The Fort

VI

LATINIUS MACER LEFT three days after his dinner with Ferox, for the storm the prefect had feared blew up suddenly from the west and kept him waiting longer than he had hoped. To his considerable satisfaction, no one killed Flavius Ferox. At the same time the snow turned to sleet and then to rain, all driven in by ferocious winds, and cleared altogether by the next dawn, leaving the ground with less snow than there had been for months. Ferox suspected that the men would be riding or marching through mud by the time they were lower down the valley. A lot of off-duty men gathered to see Macer and his escort set out, whether from fondness for the old man, envy for those leaving with him or a mixture of both.

Two days later the Brigantes arrived. Ferox had left one hundred horsemen and one hundred and sixty infantrymen to wait their turn for the ferry over the Danube at Dobreta. Twenty-seven, about half of them cavalry, failed to arrive.

‘They just vanished, sir.’ Ulpius Cunicius told Ferox, struggling to meet his gaze. It was a sorry tale, if no great surprise. Once over the river they were almost out of the empire, with few garrisons, and a warm welcome waiting from the Dacians or the chance to rove free among the other tribes if they chose. One entire picket of four horsemen had ridden off during the first night.

‘Did you chase them?’

‘We tried,’ Cunicius said weakly. Ferox could guess that no one had been that keen. After all, what were they to do if they had caught the men? ‘But I called it off quickly. There was no hope of catching them and I wanted to press on and join you.’

‘Without losing too many more,’ Ferox added to himself. Ulpius Cunicius was a decent man, the son of a chieftain who had stayed loyal to the right side during the rebellion, although had not been directly involved in the fighting. The reward was citizenship for the family, hence taking Ulpius, the family name of the emperor, and then a little later appointment as centurion to the irregular unit. He was the only centurion with the party, and now there was only one other decurion apart from Vindex. Others would appear if ever the rest of the force arrived. Cunicius was twenty-five, long limbed and narrow faced like most of his kin, but was still feeling his way into his new role. Ferox could not blame him, since he did not really know what was going on and how to turn the disparate mob into a useful unit before someone killed him or half of the rest went over the wall. In truth Cunicius had done well to lose so few on the way to Piroboridava. Now that they were here, it became a little harder to desert than it had been on the march, while opening up a whole new set of problems.

The first fight broke out on the evening of the day after the Brigantes had arrived, and Ferox was surprised that it had taken so long. He did not see it, nor did anyone else of high rank, and what had happened only came out after there were more arguments over the next few days, culminating in one that left a veteran of I Minervia with a bad knife wound to the stomach and a Brigantian hit so hard on the head that he remained unconscious and would not wake. Both men were carried to the hospital, along with half a dozen more with lesser injuries.

‘They’re not happy,’ Sabinus conceded.

Ferox had summoned his senior officers to a meeting in his office in the principia, the headquarters of the fort. Thinking about it, he supposed it was now his principia, just as they were his officers. Neither thought felt natural and he wondered whether they ever would. He had been in the army for the best part of twenty years, more than half his whole life, but the only garrison he had ever commanded was the tiny outpost at Syracuse not far from Vindolanda in northern Britannia. There his duties had been modest, the administrative work light or trivial enough to be left to a junior. Here there were some six hundred soldiers to oversee, feed, and keep healthy, as well as sick men in the hospital, army slaves like the galearii, private slaves and no doubt women and children belonging to the rest, although there seemed far fewer of these than he would have expected. The Brigantes had not been permitted to bring families or slaves, apart from one servant for each of the officers.

‘Not happy?’ Ferox asked. He understood the mood of the men already in garrison, but needed to get a better sense of their officers. It would have been nice to think that only the Brigantes were discontented, but even a few hours at Piroboridava was enough to get a sense of the wider frustration of its garrison.

‘Yes, sir.’ Sabinus glanced nervously at Sertorius Festus, the only other centurion from I Minervia, eager for his support.

‘They’re fed up,’ Festus said. He struck Ferox as capable enough in his way, without imagination or spark. It was hard to know why either man was posted to this vexillation and whether it was chance, their turn on the roster, or more deliberate than that. Outposts often received the men no one wanted anywhere else. Both centurions were understandably and very reasonably loyal to their men, putting them on the defensive and making it hard to admit that their legionaries were anything less than bursting to do their duty.

‘Rumour was that we were all being relieved.’ That was Julius Dionysius, the remaining centurion left in the garrison. He was a small man, his movements precise and very controlled. His dark complexion and delicate features marked him as an easterner, and as an auxiliary centurion he was junior to the other two, although ranking above poor Cunicius. He had a young, open face, even though he must be nearly Ferox’s age, and hard, intelligent eyes. When no one else said anything, he continued. ‘Everyone expected to be relieved as soon as you and your men reached us. Then they found out that only a handful are to leave and the rest are to stay. Indefinitely for all they know.’

