The Horse Coin

by David Wishart

  The Catuvellaunian gave a growl and drew his sword from its sheath.

  'Vosenos!' Boudica snapped. ‘Enough!’

  The man relaxed, glaring, but his was not the only sword to be drawn. Beside him his fellow-chief Cabriabanos held his own sword ready, pointed at Ecenomolios’s chest.

  'Perhaps, Ecenomolios,’ he said, ‘you should distinguish between the terms more carefully before you throw them in our faces. A thief takes what is not his own, a warrior keeps what is his or kills the man who steals it. That we have done. That the Iceni have also done, and the Trinovantes. This land and everything in it was ours, and now we have it back the thing is finished. Any Roman within these bounds is an enemy, but those beyond are no concern of the Catuvellauni. Let them stay or go, whichever they please.'

  'And if we had let the Wolves we killed on the road to Camulodunum stay or go?' Ecenomolios did not look down at the levelled blade, and Cabriabanos lowered it. 'Which is safer, Cabriabanos, a wolf left alive to bite again or a dead one?'

  'Have you no ears, you fool?' Toutomatos, the old Eastern Iceni sub-chief with the red battle-scar on his left cheek, said. 'They were in Trinovantian territory. The Trinovantes are friends and allies. These Wolves are in Atrebatia, and the Atrebates are neither. Do you think Cogidubnus will sit paring his nails at Calleva while we cross his borders?'

  'Cogidubnus is the Romans' dog. Why should we care what he thinks or does?'

  'Because dog or not he can call on the spears of five tribes! Where are your wits, man? Or are the Wolves not enemies enough? Cogidubnus may be the Romans' dog, but he's a cautious one content to stay and growl behind his own ditch. Nonetheless, he'll bite quick enough if we cross it. Cabriabanos is right. We have what is ours. If the Wolves want what they stole back then let them come to us and try to take it.'

  There were murmurs of agreement. Ecenomolios looked round, but his eyes met only closed faces.

  'Am I the only one with sense, then?' he said.

  No one spoke.

  'The decision stands.' Boudica jerked the rein of her pony, and the animal's head came back. 'Icenia is free, and Catuvellaunia and Trinovantia. That is enough; the rest is not our concern. If the Romans come, Ecenomolios, then we will fight them, but not unless. Is that clear?'

  Ecenomolios did not trust himself enough to reply. He sheathed his own sword, turned his back on her and walked away.

  Fools!

  Dumnocoveros had been standing behind the queen, but he had said nothing: military matters were not a Druid's business unless he chose to make them so, and Dumnocoveros did not. Could not. He closed his eyes against the pain of his own knowledge. Perhaps I'm wrong, he thought, Perhaps I misinterpreted the gods' message. Ogmios, Lugos, prove me wrong!

  He doubted if they would. The dream last night had been unambiguous.

  He had been standing at the mouth of a stretch of bare ground that reached back into raised woodland like the fish-traps that the Iceni used in their marsh-pools; narrow at the neck, spreading out beyond until it formed a broad, curving bulge. Behind him was a river, deep and slow-flowing, fringed with willow and alder, and the noonday sun beat on his bare neck.

  He was waiting.

  The man came through the trees from the higher ground far in front and to his right, where, had this been a fish-trap, the bait would hang. He was dressed as he had been before for hunting, but this time he wore no war-paint. His spear was reversed and his hair flowed loose over his shoulders, unbound for mourning. The three jewels shone brightly in his belt.

  'Lord.' Dumnocoveros raised his forearms, crossing them at the wrist.

  The hunter stopped. 'So, Druid,' he said. 'We are here.'

  'Where is "here", Lord?'

  'You don't know?' The man smiled, but the smile did not touch his eyes. 'This is the end of all roads. Look.' He pointed to the high ground of the valley's belly. 'Beyond here is nothing. No path. Only death.'

  'Death is itself a path, Lord.'

  The young man laughed. 'Aye, that's true,' he said. 'Call it a beginning, then. That would be equally true. We must all climb the hill, at one time or another.'

  'You, too, Lord? Even you?'

  'Even me. Even, finally, the Wolves. Change rules us all. We cannot escape it.'

  'Change for the better?'

