Derek of Ravenglass, for all his roughness and his uncouth ways, had turned out to be a pleasant enough travelling companion, but now I found myself thinking seriously about ways and means of killing him and his men without creating too much noise and attracting unwelcome attention. The time was fast approaching when our new companion would expect to stop for the night, and that was unthinkable. Were we in fact to remain in his company until morning, my men and I would have no hope of escaping the trap in which we had found ourselves and which was tightening more surely around us with every moment that passed.
I reined my horse in a tight turn and rode back towards the wagons, leaving Derek and Donuil together at the point with three of Derek's senior men, then I pulled off to the side of the road, among the bushes, and looked at the wagons as they rumbled past, a mixed group of my own men and Derek's riding among and around them. I saw no signs of hostility between them; they were all soldiers together, apparently, and content to share the warrior's burden of boredom between dangers. A few nodded to me in passing but, miraculously, none snapped me the customary, punctilious salute. I saw no sign of Lucanus and presumed he was inside one of the wagons, with some of the wounded men. As the final group approached me, I saw Pellus riding in last place. He drew rein as he reached me and together we waited until we were far enough behind the others for our conversation to go unheard.
"What are you doing back here?" I asked him eventually.
"Waiting for you. Knew you'd come back sooner or later. What's in your mind?"
"Concerning what?"
He threw me a look filled with irony, tacitly begging me to spare him my word games. "There's a party of dead men riding here, Merlyn, and I don't know if it's us or them. It's your decision, but you're running out of time to make it." I did not respond to that, so he continued. "The rest of our troopers are riding behind us, five hundred paces back. They'll be along any time now. I've got a pair of my own men leading them, making sure they remain out of sight of the main party, while the road's winding like this. God knows what'll happen if it ever straightens out again to be a proper Roman road. I've called in all my people long since. Nothing to be gained by keeping them out there...too dangerous. We know Lot's people are everywhere, so there's nothing else to discover."
Even as he spoke, I heard the sound of our approaching troops. The wagon group had already vanished around a turn. I looked back at him.
"What about the large mounted group behind us?"
"Still there, fifteen miles back. But the road between us and them is full of others now. They all headed for the roadway as soon as the forest started to thicken. Might be Outlanders, but they're not stupid. We have to get off this road."
"How?" I looked at the thick undergrowth behind me. "We'd have to cut our way through that. It's impenetrable."
"Nah! It's not bad." Pellus hawked to clear his throat, then spat noisily. "Hundred paces, no more. After that, it's deep forest. Big trees, no undergrowth, easy going. But we have to get rid of your friends before we leave...and we have to be quiet about it. How many are there all together?"
"Twenty-one."
"Then that's almost ten to one. We'll take them tonight, shall we? After dark? Then we can head out through the woods, lead our horses until we can see well enough to ride."
It was my turn now to return his look of irony. "And what about the corpses? You think the people behind us will simply pass by twenty-one bodies without wondering who killed them, and why? Or without wondering why there's signs of two hundred horsemen leaving the road and heading off through the bushes? And have you an answer for me to the question of what we do with our wagons? Or should we simply abandon them and the fifteen wounded men in them?"
He blinked at me, his expression indicating clearly that he had given no thought to this last point. "Shit," he said, at last. 'That's it, then. We're stuck here. We can't get off this road, so we're dead men."
Something in his words triggered a thought, and I felt my heart begin to pound. "No." I held up my hand to silence him. The front rank of our main body had now almost reached us. "No, there may be a way to get us off the road legitimately and leave the wagons safely. Let me think for a moment." We drew aside again as our men began to pass us, riding in formation again, now that there was no one to see them. I watched them as a stranger might, my concentration focused on the thoughts teeming in my mind. Finally I had it. I remembered Derek's scornful remark to Donuil about being a tame Saxon. "Yes!"
Pellus watched me closely, waiting. I grasped him by the arm. "Do you have a man who has not been seen by any of these people?" He nodded. "Good. We're going to need him. Now you and I will find Lucanus, and Lucanus will write you a letter. He will also refuse to abandon his charges. I'll leave you with him to await the letter, and I'll return to the point and start getting my people settled for the night. In the meantime, as quickly as possible, as soon as he has the letter, send your man looking for me as though he were a stranger, newly arrived. It's important that he pretends not to recognize me. My name is Ambrose Ambrosianus; be sure he knows that. The 'dispatch' he carries will be from Vortigern, who is having troubles with his tame Saxons and has summoned me to return to the northeast immediately. I will leave our wagons—along with a fistful of gold for his trouble—with Derek of Ravenglass and his people. They'll see that Lucanus and his charges come to no harm, and because they're all badly wounded, Lucanus will be able to escort them through and beyond Lot's assembly point, and from there home. Your part, as soon as you've seen your 'messenger' safely on his way to me, will be to start bleeding your men away into the woods, here, in small groups, so they'll be safely ahead of my party before we set out. They should be able to move unchallenged in the darkness, and to make good time once they are out of the forest. There's a full moon tonight. We will reassemble tomorrow morning at the site of this morning's fight—we should be well behind the enemy by then—and from there we'll strike out south-east as a unit again, and loop around this meeting place and south of Glevum until we hit the high road again to Aquae Sulis and Camulod. Let's find Lucanus."
The following morning found us safely reassembled, one hundred and twenty strong, riding again beneath the banners of Camulod. My hastily improvised plan had worked in every detail, and Lucanus, with a small group of volunteer wounded, had been left in comparative safety under the protection of Derek of Ravenglass who, in return for a heavy bag of the gold coins we had never been required to spend, had promised me to see my wounded companions safely through Lot's gathering and put them on their way to a place where they could be tended. Lucanus, for his part, knew the cover story I had invented on meeting Derek. He could claim safely to have been on his way to Lot, accompanying me, as an envoy from Vortigern. His men had been wounded in a fight with others we had met along the way. It would be up to me to find a way of salving my own conscience for deserting my friend in such a manner, although my duty clearly lay in reaching Camulod as quickly as possible.
It was a fine, clear day, betraying no hint of the alien, wintry weather of the previous weeks. The sun shone brightly and warmly, and we drove ourselves hard, angling south-eastward and keeping our scouts ranging far ahead of us, on the alert for more enemy formations. The relative inactivity of the preceding weeks had worked both for us and against us. Our horses were well rested and healthy, but our own bodies had grown slack, so that more than a few men reeled in the saddle with unaccustomed aches and pains by the time we swung south and west to bypass the area where Lot's army was converging.