by Ian Ross
Standing up with effort, trying not to groan, he crossed to the rail and watched the Franks as they rowed out from the riverbank. Last aboard was Flaochadus, his own warriors carrying him down to the river, to the sound of cheers from the other boats. Disgraceful, Castus thought. But he could not help a wry grin. His wife must have exhausted him... The idea brought a tug of longing. Castus had not been with a woman for months, ever since Ganna left. He had known long periods of celibacy while he was in the ranks, of course, and even while he was married to Sabina. But now he longed for female company. I have grown soft with luxury... He caught himself thinking of Marcellina: where was she now? Still at Colonia, or back at her husband’s villa? For a few moments the warmth of longing filled him, then he cleared his mind. There was no time for that – not now; perhaps not ever.
His mood sank even lower as the flotilla assembled under a sky of sullen grey cloud and moved off westwards, downstream. The Roman ships kept their formation, holding the centre of the river, while the Frankish boats veered and chased around them. Only the ten larger vessels were accompanying them, Castus noticed; the smaller boats and canoes had dropped away. Sitting at the stern of the Bellona, he studied these Frankish war boats more closely: each held between twenty and forty men, tight packed on the oar benches, but they were sleek and graceful-looking, with sharp hulls rising at each end to jutting prow and stern posts. With the oarsmen pulling hard the boats seemed almost to rise out of the water, skimming the river’s surface.
After a few miles, the river straightened and broadened, and one of the larger boats pulled up parallel to the Bellona. Castus could see Bonitus waving from the prow.
‘I believe they’re challenging us to a race, dominus,’ Senecio said. ‘Shall I give the order? We’ve got a good long reach ahead.’
‘Why not,’ Castus told him. He drew in a long breath, feeling the last shreds of his headache fading. ‘Signal the other ships to keep their formation, then let’s show these barbarians what a Roman galley can do!’
Senecio snapped out his commands as he paced down the gangway and at once a stir of enthusiasm ran through the crew of the flagship, the oarsmen forgetting their fatigue and their lingering hangovers. Cries from the bow-officer and helmsman, the tramp of the marines as they filed back down to the stern at Senecio’s command – their weight would lift the bows a little, and give the current more to push against – then the rowing master called out his order and the two banks of oars, fully manned, swung and dipped into the new pace.
At once a volley of shouts came from the Frankish boat, the crew throwing themselves forward and hauling in unison; the sharp keel seemed to lift even further as the vessel shot forward. The Bellona was twice the size, and twice the weight; but she had nearly twice the number of oars as well. Castus watched as the double tier of Roman oarsmen urged the ship forwards, the long galley steadily picking up speed. From the lower deck he could hear the banging of the wooden mallet that set the rowing pace, but the oarsmen were each watching the man ahead of them, all the way back to the rowing master at the aftermost larboard oar. When he glanced to his left Castus saw the flat green riverbanks rolling past more rapidly; the sultry air was stirred to a warm fresh breeze. Above him, the long purple draco standard mounted over the stern lifted its tail and began to writhe, the head letting out a whistling moan as the breeze passed through its gilded jaws.
The men in the Frankish boat were shouting in time with their strokes. Castus could hear their bellowing chant over the sound of the oars – Huor-gah! Huor-gah! The sharp prow of their vessel carved a wave of white water. But still the Bellona was gathering speed, her old timbers groaning as they took the stress, her oars flashing like huge white-tipped wings as they beat at the water. The Roman oarsmen neither shouted nor sang; beside the mallet’s thud, the only sounds were the collective grunts and the massed sigh of exhaled breath as they drove the ship forwards.
Castus ran along the gangway to the bows. Leaping, he caught hold of the figurehead and stood with one foot braced on the wooden anchor fluke. Beneath him, the spur that ran forward from the keel was bursting the surface of the river and sending spray up over the bows as the ship pulled ahead of the barbarian boat.
