Sword of Rome

XXV

Water had shaped the land north of the river, the decurion had said, and as they rode through a damp, clinging fog it sometimes seemed their world was entirely liquid. The road was solid enough, raised like a narrow causeway above the surrounding countryside, but to right and left lay nothing but bog and stunted briar; glittering, slime-laden pools pitting mud as black as Hades’ hellhound and circled by noisome plants of silver-slicked green. The air stank of decay and unwholesomeness as if somewhere in the ooze a great fish had become stranded and was slowly rotting away, its putrefying flesh tainting all around it. The only sound, apart from the unearthly shriek of an occasional water fowl, was the low thud of their horses’ hooves on the hard-packed gravel.

Serpentius shivered and wrapped his cloak tighter around him. ‘Two days of this?’

‘It won’t improve much before Mediolanum,’ Valerius admitted. ‘But it will look better when the fog lifts.’

‘I should have been born a frog.’

‘Our biggest problem will be finding somewhere to bed down. The landlord of the inn said there is a mansio, but I’d rather not use it unless we have to.’

‘The alternative might be a lily pad.’

Valerius laughed. ‘A man who was born in a snowdrift should have no problem with sleeping in a puddle.’

But the humour soon faded. Valerius’s prediction that the fog would clear was unlikely to be realized, and so it proved. Riding through the relentless murk placed a strain on man and beast alike. True, the fog hid them from potential enemies, but the opposite was also true, and the sense of threat was ever present. Valerius and Serpentius were not nervous men, but every shadow and every sound posed a potential danger and living on the edge for hour after hour takes its toll on any man’s nerves. At one point, Serpentius waved Valerius to a halt because he was convinced he could hear the sound of horses somewhere behind them. After a short but tense wait nothing materialized and they moved on, but their ears continued to play tricks. Was the splash away to their left a leaping fish or a duck taking flight, or someone moving parallel to them through the swamp? Was that the murmur of voices or the burbling of a stream flowing into one of the innumerable lakes they passed? It was impossible to tell. Yet each threat had to be taken seriously and each cost them time. It quickly became clear that, even if they had chosen to, they wouldn’t reach the mansio before nightfall. Valerius turned to his companion. ‘We need to find somewhere to camp.’

‘It’ll have to be close by the road, then.’ Serpentius threw a look of disgust at the swamp. ‘One wrong step and we might never get back to it.’

A mile further and the landscape remained nothing but bog and pond and it was beginning to look as if the only place they’d be able to make a bed was in the roadside ditch with their feet in the water.

‘Maybe we should-’

‘Listen!’ Serpentius drew his sword and Valerius strained his ears for the sound that had alerted the Spaniard. Faint, just a whisper on the wind, but when the mind made sense of it, unmistakable.

‘A woman crying,’ he whispered. ‘Here?’

Serpentius shrugged, wary as a hunted deer hearing the distant bay of the hounds. ‘It came from up ahead.’ His expression said they could either stand around like idiots waiting for whoever it was to go away or do something about it.

‘I’ll lead; you hang back.’ Valerius ignored Serpentius’s angry shake of the head and kicked his mare slowly into motion, drawing his sword and carrying it low by the horse’s side. With each nervous step he scoured the impenetrable, puffball curtain of swirling fog. In vain. All he could make out was drifting shadows and ethereal, indistinct shapes, any one of which could hide an enemy. His mount hesitated, but the sound of harsh female sobbing raked Valerius’s brain like a steel spike and he urged her forward.

After an eternity, a vague form emerged from the misty curtain ahead and he drew the mare to a halt. Tall and slim and wearing a dress of brown drab beneath her cloak, she clutched a swathed bundle to her breast and her shoulders shook with the power of her anguish. When she looked up he was surprised to see how young she was — and how beautiful. She raised a hand to her mouth in alarm when she saw the mounted figure approaching.

‘I mean you no harm,’ he said hastily. ‘Where is your husband — your protector?’

She swayed and he thought she might collapse, but she collected herself and after two attempts found the composure to speak, her voice shaking with emotion.

‘May Venus preserve you, master. My husband left two hours since, after our pony foundered. He said he would return soon with a new beast to carry little Gaius and me, but I fear something has happened to him.’ The sobbing began again and he hushed her, preparing to dismount, but before he could move she staggered forward to the mare’s left flank and clutched at his leg.

