Chapter 1

A Beginning

The young boy, no more than 14 summers old, looked down on a scene that stirred his heart with pride. Thirty thousand Caledonians massed like never before and massed for only one reason, to challenge the might of the Roman invaders.

He stood at 5’8” already, which was tall not only for his age but unusual for his tribe where average adult male height ran to 5’7”/5’8”. Slim, with raven black hair, he had eyes of the most piercing blue and an almost permanent grin.

The boy could tell from the flying standards that the majority of the Caledonian forces he could see were made up of members of the Caledonii, Venicones, Vacomagi and Taexali tribes. He guessed that meant they were in the far North East of the country where these tribes had continued thus far free from the crushing occupation of the Romans. Nonetheless, smaller groups of his own Damnonii tribe as well as Votadini and Otadini could also be identified in the massed ranks from their own unique banners and standards.

Further North and East he could see the sun glinting off of what could only be the Great North Sea. There, a huge fleet was hove to and thousands of Roman soldiers were marshalling in front of what was a temporary camp. The boy’s youthful, keen eyesight suggested that the Caledonians outnumbered the Romans by perhaps three to two. His countrymen also had the tactical advantage of the high ground, being ranked and tiered up the slope of a steep hill. A squadron of Caledonian chariots patrolled back and forth on the flatter plain at the foot of the hill.

Somehow the scene hiccupped and the boy could now see the Romans had advanced toward his countrymen. Four huge divisions of infantry marched forwards, their movement totally synchronised and coordinated, and their armour, weapons and plumed helmets moving as if as one. The boy gulped, unable to stop himself being impressed by the display.

Before the Caledonian chariots could drive towards the Roman infantry to cause bloody ruin, a pincer movement of two columns of Roman cavalry, perhaps four thousand in total, swept in from both flanks and completely overwhelmed them in one charge. The boy could clearly hear the screams and the clash of metal. He could see how the weight of the Roman horse washed over the charioteers like a huge stormy wave crashing over rocks on the beach, swallowing and covering everything in its scale and power.

“NO!” cried the boy aloud with anguish, as he witnessed the slaughter of his fellow tribesmen. “NO!” he screamed.

Seeing the charioteers slaughtered, the serried ranks of Caledonians on the hill now screamed their own battle cries and came rushing down to engage. The Roman cavalry had time to re-group and ride to meet the charge, scything through the foot soldiers like ripened wheat, as they reached the flatter ground.

A babble of screaming – both of angry challenges, but also of mortal pain – mixed with the clang of metal swords on metal shields as the two sides met head on at close quarters.

Again the boy wailed loudly. “NO! By the gods, NO!”

The momentum of the Caledonians’ charge downhill having been sapped by the Roman cavalry, that advantage was now lost. The Roman infantry were veterans of this scale of warfare unlike the tribesmen who normally avoided such pitched battles in favour of smaller skirmishes. The experience and discipline of the hardened Romans, together with their superior tactics and equipment now proved crucial.

As the boy watched in horror, the front rows of the four Roman Legion infantry divisions locked their full body shields together to form impenetrable walls of armour. None of these troops even tried to strike a blow at their adversaries other than to use their shields as a battering ram. The infantry ranks behind the shields however, repeatedly stabbed forward with long spears causing carnage. With the cavalry continuing to ride roughshod over the Caledonians on the flanks the battle quickly degenerated into a rout. The tribesmen began to try to disengage and head for the relative safety of nearby woods. Many were not successful with the Roman cavalry riding them down without mercy.

“Gods have mercy!” the boy howled.

A discordant noise intruded into the boy’s consciousness over the bedlam of the battle below.

“Sardi! Sardi! Wake up boy, why are you making such a racket?”

Sardi’s eyes blinked open and he recognised his mother, Maeve, leaning over him, a worried look on her face.

“It was only a dream, a nightmare! Thank the Gods.” Sardi thought with relief. He realised his mother was still lightly shaking him awake with one hand on each of his shoulders.

“I had a nightmare, Mom. A huge battle with thousands of men. Thousands of Caledonians and thousands of Romans. The Romans won. They killed many of the tribesmen. There were bodies and blood everywhere. So many dead.”

“Oh my little man,” Sardi’s mother responded, pulling him into a hug. “What nonsense is this? What battle? Where?”

Sardi momentarily stiffened in his mother’s embrace, somewhat annoyed at being called a ‘little man’. The comfort and warmth of her re-assuring hug quickly overrode that though and he relaxed in her arms.

“It was a nightmare, only a nightmare,” Sardi shuddered now against his mother’s shoulder, images of the carnage and gore still vivid in his memory.

“There, there baby,” his mother crooned as she gently rocked him. “Only a nasty old dream, try to get back to sleep. It will be a long hard day in the fields tomorrow.”

Sardi raised his head and took a look around the small broch his family called home. The modest stone built structure comprised a single room with a fire pit dug in the centre. The birch pole ‘thatch’ supported a roof of turves with a hole left above the fire to aid ventilation. Some basic utensils for cooking and eating were stored along one wall while the bedrolls for himself, his mother and his father were lain out as close to the fire as was safe. Even in mid-summer the nights could be cold here in his settlement – Lindum, on the shores of Loch Lomond. Bunches of various plants were strung together and hung from the wall above where the utensils were stored.

Noticing that his father’s bed lay empty, Sardi enquired sleepily as to his whereabouts.

“Where is Papa?” he asked. “Why is he gone in the middle of the night?”

