Aper's grip relaxed. He glanced quickly at his wife, who nodded, her lips set. 'Aye, of course we will,' he said. 'Now go with Ursina. Quintus and I have to talk.'
'It's hopeless, isn't it?' Montanus said calmly when the women had left.
'Aye.' Aper went over to the desk and poured two cups of wine from the jug that sat there. 'From what young Opimius said Boudica must have at least twenty thousand men to our three, probably a lot more. And after what happened to the Ninth she'll have all the arms she needs. We've no walls and no time to build them. And even if we did the Colony's too big to defend.'
Montanus took his cup and sipped. 'So,' he said.
'So.'
'How long do we have?'
'The gods know.' Aper lowered himself onto the couch and set the cup down untasted on the table beside him. 'They can't be any more than twenty miles off. On the other hand young Opimius says they're moving slowly. If we're lucky they'll leave us alone for the present and concentrate on looting. They know we're here and how many we are. On the other hand, they know we'll fight. That might hold them off for a while.' He frowned. 'Three days? Five? That's assuming the Trinovantes don't get us first.'
Montanus set his cup down. 'Jupiter in heaven!'
'Aye. As of today the whole tribe's up, border to border, not just the Dunsmen. Opimius said he was damned lucky to get through.’
Montanus shrugged. 'Well, I don't altogether blame them, I suppose,' he said. 'We deserve it.'
'Don't be so bloody reasonable, man! The time for that's past!'
'Yes, I suppose it is.' Montanus sat silent, staring at nothing. Then he nodded slowly. 'So. We add the Trinovantes. What's the plan?'
'You're asking me?'
'You're our ranking veteran. You commanded a wing and you have thirty years' military experience under your belt. Yes, I'm asking you, Titus. Of course I am.'
'Well, then.' Aper's lips twisted. 'I can only say what I said to Albilla: when Paullinus gets Cerialis's message –.if he gets it – he'll bring the army back from Mona. It's up to us to hold the Colony until he comes.'
'You think we can?'
'No. Do you?'
Montanus stood up and hobbled painfully to the window.
'No,' he said quietly, looking out over the city.
'Then we're agreed on that, at least.' Aper cleared his throat. 'Now. Weapons first. The veterans and the auxiliaries are already provided for, but I've got Bassus on the council organising teams to collect all the scrap iron for melting they can find. Old armour, too; we can patch it up, cannibalise. We're going to need all the men we can get under arms, military and civilian, and we can't send them out naked.'
Montanus chuckled. 'I never thought I'd see Gaius Vegisonius wearing a tin mantle,’ he said. ‘Have you told him?'
'Aye.' Aper didn't smile. 'And the others on the council. The business with Cerialis hit them hard, Quintus. They'll give no trouble now.'
'What about the rest? The other Colonists?'
'Uricalus is spreading the word. As of tomorrow we abandon everything west of Cloak Street and south of Residence Road and move to the Annexe. There're enough building materials there to cobble together some sort of rampart. And if need be we can make a stand on the higher ground round the temple.'
Montanus was still looking out of the window.
'As of tomorrow?’ he said.
'As far as a general evacuation's concerned, aye. Work on the rampart's already started and it'll go on all night. I left Radix in charge with as many of the veterans as he can muster. There's no reason to bring the women and children over, not yet. Tomorrow will be soon enough.'
Montanus was silent for a long time. Then he said: 'I suppose there's no way of getting them away altogether? We've four hundred regular troops. They wouldn't make much difference to us but they'd make some sort of escort at least.'
'Jupiter, man, do you think I haven't thought of that? No, not with the Trinovantes in revolt. We're cut off completely. It's too risky now.'
'Indeed.' Montanus sighed. 'That it certainly is. Come over here and take a look for yourself.'
Aper felt his spine go cold. He got up quickly and joined the other man at the window.
Where the traders' huts straggled along the line of the Estuary road towards the Dun, he could see a heavy pall of smoke spreading west across the sky in the early evening breeze.
'I'm afraid,' Montanus said gently, 'that tomorrow may be too late.'
