The Eagle's Vengeance

Prologue

‘Silence! Silence for the king!’

King Naradoc of the Venicones smiled thinly at the ritual command, more usually issued to the noisy crowds of warriors who thronged the tribe’s royal hall when he held audiences with his people. On those days when the tribe’s elite gathered to pay homage to their ruler the hall would be filled with the noise of men competing to be seen and heard, each of them accompanied by half a dozen of the biggest and most fearsome members of his household, every one of them covered in the swirling blue tattoos that were the tribe’s distinguishing feature, their weapons surrendered at the massive arched doorway under the watchful eyes of the king’s guard. Each clan’s heavily tattooed champions would rub shoulders as they waited for the king’s entrance, friendships and enmities playing out in jocular exchanges that all parties knew would end in swift punishment if they were to escalate beyond mere words, no matter how barbed they might be. With the hammering of an iron-shod staff, wielded against the thick wooden floorboards by Naradoc’s shaven-headed and hard-faced uncle Brem in his appointed role as the enforcer of the royal will, the gathered clan heads would swiftly fall silent. Turning as one man they would bow towards the throne into which Naradoc would already have settled, and he would gesture regally to them, displaying his acceptance of their obeisance.

But not today. While the hall was as thickly wreathed with smoke from the fires that warmed its air as ever, the wide open space before the king’s throne was all but empty. It had been cleared for this audience at Brem’s suggestion, the older man’s expression inscrutable as he had delivered his opinion on the matter of exactly how their unwanted guest should die.

‘It would be better not to shed this man’s blood publicly, my lord King. The Selgovae will not take his murder lightly, whether he be disgraced and banished or not.’

Naradoc had nodded sagely at the wisdom of the proposal, and had thereby consented to have no presence in The Fang’s hall beyond that required to ensure their security, a handful of his guards whose loyalty was beyond question. Behind him he could hear the sounds of four men taking their seats in smaller versions of the throne arrayed in an arc: his uncle, brother, cousin and nephew, the remnants of a royal family grievously reduced by the tribe’s losses in battle with Rome two years before. Glancing round he saw Brem’s hideously disfigured huntsman who now went by the name of Scar, so horribly wounded in the battle that had taken Naradoc’s brother that for a time it had seemed unlikely that his wounds would ever heal. The Romans had left him for dead on the battlefield given the slim chance that he would ever make a saleable slave. The cicatrice that covered half his face, part bone-white and the remainder a gruesome ruddy shade of red, gave him such a fearsome aspect that the king found himself perpetually amazed that he had managed to gather about him a score and more of the tribe’s young women. Over the last year he had honed them into a sisterhood of hunters, their single-minded ferocity in capturing and torturing Romans from the wall forts reducing most warriors who fought alongside them to an uneasy combination of unrequited lust — for the Vixens were renowned for their chastity and, some men muttered, their fondness for each other — and unease at being around women who took pleasure in hacking off their captives’ sexual organs and stitching the dried remnants to their belts. When the scrapings and rustlings had died away to silence, the king waited a moment longer before tossing a question over his shoulder, consciously copying the style his brother Drust had been wont to employ during the years that had preceded his ill-fated decision to go to war alongside the Selgovae people.

‘Who’s first, Chamberlain?’

The decision to go to war, Naradoc mused, that had resulted in Drust’s death in battle, a warrior’s death celebrated in song, a glorious death with a dozen Roman soldiers dead around him, but death nonetheless, leaving his brother to mount the throne to which Drust had been so well suited, and in which he still felt so ill at ease. Brem replied to the question, and to Naradoc’s ear his uncle’s voice was gruff, his disapproval of their visitor’s presence apparent in both tone and inflection.

‘A visitor from beyond our tribal lands, my lord King, a Selgovae nobleman who has come to seek our assistance. Come forward, Calgus!’

