Cathal registered the distaste in the young Venicones’s face, but there was no help for it. This had been the entire reason for the deaths of these men. To flinch from it now would be to insult their memory.
‘Then do it.’
*
‘These people are beasts,’ Gnaeus Julius Agricola spat in disgust.
Valerius studied the yellowing features of the head on the stake and tried to put a name to it, but the great dent in the forehead and other damage had altered the face so comprehensively it eluded him. Agricola had insisted on accompanying the cohort sent out to search for the overdue patrol.
‘They’re trying to provoke us.’
‘And I am provoked,’ the governor snapped, his face drawn and strained. ‘What is it now? The heads, limbs and other parts of thirty of my men, staked out like meat on a butcher’s counter.’
Valerius might have said he’d seen worse. That the Asturians might not be dead if Agricola had sent in much stronger patrols of cavalry backed by infantry as he’d suggested, but he kept his silence.
‘We will continue,’ Agricola said.
They followed the valley for another mile as it became narrower and deeper, picking up more remains along the way. Valerius saw the governor glancing at the surrounding peaks and the narrow gully ahead. In another man he would have suspected that what he saw in the grey eyes was fear. Eventually Agricola halted the column. ‘They want to draw us in there. To destroy us.’
‘Of course.’ Valerius kept the frustration from his voice. ‘But it means they’re here. Not a mile ahead if the scouts are to be believed. Bring up a cavalry wing to flank them and another two cohorts to smash them. This is when we should show our courage and our power.’
Agricola flinched and Valerius knew he’d gone too far.
It had been like this ever since the governor had turned up with the Twentieth at the camp by the river crossing. Valerius had urged him to use every man they had to hound the retreating Celts like a pack of wolves.
‘This is a coalition of barbarian tribes and the only thing that holds them together is their hatred and their fear of us. They do not have our strength, our discipline or our stamina, but most of all they do not have our supply lines. If they are running they can’t forage and if they can’t forage they can’t eat.’
But Agricola looked at the jagged peaks on the far horizon and saw a hundred rat holes where the enemy could emerge to attack his rear or disrupt the supply route from the forts on the river estuaries. Before he would move every one of those rat holes must be stopped or at least checked. That meant cohort-sized forces moving warily into mountain passes where there was no sign any enemy had ever been. Watchtowers that never saw a warrior, and men spending their days digging when they should have been marching.
‘Are you insinuating I am a coward, legate?’ Fury made Agricola’s voice quiver with emotion. ‘Your insubordination in these last few months has gone beyond all restraint. You are not governor of Britannia yet, Gaius Valerius Verrens. You make too much of your friendship with the Emperor, but do not forget that Titus is soldier enough to allow a commander to administer his own discipline.’
‘I make no such insinuation, proconsul.’ So Agricola knew about Titus’s offer. What else did he know? ‘All I am suggesting is that we use the advantages we have to pursue the Celts into their heartland. They cannot run for ever. Eventually they must fight us and then we will crush them.’
‘No,’ Agricola snapped. ‘Look at these valleys. You would have me become another Varus. You would destroy my name and my reputation. I will not lose my eagles.’ His voice grew shriller and his eyes blazed fire. ‘I knew it the moment you arrived in Britannia, Gaius Valerius Verrens. You were sent here to undermine me, like the disloyal worm you are.’
Valerius tensed, but someone laid a hand gently on his arm. ‘Valerius!’ Quintus Naso hissed.
Agricola looked from one man to the other and his anger faded, to be replaced by a look of calculation. ‘You may thank your camp prefect for saving you, Valerius. Had you raised your hand against a proconsul of Rome your life would have been forfeit, legate or no. We will say no more of this for now. The Ninth,’ he laced the title with contempt, ‘will carry out punitive actions against every settlement and household within a day’s march from this place. You will burn every house, confiscate all food stocks and animals, and take a single male from each as hostage.’
