The King's Cavalry Read online

  With my dragoons mounted on their imposing new steeds, we’d visit two or three of our ally kings along the Rhine, show our banners and reinforce our relationships, before returning as heavy cavalry back to Britain. There would be no other body of war horses like ours, and they would be the most powerful weapon in any conflict. With them and with my navy, I was confident we could turn back any invading Saxons. All I needed was to buy a herd and let my experienced troopers train them into war horses.

  We sailed out between Dover’s twin pharos light towers, headed for the distant, white gleam of the Gallic coast. Grimr, the big, blond Suehan sea raider who had once sworn allegiance to me on a bloodstained beach, captained the leading longship and I noted that even now he kept his crossbow tucked under the gunwale, a lifelong habit and a deadly weapon in his hands. His head swivelled constantly as he monitored everything: the position of the rest of the fleet, the set of the taut, blue, canvas sails, the angle of the wind told by the red cross pennant fluttering overhead, the slight curve of the bubbling wake we left, the line of the empty horizon, the tap of the hammer as an officer set the rowers’ steady rhythm.

  Grabelius, my tribune and cavalry commander, stood next to me by the steersman. He was pale after a long recovery from the wounds he had sustained at Alesia. At a critical moment in the battle, he had swerved aside from a doomed flanking attack and led a suicidal charge into the Romans, crashing his spear-riddled, dying horse through the front ranks and breaking them. It had helped to turn the battle, but Grabelius had gone down under the blades and spears and I had thought my old comrade dead.

  By some miracle – Grimr growled that probably nobody wanted the likes of him in Valhalla – he had survived and last night in the castrum at Dover had even drunk his share of the fine Valerian wine that was flowing as we discussed our plans.

  I wanted to buy a herd of heavy horses, even though we had our own herds of smaller steeds on the southern plains of Britain. Grabelius had established several farms there to raise and train war horses but I wanted the largest, heaviest mounts I could find, and for that the northern shores and islands of Gaul and Belgica were the place to go. My mind shifted as I noted a stir among the rowers.

  Guinevia was coming aft, her fair hair moving in the breeze, she treading lightly across the thwarts. The freemen rowers grinned up at her as she smiled and assured them that the sea god of the Celts, Manannan mac Lir loved them all. “I just hope he doesn’t love you so much he wants you right now!” she teased, and there was a rumble of laughter as they hauled on the sweeps, the keel bit the water and we coursed easily over the green sea.

  She was close to the sea god, my Guinevia and had even killed for him, for the Druids practised human sacrifice. I did not know if she had ever burned victims alive in wicker men, as they called the wooden, man-shaped execution baskets they suspended over fires, but I know she had gutted some innocents to view their entrails and foresee the future, and she had taken terrible revenge on brigands who had once kidnapped and abused her. Another time, to wreck a Roman fleet, she had called up Manannan’s ocean fury by cutting the throat of a girl sacrifice and sending her body into the water.

  This day, there was no wispy cloud just above her head, the usual sign that she was performing magic, nor was her pentagram ring pulsing with eerie light. Instead, the slender, laughing woman in the dark robe looked like a carefree girl, not a seer and adept of the terrible witch goddess Nicevenn and disciple of the wizard Myrddin, a necromancer who could speak with the dead. Guinevia lightened my mood, but even thinking of Myrddin made me pause.

  The sorcerer was Britain’s most powerful Druid, and he had enhanced his knowledge through contact and study with magi from Africa and Assyria. They had brought him secrets from beyond the vast wall of rammed earth with which the Quinese protected their empire’s frontier. One fragment of that knowledge was the formula to make what the Orientals called ‘exploding bamboo.’ A mix of saltpetre, sulphur and other ingredients tightly packed into stiff, hollow grasses and ignited produced fire dragons that were used to scare away evil spirits.

  Myrddin had decided a battle for me by panicking my enemies with the dragons and I knew he was experimenting with the mix to make a flying chair. It was as well that Druids believed that death was merely another stage of life, because I was sure he’d one day kill himself with his explosive experiments.

