Brigantia

VI

‘SEEN IT BEFORE. It stinks.’ Vindex’s verdict on Eboracum did not surprise Ferox, who knew that the scout was not fond of towns and cities. The fortress of Legio VIIII Hispana was ten times bigger than Vindolanda and its vicus on the same scale. ‘Stinks of shit,’ he added later, once Crispinus was not around, since he knew the tribune had learned some of the language of the tribes. With sewers from the fortress opening into the river it was hard to argue at this time of year. No doubt anyone spending a long time here became used to it.

‘A lot of people,’ Gannascus said over and over again. ‘Why would they want to live here?’ Ferox tried to explain that many were warriors oathbound to Rome’s high king and their families and that he ordered them to be here. This satisfied the big German for the moment.

The colonia at Lindum was no more appreciated. ‘Stinks of old leather and shit.’ There were fewer men in uniform in the city, but a lot of old men who, whatever they wore, carried themselves like the legionaries they had been until a few years ago. Begun under Domitian and officially founded under the far more acceptable Nerva, when the legion was posted away, this place was reborn as a colony for discharged soldiers. The military feel of the place was all the stronger because use had been made of many of the existing buildings. They passed row after row of little houses, obviously built as barracks and now converted so that a family occupied a pair of rooms. At least these each had their own hearth. Ferox wondered who was now living in the big praetorium and the houses once made for tribunes and senior centurions, and wondered how many officers had taken their discharge here to become local worthies. It sometimes must have seemed like the same old service, albeit less crowded. Still, the huge principia with its assembly hall made a serviceable basilica for the town council, with space for courts and public records. Among the timber military buildings the newer ones of stone stood out. They were paving a square near the principia and surrounding it with temples – something you never saw in an army base. Statues of Nerva and Trajan were mounted on high plinths in the centre of the square.

‘Who are they?’ Gannascus asked after he had stared at them for a while. There were stalls set up over much of the open area, traders yelling, customers bartering and all the loafers, idlers, and groups of unruly children you always found in markets such as this. The thieves and whores were there as well, if you knew where to look.

‘They are the emperor and his son,’ Vindex said, and Ferox was glad that he did not have to answer. ‘The high kings of Rome.’

‘Is that one a war chief?’ the German asked, pointing at Trajan, who was depicted in cuirass with a sword at his hip and pointing as if he was ordering soldiers into battle.

The scout turned to Ferox for help. ‘They say he is. A brave one.’ Crispinus had confirmed the rumours that the princeps planned to lead a big attack on Dacia next spring. Ferox had fought the Dacians and their allies before, and reckoned it would be a tough task. Depressingly that probably meant more detachments and whole units being withdrawn from Britannia. He hoped that the legate’s summons did not mean that his services were required, for he had work to do here.

‘Good,’ was all the German would say. He seemed distracted, and was clearly aware of all the stares they were attracting. Gannascus stood out anywhere, but especially here. On the other hand it may have been the image of the defied Nerva. Whenever Ferox saw him on statue or coin he was left with the impression of a man thoroughly perplexed by the world around him. He did not relish trying to explain to the German that here was a man chosen as emperor because of his high birth and the feeling that he was insufficiently talented to be too much of a tyrant.

Yet if Gannascus was puzzled it was not at the vagaries of politics. Instead he stared around at the crowd. ‘How did all these people reach here before us? Did we miss a quicker path?’

The suspicion that he was seeing the same people over and over again persisted as they travelled south, even though none of the other towns were quite as big. Nothing would convince the big warrior otherwise. ‘It’s very clever,’ was all he would say.

By the second week Ferox was in the saddle as often as riding in the coach. He was feeling a lot better, and even when Crispinus joined them on horseback, the tribune’s conversation was less intense and unavoidable than in the cramped confines of the raeda. A lot of the time Philo now travelled inside the carriage while tribune and centurion endured the dust or rain of riding. Vindex found this very funny.

Sometimes, Ferox spoke to the scout and the big German, lagging a little behind so as not to be overheard. He was not ready to tell Crispinus about the theft from Cartimandua’s old house. In his letter Tincommius had said that he had been approached by a merchant claiming to act on behalf of powerful men who wished to see a new emperor. This would not be the first time, and he and the king had met because of another plot. The high king claimed that Acco spoke of a great revolt, not simply in the north, but of all the tribes of Britannia. The old druid promised great magic to unite all the tribes and give strength to their swords. Tincommius wondered whether artefacts like Venutius’ armour were part of this and Ferox was inclined to agree. The high king believed Acco possessed other objects of power and the lore to understand their uses.