‘That is not our fault,’ Cunicius said defensively. Ferox was glad he had the confidence to speak up.

‘Of course not.’ Dionysius’s smile was disarming. ‘But you are here and they have no one else to blame.’

‘And your men need to show more respect,’ Sabinus declared. ‘These are not simply legionaries, but veterans.’

‘We are Brigantes,’ Cunicius replied, defiant in his pride. ‘We step aside for no man.’

Festus sneered. ‘You are barbarians.’ He was not a tall man, but very broad in the shoulders with long, powerful arms. Ferox had not been at the fort long before he heard legionaries calling the centurion ‘the ape’; he was not sure whether or not Festus knew of his nickname. Probably not, as the man lacked subtlety. Still, this was getting them nowhere.

Ferox drummed his fingers on the wooden table. The silence was immediate. None of them, not even Cunicius, knew him at all well and all – with the possible exception of Dionysius – were nervous of their new commander.

‘Soldiers fight,’ Ferox said, speaking softly. ‘I suppose that is why they pay us!’ Even Festus laughed and whether they were genuinely amused or felt obliged did not matter so much. ‘When there are no enemies they will fight each other. If there were only your legionaries here, then I daresay in time men who had served in one cohort would band together against those who had spent their time in another, or the Spaniards against the Italians or even the Blues against the Greens. You know how devoted the fans of each faction can be. So they will fight if they are bored and have time on their hands. That is the key.’ He scanned the faces. Cunicius doing his best to seem eager, but still unused to the army and its ways and smarting at the contempt shown by Festus. The ‘ape’ had his chin thrust forward belligerently waiting to be told what to do. Sabinus seemed to understand, while Dionysius had clearly heard it all before.

‘So we will not give them any time. The weather is breaking and spring on its way. From now on we work, day in and day out. Sabinus.’ Ferox nodded at the man.

‘Sir.’

‘I want that bath house finished and running before the end of the month. You are in charge.’

‘Sir.’

‘I also want the ditches cleared, roofs repaired where they need it, and then we go through all the stores and equipment here and make sure they are in perfect condition. That’s your job, Festus.’

The ape nodded.

‘Both of you will take work parties from all the units here. You know how it’s done. Put them into teams and make it a competition over who can do a job best and fastest. Prizes will be extra wine in their ration, and extra passes to bathe or to visit the canabae. I know it is small, but there are a couple of bars.’ He did not need to add, that in the bars there were bound to be at least a few girls available for hire.

Festus coughed. ‘Our men are veterani, sir. They are not obliged to work or perform fatigues.’

‘The craftsmen won’t mind, and all of them will be happy to help with the bath house. The rest will do the lighter jobs, but we will mix up the teams. Give each party some auxiliaries, galearii when they can be spared from their own duties, and a score of Brigantes to help. Then it’s about making their Britons do a better job than the ones with the other teams. We will make sure there are men with decent Latin in every group. See to that, Cunicius.’

Festus and Sabinus still looked dubious.

‘And the Brigantes are also going to drill like they have never drilled before. I want some of your best legionaries to act as instructors and tell them not to go easy. Let ’em pass on all those years of experience. And the workshops can make sure all the kit is up to scratch. I’m also putting you in charge of that, Festus. See if you can turn those barbarians into proper soldiers. You deal with the infantry.’

Festus was grinning now. ‘A pleasure.’

‘I want them exhausted, not dead, mind you.’

‘Do my best, sir.’

‘And never strike them. Not ever!’ Ferox could see the centurion’s look of disappointment. ‘Do that and we will have a mutiny. Scream at them, insult them, but they are warriors and if you touch them they’ll try to kill you for honour’s sake. So warn your men. And tell them that as soon as they start training with practice swords they can pound on them as much as they like – if it’s in a fight, even a training fight, then a blow is no insult.’

The ape bared his teeth happily.

‘Julius Dionysius?’ Ferox wondered whether the man really was a citizen. A lot of educated easterners were a good deal more civilized than many a Roman, and if they enlisted often gave themselves Roman names to make people think that they did have the franchise. No doubt it was in his records, but he was not sufficiently curious to check.

‘Sir.’

‘You see to the cavalry. And I want all the horses and other animals in the garrison fit again. Get as many out exercising as you can, every day you can. We only stop for the worst storms. Nothing else.

