A Fragile Peace Read online

  Cloaked and hooded behind these stood Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes of the north, a tribe the Romans had never been able fully to suppress, and behind her, stretching away into the cloaking dark, continued the column of the spectres of rulers of Britain’s forests and mountains, a column that went back to the days of Odin and the most ancient gods and spirits of the land.

  Myrddin viewed the silent spectres and spoke without words. “The gods are sending us omens, a blood moon, and a blood tide. We have found and retrieved the lost Torc of Caratacus that was the symbol of many of you and have honoured it, but now I have been given a dream of a swathe of death that will come to Britain. I do not understand. I need your help.”

  The sorcerer bowed his head in unaccustomed humility, and he received the message from Britain’s royal dead. He understood from it that he had to fulfill the requirements he had heard before, but even that might not be enough. The scything of a crop of souls might not be averted, the old gods might never return, Britain might again be brought under the armoured heel of the conqueror. Nothing was guaranteed

  The knowledge crushed the soul of the sorcerer. This time, if he were not allowed to leave the Underworld, if he could not once more make the reverse journey to the stone house under Yr Wyddfa’s sacred mountain, he would not care. If he went back to the living, he would be going back to a land of living death. Arthur and the green land of Britain were doomed. Maybe it would be better to stay in the Underworld.

  V - Circus

  Milo looked like a living statue, holding high an ivory baton that was topped with a golden eagle. He was wearing a wreath of gold leaves on top of his ash-blond hair, and had on a scarlet tunic under a tunic of the finest Tyrian purple.

  Guinevia, maternally proud, was ecstatic. “He looks like Jupiter himself,” she gushed.

  I looked at her, amused. I had not seen her this way since our son was a small child. My iron-willed pagan was softening.

  My gaze turned back to Milo, poised above the race track in front of his throne of the presiding aedile. He held up his baton in his right hand. In his left was a square of white linen that he was about to throw down to signal the trumpets to sound for the first chariot race. The silence was palpable, with only the stamping and snorting of the horses disturbing the near-religious moment.

  Five chariots were aligned, awaiting the brazen call and the drop of the rope that presently blocked their start. White, blue, green, red and purple, each chariot, horse and driver was covered in the favours of his faction; around the circuit blocks of the same colours showed where their supporters sat and stood.

  The linen dropped, the brass sounded, the rope fell and in a clash of contact and thudding of hoof beats that were drowned by the surf roar of the crowd, the races began.

  The beasts hammered by in a blur of colour, manes braided and interwoven with ribbons, tails knotted and held high, breastplates gleaming with polished metal plates. The whip-wielding drivers were in bright tunics of their faction’s colour, helmeted and wrapped from thigh to calf in bright leggings. They wore the reins fastened around their waists, but kept a sharp-edged knife ready either at their belt or in a wicker basket inside the chariot body. It would be used to slash themselves free in case of disaster.

  The carriages churned the turf and battered against each other at the U-turns around the stone pillars, the stronger outside horses, usually stallions, hauling at their loose traces as they ran the longer curve, the inner horses, mostly mares, more tightly harnessed to pivot the vehicle around the turning post.

  The charioteers’ heads swivelled endlessly, as danger from being rammed could come from behind or on either side if they led, or could come from a stalled or crashed competitor ahead if they followed. Canny drivers aimed to edge their rivals into the stone spine that ran down the track centre – one broken wheel was enough to disable a chariot; others opted to outrun the pack.

  In a typical race, men and horses rounded the turning posts 14 times, every single one a fine opportunity for a shipwreck, and the crazed dashes down the straights were no safer.

  And the crowd loved it. They cheered for their favourites, gave generous applause to the victors and acknowledged the skill and bravery even of those who crashed or were rammed. Race followed race and the rituals were observed religiously. The aedile dropped the signal to start, the racers battled, the winner was declared and presented with his prize by the starter and did a lap or two of honour, acknowledging the crowd and sometimes leaping out onto the shafts to display his acrobatic skills as his horses ran free.

