Camulod Chronicles Book 5 - The Sorcer part 1: The Fort at River's Bend

by Whyte, Jack

  "The gods were looking after us last night. Look over there."

  There have been times in my life when my mind has been swamped and confounded by overwhelming impressions. One of those moments came upon me when I crossed to look down from the battlements into the harbour beneath. What I saw remains with me in images that rear behind my eyes, defying me then and ever since to find words to describe it.

  Chaos and madness and unbridled destruction: half and more of the long, seaward-pointing pier of thick oak trunks and planks splintered to ruin, shattered and ruptured amid a nightmarish confusion of sunken, upended and overturned galleys scattered the length and breadth of the harbour; barnacled bottoms pointed skyward, yawing sluggishly in the dying current; shattered keels, broken masts and spars; drifting, torn and severed ropes and frayed, unravelled cables; drowned, bobbing bodies twisting in scores; swirling, scummy broken water, heaving and surging; gleaming, glistening piles and heaps of seaweed everywhere, torn from its roots and cast up by raging waves on to the wharf road along the bottom of the wall; corpses littering the shore and sprawled at the base of the wall where they had been thrown by the same waves' fury; other men scurrying among these, carrying bared blades, looking for signs of life to snuff out; everywhere the signs of overwhelming tragedy and the awful, blasting power of nature's unrestrained rage. And oars everywhere, littering the surface of the sea like impossibly straight, leafless branches, while on the straight upstanding stern of one sundered galley, a scattering of arrows stood in the wood of the planking, the only evidence among the carnage, save for the scurrying scavengers beneath, that men had been involved in dealing death here.

  Incapable of speech, I fumbled at my helmet straps and bared my head. Derek stood watching me, saying nothing. Finally, I found something to do. I began to count the shattered galleys. I lost count at fourteen and blew out a deep, sharp breath.

  "How many wrecked, do you know?"

  He shrugged. "We counted twenty, but there could be more."

  "God! And so many bodies. There must be a hundred there, still in the water."

  "Aye, but they're the light ones. Those who were wearing armour sank and stayed down."

  "Sweet Jesus! What happened? I mean, I know it was the storm, but what could have possessed their leader to allow his boats so close inshore in such conditions? He should have ridden the thing out, safe out at sea."

  "Greed possessed him, and a hunger for vengeance. They thought the storm was over, and sought to surprise us in the aftermath. There was a time, last night, when the wind fell and the storm abated and it seemed for a long time to have blown over. We all thought so. It had been raging for the entire day, by then."

  I nodded at his words. "Aye, we thought so, too, up in our fort. The wind died down and stillness fell and all was calm for several hours."

  Derek was barely listening to me, his eyes staring out to where the low island in the bay interposed itself between the town and the open sea. When he spoke again his voice was low, as though he spoke for his own ears alone.

  "It seems now, when I look back on it, as though we were becalmed for a while in a gap between two storms, and when it had moved over and beyond us, the second storm resumed more fiercely than the first had been at its worst. I have never known winds such as those. We lost two men from off the walls here, plucked up and away and blown down into the courtyard. No one can recall such a thing ever happening before." He snorted and spat wetly. "Anyway, thank all the gods, the commander of these people, whoever he might have been, judged the danger past, exactly as we did. He moved inshore in the darkness, preparing to attack us with the dawn, and when the storm returned the high tides took his fleet and dashed it to splinters here." He stepped forward to the wall and leaned out, bracing his hands on the stone parapet. "As I said, I don't know yet how many keels were lost, and we may never know, but I think we need fear little more from the Sons of Condran. Two disastrous visits in succession should destroy their taste for sacking Ravenglass."

  He turned now to look closely at me for the first time since my arrival. "You, my friend, are drenched, and blue with cold, and I have been up here all day, since before dawn. Let us go and find a fire somewhere. I doubt your good-brother Connor will arrive today. Born sailor that he is, he probably held his fleet in shelter over there, in the lee of Man."