The sense of speed and momentum was exhilarating, the rhythm of the oars thundering through every fibre of the ship, the banks of oarsmen moving fast and in unison, a machine of muscle and wood powering the galley through the water. Stretching up, Castus raised his fist in the air and yelled with triumphant laughter. If only his son could be here to witness this...
But the Franks had not given up yet. Castus could hear Bonitus’s hoarse shout as he ordered his warriors to even greater exertion. Once more the gap between the two vessels began to close.
Swinging himself from the bow, Castus descended the ladder to the lower deck. A narrow passage ran between the benches of the lower oarsmen, beneath the gangway overhead, and Castus made his way aft, reaching up to steady himself on the deck timbers and the massive taut bracing cable that stretched the length of the ship. It was gloomy and hot, extremely cramped, and he could smell the black ooze of the bilges beneath him: the effluvia of anchor cables, river mud and the close-packed humanity. To either side the lower oarsmen sweated on their benches, swinging forward and back, most of them stripped to their loincloths. Castus clambered to the far end of the passage, where the pitulus sat with his time-beating mallet, then mounted the aft ladder to the stern deck.
‘Looking strong down there?’ Senecio cried. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, his arms folded tight.
‘Looking very strong,’ Castus said. He flung a glance toward the rival boat, and although they were still level he could see that the Franks were tiring, the rhythm of the oars losing its disciplined regularity. He knew they were on the verge of surrender.
‘Boatswain reports we’re taking in water at the bows,’ Senecio said. ‘But a last burst of speed up to that next bend and we’ll have them in our wake, I think.’
‘Do it,’ Castus told him. He clasped the rail and stared across the water. A moment later he heard the order – double time – and the steady beat of the mallet grew faster. Once again the galley gave a heave and then surged forward.
‘Easy,’ Senecio said with quiet satisfaction.
Cries of dismay from the Frankish boat; Castus stared at them, grinning, and a few moments later he saw the oars rise in clattering confusion, the hull slowing abruptly and swinging around with the current. Bonitus stood up from the prow once more, raising his palm in a token of submission.
‘Trail oars!’ Senecio called. ‘Ease the way off her steadily now.’
But word of the triumph had already passed through the ship, down into the gloom of the lower tiers. The oarsmen sat up on their benches and began to cheer, the marines and archers crouched on the stern deck joining them. Castus clapped Senecio on the shoulder, both men grinning broadly as the Bellona cruised on across the last stretch of river with the oar-blades gliding in the water.
If only, Castus thought, all our victories were so easily won.
CHAPTER XIX
‘Salt,’ the bow-officer said, raising his head from the bucket he had drawn up over the side. ‘Faint, but you can taste it.’
‘I knew it,’ Senecio said, nodding. ‘You can feel the rise of the river. We’re into the tidal reaches, dominus.’
Castus grunted, glancing at the distant riverbanks along the horizon in the lowering evening light. All that day they had been threading their course steadily westwards as the water broadened on either side of the flotilla. The stretch they were moored in now was easily half a mile across.
‘The old ship feels it too,’ Senecio said, tapping the rail with his wooden hand. ‘She tastes it! Longs for the open ocean, no doubt...’
‘With any luck we won’t be going anywhere near the open ocean,’ Castus said. In the growing darkness the river was flat and grey as a sheet of iron; the low country beyond the banks looked much the same. They were far from
civilisation now. He had seen no sign of human habitation since leaving Noviomagus. For the last few hours there had been no sign of animal life either. And now ahead of them were the islands of the great estuary, tangled scrub and banks of reeds. A haunted place, Bonitus had called it. The land of the dead.
‘Did people really live here once?’ Castus asked. The silence of the river was almost unnerving.
‘Aye, long time ago,’ Senecio said. ‘This was the old Batavian land. There were towns here, and roads. Canals and dykes to hold back the floodwaters. But it’s all peat ground, see, and they dug out the peat beds for fuel and building. The land sank.’
‘Is that possible?’