He saw the moment her eyes widened when she noticed the sword in his left hand, the feral snarl that changed her face from beautiful to ugly as she dropped the cloth-wrapped bundle to stab the long knife it had hidden towards his groin. He had a momentary thrill of pure horror as the blade plunged towards his body. In battle he had seen men bleed out in seconds from such a wound and he knew there was no surviving it. He twisted desperately in the saddle, but it was the horse that saved him, rearing up in fright so the point missed its mark and slammed into the leather-covered wooden saddle. As the girl struggled to haul the knife free, he lashed out with his foot, raking her with the iron studs of his caliga sandal, until she staggered away screaming with blood on her face. But even as she’d struck the mist had filled with shadowy figures who now converged on him, howling. Ragged men, thieves and outcasts had set the girl as bait, and like a fool he had snapped at it. Before he could react he found himself surrounded by rusty blades of every shape and size, each as potentially lethal as a well-sharpened sword. He knew that against these numbers his most effective weapon was speed and he kicked his mount forward to batter another knife-wielding figure aside, slashing widely to his left and feeling the fleshy crunch as edged metal bit home. The satisfaction was short lived, because it was clear this fight could only have one ending. Then, as Valerius prepared to welcome death, Serpentius galloped out of the mist screaming his war cry and smashing his enemies aside, the heavy cavalry spatha cutting right and left in disciplined sweeping arcs that struck terror into the men who faced him.

‘Ride, Valerius!’

The Spaniard’s unexpected appearance froze Valerius’s attackers and he used the breathing space to carve an avenue through them. Just when it looked as if he was clear he felt hands grabbing at his cloak and a lithe figure leapt up behind him on to the horse’s back, long, dirt-caked nails clawing at his eyes and teeth snapping at his neck. The reaction was automatic. He reversed the spatha with a gladiator-taught flick and plunged it into his nemesis’s body. A terrible high-pitched shriek pierced him as his assailant fell away and he had a momentary vision of dark eyes wide with horror as the girl bounced on the gravel roadway. With a surge of relief he found himself alone in the mist. Serpentius should have been a heartbeat behind, but when he looked back the Spaniard was nowhere to be seen. Even as the knowledge scarred his brain he heard the unearthly scream of a horse in its death throes. He roared a cry of fear and frustration and turned his mount, hurling her back the way they’d come.

As Valerius burst from the mist a single glance took in the scene. Serpentius’s horse was down with a spear in its ribs and the Spaniard’s leg trapped beneath its heaving body. Around the dying beast at least half a dozen of their ambushers slashed at the former gladiator with spears and knives. The only reason he still lived was that the others had been diverted by the pack horse he’d led, more interested in booty than in blood. From the corner of his eye Valerius saw the spear shaft that flicked out to trip his mount and that split second’s warning allowed him to kick himself free as she went down. The fall took him into a tumbling roll that carried him towards the stricken Spaniard, though every revolution was a torment of crushed and torn flesh. Half stunned, he stumbled his feet, sword in left hand, and chopped down a bearded figure who stood between him and Serpentius.

‘Fool.’ The gladiator lunged at a spearman who tried to take advantage of the distraction, drawing a howl as his sword hacked away a careless finger. ‘You were free. You should have ridden on.’

‘If we’re going to die, we die together.’ Valerius slashed wildly at two snarling figures who were manoeuvring to take him in the flank.

‘I don’t intend to die.’

But both knew the decision was not theirs to take.

More bandits appeared from the mist, until the two men were surrounded by twenty or thirty feral figures: an entire tribe of mud-streaked men and women with wild hair, hungry eyes and screaming, gap-toothed mouths. Male or female, they were all armed, and they blocked the road to north and south. With Serpentius at his side Valerius could have cut his way out and spilled enough guts to discourage pursuit. But the Spaniard remained trapped, and unless he could find some way to free him they were both dead. Already, a hulk of a man, previously occupied with plunder, was beating his compatriots forward with his spear butt, urging them to slaughter the two interlopers. Serpentius kicked desperately at his fallen mount, at the same time hacking at enemies who were becoming ever more confident. For every bandit they killed, two took their place. Valerius found himself fighting on three sides and only lived because of the speed of a sword arm that was tiring fast. He cried out and fell back as a spear ripped the top of his shoulder and he found himself lying beside Serpentius as the eager blades sought out their throats.

The Spaniard’s hand clutched at his wooden fist and he knew it was over.

Then the trumpet blew.