‘These people have nothing to do with what happened here.’ Valerius ignored Naso’s warning look. ‘They have already been plundered by Calgacus’s warriors. They might be able to rebuild their homes before winter, but if we take their food they and their children will starve. They’ll have a choice of begging outside our forts or joining the enemy.’
‘You try my patience at your peril, Valerius, but for the sake of our former friendship I will explain. I wish to drive them to Calgacus, where they will help deplete what food he has and so quicken his army’s disintegration. When their warriors begin to starve, the chiefs and kings who follow him will come to me on their knees begging to ally themselves to Rome.’
‘But—’
‘Enough of this,’ the governor snarled. ‘You will return to your legion or you will have no legion.’
XLV
Heat scorched Valerius’s skin and he moved his horse a little further away from the flames. The scent of woodsmoke and burning thatch clogged his nostrils.
‘I think he’s gone mad,’ Quintus Naso said. ‘These people are not our enemy.’
Valerius looked past the camp prefect towards the huddle of women, children and elders standing in the mud staring in bewilderment as the sparks rose into the afternoon sky from their burning homes.
Against Agricola’s instructions he’d allowed them to collect what treasures they could from the houses before the legionaries set their flickering torches to the dusty thatch. Their granaries and cattle remained untouched. Of course, they remained unaware of this potentially dangerous generosity and not all their attention was on the flames. Some of them directed their hatred towards the two officers as they sat unmoving, watching the scene unfold. Valerius had purposely dressed in his full ceremonial uniform: sculpted breastplate, scarlet cloak, legate’s sash and all the other paraphernalia of his office. Gaius Valerius Verrens had given the orders for this and he wanted his men to know that he accepted his responsibility.
Normally, a legionary took great delight in burning things. Along with the scatological horseplay that substituted for humour, and the occasional illicit game of dice, it passed as entertainment in a world otherwise characterized by relentless marches, dull food, constant polishing and brutal discipline. But today, and all the many other days the Ninth had been allocated punishment patrols, there was none of the laughter and childish delight in how high the flames would soar and the way the sparks made strange patterns against the sky. Instead, they went about their tasks with slow, bovine reluctance that the centurions and decurions did little to counter. They knew that a few days before, the people whose lives they were destroying had been cheerfully trading and bartering with the legionary forage parties sent out to supplement their monotonous rations.
It was always the civilians who suffered, even when their aid for the enemy was reluctant, or in this case imaginary. The ambush that claimed Barbarus was the first of many. Small attacks and feints against Roman patrols became a constant feature of the march. Agricola’s answer was to build forts to block the rat holes and more watchtowers to spot the rats, but every fort and every watchtower had to be manned and the legions’ auxiliary support dwindled. And each loss must have its reprisal. Men wondered why they were being used to impoverish helpless civilians instead of attacking the enemy. Valerius asked himself the same question.
‘Not mad,’ he acknowledged eventually. ‘Changed. His wife has never recovered from the birth of their son. Perhaps she never will. He receives weekly updates on her condition.’ Valerius knew this because Tabitha sent him the same inf
ormation by a different route. Domitia Decidiana’s physical scars might have healed, but her mind was broken in some way. It might have been different if their son had been healthy, but he was a sickly baby who showed few signs of interest in the world. ‘He feels betrayed by the gods and I believe he does not wish to give them the opportunity to betray him further. He fears Calgacus, perhaps rightly so, but he fears the ignominy of losing an eagle much more.’
‘So we play dodge the shadow while the Celts laugh at us.’ Naso shook his head in disgust.
‘These Celts aren’t laughing.’ Valerius nodded towards the homeless families.
‘No. The next Roman who passes this way won’t be offered a cup of beer as I was last week. More likely he’ll get a reaping knife in his throat. If only …’
‘What?’
‘That thing he said about you not being governor of Britannia yet.’ Naso hesitated. ‘Is it a possibility?’
Valerius took his time before replying. ‘The Emperor has hinted at it,’ he admitted.
