The King's Cavalry Read online

  He had wanted me, his newest ally, back in Britain as quickly as possible, as did I, to keep that northern frontier quiet. My cavalry would go back overland but I was given a galley and crew to whisk me across the Inland Sea and through the Atlanticus before the worst of the winter storms began.

  And Manannan mac Lir had been kind to me. The sea god had kept his kingdom as quiet as I wished mine to be and we would soon be off the coast of Gaul, with only a few more days’ sail to Britain. The blue oblong ahead of us turned square, and I wondered. Whoever was captain of the strange ship knew from our own blue sails that we could be Roman or pirate but he was turning to investigate. The chances then, were that he was no pirate, but another military vessel.

  And so it was. By a small miracle, it was not one but two of my own navy, the Suehan sea raider Grimr’s own new flagship Crestrider, and the old Minerva, patrolling outside the Narrow Sea, and our sea commander Grimr himself was hailing me as we sliced through the waters on our parallel course. “Guinevia sent me a magical message in a dream,” he shouted, “Told me to come here to find you.” Yes, I thought, she could do that, my witch woman. Grimr was shouting again. “Don’t put in at Dover. Go directly to Chester, you’re needed there. We’ll come with you.”

  As I was a mere passenger and however much I wanted to command the ship, I had to make requests, so I politely asked the captain, a scowling Phoenician with a braided beard, if he could possibly alter course. He nodded a curt acquiescence, caught my hard gaze at his insolence, swallowed and said hastily that it would be his pleasure, Lord.

  I turned back to shout to Grimr, questioning him about the conditions of the Saxon Shore. “Lively, Lord,” he yelled. “We are holding, but there is greater pressure than before. We have had our skirmishes and a month ago we killed a troublesome Frisian sea king and ran his fleet aground on the sands. We sailed some fake ship lights on a raft, and they followed to disaster, so matters should be quiet for a while, but they are coming. We’ve seen the Saxon and German fleets. I think they’re waiting for the spring.”

  It was not the best news, but it would suffice, and I turned my mind to seeing Guinevia. So we voyaged across the Narrow Sea, past the Severn Sea and the mountains where Myrddin did his magic. Soon we were rounding the sacred isle of the Druids and entering the estuary of the familiar Dee. Now we approached our mooring at the fine sandstone quay under the walls of my castrum. And I was going to Guinevia, in anticipation of meeting whom I had been running my fingers through my hair and beard so often and obviously that I caught crew members grinning. Until, that is, I stared at them.

  And there she was. Guinevia, a slight, fair figure in grey scholar’s gown was standing at the quayside as we slid quietly through the pool. Then she was in my arms, warm and scented, soft lips at my ear. “I watched you as you sailed,” she whispered, “and I asked for Manannan’s protection and help. You must sacrifice to him soon.”

  Yes, I nodded, asking: “And how is Milo? Is he well? Is the situation quiet?” She smiled up at me.

  “He is thriving and I think he will be giving you a grandson soon.” The very idea went over my head. Incomprehensible.

  A thought struck me. “Where is Myrddin?”

  Guinevia gestured. “Sleeping. He has been fevered but is recovering. Come inside, and I will tell you about our search for treasure.” So I came back to Britain to learn the key to placating the ancient gods I had offended by winning a battle on behalf of the Christians.

  Guinevia took me to Myrddin’s chamber, where he was sitting, thin and wan, bowed over and wrapped in a heavy wool cloak. “You have much to tell me,” he said, peremptorily.

  “And you must tell me some secrets,” I retorted.

  So we sat and talked. I told how the Emperor of Rome had offered us peace, how the gods had sent a fireball both to awe our enemies and to inspire us, and how our British cavalry had turned the tide of a critical battle. Then I told how that victory would displease the gods. “Constantine has declared Christianity the state religion,” I told Myrddin. “The old gods of Rome are overthrown.

