Britannia: Part I: The Wall

by Richard Denham

  ‘Precisely,’ the Count smiled. ‘And that’s what I intend to do tomorrow.’

  They had flayed Talorc with iron-tipped whips, concentrating on the man’s torn shoulder. His screams had filled the night, exactly as Maximus had intended they should. And the next morning, two legions and a vexillation stood in all the pride of war, their helmets shining in the sun, their shields bright again after the bloodying of the previous day.

  The Picts stood in a circle, roped together by wrist and ankle. Any man who tried to run would drag two others with him and they in turn would drag more. It was tried and it was tested. There would be no escape. The engineers under Rutilius were already at work, repairing breaches, hauling timbers upright, shovelling earth. This time there would be no interruptions and the fresh men of the Victores who had barely broken into a sweat yesterday were toiling in the warm sunshine, stripped to the waist.

  Talorc was brought across the vallum, empty now of weapons and bodies. For the last three hours the Picts themselves had been forced to dig a huge pit, three men deep. Five men had collapsed, exhausted, dying of their wounds as dawn broke in the purple sky to the east. They became the first occupants of the pit, but not before the Jovii had lashed some of Rutilius’ palisade timbers together and made a grid in the pit’s depths. Roman and Pictish bodies, stripped of their armour, were flung in, men from the conturberniae mumbling the old prayers and invoking the gods old and new – ‘Mithras, god of the morning, our trumpets waken the Wall. Rome is above all nations, but you are over all.’

  ‘What is that?’ the tortured chieftain still had the strength to point to the pit.

  Among the officers, only Justinus spoke the man’s language, harsh and guttural as it was. ‘It’s a funeral pyre, Pict,’ he said. ‘We’re going to burn your people along with ours.’

  ‘You can’t!’ Talorc tried to break free but the ropes and the guards held him fast. ‘My men must be buried, their bodies laid in the sacred earth. It is our way.’

  Another man who spoke the Pict’s language yelled from the Third Cohort of the VI. ‘You should have thought of that before you made war on women and children, you bastard.’ Justinus looked along the ranks but he had no need to seek out the face. Paternus, the first centurion, stood with his hands gripping each end of his gnarled stick, his face impassive, his eyes dead.

  ‘Point out your leaders,’ Justinus said to Talorc. The man was barely standing, his skin ripped to shreds by the work of the farriers’ whips, huge weals across his pale blue skin as though the men of the Jovii had tried to carve new designs in his flesh. ‘Point out your leaders and you have my word we will not burn them. They will have a proper burial.’

  ‘You can go to hell, Roman!’ Talorc spat at him.

  The tribune shrugged at Theodosius, waiting on his grey at the head of the Jovii, the scarlet flag and the silver eagle at his shoulder. The Count did not need to understand Pictish to know the chieftain’s answer. ‘One in twenty,’ he shouted to the centurion in charge of the prisoners. ‘Take them to the palisades and string them up. That man,’ he pointed to Talorc,’ will watch them and then he will follow them.’ He turned in the saddle to look for Justinus’ chief engineer. ‘Rutilius?’ he shouted.

  ‘Sir?’ the man’s bare head popped up over the parapet.

  ‘Now we’ll see how strong your walls really are.’

  The line of roped Picts milled and threshed, trying to make the selection process as difficult as possible, but relentlessly men of the Victores hauled on the ropes, pulling them along, counting one to twenty and then taking that twentieth man. Finally, struggling and kicking, a total of thirty five were cut free of the others and dragged through the side gate of the camp. They were hauled up the ladders and made to stand on the wall walk at the top. Below them they saw the legions that had defeated then, drawn up as on a parade ground, silent and still. The man who led them, the tall sandy-haired man with the grey eyes who could have passed for a Pict himself turned his horse and walked it along the line of shields on the ground beside each man.

  ‘What you are to witness,’ he shouted, ‘is an execution. The men who are about to die are warriors. Yesterday they were prepared to die facing you and today they will. I do not have to remind you that men dying for the pleasure of the crowd belongs to our barbaric past. We don’t do that now. And we don’t find another man’s pain amusing. Anybody who I see so much as twitch his lip will join these men. Do I make myself clear?’