33
When Aper and Montanus came outside Ursina and Albilla were standing by the coach with Trinnus and the household's slaves, staring at the sky.
'It's the Trinovantes, isn't it, Titus?' Ursina said.
'Aye.'
Albilla glanced at them but said nothing.
'Isn't there anything to be done?'
He laid an arm round her shoulders. 'No, Bear-cub, not now. We can only get ourselves to the Annexe as quick as we can and hope others have the sense to do the same'
Ursina sighed and leaned against him. 'Well,' she said.
'Well indeed. Well it is.' Aper gave her another squeeze, then let her go and turned to Montanus. 'Your folk will need weapons, Quintus. Whatever you have; kitchen knives, cleavers, spits, anything. It's half a mile to the east gate. We should have time enough, but I'll take no chances.'
'I'll see to it. Or Rufus and Canio will, rather.' Montanus hesitated. 'I won't be coming with you, Titus.'
Aper stared at him. 'You're not serious?' he said.
'Perfectly serious.'
'For Jupiter's sake, man!'
'Quintus, we can take the coach,' Ursina said.
'It has nothing to do with my lameness, Ursina. Or not in the way you mean.'
'Then why?'
He smiled. 'Because I'm tired,’ he said. ‘And because I prefer to die here at home than go traipsing all the way over to the Annexe to do it. Don't worry, I'll arrange things comfortably and painlessly. So no arguments, please, and no discussion.'
Aper looked at him, then at Ursina, who nodded.
'Very well, Quintus,' he said. 'The decision’s yours to make, no one else’s. The gods be with you.'
'And with you, Titus.' Montanus beckoned to the two gawping male slaves. 'Come on, Rufus. Canio.' He led them into the house.
Albilla had been watching the exchange in disbelief.
'You're letting him kill himself?' she said.
Aper was fetching his cavalry sabre and belt from the coach.
'Aye'
'But you can't!'
'It's Montanus's decision, Albilla,' Ursina said gently, 'and his right.'
'But...' Albilla covered her face with her hands for a moment, then took them away. 'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, I'm sorry. I'm all right now.'
'Good girl.' Aper slipped the belt over his head and shoulder and settled the sabre in place. 'Trinnus, you have your knife?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Where's Sulicena, Bear-cub?'
'I sent her for some blankets.' She looked round just as the old woman, her arms full, appeared in the doorway. 'Here she is now.'
'Fine. Then as soon as Quintus's lads come back we'll go. Albilla, get –'
'No.' The girl was shaking her head. 'I can't come either. Not without Mother.'
Aper stared at her.
Ursina laid a hand on his arm. 'Albilla,' she said, 'Bellicia knows where you are, and she'll have seen the smoke herself. She'll be gone already. Don't be silly, dear.'
'I'm not being silly. You know Mother. She won't...she wouldn't just leave everything and go. She'll believe me. Please!'
'Your father will bring her, surely.'
'Father isn't there. He went out before I left this morning. He had business at the port.' Albilla was crying now. 'Ursina, I must! Please!'
Ursina looked at Aper. 'Titus?'
'It's too dangerous, Albilla,' he said. 'And there's no time.'
Trinnus cleared his throat. 'I'll go with her, sir,' he said. 'Don't worry, we're safe enough yet. It won'
t take long, and if they haven't left we'll have Uricalus's lads with us afterwards.'
Aper took a deep breath. 'Very well,' he said. 'But be quick.'
Albilla hugged him.
Albilla and Trinnus set off through the crowd-choked streets in the direction of the market. The Colony was in chaos. They passed several carts that had been abandoned fully-laden, the oxen standing white-eyed and shaking while the human river flowed around them. What Albilla noticed most was the silence. There was no talking, no shouting, no sound of human voices at all. Even the children were silent.
South of Market Square, the crowds began to thin. They were on Main Street now, beyond the Praetorian Street junction, almost home. Most of the shops were tightly shuttered, but some lay open and gutted, their goods strewn across the road. Trinnus kept his knife ready, but even the looters had gone.
They turned into Uricalus's street. It, too, was empty. The house itself was locked and the windows barred.
'They've gone already, miss,' Trinnus said. 'There's no one here. We'd best be...'
