Reign of Iron (30 page)

He turned, fully naked and semi-tumescent. Spring gave him a look that said “I would have thought I deserved a full erection” and leapt into one of the kicks Lowa had taught her. The side of her foot smashed into his temple. He went down.

Spring was worried that he’d come round as she dug her fingers into his arms and hauled him onto the bed, but he didn’t. She gagged him and tied him as firmly as she could, because what she had planned was probably going to wake him.

When Tertius had begun to unshackle her wrists, she’d thought: “I’ll knock Quintus out, duck out of the back of the tent, find Caesar, and kill him.” But, as she’d watched Quintus peel off his toga, she realised that he’d doubtless raped women before, and, things being left as they were, he’d do it again. She couldn’t have that.

She checked the bonds. All good. She went over to Ragnall’s side of the tent.

“Now, where does he keep that knife?” she said to herself.

Felix blinked while the world formed around him, for the third time that day. He was bound to a chair. That blacksmith had had the look of a man who knew knots, he thought, and indeed he did – there was no chance of escape. He was inside a capacious hut. Sitting opposite him on the floor in a pool of sunlight lancing down from a high window was a small girl, playing with two stones.

“Come on, Mr Sheep!” she said shaking one of the stones, her voice high and lispy. “Come to market with me!” She shook the other stone. “I’m not coming with you, you’re not a sheep, you’re a dog. A mean nasty dog who eats sheep. My daddy told me—”

“Uh, hello?” said Felix.

She started and looked up at him with big blue eyes. She bit her lower lip.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m not to talk to you.”

“That’s not nice. Who told you not to?”

“My daddy.”

“Where is your daddy?”

“Gone to see good Queen Lowa”

“
Good
Queen Lowa?”

“She
is
good.”

“Where’s your mummy?”

“She’s in the Otherworld, waiting for me and daddy.”

“I see. And what’s your name?”

“Autumn.”

“That’s a lovely name. What are your sheep and your dog called?”

She looked at the stones in her hands. “They’re just stones.”

“Doesn’t mean they can’t have names, right?”

“I suppose not.”

“How about Felix for the dog?”

“That’s a silly name.”

All the tents looked the same and soon she was infuriatingly lost. In the end, Spring decided there was only one thing for it.

“Where’s Caesar’s tent?” she asked a passing legionary.

He put a finger to his chin and looked at the sky, not seeming to mind either that there was a woman in the camp, or that she was wearing a man’s toga hoicked up and belted with rope. Spring had decided that “prostitute who’s borrowed her client’s clothes” would be a less conspicuous look than her riding shorts and shirt, and it was better for hiding Ragnall’s freshly cleaned knife.

“Are you in a rush?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“Then the easiest but not the quickest route is to keep going this way until you come to the Seventh Legion’s tents.”

“How will I know when I’m there?”

“There will be guards asking you what you’re doing.”

“I see. And if I was in a rush?”

“Then you go the quick way. Just keep going in that direction.” She followed his point over the sea of tents. “The best way to do that is to remember where the sun is. Face that way.” She did. “So you see that the sun is diagonally in front of you, between your right shoulder and your face?”

“Yes.”

“Well, keep it there as much as you can and you’ll soon find Caesar’s complex. The sun will move a little to your, um…” he pointed towards the sea, then at the sun and nodded, “yes, it’ll move a bit to your right. But probably not enough to be relevant, or even notice.”

“Great directions! Thanks!”

“You’re welcome.” He walked off, then stopped, pointed seawards and up at the sun again, and nodded to himself again before walking on, a satisfied jaunt in his step.

Spring headed off, weaving between the tents. Lowa had told her once that men’s love of giving directions was so strong that it could override all other senses. It looked like she’d been right. Lowa was always right. She
should
have come and seen Spring after Dug had died, though. Having thought that, Lowa had had an army to build and a big collection of tribes to run. It wasn’t a good excuse, but Spring was beginning to accept that it was, at least, an excuse, and just maybe she shouldn’t have hated Lowa for putting the needs of the entire land before the wants of one girl.

At first Chamanca thought it was one of Felix’s monsters coming along the road towards her – he was walking as if burdened by improbably heavy armour – but when he got closer she saw that it was just a man with bad knees trying to walk as fast as he could.