  Guinevia was speaking. “There’s Bononia,” she said excitedly, pointing to the blur on the horizon that was my citadel. “We’ll be there soon!” I hoped we would arrive at high water, as the harbour emptied with each tide. That single fact had cost me the fortress when the Romans besieged it some years before. They had surrounded its landward sides, and thrown a wooden wall across the harbour entrance when the mudflats showed. It sealed the fortress from relief and forced its surrender. I had never been willing to reinforce the place since then and now treated the slighted citadel as only a secondary base.

  Still, it was a pleasure to sail into the harbour: the tide was in, thanks to Mithras hearing my prayers, and I was soon limping up the familiar steps onto the ramparts. In peacetime like this, Gaul was a fair place and I looked forward to riding north and east to meet the horse traders. But it would not be so simple. A courier was waiting with a small red leather cylinder, tied, wax sealed and stamped with a ring’s emboss. My spirits dropped. I had seen these before. They were the way the emperor of Rome sent messages.

  The single sheet inside carried a courteous note from Constantine, requesting my presence as a brother emperor with ‘much to discuss.’ I was wanted in Italia. Guinevia saw my face and read the emotions.

  “The courier is remarkably clean,” she said softly. I looked up. The man showed no signs of travel dirt.

  “When did you arrive?” I asked him sharply.

  “Three days since, Lord,” he said.

  “You’ve been waiting for me for three days?”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  I shook my head. Constantine’s intelligence services were of the finest. Spies must have told him of my plans to visit Gaul weeks ago, because the news would have had to go from Chester to Rome, then he would have had to send a courier, or several, with his summons for me all the way from Rome back to the coast of Gaul. I began to compute the distances and time needed to travel them.

  By fast cargo ship, if the winds were fair, news of my plans could have travelled in about three weeks from Chester to Rome. The ship would have had to sail across the Narrow Sea, around the western coast of Gaul and Armorica, before leaving the Atlanticus through the Gates of Hercules and into the Iberian Sea before crossing the Inland Sea, covering about 120 Roman miles a day.

  Going overland was another matter. This was the springtime, and in fair weather and on paved roads that were not clogged with winter mud or snow, a courier getting fresh horses at the staging post mansios positioned every 10 or 15 miles along the highways could cover 100 miles per day. This was attainable enough, although it was more usual for a rider to cover about 50 to 60 miles a day. It was valuable to have the same courier complete the whole journey as he could be questioned about the message’s content, but on a very long journey it was better to change couriers at least once or twice, to cover the daily 100 miles without exhausting the riders.

  I knew from experience that a horseman could sustain about 30 miles at a fast pace, not much more than a legion would normally cover, but less than half of what a large carriage pulled by several horses could accomplish. The standard for trained legionaries in full pack was 20,000 paces a day, or about 20 miles, but soldiers are actually faster than horses over days of travel as the horse does not recover day to day as well as the human. A motivated soldier will push himself to extremes, a horse will not. In fact, on a forced march and without having to wait for the lumbering impedimenta train, my soldiers can march 40 miles or more in a single day, and can repeat that for a number of days in succession – a feat beyond a normal horse’s abilities.

  In emergencies or ot
her special circumstances, astonishing distances can be achieved. The Emperor Titus, eager to reach the bedside of his dying brother, was said to have covered 500 miles in 24 hours, racing on Rome’s great roads across the breadth of Europe and making change after change of horses for his fast raeda carriage. During his campaign across Gaul, Gaius Julius Caesar had reportedly marched his men 100 miles a day on occasion, I recalled, though he had left the baggage train behind to do it.

  So, I thought, the news of my plans would most likely have gone out by the faster sea route or even by relays of carrier pigeon for an ultra-swift delivery. The return message to me would have made the much shorter journey back across Gaul by road, or even by galley, up its great rivers.

