The Encircling Sea

X

IT TOOK SIX slaves to drag the bear away, while more were scattering fresh sand to cover up its blood, and the blood and entrails of the venator who had misjudged his attack on the animal and come too close. The other hunters would have soon have finished the beast off, but the crowd of soldiers and civilians from Luguvallium had cheered when a lithe Hibernian warrior had jumped down into the arena and grabbed the dying man’s spear. They cheered even more when he dodged the bear’s attacks, wounding it time and again, gradually weakening it. Even the venatores had urged him on, instead of resenting his intrusion, and joined in the great roar of triumph when he vaulted into the air and stabbed down, using his own weight to drive the heavy spear deep into the animal, pinning it to the ground.

In the great Flavian amphitheatre at Rome they sprayed perfume into the air to smother the reek of blood and death. Here in northern Britannia, in a temporary arena where the tiers of seats were raised so that all could see over the seven-foot-high timber wall down onto the sand, there were few such refinements. Over the course of the morning, the venatores had killed four bulls, five bears, a dozen wolves, two lions and four panthers, so that the place stank like a slaughterhouse.

Most of the time the Hibernians kept a polite silence, and he suspected that they were bored. It had always struck him that these beast fights took away all the excitement of hunting and kept only the final butchery. The Hibernians had shown a lot of curiosity when they saw the big cats, asking a lot of questions about where they came from and whether or not they hunted people. Ferox answered as best he could. The queen was not there, for the Roman ladies had decided that the blood of the arena was not fitting for ladies to attend, and had stayed at Alauna with her, planning an excursion of their own. Brigita’s absence took a good deal of the spirit out of the kings, so that little of importance was said. Her husband seemed rudderless when she was not by his side, even if the queen spoke so rarely.

Ferox suspected that she might have enjoyed the gladiatorial fights to be staged in the afternoon, and was a little surprised that they had all not come along. In his experience women – some supposed to be fine ladies – were usually among the most enthusiastic members of the audience, baying for blood, aroused almost to frenzy by the muscle-bound men hacking each other to pieces. In some strange way, on the days women were excluded, it somehow all seemed less violent to him, but he wondered whether this was simply his imagination.

There was little for him to do as the kings on their own were not inclined to talk of great matters. The day after the dinner further conversations had made their request clearer. They asked for an army. He had translated the word as legion because it was often used in that way, and he thought it more likely to get the attention of Crispinus and the others. ‘They say army,’ he explained later, ‘but I think they just mean a force of soldiers. Fifty or sixty, maybe even a hundred.’

‘A token of support?’

‘Something like that,’ Ferox said. ‘Big enough to look impressive and led by someone important.’

Crispinus rubbed his chin. ‘You mean me.’

‘I’m only a centurion, my lord, I don’t mean anything at all. You brought me here to translate.’

‘And give advice.’ The tribune made up his mind. ‘I believe the legate will agree to this. There is no harm in winning the loyalty of neighbours, so that they respect our power. Could stop any more raids on the coast.’

Ferox said nothing.

‘You do not agree? And please do not give me any more nonsense about knowing your place and not having an opinion. Would you agree to these terms?’

‘Hibernian raids are rare, my lord. Whatever we agree here will not stop the Novantae, or the tribes like the Creones from further north.’

‘But it will do no harm, surely?’

Ferox sensed that the tribune liked the idea of leading an expedition to the mysterious isle of Hibernia, where he could claim that the locals had submitted to the majesty of Rome and the emperor – in the person of a young aristocrat. Along with the recommendation to receive the corona civica, which he would most likely be awarded in due course, it would conclude a spectacular term as tribune with the legions.

‘Tell me why you are worried,’ Crispinus demanded.

Ferox was not sure what to tell him. When he was growing up his people always said that Hibernia was an unlucky place, ill-omened and full of ancient terrors. Perhaps that helped to make him suspicious, but he was sure it was something else.

‘They are hiding something,’ he said at last.

‘Isn’t everyone?’ Crispinus laughed. ‘Tell me you do not believe the stories of cannibals and monsters. That is what I read about Hibernia – of course all written by people who have never seen the place.’

