Henry Treece - Legions of the Eagle (Henry Treece) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

Then a fearsome thought struck him. This must be a god o the woods, and the language he was speaking must be the language of the gods! Yes, that was it—this was a warning from the gods that Math, or Gwydion, or both, had done wrong! This god had come to punish them!

Gwydion began to run frantically towards the house on the hill; never looking back after that realisation had come to him. Yet, when he was half-way there, he stopped, and another thought struck him. If this was a messenger of the gods, why hadn't he put an arrow to that great bow and shot it at Gwydion? Or, easier still, why had he not drawn one of those long knives and ... Gwydion shuddered at the awful thought. Then he became calmer. No, this god must be a kindly one. He must have come down to say that their guilt was forgiven, that their sacrifice of the bow and the knife had been sufficient to pay for the dead hare. Gwydion's mouth began to smile. He felt easier in his mind now and turned back, to look towards the wood. In the silver moonlight, he saw the man, but this time he was seated on a horse, a small shaggy pony rather than the sort of tall charger with which the boy was familiar; and he was waving something above his head. What was it? It looked like a creature of some sort. Yes, it was a hare, and he was waving it by the hind-feet, as though he were wishing Gwydion goodbye.

The boy's legs suddenly felt very weak, for he had been through much excitement since he had stolen from his bed that night. He began to make his way slowly to the house, still a little afraid, but now determined not to say a word about this strange encounter, lest the gods should be displeased a second time, and should take Bel from him.

The next morning, after a troubled night's sleep, Gwydion awoke to hear great bustling and commotion in the yard outside. He dressed quickly and went outside, to find the farm full of men and horses and stores. The great chariot was now bright and shining, and its blades and coral-studded harness all ready. The boy saw that the long trek-wagon had also been made ready and was now almost full of provisions and clothing. Among all the bustle of men arriving and departing on sweating horses, Gwydion saw his mother and father talking earnestly, in the thick of the people. When they saw him, they beckoned to him to come to them straightway. Then his father, who looked a little tired and red about the eyes, said, "Gwydion boy, you will withdraw with your mother and the servants in the wagon, to a spot well away from the city. If all goes well, I shall ride to you tonight, or tomorrow night at the latest. If all goes badly, I shall try to get a messenger to bring you word that you are to retreat towards the west, into the wooded lands. Your mother knows which relatives we can trust out there, and she will be in charge if I do not return. Do you understand?"

Gwydion looked at him sadly and said, "Father, can I be with you in the battle, if there is to be one?"

The father smiled and clapped his son on the shoulder. "There is time for that later, Gwydion," he said. "For the moment, your task is to be a soldier of the wagon and guard your mother."

Gwydion could see that there was no point in arguing, and he said, "Will Math be with us?"

"Of course," said his mother. "We could not leave dear Math! Any more than we could leave you." So Gwydion went away to eat his breakfast, and to tell the slave of the plan which they had to follow.

A little later, since there were still many preparations to be made, Gwydion went to his father and said, "Father, it may be a long while before Math and I can go hunting with little Bel again. May we walk out among the hills for a while until the wagons are ready?"

The warrior smiled and said, "You are a true hunter, my son. Nothing, not even battle, will stop you! Very well, but see that you run back when you hear three blasts on the war-horns, for they will mean that I shall set forth with the chariot to Camulodunum to meet the king, and that your mother's wagon will start out to the place which we have decided on. Do not delay or they will go without you; they must obey my orders."

Gwydion bowed to his father and then called Math and Bel, and so they set off, to a warren that lay well to the south of the dark woods where Gwydion had seen the strange creature on the previous night.

As they walked, with Bel dancing at their heels, Gwydion breathed the summer air deeply and said, "Oh Math, it would be terrible to go away and never come back to my land again."

But Math only smiled, a little sadly, and Gwydion didn't raise the topic again, for he suddenly remembered that this was what had already happened to poor Math. He held the slave's hand for a moment, as though assuring him that he was his friend, and then they went on. Soon Bel had smelled a rabbit and the two boys forgot their cares in digging frantically with their hands and with sticks, to try to find the hidden creature; but they were out of luck, and so passed on over the brow of the hill, that looked south almost towards Londinium itself. And there they paused and stood still in amazement, pointing and shading their eyes with their hands.

Far away across the plain, so far indeed that its outlines were vague and unsure, their sharp eyes caught the movement of many men. First there was a long, sweeping line that fanned out on either side of a long thin column, and then, far back, behind all this, an irregular shape of isolated moving points of light.

"What is it?" said Math, looking at Gwydion in fear.

The other boy's face was deadly serious. "I know what that is. I have had to draw diagrams of them in school. That is the Roman army—the cohorts in that column, the horse-riders, the Alae, on either side of them, and the baggage and siege engines coming up behind. That's a Roman army, all right, I can tell you, and they mean business. There must be many thousands of men there."

Math said, "Ought we to run back and tell your father?"

But Gwydion turned a look of amusement on him. "Why do you think father has got ready? My people know all about this; their scouts have been bringing them word for days, no doubt."

He began to tell Math about the Council meeting on the previous night, but pulled himself up short, for that would lead on to the strange man-god by the woodside, and Gwydion had secretly promised not to tell a living soul about that.

Instead, he said, "Come on, this way, we'll get a bit of hunting before the horns blow and we have to leave." He tugged at Math's sleeve and dragged him over the crest of the next hill; and then, without warning, he stopped and flung himself to the heather, pulling Math down with him and clapping his hand over his friend's mouth to silence him. "Sh!" he said. "There are men over there, in the little hollow. Not Belgae!" Silently, the two boys crept slowly towards the lip of the hollow, Gwydion holding Bel tightly so that he should not give them away. They stopped behind a gorse bush which would shield them from the sight of those below, and then they looked down into the broad, ferny basin.

Three men sat playing dice, which they shook out of a bone cup on to a sheepskin, hide uppermost, spread on the ground. The boys had never seen men like these before, They were stoutly built and immensely broad, and each had the same sort of face, square, determined, hard-eyed, merciless. One of them was bare-headed and the boys saw that his hair was shaven to the scalp, and, like his companions, his face was smooth and sunburnt.

The two boys saw the round polished iron helmets with their hook-like chin-straps, the heavy leathern jerkins overlaid with plates of toughened metal, the short leather kilt composed of straps that hung down over a thick linen skirt; the stoutly soled marching boots; but most of all they saw the long oblong shield, the thin, vicious lance, the short, leaf-bladed stabbing sword. There was no need to ask who these might be, they carried their own name in their hard faces, faces which feared no man, no animal, no country in all the known world. These were men of the Legions, men who marched half over Europe and Asia under the Eagles, the greatest fighters that the world had ever known.