‘You could take it out of Viroconium and maybe buy a place in a boat crossing to Gaul. That’s what the people who have any gold to spend, buy with it nowadays.’
It was said half in jest, half in unexpected earnest, but either way, Regina slipped away from it as though it were some kind of menace. She pushed the ring back into his hand, and turned away to the fire. ‘Oh look!—The hare is scorching.’
6
The Cattlex Raiders
OWAIN came to the edge of the trees that made a dark fleece about the flanks of the Virocon, a pair of wood pigeons swinging in one hand and Dog loping at his heels; and turned his steps, weary from his day’s hunting, back towards the pale gleam that was the walls of Viroconium. He shivered in the thin east wind that parted Dog’s hair in zigzags down his back, and thought of the cooking fire that Regina would have made ready.
He was hungry as well as tired, and the store-hole in the wall had been empty, so there would be nothing to eat until the pigeons were cooked. Once, he and Dog had killed a yearling roebuck—the sling he was carrying now, tucked into his belt, was made of its skin—and the three of them had gorged themselves for days. But there had been other times, especially when the snow came, when he and Dog had snared and hunted for days, desperately, without a kill and there had been nothing to live on at all save a little corn from the store under the baker’s shop. The corn, stale and fouled by rats as it was, had kept them alive; but it was getting low now, and Owain knew that it was time to be going.
He had known all along that they could not go on living in their dead city for ever. The Saxons might come back any day, the woods were full of broken men, and the hunting was not good. But every time he tried to speak to Regina of what they should do, she slipped away from the subject with a kind of silvery whisk like a minnow. Viroconium was the only place she knew, and she was frightened of what lay beyond. And then it had been winter, and one could not travel in the winter.
But now the blackthorn was in flower …
It had been a strange winter; hard and grim and hungry, but with a kind of light shining through it. They had simply lived from day to day, with not much thought to spare from warmth and food, just the business of keeping alive as the vixen who laired by the West Gate understood the business of keeping alive. But now it was over, he found himself remembering the rosemary seedling that Regina had dug up from the Palace gardens and planted in a broken crock by their doorway, and the blue flames of the burning olivewood. They had not burned it all. ‘We will keep some of it for another time. It is too beautiful to burn all at once,’ Regina had said. Owain scratched his head—there were things that walked about in his head now—and realized suddenly that he was thinking of their time at Viroconium as something that belonged to the past already; and of course it did no such thing; he still had to talk Regina into coming away. Well then, if she would not come, he’d go without her! But he knew he would not. He was not always sure that he liked her very much, especially when the beggar’s whine crept into her voice, though that did not often happen now; but he knew that they belonged together, as he and Ossian had belonged together even when they fought.
The sun had gone and the light was thickening under a stormy sky as he came up to the North Gate, and the wind ran shivering through the long grass. And in the gateway he checked, sniffing. But it was nothing so tangible as a smell that had pulled him up; it was the odd instinctive feeling one may have on entering a house that is supposed to be empty, that it is not empty at all.
Then Dog growled, soft and menacing, deep in his throat, and looking down, Owain saw the hackles rise on the hound’s neck and down his spine. And suddenly his own heart was racing, and he did not know why.
He stooped, and slipped the bit of old rope that he used as a hunting leash through Dog’s collar, and then went on. He was about a spear-throw from the Gate when he heard it; a distant splurge of voices somewhere ahead of him in the ruins that had been silent so long. He checked a second time, listening. Everything was quiet now, only a thrush singing in the gardens. And then as he stood straining his ears for any sound above the racing drub of his own heart, it came again, and mingled with it the distressful lowing of cattle.
The sounds seemed to come from the direction of the Forum. ‘Quiet now,’ Owain muttered to Dog, thankful that being a war-hound he was trained to keep silent at command; and together they turned aside from the straight main street into the gardens behind the city’s principal inn. No sense in going blundering down the open street into whatever was happening. Silent as a pair of shadows for all the speed that they were making, the boy and the hound crossed the garden and took to the maze of narrow alleys beyond, heading by back-ways and through the ruins of shops and houses in a bee-line for the Forum.