  Guinevia was watching the expressions cross my face. She intuited my thoughts, again. “Three weeks, yes, to sail from Chester to Rome?” she murmured. “And two more weeks to race from Rome across Gaul by courier?” I nodded. “I can get letters from my friend in Ostia in six or seven weeks, usually. So, five or six weeks ago, someone in Chester knew you were planning to come to Gaul?” she said.

  “And they sent word to Caesar,” I agreed. Then I paused. “They could have sent word by pigeon,” I mused. “That would be faster. It could be just three weeks since the spy made his report. Either way, someone is watching, so my movements must be important to Constantine. He may be planning my death.”

  Guinevia paled a little. She knew the power and reach of Rome. Then she seemed to shake herself. “He will not kill you,” she said firmly. “I have cast the auguries and that is not in them. Constantine probably was alerted when you sent Quirinus to find horses in Gaul. That was about a month ago.” Well, I thought, that’s a relief of sorts but I’m still not going to Rome just yet.

  At that moment Bishop Candless came into the chamber. He bowed politely, first to Guinevia, whom he feared as having powerful contact with the true gods, then to me. “News, Lord?” he said. His crafty nose had sniffed out the courier and the red leather cylinder. Not much passed unnoticed by Candless.

  “No changes,” I said airily, “you’re still on course for Rome.” I saw his eyebrow lift. “No,” I said. “I’m not going. At least, not just yet.” I’d have to go eventually, it would not be wise to ignore an imperial request, but I’d take an escort. I’d go and find my heavy horses, then we’d ride them to Rome and enter the city in style. It would be a foolish man who’d try an assassination while I had my cavalry around me.

  III - Sarmatians

  Cragus Grabelius was anxious. As commander of the British cavalry, it was his duty to see that his emperor had the men and mounts he needed, but a Roman invasion under the late General Chlorus, had wrecked the breeding programme he had so carefully established in southern Britannia, and the Romans had captured many fine battle-trained steeds, too.

  Although Arthur and a consortium of Gallic, Germanic and Iberian allies had later defeated the Romans in Gaul, in a battle when Grabelius himself had sustained near-fatal wounds, the Britons had not recovered any of their precious war horses.

  Grabelius was telling the story to Arthur’s aide, Androcles. “We wanted to build a cavalry force as quickly as possible,” he said, “so we hit on the idea of recruiting some of the Sarmatian auxiliaries, ex-cavalrymen who had been stationed in northern Britannia, with the Ala Sarmatarum.

  “Two centuries ago, the old Roman army brought more than 5,000 horse soldiers from the Steppes and Caspian Sea to man the Wall and its hinterland. The remnants of them, about 500, were still up there around Ribchester, when the last legions pulled out. Almost all the retired cavalrymen stayed on with their British wives and families. They’ve been stationed there for so long as a close-knit, ethnic unit, they’re more at home in Britain than back on the Vistula. They still practically live on horseback, and sleep in waggons, you know. They are not all young men any more, but they know horses and they make an ideal core group for training recruits and their mounts.”

  As he was speaking, Bishop Candless’ bodyguard captain came into the pavilion. A tattooed Pict called Bilic, son of Mors, he was known as Shaftkiller for a legendary day when, his boar spear broken, he had killed a giant wild pig with the shaft alone. Bilic had coolly stood his ground when it charged, then had lanced the beast through its eye. He nodded to Androcles. “I’ve seen those Sarmatians,” he said. “Savage little bastards with flattened skulls. They squash them between boards to shape their heads. Cut themselves in the face a lot, too, to mourn their dead with blood, not tears.

  “They’re fine horsemen and deadly archers. They use stirrups to stand on, gives them a steady firing platform, and they can kill at 200 paces or more. They’ve been sent by the gods to train our recruits and when we put them on big mounts, we’ll have the best horse soldiers in the world.”

  Grabelius continued his report. Years before, with those cavalry instructors recruited, Arthur had turned his attention to obtaining the best horses for his troops and had sent his tribune to Frisia to obtain a pair of stallions from the region’s prized and jealously-guarded stock of heavy horses. Grabelius had secretly bought the beasts and spirited them back to Britannia, where they were employed in a breeding programme.