‘I just do not trust them, my lord. She is…’ He hesitated, but he knew that it was the silent, beautiful queen who worried him the most. ‘She is up to something.’

‘I should be greatly surprised if she was not. She’s a woman after all – and a queen at that – and every Roman knows that you cannot trust royalty. Look at Cleopatra. But I often find it is easier to deal with people you do not trust. It’s just a question of working out what they really want, and then making sure that it does not get in the way of you getting what you want. Untrustworthy people tend to be selfish, which makes them simple to understand.’

Ferox gave up, for it was obvious that the tribune had made up his mind. ‘You are always asking me to trust you, my lord.’

‘Indeed I am, and I wish you would. But you are a truly unusual man, so the rule does not apply. Do not worry, it will all work out well, and we shall come back safely.’

‘We?’

‘You do not think I could do without your sage advice, centurion.’

‘Sir.’

‘Your enthusiasm is as inspiring as ever.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Neratius Marcellus had opened the games earlier that morning, but left after an hour and was not to return until the afternoon when the gladiatorial bouts were due to begin. Crispinus left with him, and no doubt was waiting for his chance to convince the legate to send him and a suitable force to Hibernia.

Now that the beast fights were over for the day, there would be a pause for two hours before the games resumed. Ferox took the Hibernians to a feast arranged for them by Probus, who spoke the language of the tribes quite well, and was happy to rely on his own knowledge and the interpreter they had brought with them.

‘You deserve a rest, centurion,’ he said. ‘Plenty to do in Luguvallium.’

Ferox went to the field behind the makeshift arena where they kept the stores and the cages. A tiger growled as he passed one long iron cage. It had been a while since he had seen one of these beasts and he had forgotten just how big they were. There were two, a sign that the legate was spending a good deal of his own money, unless this was more of Probus’ work, for he was supplying animals as well as gladiators.

The brothers were at one end of a smaller cage, sitting on their own. The other five men in the cage looked cowed, and Ferox wondered whether they were as frightened of the two northerners as of what was about to happen. He recognised two of them as cattle rustlers, and another as a man who had murdered a drunken soldier. The other two were strangers, but he knew that several robbers and bandits were here to die in the arena.

‘Come to gloat?’ Segovax’s voice was flat, but it was a change from his usual silence. They were both filthy, their hair straggling and wild and beards long. They were not due to play their brief role in the games until tomorrow, so the slaves had not yet come to clean them up.

‘No,’ Ferox said. ‘I would like to talk.’

‘Why?’ The Red Cat did not look up.

‘To learn.’

Segovax moved fast, springing to his feet and grabbing at the bars, and roaring like a beast, in spite of the chains around his ankles and wrists. Somehow, Ferox stopped himself from flinching.

‘Come in here, Roman, and I will teach you.’

‘My brother killed a man yesterday.’ The Red Cat was still sitting cross legged and head bowed. ‘The man wanted some of our ration of swill. My brother ripped his throat out with his teeth.’

Segovax grinned. Two of his front teeth were broken and the rest badly stained, although it was hard to tell whether this was from blood.

‘You can try that trick on the beasts over there.’ Ferox pointed at the caged tigers.

‘Is that how we die?’ Segovax spoke like a true warrior, without emotion.

‘Have they not told you?’

‘The scum guarding us say little and even less is worth hearing,’ the Red Cat said. ‘One says we are to burn, another that they will cut off our pricks and choke us with them, another that we will drown. They are like birds chirping and saying nothing.’

‘None would dare face me without these bars,’ Segovax bellowed, shaking his chains.

‘I did,’ Ferox said.

‘And you should have killed us both. A better death than this.’

‘Who are the men of the night?’ Ferox asked. ‘The black men? Where do they come from?’

The Red Cat looked up. ‘You ask that? They are you. Murderers and filth, men without honour. They take our families and because of you all have died. They are you.’

Segovax spat through the bars and hit Ferox in the face. ‘Bastard! With my last breath I will curse you and all your seed and all that you love.’

‘Who took your families? Why did you come for the boy, Genialis?’

Segovax spat again, and this time Ferox dodged out of the way, but that brought him closer to the cage and for a moment the warrior’s hand grabbed his shoulder.

