Gurgallo
It was cold, slippery
underfoot and loud, most of the clamour coming from the hundreds of vendors in
their myriad dialects, plying their trades at the tops of their voices from
behind their colourful stalls, the breath from their calling billowing into the
icy air. This narrow, busy street was lined with them and the savoury, spicy
and complex aromas coming from their produce, mingled with the less pleasing
smells emanating from this industrious crucible of urban humanity.
The priest stayed
hidden in the deep hood but looked ancient in his long dark robe of black wool,
which swept the ground with its ragged hem as he trod the ice-crusted and muddy
streets of Duru Anfers. He was a big man with broad shoulders under the cloak,
belied by his stoop and the use of the long shepherd’s crook in his one
remaining hand. This sombrely dressed invalid was a stranger to most of these
busy Galliad werrin scurrying around him but familiar to one or two important
people in this town and the one-handed priest seemed to know exactly where he
was going, turning down a narrow alley beside one of the taverns and vanishing
through a low door.
Lludd Llaw Ereint had sought out surviving old trading
partners and valued friends, assessing the situation across this great country
and seeing what was left of the Galliad culture and the present standing of his
old business partners but more vitally, how many of his previously very
lucrative buyers and suppliers had vanished, to be replaced by unfriendly Roman
equivalents. The few remaining people familiar to him seemed the same since his
arrival, once you got past their mistrust and perpetual fear, but he knew
beforehand that no one could be trusted here, as the Romans had eyes and ears
everywhere, making his other far more secret mission that much more precarious.
Staying with old friends in this huge market town of the conquered Menapi, Lludd
was attempting to put Caesar’s preparations under surveillance as he wandered
these cold and snow-bound lands in disguise as a penniless, disabled priest.
All in Prydein knew of Caesar’s sworn return and the vengeance he planned for
her subjects, so Lludd was just the latest in a long line of emissaries and
spies, sent over the channel to Gallia to monitor the Roman’s progress and what
he had seen, had filled him with fear for his brother Caswallawn, his country
and its naively innocent werrin.
Shortly after his arrival, he had been
petitioned by a gang of Arch-Druids to undertake another secret mission for
them and for the whole fledgling rebellion. They had made it clear to him, that
it was vital and that there was no other person alive who had a chance of
bringing it off. Once Lludd had heard the details and appreciated the
importance of the proposed task he had felt in no position to refuse, even as
it was no mean demand they were making of him and it required many hard days of
travelling on horseback in this freezing weather and with Romans crawling this
land like tics on a sheep, it was a momentous challenge but the sons of Beli
Mawr relished any challenge and his ferocious, legendary heir baulked at none. Lludd
Llaw Ereint’s interest in any proposed challenge in life could be described in
a sweeping line on a slate, claw-scored with the bone-white claw of a dragon
and drawn in an identical curving arc to the measure of danger involved in that
same endeavour. So Lludd had accepted the dangerous task, and the week-long
ordeal it demanded with the grace and confidence he had also become well-known
for.
In this new and perilous endeavour
which had been thrust upon him, Lludd travelled inland crossing the River
Scaldis, whose cold grey rushing waters formed the tribal boundary between the
coastal Menapi and the warlike midland Nervi, who had been virtually wiped out
in the so-called Gallic Wars three years previously. Their King and his
champions had all been slain and their lands put to the torch by Caesar and ‘Lucky
Labienus’, as Caesar’s formidable Legate had been subsequently called by the
Brythons, following his narrow escape from death last summer in the fiasco of
his General’s previous attempt at invasion.
Lludd’s route south-east from the
border led up from the winding, arterial river through mountain passes filled
with snow and Lludd had forged through them stubbornly, to visit what was left
of the proud Galliad tribe who had suffered so greatly at Roman hands. The
Nervi historically held the ‘Rheolwr y
Grym’ in these ice-locked lands over all their vassal tribes and for their regular
and respectful tribute, would do most of the fighting for them. Whilst this
suited their vassal tribes well enough, allowing them to forego military duty
and spend more time farming and manufacturing, it softened their outlook.
