And then he starts again, blow after blow, one stroke after another.
Until exhaustion gets the best of him. But he has still not managed to return the gleaming weapon to perfection.
A lick of animal fat to polish the engravings, a little grease on the matted cord wound around the haft. The job is done.
It is evening when Brogan drops by to pick up the ax, and the results astonish him. He pays Calgacos and asks to speak with Cormac: he wants to compliment him on his work.
But the blacksmith is not in. Or rather, he is not presentable. Drunk again, he has dragged himself to the foot of the furnace, falling asleep instantly in the warmth of the dying embers. It will be hard to speak to him any sooner than tomorrow morning.
Calgacos accepts the payment and the compliments that his master does not deserve.
Then, at last, he takes a breather and sits down on the cool grass.
He sips the dregs from a bowl of ale overlooked by the old man, and watches the sun dip behind the hills. Another day dies, and the boy feels reborn.
As soon as it is dark, he checks that Cormac is fast asleep, snatches up the leather sack he hides at the back of the workshop and slips away, headed straight for the woods.
The clearing is a thousand paces or so from the village. He found it by accident, one afternoon spent spying on Adraste and her mother as they bathed in the river. Calgacos had climbed a tree to get a better look; he could hardly bear to wait. He was dying to find out what women looked like without their clothes on. Just at the best moment, though, right when Adraste had slipped her dress over her head and was about to get into the water, the branch had snapped and the boy had fallen ass-first to the ground, in the middle of the woods. The commotion immediately sent flocks of every kind of bird skyward, spooking the two already nervous women and causing them to beat a hasty retreat.
Calgacos, massaging his wounded behind, glanced around himself and realized he was standing in the middle of something remarkable. The enormous, circular clearing had the form of an eye, or rather a mouth, agape with wonder, amid the dense woodland. No trails led to that unnatural space; someone had created the magical site where others would not find it. In the middle stood a lone trunk, sole survivor of the purge. Taller than a grown man, two branches like monstrous arms extend from either side, ready to strike. The boy took a look at the trunk and found it was scarred by hundreds of gashes. Running his sweaty palm across the wood, he felt the ancient wounds, where savage lunges had left their mark.
Calgacos did not believe in destiny. In all honesty, he did not know if there was really something or someone out there, steering the lives of men. Often, in the silence of the night, with Cormac snoring so loudly that not even milk of the poppy would have been enough to send him to sleep, Calgacos had even doubted the gods. But faced with that exquisite hole in the forest, damn it, that open-air gymnasium, he had a keen sensation that he had been granted a gift. And that someone or something had just made a decision for him. In the same way that, many years earlier, someone had chosen that name for him, charged with future promise: Calgacos, “He with the sword.”
At that point the boy had run home and set to work doing what he had come into the world to do. He had taken an old, curved blade that had lain in the workshop since who knew which warrior had abandoned it there, leaving to go to sea or returning from the blood-stained lands, and restored to its former splendor.
With the blade finished, he had returned to the clearing to begin training. With neither a teacher nor even the vaguest idea of how to handle a sword in combat. Swinging and lunging by the moonlight, sculpting his muscles to the sound of metal on wood.
Since that night, the young blacksmith has never given up on chasing his destiny.
Moon after moon he has cut, thrust, parried and dodged countless imaginary blows.
Month after month he has transformed his own miserable existence into a wild dream.
Year after year, Calgacos has imagined the future.
The very future which, a few hours from now, will be denied him forever.
But Calgacos knows nothing of destiny.
He hacks and slashes until he cannot go on. Until the moonlight gleams on the back of his sweat-pearled neck, quietly whispering that dawn is not far off, that it is time to go and sleep.
He is satisfied and content, exhausted but full of life.
He follows the same path of branches and sharp leaves all the way back to the hut and, when he finds himself face to face with her, she seems a ghost.