Just a few months ago, Ferox had encountered the druid. They had fought a bitter battle on a far northern island against pirates. Among them was a boy, an especially unpleasant youth whose father had become a wealthy businessman. The son had stabbed his father before he defected and found a welcome among the enemy who knew him as the gifted son of a witch. Ferox had captured him, left the boy under guard, but when the fight was over he had returned to find the boy dead. Acco had come, killed him and taken his head, for everyone knew the skull of a witch held power. It was all beginning to fit together, although Ferox was still not sure what would happen next, and how he might thwart the old man’s plans.

Londinium was a lot bigger, twice the size of Eboracum, and had a far more civilian feel and look about it. ‘Smells of fish and shit,’ Vindex said. Gulls circled noisily above the shallow valley of the river.

Gannascus was even more impressed. ‘Faster than us again,’ he said as they rode through the thronged streets past the high timber amphitheatre and caught a glimpse of the wide river ahead of them. He stared wistfully at the ships at the jetties and out on the water. The ruins of an old fort were decaying, and in places used for piling rubbish or had shacks built by the very poor. Crispinus explained that there was no longer a fort in the city, and instead substantial numbers of soldiers were billeted in a commandeered area not far from the big house that served as the legate’s residence whenever he was here. Another, larger, if less luxurious, house acted as a principia and he led them there to report.

‘Something of a novelty,’ he announced cheerfully, ‘me showing the regionarius and his head scout the way!’

September had gone, and the days were becoming shorter even here in the south so that it was dark by the time they had reported. The soldiers were led away, but on the tribune’s instructions Ferox and the others were taken to the same house, lodging high above a pottery. Food was waiting for them, and while it was probably an insult for him not to be given a room of his own, Ferox was content. ‘Tonight we stay here. I’ll take you around the place tomorrow, but tonight let us simply rest after the journey.’ That proved less easy than he hoped, for Gannascus snored as only a great bear of a man could. The others, even Philo, all dropped off one after another, but Ferox struggled hour after hour. He must have slept at some point, but he felt that he had lain awake throughout the night, staring at the beams of the roof overhead.

His orders were to report at the principia by the first hour of the day, and this he did, freshly shaved and so well turned out that even Philo was satisfied. The beneficiarius in the entrance hall could not find him on any list.

‘I should wait in there, sir,’ the man suggested. ‘Sure it will be sorted out soon enough. They never tell me anything.’ He pointed to a room over to the side, empty save for half a dozen folding chairs. Ferox sat and waited. The walls were bare, the paint faded and with more than a few cracks in the plaster, and offered little to divert him. He heard the trumpets sound the second hour and brief conversations as the beneficiarius outside directed visitors.

It must have been almost the third hour of the day when he heard a familiar voice and went to the door.

‘My lord?’

Crispinus turned angrily at the interruption. ‘Ferox, where in all Hades have you been? The legate expected you at his house at dawn. I am here to send out men to look for you.’

‘I was told to report to the principia, my lord.’

‘Which blasted fool told you that?’

‘You did, my lord.’

The beneficarius stood rigidly to attention, holding up his ornately headed spear and his face had the expressionless gaze mastered by anyone who meant to get on in the army.

‘Did I? Well, I meant the praetorium. The legate wanted to see you straight after the morning salutatio was done. You are late, so make sure you apologise.’

‘Would you not like to accompany me, my lord?’

‘Oh, I have far more important things to do. Now off you go.’

A slave governed admission to the legate’s house, and quickly summoned another who led him away down a corridor. Both servants stopped and bowed their heads as a man and a woman walked past.

‘Lord, lady,’ they echoed. Both were tall, and if there was something about the eyes that marked them as kin, no one could mistake that fiery red hair. The lady wore it plaited and piled on her head, and was in a brilliant white dress, supplemented by a tasteful amount of jewellery. She was pretty, walked with elegance and did not deign to notice the centurion. The man’s toga looked faded by comparison, but his left arm carried the folds easily. His face had a hardness about it that robbed it of being truly handsome, although Ferox suspected that it would draw women, each eager to reach an imagined inner softness. For a moment he glanced at the woman and then gave Ferox a wry smile. His eyes still had the softness of flint. Other slaves, presumably their own, appeared from a side room with cloaks and in a moment they were gone. The chamberlain gestured for Ferox to follow the guide.

‘Please, my lord, would you wait here.’ There were only two chairs this time, high-backed wicker affairs that were a good deal more comfortable, while the walls were decorated with panels of rustic scenes. Tiny farmers ploughed and harvested, shepherds watched their animals, and one lucky one peeked at nymphs bathing.

