The Encircling Sea

XXI

THEY DID NOT come again during the rest of the long day, and Ferox wondered why. His best answer was that they were planning to attack at night. After all, that was what the Harii did. He leaned on the barricade with Probus, while the two Batavians sat on the causeway behind them. Segovax was on duty at the main entrance, and after all the losses he had reorganised everyone into two groups. Longinus had everyone else, and apart from one sentry to support the northerner they were to rest until they took over at the barricade halfway through the night. It was a long time for anyone to watch, but there were too few of them left for him to grant them shorter spells on sentry duty. Hopefully, everyone should get at least a few hours of peace, perhaps even of sleep if they were lucky. The sky was clear, a rising moon dimming some of the brighter stars but casting a pale light over the world. Ferox could see a few of the pirates standing or squatting on the shore, watching them.

‘I know that one,’ Probus said, nodding at a corpse they had left on the causeway ahead of the ditch. ‘I just can’t seem to come to his name. He was Usipi. Thick as pig shit and about as good company. Didn’t know left from right, but a bastard in a brawl.’

‘Does it all seem a long time ago?’

The merchant paused, realising that he had just admitted who he really was. The soldiers were watching them, and even a duller man than Probus would have sensed their hostility. A man who submits to the army’s discipline has no love for someone who breaks away.

‘A lifetime,’ he said eventually. ‘Another man’s lifetime at that. I was born the son of a great man among the Harii, but he took a wound at the moment of his great victory and his blood turned bad. He screamed a lot before he died.

‘I was twelve, and Cniva a couple of years older. Did you know he was, or is I suppose, my brother? There were three of us, all boys, and the two girls, children of our father’s sister, who was a priestess of the white goddess. He was a great man, and it’s the same out there among the tribes as it is in the empire, or up here – great men make lots of enemies. Men came at night.’ He laughed grimly. ‘Of course it was at night. Burned our farm, killed his remaining men, and took us as slaves. Those were bad years and they seemed to go on forever and ever. Yet hard work makes you strong and we grew into men. A slave cannot be bold, so you have to hide your spirit, burying it deep within you and letting no one see.

‘We kept together, and that was something, although we lost sight of the girls often enough. Somehow, they always came back. Three times the farms where we toiled were raided and burned, and so we found new masters. Burgundians, Goths, Lemovii, each came in turn and we went to lands far from Rome and our homeland. We survived. Good, hard-working slaves have a value, but as we grew into manhood we were strong and people saw it. The last chieftain to hold us got a good price selling us to a man from Gaul out buying slaves. He sold us to the Usipi because they were raising the cohort for Rome and so we became soldiers of the emperor. Might have been good ones, too, if they’d put decent officers in charge of us instead of the vicious and the weak. That camp near Deva became a nightmare.’

Something splashed on the lake over to their left. They froze, watching and listening. There was more splashing and flapping and then a bird rose into the air. They kept watching for a long while, but there was no more movement or noise.

‘Easy, lads,’ Ferox said at last. He leaned his arms on the barricade again. ‘That’s the problem with authority. Too often ends up with the wrong people.’

‘Yes.’ Probus agreed. ‘But who are the wrong people?’ He drew his sword and felt the edge. ‘Needs a bit of work.’ The merchant reached for a whetstone before he continued.

‘It probably would have happened anyway. There is something inside Cniva. He has hates that are not quite human, but seem to have a force of their own. All three of us hated. How could we not? But he seemed to enjoy it. Over the years he always had plans for escape and revenge. Sometimes it was just revenge, telling how he would die over the mutilated corpses of our tormentors. Then the girls came and found us again. The gods only know how they managed that. It all must have been worse for them. It always is for women. And they were women now, beautiful in spite of it all, and filled with their own power. They dreamed and saw the future, looked into the souls of men. They made things happen. Men would do things and not know quite why.

‘Cniva wanted them both, and had them too, in the same tent we shared with five contubernales, all of them Harii. His seed took in them and they soon told us that they were with child. When a woman like that tells you something, you know it is true. They had us afterwards as well, but the optio found them and had them thrown out of the camp. They kept coming back, and each time they were thrown out, the beatings they were given became more brutal. The last time the centurion said he would have them flogged, but first he had them bound and brought to his tent.

‘That was the night we killed them all. The whole cohort rose as one man. I have said how those women could make men do things. Once it started all the resentment at our treatment spilled over. There was a lot of killing. The sisters had us drive stakes through the centurion’s limbs, pinning him to the ground. Then one of us held open his mouth and they took turns pissing down it. I guess he drowned or choked. I’ve heard people say that they ate his bowels, but that isn’t true. All that came later.

