“She never uses compulsion. Leaving people free to choose sometimes pressures them into choosing the harder course.”
“Oh yes!” he said, rather heavily.
“Was she upset?” A fleeting thought assailed me that he might have been consoling her.
He did not answer my question but asked his own: “What will happen to her?”
“She’ll either become a crazy wraith, or she’ll marry some thickset red-haired hulk and have nine children in ten years.”
After a silence Justinus said, “She prophesied to me that if the eastern tribes resume their nomadic life, invading each other’s territory, the Bructeri will be wiped out.”
“It’s possible.”
For a long time neither of us spoke.
We heard Ascanius calling that he wanted a relief. I had ordered Helvetius to rest so that he could take a later watch; I had to go. “One thing puzzles me, Quintus. If Veleda had already decided, why did it take her until dawn to throw you out?”
His pause was almost undetectable. “She was desperate for some decent conversation, as you said. So was I,” he added.
I laughed, then said he had a subtle knack of being rude, and that I could take a hint.
I loped back to supervise Ascanius. When Ascanius demanded for everyone, “Did he, or didn’t he?”, I confidently answered no.
Justinus never did return to me the quartermaster’s amulet. I was rather surprised he kept it. In fact sometimes, especially when he was wearing that painful expression he had brought with him to the boat, I almost thought he looked like a man who had given it away as a love token to some girl.
Fortuna had protected him. He was not in love; he had told me so. Quintus Camillus Justinus, senior tribune of the I Adiutrix, had proved himself one of the Empire’s natural diplomats. Diplomacy involves a certain amount of lying—but I could not believe that Helena’s brother would hide the truth from me.
LVI
We soon found ourselves short of time for speculation.
The flagship of Petilius Cerialis was as impetuous and unreliable as the general himself. Apart from the sorry effects of neglect, her rudder must have taken a bad knock while the rebels were towing her away. She steered like a wilful camel and sailed with a high old lack of regard for wind or current. All her weight seemed to lean to one side for some reason, a problem which worsened by the day. We had slipped off in a vessel of character—the kind of riotous character my elder brother Festus used to bring home after a night he could not remember in a tavern a long way from home. Taking her downriver felt like riding a horse who wanted to go backwards. She drew water with all the grace of a sodden log.
Most of the trouble derived from our scanty crew. In the right hands she would have been wonderful. But she was meant to have her double banks of oars fully manned, rigging-hands, a master, his deputy, and a complement of marines—not to mention the general, who would no doubt have taken his shift on the oars in a tight corner. Twenty-five of us were simply not enough, and that was counting in Dubnus, who proved useless, and the centurion’s servant, who made it plain he preferred to be counted out (the plea for a posting to Moesia had cropped up pathetically again). Then, as the days passed and the river grew wider and deeper, our food supplies dwindled. We were weakening when we most needed strength.
The Rhenus junction caught us unawares. The ship had been making water. We had hauled in her sails and many of us were below, frantically trying to stop the leaks. When Probus shouted, no one heard at first. When he threw back his head and roared, we floundered up on deck. There was some cheering before we realised our grave plight. The undertow had strengthened. The flagship, still trailing a wing to starboard, was now dangerously low in the water and nearly uncontrollable. We were in no condition to tackle turbulence.
I shouted to drop anchor, but it failed to hold.
Just as safety seemed to be in sight, it was being snatched from us. The grey skies made everything seem more ominous. A chill north wind brought the smell of the ocean, cruelly reminding us we wanted to turn our backs on it. We were hoping to pass out into the main river; we had always known that without trained oarsmen we would have to turn downstream. We needed to drift across the Rhenus to the Roman bank, then wind gently down to Vetera. Tackling the upriver current would be impossible. For amateurs who were fighting to stabilise an oversized and leaky galley, things would be delicate enough the other way. At least if we managed to join the Rhenus safely we might hail a fleet vessel to tow us—or even take us off, for we would happily have abandoned any kudos which attached to reclaiming the Liburnian in favour of a quick journey home.
Fate had been generous for long enough, and now she turned her glamorous back on us. Impelled by the increased current and weighed down by a flooded bilge, the flagship slowly started to rotate. Even to us it became obvious she had decided to sink. This was desperate. In November, the river was at its lowest, but it still surged formidably and we were not exactly web-footed coots.
Helvetius shouted “We have to put her in—before the Rhenus takes her!”
He was right. We were the wrong side of the river—still on the wrong river—but if she sank in midstream we would lose everything, and men would drown. The recruits might have grown up as harbour boys, but only the famous Batavians had ever swum the Rhenus and survived to boast. I said nothing, but at least one member of our party (me) had never learned to swim at all.
Luckily, although the cantankerous galley strongly objected to sailing nicely to safety, it was perfectly willing to run aground on a hostile shore.
We brought her in, which is to say she bumbled of her own accord up the muddiest beach she could find, with a rending crunch that told us she was now ready to rot. Although the ship was beached, her bitter crew had to wade through a spreading morass of turgid water and silt to reach what for human feet counted as land. She had chosen the Tencteri bank. At least, we hoped, they would not know we had slipped away from Veleda’s tower in circumstances their Bructian colleagues might have wanted to query.
