Hero of Rome

XIX

While autumn lasted, Bela the dark-haired young Thracian auxiliary commander kept his men on constant patrol in the forested areas to the north of Colonia, but although he reported occasional signs of disturbed ground and evidence of gatherings in woodland clearings, he found no solid evidence of the subversion Valerius suspected and Castus feared. He passed on the information without comment and drove his troopers all the harder.

When it arrived that year, winter came quickly and it came hard. Frost turned the ground unyielding as stone and the cattle in the fields smoked as if they were on fire before the herd boys drove them into the huts where they and those who farmed them would provide mutual warmth during the following months. The city’s aqueduct quickly froze and Valerius ordered a squad of legionaries to be on constant duty at the river below Colonia, breaking the ice as it formed to ensure a supply of water for the citizens. Nature was relentless and the centurions were forced constantly to rotate their shivering, exhausted men. The frost brought the First’s road-building duties to an end and Valerius and Julius came up with endless fatigues and exercises to ensure their soldiers stayed fit and alert. Joint exercises with the militia became a regular feature and Valerius’s respect for Falco and his veterans grew with each passing week. They even took part in route marches together, though this was one area where the men of the First cohort understandably excelled both in speed and stamina.

‘I pray to Mars and Mithras that the governor doesn’t ask us to join him in the spring,’ Falco said ruefully as his men stumbled past, faces as red as a legate’s banner and breath steaming in the thin winter sunlight.

Valerius smiled and wrapped his cloak closer around him. ‘He already has my report. Garrison duties only for the men of Colonia.’ But mention of Suetonius Paulinus’s spring campaign made him uneasy. Was there anyone in Britain unaware of what was about to happen?

Not Lucullus, certainly.

That winter Valerius developed a liking and a curious respect for the little Trinovante. When the frost was followed by snow unlike anything the young Roman had ever experienced even the exercises ended and the legionaries huddled in their tents or around glowing braziers, attempting to avoid the frost-blight that first turned toes and fingers black and then caused them to fall off. They prayed for the coming of spring or a posting to some paradise where the sun shone for more than four hours in a day, preferably both.

With little of military value to keep him occupied, he worked to repay the hospitality he had received during the previous months from Colonia’s leading citizens. It was surprising what a legionary cook could achieve given the time and ingredients, and a string of dignitaries and their matrons complimented him on his table and the service provided by legionary servants, prominent among whom was Lunaris, who would do anything to find some warmth.

Falco and his fat little spouse came often, as did Corvinus, accompanied by his very beautiful and very pregnant wife. Valerius even found time to entertain Petronius, though he was never able to like the quaestor, who seemed obsessed by lineage and appeared to have a worryingly comprehensive knowledge of the various well-connected branches of the Valerian family.

Colonia’s most influential Briton was occasionally among the guests, and what could be more natural than that he in turn should invite the tribune to his home on the slope across the river. At first, Valerius had regarded Lucullus as a figure of fun because of his terrier like pursuit of Roman ways. But as he came to know him better, he discovered the ingratiating smile hid a shrewd intelligence and an unfailing generosity. But Maeve was right to be concerned about her father’s business dealings. Had the times been different, he would have been rich, successful and respected; but the times were not, and they and his ambition had, despite his outward success, combined to leave him floundering in a sea of debt. A Roman would have kept it his secret shame, hidden in the papers in his tablinum, but Lucullus, for all his airs, was not a Roman. He was a garrulous, unprincipled Celt, who laughed at his predicament and invited you to laugh with him. Valerius enjoyed his company very much.

Lucullus normally visited Colonia unaccompanied, but when Valerius rode out to the Trinovante’s villa Maeve would invariably be waiting to greet her father’s guest in the portico. The first time this happened her welcome was excessively formal and, in that nervous way of a man in love, he worried their relationship had already lost some of its lustre.

He was still fretting at the table when Lucullus startled him by wondering how the governor’s advance troops would be faring in the mountains of the Deceangli with the snow up to their necks and their toes turning black. But everything else was driven from his mind when he became aware of Maeve’s presence over her father’s shoulder. The look she gave him sent a shudder of desire through his body and her right hand reached up to touch the golden boar amulet at her neck.

‘Are you well?’ Lucullus asked, his plump face filled with concern. ‘You have gone quite pale.’ He picked up a plate and sniffed it. ‘That factor! Gereth! It’s these damned oysters again.’

It should have been impossible, but they managed to make it only difficult. Snatched conversations in corridors and doorways. Clandestine touches as they brushed past each other on entering or leaving a room. Each encounter only served to inflame the thing growing between them, though it created a frustration that grew in equal measure. She persuaded him to brave the snow and her father’s estate wardens and contrived to meet him by chance on a forest ride. At last they could talk unhindered and he found her quick of mind and quicker of temper. She was like no Roman woman he had ever met. She had views on everything — even military tactics, which would have bored any other girl he knew — and she was unafraid to speak her mind, but always it came back to one subject: her people.