She pulled up ahead of him. “Have you seen a short, bald man with a sneer on his face?” she asked.

His upside-down Roman-five-shaped eyebrows danced as he blinked at her. “More balding than bald?” he said, “with hair round the back of his head? Cocky fucker?”

“That’s him.”

“I’ve got him!”

“You’ve got him?”

“Tied up in my house. He appeared out of nowhere and tried to knife me. I knocked him out and tied him up. I was coming to tell good Queen Lowa.”

“
Good
Queen Lowa?”

“That’s what we call her round here. She is good.”

You don’t know her like I know her, thought Chamanca, but she let it go. “Where is your house?”

“A way back that way on the road. You can’t miss it.”

“Is there anybody guarding him?”

“Not really. My daughter Autumn’s there but I’ve told her not to touch him and I reckon he’ll be out cold until I get back anyway.”

“How old is she?”

“Five.”

Oh fuck, thought Chamanca, closing her eyes.

“What?” said the man. His widening eyes and his creasing brow pressed his jiggling eyebrows into motionlessness.

“Nothing. Nothing to worry about. But I have to go now.” She dug her heels into her horse and willed it to gallop as fast as it could. After a hundred paces she turned. The man was following her, arms swinging, coming as fast as his stiff-legged gait would carry him.

Spring thought about crouching between tents and waiting until Caesar emerged from his, but then decided that standing in plain sight was probably a more effective way of hiding.

“Spring!” cried a woman’s voice, instantly proving her wrong. It was Clodia, loping towards her. For an urbane socialite, Clodia had a very rural stride. She wore an almost obscenely short, belted white toga, and her long brown hair was hanging free. The skin on her bare arms, legs and face was the same colour as her hair. She had spent a good deal of time in the sun since Spring had last seen her.

“What are you doing here?” she called, still a good ten paces away.

Spring smiled.

“Of course, you can’t speak Latin, can you?”

Spring looked back uncomprehendingly. Clodia had been talking to a knot of toga-wearers who were now staring. All the nearby praetorians and normal legionaries had also turned at her call.

“Come with me into Caesar’s tent. He’d like to see you, I’m sure, and there’s a translator there so we’ll be able to have a good talk. Gaulish is the same as British, isn’t it? I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to. But what are you wearing? That’s a man’s toga. And it’s dirty. You can’t see Caesar like that. Come back with me to my place and we’ll find something proper…” She lowered her voice, so that the watchers wouldn’t hear. “Wait a moment, is that blood on your hem? Are you hurt? You look scared. Are you lost? Come on, take my hand.” She reached out.

Spring leant away, and, because she was a complete idiot, dropped the knife. She squatted immediately and picked it up, but Clodia had seen it. She took a step back, opened her eyes wide in surprise, but not shock. She looked as if she’d just caught her preparing a thrillingly daring but harmless jape. Spring immediately thought of running, but there were several praetorians watching and an assortment of other Romans blocking her escape.

“Oh, Spring!” She looked about to check that nobody had come within earshot. “You naughty girl! And to think I was going to take you right in there!” She gasped and shook her head, mouth wide. “I can’t let you kill Caesar, you wicked thing. Now, come with me to my tent, and you can tell me what’s happened.”

The child was simply the most winning little creature that Felix had ever met. He genuinely thought that, he wasn’t pretending. He could almost feel tears developing at the thought of killing her. Which was great – such affection for his victim should fuel his return to Gaul easily.

“Why don’t you make Felix the dog chase Spring the sheep?”

“Dogs aren’t meant to chase sheep, silly! They’re naughty if they do.”

“Maybe Felix is a naughty dog?”

“No! He’s a good dog.”

“Tell you what, why don’t you bring the sheep and the dog over here, sit on my knee, and I’ll sing you a song all about the day that the sheep decided that enough was enough and it was time for the sheep to chase the naughty dog for a change.”

She nodded and skipped over to him.

Felix thought he could feel his heart breaking, which made him very happy.