Round most of the Forum the streets ran broad and open, making of it an island, but on the north side the ruins of a tall house had fallen across the way and gave some sort of cover almost up to the side entrance against the wall of the Basilica. And in a short while the boy, with the hound still in leash, was stealing forward through the fallen timbers, into the gateway. On his left rose the wall of the Basilica like a cliff, on his right the blackened ruins of a garland-maker’s shop, and at the end of the narrow cleft between, were sounds of men and beasts and the red flicker of firelight.
Owain slipped aside, crouching, into the ruins of the shop; and next instant, as he peered out through the charred tangle of the colonnade, the whole scene in the Forum was plain before him. The light was fading fast, though overhead the storm-clouds had caught fire from the sun that was already way down behind the Western Mountains; and the great blaze that was leaping and crackling in the centre of the open space seemed to echo the gold and copper and ice-green of the sky. Upward of a score of men were gathered about the fire, a lean, ragged, wolfish crew, spears in their hands or lying beside them; and dim in the gusty twilight and the fringes of the fire, he saw the shapes of shaggy knee-haltered mountain ponies; further out still, fenced into the lower end of the Forum with a barricade of half-charred timbers, a huddle of cattle, brown flanks and wild eyes and uptossed wide-horned heads. Calves among them too, from the sound of it, and cows in milk.
‘I still think we’d have done better to push straight on and get them across the river tonight,’ one of the men was saying discontentedly, and Owain realized with a sense of shock that the words were not spoken in the guttural Saxon, but in his own tongue. Not a Saxon raiding band, but a British one; broken men out of the woods, maybe.
‘So near to dark, and with the rain that there’s been in the hills to bring it down in spate?’ growled another, a small lean man with thatch of badger-striped hair, who seemed to be a leader among them. ‘Milch cows with calves among them too? Don’t be a bigger fool than you were born to be, Cunor Bigmouth.’
‘Anyway, who is to follow us?’ said a third, in the soft leaping voice of one bred in the mountains. ‘I did not see many Saxons left when we had finished with the farm.’ And there was a general laugh, snarling and ugly with the wolf pack note in it.
They had killed a half-grown steer out of the herd, and several of them were flaying it beside the fire, the flamelight striking on their fierce intent faces and the blades of the long knives. Owain felt the whimper rise in Dog’s throat, despite his training, at the smell of the warm ox-blood, and strangled it quiet with desperate hands. He had seen all he needed to see; now the thing was to go and find Regina. But even as he drew his knee under him to slip away, he froze once more, as, with scarcely any sound of footsteps in their soft raw-hide shoes, three more men, returning probably from a foraging expedition, loomed in through the Forum arch.
What happened then was so quick that it was over almost before he realized that anything was happening at all. As the latecomers entered, there was a startled movement among the ruins of the colonnade, right in their path. One of the men pounced on it like a dog on a rat; there was an instant’s scuffle, and a burst of fierce laughing voices, and then
a scream. And the man came striding on towards his fellows round the fire, with a small figure fighting like a mountain cat across his shoulder.
Owain felt sick as from a blow in the stomach; too late to go and find Regina.
The man swung her down into the midst of the group, holding her fast with her thin arms twisted behind her back. ‘See, lads, here’s something else beside cattle to carry back with us into the mountains.’
They crowded close around her while in their midst Regina twisted and wrenched at her pinioned arms. Owain caught one glimpse of her, her matted hair falling over her face, as she writhed round and doubled up to sink her teeth into a man’s wrist and hung on, worrying at it. ‘Ah, would you, you wild cat!’ someone snarled; and he heard the sound of a blow followed by a shriek and a stream of filthy gutter words in the girl’s hoarse high voice; and for the moment all sight of Regina was lost to him.