‘I think your fellow legates would welcome a change of leadership.’ Naso held Valerius’s gaze and his words contained an unspoken suggestion.
Valerius put out his left hand to grip the other man’s arm. ‘Let me tell you something, Quintus. Gnaeus Julius Agricola is my commander and the proconsul of Britannia. As long as he is physically capable of command I will follow his orders to the best of my ability and I will not tolerate any suggestion of mutiny. Do you understand?’
‘Sir.’ Naso slapped his fist to his chest in salute.
‘Then let us march these men back to camp,’ Valerius softened his words with a smile, ‘wash the stink of this smoke from our throats with a cup of wine, and look forward to the day when we return to proper soldiering.’
XLVI
‘The Emperor is dead.’
The words fluttered erratically around Valerius’s head like a stricken butterfly, but their import was lost somewhere in the void that separated him from Gnaeus Julius Agricola. Yet he must have understood at some level because his heart seemed to stop and if he hadn’t been seated he would have slipped to the floor because the power drained like water from his legs. A dream, surely? An echo of Agricola’s announcement just two short years earlier that had heralded Titus Flavius Vespasian the younger to the throne of the Empire. But he had heard Ursus and Polio gasp, and there they sat on their couches with the same incredulous look of horror on their blunt features.
His head filled with that honest, handsome face, not, as he’d last seen Titus, filled out with the flesh of good living after years on the Palatine, but as it had been the first day they met. Hawkish and lean, the face of a commander of auxiliary cavalry, intelligent grey eyes and strong, angular features. Valerius had been burned black, eyes swollen almost shut and throat filled with sand, the result of two weeks under the Egyptian sun after a shipwreck. Only the most fortunate of coincidences had saved his life, and the man who saved him was Titus Flavius Vespasian.
They’d discovered they were of an age and they’d both served in Britannia, Valerius during Boudicca’s rebellion and Titus during the bloody aftermath. Their fates should have diverged, never to come together again. Titus was the son of a general, one of Nero’s favourites, and whatever rank Valerius held was only by the crazed emperor’s sanction. Yet the bond they forged on the ride to Alexandria had endured and developed into a true friendship. Titus had saved his life again during the civil war they called the Year of the Four Emperors. Valerius had fought beside him in Judaea and helped pave the way for the destruction of Jerusalem. When Vespasian became Emperor that service had brought Valerius access, influence and riches, and he had served Vespasian as faithfully as he had the son.
Now Titus was gone. His friend. His emperor.
Agricola had called his generals together that morning after the arrival of an Imperial courier. They’d expected the summons to herald a change in policy. A directive from Rome to take the battle to the enemy after a long campaign season of frustrating delays and the pointless impoverishment of any civilian within reach. The instant he’d entered the tent Valerius had known something was wrong.
His mind registered more information. Titus had been taken ill during the rituals to celebrate his father’s rise to divinity. Everything had been done, but his doctors had been unable to save him. He’d died on the Ides of September.
‘Naturally, I must travel to Rome for the funeral and the mourning ceremonies,’ Agricola went on. ‘The Emperor’s brother has declared a hundred days of mourning. We will suspend operations against the Celts immediately and resume the offensive in the spring. Twentieth Valeria and Second Adiutrix will withdraw and move into winter quarters south of the river. However, we must maintain a bridgehead and that,’ he turned to Valerius, ‘will be the task of the Ninth.’
Valerius nodded distractedly, but his mind was elsewhere. ‘The Emperor had not named an heir.’ The statement contained an obvious question.
‘No.’ A calculating look accompanied Agricola’s answer. ‘Titus Flavius Domitianus has taken over his brother’s responsibilities, but the courier would not speculate on whether he has the support of the Senate and the army. That is another reason I will be travelling to Rome. Depending on who emerges as Emperor, this could change everything. In the meantime, you, Valerius will return to Londinium to supervise the mourning rituals and take over my responsibilities as governor. You have the experience of Vespasian’s ceremonies. A replication will do well enough. I know he was your friend, but that means nothing now. Can I depend on you?’
