Prisoners of War/Chapter 11

ROS gathered his Northmen, the wounded and all, for they could eat and drink and walk, whatever else might ail them, and, with Helma at his side, brought up the rear of the procession behind fifty chariots that swayed in the crimson glare of torches held by men on foot.

Far away to the north-westward, beyond the forest and the marsh, there was a crimson glow against the sky, where druids' fires burned; and all the distance in between was dotted with the irregular glow of torches where the folk of Lunden and the neighboring villages formed one continuous stream.

"Zeus! Those druids have the Britons by neck and nose!" Tros muttered. "Would my father have asked burial at the risk of a man's throne? Not he! He would have ordered them to throw his body on a dung-heap, and defend themselves! If he is not too busy in another world, he will forgive me for not attending his funeral!"

The long procession filed through the circle of solemn yew-trees, where the altar was on which a daily sunrise sacrifice was laid; and there Tros halted, gathering his men around him, bidding Helma explain his plan to Sigurdsen:

"Now we march back. One has ridden to warn Caswallon's enemies that his house is empty and the town unguarded. He saw us all march away, and though that man is Caswallon's friend, the information will leak out of him like the smell of strong wine through a bottle-neck. There is none in Lunden, save the fire-guard, a few old women and, it may be, a handful of drunken fishermen down by the riverside."

"Who is the fire-guard?" Sigurdsen asked; for he knew next to nothing of Britons, except that they were not fit to be reckoned with at sea, although great fighters on horse-back, and on foot in their forests.

"They," said Tros, "are about a score of old men, who sleep by day and are supposed to patrol by night. This night, instead of snoring in the watch-house, they shall serve a purpose. Conops! Go find the fire-guard. Wake them. Keep them awake. See that each cripple of them arms himself with two good torches. Hide them within Caswallon's wall, with a small fire handy at which to light the torches swiftly when I blow three blasts somewhere near the town-gate.

"When I do that, make all the noise possible and run downhill toward the gate, as if at least fifty of you were coming to my aid. If the running kills them they will die in a good cause, so spare none! No talk now! Go about your business! Hurry!"

"How much of a fight is this to be?" asked Sigurdsen. "A third of us are stiff with wounds."

He flexed his own great muscles, but it hurt him.

"Neither more nor less than any fight," Tros answered. "Tell him, Helma, that a man does what he can do, and neither gods nor men should ask more or expect less!"

He saw that nothing could be gained by telling Sigurdsen how great the danger was. The Northmen had too recently been beaten to thrill at any thought of a folorn [sic] hope. He must make them think their task was easy; so he led off, whistling to himself.

And first he returned to Caswallon's house to rifle the great racks of arms that lined a storeroom near the hall. There was no guard, no lock. He laughed as he served out bows and arrows, laughed again, as he thought of that gold he had won from Cæsar.

Fflur was supposed to be guarding it. It was probably under her bed! He wondered where Caswallon's own treasure lay, all the golden money coined in the mint at Verulam.

"Honesty, unless all other men are honest, is no better than Achilles' heel!" he reflected. "Britons are madman. Caswallon is the maddest of them all!"

He marched his men out through Caswallon's gate slowly, because some limped and had to lean on others, and downhill between the neat, fenced houses, leaving Sigurdsen's wife and the widow-woman with orders to attach themselves to Conops' torch-brigade. But Helma he kept with him, since he had no other means of instructing his men.

They marched into a creeping gray mist ascending from the river, that made trees and houses loom like ghost-things from another world.

Except that once or twice a tied hound bayed at them and cows lowed in the barns as they went by, there was no sign of life until they reached Lud's Gate with the wooden bridge beyond it.

There was a guardhouse built of mud and timber either side the gate, but no lights and only one man fast asleep on a bench within an open guardhouse door. When Tros wakened him he said he was there to entertain belated strangers, and he pulled out a bag of roasted wheat, supposing that Tros and his men wished food and lodging for the night.

He was a very old man, trembling with the river-ague, but Tros pressed him into service since he admitted that he knew every nook and corner of the sparsely wooded land that lay beyond the bridge.

