You’re like Bernard Cornwell…in Power Armour
RJ
A clever friend suggested teasing something form one of my projects. So here it is, Dear Reader and Good Follower, the first chapter from Children of the Glyph. You’re nuts, RJ, but you’re right.
Feedback is welcome.
Noctus Irae
March 49 AD/Martius 802 AUC (Julian).
The Lands of Gwynedd, Roman Britain.
Rain pattered onto the tent. Scrolls and maps sprawled over the table, the writing of civilisation, of the distant light of Rome. Marcus drew the furs about his shoulders tighter as the flap opened and three figures entered. He recognised Cato, his First Centurion.
“Tribune.” The seasoned campaigner growled, slapping fist to breast. The mud and grime of long travel caked him and his face held the sheen of haste. He had come immediately with the visitors. Brawd, the slave Marcus kept for translating the heathen language of the country Rome had deemed to civilise, lurked nearby in the tent. He sat sheepishly and cowering in the corner, but it was not Marcus that was receiving the furtive looks. He followed Brawd’s eyes to watch the two visitors slip their hoods free. The savages hesitantly bowed.
Marcus stood formally, nodding to Cato. The Centurion was armed, but the travellers were not. It was as it should be for his protection. He beckoned to the slave impatiently, but tossed his words to the newcomers.
“You could have chosen a better hour.” He waited as the slave translated the flowing speech of Rome into the curved and harsh language of the Western British. He used the time to regard the two men.
Hard and lean, used to the presence of authority, comfortable with or ignorant of the implied threat of the Roman cohort camped about them with their heavy lorica armour and strong sword arms. The eyes of the Briton captured everything, especially the ripple of a partition curtain to his left, betraying another person lurked behind it. Marcus mentally cursed at the prying ear for her carelessness. One of the savages finally spoke in reply, his language the second time British words stained the civilised air.
“We do not set the hour the enemy stirs.” A small shrug accompanied the observation. The slave, a small, young man who preferred letters to swords translated exactly, keeping a close eye on the humours of his captors, Marcus noted.
“Even so, when you first came to me you bid me wait. Now you demand I act.”
More seconds passed and Marcus could hear the noise of pila clanking against each other to stack, the welcome sound of a patrol returning to camp from the treacherous terrain. Rough laughter from the hardy legionnaires filled the space.
“That was the bargain for a guide to the riches.” The speaker was again the taller of the two, face scarred from sword cuts. His grey eyes were cold and hard. They could have worn Cato’s face.
“Emperor Claudius demands I scour the tribe in these hills.” Marcus kept his tone level, forcing the issue of his authority; that loftier eyes didn’t take kindly to waiting at the behest of a pair of savages. The Britons shared a glance, one flashed an insolent smile.
“We will guide you.” The smaller one said evenly, “Tonight your Lord will be pleased. As will you.”
“I sense a condition.” Marcus directed his reply to the taller of the pair.
“You must slay those who eat the stones.”
Cato looked across at him at the translation, suspicion and curiosity warring. Marcus’ eyes narrowed in agreement and he had the slave repeat the sentence as thunder bellowed in hollow menace in the heavens above. The tent flashed with a fierce brilliance as the lightning creased a silver lace before the next rolling boom. Marcus wasn’t terribly religious, but as portents went, it gave even him pause to think the Gods were abroad.
His face hardened as he considered the mannerisms of the odd tongue. He supposed it as superstition or some kind of tribal nuance. Rome had encountered many drastically different cultures – what was one more?
“And how will we divine these…stone eaters?”
“You will know. You will see.” The tall man’s words made no sense to Marcus’ ear, but the darkness of his mien bridged the gap in understanding. A soft chill slipped through the slits of the tent flaps and touched them all.
Shuddering, Marcus dismissed the Britons with a wave and gestured for the slave to leave with them. Cato smirked and followed them out. Marcus’ face hardened. The Tribune turned around and pulled the partition curtain aside in a single sweep.
“Cassia, my heart, your ears will burn with more than gossip one day.”
“Marcus!” She feigned shock, peered out from under well-tamed brows and touched her hand to her throat. He waited. Her shoulders slumped at his refusal to play, with a sigh underlined in a frown. “You’re not coming to bed then?”
“No. I must attend to an urgent matter.” He scooped his blade from the table and sheathed it, then belted the weapon to his waist.
His right hand twisted at the wrist and snaked down, gripping the well-worn leather wrap of the handle in reverse, as it would when he stood in the shield-wall. The familiar motion and reassuring weight settled his disquiet, steadied him. Gods may have been abroad, but steel was in his fist.
“For my Uncle’s will? Or your greed?” She batted eyelashes at him.