  The legions grunted their answer in one fierce shout. Then, Theodosius gave the signal and the first man was thrown over the parapet, the noose around his neck jerking tight as his body hit the timbers of the palisade and his feet kicked. For a minute, perhaps two, he writhed in the air, his eyes rolling and his lips frothing with blood. Then he died. But before he did a second man was thrown over and a third. All along the palisade the Picts had failed to hold, bodies twitched and danced, the piss and shit trickling down their legs. Talorc tried to look away, but every time he did, a pedes hauled on his hair and wrenched his head back painfully. If he tried to close his eyes they were slapped open again.

  For nearly an hour the hangings went on, then it was the leader’s turn. He followed the others, stumbling up the ladder, shivering with shock and the pain in his body. On the parapet, they slid the rough hemp noose around his neck and stood watching for Theodosius’ command. The Count sat his horse impassively and dropped his raised hand. Then the twisting figure of Talorc sailed through the air where the others dangled. His heels bounced off Rutilius’ uprights up which the Picts had scrambled the day before and the horizon bobbed in his distorted vision. Through bulging eyes, he saw the Romans, grim faces under identical helmets, men with no souls, no hearts. He saw the bastards at their head, the arrogant shits called generals and that bloody dog alongside. And he saw the land, not his land, it was true, but land like it, flatter and warmer than the glens and mountains of Caledonia. The weight on his neck was unbearable. He was choking, his windpipe tightening and his airways closing as he fought. His hands twisted and stretched behind his back but he could not break free. He threw himself forward once and then back. And then he saw the land no more and his body shuddered, his heels kicking a staccato tattoo on the palisade.

  Now only the wind moaned. The sun of the early morning had gone and iron-grey clouds were massing in the west. Theodosius nodded at Justinus who walked his horse towards the great mob of prisoners. They stood silent, unwilling witnesses to the deaths of the chosen. And they calmly waited for their turn. There was a thud as Talorc’s body, cut from its rope, hit the ground. Followed by another. And another.

  Justinus nodded to the guards who drew their daggers and hacked through the ankle ropes of the Picts and then freed their wrists. The warriors from the cold north looked at each other, frowning and rubbing their bleeding limbs. What new treachery was this from the Romans?

  ‘You are free men,’ the tribune shouted at them. ‘Go home. Home to your loved ones. And there you have a choice. Either you cross the Wall and leave us alone or we will come looking for you. And we will not execute one in twenty. We will execute you all. Every man. Every woman. Every child.’

  For a moment, no one moved. Then, a man broke away at the back and started to run. He half expected an arrow or a javelin between his shoulder blades, but there was nothing. Apart from the guards, the Romans still stood stock still, shields at their sides, spears in their hands pointing to the sky. Someone followed him, then another and soon all of them were scurrying away, unarmed and defenceless, the wounded being helped along by those that still had the strength.

  Then there were only a handful of prisoners left in the shadow of Rutilius’ camp. They were still shackled and they looked at Justinus with fear written all over their faces. There was no wild red hair here, no swirling blue paint. ‘You men,’ the tribune said, raking them all with a solemn face, ‘Are Brigantes and Gabrantovices. At least they,’ he jerked his thumb in the direction of the fleeing Picts, ‘h
ave some excuse. They’re barbarian to the bone from some gods-forsaken hellhole in the north. But you men … you’re from south of the Wall. You’ve lived alongside us all your lives. So did your fathers and their fathers. Why? Why have you turned against us?’

  ‘Valentinus says …’ a young voice called out and it was immediately silenced.

  Justinus singled out the speaker. He was Gabrantovices for sure and he was no more than thirteen. His tunic was ragged and filthy and he wore no boots or sandals. There was an ugly purple bruise across his swollen forehead and his left eye was half closed. But it was the old red line around the boy’s neck, shiny and taut with scar tissue that caught the tribune’s attention. He held up the lad’s chin. ‘You’re a slave,’ he said. ‘A runaway.’

  The boy blinked, but said nothing. Justinus moved so that he was in his eye line. ‘What did Valentinus say?’ he asked.

  ‘Shut up, boy,’ someone nearby growled and Justinus half turned, slapping the man across the head with the back of his hand.

