Vindolanda

IX

THE RIDER SAT motionless, watching them, as the cool wind gusted along the valley, hissing and rippling through the long grass. It must have been stronger and colder up on the hilltop, yet the man was bare from the waist up, his chest covered in a curving web of blue tattoos, his face painted red from the nose down and black above, his dirty brown hair plaited into a pigtail reaching halfway down his back. He carried a thick-shafted spear and a little rectangular shield, the face covered in dark leather and with studs around the iron boss.

‘They know we are coming then,’ Crispinus said, squinting as he stared up at the man. It was the first time he had seen a Briton since they had set out – at least one who might well prove an enemy. The sight was as unsettling as it was exciting.

‘They have known we were coming since we set out,’ Ferox told him. ‘Probably earlier than that.’ He hoped the words did not hint at British spies and traitors in their ranks, but he judged the tribune to be a fair man and he needed to learn how quickly news travelled and how difficult it was to achieve surprise. The Roman army was not made for stealth and since you could not hide the movement of any sizeable force, the best to be hoped for was to move so fast that the enemy did not have enough time to prepare. Ferox did not want to think of the clans of the Selgovae as enemies – at least not until he was forced to do so – but in the field it was always wise to expect the worst and look for the slightest sign of danger.

They were four days out and almost fifty miles as the raven flew from Vindolanda, making good progress in spite of the country, which had added some distance to the march. Smaller forces always moved faster than big armies, and Crispinus’ first independent command consisted of scarcely one thousand fighting men, marching expedita, with only the bare essentials of baggage and supplies, which still meant one hundred and thirty pack animals and some eighty slaves and other followers. They had food for another eight days, although good fodder for the horses and pack mules and ponies for only half that time. At worst the animals could eat grass, and for a few days that should not do too much harm to their condition. Otherwise they would demand more supplies from the clans as proof of their loyalty or as a mark of submission, depending on how things went.

Ferox was sure that given a little more time the chieftains would have handed over all that was owed without the need for threats. As he saw it, the procurator’s men had changed the rules by demanding payment earlier than usual. The chieftains were bound to resent that, for they had a strong sense of what was fair – especially when it came to their obligation to others. They would pay in time, but only after showing that they could not be pushed around. It could all have been tactfully managed with faces saved on all sides, but that would have required tact, something lacking in Claudius Super’s soul. None of this was necessary, but Quadratus, as acting governor, wanted to mount a display of Roman military might, and the real provincial legate had given permission, and so the army marched. Nobody seemed bothered that they were putting on a show of force for a people who had had nothing to do with the ambush on the road.

For all that, there was excitement in being with a column in the field, especially since it had been several years since he had last taken part in a campaign. Idleness did not suit Ferox, for it gave him too much time to brood and to sink into black moods, when drink seemed the only shelter. It was always better to be busy and to feel that each moment and each decision he made mattered, not least because mistakes and misjudgements could kill him and plenty of others. His life had purpose again, at least for the next few days.

The campaign began with pageantry, as they marched from Vindolanda at dawn amid the ceremony that the army could never resist. At the head of the column were the massed standards of the Batavians and Tungrians, guarded by an immaculately turned-out honour guard from the troops who were to remain in the garrison, their brightly painted shields uncovered. These marched up the via principalis, through the gate and over the causeway between the ditches, before parting to parade on each side of the road.

Crispinus and Cerialis waited until the standards were in position before mounting. They were at the head of the column, and after the trumpets sounded three times Cerialis raised his voice and shouted words Ferox did not recognise, even though he knew what they meant. The prefect was asking his soldiers in their own language whether they were ready to fight.

‘Huh!’ The Batavians bellowed a sound, half animal grunt and half shout of rage. Behind them the centurion Annius called out in Celtic asking his Tungrians whether they were ready, prompting an answering shout of ‘Yes!’ Three times he shouted and three times the cry was returned. That was the normal way, but the Batavians boasted that they only needed to be asked once if they were ready for war. At the rear because they were setting out from the base of other units, Aelius Brocchus spoke in Latin to his cavalrymen and received a whooping reply from his men.

‘Expect we’ll leave eventually,’ Vindex said to his men as they waited at the very rear, behind the baggage train. Some of the Brigantes grinned. Others, who never seen even such a small Roman force muster, just stared in wonder.

