Free Death of an Empire by M. K. Hume Page A

As Myrddion and his apprentices walked into the cramped space within the gate, it was plain that these men had tried to defend the town. Their weaponry was clearly Roman in design, but they were obviously incapable of protecting themselves against an army intent on rape and plunder. Most of the bodies were of old men or very young boys on the brink of adulthood, causing Myrddion to wonder about the fate of the able-bodied. A few black-fletched and broken arrows spoke mutely of defences that had been mounted in the stone houses closest to the wall, and Cadoc found the corpse of one boy whose ruined hand still held a slingshot.
    Search as they might for any sign of life during the gruesome day that followed, the healers discovered that Tournai was a dead town, stripped of anything of value and then burned. No wounded survivors, no items of value and no hope remained after the passage of an army whose aim was complete destruction.
    As the wagons skirted the city walls, Finn caught a flash of light in the trees to their right. For a brief instant, he expected armed horsemen to ride threateningly out of the lengthening shadows under the trees, as if the reflection of light on a sword blade had betrayed the presence of watchers. Then cold reason overrode his moment of panic as he realised that the army was long gone, for their tracks were quite evident in the trampled grasses, heading towards the south where, the healers had beentold, the town of Cambrai, a Frankish centre, lay open for plunder.
    ‘I saw something flash on the edge of the forest,’ Finn murmured softly to Myrddion. ‘Someone is still alive, but they seem keen to remain in hiding.’
    Myrddion followed Finn’s pointing arm with his quick black eyes. At first the hidden survivor was elusive, but then, just when the healer was about to turn away, weak sunshine struck a reflective surface and pinpointed its position under a coppice of trees.
    ‘We’re being watched, master,’ Finn said reflectively, as he fumbled for his long knife under the seat of the wagon with one booted foot.
    ‘I see it, Finn! If this observer wants us, then he’ll find some way to approach us. I’ll not risk the women and our tools of trade to explore the forest. Every tree could hide an enemy warrior.’
    The wagons creaked into movement, the groan of the huge iron-braced wheels almost drowning the sound of the horse’s hooves as they slid on the rough stone surface. The steady slap of one open flap of the wagon’s leather cover was a comforting counterpoint to the complaint of the wooden axles. With one eye on the far-off forest, Finn Truthteller urged the horses into greater effort with a deft flick of the reins.
    No survivors crowded the roads. No terrified peasants clustered around the wagons for an illusion of comfort. The cleared farmlands were fecund with growth, but every wooden dwelling had been looted before being gutted by fire. Even the dead became commonplace as their remains swelled in the sunshine. Sickened, Myrddion gave the order that they should push on to whatever lay ahead, leaving the bodies to be absorbed back into the earth whence they had come. Three men could never hope to bury so many.
    The healers travelled for three days, finding game wherever they could in the dark shadows of the forest. Although hunger wasbeginning to hollow their bellies, Myrddion was not yet sufficiently desperate to hack half-rotted meat from the corpses of beasts that the marauders had placed in streams to foul the water and poison what remained of the local citizenry.
    On the fourth day, as they crossed a narrow bridge, the healers saw Cambrai before them. The town had been warned of the approach of the enemy, so the devastation was less obvious outside the solid rock walls that protected the city. Terrified by the smoke from burning Tournai, the peasants had begged for shelter within Cambrai’s defences. The walls possessed a cyclopean strength, for the Romans who had built the