barely see each other among the tall scrub.
Sneaking through the forest is our only hope of surprise. Odowakr knows how close we have been following him, and he knows he’s in the perfect place for a trap, where the Roman road narrows into a gorge before descending into the steep river valley. But we have no choice. Our plan is not to destroy his forces, for this we are too few, even with the reinforcements gathered in the forts along the way — but to distract them long enough for the rest of Pinnosa’s scheme to succeed.
This is no place for mounted combat, at least not at first, so we leave our ponies on top of the gorge before climbing halfway down the slope. We reach our positions just in time. Odowakr’s vanguard appears from around the bend, watchful, seaxes in hand. On one side, our side, the road is bound by a tall face of the red, crumbling rock that is so ubiquitous here; on the other, the slope descends into a steep ravine.
The outcrop of red rock we huddle behind is not just a random boulder. We chose this place carefully. There is a good path down to the Roman road here, easy to climb down and back up, if needed. More importantly, the winds, the rains and the tree roots have weathered the red boulder down into a cracked, crumbled mess with several large crevices at its base. Audulf and Seawine drag a trunk of a young pine tree and shove it into one of those holes, then wait for my command.
The Saxon vanguard moves past the narrowest point. They stop at the last twist, from which they have a clear view of the entire river valley. Their leader raises a horn to his mouth and blows a signal: the road is clear. Soon, the rest of Odowakr’s host marches forth in a well-organised column, with Haesta’s riders in front and a troop of heavy spearmen guarding the rear. I see no bear-shirts among the warriors — they must only wear these outfits when they’re certain of battle, and ready to drink the henbane.
I raise my left hand. Audulf and Seawine lean on the pine trunk. I draw the spatha from its sheath by an inch. I close my eyes for a moment and calm my breath. When I open them again, the main body of Odowakr’s army is right beneath us. I wave a signal. Audulf and Seawine heave with all their might. The trunk bends and creaks, and I fear it will snap, when at last, the wall of red rock leans forward and, with an almighty rumble and roar, snaps, crumbles and rolls down onto the road and the Saxon troops below.
I raise the sword over my head and lead my men charging down the path. All over the slope, Hildrik’s warriors pour out of their hiding places. They smash into the rear and centre of the Saxon horde with such force that I almost believe we will prevail against it right there and then, and the whole precise plan, devised by Pinnosa and Hildrik, will prove unnecessary. But Odowakr even in this chaos remains resolute. He rallies his men into as good a ring of defence as is possible on the narrow pass; the Saxons draw their shields and form a tight wall around their chieftain, though with nothing but a sheer drop behind their back, they have little space for manoeuvres.
Haesta and his mercenaries trot in place at first, hesitant, uncertain where to attack. Odowakr is too busy saving himself to give him orders, and with the rubble strewn across the road, there is no clear route for a cavalry attack. But all doubt vanishes from his face when he sees me and the Iutes rushing down the slope. He lowers his helmet’s visor and spurs his horse towards us. Only now does Odowakr shout an order to Haesta, but it’s too late; the horsemen splitting away from the main host are a signal — not for the Saxons, but for the Franks, to also pull away from the shield wall in a feigned panic.
We’re almost too slow to retreat before Haesta’s chargers. Unlike Hildrik’s Franks, we don’t need to feign fear. The earth trembles under the hooves of the Thuringian beasts, and the cliff-side crumbles under us from the tremors. At last, we reach the safety of the wooded slope. Haesta doesn’t stop. He guides the horse up the path after us. His men hesitate at first, before doing the same. It’s not easy to scramble back up the narrow path — but it’s still harder to do it on horseback. The hooves of Haesta’s mount slip on the mud and rock. Now I have to urge my Iutes not to flee so quickly; otherwise Haesta’s rage will subside too fast, and he will return to the road sooner than planned.
As I climb, through the trees to my right I glimpse the rest of the battlefield. The Frankish retreat breaks the line of the shield wall. The Saxons pursue, triumphant, heedless of Odowakr’s hoarse warnings. Before long, only his household warriors remain with him, accompanied by the rear guard of heavy spears, who until now have taken no part in the battle, still wary of the Roman forces hiding somewhere further up the road. The Franks and the Saxons disappear into the woods. The crashing of arms and the cries of the fallen tell me the clash in the forest is bloody and deadly; even drawn into our trap, the Saxons are putting up a fierce fight. This is not a battle the Franks can win through sheer strength of arms.
