by Griff Hosker
As he addressed them he looked into their eyes to gauge the mettle of these new comrades. “I’ve been here before. The entrance is a tricky little place. It twists and turns. If there are any of those bastards left they will be above you. I don’t think there will be anybody left but I don’t fancy facing your decurion when I return if any of you dozy buggers get a spear up the arse so watch out. Anybody makes a move assume they are an enemy. Let’s go.”
Marcus took the lead and entered the gate at a gallop. It helped that he had been there before but he was taken aback by the slaughter which had taken place. A quick glance to his left and right revealed severed limbs and headless corpses littered amongst bloody entrails. Women lay spread-eagled where they had been despoiled. The main hall was burned and the whole turma could smell the cooking flesh of those that had taken refuge in the building. The last battle had taken place just in front of it and the bodies lay two and three deep. No-one had been spared. They had seen few children which in, one way, was a relief but on the other meant they had probably been enslaved. He assumed that other adult slaves had been taken but, looking around at the number of bodies, Marcus didn’t believe that there were many. This was obviously a warning to the Brigante, support me or this will be the result and a warning to the Romans, all your allies will suffer the same fate. He had a task to complete. He wasn’t certain the Queen would have many clothes left but he would have to search and then he and Drusus could seek the hidden box. Having seen the old centurion’s head Marcus knew he would have to rely on the map. For some of the younger troopers it was more than a little upsetting. It was their first view of what the enemy could. For the older hands it was significantly worse because of the civilian victims who were slaughtered to make a point. They were well used to what warriors could do to warriors but the Roman army rarely inflicted such cruelty on civilians. It hardened many hearts and Venutius would rue the day he unleashed a Boudiccan savagery upon his own people.
Marcus knew that they would not be able to get back to Eboracum before nightfall and he ordered those troopers near him to make camp. He asked Lucius, the chosen man of the third turma, to secure the gate. As the man turned he looked at the bodies and then at Marcus a look which needed no words for Marcus to understand.
“Yes Lucius Demetrius, we will bury them but for the moment let us make ourselves secure.” The man nodded and led off half a dozen men.
By the time Drusus and Lentius arrived there was a little more order. The smoke was dying away from the main hall, the gate was secured and the horses were on a picket line having been fed and watered. Although Marcus was anxious to find the box he knew that his men would not rest until the dead had been laid to rest. He turned to Lucius Demetrius. “Take six men and guard the gate. The rest of you get some shovels we have a grave to dig.” They looked at him, an unspoken question on their faces. “Yes I know we should burn them, make a funeral pyre and in normal circumstances then we would but if we do we’ll have the tribesmen here faster than you can say shit!”
They marched outside the walls and found a sheltered spot far enough from the road to be undisturbed. They dug in silence. The ground was hard and Marcus knew that the grave would be shallow; the covering would be light but would at least keep the scavengers away. He wondered if the Queen would come and re-inter the bodies of her followers. “Right lads we aren’t going to get it any deeper.” The rest of the sentence was unspoken. They all knew they would have to ferry the corpses. One of the troopers found a couple of wagons and they piled on the corpses and limbs. There were trails of blood where the bodies had lain and tendrils of intestines and guts left on the ground. The smell was beginning to become unbearable as they lifted bodies as carefully as they could. In some cases it was hard to make out the sex of the person such had been the mutilation. The warriors they laid out with whatever weapons they could find nearby. The children they laid with a woman wherever possible. Although they left most of the belongings with the corpses they were soldiers and the odd valuable was surreptitiously pocketed.
They treated the old centurion Gerantium, differently. He had been one of them. They washed his body and put his legionary armour back on his body out and returned his head from the walls and secured his helmet. They reverently placed his gladius at his side and coins on his eyes. He was given a solemn soldier’s farewell from fellow Romans who hoped that someone would do the same for their bones when they fell, as they knew they would in the service of Rome on some distant shore far from their homeland. Their salute was as much for their other fallen comrades as the grizzled old warrior. The last act was to disguise the burial site but each one of them could have easily found the place.
It was close to dusk as they laid the last sod down. Marcus asked each trooper to get a stone and they made a cairn in the middle of the mound. It was little that they had done but it had at least let the dead lie together. The Romans stood in silence each one with their own thoughts and their own gods in their mind.
The camp was a little easier once the dead had been cleared and the chosen man of the third turma had begun to prepare an uncooked and unpalatable evening meal. One of the guards had discovered some beer which had not been despoiled and the food and drink made many of them feel better.
When the guards were set Marcus nodded to Drusus who rose and went with him.”Julius Augustus you are in command until I return. We will check the defences, be vigilant.”