The junction of these two great rivers was a sombre scene. The air felt cold. The whole area was unwelcoming. With the ground too spongy for farming, the place seemed lonely and deserted. A sudden flock of heavy geese overhead, silent apart from the eerie swishing of their wings, startled us more than it should have done. We were on edge to the point where it could cause mistakes.
We were in sight of the Rhenus, so we despatched a small party to squelch to the riverbank and look for a Roman ship to hail. For once there were none—naturally. Our bored watch party came back, against orders, feebly maintaining that the ground was too marshy to cross, but we were too dispirited to harangue them. Helvetius being a centurion, made a tiresome attempt to revive us with action.
“What now, Falco?”
“I intend to dry my boots, then spend at least three hours sitting on a hummock and blaming other people for what went wrong … What does anyone else suggest?”
“Tribune?”
“I’m too hungry to have brilliant ideas.”
We were all hungry. So Helvetius proposed that since we were trapped here, and since the area was teeming with marsh birds and other wildlife, we might as well unpack our unused javelins and seek out prey with some flesh on it. I could remember what he had once said about stupid officers wanting boar-hunts in places they knew were dangerous, but the recruits were morose with starvation, so we let him lead off a forage band. I sent Lentullus out with a bucket looking for crayfish, to keep him out of our way. The rest of us unpacked the galley and loaded the horses, temporarily reprieved from the pot now that we needed them. Then we set off for drier ground where we could camp.
I had wet feet, and the prospect of sharing one eight-man tent with twenty-four other people was already causing misery. The flints in our tinder-box were now so worn nobody could start the fire. Helvetius had the knack—he was competent at everything. We were, therefore, badly in need of him just at the moment when Orosius
and the others sloped into camp with a couple of mangled marsh birds but no centurion, admitting that Helvetius seemed to be lost.
It was so out of character I knew straight away that some disaster had occurred.
* * *
Justinus stayed on camp duty. I took Orosius, a horse, and our medical casket.
“Where were you last with him?”
“No one was sure. That’s why we all came back.”
“Jupiter!” I hated the sound of this.
“What’s happened, Falco?”
“I think he must be hurt.” Or worse.
Inevitably the lad could not remember where the party had strayed. While we were searching the marshes we seemed to hear noises as though someone was tracking us. We could have imagined it, for the sounds were intermittent, but we had no time to investigate. We came to a place where side-channels stagnated amongst giant reeds. There, on a ridge of firm turf, alongside a creek, we found our man.
He was alive. But he had not been able to call for help. He had a Roman throwing-spear piercing his throat, and another in his groin.
“Dear gods! Orosius, one of you careless young bastards will be strangled for this…”
“Those aren’t ours—”
“Don’t lie! Look at them—look!”
They were Roman javelins. No question about it. They had nine-inch spikes with soft iron necks which had bent on impact. That was by design. Stuck in an enemy’s shield, a long wooden shaft dragging on a crooked head impedes movement and is impossible to pull out and throw back. While the victims struggle, we rush them with swords.
The centurion’s eyes were pleading—or, more likely, giving me orders. I refused to meet their deep brown, agitated stare.
Somewhere nearby a bird rose, screaming.
“Keep watch, Orosius…”
Blood should never make you panic, a surgeon once told me. He could afford to be philosophical; there was money in blood for him. At this moment, if that surgeon had stepped out from a willow tree, I would have made him a millionaire. Helvetius moaned, proudly holding in the noise. Faced with a man who was suffering so horribly, it was hard not to be terrified. I dared not move him. Even if I could get him to camp, there was no advantage; what had to be done might as well be done here. Then we could think about transporting him.
I rolled my cloak into a bumper to support the lower spear; Helvetius, still unaffected by shock, was gripping the other himself. Breaking the wooden shafts would help lessen their weight, but with the iron stuck in those positions I dared not try …
Voices. Orosius, glad of the excuse, disappeared to investigate.
I was muttering, partly to reassure Helvetius, but more to calm myself. “Don’t look at me like that, man. All you have to do is lie there acting brave. It’s my problem…” He kept trying to say something. “All right. I’m going to do my best—you can give me your list of complaints later.”
I knew I had to work quickly, but it would have been easier if I had felt at all confident. Most of the blood was coming from the neck wound. One barb had failed to penetrate, which could mean the whole thing was extractable. I closed my mind to the thought that the other wound might be bleeding internally. You have to do what you can.
Our medical box was one item Justinus had managed to save from the Bructeri. Its contents were mainly salves and bandages, but I did find a couple of slender bronze hooks which might help me hold back the surrounding skin enough to free the barb. There was even a gadget for extracting missiles, but I had once seen one used: it had to be inserted, twisted under the point, then pulled out very skilfully. It was a skill I lacked. I elected to try without it first.
There was movement or noise in the channel to my left. Not quite a splash, more a skirling of water. It was so slight that I hardly registered it as I bent over Helvetius; I had no time for otters or frogs in the bulrushes.
“Aurochs…” Our tough old soldier was hallucinating like a fevered child.