‘That’s what they say, dominus. When the sea broke through the dunes along the coast it flooded right across here. Now all that land’s salt marshes. You can dig a well wherever you like and all you’ll find is brackish water. No good for man nor beast. All that grows here is scrub, reeds and those nasty-looking stunted trees.’
Castus tightened his shoulders, suppressing a shiver, then turned and made his way aft. They would remain moored here at the head of the estuary for the night – there was plenty of open water ahead, but the tidal reaches were treacherous with shoals and mudflats, masses of rotting driftwood and submerged obstacles that could rip up the hulls of the ships. They would need daylight, and caution, to move further into the marshy maze of islands.
All that night the ships lay at anchor in the tideway, none showing any lights but all with sentries stationed fore and aft, staring into the blackness. Castus slept badly, down in the little triangular cabin beneath the poop, starting awake at every sound: the lapping of the water under the stern, the slow creak and tick of the timbers, the soft shuffling of the watchman on the boards above his head. Once he bolted from his bunk and raised his head up the ladder, only to be told in a hushed voice that the noise had been a floating tree scraping along the side of the hull. Finally, as his eyes began to detect the palest seep of light, he threw on his cloak and went on deck.
The estuary looked beautiful in the dawn. The water was luminous grey, and between the clouds the sky was glowing faintly, the sun not yet risen. Everything was soft and still, except a flight of geese winging silently upstream. Castus stood for a while, blinking the sleep from his head, taking it all in.
He found Valerius Felix in the shelter behind the helmsman’s post. The wiry little optio had taken over command of the Bellona’s marine complement after Modestus’s debilitating hangover on leaving Noviomagus. Castus was glad to see him: Modestus was a firm enough man – when he was sober – but Felix had a steely tenacity and a quick intuitive cunning that Castus had relied on before. He was also the only Roman soldier Castus had ever met who actually came from the city of Rome itself; he spoke with the oddly gnarled and nasal accent of the common people of the Eternal City. The optio nodded a greeting as Castus joined him.
‘Anything?’ Castus said.
‘Not a thing but geese and eels since midnight, dominus.’
‘Eels?’
‘Them things,’ Felix said, pointing over the side. Castus looked down in time to see a quick ripple in the water. ‘Nasty slimy creatures they are. Suck out your eyes. Place is swarming with them.’
Castus remembered the eels that Magnius Rufus had served at his villa the previous autumn. Maybe they had come from this very estuary?
‘I forgot, you don’t like ships,’ he said.
Felix tightened his lips. ‘Don’t mind ships. Rivers are all right. You know where you are with a river, at least. Water goes this way and that way, land’s over there. It’s the sea I can’t abide. Deep water all around you. Monsters. Makes me shiver.’
‘You’d never swim in the sea then?’
‘Wouldn’t want to give them the opportunity, dominus. The monsters, I mean.’
Castus laughed quietly to himself. Even so, the quiet and the pale light gave the scene around them an unearthly look. Beautiful, yes, but strangely threatening.
‘You believe the stories about this place?’ Castus asked after a pause. ‘The ghosts...?’
Felix shrugged, then shook his head. ‘No, but some do. Some of the men, too, though they act brave enough. They’ve been quaking in their boots all night. This is a forsaken place, whichever way you look at it. Not a place for men.’
The sun was up now, though still concealed by cloud, and the air was getting warmer already. It would be another close, sultry day. Castus saw a boat approaching: one of the Frankish vessels, with Bonitus standing at the prow.
‘Guard on deck!’ Felix called, and his men clambered blearily up from between the rowing benches, shrugging off their blankets and readying their shields and spears. Bappo the interpreter crawled yawning from the shelter of the stern canopy. By the time they had assembled the Frankish boat was alongside.
‘Come down,’ Bonitus called, beckoning to Castus with a grin. ‘I see your men are not ready to receive guests!’