Albilla saw him freeze. She spun round, following his eyes, and saw the men. For a split second, she wondered what was wrong; what the reason had been for the look of surprise and terror on Trinnus's face. They were only natives, after all.
Then she remembered, and turned to run, Trinnus beside her.
The spear caught him in the back with a sound like a butcher's cleaver hitting a carcass, and he grunted and fell. Albilla stopped and stared down at him in disbelief. He lay on his face, twitching, the spear-shaft ludicrously erect like a pole below his left shoulder, the bloodied head standing out a hand's-breadth beneath his chest.
She screamed.
Behind her, she heard the sound of running feet. Hands caught at her shoulders and pulled her round, lifting her off the ground. The world was suddenly a sea of grinning faces, painted blue and red above the long moustaches. She smelt sour curds and stale honey-beer.
She screamed again. The hands were gripping her, crushing her ribs. Another hand, coming out of nowhere, smashed across her face. Inside her mouth, something broke and she tasted blood.
'Please,' she said. 'Please...'
Someone laughed and spoke. The hands shifted, to her arms, her legs, gripping and tugging. She felt herself pulled backwards and forwards at the one time. The world lurched sickeningly, out of control, and the sea of daces vanished. Above her, suddenly, the sky stretched like a huge blue blanket.
The man's voice spoke again. Other voices answered. 'Please,' she said. 'Please, I'm sorry, I don't understand. I don't speak...'
Something hard and sharp thrust itself between her thighs. The pain was unbelievable. She screamed, and kept on screaming, thrashing from side to side, helpless in the hands' grip as the pain drove deeper inside her and swelled to blot out the world.
Then, with a sudden wrench of white-hot agony, it was gone, and there was only the friendly, welcoming darkness.
Something was glinting at the dead woman's throat. Inam reached down and yanked the pendant free, breaking the chain and sending the head thudding into the gravel of the roadway. He held the thing up to the light: a gold coin with a running horse and letters that he could not read.
He slipped the coin under his belt, and, spitting into the upturned, death-blind face, pulled his spear free from between her legs.
Then, leaving her corpse where it lay, he followed the others.
34
Senovara let the white mare pick her way between the stands of broom and birch which edged the higher ground overlooking the estuary. The marshes stretched away beneath her, a patchwork of green and black and silver, completely still but for the gently-shifting reeds. Here and there, where they opened out into pools, she could see the dark shapes of feeding ducks and moorhens. Directly below her, a pair of herons stood motionless as statues.
Eight miles to the north, she knew, people would be dying. Earlier that morning along with her mother and Ahteha she had watched the warriors set out for the Colony, their faces painted and their spears newly-sharpened. She had seen the fires, too, in the distance and smelled the smoke: not the clean, woody smell of cooking fires but the sickening, sour reek of burning wattle and roof-thatch. Perhaps she had been a fool to go out at all, and before he had left to join the hosting of the tribe the day before her father had forbidden it, but she had felt stifled, waiting for news on the half-deserted Dun with the other women. Here, at least, the air was fresh, and it had no death-smell.
Lacta had found a path; no more than a thread of crushed grass that wound through the undergrowth. Senovara touched the mare's flanks with her bare knees and urged her into a trot. The path widened, leading towards a thicket of seedling beech and hawthorn. Beyond it she glimpsed the slope of a tiled roof. She reined in; then, hesitantly, she sent Lacta forwards.
She recognised the villa at once, although she had come on it from the other side this time. The path ended at an open gate in the garden wall. Beyond the gate, a horse was tethered to the trunk of an apple tree. It turned its head and snorted.
Senovara dismounted and led Lacta through the gate. The two horses nuzzled each other while she tethered the mare to an overhanging branch. The man stood half a dozen paces off, watching her. His face was painted, and he was holding a sword.
'Father?' she said.
'You should not be here, girl.' Brocomaglos did not move.
'No.' She walked over to him and stood, waiting.
He made a clearing gesture with his hand and looked away. 'I used to come here once,' he said. 'Before they landed, when I was a boy. There was a beavers' lodge in the stream over by the three willow trees. It's gone now. Beavers won't build near people.'
