by Paul Finch
Livius shrugged. “Again, I quite agree. But …” and for a moment he seemed unsure, his slightly drunken eyes glazing over, “I … I haven’t got a lot else. I need the challenge.”
“Well … if it’s any consolation,” Ursus topped up his cup from the wineskin, “tomorrow we press on into a realm no civilised man has ever seen before. That in itself should be an adventure.” He smiled, and a moment later, the soldier smiled too. He held up his cup.
“A toast then. To adventure.”
Ursus nodded. “To adventure.”
*
It was close to mid-day, when they reached the solitary hump of land called Terra Mars, but as the morning had progressed, a sea-fret had rolled silently in, blotting out everything – skyline, water, reed-beds, fen-fowl. The world, it seemed, was suddenly wallowing in leprous-grey fog, as bottomless and opaque as the bogs over which it slithered. In direct consequence, the chorus of surrounding wildlife gradually fell silent … bill by bill, beak by beak. Eventually all was still. Only the oily ripples of the water could be heard.
Ursus gazed through the mist at the approaching bulk of land.
“Ho!” he called, hoping to alert the men already camped there, but there was no reply.
The first of the rafts reached the shoreline, mooring itself in the green swirls of meadowsweet. Still there was silence. Inland, a thigh-deep jungle of sedge was visible, but only for a matter of paces.
“I don’t understand,” the engineer said. “They ought to have been preparing for us.”
Livius pulled on his helmet and buckled it under his chin. “Could they be on the other side of the island?”
“They’d still hear us, I’m sure,” Ursus replied. “Damn them!”
Livius glanced sidelong at Jusci. The scout was crouching indifferently on the raft. If he knew anything about what was going on, his insolent expression didn’t betray it.
Irritated, Ursus now made to step ashore, but Livius stopped him. “Wait … let us go.”
“I doubt I’ve much to fear from my own apprentice and two slaves.”
“Just a precaution,” the soldier replied, signalling to the rest of his troop. “I’m charged with ensuring the security of this operation. That means ensuring the safety of its key architect.”
Disgruntled, Ursus stood back, but he called once more as the soldiers girt themselves in armour and cloaks. Still no answer came back. “If they’re lying in their bedrolls …” he grumbled.
“How big is the island?” Livius asked.
“Forty paces by fifty. Next to no size.”
The optio still wasn’t taking any chances. He lifted his shield and stepped ashore, drawing his gladius. The four legionaries selected followed, shields raised, javelins at the ready. One by one, they vanished into the mist. During their absence, there was no sound at all save the sluggish lapping of wavelets against the hulls of the rush-barges. As those moments slowly passed, it was easy to imagine all sorts of mad things: that Livius and his men had stepped through some mysterious barrier into another time and place; that the entire mission had somehow lost itself in a haunted realm no longer connected to the real world. Eventually, of course, the men returned, damp from the clamminess of the fret, but also pale in the cheek and visibly shaking. Their eyes were wide with shock.
Instinctively, Ursus knew something was wrong. “Well?”
“We’ve been across the island from one side to the other,” Livius replied, his face ashen. “I suppose it’s safe for you to come and look. I warn you, though … it isn’t pretty.”
Warily, the entire party now went ashore. Soon they had reached the camp set up by the forward command. It was a scene of shocking devastation. The tents which Castor and his slaves had erected had been torn to shreds. Only ribbons of fabric now fluttered on their steel-rod frames. The fresh thorn switches they’d cut and drawn around them in a protective circle had been scattered, the ashes of their fire trampled and kicked-over.
The three men themselves had died unimaginable deaths.
There was a small willow tree in the middle of the island, and the engineering apprentice hung upside-down from it. No rope had been used, however, but rather his own legs. The bones in them had been so thoroughly smashed that his ankles had then been looped over a branch and tied together in a thick, fleshy knot. Beneath his head, a new fire had been lit, the embers of which still glowed. Clearly, it had been brought to roaring height at some stage, for the entirety of his head, arms and torso were blackened with char. A foul smoky stench hung about him.