T
he forest road emerged from the trees and curled up a grassy hill to the palisaded Branwin village. A couple of the Aurochs tribe heading for the woods with empty wicker baskets stared at Atlas as if they’d never seen a huge African with an axe on his back, then seemed to remember their manners and greeted him and Ula cheerily. Four aurochs near the road looked up as they approached, didn’t find Atlas nearly so interesting and returned to their grazing.

From a distance the grazing aurochs looked like standard cows. Up close they were more impressive: immensely muscled, so tall that they were almost at eye level with Atlas on his horse, and with great horns that swept forwards, as if designed for charging headlong and ramming into the side of an elephant. Atlas found himself nodding. They weren’t nearly as big as elephants, maybe a quarter of the weight, but size wasn’t everything in a fight, as Chamanca proved so very often.

Outside the wooden village wall was the blacksmithing complex built for Maidun’s master smith, Elann Nancarrow. It lay in a hollow that hid it from view until you were right on it, although the smoke pouring up from five forges had given away its location as soon as they cleared the trees. There were smiths at each forge, including Elann at one of them, several leatherworkers and others carrying out the various tasks that contributed to the production of the beasts’ armour. At the edge of the thronging industry were several large, neat stacks of shaped plate iron and dozens of elongated conical horn tips.

Atlas caught Elann’s eye and raised a hand in greeting. She looked at him briefly and he was fairly sure she nodded before returning to her work.

“Doesn’t exactly gush with emotion, Elann Nancarrow,” said Ula as they rode on towards the settlement’s open gates.

“No, but she’s the best smith.”

“Her son Weylin came to Kanawan once. He wasn’t the brightest.”

“He wasn’t, but Kanawan captured him and he escaped. What does that say about Kanawan?”

Ula chuckled. “Fair point.”

Atlas thought back to the day Weylin had arrived on Maidun Castle, lied about what had happened at Kanawan and been executed by Chamanca on Zadar’s orders. Atlas and Weylin’s brother Carden had sat and watched while Chamanca strangled him. They’d all excused themselves their behaviour under Zadar because they’d decided that Felix had put them under a glamour to do Zadar’s bidding.

It was a convenient excuse that made sense, but Atlas wondered sometimes if it was true. He, Carden, Chamanca, Lowa – all of them – had complacently murdered dozens of men and women at Zadar’s command. He hadn’t felt like his mind was under anyone else’s control at the time. However, it did seem unbelievable that Carden had been able to watch the slaying of his brother so impassively unless he’d been under some sort of magic control, and none of his friends now seemed like keen murderers (apart from Chamanca).

But did that mean that they were being controlled by Felix’s magic when they’d sacked towns or attacked inferior forces knowing it would be a massacre? Or were groups of people capable of atrocities because other people’s complicity normalises one’s own behaviour? The legions murdering their way through Gaul were surely not under any glamour. If you plucked any one of them away from his mates, Atlas reckoned, and asked him if the legions’ relentless rape and murder was acceptable, he would probably have broken down and repented. Atlas was sure that most individuals weren’t inherently evil. But when everyone around you was doing evil things, maybe that became the norm and …

“Ah, here you are now!” An Eroo accent snapped him from his reverie. Ula slipped from her horse, skipped up to the woman walking towards them, gripped her arm and kissed her full on the lips. It was like watching a teenage girl greeting an exciting new boyfriend of whom she was fiercely proud.

Manfreena smiled at Atlas. Her eyes were so close together that it made him blink, her skin so white it was surely a little blue, her grey hair patchy, her two remaining teeth black with rot, and her large ears jutted at right angles from her head. Villagers all around smiled indulgently at the couple then up at Atlas.

Something, he thought, was wrong. It was possible that a beauty like Ula could be smitten with a woman who’d win the ugliest old crone competition at most fairs, and it was possible that the villagers were all very happy about it – their tribe’s god Branwin was the goddess of love and this was her forest, after all. It was incredibly unlikely, but it was possible.

But what clinched it for Atlas, what made him sure that there was something extremely odd afoot, was that he’d seen Manfreena before. When the Eroo army had landed on the beach two years before, shortly before the Fassites had followed and slaughtered Atlas’ men and women, a druid had danced a jig to curse the Maidunites. This was the same woman; Queen Reena of Eroo, druid wife of the tyrant Manfrax, who was meant to have perished under the Spring Tide.