  One famous charioteer, Sinan of Moesia, had been brought from Gaul at the expense of the Green faction whose luminary, a wealthy merchant called Mullinus, was seeking political office, and he was celebrating his fifth victory when he climbed the steps to where Milo and Sintea were sitting with his wreath and prize purse.

  A muscular, powerfully-built man, Sinan bowed low before the young couple, and Milo laughed and made a joking reference to the trickles of sweat that made marks through the dust on the charioteer’s face. Sinan straightened, smiling, then sneezed explosively, barely in time to turn his head away from Milo. I saw Sintea flinch and realize she must have caught a little of the spray, and the charioteer was apologising: “Dust, my lady, I must have eaten a meal of it.” Sintea was dabbing at her face, the little incident was over, and the victor turned to wave to the crowd, holding high his coin purse. I noticed that he sneezed again, several times, as he picked his way down the steps to the arena.

  An intermission followed and acrobats and dwarf jesters were amusing the crowd. “That juggler troupe never arrived,” I said to Cragus, “The one from Dover that Mullinus spoke so highly about.”

  “Mullinus knows everybody, lord,” said Cragus. “I’ll ask him when they are going to get here. There was a good minstrel he was bringing from there, he never arrived, either.”

  “Ah well, “I said, more careless than I should have been, “there’s a week to go, they’ll likely be here in the next day or so.”

  At dusk that evening, as Guinevia and I sat talking with Milo, Sintea had retired early, saying she had a headache, my majordomo slipped quietly into the chamber to announce a visitor, if I would receive one.

  “It is the trader Mullinus, lord,” he said. “I explained that you were with your son but he was pressing, and says the matter is important.”

  I nodded permission. I knew Mullinus. A decade before, he was wearing my dead father’s silver and amber badge of office when I collided with him outside the public bath at Colchester. He told a long story about escaping a slaver in Belgica while wearing the man’s cloak, which happened to have the badge fastened to it.

  Mullinus was a successful trader and something about his story rang true, so I did not kill him, and he gracefully handed over my inheritance. By one of those connections that have the Fates roaring with laughter, Mullinus had bought my mother as a slave and had fallen in love with her. When I was a boy, she was enslaved by the same sea raiders who killed my father, but only after she had ensured my escape.

  I had met her years later but I was no longer the child who had run from slavery. My life as a soldier had hardened me. I felt little for her, and our reunion was not sentimental, on my part at least. In fact, I had only grimaced when word came five or so years ago that she had died of a fever. Some fools criticise me for it, but I have lost close comrades to death, disease and captivity and I have little room for grief any more. I’ll feast with them in Asgard, the gods willing, as I plan to die with a sword in my hand.

  Mullinus was standing before me and I tore myself away from my thoughts. Something about the trader was good, although I knew he put sand in his salt and water in his wine. After all, he was in business to make profits. “Are you prospering?” I asked, taking in his fine fur-trimmed robe and the thick gold chain at his throat.

  “I have made a few good decisions, lord,” he bowed. “Even a blind squirrel can sometimes find a nut.”

  I la
ughed and offered him wine. “Unlike the stuff you sold, it’s unwatered,” I said.

  He shook his head, ignoring the jest. “I have come on what may be an important matter,” he said.

  “Sit,” I said. Milo stood to leave, but Mullinus said:”Your son should also hear,” and the boy sat down again. The story Mullinus told made my heart freeze. A Hibernian trader who had raced from Dover, fleeing to his native isle had informed him of a plague outbreak in the south.

  “Whatever it is, it acts rapidly,” he said. “There are reports of people who go to bed healthy and who do not wake up the next dawn. The trader told me of a physician who went to attend a patient stricken with it, and the doctor died before the patient did, the next morning. I think it is like that great pestilence which struck during the time of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.”

  This, I knew had struck just over a century ago and took more lives than any war or epidemic ever recorded. Historians said that as many as one citizen in every ten across the empire had died in an incredible fury of fast-moving fevers. The deadly Antonine Plague was marked on its victims by its speed: most died within three days, and by hideous, unmistakable symptoms that included large, hard black buboes that rose and swelled in its victims’ crotches and armpits, inflicting incredible pain, fever and delirium.