The first of the two slaves, meanwhile, had been stripped naked and violently sodomised with a spear. The broken-off haft still jutted into the air. As the finishing stroke, he had then had his head twisted right the way round. His eyes were distended from his sockets and his face purple. A froth of creamy bubbles hung from his shrivelled lips.
Of the second slave, only a single fragment remained … a streak of pink, mutilated flesh, which on closer inspection, transpired to be his ripped-out tongue. Livius picked it up on the tip of his sword. When he saw what it was, he nearly went green.
“I wonder what they did with the rest of him?” a soldier mumbled.
“You mean what they’re doing?” another replied. “They wouldn’t have bothered taking him away unless it was to prolong the torture. They probably tore his tongue out so they wouldn’t have to listen to his screams.”
Stunned disbelief followed, the men unconsciously drawing together. The soldiers swallowed their nausea and retained their usual exterior of grim indifference, but it clearly took an effort, while the farmers glanced at each other with wan expressions, mouthing silent warnings. Only Jusci seemed unmoved by the incident. Around the scene of slaughter, the rushes had been flattened down in a trampled, bloody mass, and the scout now squatted to examine them. But if there were any tell-tale clues, he was unable to find them.
“This bears all the dimensions of druids,” said Livius in a tight voice.
Ursus shook his head. “Druidic sacrifices are about re-balancing the natural state. Redressing the wrongs done to the spirits. Hence the burning of human victims in wicker-giants in response to a poor harvest … an attempt to appease the gods of the fields and orchards. I see no re-balance of anything here. This is just brutal murder.”
The officer turned and looked at him. His eyes were cold and hard. “These are ritual killings, carried out in a fashion we’re all too familiar with.” He pointed at the desecrated corpses. “Rapine and torture, two typical tools of the druids … designed to terrorise and cow. We saw both in abundance at Londinium and Camulodunum. It may work with the pig-ignorant savages that live in this cursed country, but the lesson of Boudicca’s death and her tribe’s destruction should have taught them it won’t work with us.” Then he pointed at Jusci. “Seize him!”
The Iceni rose to his feet in alarm, but burly legionaries were at his arms instantly. They forcibly twisted his hands behind his back and lashed them together. The scout made a frantic appeal to Ursus, who rounded on the optio.
“This is ridiculous. He hasn’t done anything.”
Livius was resolute. “No, but he probably knows who has.”
“This is almost certainly the work of bandits.”
The optio laughed, a hard, bitter laugh. “Bandits! In a god-forsaken wilderness where there aren’t even any roads?”
“But you’ve seen the Iceni for yourself,” Ursus protested. “They’re a broken people living in pens.”
“But out here in the swamp, they’re the masters,” Livius replied. “Or so you said.”
The engineer thought hard, then turned to Jusci. “You know these people?”
The Iceni shook his head.
“If you know who’s done this, tell me!”
Again, the scout shook his head. Now there was desperation in the gesture. But Livius was unimpressed. “He’s hardly going to turn them over to us, is he … his own religious leaders!”
“Livius, there
are no druids!” Ursus insisted. “Not any more.”
“We’ll see.” The officer slid his sword back into its scabbard, and fastened the strap over its leather-bound hilt. “I’ll teach them to defy the will of the Emperor.”
“You’re going after them?” said the engineer, surprised.
Livius indicated the orange coals under Castor’s blackened skull. “This fire is only a few hours old. Whoever they are, my men have the superior training and endurance. We’ll catch them within in a day or so.”
Uneasy glances now passed between the farmers. Even some of the soldiers looked unsure. As prudently as he could, Ursus took the officer by the elbow and led him to one side. “Livius … you don’t know the strength of these people or their disposition. To my mind, it seems that – whoever they are, however much they lack the training of your men – they have a distinct advantage.”
