The following day, Flaminius was called into Marcius Magnus’ office in another part of the camp.
‘Ah, Gaesorix,’ the prefect said. ‘A Briton, aren’t we? Joined up after you heard there were vacancies? But you lack experience.’
Flaminius stood to attention and stared straight ahead. ‘Sir, I have experience, sir!’
‘Don’t contradict me,’ said the prefect peevishly. ‘I mean experience of military action, not cattle rustling…’ He paused.
Flaminius’ eyes travelled downwards. Marcius Magnus was peering at him. ‘Maybe you do,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before…’
Flaminius’ heart pounded. Had the prefect recognised him? Was it time to break cover, overawe him with his status as a Commissary agent?
‘No!’ the prefect said at last, with a patronising laugh. ‘Impossible. My circle of acquaintance isn’t so wide that it includes painted Britons. You say you have experience? What of?’
Flaminius snapped his heels together again. ‘Fighting, sir!’ he bellowed.
‘Don’t do that,’ Marcius Magnus insisted. ‘Fighting? But you’re new to the Roman army.’
‘Sir, the Carvettians fight the Selgovae,’ Flaminius said. ‘The Selgovae carry off Carvettian cattle, so we fight them.’
‘How admirable. Cattle raiding, the stuff of legends,’ said Marcius Magnus, and to Flaminius’ surprise the man didn’t appear to be being sarcastic. ‘But surely that’s all over now that the frontier’s been secured.’
‘Yes sir,’ said Flaminius. ‘So no more fighting. But I like fighting.’
‘Do you? Do you now?’ said Marcius Magnus admiringly. ‘Personally I find it most distasteful, at least if it involves me, but… Well, whatever noble savagery was part of your upbringing, you have little experience of modern military manoeuvres. I intend to rectify that.’
Military manoeuvers? What manoeuvres? Britain was at peace, wasn’t it? Or had the Caledonians invaded? Surely Flaminius would have heard. The legion would have been sent north.
‘Now, I can’t guarantee actual fighting,’ Marcius Magnus said, ‘but you’ll be accompanying better trained and more experienced men. Decurion Drustanos will be nominally in charge, although since I understand he is no more experience than you, I will send Bellomarus to advise him. I want both of you to get the most out of the experience as possible.’
‘Sir! What is this mission, sir?’ he asked.
‘You will be taking a message to an auxiliary fort in Ordovices country,’ said the prefect. ‘It’s a long way, through the western hills, if not nearly as long as the journey you took on your way to Deva. Through some hazardous terrain. The area is still unsettled in places, so there’s a possibility you will have to defend yourselves against bagaudae who infest the hills.’
He unrolled a detailed map of Britain. Flaminius stared at it stupidly, as if he had never seen a map before.
‘Here is the Segontium road. It leads from Deva across the river, and over the hills past Kanovium, which is where it enters the mountains. Here is Segontium, on the river Segonta, in Arvona.’
Arvona was the part of the mainland directly opposite the island of Mona.
‘Acquit yourself well in this mission,’ the fat little man said pompously, ‘and you may well face promotion to trooper (first class).’
‘Sir, thank you, sir!’ Flaminius bellowed. Marcius Magnus winced, and rubbed tenderly at his temples.
‘Dismissed, Trooper Gaesorix,’ he insisted. Flaminius saluted, turned on his heel, and marched out.
The following day they set out, riding from the camp’s south gate over the bridge across the river where Flaminius had seen his fellow troopers drown that poor dancing girl while Marcius Magnus watched with apparent approval. He wondered what hostilities they had been preparing for.
The province was quiet, the frontier unusually tranquil, and it seemed that Hadrian had left Britain well governed and at peace. Perhaps Probus had been starting at shadows. Yet men from this troop had murdered the former procurator. And they seemed to be followers of the old ways—of the druids. But what did Marcius Magnus have to do with it all? Why had he been watching the dancing girl’s murder? Why had he been out on the hillock at all?
