Clash of Iron (The Iron Age Trilogy) Read online

  “I see,” said Caesar. “So these men have come to my party, taken my food and plan to repay me by invading the city I love?”

  “Yes,” said Felix.

  The gathered Romans murmured disapproval and a couple shouted it. Ragnall sought a friendly face. Clodia was nowhere to be seen. He caught Cicero’s eye, but the great orator and former consul looked down.

  Caesar looked Drustan and then Ragnall in the eye. Both tried to speak again, but could stammer out only British words. Caesar made a tsk noise, shook his head and said: “How irritating. Felix, deal with them in some way that will amuse the guests. Let them pay for their interruption by entertaining us. Now I must be gone to another garden to see a new delivery. Those interested in wildlife should come with me. Felix will provide a marvellous spectacle for those who prefer his sort of diversion.”

  Caesar left. Half the crowd, including Cicero, followed in his wake. Felix remained, smiling like a happy wolf, surrounded by a few dozen Romans, mostly men, mostly regarding Drustan and Ragnall with the same hungry eyes as Felix. A rush of bowel-loosening fear almost made Ragnall collapse.

  “So,” said Felix, addressing his fellow Romans. He looked exactly as Ragnall remembered, although his hairline had perhaps retreated even further back on his egg-like head. “What would you like me do to with these Gaulish spies? Precedent would have me bury them, since Sibyl buried Gauls alive in the Forum, but it does seem unkind to deny the house gladiators some sport?” The little Roman druid opened his short arms to his audience. “The gladiators need practice. Shall we give them these men to fight? Or shall we follow where Sibyl has led, and bury them alive?”

  The clamour of mixed shouts soon organised itself into a united chant:

  “Bury them! Bury them! Bury them!”

  Chapter 4

  Later, Dug and Spring sat outside in the clear, moonless night, spooning their way through big wooden bowls of chicken with parsnip, honey, goosefoot, watercress and garlic. The chicken was almost burnt and there was almost too much salt, just how Spring liked it. The dogs lay at their feet guzzling on carcasses. Spring had heard that animals shouldn’t eat cooked chicken bones. She’d told Dug, but he’d said that Sadist and Pig Fucker didn’t know that and given them all the chicken remains. They seemed to be enjoying them without too much trouble.

  Dug had doused the fire so that they could see the stars properly. Countless bright little lights crammed every cranny of the sky right down to the dark land, and shimmered on the black sea. As well as the individual bright points, there were rashes and patches of light which Dug said were made up of even more stars, even further away. Spring asked him how he knew and he said he just did. That was good enough for her, she decided.

  They spent a while spotting animals, faces and other patterns in the stars, then sat in happy silence broken only by the odd grumble or snort from the dogs or Dug. Their sounds had become more or less indistinguishable and Spring could picture Dug sitting here every night, looking up at the sky with the dogs, grunting away with them. Apart from cold nights, obviously, when he probably sat inside thinking through plans for his next farm innovation. The new chicken fortress that he’d shown her earlier was a formidable creation. A wolf, fox, stoat or any other attacker would have to face several ingenious certain-death challenges before it got near the impenetrable spiked iron door. Of course the whole design did nothing to prevent hen-napping during the day, when the birds were free to peck around wherever they chose. The chicken burglar had proved that very point. Spring had mentioned this to Dug, and he’d said that it was the chickens’ own lookout where they went during the day, but he’d protect them while they slept. And besides, he reminded her, they were guarded by the dogs, whose efficiency had been proven by that day’s rustler.

  As they sat, Dug seemed to shed his contentedness and become uncharacteristically fidgety. Spring guessed that his thinking had led him round to a cause of consternation, a Lowa-shaped one no doubt, but she wasn’t going to help him out. They’d talked about it too much already, and she couldn’t understand why he didn’t just stop moping and go and see her and tell her that he liked her.

  “So,” Dug said after a while, “what’s the latest at Maidun? Did that boy try to bully you again?”

  “He’s my friend now. At least he pretends to be. He won’t be bullying me again, anyway.”

  “Good.”

  “Yup.”

