Reign of Iron: Iron Age Trilogy: Book Three Read online

  “Wake up, Spring!” shouted a northern voice, startling her.

  Come on, she told herself. She tried to push up into a crawl, but could not. So, she thought, I’ll be slithering after all.

  Digging elbows and feet into soft soil, she pushed herself under the shade of the branches and on through leaf litter and twigs. She managed to lift her head and saw a blackbird watching her from a log, head cocked. She opened her mouth to tell him to piss off or help her, not just perch there, but her throat was too dry and she only rasped at him quietly.

  Finally, the shallow gully of the stream.

  She tumbled down the bank, floppy as a boneless squirrel, and squelched face first into the water. Mud filled her mouth and clogged her nose.

  Oh, she thought. How apt. The girl who killed thousands with a giant wave was going to drown in a shallow stream. But she managed to twist her head so her face was only half submerged. She lapped cold, delicious, muddy water. Soon she had the strength to slide the rest of her body down into the stream, kneel, and drink water from her cupped hands. A good while later she managed to stand. Shivering with cold and shuddering with effort, she staggered to a blackberry bush.

  Two days later the young archer crested the rise and walked down the track to Dug’s farm, his hammer over her left shoulder, its shaft wrapped with moss and cloth to prevent further chafing. Her right shoulder was coated in a poultice to soothe the hammer’s earlier rubbage.

  Dug’s sheep ran to the fence, bleating accusingly, but there was no sign of the dogs. She’d expected the huge, idiotic animals to come bouncing up the track barking a happy welcome as usual, but Pigsy and Sadie were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps someone from the nearby village had taken them in?

  She turned the corner into Dug’s yard. Dug’s yard… She staggered under the weight of the grief, then straightened. She could indulge her grief later. Right now she had things to do. There were dogs to be found, chickens to be fed, honey to be collected, sheep to be reassured and—

  “Ahem!” someone fake-coughed behind her.

  There were five men, clad in British-style smocks and tartan trousers which didn’t quite fit, as if they’d borrowed or stolen them. Two of the smocks were holed and blood-stained: evidence, Spring guessed, of what had happened to their previous owners. The men’s hair was cut short in the Roman way, which wasn’t unusual since plenty of Britons those days aped Roman styles. Each carried a short, double-edged legionary’s sword on his belt, which was more unusual but not unheard of. People liked to copy the Romans. But everything about this lot looked foreign–their skin, their eyes, the way they stood, the set of their mouths–and Spring was pretty much certain that they were, in fact, Roman. Now what, by all the bristly badgers’ arses in the world, would five Romans be doing at Dug’s hut?

  They were a tough-looking lot, apart from the man in the centre, who looked extraordinary, right up with the druid Maggot in the gang of weirdest-looking weirdos that Spring had ever seen. He was toweringly tall and bulky, but with a tiny ball of a head. Black, pinprick eyes stared out of his tanned, wrinkled face. Despite his preposterous appearance, he had the expression of a man who took himself very seriously. His hair, suspiciously jet for someone his age, was greased and wrenched back from his leather-look forehead into a pert little ponytail.

  She looked around. Pigsy and Sadie were nowhere. Even the chickens that usually scratched about in the yard despite Dug’s efforts to teach them to scratch about elsewhere had buggered off. There was no way she’d get through the door or any of the windows before they were on her, and they were blocking the mouth of the yard. She was caught, with no help on hand.

  She couldn’t fight five. If they’d had the decency to run at her from several hundred paces across an empty field, and she’d had a bow and some arrows, then she’d have taken out the lot of them, no bother, but she’d left her bow on Frogshold and they were right next to her. All she had was Dug’s hammer, which she had trouble lifting, let alone wielding. One of them would have been unassailable. Five… Clever words would be needed to save her here.

  “First of all, I’d like you all to know,” she said, smiling and thinking that they probably wouldn’t be able to understand British, “that you look a bunch of prize pricks. I’d heard that Romans were ugly, but if I had pigs that looked like you I’d paint faces on their arses on market day and make them walk backwards into town.”

