Theodosius held out a hand and a staff officer unwrapped an imperial purple silken cloth in his hand. On it lay five gold rings, each one inlaid with the jet for which Eboracum was famous. And on the face of each, four helmets stood in each of the stone’s four corners.
‘Four helmets,’ Theodosius said quietly, ‘For the four men who stood when the Wall fell. Wear them. Wear them with pride.’ He waited until each man had slid the gold over the knuckle of his right little finger. Then he did the same with the fifth. His eyes burned into the others as he walked slowly in front of them. ‘I vow,’ he grunted, ‘that I shall not take this ring off until the Wall is restored.’ His head came up and he raked them all with that fierce gaze of his.
‘We vow it,’ they said together, saluted the Count and stood back, taking up their respective positions in the lines. Then the cheering of the legions stopped and the trumpets blasted. Theodosius turned and shook the hand of Decius Ammianus, bowed briskly to Augusta and the ladies of the VI and strode for his horse, held by a groom. The grey lifted its head and snorted, scenting the march and the battle and shifted slightly as it felt the Count’s weight. The man was not wearing his gilded parade armour today but a plain mail coat with a shield of the Jovii slung from his horse. Only his helmet marked him out as an officer of rank, its comb and cheekplates heavy with gold dragons locked in deadly combat.
He hauled his rein and faced his legions, packed onto the parade ground as they were. ‘Our information tells us,’ he shouted, ‘that the barbarians are to the west. That is where we’ll catch them. We will bring them back in chains, to be sold in the market place. That’s after you archers have used them as pin cushions.’ Raucous laughter filled the Eboracum air. ‘The Jovii will lead out, aquilifer.’
The standard bearer hoisted the eagle high and spun on his heel, marching for the north gate. Behind him the eagle party fell into step, all of them carrying scarlet vexilli and long-tailed dragons. The archers followed, their bows over their shoulders and two cohorts of the Jovii behind them, each unit waiting for the moment before making the ground thunder. Theodosius’ standard bearer urged his horse forward and the Count took up his position.
‘Heroes of the Wall,’ Maximus grunted to himself and spat volubly onto the earth of the parade ground. He sat his chestnut waiting for his place in the line.
A long way along that line, in the Third Cohort of the VI, Leocadius was more than a little confused. ‘West?’ he said to Vitalis. ‘Did he say west? I thought we were going east.’
‘Leo! Leo!’ There was a babble of female voices from the edge of the field. Half the girls in Eboracum seemed to be there, waving at the circitor. Three of them broke through the cordon of guards to throw amulets at their love, the little knots made from Ussos reeds for him to wear close to his heart. Across the parade ground, Lavinia, the praeses’ daughter, saw it and suddenly launched an attack of her own. She leapt up from her honoured place on the steps with the legion’s ladies and, hauling up her skirts, ran like a madwoman across to where Maximus sat his horse. The general clicked his fingers and the mastiff beside him dropped to his haunches and did not move. When she got there, panting, she reached up with her love token, her eyes shining and bright. The general looked down at the dark eyes and long, flowing hair. He smiled. He did not have much shame when he was seventeen either, but he still felt awkward that he had bedded his best friend’s mother. He took the love-knot and tucked it into his tunic, saluting her as he wheeled his horse away, falling into line at the head of the Victores, the dog ambling alongside.
Near the dais, Decius Ammianus strolled closer to the ladies’ steps. ‘Remind me to have a word with your daughter, Augusta,’ he said quietly out of the corner of his mouth.
For over an hour the legions of Theodosius’ field army, along with two cohorts of the VI and a unit of engineers in full pack, streamed through the gate of the camp and out onto the bleak moors to the north.
Clodius Narbo half turned to his commanding officer once the fuss was over and the remaining cohorts of the VI became watchmen again. ‘I don’t know about you, Praeses,’ he said, ‘But I feel strangely alone again.’
Ammianus nodded, unbuckling his helmet and running his fingers through what was left of his hair. ‘I know what you mean, Clodius,’ he said. ‘Let’s pray to Jupiter they all come back.’
