Roman citizens were supposed to enjoy gory public execution. But warrior woman though she was, Drustica had no stomach for it. Watching wretches mauled by beasts seemed too unmanly for her. But Marcius Magnus had been raised in a different school.
‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I must report that when my patrol reached the hills, we were set upon by bagaudae. Since then we have been held captive in an old hillfort in the mountains overlooking the Hibernian Ocean…’
‘Captive?’ Marcius Magnus said laughing. ‘Of bagaudae? And yet when you were taken prisoner by men of the Twentieth, you were running free on a headhunting raid. Can you explain that?’
Drustica swallowed. ‘I realise what it looks like,’ she said. ‘It’s difficult to explain.’
‘What you tell me,’ Marcius Magnus added, ‘may well save you.’ Seeing her confusion, he added, ‘From sharing top billing with the wild boar.’
Drustica looked blindly about her. This wasn’t a cell in the barracks, she suddenly realised. It was a holding cell for the arena.
—28—
City of the Druids, July 31
Flaminius was woken by a kick. Rolling over, he saw light filtering in through the smoke hole. He realised he would have to get down to the wall and wait for Segovesus. All around, men were stirring. He blinked up at the figure who stood over him.
‘Get up, decurion!’ Bellomarus barked. ‘Get up, all of you! Shame has fallen on this band of men. Shame! And right after you did me proud on that raid!’
‘What’s happened?’ Flaminius said.
‘You’ll find out,’ said Bellomarus. ‘Cucullata will speak to you.’
They were herded from the hut. Armed men led them up the winding lanes, as they had done before the auxiliaries were given freedom of the city. In the hall of skulls Flaminius and the rest were dragged before Cucullata and several druids, who sat on the dais looking disapprovingly down at them.
Bellomarus stepped forward. ‘Here they are,’ he said, ‘though it shames me to bring my own men to you under guard.’
‘Enough, Bellomarus.’ Cucullata was cradling a bundle of rags in her lap. She looked at the gathered troopers. ‘You will see that one of your number is not with you.’
The troopers looked around them. ‘Aye,’ said one. ‘Segovesus isn’t here. Where is he?’
With a dramatic flourish, Cucullata lifted the bundle.
The rags fell to reveal Segovesus’ severed head. Flaminius winced. The Gaul’s blue eyes rolled in his horrified face. From the red, ragged stub of his neck, it looked as if removing his head had taken several cuts. Whether it had been while he was alive or after death, Flaminius couldn’t guess.
‘This trooper was found outside the city during the night,’ Cucullata said. ‘We have patrols on the moors as well as the walls. One found him.’ Flaminius pictured Segovesus wandering the moors, lost and alone.
‘He couldn’t give a good account of himself, so they tortured him and beheaded him. But they got this much out of him. His mission was to betray our secrets to the enemy. Unfortunately the men were too enthusiastic in their questioning and he died before they could learn more.’
She brandished Segovesus’ head again. ‘A spy! This time not an interloper, like the centurion who we captured. An adder in our bosom. A man who had been initiated! And you’—her accusing finger seemed to be pointing straight at Flaminius’ heart— ‘were his comrades!’
‘Nobody liked him much,’ said one of the troopers.
‘No,’ said another, hastily. ‘He joined just before the procurator was murdered. He was a bully. People thought he was a spy even then. For the emperor.’
‘You were seen talking to him yesterday, decurion,’ Cucullata told Flaminius. ‘What was the subject of your discussion?’
Flaminius regarded the other troopers. ‘I agree Segovesus was a bully,’ he said. ‘I knew it as well as anyone in the troop, having met his fists when I was a raw recruit. I fought back, though.’ He shrugged. ‘Since I had become decurion, I couldn’t leave bad blood between us. I was making peace. How was I supposed to know he was a spy?’
Cucullata conferred with her fellow druids. The troopers stood in anxious silence.
Finally, she said, ‘Very well. We accept that none of you were implicated. But this changes everything. We must move quickly. We know what the spy was to report, but not if he reported it—the men who caught him killed him before they thought to find that out. No matter. We must assume that he betrayed our plans. I shall send out the messenger birds. We march tomorrow. Return to your hut and prepare.’