  “The emperor himself is not a true Christian, but he needs them to uphold his empire. The Jesus followers are stronger now than ever they have been, and I helped that to come about. I am afraid that it could mean our own gods will turn their backs on us and we will face dark days, unless…” and my voice trailed away.

  Myrddin stood from his chair. His cloak fell away and his physical weakness vanished. His presence filled the room like an electric fog. To me, it seemed that his fingers crackled blue sparks. I glanced at Guinevia, who was also on her feet. Her pentagram ring was glowing and pulsing, the familiar magical cloud had formed above her head.

  Myrddin’s voice seemed to vibrate and echo off the stone walls. “The gods of Britain do not ignore us, but we must show them that we are worthy of their help and guidance,” he pronounced. “You must produce that ancient symbol of power, the golden Torc of Caratacus and make certain ceremony with it. It has been sleeping, under its guardians of rock, fire and water, and new gods are trying to replace the old. You, Emperor Arthur the Pagan, have to use the torc’s ancient powers to deny them.

  “The treasure is here, in this fortress. Your task is to restore the pagan powers of your nation. You must find Caratacus’ gold and give it to the gods or see Britain fall to invaders once more. You handed the power to the Christians, now you alone must redress the balance.”

  I felt as if I had been slammed in the chest with a broad axe. Until now, I had thought Myrddin would simply unearth the torc, mutter a few incantations and put matters right. Now I was being enlisted for magical matters. I could not depend on the strength of my sword arm or the speed of my reflexes, I was going into unknown worlds, and my kingdom was at stake. How I would succeed, I had no idea, but if I did not do it, or did it wrong, disaster would come on me and my country.

  Exalter’s scabbarded hilt was under my hand. I gripped him, hard. I must have looked pathetic as I gazed at Guinevia. She smiled. “You’ll do well,” she said. And I was faced with my next challenge. Not Romans, not Saxons, not Gauls or Germans or Huns, but deities. So I started with a map.

  Guinevia showed me the plan of the original castrum, and, if the thing was accurate, it gave me an excellent idea where the original well had been. It seemed to be about 20 paces from the southerly guard tower, 40 or so from its companion to the north and probably 20 or so paces in from the wall. The aqueduct which brought water from a sacred spring a mile east of the castrum was still there, of course, and entered the wall through a pair of heavy iron gratings. It would be useful in pinpointing the old well’s location.

  I called for a tribune to find me a couple of the skinniest, most slender soldiers he could. We might need someone to wriggle into tight spaces if my guess was right. The torc could well be protected as it should be, under the stone of the building, and under the fire and water of the baths. And so we went into the vast, echoing building.

  This was a splendid structure, with a high, vaulted ceiling on tall pillars over the main bath, and two slightly smaller bathing halls off it. One, the frigidarium, was fed with cold water directly from the aqueduct, I suspected; while its hot water plunge bath companion received its warming waters from a tank over the furnace whose fire was maintained by slaves day and night.

  Guinevia asked how it all worked. “The hypocaust is a system of heating from below a floor that is raised on pillars of tile and concrete,” I said. “Hot air from a furnace is circulated in the underfloor space, and the smoke is extracted through small chimneys built into the walls. It’s all generated from a separate furnace room, which here in Chester is coal-fired because coal is the best, most dense fuel, much better than wood or charcoal,” I added.

  I’d been briefed by one of the tribunes, but I didn’t mention that. It was good for once to be able to explain something to my educated librarian Druid. I pointed to a bronze ventilator in the domed ceiling. “You can even adjust the temperature of
the room by opening or closing that,” I said.

  “So,” she asked, “how does the water get heated for those baths?”

  “Ah,” I said. “The furnace room has a big concrete and brick tank of water above the fire and hot water is piped from that into the baths. The heat from the furnace also flows under the floors, so they are pleasant to walk on and so they heat the entire room.”

  We were standing in the echoing exercise hall and could see one bath through an archway. Beyond it, I knew was a warm room, a tepidarium and the latrines. The complex had a steamy hot room next to the cold plunge, changing rooms, store rooms and an administrative office.

