The King's Cavalry Read online

  Candless shrugged. “I shall be taking the Holy nails to the Empress Helena. She has been to Jerusalem to find the True Cross and it is right and just that she should see the nails, too.”

  The two tribunes took this to mean that Candless planned some ruse to gain validation for his fake relics. “Very wise,” said Androcles.

  He knew that in Jerusalem, Queen Helena, mother of Constantine, had met a man called Cyriacus, who took her to where the relics were buried. Several miracles were performed which authenticated the find, and she had met with the city’s Christian leaders to display the holy relics and discuss their future. After a long period of tolerance, when the Hebrews lived in their own country, had their own temple and enjoyed political power even under Roman rule, the Jews were now being regarded with hostility, had lost their central religious institution and were even banned as residents of the new Roman city.

  “They are not like us, highness,” a Christian deacon explained to the visiting queen. “They have their own religious communities and clergy. We Christians who were once Jews have seen this and we distance ourselves from them. We have the true faith and they stubbornly refuse it.”

  The queen was disturbed at this information. “Will the holy relics be safe in Jerusalem?” she asked. “Will there be factional war?” She was disturbed by the thousand year prophecies of Zachariah, who had foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, and she was resolved to remove as many relics as she could for safekeeping. It was not so easy, however. The pontiff insisted that the Cross be kept in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. Helena wished to take it all away. Compromise was reached.

  Helena used her influence and her gold, got the nails and some shards of the Cross and bore them away in triumph. One of Zachariah’s prophecies was in her mind: on the day of destruction, the prophet said: “That which is upon the bridle of the horse shall be holy to the Lord.”

  This Helena understood to mean that her son, the emperor, would be protected by having some of the iron of the Holy nails formed into the bridle of his mount. It would fulfill the ancient prophecy, and it would ensure her son’s wellbeing. For added safety, she had some iron from one of the nine-inch spikes inserted into his helmet, too.

  Candless and others interpreted the prophecy differently. They felt it simply meant that the lavish golden ornaments that adorned the emperor’s bridle should be handed over to the church, but he never mentioned that when he saw the queen.

  IV - Quirinus

  Word came by courier from the Rhine that Quirinus had pulled off a masterly coup, and I was delighted. I settled to read his report. My tribune had followed orders with care, had landed his small force of horse copers and a couple of dozen lancers discreetly, a distance along the coast from Forum Hadriani, unnoticed by the Romans loyal to Maxentius and within an easy few days’ march of the Frisian lands where he should make contact with the horse traders and breeders who had the herds we needed.

  I had sent word ahead of his mission to King Stelamann, one of the vassal kings the Romans had installed to hold the frontier. He was a ruler I met when I had travelled to create a federation against the legions. Our union had been successful and we had driven the Romans from Gaul after the great battle at Alesia. Now, the king could help me again, and should be eager to do so to maintain our alliance, as I had promised help if he and his kingdom come under threat.

  Quirinus was to make his way to Stelamann’s citadel at Vallis on the River Meuse to meet guides who could take him safely through the tribal lands to the horse breeders. Quirinus’ lancers would be enough to deter bandits and to protect the gold I needed to send with him for the horses purchase.

  His report said that he had successfully reached Vallis without arousing hostile interest, and the king had agreed to send for horse traders to bring their stock to his stronghold. He also had guides waiting for Quirinus to take him to the horse copers further afield, but cautioned that Maxentius’ men were now skirmishing wider out of their castrum at Colonia, on the Rhine.

  The king felt that Quirinus’ troop was not strong enough to withstand a strong patrol, so, to guarantee my tribune’s safety, insisted on having a troop of his own foot soldiers accompany the Britons. This, said Quirinus’ report, would slow their progress but on balance was a sensible precaution. Because the pace would be merely that of the infantry, Quirinus opted to leave the Gallic ponies behind at Vallis, for he would be returning to Bononia with a herd of heavy horses to manage and the ponies would require extra work and fodder. As they were leaving their ponies, our cavalrymen equipped themselves from the king’s armoury with infantry shields to replace the smaller cavalry targs they normally carried.

