Vindolanda

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  ‘You were right,’ Crispinus conceded. ‘There are a lot more of them than we saw. A fight would have been harder than I thought. Yet I believe that I command. As I said, you presume a great deal to decide without consulting me.’

  ‘It’s my job,’ Ferox said. ‘Usually there is no time to seek approval. I am here to keep Rome’s peace, if I can. Once the main body came up we could have beaten this lot – probably. But we would have lost men, they would have lost a lot more and the rest of them would hate us. This way everyone is alive and we have a loyal ally.’

  It started to rain, which made the wait for the column to arrive seem even longer. They pitched camp on the fairly level ground in front of the hillock where Egus and his band had waited. By now there were probably over a thousand Britons watching the soldiers as they went through the routine of entrenching and laying out the tent-lines.

  ‘They don’t get a lot of entertainment up here,’ Vindex said.

  The hostage, lank hair plastered flat by the rain and huddled in his cloak, was sent to Crispinus’ tent as soon as this was erected, at the junction where the line of the two main roads in the camp met, just as if this was a proper fort.

  ‘Pity we could not get up into the next valley,’ Ferox said, half thinking aloud.

  Crispinus scanned the hillsides in the fading light, watching the Selgovae as they watched the Romans. ‘We are with allies, so you tell me. And we have their leader’s son at our mercy.’

  ‘If that’s who he is, and assuming his father actually likes him.’

  For the first time Crispinus appeared shocked.

  ‘It will probably be all right,’ Ferox said. ‘Probably.’

  X

  IT WAS A nervous night in a cold camp, the rain turning into a downpour that doused fires and made it hard to see very far or hear any movement until it was close. Crispinus and the other senior officers slept very little, all of them visiting the sentries in each of the four watches. Early in the third watch there was a scare from the picket in front of the northern entrance to the camp.

  ‘There’s something out there, sir.’ The Tungrian in charge of the six-man picket was certain. ‘Something moving towards us.’

  Crispinus and the other equestrian officers had heard the call and run to see what was happening. They squinted as they tried to see in spite of the driving rain.

  ‘There are a lot of them.’ Cerialis had almost to shout into the tribune’s ear to be heard above the howling wind. ‘Look, up there!’ He pointed. ‘We should sound the alarm.’

  Crispinus hesitated, and then jumped when a hooded and cloaked figure slid out of the darkness and came up beside him. He fumbled as he tried to grab the wet handgrip of his sword.

  ‘I’m on your side, tribune,’ Ferox said, throwing back the hood and grinning.

  ‘Have you been out there?’ Crispinus was breathing hard, his face so battered by the rain that it felt numb.

  ‘Just took a little walk.’

  ‘They’re coming closer!’ Cerialis shouted again, but by some chance the wind slackened and his voice sounded terribly loud.

  ‘It’s cows,’ Ferox said. ‘The warriors have all gone to shelter and I don’t blame ’em. It’s just a herd of cows.’ He was feeling happy, after testing himself to see whether he could still move quietly in the darkness. Silurian boys were taught stealth and concealment from infancy, to help them hunt game and enemies alike, but he knew that he was out of practice. In truth the main danger on a night like this was stumbling into someone else rather than being spotted from a distance.

  The rain stopped late in the night, and in a grey, sunless dawn the column prepared to move. There was no sign of the Selgovae, apart from a thin tendril of smoke rising from one of the hearths in a farm half a mile away, but there was also no sign of a horse and mule, taken from inside the camp. The animals had simply vanished, and no one seemed convinced when Ferox assured them that the creatures had been stolen.

  ‘But how did they do it?’ Crispinus demanded, since all his sentries swore that they had seen nothing.

  ‘Why is as big a question,’ Brocchus suggested. ‘Do they mean to break the agreement?’

  ‘They did it because they could,’ Ferox said, ‘and to show you that they could and so are men to be treated with respect. They could do it because men get tired and sleepy on guard, and if you take the time and know what you are about you can get past them.’ He had to keep reminding himself that none of these men had spent long in this part of the world, apart from Titus Annius, who did not ask foolish questions. ‘They’re not breaking the treaty. If they were doing that we’d be counting slit throats, not a couple of animals gone.’

