Tarchon barred Mord’s approach. The dog bounded ahead to Ballista. It had got used to him quickly. It wagged its tail as Ballista rubbed behind its ears.
‘Young prick-arse wants talking,’ Tarchon called.
Ballista waved Mord up. Perhaps he would have to talk to Tarchon about his linguistic inventiveness.
The hunting dog was a fine hound. It looked like a Maremma from the imperium. Morcar must have imported it for his son from the Roman provinces on the Rhine.
‘I am sorry, Uncle,’ Mord said. ‘I know you did not want to be disturbed.’
He was far from a bad youth. Ballista wondered what his half-brother thought of his son asking to join this force.
‘Do not worry. What is it?’
‘A man has come in with a prisoner.’
‘What man?’
‘He gave his name as Vandrad.’
Ballista’s chest felt hollow. ‘What does he look like?’
‘Tall … hard to tell. He would not remove his hood.’
Could it be, after all these years?
‘He would not let me search him either.’
That sounded right. An exile caught in Angeln could be killed as an outlaw. He would not let them disarm him or see his face. Surely it could not be him? Even he would not take such a risk. ‘Let him come up, with his prisoner.’
Ballista’s eye was caught by the prisoner. Unlike the others approaching, he was bound, and he stumbled. He was barefoot, and his tunic was in shreds. He had been beaten, probably tortured. If he could stand straight, he would be tall and thin. Despite the dried blood matted in his blond hair and caked on his face, he looked familiar, like someone not seen since childhood.
Then Ballista saw the hooded man. He was tall and broad enough. None of his face showed beneath the deep hood. He had a fine blade on his hip. The way he walked was right, well-balanced, a slight swagger.
‘Dernhelm,’ the hooded man said.
Twenty-eight winters, but Ballista knew the voice, knew it like his own. ‘What are you doing here?’
The voice came from under the hood. ‘Some things just happen. And I have to be somewhere.’
XXIX
Norvasund
They came in the night. No beacons flared. Ballista was awake, but the first he knew of their arrival was the northern picket boat flying in from the Little Belt, her crew hailing wildly.
There was a certain chaos as torches flared, horns rang and leaders shouted. Men bundled out of tents and shelters to rush to their posts. The five longships were run out. Maximus helped Ballista arm. Around them, in the guttering lights on the top of the hill, members of the hearth-troop did the same for each other. Riders were despatched north and south to light the warning signals further up and down the coast. Others spurred away inland to bring word to the tribes of the Cimbric peninsula.
Over the black waters Bronding warships stole down into Norvasund. Ballista counted six or seven. Maximus saw eight or nine. More moved out in the darkness of the sea.
The lights and commotion on the waterfront would have told the enemy that surprise was not with them. Nevertheless one ship slid to within long bowshot of the sea barrage. Volleys whickered out from the two nearest of Ballista’s boats. The arrows could be heard, but their fall was unseen in the dark. The enemy vessel backed, turned and followed the others out again.
In the greyness of pre-dawn Ballista ate porridge and waited for their return. The enemy had come up the inlet and moored against the eastern shore no more than half a mile away. Some around him — Rikiar the Vandal, Mord, son of Morcar, and the Heathobard known as Dunnere Tethered-Hound — had urged an attack from the land. Ballista had overruled them. The numbers of the fiend were unknown. Night attacks were notorious for confusion. The defenders would hold to their plan.
The light was gaining. Ballista put the bowl aside. It was always difficult to eat before a fight. He stood to study the disposition of his forces.
Across the water Castricius had about four hundred men under arms. Should the little Roman fall, Diocles was to take over. The defences there were incomplete. To their rear was nothing except the shallow stream.
Ballista ran his gaze over the inlet. The sea barrage was finished, more than forty great oaks lashed into place. The five warships, the Warig among them, each crewed by fifty Angles, were under the orders of Ivar Horse-Prick. Ballista had appointed Eadric, son of eorl Eadwine, as the second-in-command there. He was young, but he showed good sense, and both he and his father were held in high regard by the Angles. For this section of the defences the only thing lacking was that the line of sharp stakes concealed below the waterline ran only halfway across the sound from the eastern bank.
On this side, below where Ballista stood, the palisade was complete. Behind it were just over three hundred warriors commanded by Wada the Short and a Heathobard called Grim. Up on the hill, things were less good. The defences had not even been started. In the course of the night, since the alarm, a rough barricade had been thrown together from baggage, stacked timber and what remained of the village. Running along the crest, it would somewhat hinder any enemy advancing out along the headland. Ballista had kept most of his hearth-troop around him: Maximus and Tarchon, Rikiar and the Rugian pilot, the atheling Mord and six more young Angles of the nobility, Dunnere Tethered-Hound and five other Heathobards, fifteen Olbians, and eight Romans, including the bald mutineer Heliodorus. It amounted to only forty-one shields, but, the young Angles aside, they were all proven warriors. The men from the south had acquired much equipment from the Brondings of Widsith. Clad in this northern armour, intermingled with the others, there was little sign that they were from the imperium.
It had been eight days since the coming of the hooded man and his prisoner. Another two or three, and the defences would have been accomplished. Four or five more and there would have been caltrops, hidden traps, perhaps even artillery. Still, as the Greeks said, it was no use crying over the stubble on a pretty boy’s cheeks. When some things are gone, like youth, they are gone.
After the man calling himself Vandrad had spoken, Ballista had sent everyone except Maximus and Tarchon away. He had listened to what the captive had been forced to say. Then, his deep hood still hiding his identity, Vandrad had departed.
The prisoner, now masked as well as bound, was being guarded by the maimed Olbian guide Hieroson and a Heathobard called Vermund. They were to remain out of the fighting. Should the day go badly, they were to get their charge away. A rowing boat was ready. They were to go inland to a village of the Chali. From there they were to skirt back to the coast, get a boat from the Aviones, and take the captive to eorl Eadwine on Varinsey. It would be a heavy task, but the eorl would know what had to be done. Hieroson and Vermund had taken great oaths. They would do this or die in the trying.
Ballista waited. It was hard enough to face what might be the end, even without the waiting. But, always before battle there was the waiting, the awful time when fear crept into a man’s heart, tried to steal his courage. He thought of his sons, the awfulness of never seeing them again. He thought of his wife, and of Kadlin.
The sun had not yet crossed the horizon. To the east the sky was a smooth band of purple-gold. Arching back from there its vault was ribbed with darker purple clouds. In the distance the tiny black dots of a flock of crows fluttered north-east towards where the enemy lay.
‘What if they put some ashore elsewhere?’ Mord asked. ‘If they attacked from inland as well as from down Norvasund it would go badly for us.’