‘And finally, we are all going to stretch our legs as much as we can. Patrols. Every day from now on. On foot and on horseback. Up and down the valley. We’ll start short and make them longer, each of us leading one in turn. For the moment each will return to the fort by nightfall. In the future, we’ll see. … We can see who is about and what is happening in the world. There’s never any harm in that. At the very least, Sabinus here can get a chance to converse with his trees.’

Sabinus chuckled and the rest laughed. He must have told Cunicius at some point since he had arrived.

‘Drive them hard, and don’t let up.’

‘Sir?’ Sabinus spoke with obvious reluctance. ‘What about the Britons, sir? Are they going to run?’ He turned to Cunicius, spreading his hands in apology. ‘Sorry, but it sounds as if many of them are even less happy.’

Cunicius seemed about to speak, but then said nothing and just shrugged.

‘Some are bound to try,’ Ferox told them. ‘Fatigue will help, and now that they are in the fort it is harder to slip away.’

‘What about the pickets – and these patrols?’ Dionysius seemed the sharpest of the group, and Ferox was already glad to have him. ‘Perhaps we should make sure that there are always reliable soldiers to watch them?’

Ferox shook his head. ‘We need to show trust if we are to earn it.’ Festus sniffed, Sabinus and Cunicius both showed concern, while Dionysius’ smooth features were impassive. Ferox liked him all the more. ‘However, we can work up to things. For the moment, we jig the duty roster so that only the men and groups we trust get faced with temptation.’ Dionysius gave the slightest of nods. ‘Have many men run from the garrison since it was established? We all know the promises offered by Decebalus and so do the men.’

‘None of Minervia.’ Festus’ chin thrust out even more, and his little eyes were belligerent.

Sabinus coughed. ‘A couple of men vanished last autumn.’

‘We don’t know they ran,’ Festus maintained. ‘Bandits had been seen, and the Red Alans were on the prowl.’

Ferox kept his face rigid. ‘These are dangerous lands.’ He remembered the Roxolani, the Red Alans, from his years on the Danube. They were Sarmatians, horse folk, always on the move until the snows made it impossible, not just brave warriors, but clever ones – and thieves and marauders. He had liked them, apart from when they had been trying to kill him. In some odd way – odd because their lifestyle was very different – they had reminded him of his own tribe, the Silures of western Britannia.

There was another awkward silence. ‘Before the vexillation from I Minervia arrived, there were some desertions,’ Dionysius explained, for he had been at the fort the longest. ‘The vexillation was chosen for its reliability, as were many of the other troops sent here. We have a lot of experienced men, a good few of them only a few stipendia short of retirement.’

Festus preened at the praise of his men. ‘Good men, all of them. Sensible too. No sense in buggering off and losing that fat bounty they’ll get on discharge.’

‘And I take it their families were left back in Germania at the main castra?’ Ferox guessed at least half the men, and probably more, had ‘wives’ and children. Army regulation said that soldiers were not to marry, but men were men, and few wanted to wait out twenty-five years before finding the right woman and starting a family. The army turned a blind eye, knowing that it was better that way.

‘Well, it’s rough up here, the winters savage,’ Festus said.

‘And they were told that we would not be here long enough to make it worth putting the families through the hardships of the journey,’ Sabinus added, his tone dubious. ‘And…’ he trailed off, before rallying. ‘A few were allowed to come anyway, and a dozen or so more made it up here with the last big supply convoy.’

‘Soldiers’ women tend to be a tough bunch,’ Ferox said. He did not add what Sabinus, Dionysius and many of the veterans – if not perhaps Festus – understood. Fear of losing the discharge bonus due in a couple of years was one incentive to keep the legionaries away from the temptation of running. Even bigger for many was the knowledge that running meant that they would most likely never again see their families, and that these would be evicted by the army and sent away with nothing. Someone high up had worked this out, realised that I Minervia had more than its share of men nearing the end of their enlistment, and formed this vexillation – and another sent further to the east – to serve in this out of the way, bleak outpost in the belief that they were least likely to be lured away into Dacian service. The same was true of most of the auxiliaries, notably sixty men from cohors I Hispanorum veterana, whose main base was far away in Thrace, and all of whom had served at least twenty-three stipendia.

It was a bright, if cynical, idea, and had worked well, at the cost of creating a garrison of elderly soldiers, all of them, to quote Sabinus, ‘not happy’. There was almost none of the laughter and life that women and especially the children brought to most big army bases. Piroboridava was quiet, not helped by the fact that it had been built for a garrison twice the size of the one there now, even including the Brigantes.