  ‘Allies aren’t supposed to rob each other.’ Cerialis sounded genuinely offended.

  ‘They see it as up to us to look after our property. If we’re daft enough to let ourselves be robbed then that’s not their fault.’

  Crispinus frowned. ‘This is a strange place,’ he said.

  The column moved out in the usual order, save for the addition of twenty more Batavians to add to the tribune’s escort when he joined Ferox and the scouts. They headed westwards, as far as the land allowed, which at first was not much, so that they kept going north into the teeth of a cold wind. The aim was to move closer to the bigger force coming up the Western Road under the legate of II Augusta, and at noon they dropped into another valley taking them in that direction. They were sheltered from the wind, but the sky remained a resolute and unbroken field of grey.

  In spite of the agreement with Egus and his people, there was little more sign of life. Farms were empty when they arrived, although now and again they saw flocks of sheep and clusters of brown cows in the far distance. Warriors riding ponies watched them, sometimes letting Vindex’s men come close enough to exchange greetings or joking insults.

  Just before noon they left the territory of Egus’ people and entered the lands of another chief, a man named Venutius, who never looked anyone in the eye and was renowned as a great cattle thief.

  ‘You make that sound like a compliment,’ Crispinus said when Ferox described the man.

  ‘It is in these parts.’

  ‘Well, at least he ought to have enough hides to pay his tax.’

  The valley was just as empty, but the sides were dotted with clusters of pine trees, straggling groups of alder, and thick heather.

  Crispinus was beginning to learn. ‘I presume that we are being watched.’ Ferox just nodded.

  An hour later they saw a dozen riders some way ahead. Half an hour after that there were other horsemen high on the hills behind them, watching the main force march along the bottom of the valley. One of Vindex’s scouts came back, clutching at his side. His tunic was dark with a spreading patch of blood, which oozed between his fingers as he pressed them against the wound. He had been one of a pair of men sent along the valley side to the left. The other warrior did not return.

  Ferox and Crispinus reached the wounded man as Vindex and two others were lowering him to the ground.

  ‘Bastards with horses marked on their heads,’ Vindex told them, looking grim even by his standards. ‘Shouldn’t have happened, though. The lad he was with rushed after the first one he saw. He’s one of the new boys.’ He shook his head. ‘Brigus here went after him and three of the buggers jumped him.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ Crispinus asked.

  Ferox was scanning the trees on either side. ‘That we need to be more careful. And that we are probably in for a fight.’

  Vindex kept his scouts closer from then on, and let the Batavian horsemen leading the main force come close before he pressed on. More and more little groups of warriors on horseback and on foot moved on the heights above them. A rider came from Brocchus to say that there were others closing in behind them.

  They pressed on, fighting a sense that the valley was about to close in over them. The land sloped down and a little brook meandered along, finding the easiest path downhill. They had to cross
the water again and again, following a track used by cattle. Up ahead there was the blackened trunk of an oak tree, struck by lightning and long since hollowed out, yet still standing.

  ‘I see it,’ Ferox said when he saw Vindex turn round. Crispinus strained, shading his eyes against the pale glare from the clouds, but shook his head because he could not make it out, until they got closer. Then he blanched.

  The severed head of the lost scout was nailed to the wood. Whoever had done it had used an army nail, one of the long heavy iron pieces used to fasten great beams of timber. They had also cut off the man’s genitals and stuffed them into his mouth. Above the head, impaled on another long nail, was a straw effigy of a man, dressed in a tunic with red wool for hair and grey to show a breastplate and helmet. There was something wrapped around one of its arms and tied into place.

  ‘Do not touch it!’ one of the Brigantes shouted as Ferox jumped down and walked towards the ghastly warnings. Vindex did not speak, but looked as worried.

  ‘It’s not meant for me,’ the centurion told then, ‘so it cannot harm me.’ He hoped that he was right. ‘Get me a sack.’

