Sabinus urged his mount forward. ‘With me!’ Risking the uneven ground he drove his horse into a canter; the surviving troopers followed, unsheathing their cavalry spathae ready to cleave their way through their tormentors, who were now less than fifty paces away.
Another hail of slingshot scythed through their ranks, bringing down six horses, head first, their muzzles ploughing into the grass as their splintered forelegs collapsed beneath them; the riders cried to their comrades not to leave them behind. But their pleas were in vain.
A shot fizzed past Sabinus’ knee; the slingers were still aiming low. He kicked his heels and slapped the flat of his blade hard on his mount’s rump; the beast burst into a gallop. The slingers turned and fled. Sabinus’ heart raced, stimulated by hope. But in the instant that he thought they would run their attackers down a new terror sprang from the ground: a double line of spearmen, concealed until now, raised themselves up to kneel on one leg; each supported a long, ash-shafted boar-hunting spear, their butts wedged in the turf and the leaf-shaped, iron heads aimed at the horses’ chests.
With no time to react, the turma ploughed into the bristling hedge of honed iron. The blades sliced into taut equine muscle, crunched through bone to burst into the cavity housing vital organs beyond. Blood, pressurised by huge hearts working to the limit, exploded from the ghastly rents in the beasts’ chests as they impaled themselves, their momentum forcing in the spearheads until they came to a juddering, haft-bending halt on the iron crosspieces at their base.
Sabinus was flung forward onto his mount’s neck, his red-plumed helmet spinning away over the enemy line. An instant later he was hurled back as the stricken animal reared, shrieking in agony, yanking the embedded spear from the grip of its blood-spattered wielder and cracking the skull of the man next to him as the beast twisted in its torment.
Landing with a lung-emptying crunch on his back, Sabinus just had the presence of mind to roll to one side as the dying horse crumpled onto its rump and then tumbled backwards, its legs scrabbling weakly in the air as if it were trying to canter its last.
Sabinus pulled himself to his knees, gasping for breath, and felt his head crack; a white light streaked across his vision. As he faded into unconsciousness he realised the bitter irony of being led into a trap by a spy passing himself off as a Roman called ‘Alienus’.
It was a scream that brought Sabinus back to consciousness: a scream of fear, not of pain. He opened his eyes but could see only thick stems of rough grass; he was on his belly, his hands fastened behind his back. His head throbbed. The scream stopped and he could hear a low chanting.
Trying to ease himself over, he felt his stomach churn and then convulse. A gush of thin vomit sprayed onto the grass; its sour taste lingered on his tongue and its reek, as it dribbled out of his nostrils, turned his insides again, forcing him to heave once more.
Breathing fast and shallow he forced himself onto his back, spitting out the residue of the noisome fluid. The fog had lifted and the sun was setting. He raised his head; he was within the henge. Blurred figures were moving around. The scream resumed, drowning the chant. One of the figures raised an arm, paused, and then brought it crashing down; the scream was abruptly curtailed, replaced by a long croaking gurgle and then silence.
He felt the temperature suddenly drop. Now his eyes had begun to focus he could make out the figures. They were filthy. Their hair, dishevelled and matted into clumps, fell halfway down their backs; their beards, twisted into strands, were equally long. They each wore a single, long-sleeved garment, belted at the waist and reaching their ankles, that may have at one time been white but now looked as if patches of mould and mildew had been allowed to fester on them for years.
Sabinus shivered and let his head slump back onto the grass with a groan; if there was one thing that he feared more than the spirits of this land, it was their servants: the druids.
‘You’re awake then, legate,’ a voice said with remarkable cheerfulness.
Sabinus turned to see Alienus walking towards him. ‘You treacherous little cunt!’
‘Hardly; to be treacherous you have to betray your own people. You can’t accuse me of that; I’m a prince of the Atrebates.’ Alienus squatted down next to him. ‘Not all of us have bowed the knee to Rome like my cowardly grandfather or my vainglorious cousin who has stolen my birthright and now rules in my place; they’ve brought shame to my people. Caradoc, or Caratacus as you call him, may have been my people’s enemy but he at least stands up to the invaders. He’s of our blood and would preserve our ways and our gods, and for that he deserves our support to throw you back into the sea.’
‘So that you can carry on your petty squabbles living on the fringes of the world?’
‘It may be the fringes of your world, but this island is our whole world and before you came we were free to organise our lives according to our own laws and customs. Can you blame us for wanting to keep it that way?’
‘No, but you’re being impractical.’ Sabinus shivered again, his toes were frozen. ‘Rome has come to stay and you’ll cause the death of many of your people realising that.’
‘Not now that we have you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Today is the spring equinox; the few survivors from your escort have wetted the altars of our gods with their blood in honour of the day — but not you. You’re the one we came for. We knew that to get you, it had to be before you went out on campaign. You wouldn’t have believed a summons from Plautius after.’
Sabinus’ teeth started to chatter as a deep chill crept up his legs. ‘How did you forge his seal?’
‘If you have access to documents with his seal intact on it then it’s not that difficult; you’ve got three months to work it out.’
‘What for? Why not just kill me now?’
‘Oh, you’re too precious for that. It would be a waste. The druids have decided that the most potent sacrifice to offer the gods on behalf of Caratacus — to strengthen him in his struggle — is a Roman legate.’ Alienus raised his eyebrows and pointed at Sabinus with a half-smile. ‘That would be you.’ He indicated with his head towards the druids who were standing in the golden rays of the setting sun that flooded through two of the arches in the henge to exactly illuminate the altar stone. ‘And Myrddin, the head of their order, who knows about these things, has decided that the most auspicious day and location for that sacrifice will be the summer solstice in the grove of the sacred springs.’
Sabinus looked over to the druids as they continued their chant and realised that no heat was coming off the sun’s rays but, rather, a cold power, filled with malice, emanated from the group, chilling its way up him like a series of freezing breaths; and yet Alienus seemed unaffected. Sabinus’ mind started to slow, rendering it incapable of questioning. His eyes began to frost over; with a final effort he spat a weak globule of vomit-tainted saliva into the spy’s face. ‘I’ll be gone by then. My brother will come for me.’
Alienus wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, smiling without humour. ‘Don’t worry, Myrddin wants me to ensure that he does come and that he brings his doomed legion with him. I think you’ll agree that two legates would be much more powerful than one; and a brace of brothers would be the most potent sacrifice to win the gods’ favour for the army that Caratacus is now assembling. And Myrddin always gets what he wants.’
Sabinus’ vision went white as the coldness settled on his heart; he felt a malevolent presence draw him away from consciousness and he screamed until he was deafened. But no sound emerged from his frozen lips.