Tros decided not to close the town gate. It was ajar when he arrived, because the old man was too thoughtful of his ague to wish to struggle with it if a stranger should seek admittance. Tros flung it wide, and lighted the bronze lamps in both guardhouse windows, so that any one coming would know there was no obstruction and might elect to ride full-pelt across the bridge.

The wall reached either way into obscurity. It was a thing of mud and lumber, useless against battery, but too high for an enemy to waste time climbing if he should see a gap that he might gallop through. Beyond, were occasional clumps of trees that loomed through the drifting mist, a low gurgle from the swamps at the river-edge, and silence.

"Now," said Tros to Helma, "you shall be a widow on your bridal night, or else shall wife it with a man who stands firm in one king's favor! It seems to me the Britons are all fools, not alone Caswallon. So I think this man who comes to seize Caswallon's throne is no whit wiser than the rest. If I am wrong, then you are as good as married to a dead man! But we shall see."

He took Helma and the old guardhouse man across the bridge with him, ignored a clump of trees and undergrowth—since any fool might look for an ambush there—and, after ten minutes' stumbling over tufted ridge and muddy hollow, chose a short stretch of open country where the road crossed what apparently was level ground.

But he noticed it was not actually level; mist and darkness were deceptive. Fifty feet away to one side the smooth, grazed turf was half a man's height higher than the road, and from that point it fell away again into a mist-filled hollow. He could have hidden a hundred men there.

He glanced at the town gate, wide, inviting. Lamplight shone across the opening, blurred by fog, and he whistled contentedly as he realized what a glare Conops' torches would make, seen from that viewpoint through the lighter mist uphill. But there was something lacking yet.

"If they come they will come in a hurry. They will charge the open gate. They will get by before we can check them!"

He observed again. On his left hand, almost exactly midway between his chosen ambush and the town-gate, was the clump of trees and undergrowth that looked like such a perfect lurking place.

"Helma," he said, pointing to it, "take this old skinful of ague and hide yonder in the trees. I will give you the three worst-wounded men as well, and there is flint and tinder in the guardhouse. Mark this place in your mind. When the enemy comes abreast of me—for I will hide here along with Sigurdsen and all the others—you strike flint on steel and make a good noise in the bushes. If that does not check them, light a torch or two."

"I would liefer die beside you," Helma answered.

"You will do my bidding!" Tros retorted, and she said no word to that.

O TROS went for his Northmen, putting the three most badly wounded, along with the old gatehouse-keeper, in Helma's charge; and them he hid carefully in the clump of trees, showing them precisely between which branches to make their sparks and how to thrash the undergrowth; but as to the proper time to do that, he trusted Helma.

"Wife or widow!" he said, throwing an arm around her, laughing gruffly, for he had a long road yet to travel before he would trust the gentler side of him. "Do your part and I will do mine. So the gods will do theirs; for they like to see men and women prove themselves!"

With that he left her to her own devices and tramped away with Sigurdsen, the other Northmen following; and presently he hid them all on the shoulder of the slope above the road, where even if mounted men should spy them from the higher level of horse or chariot, their heads would look like tree-stumps in the mist. He was careful to space them at unequal intervals, not in a straight line.

But the Northmen were nervous. They had drunk too much and had been told too little; nor had they any interest in fighting, except that they would rather, for their own sakes, please Tros than offend him. It was hard to keep them quiet, although Sigurdsen went down the line whispering hoarsely, rebuking, even striking them. They complained of their wounds and the chill night air, repeatedly crowding together for warmth, protesting that the turf was damp, yet neglecting to keep their bow-strings dry.

Then a stallion neighed not far away; another answered, which sent the shivers up Tros' spine. Orwic had told him which way Glendwyr must come if he should come at all; but those stallions were somewhere behind him, whereas the road spread in front to left and right until it turned away through distant trees and followed the riverbank.

His next trouble was that the Northmen, even Sigurdsen, grew sleepy; some of them snored and he had to throw stones at them. All of them were half-asleep when he caught the sound of horsemen in the distance; and it was the sound of so many horses that he feared for one long minute his chilled, indifferent men would welcome panic and take to their heels.