Half a day’s march north of Eboracum, the army of Theodosius split up. The tribune Justinus took his engineers and his cohorts of the VI north east, past Derventio which was a camp no more. If there had been bodies here, they had gone now and thistles grew on the camp’s ramparts and grass was sprouting from the grey stones. They bivouacked there that night, under the leather tents they dragged on their wagons. Justinus had ordered the wheels be greased so that they made as little noise as possible, trundling north-east. They followed the twists of the river Derventio the next day, the cavalry lent to them by Theodosius riding ahead, on the flanks and at the rear, watching the grey, bare hills.
On the second day the forward scouts rode back to report a settlement ahead, a villa. It was still inhabited with people going about their business and all seemed well. Even so, Justinus was taking no chances. His men were tired of hard tack already and some hot food would not come amiss. But Fullofaudes had ridden into a trap; it was the way of the barbarians.
‘Battle order!’ he shouted and the column scattered, forming ranks behind their shields with the archers on the wings. The cavalry spread themselves left and right, forming a curve on the sloping ground. Then they advanced, the cohorts kept in check by Paternus marching ahead with his carved stick, keeping time and mending the pace. The only sound was the measured tread of boots on the boggy ground. It had not been long that the snows had melted from these uplands and the grass still lay damp and flat. The Victores horsemen slowed their pace over the rough ground to the south west, where gorse bushes and tangled roots of stunted trees broke the marching line for a moment. To the north east, on the left flank, the going was easier and the horsemen were trotting ahead of the infantry. ‘Mind your pace, circitor,’ the tribune called out and the cavalry reined in.
‘Vexillum!’ Justinus ordered and the scarlet flag of the VI was hoisted high behind him. There seemed little point in secrecy now, since five hundred men were on the march, pouring over the little hill and sweeping down into the valley. The villa that lay there, sheltered from the winds, had no defences at all. Its roofs were pale red with imported tiles and smoke drifted up from a furnace behind the barn. Geese hissed and flapped at the arrival of the cohorts and the first lambs of the spring bleated piteously and hid behind their mothers.
The cavalry curved their formation around the outer wall so that the cluster of buildings was surrounded. A squat, balding man came scurrying out of the front door, hauling his sagum onto his shoulder as a slave fussed with the brooch that held it.
‘Welcome!’ the little man beamed. ‘Welcome. I am Virius Cocidius. Welcome to my home.’
‘Justinus Coelius,’ the tribune said and swung down from his saddle. ‘Pat.’ The first centurion joined him. ‘We’re from Eboracum.’ Justinus looked around him. The cavalry were right; all seemed well. ‘You’ve had no trouble here?’
‘Trouble?’ Cocidius was grinning like a gargoyle in the Baths.
‘Trouble,’ Justinus repeated. ‘Pictish trouble, for instance.’
Cocidius’ grin faded. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I can't offer you much. There …’ he looked at the phalanx outside his kitchen window, ‘… are rather a lot of you.’
‘Centurion,’ Justinus barked to the officer commanding the First Cohort. ‘Stand the men down. I want the cavalry up on the hills, every direction.’
‘Sir!’ the man clicked to attention and dashed off, shouting orders as he ran.
The heat from the floor was welcome after hours on the moors but there seemed precious little else in the way of comfort. Cocidius invited Justinus and Paternus to sit on hard, wooden chair
s, while the master of the house stood. There were no couches, no tables, no statuary. And only, as it turned out, one slave.
‘They’ve all run away,’ Cocidius aid. ‘All my people. At the moment I have enough fuel to heat the house, but once that’s gone, I have no one to chop the trees. I’d offer you some wine, gentlemen, but … likewise …’
‘What happened?’ Justinus asked.
‘Picts,’ Cocidius said. ‘They came just before Saturnalia. They killed my steward and some of the men.’
‘Your family?’ Paternus asked, unbuckling his helmet.
‘Gone, thank Jupiter. My daughters are married – in Londinium. My wife, Jupiter rest her, went of a chill three years ago. But the bastards took everything else. They offered me a straight choice. Either I handed over everything I had or they’d burn my house down. And the trouble is, they’ll be back.’
‘How do you know that?’ the tribune asked.