They waited in silence while the gaunt figure came shuffling forward across the empty hall, flanked either side by hard-bitten tribesmen who were the only remaining men loyal to the former Selgovae king. The tendons in his ankles had been cut by a vengeful Roman officer two years previously, if the stories were to be believed, wounds which had long since healed, but which left him unable to walk any faster than a painfully slow flat-footed shuffle. A half-dozen of the household guard walked behind them with hands on the hilts of their swords, veterans of the war with Rome who, Brem had told him more than once, would sell their lives in his defence in an instant. When Calgus reached the edge of the royal dais he bowed as deeply as he could, holding on to his companions for support. His voice was thinner than the last time he had spoken in the great hall, but Naradoc could sense the steel in its reedy tones, and he suppressed an involuntary shiver at the deceit and guile of which the former Selgovae king had once been capable.

‘King Naradoc, I thank you for receiving me in your royal hall. I come to you as king of the Selgovae, seeking your help as one ruler to another. In return I offer-’

‘King of the Selgovae, you say?’ Naradoc poured scorn into the question, shaking his head to provide his own answer. ‘A half-crippled beggar and his last two retainers, more like. A once mighty ruler and the man who shook the Roman army’s grip on this land you may be, but Rome still rules south of their northernmost wall and here you are, reduced to the status of supplicant to the Venicone people.’

Having silenced the Selgovae with his interjection, the Venicone king leaned back against the carved wooden backrest of his throne with a mischievous smile, turning in his chair to share his amusement with his family.

‘You still have balls, I’ll give you that, Calgus, former king of the Selgovae. I hear that your younger brother now rules your tribe, and that he has sued for peace with the Romans in order to relieve your people of the vicious abuse dealt out to them by the legions since they lost their ill-fated war against the empire. I hear you are forbidden to return to your former kingdom on pain of death, for the crime of starting a war you could never hope to win on the Romans’ own ground. And yet you come here …’ He shook his head in amazement at the Selgovae’s sheer nerve. ‘Here, to the heart of the Venicone tribe’s power, heedless of the defeat to which you led my brother Drust with your enticements, and your mistaken confidence in your own ability to defeat Rome’s legions in battle. That, I am forced to admit, shows great bravery on your part.’

He paused for a moment to study the man standing before him between the warriors who had carried him to The Fang’s gates.

‘Well, either great bravery or equally great stupidity.’ He gestured to the warriors. ‘Put him on his knees.’

Sharp iron flashed in the firelight as his carefully positioned guards took Calgus’s supporters unawares, stabbing their stealthily drawn long knives into the Selgovae warriors’ backs and throats in a flurry of violence that made the king start despite the fact that he’d ordered it. In a blur of bright iron the two men died without even baring their own blades, their bleeding corpses pushed forward onto the floor in front of the exiled Selgovae king who closed his eyes and shook his head, putting a hand to the bridge of his nose. A rough push in his back was enough to send him full length onto the hall’s cold stone floor, his hands smearing the pools of blood spilling from his men’s corpses. Naradoc nodded down at him, a half-smile expressing his approval of the other man’s helpless prostration before him.

‘That’s better. Now we see the real Calgus, stripped of any pretence to nobility or power. There you lie, crawling in the blood of your last two friends in the entire world, a helpless shadow of the man you once claimed to be. So tell me, once king and present beggar, what is it that you believed you might gain by coming here? What strange process of thought was it that gave you the expectation of any greeting other than sharp iron, given your part in the disaster that befell my kingdom two years ago?’

Calgus pushed himself laboriously up off the floor and into a kneeling position, wiping his hands clean of his companions’ blood on the worn cloak that was wrapped about him. His long red hair had faded in hue since his crippling, and was shot through with streaks of grey, but any man who had known him at the height of his powers, in the days when his bloody uprising had tested the Roman army’s grip on northern Britannia to its limits, would have immediately recognised the glint in his eye.

‘And greetings to you, Naradoc, King of the Venicones. My thanks for your most generous welcome — ’ he waved his hands at the corpses before him ‘- and for ridding me of the burden of these two. In truth, their wit and charm had long since started to wear a little thin, although I might have wished for a gentler way to find relief from their presence. As to why I come to you now, the answer is simple enough. I possess something from which I believe your tribe can profit, a symbol of Roman power upon which few men ever get to lay their hands. I still have the Sixth Legion’s imperial eagle, torn from their ranks in battle as we overwhelmed them early in the war. The loss of such a thing is a disaster for them, and its possession by a man such as you would be salt to rub in their wounds, now that they have realised that their encampment on the wall built by their emperor Antoninus is not likely to last beyond the end of the summer. The legions, I hear, are in a state of revolt at being sent so far north and forced to risk the ire of your warriors, the righteous anger that has already led them to abandon this more northerly wall twice before. Your open possession of their eagle will be the final straw upon that particular horse’s back, I suspect.’