I glance back, and my heart comes up to my throat. Somehow, Haesta has managed to force his horse to climb straight up the narrow mountain path, as if it was one of our ponies. He is now just a few steps behind me, the tip of his lance now-gleaming, now-darkening in between the rays peering through the leaves, only a thrust away. I slip on the wet stone and slide towards him, grasping at lichen and grass to scramble back up.
“Aetheling!”
I hear the cry and the tumult of hooves on stone before me. I look up, rolling away at the last moment. Odilia charges madly from above; she wields no weapon, just holds tightly to the reins of her pony as it rams into the flank of Haesta’s horse. The two beasts tumble down, throwing off both riders into the bushes. I hear the nauseating loud crack of a spine; I can’t tell whether it’s one of the mounts or the riders. Haesta’s horse rolls further down, blocking the way up for his companions.
I descend carefully to find Odilia. Her leg is crushed under the body of her pony. She’s unconscious but still breathing. While I struggle to free her leg, Haesta scrambles up; so does his horse, with a pained snort. With rage in his face, Haesta draws his sword and starts climbing towards me again, when a desperate sound of war horns tears the air. We both look through the trees towards the battle below; I know what’s going to happen now, if everything has gone according to the plan. Haesta, on the other hand, is up for a nasty surprise…
A dense, crimson wedge of Pinnosa’s cavalry storms into Odowakr’s rear guard. It is a suicide push, the last ever charge of Coln’s equites, straight onto the enemy’s outstretched spears. The shafts shatter on the horses, the horses tumble over the spearmen, the riders fall on the cobbles. The agonising whinnying of the fallen beasts reaches even my ears, up on a distant slope. I turn my eyes away from the bloody spectacle.
Haesta points his sword at me. Only Odilia’s pony separates me from his blade. I draw the spatha, ignoring the stinging in my hand, torn on the rough stones. The anxious horn sounds again. It’s Odowakr, calling back his men from the pursuit in the forest.
“We’ll finish this later — aetheling,” Haesta snarls.
He turns back, limping slightly — I remember now how my father crushed his right leg at Wecta, many years ago — and leaps back on his horse. The mercenaries ride down to face what’s left of Pinnosa’s cavalr
y after it punched through the Saxon spearmen.
I turn my attention back to Odilia. The other Iutes have by now returned, bringing the ponies back from the old oak glade.
“Help me!” I cry.
Audulf rushes to push the dead pony from the girl’s leg. The pain wakes her up. She gasps and grabs my hand. A trickle of blood pours from her mouth.
“My Hlaford…”
“Hush, Odilia.”
“I will dine… with Wodan…?” she whispers.
“Of course, Odilia,” I reply. “Can’t you see the waelcyr?”
“I do… my Hlaford… I see them… Flying on white horses…!”
She winces and her body goes limp in my hands.
“I’ll carry her,” Ursula offers. She picks up the girl carefully and puts her on her own pony. She hands me my mount’s reins. “Lead us to glory, aetheling. For Odilia’s sake.”
One final piece joins the deadly game. The last, and the largest, army enters the battle, if only briefly, and in a great hurry: the Coln refugees.
Flanked by Pinnosa’s Legionnaires, crowding around the wagons and horses, nearly two thousand men and women, tired and hungry, rush down the winding road, squeezing past the narrow corridor cut through Odowakr’s forces by the equites’ last charge. With most of the Saxons still busy hunting Hildrik’s Franks deep in the forest, the only warriors able to stop the thundering multitude are the Haestingas; but they took too long chasing after us and return to the road too late to make a difference. The roaring torrent of men sweeps past them and threatens to engulf them. Haesta’s men can only retreat into the shadow of the cliff face and wait as the human river rushes past them. Across the road, Odowakr’s guard tightens the ring around their chieftain; they appear stunned by the sheer audacity of our undertaking.
The Blood of the Iutes: The Song of Octa Book 1 (The Song of Britain 4) Page 22
