The Iron Hand of Mars

XLVI

Somewhere in this area had to stand the burial mound. The one whose first turf Germanicus had laid with his own hands – against the rules of sanctity, since he was at the time also holding office as a priest. Here he would have been a soldier first. Standing here, we understood. We too were overwhelmed by our emotional response.

We did not search for the mound. We did not even raise an altar as we had done at Vetera. We honoured them in silence. All of them: the dead, and those who had made it a duty to find them. Gripped by the past, all of us must have wondered whether, if we were killed here in this forest, anybody who cared for us would ever even hear our fate.

We left the camp in the mist by way of its broken Praetorian Gate, on the tough old relics of its exit road. It was easier riding than any other route through the forest, and we wanted to cover distance fast. Our forebears' road did eventually become overgrown. We made the usual complaints about useless engineers, though after sixty years without maintenance some potholing and weeding-over could be excused.

We kept going. Like the army of Varus, we were moving south. Like theirs, that was where our destiny lay in wait. The only difference was: we knew.

It was impossible not to keep churning over the history. Even Justinus had now joined in: 'We know Varus was heading for winter quarters – either the forts they had built on the banks of the Lupia, or possibly right back somewhere along the Rhenus. He must have left that camp wrongly believing he had secured the territory, and all set to return there the next spring.'

'Why couldn't they stay there in winter, sir?'

'Too far from supplies to sit it out. Besides, I expect his troops were nagging for a break somewhere civilised.' The tribune's own troops thought about his solemn remark, then slowly grinned.

'And this is the way they went,' Helvetius said. He was really feeling it. He loved to dramatise; he loved to speculate. 'Everyone believes they had hit the ridge when it happened, but why not here, much further north? All we really know for certain is that Germanicus found them somewhere east of the River Ems.'

'Sir, sir – ' Now they had left the lost camp the recruits felt braver and more excited. 'Will we find the famous battleground?'

'It's my belief,' Helvetius answered heavily, as if he had just worked something out, 'the battlefield is all around us. That would be why Germanicus had such trouble finding it. You don't cut down twenty thousand men – veteran campaigners, after all – in a space like a backyard.'

I agreed. 'We think it was quick, but the engagement may have lasted. No – it must have done. Clearly Arminius fell on them and did much damage. But after the first shock, the hardened soldiers would have made a stand.'

'Right, Falco. No choice. We know they did, anyway. Germanicus found whole heaps of bones where they had fought back in groups. He even came on the remains of some who had struggled back to their camp and been slaughtered there.'

'The camp we found?'

'Who knows. After all this time – and Germanicus clearing it as well – you'd have to spend days there to find any clues.'

'So after the initial assault,' I said, 'they faced a drawn-out agony. There were even survivors. Arminius took prisoners: some were slung up on tree branches to propitiate the Celtic gods, but some were held in gruesome pits.' We found none of those, I'm glad to say. 'Some eventually got home to. Rome. A few poor sods even came back here with Germanicus.' Every war produces masochists. 'But agreeing a surrender is not the point for the tribes. It was a Celtic fight – to kill and take heads. Any legionaries who tried to make a getaway would have been hunted through the woods. Just like in Britain when the Boudiccan tribes rose.' I heard my voice growing husky with old pain. 'The chase is part of the terrible game. Blood-crazed warriors happily whooping after victims who know they are doomed…'

Arminius may even have prolonged the fun deliberately,' Helvetius informed the rest. 'The upshot would have been bodies all the way from here to – '

'To the next river in any direction, centurion.'

'Tell us, Falco?'

'The warriors stop any remaining fugitives at the water's edge. Their heads and their armour are dedicated to the gods in the running stream.'

We rode on very quietly. It took us two days, even with fine weather and favourable luck, to reach the Teutoburger hills.

I know that when we rested each evening some of the recruits vanished for long periods into the undergrowth. I know they found various items. They were boys. They cared about their old colleagues, but they found relic-hunting irresistible.

The general mood of our party hardened. Meanwhile, Lentullus would sit with Justinus and me near the fire, taking no part in the secret search for souvenirs. He was withdrawn, as if somehow he thought everything was his fault.

Once I laughed, briefly. 'Here we are, stuck in the middle of nowhere with a whole basket of our own troubles, sounding off like strategists using apples on a tavern table to relive Marathon and Salamis.'

'Shut up about taverns, Falco,' murmured Camillus Justinus sleepily from the depths of his camp-bed. 'Some of us could really use a drink!'

Since I had stayed in his house and tasted his awful table wine, I knew just how desperate His Honour the tribune must be.

Lindsey Davis

The Iron Hand of Mars

Next day we tackled the Teutoburger heights.

We traversed the long escarpment strangely without incident. It seemed too good to be true. It was.

On our descent, all to order, we found the headwater of the River Lupia. At sunset we camped discreetly, making no fires. I noticed that Probus and another recruit went off together and stayed absent for too long. They were no doubt scouring the terrain for antique scabbards and studs again. At first we made no comment, as usual, but we had soon finished distributing rations and still they had failed to appear. That was unheard of. Helvetius stayed in the camp whilst Justinus and I went out to search for our lost lambs. We took a recruit each. He chose one called Orosius. With my luck I got Lentullus. In case I needed more company, Tigris gambolled happily along with us.

As you might expect, it was Tigris, Lentullus and I who stumbled into the sacred grove.

It just seemed like any other clearing when we first went in. It must have been generations old. We marched boldly among the crook-armed trees, thinking the open ground between them had occurred naturally. An angry wind was rousing itself, rustling tirelessly through the dark, dry, November leaves. Tigris, who had bounded on ahead, raced back madly, bringing us a stick to throw. I bent and after the usual noisy struggle I forced him to release it.

'That looks a funny one,' said Lentullus.

Then we saw it was a human fibula.

While the dog barked in frustration, waiting for his game, Lentullus and I gazed slowly round and noticed at last that this place had a special atmosphere. There was a smell of moss and misery. The silence blocked our throats. Panic leapt. It took a few moments to recognise that empty eyes were watching us from every side.

'Stand still, Lentullus. Stand still!' I don't know why I said it. No one else was there… yet there was presence everywhere.

'Sorry, sir,' Lentullus croaked. 'Oh great mother! I've done it again, haven't I?'

I tried to sound cheerful as I whispered back, 'Yes. It seems to be another of your terrifying finds…'

Ahead of us leaned a grotesque statue in rotting, roughhewn wood: some god of water, wood or sky – or perhaps all of them. He loomed up like a huge gnarled oak trunk, beaded with livid orange mould and rooted in decay. He had emerged from a few strokes of a crude adze. His limbs were barely indicated caricatures. He had three primitive faces, with four staring Celtic almond-shaped eyes distributed among them. Atop him the wide antlers of some massive elk draped themselves as if trying to embrace the sky.

Before the god stood a basic turf altar where the priests of the Bructeri came to make their sacrifice. Upon it lay the head of an ox, badly decomposed. Like us, they predicted the future from the entrails of animals. Unlike us, it was their custom to hack to pieces any horses and other captured animals belonging to their vanquished enemies. They also conducted worse kinds of sacrifice. We knew that because all around the grove, nailed up in the ancient trees, were human skulls.