  Four of them looked blank, but the big one’s eyes narrowed even further. He raised his sword.

  “And the second thing,” added Spring quickly, “is that I surrender, totally. If you’re here to rob, go for it. Rob away. If it’s slaves you’re after, I will be a brilliant slave–compliant, happy and diligent, I promise. If you want to rob and take me as a slave, go for your lives. I will not stand in your way. I’m sure clever Romans like you know that you’ll get much more for me if I’m unharmed.”

  The tall, fat one smiled a nasty smile. The ball of fear that had been growing in Spring’s stomach bobbed up into her throat.

  “We’re not here to rob you, or to take you,” he said in Gaulish, which was pretty much the same as British, with an accent that sounded like a man holding his nose and trying to sound tough at the same time.

  “Well, that’s marvellous,” said Spring. “In that case, perhaps I can get you some food, then you can help me look for the dogs and—”

  “We’re here to kill you,” interrupted the large man.

  Spring swallowed. “I see. Why?”

  “That, I do not know,” said the man, “but we have been well paid, and we will get more when we present your corpse. Much more.”

  “Where do you have to present my corpse?” Spring tightened her grip on the hammer. Dug could have beaten ten men like this with the weapon. Help me, Dug? she pleaded silently. There was no reply.

  “We will take it to Gaul.”

  “Who wants it?”

  “Honestly, I do not know. Someone rich and important because only the powerful use middle men and only the rich can afford me.”

  “My body’s going to be in a much better condition if you leave it alive until we get to Gaul,” Spring tried. “I promise to keep it well fed and make sure it doesn’t get knocked about too much.”

  The large man chuckled. “Believe me, I’d like to keep you alive a little longer. You are funny, and you remind me of two of my daughters. But if we kill you here, it greatly reduces your chance of escape.”

  “Yes, I see your point…” Spring’s mind raced. She pulled the hammer from her shoulder. By Toutatis’ thunderbolts, it was heavy. “We’re going to have to fight, aren’t we? I should warn you, however, that I’m very good with this. I suggest you retreat. I swear I’ll never tell anyone you were here or that you chickened out. Your secret will be safe with me.”

  The leader smiled and gestured to the two men on his right. They raised their swords and came at her.

  Chapter 2

  Ragnall Sheeplord arrived at the command tent, thankfully freed from the unpleasant Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus’ occupation by the return of Julius Caesar. Unsmiling, black-clad praetorians ushered him in. Caesar acknowledged him with an only just perceptible widening of his eyes. The newly Roman ex-Briton knew it was a signal to wait.

  Caesar seemed bizarrely unmoved by the loss of almost his entire invasion fleet to the great wave. He’d simply ordered Gaulish shipwrights and slaves to build another, bigger navy, claimed that he hadn’t intended to sail to Britain until next year anyway, and sent his legions off to scour north-west Gaul, capturing and enslaving any of the Veneti tribe who’d survived the sea battle–men, women and children and killing any that resisted.

  Ragnall stood to one side of the cavernous tent and listened as the general dictated the official version of the sea battle and subsequent events to his diarists. There had been no drop in the wind and no great wave. In Caesar’s version, Brutus had used superior strategy and hooked rigging-cutters to defeat the Gauls’ sailing boats. After t
he battle, he told them, he’d had the rebellious Veneti leaders killed to show the price of rebellion, and enslaved the rest.

  As usual, Caesar’s intention was more to do with maintaining the support of Rome than reporting the truth. The notion had troubled Ragnall initially, but now he was convinced that spreading Roman civilisation throughout the world was the worthiest and greatest goal. If that required lying to the people back home who didn’t understand war, and employing means in that war that might seem extreme, even brutal–and maybe even the services of dark magic–so be it. You couldn’t make a loaf without pounding wheat.

  Finished with his diaries, the commander announced that he was off to check the outlying watches and beckoned Ragnall to follow him.

  “Tell Caesar again,” said Caesar as they swept from the tent, “about your father.”