They marched hastily from the hall, Bellomarus at the front. He fell into step with Flaminius.
‘You may have convinced Cucullata,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got my eye on you, decurion.’
Flaminius watched a pigeon fly off into the blue. Segovesus had been their last hope, unless Flaminius himself could escape. Security would be a lot stronger now. Junius Italicus had died trying to get information out, Drustica was probably dead, and now the only other agent Flaminius had had to work with was also dead.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘I know you were getting friendly with that traitor,’ Bellomarus said. ‘For all I know, he turned you, made you an agent of the Romans. But you’ll stay in sight and fight for the druids, or I’ll kill you myself.’
Perhaps it was just as well. Even if he got away, Flaminius was back to square one. The plans had been changed. He didn’t know when they would get to Eboracum. He couldn’t warn the governor. His only hope was to escape the bagaudae during the march and get to Platorius Nepos ahead of them. If he could steal a march on them—steal a horse, more likely. With luck, it would be before the Caledonian attack on the Wall. But how could he get away with Bellomarus watching him?
The preparations took all day. They were hasty; if Flaminius had been in command of an army, even an unofficial, rebel army, he would not have expected his fighters to get ready in so short a time. By the crack of dawn the following day, they and their fellow troops and the Caledonian warriors were mustered and massing in the outer city. Cucullata, Orgetorix and the druids rode at the fore.
The gates creaked open. The advance guard galloped out onto the moor. The army streamed out behind them.
Bellomarus’ troop came at the rear, relegated to guarding the baggage train. It made no sense to Flaminius. If he had a group of men he didn’t trust, he’d place them on the front line, get them killed as soon as possible, not put them in a position of responsibility. But the bagaudae and the druids did not think in terms of responsibility, only of glory. Perhaps that would be their downfall.
Flaminius was afraid. Afraid for himself—he had to escape, but when would he have the opportunity? Afraid for the province. Britain was delicately balanced. It had never been fully conquered; what the Romans ruled represented an uncertain toehold in this mysterious fastness of barbarians and druids. They thought they had conquered the island, but they never had. Perhaps they never would.
And since the retreat from Mesopotamia that had begun Hadrian’s reign, the entire empire had been similarly balanced; a balance between civilisation, with all its decadence, and barbarism, with its savagery. And that was the fight that was being fought in this province. Flaminius did not know which side would win. If Britain was lost, it would be no great loss—this rain-soaked rock in the ocean that had always been trouble—but it would set a dire precedent.
The sun was still rising over the peaks, and the mountains flung long shadows across their path over the heather as their hoofs churned the thin highland mud. At last they reached the Roman road. How ironic, Flaminius thought, that the barbarian rebels would use the empire’s own skilfully contrived infrastructure against it.
They rode for Kanovium. This gave Flaminius hope. The centurion at Kanovium had kept his wits about him, not like his fellow officer in Deva. He’d block their path, send word to where it was needed.
But when the rebel force rode down out of
the hills into the Kanovia Valley, they found Kanovium with its gates standing open, auxiliary troopers lifting their lances in welcome, and a pile of fly circled bodies lying in the parade ground, one of them that self-same centurion, his sightless eyes gazing up at a sky that threatened rain.
It was the same story at Varae.
The Archdruid’s net was drawing tight, his treacherous confederates were everywhere. The city of the druids had been its heart, but as Flaminius rode down from the hills with the rebels, he realised that Gaulish auxiliary troops were everywhere. How many had been turned? Eight months had passed since Pulcher had been murdered. Even before then, the mutiny must have been simmering. And now it was spilling over to drown the province in a deluge of blood.
They rode down the coast to the legionary camp at Deva. To Flaminius’ horror, the auxiliaries had risen even here. Tribune Priscus had been sacrificed to dark druidic gods in the amphitheatre he had been so proud of. The mutinous auxiliaries joined the bagaudae and rode onwards, ever onwards into the heart of the helpless province.