They crossed the bridge and rode westwards across pleasant rolling countryside, the Deva estuary on their right, with several merchant ships visible in mid-stream; the hills of Deceangli country on their left. The plain was peaceful and industrious, the hills the scene of lead mining. On the latter Flaminius sometimes saw tumbledown ramparts and mouldering old palisades. At some point these hills had been fortified, but the hillforts he saw could not have been occupied since the days of Nero. Other than that, the rolling hills, the scattered homesteads, all reminded him of the remote Apennine valley where his parents had their farm. He could well understand why the locals might turn to brigandage, if only to relieve the monotony.
They halted for the night in Varae, a small fort near the coast. Higher peaks were visible in the distance, above the rolling hills. If Marcius Magnus truly expected Drustica and himself to get hard experience of fighting by taking this road, Flaminius thought, he would be sorely disappointed. But the centurion in command of the fort seemed to have other ideas.
‘It’s a difficult road ahead,’ he told them. ‘The mountains are thought to harbour bagaudae and rebels. Patrols that go Segontium way don’t always return.’
‘Why haven’t you reported this to Deva?’ Drustica inquired.
The chief centurion shrugged. ‘I’ve told that gladiator-obsessed fool Priscus,’ he said irritably, ‘but the fellow says he’s too undermanned to worry about these pinpricks, as he calls them. As you know, most of the legion’s strength is up in the north.’
‘We know,’ said Bellomarus. ‘That’s where we’ve come from. We had trouble up there. Maybe they hope to lose some troublesome men this way.’ He laughed.
Flaminius glanced at Drustica in alarm. Despite Bellomarus’ light-hearted tone, his words made sense.
‘We’re under orders, optio,’ she said. ‘What do you suggest? Mutiny?’
Bellomarus studied her for a moment. ‘I suppose that wouldn’t be acceptable,’ he said, and turned away.
‘No, it would not be acceptable,’ said the chief centurion hotly. ‘Dammit, decurion, your men need some discipline!’
‘Thank you for your input,’ said Drustica savagely. ‘Optio, report for discipline.’
Bellomarus gave her an angry look, but marched out. Flaminius glanced at the other troopers, who seemed angry. He gave Drustica a disapproving look, but she ignored it.
‘You did the right thing,’ the chief centurion assured her. ‘This rot is like rust in a sword blade. Removing it takes some work, but if you don’t, everything falls to pieces.’
It was a philosophy that Flaminius could sympathise with, although as a mere auxiliary trooper (second class) he couldn’t do so verbally. He studied Drustica in concern. She had little experience of real military discipline, even less of military diplomacy.
The following day they left Varae and rode on into the hills. After passing through oak woods that looked as if they were itching to produce robbers and bagaudae, then over windswept moors that reminded Flaminius ominously of Caledonia but were strangely missing the anticipated painted warriors, they came down into the valley of the Kanovia River.
After crossing the river and stopping to revictual in the civilian settlement outside the camp of Kanovium, they forged ahead. The ground grew steeper, the peaks loomed up on either side. The weather, which had been summery up until then, returned to its usual British rain as they rode into the heather clad hills. Upright stones stood to one side or other of the road, and stone cairns.
Bleak and desolate as it was, a strange atmosphere hung over the place, a sense of ancient ruin, as if they were crossing the heather drowned wreck of some ancient empire. The place looked like it had been uninhabited since the beginning of time and yet Flaminiu
s felt as if they rode unwittingly through the overgrown ruins of a long-lost city, a Nineveh, a Babylon, a Thebes of the thousand gates.
Soon they were among the mountains. Walls of mist concealed the scree slopes on either side, rain sheeted down as the wind drove it along the valley. Still that sense of remote antiquity, a lost city, remained.
Flaminius’ horse trudged along disconsolately. The clip-clop of hoofs echoed back from the walls of mist, but muffled. Now and then Flaminius thought he heard noises from the hillsides. Imagination? He had heard enough rumours to justify the anxiety he felt as they made their way through the bleak landscape, but he saw nothing and neither did anyone else. At one point they disturbed a herd of wild ponies that galloped away from the road where they had been cropping grass that grew between the cracks of its paved surface.
