HAGAN SIGHED AND sat back against the warm tiles. Steam rose around him. He let the heat seep into his body, relaxing his tired muscles and chasing away the aches that troubled him more and more recently.
All in all, this was one of his most enjoyable days he had spent at work in a very long time.
Hagan really enjoyed the baths. In his time in the Army and after leaving Roman service he had visited many of them throughout the Western Empire. This one in Aquae Sulis was a modest affair compared to some but no less comfortable for that. The one downside was that the heated water came from natural hot springs beneath the earth. It probably meant the place was cheaper to run but the downside was that the water itself had a strange, egg-like odour. The local Britons believed the water was heated by the breath of a goddess, Sulis, who lived beneath the earth. If that was indeed the case, Hagan thought, then the goddess must have rather bad breath.
On the plus side, most bathhouses just had three main rooms: the tepidarium with its pleasant heated floors to relax the muscles and open the pores, the caldarium with its hot water bath, body oil and scrapers to clear the skin, and the frigidarium, the large pool of freezing cold water that finished the bathing ritual. This one also had a sudatorium, a vaulted room whose walls were lined with pipes that funnelled hot air and heated the room beyond anything experienced in the hot water of the caldarium, while steam was introduced via vents in the walls to increase the temperature further.
It was there that Hagan sat, back to the wall, trying to remember he was supposed to be working. His companions, two burly Saxons with their blond hair shaved front-to-crown but long at the back and tied into plaited ponytails, lounged on the stone step beside him, enjoying the heat as much as he was. The sudatorium was a circular room with a floor of white marble surrounded by four terraced steps of darker stone. The step Hagan and the Saxon sat on was the topmost of the four. As it was the highest in the room it was also the hottest part, but it also gave them a vantage point from where they could watch over the Britons they were employed to guard.
Hagan looked at the men below. There were seven of them: four kings, two warlords and one bishop. They represented the most powerful men in Britannia, or at least what was left of it. In his short time there Hagan had learned that since Rome, beset with her own internal problems, had pulled her legions out of this province at the edge of the world, it had shattered into a hundred petty realms, each one ruled by a dictator who thought he was going to be the next emperor. In the interval they had fought each other, either through open war or treacherous murder, expanding their power or being exterminated, until only the most powerful, the most ruthless or the most deceitful remained.
To Hagan’s surprise and amusement, most of these Britons still thought themselves Roman, even while the last vestiges of the Empire disintegrated around them. They had their hair cut like Romans, wore Roman clothes and went to the baths, while all around them the Pax Romana turned to banditry and chaos, social structures collapsed and power – and therefore the fate of the ordinary folk – moved into the hands of those who either had the wealth or the strength to grasp it. Such realms as this were Hell on Earth for the people forced to live in them, but the perfect place for a man with a strong sword arm to sell and enough knowledge of military tactics to make him useful in any warband.
Hagan was one such man. He rolled his left shoulder, the one which bore a raised white scar that looked like a star. It was this now long-healed injury that had ended his career in the Army before his standard twenty years was even half complete. It still troubled him, especially in the dank, cold weather of Britannia, but the heat of the bathhouse always washed that away and he felt young again. He took a deep breath through his nose, smelling the herb-scented air. Sweat dripped from his brow, his nose and covered his whole body in a sheen, which was appropriate, as the name of the sudatorium meant ‘sweating room’ in the tongue of the Romans.
Hagan fingered his mother’s amulet, which he still wore round his neck. The dainty chain his mother wore it from had been far too short for the knotted muscles of his thick neck and it now dangled from a leather thong. At that moment it was the only thing he wore. Like everyone else in the baths he was naked. This was why the place had been chosen for this meeting of the powerful Britons: no one could sneak a weapon in.
‘These Britons,’ Horsa, one of the Saxons beside Hagan said with a shake of his head. ‘No wonder they need us to fight for them. If they don’t even trust each other how will they ever come together to fight their common foes?’
He spoke in his own tongue, but the words were similar enough that he and Hagan could understand each other, unlike the Latin-speaking Britons to whom their speech was just barbarian gibberish.
Hagan grunted his assent. The Britons had gathered here to discuss what to do about the biggest threat to their island since Rome invaded yet they still could not come together in trust.