Flaminius wondered what had become of Marcius Magnus. He had seen no sign of him in the amphitheatre, but presumably the auxiliaries had slaughtered him, along with the legionaries in Deva. Some of his own troop must be among them, as well as the vexillation that had gone with Flaminius into the hills. But he saw no sign of them, only an ill-disciplined mass of auxiliary troopers, many with severed heads bobbing at their saddlebow.
They left Deva and went south. This seemed odd to him. When he’d come here from Eboracum, over the high hills via Mamucium, he had ridden up to the east gate, by the parade ground. Instead they were going south, on the Roman road that led through Cornavii country and into the lands of the Catavellauni, once the most powerful people in these islands.
It was the height of impudence for these bagaudae to use Roman military roads, but they met no opposition while they approached Viriconium. Somewhere to the west was the farm where he had lost Drustica. Where were the legionaries? Were they all in the north? Had the Caledonian attack come already? The rebels seemed to have free rein.
Then that would be why they were going south. This road crossed the Lindum road south east of Viriconium. They could take the latter road north to Lindum, and then Eboracum. It would not be as straightforward as the road over the hills, but perhaps it would be quicker. Did the druids expect resistance on the hill road?
There was certainly none here in Cornavii country.
—29—
Brigantia, August 4
Drustica rode desperately along the Roman road. The countryside was calm, tranquil, but she knew war was brewing in every quarter. The revolt of the auxiliaries in Deva had taken her by surprise. If it hadn’t come just as Marcius Magnus was visiting her in her cell beneath the amphitheatre, things could well have turned out differently.
What had happened to the fat, waddling little man, she didn’t know. As the auxiliaries dragged Tribune Priscus and several of his officers into the centre of the arena to butcher them with relentless savagery she had hidden in an alcove containing an image of the goddess Nemesis. Escaping as they dragged in another batch of loyalists, she had stolen a horse and ridden away.
Ever since, she had been riding almost continuously, barring occasional pauses for rest. The horse was close to foundering, and she herself was exhausted. As she rode along the Roman road, she had found it almost empty of traffic. Once a patrol of legionaries had tried to stop her, but having no time to explain herself, she had ridden straight through them.
Now the peaks filled the skyline. But her destination was on their far side. She had no food except some basic rations in one of the saddlebags and a water skin. And that was running out fast.
Neither patrols nor bagaudae were at large. It seemed she had left the danger zone for now. But the entire province was going up in flames. Where was Flaminius?
What Marcius Magnus had told her had shocked her. What she had seen in the arena had shocked her even more. As a child, she had heard songs of the uprising of Arviragus, the chieftain who had brought the Brigantian confederation eternal shame by leading his men to slaughter Romans. Shame to those tribes of the confederation loyal to Rome. But other tribes had seen things differently.
Perhaps they still did. Perhaps they would take this opportunity to rise again.
If Britain lost Rome’s protection, tribes like Drustica’s would suffer most. They had profited from Rome’s rule; the empire had defended them from their enemies. In return, the Carvetti had remained loyal, even now the Wall was being built straight across their herding grounds.
Drustica and her fellow chiefs had weighed up their chances between Rome and the Caledonians, and they had chosen what they thought was the right side. Should it all go down in flames, should the legions be massacred, the Carvetti would bear the brunt of their enemies’ success.
Her horse was staggering. Well trained, it showed no resistance to Drustica’s commands—it was as loyal and obedient just as the Carvetti were. She tugged at the reins and the horse halted, shuddering and foaming.
Drustica swung down from the saddle and went to stroke the beast’s sweating forehead. She took oats from the saddlebag and let the horse munch them, then led it to the stream at the side of the road.
As it slurped greedily, she sat down on a stone on the bank and warmed herself in the sun. for now, the journey must wait.
—30—
Cornavii country, 6 August
The rebels rode on through peaceful farmlands and woodlands. On the morning of the third day, when the roofs of Viriconium were visible on the horizon, a patrol from the Second Legion detained their advance scouts. There was a brief, inconclusive skirmish that broke off when the legionaries saw the full scale of the rebel army, and withdrew promptly and prudently.
