Under The Dragon by S.M. Davies

Author:S.M. Davies [Davies , S.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Sylfa Press
Published: 2023-06-14T22:00:00+00:00

26

It did not seem like an auspicious beginning. Kerin stood at the door of the king’s tent and watched the first pale streaks of dawn licking up across the leaden sky to the east. Rooks fluttered and cackled in the skeletal black trees behind the camp. Inside the gloom was thick enough to touch. Vortigern, who had not slept, was sitting beside the dying fire staring silently at the heatless flames. He had about him the dull, blank look of a man who had not fully recovered from being knocked unconscious. Kerin brought a jug of Marcellus’s soothing tisane. Vortigern rejected it, with a smile which seemed to hold both gratitude and reproach.

‘There is no cure for this,’ he said. ‘God knows, I’ve been long enough looking for one.’

But there was a cure, albeit temporary. It arrived in the shape of Macsen, who came blundering into the tent with a chalk-white face and blood on his hands.

‘Lord, the spies!’ he exclaimed. Vortigern looked up.

‘They’re back?’

‘One of them, lord. Well, both, in a way.’

Vortigern looked at Macsen as if his sanity might be in doubt. They followed him out into the half-light. A knot of agitated spectators had formed in the open square amongst the tents. The first thing Kerin saw was the grey pony, drenched in blood. It belonged to the man she had brought home strapped to her saddle. They had cut him down and laid him out on the frozen ground, a middle-aged man, true Roman. His throat had been slit, and around his neck was the object which had led to Macsen’s confusion; a grisly necklace consisting of a leather thong on which were threaded two pairs of mutilated hands. Vortigern shook himself into life like some creature casting off its carapace. Lud arrived, running. His lip curled with disgust.

‘Get the commander,’ Vortigern said. ‘And send a man to meet Hengist. Tell him to make as much speed as possible. Then saddle the Pike and find Gwyndaf for me.’

‘Lord, you can’t go out there,’ Kerin said as Lud ran off across the camp. ‘And why Gwyndaf?’

‘Because he’s the best tracker we’ve got,’ Vortigern said. ‘And we’re not crossing the Wall. We’re going to find those Picts who attacked you last night, then we’re going to do whatever we have to do to make them show us where their people are gathering.’

‘I’ll get ready,’ Kerin said.

‘No,’ Vortigern said bluntly.

‘Lord!’ Kerin protested.

‘No!’ Vortigern seized him by the shoulders. ‘If we both die, this whole thing dies. I can’t spare you.’

‘And what am I supposed to do?’ Kerin said mutinously. ‘Sit here and pick my teeth?’

‘Lead the Cambrian spearhead if I don’t come back,’ Vortigern said. ‘Who else could do it? How could I possibly ask Rufus? For the love of God, use your brain, if you have one.’ He turned as Publius Luca came running across the square, breathless and dishevelled.

‘You see?’ Macsen choked, beside himself with rage. ‘Brutes! Bloody savages!’

Publius Luca stared down at the corpse. ‘I have known this man since he was born.

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