The Gods of War

CHAPTER NINETEEN

‘Why me?’ asked Fabius for the twentieth time, with that truly agonised expression he could produce on demand.

It was a litany that Aquila had become used to, but he knew that his ‘nephew’ would have killed anyone who sought to accompany the quaestor in his place. It was part of Fabius’s way to play the endemic coward, just as he reserved the right to steal the officers’ food and wine; and if he had stopped moaning, Aquila would have been seriously worried.

‘What am I doing out here, in the company of a madman in his underwear, with not even a pin to protect myself? No sword, no spear, nothing! Well, I tell you, “Uncle”, if those tribesmen come anywhere near me, before they stick a weapon in me, I’m going to hoist up my kilt and give them a good look at my bare arse.’

‘That might make them keep you alive?’

Fabius pulled a face. ‘I wonder if it’s truly a fate worse than death?’

Aquila raised his hand slowly. ‘Now’s your chance to find out.’

Fabius followed the finger to observe that the ridge in front of them was full of horsemen, who had appeared as if by magic. ‘What are the chances?’ he asked. There was no fear in his voice, but he was not joking either.

‘If they charge, none. If they stay still, evens.’

Aquila raised his hands, holding his horse by the knees. Fabius followed suit, praying silently that these Celt-Iberians would recognise that Aquila wanted to talk peace. The only sound was that of their hooves as they rode slowly uphill. The chieftain of those before them was an easy man to spot; everything he wore, from the gold-decorated helmet, to the silver and gold on his shield and breastplate and the richly carved metal greaves, spoke of his elevated station. But even at this distance they could see he was quite elderly.

The quaestor of the Roman army looked like nothing by comparison, wearing a simple purple-edged smock, with no decoration except the gold eagle around his neck; no weapons and no helmet. The distance was closing and the chieftain, surrounded by his tribesmen, knew he was at no risk, knew he could kill these messengers before or after he spoke with them, aware that prudence demanded he listen to what they had to say. The wrinkled face was set stiff, as if he had no intention of conceding anything, but as Aquila came closer, that changed, and it was not just the chieftain’s face that altered. Other men murmured and pointed, setting up a babble of noise.

‘That bloody hair of yours is going to get us killed,’ said Fabius out of the corner of his mouth.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ his uncle replied.

The chieftain raised his garlanded spear, the sun catching the torques of gold on his arm and his guttural cry stifled the noise, which ceased abruptly and he spoke again, quietly this time. Then he rode forward, with just one warrior on either side of him. Aquila halted and waited for him to approach.

‘Ye gods, he’s an ugly bastard,’ said Fabius softly. ‘Whatever you do, don’t ask him if he’s got a sister.’

He had dark skin and black marks on his face to match his eyes. They stopped a few feet away, staring at each other for what seemed an age. Then Aquila spoke, with the chieftain’s face registering deep shock at being addressed in his own tongue by someone he thought was a Roman, a race that if they condescended to talk to you at all, spoke Latin and used interpreters.

‘I am Aquila Terentius, quaestor to Titus Cornelius, commander of the Roman army besieging Numantia.’

No one said anything for a while, except of course Fabius, to whom a long silence was anathema. ‘Chatty bunch!’

Aquila ignored him and began speaking in the Celtic tongue again, outlining what they were here to do and how the Romans intended to do it. ‘We are strong and we will build forts that you cannot safely attack. Numantia will be cut off, then we will bring in food on a proper Roman road, if necessary with an escort too strong to attack.’

‘No escort is that strong,’ said the chieftain, speaking for the first time.

Aquila’s blue eyes never blinked, nor did his voice alter. ‘If you attack us, we won’t need supply columns, we’ll just come and take the food out of your mouths.’

The chieftain dropped his spear, pushing it forward. It was hard for Aquila to hold still with the spear coming at him, but he did. The tip stopped just below his neck, then it was jerked so that it just caught the golden charm, causing the eagle to swing back and forth across the chest of his smock.

‘Have you taken Numantia already?’

The question surprised Aquila, and for the first time he blinked. ‘No. But we will. If you attack us, we will let them be and turn on your tribe and destroy you.’

