Chapter 7

The walk back to Lindum for the six youngsters took more than a week. Taroc wasn’t as successful in his hunting and by the time they reached the settlement all of them were growing tired of only having the fish Sardi ‘caught’ to eat. Sardi laughed at them and pointed out that eating fish was better than starving.

There was quite an outcry when they were spotted passing the barn and granary. Six sets of parents (for Aelfi and Lifene, only their mothers) cried tears of joy and relief that their children had returned safely. Sardi noted that, while his mother shed tears, his father didn’t and neither did he have a hug for his son.

The new Headman, Sagicus, suggested that the people of the settlement should gather at the meeting hall and that the youngsters could then tell everyone what they had been up to.

“I know that everyone wants to hear your story,” he explained, “this way we can all hear it at the same time and that will save you having to repeat yourselves.”

It took some time for everyone to gather and then settle down enough for the youngsters to make themselves heard. Sardi found the others nudging him forward, clearly expecting him to take the lead in telling the assembled crowd what they had been doing for the past few weeks. He began quite hesitantly, being a little nervous at speaking to so many all at once. Eventually he warmed up though and he shared details of the trip the six of them had taken to return the wagons full of grain to the Caledonii.

Sardi omitted any description of how they had managed to get the wagons away from the Romans. Neither did he make any mention of the use of his abilities to provide food or to save him and his friends from being attacked by the Caledonii. He certainly made no reference to the new dreams that he had experienced, or about the fact that he now had suspicions about the behaviour of a Druid. He ended his narrative with a little mis-direction by describing how it had been Calgacus’ idea to unite the northern tribes by making the Venicones, Taexalii and Vacomagii part of the Caledonii. That naturally led to the explanation of why such a move was necessary.

“Calgacus told us that the Romans are trying to establish permanent camps all across the north and east,” he lied, given that it had actually been Sardi who informed the Caledonii of this. “It appears as if they plan to occupy the entire country if they can. By uniting all of the tribes under his control, Calgacus will have a much larger and better co-ordinated force with which to fight the Romans.”

Sardi’s five friends had quickly cottoned on to the fact that he was deliberately playing down the part he had played in their adventure and realised that this was to avoid any further mention of his growing abilities. Even with all of that detail left out, however, it was still an incredible story and it left the people of Lindum stunned. When Sardi finished talking there were a few moments of stunned silence and then everyone seemed to start shouting questions at once. His father eventually managed to make himself heard above the din, people recognising the Druid’s voice and naturally giving him precedence due to his status. Frace, not for the first time, was somewhat mocking and disbelieving.

“You expect us to believe that six youngsters managed to take twenty wagons from Roman soldiers and then drive these wagons all the way beyond the River Tay?” he asked scornfully. “Just how did you manage to free the wagons from the Romans?”

Sardi fought down the anger and disappointment at the verbal attack from his father and he tried to remain calm as he responded. He felt Aelfi pulling herself tightly to his side, openly lending him her support.

“We didn’t have to fight the Romans for the wagons,” he worded his answer carefully, “we found the wagons abandoned.

The answer was true enough; it just left out the explanation of what had caused the Romans to leave the wagons behind. Sardi smiled as he saw his friends nodding in agreement with him though, backing him up in his description of events.

“Why would the Romans abandon so much grain after fighting for it in the first place?” Frace demanded to know.

Sardi shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ve no idea,” he replied. “The Romans weren’t around to ask and we didn’t want to hang around to see if they would return.”

Frace frowned deeply at the almost flippant response, a response which raised a few laughs amongst the crowd. He tried once again to poke holes in Sardi’s story.

“And how exactly were six youngsters able to drive twenty wagons at one time and drive them so far?” he sneered.

“Just what have I done that has made the Papa who once loved me so much seemingly now hate me?” Sardi asked himself.

He could see his mother at the front of the crowd also shaking her head in sorrow at Frace’s behaviour.

“To be honest father, we didn’t drive them so much as just pointed them in the right direction. The horses must have been well trained and they seemed to know what to do without any help from us,” Sardi deliberately downplayed the achievement.

Frace snorted in disgust at the answer and whirled angrily to push his way through the crowd. Other questions were then called out.

“How did you survive out there for more than two weeks?” shouted someone. “What did you do for food?”

“Taroc had his bow and spear, so he hunted for us,” Sardi answered. “We also did very well at fishing.”

Behind him his friends grinned at this.

Eventually the questions dried up and people began to drift back to the jobs they had been doing when the youngsters had returned.

The Roman Governor Agricola was livid. He paced to and fro, directing his anger at the Legatus that had brought him very bad news.

“How could they have simply ‘lost’ twenty wagons of grain?” he roared.

The Legatus actually took a step backwards at the ferocity of his commander’s question but he couldn’t offer an answer.