  The red-headed doll must be Cerialis, and that would fit with the attack on his wife, even though Ferox could not understand why the couple were singled out. He pulled the little figure off, ripping it to get it past the broad head of the nail. On the arm was a tiny scroll of papyrus, covered on both sides with writing in Greek characters, although many of the words did not make sense. ‘Barbaso Barbasoch Barbasoch,’ it began and looked a lot like magic, some spell or curse presumably meant to strike the prefect of the Batavians.

  ‘I thought they did not read and write up here,’ Crispinus said, his face almost as grey as his hair.

  ‘They don’t.’ Ferox tore the doll to pieces and flung them in the air, and then spun around his arms held high. ‘The spell is broken!’ he yelled. Vindex touched the wheel of Taranis to his lips. The centurion used his knife to prise the second nail loose. Vindex helped him and they freed the head and put it in the sack so that they could treat the remains with honour when the force stopped for the night.

  The main column would not have to see this grim message, but Ferox had little doubt that word would spread like wildfire and worry the men. He was known to be a strange man and a Briton, so perhaps his little charade of dispelling the curse would help.

  Late in the afternoon the cloud thinned and they saw the sun for the first time that day as it set in magnificent splendour. Mounted Selgovae hovered around them, keeping well away as the column closed up and laid out the camp. They had stopped an hour earlier than usual and did their best to dig in the stony soil; in the end they had to be content with a ditch not much more than a foot deep. The wall was better, with a base of turves, some piled earth, built up with stones pulled out of the soil, gathered off the ground and ripped from the cattle pens around a cluster of round houses. They built just three entrances, for the fourth wall lay alongside the stream, and in each of the openings the left-hand wall curved out in front of the gateway. It meant any attacker would have to swerve to come in, all the while exposing their unshielded right side.

  No tents were pitched, so that the perimeter was as small as possible while still enclosing all the men and the animals. Crispinus detailed double the normal number of men to stand guard, and told the rest to sleep rolled up in their cloaks and with their arms to hand. At least it was dry so that fires could be lit and a hot meal prepared. Oddly, for all the rumours of severed heads and curses, the mood was brighter than the previous night. Ferox ate quickly and slept during the last hours of daylight. He had given the scroll to Philo to decipher and the task cheered the young slave, making him feel useful and important. After a moment’s glance he told his master that the language was a mix of Greek, Aramaic, Old Hebrew and Egyptian, but that much of it was gibberish or secret words of power. Yet one theme was repeated in all the tongues. ‘Blood of king, blood of queen, blood of power and blood of woe,’ it said again and again. ‘It will take longer to work it all out,’ the slave said. ‘I’ll keep at it.’

  ‘Good lad,’ Ferox told him. ‘It may be important.’

  *

  Halfway through the first watch Ferox slipped over the wall beside the stream. His face was smeared with ash so that his skin did not shine. He wore his boots and trousers but no tunic and was glad of the heavy hooded cloak because the air was chill. His only weapon was his army-issue dagger, unsheathed and tucked into the back of the simple rope belt he wore. Vindex had wanted to come, but the Brigantian was not used to this sort of work, and Ferox was happier on his own. He did not tell anyone else of his plan, including Crispinus and the other officers. If nothing happened then they would be none the wiser.

  At first it was easier than expected. A stallion, one of many ridden by the ala Petriana, sniffed a mare on heat and began to whinny and pull at the stake to which he was tethered. Men gathered, there was shouting, and the guards on the wall by the stream turned to see, giving him all the time in the world to vault the rampart, jump to the far bank of the stream, run ten paces and then fall flat and lie still. Lying still was a big part of the game, and that was why the elders taught Silurian boys to love silence and stillness. Covered in the long cloak he would be hard to see. He waited until he was sure that no one had spotted him, then made himself wait even longer before he began to crawl slowly forward, wondered why whenever a man did this it took him straight over a cowpat, and then stopped, watching and listening.