She was also practical.

They repeated the encounter a week later. A new fall of snow had thickened the glistening blanket enveloping the land to north and south, transforming it into a world of wondrous sculpted humps and hollows. Large flakes still fell from a sky the colour of an old bruise, turning the air around them into a whirling cascade of white petals. Valerius worried that they might become lost, but Maeve only giggled.

‘It will help cover our tracks,’ she insisted. ‘Come with me.’

Valerius reined back his big military horse to keep pace with the little skewbald pony she rode side-saddle. He found it difficult to keep his eyes off her and as they ventured further into the wood he found his natural caution replaced by a deeper, more visceral anticipation, and an outcome his mind shied away from.

‘Here,’ she said eventually, laughing when she saw the look on his face. He was staring at a wall of sheer grey rock. ‘Help me down.’

He dismounted and took her by the waist, lifting her from the pony and delighting in the warmth of her body, then tied the two animals to the nearest tree. By the time he’d finished she stood at the base of the wall where a large evergreen bush hung heavy with snow.

Something in the way she stood gave him the first hint of what had become inevitable. Then he looked into her face and saw the message there and it felt as if a fire had been lit inside him. The fathomless brown eyes were deadly serious but they contained an unmistakable challenge, and her cheeks burned with colour that matched her lips, which were sensual, swollen and inviting. When he walked towards her, her eyes never left his, and when he reached her she pulled the bush aside with a flourish that was only spoiled by the snow that fell from the branches on to her head.

‘Welcome to my lair,’ she said laughing.

It was a cave.

A narrow fissure cut into the rock formed the entrance, which widened almost immediately into an area as large as a legionary’s eight-man tent. It must once have been inhabited, because niches and shelves had been cut into the rock walls where she had placed oil lamps that now turned their surroundings into a diamond-studded grotto. Tiny fragments set into the stone glittered in the lamplight like unquenchable sparks of blue, green, red and a dozen other colours he had no name for. The atmosphere, almost religious, gave him a sense of wonder magnified a hundred times by the presence beside him. Smoke from the oil lamps disappeared into the darkness above and he had the impression of a great endless void. But his eye was drawn to the back of the cave, where two large fur rugs lay on the earth floor.

‘I wanted us to be warm,’ she whispered. ‘Do you like it?’

Yes.

Her dark eyes stared back unflinchingly into his and she wiped a tear from her cheek, and raised her lips towards his. The kiss seemed to last an eternity; with every passing second it grew in passion and intensity so that when they finally parted they were both breathless. Now Maeve’s eyes filled with something that might have been fear, but quickly faded to shocked surprise at the new emotions burning like wildfire deep within her body.

‘Come,’ she said, and led him by the hand towards the furs.

Thus far, the day had been Maeve’s to command. Now, by unspoken consent, it was Valerius, the more experienced, who took control. A shudder went through her as his fingers plucked at the tie of her cloak and when he had completed the task she lay back entirely still, uncertain of what she should do or not do. Wanting what was to come, but, at the same time, half fearful of it.

Valerius sensed her hesitation. Very gently, he reached down and pulled up the hem of her dress, exposing the length of her ivory-pale legs. She immediately understood what was wanted of her and raised her bottom to allow him to take the rumpled wool underneath her body, then sat upright and raised her arms, so he could remove it altogether.

When she was naked he looked down on her with something close to wonder. Her breasts were full and rounded, with tiny, hard nipples of the most delicate pink. Between them hung the golden boar amulet and it somehow added to the eroticism of the moment. She had a narrow waist which flowed into hips that were seductively wide, but tapered again into long slim legs. He reached out to touch her and then recoiled as if he had been burned. Her smooth skin resonated with life and heat. Impatient, Maeve took his hand and placed it on her breast, then drew it down her body with agonizing slowness that made her draw in her breath sharply.

‘Please, Valerius.’ She tore at his tunic and when it was gone grasped him to her, desperate for him now. But Valerius would not be hurried. He fought her grip, knowing how much better it would be for her if she would allow him to be patient.

Much later, when he gave her that which she had coveted, but feared, her cry of joy split the air.

There were other times, but when he thought of the cave it was always the first he remembered.

Afterwards they held each other drowsily in the silky warmth of the furs, well satisfied with what had gone before but full of anticipation for what was still to come.

‘My father would kill you if he knew,’ she whispered sleepily. Valerius opened one eye and looked into hers. She wrinkled her nose in a way that made him smile. ‘Well, my father would try to kill you if he knew. And you would have to let him. I could never love a man who killed my father.’

She talked of her world, and the way it had changed. Camulodunum had been the capital of the Trinovantes and the family of Lucullus ranked high in the royal line, but that was before Cunobelin, father of Caratacus and king of the Catuvellauni, had usurped Trinovante power and installed himself as their king. Lucullus’s father had been spared and exiled to the estate on the hill while Cunobelin took over his palace.