At the head Crispinus drew his sword and pointed towards the gates.

‘Forward, march!’ Cerialis shouted and they set off. The men were ready for the field, wearing dark cloaks, shields protected by drab calfskin covers, and armour and other metalwork well greased and oiled to fend off rust. Three turmae of Batavians followed the senior officers, each decurion leading two dozen men in three files so that they could get through the gate without having to slow down. They went in silence apart from the clink of harness and the dull thump of shields swinging gently against the horses’ left shoulders. Decurions had high yellow plumes running down the centre of the helmets, as well as the animal fur sported by their men. Behind came the infantry, helmets with deeper, broader neck guards and uncovered ears so that they could hear commands better. Apart from the officers and one or two men who liked to dress up, their helmets were covered with moss, which looked like fur from any distance. There were seventy-five Batavian cavalry and two hundred infantry divided into three centuries, one of them led by the optio Arcuttius as acting commander because only a pair of centurions were available. The last remaining vexillum was carried by one of the standard-bearers at the head of the infantry.

Ferox stood beside his horse watching them pass. The road was lined with well-wishers, other soldiers off duty, and scores of women and children from the camp watching their menfolk march away and not knowing whether they would ever see them again. The law said that soldiers could not marry, but many of them ignored the rule and the army turned a blind eye, content as long as they did not expect extra rations or pay. The women were a tough bunch, some from home, many more picked up wherever the unit served. If their man survived his twenty-five years of service and was honourably discharged, then as an auxiliary he would gain citizenship for himself, his wife and their children, which was fine as long as he did survive. In the meantime they lived in the barracks, making love and giving birth in the little rooms shared with the man’s comrades. The children grew up knowing the army as their only world. The boys usually enlisted when they were old enough, while many of the girls would marry soldiers. There was a tall boy of eleven or twelve not far from Ferox, standing to attention with a ferocious determination, obviously yearning to be marching with the men. Alongside was his mother, a thin pale woman with long brown hair streaked grey and moist eyes that made it clear she wished her man was not going and that they had sent someone else instead.

The families did not cheer, watching in silence as the men filed past, looking straight to the front, and yet the scene moved Ferox as it did every time he saw an army marching off. Sulpicia Lepidina was next to him, wrapped up in a heavy deep blue cloak against the chilly morning air.

‘You must stay with me and explain what is happening,’ she had told him and he had obeyed, although there was little to explain and he had not said much. The lady was silent, watching her husband as he rode at the head of the column, dressed in martial finery. Her maid was with her, as were two male slaves and the two centurions left in command of the rest of the Batavians.

The Tungrians followed the Batavians, with two of their double-sized centuries mustering a total of one hundred and eighty men. Their helmets were bare bronze, polished to a dull sheen. Titus Annius rode at their head, his transverse crest a wide spray of tall white feathers tipped red. He nodded respectfully to Sulpicia Lepidina as he passed, for he was a commander and granted more licence than the parading soldiers. Ferox noticed that the second century was also led by an optio.

Aelius Brocchus came next, with seven turmae comprising some two hundred men, so that each was close to its full strength. The ala Gallorum Petriana – until a few years ago with the additional name Domitiana, now quietly forgotten – saw themselves as the best horsemen of the army in Britain and took every opportunity to show it. Another part of the ala was serving with the column marching up the Eastern Road from Coria, and Ferox wondered whether they were as splendidly equipped and mounted as these men. The horses were excellent, bigger than those provided for the Batavians, well groomed and grouped by colour, so that there were two turmae on greys, two more on chestnuts and the rest on bays. It was an affectation only possible when active campaigning was rare. Each man carried a strong-shafted spear upright and had three lighter javelins in a long quiver hanging from the right rear horn of his saddle. They wore their long spathae on their right hips in the Gallic fashion, the weapons hanging low so that it was easier to draw them while mounted. Their helmets were iron, with brass decoration, most of them shaped to look as if the bowls were covered with locks of thick hair. Each man had a shirt of mail, split at the sides on the hips for comfort. A third of each turma, the men who would form the front rank, also had laminated guards of iron sections on their right arms, protecting them from shoulder to wrist.

