by James Wilde
South of the fort, the vicus rolled out, the township’s ringing shouts and laughter and reek of filth already thick in the air. Near two and a half thousand souls carved out a living there, as dependent upon the good graces of the army as the soldiers were on the services the citizens offered them.
From the edge of that sprawling settlement, mounds and the stumps of walls were almost lost beneath wild grass, bramble and elder, the ghost of the old township, abandoned some hundred years ago. Lucanus had heard many a story why – fire, plague, famine – but no one seemed to know for sure. And in the hazy distance he could see the Stanegate, the great stone road that ran almost the length of the wall from west to east, was free of traffic.
The Grim Wolves trudged through the twin arches of the porta praetorium into a storm of hammers and cursing. A team of soldiers, carpenters and masons was busy shoring up a sagging wall. Further on, part of that same wall had already collapsed into a pile of rubble. Lucanus swept his eyes across the missing roof tiles, the crumbling masonry, the rotting timbers, and then to a cornicularius outside the granaries, bellowing at a merchant about the poor quality of the latest grain delivery.
‘The whole fort’s falling down around our ears,’ Bellicus muttered.
Many thought Rome had all but forgotten them. The camp commandant, Lucius Galerias Atellus, had sent message after message along the supply lines. Over time his demands for repairs, reinforcements, better supplies, more timely pay, had all turned to pleas. He was answered, intermittently, but the gap between responses was growing.
Rome’s attention was elsewhere now, everyone said: in Gaul where the Emperor Valentinian fought the Alamanni along the frontier; in the east, where the Emperor Valens struggled with restless Goths; and on rebellion, not the least within its own city walls where Christian battled Christian after the contested papal election. But the forgotten men here at the final outpost did their duty and held the line.
Once they passed the first line of barracks and stables, Lucanus and the Grim Wolves tramped into the Via Sagularis, where the soldiers of the near four-hundred-strong Cohors Primae Tungrorum gathered when they were readying to march out to repel a Pictish raid.
Turning to Bellicus, he whispered, ‘Fill their bellies. Give them as much wine as they can drink. We’ll talk over what we found when they’re rested.’
Bellicus nodded. ‘I’ll send them out to the baths after that, and then to the House of Wishes. They’ll be ready for anything after a night between warm thighs.’
Once the Grim Wolves had departed, Lucanus strode to the crossroads of the Via Principalis and the Via Praetoria and swept into the Principia, where the business of the fort was conducted. Before he could enter the camp commandant’s quarters, he heard his name called. In a doorway, Quintus Domitius Falx was glancing round to make sure he was not being observed. He beckoned furiously.
Centurion Falx: pale skin awash with freckles, piercing eyes the colour of a winter sky. A hard man, so everyone under his command said, but quick to laugh.
Lucanus stepped into a small, low-ceilinged room filled with scrolls and Falx closed the door behind him. A tall, insect-like man skittered along the far wall stoking the brazier. Carbo, the optio, had the face of someone who’d just swallowed a wasp. Lucanus forced a tight smile of greeting.
‘Here. Try this.’ Falx thrust a cup into Lucanus’ hand.
Lucanus swilled back a mouthful of sweet wine, no doubt freshly imported along the sea-roads from the lush valleys of Gaul, a world away from the rough draught they were usually forced to drink.
‘Should have been on its way to Vindolanda,’ Falx said with a sly grin. ‘Somehow the amphorae were left behind here.’ He flashed a glance at Carbo, and his optio looked away uncomfortably. ‘That bastard Stolo will be spitting blood when he finds he’ll have to endure more of the usual ditchwater for the rest of the spring.’
‘You’ll have a lot of friends when you share your good fortune.’
Falx frowned as if Lucanus was stupid. ‘Share? This good fortune will make me a better fortune when it’s sold to all those families with fat purses and enough land to keep them from having to smell the reek of the vicus. Perhaps Menius and Amatius, eh? Will you have a word with that brood you’re so friendly with the next time you’re enjoying their hospitality? I’d think they’d have enough coin to buy an ocean of this fine wine.’