But Sigurdsen sensed the panic, and stood up, swearing he would die beside Tros. Tros had to force him down again before the advance-guard of what seemed to be at least a hundred horsemen began looming through the mist. Then, to the rear again, three horses neighed; but it sounded strangely as if the neighing were half-finished, smothered. Some of the advancing horses answered it, but there was no reply.

"Zeus, we are in for it!" Tros muttered to himself. "A hundred coming—more! Another lot behind us waiting to join them! No quarter! Horsemen front and rear! Well, there's a laugh in everything. My Northmen have nowhere to run! Zeus! What a mad fool must Caswallon be, to leave me and this handful to defend all Lunden!"

He took a long chance, crept along the line to see that bow-strings were all taut, shaking each man as he passed, growling orders that accomplished more because the Northmen could not understand a word he said. If they had understood him they might have tried to argue.

The leading horsemen riding slowly, peering to left and right, drew nearly abreast of the ambush. One of them turned and shouted. At least a hundred in the mist along the road began cantering to catch up.

Helma heard that. Her sparks flashed and there began a crashing in the underbrush, just as the advance-guard began to spur their horses to a gallop. They saw, heard, drew rein again, began shouting to the men behind; and in a moment there was a milling mass of men and horses, those ahead pressing back, into an impatient orderless squadron that came plunging into them. A mêlée of ghosts in the mist! Somewhere away behind Tros stallions neighed again.

Shouts, yells, imprecations, argument! And into that Tros loosed his Northmen's arrow-fire! He could hear the clatter of bronze wheels and the thunder of hoofs behind him now. He knew he was between two forces, one careering from behind him to make junction with the other. He blew three bugle-blasts that split the night, and watched for Conops' torches, heard an answering bugle-blast, and saw them come pouring through Caswallon's gate, a splurge of angry crimson, whirling and spreading in the mist.

"Shoot! Shoot! Shoot into the mass!"

He seized a bow and arrows from a man who did not understand him and launched shaft after screaming shaft into the riot, where fallen horses kicked and men cursed, none sure yet whence the arrows came and each men yelling contrary advice, as some fell stricken, and some saw the torches coming downhill.

Tros' men were on their knees to take advantage of the shoulder of the rise; from in front they were hardly visible. But Sigurdsen saw the havoc they had wrought already, heard the thunder of hoofs and wheels approaching from behind, sensed climax and rose to his full height, roaring. No more bow for him! He dropped the thing and stood in full view, whirling his ax, bull-bellowing his men to charge and die down there at handgrips with the Britons!

The Northmen rallied to him in a cluster on the ridge. No more bows and arrows if they had to die; they drew swords and axes.

Tros, since he had lost control of them, took stand by Sigurdsen and sent one final shaft death-whining into the mob before trying to face his party both ways. The chariots were almost on them from behind, din of hoofs and wheels, no shouting, din deadened by the turf.

Three-score men in the road had rallied somehow, saw Northmen's heads against the skyline, spurred their panicky horses and wheeled to charge uphill. But even as they wheeled, a squadron of chariots hub-to-hub came thundering through the night on Tros' right-hand and crashed into the riot in the road, a wave of horsemen following, and then another. Before Sigurdsen could lead his men ax-swinging into that confusion, where they could never have distinguished friend from foe, the half of Glendwyr's men were in headlong flight, hard followed. It was over in sixty seconds.

Tros beat his Northmen back with the flat of his swordblade, until Helma came breathless and, clinging to Sigurdsen, screamed at them all to let the Britons fight among themselves. But nobody quite understood what had happened until Caswallon loomed out of the mist, drawing rein, resting one foot on the wooden rim above the chariots wicker-work.

"Brother Tros," he said, "did you think I would leave you in the dark to guard my back? By Lud, no! Kinging it means trusting enemies to do their worst and watching friends lest they suffer by being friends! I told you this would be a little matter; but it was no small thing for you to prove you are my friend and not Cæsar's!"

