Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

"How many are we freeing altogether?"

"Six hundred here, five hundred at the coast, guarding their ships."

"Eleven hundred men..." He shook his head again. "I hope you have the right of it, Caius, for if you are wrong they will eat you alive."

"I know that, Father. I believe I'm right."

He nodded. "Well, don't be longer than three days behind me or I'll pronounce you dead."

I smiled. "No need of that, Commander. By the way, what were our losses on the road?"

"Less than a hundred," he said, looking around him. "We lost one for ten. Not a bad exchange, under the circumstances."

"No," I said. "I suppose not."

He glanced at me, sharp-eyed. "What's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing. This is my first major battle, in terms of the numbers of men involved. I suppose I'm still trying to adjust to the thought of eleven or twelve hundred lives being snuffed out like lamps within the space of an hour. Eleven hundred. That's a lot of corpses. They'll breed a lot of maggots."

He frowned slightly. "It's half as many as it would have been without your bargain! But you're right. That road will be unpleasant to travel for the next few months. I don't think, however, that you have lost sight of what would have happened at Camulod had we let them get through this valley unscathed."

I nodded agreement. "It had to be done, I'm aware of that, but it doesn't make it any the less sickening." I put my foot into the stirrup and swung myself up onto my horse. "As long as people like the Scotii and the Picts, and the Saxons for that matter, see us as weak, helpless victims in a leaderless land, this kind of carnage will go on. But it galls me that Lot of Cornwall should stoop so low as to bring in invaders to help him."

My father cleared his throat derisively and I marvelled again, for the first time; in ages, at how clear his speaking voice had become. "Well, my son, I can guarantee you that Lot would not describe himself as stooping low to achieve his ends. That one is aiming high. He seeks dominion. Lot of Cornwall sees himself as High King of Britain, I fear." He mounted his own horse.

"High King of Britain? Lot of Cornwall? You jest, surely, Father?"

But there was no humour in my father's grim face. He grunted and spat, clearing his mouth before he spoke again. "No, by the ancient gods, I mean it. I have ill reports of him. He looks to conquer all of us."

"Then his ambition will kill him, for he has to reckon with Uther, myself and you, and he's not man enough for any of us. I wonder how Uther is faring right now?"

My father hitched around in his saddle, peering backward to where his army awaited him. "We'll find out soon enough," he said, abstractedly. "Go you and see your prisoners out to sea. And don't take too long about it. We'll be waiting for you in Camulod."

XIV

In the event, we were no more than one day behind my father in reaching Camulod. I took Prince Donuil to meet his surviving men immediately upon leaving my father, and the joy with which they greeted the young man was worth beholding. He explained to them the terms under which he had bought their lives and extracted a pledge from all of them to honour his commitment. There was little argument.

The next day we reached the coast where they had beached their fleet. Seven hundred Scotii, as it turned out, escorted by my four hundred mounted men. Donuil himself went forward to speak to the guards he had left behind and I allowed him to do so without an escort. He was gone for more than an hour and returned with a grizzled veteran almost as big as he himself. When they came in sight of us they stopped and I rode out to meet them. The big man with Donuil was the first to speak.

"My nephew here has told me of the terms he has reached with you, Merlyn Britannicus, and I have no choice but to abide by his terms and yours." He stopped and I waited for him to continue, which he did after clearing his throat and spitting. "Understand that had we known we were facing Romans, we would have behaved very differently!"

I could not let him get away with that, for his bearing implied that by behaving differently they could have beaten us. "What does that mean? You lost more than a thousand men. You marched into an alien land without sending out scouts. You are lucky to be still alive, and luckier still to be sailing home with your weapons and your honour intact."

The big man flushed. "I know that. I had no thought of demeaning you. What I meant was that we were marching to join King Lot. By his tale your people are nought but a nest of bandits who threaten die existence of his kingdom. He told us that you are a rabble."

I grunted. "Well, if rabble we are, we are a well-disciplined rabble."

"Aye, and a strangely honourable one. I am Fergus, brother to King Athol and uncle to Donuil. My nephew has told me of your behaviour and of your treatment of him. I will take back your conditions to my brother Athol, and I am here to swear my solemn pledge that you will hear no more of us for five years from this date." I nodded my head, accepting his pledge, and he went on, "At that time, five years from now, we will return to this spot to claim our prince. If he is well and alive, we will take him and leave."

"He will be."

"He had better be, noble Roman! Take good care of him, for if he is not here on the due date, you will have war with every man on our island, and not all your Roman wiles will win that war for you."

I looked him straight in the eye. "I hear you. If your prince abides by his sworn word he will come to no ill at my hands, nor at the hands of any of my people."

The big man did not take his eyes away from mine. "Make you sure that he takes no ill at the hand of any, be he friend or enemy."

I allowed a smile to soften my next words. "Will you threaten me forever, or shall we take our leave of each other now?"

He nodded. "So be it. He is in your hands."

Donuil still had not spoken, but now he turned to his uncle and embraced him, and we withdrew to watch from a hillside as they embarked and put to sea, each boat towing an empty one behind it. When they had shrunk to the size of toys on the horizon, I turned to look at my young prisoner. He stood erect, straight as a spear, his eyes fixed on the distant fleet, his face giving not the slightest indication of what thoughts were going through his head. I felt for him, imagining what my own feelings would have been had our situations been reversed.

"Prince Donuil," I said. "It is time. We must return to Camulod. You may ride behind one of my men."

He looked at me with empty, emotionless eyes. "I will walk."

"So be it." I gave the signal to my waiting troops and we began the long journey home.

He walked every step of the way, his pace tireless and unflagging, at the left side of my horse. On one occasion, when we were crossing boggy ground, I told him to take hold of my stirrup, but he merely looked at me and kept his hands by his sides. We did not speak further. When we stopped to camp on the first and second nights, he accepted food wordlessly and then lay down to sleep in the spot I indicated to him, mid I had no doubt that he slept soundly, for we had been pushing our horses at a hard walk, which meant brutal speed for a man on foot.

As soon as we reached Camulod, I handed over my prisoner into the keeping of a centurion with orders that he be confined, unchained, in one of the cells that we kept for our own petty offenders, and there I left him for twenty-four hours, giving him time to consider close confinement while I looked after the affairs that had accumulated during my absence.

Uther had not returned from his foray against Lot, although he had sent back the legates Titus and Flavius with two hundred of the four hundred men they commanded. Frustrated by their failure to find Lot on our lands, Titus told me, Uther had decided to pursue him all the way back to Cornwall if he had to, but could not justify depriving Camulod of three of its senior commanders for a task he felt could be handled effectively by one. He had taken half of their troops in addition to his own and had penetrated the south-western peninsula with a force of five hundred, since which time no word had been heard of him. My father was worried. On his return, after speaking to the two legates, he had called an immediate meeting of the Council to discuss all that had happened since our departure, and to assess the state of readiness of the fort and of the colonists themselves. By the time I arrived with my cavalry, he had everything in order. He was in the midst of redeploying his infantry, who had had twenty-four hours' rest and were ready for anything, and I was happy to discover that there was almost nothing for me to do. The few minor duties that fell to me were quickly taken care of, and I was free to make my way to my hidden valley and Cassandra. I left word with my father and rode out of the fort just as the shadows began to stretch out in the late afternoon.