As we passed the catacombs, Ursula bade us stop and pointed to a new monument, hastily hewn in local red stone, set up at a prominent place in the middle of the graveyard. In tall, noble Roman letters, the stone-carver inscribed the names of Iutes and Franks fallen in the battles between — with Odilia’s name at the top of the list.
Ursula kept her promise, and made sure Odilia had a lavish, if Christian, burial in the city’s catacombs; everyone in the city knew her name now. But knowing that did little to ease the pangs of guilt I felt looking at her name on the stone.
“She’d have lived a long life at her farm if she hadn’t come with us,” I said.
“She wouldn’t know what life was,” replied Ursula. “She had the heart of a warrior, not a farmer.”
I shook my head. “She was too young to know. Her father filled her head with old stories that she wanted to play out.”
“You didn’t force any of us to come here. We all made this choice. And so did Odilia. The best way you can honour her memory is to finish what we’ve started.”
The three of us head out towards the river at an unhurried trot. A leather satchel bumps at my thigh — and for a moment, I’m reminded of another leather satchel, bumping at my thigh what seems like a lifetime ago, on the way to the Isle of Tanet… The bag contains the missives from Aegidius to Hildebert, copies of the Hunnic siege engine plans — to deliver to the Romans in case the city falls — and, most importantly, a scroll marked with Imperator Maiorianus’s seal, to confirm my credentials and the seriousness of the proposal. To our north, the bright dots mark the position of the first squadron, led by Paulus. Unlike us, they are not making a secret out of their passing through the dark fields. Indeed, they’re making more noise of it than would be normally necessary. The commotion soon yields the expected results.
“Look, by that ridge,” says Ursula, pointing.
A new line of bright dots appears over a shadow of a hillside, heading towards Paulus’s men. A couple of minutes later, another group, fewer in number, approaches from the riverside.
“Now.”
I spur the pony to a gallop. By some fortunate accident, my mount was returned to me with no harm except to its dignity — for the few days of my captivity it was being used to draw the city’s grain mill; as we approach the river crossing, it begins to buckle under me.
“I know you don’t want to do it,” I whisper. “Neither do I. But we have to.”
The night is warmer than the last time I swam across Mosella, but I expect the water to be just as cold and horrid as it was then. The pony can’t be too keen on repeating the experience, either. At least this time, my wounds should not flare up again, since they’ve been expertly taken care of by Rav Asher.
“I hope they’ll all be fine,” says Ursula, glancing towards Paulus’s squadron. All the clusters of lights now meet on the hill, directly to the east of where I believe the old bridge to be — I haven’t quite had the chance to map out the river since the last time I was here. Paulus’s men are only supposed to provide a distraction to our crossing; I can only hope they’ll be able to disentangle themselves from their engagement before suffering too many casualties.
“These are the islands,” I say, nodding at the shadows in the water. The moonlight shimmers in the current around them. “The bridge will be somewhere past the last one.”
“I will go first,” says Audulf. “My horse is stronger. If something goes wrong, I should manage to get across.”
Audulf is not riding a moor pony anymore — he lost that one on an early patrol and replaced it with a Gaulish war horse from the Dux’s stables. It fits him better — he’s a true Frankish warrior now, with a brand-new great axe slung over his back. Ursula, riding behind me, also wasted no time in Trever to arm herself to the teeth — she’s got a cavalry lance holstered at her saddle, a spatha hangs at her left side, and a seax, a spoil of some skirmish with the Saxons, at her right.
I chose not to burden myself with any armour, other than a Legionnaire’s helmet, remembering how difficult the crossing was when I wore a shirt of mail. My only new piece of armament is an ancient Roman spatha with a grip of ivory and gold wire, a parting gift from Arbogast, to replace the sword stolen from me by Haesta — the blade once belonged to the Dux’s father, when he was an officer in the equites. Arbogast doesn’t know the true purpose of my mission: Aegidius told him we were going to try to reach Imperator Maiorianus at Lugdunum with the siege engine plans and one last urgent plea to send help to the besieged city.
