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The Princes of Albion (The Long-Aimed Blow)

By Jon Hopkins, Thomas Hopkins

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C H A P T E R 1
Trespass

Your most imposing adversary defines who you
will become in this land.
— Scribonius Largus

AD 10

Caradoc escaped into the shadows. He raced
through Rome’s narrow alleyways, past firepots
embossed with the grim image of Caesar Augustus.
The flames flung spectral silhouettes on the stone
walls of the closely built apartments.
“Cultor! Moloch destinatur. You deserve death! I’m only
twelve summers old,” he cried out. He hoped the Roman
legionarius in pursuit heard the biting insult about worshiping
the god of stolen childhood innocence.
Cutting around a corner, he came into the main path
that led out of the tight maze and to the market thoroughfare
where he hoped to find his family. If he planned the
timing correctly, he would enter the street with the soldier
only a few steps behind. Once in the forum, he would
shame the man before the evening throng of shoppers and
make him pay for what he had done. Stay just far enough
ahead so that the soldier continued the chase. That was
his plan.
Staggering, bumping against the walls, the soldier
behind him knocked over a terra cotta urinal vase. “Commorari.
Tu es mihi,” he slurred.
“You want me to stop?” Caradoc looked over his shoulder.
“Apprendi, if you can!” He was certain the man would follow.
“Yeow!” Caradoc’s foot caught on the uneven pavement.
He slammed onto his knees, the momentum rolling him forward—
face-first. His head smacked the wet cobblestones.
Dazed, he grabbed his forehead, pushed his hair back, and
came away with blood on his hand.
A raven chortled high above the clay rooftops. The gurgling
croaks rose in pitch and then deepened, like the voice
of the goddess Morriga’n mocking him from high above.
With a wobbling lurch, the legionarius slid to a stop.
Snatching his prey’s woolen tunic, he yanked Caradoc up
from the ground, put him into an armlock, and dragged
him back toward the shadows.
“You don’t have your friends to help you this time,”
Caradoc said. He gritted his teeth and pulled on the soldier’s
arms. Almost the same height as the Roman, Caradoc
kicked the man’s shin with his bare heel as he pushed back
against the jabbing iron plates of the soldier’s armor.
“Pestis!” The soldier cursed and tightened his hold.
Caradoc drew in a breath, ducked his chin, scrunched
his shoulders together, and shoved. He slipped from the
man’s thick arms like a greased pig at a Bel-tene festival.
The soldier grabbed Caradoc’s tunic and turned him.
Clenching him in his fists, he lifted the youth up to his face.
Light flickered on the iron helmet and the flaming red crest.
The man’s breath spewed a sour vapor.
Caradoc’s stomach sickened, and he spat at the shadowed
face. “You will not hurt me again!” His voice echoed in
the empty alley.
The soldier set him down and lifted his fist. “Quin taces!”
“No! I will not shut up.” Unabashed, he stared into the
soldier’s eyes, daring him to strike.
The legionarius blinked and pushed the boy away.
Caradoc stepped back and stood unflinching before
him. A sly turn of his mouth accused the man of stupidity.
Bending over, the man put his hands on his knees.
He raised his hand—palm out—as if to say that Caradoc
should wait. Then, he put his hand to his head and swayed.
Stumbling back against the wall, the soldier bumped up
against one of the alley firepots, tipping it to one side. Coals
tumbled to the ground and hissed on the wet cobblestones.
The man laughed and spoke something unintelligible as
he fumbled with the drawstrings to a flask from his studded
leather belt. He took a long drink. Red liquid poured
over his chin onto his breastplate. He laughed again and
took another swig. He staggered forward a few steps toward
Caradoc, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed. His helmet
clanged on the stone street.
“Lay there,” Caradoc said, “like a fool measured for the
market. I will sell you before the night ends.”Caradoc clawed
his way out of the shadows to the sewage ditch that bisected
the dark alleyway. Behind him, he heard retching as the
soldier vomited.
Once at the cloaca, he fell hard to his knees. His reflection
in the sewage water revealed several fingernail claw
marks and a bruise on his jaw just beginning to swell. He
grimaced at the mirrored blood that trickled from his forehead
to his nose and then dripped into the dark, oily pool.
Earlier, he had ventured alone into a Roman bathhouse.
The bright marbled room and golden furniture had enraptured
him. Men sat in steaming rectangular pools scraping
fragrant perfumed oils from their skin with curved knives.