  “And, how’s everyone else?”

  “Do you mean Lowa?”

  “She’ll do. How is she? You still living with her? Has she mentioned me?”

  “I’m sort of living with her. I’ve moved into my own little hut now, in the Eyrie right next to hers. But I don’t see her much. She’s gone a bit mad. She doesn’t talk about anything apart from the Romans and Roman things. Do you know that their swords are made so that when they split your tummy open, your guts spill out and you die slowly? Well, they are. So Lowa’s been with Elann Nancarrow and Atlas Agrippa a lot, trying to make a tummy protector that will stop the Roman’s swords.”

  “With Atlas?”

  “Did you know he was in the Roman army? Or something like the Roman army, anyway. He’s round at Lowa’s hut a lot. They talk for hours.”

  “I see.”

  “But they’re not friends. One of the slingers told me that she would never forgive Atlas for his part in killing her sister and the rest of her women, even though everyone agrees now that it was Felix putting everyone under a glamour. I’m not sure that Lowa believes that it was Felix. I’m not sure that I do either. I think people do what they’re told because life’s easier that way, and after they’ve done something horrid people make up an excuse and call it the truth even though it’s not … and besides Atlas doesn’t like her much, the same slinger told me. She rammed a deer bone through his face, and it’s hard to like anyone who’s done that to you. I agree with that bit.”

  “Aye, but the two could cancel each other out. ‘You killed my sister, I ruined your face, so we’re even’.”

  Sadie whined. Spring leant forward stroke him, then straightened up and said: “I suppose so. But don’t worry, they’re not going to shag.”

  “Spring!” Dug sounded surprised. He shouldn’t have been, Spring was ten now, or at least thereabouts, so she’d heard all about shagging from the older children. Or some things about it anyway. Enough to know that it was disgusting and she’d never do it.

  “What? That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?”

  “No. Not at all. Lowa can do what she want.”

  “Oh good, because she’d been seeing a lot of Carden, and he is a very good-looking man. If I was Lowa, I’d shag him.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m joking, Dug!”

  “I see.”

  She could see she’d gone too far. Dug was the best person in the world in every way, but she just didn’t get this part of him. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, “I was joking. Lowa doesn’t look at anyone like that. I’m sure she still likes you. Why don’t you come back with me to Maidun tomorrow and see her? You haven’t seen her since you came here.”

  “You’re going back tomorrow?”

  “I have to. Lowa’s got some big war game planned. I’m not meant to be missing any training at all as it is. That reminds me! Lowa asked me to ask you if you wanted to come and join in? She said you’d be useful. Come back with me! You can tell Lowa you love her. And I bet you will like the war game.”

  “She definitely asked you to ask me?”

  “No, I made it up. Yes! Of course she did, why else would I say it? She wants you to come!”

  “Well, I would, but I’ve got a couple of people coming tomorrow to talk to about my hot-water plans. I can’t let them get here and find just the dogs.”

  “Yes, you can, come!”

  “We’ll see,” said Dug.

  “That always means no,” Spring pouted.

  “Aye, you’re not wrong there.” Dug leant over to ruffle her hair. Sh
e felt half a smile growing, but an image of Dug floating, underwater and dead, flooded her mind. She shuddered.

  “What’s wrong?” Dug asked, recoiling his hand, eyes wide.

  “Just a bit cold,” she said.

  “Oh aye, sorry, I’ll get the fire started again.” Dug stood up and bent over the wood pile. Looking at his broad back, tears filled Spring’s eyes.

  Chapter 5

  The soldiers marched Drustan and Ragnall to a square lawn perhaps fifteen paces across, surrounded by a colonnade and a balcony. Above it all the sky was the pale blue that would soon pink into a sunset. Chattering partygoers wafted a variety of perfumes as they poured into the garden around them and filed up steps on to the colonnade. More appeared on the balcony and soon that too filled with toga-wearing men and the odd fragrant-looking woman. A few were deep in conversation, a few barked out jokes and others laughed, but most just watched the goings-on below with happy anticipation.