After the glorious cavalry came the pack train: mules and ponies supervised by a few soldiers and around eighty personal servants and galearii, slaves owned by the army, given boots, uniform tunic and cloak, knives and old patterned helmets to wear. Behind them, at the very rear of the column, walking their horses through quite a few piles of fresh dung, came Vindex and his scouts, their numbers raised to nearly thirty by some fresh men sent by his chieftain, They sauntered along, chattering or ogling the women in the crowd. Vindex winked at the maid as he passed, prompting a burst of giggling and feigned modesty until her mistress glared at her.

‘Lady, I had better go,’ Ferox said. ‘I do hope that the boy’s condition continues to improve. After all, we Flavii should stick together!’ He had brought her water from Covventina’s Spring to add to the sick child’s broth, and whether by this or something else, Cerialis’ son’s fever had broken.

‘Thank you. You have been very kind.’ Sulpicia Lepidina stood close to him, and, unseen because of her heavy wool cloak, her hand clasped his for just a moment. ‘Good fortune,’ she added, her blue eyes staring up into his.

‘I’m sure your husband will return in glory,’ he said.

‘I am sure he will.’ For the first time since he had met her she looked fragile. ‘Good fortune,’ she said again, before dropping her voice to a faint whisper. ‘Come back.’

‘I will.’ As he mouthed the words he wondered what he was doing. Her song at the feast still echoed in his mind, as did her good humour and signs of pleasure in his company whenever they met. He was drawn to her, but then surely any man with blood in his veins would be drawn to such a woman. What he did not understand was why she seemed interested in him, and he could not quite make up his mind whether she was singling him out or was simply always so full of charm. He tried to stop them, but in the last days wild, absurd and dangerous dreams kept bubbling up in his mind, feeding his good spirits as much as the activity.

Philo waited with his horse.

‘You should stay here,’ he told the boy for the tenth time.

‘My place is with you.’

‘You won’t enjoy it,’ Ferox said.

‘That is the lot of a slave.’

They rode after the column, and Ferox forced himself not to look back. It was ridiculous and dangerous to them both – and maybe it was all in his imagination, and he mistook natural charm and understandable gratitude for real interest. He made himself stare at the fort buildings as they went along the road and out under the gate. The serried ranks of standards were in place, although the escort had stood at ease now that there were only native scouts ambling past. More people had gathered to watch the column, standing in the fronts of shops and bars or in the alleys leading off the main route through the canabae. They lived here because the army was here and were part of it even if they were not soldiers. Batavians and Tungrians were customers, friends, drinking partners and lovers and some made signs to bring good luck as the ranks of soldiers went past. At the far edge of the crowd were beggars, with all the ones he had seen the day before and a few more. The old man to whom Vindex had given a coin was a little apart as usual, leaning on his crooked staff, his filthy beard and hair down to his waist, and his scruffy dog beside him. The man stared at the soldiers’ boots, never looking anyone in the eye, and all the while he muttered words that made no sense.

‘Chin up, Father,’ Vindex called to him, but the beggar did not react. Ferox wondered whether his appearance was a bad omen and then tried and failed to dismiss the thought. By this time he was riding alongside the cemetery with its rows of wooden pillars. It did not depress him and instead he thought of a woman with golden hair and big blue eyes and wondered.

Two hours later they met the vexillation brought by the Prefect Rufinus to complete the column. Cohors I fida Vardullorum equitata was a mixed unit like the Batavians, and had sent fifty horsemen in two turmae and two hundred and fifty infantrymen in four centuries. They were small men in the main, dark-haired and clean-shaven, recruited from the highlands in Iberia, and they marched with a jaunty confidence. They were new to this northern frontier and to Britannia itself, but looked to be good soldiers, confident in themselves and their leaders. They wore black tunics, a rare sight in the army, and Ferox suspected that some would see this as unlucky. The Vardulli just said that it was unlucky for whoever met them.