Smoke rose high to the painted ceiling above from lighted
incense sconces.
“You must pay a quadran,” someone had shouted at him
in Latin.
“I’ll pay his dues,” said a legionarius leaning by a small
doorway.
Now, in the alley, Caradoc plunged his hands deep into
the water to splash the image away. Beneath the surface of
the sewage, he grabbed a fistful of thick filth. He sat back
on his haunches and winced at the mud oozing between his
fingers. It reminded him of the slippery oil scraped from the
bodies of the men in the bathhouse. Closing his eyes, he
slapped the muck over his tunic to cover up the stench of
Roman oil and incense still present on his skin.
He coughed, tasted blood, and spat. He scanned his
surroundings.
The moon skirted the gap between the tall stone buildings,
showing nothing but shades of blackness. The lack of
color invaded his mind. Color is indulgence. He wished the
moon away. He did not want his shame exposed.
The raven chortled.
Caradoc’s head jerked up.
Through the encroaching fog, three bearded men dressed
in colorful tunics and skins approached. Their long flaxen
hair was tied back. Long swords hung at their sides.
“There you are, boy!” The oldest warrior’s graying beard
bobbed as he chuckled and pointed at Caradoc in the sewage.
Caradoc noted it.
The younger man, arms crossed, stopped in front of the
boy, his booted foot tapping the cobblestones. He watched
the road, not Caradoc, and Caradoc noted that as well. The
third and youngest man rested his hand on the sword at his
side. “Where have you been, boy?”
“Where were you, Uncle?” He turned to the booted man.
“Where were you, Father? Why weren’t you there?” He
struggled to rise. “And you, my grandfather? Where were
any of you when he violated me?”
The gray-bearded man reached up with both hands and
grasped the golden torc around his neck. “Humph. Get up.
Let’s be gone.”
“Those animals of the earth held my arms! Tore my
tunic!” Caradoc pulled his shirt. His hands flung out and
muck flew everywhere. “I cannot say the horrors he did to
me!” He rose to stand in front of his family. “Me. A prince
of Albion.”
His grandfather shrugged his shoulders. “I do not see
this man.”
“Back there. In the alley!” He put a hand on his grandfather’s
arm, who swatted the touch aside. “I will show
you. You will believe me!” Caradoc roared, pointing behind
him.
Grandfather spat. “Whatever it is, boy, you’re to blame.”
Carefully stepping around the filth, his family dragged
their feet as they followed him back into the darkness.
“There!”
The Roman lay passed out in his vomit, snoring.
“There. That is the animal!” Then, wrinkling his nose, he
said, “That Roman!”
“He’s just a drunk. He couldn’t harm anyone,” his grandfather
chided. “Let’s go.”
Caradoc took a breath. He shifted his weight on the balls
of his feet and doubled his fists as he glared at the men. He
turned and started toward the sleeping drunk.
“Wait.” His uncle grabbed him by the arm.
An icy wind blew through the alley.
The fog parted. Firepots sputtered.
Slowly, his uncle drew his longsword from its ornate
leather sheath. The man touched the flat of the blade to his
forehead and then, with both hands, offered it to Caradoc.
“If what you say is true . . . this is for you, my bold
nephew.”
Without hesitation, Caradoc took the sword. Felt its
weight. As the flame-pots flickered, he lifted it up so he
could see himself in the blade. He let out a low growl.
His uncle nodded.
Caradoc strode to where the soldier lay slumped in his
shining lorica segmentata and helm. He thrust the blade
between the laminated armor plates and up into the soldier’s
heart. Iron scraped past iron as breath released from
the body in a prolonged sigh.
He removed the sword with one hand and yanked off the
soldier’s helmet. The man’s eyes barely registered alarm.
His mouth, a silent, surprised “Oh.” Caradoc spat on the
upturned face. Then he lifted the longsword with both
hands and brought it down on his attacker. A sickening
crunch, and sparks sprang up as the blade sliced through
the man and into the cobblestones.
Seizing the scarlet scarf from around the man’s bleeding
neck, Caradoc wiped off the blade. He grabbed the man’s
flask and took a long drink. Wiping his mouth, he turned
away from the body and said in a low, gruff voice, “I hate
Rome.”
Far above him, the raven fluttered away.
With head held high, Caradoc turned to where his family
waited for him. He pushed past a few paces and stopped,
glancing behind once more at the stream of blood that
flowed, snakelike, into the sewer. “That is the only Roman
red that pleases me,” he snarled and entered the busy
Roman boulevard—alone.

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