Of that first desperate struggle against the veteran foe I can tell but vaguely, for I was in its midst, fighting as for my life and unseeing as to the general battle. Fiercely we charged and drove among the enemy with our chariots, but could not shatter them. These were the trained slayers of the world, and when one rank wavered or was broken, another rose behind it and ever the whole pressed forward, killing as it came and irresistible against a force with no planned manner of cohesion. We were driven backward, though fighting stubbornly, and, finally, the enemy overwhelmed and seized the camp, and the Britons, leaving a host of dead, were driven into the forests. There was a kind of re-formation and then began the running fight of days, as Cæsar neared the capital. There were bloody stands and skirmishes and we cut off many of the Romans in the woods, but nothing could stay their firm advance.
My Goneril was in London, where I had thought her most secure in this time of great jeopardy, though stubbornly she had insisted on following me into the field. Gerguint had joined his brother Kentish princes, and together they had attacked the Roman camp left with the ships and had been beaten, and there had Gerguint been sorely wounded and, barely escaping, had been carried to the harbourage of his castle. The main body of the Britons was now within and about London, and Cadwallon was to make his last stand against the approaching army of Cæsar, which threatened the passage of a ford above the city. At this ford all must be decided.
There had been treachery. Mandubratius, crafty and wavering chief of the Trohantes, to save himself, had cast his lot with Cæsar. Androgeus, a chief in command in London itself, had turned against Cadwallon and was tampering with the conqueror; and all these things gave fear. Yet we would make such stand as should be remembered long, and so all Cadwallon’s forces were drawn up beside the ford to dispute its passage. The Romans came, their legions rolling to the shore and entering the waters boldly while our own massed armament stood awaiting them with eager weapons, a multitude looking upon us from the slope behind, even our women among them, as was the Briton’s way. Then came the clash and struggle.
As the Romans neared the land, avoiding as best they could the sharpened stakes which had been set against them, their onrush was almost hidden by the cloud of spears and arrows falling upon them, and many were slain and carried downward by the glad current of the British river, but there was no checking them. Some struggled through and others followed as the first were slain, and soon the ranks had gained a footing, their front being lopped off as it came, but ever heaved forward by the tremendous mass behind. As in the surges of a growing storm, each succeeding wave crept further up the shore and the fight was soon on land. Though hate is in my heart for them, let none speak lightly of the dauntless courage or the stern hardihood and discipline of the Roman soldiers. Those ranks of iron pressed forward, though we raged among them with our chariots and met them manfully on foot with blows as fierce as their own and thrusts as deadly. But what could avail such ragged and open charge as made the wild Britons against an advancing wall which ever renewed itself as it was broken here and there? I, myself, fought side by side with chieftains of the Iceni, kinsmen of Goneril, with whom I had made friendship, and well they bore themselves. High up the slope were the Romans now, and there was at the front much intermingling of the opposing forces. My charioteer had fallen, and the horses had been slain, and I, on foot, was making red my heavy Viking battle-axe, but in dire peril, for we were driven backward step by step and soon I was half surrounded and felt a wound or two and began to breathe too heavily. Then came to my ears a woman’s cry. Circling downward and at one side from the slope above where were the onlooking multitude, had come Goneril, driven by grizzled Leir, her charioteer, and swinging to the front and very centre where she knew I would be found. There had been none who could restrain her. Mad with her fear for me, wild as a she-bear for her bayed mate, she had come storming on the battlefield, her dark hair streaming and the love flame in her eyes, seeking only to be with me, even in death together. And timely was her coming, for I had been beaten to my knee and was in sore strait. Surely the gods guided, for the chariot came to me through the mêlée as the wild bull through brush, and I was lifted to it by Leir’s strong arm as, scarcely slacking in its course, it passed athwart the raging lines and so away toward safety. And, even at that moment, as Goneril bent down toward me tenderly, there came a Roman javelin which drove deep into her side and, as it lurched out and away with the chariot’s surge, left, following it, a rush of her dear heart’s blood, drenching her robe with red. Into my arms she sank, and so I held her until, flying, we reached the wood, then laid her gently down on the greensward.