“Don’t try to talk—”
Then came a flurry in the osiers, a rush, a cry, and a group of men sprang from nowhere. They had their spears up for hurling, but thoughtfully held on to them with a tight grip once they discovered us.
LVII
It was a hunting party, led by some high-class bastard in discreetly well-woven brown wool. He had a Spanish horse, several reverent companions, two bearers bringing extra spears, and a bad case of apoplectic rage. He stared round, spotted me, and it was in perfect Latin that he spat, “Oh Castor and Pollux—what are people doing here?”
I stood up. “Existing—like yourself!”
My own Latin stopped him dead.
He hurled himself from the horse, dropped its bridle, then strode nearer—but not too near. “Thought you were Tencteri. We’ve heard them about.” That was all I needed. “I’ve lost my quarry. Something big—”
The haircut he was tearing at was black and cleanly layered to show the handsome shape of his head; the teeth he gnashed were even, orderly, and white. His belt was nielloed with silver; his boots were supple jobs whose tassels were affixed with bronze studs; his signet-ring was an emerald. His rage was the kind you can see any day in the Forum of the Romans after some inattentive donkey-driver has barged aside a man of note coming out of the Basilica Julia.
I was very tired. My body ached. My heart had rarely been more dreary. “Your quarry’s here,” I said quietly. “Not quite killed yet.”
I stepped aside so the man with the ear-splitting senatorial vowels would have a better view of our centurion, lying wounded at my feet.
“This is Appius Helvetius Rufus, centurion of the legio First Adiutrix. Don’t worry about it,” I said courteously. “Helvetius is a realist. He always knew he stood in less danger from the enemy than from the crass incompetence of senior staff…”
“I am a Roman officer,” the leader of the hunting group informed me haughtily, raising his well-groomed eyebrows under his neat black fringe.
“I know who you are.” Something in the caustic way I dared return his stare must have warned him. “I know a lot about you. Your finances are based on a complicated debt structure; your domestic life is in turmoil. Your wife is restless, and your mistress deserves better. And both of them would hate to know you visit a certain party in Colonia…”
He looked amazed. “Are you threatening me?”
“Probably.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Didius Falco.”
“Means nothing,” he barked.
“It should do. I would have introduced myself six weeks ago, if you had been available. Then you would also have avoided an officeful of unanswered despatches, including Vespasian’s critical letter about your legion’s future.” He was about to speak. I continued without raising my voice or hurrying: “He’s also questioning your future. Your name is Florius Gracilis. Your legion is the Fourteenth Gemina, and we’ll just have to pray they have sufficient experience to survive a legate whose attitude to command is casual beyond belief.”
“Listen—”
“No, you listen, sir!” I used the title as an insult. “I have just found you using army-issue spears for private purposes, on the wrong side of the Rhenus, in company which the Emperor will certainly call unethical—”
One of the legate’s companions made a sudden obscene gesture. I recognised the rapidity of the movement as much as his cleft chin and vivid sneer.
I looked the man straight in the eye. “You’re a very long way from Lugdunum!” I said.
LVIII
The Gaul I had last seen arguing with the two German potters squared up angrily. I had been in another world since I had travelled through his province on my way to Upper Germany, but the quarrel at Lugdunum and finding the potters’ bodies now came back to me vividly. The big Gaul with the sneer said nothing. Just as well. It would keep. Out here, feeling vulnerable, I was reluctant to tackle him.
I sensed more than saw the faint movement from Helvetius. I knew he was
warning me. Suddenly I understood why the centurion was lying on this ridge of turf with two spears in him. I remembered a conversation I had had with him before we left Moguntiacum. He too had seen the Gallic potter arguing with Bruccius and his nephew at Lugdunum; he had even seen the Gaul tailing them later. Maybe the Gaul had seen Helvetius. In court, a centurion’s word would be enough to convict a provincial. Finding Helvetius alone out here in the wilderness must have seemed like a gift from the gods to a man who had killed twice already.
I wondered if Florius Gracilis knew just what kind of “accident” had befallen the wounded man, but from his face when he first saw Helvetius I doubted it. Involving himself in corruption was one thing; murder would be too foolish.
Not knowing the full story, Gracilis opted for bluster. No doubt he believed he had covered his tracks on the tendering fraud and could fudge matters generally once we reached home. “A tragedy,” he muttered. “Let me know if I can help … Most unfortunate. Accidents will happen. Whole trip has been most inconvenient from day one. I was supposed to be meeting some pedlar who said he could show me the Varus battlefield. Hopeless crook. Took my money to equip himself, then failed to show.” Dubnus.
“If he’s a Ubian with a long lip and a strong line in grousing, I hijacked him,” I said. My position strengthened subtly. Dubnus was also a witness to the legate’s junketing, and now I had control of Dubnus … I saw Gracilis narrow his eyes; he took the point. To reinforce it I added another: “The pedlar betrayed us to the Bructeri, and it’s safe to say he was planning the same fate for you.”
“Oh I doubt that!” Even after years of watching senators, this man’s arrogance took my breath away.
The Iron Hand of Mars Page 29