‘When the Romans came my father thought to win back his family’s inheritance,’ she said sadly. ‘But nothing has changed.’

He asked her how women like Boudicca and Cartimandua could hold sway even over great warriors and she shook her head at his naivety. ‘ Because they are women,’ she said. ‘And because, even if Cartimandua is a traitor, they are wise and brave and have the aid of Andraste.’

‘Andraste? I do not know that name.’

‘The goddess,’ she explained, as if to an infant. ‘The Dark One who holds power over all men and women and breathes fire in her anger and turns the air to sulphur.’

He told her about Rome and he loved how her eyes opened in amazement at his descriptions of the palaces and the basilicas, the great temples and forests of pillars topped with statues of gold, and the way the whole city looked as if it was on fire when the sun shone in a certain way. ‘I would like to visit Rome one day,’ she said quietly, and he answered, ‘You will.’

She asked him what it was that made the Roman legions so powerful and he explained about the siege weapons he’d seen used against the Celtic hill forts: catapults and ballistas, siege towers and even something as simple as ladders which the tribes had never thought to use for war. She listened intently, frowning when some fact eluded her, and he loved her all the more for the obvious effort she was making to understand him.

Occasionally, Maeve would be away visiting some needy tenant or pregnant estate worker’s wife when Lucullus invited Valerius to visit the villa on the hill, ostensibly to discuss business matters or the politics of the province. But these days would inevitably degenerate into marathon drinking bouts which the old man viewed as a challenge to the depth of his wine cellar and the breadth of Falco’s stock.

During one wine-soaked afternoon Lucullus allowed the clown’s mask to slip.

The principia, extended, refurbished and unrecognizable now as the old legionary headquarters, had just been dedicated to the god Claudius with a lavish ceremony which the little Trinovante had funded. But it was its function, as they sat well rested and on their second flask of one of his best Calenian vintages, that drew the sharpest barbs of Lucullus’s bleary-eyed bitterness. For the principia stood at the centre of a vast bureaucratic network of officialdom that regulated every facet of British life; which weighed, measured and valued everything that was grown, made or reared under its all-seeing eye.

‘You Romans…’ You Romans! This from a man who worked every day and used every deception to try to become one. ‘You Romans think you can rule everything in the world, tree and field, bird and beast, man and woman. Everywhere there must be order. Everything must have its place and its price. Everything must be on a list. It is not our way. Not the way of my people.’ He shook his head to emphasize his point. ‘Before you came we did not have things like this,’ he waved an arm distractedly round the room, ‘but we did not need them. We lived in huts with mud floors, drank beer from clay pots and ate rough porridge from wooden platters, but still we had more than we have now. We had our honour.’

He paused as if expecting an answer.

‘You are surprised that I, a Celt, talk of honour? Yes, Valerius, I know that even you, whom I think of as my friend, consider me a mere Celt. What was I saying? Honour? Yes, honour. You would be amazed at how much talk there is of honour in places not so far from here. We have lost much, but some people’ — he said the words with that particular inflection that meant they were a significant ‘some people’ — ‘some people believe it is not too late to restore it.’

By now, Valerius was wishing the Trinovante would stop lecturing him and call one of his slaves to bring more of the excellent wine from his cellar. But Lucullus in full flow would not be halted by anything less than a bolt of lightning.

‘Your roads and your fortresses are like a boot across our neck and your temple is sucking us dry. Did you know that the cost even of being a member of the Temple of Claudius is ten times more for a Celt than for a Roman citizen? Ten times! If I told you how much I borrowed to secure the priesthood your head would fall from your shoulders. It is we Celts who must pay back the loans taken out to build it. We who pay for the sacrifices and the upkeep and for that great golden whore of Victory they have placed upon its pediment.

‘While we sit here in this,’ the arm was flung out carelessly once more, ‘there are men, Valerius, great men, proud warriors, who live in the ruins of their burned-out huts and watch their children starve, because they once had the temerity to stand up for what was theirs. And there are other men, who were once farmers and wanted only to keep what they had, who now have nothing, because you,’ an accusing finger pointed disconcertingly straight into Valerius’s face, ‘stole everything they had: their land, their cattle, their women. Everything.’

Valerius shook his head. ‘No. Not me.’ Did he say it or only think it? It did not matter. Lucullus ignored him in any case.

‘It could have been different. Did you really think you could grind into the dust with a single blow a people who have survived for a thousand years? Did you believe that men whose courage and prowess with sword and spear was their whole life would simply disappear after one defeat? You could have used their skills. You could have taken them into your service; they would have fought even for you. Better, even, that you had killed them all or sold them into slavery, but no, you did not do any of that. Instead, you did the worst thing possible. You ignored them. You left them to sit in their huts, to see the bones in their little ones’ faces become more obvious every day, and the breasts of their wives grow empty and dry… and to hate.

‘They are out there now,’ he said, and the message in his voice was matched by that in his eyes. He had seen them, these Roman-haters, and they frightened him.