  I looked to where he pointed, and though I could see nothing, I knew he meant the large island that hulked out there beyond the shores of Britain. Though I was no sailor, I had to agree. It seemed the proper thing that Connor, seeing the storm approaching from the west, would have assessed the risks and chosen to seek shelter there on Man, safe in the shadow of the island.

  I sighed and cast one last long look around the death- filled bay below and then I turned away, looking down into the town. There stood the two boys, Arthur and Bedwyr, staring up at me, in their own little island of stillness among the throngs bustling around them. Derek had begun to move away and I stopped him, catching at his sleeve. He stopped and half turned, watching curiously as I crooked my index finger and beckoned to the two boys to come up. They turned to each other with incredulous grins visible even from where I stood, and then they began running towards the nearest stairs.

  "What are you doing?" Derek's tone was filled with disapproval. "You think this is a sight for boys?"

  "No," I responded, watching the boys' heads as they came bounding up the steps. "Not for mere boys. But for future warriors and leaders of men there is a lesson to be learned from this, I think."

  Derek grunted disapprovingly but held his peace thereafter. When the boys arrived by my side I took each of them by the shoulder with one hand.

  "Listen to me now, both of you. You have it in your hearts to ride to war some day, to fight and to win glory, is that not so?"

  "Yes, Cay, when we are old enough," Arthur said, his eyes wide. Bedwyr merely nodded, too full of excitement to say anything.

  I nodded, frowning at them. "Aye, when you are old enough." I crouched to kneel on one knee, bringing my eyes level with theirs. "Well, it may be that you will never believe this until you see it for yourselves, but there are some sights that no man ever grows old enough to countenance without pain and fear, and one of them lies now beneath us, there on the outside of the wall. I have decided you should see it. Come now and look."

  I led them to the parapet and stood between them, still holding each of them by the shoulder, and I felt the stiffness that came over them as soon as they had seen and begun to absorb what lay down there. I knew it was cruel to do such a thing to them, but it really could not have been better, from my unique point of view as teacher and guide. Even faced with death on such a scale, they were yet distanced from it here on the wall top. Blood and wounds and carnage they could see, but broadly, from afar, washed and diluted by the sea and lacking detail. The glistening entrails and spilled body fluids were too far off to mark, and the foul smells of violent death would yet remain unknown to them for this time, at least. Even so, the spectacle changed and chastened them forever, in the space of brief moments, dispelling for all time the high, laughing excitement of the glory-hungry boy in each of them. When they had seen, and looked their fill, I turned them to me and spoke to them again, aware of the pallor of their cheeks and the tearful distress that filled their eyes.

  "As you can see, there is no glory to be found in war, lads. The real truth of it lies there, plain to be seen—death and distress and shame and pity; squalour and filth and madness; wrack and ruin and waste and destruction; a lack of grandness and a disbelieving urge to vomit and to weep with the pity of it all. No man dies well in battle, and none dibs gloriously. If you learn nothing else today, learn this: dead men do not win wars. Dead men lose everything, including their dignity, and starting with their lives. Only living men can be victorious. No one—ever—wins in death.

  "All of those lifeless men below, littering the water's edge and floating in the waves, are dead because their leader was a fool, criminally la
cking in judgment. He endangered all his men and all his fleet by being too rash, and he lost all of them. Had he survived, he should be hanged for his murderous folly, for to command is to bear responsibility for the lives of each and every man in your command. Those lives are yours to spend in winning wars, but you must spend them cautiously, judiciously and with unwillingness, taking great pains to see that none of them, not one, is wasted or uselessly lost. To send men into battle, thus exposing them to death, is the responsibility Of leaders, but to squander any one of them without need is murder, plain and simple. Bear that in mind from this time on, and remember these dead hundreds here today, squandered and murdered. Now go, both of you, and find your Aunt Ludmilla. Tell her, and Shelagh, that I am with King Derek and will rejoin them soon. Off with you, now."