‘That was the deal,’ Cocidius shrugged. ‘The reason I’m still talking to you today. It’s spring now – I’ve got new lambs for the taking, goslings. And this,’ he tapped the gilded brooch on his shoulder, ‘the last piece of jewellery I’ve got.’
‘Did these Picts have a leader?’ Justinus asked.
‘They did,’ Cocidius told him.
‘You didn’t catch his name, I suppose?’ Paternus cut in.
‘The others called him Talog or something like that.’
‘Not Valentinus?’ Justinus checked. ‘You didn’t hear that name?’
Cocidius shook his head.
‘What did he look like?’ Paternus asked, ‘this Talog?’
‘What do any of them look like?’ Cocidius shrugged. ‘Seen one, seen them all. Wild, red hair, body covered in that bloody blue paint. Barbarian doesn’t begin to describe it.’
‘No Roman helmet?’ Justinius asked. ‘With a silver face mask?’
‘No,’ Cocidius frowned. ‘I don’t know who you’re looking for, Tribune, but I’ve seen no one like that.’
‘Just as well,’ Justinus said. He stood up. ‘Master Cocidius, we’re bound for the coast and I can't spare any men. You and your slave are welcome to come with us … if you can spare some of your geese and sheep too, that would be an advantage.’
Cocidius stood up too, his nose level with the tribune’s chin. ‘This is my home, he said, ‘and Picts or no Picts, I will die in it. I’ve got an old sword somewhere. I’ll try to take as many of them with me as I can.’
Justinus nodded. On the way out he touched the little stone statuette of the hearth god, Lares, and walked out into the yard. Paternus walked with him. Outside, the geese were honking madly as soldiers were grabbing for them, slipping ropes around their feet and hoisting them over their shoulders.
‘Stop that!’ Justinus ordered. ‘Put them back. And, soldier …’ The infantryman nearest dropped the flapping bird and stood to attention, ‘Ask next time.’ And he strode for his horse.
It was two days later that they reached the sea. A spring sunshine warmed the earth now and the clouds, such as they were, threw huge shadows floating over the high moorland. The wind blew horizontal, flattening the grass and bending the trees still further where they had bent to the winds of the German sea for so long.
‘There,’ Justinus pointed to his machinator. ‘That’s where the Count would have us build our tower.’
Rutilius had been chief engineer to the VI for years now and he knew his business. ‘We’ll need to sink deep,’ he said. ‘These winds will topple any wall over twenty feet unless our foundations are secure.’
‘How long will it take?’ the tribune asked. The high land was flat up here with a rugged peninsula jutting out into the sea. His men could build a temporary camp in three hours, perhaps less, but a tower would need to be stone-built and the stone would need to be quarried, dragged from the shingle beach itself.
‘Give me two months,’ Rutilius said.
‘I’d want the Forum of Rome up in two months,’ Justinus laughed. ‘You’ve got four weeks. After that, I’m taking my boys away and you can build the bloody thing yourself.’
‘Fair enough,’ Rutilius chuckled. He knew he could do it in three, but it was important not to let senior officers know how easy these things were – they might get ideas above their station.
‘Is it me, Vit?’ Leocadius downed his shovel that night and sat back on the earth rampart he and his men had just finished, ‘or are we balancing on a bloody rock at the arse-end of nowhere, looking out over a sea which is empty?’
‘Saxons,’ Vitalis wiped the sweat from his forehead and felt his back click as he sat down. ‘I overheard Justinus and Pat talking yesterday. There’s talk that this barbarian conspiracy, if that’s what it is, is bigger than we imagined. There may even be Franks involved.’
‘Franks?’ Leocadius frowned, taking a hearty swig from his leather canteen. ‘Who the hell are they?’
‘The world is bigger than we are, Leo,’ Vitalis told him with all the experience of his nineteen years. ‘North of the Wall is a frightening place. Not just our Wall, here in Britannia, but anywhere. Who knows what lies beyond?’
‘Hm,’ Leocadius was not impressed. ‘Men,’ he said, yawning. ‘Men like us. No more, no less.’