The place of his men in this grand design still puzzled Ferox. If someone had decided that the old sweats sent to Piroboridava were the men least likely to desert, then why add the Brigantes, full of men almost bound to run, if they did not mutiny first. Were they seen as such a nuisance that senior officers wanted them to desert and rid the army of a problem? Or was this a test of him and the men, to see how they coped, challenging them to come to heel and redeem themselves. Then again, maybe someone judged that the veterans would keep the Brigantes in line. Ferox was not sure, and did not ignore the possibility that this was all a mistake, that a senior officer had written the wrong destination on the order and no one had dared correct him. He almost smiled at the thought – almost. With the army you could never quite be sure, but his instincts all still told him that somebody was playing games, and using them all as pieces on a board.

‘Well,’ he said and let himself smile. ‘That is the broad plan. Now let us see about the details.’

‘I can tell you one thing, sir,’ Sabinus announced after they had spent an hour drawing up lists and plans. ‘We are not going to be very popular.’

‘Just blame the new commander,’ Ferox told them. ‘I hear he’s half barbarian and a right tyrant!’

The garrison sweated. Ferox drove the officers hard to make them drive the men just as hard. All of the regulars, legionaries and auxiliaries alike, bitched and moaned, and the veterans, with all their long years of experience, were very good at it. They complained as they worked, and afterwards, and plenty of comments were just loud enough for Ferox and the other officers to hear, if never sufficiently clear to justify a formal charge.

To his surprise the Brigantes resented the labouring jobs less than he expected. The deserters and mutineers had done it before, if unwillingly, and the former prisoners had lost a fair bit of pride toiling in the mines. None were happy, but they did what they were told as long as someone was watching or there was fear of punishment. The rest of the men from the royal units, let alone those sent by willing chieftains, resented work fit for peasants not warriors. Vindex and the forty horsemen he had brought from his own clan, the Carvetii, were a rough and ready bunch, less sensitive about such matters.

‘We’re wondering how best to kill you,’ Vindex told him. ‘Don’t want to make it too quick, after all.’

‘I am sure it’s just talk, sir,’ Cunicius added. He seemed more worried with every passing day.

‘Tell them to wait their turn,’ Ferox said. He made them work, all of them, because he could not afford to have parts of the units seen as more favoured than the others. Most began cleaning the barracks allotted to them. The veterans had done a cursory job, once the roofs were decently repaired, afterwards justifying this as only for a mob of Britons. That meant the Brigantes had to scrub and paint, bring in new straw and rushes to cover the floors, and clean the little chimneys so that the smoke did not choke everyone inside. The nights stayed cold, giving them a more personal incentive, and that helped to speed the work. At the same time they all showed the tribe’s deep love of horses by working with even greater will on the boxes in the stables.

Then things started to vanish. The veterans liked their comforts, and had done their best to fit out their quarters with luxuries and ornaments. Some were stolen, then stolen back. Ferox gave orders that anyone caught was to suffer full punishment for robbing a comrade, but did not hold his breath waiting for arrests. There were a few more fights, and these had less venom than the earlier ones. They did not end the thefts, although they may have made some of those involved a little more careful. The centurion Sabinus had brought a bronze statue of Venus. It was about a foot high, had cost more than its modest aesthetic charm merited, and showed the goddess surprised while bathing, modestly crouching to cover her nudity with her hands to the small extent that this was possible. One morning the statuette was suspended by a little loop of rope from one of the stubby chimneys on the roof of a barrack block occupied by the Brigantes. Returned to its rightful owner, on the next morning it was atop the roof of another building, this time occupied by the legions. After that, the goddess travelled all over the camp, every day finding a new home. At least one of the thieves was a craftsman, for Venus also acquired a carefully made little helmet just like the ones worn by the legions, and later on a belt with a gladius in its scabbard hanging from her left hip. Whoever had made it must have decided that a deity ought to hold high rank, so had put it on the side where centurions and more senior officers wore their swords.

‘Where is Venus?’ became the first question most men asked in the morning, and bets were soon being placed on where the statuette would turn up next. Other thefts dropped off, and there was more laughter to be heard.

‘I can’t think how anyone knew I had it,’ Sabinus said.

‘Thrash your slaves,’ Festus advised, but could not convince his colleague.

‘I always heard that the Silures were the greatest thieves in the world,’ Vindex commented. The others were getting used to Ferox’s willingness to let decurions and other juniors speak out with some freedom, although neither man liked it.

‘Never heard of them,’ Festus grunted. ‘Are they some of your Britons?’

‘No,’ Cunicius replied.

‘We won’t take just anyone,’ Vindex added.