‘Trouble?’ A thickset slave appeared carrying a cudgel, raising it ready to slam it down on Segovax’s wrist.

‘No. No trouble.’ Ferox stared at the warrior. Segovax released him and pulled his hand back in. ‘These ones all for tomorrow?’

‘Yes. Some for the beasts and some for the gladiators,’ the slave said. A voice called for him and he went off.

‘I shall see if they will let you die in a fight,’ Ferox said quietly.

‘With you?’

‘Not with me.’

Segovax sat down, his back to the bars, and the Red Cat dropped his head down again. Ferox left, and because he had time and was not hungry he strolled along the main street of Luguvallium, past the fort and out onto the long timber bridge. A dozen ox carts rumbled over the planking, ungreased axles screaming. The drovers said that the noise kept away evil spirits, and Ferox wondered idly whether it might help to lift a curse. He stared down at the sluggish water and after a while the last cart went by and the piercing squeals grew fainter. People and animals passed and he paid them no heed. The Romans believed in curses. You could go to the market place and a pay someone to write out the whole thing for you, if you did not feel like coming up with the details on your own. The Silures knew that luck was fragile, that the power of a man’s spirit could shrink as well as grow. He was not sure what he believed, but part of him wished that he had not bothered to visit the brothers at all. ‘They are you.’ There seemed no sense to it, and yet it must mean something. The sound of horses was coming closer, until it stopped just behind him.

‘If you want to jump, it’s deeper in the middle,’ Vindex suggested. He was leading a dozen of his scouts.

Ferox turned back to look down at the river. ‘With my luck, I’d land in a boat.’

‘Aye.’

‘Did not expect to see you here.’

‘Didn’t you send for us? The orders came for me yesterday to come quickly with as many men as I had.’

‘Not from me.’ Ferox sighed. ‘Must be someone’s bright idea.’

‘Huh. Does that mean we’re about to get humped again?’

‘Probably.’

‘Shall we all just jump and get it over with?’

Ferox went back across the bridge, walking alongside Vindex who did not bother to dismount. Before they reached the end of the bridge nearest the town a cavalryman clattered onto it.

‘Flavius Ferox?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are to report to the legate at once. He is at the principia.’

‘Then give me your horse, lad.’

The trooper was reluctant, but faced with the authority of a centurion he gave way. ‘Get some rest and something to eat,’ Ferox said to Vindex.

The fort was twice the size of Vindolanda, but many of the buildings were older and showing their age. As Ferox rode towards the central range of buildings he went past a work-party raising a new barrack block. They had already driven the square corner posts into the ground and the row of smaller round poles along the sides. Stacks of hazel branches were waiting alongside and men were starting to fix them in place to create the panels they would daub with clay. A pair of them held each branch straight so that another with a hammer could drive it into the ground. It looked odd, and then he remembered that the men at Vindolanda always laid the branches horizontally. Ferox wondered which method was better, but guessed that it was just the old army way of doing things differently for the sake of it. Most of the standing barracks were left plain wattle and daub, so that the rows of buildings were drab. It made the rendered and whitewashed principia and praetorium dominate the place even more than they would have done through their sheer size.

Ferox had seen too many army bases to pay much heed to the grand buildings. Instead he looked at the two horses being walked in circles outside the headquarters. As he came close he saw the white sweat on their neck and sides and the blood drying on the side of one of the animals.

There was more than the usual bustle inside the courtyard as another of the governor’s singulares led him across to one of the main rooms beside the shrine to the standards.

Neratius Marcellus was pacing up and down on the far side of a long table. Crispinus and three more officers sat at the table, as did a little man in a crumpled toga, who smiled with genuine enthusiasm when he saw the centurion. Quintus Ovidius was a poet, philosopher and friend of the governor. He was also one of the least military men Ferox had ever met, and yet insisted on going with his friend on campaign and to the wilder parts of his province, determined to see a little of the world and not simply read about it.

The legate saw this mark of welcome and glared. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ He barked at Ferox.

‘Standing on the bridge, my lord,’ Ferox said.

Neratius Marcellus stopped pacing and frowned, trying to decide whether this was insolence. He was a small man, almost a foot shorter than the centurion, but he had the confident assurance of a former consul who deferred to very few others apart from the emperor. There was a restless energy about him, which sometimes spilled over to upset the calm of the experienced politician and orator.