Senovara said nothing.
'There's a fireplace in this wall. Look.' He pointed with his sword. 'The hot air's carried under the house's floor to warm it.' His lips twisted. 'No smoke, no flames even. Just heat that you can't see. Clever. We would never think of that. We would wrap warm on a winter's night and watch the flames.' Senovara said nothing. 'Their roads, too. Hard-packed gravel, not mud, and cambered so the water runs off at the sides into ditches. Clever again. And what do they use them for? To move armies.'
'Father...'
Brocomaglos was not listening. He looked, she thought, lost. She had never seen her father look lost before.
'Father,' she said, 'why did you come?'
He shrugged. 'To burn it,' he said. 'I thought it needed burning. Only I can't do it. People I knew lived here. The Romans may be enemies, they may have to die for what they've done to us and what they might do yet, but I can't hate them for being different. Or even for being too clever for their own and everyone else’s good. Do you understand me, girl?'
Senovara nodded. 'Yes,' she said.
'That's good. Because I don't understand myself.' He grinned suddenly, and the lost look vanished. 'Ach, well, we'll let someone else do the dirty work. Here, at least. You'd best get home. Your mother will be worried.'
He walked over to the horses.
'You're coming too?' she said.
'No.' He unfastened the stallion's halter, gripped its mane and mounted. 'No, lass. Keep you safe.'
Wheeling the stallion, he set his heels to its flanks.
'And you, Father,' she said; but he was already gone through the gate.
Senovara mounted Lacta and rode back to the Dun.She knew, as if someone had whispered it to her, that she would never see him again.
35
Aper looked about him with satisfaction.
The transformation of the Annexe from building site to fort was well under way. On either side of a gap left for access facing the junction of North Cloak Street and Ditch Street stretched a solid line of upturned carts reinforced by masonry blocks and heavy wooden beams, with every twenty paces a raised fighting platform wide enough for four men and protected by a breastwork screen of tanned ox-hides. It was far from perfect, he could see that: the carts, wedged though they were from behi
nd, could be pulled forward to leave gaps in the wall and there was no fronting ditch. Still, as a barrier it might hold long enough for an attack to be broken.
'Will it pass, Titus?' Ursina was watching him closely.
He smiled and squeezed her arm. 'Aye,' he said. 'It'll pass. If we're for the death mask then at least we'll go down fighting.'
She reached up and kissed his cheek.
A broad-shouldered man in a centurion's uniform was making his way towards them.
'There's Radix coming now,' Ursina said. 'Don't hurry, Titus. We'll be by the temple steps when you finish.'
'Fine.' Aper kissed her and turned to the veteran. 'Everything going well, Radix?'
'We're getting there, Commander.' The First Spear in charge of the construction saluted and grinned. 'When the bastards come they'll have their work cut out getting past that little lot.'
Aper looked across to the right; the barrier continued along the south side, facing the Residence and the new provincial offices, but there it stopped. 'What about the north and east?' he said.
'I thought we'd concentrate on the town side first, sir. But there's still lads out scavenging for stuff with what carts we have left. Give us an hour or two and we'll finish the square.'
'If you can take it you can have it.'
'We'll manage. And if not, well, it comes to us all, doesn't it?'
Aper grunted. 'Javelins?' he said.
'Bassus has had the armourers working flat out all day. He reckons we've ten to a man already, at least. That's military personnel only, Commander, if you're agreed. These townies couldn't hit a cow broadside on at ten yards.' Radix pulled at his ear. 'I'd give a year's pay for a cohort of archers, mind, or even a hundred slingers. Speaking of which, sir, we've a few good bowmen.' He turned round and nodded towards the temple. 'If we put them up on the roof there they'd do a tidy bit of damage.'
'Fine. Two more suggestions. 'Hurdles outside the barrier where the ditch should be, as many as you can find. Bring them in from the fields. And put a man on the roof now. One with a good pair of eyes.'
Radix grinned. 'Already done, sir. Don't you worry. Whenever the bastards come they won't catch us napping. I'll see to the hurdles, though.'
The Horse Coin Page 22