There was a clanging of iron on iron, the call to eat. ‘Thank Jupiter,’ Leocadius said. ‘And to think,’ he stood up and spread his arms around him at the half-finished fortifications, ‘all this fun and food too. They spoil us, they really do.’
Mario Fabricius had lost all feeling in his fingers. For the last four hours he had strolled the new ramparts of the VIth’s makeshift fort on the eastern headland, trying to keep warm. What a god-forsaken place this was, in the middle of nowhere, with winds blowing ice into his face. His nose was dripping and his mouth had stopped working hours ago, which is why it took him a moment to gather his thoughts and force his lips to move.
‘Trumpets!’ he yelled. ‘Picts. North-east.’
They were almost the last words he said because a stone shot bounced off his helmet, knocking him off the earth wall. Leocadius sniggered in spite of the situation. He could not stand Fabricius – the man had been a pain in the circitor’s arse ever since he had been promoted. He had the heart to check that he was all right, though, once he had grabbed his sword and shield and climbed out of his tent. The trumpet was waking the morning and all around him was chaos. Men half asleep tugged on mail coats and buckled on helmets. He could see Justinus and the centurions clawing their way up Rutilius’ ladders to the top of the ramparts.
‘Archers!’ Justinus was bellowing and everybody but the cavalry was out of their tents and crowding below the earthworks. The Ala Jovii were saddling their horses, wondering what had happened to the scouts Justinus had thrown out to the north and west. They did not have to wait long to have their question answered. One of them was being dragged along the level ground in front of the earth wall. He was tied by his right ankle to his horse that ambled forwards, pausing every now and then to crop the short grass. The cavalryman’s arms hung limp by his side and his mail coat was ripped and dark with his blood. As for his head, that was in the grip of a tall horseman on the low ridge to the west of the half-finished camp. He held it aloft, impaled on a spike and shouted at the Romans.
‘He wants to know,’ Justinus said, trying to keep his voice level as he caught the snatches of Pictish on the wind, ‘whether we want our man’s head back.’
‘Along with his,’ said Paternus, standing up alongside the half-built palisade and preparing to attack.
‘Not yet, Pat,’ Justinus held him back and looked his friend in the face. ‘There’ll be a time. Circitor,’ he shouted down the slope to where the cavalry were forming up. ‘I want five of your fastest horses saddled and ready. When I say you head south I don’t want to have to repeat myself. Take a message to Eboracum. To the praeses.’ He looked back to the line of Picts who outnumbered his little force two to one. ‘Tell him what happened here.’ He turned back
to the circitor again. ‘The rest of you men, dismount. Up on the walls with the rest of us.’
The circitor chose his five men who stayed in their saddles and the others grumbled, tethering their mounts as they did so. What was the point of being a cavalryman without a horse? Those bloody foot-sloggers would never understand.
‘What do you make of it, Pat?’ Justinus was still bareheaded and he was only now buckling on his sword.
‘Ladders,’ Paternus frowned. ‘They’ve got bloody ladders.’
Justinus nodded. ‘Like tits on a bull,’ he said. This was not the Pictish way. The wild northmen roared themselves into a frenzy before a battle, egging each other on, drinking themselves silly and painting their bodies with their devilish designs. Then they ran at everything; earthworks, shield-walls, testudos, cavalry – it did not matter. They were battle-mad and they fought like demons, snarling their outlandish battle cries and dying by the dozen. But no Pictish raiding party that Justinus had heard of came prepared to break a siege. Is that how they had taken Banna? Camboglanna? The tribune squinted to see more clearly in the early light. If the Picts had a wild ass with them, the onager machine that smashed palisades to driftwood, then there was no hope.
‘Do you speak our language?’ the horseman called.
‘We do,’ Justinus shouted back, not raising his head higher than he needed above the ramparts. Young Fabricius was still having his head bandaged by the medics.
‘Why are you here?’ the Pict shouted, ‘on our sacred ground?’
‘Your ground?’ Justinus shouted back. ‘The last time I looked this was Brigantes country, specifically, I believe, Gabrantovices. But for the last three hundred years, it’s been Roman. You’re lost, Pict. Get yourselves north of the Wall again and we’ll forget all about this unfortunate business.’
Britannia: Part I: The Wall Page 11