  “You can start to train a two year old horse, and by the time he’s four or five years old he’s at his full strength, capable of carrying his own armour and his rider. The Romans called them ‘cataphractarii,’ meaning ‘protected,’ and a five year old Frisian trained and armoured, is a proper war horse,” Grabelius explained. “He’s good until he’s about 17 or 18 years old, and a few squadrons of these big fellows is a mighty weapon because not only does he thunder in carrying a lancer with a bloody great, long spear levelled to stick you, but the beast also is taught to kick and slash with his hooves and even to bite and smash at you with his metal-covered head.

  “As few as 20 or so of these four-footed monsters can crush an infantry formation into submission, opening up the ranks for our own foot soldiers to finish off the opponents.”

  Androcles nodded. “So where do you get these big horses?” he asked. “The couple I saw were twice the size of the Fell ponies the Britons use.”

  “Well, that’s the thing,” said Grabelius. “They aren’t just anywhere. The Frisians and Jutes have the best horses, though there were some from Persia, Nisean breeds they were, that I saw. Their riders said they had a gait like sitting in a chair, very comfortable, and they were big imposing bastards. But really, the Frisian horses are about our best source.

  “We had to smuggle the first pair out, but since the alliances Arthur’s made, we have full access to the big herds. We were breeding them with local horses and Exmoor ponies in Britain, not bad stock some of those Fell ponies, very hardy, but we want more size as well as strength and endurance in our foals. Speed isn’t of much concern really, because in battle you basically close with the enemy ranks and hack at them. Very few horses will charge unhesitating into a spear wall.

  “That’s why the Sarmatians have such great long lances – to reach past the enemy pike wall. But at the end of it, these big chargers are like those elephants Hannibal had. They’re good for scaring people into breaking ranks and running away. In fact, they’re better than the elephants. Those monsters needed to be goaded or drunk before they’d would attack, but then it was any human, even their own soldiers, who became the targets. They reckon more elephants were killed by their own handlers than by the enemy. The mahouts kept a hammer and spike handy to knock into their monster’s brain if it went berserk and started on our troops. Bit wasteful, really, you don’t get that with a horse.”

  Bishop Candless saw the two soldiers talking and came across to speak with them. A former Pict warrior himself, he still carried some of the blue tattoo markings of his Dunpelder tribe and had a number of impressive scars to bear witness to the days when he and his clansmen had raced from the heather to battle their enemies.

  “We’re talking horses, Bishop,” Grabelius said affably. “Not your line of country, reall
y, eh?” Candless shook his head.

  “Great hay-munching beasts,” he growled. “Good for roasting, though.” The soldiers laughed. The Pict was respected, they’d witnessed him in his exotic alligator-hide breastplate and iron helmet, hacking and thrusting in the shield wall.

  “We could use that alligator hide thing of yours to protect them,” said Androcles, slyly.

  “I suppose you could,” the cleric agreed. “It’s light enough and tough enough. What do you use?”

  Grabelius ticked off the options on his fingers: “Uncured oxhide, in bands sewn onto a leather backing like a skirt is good, it can take most blows, it’s light enough, it flexes and it can cover down to the beast’s knees. Or you can use it like segmentata,” he said, referring to the lobster-like carapace of metal hoops held by straps. For themselves, most infantrymen preferred the hooped protection to the much-heavier chainmail, although lately some had started using lighter mail, saying that the segmentata trapped their flesh, was uncomfortable and expensive.

  “I’ve even seen horn-scale armour on a Persian horse,” added Grabelius, “but that was a horse archer, not one who’d actually be slashing and hacking at an opponent.”

  Before the conversation could become a technical argument about the relative virtues of light and heavy cavalry, Candless changed the subject. “Arthur,” he said, “seems not inclined to visit Rome?” The tribunes exchanged glances.

  “I think he intends to go,” said Grabelius cautiously. “How are your plans developing?”