  It was another hour or more – time was hard to judge because the cloud covered the stars and there was no moon – before he sensed and then saw figures ahead of him. By now he was some five or six hundred paces away from the outlying pickets, having swung around the camp in a big arc, helped by a series of gullies deep enough to jog along if he kept low and was careful.

  There were Britons out on the slope and the fools were talking. He expected that of Roman soldiers, men who had stood guard so many times than even on campaign it came to feel routine and safe. More than once he had heard chatter and laughter from the camp, the sound carrying clearly in the still air. Now there were two men whispering as they crouched behind some boulders some way in front of him. They were tribesmen, but the accents did not sound local and neither was easy to understand.

  Ferox lay flat on the earth, watching them. He spotted another pair about a hundred paces to the men’s right, and searched until he found two more a little further away to the left and better hidden. After a while he crawled back into the gully and crept along it, stopping as always to wait and listen as he worked his way gradually up the slope.

  He sensed the man before he saw or heard him, and could not have explained to anyone how he knew. The centurion lay on his chest, head raised to scan the darkness. At last he saw him, a monstrously tall man standing straight and still, looking down into the valley. He did not move or speak, and Ferox did not sense that he knew the centurion was there. He told himself that he was getting old and sloppy to go so close before spotting the man.

  There were shouts from the Roman camp. Probably another false alarm because soon there was silence again. All the while the huge man stood like a statue. He looked to be seven or eight feet tall, but then the cloud parted for a moment and in the bright starlight Ferox saw that the man wore a stag’s head, antlers and all, as a headdress. He was tall enough, his bare chest lean and muscled, but he was no giant or being from the Otherworld, just a man who could be killed. The cloud closed and the centurion waited for his eyes to adapt again to the dark.

  Ferox began to inch forward.

  More shapes came out of the shadows towards the man wearing antlers.

  ‘Are you ready?’ The voice was a strong one, used to command, and Ferox guessed that it was from the tall man. Two others appeared beside him.

  ‘Soon. The lot took longer than I thought, but the ones are chosen and have taken their draughts.’

  ‘Good. Strike at the ones on this side. There are ten or
twelve. Tell them to pay no heed to the enemy’s shouts or blades. Each of them will be given the strength of a hundred. They must kill and burn until there are none left to kill and burn or they fall and receive their reward.’

  ‘Yes, lord.’ None of the men sounded like Selgovae, but this one spoke like a southerner, maybe even like the Trinovantes. Ferox wondered about the soldier missing from the tower. Had he really slaughtered his comrades and deserted to join these fanatics?

  ‘Good, then go to them and tell them that I will invoke the pleasure of Cernunnos to guide their hands and uplift their hearts. I will be here watching their glory.’

  That’s nice, Ferox thought, and a good excuse if anyone was fool enough to swallow it.

  ‘Follow the raven! Follow the stag! Follow the stallion!’ the tall man called, lifting his arms and no longer caring about quiet.

  The shout seemed to echo across the valley and Ferox was sure that the Romans would hear it. Maybe that was what the man wanted.

  ‘Go my friends, go!’

  The two other men slipped away, going towards a darker shade in the night that was a long patch of woodland. Ferox wondered whether to follow and try to catch the southerner, but doubted that it was possible. Instead he let them go and then resumed his snail-paced crawl.

  In the end it was easy. The tall man began to chant, dancing round and round in a circle.

  ‘O Morrigan! O Cernunnos! O Vinotonus!’ he screamed, and drew a long sword, waving it in the air. ‘O Isis! O Hades! O unnamed gods and demons of darkness!’

  Ferox was close now, reaching back to pull out his pugio. The man was chanting, calling on gods from many lands, and as he spun again, facing away, the centurion pushed himself up.

  ‘Barbaso Barbasoch Barbasoch!’ The man turned. Spittle flew into Ferox’s face as his left hand seized the man’s throat, grabbing a heavy torc, and the right hand punched the knife under the man’s ribs. The priest gasped and choked as the centurion drove the dagger further in, twisting the blade, his hand warm with fresh blood.