“Do you know where we are?”
She shook her head slowly. The entire side of her face was a mass of purple-black bruises; her hair was matted with dried blood, her slender arms streaked with soot and dirt.
I looked beyond her to some of the other survivors farther along the beach. I made to call to them, but the pain in my head began as soon as I raised my voice, so I desisted until I could make myself heard without setting the waves of agony thundering through my poor battered skull.
Carefully, I turned and looked back up the rising slope to the top of the cliff, then along the strand to the right and left. The coast seemed vaguely familiar. I guessed we were no great distance from Bannavem. The enemy seemed to have gone, and I thought that if I could get to my feet and gain the clifftop, I might yet reach home.
“Drusilla,” I said, “I’m going to climb up to the road. I need you to help me.”
She looked at me sadly and shook her head again. The resignation in her expression angered me.
“Why not?” I demanded. “We have to try at least.”
Without a word she stretched out one leg to reveal an iron shackle tight around her skinny ankle. Glancing quickly down at my own feet, I saw that I was shackled, too. Cold, hard drops of sweat stood out on my throbbing temples as I beheld the iron rings and chain.
I grabbed at the chain with my hand and loosed a strangled cry of rage and frustration. Captive! The word beat in the pulse of my broken head. Captive! I had been taken prisoner. My vision dissolved in tears of helplessness, humiliation, and defeat.
After a moment I swallowed my distress, drew a deep breath, and turned to the young girl once more. “Listen,” I said, “we can do this if we help each other.” I rolled onto my knees and held out my hand. “Here. Take hold of me.”
She crawled to where I was kneeling, took my hand, and allowed me to help her to her feet, whereupon she took my elbow and held me up while I tried to stand. The movement brought a rush of nausea, and my stomach heaved, but there was nothing to vomit save the bile which burned my throat. I stood bent double until the rippling ceased, then wiped my mouth with my sleeve, put my arm around Drusilla’s bony shoulder, and we started forth one painful step at a time—like blind beggars hobbling uncertainly over alien ground.
I coaxed Drusilla along much as I would a skittery colt: soothing her with reassurances, telling her she was doing well and that we would soon be free once more. Together we crept to the foot of the cliff; here the ground was covered with shattered slate, fallen from the rocky cliffs above to form mounded heaps. The flat rock tilted and slipped beneath our feet like smashed tiles, and we fell; I struck my knee on a sharp edge, and the impact set the pain beating in my head like a drum. I knelt there gasping for breath until the pain receded.
When I was ready to go on, Drusilla helped me to my feet and we continued.
The cliffside rippled with many eroded ravines and shallow furrows filled with brush and small shrubs. Although these little valleys were steep, I thought we might at least have branches and suchlike to hold on to as we climbed. We made our way to the nearest defile. “I’ll go first,” I said. “Follow me, and do what I do.”
On elbows and knees I pulled myself up, grasping stones and sticks and clumps of sea grass, wriggling like an eel through the undergrowth. It might have worked, too; we might have succeeded but for the dogs.
We had just begun our ascent when there came a shout from the beach, and then I heard barking. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw two huge brown hounds bounding toward us, growling as they came. Behind them ran three raiders carrying spears; two others stood on the strand watching.
The dogs were on us in an instant. Drusilla screamed. One of the beasts snatched at my leg as I kicked out. It seized me by the cloth of my trousers and began pulling. I slid down the defile and lay curled on the broken slate with my arms before my face to protect my head and throat until the handlers came and pulled the hounds away.
No doubt they would have punished us more severely for trying to escape, but their hands were full—what with the dogs and spears—so they cuffed me halfheartedly about the shoulders a few times and hauled us back to the beach where, with a whack on the arm with the butt of a spear, they shoved me back down on the sand. Drusilla began sobbing again, and my head pounded with such ferocity I could not see. I lay on my back with my eyes squeezed shut, moaning, bereft in my misery.