He looked at the General’s niece. Roman politics were so much like a battlefield; he reflected – allies and enemies everywhere, even in a man’s own house. Cassia was favoured in salons frequented by the Emperor’s family. He repaid her questioning stare with a grim one, grasped his thick woollen cloak from a peg.
“Either will benefit Rome.” Marcus strode out into the darkness.
Cato stood together with Marcus in the sepulchral light, in the lee of the hill. On the top the Centurion could see the fire and the torches of a small, cloaked procession. Dark figures lit by the pools from flickering fires. A clutch of men huddled close by; they were down to only light armour, leather and linens, not expecting too much trouble. They were experienced men and moved competently, stealthily.
Cato and his soldiers had all smeared soot or mud on their faces and Marcus had copied them, so he would not appear afraid of soaking himself with the soldiers. Such simple things were beyond others, but Cato knew it was important; the respect of warriors was not bought by expensive rings, but earned by getting wet and clotted with stinking earth and sticky blood.
They flexed their limbs and necks, preparing for action. The slave, Brawd, stood under a heavy cloak. Cato eyed him disdainfully, pouring the same sentiment on the two Britons as they knelt and broke pots containing pale and dark clay. They daubed this onto their faces, carefully tracing a pale pattern over the black. As they worked they spoke in unison in a hushed voice, repeating the phrases one after the other.
A grunt huffed in Cato’s chest at this proof of their heathen ignorance, although this was replaced with something akin to disgust when they stood, each wearing a skull. He shuddered at the obvious adherents to a Death Cult. They covered their faces with their cowls, dropping pale grimness back into shadow. Cato made a mental note to ask the slave about the spoken mantras, although he half-expected some debased nonsense.
Singing and clamour continued – banging drums and jostling of bells emanating from the top of the hill and as the guides waved them on; Marcus patted the shoulder of the Legionary in front of him, following closely with a blade blackened with soot. It was going to be a slaughter and a necessary one, to ensure the plunder and Marcus’ loyalty to his master Claudius. The British, now well in front, drew weapons. Hands filled with a sword and dagger each, they moved even more quietly than the seasoned Legionnaires. Marcus could tell Cato was not terribly overawed – assassins at least were honest and required coin, not the trade in lives bartered here. He refused the urge to spit, to ward off the evil they suggested.
When they were near the crest, the soldiers and skull-men alike dropped to their bellies and snaked forward. They watched the robed figures in the stone circle for reactions to their presence, with Marcus suspecting he witnessed some other kind of senseless worship as pale robed men banged stones together and the acolytes fixed their torches to posts laid out in a circle.
He wondered idly if this was just clan politics, a rival of the skull-men silenced, then word would spread about the Romans committing another purge. Marcus banished the thoughts, there was a bargain to satisfy and Cassia was right. He served two masters tonight. He had to prove the truth he had spoken to her. His gaze hovered over a stone standing before a gaping pit in the middle of the hilltop.
Marcus watched, every nerve ending aflame with the urge to run screaming at the poor fools now, overpower them and take the plunder owed to his men, but he saw Cato nod and continued to hold. The Britons moved forward. He knew the eyes of the worshippers would be worthless beyond the circle of light, their eyes unable to pierce the veil. He watched, mesmerised, as small pebbles were passed out and swallowed by several of the pale robed priests in a flash of silvery gleam. After a few moments, the priests’ aspects changed and the air around them began to shimmer.
The Tribune swiped his eyes, thinking he was mistaken, but no. They were glowing and as one they began to change the chant, it became a strange hissing, followed by an ululating wail. He felt the words from the two barbarians, so positive now it was not cultural dressing. You will know. You will see. He readied himself, the familiar knot in his guts at the proximity of action.
A shrill call came from the opposite side of the circle and the death-speakers charged. So distracted; no eyes or warning met Cato as he ordered the Legionaries to stand up and attack, waving the Romans on. Marcus grinned and hurled himself upwards, hitting the stone-eaters first. Behind him followed the sounds of the Legion at war as they went in, chopping and stabbing.
The hilltop became a butcher’s yard, men slipping on mud and spilled innards from sword cuts. Hands wreathed in shimmering light punched Romans in the chest and emerged from their backs, bloody and caked in pink gobbets. The Death-masks leapt and whirled, everywhere they struck, men died. Marcus saw all this in snatches as he wrestled, cut, stabbed down, the Legion training saving his life and ending many others. The fight lasted long minutes, the fleeing priests and worshippers caught, chased down and run through. Marcus wiped his sword on one of the fallen priests, noting both Britons still lived, the dead piled around them, many decapitated.
The stench of blood and offal thickened the air. The Legionaries put the heaped corpses to the torch and they all sat around in the sickly dawn light, Marcus watching carefully, wanting to make sure the corpses burned beyond doubt or resurrection. The Romans and savages sat together like they had been brothers. He was surprised to find that appalled him less in the morning than it did in the night. Marcus gestured to Brawd to stay near and sat beside the taller Briton, death mask smeared from the heat and sweat of close fighting.