‘Well,’ he said after a long silence, broken only by the sound of stylus pens scratching away as clerks copied orders. ‘At last you are here. Tell me, what is your opinion of Claudius Super?’ The question was abrupt and was not what he had expected.

‘He is a brave man, my lord.’

‘Of course he is, he is an eques and an officer.’ There was just enough hint of irony to show that he was not serious, although no one smiled apart from Ovidius. ‘What about his judgement? Is he a scaremonger?’

‘It is not my place to comment on a senior officer, my lord.’ Ferox saw Crispinus roll his eyes.

There was a flash of anger and that surprised him, because in the past the legate had seemed very much in control of his emotions. ‘It is your place if I say it is!’ Neratius Marcellus turned, took three paces away from him and then spun around again. ‘Hercules’ balls, man, this is no time for playing dumb. I know you, and you are not short of ideas or disposed to doubt your own views. You think Super is a fool?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘At last.’ The governor went back to the table and drummed his fingers on the wood. ‘My impression was that you felt your superior officer to be a drooling imbecile who despised the Britons and had all the subtlety of a kick to the stomach.’

‘A kick in the gut can be effective, my lord,’ Ferox said, but he was wondering about the tense, for the legate was a man of precise speech. ‘In the right circumstances, that is.’

The legate reached for a wooden tablet and opened the folded sheets. ‘Yesterday I received a message from Claudius Super saying that there were worrying signs among the Selgovae and that he feared trouble. He asked that you be sent to join him along with those scouts of yours. Presumably he thought that it would be advantageous to have someone who plays dumb and avoids answering questions.’ Ovidius chuckled again, ignoring the disapproving glances of the officer beside him.

‘This morning I receive a new message to say that he fears that druids and priests are abroad, stirring up rebellion. He worries that that rogue Acco is at large.’ The big room with its high ceiling suddenly seemed cold. ‘Ah, perhaps I have your attention at last. Have you heard anything about that fiend lately?’

‘No, my lord. Nothing at all.’

‘Hmmm. It is probably too much to hope that he has gone away for good. But does that mean you would be surprised if he turned up now, among the Selgovae?’

Ferox tried to think. Acco was clever and good at concealing his presence. Had there been signs that he had missed? ‘I have not heard anything, my lord.’

‘It seems Claudius Super had, or at least thought that he had. Rumours of magic and dreadful sacrifices of men and women. Because of this I was intending to summon you anyway, and was simply waiting for your Brigantians to arrive. Orders summoning them were sent yesterday.’

‘They are here, my lord.’

‘Really. No one tells me anything. I’m just the legatus augusti, of course, no one important.’ A soldier marched into the room, handing a note to one of the clerks. The man took the wooden sheet, nodded for the man to leave, and then looked up.

‘The scouts have arrived, my lord.’

‘Ah, the slow turning wheels of bureaucracy get there in the end.’ Neratius Marcellus gave a thin smile. ‘I should not joke, not at a time like this.’

‘Surely laughter is most needed at a time like this.’ Ovidius’ voice was thin, but clear.

‘Philosophy. Well, we shall need more than that – and more than bad jokes as well.’ The legate stretched his arms as if yawning. He stayed in the pose, staring up at the ceiling. Ferox wondered why Roman aristocrats had to turn everything into a performance.

‘Half an hour ago a pair of troopers arrived. One was wounded badly, and I fear the poor fellow will not make it. The other one is babbling of ghosts and demons.’

‘Has the regionarius sent another message, my lord?’ Ferox asked, although he did not doubt the answer.

‘Not as such.’ The comment came from Crispinus, who seemed to have been encouraged by Ovidius’ efforts at levity.

Neratius Marcellus brought his arms back down to his sides. ‘Not as such,’ he repeated. ‘The poor bastard.’

‘They killed him?’ Ferox wanted them all to get on with the matter, but he sensed that the legate was delaying and perhaps the man was trying to make up his own mind about what to do before he sought advice.

‘If the soldier is to be believed,’ Ovidius said, since the rest had fallen silent, ‘somebody burned him alive.’