A third of Crispinus’ column consisted of horsemen, but if they wanted to stay together they could go no faster than a man or mule could walk. By day the cavalry from the cohorts provided scouts ahead, on the flanks and to the rear of the main force. Brocchus’ men were split into two, as vanguard and rearguard; they were kept formed up and ready to fight. The Batavian infantry led, the Tungrians protected the baggage and the Spanish infantry were in the rear. Vindex and his men rode far ahead to scout, and often Ferox went with them, wearing his battered old floppy hat so that the tribesmen would know him from afar. At night the cavalry provided pickets while the infantrymen did the digging, making a ditch and throwing up a low rampart of cut turves and piled earth and stones when the ground was too hard. It was rarely more than waist high, but would slow an assault if one came. Tents were pitched inside, although they had carried as few as possible so each one was packed fuller than usual. Men on guard during the night watches came back to climb under blankets left warm by the men who had relieved them.

They dug in each night because it made them a little safer and because that was the army’s way, but because they pushed on and marched as far as they could there was never time to do the job properly. Cavalrymen always hated to dig, and the infantry did their best, and men from both arms formed the outposts beyond the ditch and rampart with the job of dying noisily if an attack came.

For three days there was no sign of any enemy – indeed little trace of people at all.

‘They’re wary of us, sir,’ Ferox explained when Crispinus expressed surprise to find another farm empty of humans and animals alike. There were four huts, a raised grain store, and dry stone walls to form animal pens. Some of the dung in these was no more than five or six hours old.

‘Why?’ the tribune demanded. ‘These are not from one of the clans we are sent to chastise.’

‘They don’t know that – at least, not for certain, and would you take a risk?’

Ferox was pleased when a Batavian cavalryman asked whether they should burn the houses and Crispinus was aghast at the thought. ‘Of course not.’

The soldier looked disappointed, but resigned to the vagaries of senior officers.

The tribune brought a dozen troopers with him whenever he joined Ferox and some of the scouting parties, something he did more often as the days passed. Now, at long last, on the fourth morning when they reached the lands of one of the chieftains who had not yet paid his tax, Crispinus saw his first warrior. The Briton with his painted face sat on his pony, watching them as they watched him.

‘Do they always paint their faces?’ he asked. Crispinus talked a lot and asked many questions, so that his early long silences were no more than a blessed memory of a better world.

‘Means the bugger’s taken a vow,’ Vindex explained when the centurion said nothing. ‘He will either vanquish an enemy and take a trophy before returning home or he will die in the attempt. They’re queer folk, the Selgovae. Good hosts, though, and fairly honest if you don’t trust them too much.’

Crispinus was puzzled. ‘So he really will not go back to his home unless he kills an enemy?’

‘Pity we haven’t got any archers, we could solve his problem for him now,’ Ferox suggested, making the tribune stare at him.

‘I thought you wanted to talk to him?’

‘Well, I’ll try.’ Ferox urged his horse into a trot up the slope towards the lone warrior. He raised his empty right hand high to show that he was coming in peace. The man watched him, letting him come close, until the centurion was twenty paces away. The Briton raised his spear and Ferox reined in. He shouted out that they did not want to fight unless they had to and wanted to speak to the chieftains. The man rode away.

‘Get anywhere?’ Crispinus asked Ferox when he returned.

‘We shall soon see, sir.’

They pushed on, down one valley that opened into another, steeper sided with high hills on either side. Ferox did not like this country. If they had had a bigger force and plenty of time then he would have wanted them to advance covered by pickets on top of the ridges. As it was even the main force did not have the manpower to do it, so relied on mounted patrols to see any threat long before it appeared. He hoped that he was right and that the Selgovae did not want to fight. All the while Crispinus kept chattering away. Some of it was nerves, but there was also a genuine curiosity and desire to learn so that he could do his job better. With just a few months of military service, the young aristocrat was now in charge of over a thousand men, their lives at risk if he made a mistake. He was nervous but eager, and the man gabbled away almost as much as Vindex and his Brigantians.

‘You do not paint your face?’ Crispinus asked the head of the scouts.

‘No, my lord, I’m pretty enough as it is.’ Vindex leered at him to demonstrate, his teeth more than usually horse-like. ‘Not many do, apart from these people.’

‘Yet you are kin to them.’

‘Me! No, not to this lot.’ Vindex shook his head at such ignorance. He was polite to the tribune, but no more than he would be to a chieftain of his own people, and among the Brigantes blunt speech was admired. ‘Some of the Textoverdi marry among the southern Selgovae. Not many of my folk – the Carvetii – though. Leastways only if we took their women as captives, but that doesn’t count. That was in the old days, of course.’