“I have never witnessed the like.” Marcus’ Latin sounded clean to his own ears after the vigorous uproar of braying and chanting.
He swigged at a bladder of wine and gave it to the grey-eyed Briton with his own two hands. There was no reticence. For his part the death-mask accepted thankfully, nodding at the implied comradeship.
“Piles of silver and gold are under the two stones by the tree,” he pointed. “Enough for you and your men.” The Romans had already looted the ‘donations’ given to the priests on the summit. Marcus noted the British had taken nothing.
“I have seen frothing madness from roots and herbs, but this was not the same.” Marcus continued to stare into the fire, mere silence at his observation. He could hear Brawd muttering the translation and waited another breath. “Some kind of evil spirit?” He nearly baulked at the suggestion, but another part of him chided his recent lacking in making observances the gods and ancestors. He flicked a glance at Cato, but the old campaigner merely watched the flames dance.
“Tribune,” the tall killer wiped his mouth, “I think you have the truth of it.”
“Where did these…stones come from?” Marcus asked.
“We only know they fell from the sky.”
“I hope there’s no more of them.” Cato grimaced; and Marcus knew what he meant – they had been forced to virtually slice the priests to pieces – if all the tribes had priests like that, the Legions would have much difficulty.
Marcus felt the silence drag on, watched as his men had gathered the last of the bounty, filling sacks they brought with them for the purpose. He decided it would be best to leave. Cato flicked his eyes across to him and then down to the British and back up, but Marcus shook his head. Murdering the two warriors would be no easy feat and besides, it would be unseemly.
The more mercenary part of his politics suggested Death Cultists may be useful to have in the future. Marcus stood as the British shared a knowing look and remained sitting. He tapped his fist to breast in salute, smiled and made his way down the hill, the Legionaries behind him laughing and joking, arms full of plunder.
The two men left on the hill buried the small pebbles they found in the central pit and with effort, heaved it closed, dumping the large stone over it. The taller of the two, Elisedd, let out a deep sigh, satisfied with the work – it had gone much better than he had anticipated, thinking the Romans would kill them. He flashed a smile at Cynbel, his friend, glad of the small blessing as they marched downhill to a babbling brook.
Elisedd stripped, keeping his sword to hand and began to wash himself, removing the taint of the murderous night and the stink of the fallen priests from his skin. He fought a shudder at the shock of the cold water.
“What if the Romans slay every Druid, looking for the rotten apples?” Cynbel muttered, kneeling. He threw his own clothes into a pile and began scooping the chill waters up to his face and body, rubbing vigorously. He stepped to a small satchel and brought mint leaves, which he crushed and rubbed over his arms where the blood had slicked the thickest.
Elisedd listened to the forest with half an ear, but hearing nothing amiss, considered the younger man’s words. He had been thinking the same thing and his lessons were taking root – it was good that the younger warrior spoke his mind. More than once, Cynbel’s perceptive eye had been invaluable.
“It matters not, as cruel as that sounds Cyn,” Elisedd supposed, face devoid of emotion and paint both, “the Song of the Mother must be silenced, or every heart will be lost.” Elisedd looked up into the sky, nodding. The two warriors dressed again after crossing the stream, moving a hundred yards further into the forest, where they could shelter for the night.
“Do you think the Mother will come tonight?” Cynbel was merely finding something to occupy his mind as he stacked some sturdy branches to make a fire.
“Doesn’t she always?” Elisedd sat, taking a whetstone from his belt and scraping it along the long blade of his sword.
Cynbel smiled thinly and made a bed of leaves and branches from the pine forest about them, using his leather sack as a pillow. Elisedd put his sword away and took first watch, quietly stirring the fire, the crackling wood masking Cynbel’s gentle snoring. The acrid tang of wood smoke cleared the air of burning acolytes and madmen. They would need rest for when the Mother came to mourn her dead Children.
Cassia stirred the three small pebbles, polished and silver. They seemed like iron marbles, but shone dazzlingly in the light, catching a strange golden colour. Thinking them handsome, she had approached the Legionary who toyed with them by a dawn campfire. She traded them for a smile and a favourable word to Cato. She was fascinated by the baubles as the carriage swung on the rough road, pulled along in the midst of the army train.
She broke from her reverie and stored the pebbles away with other small oddities, thinking idly of Cousin Julia and her boy Nero, who was fascinated with such curios. She made a mental note to mention it to Marcus, but then she changed her mind – it was a silly notion, he didn’t need to be bothered. Cassia tucked the bag under the furs which cushioned her seat and began humming a short tune she had heard somewhere, although she couldn’t place it.
Mightier Is The Pen 