  ‘Talk to me,’ the tribune had not taken his eyes off the boy.

  ‘Valentinus says the day is coming,’ he blurted out, tears filling his eyes.

  ‘What day, boy?’ Justinus asked.

  ‘The day,’ the lad repeated. ‘The day when the Romans will sail from these shores. And we will be free.’

  ‘Free?’ Justinus chuckled. ‘You see this?’ He held out his scarf. ‘It’s the badge of a tribune. And it’s just as much a collar as the iron one you used to wear around your neck. Nobody’s free. Not now. Not ever.’ He turned away. ‘And by the way,’ he said, ‘I’m no more Roman than you are. I am of the same clay as you. The only difference between us is which side of the eagles we stand on.’

  The tribune unbuckled his helmet. ‘You can believe in Valentinus and his day,’ he said to the Brigantes, ‘or you can believe me when I tell you that Valentinus will face his own day first. And it will end in his death. I can promise you one thing – I will be there that day. And I will see it with my own eyes.’ He slid his dagger from its sheath and looked hard at the man he had just slapped, then he cut his ropes and those of all the others.

  Virius Cocidius was reduced to drawing water from his own well. And those days he kept that old sword, the one he knew he had around somewhere, close to hand. That evening, as the sun was setting behind the tall elms, it was slung over his shoulder. His slave, Lupo, was sawing wood, the rhythmic song of the blade drowning out the soft pad of hooves plodding down the hill.

  It was a snort from one of those horses that stopped Lupo in mid-cut. Cocidius turned and let the rope go in his surprise, the bucket hurtling down with an echoing rattle followed by an eerie splash. Two riders were coming down the hill, mail shirts gleaming in the dying light and shields strapped to their backs. Cocidius would never see fifty again and his old trouble had been playing him up recently. Even so, he had vowed to every god of his household that he would take no more insults from the Picts. ‘Lupo!’ he called, ‘Save yourself.’

  The slave just stood there.

  ‘Damn it, man, you’re free,’ Cocidius hissed. ‘I release you. Go on. Go on.’

  ‘Io, Virius Cocidius!’ one of the horsemen hailed him as he reached the flat ground.

  Under the helmet, the farmer recognized the face and almost fell over with relief. He felt a little silly with his sword in his hand and sheathed it quickly, having no intention of even trying to skewer the tribune Justinus Coelius or the rather severe young centurion who rode at his elbow. Behind them a running lad had just stopped running and stood looking ahead at Cocidius’ villa in awe.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Cocidius crossed to them. ‘I can't tell you how good it is to see you. Can I offer you some … water?’

  Even that would take a while as Cocidius remembered where his bucket was, even assuming it was still in one piece.

  ‘No thanks,’ Justinus said. ‘We’re on our way south. But I’ve something for you.’ He twisted in the saddle and motioned the boy forward. ‘Master Cocidius,’ the tribune smiled, ‘I couldn’t help noticing when I passed this way before, you are rather short-handed. This is Gracco, or at least, that’s his Roman name. He’s strong and he’s got all his teeth. Can you find a use for him?’

  Cocidius took a step forward and looked at the lad. He could smell him already and his face was a mask of mud and bruising. His feet were cut where he had been jogging through the bracken behind the horsemen. The boy bowed his head and held out his hands. He had been bought and sold before. He knew the drill.

  ‘I’ve something for you, too,’ Paternus said. He turned in the saddle and hauled something out of the leather bag tied behind him. It was the head of a Pict and he held it up by the hair so that the dead eyes bulged at Cocidius and the blue tongue stuck out at him, seemingly defiant even in death. ‘Is this the man who stole your goods?’ Paternus asked. ‘The one called Talorc?’

  ‘Er … I think so,’ Cocidius was horrified. ‘It’s just that, he looks so … different.’

  Paternus stuffed the head back into his saddle bag and took up the reins.

  ‘The gods shine on you, Virius Cocidius,’ Justinus said. ‘I doubt you’ll see any more Picts coming this way.’

  ‘Gods defend you, gentlemen,’ the farmer said and watched as they rode away. ‘And thank you.’ He turned to the boy in front of him. ‘Well, lad,’ he said. Do you know what a hypocaust is?’

