The War at the Edge of the World

by Ian Ross

  They crossed the street from the compound and entered the house opposite. There were two storeys, built around a little pillared courtyard; Marcellinus tossed his cloak to a slave in the entrance hall and then led Castus up the stairs to a door at the end of the corridor. He knocked and waited until they heard the voice of Strabo from inside.

  ‘Gentlemen, come in,’ the secretary said. He looked flustered, and quickly dusted the knees of his breeches, as if he had just been kneeling. ‘Can I offer you some wine, perhaps?’

  ‘No thanks,’ Marcellinus replied. He seated himself on a stool by the window. Castus leaned back against the door.

  ‘In what capacity were you sent on this assignment?’ the envoy asked, hard and direct. Strabo raised an eyebrow, then he sat down on a divan piled with bedding.

  ‘As the governor’s representative, of course…’

  ‘A position of great trust for a mere secretary, no? Tell me plainly, Strabo. What is your rank and station?’

  As he watched, Castus saw a swift change come over the secretary: the baffled act fell away, and instead he appeared suddenly more controlled and focused.

  ‘You tell me, envoy. Since you seem to have your suspicions already.’

  Marcellinus smiled. He turned to address Castus now. ‘Centurion,’ he said, ‘have you ever heard of the agentes in rebus?’

  ‘No,’ Castus replied, shrugging against the door. The title sounded so bland it could mean anything, or nothing.

  ‘They’re a corps of imperial messengers and investigators. They operate in great secrecy, and take their orders from the Office of Notaries and the emperor himself. One of their agents is placed in every provincial governor’s staff.’

  ‘Spies, you mean?’ Castus pushed himself away from the door with his shoulders. The top of his head brushed the low ceiling. Strabo was smiling to himself.

  ‘Not spies exactly, no,’ the secretary said. ‘But your guess is correct, envoy. I am an imperial agent, as you suspect. I was despatched eighteen months ago from the court in Treveris to investigate the loyalties of Aurelius Arpagius, governor of this province. Now I have been ordered to accompany you and… make sure everything proceeds in accordance with the emperor’s wishes.’

  ‘So why did you go to that house in town last night?’ Castus demanded. He had taken a step forward as he spoke. Marcellinus frowned, raising a calming hand.

  ‘So it was you that followed me?’ Strabo said. ‘I thought somebody did. But I guessed you would send one of your men, or a slave, rather than do it yourself.’

  ‘Where did he go?’ Marcellinus asked abruptly, confused. ‘What is this?’

  ‘He went to a house – I don’t know why. There were symbols scratched on the door. Something like a ship, and a sun-wheel thing. An X with a line through it.’

  Marcellinus paused, still frowning. Then he suddenly threw back his head and laughed. ‘Oh, wonderful!’ he cried.

  ‘What I do, or believe, is none of your concern,’ Strabo said quietly. ‘My loyalties to the emperors are beyond question.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Castus said.

  Marcellinus was grinning, teeth clenched. ‘Those were Christian symbols,’ he said. ‘Our friend Strabo is the follower of an illicit superstition!’

  ‘Such a term proves your ignorance,’ Strabo said, with more anger than his expression suggested. ‘My faith is sincere, as are my loyalties!’

  Castus knew little about Christianity. It was a secret religious cult, and its followers denied the gods and the authority of the emperors, and went into tombs to worship the ghosts of executed criminals and eat the flesh of the dead. More importantly, it was illegal. Shortly before the Persian war there had been an order discharging Christians from the legions without honour. Then, a few years later, an imperial edict had outlawed the practices of the cult entirely. But in the military fortresses of the Danube there had been little visible sign of it. Could there really be Christians in Coria? Castus felt a cold churning in his stomach. Such men were clearly deluded idiots, but possibly they were also traitorous, even dangerous. Being in the same room with one now was alarming.

  ‘To be frank, I’m not too concerned about your faith,’ Marcellinus said. ‘You can believe whatever sordid fantasies you wish. Just keep it to yourself. I trust the centurion here is a tolerant man?’

  Castus just grunted. He could only speak for himself, but he worried about the effect on his men if they found out.

  ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ Strabo said with a cool tone. ‘Believe me, I’ve suffered more for the truth than you can know. But our Augustus Constantius is also a tolerant man, and has shown an inspired lack of the persecuting fervour so common in his imperial colleagues.’

  ‘So he sent you here, out of the way? Very convenient for everyone. I had believed that the imperial service was purged of all your fellow cultists… But no matter. Now everything’s out in the open. Or is there more you’d like to disclose?’

  ‘No, nothing more. But, as for my role – we all have our orders. Just like you, envoy. And you, centurion. My own orders require me to keep silent on many matters. I hope you can respect that, as you respect the emperor I am glad to serve.’

  ‘Very well,’ Marcellinus said, standing up. ‘I’m glad we understand each other, Agent Strabo.’

  They reached the Wall of Hadrian at dawn the next day. It was misty, and the fortifications appeared suddenly ahead of them, a hard pale line of stone in all that empty grey. As they drew closer, Castus could make out the huts and sheds lining the road that led up to the single gate. The smell of cooking fires too – neither he nor his men had breakfasted yet, and his guts tightened.

  Marcellinus rode forward and spoke to the decurion of the cavalry detachment on guard, while Castus and his men stood and stamped in the damp morning chill. Then the gates swung open, and they moved on along the road into the borderland beyond.

  There was no change, at first, in the landscape. Fields to either side, and small farms or homesteads. All this country, Castus knew, had been part of the empire once. Now the tribes of the border were Roman allies, settled and peaceable – or so Marcellinus had claimed. He said that they would meet a party of these tribesmen a day or two further north, who would accompany them to the Pictish chiefs’ meeting. Castus was wary of that idea – far better to keep themselves apart from the locals, he thought. Nobody outside the bounds of Roman control could be trusted. But Marcellinus understood their ways, and they would all have to trust in that understanding now. Castus would also have to trust in the interpreter that Marcellinus had hired at Coria, a weaselly Briton with a nervous twitch, named Caccumattus. The little man claimed to be of the Textoverdi tribe, and to speak the language of the Picts fluently, but his Latin was poor enough for Castus to be dubious of his value.

  It was a hard day’s march. The road ran straight as ever, but the horizons rose on either side to bare brown hills, craggy with rock outcrops. The farmland fell away behind them, and they climbed across windy uplands with the sky huge and tumbling with clouds above. At the day’s end they reached the outpost fort of Bremenium, a white-walled bastion on the edge of nowhere. The garrison was made up of frontier scouts, tough wiry men on native ponies, most of them Britons from the mountains in the west of the province. Six of them were ordered by their commander to join the envoy’s party – they would act as forward scouts and guides on the roads ahead.

  At dawn Castus assembled his men in formation before the gates of the fort. Fifty-eight blue-black shields emblazoned with the winged Victory emblem. Fifty-eight armoured bodies, fifty-eight upright spears. He drew himself up stiffly before them, throwing his voice to challenge the breeze coming in across the hillside.

  ‘Men, this is the last outpost of Rome!’ He sounded hoarse, and the wind whined at his back. ‘From now on, whatever you might have heard, we’ll be in enemy country. Remember that, and act accordingly. We might run into some locals along the way, but don’t forget they’re barbarians. Tr
eat them with respect, but keep your distance. And don’t get any ideas about any blue-painted ladies you might happen to meet either – if you want to keep your balls where they’re needed!’

  A few smiles, a ragged laugh. Castus had overheard some of the men back in Coria debating the possible wantonness of the native women.

  ‘We’ve got a hard march still ahead of us,’ he said, raising his voice to reach the men watching from the fort wall. ‘Five days at least. We’ll be camping in the open, so we’ll be making defensive enclosures every night and setting regular watches. You’ve been trained for it, so you know what to do. But keep this in mind, all of you: we’re representing Rome from now on, and the honour of the Sixth Legion. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t get careless. I want you all as smart and tight as you would be on pay parade!’