  Derek had watched all of this in silence, offering no judgment either by his look or bearing, and he had nothing to add as we made our way down from the walls and through the fort to his great house.

  THIRTEEN

  I remember that storm, and that visit to Ravenglass, as marking two events: the beginning of the end of an era in my own life, predicated upon a decision I made while I was there, and the first truly discernible step towards man's estate made by young Arthur Pendragon, in confronting, contemplating and coming to terms with the concentrated death and destruction in that harbour.

  Connor appeared, under sails and oars and brightening rays of light from the rising sun, two days after we arrived, confirming Derek's guess that he had anticipated the great storm aid sheltered his fleet safely in one of the coves of the large offshore island known as Man. When the weather cleared, he had set out again and on the way had met and engaged the few, straggling survivors of the Sons of Condran's fleet, sinking all of them. He was concerned over the delays and conscious of how little time remained to him to deliver his passengers safely in the south, then turn north-westward again to meet with the remainder of his fleet returning from the north on their way to Eire. Thus, he wasted no time in embarking Ambrose, Ludmilla and all their goods and was soon making his way carefully back out to sea, threading a passage through the wreckage that littered the harbour.

  We watched them leave, waving from the battlements until they rounded the bank ahead of us. Then we spent three days assisting Derek's people with the Herculean task of cleaning up the detritus of the storm, salvaging or demolishing the wreckage in the harbour so that it no longer threatened other vessels, and burying those bodies we could find, knowing full well that corpses would wash up on the surrounding beaches for months afterwards.

  When all that could be done had been achieved, we made our way back to Mediobogdum beneath sunny skies, surrounded by the singing of a million birds and the lush greens of new, rioting foliage that was bright, in sheltered nooks, with heady, sweetly scented blossom: apple, pear and hawthorn, white and pink.

  That homeward journey passed in reflective silence, by and large, each of us dwelling, according to our natures, upon what we might have faced on reaching Ravenglass had the storm not briefly gulled our enemies. I found myself recalling it already as a tempest.

  We found the tangled mass of ruined trees still in place on the hillside, blocking the steeply sloping road up to our pass. We accepted its enormous presence with stoicism and yet also with vague feelings of surprise to find it all unchanged after a week had passed. Clearing it away, with axes and saws and ropes and teams of horses, and reopening the road would be our highest priority in the days ahead. We passed it by without pausing in our ascent, however, since we had left Lars and the single wagon safe in Ravenglass to await a summons once the way was cleared; it took us but a tiny fraction of a single hour to mount the steep, bypassing defile on horseback, proceeding in single file and grateful that this time we were unhampered by the torrents of cold water that had showered on us from every tree and sapling we had passed beneath on the way .down.

  I was at pains to ride dose beside Lucanus on die most difficult section of the upward slope, for I had noticed some time earlier that he seemed to be in pain and to be making great efforts to disguise die fact: his face was pale and peaked, die lines around his eyes and mouth etched more deeply than I had seen them before. I made no mention of my concern, knowing him to be quick and querulous in denying such things, as though a sickness or infirmity within himself were deadly insult to his physician's craft. Rather than alert him to my suspicions, I merely contented myself to ride close by his side, saying little but prepared to seize him .should he begin to fall. Only when we had safely passed the worst of the upward climb did I leave his side, and then I moved directly to where Donuil and Shelagh rode ahead of us, side by side, talking quietly of their own concerns. Warning them not to look back at Luke, I alerted them to my concern and arranged with Shelagh to coax him to his bed as soon as we arrived safely at the fort.

  A short time after that, we breasted die last steep gradient and saw the western wall of Mediobogdum bright in the midday sun, above us to our left. Dedalus blew a blast on a coiled, copper horn to announce our arrival, and by the time we turned off the road to approach the main gates, Hector and several others were on the way out to meet us. I felt myself smiling as I saw the welcome on their faces, but the major part of my awareness was concerned with the beckoning plume of shimmering smoke wafting from the flue above the bathhouse furnace. I greeted everyone as required, then hung my helmet and swordbelt from my saddle-bow, draped my cloak across the saddle and turned Germanicus over to Donuil, after which I made my way on foot directly to the baths.