  Gracco’s Latin was passable and he did his best. ‘I think so, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s heating, under the floor.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Cocidius beamed. ‘Do you know how it works?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Right,’ Cocidius sighed. Officers of the VIth Legion had just rid his estate of raiders and brought him a slave, for nothing. It would be churlish to expect everything. ‘Well, look, this is Lupo. He’ll crank up the hot water for you and you can have a bath. And then, something to eat, I expect, yes?’

  No one had moved.

  ‘Lupo?’ Cocidius said. ‘Are you still here?’

  ‘Er … there’s just one problem, Virius,’ he said. ‘You set me free a minute ago.’

  ‘The hell I did!’ the farmer said. ‘You’re starting to hear things now. Get on with it, man,’ and as his faithful slave shuffled past, he caught him a nasty clip around the ear. ‘And that’s Master to you, ingrate!’

  It was a day later that Justinus and Paternus clattered along the road that led to the Principia of the VI. Theodosius and Maximus were marching back to Eboracum at the head of their legions, having left four turmae of cavalry and two cohorts to protect Rutilius while he finished his watch tower and planned another one, further north.

  Decius Ammianus was delighted to see his officers back and even more delighted to hear their news. But he had news of his own and it was grim. He was staring at a map when two of his Wall heroes arrived and he was still staring at it when they left, anxious to get some sleep and take stock of the situation.

  ‘It could have happened here,’ the praeses said, tapping the land to the west. ‘Cornovii country. Or here.’ He pointed to the sweep further south, ‘the lands of the Dobuni. If truth be told, we haven’t the first clue where it happened. But what happened is without question. A messenger arrived yesterday, wore out four horses getting here. The younger Theodosius got the news at Rutupiae. Nectaridus, the Count of the Saxon Shore is dead. And the messenger said the man who killed him is someone whose name they hadn’t heard in the south before – Valentinus.’

  ‘Valentinus,’ Magnus Maximus slammed his goblet down on the praeses’ desk. He was looking at the same wall map that Ammianus seemed to have been staring at for two days now. ‘The man’s like a will o’ the wisp. Here we are chasing him south of the Wall and all the time he’s in the west. How the hell can he be in two places at once?’

  ‘Because he’s very good, Magnus,’ Theodosius said. ‘We’ve got to face it. I’ve fought all over the Empire. So have you. I’ve never come across anyone quite
like him. So …’ the Count’s face took on a look that Maximus knew well. A plan was forming in his brain. ‘If he can be in two places at once, so can we. Ammianus.’

  ‘Count.’ The praeses looked up.

  ‘Send for your Wall heroes. I’d like a word.’

  ‘Justinus …’ Leocadius whispered, then caught the look on the man’s face. ‘Tribune. Can you tell me what the hell is going on?’

  Justinus looked at him. ‘You were there, man, just as I was,’ he said. ‘The Count is going south to Rutupiae to join his little boy. General Maximus is staying in the north. Pat and I will rebuild the Wall by all accounts while you and Vit have a high old time in Londinium.’

  ‘Well,’ Vitalis said, ‘I’m not complaining, but why …?’

  ‘Londinium is the biggest city in Britannia,’ Justinus said. ‘Sooner or later Valentinus is likely to try to take it. That little business on the cliffs last week is just a palate tickler. He’ll be really pissed off now we’ve given his Picts a bloody nose. Tell them, Pat.’

  The centurion shrugged. ‘I’m no master of strategy,’ he said, ‘but I think the idea is for Magnus Maximus to come from the north; Theodosius from the south and they’ll catch Valentinus between them.’

  ‘And what are we going to do?’ Vitalis asked. ‘We’re circitors, for the gods’ sake. We aren’t going to add a great deal in the scheme of things.’

  ‘No,’ Justinus said flatly. ‘You are heroes of the Wall.’ He looked Leocadius in the eye, into the face of the man who had created that stupid lie in the first place. ‘That’s your place in the scheme of things. The people of Londinium don’t know what it’s like up here; they don’t have a Wall or anything like it.’ He thrust out his right arm, with the ring glowing black and gold in the firelight of the camp. Paternus did the same so that their rings clinked together. Then Vitalis, then Leocadius. The heroes of the Wall, standing together against the world.