‘What do I get in return?’
‘One amphora, of course. Enough for you and your men.’
‘Two.’
Falx cursed under his breath. ‘The cold wind beyond the wall has made you hard, Lucanus, that you’d do this to a good friend. Two, then, though you’ll beggar me.’
Lucanus nodded. A good deal. Comforts were hard to come by these days.
The centurion leaned in and said, ‘This is only the start of good times, mark my words. Last night a messenger brought word about a rich merchant arriving from Rome.’
‘Why would he be coming here?’
‘Who knows? Perhaps he’s addled. Perhaps he thinks it’s a sunny land of olive groves and sweet-smelling flowers. The point is, he wants to conduct some business. With willing men. Like me. And you, of course. And he’s prepared to pay a small fortune if we help him.’
‘What does he want? In my experience, a small fortune usually involves something that puts necks on the line.’
Falx shrugged. ‘We are men who get things done, Lucanus. Whatever it is, it won’t be beyond our abilities. I’m offering you an opportunity here. Don’t bite my hand. Are you in?’
‘We’ll see. I’ll hear it from his own mouth first.’ He took another sip of wine and decided to change the subject. ‘I’ve heard grumbling from some of the arcani along the wall … the Crows … the Hounds … They say they’re not getting paid on time. And sometimes purses arrive light.’
Falx refilled Lucanus’ goblet to placate him.
‘It’s true that the pay is sometimes a little short. We all suffer from that,’ he said. ‘The arcani have to bide their time. All will be made right.’
‘This isn’t a good time to be angering the arcani. At dawn we found three of the Ravens butchered. And someone had been feasting on their flesh.’
Falx frowned. ‘The barbarians are beasts, but they don’t eat the dead.’
‘Stories for children,’ Carbo said from the back of the room. ‘Tales of the Eaters of the Dead have been whispered since I was a boy. But that is all they are … whispers. All trace of them disappears the moment anyone investigates.’
Lucanus looked from one man to the other. ‘I saw this with my own eyes.’
‘Strange that we hear this now,’ Carbo said, his voice ripely sardonic, ‘when the arcani grumble about pay. What better way to show that they’re needed more than ever? The Eaters of the Dead will come to devour your old grandmother. What do you say, Falx?’
The centurion shrugged. ‘Perhaps you were mistaken, Lucanus. The bite of a wolf—’
‘Isn’t like the bite of a man. Do you think I’m a fool? I live my life on the land, in the sun and the rain and the snow, surrounded by the hoots of owls and the shrieks of crows. When I smell the wind, I can tell what’s wolf and what’s wildcat though they’re an hour’s march away. I know what’s man and what’s beast.’ He looked to Carbo. ‘And you’re accusing me of lying for gain?’
The optio only smiled.
Lucanus wrestled his frustration under control. ‘This vile deed took place less than half a day’s march from here.’ He selected one of the scrolls from the wall, unfurled it and pointed to the location on the map. ‘Here. Whoever did this is still there; we saw the signs.’
Falx stared at the map, thinking. ‘Don’t spread this around. You know how superstitious people are here. First it’s barbarians, then ghosts, and monsters, and then the gods have unleashed all their furies upon us and we are damned. We’ll have everyone in the vicus hammering at the gates.’ He pursed his lips and muttered, ‘And some of the men too.’
The centurion nodded. ‘You make a good case. Let me have a word with Atellus. Send out a few men, cavalry, perhaps twenty, or call in some of those hard bastards from the Hnaudifridi company. If the enemy have a greater number, there’s no need to engage. A sign that we’re looking their way will be enough, for now. Then we can decide our next step.’
Lucanus leaned into the wind as he crossed the fort and heaved himself up the worn steps to where the sentries watched the Wilds. Yes, he felt a little more reassured there. How could he not, looking along that line of stone into the hazy distance?