‘So we should just let you kill our cousins in Numantia?’

‘Why not? Are you really friends with them? You’ve spent years watching them grow, stealing a bit of land here, more there, until you must bow the knee to them. Are you to be made beggars while they increase their riches?’ The face opposite still showed no expression, nor did the eyes lift from his breast to his face, so Aquila ploughed on. ‘Ask yourself this. If you are prepared to come to the aid of the Duncani, what will they do if we attack you? Will you suffer the same fate as the Averici, who looked in vain to the west? Brennos left them to die, and he would see your bones bleached before he would venture out of his fortress. He speaks of an alliance, when what he means is this: you die for the greater glory of me.’

The spear tip flicked again, moving the charm once more. ‘Truly, you would know this.’

‘Who am I addressing?’ asked Aquila.

‘Masugori.’

‘Chief of the Bregones?’

The man nodded and the spear tip flicked the eagle again. ‘This thing, how did you come by it?’

He had been asked that question many times, and usually refused to answer; in fact he had even concocted the odd lie to deflect curiosity, or at least allowed others to draw conclusions he declined to refute. But something told him that the truth, on this occasion, would serve him better.

‘It was put round my foot when I was born. Where it comes from originally, I do not know.’

Masugori pushed his horse forward slightly and touched the eagle, then he looked at Aquila, with his height and his red-gold hair. Finally, he tugged at his reins, turning his horse.

‘Follow me!’

The Bregones were one of the few tribes who had never built a fort. Partly this stemmed from the peace they had once enjoyed with Rome, but it also had something to do with a numerical strength that made them less fearful than their neighbours. The huge encampment — more of a city — named Lutia, lay in a fertile plain, with huts stretching as far as the eye could see. Aquila tried to count them so as to guess at the number of warriors, but he gave up after a while, aware that it ran into thousands. Masugori handed Fabius over to someone else to be entertained, took Aquila into his own hut, and then sent for his priests.

They came and pored over Aquila, touching his body and hair. He refused to remove the charm, afraid that it might not be returned, but he lifted it so that the priests could finger that too. The entire party was then moved outside, so that the priests could perform their magic, casting bones very much as old Drisia the sorceress had done all those years before outside Fulmina’s hut. Then there was a long moaning incantation while their leading shaman held his charm again, all this taking place at the same time as some mystical ceremony involving earth, fire and water. When they had finished, the priests went into a whispered conclave with Masugori, who emerged from the throng and invited Aquila and Fabius back into his tent.

‘You were not born in these lands?’

Aquila shook his head. ‘Italy, just south of Rome.’

‘Your father is-’

‘Is unknown to me,’ Aquila interrupted, sharply. It had always been a subject on which he was touchy, and one his fellows knew not to ask. The last thing he intended to do was discuss it with a barbarian chief, diplomacy be damned, yet the way he spoke had not, it seemed, offended his host, who extended one gnarled finger towards his neck.

‘Take that eagle in your hand.’ Aquila did so. ‘Will you win, Roman?’

He nodded. ‘Without doubt!’

The Bregones chieftain sat, head bowed for a while, obviously thinking. Then he raised his eyes, surrounded by crow’s feet, and looked at his strange visitor.

‘My priests said that was so. They have seen the hill of Numantia bare of earthworks. They have also looked into the past.’ Masugori paused, as though he was unsure of what to say. When he did continue, Aquila had the distinct impression that he was leaving something out. ‘Then there is you, coming to me with nothing but your eagle to protect you. It is very strange that the gods should bring you here, of all places. They must have a purpose and I am advised not to anger them. We will not interfere in your siege, nor with your supplies.’

‘The price?’ demanded Aquila.

‘There is no price for you.’

‘The land around Numantia. True peace with Rome after that,’ said Aquila.

‘We ask for nothing. If you win, perhaps you will give us these things. If you lose, because of folly or fickle predictions, you will leave the bleached bones of your legions in the hills as a testimony to your failure. Now we will eat and talk, and you will swear by your gods that you are who you are, and that the words you speak are the truth.’