In a little while the sun rose full and with it the tide. When I stirred myself again, I saw there were more raiders on the beach now—fifty, maybe sixty or more—standing in a clump, many leaning on their spears in postures of fatigue. They seemed to be waiting for something…. With this thought I turned my eyes to the sea as the first sails came into view: three brown-and-red squares billowing in the light morning breeze, gliding around the far headland and into the bay. These were soon joined by five more, and then seven.
Fifteen ships! Even if most were not fully manned, it still meant five or six hundred warriors. I reckoned that Guentonia boasted but two centuries, Lycanum only one, and Bannavem none at all—fewer than three hundred soldiers for the defense of three towns. While it is true that a trained legionary is worth five or more barbarians, even legionaries cannot be three places at once. Bannavem was lost before the battle ever began, just as Darius had said.
The first of the ships came close to shore, and one bedraggled knot of captives after another was led out into the surf: men, women, and children—whole families ripped from their beds in the dead of night and marched to the coast. I looked for any familiar faces among the first unhappy passengers but saw no one I knew.
And then it was my turn. Two raiders came, and without a word I was pulled to my feet and dragged out to a nearby ship. The cold waves washed around my legs, and then I was roughly hauled over the side like a fish. Drusilla tumbled in after me, and we huddled together in the bottom of the boat. When the shallow hold was full, the warriors turned the ship and pushed it out into the bay. I heard the hull grind against the sand and hoped for a moment that we would be grounded and unable to sail. Then a wave lifted the ship, the sail puffed out, and we slid away.
I pulled myself up the side and looked out over the rail at the slowly receding coast. Black plumes of smoke rising into the clear morning sky marked the ruins of Bannavem; around the countryside smaller gray-white columns indicated other burning villas—of which Favere Mundi was but one of many. I wondered if my parents had escaped or whether my bullheaded father had stayed to fight to the death. I wondered what my friends would say when they learned I had been taken. I wondered if I would ever see my homeland again.
Leaving the bay, the ship bounded out into deeper water, and more of the coastline came into view. Away to the south, in the direction of Lycanum, a great, heavy dark cloud of smoke hung like a continuous storm above the gentle hills; and to the north more ships—and still more, strung out all along the coast. I stared in disbelief at the low knifelike hulls, and the full extent of the attack broke over me: it was not a raid, it was an invasion.
Sadness such as I have never known descended over me as I watched the land of my birth slowly shrink and shrink, growing ever smaller until at last the green headlands disappeared beneath the clear horizon. My heart felt as if it would crack in two; I wanted to cry, but, stunned by grief, I could only stare in dry-eyed wonder.
Out on the open sea, the breeze stiffened, the sail snapped taut, and the sharp prow bit deep into the waves. I settled back in my place and turned my attention to our captors. There were eight of them aboard ship: big men all, well muscled, and dressed in coarse handwoven, voluminous trousers dyed red, orange, or brown. Most were bare to the waist, with long hair that they wore in one or more braids down their naked backs. Their beards were shaved except for mustaches, which they wore untrimmed. Two had smeared pitch on their faces, chests, and arms in rippled stripes; three had armbands of gold, and all wore torcs around their necks: one of silver, the rest of bronze or iron. They wer
e filthy brutes, one and all.
My fellow captives sat slumped against the sides of the boat or curled on the narrow central deck. Sunk in despair, they did not lift their heads. Young and old wore the same witless, dead expressions. Most were, so it appeared to me, farmhands and servants. I knew none of them. They stared with dull eyes at the far horizon, mute in resignation, patient as cattle awaiting the slaughter.
The pilot of the boat was an older man with a blackened stump on the end of his right arm where his hand should have been. He worked the steering oar keeping one eye on the sail and one on the sea. Three other ships traveled in our wake, and the waves, running smooth and calm, seemed to fly beneath the prow. We sailed through the morning, and while our captors talked among themselves and drank from wineskins and the water stoup from time to time, none of them spoke so much as a word to any of us nor offered us anything to drink.