  On Felix’s request, the Romans on the lawn parted for four large, oiled Iberian looking slaves, who walked solemnly through the human passage, spades on their shoulders as if they were spearmen on parade. Felix gave them brief instructions, and the slaves sliced their spades into the sod. They cut out neat squares of turf and piled it carefully. So it will look neat when they put it back over our soil-suffocated corpses, thought Ragnall. He looked about, searching for a friendly face or an exit, but found neither.

  Too soon, the slaves had excavated a square hole two feet deeper than Ragnall was tall. The soil was in four even heaps on each side of the hole, with a slave standing by each heap. Four other slaves rolled forward barrels of wet sand and tipped them on to the piles of earth. The spade-holders set to work mixing the wet sand with the soil.

  “What are they doing that for?” Ragnall asked Drustan.

  “It will clamp us in place more effectively.”

  “Ah.” Ragnall felt sick. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Yes. It is something of a shame that that seems likely to be the last piece of learning that I shall impart to you.”

  On Felix’s word, the hefty men who’d first accosted them grabbed them and pushed them into the hole. Drustan landed heavily. Ragnall heard a snap. He helped the old man on to his feet. He was in agony.

  “Save yourself!” he said through clenched teeth.

  Ragnall looked up. One of the captors pointed his sword at him. It was clear what would happen if he did try to climb out.

  Some Romans managed to squeeze between the slaves to get a good gawp at the condemned men, and a good deal more watched from the balcony above. Ragnall looked for a friendly face, but found Cato, the man who may have eavesdropped on his conversation with Clodia. His eyes showed all the compassion of a sheep eyeing another dead sheep. Or, in this case, thought Ragnall, a soon-to-be-dead Sheeplord. Funny how his mind was making jokes when he was about to die. The whole thing seemed surreal.

  He tried to shout, to beg for mercy perhaps or to at least ask for it, but it came out in British again. He could think of the Roman words, but couldn’t say them no matter how hard he tried. The crowd laughed and mimicked his brutish noises.

  “Give the Gauls a knife!” cried a woman on the balcony. “So that the blade might lend them an easy exit. Gauls are not so stout as Romans. The horror of burial will surely be too much for them!”

  Some people laughed, and possibly it was meant as a joke, but one onlooker, a mean-faced man with a short fuzz of red hair reached a knife from his ankle sheaf and tossed it into the hole.

  “Pick it up and give it to me,” said Drustan.

  Ragnall did as he was bid. “What are you going to do?”

  “A knife in the heart will be a better death than choking on earth.” Drustan pressed the point of the knife into Ragnall’s ribs. “I will finish you quickly, if it is necessary,” he said.

  “It’s just a game. A tease, surely.” Ragnall could not believe that the Romans, the same people who built such beautiful buildings, would bury them in public. “They’re not going to—”

  “Begin!” shouted Felix.

  Four spadefuls of earth hit their legs. The spades were capacious. Already their feet were buried.

  “One!” shouted the crowd.

  Ragnall pulled Drustan into an embrace. Drustan looked up at him, fear and pain in his never-before flappable eyes.

  Ragnall wanted to weep. “You have been the best tutor you could have been. I hope you will continue your instruction—”

  “Two!” More soil whacked against their legs. It was heavy and stone-filled, and it hurt.

  “—in the Otherworld.”

  Drustan looked up and smiled. “You are too good and too young, Ragnall.”

  “Three!”

  “You would have had a good life, but it has been ruined by others. Several are to blame – Zadar, Lowa, me.”

  “Four!”

  “Not you.”

  “I should have never brought you here. We did not need to do Lowa’s bidding. It was my foolish sense of adven—”

  “Five!”

  The slaves were skilled, their spades were massive and the wet sand and earth mix was effective. Already Ragnall could not move his legs.

  “But above all, you must blame Felix. He was at the heart—”

  “Six!” The soil reached the top of Ragnall’s legs.

  “—of all of this. It is he who made Zadar what he was.”

  “Seven!”

  “I can see now that he has always been working with Caesar.”

  “Eight!”

  “I can’t see how or why – somehow Felix is blocking me.”

  “Nine!”

