Late on the second day the trail split, eight men heading west into the high hills. Two of them rode the big horses.
‘I can’t see anything,’ Vindex said after he had stared at the prints for a long while.
‘Different rider,’ Ferox insisted with more confidence than he felt. There was something odd about the prints he had found in a long patch of mud. Only a few from one of the big horses were good enough to see apart from the muddle of all the rest. He wondered whether he really saw something or just sensed that this was a ploy because it was the sort of thing he would do if he was trying to escape. It could be a bluff, although he doubted Arviragus had the subtlety to think that way.
In the end he compromised, sending the Carvetii after the smaller trail, and taking the others after the main party. They had only gone a mile or so after the decoys, so not much time was lost. During the next day, Ferox knew that they were gaining, and close to dusk they caught up with them. Thirteen horses were in the pens around five round houses, crammed in with the livestock spared the winter slaughter. It was a farmstead like any other, although not yet quite close enough to his region for him to know the people who lived there.
Three of the royal troopers acted as sentries, and Sepenestus shot two while Vindex stalked and killed the third. They were tired, not keeping a good watch, and Ferox could only hope the same exhausted despair had fallen over the rest of the party.
‘You know the prince?’ Ferox asked the bowman.
Sepenestus nodded.
‘You must not kill him.’ Just as Enica must not be a part of her brother’s death, so the prince, even though he was a rebel, must have the chance of an honourable death, toe to toe with his pursuers. Perhaps then the rifts torn among the Brigantes would heal more quickly. Ferox was not sure, but his wife and the legate might be right and those were his orders. The bowman went to their left, hanging back a little as the other three strode towards the farm. Vindex had one of the horns they had used in the battle and managed a rasping blast.
‘Come out, lord prince!’ Ferox yelled as loud as he could. ‘Come out and face us!’ Vindex stood on his left, and the towering German on his right. ‘You must kill us if you ever wish to leave this place.’
There was silence, so Ferox nodded and the scout blew the ox horn trumpet again and he repeated the challenge. ‘This is Ferox,’ he added. ‘The noble Neratius Marcellus and your sister have sent me to find you.’
Arviragus wore the torc and the helmet and armour of Venutius, even though he must now know that the last two were not genuine. He bent down to come through the door and then stood.
‘Just four of you,’ he said, his voice as weary as it was disappointed. ‘It would be you, wouldn’t it, Ferox – leading the wolves on my trail.’ He drew his sword. ‘I will not go back.’
‘I know, lord prince. But if you are to go on, you must face us first.’
Arviragus smiled and seemed to grow taller as if some of his spirit returned. He walked towards them as his men appeared. Four troopers of the royal guard came from another house and stood on his right. Another, along with Brigantus, a chieftain and another warrior joined him on the left. The warrior was naked in spite of the cold, his body a whirling network of blue woad, and Ferox remembered this man in his black chariot. He dragged Crispinus by a chain, and the tribune crawled like a dog. The warrior kicked him, until he lay down next to the wall of a pen, moaning.
There was no ditch around the farm, or even a wall or fence, and the courtyard between the pens and houses simply opened up into the meadow where the three men stood.
Gannascus gave a deep-throated chuckle.
‘Oh well,’ Vindex muttered, and they started to walk forward as the Brigantes came for them.
Sepenestus loosed an arrow. The trooper on the far right raised his oval shield to block it, but did not realise the appalling power of the archer’s bow at this range. The arrowhead was slim and pointed, similar to the head of a pilum, and it drove straight through the shieldboard and into the man’s eye. A second arrow was in the air, and the next trooper held his shield up firmer and further from his body, so that when the head came through it did not reach him. He shook from the impact.
Ferox had borrowed a cavalryman’s oval shield from a Batavian trooper, and it was much lighter than a scutum. There was a notch on the blade of his gladius, courtesy of the man with the torc, and he had not had time to work on it. The memory the battle had faded, as it always did, and there was little left of the wild joy he had felt when he had brandished the aquila as a club. His own helmet had been trampled and bent, so he had also borrowed a fur-topped one from the same soldier.
Another arrow banged against the trooper’s shield, making him stagger again. Then the next went under the rim and struck just above the knee. That was wonderful shooting in the gloom, and the man gasped, dropping his shield and spear to clutch at his leg. He was hit again, hard in the chest, and fell.
Arviragus yelled and ran at Ferox, the others taking up his cry. One of the troopers threw a spear at Vindex, who deflected it with his shield. The other cavalryman had a sword and the scout parried the blow with his own blade. Gannascus bounded forward, lunged with his own spear to spit the chieftain, who fell, gasping for breath. The German barged Brigantus out of the way with his shield as he reached for his sword. The bodyguard was showing none of the speed he had been famed for in his days as a gladiator.
The naked man was on Ferox’s right, the prince on his left, and both watched him. He feinted at the warrior, who stepped back and then slashed at him as he tried to turn and attack the prince. Their swords met, throwing off sparks in the darkness, and the prince cut faster than he expected, giving him a glancing blow on the helmet. Ferox’s head rang.
Each of them faced two men as Sepenestus watched for a clear shot. Vindex managed to give one of the troopers a cut on the chin, but before he could regain his balance, the other one slid his blade past his shield and punctured his mail shirt. Gannascus was forcing his two opponents back, moving with a speed truly uncanny in so big a man. His shield was scarred by their blows, but he kept coming, pounding them with it.
‘Never trust that bitch!’ Arviragus spat the words at Ferox. ‘She’d kill any man without a thought.’
Ferox did not reply. He had realised that the warrior was faster than the prince, so now he loosened his grip on his shield, wanting to use the prince’s taunts.
‘Don’t trust Crispinus either. He’s done more than you know. Hanged a girl at Vindolanda. Humped her first, though. Only a slave, but still… Bet he’s rutted with my sister as well!’
Ferox bellowed, trying to sound enraged, and, letting go, he hurled the shield at the prince, something only a madman would do. Arviragus flung up his own shield to block it and went back. As he did so Ferox dived and rolled, swordpoint under the warrior’s guard as he pushed it deep into his groin. The shriek was piercing, and he yanked at his sword, taking a moment to tear it free.
Gannascus killed the trooper as the man was distracted by the scream of agony. One of the men facing Vindex tried to work around him and took an arrow in the back. The scout hooked his shield around the edge of the other man, ripped it away and rammed his sword into the man’s chest, snapping the scales of his armour.
Ferox was pushing himself up, and then was beaten face down onto the ground by a sword slamming against him. He rolled away, but felt a bitter stab of pain as the point went into his side.
‘Poisoning bastard!’ Ferox had never heard Vindex so full of rage. ‘That was my father.’