A spirit of the night, a vision: Adraste is there, standing in front of the closed door. Beautiful and pale, a shy smile on her lips and a flower in her hair. She is holding her hands behind her back and slowly skipping from one foot to the other.
The boy would like to say something, but the maiden is tired, and the night is not meant for words. She takes the slightest of steps towards him and brushes his lips with hers.
It is the first time for both of them.
The girl turns the caress into a real kiss, Calgacos is a little awkward but he does alright.
Tongues and playful bites, giggles, teeth, the moon still shining.
It lasts as long as it needs to last—certainly not long enough. Calgacos wants more, and without a doubt Adraste does as well, but the time for love has just ended, though neither realizes it.
Death, the damned witch, is already at the gates.
It begins with a hiss, followed by a streak of fire.
The blazing arrow lands in the workshop roof and the flames spread with unbelievable speed.
In the space of a few seconds the hut catches fire and Cormac emerges from the doorway, half-asleep and cursing as only a British blacksmith who has been drinking since the early afternoon is able to:
“By the scrotum of Belenus! What the fuck’s going on?”
When he realizes his world is about to be reduced to ash he wants to go on swearing, and with more imagination, but the second flaming arrow strikes his bald head, burning his flesh without compassion.
Cormac slumps down, dead before he hits the ground.
Adraste screams and cries, flees towards her home.
Her father is already at the threshold, like many of the men in the village. Most are naked, long beards and hair twisted into sweaty braids. A war hammer or dagger in the right hand. It does not take the warriors long to comprehend that the hordes of Rome are at the gates: the blast of cavalry trumpets, the clatter of iron-shod hooves, words of damned Latin rending the air. They organize themselves in a few moments, Calgacos watches them in shock as his house and entire life go up in flames.
In his left hand he is still grasping the sack with his training sword in. His master’s face is gone, horribly burned away by the tar on the flaming arrow.
But there is no time for things on fire, whether huts or unlucky people; the warriors of the village are already on a war footing and march straight past Calgacos, throwing themselves into the attack.
The impact is deafening, the vanguard of the XX Legion Valeria Victrix is merciless; the boar standard flutters in the night’s reddish glow. The troops under the command of Sextus Julius Frontinus are hungry for victory, a desperate desire to get this over with. The conquest of the Island has dragged on for too long: how many of these soldiers left home before their children were born? Now those kids have grown up, and within a couple of years at the most they will be demanding their own place in the army ranks. It is not supposed to be like this. In the name of Hercules, why do these stubborn barbarians go on resisting the all-conquering Eagle? Ordovician blood fights with honor, with rage doing the rest. A Roman officer is unhorsed before he even has time to say a word. The Briton he is fighting hammers his skull to pieces. His brothers take care of the rest of the vanguard: a dozen or so heavily-armed men receive a heavy lesson, while the women of the village gather to put out the fire.
The puddles are sprayed with mud and brain matter, the barbarian swords gorge on the blood of the
She-wolf.
Triumph.
But it is only the beginning, the village chieftain knows that very well. He gathers men, women and whimpering children. At his signal there is silence, the wind drops. Even the legionaries’ dead bodies look like pillars of salt, mummified remains.
“You must leave! The dogs will be back, this was just a taster.”
The Lord of Hammers does not mince his words, intended for the women and children. They do not argue, rushing into their huts to grab the leftovers of bread. Even before first light, the road is crowded with refugees in flight. The chieftain watches the womenfolk as they slip away towards the woods, wishing good luck for them and a glorious death for himself.
The invaders do not make them wait: as the sky takes on a pinkish hue, the fire of Rome is at the gates once more. Calgacos has grown up with the idea of war. He has spent nights training himself against make-believe enemies, imagined centurions, creatures of the wood whose heads he has taken clean off.
But the truth is that nobody can really be ready for war.
He had thought he would wield his sword fearlessly. He had thought he would hurl himself at the enemy, invoking the names of the gods at the top of his lungs.