“Do you have any idea how much planning went into capturing that grain?” Agricola bawled. “The logistics and co-ordination to move such a large fleet, the spying to pin-point where the granaries were located and to tell us exactly when the harvest was complete?

“Do you know how many risked their lives to defeat those Caledonian savages to secure that grain? And now you’re telling me that they simply lost it but have no explanation? I want every man responsible returned to Rome in disgrace! In disgrace, do you hear? Useless fools!

“This will put my campaign back by at least a year. Instead of facing a much reduced and weakened force in the spring, the Caledonians will almost be at their full strength.

“And having been caught out once you can rest assured they will not be caught out like that again. No! They will never store their grain in a way that makes it so vulnerable.

“Get out! Out! Before I have you returned to Rome along with them!”

The Legatus was relieved to have the opportunity to escape his commander’s wrath and he beat a hasty retreat.

Calgacus found that it was not as difficult a job to persuade the Venicones’ leadership to join his tribe as he had imagined. The fact that they had already discovered two Roman camps being established in their territory brought home to them the need to join forces if they were to remain free of the invaders.

Calgacus questioned them as to the location of the camps and sent out his own scouts to gather intelligence as to Roman troop numbers and the types of defences that were being set up.

Having achieved his objective, he ordered the Venicones to secure their grain stores and if possible, to hide them. Then he led his force in the direction of those lands claimed by the Taexalii.

Fraticus returned from the south four days after Sardi and his friends had made it back to Lindum. He wasted no time in searching out his fellow druid to share with him what he had discovered from the Romans on his trip. Once again the two Druids opted to walk together along the loch-side to ensure their privacy.

“It seems we underestimated the Romans, my friend,” Fraticus told Frace. “The Romans didn’t sail south after the battle of Mons Graupius as we thought, instead they are establishing camps in the north and they plan to remain their over the winter. When spring comes they will attack the Caledonii who will be severely weakened due to starvation over the winter months.”

“I too have news, Fraticus,” Frace replied. “I already know about the Roman camps. There are six of them – two in the territory of the Vacomagii, two in the lands claimed by the Taexalii and two in the territory of the Venicones.”

Fraticus’ expression showed his surprise that Frace was already aware of this information.

“How did you find this out?” he asked.

“That fool son of mine heard it from Calgacus himself,” Frace answered. “And there is more. The reason my son was speaking to Calgacus was that he somehow managed to liberate the Caledonian grain from the Romans as they were transporting it south. He returned all of the grain to the Caledonians and that’s when he learned of these camps.”

“But, that’s incredible!” blurted Fraticus. “How did a boy manage to take the grain away from the Romans?”

“He claims the Romans simply abandoned the wagons carrying the grain, but I know there must be more to it than that,” replied Frace.

“Incredible,” said Fraticus once more. “Still, returning the grain to the Caledonians doesn’t really harm our plans. They will still need to fight the Romans in the spring and they will lose a great number of their people. That will curb their power and strength.”

“Wait!” said Frace, “Don’t be so quick to pass over the importance of the Caledonians having their grain restored.

“Taking the grain from the other tribes was one of the key motivations Galni was able to use to persuade Calgacus to attack them. With that motivation removed, and the knowledge that the Romans are establishing camps, my son also learned that Calgacus plans to unite all of the tribes in the north under him. That would create a single, all powerful, tribe and that’s just what we want to avoid.”

“By the Gods!” spluttered Fraticus. “How is this possible? We must do something to stop him!”

“I fear it is too late for that, my friend,” said Frace, shaking his head. “I also believe that Sardi played more of a part in all of this than he is letting on. I need to deal with my son now, before he does further damage.”

“what are you going to do?” asked Fraticus.

“I don’t know yet,” Frace replied, “but I sense I need to move quickly. The boy is growing too influential and the strange abilities he has already demonstrated seem to be growing stronger.

“I need to isolate him somehow and unbalance him if I can. I’m sure that his little girlfriend is the key to that. Beyond achieving that, I need to put an end to Sardi’s abilities somehow. Maybe if we could find a pretext to have him return north, close to these Roman camps, you could arrange for something to happen to the boy?”

The boy in question was crouched at the side of a hut within the settlement watching the two druids walking on the banks of the loch.

“Those two spend a lot of time talking secretly with one another.” Sardi thought to himself. “I wonder if Galni isn’t the only druid acting as no druid should. I wonder if all of the druids have a plan of some sort, a plan that doesn’t sit well with the idea of a united Scotland? Yes, that might explain a lot. It might be the very reason my own father seems to have turned against me. The timing seems right; it was just after I told him about my vision of a future Scotland that he started treating me differently.”

Sardi thought about the druids quite a bit over the next few days. He remembered his own words to his friends about defeating the Romans, how it was important to really understand your enemies in order to identify how to defeat them. He decided that there was enough evidence to at least suspect that the druids were acting in their own self-interest rather than for the good of the tribes.