‘You sound wistful.’

‘Not me. Long live Rome and long live the emperor! By the way, who is the emperor again?’

Crispinus laughed at the time. Later, when he had followed Ferox away from the others and was out of earshot, he showed more concern.

‘This is a dangerous time,’ he said. ‘Our Lord Trajan is not well known, can boast of no real victories and proved embarrassingly loyal to Domitian just a few short years ago. There are far too many people, like our friend, who have no idea what sort of man the emperor is and struggle even to remember his name.’

‘He is princeps,’ Ferox said, as if that settled the matter.

Crispinus waited for a while, before realising that the centurion had nothing more to say.

‘Our Lord Trajan is princeps, first citizen, first in the Senate, and many other titles. For the moment at least. It would be good for the state if he remains so.’ Once again, the tribune stopped and looked at the centurion.

‘I have no objections,’ Ferox said eventually.

‘He is a good ruler.’ Crispinus’ voice contained a hint of irritation. ‘But others do not consider such things and instead look only for personal power. I am sure that you heard the rumours about the army in Syria.’

Ferox nodded. A year ago the provincial legate commanding the main army in the east had tried to win over his men to back him in a bid for the throne. ‘It came to nothing, though.’

‘It was handled with delicacy,’ Crispinus told him. ‘Retirement to private life because of ill health, postings to distant frontiers, that sort of thing.’

‘Is that why you’re here, my lord?’ Ferox said before he could stop himself.

The tribune glared at him, anger in his eyes, until his aristocratic calm restored itself.

‘Why are you telling me this, my lord?’ Ferox asked.

‘Because this campaign matters, even though it is a small and local affair. Our Lord Trajan is new to power, comes from Spain of all places, and is not that well connected at Rome. There are plenty of senators who feel themselves more suited to the supreme office. They must be shown that they are wrong, that he is wise and under his rule the empire will flourish and the armies win victory after victory, so that the Pax Augusta will reign supreme. That being so, there can be no defeats – not even small ones on distant frontiers like this.’

‘Would anyone care?’

Crispinus pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I fear that I have a cold. Does it ever get warm in this benighted place?’ He sniffed hard to clear his nostrils. It was a Roman habit Ferox still found strange. ‘People will care,’ he said. ‘Not for the right reasons, but because they will scent weakness. Our Lord Trajan is on the Rhine, and the armies of the two Germanies will most likely stay loyal, but the legions in other provinces do not know him and might be willing to follow someone who promised them wealth to raise him to the purple. It happened when Nero died and that was only thirty years ago, and tens of thousands died in the chaos. It could happen again, very, very easily.’

‘Is that why Trajan – my apologies, our Lord Trajan – is loitering on the German frontier rather than going to Rome to be welcomed by his adoring people? Or is that an impolite question?’ Ferox’s expression gave no hint of repentance.

Crispinus stared at the centurion, who stared back impassively until the tribune gave up and looked away, pretending to follow the flight of a bird. ‘My father was right,’ he said. ‘You have an imaginative and suspicious mind. He said that you did not trust anyone else, but that you followed the scent of the truth like a hound sniffing a trail. Well, he also believed that you can be trusted because of your oath to serve him – and his family, if I am not mistaken.’

Ferox nodded. He had been waiting for Crispinus to remind him of the oath, taken all those years ago on the Danube as the price for convincing the man’s father to march and save some of Ferox’s men.

‘I swore to aid him as long as it did not conflict with my sacramentum, my pledge to Rome and the princeps,’ Ferox said, his voice flat. ‘I am sworn to Trajan and as long as he remains princeps I will keep my word, whatever may happen.’

‘Others may not be so diligent in keeping that same sacred promise of a soldier. There are some who would be happy to make mischief and let our armies be defeated and our soldiers killed simply to discredit the Lord Trajan. They are distinguished men – or friends and dependants of distinguished men – and they may well be in positions of authority. We cannot let them betray the empire and us by engineering defeat.’

They had reached the top of a low rise, and Ferox stopped to stare along the valley ahead of them. He could see pairs of Vindex’s scouts some way ahead and watched as two of the Brigantians paused. Crispinus glanced over his shoulder as Vindex trotted up to join them.