The optio snorted in contempt. “We’re dealing with dumb brutes here. The last thing they’ll expect is an organised force coming in pursuit.”
Ursus considered. Previously, Livius’s lack of combat experience and the small number of legionaries he had with him had been no real cause for alarm. But things were different now. The engineer glanced around to where Jusci was having fetters clapped onto his ankles.
“Well, you’ll need him, at least,” he said. “There’s no sense chaining the only man among us who knows his way around out here.”
“That I concede,” Livius replied. “But make sure he knows that his life depends on finding the scum responsible for this atrocity. And if at any time, I uncover anything – anything at all – that suggests he was involved, I’ll take personal charge of his execution.”
The optio then bade his men release the guide and bring the hides and timbers ashore.
As the young officer bustled back and forth, issuing orders, there was a sudden eagerness about him, a fanaticism Ursus instantly recognised and feared. The military idealist had now become the military zealot. Feeling that all his previous worries were confirmed, the engineer turned and surveyed the defiled remnants of his servant and slaves. He hadn’t known the two slaves that well … even so, he wouldn’t wish such horror upon anyone. Castor, of course, had been a keen young student, bright and imaginative, and certain to fill his master’s shoes when the time eventually came.
“Do we put these poor creatures to rights first?” the engineer wondered.
Livius stopped beside him. For a moment he seemed unsure, then: “I’m afraid we’d lose valuable time. Have the Iceni circle the island for a point where the villains might have moored. It could give us a clue to their direction.” He turned to his troops, who were now falling in. “Back to the rafts,” he said. “Full equipment. You farm workers, I advise you to arm yourselves … cudgels, spades, anything. You’ve seen what these people are capable of. It clearly wouldn’t do to be taken alive.”
Again, the British farmers exchanged wary glances. None of them made a move to follow the officer’s advice. A few moments later, Jusci returned and spoke quietly with Ursus. The engineer went in turn to Livius.
“He thinks he may have found the place where they landed and probably where they left … but there is something strange.”
The optio nodded, and indicated the Iceni should show them. Jusci led them away from the camp, along a path trampled deeply through the marsh-grass. Very quickly, the mists of the sea-fret closed around them, but they were clearly on the right trail, for dribbles of blood indicated that this was the way the missing slave had been dragged. Eventually they reached the muddy shoreline, but the trail didn’t end there. Visible below the brackish water, moving away from the island in a vaguely northeastern direction, a swathe of passage had been cut through the dense green fronds of crowfoot. In fact, various torn fragments of the weed were still floating on the surface.
“And what is supposed to be strange?” Livius said.
Ursus shrugged. “Well … owing to the damage done to the underwater vegetation, Jusci wonders if they swam.”
“Swam!”
“There’s no sign any craft have been moored here.” The engineer bent down. “There is this, however.” He indicated a large dint in the mud, perhaps the length of a man’s forearm from elbow to fingertips, half as wide, and two or more handbreadths deep. “Jusci feels it’s a footprint.”
At first Livius made no reply. Then he placed his own booted foot in the depression … it occupied less than a quarter of it. “Ridiculous,” he said.
Ursus, who hadn’t been entirely sure about this, himself, turned and glanced at the Iceni. The guide watched them both intently, apparently certain that he was correct.
“Tell your scout,” Livius scornfully added, “that were his country inhabited by elephants, I suspect we would have found out about it by now.” On the way back to the rafts, he added quietly: “I’m becoming more and more convinced that the Iceni is working against us, Ursus. A footprint indeed! Does he take us for fools? Does he think Romans frighten so easily?”
Ursus didn’t reply. He was too busy wondering what else, if not a gigantic foot, might have left so fresh and deep an impression. And nothing sprang to mind.
When they returned to the rafts, the legionaries, now helmeted and fully mailed under their plating and wearing thick leather breeches under their battle-skirts, were in position at their poles, four on each craft. The Britons, however, had chosen to remain on the shore. They watched Livius nervously as he stalked towards them.