‘So may the enemies of the druids flee, wherever we go!’ Cucullata crowed. Flaminius had a feeling that it wouldn’t be so easy.
His suspicions were confirmed as they approached the suburbs of Viriconium.
Auxiliaries rode out from behind a small wood, and asked to speak with their leaders. ‘We wish to join you,’ said their decurion, but it was a trap.
Legionaries marched from out of cover and struck the bagaudae host a blow to the centre of its column, almost splitting the rebel force in two. As his horse reared, Flaminius sawed at the reins. This druid-raised rabble would be no match for the iron discipline of Rome.
More loyalist auxiliaries appeared from another quarter and soon the bagaudae and their Caledonian allies were fighting on all sides. Flaminius drew his sword and swung it to block the attack of a loyalist cavalryman. He saw the man was a German, a Batavian or Frisian. The troop of which he was tribune in his early days in Britain had been Frisian. Perhaps this was the same troop, he thought as they fought. Or maybe not. His own troop had been with the Ninth Legion when the Caledonians slaughtered it. And now here he was fighting alongside Caledonians.
A surge of the battle sent Flaminius’ horse staggering to one side and then he was no longer fighting the Frisian, but surrounded by armoured legionaries. He swung his longsword in a figure of eight and men fell. It was self-defence. He was killing men of his own side, but it was self-defence.
Yet what was he defending other than himself? He was a traitor. He was fighting his own side. Spying on the enemy was one thing, going undercover was all part of the job, but this was sheer treachery. His horse screamed as if in horror. He found himself surrounded by auxiliaries.
He glared about him, his armour and shield splashed with blood. At the last moment, the auxiliaries turned aside and charged at a group of legionaries. They died where they stood. Flaminius watched in horrified surprise. He was not the only traitor here today.
He reined his horse as his own comrades formed up.
‘Decurion!’ Bellomarus shouted. ‘What are you doing?’ Legionaries were being cut down on all sides, some of them ridden down.
‘Fighting my enemy!’ Flaminius s
houted back.
‘Do you know who your enemy is?’ Bellomarus cried. ‘You’re one of us! You’ve taken heads! You can’t join the Romans!’
The auxiliaries who had been with the Romans were attacking the legionaries. It was mutiny. Flaminius watched in sick horror.
At last the leader of the auxiliaries trotted forwards. Fallen bodies covered the road. The Roman force had been mainly auxiliaries, only a few legionaries from the Second Legion.
‘Hail!’ said the auxiliary, a bearded Gaul. All the Frisians and Batavians had been killed. ‘We received word of your approach.’
‘We ride to glory!’ said Cucullata, riding forwards. ‘Those of us who die will be reborn in another world! You have been initiated?’
The auxiliary leader nodded. ‘In the forest of the Carnutes, in Gaul,’ he said. ‘I’ve been a follower of the druids since before I joined the Romans. I was waiting for my chance. But I brought these men with me.’
Flaminius had not realised that the net spread so wide. Were any auxiliaries to be trusted? He stared at his comrades, and they all looked back blankly. This was worse than he had thought.
They galloped through Viriconium at midnight, cutting down anyone rash enough to stand in their way. Most people were still in their beds, and Flaminius wondered how many realised how close they had come to being killed.
They pitched camp in grain fields some way south, off the main road. Flaminius’ duties as decurion kept him busy. Other warriors from Dumnorix’s Troop were in the disorganised army, and he tried to gather them together in one place. He didn’t know why. It was more in his interest to sabotage the druidic efforts, but having spent some years as a tribune of auxiliaries before joining the Commissary, he itched to the fingertips to see such disorder.
As he searched among the warriors for his comrades, he saw something that shocked him. Sitting his horse amid the Caledonian and druidic commanders near the centre of the army was the small, tubby figure of Marcius Magnus. Flaminius stared at him from a distance, seeing that he seemed quite at ease among these barbarians and mutineers.
The Hadrian Legacy Page 18