He stopped talking and sat back upon the haunches of his wasted legs, the muscles withered from lack of meaningful exercise. Naradoc shifted slightly under his calculating gaze, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

‘I found myself wondering, Calgus, as you were speaking, why is it that I feel a distinct lack of comfort around you? And then the answer came to me. You are a snake, pure and simple, a devious, treacherous reptile in whom I would repose any trust only at the greatest risk to myself. You offer me a Roman eagle?’ The king waved a dismissive hand. ‘You can keep it. The Romans are a single-minded people, a vindictive people, and I know full well that they will not cease hunting for this lost icon of their power until it is recovered, at whatever cost to them in blood. I also know that they will visit their revenge upon whoever is left holding the eagle a dozen times whatever they calculate their own loss to have been. They would send forth a legion’s strength to punish us, if they believed we held this symbol of their power. And if our fortress here is impregnable against any attack they might make, there are dozens of our settlements that would be unable to resist them. No, Calgus, you can keep your eagle, as I wish you had withheld the invitation to my brother Drust to join the uprising that not only cost him his life but also robbed my tribe of thousands of warriors. I recall only too well your words in this very hall as he sat where I sit now, promising him both plunder and freedom from the Roman threat for ever. And what rewards did your war bring to my people? Only disaster, and evil tidings that thrust me onto a throne that Drust should have occupied for years to come.’

He snorted derision, shaking his head angrily at the Selgovae.

‘And now, given that you’re a sad, broken shell of the man you once were, I dismiss you from my presence. Go now, or risk my implacable anger …’ His hard expression slowly turned to a grim smile, as Calgus looked about himself helplessly. ‘But of course, you’ve nowhere to go, have you, with your people turned against you and your last supporters dead on the floor before you? And I’m sure you’ll be unsuprised that I intend to keep your horses, which I suspect were probably stolen from my tribe in any case. So, what alternatives do you have now, eh Calgus? How shall we deal with this uncomfortable situation into which you have thrust yourself? I could have my men help you to the gates, but what then? Nobody in my kingdom will feed you out of pity, I can assure you of that. Your name is not much loved around these parts. Perhaps the best thing I can do is offer you the relief of a swift death, rather than the protracted discomfort of starvation, or even being pulled to pieces by the wolves when you are too weak to resist? It’s your choice, Calgus. Take all the time you want in making it …’

The Selgovae looked up at him with a gentle smile, and Naradoc narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

‘Faced with the options of a slow death and quick one, it’s in a man’s nature to look for the third choice, wouldn’t you agree?’ The cripple raised a hand to forestall any reply, still smiling up into the king’s abrupt discomfiture. ‘Knowing that I was likely to face just such a hostile response to my reasoned approach, I took the precaution of carefully preparing the ground for my arrival over several months of careful negotiations with the men upon whose power you depend. You would have been disappointed at the ease with which my servants were able to come and go with my messages to the nobles arrayed behind you, Naradoc, and further distressed by the readiness with which they have agreed with my suggestions as to how your tribe might be better ruled.’

The king leapt to his feet, pointing a trembling finger at the kneeling figure before him.

‘Behead him!’ He stepped forward, clenching his hand into a fist. ‘I’ll nail your ears to my roof beams, you rotting cocked spawn of a deformed whore! I’ll throw your guts to my dogs to play with! I’ll …’

He stopped in mid-sentence, shocked to feel the sudden unnerving prick of cold iron on the back of his neck. Calgus raised an eyebrow at him, tipping his head to one side in a deliberate caricature of the king’s posture a moment before.