  The combined force of troopers proceeded to march north along the bank of the Meuse, which was still frozen, for the spring thaw was late this year of 312. The going was easier without the mud, but the king’s prediction about the enemy proved accurate. Quirinus and the Celts were intercepted by a strong Roman mounted patrol that was several days’ ride out from Colonia.

  “Fortunately, we saw them at a distance and I had time to prepare. I had considered this possibility,” Quirinus wrote, “and had devised a number of defensive strategies. One in particular was effective. I ordered the entire force to put socks on over their boots, because the hobnails pushed through the wool, which gave added traction. Then I marched them onto the ice of the frozen river.”

  The Roman dragoons rode their horses out to encircle Quirinus, but he ordered his two decurions to deploy the men out of their ranks and to stand them back to back in a modified infantry square. Next, he commanded the soldiers to hack grooves in the ice at their feet and to plant the bottom edges of their big shields in them.

  The men arrayed themselves shield edge to edge, and by bracing the backs of their ice-slotted shields against one foot, they created a solid defensive wall of limewood, leather and metal. Thus protected and on good footing, they braced themselves to receive the attack. As expected, the Roman horsemen trotted cautiously across the treacherous, frozen surface to break the line, but their forest pony steeds were doubly unstable on the ice and on their loose, tied-on horseshoes. The beasts jibbed and halted at the hedge of spears.

  “As they closed on us, several of our men leaned out and grabbed the horses’ reins, jerking them forward. The animals had poor footing on the ice, and fell, knocking other beasts and men to the ground. Soon, the whole square, Celts and Britons, was hauling the horses to the ice, and then we killed the unseated Romans. Our men employed their gladiatorial techniques of infighting with great success,” Quirinus finished simply.

  Not a Roman was taken alive, at my orders. I wanted no survivors to raise the alarm about our expedition, and Quirinus took time to dispose of the dead under the river ice and in a nearby copse, where only the ravens would find them.

  The report filled me with satisfaction, and I took particular pleasure at Quirinus’ mention of ‘gladiatorial techniques.’ I had saved my own life more than once by employing the street-fighting methods I learned as a young soldier at the gladiator school at Carnutum, on the Danube. I remembered with an inward grin how our instructor would bellow at us: “Don’t mince and tittup about like a whore on the make: hit the bastard!” As a military commander, I urged my officers to add the fighting techniques of boot, elbow and eye-gouge to their training schedules. Ironically, the farsighted centurion who long before had made us learn them had now cost his emperor some Roman lives.

  I was well pleased with Quirinus’ ingenuity on the ice, and his recognition that horseshoes that are strapped to the animals’ feet are a hindrance in snow and mud, but the next bit of news made me positively laugh out loud. “We took 28 heavy horses as well as a number of secondary remounts,” Quirinus wrote. “Five of the big horses carried our own CB brands.” This stood for ‘Classis Britannica,’ for ‘British Fleet,’ and had been my whimsical choice when the horse breeders asked how we would brand our steeds.

  They must have been part of the
plunder from Maximian’s invasion of Britain and our cavalrymen would be gladdened to hear of their recovery, and would see it as a positive omen of future success. I turned back to Quirinus’ report: “King Stelamann’s men commandeered several farm carts and they took a quantity of Roman arms and armour back to Vallis while we rode on with the guides to meet the horse breeders.”

  So, the first phase was done. Quirinus mischievously guessed my reaction to all this. “I request forgiveness for ruining the troops’ socks,” he wrote, “and hope it will not be deducted from my pay.”

  “Send him a message,” I commanded. “Tell him that he does not have to pay for the holes, at least.” As soldiers’ marching socks are open at the heels and toes and were probably torn to pieces anyway, Quirinus’ pay was safe, and so were our men.

