Адриан Голдсуорти - The Encircling Sea

Ferox sighed. ‘If he knows? Either make a last effort to kill us and then hole up in his stronghold on the far side of the island, or take to his heels. He has a ship. We might follow him for a while, but he can probably guess that we won’t hunt him forever. Even after his losses he has a lot of well-armed warriors. They could easily take another island.’

‘Or wait until we have gone and come back here,’ Vindex suggested. ‘Doesn’t it depend on how much he wants Genialis? If the boy has value to him then he might have another go. It’s quiet out there now, but if they get in it won’t last long.’

‘What if he could not leave?’ Ferox looked at them in turn.

‘You are thinking of his ship?’ Vindex said. ‘Burn it, like we did those boats at Aballava?’

‘I was thinking something like that.’

‘Big thing to burn.’

‘It is.’

‘If you trap him here then he must fight.’ The one-eyed veteran was still fussing the cow. ‘So maybe he will go back behind the walls of his settlement and prepare. If he has seen the ships coming he will guess at how many are coming for him. So he will know that he is outnumbered two or three to one. Can he hope to beat those odds?’

‘Will he have a choice?’ Ferox asked. ‘He cannot leave, so as you say he must fight. This is not the country to face bigger numbers in the open, and there is nowhere to hide. Behind a stout wall he has a chance. We have held them off so far and he might do the same.’

Longinus nodded. ‘Our boys won’t have the equipment for a full siege or the time for it. So Cniva might be wondering how much food Brocchus and his men have brought with them. There is not a lot to take up here, not to feed hundreds, and if Brocchus sends men to sail off to the coast or another island that takes time and weakens his force. Hold out for long enough and the Romans might leave.’

‘Might be weeks or months, or maybe never, before they come back,’ Vindex conceded. ‘This is a long way from the province. If he can hold them off Cniva would tell everyone that he was a great leader, a man whose spirit is strong. But he’s failed so far here. What’s to say that some of the rest don’t kill him and find someone else to take charge?’

‘Does it matter?’ Ferox said. ‘The choices are the same. They know that they’ll not get terms. Not after what they have done. And Cniva’s lasted a long time. You don’t get rid of a man like that easily.’

Longinus stopped petting the animal’s head and walked around behind it, running a hand along its back. ‘How are ten fighters, one of them a woman, or eleven if you include a tough old bastard who can limp quickly, to fight their way past a couple of hundred warriors, who may object to having their trireme set on fire? Leave the tower and you abandon those who cannot move, and almost certainly lead the others who cannot fight to their deaths. Probably all will die.

‘If we stay here then all or most may survive. That is if rescue is close and if we hold off any attacks that come before it gets here.’

‘A lot of ifs,’ Vindex said. ‘And at best we survive.’

‘We cannot leave the tower,’ Longinus said, watching Ferox’s face closely. ‘But I do not think that is what you have in mind, is it? Most of us must stay.’

Ferox nodded. ‘There is little point in all of us going. Eleven against two hundred or more, the odds are absurd. But they are not much more absurd for one or two against a couple of hundred, and one or two might slip past unnoticed and be able to reach the ship.’

Vindex gave a grim laugh. ‘Is this one of those times when you presume on our friendship?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Bugger,’ the scout said.

Longinus did not smile. ‘You should stay. If anyone is to go with the centurion it should be that old thief. He’s used to creeping about in the dark. And maybe the boy?’

Ferox was surprised, even though the same thought had occurred to him. Longinus’ one eye glittered in the torchlight, and he felt as if the old man was looking inside him.

‘It stands to reason,’ the veteran said. ‘You want to get out to a ship. And maybe if you are thinking straight and reckon you have luck on your side, you want to get off that boat and escape afterwards. They won’t have the ship on the beach. It’s from the classis Britannica and they tend to build in oak for these northern waters, so it’ll be too heavy to drag ashore unless you are planning to be there for a while. So, you’ll need to find a small boat to get out to it, because I don’t think they’ll have a jetty and it will be too far to swim. Bran is the best waterman we have, young though he is. And if I’m to hold on here with what’s left, I’ll need this Brigantian rogue. The boy you can take if you want to play the hero, and you can have the thief because his brother is the true fighter, but I’m keeping him.’ He flicked Vindex around the head.

‘You think it would be better if all of us stay?’ Ferox asked the old man.

‘Give us all a better chance of living. Still might not be enough, but there’s nothing we can do about that. I came here to get the lady back safe, because I owe her family and she is one of our own by marriage – and I happen to like her a lot. That job is not yet finished, and it matters to me more than anything else. So, if I was in charge, we’d all stay here and live or die to protect her. The most I’d let you do is creep out at night and see how many of their throats you can slit. No harm in keeping them nervous, but I wouldn’t take a risk with her life. But I’m not in charge.’

‘Lost the war when you were, didn’t you, father?’ Vindex said.

‘Yes, I did.’ He smiled. ‘Not sure I could ever have won, but then if that’s true maybe I shouldn’t have fought it in the first place. Didn’t have the choice, though, after what they did to me. Your lot didn’t do any better, did they?’

‘Us? We never fought the Romans. The Carvetii have always been friends to Rome – leastways while anyone’s looking.’ He jerked a thumb at Ferox. ‘He’s the one whose folk thought it was a good idea to take a crack at the Romans.’

‘In case you hadn’t heard, we lost,’ the centurion conceded.

‘I know,’ Longinus told him. ‘I was there under Frontinus.’ For some reason Ferox had never thought of this old man fighting against the Silures. He wondered if Longinus had been there when his own father had been cut down by the Romans, or when others of his family had died or been enslaved. ‘It isn’t nice to lose, is it?’

Ferox said nothing, and the veteran turned his attention back to Vindex. ‘Thought you Carvetii call yourselves the brave ones?’

‘Aye, but not stupid. When you see a huge bastard with an evil temper coming to visit, covered in mail and with a sharp sword and looking angry, it’s time to make friends rather than get in his way. Don’t your folk understand that?’

Longinus laughed. ‘We’re Batavians. We are the big bastards with evil tempers. But sometimes the odds are too big.’

‘Not wise fighting when the odds are stacked against you,’ the Brigantian agreed. ‘Wouldn’t catch sensible men like us doing that, would you?’

Longinus ignored him and came around from behind the cow to face Ferox. The animal’s gaze followed him until its head could not turn far enough. After that, it leaned down and began to eat some hay. All the while the calf drank milk and ignored them all. ‘Well then,’ the veteran said. ‘I’m not in charge. You are and you want to do this damned fool thing. I’m guessing you hope to slip out during the night. Maybe see if you can get some black clothes from their dead and wear those. Their sentries will have to be blind not to spot you, whether you try to swim through the water or crawl across the causeway. Odds are you are dead or captured before you get a hundred paces from where you start. But the rain may help, and if they’re blind and daft there is a slim chance that you’ll get through. Next you have to cross the island for a couple of miles to reach the harbour. Lots more of them out there and plenty of chance for them to catch you. What if you bump into a patrol?’