"You came between block and knife!" said Tros, his foot on the hub of the wheel.

"Not I! Didn't you hear my stallions squeal before we silenced them? Have you seen Glendwyr?"

HE chariot-horses reared and shied, and Tros had to jump clear of the wheel before he could answer, for Conops came rushing up, torch in hand, and all the king's horses or all the king's men meant nothing to him until he knew Tros was safe.

But when he had thrust the torch close to Tros' face and made sure there were no wounds, he thought of loot and vanished in the direction where the loot might be. There was a glare of torchlight in the town gate, where his breathless veterans stood hesitating, doubtful, ready to welcome whichever side was victor.

Then a shout out of the darkness, Orwic's voice—

"We have the young Glendwyr!"

Orwic's chariot, crowded with five or six men, drew up beside Caswallon's. Three men were holding one. He struggled. But he ceased to struggle when they dragged him from the chariot and stood him close to Tros beside Caswallon's wheel. In a minute the whole party was surrounded by dismounted horsemen, whose held horses kicked and bit while their owners clamored for young Glendwyr's death.

But Caswallon waited, tugging his mustache, until the clamor died; it was not until men hardly breathed, and they had somehow quieted the horses, that he spoke to the prisoner suddenly, and when he did speak his voice had a hammer-on-anvil note.

"You hear what these say. Where is your father?"

"Dead!"

The youngster's voice was insolent, hoarse with anger. He was possibly eighteen, but it was not easy to see his face because the mist came drifting like smoke on a faint wind and the torchlight cast fantastic shadows, distorting everything.

He had black hair that fell on to stalwart shoulders, and he stood straight, with his chin high, although two men held his arms behind him and were at no pains to do it gently.

"How did he die? When?" Caswallon asked.

The youngster answered scornfully, as if Caswallon, not he, were the accused:

"Lud's mud! You are the one who should ask that! You, who sent Cæsar's woman to him! You who sent a lying messenger to challenge him after her dagger had done its work!"

"Lud knows I would have fought him!" Caswallon answered pleasantly enough.

"You! You lie! You sent word to him to meet you at the Druid's Hill, and a woman to make sure he should never reach there!"

"Like father, like son!" Caswallon answered. "If your father is dead, why didn't you ride to fight me in his place, instead of sneaking through the dark to loot my Lunden Town? I have caught you in your father's shoes! But how did he die?"

"I say, she stabbed him!"

Caswallon made a hissing sound between his teeth.

"Where is she now?" he demanded; and the youngster chose to misinterpret the flat note of dissatisfaction in his voice.

"Aye," he sneered back, "she has earned Fflur's place! But you will have to win her first from Skell! Lud's mud! If there is any manhood in you, fight me before Skell comes with a dagger for your back!"

"Boy, I would have fought your father gladly, or you in his place," Caswallon answered. "I am vexed not to have slain him. But as for you now, you will do well to bridle impudence. You are not free, so you have no right to challenge any one."

"Lud's blood!" the youngster swore, "I came to burn your house! I'll ask no mercy!"

He spat, and a Briton close beside him would have struck him in the face, but Caswallon prevented that:

"Let him be. He has fire in his brain. Boy, I will not kill you, nor shall any woman kill you while you are at my charge. Will you lie in fetters until some foreign ship puts in needing rowers? Or shall I give you to my friend Tros?"

The youngster nearly wrenched his two guards off their feet as he turned to glare at Tros, whose amber eyes met his and laughed at him.

"Be still, boy!" Tros advised him. "If I say no to this, you will die of scurvy on some Phenician's deck, or else be sold to be chained to an Egyptian oar."

The youngster bit a word in two and swallowed half of it. He did not like to be laughed at, but it had only just begun to dawn on him that he was lawfully Caswallon's property, a prisoner caught in the act of rebellion, henceforth with no more rights than if he had been born a slave, not even the right to be hanged or burned alive.

"How many prisoners are taken?" Caswallon asked in a loud voice, and there was some calling to and fro through the mist before Orwic answered—

"Nine-and-thirty; also a dozen or fourteen who are hurt so they will not live."

