Brigantia

I

FEROX CRAWLED THROUGH long grass. He could hear a woman singing a lilting song that was as old as the hills and told of a hero meeting a princess. ‘I see a sweet country, I’ll rest my weapon there.’

The grass was thick, almost like heather, so that he had to push down each blade, beating it into submission. He kept going, panting with the effort. The trees at the top of the slope seemed further away than ever. He wanted to get up and run, but knew that then they would see him and he would die. The grass had prickles and his fingers hurt as he pushed his way through.

The singing was getting fainter. He grabbed frantically at the grass and thistles in his way, flinging himself forward. The trees were there at last and he jumped up and ran into them. Branches like snakes writhed all around him, grasping his legs and arms. He could no longer hear the woman.

Ferox fought the trees, pushing on and on, and suddenly he burst through into the moonlight and saw the pool.

A scream rent the night air. She was standing by the far side of the water, hair bound up on top of her head with a ribbon, her slippers and robe on the ground. Her skin was white like ivory, her hair the purest gold and her shape the dazzling perfection of the divine.

Was this Artemis of the hunt, so that he would suffer the fate of Actaeon and be torn to pieces by her hounds? Part of him said that such a glimpse was worth the awful price. Another part recalled how much he disliked dogs.

‘Oh!’ The cry was one of annoyance without a trace of fear. The goddess leaned forward. One hand over her chest and the other between her legs, the posture covering little and somehow making her seem more naked, more desirable. This was not Artemis, or Diana or Luna of the Moon.

‘Oh!’ It was almost a gasp. She went down on one knee, both arms over her breasts, her bottom thrust out. This was Venus and not the untouchable Huntress. This Goddess offered love, even sometimes to mortals, her virginity renewed after each affair human or divine. He knew her face and dreamed of it so often.

She smiled and Ferox rushed forward into the water. It was black and thick like honey. After one step it was up to his waist. At the second it was around his neck. The goddess changed. She was clothed now in a long dress of many dazzling colours and seemed younger. As the black water reached his mouth she transformed into the Mother, spear in one hand and sheaf of wheat in the other. Then she changed again and was the hag, one eye pale and sightless, hair wild and skin showing the wrinkles of the centuries. Her laugh was a cackle of contempt.

The pool pulled him down into the blackness of the Otherworld.

Ferox felt someone shaking him and he woke with a start, blinking at the morning sunlight streaming through the window and gulping for breath. His body felt slick with sweat.

‘Good, you are back with us.’

Vindex leaned over him. It was not much of an improvement over the hag, especially when he grinned.

‘You are still alive then?’ The scout was not the one speaking. This was a polished voice, whose simplest statement was beautifully pitched and composed from years of training.

Ferox sighed deeply. Vindex had moved away so that now all he saw was the beamed ceiling. Dimly he remembered arriving at Vindolanda, drenched and cold after three days of riding through near constant downpours.

‘The medicus said that it should not do too much harm if we roused you,’ the voice went on. ‘That is if it did not kill you.’

Ferox stared at the ceiling. He did not want to talk, for he knew that voice all too well and usually it was the harbinger of some fresh ordeal. Why did the Romans have to jabber so much? Among the Silures every man was a warrior at heart, and a warrior knew the strength and the sheer joy that came from silence and stillness.

‘Do you not wish to ask where you are or what day it is?’ the voice went on. ‘I do believe it is customary on these occasions.’

‘I am in the valetudinarium at Vindolanda,’ Ferox said, still staring at the ceiling and making no effort to rise. He was stiff and his leg ached. One of the rooms in the fort’s hospital seemed the most likely place for him to be. ‘And I presume that my Lord Crispinus has a task for me.’

Someone snorted with laughter, and Ferox gave in and sat up. Atilius Crispinus, the senior tribune of Legio II Augusta, was the son of a senator and would in due course join that council of elder statesmen. He was a small man, whose hair had already turned almost wholly white even though he was in his early twenties. Beside him sat a tall, very handsome man with reddish hair and a warm smile. Flavius Cerialis was the prefect commanding cohors VIIII Batavorum, the main garrison of Vindolanda.