The thought suddenly occurred to him that perhaps these half-Romanised Britons were not that different from himself. He hated Rome but loved the baths it had created. The heated water, the comfort and the cleanliness encapsulated in many ways what Roman civilisation stood for, yet also it was Rome’s contempt and jealousy of other people’s freedom and her grasping, paranoid greed that had destroyed Hagan’s kindred and folk.
Still, over the years he had learned through a series of bitter lessons to have a grudging respect for what was called the ‘civilisation’ Rome had created. Hagan sometimes thought of the rough, cold days of his childhood, when everything seemed damp and louse-ridden and they had not known such wonders as this sudatorium existed. There was an old derelict bathhouse in Vorbetomagus but it had long fallen into disrepair as no one knew how it worked.
The Burgundars had thought Vorbetomagus was the height of civilisation and their folk the greatest in the world. Looking back now, having seen a lot of that world and the wonders of the Roman Empire, Hagan knew his folk had not built that city, it was the Romans who had. The Burgundars had crossed the Rhine from the northern forests beyond the Empire and taken Vorbetomagus. The Romans who had lived there had fled, taking the knowledge of civilisation with them. He and all his people, for all their pride, gold and boasting, had just been another horde of barbarians, living amid the Roman ruins like flies on the corpse of a lion.
Hagan cast a wary glance at their potential opposition, the bodyguards of the rival British kings, who sat on the top step on the opposite side of the room. He and the Saxons were in the employ of King Vortigern, one of the Britons engaged in the discussions on the floor of the room below. Vortigern was perhaps twenty-five, handsome, though a little short, Hagan thought, and with a neatly trimmed beard and fashionable haircut. His naked body was shaved of all hair in the Roman fashion and his sculpted physique told of regular visits to the gymnasium rather than hard toil in the regular battle drill of a warrior. Like a lot of the southern Britons he had become so used to the protection of Roman soldiers that now he paid Saxon foederati and other mercenaries to fight his battles rather than relying on the strength of his own arms.
The two Britons who sat across from Hagan were the bodyguards of Emrys Ambrosius Aurellianus, a northern warlord they called ‘Arthur the Bear’. The northern Britons were a different lot to the those who lived in realms like Vortigern’s. Perhaps it was because they were beset by constant attacks from invaders, but the northerners seemed a hardier, more self-reliant breed. Hagan had seen Emrys in a Roman toga but Cei and Bedwyr, his two most trusted warriors who watched his back, had long hair and moustaches in the manner of free Gauls. They were heavily muscled, their noses flat from being broken and their bodies scarred from war wounds. Hagan knew them and their reputation for violence was notorious. If anything did go wrong in this meeting, Hagan and his Saxon companions would have to deal with these two and that would not be easy. Especially without weapons.
Hagan’s gaze flicked to the man who sat one step down from Cei and Bedwyr. This thin man in his middle years unsettled the Burgundar more than the burly warriors who sat above him. The Bear’s advisor, the man they called the Myrddin – whatever that meant – had a strange aura about him. He had entered wrapped in a long dark cloak that was now folded beside him and his head was shaved. He had a sharp-featured face and watched the discussion below with intelligent grey eyes, his brow furrowed in concentration.
After the years Hagan had spent in the Roman Army he could understand the Roman tongue, unlike his Saxon companions. That was the ulterior motive for Arminius, the commander of the band of mercenaries Hagan now belonged to: picking him to guard Vortigern during this meeting, so he could also spy on proceedings.
‘The situation is intolerable,’ Constantine, King of Ceredigion, said. ‘The Picts cross the Great Northern Wall now it is undefended and ravage the north at will. The Scotti attack us from across the sea in their curraghs. They raid along the west coast, kill at will, burn our churches and take treasure and slaves. The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians. No one is safe. Even Calpurnius, a patrician and the senator of Bonaven, has had his villa set ablaze and his own son taken into slavery in Ireland. We must do something or Britannia will fall to these barbarians.’
Baths, senators, taxes and speaking the Roman tongue, Hagan mused. The Roman army may have left but these men carry on like they were still part of the Empire.
Looking around, Hagan saw that the Myrddin was looking up at him, now with narrowed, suspicious eyes. Did the man know he could understand Latin? Hagan looked away again, staring up at the ceiling and trying his best to look bored and disinterested.
‘If Vortigern would perhaps donate some of his horde of foreign hirelings,’ Emrys said, ‘then we could carry the fight to the Picts and the Scotti. We would have enough warriors to drive them back to their own lands and teach them the price of attacking Britannia.’
King Vortigern smiled but the expression held no mirth.