‘Of course, governor.’ Valerius wondered why Agricola should be treating him with such deference if he was aware of Domitian’s enmity. A man could doubt the governor’s generalship over the past campaign, but never his political acumen. Had there, after all, been some hint from the courier that a rival existed who would keep Domitian from the purple? It was possible. The younger brother was not half the man Titus had been. He had neither wealth nor the experience of high office; his father and brother had seen to that. His only qualification was his bloodline. Then again, could it be a ruse to separate Valerius from his legion? Much easier and more discreet for Domitian to rid himself of the man he hated in Londinium than at the centre of five thousand men who revered him.
For one thing was certain. The moment the Senate and people of Rome proclaimed Titus Flavius Domitianus Emperor, Gaius Valerius Verrens was a dead man. As dead as his old friend Titus.
At least in Londinium he would be in a position to protect his family and decide what was best for them. Whatever that was. With Titus on the throne Valerius’s future had been assured, a province and the consulship within his grasp. Now all that had been snatched away. Only a few hours earlier he’d been worrying about Titus’s plan to make Lucius his heir. Thank all the gods the Emperor had never made his wishes public. Domitian’s first instinct would be to rid himself of any potential rival. Yet that might give Valerius a precious breathing space. Domitian hated him, but he was no threat to his power. Unless …
He stared at Agricola and a rush of possibilities galloped through his mind. The moment the governor stepped on board the ship that would carry him to Gesoriacum, Gaius Valerius Verrens would have command of Britannia’s legions. Boundless opportunities were open to a man with three legions and effective control of the province. Such a man would face no centralized political opposition. Withdraw south and consolidate his strength close to the capital and he would have the beating heart of Britannia in his grip. All the power rested in the hands of the bureaucracy and the military. The pen must always bow before the sword. A new procurator. A subtle offer of limited devolved power for the tribal chiefs and an assurance that all their taxes would be spent in Britannia rather than funding armies on the Rhenus and Danuvius frontiers. Rome would take time to react. The new emperor would have to withdraw legions from Germania and Dacia, where the wild tribes of the east would certainly take the opportunity to make mischief. How long would he ha
ve before they came for him? A year? Two? Two years of life for Tabitha, Lucius and Olivia. And then?
He looked across to Polio, who gave him a nod of reassurance. Not so long ago the legate of the Second Adiutrix had advised Valerius to oust Agricola and take over the northern campaign. But that had been when his patron was on the throne. What Valerius was considering amounted to open rebellion against Rome.
If they wouldn’t support him he would have to kill Polio and Ursus and replace them with ambitious young men from his own legion. Their faces ran through his mind. Whom could he trust? Did he have the iron it needed to plunge his sword into a friend’s chest? It occurred to him that this was the dilemma Corbulo had faced after he lost Nero’s confidence. The difference was that Corbulo’s own officers had urged him to create an independent kingdom in the east. The general had fallen on his own sword rather than betray the code by which he’d lived his life. A Corbulo does not have the luxury of choice – only duty.
Valerius had tried to live his life by the same code, but now he was considering a path of disloyalty and rebellion against the Empire he’d served all his life.
Yet he couldn’t discount it. He couldn’t discount anything that would change the certain fate that awaited him when Domitian donned the purple.
And what was the alternative? Flight? Yes, there would be a short opportunity when he could use his power to charter a ship. Perhaps the means were already at hand. Tabitha had immediately recognized that the only place they would have any certainty of survival was in the east in Emesa, where her uncle, King Sohaemus, would offer a welcome and a place of sanctuary.
‘Valerius?’ The voice was Polio’s.
‘My apologies, legate. My mind was elsewhere.’
‘I was suggesting to the governor that instead of withdrawing immediately, we use the last few weeks of the season to try to corner Calgacus and his forces and destroy them. One all-out effort with every man we have. I hope I have your support?’
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