Claudius

XL

They were gone. At first Rufus was puzzled, but puzzlement was quickly replaced by concern, and then by outright fear. He looked out over the sea of tents, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gaius’s red hair, but saw nothing he recognized. He called out, praying they were close, but his only reward was blank stares from the other slaves. ‘Has anyone seen my son?’ he asked. ‘Has anyone seen Gaius? Or Britte, the German woman?’

Eventually he found an ox driver with the information he needed. ‘The big lass? She went off with the boy out thataway.’ He pointed towards a distant wood about a mile beyond the fortress wall. ‘Maybe she’s got a boyfriend?’ He sniggered, making Rufus want to smash his teeth into his throat.

He set off at a trot towards the distant shadow of the forest. There was no sign of the pair between the fort and the trees. Gaius he could lose among the tall grass, but not Britte, who would have stood out like a harvester’s cart in a hayfield. Why would they leave the safety of the encampment? Britte knew the dangers well enough. This was a conquered land but there were many in it whose spirits remained unbroken. The indignities they had suffered were more than enough to prompt them to seek easy revenge from a Roman slave girl or a Roman child. The thought made him increase his speed.

He was halfway to the trees when the sharp sound of hoofbeats on the hard-packed earth made him turn. A faint prickle on the back of his neck told him he wouldn’t like what he found. He was right. Five of them, Britons dressed in rough shirts and trews; hard men with warrior-scarred knuckles and blank, compassion-free expressions. All but one. Gavan was in the centre, wearing the same sneering grin he’d worn when he’d just sliced Verica’s head from his shoulders. Hand never leaving the hilt of his sword, Cogidubnus’s executioner slid from his pony and walked forward until Rufus was close enough to smell the rank odour of his unwashed body. He stared into Gavan’s eyes and there was no mistaking the menace there. His mind swiftly went through his options. Running wasn’t one of them. The ponies would cut him off before he got a dozen yards. He was unarmed. No, he was almost unarmed. He reached for the little blade he used to trim Bersheba’s feet. Gavan laughed and drew his sword. For a long moment, they stared at each other. Then, with the speed of a lightning strike, Gavan feinted left, making Rufus jump back, which brought another guffaw of laughter from the big man. Rufus watched him, reading his face for the sign that would betray his next move. He was content for the Briton to play all day if he wanted. At least he wasn’t killing him.

The oldest of the horsed warriors shouted something to the man on the ground. Advice on the etiquette of execution? A polite suggestion to hurry the murder along so they could go back to their women and their beer? Whatever it was it had its effect. Gavan hefted the sword in both hands and spat out a string of words in the British tongue. Rufus tightened his grip on the knife. He recognized a single word in the long sequence: Togodumnus. At the same time Gavan reached up and touched the simple brooch that held his cloak at the neck. The brooch! Rufus cursed; the golden brooch he’d thought he’d hidden so well. Cogidubnus had learned of it and now Cogidubnus wanted it. Had he taken Gaius and Britte as hostages for its return?

‘Gaius?’ Gavan’s expression didn’t change. ‘Woman?’ Rufus used the British word which was in common use among the legionaries. He saw understanding in the Briton’s eyes, followed by a bitter laugh. Now he thought he’d been insulted. Gavan reached up to the brooch once more. It was clear his patience was wearing thin. Rufus changed his grip on the knife, weighing it for an overhand throw. The calculations ran through his head. He couldn’t let Cogidubnus’s champion get close enough to swing that long blade. Even if the knife throw didn’t kill Gavan instantly it would slow him down. They’d catch him in seconds, he knew that, and the long swords would do their work. But he had to try. For Gaius. He tensed for the throw.

A fluted ‘phhhhutt’ like the hiss of an angry swan stopped his arm in mid-cast and in the same instant the earth at Gavan’s feet sprouted an emerald-flighted arrow, immediately followed by a second. Rufus recognized the arrows, and almost laughed aloud, feeling the battle-heat grow in him, the way it had when he had killed Dafyd in the rock-strewn gully. Gavan looked from the green-feathered shaft to Rufus’s face, then very slowly turned his head to his left, where two men sat their horses with an unnerving stillness. The first was a slightly built soldier in the green tunic and pot helmet of the mounted archers who served the Romans. He held a short, curved bow with a third green-flighted arrow notched to its iron-taut string and pointed in the general direction of Gavan’s broad gut. Rufus waited, knowing that to move or speak would break the spell cast by the two arrows. The Atrebate rider who had spoken earlier barked a command, and Gavan’s head came round like that of a hunting dog hitting a scent. Clearly it was very well to ambush a Roman slave, but to attack three armed men, with no guarantee of success, was not part of their mission. The Briton stared at Rufus and his fingers twitched on the sword hilt. The order was repeated, this time with more authority. Gavan spat before turning abruptly and vaulting on to his pony. With a final glare at Rufus he rode off towards where the British huts shimmered in the ground haze.

For the first time Rufus looked towards his two saviours. Hanno, of course, grinning like a maniac through the thicket of his black beard. The other man sat his horse as solidly as one of the great mountains Rufus had known as a boy: squat, almost square, and glaring out from beneath heavy brows. A bear of a man, armed with a long spear and an iron sword. Ballan. But it could not be. Ballan should be with Caratacus and his defeated army in the west. What was he doing in the middle of a Roman camp where the ten tribes of southern Britain waited to give up their freedom to an Empire he despised and feared?

‘It seems that trouble follows you, Roman,’ the Iceni said when he’d dismounted. Rufus hurriedly explained about Britte and Gaius but Ballan insisted they make sure that Gavan was gone for good. While Hanno looked after the ponies he explained his timely reappearance.

