The Iron Hand of Mars

XLIX

Dear gods, I hate large, simple-minded jovial types. You can never tell whether they will simply mook you, or mock you with that jolly guffaw, then swipe off your head with an axe…

My captor in fact hauled me to a more or less standing position, stripped off my sword and dagger, which be sneered at, but kept, then threw me further into the dell where the others were. They then encouraged Lentullus to scramble out of the pit by poking him with their lances. He brought out the dog, who immediately showed his loyalty by running away.

The happy band stood us side by side and assessed their collection like naturalists collating a set of rare beetles. These lads did not look immensely sophisticated. They probably counted creatures' legs and feelers by picking them off. I started twitching nervously in limbs I didn't even own.

They all towered over us. So did the group who soon turned up whooping triumphantly and bringing our friends from the camp. They had our missing Probus and his treasure-hunting companion. They must have discovered them first.

I anxiously looked them over for damage. Helvetius was sporting a black eye and a terminal case of bad language, and some of the recruits had been knocked about a bit. The centurion's servant appeared to have taken the worst of it, but this was not necessarily a sign of cruelty in the Bructeri; he was such a pathetic character, he was crying out to be beaten up. The lads told me afterwards they had let themselves be taken fairly quietly. After all, our journey's motives were supposed to be peaceable. The warriors had turned up suddenly at the tents. Helvetius had properly followed the rules by trying to converse. It was only when our group had started to be manhandled that he had ordered them to reach for arms. By then it was too late. There had never been much we could hope to achieve by fighting, not in such small numbers and so far from home.

The warriors had then scoured the woods for stragglers. With Lentullus and me they clearly felt they had a complete set.

'Sir, what about – '

'Whoever you're about to mention – don't!' Justinus and Orosius were not here. They were our one hope now, though of what I dared not speculate. 'Don't speak of them – don't even think about them, in case the thought shows in your face.'

They might be dead already, as we expected to be soon.

To my intense relief we were not being taken to the grove. At least not yet.

It was now quite dark. They jostled us in a riverward direction, though we never seemed to come to the bank. That was another relief. If they chucked me off a jetty as a morsel for a river-god, I would immediately have to surrender my soul into his webby hands. I couldn't swim my way out of it. I had not much hope for the recruits either; they must have been on the same army water-skills course as me.

We stumbled along, surrounded by tribesmen. They seemed cheerful enough having somebody to jeer at. They offered us no worse harm, though we didn't push our luck by asking who their chieftain was, or when we would be stopping for a snack break.

After what seemed hours we reached a settlement. Rectangular buildings in timber and daub, with steeply pitched roofs which came down almost to the ground. A few pale faces staring at us in the light of smoky torches. A lowing ox.

Our drovers whooped us through a door in an end wall and into a long byre attached at right angles to the largest house or farm. Cattle had lived here very recently; we knew that from the smell. We had tumbled into an area which had a central aisle and stalls separated by posts and hay containers. At the other end there were no stalls, just a bare hearth. We heard a mighty bar closing the door outside. Exploring this squalid guest-suite did not take us long. We just squatted on our haunches and looked round from where we were.

'What happens now, Falco?' We had reached that point of disaster where people have no other option but to turn to me. This was when they were all likely to remind me that the trip to the River Lupia was my idea.

'Have to wait and see.' I sounded moderately confident. 'But I don't think we can expect to be asked which highly articulate defence lawyer we would like to hire from their sophisticated legal pool.'

'How did they know to look for us, sir?'

'My guess is Dubnus alerted them.'

We braced ourselves for a long wait, with not much to hope for at the end of it.

'Maybe a beautiful virgin will bring us a pail of dinner, fall in love with me and lead us to escape,' Ascanius mused. He was the skinniest and most hygienically sordid recruit we had.

'Unwise to expect dinner either, Ascanius.'

Halfway along the building was a shutter. Fascinated blond children opened it and silently peered in at us. Helvetius rapidly tired of that and went to close them out. He said the big warriors were standing about in groups debating in an aimless way. He ducked back inside in case the sight of his grizzled Roman head gave them murderous ideas.

They must have been waiting for someone. He came after an hour or so. The hum of debate increased to a livelier note. They all jabbered on in a way that reminded me of a gathering of my relatives pointlessly arguing whether Great-auntie Atia's birthday was in May or June. Even the man of note must have grown sick of it, for eventually he barged open the door and sauntered in to have a look at us.

He was about fifty. As the russet hair had thinned and faded, he must have increased its length to compensate.

Wild skeins of it ravelled behind him. Xanthus would have been horrified. He also had a long moustache, much in need of an enriching pomade, above which were a bulbous red nose and rather watery pale grey eyes. He was a big man in every way: broad shoulders, heavy bones, big head, big hands. He wore brown woollen trousers, a long. sleeved tunic, a green cloak, and a round gold brooch that not only pegged his ensemble together but rose and fell dramatically to show how far his chest expanded every time he breathed. Some of the others may have looked undernourished, but this fellow was fit.

He was followed by his bodyguard. Younger men, any one of whom would have made a handsome model for a Noble Tribesman statuette had they been fattened up and taught to exhibit a mournful Celtic gaze. Left to themselves their gaze was as vacant as village youths anywhere. Most of them did without a tunic to indicate how tough (or poor) they were. They spat a lot on principle, and glared at us whenever they remembered they were there to use objectionable behaviour towards the prisoners. They all had immensely long German swords, apparently so they had something grand to loll on while their chief was occupied. He looked the type who was always wandering off to pursue other interests, and he had an air of eccentricity that gave him character. Even in Rome that faint impression of madness sometimes works for election candidates.

We were feeling depressed and annoyed with ourselves, so when he made no attempt to communicate we stayed where we were, sitting in two rows on either side of the aisle. We let him wander up and down. None of us spoke. We were hungry and tired, and we let it show, though without appearing demoralised. A man with a proud Roman heritage to bolster him can look truculent even when squatting on two feet of compacted dung. Well, Helvetius managed it, though he had the advantage of being a centurion; it's a snooty rank.

The chief was a man who walked slowly, with a tread that consolidated ground. He paced back to his starting- point, then turned round to us again. He made a sharp noise through his teeth, as if spitting out a raspberry pip. It seemed to be his evaluation of our group, and was resonantly an expression of contempt. I was surprised that he could find two teeth to do it through, for conspicuous along his gums were large gaps.

'Somebody should tell him to watch that,' Ascanius said derisively. 'It's probably how he lost the rest.'

The chieftain's eyes fell on our joking boy. We all realised he had understood.

I stood up like a spokesperson.

'We come in friendship,' I announced. M. Didius Falco, the ever-hopeful innocent. 'We are travelling to see Veleda, your renowned prophetess.' Veleda's name produced as much effect here as trying to interest a carrion crow in lunching off a lettuce leaf.

'You come in friendship?' The chief's chin rose. He folded his arms. The pose was something of a cliche but in the circumstances that was his prerogative. 'You are Romans in Free Germany.' His Latin accent was terrible, but good enough for snorting at a frowsty group of renegades. 'You have no choice. We are the Bructeri,' the chief informed us haughtily.

'We do?'

He did his disgusted tooth noise again, then strode out. 'It's definite then,' Ascanius exclaimed incorrigibly. 'He's cancelling the virgin. No dinner for us tonight, lads!' He was right, too.

Lindsey Davis

The Iron Hand of Mars