It was poorly maintained. In places the neglect surely predated the building of the Wall, when the local legion had been sent north. In this cold, soggy, depressing environment, Flaminius thought fondly of Baiae and Karus’ villa. He was lulled into a dream by the plodding motion of the horse.
He woke from his doze. The horse had stopped without him tugging at the reins. He was about to dig in an irritable spur when he saw that all the horses had halted; his own steed had seen what had happened and copied the others. The drizzle had eased off but if anything, the mist was thicker.
Drustica and Bellomarus were at the front. Bellomarus sat stiffly in his saddle and gave short, sullen replies whenever Drustica addressed him. The chilling fog seemed to have deepened. Flaminius’ skin was clammy, drops of water stood out on his horse’s back. He could hear nothing. It was as if the world was holding its breath.
He looked up at a clatter of rock. Thudding of hoofs followed, receding into the distance as if someone was galloping away. At the same time, everyone’s heads turned as further sounds of movement filtered through the fog; pounding of hoofs on heather, muffled shouts. They drifted away, then started up again both ahead of them and behind.
‘It’s circling us,’ someone said hoarsely.
‘Quiet!’ said Bellomarus. He seemed unafraid. Drustica was looking around her. The optio turned to her. ‘What now, sir?’ he said, stressing the honorific mockingly. ‘Onward? Or do we retreat?’
‘Like whipped curs?’ Drustica said and he winced. ‘Forward,’ she commanded, and rode into the fog.
The troopers followed, Flaminius among them. The fog closed in until it was like a tunnel, and only the road was visible, stretching way into the distance. It was as if they were riding through the clouds on a great stone bridge.
Drustica’s mounted form came into view again. She had stopped, and Flaminius wondered why. Then he saw that several mounted forms were visible ahead, some on the road itself, others half discernible to one side. More forms swam up out of the mist.
Drustica sawed at her horse’s reins and rode back. ‘Ride,’ she called to them. ‘Retreat! They outnumber us!’
‘No!’ shouted Bellomarus. ‘It would be futile! They know these hills far better than we do.’
‘What do you suggest?’ Flaminius drew his sword and looked about him in concern. The mysterious riders encircled them.
‘Surrender!’ the optio said. ‘It’s that or die!’
‘No!’ said Drustica, but most of her men ignored her, casting down their weapons and lifting their hands in token of surrender. She glanced at Flaminius, who shook his head.
‘There’s nothing the two of us can do,’ he said.
‘We can’t just surrender like that,’ she insisted. ‘We’re Romans!’
‘Not yet we’re not,’ said Bellomarus. ‘And if you want to live until they grant you citizenship, you’d be better to surrender.’
‘I’ll fight first!’ Drustica said, and rode straight at the riders in the mist. Flaminius exchanged a glance with Bellomarus, then rode after her. The air whirred and something struck Drustica between the temples. She toppled off her horse and hit the road surface with a bone jarring thud.
Flaminius hauled on his horse’s reins. When it halted, he jumped down and went to investigate Drustica’s fallen form. Her own horse trotted away into the mist.
Seeing the rise and fall of her chest, he gathered that she was still alive, although unconscious from a glancing blow from a sling stone. As he studied her, he heard the clatter of more hoofs on the road and looked up to see that the dark riders had come out of the mist.
Over him loomed a horseman in mail and gilded Gaulish helmet with curled mustachios, who pointed down with a long lance.
‘Does your companion live, man?’ the horseman asked. Flaminius rose and nodded curtly. ‘Then throw him over the back of your horse and bring him with us. Aye, and give me your sword.’
Flaminius eyes narrowed as the horseman came closer. Around his neck, on a leather thong, hung a serpent’s egg.
Some of the other riders dismounted and gathered up the weapons the troopers had dropped. Flaminius flung his own down so the horseman had to dismount to get it. The man gave him a cold look but did not make any reprisal. He remounted his horse and directed Flaminius to get up on his own after draping Drustica’s unconscious body over his saddlebow.
‘Ride with us,’ the horseman directed. ‘It is a long journey over rough ground, and will be hard going if this mist doesn’t lift.’
