Hadrian's wall

XIX

There was a wild barbarian rush, and then Marcus's men and their attackers swirled together in a clash of spear and sword, locked in fierce struggle. Despite their surprise, the Romans had the advantage of height, horses, and armor. They kicked to override the Celts and chopped down at them. Agile barbarians in turn ducked under the mounts and stabbed upward, or danced around tree trunks, using them as shields. As wounded horses went down, their stunned riders were hauled off their saddles and hacked without mercy. Hooves in turn kicked and trampled the barbarians.

A rock buzzed by Marcus's ear, exciting him and hitting nothing, and then he leaned and swung, the edge of his sword striking an attacker between shoulder and neck and the shock of the strike felt up to Marcus's elbow. The Celt grunted and fell, Homer dancing across him, and Marcus's spatha was finally bloody. The praefectus looked wildly around for another target, yanking his reins to haul the mount around. An arrow thumped and quivered in a tree just two feet from his head. His heart hammered.

A Celt cried out "Marroo!" — "Kill!"

It was another druid, Marcus saw, this one a younger and taller male, standing on the dike and directing barbarian fire at the praefectus, or dubgall: invader. Marcus ducked as another arrow whizzed by.

"Get their priest!" the Roman roared in reply. Here was the source of attack, he guessed, a wizard of war. Destroy their leadership, and the barbarians would submit. The druids thought they could win in their grove of oak, but their magic would be their doom. At Marcus's direction troopers began to cut their way toward the druid. Could they capture and interrogate him?

"Kalin!" As the Romans closed, someone pulled from behind, and the priest abruptly vanished, even as more Celts emerged from the trees. One rammed a spear into the breast of a horse, toppling it backward. Another had his unprotected skull cleaved by a spatha, the bearded face exploding in a spray of blood.

Had Marcus's contingent been the only Romans, it would have been a near and desperate fight, the numbers nearly equal. But even as the combat intensified, there was another Roman horn and a great approaching rumble like the swell of an earthquake. The strategy had been to push the Celts through the wood and into Clodius's waiting contingent on the other side of the forest, but the youth, hearing sounds of battle, decided not to wait. The rest of the Roman expedition had plunged through the far side of the grove and now burst across the clearing and charged into battle, surprising the barbarians as the Romans had been surprised.

Now the cavalry outnumbered the enemy two to one.

Young Clodius rode at their head, taut and anxious as a bird, his sword raised high and vengeance in his heart. Celts were trampled under, screaming defiance as they died. The junior tribune got one, slashing at his back, and narrowly avoided the spear thrust of another. Then he spotted a new target and pursued. "A wiiiiiitch!"

The blind druidess was groping her way through the standing stones with hand and staff. A big bearded warrior jumped from behind a stone to block Clodius's gallop, but the Roman expertly swerved and swung and clipped the barbarian on his chin, lifting off half his face. Even as the man's great sword spun harmlessly into the air and his body staggered, the junior tribune was on top of the crone, chopping her down like straw and then wheeling to make sure. His horse pranced as he stabbed down once, twice. Then he charged back, his blade red, his face flush. "Revenge, Marcus! Revenge for my throat!"

The distraction was almost fatal. There was a grunt that made the praefectus instinctively duck, and a spear sailed over his head. He belatedly tried to pull his mount around to meet the man coming from behind, and then Clodius's excited horse spilled into them both and the Celt was knocked backward in a tangle of hooves, his bones cracking under the trampling. The young tribune swung at this barbarian too, viciously, and stove his head in.

"They're running!"

The surviving barbarians were dashing away into the trees, the Romans struggling to control their plunging horses and give pursuit. One Celt had pinioned a trooper to the forest floor with the man's own spatha, the soldier screaming and kicking under the press of the blade until his commander charged by and took off the assailant's head with a single swing. It bounced across the forest floor like an errant ball, picking up a coating of leaves and dirt, and came to rest with a vacant expression.

The melee was spreading out, the pursuit difficult in the tangle of trees. Marcus reined up at a cluster of men. A circle of Romans had formed around an oak, trapping a defiant Celt like dogs around a bear. Now the wounded chieftain had tied himself upright to the oak, a rope around his chest, and was taunting them with curses in thick Latin. "Come match swords with Urthin, Roman dogs! Come perish with me!"