‘You probably know the rest. The convoy, and seizing the warships. Cniva wanted revenge on the whole world. He didn’t care about living, not then, for he was so filled with hate. My brother and I saw a chance for freedom and a good life somewhere, but all he wanted was to kill and burn. The money in the pay chests was nothing to him. While we got some men to bury and hide it, he was tearing the captured tribune apart. I do not know whether it was madness or a plan to bind us all to him, but that was when he ripped out the man’s entrails and ate them, urging others to join him. Even the women were shocked, at least at first. Our brother yelled at him when he found out about it, and Cniva killed him without blinking an eye. He did not hesitate, did not seem to think, he just stabbed him in the belly. I thought for a moment that he was going to feast on him as well, but after the killing he had some sort of fit. The older sister declared that he was blessed by the gods to lead us to vengeance.

‘That night I ran, taking the younger woman with me. She was always the milder of the two, so had suffered more in the years of slavery. It was a hard life at first, hiding from the soldiers out looking for the mutineers, but we managed to go south and finally bought passage on a ship to Germania Inferior. I got work as a butcher. I’d learned how to do that over the years. Genialis was born in a tiny room behind the shop, and my cousin died in the act. I was sure you could see her power passing into the baby, and when it was gone she was just an empty husk. I worked hard and my master took to me. He adopted me and then died a few years later. It was nothing to do with me, although I know people say otherwise. He caught a fever and died. Genialis was only four, slow at talking, but you could see he was special. When I had him with me life seemed to fall into place. It was like luck, but stronger and less fickle. The hidden money was still there when I went back for it. From being quite well off, we became rich, and that let us grow richer.’

‘The noble Ovidius had a slave,’ Ferox said.

‘I was sorry about that. I remember the shock of seeing him in Londinium. Knew his face at once, even though he was cruelly scarred and withered by what he been through. Genialis knew who he was too, and that puzzled me because he cannot ever have seen the man. As he grows, more of his mother’s power comes to him.

‘But I could not take the risk. There was the money of course, and the fact that I was a mutineer. Rome does not forget that sort of thing. I guess even being a slave who enlisted in the army would be enough to get me executed.’

‘I think in your case the blame would be on the man who gave you to the army claiming that you were freeborn.’

‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Probus gave a grim laugh. ‘It was a risk for me, but it was the boy I did it for. Genialis is innocent and I did not want him to suffer.’

‘And now?’

The merchant stared out at one of the enemy sentries. ‘Can’t see his face from so far away, but wonder if I know him.’ He peered at the man, as he went on. ‘And now? Could you prove any of this in court?’

‘Perhaps,’ Ferox said. ‘Perhaps not.’

‘I’m not going back. The lands, all the rest, none of it matters. If we live through this I’ll go to Hibernia and stay there. I have some friends. Genialis can come with me, unless he wants to stay in Britannia. Be nice if he could keep at least some of the estates. Still, I know that that is not for you to say.’

‘No. All I know is that you have fought with us and for that you have my thanks. I know you came for your son, but you have helped us as well.’

‘He isn’t my son, though, is he? That bastard out there – my brother – is his father. Genialis has brought me good fortune and I have loved him as if he was my own, but he isn’t, much as I loved his mother.

‘I know what he is like,’ he added in a softer tone. ‘There’s a vicious streak in him. Maybe I was too kind. When you’ve been a slave you are desperate to give something better to a child. I have indulged him too much, or botched it all when I tried to be firm. It isn’t just that. He’s different to everyone else, just like his mother and aunt – and even his brute of a father. From early on he sensed it. He has dreams and sees things. And there is the luck. That’s why Cniva wants him, more than anything else. I’m guessing he wants more than this island, and whatever he wants will come through fire and slaughter.’

‘That’s why we need to stop him,’ Ferox said. ‘Stop him now and wipe them all from the earth.’ He had an uneasy sense that he sounded like Acco when he talked of Rome.

Probus sniffed. ‘Just us?’

‘Help will come.’

The merchant lifted his sword. ‘Will it? We won’t last another day like this one.’ He stiffened, but Ferox had already seen the movement on the lake. There were two, maybe three dark shapes out on the lake to their right. He scanned the shore, then the water on the other side of the causeway and saw nothing. Some instinct made him look ahead again and he saw creeping shapes heading for them.

