The Fort

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RHOLES WAS DEAD. The day after the grand attack on the fort, the old warrior had spoken in the morning of how they would win next time and of all that they must do to make this happen. He was pale, his eyes dark-rimmed, but his voice was steady and he filled all the council with confidence. Brasus cherished the praise he gave for his foresight in taking a tree trunk with him, so that he could batter at the gates once they were weakened by the stones from the catapult. That was what had got them in, only to find the way blocked by carts and barrels, javelins coming from all sides and horsemen galloping up in support.

In the afternoon Rholes’ bowels opened and would not stop for all that day and the night. When Brasus went to his tent the next morning the stench made him gag, even before he got a glimpse of the sick man through a gap in the tent flap. His skin was by then yellow, shrunken around his bones, and the eyes of his woman were glassy with tears on the verge of spilling out. If Rholes saw him at all he said nothing, and then he gasped and his face was wracked with pain as his muscles strained again. By the morning he was dead, along with a dozen others among the army, all of them with the same sickness.

An army camp meant filth and stink, and everyone knew that. So many men and so many animals meant the reek of sweat and dirt, of urine and manure, both human and animal. The patches where the deserters pitched their tents were neater and cleaner than the rest, and one of their leaders kept urging Diegis to make the rest of the army copy.

‘We are not Romans but free men,’ was all that the man now in sole charge of the army would say. So the filth piled up, and men drank from the river downstream from where hundreds relieved themselves, and more and more were falling sick, adding to the piles of excrement and the appalling reek. By now the whole camp smelled like Rholes’ tent and more men were bound to die. Brasus could not help wishing that Diegis would be one of them for the man was a dangerous fool.

The siege towers had been Rholes’ idea, and two of them were rapidly taking shape, but it took constant prodding to remind Diegis that they would need the Roman ditches to be filled in and the earth well enough packed and supported to hold their weight.

‘There will be time enough the night before we attack,’ he declared. Brasus ignored him, and had some of the deserters and one of the Black Sea Greeks with the army making covered sheds and extending the attackers’ rampart ever closer to the outer ditch so that it could be filled properly. Diegis mocked but did not stop him, and seemed uninterested in supervising the siege, and instead let each chieftain or leader act as he willed. Some did nothing, others were busy, but all too often did not speak to the rest so that they did not help or even hindered each other’s efforts. Brasus managed to get a few to work with him, persuading because he could not order.

The army was restless, the animals’ bellies swelling from eating too much grass as they were left to pasture all day, and more and more men began vomiting or spent half the day squatting over their own filth.

Diegis revived with the arrival of the captive Roman tribune and the news of the death of Longinus. He spoke openly of his hatred for the man, and the number of insults the Roman had directed at him in councils, and did not seem aware that the king’s plan had been to use the man as a hostage.

‘This will show them that it is hopeless to resist,’ Diegis declared after an hour spent alone in his tent save for his bodyguards, one or two advisors, the captive Piso and – strangest of all – Ivonercus. ‘We will send the tribune to speak in his own voice so that they know the truth.’ There was much that Brasus did not understand and rumours passed through the camp that the Roman tribune had sworn an oath to Decebalus and was now his man. Someone else said that the tribune had murdered the Legatus Longinus, or had it arranged, for some dark scheme of the king’s to outwit the enemy.

Brasus was relieved not to be sent with the envoys, for he feared seeing the queen again. She had been there when they broke through the gate, snatching his victory away as she rode behind her warriors, urging them on. Brasus and his men had had to fall back or be slaughtered for no purpose, but as they stepped back, shields facing the enemy, he had seen the queen throw a javelin which had struck the man beside him in the face. To see a woman kill like that was new to him and wholly disturbing.

Instead of Brasus, Diegis chose another chieftain, and it was hard to know whether this was a mark of favour or punishment. Yet the commander had been as surprised as any at what had happened, and his rage stirred the anger of the men into that rash and futile attack. It did not seem feigned, but Brasus wondered whether the plan had always been to get Ivonercus or Piso or both inside the fort. Men whispered that they were spies and would open a gate during the night or murder the Roman centurion who led the defence. Brasus was more than ever convinced that Ferox was a great leader and warrior and part of him did not like the thought of such a man being murdered rather than falling in honourable combat. He also doubted that Ferox was the key to unlocking the fort, for he had seen a small figure with long red hair up on the tower when the envoy had been killed and the prisoner escaped, and he sensed her power everywhere.

Brasus was not sleeping well, unable to clear his mind, although so far he was healthy. He had always considered cleanliness a fitting accompaniment to purity of the soul. Yet all around him he saw pollution and he knew that his spirit was succumbing. Sleep had become harder, his mind refusing to empty of thoughts no matter how tired he was. When he did sleep he dreamed, and each night it seemed to be of the queen. Sometimes she stood over him, driving a spear deep into his naked flesh and sometimes she was naked too, as desirable as she was terrifying. Yet the other dreams were almost worse, when he pictured encounters, whether amid the crunching leaves of an autumn forest or a meadow rich with spring flowers, and she smiled at him, a little afraid, a little excited. Each time he woke up as he was undressing her and felt such bitter loss. For a man to take a woman as bride was right and natural, for the pure must father more souls to climb to purity of their own. Brasus should have longed and lusted for his bride to be, even though on the one occasion he had met the king’s daughter she had struck him as insipid, albeit pretty enough. Now a spell had fallen on him, cast by the sorceress from Britannia and his soul was growing dark. Brasus worried that his mistrust of Diegis was fuelled by her magic.

The commander did not help. Brasus’ men bridged both the ditches, supporting the sides of each hard-packed earth ramp with timber driven fast into the ground, so that one path wide enough for a tower led to the Roman rampart. It meant that the defenders knew where the attack would come, but at least ensured that the tower should reach their wall. At long last Diegis had realised the wisdom of this, and ordered a favoured chieftain to supervise the construction of another crossing, so that each tower could approach at different ends of the front rampart. Brasus doubted that the man put in charge understood what he was doing and his offers of advice were rejected, yet, perversely it seemed, Diegis ordered him to lead the column supporting the second tower. The whole business also meant a delay of another day before the attack was launched, as they worked on the second path. The towers had already been raised, clearly visible to the Romans even if Piso and Ivonercus had not already told them about the Dacian plan.

Brasus felt the power of the queen seeping into the camp like the mists that floated up from the river each night. Dark thoughts came and would not let themselves be pushed aside, and he wondered whether her magic brought the sickness that was killing more and more and leaving others too weak to stand, while clouding the mind of Diegis. Brasus feared for the army as he feared for his own soul.