  'Change.' The hunter's voice was flat. 'It has been a good hunting, Druid, but it will end here. Nothing you can say or do will alter that. And it will not be wasted, I promise. The blood will not be wasted.'

  'There is no other way?'

  'You said yourself: death is only another path. Paths need to be trodden if they are to form and become roads. A road creates its own way.'

  'To where? Roads need direction, Lord. Otherwise what is their purpose?'

  'They are their own purpose, or they become it. A road implies a destination. That destination may not exist at first, but it will; it must, eventually, because the road is already there. Do you understand me, Dumnocoveros?'

  'No, Lord.'

  'Then at least trust me.’ The young man raised his hand, the jewels in his belt flashing. 'Enough. Remember, when you stand here again, that it was a good hunting.'

  Dumnocoveros had bowed, and turned, and walked away. The river beyond the valley's neck was blood-red, the trees that fringed it skeletal and stripped of leaves. It had been the last thing that he had seen before he woke.

  'I trust you, Lord,' he said, now, as he watched Ecenomolios go down to the river between the burning buildings of what had been the Roman city.

  42

  Ten days later, fifteen miles from Pontes along the native track that led to the ford at Marcoritum two miles upstream from London itself, Paullinus sat his horse and for the hundredth time turned his strategy for the coming battle over in his mind.

  It would work. Possibly. If Boudica took the bait. If the Iceni had not moved since the last report. If the ground he had chosen was as Pudens's scouts had described it, and where they had described it. If...

  If, if, if. There were always too many ifs. He tried to put them aside, and Poenius Postumus, the acting commander of the Second, with them. The Second should have arrived from Isca days ago, on the heels of the Fourteenth which had reached Calleva ahead of time. It had not. There had been no message, no news, and without the extra legion, with only the Fourteenth and Cogidubnus's auxiliaries, he was still seriously under strength. Should he have waited another day? Two days? But with supplies running short...

  Damn Postumus!

  Fear destroys, he told himself firmly. You've troops enough, your plan will work, the rebels will be beaten and the province will be saved. All this will happen.

  A tiny movement in the air ahead of him caught his eye. Above the open stretch of rough grassland by the river's edge, oblivious of the marching column beyond, a sparrowhawk hung motionless against the blue of the sky, its wings beating to keep the still body aloft.

  'Scout, General,' Aulus Pasidienus, the Fourteenth's legate, murmured.

  Paullinus looked away from the bird. The man was coming in from the east: an Atrebatian, one of the auxiliaries Cogidubnus had sent from Calleva. He brought the shaggy pony to a halt and put fist to brow in the British salute.

  'Ford is empty.' His Latin was thick as curdled milk and almost unintelligible. 'Thames is empty. No Iceni, no rebel, no nothing but burn, five miles, ten from ford.' He grinned. 'Sod all. Understand "sod all", General?'

  Paullinus nodded, keeping both the smile and the relief from his face, 'How far to Marcoritum?' he said.

  'Two mile. Less.'

  'The Iceni?'

  The man pointed to the north-east. 'Big camp after London, five miles, eight. No move or small-small. But you come, they come fast, so I think. Also scouts, north bank, good horse.'

  'Then we'd better hurry.' Paullinus turned to the signaller beside him. 'Double pace, Bugler.'

  As he spoke, the hawk fell, folding its wings and dropping to earth like a stone. Almost immediately it rose again a
nd flew away westwards.

  The scout had been watching closely. He grunted with satisfaction.

  'Good,' he said.

  'What?' Paullinus frowned.

  The man pointed. 'Good sign, General. Lucky.' He saluted, and galloped off.

  They crossed the ford. Just out of sight, two miles downstream, London lay silent beneath its shroud of ash.

  The valley was a pear-shaped defile fronted by a shallow stream, south facing, surrounded on three sides by high ground thick with oaks and birch scrub and swelling inwards from its narrow neck to almost a mile in width at its base. It was perfect, all that he had hoped for. With the legion occupying the lower reaches and the auxiliary cavalry, slingers and archers guarding their flanks he could cut any attacking force to ribbons.

  And that's what I will do, he promised himself savagely, remembering Verulamium. By the sweet gods I will!

  Beside him Pasidienus had taken off his helmet and was cradling it against his horse's neck, looking around him with a satisfaction that matched his own.