After a time, the tedium of the voyage began to tell. I dozed, awakening once to find that Drusilla had fallen asleep with her head against my chest. My first instinct was to push her aside, but I restrained myself. Her troubles, like mine, were just beginning, and I did not care to add to her distress by even such a trivial act. I was thirsty, but there was no relief, so to prevent myself from thinking about it, I went back to sleep.
I woke again later with a burning thirst and decided to do something about it. Gently shifting Drusilla aside, I rose unsteadily and made my way to the water stoup. One of the guards saw me as I dipped the ladle; he challenged me, but, ignoring him, I drank my fill and then turned and offered the ladle to the captive beside me. The guard, angry now, came to where I stood and snatched the water away from the man. He shouted something at me and pushed me aside, but the pilot called something to him. An argument ensued, which ended with the truculent guard being forced to fill the ladle and pass it along to the captives until everyone had been given a drink.
I crawled back to my place and dozed again until sunset, when I awoke and saw, against the crimson and purple sky, the low humps of an island far off in the west. I thought this our destination, but when the island had drawn close enough, the pilot turned the ship, and we proceeded on a northerly course. The sky held the light long, and the sea remained calm. I lay back in my place and listened to the ceaseless swish and surge of the waves against the hull. It was a tranquil sound, and the light of the rising moon turned the sea to liquid silver. Stars in wild abundance filled the sky bowl with glittering light.
How, I wondered, could heaven look down upon such a great calamity as if nothing had happened? Was not the desecration perpetrated on my homeland worthy of God’s consideration?
Yet, the moon rose in perfect serenity in a calm, untroubled sky; the peaceful stars turned in their slow, steady arcs; the sea spread out like a friendly meadow—and all as if the catastrophe of the day were of such small consequence as to be unworthy of heavenly regard.
The more I thought about this, the more absurd it seemed and the angrier I became. That the distress of so many innocent people should fail to provoke even so much as an angry retort from the Ruler of Heaven and Earth was an outrage.
It was then I learned one of life’s fundamental lessons: the lord of this world is a coldhearted king, unmoved by the suffering of his subjects, demanding complete homage, unstinting love, and total, unthinking obedience of all who pass beneath his stony gaze, yet lifts nary a finger to lessen the severity of their travails.
If this was the way of things, then I would look to myself for the preserving and sustaining of my life. There was despair in this conclusion, true, but there was freedom, too. For I reasoned I could go my own way and never trouble myself with another thought about God, his church, or any of his insufferable mob of simpering damp-eyed priests, ever again.
And yet…my grandfather’s hold on me was stronger than I imagined. His stern, disapproving voice seemed to call to me across the years. Blasphemy and sacrilege! I could hear him rumble. What do you know of things, boy? What do you know of the world? What do you know of anything?
The thought chastised me sufficiently to amend my harsh appraisal somewhat. I decided to put the Good Lord to the test. I would propose a simple bargain.
God of my fathers, heed me now, I said within my heart. Aid me in my escape, and I will worship you with all my soul. Aid me not, and I will turn my back on you forever. Hear me: Succat of Morgannwg makes this vow.
That done, I closed my eyes and slept again for a while, awakening when I heard shouting. I opened my eyes. It was near dawn, and one of the other ships had drawn up beside us; the guards were calling to one another. I looked across the narrow distance between the hulls as the warriors from the other boat hauled a man onto his feet. Gray-faced, his hair matted with sweat, he seemed to be pleading, begging, his voice shaking.
Two brawny barbarians picked him up like a sack of meal and made him stand atop the rail. He balanced there, clinging to one of the mast ropes while they removed his shackles. Even from a distance I could see that the poor wretch’s arm was broken; the limb flopped uselessly, and the hand was blue.
As soon as the leg chains were removed, one of the guards raised a spear and prodded the man in the back to make him jump. The fellow refused. He began weeping in anguish, howling like a beaten dog. The coward with the spear prodded him again, harder, poking him in the shoulder.
Still the man refused to jump. There came a cry from the boat, and a woman thrust herself forward. She wrapped her arms around the man’s legs and held on to him, crying for the thugs to let him back in the boat.