  The steam room had another occupant when I arrived and I sensed his presence immediately, even though he was invisible among the swirling clouds of steam. The voice of Marie, the young carpenter, answered my greeting. He was standing against the wall when I finally saw him, and he lowered his arms from over his head as I approached, then launched into a series of questions about our journey. Loath to be coaxed into a long and unwelcome chronicle, I forestalled him with an upraised hand, shaking my head and asking his forbearance, pleading weariness and the simple need to stretch out and relax. He shrugged and smiled and nodded, accepting my demurral, and returned to what he had been doing when I entered, raising one arm and reaching behind his head to press the fingers of his hand against his spine between his shoulders while he pushed the elbow backward towards his ear with his other hand. On the point of lying down, I watched him curiously instead, noting His closed eyes and the concentration with which he held his uncomfortable position for a count of perhaps twice ten before changing over and doing die same thing with his other arm. When I asked him what he was doing, he lowered his arms and smiled at me, his face flushing red.

  "I'm stretching the muscles of my arms—these ones." He squeezed the massive muscles at the back of his right upper arm with his left hand. 'They're stiff and very sore. So are my shoulders and my back muscles—my belly, too, and even my thighs. It's all this felling of trees that does it, swinging an axe from dawn till dusk every day for the past three weeks. Chopping down a healthy oak is like to chopping through a boulder, according to Longinus. He says both will destroy the sharpest axe's edge and bruise any man's muscles, and I believe him." He stopped, turned slightly to brace his left hand against the wall at his back, then raised his right foot, patching it in his right hand and swinging it up behind him so that the long, divided muscles in his thigh sprang into tension. "Crassus, a Roman- trained masseur in the baths at Ravenglass, taught me this technique of stretching aching muscles once they are warm. It's unpleasant at first, but it eases them, relieves the painfulness and stops them from cramping. I've been doing it for months, ever since we arrived here, and it is effective. And it grows easier, too, with repetition."

  I was looking at him as he spoke, noticing for the first time the perfect shapeliness of the clean-lined, sharp- etched muscles rippling beneath his skin. He was magnificently made and in the very prime of his young, glowing manhood, smaller than me by almost one third my weight, I guessed, but perfectly pr
oportioned for his size. I glanced down at my own heavily muscled body, seeing the solid thickness of my thighs and calves and my flat belly, innocent of fat, yet lacking the clean, clear muscular delineation that was so striking in young Mark.

  "I don't remember you as being quite so—muscular," I said.

  He had finished stretching his thighs and was now bent forward, stiff-kneed, his palms flat on the floor.. He straightened up easily and grinned at me. "I wasn't—never have been, until I came here and started swinging an axe for hours every day. There, that's all. I'm finished now. A cold plunge and a brisk towelling, and I'll be a new man. You should try it, Cay—felling trees, I mean, I think you would enjoy what it will do for you"

  He picked up a towel from the bench and wrapped it around his waist before he left, and I stretched out again, settling my own folded towel beneath my head and frowning thoughtfully as the first stinging trickles of sweat broke out at my hairline and across my belly. I had grown lax with myself lately, I knew, neglecting my soldier's regimen over the course of the past winter. I would begin the following day, I decided, and spend at least a part of each morning henceforth swinging an axe against solid oak.

  No one else came in to mar my solitude. I bathed at leisure, then shrugged naked into my tunic, pulled my sandals over my bare feet, and made my way to my quarters, carrying the remainder of my clothing beneath my arm, bundled into the cuirass I carried like a basket. I was anticipating a pleasurable change into fresh, clean-smelling clothes, but all thought of such things disappeared when I found the woman Tressa in my quarters. She had evidently thrown wide the shutters to air my rooms, and seeing that immediately, I also saw beyond them to where she was working in the shadowed interior with her back to me, wielding a broom.