“What is this?” he demanded angrily. “I ordered everyone back on the boats.”
“They say they aren’t coming, sir,” explained a squat, swarthy soldier of Thracian origin called Drusus. “They say this is now a military operation, and they are civilians.”
The Britons gazed boldly at Livius, as if challenging him to deny the truth of that statement, though by their fidgeting, they were clearly uncertain about their position. Livius turned his glare upon Ursus.
“What’s the matter with them? They call themselves warriors!”
The engineer sighed. “They don’t call themselves warriors … they call themselves farmers.” As before, his tone implied some sympathy with that position.
The optio pointed back into the fog. “For pity’s sake, man … that’s your apprentice hanging up there. Don’t you care?”
“I grieve his death, but I’d rather it didn’t lead us headlong into some kind of trap.”
“There’ll be no trap. Like I said, they don’t know we’re coming.”
“Are we sure of that, Livius? We’re like children out here. They could be watching us now, and we wouldn’t even know it.”
At these words, every man present, even the legionaries, glanced out into the cloying vapour. It drifted over the waterways in dark veils.
“Enough defeatist talk!” Livius snapped. “There’s no other course we can take. We’re here to map these fens, and we can scarcely do that with a band of killers on the loose.”
“Couldn’t we return to Camulodunum for more men?” the engineer wondered.
Livius smiled thinly and then stepped onto the first raft. “Spoken like a true civilian. I think, friend Ursus, you underestimate the men of the Twentieth Legion. Very well … if these British cowards choose to be marooned here, let them. I’m sure they’ll enjoy the isolation of it, the loneliness, the cold when night comes, the lack of food and fresh water, the distinct possibility that the murdering renegades might return …”
He ordered his men to strike off, but his terrible words had dropped like stones on the tense farmers, and one after another, they scurried to come aboard. Three made it onto Livius’s raft, before he stopped them.
“The rest of you on the second barge!” he shouted. “Except for you.” And he pointed a long, straight finger at Jusci. The two men’s eyes met. The distrust between them was almost tangible. “I want you where I can see you,” the optio added.
Smiling to himself, the Iceni sauntered arrogantly out into the knee-deep wat
er and clambered aboard. A moment later, he turned to the three farmers now crouching in the stern, grinned and said something to them in their own language. Despite their growing terror, it brought smiles to their pale faces.
“Damn it, no more of that!” Livius barked. “If you must speak, speak in a language I can understand.”
To the optio’s surprise, the scout then did, addressing him in the Latin tongue of the Gallo-Romans. “Is well,” he said. “I speak your language, no?”
“Good,” said Livius, caught unawares.
“Yes.” Jusci nodded. “Is good to know other language, no?”
“No more talking,” the officer replied. “Get to the front, and follow this underwater trail you’ve supposedly spotted. And don’t try anything, or I’ll have you nailed to the nearest cross.”
Without another word, the Iceni moved to the front of the raft and lay down full length, scanning the smooth surface of the broad. Satisfied, Livius turned back to ensure that Ursus and the second craft were following. They were, only twenty or thirty paces behind. That made him feel better, reminded him that he was in command here, and more importantly, that this mission had now become an opportunity to bring that command to the attention of his superiors. He wasn’t quite sure who he was coming up against, but he knew that in close combat, the hardened veterans of the Twentieth were more than a match for any man. With luck, he’d have brought the miscreants to justice by evening. All that would matter then was wording his report so that it emphasised his own role. An officer who could display courage and skill in as alien an environment as this was an officer of note.
He stood at the prow like a carved effigy as the raft circumnavigated the island and then pressed on into deeper, blacker waters. It struck Livius that in doing this, he exposed himself to danger from arrows, slings and javelins, but surely it was part of the commanding officer’s task to set a brave example to those under him. And in any case, the grey mist was now billowing even more thickly than before. It was unlikely that even the sharpest-eyed denizen of the marsh would see enough to make an accurate shot.