“A Druid’s work is never done, son,” his mother answered. “Your father is out foraging for the special herbs and other ingredients he uses in his medicines and potions. Some can only be found at night according to him.”

Maeve’s reply was tinged with a note of anger, as she suspected her husband’s night-time ‘foraging’ was in part cover for other activities. She knew that someone with the status of Druid might expect to be able to indulge in activities of a raw, carnal, nature – particularly with unattached women. Although it was expected and accepted by the members of the tribes, she didn’t need to like or approve of it, especially when it concerned her own husband.

Sardi’s father, Frace by name, was indeed a Druid. Though nominally based in one settlement, Druids tended to wander far and wide. They provided spiritual guidance, undertook healing and provided sage advice to tribal leaders. Their wandering also allowed them to keep themselves up to date with social and political developments and to act as a vital line of communications between the various tribes of the Caledonii.

Even at the age of fourteen Sardi had accompanied his father on a number of such ‘pilgrimages’ which ensured that he was already much more worldly and politically aware than most – a factor in him being able to recognise so much in his nightmare - like locale and the different tribes’ standards. The men of the Damnonii seldom travelled very far from the lands that they claimed as their own, but Sardi had followed his father beyond the line of the Clyde and Forth and even beyond the Firth of the Tay. His father had also begun to teach him how to read and write in the secret language that all Druids used, so he was well-educated – a very unusual thing for his time.

Eventually the rocking and crooning from his mother soothed Sardi and dimmed the haunting images of the nightmare. His eyes drooped closed and he fell off to sleep once more, thankfully without a repeat of the bloody dream.

Sardi was up early the next morning, the nightmare of the previous evening forgotten with the resilience of youth. After hastily wolfing down a bowl of warm porridge, he pulled back the hide covering the doorway of the broch and was outside ready for the work of the day. As his mother had warned, it was a long and hard day with all of the tribe of the Damnonii sharing in the work of tending to the livestock and crops.

His favourite person to share the working day with was Aelfi, a pretty girl close to his age. She was a year younger and stood at only 5’ even with long golden hair braided and hanging to the middle of her back. Her almost stick thin body belied the wiry strength she possessed and her twinkling blue eyes hinted at her mischievous nature. With harvest time only a few weeks away, it was important that the grain crops received just the right amount of moisture to ensure maximum yield but not too much else there might be difficulties in it ripening before the season of heavy rains.

Sardi and Aelfi together worked a series of sluices, winding the gates open to allow water from nearby streams to irrigate the grain fields. Both of the youngsters recognised the great responsibility they carried to get the amount of watering right. Too little could mean a low yield and too much could lead to the settlement going hungry throughout the coming Winter months.

At the third sluice Aelfi crouched poised to remove the peg that held the sluice winch holding the gate open. Sardi’s critical eye watched the volume of water flowing into the irrigation channel until he gauged that sufficient water had been allowed through.

“Now, Aelfi! Close the gate,” he called.

Aelfi pulled the peg from the winch allowing the hemp rope to stream out from the spool, being pulled by weight of the heavy wooden gate as it slammed downward to shut off the flow of water from the stream.

Waiting until Sardi was close to the winch, Aelfie’s arm came from behind her back holding the rag that she had soaked in the cold water of the stream. Her throw was accurate, as the sodden rag caught Sardi full in the face with a wet splat!

“Ha! Got you! Last one back to the settlement gathers in the cow pats for tonight’s fire!” she squealed, even as she began haring back towards the little hamlet.

“You brat! spluttered Sardi, giving chase. He didn’t run flat out, content to let her have the victory and happy to see her enjoying herself. In any event it wouldn’t do to have the pretty girl soiling her hands gathering dried cow dung!

Aelfi was still laughing by the time Sardi reached the settlement for the midday meal. They both joined a group of six other boys and girls as was their custom, staying away from the adults who they considered altogether too serious and no fun at all.

Sardi and Aelfi sat side by side as always and were sharing some flatbread, cold meat from the previous night’s meal and some leaves and shoots that they had foraged during the morning.

After the group had shared how their morning chores had gone, Sardi remembered his nightmare and proceeded to share the details of it with the group.

“Eeewwww, that sounds absolutely horrible,” shuddered Lifene, the thirteen year old daughter of the headman of the settlement. “All that blood and killing! Ugh, don’t tell us anymore, I don’t want to be the one having a nightmare tonight.”

Aelfi could see how even the re-telling of the story affected Sardi and she slipped his hand into hers, giving it a re-assuring squeeze.

“Quite obviously only a dream though,” offered Calem, a slightly older boy. “There’s no way we would lose to the Romans if we had them so outnumbered. Stands to reason that any one of us is worth at least two or three of them!”

“I can only tell you what I saw,” Sardi replied a little defensively. “I think there were about thirty thousand Caledonii and only twenty thousand Romans, but they cut our warriors down like defenceless cattle.”

“I hate the bloody Romans!” blurted another boy – Taroc, a thirteen year old who, following in his father’s footsteps was already a passable hunter and provider of meat for the settlement.

The little group frantically looked around the Lindum settlement at his outburst. Their eyes searched out how close the standing detachment of Roman soldiery were to them and what the likelihood was that Taroc’s words had been overheard. Thankfully none of the soldiers were close by.

“I think we all agree with you, Taroc.” Sardi sympathised. “It’s not the time to be foolish, however, our time will surely come when the boot is on the other foot. Until then we have to be smart.”