‘I was never oath-sworn to Caratacus. After we were defeated… when the Romans drove us like cattle’ — Rufus could hear the shame in the Briton’s voice, but there was pride there too — ‘we fled west. Fled, but never broke, for if we had broken the Romans would have slaughtered us. But the west is not my land and the Catuvellauni are not my people, and when we had gone but a few miles Caratacus summoned me before him. “Ballan of the Iceni,” he said, “your obligation to me, if obligation there ever was, has been fulfilled ten times over. Go to your people and aid them through this time of trial that is upon us. They will need strong hands and strong minds and men who can wield sword and spear.” Thus he thanked me and regretted that he could not reward me, but I told him that to serve him was reward enough. You understand that, Roman? You understand what it is to serve a lord like Caratacus? I took twenty heads and yours would have been twenty-one if Nuada had not required it for the sacrifice when you were saved from the belly of Taranis.’

He told how he had travelled east, avoiding the Roman cavalry patrols, until he had joined a band of Parisii noblemen who gave him news of a great gathering of tribes at Camulodunum.

‘You could have been recognized,’ Rufus pointed out. ‘You risked death or slavery by coming here.’

Ballan grinned. ‘I am a noble of the Iceni and the Iceni are now bound to Rome. Did not my sister receive gifts and a blessing from your Emperor, though she cursed the one and will deny the other?’

‘Your sister?’ Rufus noticed for the first time that Ballan had forsaken his leather tunic and chain armour for the clothes of a Celtic lord, and an honoured one if the gold at his neck was anything to go by.

‘You saw her today, when my people rode into the Roman camp. The red-haired girl.’

Rufus remembered the proud, flame-haired figure who had ridden behind Prasutagus. ‘The Iceni queen? Your sister is a queen?’

Ballan laughed. ‘And what a queen. Prasutagus may make accommodation with the Romans, but only if Boudicca sees advantage for her people. The king did not want me here — he fears anything that makes his wife more powerful — but she had her way, and here I am.’

There was still one thing that puzzled Rufus. ‘But how did you discover me, a single slave among this multitude?’

‘I am Ballan,’ the Iceni boasted. ‘Would a man who stalked the legions for a hundred days be troubled finding an elephant in a flock of sheep?’ He shook his head and gave a little smile, as if he was embarrassed, an expression that looked out of place on that war-worn face. ‘Narcissus,’ he said. ‘Narcissus told me where you would be. Somehow he had word of my arrival and he sent for me. He questioned me about Caratacus.’ Ballan shrugged. ‘Perhaps I gave him the impression I would be his man. This Narcissus spoke of a thing that was of interest to him; an insignificant thing he had given a slave in error. I was to prove my new loyalty by returning it to him.’ He met Rufus’s eyes. ‘Narcissus would ensure the slave would leave his tent empty by using Hanno to order the slave’s woman and child on some errand.’

Rufus shook his head at his own folly. Gaius and Britte were safe. ‘So you searched my tent, but you did not find what you sought, which is why you followed me here?’

Ballan grunted what might have been a laugh or a dismissal. ‘If I had known the way of it, I would have given a different answer. This smells of palace plots and I want nothing more to do with it, though I am interested to know what he would have had me steal. A brooch, he said, but a man like Narcissus could buy a hundred brooches, or send a dozen legionaries to fetch this one from you. And now I find you with an Atrebate sword at your throat. What is it like, this insignificant thing that has so many men seeking it out?’

Rufus stared at him. Just how much did he trust the Iceni? It was a question that only had one answer. The few hours he had spent in Ballan’s company had created a bond between them that went beyond time shared and made the gulf between their two cultures irrelevant. It was a bond of true friendship and he had experienced it only once before. Ballan was as different from Cupido as any man could be, but he had the gladiator’s heart and unfailing honesty. He had trusted Cupido with his life; how could he do less with Ballan? ‘The brooch Narcissus seeks is the brooch Togodumnus of the Dobunni wore at his throat. A brooch of gold, wrought with the figure of a charging boar. It is a beautiful thing, and of cunning construction, but I fear it is cursed, for it seems death follows it.’

Ballan’s dark eyes blazed. ‘And you are right to fear it, but not for any curse. Did we not speak once of a charm that Caratacus held dear?’

Rufus remembered the exchange at the mouth of the gully where he had killed Dafyd. An image of the brooch Caratacus had unpinned when he had given him his cloak filled his head. ‘Then this is the same brooch? But-’

‘Not the same,’ Ballan said triumphantly. ‘The twin. Cunobelin, who ruled here, had them from his father, and his father before him, even back to Cassivellaunus. Cunning construction, you said? Yes, and for a reason. Caratacus wore the one and Togodumnus the other, for they were the signs of their kingship, but there was more. The brooches are two halves of the same whole, and brought together, with a Druid saying the proper words, it’s said they will allow a man to divine his enemy’s thoughts. Thus did Cunobelin bind his two sons — only acting together could they unlock the true power of the talisman.’

Rufus snorted. ‘Much good it did them at the battle of the river. The one is dead and the other flown.’

Ballan shrugged. ‘Such things are in the gift of the gods. Perhaps Togodumnus did not prove worthy of their gift.’

Rufus shook his head. Enough! He would find Britte and recover the brooch from her. He would give it to Narcissus and be well rid of it. ‘Where did Hanno send Britte and Gaius on their errand?’

The little Syrian, who had been sitting apart, shook his head, and Ballan looked puzzled. ‘Did I not say? When we reached your tent it was empty. They were already gone.’