  Slaves bustled about bringing refreshments and one walked through the public rooms at intervals, to announce the time of day. Others sat around gossiping, guarding their masters’ sandals and clothing while they bathed.

  Guinevia had to stay in the exercise hall while we went into the tepidarium, no women were allowed in the changing areas, and I went to survey the wall through which the aqueduct’s water had to pass. “It’s about an arm’s length thick, Lord,” said the bath supervisor. “It’s concrete faced with stone, very well built.”

  We examined the furnace room, peered into the smoky underfloor but could see nothing useful. I examined the channel and pipes of the aqueduct but I could find no trace of the old well. Finally, reluctantly, for I had no wish to give away a secret, I took the bath supervisor aside, impressed on him the importance of keeping this matter confidential, and asked him about any long-disused undercroft or well.

  To my surprise, he nodded yes, he did know of something, and led me outside the building and into its courtyard. “Under those flagstones,” he said, “there was some old structure. It turned up 15 years ago when we repaved the place.”

  By late afternoon, slaves had levered up the stones, dug away the rubble that filled the old well and had a ladder down into the five feet of water at its foot. “I’ll do this myself,” I said, feeling foolish, and I climbed ponderously down the ladder, only just able to fit down the shaft.

  I found myself faced with a brick-lined vertical, neatly mortared, moderately mossy shaft that descended about four times the height of a man into the earth. With the help of a blazing pine-knot torch, the brickwork was illumined well, and I searched all parts of the circle as I descended. A foot or so below the well’s lip, someone had scratched a graffito. It looked like a legionary number: XXIII and was next to the crude symbol of a boar.

  Something rang in my brain. There was no 23rd legion. And, the boar was the symbol of the 20th, Agricola’s legion which had been stationed at Chester. On an intuition, I counted the courses of brick, down from the top. At the 23rd, I pushed my torch closer. The mortar seemed a slightly lighter shade for several courses, although it was finished as smoothly as the layers that surrounded it.

  Still standing on the ladder, holding the torch, I groped for my punching knife with my other hand. I could hardly fall, I was practically jammed in the well. With my knife, I scratched at the mortar, marking it deeply, then I climbed back out of the encircling bricks.

  “Get me those two little fellows,” I said, and the small soldiers stepped forward. “And a short-hafted pick,” I added.

  Twenty minutes later, the pair had removed three courses of brick at my mark directly below the graffito, and pulled out a slim leaden box. “Do not open it,” I warned them, watching carefully from above. “Just bring it to me.”

  Guinevia was standing by, and I handed the box to her. “If there is magic, best you open it,” I said. She shook her head.

  “The prophecy concerned ‘a king who is false to his god,’” she replied. “It is for you to find it, for you to placate the gods of Britain.”

  An unexpected voice cut in. “And you will,” said Myrddin, who had somehow learned of matters and left his sick bed to hobble across the castrum to the baths.

  So, with the son of no father and the king false to his gods both present, I opened the casket and found the golden Torc of Caratacus. It lay gleaming dully on a bed of fine wool in the casket that had been its resting place for two centuries. This solid rope of gold with its bull heads was the symbol of the earliest British kings, the most powerful icon of our islands. The conquering Agricola had recognised that, and had hidden it from his rapacious masters.

  It was the instrument, Myrddin said, that could induce the return of Britain’s old gods, and that was how I was supposed to use it. I had no idea how I would do that and wondered if it would be simpler than turning back the waves of Saxons and Germans I knew were coming.

  For them, I had my sword and the world’s finest heavy cavalry. For the gods, I had the ancient treasure of Britain. All I could do for now was to take a deep breath and face the future. “I’ll need a Druid or two,” I said.