The house was quiet. After a while he heard a door open, a brief conversation too muffled to catch the words, and then a door closing again. He waited. There was an old army story of a centurion receiving special orders in a base on the Rhine. Before the day was out he was rushed away, carried south by the coaches of the imperial post. They took him over the Alps, down to Puteoli, where a ship was waiting to take him over the Mediterranean to Alexandria. From there it was down the Nile, then into the desert and along the wild roads to the ports on the Red Sea, where traders used the mysterious winds of those waters to fetch silks and spices from the Far East. Reporting to the prefect commanding the garrison there, the man expressed complete surprise. ‘Not been told a thing about you or what you are supposed to do here. Did they tell you?’

‘No, my lord.’

‘Oh well, expect we will work something out in the end.’ Depending on who told the story, it took a whole year or even three years before the man was sent back to his legion, with no one any the wiser about what it had all been for.

‘Ferox, my dear fellow, you seem deep in thought?’ The speaker was short and bald save for a wild fringe of white hair. Quintus Ovidius was a philosopher and poet, a junior member of the Senate and friend of the legate, who had accompanied him to his province.

Ferox smiled broadly. He had always liked the spritely old man, and since Ovidius had accompanied them on their desperate attack on the pirates’ stronghold, he had come to respect him as well. ‘I fear I was pondering on the nature of the army’s administration.’

‘Intriguing, no doubt, though probably not satisfying. How are you, my friend?’

They talked for a while, Ovidius explaining that, although the legate was detained, as soon as he had learned that Ferox was in the house, he had rushed to see him. ‘Although I fear this reunion is soured by some sad news. Caratacus is dead. Word arrived from Rome nine days ago. I am very sorry.’

‘He was old.’ Caratacus had been well over ninety, and had been frail the last time Ferox had seen him, some twelve years ago.

‘Sadly it was not age that claimed him in the end. He was murdered in the gardens of his villa in the Alban Hills.’ Ovidius had only a few details. A woman and two men had appeared late at night asking for shelter. It was some sort of feast day for Caratacus’ people, and his custom to walk alone save for a boy in the grounds from midnight until dawn. The boy fled when the guests came for him, blades in their hands, and when the house was turned out they found the old man stabbed to death.

‘Did they take his torc?’ Ferox knew the answer before Ovidius nodded in surprise. At that moment the slave reappeared, announcing that the legate was ready to see him. Ovidius followed and it was clear that the legate desired his presence as well. They found Neratius Marcellus sitting at a desk, still at work. He was clad only in a pale blue tunic, belt and shoes whose lattice pattern gave glimpses of his blue socks. A slave handed him a succession of open writing tablets, which he signed, said should be added to the pile of other matters that did not demand a swift reply, or rejected by simply scratching a cross with his stylus. ‘Tell them no.’ He flashed a brief smile to the visitors and urged them to sit. Two folding camp chairs were on either side of a table. Another slave brought well-watered wine, since it was early in the day.

At long last the batch of correspondence was finished, the slaves left and the legate breathed a sigh of relief. He was a small man, who reminded Ferox of a restless bird, always on the move, and it was strange to see him sitting still. ‘It won’t be long before Tiro is back with an even higher stack.’

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have bought a clerk called Tiro if you did not want to spend your life scribbling,’ Ovidius said. The governor glanced at Ferox, watching intently.

‘Cicero’s trusted freedman was named Tiro,’ Ferox explained. ‘He prepared the letters for publication after his old master’s death. I’ve always suspected he snipped out a lot that was embarrassing to Atticus.’

They did not nod or show any obvious signs of approval, and paid him the respect of not expressing surprised pleasure.

‘There will be two more weeks of this,’ Neratius Marcellus went on wearily. ‘Then it is almost four months of assizes, here, at Camulodunum, Lindum and a few of the civitas capitals.’ He gave a grim laugh. ‘The price of office.’

Ovidius showed little sympathy. ‘If you had wanted to cling to the City as Cicero advised, you could easily have done so, my friend. We both know that dignified leisure has never really suited you.’

‘Neither is it likely to be my fate for several years at the least.’ The legate drummed his fingers on the table top. ‘Forgive me, Ferox, for not welcoming you with greater warmth, but it is not even noon and I have spent hours returning the morning greeting of visitors, reading or listening to petitions, both formal, and the “while I have your ear, my lord, may I ask…”, whether it is about business or justice, favours or little matters such as the leadership of a great tribe. Your failure to arrive kept me listeing to such tedious matters even longer than duty commanded.’

Ferox did not bother to explain. With senior officers there was rarely any point unless they asked a direct question.