“I am weakening and dying. The Valkyrie are circling in the sky”
What can I say of that awful, awaiting moment, or of what came? She was still alive, my glorious Briton girl. She smiled upon me and sought to reach up her arms about my neck, and could not; then sighed a little and there died! Then all things passed away, and I fell as dead beside her.
There is little more to tell of Britain. Cæsar had triumphed; London had fallen; the conqueror had wreaked his stern will upon the land; Cadwallon had yielded and had agreed to pay tribute, and Cæsar, taking hostages and many prisoners to be sold as slaves in Roman marts, had sailed away. For a hard four hundred years the Roman heel would press on Britain’s neck. What was all this now to me! They had carried me and my dead Goneril away into the forest and, joined by certain of her kinsmen who had escaped, we took up our journey with my dead to the country of the Iceni, where they would bury her with the ceremonies befitting such a princess. All this we did, but I could speak no word. Men looked upon me with a sort of fear. My speech seemed lost, but came at last with the new swelling of the heart and the humming of the dark thoughts in my head. Nothing of Britain knew I longer. I was a Viking again with only Viking gods and Viking thoughts, and these transformed me. Cæsar had slain my Briton girl and, though it were forced or proffered, all the weregild of all the Roman world could bring no solace. Goneril was dead, and henceforth I lived but to bring death such as I might to every Roman! No oath of vengeance needed I to take on the white holy stone of Odin’s priests. I sought Gerguint, still wounded in his castle, and was received as if the castle was my own, but abode there only as a silent and unheeding guest. Time passed and, finally, I sought the little band of those I had hardened and taught to sail my shield-ship, and they joined me nothing loth, and in the darkness of a stormy night we crossed to the coast of Gaul, where I would fight against the Romans, for secret word came that there was nearing a head a vast uprising to cast off the Roman yoke.
Far to the south and west we laid our course, for I would hold it so well out at sea that we might avoid the Roman ships now haunting all the Gallic coast. Some days we sailed and, at last, having escaped them, made entrance at the mouth of a fair river called the Seine and sailed inland upon it until we reached an island where was a town, the capital of a partly maritime and trading people, the Parisii, who, because of their lack of strength, had allied themselves with the Senones, a more powerful tribe lying to the south of them. In this capital of the Parisii, or Paris, though called Lutetia by the Romans, were many who understood the Briton tongue; my small possession of Gallic also aided us somewhat and we were received with willingness and provided with food and a place for harbourage. The scene about us was of utmost tumult.
It was winter now and all Gaul was aflame with the hope of casting off the Roman power, in which great enterprise the various tribes had, after a council, ranged themselves under the leadership of Vercingetorix, a noble of the Arverni, and than of whom they could not have made wiser choice or one more likely to be followed by great outcome. Not only was he a man of courage and much skill in warfare, but also one who thought, not for himself alone, but calmly for the general good. Already had he a strong army in the field and was, after some slight successes, seeking to check the advance of Cæsar upon Avaricum, the chief city of the Biturges, and one which should have been abandoned. Vercingetorix had pleaded with the Biturges that they should sacrifice it for the sake of the whole country, that it might not fall into the hands of the Romans and so give them stores and shelter until they might carry on the invasion to better advantage when spring should come. In this he was overruled or overpersuaded by his assembled leaders, for the Gauls had some of the weaknesses of the Britons, in that they were most difficult to control as a united body. So Cæsar was advancing, though but slowly, upon the city, and Vercingetorix was hanging near him with his forces, making sudden attacks upon his flanks and withdrawing swiftly and with much display of wise generalship as the need came. To Vercingetorix, then, came I at once, followed by my little handful of adventurous Britons who were most faithful and men of hardihood, for such I had selected for my shield-ship.