Ferox tapped one of the Batavians on the shoulder and pointed out across the water. ‘You watch them,’ he whispered. Then he picked up one of the javelins propped beside the barricade. The shapes on the causeway were still indistinct, but it was clear that men were crawling towards them.

‘I wouldn’t worry about it all.’ The centurion spoke to the merchant, resuming their conversation. ‘They’ll be here soon enough. I dare say the tribune and the legate will speak up for you and your boy with the emperor.’ The shapes were coming closer. He thought that there were three or four of them. ‘The Lord Trajan is a good man, they say, ready to understand. After all, it’s not as if you ate anyone…’

One of the shapes sprang up and rushed at them. Ferox threw, the javelin hit the man in the midriff and he grunted as he fell. Probus threw another, which dug into a second warrior’s thigh. He yelped, and then screamed as his comrades helped him back. The Batavian threw their third and last javelin, but cursed as it splashed into the water. The dark shapes retreated.

It went quiet and they waited.

‘That looks like it for the moment,’ Ferox said. ‘But they might come on again.’

‘Why should they?’ Probus asked. ‘We cannot go anywhere. All they have to do is wait.’

‘Help is on its way.’

‘Is it? And do they know that? Cniva won’t want to lose too many men because they are hard to replace. Why not let hunger do his work for him?’

‘They will come for us,’ Ferox assured him, believing it was true, but wondering whether they would come in time. ‘Cheer up. You have just said that your son brings good fortune.’

Probus chuckled. ‘Yes. But he might bring it for Cniva.’

Ferox laughed, and once he started he could not stop and had to lean against the wall. Sometimes this Roman habit of chattering away could lift spirits.

Nothing happened in the rest of their watch. He told Longinus and Vindex about the brief attack. There was no need to warn them to be on their guard. In the entrance, Falx and Brigita sat honing their weapons. Their task was to guard the doorway and act as reserve to the others. The queen had her armour on, but was bareheaded, her dark hair once again neatly coiled up on top of her head. Bran sat on the floor beside her, polishing the bronze helmet with dedicated reverence. Ferox thought of the boy’s ardent wish for a wife with long dark hair and he could not help smiling. Probus patted the gladiator on the shoulder as he went past, as a man might pat a favourite hound. The big Dacian did not react or say anything, but that was nothing unusual.

Ovidius was waiting at the end of the tunnel. ‘All well, centurion?’

‘We’re still alive,’ he said, and thought at once that that was cruel to the fallen. ‘You look as if you have been in a battle, my lord.’

The poet’s hands were bloody. ‘Sulpicia Lepidina, femina clarissima and daughter of an ex-consul, has been showing me how to cut up and joint piglets.’ Ovidius was smiling in self-mockery, and yet there was a trace of pride in his words.

‘Who is up top?’

‘That silent northerner with the red mark on his face. Your son, my dear Probus, is due to relieve him in a moment.’

‘Then I had better see him before he goes on duty.’ The merchant was walking stiffly from fatigue, but went to the ladder and began to climb.

‘You should get some sleep, my lord,’ Ferox said to Ovidius when the man had gone. ‘Butchery is hard work.’

‘I am tired. It’s quite a novelty. I mean, everyone feels like sleep at times, but I cannot remember when I last felt so truly weary. The Greeks must have a word for this sort of revelation, when your senses become more alive.’

‘I need to sleep, my lord,’ Ferox interrupted, because he sensed that this might be a long digression.

‘Of course, of course, my dear fellow. Here am I wittering on. Oh yes, I nearly forgot. The lady would like to have a word with you about provisions.’

‘She is awake?’

‘Still at work with the bacon. Goodnight, centurion. And thank you for what you are doing.’ The little man clambered up the ladder.

Ferox saw the light from the room that had been her prison. The door was ajar, and he knocked before he entered. Sulpicia Lepidina wore a tartan dress, sleeveless and gathered in at the waist by a rope belt. It was something they had found in the tower, simple and rough woven, and Ferox wondered whether it had belonged to Cniva’s woman. He doubted that she had filled it half as well, for the lady had the curves of a draped statue. The prefect’s wife must have found some pins from somewhere, because her hair was tied back in a bun, and that made her more formal, except for the fact that she was working with bloodied hands to rub salt into cuts of meat.

‘Centurion.’ She nodded, her tone formal.

Ferox closed the door shut behind him, and hoped the gesture did not appear presumptive.

