Hengest and his war host fell back on Eburacum and we on Deva that men still call the City of Legions. It was an obvious choice for our winter quarters, with wide grazing behind us and the cornlands of Môn none so far away. But it cost us something to get there, and more than one of our wounded died on the road. We got through at last, none too soon, and rode into Deva in a full gale from the west and driving rain that was already turning the dried-out summer moors into oozing mosses; men and horses alike blind weary and on nodding terms with starvation. We were used to living on the country but among the mountains in October the living is not rich for man or beast.
The young chieftain came with us, carrying a wounded shoulder, to see us well into the mountains, but would come no farther. His own village was scarce a day’s march eastward, he said, but when we came back in the spring, he would rejoin us. We gave him one of the pack beasts to ride, for he was weak with the wound; and he rode off on his different way from ours, turning once to wave from the skyline before his own hills hid him from view. I have wondered sometimes whether he reached his village. We never saw him again.
I DID not know Deva well, but there had always been friendly dealings between Arfon and the City of Legions; and I had been there once or twice when I was a boy, and again when we brought up the Septimania horses, and the last time only a few years since when I had seized the chance in an open winter for a flying visit to Arfon and Deva to see for myself how things went in the breeding and training runs, instead of sending Bedwyr or Fulvius in the spring, as I had done in other years. So now, as I heard Arian’s heavy hoofbeats crash hollow under the gate arch, I had a sudden sense of refuge and return to familiar things. And certainly it seemed that Deva remembered me. The people came running as we rode wearily up through the weed-grown streets toward the gray frown of the fortress; only a handful at first, then more and more as the word spread, until when we clattered in through the unguarded Praetorian Gate, half the city was running at our horses’ heels, calling greetings and shouting for news.
In the gale-swept parade ground I dropped from Arian’s back, staggering as my cramped legs all but gave under me, and stood with a hand on the horse’s drooping rain-darkened neck, to look about me while the rest clattered in and dismounted likewise. I had thought that the old fortress might be already full of squatters from the city, but save for a few ragged ghosts that came spilling out from odd corners even as I watched, the place was as empty as the Legions had left it. The drift away to the country which was thinning most big cities nowadays had perhaps come about more swiftly at Deva, because Kinmarcus, who had no more liking for towns than had Cador, had gone back to make the capital of his little border princedom at the Dun of the Alderwoods where his forebears had ruled before the Eagles came. The town was dying in its sleep, as a worn-out old man dies; and meanwhile there was room to spare for everybody, and no need to spill uphill into the deserted fortress.
Bedwyr and Cei were beside me, still holding their weary horses. Gwalchmai was busy among the mule carts as they rolled in with the wounded. “Get some of the barrack rows cleared out and the men under cover,” I said. “We shall have to use some of the spare barrack rows and the main granary for the horses — there’ll not be stabling for above sixty; this place hasn’t been used since before the Legions took to cavalry.” I turned on a soldierly-looking old man leaning on a finely carved staff, whom the townsfolk had made way for as for one in authority. “Old Father, do you command here?”
His straight mouth twitched with sudden humor. “In these days I am never sure whether to claim the title of Chieftain or Chief Magistrate; but it is true that I command here, yes.”
“Good. Then we need wood for the fires, food for ourselves and fodder for the horses. As you see, they are in no state to be turned out to graze at the present. Can your people manage that?”
“We will manage that.”
“Also fresh salves and linen for the wounded — the little man over there with the crooked foot will tell you what he wants, and whatever it is, for God’s sake give it to him.”
“To the half of my kingdom,” said the old man. He glanced about the throng of staring townsfolk, and changing his tone so that it might have been another man who spoke above the booming of the wind, quickly and without fuss called out this one and that and gave them their orders. Then as men and women scattered to do his bidding, he came, leaning on his staff, to stand beside me in the little shelter that the end of a barrack row gave from the driving rain. “It will be some time before the fodder can come, there is not so much fodder in Deva as will feed this number of horses, and we must send out to one or two of the big farms for it; but it will come.”
“You are good hosts,” I said, tugging at the thongs of my iron war cap and pulling it off.
“Maybe we should be worse hosts to strangers, but are you not of the breed of the Lords of Arfon?” (I smiled inwardly at the careful way that it was framed.) “And do not your brood mares graze as it were under our very walls? We count you as a friend — as Artos the Bear, before ever we remember you for Artorius, Count of Britain.”
“It is a useful title. It gives me some kind of authority among the princes. But Artos the Bear has a more friendly sound.”
Around me the Companions with the grooms and drivers were already hard at work. A starved-looking young priest had appeared from somewhere to help Gwalchmai with the wounded, and the weary horses were being led away. Amlodd, the cheerful freckle-faced lad who had taken Flavian’s place as my armor-bearer, came to take Arian from me, and I would have turned away about my own work, but the old man stayed me with a brief touch on my arm, his gaze following two of the Companions who stumbled past at that moment, supporting a third into the shelter of the nearest doorway. “You have been fighting and have come sorely out of the battle, and you will have other things to do tonight than tell the story; but remember, when you have the leisure, that we should be glad to know what has befallen — that is a matter which concerns us with the rest of Britain.”
I said, “There is not much to tell — a drawn battle, south of Eburacum. But you can sleep tonight without fear of Saxon fire in the thatch. There’s no wolf pack on our heels. . . . Meanwhile there’s one thing more I need; one of your young men to saddle up and ride to the Dun of the Alderwoods with word for the Prince Kinmarcus that we are in his city and I would come to speak with him as soon as may be.”
But I did not ride to the Dun after all, for three days later Kinmarcus himself rode in with a small band of hearth companions.
We had been getting the best-recovered of the horses out to pasture, to ease the strain on the fodder situation, and I returned to the fortress to see him dismounting from a dancing wild-eyed pony mare on the parade ground before what had once been the officers’ block, while his men stood by with the carcasses of two red deer slung across the backs of a couple of ponies in their midst.