His first instinct had been to loose Dog on them and come flying out with his knife, but his brain was working cold and quick, and he knew that would be a fatal thing to do. Even with Dog’s terrible jaws to help him, what could he do against a score of armed men? And after he and Dog were dead, there would be no one left to help Regina. If he could make a diversion of some kind, that would be the thing—
The plan seemed to come to him ready-made, and next instant he was melting back into the shadows, still clutching Dog’s leash, leaving the pigeons abandoned where he had laid them down. He was slipping from one patch of dense shadows to the next, along the ruined colonnade towards the far corner where the cattle were penned; and as he went he plunged his hand into the little rawhide pouch at his belt, feeling desperately for the few sling pebbles he had left from his day’s hunting. Five or six by the feel of it; that should be enough. In his ears were the voices and the ugly laughter about the fire, but he did not waste time in looking that way again. His business was with the cattle … And a few moments later he was crouching close behind the place where they were penned. Dog was pressed against him, obedient to his orders, but he could feel the eagerness for battle, the rage and the bewilderment quivering through the great hound, as he drew out the first of his sling stones and lobbed it on to the broad back of the nearest cow.
She flung up her head and shifted uneasily, but no more; he chose a calf for his next target, throwing with all the strength and skill he possessed, and heard the young one bawl in pain and fright, as he ducked back behind the screening wreckage. Then he threw at the cow again before her unease had time to die away, and she snorted and flung up her head trying to turn full circle in the crowded pen. The fourth pebble caught a steer on its soft moist nose, and set it bellowing. The pen was a sea of tossing heads now, and he heard a warning shout from the direction of the fire as he lobbed the fifth pebble into their midst to keep the panic spreading. He had no need of the sixth pebble; a cow had gored one of the steers, the calves were bawling in terror, and the whole pen was in a milling turmoil. Suddenly the rough barricades burst and swirled aside, and the whole mass poured out into the open, bellowing and kicking and trying to horn each other as Owain, still clinging to Dog’s leash, rose with a yell behind them.
‘The cattle are stampeding!’ ‘Someone’s driving the cattle!’ ‘Attack—it’s an attack!’ he heard men shouting.
‘It’s the Saxons after all—!’ They were snatching up their spears as the lowing milch cows bore down upon them. The panic had spread to the ponies now, so that the poor little brutes threshed about neighing, terrified by the hobbles that dragged them to their knees. In a moment the entire Forum was a swirling and plunging chaos, shouts and cries, the lowing of cattle and the shrieks of ponies tore the air, and a bullock dashed right through the fire, bellowing as the flames scorched its hide and scattering burning fragments far and wide. And at that instant Regina twisted out of the slackened grasp of the man who held her, ducked under an outstretched arm, and came flying towards the Forum Gate.
Owain raced in the same direction, and reaching it first, turned for an instant to wait for her. She was running like a wild thing, her black hair flying behind her, and even in the dusk he saw the white terror in her face. ‘It’s all right—it’s me!’ he panted, and caught her as she reached him and stumbled, and swung her past him, just as a handful of the raiders, waking to what was really happening, came yelling out of the chaos after them.
Snatching one backward glance, he turned behind her, Dog racing leashed at his side, and together they hurled themselves across the street into the shadows opposite. A narrow alley-way opened to them, and they tore down it, then swerved right into another. They were in the street of metal-workers now, and squat forge chimneys rose along the way, dark and fireless against the sky; and they swung left again into a tangle of mean streets, just as the first of the hunters burst howling into the far end of the street behind them.
After that they lost all count of time or distance. It was like being hunted through the twisting ways of a nightmare; streets that seemed to stretch out to infinity with no cover in them, and the shells of the ruined houses crowding close to stare down at them with blind eyes as they ran; and always the yammer of the hunt behind. But Owain, who was choosing the way, knew every gap and short cut and dark corner of Viroconium now, as well as the girl did, and soon the dusk would be thick enough to cover them; and darting and turning and twisting in their tracks like hares, the time came when the cry of the hunt grew fainter and seemed to lose purpose behind them. And they knew that for the moment, at all events, they had shaken off their pursuers.
