An
historic action story centered on the founding of York
by the Romans, often laced with a dark humour and a twisting trace of
romance.
Chapter
XV
Dag
survived the day’s fighting relatively unharmed, but lost his chariot.
It lay on its side, barely thirty paces from the Roman square, one wheel
smashed, and both ponies dead in the harness. One had been impaled on a
spear, the other killed by Dag himself when he finally managed to break
free, and found the animal squealing in pain. The hilt of a Roman sword
grew from its belly, the owner dead alongside with no face, for he had
fallen beneath the animal’s flailing hooves.
Dag
limped slowly up the meadow, favouring a twisted ankle. He’d also
sprained a wrist and had no weapon, for his own had broken in the fall
from the chariot. At the time, he hadn’t felt like picking up another
and starting over again. It was a feeling shared by many of the tuath
after the Romans formed a square, and the frenzied rage of battle cooled.
Venutius
organized two more attempts to breach the stubborn defences before evening
fell, and both were fiercely repulsed.
But each took a Roman toll, and for the Britons, the odour of
defeat did not hang in the air. As night began to cast its cloak, the
feeling was that tomorrow would be a far better day. The enemy were
outnumbered, trapped, and going nowhere. There was nothing but advantage
in waiting.
*
* *
“Lopping
heads off is not only messy but, at this time of year, it brings more
flies than a pile of shit,” Dag muttered.
He flopped down beside Cethen and stared morosely at a woad-daubed
party of hill men moving among the dead, each trying to recall which of
the Romans he had killed. Once identified, the dead man’s head was
hacked off amid great whoops of triumph. A pushing match had erupted
between two of the hill men, and both argued as they straddled the corpse
of a particularly large Roman decanus.
“Not
only that; the damned Romans cut their hair short, and it makes them hard
to carry,” Cethen quipped in turn, and both men laughed.
The
two sat cross-legged on a red cloak retrieved from a Roman corpse, and ate
for the first time since the hastily snatched bite of food earlier in the
day. Around them the tuath took care of itself, and since no kin close to
either had been badly hurt, both men left well enough alone.
Cethen
had grudgingly formed the opinion that Dag, without Garv, could be almost
human. They had fought side by side when Venutius had twice decided the
Roman square could be taken, each staying close to the other as if in
unspoken agreement. Both of them missed a brother who should have been
there, and while it was like yoking an ox and a mule together, the
partnership had not felt uncomfortable.
“Da,
why do they do that?” Rhun asked, staring in fascination as one of the
hill men completed his grisly task, and jammed the severed head on the end
of his sword. He waved it gloatingly at the Roman lines.
“It’s
to make their piss boil,” Dag answered, watching curiously as several
arrows arched lazily from the square, falling close enough to send the
hill men running. “I think it’s working.”
“No,
I mean why do they cut them off at all?”
“It’s
where a man’s soul lives, son, and remains even after he’s dead,”
Cethen explained. “They say if you take a head and hang it up, it brings
lots of good things—luck, power, courage. Especially if the enemy fought
well before he died.”
“So
why don’t we do it?” Rhun asked, wincing as the man pulled the grisly
trophy free of the sword and tossed it into the air before finally placing
it in a leather bag.
“I
suppose we do, son, but in a different way. We carve heads, or paint them.
You’ve seen them—etched into metal, made out of clay. We just don’t
bother cutting the damned things off.”
“Because
they stink,” Dag added helpfully.
“And
bring flies,” Rhun said, giggling.
Cethen
playfully pushed his son sideways, preparing to wrestle with the boy when
he bounced back, but he saw a familiar figure riding carefully through the
sea of warriors and horses that now filled the meadow. He rose, grunting
at the stiffness that had settled on his legs.
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