  Semi-jogging to keep up with Caesar’s long-legged gait up the slight hill, Ragnall recounted how he’d found his father, Kris Sheeplord, king of Boddingham, and his entire family and tribe murdered by King Zadar of Maidun. He began to say how it had affected him, changed him from a boy into the kind of man who could understand the general’s goals better then most, but Caesar cut him short.

  “So you are king of Boddingham?”

  “Uh—”

  “Rule of the Boddingham tribe is hereditary, passing along the male line?”

  “Well, male or fem—”

  “And you are Sheeplord’s last surviving offspring?”

  “Yes…”

  “So you are the rightful king of Boddingham. And the man who ruled the tribe that killed your people and took your land, this King Zadar, has been succeeded by a Queen Lowa?”

  “Not succeeded as such. She killed him, but she didn’t want to be queen. However, the people—”

  “Answer the question, Ragnall. Is Lowa ruler of the Maidun tribe?”

  “Yes.” Maidun wasn’t strictly a tribe. Like Armorica, it was an agglomeration of several towns, villages and tribes, but Ragnall knew that Caesar wasn’t in a details mood. There were times when he would have been–sometimes the minutiae intrigued him most of all. Ragnall had decided a while back that the way to get on with Caesar was to read his mood and adapt accordingly. That, and agree with everything he said.

  “And it is this Queen Lowa, you say, who sent these three Britons to aid the rebel Gauls… what were their names?”

  “Atlas Agrippa, Carden Nancarrow and Chamanca… I don’t know her full name. Just Chamanca, I think.” There was no point telling Caesar that two of them weren’t actually from Britain.

  “So Maidun, the tribe that killed your family and illegally took your lands, also sent forces to Gaul, unprovoked, to attack Rome and her Gaulish allies. Combine those two points, Ragnall, and you have a strong case to petition Rome for help in returning your lands to you.” Caesar stopped by a tall tree, looked up at the observation platform high in its denuded branches, scanned the land around, nodded, then set off again. “After your vital help with our Gaulish victories, I should think Rome will feel duty bound to come to Boddingham’s aid. Yes, you are the deposed British king who embraced Rome, killed the German oppressor Ariovistus. You saved many Roman lives by employing your wits and using the enemy’s own trap against him in the battle against the Nervee. Moreover, the gods certainly wish to see Queen Lowa pay for her crimes. They have allowed her a period of success and impunity so that she will feel the reversal of her fortunes all the more keenly. Added to this, of course, is the fact that many of the rebellious Gaulish leaders have fled to Britain—”

  “Have they?”

  “I have reason to believe that they have, and we have already seen British soldiers fighting with the Gauls. How many more will come? Avenging attacks on Romans, preventing further incursions into our territory and restoring Britain’s rightful king–who is a friend to the Romans–will play well in Rome with the Senate, Tribunate and people. Thank you, Ragnall. Leave Caesar now, but remain nearby. Caesar will return to Rome soon and you will accompany him.”

  Ragnall watched Caesar zoom off and smiled. Back to Rome, hopefully for a long while. After spending the previous winter in dangerous and dirty Gaul, a return to the place he felt most at home and happiest would be very, very welcome.

  He walked back to the camp. Caesar had been right; Ragnall couldn’t believe he’d never thought of it before. He’d always assumed that when Zadar had destroyed Boddingham, he’d destroyed his father’s right to rule and Ragnall’s right to inherit that rule. But of course he hadn’t. He’d stolen the land for Maidun and Maidun should have given it back when Zadar was killed. Lowa, in other words, should have given Boddingham to him. Why hadn’t he realised it before? Perhaps that was why she’d sent him off to Rome, to keep him from claiming his rightful land? In fact, Lowa had no right to be queen of anything. She had no royal blood, she was just a common soldier. So when Zadar died, Ragnall himself had been the best candidate to take over the kingship of not just Boddingham but Maidun, too! Lowa might be common, but she was a canny one…

  No matter, he thought. It would all be resolved. She’d be knocked off her perch within hours of the Romans landing in Britain, and Ragnall would be king of Boddingham, and, if he played his dice right, a lot more.

  Chapter 3

  The leftmost Roman came at Spring, swinging his sword at her neck.