She gave him a thin smile. ‘You must be exhausted.’

‘It has been a long day,’ he conceded. ‘But I see and hear that you have been pretty busy.’

‘No doubt from Ovidius. He is a fussy little man, but I do like him. He means well and tries so hard. However, it is just as well that that poor animal was dead before he did what he did to it.’

‘Butchery is a difficult skill, they say. Yet it appears not beyond the capacity of a senator’s daughter.’

She made a face. ‘I told you long ago that noblemen raise their daughters to run a household. After all, that’s easier than running it themselves. So we have to know about everything or we will be cheated by our own slaves.’ The lady went back to her work and started to hum a song as old as the hills, sung by the tribes of Britannia and Gaul alike. It was a tune and verses that told of the meeting of a hero and the woman who would become his bride. Vindex loved it, and had kept whistling and humming it when Ferox had first met Sulpicia Lepidina and the Brigantian had sensed his attraction. ‘I see a sweet country, I’ll rest my weapon there.’ Ferox thought of their first encounters, and the sudden passion of last night.

‘How well off are we for food?’

‘Ah, all business, I see.’ She put down the slice of meat and straightened up, mimicking a soldier at attention. ‘Yes, sir, certainly sir. We have a good store. This bacon will last, and we have enough fresh to feed us tomorrow without having to slaughter any more of the animals. There were three round loaves when we got here, and grain to bake more or make gruel. It’s barley—’ she grimaced at the mention of food for slaves and the poor ‘—and will have to do for the animals as well, as long as we keep them. There is milk from the cow, beer and good water. No wine, I am sorry to say.’ She raised her arm in salute. ‘Is that to the centurion’s satisfaction?’

‘How long will it last, soldier?’

‘Yes, sir, certainly, sir, beg to report sir.’ She lowered her arm. ‘If you had asked this morning I would have said ten days at best. After today, the mouths that are left can eat well for at least that long, and survive for another four or five days after.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘After today.’

‘He looks a lot like you,’ she said, and her smile was gentle now, without any mockery. ‘Little Marcus. It’s not just the mop of dark hair, but his expression. He can be very serious.’ She gave an exaggerated frown and stuck out her lower lip.

Ferox did not know much about babies, and had always assumed that one looked much like another.

‘I thought he looked like you,’ he said, sensing that it was the right thing to say.

‘He has my laugh, poor thing.’

They smiled at each other awkwardly.

‘You must be exhausted, my lady. You should get some rest.’

‘I am not so very tired.’ Sulpicia Lepidina washed her hands in a bowl of water and wiped them dry. She glanced down at the floor, where she had been chained for days. Now there was fresh straw, a sack for a pillow, and some blankets. ‘A little bit more comfortable than bare stone,’ she said, and reached up to the pins in her hair.

‘Let me,’ he said, stepping over to her. He fumbled with his fingers, but eventually the long golden hair fell loose around her shoulders. It was as if she changed, standing differently, no longer the formal aristocrat and just the woman. The same treacherous thoughts came into his mind, telling him that there was no reason why she should bother with him unless she wanted him for some dark purpose, and he pushed them away as he pulled her close. Her hair was soft, her skin softer still and her lips were sweeter than any sweet country. His fingers came to life and unclipped the simple brooch from one shoulder, letting the dress flap open on that side. He kissed her shoulder and her neck.

‘I love you,’ he murmured, because he could not stop himself from speaking, and his hand undid the brooch on her other shoulder.

Sulpicia Lepidina pushed him away, and he feared that he had said too much, but she smiled as the top of the dress fell down to her waist. She wore a breast band of cloth that must once have been a brilliant white, although it was now stained by the rigours of the last weeks. Her hands went to the rope belt, undoing it, so that with a slight twitch the dress dropped to the floor. Apart from a triangle of white cloth in front and behind she was bare down to her sandals.

‘We are at the end of the world,’ she said, and he wondered whether she had decided that there was no hope of rescue and it did not matter what they did for no one would ever know. The lady bent her arms back to reach the knot on her band. Then she stopped. ‘No. Your turn.’ She always made him feel like a centaur or satyr, ungainly, lustful and crude in the presence of a nymph or goddess. He obeyed.

Later they lay beside each other and sleep did not come to him. He knew that he was weary, but wanted to save every moment of this in his memory so that it might stay fresh for the rest of his life, however long that proved to be. They did not speak, but she rested her head on his chest, and although he could not see her face he knew that she was awake.

Then the shouting started.