‘As is so often the case, the single most terrifying moment of your life can come just when you least expect it, eh Naradoc? I experienced mine alongside your brother, when I realised that the Roman camp we were storming was nothing more than bait to lure us into a trap, bait your revered brother was no more able to resist taking than a dog with the scent of a bitch in heat. He was a headstrong, foolish man, Naradoc, and if he had been just a little more calculating he might still be wearing that crown, with you sat behind him in a position rather better suited to your limited abilities. Instead of that you’re now experiencing the bowel-loosening sensation of a sword-point in your back where there should be stout noblemen lined up behind you, if you’d had the intelligence and ruthlessness to keep them there. I would call you King Naradoc, if it wasn’t so obvious to both of us that you’re no longer the king of anything more substantial than the shit that’s trying to burst its way out of your backside. ’

Naradoc stared helplessly down into Calgus’s eyes, realising with a further, sickening lurch of his stomach that the crippled Selgovae was shaking his head at him with a look that was more pity than contempt.

‘Do take a look around you, your majesty, and see what remains of your kingdom.’

Naradoc turned his head to meet his family’s eyes with a sidelong gaze, only to find their return stares expressionless for the most part. His brother had the good grace to look vaguely embarrassed, but his uncle, cousin and nephew all wore faces that might as well have been crafted from stone. The man whose sword was prickling the back of his neck, the hunt master Scar who, he realised with a defeated sag of his shoulders, had been his uncle’s sworn man since Brem had rescued him from the battlefield and nursed him back to health, stared back without any expression capable of moving the mask of scar tissue that clung lopsidedly to his face. The king tried to speak, but the words came out as no more than a whispered croak.

‘You bastards …’

Calgus laughed at his bitterness.

‘They’re just realists, Naradoc. Your younger brother gets the crown, that’s obvious enough. Your mother’s brother Brem gets your wife, for whom he tells me he has long harboured urges hardly fitting in a man when expressed towards his queen. He tells me that he plans to spread her legs in your bed quickly enough though, so the status will hardly matter. His son, your cousin, gets your oldest daughter, who I’m sure you will be the first to admit is of the age to be bedded. I’m sure she’ll give him a fine crop of sons with hips like those. And your brother’s son gets your younger girl child. She may be a little young for the marital bed, but he’s only a boy himself. I’m sure they’ll work it out together, eh? And you …’

He paused for a moment, waving a hand at the men behind the king.

‘My lords, whilst I am comfortable enough in this position of supplication, it might be more fitting if I were to continue my employment as the new king’s adviser on my feet?’

A pair of men stepped forward at a signal from Naradoc’s brother, helping the Selgovae back into a standing position. He bowed his head to the new king, all the time keeping his eyes locked on Naradoc’s furious gaze.

‘You made the fatal mistake, my lord was-king, of failing to safeguard your own position once you were obliged to put on your crown. Those first few years on the throne are never easy, are they? There’s always such a fine balance to be trod between being too harsh and seeming too soft. In hindsight I’d say you should have found a way to quietly dispose of your younger brother. I believe that hunting accidents are a favourite means of both avoiding future conflict in the family and showing your teeth to the surviving members to put them in their place, but then that’s not really your style, is it? Such a shame, when a judiciously timed murder or two can often avert a great deal of inconvenience …’

He glanced across at the king’s younger brother, smiling at the predatory look with which he was staring at Naradoc’s back. ‘It’s just as well your sibling doesn’t seem overly troubled by the morality of arranging for your disposal, now that your situations are reversed.’

Finding his tongue with the sudden realisation that his death was imminent, Naradoc roared his defiance at the brother who had so comprehensively betrayed him.

‘You bloody fools! This man will have you at each other’s throats in days! And you, brother, how long before you too have just such a hunting accident, leaving the way clear for our uncle to take the throne!’

Even as the feeling that he might have been duped sank into his brother’s eyes, Calgus spoke again, his tone warm in contrast to the words that spelled out the would-be usurper’s fate.

‘You know he’s right, my lord. You really are quite exceptionally stupid not to have had the good sense to side with your brother the king, but that’s just a lesson you’ve learned too late. And now that I consider it, I suspect that an accident is somewhat less likely to convince given that we’ll have two victims to mourn …’ He paused, his gaze alighting on the man’s white-faced son, barely into his teens. ‘No, my mistake, of course that will have to be three victims, won’t it?’

He turned to the two men’s uncle, opening his hands in question.

‘Perhaps a family squabble under the influence of an excess of your excellent beer might have more credibility as the regrettable cause of your being forced to take the throne, obviously with the greatest of reluctance? What do you think, my lord, King Brem?’