Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"No, Caius, we have not."

His words astounded me, but I was aware of the general attitude here and realised that I had not heard all there was to hear. I drew a deep breath, stifling the urge to rant further.

"Very well," I said when I had mastered my breathing again, hearing the ominous quiet in my own voice. "Would someone care to tell me why?"

"Saul Maripo will tell you himself," Cato said, his own voice calm and dignified. "I regret he was not here when you arrived, but he arrived himself only a half hour ago, having spent the entire day in the saddle, riding hard, and I gave him leave to go to the latrine while we awaited you. He should be back at any moment."

Even as Cato spoke, I heard the ringing of metal-studded boots on marble and turned to see young Maripo stride into the room and skid to a halt as he saw me. He snapped immediately to attention and smashed his fist against his cuirass in a salute, flushing scarlet. He was stained and dirty and travel- worn, dark rings of exhaustion clearly visible beneath his eyes from where I stood across the room. I waved him down and put him at his ease.

"Saul," I greeted him, nodding. "I hear you have had an eventful day."

"Aye, Commander." He was still at attention, swaying on his feet.

"Sit down, lad, before you fall down. And relax. No one is going to disembowel you." I moved to the chest that stood behind my desk, stooping to raise the lid and withdrawing the flask of mead and one of the cups I kept there for occasions like this. Around me, I could almost feel the tension drain from the other officers. I poured the cup to the rim with the honeyed, fiery drink and carried it to where young Maripo had subsided into a high-backed chair brought forward by one of the others. He accepted the cup from my hand, nodding gratefully, and drank deeply, then caught his breath and coughed against the fire in his throat. No one laughed. When the young man had regained his composure, I nodded to him again. "Take another one, more slowly this time." He did, and then sat back, relaxing visibly, his eyes on mine.

I moved back to the table and leaned against it, placing the mead flask by my side. I took my time now, knowing the floor was mine and no one would interrupt me. Perhaps to compensate for my earlier volubility, I waited longer than I might have and then spoke slowly and clearly.

"The others have told me part of your story . . . the distressing part. All that remains now, it would appear, is for you to explain why no one is raising our army to repel a possible invasion of our territories. Can you enlighten me?"

The young officer nodded. "Yes, Commander. There is no threat—no immediate threat, I mean."

I sighed, loudly. "I see. And how have you arrived at that conviction?"

He flushed again, hearing the irony in my tone. "I looked, Commander. And I looked with great care, and at great length, and with as much speed as I could."

I dipped my head slightly, accepting his word. "Explain, if you please. From the beginning."

Now it was his turn to heave a quick, sharp sigh, and I watched him search for the words to tell his tale. When they came to him, they emerged in the clipped tones of a formal report to a superior.

"I assembled my entire command at dawn, Commander, and set them to breaking camp completely, knowing that this was an unusual day, in that the post would be abandoned overnight, today and tomorrow. It seemed an ideal opportunity to clean up and prepare the post for a new start by the returning guard, who might appreciate a clean and wholesome billet at the outset of their stay. I also knew I needed to keep the men occupied until the arrival of the force from Calibri—there was a festive spirit in evidence that morning, because of the occasion, and I thought it might be mildly prejudicial to good discipline to allow the men to indulge it. I expected the Calibri contingent to arrive before mid-morning." He paused, evidently remembering, then resumed. "When they had not materialized by the expected time, I became concerned, but decided to allow them half an hour of leeway, thinking they might have decided to clean up their own camp before leaving. Eventually, however, my discomfort drove me to investigate their absence. We ourselves had experienced nothing out of the ordinary prior to that time, and so I took the entire mounted force under my command and made my way towards Calibri at all speed. Before I left, however, anticipating that there might be something amiss, I also sent a rider on our fastest horse to summon the cavalry troops from the next camp to the southeast, bidding the commander there, Decius, to take note of my concern and send his men as backup for my own."

I interrupted him. "Pardon me, Decurion, I have no wish to interrupt your report, and so far I am impressed, but how many horsemen did you have?"

"Sixteen, sir. Two squads; half a squadron. And thirty-four infantry, whom I left in camp, standing to arms."

"I see. Co on."

He cleared his throat, collecting his thoughts after my interruption. "We made good speed to Calibri, and when I was sure that no one was coming to meet us, I sent four scouts ahead on our flanks. The camp was silent when we reached it. It had been burned and there were dead men everywhere."

"I see. All ours; no enemy dead?"

"No, sir." He blinked and I watched his eyes focus on a point somewhere between himself and me. "As soon as I had confirmed the death toll, I began to fear that the enemy, whoever they were, might have outflanked us along the way, hiding until we had passed by, and then riding to attack my own camp at Horse Farm. I knew I had to ascertain, immediately, their numbers and the direction they had taken when they left Calibri. I deployed my men in line abreast to sweep around the perimeter, using the camp itself as a pivot. Fortunately, we found the sign immediately, beginning at the paddock where the horses had been kept, and heading away directly towards the northwest. I examined the signs myself and gauged the raiding party to have been less than a hundred strong. . ." He broke off and his eyes became troubled, then fixed directly on my own. "Those bows, Commander. We've known what they can do for a long time, but they have worked for us until now, suiting our purposes. Used against us, they represent an entirely new form of attack against which we're utterly ill-equipped for self-defence. All our dead were killed by arrows. I know that because I examined each body individually. Not one man bore a sword cut or an axe wound. Every single one had been shot to death by arrows, and most of the arrows had been ripped out of the bodies afterwards. I had one of my men cut some of the few remaining from the bodies of our dead, and brought them with me in the belief that they might be important to the identification of the raiders."

"Aye," I nodded. "They are. The arrows were reclaimed to be used again. They are difficult to make, and much too valuable to be abandoned when they might be salvaged. The few that were left were probably too deeply lodged to be freed quickly, so they were cut through in order to deny their usefulness to others." Or to disguise their source, my mind added, tacitly. "Carry on."

"Sir. One of my men, called Kenith, is a Celt, highly skilled in tracking, and he confirmed my estimate of their numbers. He also divined, and later confirmed from his own observations of the tracks, that the attackers were Celts. He is a scout and a tracker, as I have said, and he pointed out to me that the trail was old, by several days at least. All marks other than the deepest gouges and footprints had been wiped out; the grass straightened by time. And yet their trail was plain, beaten by the hooves of the horses. No rain had fallen in the interim, Kenith indicated, and we might follow them with ease. I so decided, and left a pair of men behind; one to await the arrival of the riders from the other camp, who would be following behind us, and bring them in pursuit of us; the other to return to Horse Farm at all speed, with orders to Sextus Sulla, the infantry commander there, to march his men to Calibri and bury our dead in a common grave." He broke off again, clearly feeling a need to explain. "There was no time, Commander, to do other than that. We could not bring fifty three-day corpses home for burial, nor could we bury them in single graves."