The map showed the location of the box with a crude cross. It looked to be in an old hut in the North West corner of the refuge. The buildings were a mixture of typical Brigante, conical huts and the new Roman influences long buildings. The stables, main hall and palace were all oblong whilst many of the older buildings were round. The settlement had been here a long time and showed all the changes of that time. The map showed a hut close to a well and a tower; the layout of the fortress and the different types of dwelling helped the two men to find their way to the right hut. . They headed with torches lit through the darkening evening. They had to proceed slowly for they were unsure of layout and even though it had been searched Marcus was not certain if the entire enemy had left. The map took them past the boggy, marshy area and perilously close to the fast flowing stream. There was a crude bridge which kept their feet dry and then they climbed the first of the ditches. The scurrying and furtive movements they could hear would be the rats feasting on those burned and cooked body parts not buried for the entire fort was covered in body parts and human entrails. The rats and foxes would have a good winter and there would be many more carrion crows when the year turned. Marcus shuddered, on the morrow it would be worse when the aerial harbingers of death descended.
The two auxiliaries gripped their swords tighter as they cast a wary eye around them. The tower on the north west corner was burned and torn down. The hut they were looking for appeared to be intact. The door was thrown down and they both drew their swords. Inside it was a scene of destruction and devastation. Tables and crude chairs were smashed and cast aside; there were broken shards of pot littering the floor. The hut also appeared to be of a higher status than the others for none of the others had had any furniture. This was definitely the right location. The light from the torches revealed the floor where the map indicated the box would be buried. Both Romans were dismayed when they saw that there had been something there but it had been removed. They could see footmarks on the floor and signs of human scrabbling close to the hole. Someone had dug it up, someone who knew what they were looking for. From the size of the whole Marcus estimated it would have been as long as his arm and about half as deep. It would have been heavy. From the drag marks it had been dragged and then lifted. They had failed in their mission. They searched the outside as thoroughly as the inside but it was obvious from the map that someone had been there before them.
Drusus looked at his friend as they went back to the rest of their fellows. He admired Marcus and looked up to him probably more than he did to Ulpius. Drusus wanted to be just like Marcus
and it dismayed him to see the decurion so obviously crestfallen. What angered Drusus was the fact that it was not their fault; they had been sent too late but it could follow Marcus and stop him becoming the leader Drusus knew he could be. A failure was a failure; Ulpius had succeeded because he had had the luck. Marcus had not had the luck. The fates could be cruel.
Night had fallen by the time they arrived back at the charred and blackened remains of the Roman built hall. There were a few guards who stood warily as they approached. “How goes the watch trooper?”
“All quiet decurion.”
“I will take the first watch, you sleep Drusus. I will wake you.” His second in command needed no urging to grab whatever sleep he could. You learned to rest when you could, eat when you could and steal when you could for who knew when death would strike in this wild land so far from home. Marcus needed to think about the report he would have to make to Ulpius. His first task as decurion and he had failed. It did not matter that he couldn’t have prevented the box being taken nor could he prevent the queen’s belongings being desecrated; his task was to succeed. He supped a beaker of weak beer and chewed on a piece of hard stale bread, the joys of a soldier’s life. He would have to work even harder on his next mission, if there were to be a next mission. The prefect could take away his promotion just as easily as he had given it to him. The thought burned in Marcus’ mind for he felt worse about letting Ulpius Felix down. Just then the trooper who had challenged him approached.
“Decurion.”
“Yes what is it?”
“I saw a movement out there,” he gestured towards the east. I thought it was my eyes but I saw it again.
“An animal?”
“I don’t think so, it looked too big and the movements were wrong. I think it was someone not something.”
Marcus did not know the man who was from the third turma but he had given an honest report. Marcus shook the shoulders of the four men asleep around the fire. “Get your weapons.” He went over to Drusus who was already waking and strapping on his sword. “Wake the men and have them stand to. Tell Lucius Demetrius he is in command until I return.” Taking the four men and the guard he trotted towards the eastern gate. He looked at the two troopers guarding the gate. They were not from his turma and he did not know them. “Have you seen anything?” From their guilty looks he suspected they had been gambling rather than watching. He would deal with them later. “Right well keep your eyes peeled now while we investigate the movements you should have spotted.” The guards let them out and then slotted home the bar on the gate. He gestured the observant guard and whispered, “Where?”
The man pointed at the grave they had just made. It was halfway between the woods and the walls. He could detect some movement but he could not tell if it were an animal for the moon had not come out and the shadows blended into the woods. Marcus pointed to two of the guards and gestured that they should go south and to the other two he gestured to the north. They were a small half circle with swords drawn and they approached the grave gingerly. The movements stopped and the shadows looked like the shadow of the grave. Had it been an animal and gone? This could be a trap or they could have spotted the scouts seen earlier by Lentius. Either way he was taking no chances. They paused when they were all about twenty paces from the grave. He was about to raise his arm to signal to charge when suddenly three small bodies stood up.
“Do not harm us Roman. We are unarmed.”
The three had swords at their throats in seconds. Marcus peered down and saw that they were women. He would take no chances until he knew who they were. He remembered the stories of the savagery of Boudicca and the Iceni; women in these lands were warriors just as the men were. He had seen the queen fighting and knew that they had skill. He scanned the edge of the woods and could discern no movement. If this had been a trap to lure them from the safety of the fort then there would have been a sudden rush of warriors to attack them.
