"Legate Commander, the Legate Philip wishes to report that he has been unable to make significant contact with the enemy forces opposing him. He has penetrated the territories assigned to his attention on this sweep during the past six days, as planned and according to his instructions, and has encountered no resistance. He wishes to report that the territories and all the hills between his present position, fifteen miles directly north from here, and your present position, including all the coastal region, are free of enemy infestation. His foot cohorts have swept the crests and upper slopes without incident, and his cavalry forces, split between the command of squadron tribunes Falvo and Tessius, have completed their patrols of the lower slopes and valleys on both sides of the range of hills being invested. They joined ranks two days ago, having encountered nothing to impede their progress towards the meeting point.
"The Legate's objectives have been achieved, and he now holds the ground as commanded. He awaits additional instructions, but respectfully informs you that his northernmost observers yesterday reported a passing fleet, holding far out to sea but heading swiftly southward, with the potential of changing course towards your present position. The storm last night, the Legate suggests, might have scattered or destroyed them, but he dispatched me at the utmost speed at first light to bring the tidings. The fleet consists of one large bireme, accompanied by an unconfirmed number of galleys, too far offshore to be counted accurately but estimated to be no less than fifteen craft. Legate Commander!"
The final salutation was accompanied by another crashing salute, indicating that the report was complete. I expelled air sibilantly between compressed lips and then nodded to him. "Thank you, Trooper. An excellent, succinct report. No questions. Report now to Tertius Lucca, if you will, and have him assign you to a place where you can eat and sleep, once you have cared for your mount.
When you are rested, you may come back to me for further instructions. "
Bedwyr saluted me again, then turned and left. I watched him mount and ride away, then turned to my companions.
"Same story, but this time there's a fleet out there. They'll probably sail by, but we had better be prepared, just in case Ironhair has decided to annoy us. " I looked up at the sky, still clear and cloudless. "Gather the troop commanders, if you please. We'll meet by the command tent in half an hour. Thank you. "
As they began to disperse, Donuil caught my eye and pointed to his chest, one eyebrow raised, asking me mutely if I wished him to remain. I shook my head and waved him away. Moments later I was alone.
I looked about me, to be sure that no one was paying me attention, then kneed Germanicus slightly downhill on the landward side of the summit, towards a narrow, three sided niche in the cliff overlooking the valley Bedwyr had crossed a short time earlier. I had found and used the spot the day before, when I had been equally in need of solitude.. Once in there, I knew I was concealed from all eyes.
I dismounted and removed my heavy helmet, wiping my brow and the inside rim of the headpiece with one of the soft, daintily bordered kerchiefs Tress had made for me for just that purpose. Then I stretched hugely, rising to my tiptoes, and yawned, kneading the soreness from my buttocks. I rummaged in my saddlebag for the whetstone I carried there, unhooked and unsheathed my sword, then made myself comfortable on a rock outcrop that formed a natural chair against the sloping cliff face. I began to sharpen my weapon then, allowing my thoughts to come and go with the rhythmic, abrasive sweep of the stone's surface against the keen edge of my blade. Bedwyr maintained my weapons perfectly, as part of his training discipline, but the habits of a lifetime remained intact, and I found security in sharpening my own blades at least once each day. Then, as my mind was lulled by the sameness of the mechanical actions I was performing, my thoughts began to flow more smoothly.
Four months had passed since I last spoke with Ambrose, and more than three since I had arrived in Cambria at the head of Camulod's two legions. Since then we had been waging a make believe war, marching and countermarching the length and breadth of Cambria, it seemed, attempting to come to grips with an enemy as ethereal and insubstantial as the clouds and mists that shrouded the mountains in the early mornings. And yet the enemy was very real and numerous. We saw them frequently, in the distances ahead of us, but they remained frustratingly beyond our grasp, for the most part, melting away into nothingness as we approached.
From time to time in the earlier days of the campaign, a. foolhardy group of them, as frustrated as we were by this inactivity, would try to turn our flank, hiding in the bracken as we passed by and then springing from concealment to attack us from the rear. Our strategy had been designed to encourage that, however, and to punish such incursions swiftly and mercilessly, enfolding the interlopers and destroying them. The time soon came when no one tried it again.
. In the first days of the campaign, in truth, we had been too successful. Our arrival had attracted great attention, and a large army of the enemy, numbering several thousand, had assembled to await us and drive us back out of Cambria. Unaware of the impending confrontation, I had split my forces a few days earlier, sending half of my troops, most of them infantry, accompanied by our five hundred Scouts, southward and west along the coastal plain under the command of Tertius Lucca, to capture the harbours of Caerdyff and Caerwent, driving the occupying Cornishmen out and denying access to their supply vessels. In consequence, the force I commanded when we came to face Ironhair's host was largely made up of cavalry. Less than one thousand of my three thousand infantry remained to me, along with two thousand heavy horse.
Warned only slightly in advance that an army had materialized under cover of the night and awaited us a mere three miles distant, in an open, rising valley where they held the high ground, I had been forced to make my dispositions in some haste, and to assume a greater risk than I might otherwise have chosen to consider. I was bolstered however, by my firm belief that the odds would be in my favour if our most fundamental assumption was correct: that our heavy cavalry would be an unknown factor in the eyes of Ironhair's mercenaries. Allowing myself no time to waver, since I truly had none, I split the infantry into two five hundred man cohorts and sent them forward in formation, marching ten abreast, each division forming a block fifty ranks deep, with the cohortal standard bearers marching between the two. Ahead of these and behind them, vanguard and rearguard, I sent two heavy formations, each of two hundred cavalry, again riding ten abreast by twenty deep, the entire progression flanked by one mobile unit of fifty troopers on each side, deployed as a defensive screen. The result was a long, vulnerable looking, greatly extended line that I hoped would invite instant attack from both sides.
My remaining force of cavalry, fifteen hundred strong, I split into three equal groups. Two were sent off on either side of the route the main force would take, instructed to find the quickest, easiest way to circumvent the enemy while remaining undetected, and then to hold themselves prepared to attack from either flank upon my signal. I held the third group close to me, hanging well back behind the main advance and moving forward slowly in an extended line abreast, five ranks deep.
As I have said, my plan, extemporaneous as it was, worked all too well. The host we faced was almost leaderless, with no general, no strategist ruling the various contingents to give direction to their strength. Ironhair was far distant, we discovered later, and Carthac with him. The army that we faced was an amalgam of what remained in south Cambria, assembled on a whim of opportunity and composed of differing levies of mercenaries. Lesser leaders were there in plenty, even in profusion, but none who was there possessed the power to lead any group other than his own, and not one of them thought to send out scouts to verify our strength. Because of that, my two converging units of troopers, sent out to slip around the enemy's flanks, were able to occupy the prime high ground at the head of the valley unnoticed and unopposed, after the enemy threw away their one advantage by instantly quitting the high ground they held to charge downhill, with howls of glee, against the long, thin line they saw approaching them along the valley floor. As the howling masses charged, the cavalry contingent facing them, at the head of the column, appeared to wilt and flee, falling back and away to either side, withdrawing at full speed and leaving the long files of infantry exposed to the oncoming horde.