Адриан Голдсуорти - Brigantia

Enica smiled. ‘You came at my summons. Good.’

‘I just woke up, my lady. Vindex’s snores would wake a stone.’

‘Just chance, you think.’ She had coiled her pigtail and piled it on top of her head, making her almost as tall as him. It was a style he remembered Brigita using. ‘Have you become so much the Roman?’

He did not answer.

‘You know who my grandmother was, and you know of her power. Do you know of her grandmother? No. She was Mandua, daughter of Manubracius, King of the Trinovantes, at least until Cunobelinus defeated him. You know of him, at least, the father of Caratacus, although from all I hear the son was the greater of the two, though the father was great enough. I liked Caratacus, although of course I only met him when he was very old. We spoke of Britannia and he liked that, and I joked with him and he told me I was a naughty child and that next time if I did not behave he would spank me.’ She laughed. ‘I was so sorry to hear that he had passed.’

That could mean anything and nothing, and Ferox let her talk.

‘Mandubracius was ally of Julius Caesar in his war against Cassivellaunus. Heard of them?’ She pulled a face that was pure Claudia the Roman. ‘At least you must have heard of Caesar?’

‘I have.’

‘Silures.’ She shook her head. ‘My family say that Caesar took a shine to Mandua. That was his way, they say, and of course she was a beauty because all the women in my family are beauties. Soon afterwards she was sent north to marry the high king of the Brigantes – he was only a man so his name matters little – and at the end of the year she gave birth to a daughter.

‘My brother believes that the girl was the daughter of Caesar and not Mandua’s husband, so that we are of the line of Caesar himself.’

‘And what do you believe?’

‘I do not believe; I know. Some of Mandua and Cartimandua is reborn in me, each of us a different part of the same soul, and we see things that others do not. Caesar was my ancestor, and that is honourable enough, if of little consequence compared to being part of them.’ She reached up and plucked two pins from her hair, letting the ponytail drop down behind her back. ‘I know other things as well.’

‘We ought to rouse that snoring ox and tend to the horses. It will be time to leave very soon.’

‘You are mine.’ Enica took hold of her braided hair and toyed with it. ‘You are mine, prince of the Silures and centurion of Rome, as surely as if I were to tie you with my hair. It is the will of the gods. Your soul kneels to mine. I shall have to think what to do with you, shan’t I?’

Ferox was in no mood for more games. For all the confidence in her voice, this woman had seen just twenty-one summers. ‘Shall we go?’

Enica shook her head again. ‘Silures. So used to hiding the truth that they often cannot see it when it stares them in the face. Very well, let us go. But do not forget what I have said.’

Ferox bent his knees as if to kneel, then stopped and shrugged. He strode away and did not look back.

‘TWO,’ VINDEX SAID softly, giving a big smile. ‘One on either side.’

Ferox rubbed his face and grinned in return. ‘Five. Two on the left, one high up on the right and the other two behind those boulders near the base. Three have been following us since dawn.’

Vindex patted his horse’s neck. ‘What colour eyes have they got?’

Claudia Enica stared at the narrow defile. The setting sun sparkled for a moment on something metal in the heather up on the right. Hours before they had come across the track left by her brother’s men. It was almost a day old. They had followed because for a while it offered the easiest route down. For two miles they had gone along a valley that grew narrower and narrower until it came to this gap, with steep, heather and rock covered slopes on either side. It was an obvious place for an ambush, so obvious that Ferox doubted even a Silurian child would use it, but the Ordovices were not the wolf people.

‘Only five,’ she said after a while. ‘Are you sure they are waiting for us?’

‘We have good horses, weapons, and you,’ Ferox said. ‘They will want all of those. The Ordovices are not kind to women.’

Enica sighed. ‘So do you two want to wait while I kill them?’

‘I think we should go back and find another path.’ There were too many birds in the sky beyond the defile. Most were too far away to recognise, but something was wrong. ‘If they follow us, you can always kill them later.’

A figure leaped up from the heather on the right, closely followed by another. They pushed their way through the fronds, climbing higher up. Then the man on the left did the same. A horseman appeared in the gap, his oval green shield uncovered, and the top of his bronze helmet dark with fur. He trotted through, almost casually deflected a thrown spear with his shield, threw his own javelin in reply, spitting a warrior just as the man stood up from the boulder. Another tribesman scrambled up and ran. The horse went into a canter, the rider drew his sword, came alongside the fleeing warrior and cut back just once. Blood spurted high as the corpse dropped, head hanging to the neck by little more than a thread. The Batavian brought his horse to a dead halt and raised his dripping blade in triumph. Even from this distance, Ferox could see the empty eye socket as Longinus waved to them.

‘Come on!’ he shouted.

‘We should run,’ Ferox said, and was not quite sure why. Vindex frowned.

‘It’s Longinus,’ Claudia Enica said. ‘I trust him.’ She set off at a smooth trot, leading the second grey. Vindex’s horse stirred and he let it follow. Ferox hesitated for a moment and then gave in.

Longinus was beaming. Ferox had never seen the old man smile as broadly, but then perhaps he had never seen him welcome Claudia Enica. As she approached, the veteran wheeled around and set off to lead the way through the defile. It proved longer than Ferox had expected, and curved to the left so that they blinked as they rode straight towards the burning red sunset. Suddenly they came out into a wide pasture.

Horsemen waited in a semi-circle, spears held ready and shields up. In the centre was a tall man, wearing an ornately crested helmet with a gilded face mask. Crispinus was behind them, looking awkward, and then Ferox realised that his hands were tied behind his back. A cavalryman with a blue shield and tartan cloak stood his horse next to the tribune, a naked blade in his hand. There was movement on either side, and Ferox looked up to see dismounted troopers on the slopes on either side of him. He dragged at the reins to pull his horse around.

‘Move and she dies!’ The leader with the face mask had his spear point inches from Claudia Enica’s chest.

Ferox jerked the reins hard, and his gelding reared and fell. He pushed out of the saddle, hurling himself away as far as he could and striking the rocky side of the defile.

Vindex dropped his spear. ‘No trouble, lord. No trouble.’

Ferox managed to push himself up and like the scout he raised his hands in the air. A dismounted trooper came behind him and undid his belt and took it along with his sword. Longinus had turned and was bringing his horse back.

The leader slowly raised his spear and then held it out until one of his men took it. Ferox saw Batavians among the blue shielded men, and they did not look happy. He could not see Gannascus or Sepenestus. The men with blue shields looked much like ordinary troopers, save each wore matching shirts of scale, with silvered and gilded pieces alternating, and even in the wilds they were polished so that they flickered whenever a man shifted and caught the light of the setting sun. Their helmets were tinned, scabbards, belts, and harness fittings more ornate than the wealthiest, most ostentatious soldier in an ala, and their horses taller and finer. Most sported long moustaches and their lean faces reminded him of Vindex. These must be the royal ala of the Brigantes, many of them sons of chieftains. A vicious, flat-nosed man he remembered as Brigantus, former gladiator and now the prince’s bodyguard, swung down from his horse and strode towards Ferox. By now Longinus had turned and was walking his horse back.