‘No matter,’ the legate continued. ‘When I sent for you it was for one reason, but now I find that I need you for something else, so it is convenient that you are here, for I will keep you busy. I only wish that you had arrived a few days earlier.’ The legate sprang to his feet. He was always happier talking while on the move and they made no attempt to rise and join him.

‘Something is wrong. I have been in Britannia long enough to sense it in the faces who greet me and come asking for favours. They are nervous. I remember seeing faces like that in the last years of Nero, when I was a mere boy, and again under the unlamented last of the Flavians, when I probably looked much the same. There is fear, a sense that things will change soon, without any clear sign of which way they will change. That was why I wanted you in the first place. I have come to value your instincts, your knowledge of the tribes, and your talent for sniffing out the truth.’

‘Although it means inflicting another letter upon you, my lord, I received this from Tincommius, the High King…’

‘Of the Venicones and the rest?’ Neratius Marcellus grinned. ‘I do pay attention, every now and again. Show it to Ovidius, so that he can be useful for a change, and tell me what was in it.’

Ferox told him about Acco’s promises and the king’s warning about a plot among the Romans.

‘Hmm.’ The legate paced from one end of the room to the other and back again. ‘Yes, I fear that once again some fools in the Senate are restless. For some it will be sheer vanity, for a few probably the belief that they act for the good of Rome, even if that will cost us a civil war. “Where are you rushing to fools…”’

‘That’s Horace, my lord,’ Ferox explained.

Ovidius snorted in amusement. The legate frowned. ‘Well, perhaps I deserved that.’ He began pacing again, and his arms started to wave, the gestures apparently natural and yet always under control. Many senators were a great loss to the stage.

‘It is forty years since Boudicca burned this town to the ground, and others, and slaughtered a hundred thousand or even more. The owner of this house, who graciously loans it to the legate without charge out of duty to the res publica – and of course to show what a fine and rich gentleman he is – remembers fleeing with his parents, when Suetonius Paulinus abandoned Londinium to its fate, taking only those who could keep up with his cavalry, and leaving behind by the roadside any who discovered that they could not. It really is not that long ago, and yet all of my senior officers and all the tribal leaders assure me that it would be unthinkable now. The eagerness with which they assert this only makes me more sceptical.’ He turned dramatically to face Ferox, who wondered whether performance came so naturally to trained orators that they actually forgot that they were performing. ‘What do you think?’

‘I can only speak of my region, my lord, and the lands around it. There is discontent and worry. A rebellion is quite possible. Not inevitable though.’

‘Hmm. Not, inevitable. Inevitability is too big a question for my mind, and I shall leave such philosophy to idlers like Ovidius.’

‘The answer is perhaps,’ the old man said. ‘It nearly always is perhaps.’

‘As wise and unhelpful as ever,’ the legate said fondly. ‘What is certain is that the leading men in most of the tribes are heavily in debt. Oh, it is probably our fault as much as their own. Since Agricola’s day every legate has encouraged them to spend. Get Greek tutors for their children, fine clothes and jewellery, fashionable slaves and carriages for their wives, and to build, always to build. We praise them if they give themselves large houses in the towns or villas in the country. We praise them even more if they pay for temples, basilicas, statues and monuments in the towns, and when they give their fellow tribesmen festivals, races and gladiators. So they borrow to show off to us and each other, and deep down most borrowers believe that they will never have to pay back all that money. Something will turn up and the debt will simply go away.’

Ovidius grinned. ‘The voice of experience.’

‘The voice of a man who has seen the world. Tell me, Ferox, do you know much about the rebellion in the Rhineland at the start of Vespasian’s principate?’

‘Something, my lord. I have spent a fair bit of time with the Ninth Cohort at Vindolanda.’

‘Of course, my splendid Batavians. Then perhaps you know that its leaders began by telling everyone that they were supporters of Vespasian against the false emperor Vitellius. Perhaps they were sincere. It was only later, as their power grew, that there was talk of an empire of the Gauls. So it seems to me that a plot against Trajan and a rising of the tribes might not be altogether separate. The leaders of the first might well be happy to encourage the second. Rebellion in Britannia would embarrass the princeps, and if it got out of hand it might even finish him. As you have informed us so many, many times, the army in this province is weaker than it has ever been. For all the brilliance of my leadership, we might fail to crush the rebellion before it gathers pace. The princeps is focused on his plans for pacifying Dacia and its king. Could we cope with a crisis here as well as a grand campaign on the Danube?’

‘In the end,’ Ovidius said. ‘We’d win in the end.’

‘Yes, Rome is big and they are a lot smaller, although they may not realise it. The empire will always win in the end, but at what cost?