“Move!” The auxiliaries hurried the three women towards the walls and Marcus watched their backs. Every Roman was awake when they arrived at the walls. Julius Augustus had lit torches at the gates to guide them in. Marcus nodded his approval at the chosen man as he led the women into a hut close to the gateway. Dismissing all the troopers except for Drusus and leaving Lentius as guards the decurion held a light to the women. They were Brigante; two were younger women, they looked as though they had seen twenty summers or so whilst the third was as old a woman as he could remember seeing. What attracted his attention and caused a gasp of surprise was the box carried by the taller of the women.
“Who are you?”
The taller one looked directly, without fear into the eyes of Marcus. “I am Macha handmaiden to the Queen. This is my sister Lenta and this is Aurelia Gerantia, widow of the Roman Flavinius Gerantium.”
“I am sorry for your loss lady. We buried your husband with honours.”
The old woman merely nodded and Macha added. “We saw. It was good that you treated our dead with respect.”
“Why did you not come out sooner? Why wait until dark?”
“The woods are filled with scouts. We thought they may have attacked you and then we would have been in a worse position. The speaker gestured at the older woman. Aurelia Gerantia wanted to pay respects to her husband. If it were possible we would have remained hidden but they would have searched the wood once you began to leave. I assume you will be leaving on the morrow?”
Marcus could see that she had wisdom beyond her years as well as a cunning and supple mind. “Are they still there?”
“Yes. It took us many hours to work our way close to the grave. We were resting, intending to make the last few yards in daylight.”
“You need not fear. The scouts will pose no threat to us. You will be safe for you are correct we will be leaving in the morning.”
Lenta spoke for the first time. There was anger in her voice. “It is a shame that you did not protect our people when you could. Many would have lived. Perhaps you feared to face them then!”
Marcus looked closely at the angry young woman who coloured up with eyes wide and fierce. He could see that there was more to her than met the eye; she was more than a handmaiden. She was not afraid to speak up to a Roman officer who towered over her.
“Peace sister. My sister is overwrought. Her husband and child died in the attack.” She looked at her sister. “Remember sister the warriors were too few to defend us and their duty was to protect our Queen.” She turned to Marcus. “The Queen lives?”
“Aye, she asked us to return here to save what we could and,” he looked pointedly at the box, “to return a precious item which was buried.”
“Aurelia’s husband led us here even as you were leaving. He dug it up and gave it into our safekeeping. We were on our way out by a secret passage when some of Venutius’ supporters attacked the guards. That is when Lenta’s husband died and her child taken. We too would have died had not Aurelia’s husband fought off our attackers.” She put her arm around the shoulders of the old woman who was now crying silently. “He bought us the time to flee with his life. Even though mortally wounded he killed the last of the traitors. Perhaps had he lived they might not have taken Stanwyck. Who knows?”
“You have done well, you have all done well. Keep the Queen’s box and guard it.” He turned to Drusus. “You and Gaius are to guard these ladies and the box at all times. It is important that they are returned safely to Eboracum. Now get some food and drink and then rest. We leave at dawn.”
Macha looked at this seeming boy but one who had such command of his men. She could see that he was a leader but more than that he was a man and she felt herself curiously attracted to a man for the first time in her short life. She touched his arm. “Thank you. I can tell that you are a good man. Forgive my sister’s outburst. She will look kindly on you when she is over her grief.”
Marcus turned at the softness in her voice and her touch. Her eyes seemed to suggest an even more personal message but pe
rhaps he was imagining it.
“Lady you need not explain. We are doing our duty and tell your sister that if we could have prevented the death of her family we would gladly have given our lives to do so.” He paused, the delicate question almost catching in his throat, “The child?”
“That is why she is so angry. She blames herself and feels that she should have protected the girl but there was nothing she could have done. Had she attempted she would have been captured raped and then killed. It would not have saved her daughter.”
Marcus noticed that Macha had not referred to the child by name. He understood that for by not naming the child it gave a detachment that it was someone else. Soldiers often did that. “Will she be sold do you think?”
“That is the small hope and consolation that we both share. What we fear is that Venutius and his animals will used and then kill her. If she is a slave then when Venutius is gone and the Queen has control again we may find her. Until then Lenta will be not the happy, laughing Lenta I know. She will mourn and yet not mourn for the child who is neither alive nor dead.”
Chapter 6
Eboracum
Gaius Cresens was looking over his books. He had already lost money and it was down to one man, Ulpius Felix. He had planned to sell the scale armour to a local chieftain who had managed to acquire some gold. The quartermaster suspected it had been illicitly acquired but he didn’t care. He would have made a small fortune. As it was he was out of pocket and for the shields and javelins as well. He would not only have to pay back the one eyed horseman he would need to remove him permanently for he would thwart all his schemes which relied on his cunning backed up by his thugs. His associates were all ex-legionaries none of whom had covered themselves in glory. They all had one thing in common; greed and Gaius Cresens used that. He would have to arrange for an accident. The accident would have to wait until his armour returned and then the decurion could join his leader in Elysium. He then applied himself to working out how to make money from his new post. It would not be quite as easy as there were Imperial clerks whose sole task was to scrutinise the dealings of people like Cresens in the far flung corners of the Empire. It would be more difficult but, potentially, more profitable.