"Brother Tros, how many will you need to build and man this ship your heart desires?" Caswallon asked.

"Ten score, at the least," Tros answered.

Caswallon laughed.

"Well, you have your Northmen, and now nine-and-thirty Britons, forty of them counting young Glendwyr. Maybe my men will catch a few more rebels for you. However, a man needs enemies, so they shall let some go! Boy, you belong to my brother Tros, but all your father's lands and property are mine."

Young Glendwyr hung his head and the men who held him would have tied his wrist if Tros had permitted; but Tros put two Northmen in charge of him, which stung the youngster less than if he had been tied, and mocked, by his own countrymen. Caswallon sent the other prisoners into Lunden under guard, to await Tros' disposition.

"For the wine of excitement might go to your head if I should leave you in charge of them tonight, Tros. You might try your own turn at seizing Lunden!"

"Lunden is a good town, but it would irk me to have to govern it!" Tros answered.

Caswallon laughed, turning his head to listen to sounds approaching through the mist, wheels, hoofs and a voice.

"Pledge me your promise," he said suddenly.

Tros hated promises; like all men who habitually keep them, he regarded a blind promise as stark madness. Yet there was madness in the mist that night, and all rules went by the board. He heard a gasp from Conops, somewhere in the mist behind, as he raised his right hand and swore to do whatever service Caswallon might demand of him.

He could see Caswallon whispering to Orwic, and Orwic passing word along, but it was Conops who gave him the first inkling that he might be called on that night for performance, Conops, and then Helma, seizing his hand and pressing close against him. Conops said:

"Master, he will make a fool of you! Take back that promise before he"

Helma said:

"Lord Tros, I am your wife, is it not so? This is my night. Will you "

OUNDS in the mist interrupted, sounds that included one familiar voice. A chariot emerged into the torch-glare, horses snorting clouds of vapor as they slid to a thundering halt, all feet together; and the first face Tros recognized was Fflur's, the torchlight in her eyes. She looked like an avenging goddess. It was she who drove, who reined the horses in, her hair all fury on her shoulders.

"I have them both!" she remarked. Her voice was flat—determined. There were issues in the mist that night!

A chariot behind hers plunged to a standstill and Tros saw Cæsar's woman's face, white in the mist, with Skell's beside hers; and Skell looked like a ghost from beyond the borderland of death, with such fear in his eyes as a beast shows in the shambles. His arms were tied so taut behind him that his breast seemed ready to burst and the sinews of his neck stood out like bowstrings.

"Now prove you are a king, Caswallon!" Do a king's work!" Fflur said; and her voice was flat again, no music in it.

"I will!" Caswallon laughed. "Bring them. I am good at kinging it!"

But Fflur appeared to doubt that; she watched like an avenging fury while men dragged Skell and the Gaulish woman from the chariot and stood them in front of Caswallon, where he considered both of them a minute without speaking.

Then suddenly he raised his voice, and though he spoke to all present it was plain enough that his words were aimed at Fflur—

"Shall a king protect men's property, or shall he squander it?"

All knew the answer to that. None spoke, not even Fflur, although she bit her lip.

"Shall a king offend the druids, or shall he abide their teachings?" Caswallon asked, speaking loud and high again.

They knew the answer to that, too. None spoke except the Gaulish woman. She cried aloud:

"Not the druids! Kill me!"

Then she began screaming, and a man clapped a cloth over her mouth, desisting when she grew calm.

"As for this woman," Caswallon said, "she was Cæsar's slave, and she now belongs to Tros—my brother Tros."

The woman flung herself sobbing in the mud at Tros' feet, clinging to his legs, crying to him:

"Lord Tros, mercy! I knew you were for the lord Caswallon! I stabbed the lord Glendwyr lest he should slay you! I am your slave! My knife is yours! My life is yours!"

"Be still!" Tros ordered gruffly.

He knew predicament was coming, needed all his wits to meet it. Emotion, such as she showed, angered him, and in anger there is not much wisdom.

"As for Skell, what say the druids?" asked Caswallon, raising his voice louder than before.