The Romans slashed at him like a pack of wolves, but he parried the Romans again and again, his sword stinging as he lashed out. "Watch while I die on my feet, not my knees, legion scum! Come, are you afraid of an old man?" One Roman wanted to hurl a spear and another to club and enslave the defiant Celt, but a decurion stayed both and stepped forward to fence, slashing expertly and silently to open up wounds and drain the man of his defiance. Soon the bleeding barbarian was leaning against his rope and heaving for breath, his strength leaking away with his blood. "I bleed, but you piss, Romans," he gasped. "You piss in fear of Urthin." Then his eyes began to glaze. The Roman stabbed him a final time, and it was over.

The soldiers ran on, whooping in the hunt. Marcus didn't follow, staring at the body hanging against the rough bark. Why hadn't the Celt surrendered? What kind of people tied themselves upright?

Marcus looked at the great shaggy body with a sudden foreboding. No wonder Hadrian had built his long, rocky wall.

The Romans, meanwhile, were shouting triumph. Dead and wounded Britons littered the grove. The praefectus trotted among them, peering down. Several were women, he saw, as frenzied in their assault as the men. What barbarism!

The cavalrymen silenced any who still groaned, making methodical stabs.

Finally, all was still.

"It was a trap, Marcus!" Clodius gasped, his sword wet and his eyes bright. The boy was trembling with release. "The spy was right but wrong, too!"

"A trap we turned on them. Form up your men, junior tribune."

A circular line of horsemen was organized facing outward. A trooper next to Marcus grinned and pointed at his commander's bloody sword. "You've lost your virginity this day, praefectus."

"It seems so." The rough compliment pleased him. Blood spattered his clothing, there was a roaring in his ears, and his muscles quivered from tension. He was cold from sweat and hot at the same time, and above all exultantly alive. "Forward! Steady advance!"

Like an expanding ring from a stone thrown in a pond, the Romans rode up and over the dike, across the watery ditch, and into the surrounding trees, hunting for survivors. Where were the rest who'd attacked them? The Celts were once more as elusive as smoke. How did they disappear so quickly? How did they run so fast?

After a few hundred paces Marcus put his arm up and the line of horses halted, the animals blowing. Then he sat a moment, considering what to do. Longinus rode up. "Why are we hesitating?"

"Where did they come from, centurion? Not behind the ridge, or we'd have seen them when we rode in. How did they get around us?"

"They're animals. They don't move like we do."

"No, we've missed something. They came too quickly and vanished too easily." Marcus made a decision. "Dismount!" The command echoed up and down the line. "Search the ground back toward the dike. Carefully!"

The troopers were reluctant to walk, feeling more vulnerable on foot, but did as they were told. They began leading their horses back toward the central grove, scuffing at the carpet of old leaves. Suddenly a man stumbled, his ankle caught, and Marcus gave his reins to a decurion. "Probe with your sword," he ordered.

The soldier's spatha sank into the earth, sawing at air. "It's a hole."

The Romans knelt, throwing aside a leaf-covered wicker frame concealing a tunnel. Tree roots jutted from the soil, and its bottom was utterly dark.

"That's where they came from, and maybe where they fled," Marcus said.

The soldier made the sign of the cross. "Like demons. Devils."

"Or worms," Longinus growled.

"How can we get at them?"

"Maybe we could use fire. Smoke them out."

Marcus shook his head. "It's almost certainly a burrow with more than one entrance. Besides, we've killed enough. The real danger isn't surviving Britlets but the grove itself. This is the source of their boldness. If we destroy it, they'll lose courage."

"Destroy how?" asked the soldier.

Marcus looked up at the dark canopy. "By burning. Not these holes but the entire forest. Longinus, bring the men back inside the dike. Half on watch in case they attack again. The other half I want destroying this place. The trees chopped down, the stones uprooted, the dike leveled. We'll switch the teams every hour. I want this grove obliterated. Do you understand?"

"If we start to do that, they may crawl out and attack again."

"So much the better." Their praefectus had a new crispness. "We'll beat them again."

There was no attack, however. The surviving barbarians either stayed hidden in their dark tunnels or crept out of the forest. The only sound was the ring of axes and the crash of trees. The largest and oldest were like iron, so the officers ordered their bark girdled and dry brushwood heaped around their bases. The forty enemy bodies were layered with more wood to form a pyre, their witch hurled onto its top.