  Pacing before the front-rank men, he scanned their faces as he passed, trying to read their expressions. The optio, Timotheus, stern and alert. Evagrius, with the century standard across his shoulder. Atrectus looking half-asleep. The cornicen Volusius with his big curled horn ready to give the signal. Vincentius and Culchianus frowning beneath their helmets. All of them grey-faced, uncertain behind the mask of duty. Castus glanced away, composing himself. Unconquered Sun, he silently prayed, Bringer of light and life, let me lead these men well. Let me return them all safely when this is done.

  ‘As I said, this is a peaceful diplomatic mission.’ He smiled, and some of the men smiled with him. He was glad of that. ‘But we’re soldiers, and we’re going into enemy country, so we’re under war discipline from now on. Does everyone understand me?’

  A chorus of dull mumbling from the assembled men. Castus slapped his staff into his meaty palm. ‘Speak up!’ he shouted. ‘We’re going to war. Act like it!’

  ‘Understood!’ the men called back, eagerly now.

  A heartbeat’s pause, a glance away at the empty hillsides, the brown heather.

  ‘Sixth Legion,’ he shouted, ‘are you ready for war?’

  ‘Ready!’ the traditional cry came back.

  ‘Are you ready for war?’

  ‘Ready!’

  ‘ARE YOU READY FOR WAR?’

  ‘READY!’

  The echo of their voices died over the hillside, into the wind.

  ‘Optio, form up the men. Cornicen, prepare to sound the advance.’

  Behind him, fifty-eight men assembled into marching formation as the slaves drew the pack mules together. The mounted scouts trotted forwards onto the flanks, edging the road. Marcellinus and Strabo nudged their horses into motion.

  ‘Ad-vance!’

  The horn rang out, a sustained double note, and a last cheer went up from the men in the fort as the century swung forward in march step.

  They moved off, a small column in the great emptiness of the landscape, dwindling slowly until the sentries on the gatehouse saw them vanish into the far distance and the sound of their marching feet faded to nothing.

  5

  ‘Friends or foes? What do you think?’

  ‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ Castus replied. Timotheus nodded grimly as both of them watched the scouts crossing the stream and galloping back towards them.

  All day the conical hill had been visible on the flat horizon, the two blunt peaks to either side giving it the look of a misshapen head rising between massive hunched shoulders. Now they were close enough to make out the scattering of fires on the slopes below the hill, tiny sparks in the dimness of late afternoon, and the figures that moved around the fires.

  Marcellinus spurred his horse forward as the scouts approached, riding down to meet them. Castus watched, dubious. Behind him, the men of the century waited on the ridge, shields readied, silent. Marcellinus galloped back.

  ‘It’s as I’d hoped,’ he called out. ‘Senomaglus, chief of the Votadini, with a party of his men. They’ll escort us up to the Pictish meeting.’

  ‘We don’t need an escort,’ Castus said. ‘And neither do you, envoy.’

  Marcellinus was grinning, leaning from the saddle. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Senomaglus is a friend of Rome, a good man. I knew him well, many years ago. It’s a mark of respect for his men to accompany us.’

  ‘How many men?’

  ‘Around a hundred, the scout said.’

  Castus whistled between his teeth. ‘Can’t we keep our distance?’

  ‘Not without giving offence. Form your men up and follow. There’s a good camping ground two miles on beside the river.’

  ‘Wait…’ Castus called, but the envoy had already wheeled his horse and plunged away towards the stream, his cloak flying out behind him. Castus jutted two fingers at the pair of mounted scouts, then pointed away after Marcellinus. The two men saluted and cantered away again after the envoy.

  ‘Form up,’ he said to Timotheus. ‘Double pace – let’s go.’

  If he had been expecting savages, he was disappointed. Senomaglus of the Votadini resembled a prosperous Gallic wine merchant, or even a retired legionary: clean-shaven, with close-cropped white hair and a tanned vigorous face. His clothes were neat and well cut, and there was a heavy gold torque at his neck, not unlike the one Castus himself wore. His warriors were a little more exotic: long-haired, some bearded, in long tunics knotted between the thighs, but they looked very much like the more rustic Britons of the Roman province. Castus had seen men like that every day in the fields and villages around Eboracum. These carried spears and small square shields, but there was little else to mark them out as barbarians.