  V - Views

  Bishop Candless was impatient, and somewhat fearful. He knew that the emperor’s mother was scooping up all the holy relics she could, zealously industrious as a new convert to Christianity, and he wanted to get his hands on something before she cleaned up the market. He had been in contact with the church leaders and seemed to have agreement to visit Rome to take some holy relics back to Britannia, but, just as Arthur was doubtful of his reception, so too was Candless hesitant, and for the same reason.

  Arthur had personally executed the Roman general who had invaded Britain, and that general, Constantius Chlorus, was the father of Constantine, who was the current emperor, or was at least, Candless corrected himself, one of the claimants to be emperor.

  Would Queen Helena punish Candless for her husband’s death, or would Constantine himself order the Britons punished for his father’s execution? The bishop had no way of knowing.

  At least, he thought, Arthur as king-emperor had a better chance at immunity. If he, a mere bishop, went to Rome, he could be accused of almost anything and sent for crucifixion, or, at best, to be thrown off the Tarpeian Rock. He would have a better chance of surviving if he went with Arthur, but now the king was reticent about whether he really wanted to go, even if it meant defying Constantine’s polite summons. But… Candless really wanted some relics to validate his new church and to attract streams of donative-carrying pilgrims. It really is selfish of Arthur not to put himself out, the danger can’t be that great, he thought peevishly.

  Finally, the Pict’s warrior blood won out. Candless resolved to go whatever the cost or danger. If he died, he would one day die anyway, he shrugged. But he had high hopes he could so impress the Romans they’d cooperate. Had not Caratacus the Briton been taken in chains to meet his new masters, and had he not so stirred them with his courage and arguments that he had been freed to live out his days in Italia?

  The bishop set about organising his entourage for the springtime weeks of journeying across Gaul, the Alps and Italia, and gave careful thought to his display of pomp. Too much could encourage greed and possible seizure, too little could arouse contemptuous dismissal. He would wear his alligator hide breastplate and a sword, he thought, and he would ensure that every man in his train wore the red cross and white surplice of the Christians.

  A week later, he was riding out on a cleric’s palfrey, leaving Bononia at the head of a procession of mules, monks, guards and baggage carts. Bishop Candless was on the last part of his journey to find holy relics.

  Guinevia watched him go. The sorceress was standing on the landward ramparts of the citadel where she had been pacing, wondering about the welfare of her teenage son, Milo, the agreed heir to the throne of Alba. At the youth’s wedding just a few months before, the Pictish king, Kinadius, and the British emperor, Arthur, had sealed in blood an agreement of peace between their countries, and had joined Milo and Kinadius’ daughter Sintea in marriage.

  As Guinevia’s son, Milo had legitimate claim to the throne, for the Picts practised matrilineal succession, and the sorceress was by birth the daughter of a Pict chieftain with royal blood. But, regal or not, she was a mother whose 14-year-old son was far distant, and she fretted for him. “I’ll view his actions,” she thought, and returned to her chamber, calling for her body slave.

  She took out a silk-wrapped block of smooth, black obsidian, a volcanic glass that helped her focus her mind and send it abroad, and settled to quiet her thoughts. The slave readied her wax tabulum and stylus, preparing to scribble down the thoughts her mistress spoke aloud.

  Guinevia looked into the obsidian’s depths, relaxed her mind and body and waited for the swirling fogs in the glass to part… She saw Milo, tall and golden, walking with his young bride Sintea. Behind them was a stretch of water she recognised as the familiar Tay. The couple looked calm and content, the glimpse of them was brief but reassuring and soon, too soon for Guinevia, the scene faded.

  Her slave read back the few remarks the sorceress had muttered – it was best not to analyse matters while viewing them but merely to speak thoughts aloud. Guinevia had learned that if she psychically ‘saw’ something large and green it might be a tree, a mossy wall, or even a close view of a green cloak. Interpreting her vision while it was ongoing could be misleading, she had discovered. Better to analyse it all after the remote, mental view was ended.

  “I’ll send to Arthur and tell him all seems well,” she thought, and settled again to look into the obsidian.