  'A fine choice of ground, General,' he said.

  'It'll do. It'll do very nicely.' Paullinus looked back at the late-afternoon sun, half-hidden now by the thickly-wooded slopes to the right and behind. For the first time he felt his worry lift and confidence return. 'We camp at the far end. Make sure you have plenty of scouts out. We don't want the beggars to catch us napping like they did Cerialis.'

  'Yes, sir.' The legate saluted, then turned to snap orders at the signaller.

  With the first notes of the bugle, smoothly, efficiently, the marching column spread outwards across the base of the valley, breaking into its cohorts and centuries. Paullinus knew that within an hour what was now flat, anonymous grassland would be transformed into an orderly chequerboard of tents and roads. The thought, as always, awed him. This was Rome at her best; why, in a hundred years, even a backwater province like Britain would be as civilised as any in the empire.

  But first she had to be tamed. And when the rebels came, as they would have to come, that was something they would learn for themselves.

  By the gods they would!

  Severinus fondled Tanet's ears as he watched the slow-moving wave crest the skyline to the east, flowing across the open country in a broad sweep a mile wide like water from a flooded river. The Iceni were too far away yet for detail, but he could already hear them: a low murmur like the rumble of distant thunder broken by shouts and the braying of war-horns.

  'Jupiter, will you look at that, now?' The decurion commanding the cavalry troop waiting in the trees around him was staring in awe. 'How many of the bastards do you reckon, sir?'

  'The General said eighty thousand.' Severinus tried to ignore the cold knot of fear in his belly. 'I wouldn't know. I've never seen anything like it.'

  'Me neither.' The decurion leaned over and spat to one side. 'Eighty thousand, eh? It'll be a scrap and a half, then.' Over to his left, one of the other horses snorted and shifted sideways, pushing its rider's leg against a branch of gorse. The man cursed and the decurion turned in his saddle to glare at him.

  'Lucius, you gormless bugger!’ he said. ‘Tighten your rein or I'll have your guts!'

  The other men chuckled, and the trooper reddened. The decurion turned back to Severinus.

  'Look at that, sir. Wagons. They've brought the wives and kids along. Just like the effing circus, eh?'

  Severinus could see the rear of the rebel army now. The decurion was right: behind the main body was a straggle of ox-carts, hundreds of them, heavily laden and moving sluggishly across the tussocky grassland. As he watched, the carts stopped, forming a huge ragged crescent.

  'Senators' seats.' The decurion grinned. 'There's natives for you, sir. Effing crazy, the lot of them.'

  The army proper, too, had stopped, a hundred yards below where they sat screened by the trees and five hundred from where the Fourteenth waited in three lines a spear-cast inside the valley's neck. It had no formal order. In the narrowing space between river and forest the extended wings had shrunk inwards towards the centre to form a compacted mass of bodies a third of a mile wide and the same in depth. The noise now was deafening, an ear-hurting roar of shouting men and booming war-horns. As Severinus watched, a single horseman galloped out of the press. Twenty yards from the Roman shield-wall he swerved, raised himself and threw his spear, not into the helmeted heads but above them towards the Eagle standard to the rear. It fell short, but the standard dipped as the aquilifer's horse shifted beneath him.

  A cheer rose from the British ranks as the man rode slowly back.

  'Cheeky bugger,' the decurion muttered. 'Smart bit of riding, though.'

  The front line of the Icenian army was fragmenting as more warriors broke away and repeated the first man's dash. The shouting and the war-horns now were interspersed with jeers and cat-calls, but the Fourteenth did not move or respond. Even when one of the thrown spears found a target the gap was simply quietly closed.

  'Drives them wild, that.' The decurion cleared his throat and sent another gob of spittle into the gorse. 'Can't stand being ignored, the British. Worse than the Germans. Pack of effing posers.'

  Severinus had been looking for the queen. Boudica was standing in a chariot on a patch of higher ground to the south-east, a sword in her hand, head up and back straight, watching the Roman line. There was no trace of the matronly woman he had seen at Coriodunum. Even at this distance he could see that like the warriors and the captains round her she was painted for war, her hair stiffened with lime and a royal torc at her throat. He found himself, illogically, thinking of Senovara.