Castus jutted his jaw, wanting to refuse. But he had never been aboard one of the barbarian vessels, and might never get another chance. Pulling his cloak around him, he stepped carefully over the rail of the galley and lowered himself towards the prow of the Frankish boat. Bonitus reached up and took his boot heel, guiding it to the step cut into the stem post, then grabbed him as he swung himself inboard. A quick leap and a stagger, and Castus found himself standing up in the raked bows, thirty warriors turning on their benches to stare at him.
The boat rocked as he steadied himself; the keel was only a couple of feet beneath the rowing benches, and with the surface of the river so alarmingly close Castus felt as though the whole thing would capsize with any sudden movement. Bonitus moved casually though, a pair of the forward oarsmen shuffling back to clear the benches for them to sit.
‘You’ve eaten?’ Bonitus asked. ‘We have dried pork, and beer?’
‘No, thank you,’ Castus said. The thought made his stomach clench. He glanced back at the warriors seated behind them; most of them were ignoring him now, talking among themselves in low grumbling voices, but Castus was aware of the arsenal of weapons lying beside the benches: spears and axes, shields mounted along the wales. They were still only a long leap from the side of the Bellona, and Felix had the rail of the galley lined with armed men. The water lapped and eddied between the hulls of the two vessels.
‘So, today we find the Saxons, yes?’ Bonitus said, smacking his fist lightly into his palm. ‘You have some plan?’
‘Sort of,’ Castus said. He had been turning ideas in his mind all through the night, and the day before. But he knew how hard it was going to be to find the raiders and attack them before they could slip away to sea.
‘We’ll need to spread out to cover a wider area. Keep the troop barges in the main channels, lookouts at the mastheads and send the lighter boats scouting the creeks and islands to either side. There’s a danger that the scouts may be ambushed, or cut off by a bigger force, so we’ll need to move fast once anyone locates the enemy.’ He paused for a moment, thinking. ‘How far is it between here and the open sea?’
‘Thirty miles, maybe forty. About the same distance to the Scaldis estuary to the south. At least a day to search half that, I’m thinking.’
Castus made a sound in his throat. He’d suspected as much. And doubtless the Saxons had charted these waterways well already; they were on home ground here. They could have spies posted all along the banks, concealed in the reeds and thickets. Perhaps they had already been alerted to the flotilla’s arrival... No, unless the Saxons came to them, they would have to search slowly and carefully and hope they flushed out their prey before they became prey themselves.
‘The sailor who brought word of them, Dolens, told me that he thought they were taking the captured ships into the southern part of the islands,’ Castus said. ‘That’s down towards the Scaldis. We’re in the north-east now, so I intend to work steadily southwards, with a few ships detached to watch the coast.’
‘T
hat would be wise,’ Bonitus said. ‘They may have boats coming and going from the sea.’
Castus dropped his voice to a rumble. ‘How much can I trust Gaiso and Flaochadus?’ he asked.
Bonitus pondered briefly. ‘Flaochadus will follow the strongest party, always. His will is weak. Gaiso is more difficult. If all is well he follows you, but if he thinks you are not giving him respect, or you are failing in your task, he will turn on you.’
‘That’s what I thought. I want to send your boats out ahead of us – they can manoeuvre better in the tideways. If I send Gaiso and his people to the far right flank, and all my communication with him passes through you, can I trust him to keep his position?’
Bonitus considered for a moment. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘But don’t leave him out there too long. He may take offence!’
Castus nodded, rising carefully and making his way up to the prow. Climbing back out of the boat looked harder than climbing in. ‘Another thing,’ he said, lowering his voice as he turned back to Bonitus. ‘The other night, during the feast, you told me something... about Leontius, the man who commanded here before me. What was it again?’
Bonitus’s face closed as he glanced up at the nearby galley, and he gave an evasive shrug. ‘Heh, I don’t remember!’ he said. ‘Much drink, much foolish talk!’
Castus stared at him for a moment, but he knew he would get no more out of the Frankish chief now. Perhaps there would be a better time. ‘Tell your people,’ he said. ‘We raise anchor and move in one hour.’
The oarsmen lightly eased the boat back across to the side of the Bellona, and Castus called to Felix to help him back up on deck.