  “Or perhaps Caesar’s working for him. But he made Zadar—”

  “Ten!” The soil was over Ragnall’s midriff, nearly at Drustan’s neck.

  “Difficult to talk. You must kill Felix. Have our venge—”

  “Eleven!”

  The soil felt unbearably tight about Ragnall now. Drustan was silent, the soil around his neck. Ragnall strained to lift him, but couldn’t. He started to cry.

  “Be … brave. Kill Felix,” wheezed Drustan.

  “Twelve!”

  Clods of soil whacked Ragnall’s head. Drustan’s mouth was buried. Ragnall sobbed. He wasn’t brave. He’d never been brave. The world of heroes and great deeds wasn’t for him.

  “Thirteen!”

  It was up to Drustan’s forehead, nearly at Ragnall’s neck. This was it now, it wasn’t a joke, there would be no reprieve. Drustan would be dead in a few heartbeats, Ragnall not long after that.

  “Fourteen!”

  The earth was over his chin. Breathing was almost impossible now. He looked up. Felix was staring with what looked like lust in his eyes. Cato was grinning like a bully watching a smaller kid taking a beating. What a shit, thought Ragnall. That stopped his crying. Danu give him strength, he wasn’t going to cry in front of that man. Not any more, anyway.

  He was surprised to see Clodia push to the front of the balcony about them. She caught his eye. She shook her head and a tear ran down her haughty cheek.

  “Fifteen!”

  Soil cascaded on to his face. There were a few stones in it. He spat out soil. He closed his mouth tight.

  “Sixteen!” His face was covered.

  He felt Drustan move the dagger. He’d forgotten about the dagger. He held his breath. Would Drustan be able to …

  He felt the knife point move away from his chest. There was a jerk. Even under the soil, he felt Drustan going limp. Drustan had killed himself. His tutor was dead. He was next, but there would be no knife to the heart for him.

  “Seventeen!” came the muffled shout from the world above the ground. Ragnall felt oblivion spreading through his mind, sooner than he’d expected, then no more.

  Chapter 6

  The Monster bent down for another bite. Dug tried to lift his arms but they were held by an impossible strength. Teeth popped through flesh, pushed through fat and drove into muscle
. The Monster clamped its jaws and pulled its head back, stretching ribbons of elastic, blood-dripping flesh. The ribbons twanged free and the Monster slurped them up through rubbery lips, splattering blood over its face. Then its hair disappeared, its muzzle retracted, its teeth shrunk and it was Lowa, looking down impassively, face smeared with blood. Her tongue poked from her lips and he thought she was going to lick them, but instead she said “Wake up, you shite,” in a man’s voice. “Wake up,” she repeated.

  Dug realised that he was dreaming. He pulled himself into wakefulness, increasingly unsettled by the flickering firelight that filled his eyes. He never lit a fire in his room, even on the coldest nights.

  “That’s right, wake up so you can see yourself die,” said the same voice. Dug blinked a couple of times and saw that it was the chicken thief. He was holding a primed but laughably small bow and arrow and shivering with nervous energy. Next to him was a man that Dug didn’t recognise, holding a torch. This latter fellow was around Dug’s age. His wavy dark hair was swept back from a clean-shaven face that would have been heroically handsome, had it not been strangely narrow. He was well-dressed. He looked more like a king’s advisor or a moderately successful merchant than your average burglar’s mate. By the look on his face, he wasn’t much happier with the situation than Dug was.

  “You’re going kill me because I caught you trying to steal my chickens and I let you go?” Dug said.

  “Is that what happened?” said the torch-holder. “You said—”

  “Shut up, Dad,” said the chicken thief.

  There you go, thought Dug. The failed chicken thief’s told his dad a tale and dragged him along. If he was careful and sensitive, he’d be able to talk his way out of this.

  “Is that a toy bow?” he said, realising as he said it that it was neither careful nor sensitive. He cursed silently.

  “It’s not a toy!” the chicken thief shouted. “It’s a special bow for close-quarters work, and these are close quarters and it will kill you just as well as the biggest bow in the world. So get ready to meet the gods.” The chicken thief pulled the string back further.