The five Roman dead were wrapped in their cloaks and slung over their horses for transport back to the fort. Another dozen Romans were wounded.

The troopers dug to topple the standing stones but soon gave up. Their rock roots seemed endless, extending to the bottom of the earth, so they contented themselves with urinating on the monoliths and scrawling obscenities. The encircling mound was leveled in several places, but as the day went on and the scale of the work became apparent, Marcus ordered a halt. Nobody wanted to spend a night in the forest.

When the sun dipped below the valley ridge and the sky flushed red, the praefectus ordered the fires lit. "Junior tribune, it's your honor. You've proved yourself this day."

Clodius nodded tiredly, took a dry branch for a torch, and walked to the pyre of barbarian dead. Before he lit, he paused to examine the druidess he'd killed, and after studying her withered face he turned away with a troubled look before finally thrusting the torch home. The funeral construction began to burn, its inky smoke roiling into the sky. The soldiers held their noses and backed away.

Felled trees were lit, and then the mighty standing oaks. Fire licked at their feet, and then, as the branches dried, the blaze leaped into the crown and the sacred trees exploded, their blackening limbs looking like the outstretched arms of crucified criminals. The heat grew so intense that the Romans had to retreat to the half-ruined dike. Smoke and sparks wafted over their heads into the main forest beyond and started new fires. The air danced and became choking.

"We'd better leave," Clodius said. He'd taken a neck torque from a warrior he'd killed, wiping it clean and putting it on to cover the scar on his own throat. Despite this trophy he was subdued.

The praefectus nodded. "Yes. We've done what we came for."

The Romans rode out of the burning forest and up to the grassy ridge beyond, pausing at its crest. It was dusk now, the first stars coming out, and the glowing pillar of smoke rose into a cobalt sky as a warning to all the tribes of Caledonia. Here was the price for threatening a bride of Rome! The central part of the grove throbbed red as a furnace, its standing stones like blackened teeth in a mouth of coals.

"You thirsted for revenge, Clodius, and now you've had it," Marcus said. "Does it salve your wound?"

The youth touched his neck. "It's not that I feel better, it's that I finally feel nothing." He hesitated.

"Nothing?"

"The witch. I don't feel proud riding down an old woman."

"You faced brave warriors as well. She was the ant queen behind them."

"Perhaps." He watched plumes of sparks fountain into the night sky. "When I went to light the fire, I had a shock of recognition."

"What do you mean?"

"I'd seen that face before, I think. Seen her before. In Londinium, on the steps of the governor's palace. She was a blind old fortuneteller."

"Fortune-teller!"

"She made a forecast that disturbed Valeria. I can't remember what it was."

"And you as well?"

"She said I might not live long enough to justify a coin."

"Surely you're mistaken. A beggar seer all the way up here?"

"It makes no sense, but I could swear it was her."

Marcus put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Memory plays tricks when we're exhausted. Be proud of the duty you've done this day. Rome will read of your courage!"

"Killing isn't what I expected, praefectus. It leaves a taste like copper."

"Then let's go home to wine."

They rode southward in a long, weaving line, the Romans wrung out. Gray cloud ran across the stars.

Falco brought his horse up alongside his commander's in quiet companionship. They rode in silence for a time, the veteran centurion watching Marcus carefully. Finally he spoke. "You're not smiling, praefectus."

Marcus turned to look again at the glow behind them. "No philosopher can be happy about such destruction, centurion. The praefectus in me ordered it, the husband in me desired it, and the soldier in me accomplished it, but the poet in me regrets it."

"And the Celts?"

"They know they brought this on themselves. I feel regret, but not guilt."

"Which is my feeling as well."

Marcus looked down the long rank of tired cavalry. "And there we have young Clodius, blooded and satiated, proving himself a Petriana but still accused of murdering Odo. What should we do about that?"

Falco watched the new hardness in his commander's face, realizing what his answer was supposed to be. "Does it really matter? The man was a slave, praefectus."

"It matters to his owner."

The centurion bowed his head. "Who can afford the loss."

"And his commander can afford to reimburse him."

"Thank you, praefectus. I'll let the issue drop. I only mention that the killing still matters to the Britons we rule. They want to see Roman justice."

Marcus pointed back toward the burning valley. "Then let them come here."