‘Be vigilant and trust no one,’ he whispered to Ferox. ‘If we learn the truth in time then we can stop them.’

From noon onwards they saw more riders shadowing them. Ferox tried once again to meet them, but these proved even more skittish and rode away before he was close enough to call to them. They did not go far and kept watching. From the heights he looked down on the scouting force of a dozen troopers and about the same number of Brigantes. Vindex and his men took turns to go ahead and he could see some of them, lone warriors or pairs of them on the slopes of the valley for some way ahead. Back down the valley were the Batavian patrols. They were about a mile back, and he could see the main force as a dark patch on the green another half-mile beyond them. From up here, the column looked tiny. He stayed up on the crest for a while, keeping pace with them as they trotted along down in the valley. Half an hour later he saw another darker patch on a hillock ahead of where the ground rose to join another glen. It looked as if someone was waiting, but whether to fight or speak was hard to tell. The force was a good size, so it could be either.

Crispinus was still talking when he returned.

‘I had assumed you Britons would all be much alike,’ the tribune declared, ‘but in fact you vary a great deal, far more than the tribes of Gaul.’

‘You’ve studied a lot then,’ Vindex said sarcastically, as if the young aristocrat had just announced that rain comes from the skies.

Crispinus darted him an angry look and was ignored. He smiled. ‘I do remember my uncle telling me that the Silures were different from everyone, perhaps from every nation on earth.’

‘Oh well, everyone knows that,’ Vindex agreed. ‘Odd people. Funny customs. Don’t talk much. Don’t swear much either and you cannot say that is natural.’

‘Is it true?’ Crispinus asked. ‘Now that you mention it I have not heard you swear.’

‘Waste of good anger,’ Ferox said without looking at him. It was something his grandfather had often said. Do not waste rage. Nurture it, cherish it and use the strength it gives. Hot anger gets a man killed. Cold anger will put the other man in the earth.

‘Silures like killing.’ Vindex was enjoying stirring things up. ‘They like it more than food or drink – even women.’

Ferox said nothing. For the first time in years he wished he was back with his own people, men of sense who enjoyed silence for its own sake. He was tempted to say that his people most liked winning, but saw no point in the conversation. Things were as they were, and the tribune was marching into the lands of the Selgovae, not the Silures.

‘My uncle Frontinus,’ Crispinus went on, ‘the man who conquered your people, did say that the Silures were cruel and cunning, that they killed without remorse and tortured without mercy. He said that they despise everyone and have no honour. According to him half of what a Silure told you was a lie and the other half wasn’t true.’

Vindex roared with laughter, then explained in their own tongue to his warriors who found it just as hilarious. Ferox shrugged, half his mind wondering about what the tribune had said earlier. Some of what Crispinus said was more than idle talk. ‘But Uncle also said that if one did give you his word, then he would keep it until the end of the world.’

Ferox would keep his pledge to Crispinus and his father as long as it did not interfere with his oath of allegiance to the emperor. The question was which side was the tribune really on – apart from his own, like any other ambitious aristocrat. Ferox said nothing, but heard his grandfather’s deep voice telling him that a solemn oath could never be broken, that a faithless man was lower than the dust, doomed to grim punishment in the Otherworld. He also remembered standing in the hall of a principia thirteen years ago and swearing loyalty to Rome and emperor. At the time he had been young enough to thrill at the grandeur of the big parade where the oath was taken. These days the sense was one of habit as much as anything else. It was simply part of him, but that oath held him forever in a vice, and in life he could not be free of it unless the empire crumbled into ruin and was no more.

‘There’s someone waiting to meet us up ahead,’ he told Crispinus after the man had finally relapsed into silence, broken only by occasional guffaws from Vindex and his men. ‘We will see them soon, when we crest that rise.’

A Brigantian scout appeared, riding back with the same news.

‘Should we wait for the column?’ Crispinus asked.

‘Let’s take a look, sir. Walk the horses on the way so that we can run if needs be. They’ll know the main force is coming, and this way we look as if we have no doubt that they will do what we ask and not give trouble.’

The tribune looked pale, but nodded assent.