  “In the days of Marcus Aurelius, they had the same bloody flux, the foul, stinking breath and the coughing of blood that is being seen in Dover,” said Mullinus, who clearly knew his medicine. “Their bodies were blistered with boils that were sometimes as big as apples, black, red and oozing blood. These are not symptoms of anything but death by deadly plague, and the Hibernian told me the men of Kent are fleeing anywhere they can.”

  The Celt who brought this news did well to race to put a sea between himself and the plague, I thought grimly. If it truly were the same pox that decimated Marcus Aurelius’ empire and had also claimed the life of the emperor Gothicus not 30 years ago, the British faced an invisible enemy more fearful and more deadly than any Saxon or Pict. How, I wondered, could we defeat this ghoul from the Underworld? I called a conclave. This was too important a matter for one man, however powerful an emperor, and I wanted every advice I could get..

  Soon, my officers, my wizard, my counselors and even a wretched creature who claimed to be a Christian prelate – by Mithras, how I longed for my warrior-bishop Candless’ council here – were present. I outlined the situation. They listened. I called up in myself all the virtues the Romans had inculcated in me. To be tough, to be pragmatic and to take pride in military discipline and virtue. I did not want a panic, I did not want some hysteric fumbling away control of the situation, which probably we could not control, anyway. Suppressing an anxious gulp, I spoke as calmly as I could.

  The first thing, I said, was to disperse crowds. I knew from campaigning that an army which camped in the same place for too long would inevitably be weakened by bad humours of the air and poisoned water. Once I had used the tactic against an enemy, sickening his troops by pouring sewage into the water upstream of his drinking supply. If people had fewer contacts with others, the chances of contracting the plague must be reduced, I reasoned. So first, I would cancel the games and disperse the crowds. I would also send my family away to safety, Milo and Sintea back north to Alba, Guinevia could go to Myrddin in his remote Cambrian mountains. Maybe I could close the city walls and keep out all strangers. That action could be ordered across the kingdom. I could forbid travel, close the roads, close the harbours. If we could confine the plague, we might be able to prevent its spread.

  I would order sacrifices to the gods, too, they would help; I should mount guards on the aqueducts which supplied water to our cities, to ensure that no rotting bodies found their way into the drinking water. We had best guard the granaries and warehouses, too against desperate men. There were many obvious steps and I called for an aide to begin taking orders. This was no enemy I could defeat with a shield wall, but swift action to isolate the invisible death humours could save much of the population. I knew I would get the cooperation of local thegns and chieftains, as their interests and mine ran together.

  Guinevia’s rapid step sounded on the flagstones outside the chamber. She had heard the news already I supposed, from Milo, who had hurried to his bride. Guinevia was pale. “Matters are bad,” she said, “Sintea is vomiting and feverish.” Matters got much worse. Our Pictish princess died long before the first wolf light of the morning.

  VI - Droplets

  We immolated poor Sintea far from the highland hills of her homeland, and with near-indecent haste, fearful that the plague could somehow transfer to us from her silk-wrapped corpse. She was placed almost roughly in a small sailing vessel that was stacked with tinder, and we sent her on her last voyage cloaked in fire. I dared not have her buried as befitted her royal status, I knew the dangers of plague and I had to give her rites befitting her status, a funeral that her still-unknowing father would demand. I was uncomfortably aware of the politics.

  The little ship was sailing into the dark west under the hands of a ghost, flames dancing tall, even as Sol was rising in the east to take a last view of the young royal bride. Milo stood, pale, silent and uncomprehending as he watched the future he had planned drift away from him on the land breeze. I put an arm around his shoulder as we watched, but he seemed not to notice anything but the death ship’s course.

  Myrddin strode up to me, pragmatically readying to deal with the living. He had arrived an hour ago, dusty and weary from a fast journey through the dark of that stricken night. “We have a time of severe trial coming, lord,” he had said, even before I could tell him.