‘We all know why you would want me to move my warriors out of my realm, Emrys,’ he said. ‘It would leave me vulnerable. What would it benefit me if the Picts are driven north of the Wall yet I lose my own throne? No: we must make an appeal to Rome.’
‘You would invite the legions back to our land?!’ Emrys said, his voice touched with anger. ‘Just when we’ve made ourselves free?’
‘What sort of freedom has it proved to be?’ Vortigern said. ‘The freedom to be attacked at will by barbarians? To be beset in our own homes, within our own borders? I’d rather be bound by Roman Laws if it also meant Roman Peace.’
‘And what of Roman taxes?’ Conan Aurelian, the other northern British warlord, said.
‘If it means the return of Law and order then so be it,’ Bishop Cadoc said. He was the oldest of all those there. His ribs stood out on his scrawny naked body, which was hairless from age rather than fashionable shaving. ‘Did Jesus not teach us that we should “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”?’
‘I cannot spare men to fight these barbarians either,’ Cuneglas, the King of Gwynedd said. ‘I agree with Vortigern. We should ask Rome for help.’
‘It’s the most practical option,’ Maelgwyn, the last of the kings, said. He was a dark man with a bald crown who was examining his fingers as if bored with the discussion going on around him. ‘Let’s be honest. None of us trust each other enough to send our own warbands north to deal with these barbarians. Besides, if Rome can send her sons to do the dying for us then why should we sacrifice our own?’
The other kings and the bishop nodded.
‘So we are agreed, then?’ the bishop said. ‘We will write to General Aetius and appeal for Roman military help?’
‘All those in favour?’ Vortigern, standing up.
The four kings and the bishop raised their hands straight away. The two warlords did not, but seeing themselves outvoted, reluctantly raised their hands as well. The Myrddin scowled and shook his head.
‘Good,’ Vortigern said. ‘Let us not delay. Draft the letter straight away and it can be sent by the morning.’
At that everyone stood up and began moving for the door. The two sets of bodyguards made their way down from the top benches. As they passed by, Cei and Bedwyr cast supercilious smiles at the Saxons and Hagan that suggested the words maybe next time, foreigners. Then the whole company filed out of the sweating room.
A visit to the baths had a strict order – the tepidarium, the sudatorium, the caldarium, then finally a plunge into the cold waters of the frigidarium. From the rapid exit of the noble Britons from the sweating room and the stony lack of conviviality between them Hagan could tell the journey through the other parts of the ritual to the changing rooms would be short and unfriendly.
As they padded their way down the gloomy corridor towards the frigidarium they passed a series of small rooms available for hire when men wanted to conduct some private business for whatever reason. Hagan saw one of the bathhouse slaves approaching from the opposite end of the corridor. The slave bore a tray with grapes and other tasty morsels, a brass wine jug and two goblets on it, refreshments no doubt to be delivered to one of the private rooms.
In his time in the Roman Army Hagan had been trained to notice things. He had been part of an exploratores unit, scouts who went ahead of the legions into enemy territory, looking out for any natural obstacles, ambushes or traps. In such situations a change of the light or a swinging branch could be just a bird taking off, or it could be a warrior waiting behind a tree to slit your throat.
There was something about the way the slave carried the tray that was not quite right, Hagan realised. He was a young man who bounced on the balls of his feet as he walked. He was too fit, too well-fed and too upright for a slave. The tray seemed oddly balanced on his right hand as well.
Then the man dropped the tray. The hand beneath had a knife in it.
‘Death to tyrants!’ the man shouted. He lunged at Vortigern.
Hagan acted without thinking. He lashed out with his leg, kicking sideways. His foot caught the attacker on his right hip as he was stretching forward, knife raised to strike. It was enough to make the man stumble and his knife sliced air instead of Vortigern’s flesh. The king flinched away, a look of horror on his face.
The assailant stumbled sideways then regained his balance. He gnashed his teeth in frustration, then brandished the knife again.
‘Do something!’ Hagan shouted at his fellow bodyguards. Both of the big Saxons were standing back. The fact that they were naked somehow made them all the more cautious.
Hagan dipped and grabbed the fallen tray as the young man came forward to attack again. Hagan put himself in front of Vortigern. The assailant stabbed at Hagan’s chest. He just had time to pull the tray in front of him. The point of the blade hit the metal tray then made a nauseating squeaking, scraping sound as it skidded over the surface.
