Brigita kneeled by the mother. Her eyes were glassy, but she did not cry, unlike the other survivors who held the dead to them and wept. Vindex stood by the corpse of the redhead and shook his head. Ferox was too tired to know what he felt, although he suspected that the vision of a pretty young woman lying dead in a pool of her own drying blood would return to haunt him in dreams, worse even than the usual ones that came when he remembered past fights. The Brigantian crouched down and spoke to the girl with brown hair, who was cushioning the dead woman’s head in her lap, ignoring the blood that covered her.
‘She was called Cabura.’ The scout spoke with great sadness, and Ferox felt guilty that he had not learned the names of any of the people who had followed him. ‘That’s my wife’s name,’ he added, voice filled with the sadness of old loss and fear of pain to come.
Ferox could not think of anything to say, and was spared by the arrival of Crispinus, Brocchus and Cerialis at the head of a mix of legionaries, marines and Batavians. The Batavian’s prefect whistled. ‘Seems like you have had a bit of a time of it,’ he said. In the background there were screams, as the Romans hunted the last surviving pirates out and killed them. The women and children were to be spared, but some of the cries suggested that some of the women were not to be spared everything.
Crispinus was panting, face black from the smoke apart from a few lines made by beads of sweat. He gathered himself. ‘Report, centurion.’
Ferox did his best to explain what he had done. He showed them Cniva’s corpse. The northerners had planted the head on a spear stuck into the ground.
‘Do you want to take it back?’ Crispinus asked the prefect.
Cerialis shook his head. ‘No, it’s unlucky. Leave it here for the crows.’
Then Ferox told them about Genialis. ‘I was going to leave him to his father to deal with. Well, the man who raised him,’ he added, remembering that the tribune knew that he was really Cniva’s son. Probus lay under a blanket just a few paces away.
‘Instead you lay the decision on me, centurion.’
‘Yes, my lord. That’s what comes with rank.’
‘So it does,’ Crispinus said. ‘Well, let’s have a look at the little cuss.’ He left, followed by Cerialis and several legionaries.
Ferox felt the wound at his side. At the moment, the surgeons were too busy with the badly injured for him to trouble them. He really ought to take off the scale cuirass and clean it up, but he knew that it would be painful to do, so delayed, telling himself that it was because he might be needed.
‘Centurion,’ Crispinus called a moment later, so that at present it was not simply an excuse. The short tribune had come out of the hall. His helmet was under his arm, and he ran a grimy hand through his white hair. ‘Would you come here, please.’
Ferox marched over. ‘My lord.’
‘Ah yes, centurion.’ Crispinus peered at him as if he had not just summoned him over. ‘Your capture of the former hostage and fugitive Genialis was well done. However, when you told me that you had the lad, I did expect to find him with a head still on his shoulders.’
Epilogue
ACCO HAD COME. It took a while to coax the story from the young warrior with the moustache, but it seemed that a boat full of warriors had returned to the island, landing on the little beach down below, where Ferox and the others had begun their ascent. The elderly druid had made the same climb, along with two warriors, and they had come to the hall. Neither of the boys left on guard had seen them as enemies. The great druid was a man of mystery and power, one to be honoured and not a little feared. So they had let him slit Genialis’ throat, and had watched as one of the warriors had cut off the corpse’s head and carried it away. Acco had also stripped some flesh from the boys’ thighs, stomach and off his penis.
‘Why?’ Crispinus asked. ‘I mean I’m not sorry to be rid of the pest, but why do this?’
Ferox was not quite sure. The strips of flesh would go into potions, that was obvious enough, although when he explained the tribune and prefects wrinkled their faces in disgust. The Romans spoke of magic with fear, and that was wise, but it did not do to pretend that such things did not happen. Yet why the druid had come for the boy’s head was less clear.
‘The boy has the blood of witches in his veins,’ Ferox suggested, thinking aloud. ‘Or rather had. Any head has power as the chamber of the soul. The power is greater with some, and perhaps that is why Acco wanted it? Men like him feed their own strength by taking such things.’ It was the best that he could do, for he did not really understand. Neither power nor strength were the right words, but he did not think Latin had any better ones to describe the mystical essence of a man or woman. They would not understand, not really, but Ferox knew that no chance had brought the druid here. Acco had seemed to know everything and known precisely the moment to arrive. Ferox had thought the capture of Genialis mere chance, and now he wondered whether something darker was at work. The timing was more miraculous than the simple truth that an old man had scrambled up a cliff and then escaped. Even with the rope they had left, Ferox did not relish trying the climb again.
He went out of the door and the first thing he heard was the harsh call of Morrigan’s raven, perched on the roof. There were plenty of carrion birds come to the island, but this was not chance either and the bird’s dark eyes watched him with a spirit not belonging to any mere creature.
Ferox went to the edge of the cliffs. There, a mile or more out to sea was a little dot on the waves.
‘It is a boat,’ Bran said, the lad appearing from nowhere beside him. During the last fight he had not glimpsed the boy, but was relieved to find him safe.
Crispinus burst out of the hall, face angry, but realised where they were looking and cupped his hand around his eyes to see better. He shook his head. ‘I cannot see anything.’
‘He has gone beyond our reach.’
‘That cannot be helped.’ Crispinus grasped his arm so that he turned to face him. ‘It is a shame, but we did not come here for him. We came to free our hostages and we have done that. We came to avenge ourselves on the Usipi and Harii and the rest and we have done that. You have made it happen.’ He gripped the arm even tighter. ‘It is over, apart from victory, and we will not talk too much of that because then we would have to admit that all this was caused by deserters and mutineers. It would not fit well with the dignity of the new era of Trajan if people knew that an equestrian officer and his even more distinguished wife could be abducted by such scum.
‘It is over. Be glad that we have won and not lost, and then do your best to forget all about it because this is a story that shall not be told.’
‘And Probus?’
‘Is dead, along with his son. No one need ever know that the prosperous merchant was a mutineer and murderer. Think how embarrassing that would be to all those influential men who wrote letters recommending him.’
‘Quite shocking,’ Cerialis agreed.
‘So shocking that it could not possibly be true,’ Crispinus went on. ‘Forget all of this. People die all the time, and it is surprising how quickly they are forgotten by all except their loved ones or those who hated them. Forget it all.’
‘It has not happened in secret, my lords.’ Ferox did not care that much what people believed, but he did wonder whether it would all be quite as easy as the tribune suggested.
Crispinus let go of his arm and shrugged. ‘There will be rumours, of course. There always are. But nothing anyone can prove. None of this should have happened, so it cannot have happened, can it?’
Ferox stiffened to attention, feeling a sharp stab of pain from his side. ‘Sir!’ he said.