Ferox did not bother to say anything. For most Romans, even those who had served there, anyone from Britannia was a Briton. There was simply no point trying to explain that many peoples lived there and all were different. Vindex was leering at him, and not simply because that was his natural expression. It was hard to tell whether he was fishing for the answer or really knew that Ferox had been the first to steal the statuette.

The days passed and the laughter helped leaven the constant complaining. A couple of times men let things fall during their work whenever an officer, and especially Ferox, passed by. He was spattered a few times by dirt or sand, and narrowly missed by a pile of heavy shingles which had slid off the high roof of one of the granaries. They missed, if narrowly, and perhaps had fallen by accident. The men working up on the roof were only using ladders, not full scaffolding for Festus had declared the job an easy one, and the two Brigantes up there were not men he expected to risk killing him in public.

Ferox was more wary on the patrols out of the fort, although he loved those days for the sense of space that they gave him and the freedom from lists and reports. He went out more often than anyone else, usually with the cavalry, so that he could range further afield and get a sense of the wider area. Contrary to Sabinus’ verdict, there were people all the year around living not so very far away and more would come as the weather improved. Ferox had come up this valley almost twenty years ago on a long patrol, albeit in the summer, and now and again there was a view that he remembered. Memories were coming back, and he tried to fit them into place and learn all that he could about the locals. None of the officers at the fort showed much curiosity, let alone knowledge of these people. They were Saldense, as Sabinus had told him, and were not Dacians at all, but Getae, although few Romans would bother to note the distinction. The closest were the tough ones, the ones who lived in the area throughout the winter and they were neither hostile nor friendly. For the moment, his smattering of half-remembered words and the locals’ even thinner knowledge of Greek meant that the few encounters were short and conversation simple. Still, it was a start.

They had to build up gradually whenever a patrol included horses from the garrison, working on them to make them stronger and fitter each time. In March they did not go far up the valley, and instead tended to go down, where the slopes were gentler and the snow less. There were more farms down there, although the people were not much more forthcoming. Instead they remained wary, as such folk always were when any bands of armed men arrived, let alone strange soldiers come from far away.

A few horses went lame, and Ferox doubted that all would recover, while another bolted for no reason anyone could see and plunged into the river, smashing through the thick ice and being swept away by the current. The rider had leapt and landed well, but the animal was a pitiful sight when they found it, lying on the bank a mile downriver, forelegs broken and ribs smashed. They put the poor beast out of its misery and then cut off a foot as proof that army property had been destroyed – a practice followed by the cavalry in Moesia which Ferox had forgotten.

One man died on the next patrol. Sabinus said that the cavalryman had been showing off, and put his mount at the low wall encircling a ruined farm. The horse balked at the last minute, and the rider kept going, sailing over to slam into the ground. It was luck, simply bad luck, but he fell badly and broke his neck. In the days that followed there were more accidents, with a couple of falls and the mistakes with ladders, pulleys and other tools that were always a risk when you set soldiers to building and especially when you made them work quickly. One of the Brigantes even managed to drive an eight-inch nail through the hand of a comrade who was holding a beam in place.

A day after that Ferox took out another patrol and at one point led a dozen horsemen away from the main column to practise searching through the fir woods. Soon they lost each other, as was bound to happen. He was taking a chance and knew it, but his instincts were good and the man’s aim was bad. Some sense warned him and he twitched at the reins, making his horse lurch into a canter going to the left moments before the javelin whisked past and hit the trunk of a tree. The animal stumbled, almost fell, throwing his weight hard against the front horns of the saddle, and by the time he had recovered and turned the mare around all he could see was the darker shape of a horseman vanishing into the shadows.

There was the soft thud of hoofs on years of dried pine needles from behind and he turned again as one of the Brigantes appeared, a man named Vepoc, one of those who had been sent to the mines. He had a javelin in his hand and his face was impassive. Ferox’s cloak was around him, and he gripped the hilt of his sword.

Then Vindex appeared, from off to the side.

‘Hullo, who lost that?’ The thrown javelin had not driven deeply into the wood and was hanging down limply.

‘Not mine,’ Vepoc said, lifting his up as proof.

Ferox walked his horse over until he could grab the shaft and pull the weapon free. ‘No harm done,’ he said. ‘But time we went home.’

‘Home?’ Vindex muttered. ‘Oh, you mean the fort.’

Ferox let Vepoc ride behind them and before long they were back with the rest. None of the Brigantes or anyone else with the patrol was missing a javelin and no one had deserted. Rain started to fall and for two hours they rode back, gusts of wind blowing the drops hard against them. No one said very much and by the time they rode up the track to the main gates they all felt numb with cold.

Sabinus was waiting for him, and let the hood of his cloak fall back as he hurried over to see Ferox. The news was not good.

The ape was dead.