Hagan kicked the attacker again, this time in the groin. The man let out a gasp and doubled over. Hagan also cried out in pain. Naked as he was, he wore no shoes and the kick had sent pain shooting through his toes. Thankfully Horsa had finally recovered his wits. The big Saxon picked up the metal wine jug from where it had fallen and smashed it across the side of the attacker’s head. The man went stumbling sideways once more. Hagan flipped the tray around and thumped the attacker over the head with it. There was a clang but the man remained upright. Then Aella, the other Saxon guard, smashed his fist into the side of the young man’s jaw. The attacker’s eyes rolled up into his head, his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground.
‘Treachery!’ Vortigern howled.
Cei and Bedwyr grabbed the Bear and hustled him away down the corridor. The other British leaders likewise hurried away, everyone keen to get clear as fast as possible in case other murderers were about to strike. The strange man they called the Myrddin went after them, but not before he had shot a glance at the would-be killer. That glance bore enough disappointment that Hagan would have been prepared to wager silver on who had sponsored this attack.
‘Bind him,’ Vortigern shouted, pointing at the prone assailant. ‘I want to know who paid him to try to kill me. Torture him. Do whatever you need to but I want to know their names.’
Horsa sat on the unconscious assailant while Aella went to find something to tie him up with.
‘Well done, Saxon,’ Vortigern said, looking at Hagan. Then his expression changed to one of suspicion. ‘You acted fast. How did you know he was going to attack me?’
‘He didn’t look like a slave,’ Hagan said. ‘He bore himself with too much confidence. He’s too fit. He must have bribed one of the slaves to give him his tray.’
‘Bathhouse slaves are notoriously corrupt,’ Vortigern said. He tutted and shook his head. ‘It’s typical of the terrible state we are in that decent people can’t carry on their affairs in the bathhouse without fear of being robbed or murdered.’
Vortigern regarded Hagan with an expression of interest. ‘You did good work today, Saxon,’ the king said. ‘You are quick-witted, and you’ve shown you are capable in a fight. I might have a very special mission for you. How would you like to go to the Centre of the World?’
At that moment Hagan caught sight of Arminius, the leader of the mercenaries he was employed by. He was running towards them, anxious to find out what the commotion was about.
‘What’s going on?’ Arminius said.
Hagan had known Arminius since their days in the Roman Army; indeed at one time Arminius had been his commanding officer. He was much older than Hagan and though still straight-backed, retirement and the prosperity brought by his business meant his belly was expanding.
The others explained what had happened.
‘It was good work by your man here,’ Vortigern said. ‘I want him to go to Ravenna with the bishop.’
‘He’s the man I was telling you about, Lord Vortigern,’ Arminius said. ‘I was going to send him anyway.’
A look of realisation crossed Vortigern’s face that Hagan did not like the look of.
Arminius cocked his head towards Hagan and rolled his eyes in the direction of one of the doors to the private rooms. Hagan hung back, letting the others escort Vortigern out, then followed his commander into the room.
Once inside, Arminius closed the door carefully so as not to draw attention with the sound, then turned to Hagan.
‘So they really are going to do it?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Hagan said. He proceeded to give his commander a summary of what he had overheard.
When he had finished, a broad smile spread across the lips of Arminius.
‘This is excellent,’ he said. ‘And their appeal will go to General Aetius?’
‘Yes,’ Hagan said, clenching his teeth. ‘It seems that old butcher still lives.’
‘That’s no way to talk about our old commander, lad,’ Arminius said, with an admonishing smile.
‘That bastard was responsible for the deaths of my family, my friends and the old of my folk,’ Hagan said. ‘Every day I served under him made those wounds deeper.’
‘Well I hope you can get over that,’ Arminius said, with a twinkle in his eye that Hagan did not like. ‘Because you’ll be going along with that letter to meet General Aetius.’
Hagan took a step back, fists clenched.
‘There is no way—’ he began to say, then he saw the knife in Arminius’s hand.
The door opened and three of Arminius’s Saxons filed in. They barred the exit, arms folded before their chests.
‘I’m sorry, old friend,’ Arminius said. ‘But the general has specifically asked for some Burgundars. And he has offered good gold and silver if I can find him any.’
‘You are a mercenary bastard, Arminius,’ Hagan said with a sigh.
‘I thought you’d have realised this by now,’ Arminius said, a bemused smile on his lips. ‘I’m the mercenary bastard.’