  Author’s Note

  This series is only a work of fiction, but it attempts to put the Arthur of confusing myth and legend into a plausible set of historical circumstances. I suggest that Arthur was a Romano-British lord of war (see the ‘Arthur-Carausius’ references below). We do know that any real Arthur would not have been the courtly medieval knight of Mallory’s invention, he would have been alive many hundreds of years before as a Romanised or Celtic warrior.

  We cannot know exactly what the history was, but we can collect, assess and interpret the evidence. If Arthur existed, his legend may well be rooted in the actions of the burly, bearded military man Carausius who usurped a throne and defied Rome for nearly a decade. Carausius could claim to be the father of the British navy and the ‘Dux Bellorum’ (war leader) who brought peace to the island kingdom and united the tribes at a time when Christianity was first being introduced to Britain.

  These are historical facts, but if he is the source of the legends, we’ll probably never know.

  Milvian Bridge

  The battle of the Milvian Bridge was a hinge of history. The outcome of the final battle of Diocletian’s tetrachy was a watershed both for the Roman Empire and for the modern world, as it was the conquest that converted Rome and ushered in Christianity as the state religion. Almost incredibly, scholars suggest the battle’s outcome could have been shaped by a rock from space.

  In the hours before the battle, a meteor hit central Italy with the force of a small nuclear explosion, probably creating the circular Cratere del Sirente and its 30 or so smaller impact craters.

  The space rock would have crossed the skies in smoke and flame, impacted with a mushroom cloud and shattering explosion and would have been highly visible to both awed armies as a line of fire in the sky.

  Recent radiocarbon dating shows it struck Italy around the time of the 312 CE battle, and records show that the village of Superaequum was destroyed just then. Also at that time, there is evidence of a public disaster in the unusual number of bodies piled hastily in Christian catacombs.

  Constantine is reported by the Christian bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, who was a notable historian who went on to synchronise the history of Rome with the legends of Greece, the Old Testament and the Near East, to have seen a blazing light in the heavens on the day before the battle. It declared: “By this sign you shall conquer,” and he used the vision to inspire his troops to victory, saying they had god’s backing. Later, in the triumphal arch Constantine erected, he attributed his victory to divine assistance (without specifying which religion).

  The battle itself went much as this book suggests, although the presence of Arthur and his heavy cavalry to sway the conflict at a critical time is a fiction. Certainly the use of heavy cavalry would have been a fine weapon, as useful as Constantine’s shrewd use of the heavenly sign to confirm to his troops the support of the gods.

  Nobody knows just why Maxentius came out from behind the vast walls of Aurelius to fight at the bridge. He had prepared for a siege, but may well have been indecisive over his choices. At his orders, the stone bridge was partially destroyed before the battle, and the pontoon bridge was equipped with a drawbridge, which im
plies Maxentius’ uncertainty of victory, as he made provision to retreat if things did not go well.

  Things did not go well, he could not deploy his troops in the cramped position he had taken and Constantine’s admirable generalship defeated his rival for the empire. It is another fact that Maxentius drowned while crossing the river, and that his corpse was a difficult one to retrieve, thanks to his heavy armour.

  Travel

  Travel in the Roman empire could be surprisingly fast. On good military roads and in fair weather, a courier who changed to a fresh horse every 10 – 15 miles could routinely cover 60-plus miles a day, and with replacement riders as well as horses, a message could be carried 100 or more miles a day.

  The legions’ usual pace was 25 miles a day and over a long journey the footsoldiers could out-march horses, which did not have the trained humans’ endurance for repeated long days of travel. On a forced march, the footslogging Mules of Marius were easily capable of 40 miles a day, and Caesar sometimes moved his troops 100 miles in a single day, although he had to march away from his slow-moving baggage train to cover that distance.

  Sailing was the best way to travel long distances, with a galley quite capable of covering 120 miles a day or even more in fair conditions, and the Romans used the great waterways of Europe to move troops across the continent. There are records of Roman ladies in Britain receiving letters from friends in Rome only a week or so after their dispatch – meaning a rapid voyage for the missives, as only imperial or government mail would go by swift courier.

  Arthur & Carausius