  She screamed and held one hand in front of her face, at the same time letting the hammer’s head fall to the ground, so that the sharpened end of its handle was pointing upwards. The Roman paused, enjoying her terror, laughed and swung again. Spring ducked, thrust the wooden handle point into his gut, wrenched it out and swung the hammerhead upwards. It crunched into his jaw, shattering bone and teeth. He fell. Using the weight of the hammer’s trajectory but twisting her wrists to alter its path, she powered the lumpen metal head down onto the head of the next legionary. As he collapsed she diverted the hammer’s arc into a backhanded swing. The leader was fast and his sword was already slashing down at her, but the hammer knocked it from his hand and slammed into his face, and he too was down.

  The hammer didn’t seem so heavy, Spring thought, when it was swing or die.

  The two remaining Romans stared at her, goggle-eyed. One of them dropped his sword. He made to pick it up. Spring took a step forward, hefting the hammer. He gave up on the sword, turned and ran.

  “Just you and me now,” Spring said to the remaining Roman, feinting at him with the hammer. It really was very heavy. She was going to have to put it down any moment.

  He looked about at his fallen mates.

  “How did you move so fast?” he said.

  “Come at me and I’ll show you,” Spring winked, letting the hammer head drop to the ground, trying to make it look like it wasn’t because she couldn’t hold it up any more. It seemed for a heartbeat like the legionary was about to attack her dropped guard and she’d be screwed, but he glanced at his felled captain, changed his mind and ran too, following his surviving friend along the track that led to the cliff top.

  “You’d be better off fleeing the other way,” Spring yelled after him, “that path—”

  She was interrupted by barking. Sadie and Pigsy streaked from cover and pounded after the men.

  She sat down on Dug’s criss-crossed log-cutting stump. Life, she thought, was odd. Sitting here, at Dug’s house, on the scores made by Dug’s log-chopping, next to three dead Romans, she should have been as miserable as a person could be. Instead, she felt content. What she’d just done with the hammer had been extraordinary. It hadn’t been magic, at least it didn’t feel like her old magic; it was more like she’d inherited the skill from someone else, and that someone else had to be Dug. She’d never met anyone else who used a hammer. So part of him was still alive in her, and that made her happy. She looked at the dead Romans and was saddened anew. So much death! All of these people–the armies to the west and the Romans–had come at her and hers with murder on their minds, so they deserved what they got… but why co
uldn’t they just stay at home and enjoy watching the world go by? Building useful things, looking after animals, creating thriving villages, walking in woods, hunting boar and listening to the birds–all these things and a million more were immeasurably preferable to fighting and killing.

  She walked into the house, wondering what she was going to do with the bodies. She put the hammer down and went into the room that Dug kept for her. She stopped in the doorway. Before he’d headed to his final battle, Dug had put a new tartan blanket on her bed and used that potter’s wheel she was sure he’d never use to make a bowl for the shelf under her window, then filled it with dried flowers. She looked from blanket to bowl and back again. She thought about Dug choosing which flowers she’d like most, picking them and laying them out to dry. Her face collapsed, her shoulders fell and she stood, sobbing.

  Lowa blinked back tears. She’d walked into her hut, realised it still smelled of Dug, and that had set her off. Pregnancy, she told herself, was making her prone to childish emotions. It was making her vomit a lot, too, which was at least as irksome. And her breasts were swollen and sore. At least their inflation had a milky purpose, but why the vomit? Could feeling sick most of the time and being sick regularly really help with the development of a baby? And the spots, backache and constant, debilitating weariness–did all these have some secret baby-enhancing function? Whichever god had designed women and baby production, thought Lowa, he’d hadn’t like women much.

  She shook her head. She’d only just arrived back at Maidun Castle, but she needed to head straight out again to tour Maidun’s lands and visit her allies. The wave hadn’t been nearly so high on Britain’s south coast as it had on the west, and the water had retreated before rising so people had had warning to get themselves and their livestock away from the sea. However, crops had been spoiled and huts ruined, so they needed help. Inland stores would have to be assessed and shared with coastal regions.