Inevitably, this led over generations to the ruling Nervi being the only real
military force in all their broad midland territory, whilst their weakened
vassals slid even more into peace-loving pastoralism. The wily Caesar had used
this to great advantage when he had conquered their whole lands, as once the
ruling and unshakeably warlike Nervi had been cunningly brought to battle and
defeated, their whole alliance of vassal tribes had folded around them like a
poorly footed fence. Lludd had found the remaining Nervi a mere timid fragment
of their previous ferocious glory, eking out a semi-frozen existence in the
remnants of their shattered towns and villages. There was one infamous warrior
who was rumoured to have returned to his homeland here however and was living
in a secluded, little known valley nearby and Lludd sought him out like a
tracker hound. This man-mountain who had hidden himself away was a ferocious
warrior and an infamous, celebrated lord of war, who had been a repeatedly
victorious chieftain in the days before Rome arrived and was known throughout this
ice-locked part of Gallia, as a man to walk around and to leave alone.
Lludd had met him and assisted him
bravely many years previously and this man he sought on behalf of the
rudderless and as-yet largely formless rebellion, was more of a myth than a
legend now, having escaped execution at Caesar’s hands following his capture and
the total defeat of his tribe, vanishing from the face of the earth to all
accounts. The mighty ‘Gurgallo’ had
been the Nervi’s much celebrated and gold adorned sword-champion and his legend
would take a Bard all day to recite. If Lludd could persuade this bear of a man
to come out of hiding, or ‘retirement’ as the great warrior no-doubt would call
it, it could make all the difference to the fledgling rebellion as he knew the
warriors of all the Galliad tribes would follow him, Belgic and Celtic both.
When he had been ushered into the
monstrous warrior’s thatch as an old friend, Lludd had revised his opinion of
the mature man who now welcomed him, in that just from his appearance alone, he
thought warriors from any nation in the world would follow him into battle
against any odds. It soon transpired that Gurgallo the man, possessed the kind
of unshakeable self-belief and the sharp but cool thinking of a natural leader,
but it was his reputation as a tactically brilliant Warlord which Lludd knew could
make all the difference in the months to come.
This fully-grown and fully-formed Warlord
who was so incongruously gracious with his hospitality had looked out of place
in his domicile, being too large in all senses to be contained by its thatched
wattle and daub constraints and Lludd could feel the waves of latent but
frustrated power coming from the big man, as they talked about the Roman curse
around his generous hearth. In that lugubrious mood of his he had reminded
Lludd somewhat of Gŵyr Brith Fawr of the mighty Gadwyr,
as he had a similarly huge presence and a savage aura about him, to go with his
massive and muscular frame. Hunched over with his muscular arms resting on his
massive thighs, Gurgallo had sat across the fire drinking his beer and below
the long, dark-blonde braids and the majestic pair of drooping moustaches
glowered the face of a stone-cold killer. It had taken every ounce of
persuasion and every mellifluous word Lludd could muster to soften that granite
visage. It also took every victorious image he could conjure over two whole
days of binge drinking and binge eating, before the great man had begrudgingly acceded
to his request.
With matching hangovers, they had
both departed at the same time but in different directions the following
morning, as Gurgallo headed north-east across the Scaldis
and for the frozen Menapi coast, making the horse he sat on look like a small
donkey. The ferocious and re-motivated man-mountain was heading for the great
on-going war council in DunAnfers to declare his intent and as promised; to
introduce a few recalcitrant noble backsides to his stout war-boots.
A bleary-eyed Lludd headed in the
opposite direction and to the Eburones at their major town of Aduatuca, to
assess their potential contribution to the rebellion and was well received
there by the remaining nobles. Dodging Roman patrols all the way, he then
journeyed further south-west on a different horse to the Remi with the same
goal in mind, before returning north to these coastal territories of the Menapi
on yet another two horses when the weather finally allowed, but with much vital
information.
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