There was a murmur at that, but Skell was speechless; fear held him rigid, the whites of his eyes glistening. Caswallon spoke again, his head a little turned toward Fflur:

"The druids say, a good deed is for men to repay—evil deeds are for the gods to punish. What say you?"

There was murmuring again, but no words audible. Fflur's lips were white with pressure, and her eyes blazed as Caswallon turned to face her:

"Mother of my sons," he said, "this Skell was once a friend of mine. He helped when Lunden burned. He helped rebuild it. Shall I slay?"

Fflur answered him at last, thin-lipped, breathing inward:

"You will never listen to me! It must be your decision!"

"Nay!" he answered, laughing, "you are always right! What shall I do with him?"

"Do what you will! You are the king!" she answered angrily.

Caswallon laughed again.

"True. I should not forget I am the king!"

"You let other men forget it!" Fflur retorted.

"Skell shall remember!" Caswallon turned from her and looked straight at Tros. "Brother Tros, you have told me you will build a ship, for which you will need a great crew. Just now you have made me a promise to do whatever I choose to ask. Was that in good faith?"

"It was my spoken word," said Tros; but he answered guardedly—he did not care to be public executioner, even of such a treacherous sneak as he knew Skell was.

"Then take Skell! He is your slave! Use him! Set him on an oar-bench and sweat the treason out of him! Work manhood in, for that must come from outside, since what he had of it he seems to have lost!"

Fflur laughed, high-pitched and cynical. Skell looked at Tros as a tied steer eyes the butcher.

"Slave?" he said, wetting his lips with his tongue. "I was born free. Oar-bench?"

"Aye!" Tros answered. "Loose him, lest his arms grow weak! I will keep that promise," he said, grinning at Caswallon. "His hands shall blister and his hams shall burn. If he has freedom in him, he shall earn it!"

So they loosed Skell, and the Northmen took charge of him with low-breathed insults, despising him as neither Norse nor Briton, but a traitor to both races, speaking both tongues. Tros, arms behind him, stared at the Gaulish woman, who was kneeling in the mud.

"Mine?" he wondered. "Mine? By Pluto, what should a seaman do with you?"

And Caswallon chuckled, waiting. The woman tried to smile, but fear froze her again when Helma stood beside Tros, taking his hand to remind him of her rights.

"I need no wench to wait on me!" said Helma.

"You shall go to Cæsar!" Tros said finally. "You shall take my message to him.

"You shah say: 'Whatever Tros needs that Cæsar has, Tros will take without Cæsar's leave or favor!'

"Bid him send me no more slave-women, but guard himself against a blow that comes! And lest you lie about that message, woman, I will chisel it on bronze and rivet that to a chain around your neck!"

"So! Then this business is over," said Caswallon. "The druids wait. Send your Northmen back to Lunden with your prisoners, Tros. We must make haste."

He signed to the Northmen to take the prisoners away, and offered Tros and Helma places in the chariot beside him, then shouted to the team and drove like a madman through the mist.

He said not another word until the horses leaped a stream and the bronze wheels struck deep into the far bank; then, when they breasted a mist-wreathed hill beneath dripping branches and he had glanced over-shoulder to make sure Fflur followed, and Orwic, and a score of mounted men behind their chariots, he tossed speech to Tros in fragments:

"Too many druids, not enough king! If druids keep me waiting, men say 'Hah! even Caswallon must cool his heels!' But if I keep them waiting, they say 'Caswallon is irreligious!' Nevertheless, unless I king it carefully there will be neither king nor druids!

"And the druids know that. They must wait for me. And I think that dawn is a better time for funerals than midnight, because at dawn men hope, whereas at night they are afraid.

"So, Brother Tros, you shall attend your father's funeral after all, and all my people shall believe you are my friend. I will bid the druids thank you that Lunden wasn't plundered while they prayed! On yon horses. Ho, there! Hi! Hi-yi! Which is the hardest, brother Tros, to king it or to captain a ship at sea?"

But Tros did not know the answer to that question; he only knew which of the two tasks he himself preferred.