There were several hundred Selgovae standing or sitting on the hillock. They wore dark trousers with faded patterns of tartan, and some had striped or checked tunics and long cloaks. One or two in the front wore helmets and armour and carried swords. Most of the rest had a spear or javelin and a little round or square shield. Ahead of them were forty or so warriors sitting on their ponies, and a chariot, the wooden frame brightly painted in red and blue. It was drawn by one black and one grey pony, and carried a charioteer, naked from the waist up and covered with tattoos, and a short, stocky warrior in mail, an old legionary helmet clasped under one arm and his long red hair falling down his back. As they approached the driver twitched the reins and the chariot came towards them. The warrior spread his arms high, waving the helmet in one, but apart from the long sword on his right hip he carried no weapon.

‘He wants to talk, sir,’ Ferox told the tribune. ‘It would be wise for us to meet him so that he can see your face and decide whether or not to trust you. And by the way, I’ll lay good odds that he is letting us see no more than half his warriors at best. The rest are in the trees on either side of us.’

‘Are you sure?’ Crispinus glanced around. ‘I don’t see anything.’

‘That’s why you know they are there,’ the centurion assured him, and then the chariot came round in a wide arc and slewed to a halt in front of them.

The chieftain was named Egus and he did not want to fight unless the Romans gave him no other choice. Ferox had met him before, although he did not know him well as it was less than a year since the man had succeeded his brother as leader. His reputation was as a good lord to his people, and the clan had always paid what was due to the empire on time, or near enough. This Egus was willing to do, but he resented the levy being demanded early.

‘It takes time to gather and sort the grain, and even longer to kill the animals and prepare the hides,’ he told Ferox, who interpreted. In ten days they would have everything as usual.

‘You should accept, sir,’ Ferox told the tribune. ‘He is offering his own son as hostage until everything is delivered.’

Crispinus was unsure what to do. ‘Do you trust him?’

‘Don’t look at me,’ Ferox said in a low voice. ‘Keep your eyes on his and do not smile. He needs to know that you are a serious man and one he can trust.’ He switched back into the language of the tribes and spoke to the chieftain in short, clipped sentences, getting similar replies. At last Egus held out his right hand to the tribune.

‘I have agreed to the terms,’ Ferox told the young officer.

‘You take a lot on yourself, centurion,’ Crispinus whispered, but took the outstretched hand and shook it firmly. ‘I agree,’ he told the chieftain, hoping that the man either knew a little Latin or would sense the meaning from his tone.

The boy was brought, and all the while more and more warriors appeared on the edges of the woodland. Egus’ son looked to be about nine or ten, skinny and with a drooping lip. The warrior attending him was the man with the painted face they had seen earlier in the day. By the time they all went back to join the rest of the party, there were hundreds more tribesmen watching them from the hillsides.

‘You were right,’ Crispinus conceded. ‘There are a lot more of them than we saw. A fight would have been harder than I thought. Yet I believe that I command. As I said, you presume a great deal to decide without consulting me.’

‘It’s my job,’ Ferox said. ‘Usually there is no time to seek approval. I am here to keep Rome’s peace, if I can. Once the main body came up we could have beaten this lot – probably. But we would have lost men, they would have lost a lot more and the rest of them would hate us. This way everyone is alive and we have a loyal ally.’

It started to rain, which made the wait for the column to arrive seem even longer. They pitched camp on the fairly level ground in front of the hillock where Egus and his band had waited. By now there were probably over a thousand Britons watching the soldiers as they went through the routine of entrenching and laying out the tent-lines.

‘They don’t get a lot of entertainment up here,’ Vindex said.

The hostage, lank hair plastered flat by the rain and huddled in his cloak, was sent to Crispinus’ tent as soon as this was erected, at the junction where the line of the two main roads in the camp met, just as if this was a proper fort.

‘Pity we could not get up into the next valley,’ Ferox said, half thinking aloud.

Crispinus scanned the hillsides in the fading light, watching the Selgovae as they watched the Romans. ‘We are with allies, so you tell me. And we have their leader’s son at our mercy.’

‘If that’s who he is, and assuming his father actually likes him.’

For the first time Crispinus appeared shocked.

‘It will probably be all right,’ Ferox said. ‘Probably.’