This went on for a time, drawing great snorts of laughter from the barbarians in both boats. Then, tiring of the game, the warrior with the spear slashed the man in the back of the leg, severing the cords behind his knee. Unable to stand, the wretch toppled into the sea. He came up spluttering and coughing, flailing in the water with his good arm. The woman screamed and held out her hands to him, receiving a blow in the teeth with the shaft of the spear. Even then she did not desist. She wailed the louder through her bloody lips and stretched out her arms, trying to reach him. When that failed, she leaned out over the rail and would have joined him in his fate—indeed, she was half in the water before the thug noticed; he snagged her by the edge of her mantle and dragged her back into the ship. I saw the butt of the spear rise and fall sharply, and her cries ceased.
I looked back in the water and saw the man’s hand flutter above the surface of the waves, fingers reaching for a last, hopeless, fleeting grasp of life. And then he sank from view.
When I saw he would not rise again, I turned my eyes away, my face burning with pent rage at the way he had been treated. When my anger subsided, I saw that the land was now much nearer than before. Soon we were passing through the low scattering of islets and rocks of the darkly wooded coast of my new home.
FIVE
THE BAY WAS wide and deep, stone-lined and sheltered by a high, craggy promontory on either side. On the rocks stood a rude settlement of mud huts, inhabited, so far as I could see, by barking dogs and barefoot, snotty-nosed brats. There were already four ships in the bay when we arrived, delivering their human cargo to the shore.
I counted the captives as they went ashore; there were more than sixty in the first three ships alone. Then it was our turn. The raiders manned the oars, and the pilot maneuvered the boat to the loading place—a crude wharf where men with ropes and poles held the vessel in place while the boards were extended, one to either end of the boat. With shouting and gestures our captors indicated that we were to disembark. Because of the shackles, most of the captives had difficulty getting onto the narrow timbers; when prodding with spears did not help, the brutes would heave the struggling wretch onto the plank and push him along. More than one captive fell into the water, to the amusement of the ruffians on shore, who made great sport of it before hauling out the half-drowned victim.
I, too, almost fell, but refused to give the thugs any delight in my misfortune, so went down on my knees instead
and, gripping the edges of the board with both hands, made my way onto the rocks, where I joined the others. There were almost eighty of us now, by my reckoning. We were made to stand in the sun while the other ships unloaded their unwilling passengers. One ship after another entered the bay, and when I thought that must be the end of it, more arrived.
In a little while we were marched a short distance into a clearing in the wood, where we were given water from the hewn-stone basin of a cattle trough. Drinking from such a vessel was humiliating, certainly, but I was thirsty, and the water was clean and reviving. I gulped down as much as I could before I was jabbed with the butt of a spear and forcibly moved on. We were then herded together into the center of the clearing, where we squatted on our haunches beneath the wary gaze of the guards, who cuffed anyone who spoke or moved. The surrounding trees provided a little relief from the sun, but we were given no food, and by this time more than a few were growing faint.
All day long the ships came, and all day long we waited, our numbers swelling with each arrival. For a while, I occupied myself with trying to search out anyone I knew, but it was no use. Few town dwellers appeared among the captives—a dozen or so itinerant merchants, as it seemed to me—and no members of the nobility at all. I wondered about this. Had the noble families simply been slaughtered outright? Or had they been singularly successful in fending off the attack?
Neither possibility seemed likely. Even given the enormity of the attack, some few noblemen must have escaped slaughter, and these would have been rounded up for slaves just like all the rest. Then again, the invaders had overwhelmed the entire countryside, so how was it that only the nobility escaped? I puzzled over this a considerable time as, boatload by boatload, the number of captives grew.
Then it came to me: the poor folk, the rustics, the pagani, those without recourse to ransom had been brought to Éire, where they would become slaves. But the noble families, the wealthy aristocracy, the landowners, had not joined us because they were being kept in Britain, where they could be ransomed for ready gold.