  I nodded, bitterly. “It is here now,” I said curtly. In a few sentences, I told him what we knew and went to supervise Sintea’s cremation.

  Now, the sorcerer was back at my side, wanting to discuss our options. “We start by saving this garrison,” I said. “Then we get news to the rest of Britain.”

  Myrddin pursed his lips and tugged his chin, old gestures I knew, then said abruptly, “Sage. Get me some sage and a brazier. Lots of sage.”

  In minutes, it seemed, the chamber and the battlements outside were choking in the sorcerer’s aromatic smoke but Myrddin had already collared a guard officer and was heading for the storehouses. “Vinegar, man,” he was saying, “sour wine. Barrels of it, amphorae, anything. Get me plenty of it.” Minutes later, the soldier staggered in, with two slim, knee-high wooden barrels clasped, one under each arm. Behind him, a group of slaves followed, equally burdened.

  “Pour them into that basin,” the sorcerer ordered. “Now, lord, er, Caros, my friend, “ he wheedled, using my childhood name as only he and Guinevia did, “wash your hands and face in the vinegar. It will help keep you safe.”

  “I’m not going to be pickled!” I growled but a glance at his face told me he was as serious as could be, and I obeyed. I was not the first. One by one, we were doused in vinegar, choking on sage fumes, and stinking of sour wine. We all paused, wondering what came next. “Watch for the first signs, for the dizzying faintness, the sneezes,” said Myrddin. I did not hear the rest of the sentence. The sneezes! It struck me like a hammer blow.

  As clearly as if I were in that moment again, I saw the dusty, sweat-streaked victorious charioteer Sinan sneeze as he turned his face away from Milo, and although I had not seen it at the time, in my mind’s eye and in agonizing slowness, I watched the droplets of moisture strike Sintea. The clarity of the vision told me it came straight from the gods, and I understood exactly what was their message. Those droplets were poisoned with plague. It could transmit itself from person to person through the air. You could inhale swift, stinking, brutal death.

  “You,” I turned to the nearest slave. “Find the chariot driver Sinan and bring him to me, or if he is sick, return and tell me his condition.”

  That vision became key to our surviving the worst of the plague. Sinan was dead, of course. His bloated, blackened body was sprawled, already rotting, in hi
s quarters, undiscovered until the slave ran to find him. The man raced back gasping, and I ordered him away from me.

  “Keep your distance or I’ll behead you,” I said, drawing Exalter in emphasis.

  The slave fell to his knees, terrified. “The charioteer is dead, lord,” he whispered.

  “Yes,” I said. I knew he would be.

  “You are a free man,” I told the slave, “just so long as you leave the castrum right now, and never come back, or –“ and I moved Exalter menacingly.

  He actually scrambled on all fours to leave the chamber.

  A voice spoke from the dim outer reaches of the chamber. It was the Christian prelate, a lean, dark fellow with a long jaw. “Killing a messenger will avail you of nothing, king,” he said. “The holy scriptures prophesy that plague will come upon your nation because you have refused the true God.” I stared into the dimness where the man stood who had the effrontery to beard me in my own chamber.

  “Step forward, you, and show me this scripture,” I said. Amazingly, the fellow came forward, holding a lambskin. Not even a mere parchment, I thought, but a valued lambskin. He pointed with an inky forefinger to a line or two of Latin in the middle of a page. I sensed that he thought I could not read, and asked him “What does it say?’ in as innocent a voice as I could,

  “It says, lord king, that those who deny the true God, the Lord Christ Himself, will suffer plague and death across their kingdoms until they repent,” he said.

  I pulled the lambskin from him. The words burned into my eyeballs. I was staggered. How could this hedge preacher have known?

  Guinevia stepped forward. “May I see?” she said sweetly, and gently took the soft white skin from my hands, which I admit were shaky. My pagan priestess, Druid and acolyte of Ogmia, goddess of powerful words, looked carefully at the lambskin and said calmly: ”You can scrape the ink off this, you know. A sharp knife, a repair of the sullied spot with cheese, lime and milk and you can write in whatever you wish.”