Crispinus stared at Ferox, who stared back. At last the young aristocrat smiled. ‘Surly and awkward as ever,’ he said. ‘Splendid. If you ever mellowed, I fear that you might turn into a far less capable officer, and that would never do. At least this way we can easily have you dismissed the service in disgrace if you go too far.’

‘Easily,’ Cerialis agreed. ‘Even exiled. There must still be plenty of tiny rocks in the Mediterranean that do not yet have a prisoner lodged on them.’

‘Dozens at least.’

Ferox waited. He noticed Philo hovering behind the two seated officers, standing beside Vindex and a man who was presumably the doctor or one of his staff.

‘Well, since you lack the manners either to laugh at our wit or the decency to ask questions, then I suppose that I must shoulder the burden of this conversation,’ Crispinus said with mock weariness. ‘Such is the lot of the nobleman.

‘Yes, you are indeed at Vindolanda among the injured and sick. You have been here for six nights. When you arrived you were in a bad way, shivering from fever and your wound stinking and full of muck. I shall spare you the gruesome medical details, but there was talk of taking off the leg. This fellow…’ he jerked his head towards Vindex ‘…threatened to fillet anyone who tried and had to be arrested. It was fortunate that the noble Cerialis and I returned from a hunting expedition at just the right time. We felt that it was better for you to take your chance and either die or live whole.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’ The gratitude was genuine for the thought of losing a limb terrified him. If he was not regionarius then there was little left for him in life.

The tribune spread his hands. ‘You would be of little use as a cripple. So the good medicus was persuaded to try other means. He cleaned the wound and kept cleaning it and applied his potions and sacrifices. Mostly he doped you up with the juice of the poppy to stop you from thrashing about so much. At times they strapped you to the bed. You babbled for days.’

That was worrying, and not simply because it showed weakness.

‘Like Marius in his illness you shouted out commands and war cries, striking at foes no one else could see.’ Flavius Cerialis sounded amused, and as always pleased to parade his knowledge of Rome’s history. The prefect was an equestrian, thus second only to a senator in matters of prestige. Yet he was always conscious that his father was the first in his line to become a Roman citizen, and although the family were part of the Batavian royal house that meant little outside the tribe.

‘At times I am told that you were less fierce,’ the tribune said, ‘calling out softly for your mother.’

Ferox tried to read their faces. He liked Cerialis, admiring the man for his courage. The prefect was married to Sulpicia Lepidina, daughter of a distinguished if impoverished senator, by far her husband’s social superior, and the union was a sign of the Batavian’s immense ambition. Apart from her nobility and connections, she was witty, intelligent and beautiful. Venus or not, the face and form of the naked goddess in his dream were those of Sulpicia Lepidina, clarissima femina. She and Ferox had been lovers, and he was the father of her only child, young Marcus. It was a foolish, impossible love, and he could still not understand why she had taken such a risk. Deep down he knew that it made no sense, any more than a goddess choosing to lie with a mortal. Again his dream came into his mind and he knew that no mortal could resist, whatever the cost.

‘I never knew my mother,’ Ferox said after what felt like a very long pause. Crispinus always looked half-amused, as if he had seen the joke. Was there anything more behind the sparkle in his eyes? It was hard to be sure.

‘Well, that is one of life’s many sorrows,’ the aristocrat said solemnly. The prefect was shifting restlessly on the folding stool. ‘Yes, my dear Cerialis, I realise that time is pressing and you should go. We will join you very soon.’

The prefect stood, and smiled warmly down at Ferox. ‘It is good to see you restored. My wife will be delighted when I send her the news.’ There seemed no hint of irony or bitterness. A few years ago Ferox had saved Sulpicia Lepidina from an ambush, and only this summer had rescued her when she was abducted by a band of deserters and carried off to a distant island. ‘She always says that whenever you are around her life turns into something out of a Greek novel!’ He threw back his head and roared with laughter, for the moment looking far more the Batavian king than Roman officer. ‘We both owe you so much.

‘Well, I shall go, and make sure that everything is ready.’

‘We will join you very soon,’ Crispinus assured him. He snapped his fingers in the direction of Philo. ‘Boy, bring boots and a cloak for the centurion.’

‘Shall I shave him, my lord?’

‘No time now.’ The tribune grinned. ‘He’ll want a thorough clean afterwards, so no point wasting time now.’