The Roman ability to build never ceased to amaze those they fought and conquered, but then they could not comprehend the stock from which Roman military ideas had sprung. It was the solid, hard-working farmer who had made the legions feared, not gaudily dressed warriors who saw husbandry and farming as effete.

Cholon put aside his stylus and looked around him, as the very evidence for that sentence lay before him. It was typical of the people he lived amongst to go about a siege this way: no imaginative attacks, nor a search for a refreshing form of tactics. Just plain hard work and time, which produced a slow but certain result. Every one of the seven forts was a complete Roman camp, able to house the entire army in an emergency. The palisade, fifteen feet high, with projecting towers at regular intervals, ran in a straight line, regardless of the state of the ground, from one fort to the next, stopping only at the banks of the river.

Across that stream they had laid a boom of thick logs, chained together to prevent boats coming or going, with razor-sharp blades hanging deep in the water. At night, the wall was manned at regular intervals, with flaring torches between the guards to throw some light onto the deep ditch that ran along the outer edge. Special squads, made up of the best swimmers, stood sentinel at the riverbank, ready to plunge into the icy stream and fight those trying either to escape from Numantia, or bring in news and supplies.

Thinking about guards reminded Cholon of a note he must make regarding the Roman system, and he picked up his stylus again.

Each guard is issued with a wooden token before taking up his post. This token must be handed to an officer at an unspecified time during the night. These rounds are distributed after the guards have taken up their posts, and who visits whom is entirely at the discretion of the duty tribune. Thus it is easy to discover who has fallen asleep at his post, thereby endangering the entire legion, since that man will still have his token in the morning. The penalty for such an offence is a horrible death, delivered by the other soldiers, whose life this man put at risk.

He looked up to see Titus standing over him, politely waiting so as not to interrupt. ‘I hope you’re doing as you said, Cholon, and sticking to a general military history.’

‘You do not wish to be recorded for distant posterity?’ asked the Greek.

Titus smiled. ‘Not without reading what is said about me.’

‘You have nothing to fear, Titus, nothing at all, but I daresay some of your predecessors, and some senators at Rome, might cringe at what is implied.’

‘I’ve come to ask a favour.’

Cholon put aside his stylus and scroll. ‘Ask away!’

‘As you know, I’ve elevated Aquila Terentius to a position he could never have dreamt of. If he thought of the future at all, he would have seen himself as a retired primus pilus, who with luck would, on leaving service, have enough money to join the class of knights.’

‘He may have dreamt of something better than that,’ said Cholon, ever literal in his interpretation of words.

‘Since he has never been taught, he cannot read. That should be remedied.’

Cholon frowned. ‘He also speaks Greek like a Piraeus dock worker. Mind, since he says he’s never been out of Italy, it’s a wonder he speaks Greek at all. It would be interesting to know where he learnt it.’

‘His past is a mystery. I have spent some time with him these last months and he will talk of little but his service in the legions. I know he was raised on a farm near Aprilium.’

There was a nagging sensation in the Greek’s mind that somehow what Titus was saying should mean something, but he couldn’t fix it. ‘What about that relative of his?’

‘Fabius Terentius? He’s from the back streets of Rome. It would be like trying to get blood out of a stone for someone like me to ask him anything.’

‘Is this merely curiosity, Titus?’

The senator shook his head slowly. ‘I’ve raised him above his natural station. Once this campaign is over, and assuming we succeed, where does he go? His appointment as quaestor is my personal gift, yet I cannot see him going back to his previous rank; besides which, he will be a very wealthy man if we take Numantia. After me, he will have the pick of anything that can be made out of this godforsaken land and that will most certainly give him the means to become a senator.’

‘Goodness, Titus. Imagine Aquila Terentius in the Senate, with his language!’

‘It would be fun to watch, that’s for certain.’

‘I should let the gods decide his future. It’s not for men to interfere.’

Titus smiled. ‘Would a little teaching be interference? And who knows, in the process you might unravel the mystery of his birth.’

It was a slave who recognised the drawing: a plump, homely girl of Greek extraction, who worked for the overseer of Cassius Barbinus’s warehouse. That they were staying in the man’s house at all was a constant source of complaint from the fastidious Sextius, who moaned about the size of the accommodation, the conversation of their host, the heat, the flies, the tedious landscape full of wheat, the rumbling of that damned volcano and the smell of the natives. He frowned mightily when Claudia told him to shut up, and if his personality had been as strong as his countenance, more people than his wife would have trembled at the looks he could produce.

