In the Shadow of the Wall Read Free

are really not very friendly,” the tribune said. “For a Roman citizen to go there is very dangerous. Especially just now.”
    “Cut your balls off as soon as look at you,” the centurion added cheerily, bringing stifled laughs from the nearby soldiers.
    “I can take care of myself,” Brude said evenly, trying to stare the young tribune down.
    “The centurion says you won the rudis?”
    “Four summers past,” Brude confirmed.
    “Then I expect you can take care of yourself,” the tribune conceded.
    Brude just gazed at him calmly, daring him to refuse permission. After a moment the tribune backed down. He signalled to the soldiers manning the gate. “Let him through!”
    Brude exchanged a nod of mutual respect with the centurion, tugged on the halter rope and walked steadily forwards as one of the huge wooden gates was pulled inwards. He passed through the shadows of the gateway. Heart pounding, half expecting the tribune to change his mind, he made his way out to the other side.
    He had made it. He was going home.

 

    A.D. 196

 
    Colm and Brude were going to war. They were sixteen years old and felt invincible. Like all the men, theyhad painted their faces and bodies with the blue war dye, daubing each other with swirling lines and circles, tracing images of bears, horses and eagles across their chests. They admired each other, laughing as they painted themselves. For the march, Brude was wearing a linen shirt but he left the front untied so that his painted chest and belly could be seen. When the time came for fighting he would discard it so that he could face the enemy with his upper body bare. To complete his battle gear he was carrying a large, round shield and a long spear with a wickedly sharp iron blade fixed to the tip. He had worked on its edge for days, rubbing and oiling until it was so sharp he could have shaved with it. If he had been old enough to have any beard worth shaving.
    He stood among the crowd of warriors savouring the applause from the assembled villagers, trying to see whether Mairead was watching him, but at the same time trying not to appear as if he was looking for her. Instead he saw his mother kissing his father farewell and he joined in the chorus of cheers that greeted the gesture. Brude’s father was the head man of the village, a wealthy man who owned nearly twenty head of cattle. Now, dressed in his bronze breastplate which gleamed like gold in the summer sun and carrying a mighty sword at his waist, he was about to lead his twenty-eight warriors on the greatest adventure of their lifetime.
    Nechtan himself had come all the way from his fortress in the hills, bringing a huge army of over ninety warriors. Nechtan, acknowledged among the Boresti as the mightiest warlord of the tribe, had called the leaders of all the villages to set aside their squabbles and join him in the march south. For the news had reached them that the Romans had sailed away, across the sea, leaving only a handful of soldiers to guard their province. The time was ripe for the tribes of the Pritani to go south to plunder the wealth of the undefended towns. Nechtan, sitting astride his horse, had told them that the men of the Venicones, the Damnonii and the Selgovae would join them in the greatest army the Pritani had mustered in nearly twenty years.
    Brude felt proud to be a part of such a great adventure. He and Colm had talked of little else in the past days. They had practised with their spears and shields, copying the older warriors, the battle-scarred men who plastered their hair with lime to shape it like the mane of an angry horse. The two boys had dreamed of the deeds they would accomplish and the Romans they would kill.
    Now Colm stood beside Brude, grinning broadly as he waved to someone in the crowd. Brude followed his gaze and saw Mairead, standing in the shadow of the great broch, a garland of flowers in her long hair. She gave them a smile and Brude smiled back. Colm frowned when he saw