The Fort

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THE DRUMS POUNDED, on and on, the beats echoing back off the peaks and valleys. It was the sound of thunder, rolling across the mountains and bringing the cleansing storms, but tonight the sky was clear of any cloud.

Brasus looked up at the vast field of bright stars and tried to focus. They seemed to move as he watched, or perhaps he moved or his eyes were sluggish from the draft given to him by the priest. The drumming felt as if it was inside his head, the throbbing a part of him, and perhaps he was already being lifted out of this world. The choice would be soon, so he and the other two Messengers waited, sitting cross-legged in the snow. Brasus’ breath steamed, making a tiny cloud. The man beside him was waving his hand in the mist, frowning as he stared at it. The Messengers each wore only a pair of bright white trousers, and yet Brasus did not feel the cold. He was close now, although his mind was too clouded to make full sense of it.

A warrior took a brand from the great fire and used it to light the tallow wrapped around the shaft of an arrow just behind the head. He walked across to the edge of the cliff, where a tall bowman waited. The bowman took it, nocked and drew in one swift motion, and then loosed.

Brasus watched the arrow arch high into the air, the flames flickering. They did not go out until the missile dropped out of sight into the valley below. The drummers stopped as one man, sticks held up high, and waited as the echoes faded away until there was only silence. Brasus blinked and still the stars moved, dancing their endless dance through the Heavens. Then he realised that he heard everything as if the sound was new – the breath of each man, the soft whimpering of the strangers kneeling in their chains, and the great crackle of the fire.

‘Is the message prepared?’

The words were appallingly loud, though the man spoke in a whisper. He had asked the question three times before and received no answer, so that the drums had begun again and a fresh arrow been sent to ward off the storm clouds.

‘It is ready.’ The priest had answered. He was a tall man, clad wholly in black – boots, trousers, tunic, cloak and tall hat. Even his face was painted black, so that he was no more than a vague shape as he stood beyond the fire.

‘Is the truth pure?’ A warrior almost as tall asked the question. He wore an iron helmet and armour of bronze scales, both glinting red from the flames, but he carried no weapons. He was the Eyes of the King, his duty on this night to speak to the priest.

‘Truth is always pure or it is not truth.’ The priest never spoke above a whisper and yet Brasus heard each word sharply. He bowed his head and waited for the choice.

‘Which is the messenger?’

The priest said no words and must have pointed or made some other gesture. Brasus and the other Messengers waited, heads down and eyes closed. After a while they heard the sound of boots crunching in the snow and sensed the Carriers were passing them and making ready to play their part.

Suddenly the man on Brasus’ left stood up. There were men behind them, their tread as loud as their breathing and they had come for the man on the left. Brasus sighed, and raised his head, for the choice had been made and he was not to be the First. The Romans were being led past him, and he saw them closely for the first time. Two were soldiers, their unbelted tunics hanging well beneath their knees, and the third was familiar. He saw the jowly face, thick neck and the white scar on the forehead. His mind was sluggish, each thought taking shape as slowly as wood carved by a blunt knife. The man was a merchant, a secret friend of the king, but his odd foreign name would not come.

He did not see the First Messenger being led away, for the king had arrived and Brasus bowed low as was proper. Then he heard someone walking towards him and a hand touched his bare shoulder, then moved to lift his chin. It was Decebalus, and the great king smiled at him, his teeth white against his thick black beard, the widening streaks of grey hidden by the night.

‘You do not bow to me,’ he said. ‘Not on this night.’ Instead the king bowed to him and hushed Brasus when he tried to say that this was wrong. ‘The Messengers are above the lords of men,’ Decebalus told him and made Brasus all the more disappointed that he had not been chosen to be First. Then he tried to banish such jealousy. A Messenger must be pure or the journey could not be made.

Brasus waited. He could not see what went on for the ritual was conducted behind him. He had never seen it done, although the last time he had stood with the king’s main escort some way down the path. Yet he knew what was to be done and imagined the twelve Carriers standing beneath the great boulder in four rows of three. The Messenger was led half way up the path and there his hands were tied behind his back. After that he walked alone, for this was a journey only he could take and that was a hard walk barefoot because the ground was littered with sharp rocks. He must not speak or utter any sound.

Beneath the great rock the Carriers drove the spiked ends of their long spears into the hard ground, and then held them at a slight angle, the great broad heads pointing up. The Messenger would reach the boulder some twenty feet above them. Then he would jump.

Brasus heard the screams and shuddered. The First had failed, and failure meant that he was not pure enough for the journey, which meant that a Second would go instead and then, if necessary, a Third. The drums beat once again, building up slowly this time, so that the last wails of the First carried above them until his throat was cut. On and on the drummers pounded the hollow trunks, and again the bowman shot into the sky to ward off clouds and storms.

Twice more the Eyes of the King asked the question, and the second time the priest answered. Brasus was not the Second, and instead the other man went, and again Brasus waited. This time it seemed to take longer.

‘It is done!’ The priest had his arms in the air and for the first time shouted. ‘The Great Lord of the Heavens has taken the Messenger into his arms!’

Brasus felt his eyes moistening, and his clouded mind struggled to know whether this was frustration at not having ascended or a shameful relief that he had not gone – or worse yet, been tested and failed. Was this uncertainty why he had not been chosen?

‘Rise, boy.’ Decebalus had come to him again. ‘I shall have need of you.’

Brasus shivered, feeling the cold, and his eyes were so glassy that he could barely see. He heard a dull grunt, then another, but did not see the axeman standing behind the two Roman soldiers swing down or the merchant staring wide-eyed at the corpses beside him.

Decebalus walked over to the black-clad priest and the man raised his arms and called in his hoarse voice. ‘The Lord of the Air has spoken. The pure shall live free!’

‘Then it is war,’ the king shouted. Brasus thought that he looked happier in that moment than he had seen his ruler for many months. The waiting was almost over, the pure would ascend, some to glorious blessedness and those left to freedom.