The wall was everything for those who lived in its shadow. That’s why he’d been taught its history when he was a boy and could still recount the names of all the forts and the location of all the mile-castles along the eighty-mile length. Falx had said the arcani kept the army safe, but the wall was the true saviour, and had been for the near two hundred and fifty years since Hadrian had dragged it up out of that desolate land. The height of four men, as thick as two carts, with a huge defensive ditch behind it.
Let the Eaters of the Dead look upon it and weep.
And there in Vercovicium they were safer than anyone. He looked down the steep crag of whinstone on which the wall was perched, a mile long and flanked by two bleak moors.
Ahead there was a wide expanse of grassland, long since cleared of trees, and beyond that the vast, gloomy forest of pine and ash and holly that seemed to go on for ever. In the far north was a land of snow-capped mountains and purple hills and great lakes, so he had been told, but the arcani rarely ventured that far.
To the west were the Scoti, to the north and east, the Picts. A few Britons lived there too, ones who had fled the rule of Rome. The Votadini. The Selgovae. The Novantae. The Caledonii. So many, the names became a blur. The tribes of the Picts had joined together under a single king, but the others had their own chieftains and their own arcane rules. Sometimes they were at each other’s throats, sometimes they worked together. The uneasy truce with the empire ebbed and flowed, but no one was in any doubt that there would be blood in days to come.
Out there he had always found a deep loathing for Rome and all it stood for. For now, though, their merchants paid to travel through the gates to the south to trade, and trekked back at nightfall.
They were called barbarians, but they were not, really, in any way he understood the word. They had their gods and their art, their songs and stories and dancing. They were good fishermen and farmers, valued their women and had their own laws that were strictly kept.
His father had taught him the tongues of the tribes, and over the seasons of his travels beyond the wall with the arcani he had learned their ways. The Grim Wolves posed as traders and merchants when they ventured into the villages, and they had always been well met. If they had been exposed as spies or scouts, it would have been a different matter, he knew. He had seen more than one captured Roman soldier gutted and left to hang in a tree as a warning.
‘The watcher on the wall sees far, but nothing that truly matters.’
He hadn’t heard her come, but there she was. Amarina, wrapped in a fine cloak the colour of moss embroidered with golden spirals. Anyone would have thought it cost more than a few coins, but Lucanus knew better. Amarina came by many gifts. Her auburn hair tufted out of her hood, pulled low against the blast of the wind. Emerald eyes flashed from its shadows. She came and went as she saw fit, even there in the fort.
‘More word games?’
‘How does a woman confuse a man, Lucanus?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘She talks to him.’
The Wolf saw the ghost of a smile in the depths of that hood.
‘Don’t you have anything better to do than torment me?’
‘I can always find time for that. You are the best for games, Lucanus. The others get angry and storm off. But, no, you try to understand me.’
The Wolf grunted. ‘Perhaps I’m playing games with you.’
Amarina looked out over the rugged land. After a while, she asked, ‘What do you see there?’
He shrugged. ‘The Wilds. Grass, trees, bog, heather, lakes, rivers, stone. The same as you see.’
‘This wall divides two worlds. Yes, there is the empire and the barbarian lands. The civilized and the Wilds. But it’s more than that.’
He searched the landscape, trying to understand what she was saying. Amarina leaned in and with her thumb and forefinger closed his eyelids.
‘Now you’ll see better,’ she murmured.
He rocked against the buffeting wind and grabbed to stop himself falling.
‘Two worlds, Lucanus. The world of men and the world of the gods. We stand at the point where they meet.’ Her words rustled around him, barely louder than the moan of the breeze. ‘Gods and daemons. Here, we rule, as much as we can. There … different rules exist. Why, they’re like the arcani, are they not? The secret folk, the hidden ones. They live under hill and lake, on the top of mountains and in the deep forests. Rarely seen, always watching, listening, leading men by the nose. This whole island was once their home, so I’m told, and it will be again. They’re everywhere.’