  The two parties faced each other on the level ground between the hill and the river. Marcellinus and the Votadini chief rode forward, met, and embraced from the saddle, both grinning like long-lost friends.

  ‘Well, he is an allied ruler, I suppose,’ Castus said. ‘Timotheus, three times long life for the envoy’s friend!’

  The optio gave the order, and the legionaries threw up their hands in salute, crying out vivat, vivat, vivat in a martial yell. The effect on the Votadini was almost amusing: they fell back a pace, raising their shields, until they realised they were not about to be attacked. Castus hid his smirk as the barbarians, chastened, gave a ragged cheer in response.

  The camping ground was rutted with the marks of old fortifications. Clearly Roman armies had passed through here before. There had once been a fort too; everywhere the turf and long grass was broken by chunks of moss-covered masonry. It wasn’t surprising, Castus thought: it was an excellent location, and for the last two days they had been following the remains of the old road into the north. Strange to think of other men like him, other legionaries like his own, marching across this land generations ago. He wondered where their bones lay now – back home in a funerary urn, or lost somewhere in these dull green hills?

  By evening they had set up the tent lines in an angle of the old fortifications, dug scratch trenches to mark off the defensive perimeter and sent a party of men with the slaves to the river to draw water. The cooking fires smoked, and the mounted scouts groomed their horses. Castus sat on a folding stool outside his tent, dictating the daily report to Evagrius: Fifteen miles marched, direction north-west, no injuries, weather fair. Meeting with tribal host of Votadini. The standard-bearer passed him the tablet, and he gave the indecipherable scribble scored into the wax a cursory glance and handed it back. He mused for a moment on all the other centurions who must have filled in their reports and muster rolls in this place, once upon a time. It was a comforting thought. Throwing up his arms, he yawned loudly and stretched, feeling the muscles of his shoulders bunch around his ears. The camp was filled with a low golden light, peculiar to this country. Unfortunately it was also filled with tiny flying insects, which darted around his head, drawn to the sweat of his scalp. Swatting, cursing, he ate his cold meat and hardtack, drank his vinegar wine and waited for Marcellinus to return from the Votadini camp.

  ‘Centurion? Do you mind if I sit with you?’

  It was Strabo. The little secretary – imperial agent,
Castus reminded himself – was considerably less dapper now than when they had left Eboracum together. His beard was wilder, and he had taken to wearing a native cloak of dogtooth checks. Castus had not spoken to him for the last three days, since the debate at Coria.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he said, and fetched a second folding stool from his tent.

  ‘I wanted to apologise,’ Strabo said, once he was seated, ‘if I seemed rude back in Coria. I don’t blame you for following me – you were concerned, of course, about the integrity of our assignment. Ironic, isn’t it, that it should be you spying on me!’

  He laughed, sounding ill at ease. Castus continued chewing his last hunk of hard bread.

  ‘But I don’t take you for a malicious man, centurion. Your intentions were good, you were not merely… prying. So, I’m sorry if I took it badly.’

  Castus nodded, and then swallowed thickly. ‘Tell me something,’ he asked. ‘This… religion of yours’ – he glanced around quickly, but none of the men were within earshot – ‘this Christian thing… What’s it all about? I mean, what do you do?’

  ‘What do we do? The same as any other men. We are not such strange beings. We believe in one God, and in the mercy of His son, who died for our sins.’

  ‘Sins?’ Castus said. He had a peculiar taste in his mouth, and took another slug of sour wine. ‘Like what? I mean… is it true that you eat the flesh of the dead?’

  Strabo threw back his head and laughed, genuinely amused. Castus frowned darkly. He had not been aware that it was a joke.

  ‘You refer to the blessed sacrament of the eucharist,’ Strabo said, smiling. ‘No, it does not involve actual flesh-eating – that is an old, old calumny!’

  ‘A what...? Well, never mind. But how can you serve the emperors when you don’t believe in the gods?’

  Strabo sucked his cheek, his beard twitching. ‘My brothers have debated that question for hundreds of years,’ he said.

  Castus raised an eyebrow, puzzled. Had there really been Christians for hundreds of years? He’d had no idea.