I was crouched under a heap of cloaks in a corner of a ruined outbuilding, trying in vain to ignore the numbing cold and the dreary howling of the wind, when Euages came to rouse me.
“Up, Coel, and arm,” he shouted, prodding me with the butt of a javelin, “the Romans are attacking.”
He hurried away, while torches flickered in the darkened street outside and high-pitched Moorish voices yelled in alarm. I got to my feet, none too quickly, and tried to gulp down my excitement. The Heruli were coming.
I had to find Gelimer before they killed or captured him. If not, Caledfwlch might be lost to me forever.
Snatching up a javelin and a shield, I padded out into the street. A few Moors ran past me, heading towards the sound of a bull-horn from the direction of the gate. I followed them, and saw Moorish warriors lining the walkway or standing on the ruined battlements, hurling rocks and javelins and screaming war-cries in their unintelligible tongue.
Gelimer and the Moorish chief were helping to pile loose rocks and bits of timber onto the heap of rubble that blocked up the gateway. The Vandal king beckoned me over to help.
“Come, Briton,” he shouted, eyes bulging from his sweating, dirt-smeared face, “there is plenty of work for idle hands here. Help us shore up the gate.”
I was exhausted from lack of food and sleep, and weary of taking orders from this madman. For a moment I hefted the javelin in my hand. Gelimer wore no armour, and his back made for a temptingly exposed target. I could tear Caledfwlch from its sheath as he lay dying, and die with Arthur’s sword in my hand, cut down by enraged Moors while the Heruli stormed their pathetic defences.
Patience, patience. There was no need for such futile heroics. Laying aside the javelin, I half-heartedly picked up some crumbling bits of masonry and added them to the pile under the gate. My heart started to thump as I heard the sound of Heruli war-horns from outside.
I wanted to see them, the men I had lived and trained alongside for so many months until I had adopted their ways and almost felt like one of them. Ignoring Gelimer’s shouts, I scrambled up the heap of rubble until my face was level with the parapet over the gate, and peered down into the valley.
The night was black as pitch, but the line of Moorish torches along the wall cast some light on the men struggling up the narrow mountain trail. As was their custom, the Heruli had painted their shields and their bodies black, so they were once again the “shadowy, funereal host” that excelled at night ambushes. Thus camouflaged, they had succeeded in getting two-thirds of the way up the trail before the Moorish sentries spotted them and raised the alarm.
They would get no further. There was nowhere to hide on that trail, and the Heruli were exposed to missiles raining down on them from the town and the surrounding peaks. They had huddled together and locked shields over their heads in poor imitation of the ancient Roman testudo. This provided some protection from the storm of rocks and javelins and arrows, but the Heruli lacked the discipline and leadership to advance.
I cursed and smacked my fist against the rampart. Stricken warriors were tumbling from the path into the fathomless chasms below, and the rear of the column was disintegrating as men turned to flee back down the mountain.
“Run, you curs, you faithless mercenary swine!” I heard Gelimer scream, “run back to Belisarius and tell him of the whipping you have received! Tell him that the King of the Vandals still has teeth, and shall out tear out his throat if he comes too near Medenes!”
From the way the king capered and ranted, you might have thought he had won a signal victory, but the rout of the Heruli only delayed the inevitable. Gelimer lacked the men to pursue and destroy them. His Moors numbered no more than fifty or sixty warriors, and were unwilling to risk their lives against a thousand or so of the enemy.
For his part, Pharas was too wise to try another assault. He settled down to starve Gelimer out, secure in the knowledge that no Vandal armies remained in the field to try and break his blockade.
Three months dragged past. The hardships of the siege started to affect even the Moors, and a few of the weakest succumbed to cold and starvation. I might have gone that way too, but Gelimer seemed to regard me as some kind of symbol of good fortune, and insisted that I share with him the best of the remaining food.
Several times I tried to persuade him to surrender, but he was inflexible, and mistook stubbornness for courage. He insisted that with the coming of spring the war would be renewed, and he would be borne in triumph back to Carthage.
“Like this sword, my people are forged of true steel,” he said, holding up Caledfwlch, “they are used to hardship and misfortune, and cannot be broken by one lucky Roman general and his little army of foreigners and sell-swords.”
I saw my face reflected in the blade, illuminated by the dying glow of the fire. It was hollow-eyed, pale and sunken, half-covered by a scrubby growth of beard like dirty moss clinging to my chin. A few more days, I thought, and the spirit shall depart from this cadaver.
God intervened before I finally took it into my heart to murder Gelimer. He sent a vile rash that appeared on the king’s face and hands, and rendered him near-blind by causing his eyelids to swell.
For a day or two Gelimer bore the pain and disfigurement, but the sign of God’s displeasure was too obvious to be ignored. He sent for me, this pitiable, emaciated wretch of a man, and expressed his desire to make peace with the Romans.
“But it must be on my terms,” he said, “I will not allow Belisarius to boast that I came crawling to him, begging for my life.”
“The general does not boast of his victories,” I replied, “he receives all that comes his way with humility and gratitude, like a good Christian should.”
The pointed nature of this remark was wasted on Gelimer. “You have stayed by my side, Briton, when you might have deserted me months ago. I do not flatter myself that you have done so through misplaced loyalty. I know what you want.”
Caledfwlch lay in its sheath by his side. He picked it up, weighed it carefully in both hands for a moment, and tossed the sword at my feet.
“Yours,” he said, “I give it to you freely, and without condition.”
Chapter 22
I descended Mount Papua alone with a verbal message from Gelimer for Pharas. Caledfwlch hung from my hip inside its leather sheath. Not once, all the way from Medenes to the outskirts of the Roman camp, did my hand relinquish its grip on the hilt.
In typical Roman style, the Heruli had built a fortified camp at the base of the mountain, complete with a timber palisade and defensive ditch lined with stakes. Two of their sentries stepped out from the trees with lowered spears as I approached, but the suspicious glowers on their faces dissolved when they recognised me as Coel, the adopted Briton they had given up for lost. With much back-slapping and congratulations on my survival, they escorted me to the tent of Pharas in the middle of the fortified compound.
He was no less surprised to see me alive and well, if slightly less effusive. “Coel,” he said, eyeing me warily, “I last saw you at Decimum, just before the Vandals struck our flank. I thought you died there.”
“I was taken prisoner, sir,” I replied, “for some reason Gelimer took a liking to me, and dragged me about like a piece of baggage. He agreed to release me, in return for three gifts.”
Pharas scratched his wiry beard. “Gifts? What do you mean?”