‘Daemons?’ The Wolf wondered if this was another of her games, twisting his thoughts to see how much she could make him believe her words. He decided to play along. ‘Where did you learn of these things?’
He felt her breath on his ear. ‘A woman cannot learn? Or a woman like me cannot learn?’
He thought it better not to answer these questions.
‘Some say we all have our daemons, Lucanus. Our higher selves who watch over us. Others say the daemons are the gods’ tools upon the earth, carrying out their wishes, guiding men and women, thwarting them, destroying them. They are the agents of the Great Plan that none of us can see.’
‘What plan would that be?’
‘Rise up, look down, look back, look ahead, then you’ll know.’
‘Then we’re nothing more than rats being run by the mill dog.’
‘Here, on the edge of all things, the daemons have been shaping us for a long time, wolf-brother. Vercovicium is an island in a stormy sea. The ocean washes in the boats of the ones who twist our lives, they do their business under cover of the night, and they are away by the morning tide. And we wake and look around and are none the wiser. But we do their bidding, none the less. When your eyes are opened, you’ll see their mark. So wiser folk than us say.’
Her elbow jabbed him in the ribs and his eyes snapped open. The gates were grinding apart. Twenty men on horseback were readying to ride out into that twilight world. Falx had been true to his word.
‘Or else it is just like here. No gods, no daemons, and all we have in the battle to survive is whatever is inside us.’
Lucanus eyed her, unable to tell if she believed this bleak account as well. ‘You keep me sharp, Amarina.’
‘A good day’s work, well done.’
The auxiliaries rode out. Their mail shirts and helms glimmered in the low winter sun. Their javelins poked out of the leather sheaths strapped to their mounts, swords snug in their scabbards. Lucanus knew no better warriors than these. Whatever flesh-eaters roamed those wild lands should beware.
Hooves thundered on the frozen earth. The line of horsemen rode out towards the charcoal smudge of forest, towards the daemons or the savage men, towards whatever the gods or the Fates decreed.
CHAPTER THREE
Catia
THE HOWL ROLLED out from the anteroom of the Mithraeum and Lucanus winced. Locked beneath stone slabs in the dark of the ordeal pit, some poor soul was being tormented by fire, or cold, or water again. Only the followers of the God of the Invincible Sun knew what rea
lly went on in that stone temple, but listening to that grim noise Lucanus could think of better ways to spend a day.
Yet the cult of Mithras seemed to have no problem recruiting soldiers from the fort. Perhaps they’d got so used to hardship in those barracks, they didn’t mind suffering when they were bowing their heads to their god. He screwed up his nose. One deity, they said, only one. What use was that for all the obstacles on life’s road?
The commandant, Lucius Galerias Atellus, walked from the shadowed entrance of the temple of Mithras, a swarthy-skinned man, his hair now grey. Though Lucanus had heard he was brutal in battle, age had given him a permanent air of wistfulness.
‘Have you thought again about joining us with Mithras, Lucanus?’ he said.
‘It’s not yet my time, Praefectus. But if I feel my heart moved, I’ll come, head bowed.’
The other worshippers were filtering out of the temple, swathed in the sweet scent of incense. One man was naked to the waist, perhaps the supplicant who had been lifted from the pit. Sweat dripped from him, and his eyes were staring as if he were still haunted by what he’d discovered there. On his back the Wolf could see a raw patch where he’d been freshly branded with the mark of the bull.
‘There are secrets here, Lucanus, mysteries that would turn your head.’ Atellus looked up to the sky, staring hard as if he could see through that blue vault to the gods themselves. ‘Secrets hidden in all the stories we tell ourselves. Greater truths. Knowledge of all there is, waiting for those who can unlock it.’
‘One day.’
Atellus nodded. ‘I pray that day will come. We have our gods and they shape our lives. This church of the Christ, you know of it?’
‘Aye.’
‘Their priests have set their heads and hearts against Mithras. They won’t rest until all this is destroyed and our god forgotten.’