They were in the garden of a big house when they stopped to listen and draw breath. It was full dusk by now; the clouds were racing bat-winged overhead, and the rising wind was hushing among the dark masses of holly and juniper, driving the first chill drops of rain before it. And from the town, seemingly from two or three quarters at once, came the distant sounds of the hunt questing to and fro, faintly querulous like hounds that had lost the scent, while from the direction of the Forum they could make out other shouts and the lowing of cattle where men were still rounding up the scattered herd. Owain was catching great gasps of air, and as the drubbing of his heart quietened, he heard Regina’s quick panting breaths like those of a little hunted animal. But even as he listened, it seemed to him that the sounds of the hunt were drawing nearer, and in the same instant Regina gave a terrified gasp. ‘They’re coming this way!’
He reached out his free hand and caught hers. He knew that she could not run much more, and they were a long way now from any of the gates. ‘Come!’ he whispered. ‘Up to the house. Better cover among the ruins.’
She gave a little sob of exhaustion, but turned instantly to follow his pull.
It was hard to run with both arms cumbered, but he knew that if he let go of Regina she probably wouldn’t make the house at all, and he could not risk Dog turning back to give battle on his own account. So he struggled on, desperately, his heart bursting against his ribs. It seemed a mile, though in truth it was not much more than a spear-throw, before they were panting against the half wall of a colonnade from which most of the little painted columns had fallen; and as they checked there, the sounds of the hunt swept nearer behind them. ‘Over the wall and get round to the back!’ Owain gasped. He thrust Regina over the fallen debris, scrambling after her. The house doorway gaped before them and they stumbled in over the jagged remains of the door timbers, groped their way through the tangle of the fallen upper storey, found another door and came out into the ruins of the slaves’ quarters and outbuildings behind. The first rain was spattering on the dry pavement as they checked again to listen and look about them.
They were in a narrow courtyard, at the far end of which a hawthorn tree leaned drunkenly across the broken wall that shut out the street. Owain saw it jaggedly outlined against the last stormy brightness of the west, and knew that they were in the house of Ulpius Pudentius who had once thrown a copper coin at Regina to buy her off from braying after him in the street.
Clo
se beside them some steps led down into the ruined stoke-house, where in the old days a slave had tended the hypocaust fire. It was all overgrown now with brambles and the wreck of last autumn’s wild convolvulus. ‘Wait,’ Owain ordered, and letting go Regina’s hand, stumbled down the steps and ducked under the fallen beam that leaned slantwise at the bottom. Other debris had fallen across it, but the beam had held it up, and there was a small triangular gap left, filled with the blackness under the house floor. Bad air came from it, cold and dank, and he had no means of knowing how secure the beam was. Maybe they were going to be buried alive, but it was no time to be thinking of ‘maybe’. Next instant he was out again and reaching up for Regina’s hand. ‘We can get under the house floor—the hypocaust—Come!’
He thrust her past him through the dark hole under the beam, and pushed Dog after her, then turned to draw the brambles and dead convolvulus stalks across the betraying entrance, and paused an instant, listening. He thought the voices of the hunt sounded fainter again, but that might be only the spattering of the rain and the walls of the house, blanketing sound. Then he worked his own way in, backwards on his stomach, pulling the last bramble spray across as he did so.
A little grey light filtered through the tangle, but when he pushed himself further back and turned about, the blackness was like a tangible substance pressed against his eyes. Dog was licking his face as though he had not seen him for a month, and he reached out, groping into the dark beyond him, and found Regina crouching where the narrow passage-way opened out under the floor. ‘Go forward,’ he whispered, ‘right forward as far as we can away from the opening.’ And they felt their way on, between the squat pillars of the hypocaust, until at last they came to the blank wall of the house’s foundation, and there was no further to go.
Nothing to do now but crouch in the wolf-dark, stretching one’s ears for any sound of the hunt from the world above. Better to lie down really, because if you sat up you found the floor above pressing on the back of your neck, and that somehow made it seem more like being in a trap. Beside him, Regina was pouring out her story in a sobbing whisper. ‘They must have been cattle-raiding into the Saxon lands, and they—I suppose they came because the Forum was somewhere to pen the cattle for the night, and I crept up close to see if there were any milch cows because—I thought we might have some milk—and then someone came up behind me and caught hold of me before I could run, and he laughed and—’