In search of a good death.
But instead he is trembling uncontrollably behind the well in the middle of the village.
When he notices someone caressing his shoulder, his heart almost bursts. He wheels around and sees her: Adraste, eyes wet with tears, sleeves of her dress muddied, that same, absurd smile as always on her lips.
“What are you doing here? Run! Get away with the other women! Go!” The boy is beside himself.
The girl strokes his face, kisses him again: “I’m not leaving without you…”
“I can’t…I’ve got to…protect the village.”
Adraste laughs, thin lips brushing against his hair: “Oh, I know…You’re doing a great job! Nobody will dare touch this poor well now that you’re here to defend it!”
“You know what I mean…”
She cannot stop kissing him: “I know, I know…but you have to trust me. My father is strong, it will all be alright. We’ll stay hidden here until it’s all over. Then, when they’ve been chased off, I’ll go to the chieftain and tell him you saved my life and want to take me for your wife, what do you think?”
The girl has thought of everything.
Pretty bright, there is not much he can say.
Calgacos wants to say “yes.” To shout it as loud as he can, but the war has just returned to shatter his world.
Nobody can really be ready for war.
Nor for love.
Governor Sextus Julius Frontinus is fed up to the back teeth.
He certainly did not enlist in order to spend his life in the mud. He hates this damned island on the wrong side of the sea, hates the countryside stench of dung, the fickle weather, the howling, ill-mannered wind.
If it were up to him he would go around wrapped up in more layers than an old wet nurse, but image is everything. So he has no choice but to strut around in a sleeveless tunic in the middle of the night, as an example to the men. He would almost prefer to have a fever—that way he would have an excuse to curl up in his field tent, or better yet next to the fire, wrapped in a couple of goatskins, thank you very much. But no, not so much as an itch in his nose, even with the wind-god Aeolus giving it his all and with the hour so late that twilight is giving way to early morning.
“May as well get this over with,” he thinks. And then he gives the order.
The cavalry that they have is nothing compared to Rome’s true might: at a single gesture from their officer, the infantry forms up, marching in compact groups behind a dozen stallions, white as a December afternoon.
It is the final act of a conquest that has lasted four years. Perhaps, after the umpteenth bloodbath, Frontinus will finally be able to dedicate himself to the hobbies he has yearned to pursue since he entered the army: no more sleeveless tunics or barbarians to butcher. Only writing and contemplation. And memories, too; his head is full of them. The governor loves public works. He has never spoken to anyone about it, fearing that a weakness like that could undermine his credibility as a commander. Often, strolling around the capital or one of those thriving North African cities—he knows them inside out because the family of his wife Cornelia, great grand-daughter of the famous conqueror Scipio, has spent most of the last fifty years in the desert—Frontinus stops to observe the construction work being carried out with an interest that goes beyond mere curiosity and extends to authentic passion. Inadvertently, he frowns in concentration and crosses his hands behind his back, watching each movement of the pulleys, the placement of each ornate stone, and each trench dug for the foundation.
When he dedicates himself to contemplation he ages in a second, and the more attention he pays, the more hunched he becomes. There are those who swear they have seen the hair on his temples go gray as he daydreams, staring in rapture. It is just talk, of course; the imagination of some drunken aoidos singer. And yet, such jibes always have an element of truth to them. The interest of Sextus Julius Frontinus, slayer of barbarians and supreme conqueror of Britannia, in building sites—especially those for aqueducts—is such that the governor has for some years now been secretly drawing up plans for a great treatise on the subject. A manual, an interesting list, a compendium for telling well-crafted arches, channels and drains from the shoddier examples. He will call it De aquae ductu, an authentic light in the darkness of ignorance surrounding water-channels and construction.
For Frontinus, the time for parchment and writing styluses will come, for sharpened reed-pens dipped into hot wax. First though, he has to take care of this riffraff. Slaughter them or enslave them. Take their lands and their women. One last ferocious assault, Sextus, and then there will be only peace and quiet.