Sextius was one of those people who managed to look better the older he became, his profile seeming ever more Roman, the stuff of which sculptors dreamt, and it was that which produced the idea of the drawing. In a rare effort to mollify her carping spouse, Claudia suggested he have a bust done in the fine marble that was locally quarried in this part of the island. Almost by habit, she asked the sculptor — without success — if he had ever heard of a man called Aquila Terentius, so she went on to describe the charm she had so lovingly put round the infant’s foot. All the while, Sextius sat mopping his sweating brow and complaining that this was going to take long enough without Claudia disturbing the ‘poor man’ at his work.

‘Would it help if I drew it for you, Lady?’

‘Drew it?’

‘Yes. This charm. If you describe it to me, I will do the best I can, to give you something you can show to others.’

‘Claudia,’ snapped Sextius, his lips pursed in frustration.

‘Please do so.’

‘I distinctly remember you calling him a “poor man”,’ said Claudia. She was sitting at a table while the Greek maid dressed her hair for dinner with the Barbinus overseer.

‘Well, he’s not poor now,’ replied Sextius, sourly. ‘I’ve never been charged so much for a bust in my life.’

‘It must be the cost of the stone.’

Her husband just grunted; really he was wondering if he could get the Greek girl to dress his hair as well. Claudia slipped the drawing out to sneak another look and the girl’s sharp intake of breath merged with Claudia’s yell of pain, as her hair was tugged violently by the heavy tongs.

‘What happened?’ asked Sextius. ‘Did she burn you?’

‘An accident, Master,’ said the girl, still looking at the piece of linen in Claudia’s hand. The hair trapped between the hot tongs started to smoulder and the girl pulled it abruptly away. Sextius stood up, towering over her. ‘If you pull my wife’s hair, or burn her again, I’ll see you whipped.’

‘Why don’t you go and have some wine, Sextius,’ said Claudia, with a tremor in her voice.

She had noticed that, denied any outlet for his main pleasure in life, he had taken to drinking a great deal. Sextius looked at the back of Claudia’s head, then at the girl who had tugged her locks so painfully. The smell of burnt hair lingered in the atmosphere and he ran his hand over his smooth silver thatch, thinking perhaps it would be a bad idea for him to put himself at similar risk. He fixed the girl again with his sternest Roman frown and left the room.

‘You recognise this?’ Claudia demanded, her heart beating wildly as she held up the linen.

The girl shook her head violently. No slave volunteered information to anyone; it usually got them, or someone they cared for, into trouble. Claudia fought to stop herself shouting at the girl, knowing instinctively that to do so would be fatal; instead she reached out and lifted the tongs out of the girl’s hands.

‘Your name, child?’ she asked, though the girl was far too old for the title.

‘Phoebe,’ she responded, so quietly that it was hard to hear.

‘You’re frightened, aren’t you?’

Claudia was cursing Sextius as a bully; clearly part of the girl’s fear would be a hangover from his strictures. Phoebe nodded, forcing her eyes away from the drawing, lest by looking at it she betray herself. Claudia felt an ache in her belly, being so close to the truth, yet so far away. If she pressured this girl, she would shut up completely, and Claudia was in no position to call the master of the house and threaten to have the information beaten out of her.

‘Do you have any children, Phoebe?’ she asked, her voice as soft as she could make it. The girl nodded slowly, as Claudia continued. ‘Can you imagine how you would feel, if your child had been taken from you at birth, and you’d never seen him since that day?’

She looked Phoebe in the eye as she said that, encouraging the younger woman to respond to her next question. ‘Does the name Aquila Terentius mean anything to you?’

Sextius came back in to find the slave girl in floods of tears, and Claudia sat frozen in her chair, her face a mask. She’s beaten the wretch, he thought. Serve her right. A bit of pain will do her good. He was wrong of course; all the pain was in the heart of the stony-faced woman who was not crying.