‘As I said, Ferox, that is why I summoned you, and not simply because you Silures revel in silence, making you the perfect audience for my thoughts. However, since then events have galloped away with us and added to the tasks I wish you to perform. May I assume friend Ovidius has told you the news about Caratacus?’ Ferox nodded. ‘Nasty business, thoroughly nasty. I did not know him at all well, but he impressed me by his dignity. His grandson died fighting for us on the Danube. You knew him, did you not?’ Another nod. ‘Such is fate. But the deliberate killing of an ancient hostage has a viciousness about it that screams out politics. Since he could have no significance at Rome, I would guess his enemies were sent from Britannia. Why after so many years?’

Ferox said nothing.

‘That is one question. And then on the Ides of October someone breaks into the Temple of the Divine Vespasian here in Londinium, bludgeoning the watchman to death. By sheer chance a couple of my beneficiarii came to make a vow – in the middle of the night they assure me, and for the moment I will choose to believe them. They saw three hooded figures climbing over the rear wall of the temple precinct and gave chase. The robbers escaped, but they dropped a box. That one over there, in fact. Open it for me, if you will, and show us what is inside.’

Ferox did what he was told. The long iron key was in the lock and turned easily. He raised the lid and saw dark cloth folded. The box was little more than a foot square, but heavily bound with iron edges so that it must have been heavy. He lifted the cloth out, and as he stood up realised that it was a cloak, fringed at the bottom in faded gold. The rest was more dark brown than the bright purple it had surely once been.

‘The key was provided for me by the head priest,’ the governor explained. ‘He tells me that this is the cloak they place around the statue of the divine Claudius when he and the other deified emperors accompany the statues of Vespasian and Titus to the opening of the games. All of the statues have cloaks, and this is the least fine, though perhaps the oldest of them.’

‘Ferox knew about the theft of Caratacus’ torc before I told him,’ Ovidius says.

The legate raised an eyebrow quizzically.

‘A guess, my lord, but the answer did not surprise me.’ Ferox told them about the thefts in the north, and about Acco. ‘It was the torc worn by the kings of the Catuvellauni for generations, even before it belonged to such a famous war leader. If Acco seeks objects of power from among the tribes, that would be a great prize.’

‘That villain still up to his tricks, is he? And with a long arm to reach out to Italy. That is worrying, since it would be likely he has influential friends. Still, shouldn’t think he cared one way or another who was emperor.’

‘No, my lord, but he might well try to use people who did.’

Neratius Marcellus stopped mid-pace and spun around to stare intently at the centurion. ‘You really think he is that smart?’

‘I know he is, my lord.’ Ferox did his best to explain to them about a man’s power, and how not only what he did and who he was fed it or weakened it, but also the people and things around him. A man’s spirit grew as he took objects touched by the past and perhaps by the gods. At the same time the things themselves became more potent because of the one who possessed them.

‘Are we talking magic?’ Ovidius asked, genuinely curious.

‘Only in a sense,’ Ferox said. He knew these men were intelligent, more sympathetic than many Romans, and trying hard, but there were simply not the right words in their tongue, or even in Greek – at least all the Greek Ferox was able to remember. Romans did not think this way. ‘Acco is known as the last of the true druids and he is feared accordingly. Gathering these things will add a little to his reputation, but I suspect there is more than that. Druids – and many who would claim to be druids – always wanted to possess things of power. There is more to it than this. Why these things and why now unless he has some definite purpose?’

‘Why indeed? And I take it you have no idea of the answer.’ Ferox shook his head. ‘Ah well.’ The governor reached up and stretched like someone waking from sleep. ‘Then it seems we shall all be very busy. You and this old fool will begin by searching the archives here. Find anything we have about the objects they have taken or tried to take.’ He reached out for the cloak and stared at it as if it might reveal a secret. ‘Perhaps there is a connection.’ He must have seen the look on Ferox’s face. ‘And, yes, I realise that perhaps the records of past governors will have little interest or understanding of such matters, but you never know. Perhaps there is something, or even a clue to spark an idea. At the very least we must start with what we have in case there is something there. I also want you to find out all you can at the temple. And you are both dining here this evening.’

Ferox stood up and to attention. ‘Yes, my lord. Are we ordered to enjoy ourselves at the dinner?’

The governor glared for a moment, before his face softened. ‘I shall not go that far. It may even prove more of an ordeal than searching dusty rows of documents, but there are people you should meet. Before the year is out, we may even have to kill one or two of them. That is if they do not kill us first.’ Ferox could not remember hearing the legate sound so gloomy.