  Boudica raised her sword, then brought it down. The host roared, rippled and surged forwards.

  'Here they come, sir,' the decurion murmured. 'About effing time, too.' He half-turned. 'Steady, lads.'

  The shouting and the braying of war-horns had swelled until it was a single, solid, deafening wall of noise. Now the whole formless mass threw itself towards the waiting legion. Its front now was no more than a few hundred yards wide, squeezed between the river and the narrow gap at the valley's mouth. From beside the Eagle, in the centre behind the third rank where Paullinus stood with his staff, a signal trumpet blew a single note.

  'That's not for us, boys.' The decurion's voice was matter-of-fact, hardly louder than would carry over the shouts below. He had drawn his sabre but he held it loosely. 'Stay where you are and give the ironbellies a chance. You'll have your fun shortly.'

  In answer to the trumpet, from the high ground on either side of the attackers came a shower of arrows and slingshot. At the same moment the legionaries' front rank threw the first of their two javelins, so closely timed that the wooden shafts formed a single wave that arced through the air and struck along the length of the enemy's front. The British line was suddenly a screaming, bloody shambles, its edges crumpling, its centre a chaos of bodies jammed shoulder to shoulder with no space to move. Before it could recover, the second volley of javelins slammed into what was already no longer an army but a mass of heaving, trapped flesh.

  The Roman lines shifted as the first rank parted and the second stepped through the gaps. A heartbeat behind the second volley of javelins came a third, then a fourth. The trumpet sounded again, and the line of shields moved forwards with an audible hiss as five thousand swords cleared their scabbards.

  The decurion glanced at Severinus. 'Sir?' he said.

  Severinus nodded, his mouth dry, and set his heels to Tanet's eager flanks.

  All around him, the cavalry were sweeping down through the trees at the valley’s edges.

  Ecenomolios stood alone, watching the advancing Wolves crest the piles of dead and dying warriors that blocked the valley's mouth. He glanced down at his sword-arm and the javelin that had pierced it and proved impossible to remove. He felt no pain, only anger, and an immense frustration that his fingers would no longer obey him and grasp the hilt of the sword that lay at his feet.

  Stooping, he shrugged the shield from hi
s left arm and picked up the sword. The leather bindings of its hilt were greasy to the touch and its contours, reversed now, were unfamiliar beneath his palm. As he gripped it he felt rather than heard the beat of hooves behind him.

  He turned, just as the cavalryman’s sabre drove down across his neck, shearing through his spine, and the world dissolved in a red wash of pain.

  On the other side of the valley the Druid Dumnocoveros died, too, his collarbone split by the thrust of a legionary's sword. Above him a lark rose, singing.

  The corpse lay on its back at the edge of the trees; unmarked save for the single tell-tale wound in the chest left by the thrust of a legionary's sword. Beside it something lay glittering, spilled from the open pouch at the man's waist. Severinus bent down and picked the thing up. It was a native coin on a chain, gold, with a running horse on one side and an ear of barley on the other. The chain was broken, the links snapped.

  Without thinking, he tucked it under his belt and stepped aside while Inam's body was slung into the cart with the others.

  43

  'I'm sorry, boy.' Junius Natalis, the Ninth's Commander of Cavalry and the officer currently in charge of reconstruction at the Colony, set the urn down carefully on the desk in front of him.

  Severinus reached out a hand and touched the lid. It seemed incredible that all that was left of his father was contained in this small clay box.

  'No need, sir,' he said. 'I knew he was dead.'

  'He died well, if that's a consolation. They all did.' Natalis was army to the bone: a big brawny north Italian, florid faced, but with a haunted look about the eyes that was common to everyone he had met these past few hours. The reason for the look was not difficult to guess. Severinus had seen both Verulamium and London, and they had been bad enough. When Natalis and his detachment had arrived from Dercovium the Colony had been dead and abandoned for almost a month. It had taken them five days just to collect and burn the corpses, or what the wolves and birds had left of them.

  His mother's had been among them. Her ashes, now, would be in the common grave beyond the west gate, along with Sulicena's and Trinnus's. And Albilla's. Thinking of Albilla, Severinus felt a sudden pang of guilt. He had scarcely thought about her at all. Certainly her death affected him far less than his parents', or even Sulicena's.