“I see it,” says Audulf. “Two rows of poles, just below the water.”
“Wait.” I stop him. “We may get separated in the current. If you end up alone, hide in the forest until morning. If we’re still not there, go back to the city.”
“I understand.”
“Same goes for you, Ursula.”
“We’ll be fine,” she says. I can’t see her smile, but I can hear it in her voice. “You go second. I’ll hold the rear.”
I emerge on the other side, spluttering and spitting, but otherwise unharmed. Going the other way, I passed the strong current first before the pony grew too tired, and held on to the course for long enough not to drift too far away; when I reach the western shore, the piers of the old bridge are less than a hundred feet away.
Ursula’s pony climbs out next to me, but Audulf is nowhere to be seen. I lost sight of him before we reached the second island, but I hoped to catch up to him when the current grew weaker.
“You don’t think he…” Ursula says.
“He could just have landed further downstream,” I reply.
Somebody approaches — on foot, not on horseback. I reach for my sword — but leave it unsheathed when I notice it’s Audulf.
“Get down!” he whispers urgently.
We dismount and hit the ground next to him. Our ponies are well trained and stay quiet in the reeds, even as a mounted patrol rides past us along the riverside road. From the way they’re acting I can see this isn’t a random guard: they’re looking for something, or someone.
“How do they know we’re here?” whispers Ursula.
“They don’t,” I whisper back. “Or they’d have noticed us already. They’re hunting for someone else.”
“Good,” says Audulf. “Then we let them pass and go on our way.”
“No,” I say. “They may be after some of our men. I promised I’d get back for them. I’m not leaving them here.”
There are four riders in the patrol, moving slowly upstream, towards the black wall of the forest looming in the distance. I gesture at Audulf and Ursula to follow on foot. Running along the shore, we soon find ourselves behind their backs. I order my friends to hide in the rushes; I stand in the middle of the road and call at the riders, my sword drawn in a defensive stance.
The Saxons turn in place. Confused, at first they can’t see me in the dark. One of them tells the others to stay, and approaches me carefully to investigate, his lance lowered.
“Who in Hel are you?” he asks. There’s a tremble in his voice. He’s my age; I imagine patrolling the dark riverside hunting for some elusive enemy was not his idea of spending a summer night. “What are you doing here?”
“Careful, Deora,” one of the other three calls. “It may be a trap.”
“Deora?” I ask. That’s a Iute name. “Are you Haesta’s men?”
“What if we are?”
I lower my sword. “Haesta told me to tell you to get back to the camp,” I speak in Iutish. “It’s all sorted out.”
“You found them?” Deora asks with relief. He lifts the lance.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s all good now.”
Deora repeats the good news to his comrades. Two of them raise a quiet cheer. But the third one, the same who suspected an ambush, remains unconvinced.
“Wait,” he says. “I’ve never seen you around. And where’s your horse? Have you run the whole mile from the camp?”
I pause too long to think of an answer. De
ora leans down to take a closer look at my face. As the grimace of confusion turns into one of surprise, I grab him by the tunic and yank him down from the saddle. At that signal, Ursula leaps out of the reeds and, with a great cry, pierces the second rider’s back with her lance. Audulf runs out from the other side, waving his great axe, and strikes at the third rider’s leg, slicing it off at the thigh.
Within seconds, only the fourth rider remains on his horse. He turns about and launches into a panicked gallop, soon disappearing out of our sight — then, in a distance, I hear a familiar thwack of a javelin hitting flesh.
Ursula and Audulf finish off their enemies with swift blows, while I wrestle a moment with mine — until I manage to draw a knife and press it to his neck. This quietens him down at last.
“Look out,” Audulf says, bloodied axe still in his hands, “someone’s coming.”
“Are there more of you?” I ask Deora. He shakes his head.