‘I cannot fathom women at all, Barbinus. Perhaps you can tell me what makes them the way they are?’

Sextius took another large gulp of wine. He was very pleased to be back in what he considered to be near civilisation. He would be home tomorrow, for this, near Aprilium, was the last stop before Rome, brought about by Claudia’s insistence that she be allowed to buy the Greek girl Phoebe and her daughter.

‘It’s not sex, is it?’ asked Barbinus, who owned Phoebe, as well as her child, and was afire to know why they had brought her all the way back here to secure his agreement.

Sextius fixed him with a jaundiced eye. Barbinus was flabby now, with all the texture gone from his skin. He still tried to be the man he was as a youth, though the years were against him. Not only that, the potions and love philtres he was constantly swallowing in the hope of reviving his flagging libido had taken their toll on his complexion as well.

‘For if it is,’ he continued, ‘you can have her for free if I’m allowed to watch Claudia with her.’

Sextius gave him what he considered was his manliest look. ‘The gods will have fun with you, Barbinus. I’ve never met such a rogue.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘It most certainly is not, and if you see them together you’d wonder at why Claudia wants the girl. All they seem to do in each other’s company is cry. It’s a mystery to me.’

‘Well, if Claudia insists on having her, take her as a gift.’

‘No, no, friend. She will insist on paying.’

‘Do you think she might pay in kind? She’s still a handsome woman.’

Sextius snorted. ‘I have a terrible fear, Barbinus. There is an eastern cult that believes that when we die, we return to the earth as animals.’

‘So what’s your fear?’

‘I’d hate to return as one of yours, say a pig or a sheep.’

Barbinus grinned, his lopsided lips thick, wet and red. ‘Nice idea. I could roger you, then have you for dinner.’

The shared memory was important to Claudia, even the knowledge her son had grown up, only to become a rebel against Rome — perhaps because it was in his blood — but not before he had enjoyed a relationship with Phoebe and left her pregnant.

‘He went with the overseer, Didius Flaccus, to Messana,’ said Phoebe, ‘and that was the last time I saw him. All I know is that Flaccus came back in a towering rage and, after accusing me of being to blame, he sent me away. I heard later that Aquila had joined the slave army to fight Rome, but after their defeat I heard no more.’

Then he had disappeared, a victim, no doubt, of Rome’s revenge in the clampdown that had followed the collapse of the revolt. Sometimes she harboured a feeling that he might have survived, but Phoebe insisted that, if he had, he would have come back to her. That produced a slight twitch of jealousy, since this girl had experienced a love that she had been denied. They walked by the riverbank, trailed by the girl that Phoebe had borne after being sent packing by Flaccus.

She was tall for her age, with long raven hair that, when it caught the sun, had a tinge of fire to it; and she was beautiful, with pale skin like alabaster. Looking up from the gurgling waters of the Liris to the mountains in the distance, they could see the extinct volcano with that strange-shaped top that looked like a votive cup. Where had they put him? Claudia wanted to know, wanted to ask Cholon, who would surely tell her now that the boy was certainly dead. She would erect a small shrine on the spot, as a memory to him.

The young man tickling fish in the river was so intent on what he was doing that he failed to hear them approach. This was Barbinus’s land, not that she cared, except perhaps that she should buy the whole place from him, then she would know that the land on which her little boy had been laid was definitely hers. The poacher stood up abruptly, water dripping from his arm and he turned to face them with a nervous smile. Something about his looks tugged at Claudia’s memory, so she walked closer and addressed him directly.

‘Do I know you?’

Rufurius Dabo could see that she was rich. She wore enough to buy ten farms on her neck alone and he dreamt of owning a farm, but Annius, his elder brother, had got everything when their father died. The younger Dabo had just built a hut on a vacant spot, which someone informed him was the place where old Clodius Terentius and his wife Fulmina had lived. Given the stories he had heard about that peasant, Rufurius often wondered if that was why he stayed poor.

He replied to Claudia’s question with due deference. ‘No, Lady.’

‘Odd, I thought I did.’ Claudia smiled, and indicated his dripping arm. ‘I shouldn’t let Cassius Barbinus find you doing that. He’ll feed you to his dogs.’