He hears the horns sounding near the village and pushes his heels into the palfrey’s flanks, setting it off at a gallop: the last mile is always the toughest.
The smell of blood is already in the air.
Two worlds colliding like stars on an unlucky course: the impact is devastating, compassion dying in a spray of red.
The men follow the governor’s command wordlessly.
The Tortoise.
They crouch into the unassailable scrum formation, their shields forming a tortoise-shell. Wood and muscles deflect the hail of stones, only just registering a couple of hits. The Lord of Hammers and his brave warriors are already at a disadvantage, and the battle has only just begun.
The barbarians throw themselves into the attack with bestial fury: braids and iron-shod maces, blades and bare chests beneath the malevolent gaze of Brigantia, three-faced goddess of the moon, deceptive and wise just like Diana, her Roman counterpart. As if by magic, the Imperial rearguard forms a circle of metal and flame around the enemy. In an instant, the first houses in the village go up in flames.
Behind the well, in the middle of the chaos, Calgacos is trembling and holding Adraste tightly against his chest. The girl is in tears, unsure if she is crying out of fear or for the joy of finally finding herself in the arms of her beloved.
The Lord of Hammers is the first to fall. Unfortunately for the villagers, he will not be the last.
Sextus Julius Frontinus himself thrusts a blade into his skull, without even the good manners to warn him first. He takes him from behind, as the Ordovician chieftain valiantly defends himself against the onslaught of a primus pilus centurion. He feels no emotion as he places the sword at the nape of his enemy’s neck and pushes with all the force required to send it slicing through brainstem, hard palate, and whatever comes after that. The governor of Britannia may well have a passion for books, but he has earned his rank on the battlefield all the same. Sextus is a born killer. Adraste’s father defends himself as best he can, backed up against the door of his house by a pack of She-wolf cubs. The Roman soldiers have the unkempt beards and gaunt looks of men who have not slept properly for mon
ths. In their eyes is a fury that brooks no resistance. There are five of them around him: the first smashes his face in with a head-butt, the second sends his teeth down his throat, but it is the third soldier who puts an end to it, impaling him on the flagpole.
The dishonor of killing a dead man falls to the other two, who set to work with ferocious blows of their short-bladed spathae swords, filthy from too many battles fought by moonlight.
Adraste sees it all. Calgacos tries to keep her with him. If he could, the boy would swallow her whole to save her from that spectacle. But the lives of the common folk are not like those of the gods; they are clumsy and vile. And all Calgacos can do is feel infinite compassion for those green eyes, eyes he loves so much that he feels his breath give out, deep down in his throat.
The red-haired girl frees herself from his grasp and runs toward her father, crying out like a wounded bird.
The soldiers have not yet finished with her dad, and go on kicking and spitting on his body. Adraste grabs hold of the biggest of them by the arm, begging him to stop in a language that no conqueror will ever manage to learn.
The infantryman seems to find the girl’s hysterical shrieking funny, but it is a different story when she bites him on the arm.
All around there is nothing but death and destruction; densely-packed Roman shields march across a carpet of lifeless bodies, while flames lick at the sky, turning the houses and lives of a hundred innocent victims to ash. A few survivors end up in chains, cheekbones smashed by a last flicker of violence before submission.
Adraste, delicate mountain flower, regrets doing it the moment she sees the look in the centurion’s eyes. No mercy, no patience. They do not see an innocent young girl, nor even a human being.
It happens fast, that is how things are in war.
The centurion grabs hold of her and flings her to the ground without a second thought. He tears her dress and gives her a couple of slaps, more to turn himself on than to keep her quiet. He pins her with his weight and even if she tried, she would not be able to move. His friends start to taunt him when he has some trouble getting in the mood, in amidst the end, the shit, the desperation. But the look of blind hatred on the girl’s face is enough to get him going, and to do the deed.
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