Maximion said nothing.
Rufio took the reins from his groom, climbed into his saddle and cantered away. Before he found his command, he rode up onto a thinly wooded bluff to the east of the vale. Here, the wives and courtesans of the army’s senior officers had found a vantage point. Many were seated on stools or at cloth-laid tables, sipping wine and picking at pastries and sweetmeats.
Trelawna and Gerta refrained from such indulgence.
Gerta was seated, and concentrating on her needlework. Trelawna stared down at the tide of men that, slowly and with great noise and confusion, was organising itself into three separate but immense companies. Despite the rising heat, she was scarfed and wrapped in a shawl, and hugged herself as if she was cold.
On first leaving home, she’d thought she’d be able to do without her small entourage of ladies and maids, who’d rarely had more to offer than gossip and flattery. But being alone — being really alone — was a new experience for Trelawna. She didn’t know any of the Roman women who dined on the hillside around her; they’d made no effort at friendship, and some even turned their noses away when she entered their presence. She had Gerta of course, but she had always had Gerta — Gerta was at times a comfort, though she also spoke her mind and, as she’d disapproved of this “ill-conceived adventure,” as she called it, from the outset, she was now given to waspish comments that Trelawna found tiresome.
It was a relief to hear Rufio’s voice as he trotted up the grassy slope. “Trelawna… how goes it?”
“I’m a trifle nervous, as always on occasions like these.”
“Have no fear.” He jumped from his horse and gathered her in his arms. “That small band at the end of the valley would do well to leave now. I imagine they’re already contemplating it.” He kissed her forehead. “I promise you, my love, they cannot prevail. Even were numbers more evenly matched, the Emperor must win. There is far too much at stake.”
“Felix… all that’s at stake here is our future. Mine and yours.”
“I know, my love, but…”
“But nothing.” She disentangled herself from his arms. “I don’t know how many battles you’ve actually fought…?”
Rufio made no response to that, which was not encouraging. In fact, he’d spoken little about his military escapades, and she now wondered with some alarm if he was yet another of these pink young officers who had risen through the ranks of the academy on the basis of his family name rather than through experience.
“I’ve seen war many times,” she said. “Never from this position, admittedly… as if from the spectators’ gallery at a tournament.” She tried not to sound as scathing as she felt. “But I’ve seen enough to know that when swords clash and spears break, only one thing matters — survival.”
“We will survive. Our love can survive anything…”
“I’m talking about you, Felix. You!” She put her hands on the burnished roundels covering his shoulders. “Only one thing matters today… not your Emperor’s vainglorious quest to recapture the world, nor the bounty of wealth and harvest of slaves that New Rome will reap. It’s you, Felix. You must survive.”
He shrugged. “At the end of the day, I’m a soldier. I must fight.”
“Do what you need to, and no more. And then come back to me with all speed.” His mood, so buoyant before, seemed a little deflated by her lack of faith. She wondered just how buoyant it had actually been, if it could falter so quickly. “It’s not just about surviving, it’s about emerging intact,” she added. “What good are you to me crippled or blinded?”
“There is such a thing as glory and honour…”
“Bah!” She folded her arms and walked away. “If there was such a thing as glory and honour, Felix, there would be empty chairs all around King Arthur’s Round Table, but there aren’t. You know why? Because whenever they are emptied they are filled again. By necessity, new men are elevated, and with indecent haste. Those they replace are venerated for maybe a day, and then forgotten. As you will be. All men are expendable. That is our fate from the moment we are born.”
“This is the way you send me into battle?” Rufio looked as hurt as he was baffled. “With a reminder that I’m nothing but dust? I thought you ladies of Camelot were renowned for the favours you cast upon knights before combat. Am I so inferior that I don’t qualify?”
There was earnestness in his face that she hadn’t seen before — a plea for kindness. Suddenly he looked so young and, yes, if she was honest, a little nervous. Guilt struck her at having unmanned him in the face of what might be his greatest challenge. She embraced him, holding him to her as tightly as she could, but at the same time lowering her head to the moulded curve of his breastplate. It was important — nay, vital — that he felt he was protecting her rather than the other way around.
“Forgive me, my love,” she said. “War is a terrible thing. I’m just frightened.”
“I know,” he replied with understanding. He stroked her hair. “It’s to be expected. But soon you’ll be my wife, and the wife of a Roman officer must show fortitude.”
“Here is something for you,” she said.
As a tribune in the Fourteenth Legion, which almost entirely comprised heavy cavalry, he was well attired, wearing greaves from ankle to knee, a battle-skirt made from strips of thick leather inlaid with iron, his heavy breastplate over a mail jerkin, and vambraces and rerebraces on his arms. For weaponry he carried the falcata, a curved sabre specifically designed to be wielded from the saddle, but also a gladius — the short stabbing sword so symbolic of old Rome. Trelawna paused to choose, and then the gladius rasped as she drew it from its leather scabbard. She lifted the blue silk scarf from her neck and knotted it to the sword’s hilt. “A favour for you.” She stood on tiptoes to kiss his ruddy lips. “Wear it always in combat and think of me, the sweetheart who waits on your return.”
He gave her a smile of such joy that Trelawna’s heart almost broke.
“The day will be ours, my love… you’ll see!” He leapt back into the saddle and, before riding gallantly away, shouted: “I’ll bring you King Arthur’s head. And Earl Lucan’s. We’ll toast them at our own private victory dinner.”
She watched in silence as he cantered down the slope, soon enveloped in the dust and confusion of the forming army.
“And how many heads is that you’ve been promised over the years?” a voice wondered from behind.
“Oh, do shut up, Gerta!”
The night before, Arthur’s army had heard Mass. Then they’d returned to their tents and campfires to contemplate the coming day. Few had been able to sleep, so the leading nobles had wandered through their ranks, slapping shoulders and sharing jokes. Arthur had made rousing speeches and led choruses of heroic songs.
The fighting men of Albion had stood together many times. They had great trust in their King and his knights, who’d become talismanic figures on the battlefield. They knew they’d be outnumbered, but strength could be found in comradeship. Uncles, cousins, fathers and brothers now sat alongside each other — so there was much more here than mere familiarity. They knew that many present would die on the morrow, possibly all, but priests and monks were also active in their midst, hearing confessions, giving blessings, assuring everyone that to die in the service of their King and their land would open the gateway to Heaven.
The following day, Arthur deployed his forces at first light. Mist begirt the vale when clarions sounded the assembly. Arthur anticipated that the Romans would attack with their heavy infantry to the fore. It was traditional, and the geography of the vale almost ensured it — there was no room for a sweeping cavalry assault. So thinking, he arrayed his own infantry in a battle-line several ranks deep, stretching from one side of the vale to the other, but shielded in the front by a row of sharpened stakes. At their own insistence, the Saxons occupied the first rank. Behind them, Arthur placed the footmen of his elite Familiaris Regis. This would already make a difficult hedge for the Romans to hack their way through — the Saxon housecarls had their battle-axes and iron-bossed linden-wood shields, the Familiaris their short, steel-tipped lances — but Arthur was not yet content. Behind them, he drew dismounted men-at-arms from the companies of his retainers who, now that they were on foot, dispensed with their longswords for maces, war-hammers and pole-axes, while the fyrd and yeomen made up the rear with their mallets and reaping-hooks.