Flaminius sat astride his horse and rode with the rest. Surely they could dispel the mist, send it back to the cauldrons in which they’d brewed it. Surely these bagaudae had magical powers—the powers of the druids. Or were they just robbers? The horseman who had spoken to him wore rich armour for a man who skulked in the hills, preying upon travellers. Perhaps he’d stolen it.
They left the road and rode due north over springy heather and boggy ground, between rocky crags. As they rode onwards, the mist began to disperse, but it did not fully lift until they were nearly at the end of their road.
By that time Drustica had recovered; she sat behind Flaminius peering muzzily about her. The riders surrounded the disarmed auxiliaries on every side. The chilling mist hung about them. Rocky crags echoed back the drumming of the horses’ hoofs. Otherwise all was uncanny silence, split only by the calls of ravens that circled in the mist.
‘What’s that!’ she said suddenly. ‘A city?’
A city, in this waste land? Flaminius remembered the strange atmosphere he had felt before. Surely she was hallucinating due to the slingshot wound to her head.
Following her pointing finger, he saw nothing but endless banks of fog. They were riding along a trackway that wound up the heathery slopes. Another crag rose at the head of the valley, grey and indistinct. But the fog was lifting, dispersed by warmer winds from the sea that came into sight beyond the distant ridge.
The sun was setting over the water.
They were so high up the bay was laid out before them like a map. He recognised the south-eastern coast of Mona, and on the other side of the bay was the great promontory where copper was mined; he’d seen the far side of it from Varae. This sea must be the Hibernian Ocean. In the distance, the small dot of a galley ploughed the waves, sailing in the direction of distant Hibernia.
They had ridden right through the mountains to the coast.
His eyes were drawn to the peak of the hill that lifted high above the valley, with crags that rose perpendicularly from the slopes. About halfway up it was ringed by high stone walls, drystone walls like those the Britons used to fence their fields, not the mortared walls the Romans built.
A single gateway was visible, with towers on either side, both of drystone. The crest of the hill was covered by dozens of small stone buildings, thatched with reeds. Two more irregular rings of walls crowned the hill, and at the top stood what looked like three cairns, topped by stone pillars. The trackway wound up the heathery slopes towards the stone gateway.
He exchanged glances with Drustica. It was more than the stronghold of robbers; it was indeed a city. Not a city like Rome, or even a town like Lon
dinium. But a city that Aeneas would have recognised. Those beehive huts reminded Flaminius of the House of Romulus on the Palatine Hill in Rome, which his parents had taken him to see when he was a small child. It was a city whose construction Homer would have ascribed to the Cyclopes, one where warlords of the heroic age might have dwelt. How could such a place exist among the mountains of Britain?
As darkness fell, they reached the gateway. Now the mist had gone, Flaminius saw the rest of their captors. All were armed and armoured like the one he had spoken to; similar to himself and his fellow auxiliaries, but with the addition of bronze torques, gold arm rings and other accoutrements that he associated with the Caledonians. They also reminded him of those bagaudae he had met in Gaul, and the auxiliaries who had attacked him as he galloped down the Via Agricola.
But the ancient city towards which they were riding had nothing to do with Rome. He had never seen the like, he told Drustica. Hillforts, yes, but this was a city.
‘A city of the giants,’ Drustica replied. ‘I have heard of such places. Ancient stone cities stand in ruins on the islands of Hibernia, and stone towers in the Orcades. No one knows for sure who built them, but the stories say that giants inhabited Britain before Brutus the Trojan reached these shores and settled them. He was the ancestor of the Britons. My own people are descended from his companion, Corionos.’
Flaminius’ eyebrows rose. More history that his tutor had neglected to mention? Or was it legend? He had never dreamed that the Britons were of Trojan descent. That would mean they were more closely related to the Romans than he had ever believed. Gazing up at the cyclopean ramparts he could well believe it. Surely Troy had looked something like this. Surely he was riding into the world of Achilles, of Agamemnon.
The rider who had spoken to Flaminius led the first troop of bagaudae, another troop trotted at the rear. Between them rode the troopers, bedraggled, ill-at-ease. Only Bellomarus seemed untroubled. He rode at the front, talking with their captors.
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