Four riders on ponies appear out of the shadows. I recognise the first one as soon as he emerges into the moonlight.
“Seawine!”
I pick the mercenary from the ground, the blade still at his neck, and hand him over to Audulf, who promptly disarms him. I greet Seawine and the other two Iutes.
“What fortune to find you here!” I say.
“It’s no fortune,” says Seawine. “We’ve been coming here every night, hoping to find you coming back.”
“Is that why they were here?” I ask, nodding at Haesta’s dead men. “Looking for you?”
“Yes. They got us two nights ago, captured half the men. We’re all that’s left.”
“What about Wirtus?”
“Never saw him after you had gone,” he says. “Only a few soldiers returned from the attack on your camp. They’re recovering at the cherry farm.” He looks around, and just now notices Audulf and Ursula. His face brightens. “You’re all back! We can now start fighting Odowakr again!”
“We’re not,” I say. “I’m not here to fight, but…” I rub my chin. “You said Haesta’s got the rest of the men?”
“That’s right. We’re all that’s left.”
“We need to get them back,” I tell Ursula and Audulf. “I’m not leaving my warriors to Haesta’s mercy.”
“We don’t have time,” says Ursula.
“We have three weeks, maybe more. One night will not make a difference.”
I grab Deora by the throat. “You. Where’s your camp? How many of you are there?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” he says.
I roll my eyes and punch him with the pommel of my knife. “Mercenaries have no loyalty. I don’t care whether you live or die. We’ll find Haesta sooner or later — I already know it’s a mile away from here. Help us, be quick about it, and you’ll live to find another master.”
He spits blood, looks at his dead comrades on the ground, then back at me with a murderous stare. Then nods to the west.
“There’s a ruin of an old watchtower on the hillside, half a mile from the road,” he says.
“I know the place,” says Seawine.
“How many men does Haesta have?” I ask again. There can’t be many left of the original warband. Haesta’s mercenaries were at the forefront of fighting against the sallies launched from Trever, and lost men in every skirmish.
The mercenary shrugs. “Ten, maybe a dozen. If you hurry, some of them will be still on patrol.”
“Will Haesta be there?” asks Seawine. His voice is vengeful — the wounds from the encounter with Haesta must still be fresh.
“At this time of night?” Deora scoffs. “He’ll be fast asleep, drunk on Mosellan wine.”
I look into his eyes and see no more defiance in them. I let him go.
“Get out of here,” I tell him, nodding at the horse.
“You’re letting him ride?” asks Ursula, wide-eyed.
“He told us everything we wanted to know,” I say. “And he is a Iute. Don’t dare come back,” I tell the mercenary. “I will kill you if I see you again.”
“At least leave me a knife.”
“Don’t push it.” I hit the rear of his horse with the flat of my sword. The beast and the rider vanish into the night.
“Search the bodies,” I order the men. “Take anything valuable, and throw them and their weapons into the ri —”
I lose my breath at that last word. As the excitement of the fight recedes, I realise I’m cold and weary again; the cold reminds me we have just swum across the Mosella. I have the right to be tired. I have the right to rest until morning.
But I don’t have the time. If we dawdle too long, Haesta will realise something’s gone wrong with his patrol, and either strengthen the guard, or move the camp somewhere we won’t be able to find him.
“Can you fight any more tonight?” I ask Ursula and Audulf, after the three bodies splash quietly into the current. They each took a bronze armband from the fallen, and some coins from their purses. Ursula replaces her lance, damaged in the attack, with one taken from Deora’s saddle holster.
“Of course,” says Audulf, shaking his axe. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
A part of me — the tired, cold part — was hoping he wouldn’t say it. Or that Ursula would admit to being weary after the swim and the brawl… But no, their eyes gleam in the moonlight with such bright anticipation that they turn into stars. I’m reminded that they spent the past few weeks gaining experience and strength as part of Trever’s bloodied cavalry, and that to them, this must be little more than a combat exercise.
