Black Salamander

XVIII

In Rome, military dispatches were flooding in, the message in each one identical in flavour, if not in actual content. Dissidents were wreaking havoc with their guerrilla raids along the border. East of Trier, a stable block had been burned to the ground, the horses perishing inside. Fires had been lit under two separate garrison gates, and attempts had been made to burn crossings on the Rhine, Danube and Moselle. Sentries were being picked off with splendid regularity, supply wagons ran the gauntlet of ambush and in some cases the rivers which supplied the troops were poisoned upstream, overloading the military hospitals.

‘Bloody backshooters,’ a retired legate cried. ‘Why don’t they fight like men, the bloody cowards!’

But outraged as he was, he understood the tactics and, worse, could see they were successful. Random strikes, fast and unpredictable, meant no soldier dare let up his vigil, the Roman army was becoming tired and dispirited. They could not be everywhere at once. They could not see their enemy. They did not know who he was.

Civilian suppliers grew fearful of their safety. Patrols were increased, spreading troops ever thinner. Legions were divided first into cohorts, then cohorts into centuries. Intelligence netted next to nothing. Petty chieftains were marched in for questioning, which only undermined the diplomatic efforts so assiduously laid earlier, with the unhappy result that the tribes, far from assisting their Roman administrators, now prevaricated, content to watch the outcome from the sidelines. They, too, were not sure who was orchestrating the raids, but in them they saw the glimmer of regaining a long-lost independence.

The chiefs would not be rushed.

The situation worsened.

*

In Vesontio, proud and splendid, protected as she was by the great loop in the River Doubs and sheltered by the mountain soaring upwards at her back, street sweepers brushed away the debris of yesterday’s celebrations and agreed they’d never seen so much litter in their lives. Eggshells, pie crusts, melon pips and carrot tops were pushed into barrows, along with broken combs, false teeth, pottery shards and lost toys, while an army of slaves with buckets and shovels scooped up what the gentry quaintly called mule apples. Dogs had already disposed of the meat bones.

‘Aye, but it was worth it,’ a weathered Gaul called across the Forum. ‘Never seen a show to match it in me life!’

His companion paused to lean on his heather broom and wipe his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Handsome,’ he agreed. ‘Right handsome,’ and bent down to extricate a mussel shell which had become lodged between the paving stones. He’d never seen a mussel shell before. All the way from the coast they’d fetched them for yesterday’s festiv ities. The gutter sweeper slipped it inside his shirt to take home for his daughter.

‘Is it true,’ he called across, ‘that there was frozen puddings on the go at last night’s banquet?’

‘Not half!’ His friend laughed, tapping his broom. ‘A mate of mine was one of them sent to bring the snow down from the Alps, and watched it get mashed with flour, cherries and sweet white wine. But only for the nobility, mind. All us poor buggers get is the sodding stones to clear away.’ With reluctance he resumed his sweeping, his mind wandering back over the pageant.

What a spectacle. Riverboats decked out with banners, garlands draped from every building, music on every street corner and, oh my word, those horses which led the parade! Every one white as bloody marble, caparisoned in blue and gold and silver. Elephants there was, camels, yellow beasts with long necks (giraffes was they called?), and free beer. Wine if you wanted it, but he was a Celt and didn’t go for that nancy-boy stuff. My, there was trumpets, fanfares, dark-skinned dancers wearing saucy feather skirts and very little else, acrobats, jugglers and a sorcerer who magicked coloured smoke from fire and caused explosions loud enough to leave you deaf for days.

Aye, he was a simple man, the gutter cleaner, but in his opinion it was a smart move, building a temple here in the capital to these Castor and Pollux blokes. Not because they symbolized peace and harmony between Roman and Sequani. Rather, he felt, because Pollux had a distinctly Celtic ring about it. Hadn’t every king of note had a name ending with an X? Oh yes, only good could come of this.

*

The prefect charged with organizing yesterday’s spectacular was of a similar opinion, and despite his thumping hangover and the fact that his wife had got drunk again and taken all her clothes off in the middle of the banquet, by and large, everything had gone swimmingly, he thought. The processions and the inauguration ceremony reflected weeks of painstaking rehearsal, not a foot out of place anywhere, although the prefect had been a little concerned when the elephant peed over one of the horn players. However, apart from one extra honk, albeit high-pitched and off-key, the musician seemed to take it in his stride, and it was-the prefect smiled at his own joke-the only sour note in the proceedings. (His wife’s conduct aside.)

In manly defiance of the hammering inside his bruised and battered skull, he summoned his secretary.

‘Have those silly arses turned up yet?’ he demanded.

‘Um, now which exactly might those be, sir?’

‘The bloody idiots who got themselves lost, took some local byway and then couldn’t turn back because the bloody road had gone.’

‘Ah, the delegation! No, sir, they haven’t arrived.’

‘Right.’ The prefect sighed. ‘Send a message to the barracks, tell the commander to dispatch thirty men to meet them on the road and escort-’

‘You’ve already put that into practice, sir. Two days ago. Only with just a skeleton guard remaining in Vesontio, they could only spare us eight.’

‘Croesus, so they could.’ In the last final, frantic hours of the build-up to the ceremony the troubles to the north had completely slipped his mind and he thanked Jupiter Almighty there was no bloody dissension among the Sequani. ‘But no report from the legionaries?’ He’d forgotten about those bloody stragglers, too. Holy Neptune, if anything happened to those wretched civilians, it would be his neck on the line and his alone. The governor in charge of the province had made that abundantly clear.

‘No report so far, sir.’

The prefect ground his teeth. ‘Be sure the commander takes careful note of the names of those three soldiers who took it upon themselves to show our citizens the scenic route,’ he snarled. ‘Theodorus, wasn’t it?’ He could not recall the other two. ‘Tell him they’re to be posted to the hottest, driest, ugliest part of the Libyan desert for the next ten years, and after that they can spend another ten serving in the coldest, wettest, ugliest part of Pannonia. Together. All of them.’

Every day he wanted those three incompetents to see the misery in each other’s faces and remember exactly why there were there.

‘Morons,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sent to a place manned by bloody morons.’

Goddammit, he’d be glad to get his carcass back to Rome, away from these long winters, the bloody snow and cold. Maybe then his wife would have more to occupy her mind than a bloody wine jug. About to dismiss his secretary, the prefect suddenly realized he hadn’t seen her this morning. She deserved a bloody good spanking for her outrageous behaviour last night.

‘You haven’t seen the silly bitch, have you?’ he bellowed.

‘Your wife, sir?’ The secretary coloured, and looked away. Sweet Janus. Did the master suspect she’d slept in his truckle bed last night? (Or more accurately, hadn’t!) ‘No, sir,’ he said apologetically. ‘Not today.’

*

Deep in the forest one day’s march south-east of Vesontio, where the landscape was more rolling, the scenery more gentle on the eye, the bloodied corpses of eight men, stripped of their weaponry and armour but still in military uniform, were rolled into a single shallow grave.

The grave was shorter than might have been expected.

On account of the fact that each body was missing its head.