  *

  Far away, under the snow-smoothed slopes of Yr Wyddfa, the sorcerer Myrddin was also peering into his viewing tool: a deep, black pool of water contained in an ancient and large iron cooking pot. The vessel was an old, old Druidical artefact and had seen some sinister uses that included child sacrifice and several ritual drownings of men.

  Myrddin used it on a regular basis to view and even to communicate telepathically with other magi. Most ominously, the sorcerer also practised necromancy, the art of communicating with the dead, and he had been ruthless on occasion, calling up spirits to do his bidding. Famously, he had enlisted Boadicea, the long-dead queen of the Iceni, to lead a chariot attack on the Romans at their landing place on the shore at Dungeness.

  Awestruck British charioteers had galloped alongside the shade of the queen who had once led a blood-soaked rebellion and, inspired that they could not fail, had overwhelmed the legionaries. Later, they discovered a number of Romans dead on the shingle but without a mark on their bodies, proof said the British, that the dead queen’s ghostly arrows had killed them.

  Now Myrddin, who used magic on a daily basis, was viewing the realm. He peered into the water’s dark depths to take an eagle’s view of the eastern shores, which were free of Saxon invaders. He glimpsed King Kinedius out boar hunting with a handful of retainers, he saw Arthur pacing the battlements of Bononia and, further afield, Constantine in his purple-trimmed toga walking through Rome with an entourage, passing the Baths of Caracalla. No hint of disruption, not a murmur of war or plague unsettled his visions, but the sorcerer knew from the tingle at the nape of his neck that trouble was afoot.

  VI - Vallis

  The reports had come back to me at Bononia. My scouts had captured a couple of dozen Roman heavy horses but more importantly had contacted several horse copers who had herds for us to buy. Some were in northern Belgica, the rest would gather at Vallis, King Stelamann’s stronghold. Most of the steeds were Frisians, which was exactly the breed I wanted, heavy horses that were strong enough to carry an armoured man but nimble and intelligent enough to be trained as fine war mounts.

  In all, I wanted about 700 horses including remounts to supplement the herds I already had. The Frisians’ numbers could be made up with some Nisean horses, taller beasts that came from Persian stock and were elegant animals to ride, and there was also a scattering of Noric horses. These were heavy Roman draught animals from the province of Noricum, in the alpine piedmont area, where one or two breeders had introduced a stud to cross into the Frisian strain.

  With that report in my hand, I was eager to go east to inspect the horses and begin training the heavy cavalry that would be the world’s finest. I called in my aide
Androcles and issued the orders needed to put our cavalry column together for travel to northern Belgica. We didn’t have enough steeds for all our men, so instead of riding or marching, we’d take the faster means of travel. We would sail there through the straits of the Narrow Sea, staying discreetly out of sight of the coast until we had passed the River Scheldt, where the Emperor Maxentius’ Romans still maintained a small garrison.

  They had pulled back from Forum Hadriani and the outfall of the Rhine, but we would land first in the island chain off Frisia where our scouting party would meet us with some temporary mounts. From there we would be guided to the horse copers and their herds. With what horses we purchased in northern Belgica, we would make the journey south, along the Meuse river to Vallis to inspect the next offerings.

  My expectation was that we could land in Frisia without alerting the Romans to my presence, as it and the possibility of plunder of gold and horses might be too tempting for them to withstand.

  Once we had spent a few weeks in Germania we would have the horses sufficiently trained to ride them back across northern Gaul to Bononia, and with our own cavalry force and the supplemental troops of King Stelamann, we should be able enough to withstand even a strong Roman patrol’s attacks. So that was the plan, simple, direct and, I hoped, flawless. Fate’s spinners must have been hooting with laughter.

  *

  The first part of the plan went reasonably well, although the Frisian horse traders had only a few mounts for sale after meeting with a Hunnic commander several months before. He had taken most of the available steeds, but the few we did purchase were fine animals. I sighed and plotted our route to Stelamann’s fortress.

  We crossed the Rhine at Albanianis, on a bridge over the white water for which the town was named and moved steadily west and south to the old Roman frontier town called Hercules Camp.