I sigh, take a deep breath and sheathe my sword.
“Let’s get our mounts,” I say. “Looks like our destiny is to keep freeing these Iutes from captivity…”
There’s time for planning, and then there’s time for action.
As we ride towards the watchtower, for a while I entertain several schemes of complex attack. A diversion by setting the nearby forest on fire? But the dew is already out; it would take hours for the fire to grow big enough for anyone to notice. A precise sneak attack, without attracting too much attention? We would need to spend a long time to research the enemy’s camp, and there’d be a risk of the guards spotting us. Besides, I’m not a strategist; maybe someone like my father or Comes Pinnosa would have been able to devise a plan of sufficient complexity in the short time available — but I’m neither of them and all I have on my side is the element of surprise.
“There is no plan,” I tell the others when the camp appears in sight. The tower itself rises like a dark, crooked finger, lit up with a lantern hanging from a beam of what once would have been the second-floor look-out balcony. Crumbled remains of a low stone wall surround it on three sides; to the east, in the direction of the river, it’s replaced by an earthen bank, eroded by rains and feet into little more than a ripple in the hillside. I see only five large tents, which means the mercenary was right — there can’t be much more than a dozen men in the camp.
“We ride in, get the prisoners, load them onto the horses —” We’re bringing with us the three mounts captured on the mercenaries. “— and ride out.”
“What if they’re hidden somewhere?” asks Seawine.
“Then we just ride out. Can’t risk taking too long; there might be reinforcements nearby. Keep riding, in circle if you have to, just like Odo taught us. Don’t get yourselves slowed down.”
A hundred paces from the wall, I form us into two wedges, and spur the mounts to a charge. Audulf and Ursula lower their lances. The guards spot us, but they’re too slow to react. One is pierced with Ursula’s blade; the other leaps away from Audulf. I leap over the wall and turnabout in place, surveying the camp. The remaining guards run our way, raising alarm; some faces appear in the tent doors, then disappear, only to re-emerge with swords in their hands.
I spot the four Iutes by the wall of the watchtower, tied up; of course, Haesta wouldn’t waste a shelter on his captives. The guard watching them flees as I get closer. I point them out to Audulf an
d Seawine, and as they leap down to cut the binds, I lead the remaining riders in a circle around the camp, trampling the tents under the hooves of our ponies.
Haesta leaps out of his tent, grabs a long spear from a stand and thrusts it at the nearest rider, throwing him down. I charge at him and strike with the sword; he parries and thrusts, inches from my stomach. I ride past him, stomping all over his tent, and draw a tight arc back. He throws the spear like a javelin, hitting another horse in the flank, leaving a bloody streak; then dives into the trampled remains of the tent in search of another weapon.
Tempting as it is to stay and fight him, I have no time for this. I reach Audulf and Seawine. They have got three of the captives on the horses already and are loading the fourth one — this one’s beaten-up and barely conscious; he slips from the saddle.
“Take him with you,” I tell Audulf. “Seawine, get the other three out. Don’t stop until you reach the river, then ride north, as far as you can.”
I glance to Haesta — he’s gathered most of his men around him by now, into a hedgehog bristling with blades; my Iutes are circling them at spear-length. Ursula picks up the warrior wounded by Haesta’s spear from the ground and looks to me for orders.
“Get out!” I cry over the din of battle. She reads my lips, rather than hears my cry, and rears her pony to do a turnabout.
Audulf finally throws the last captive over the back of his war horse, leaps on top and spurs to a gallop, following Ursula and Seawine. He glances over his shoulder and notices me hesitating.
“What are you waiting for? Come on!”
But I just spotted something. In the middle of the circle of his men, Haesta stands with the weapons he took from his tent: a seax in his hand — and Basina’s bow slung over his shoulder.
The Blood of the Iutes: The Song of Octa Book 1 (The Song of Britain 4) Page 28