Philo frowned. ‘My lord?’ The boy had firm opinions on matters of dress and cleanliness. ‘It will not take long. And perhaps a clean tunic.’

Crispinus glanced at the slave for only a moment. Philo went pale and bowed. ‘At once, my lord.’

‘And fetch my hat!’ Ferox called as the slave bustled out of the room. Philo hesitated for just a moment at the unwelcome request. ‘Bet he won’t be able to find it,’ Ferox muttered, knowing just how much the boy disapproved of his battered old broad-brimmed hat

A nod from the tribune to Vindex and the medicus was enough sign for them to follow.

‘You should have that boy beaten more often. Either that or free him, although perhaps the world is not ready for such passion for order.’

‘My lord,’ Ferox said flatly. In truth he had often considered both options.

‘Still refusing to ask questions? We rouse you from deep slumber, prepare to drag you from your sick bed and you express not even the slightest curiosity as to why.’

Ferox pulled back the blanket and swung his legs out of bed, wincing when his thigh complained. He felt weak and filthy. Someone must have put him in a spare army tunic of the sort usually reserved for fatigues, and so off-white that it was nearly brown.

‘At your command, my lord.’

Crispinus shook his head. ‘You look terrible, but at least you remember your sacred oath to the emperor.’ The tribune emphasised the last word, no doubt as a reminder that Ferox had also once taken an oath to the aristocrat’s family. ‘However, since you refuse to display the slightest curiosity, then I shall ask a few questions. You just happened to stumble across these corpses?’

Ferox nodded.

‘I presume the dead soldier made it clear that they were more than just slaves?’

Ferox said nothing. He would have hunted the killers whoever the victims were.

‘And, with hardly any men and little in the way of provisions, you gave chase?’ Another nod. ‘That seems bold. Why?’

‘It is my job.’

‘Did you know whose slaves they were?’

‘Yes, Vegetus. And there was something not right. The warriors who had done this did not bother to search the cart thoroughly. I found a bag each of gold and silver coin, barely hidden under a pile of furs. The furs themselves were worth a year’s pay.’

‘Perhaps they were disturbed?’

Ferox shook his head. ‘They knew what they wanted and took it, along with the girl. She should be able to tell us more once she has recovered. She barely said a word on the journey back.’

‘Swathed in the cloak you so generously gave her.’ The tribune must have spoken to Vindex or one of the others. ‘Leaving you drenched to the skin and shivering from fever. A generous deed, although such kindness was insufficient to persuade her to talk.’

‘They murdered her child and her husband before her eyes. Then took turns with her. She will need some time.’

‘No doubt.’ The tribune’s expression did not change. ‘A ghastly business. So you chased them and killed them. All save this Rufus, who tried to take the girl rather than any other prize, and when you searched the corpses they had nothing of great value. Which suggests that the rider who split away took whatever it was they wanted with him. Did your men catch him?’

‘In a way. The trooper was killed and the scout so badly wounded that he died an hour after he caught up with us.’

‘It seems an ill-omened expedition.’

Ferox hesitated for a moment, and then decided that there was no harm in telling the tribune since he may already have heard from Vindex or one of the others. ‘The rider they chased was a woman.’

Crispinus raised an eyebrow to register his surprise. Aristocrats loved to perform.

‘The scout said that she came from nowhere, her blade moving faster than the eye could see. She killed the trooper almost at once, and he was a hard man. The scout said that she was alone.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Six or seven nights ago.’

‘So it was dark, and perhaps he did not see too clearly.’

If the tribune was unconvinced then that was up to him. Ferox knew the man had told the truth, for it made sense of the tracks he had seen.

‘Well, whatever it was they wanted, we must assume that either this woman or whoever sent her has it now. In time we may learn from Vegetus what his slaves were transporting and understand why they went to such trouble.’

‘The girl may know.’

Crispinus sighed theatrically. ‘She hanged herself two nights ago. It seems that both your pursuit and your kindness was wasted.’ He realised that Philo was at the door. ‘Good, we can go. Put your boots on and come with me.’ The boy shot in, a cloak draped over one arm and the boots held in the other.

‘Go where, my lord?’ Ferox asked as he lifted his feet in turn.

Crispinus smiled. ‘You need to come with me to the latrine.’