The War at the Edge of the World

by Ian Ross

  ‘What I believe,’ the secretary went on, ‘is that our duties to the world of the spirit and our duties to the world of the flesh – the material world, I should say, to avoid misunderstandings – are quite separate. Where they do not contradict, we can give our allegiance and our service to the earthly powers. To Caesar render what is his, as our teacher said. In my case, I serve the Augustus Constantius willingly and with love. He is the only one of the emperors to have never seriously persecuted the faithful. A man of great wisdom and foresight. And so, by serving him I serve justice and truth, and by extension I serve God. As do we all.’

  Castus felt unable to meet Strabo’s inquisitive gaze. The conversation was unsettling his guts, and he wished he had not raised the subject.

  ‘Is your god also in this place, then?’ he said, flinging out a hand at the hills, the river, the broken turf.

  ‘God is everywhere. His power is infinite. But surely you would agree – do you not worship one god yourself? The being you call the Unconquered Sun?’

  ‘The Sun gives life,’ Castus replied quickly. He touched his brow, as if to ward off an ill omen. ‘The Sun is the chief of the gods. All the others draw their power from him. So I suppose, anyway. He watches over the soldiers – it’s tradition.’

  ‘And tradition is important to you?’

  ‘Of course!’ Castus glanced up at the man, baffled. How could he ask such strange questions? ‘Tradition is all that makes us civilised. The old ways are always best.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the old ways. And here we are, surrounded by them…’ Strabo glanced away at the ruined fortifications in the grass, the layering of old ditches and walls growing indistinguishable in the dusk. ‘Consider,’ he said, ‘how many Roman armies have passed this way, how many legions, all with their dreams of glory, their certainty of victory… What remains of them now? Maybe one day all our works will be like this. Nothing more than hummocks in the turf, for savages to wonder over!’

  Castus snorted, deep in his throat. Fantastical idea, he thought. Then again, perhaps this man wanted the empire to fall? Perhaps he even prayed for it, in his secret gatherings…

  ‘Aren’t you afraid they’ll punish you?’ he said.

  ‘Who? The law, or your gods? I have no fear of either. Death is nothing to one who believes, centurion. The grave is merely a gateway to resurrection, and the bliss of the hereafter. But what about you – what do you think lies on the far side of death?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ Castus said. ‘Just darkness, forgetting. The end of light. It doesn’t matter – it’s what we do here that’s important.’ He stamped his foot on the turf. ‘That’s how people remember us, and that’s how we’re judged. Were we loyal and strong? Did we do our duty like men? Did we fight well when we had to? Anything else is vanity.’

  ‘You’re almost a philosopher, I think,’ Strabo said. Castus stared hard at him, eager that he should not be mocked. But now Marcellinus was approaching, riding across the meadow from the Votadini camp, and Strabo was smiling, getting up and smoothing his tunic.

  ‘I hope our talk has laid to rest any doubts you may have, anyway,’ he said. ‘My business is with the envoy, and the success of our mission. I hope we can strive together towards that end.’

  Castus nodded, and the agent took his leave and walked away towards his tent. Night was falling, the perimeter of the camp lost in gathering gloom, and the smouldering fires were drawing masses of whirling insects. Timotheus would lead the first watch – Castus was glad of that. The talk of death, spirits, strange and secret beliefs had unsettled his mind, and the lonely darkness of the ruined fortification seemed a less comforting place now.

  For two days more they crawled north through the hill country, still following the track of the old road. The men of the Sixth Legion marched in a compact mass, surrounding their baggage mules, with the scouts riding at the flanks. The Votadini warriors flowed around them in wild array, running on ahead and streaming to either side over the flanks of the hills. Some of them, mounted on their shaggy little ponies, rode alongside the Romans and called out to them; many of the soldiers knew the native British language, and some called back, but Castus soon ordered them to keep silence. The Votadini might be allies, but he didn’t want his men striking up bonds with them.

  At the end of the second day they reached the sea, the water spreading a sheet of dull silver in the low light. It was the mouth of an estuary, Marcellinus said, leading to the river that would take them to the Pictish meeting place. Here too there were old fortifications on the hill above the shore – this whole country was scarred with the welts of Roman camps and forts and roads – and once again the legionaries camped within the circuit of the fallen walls. The Votadini host whooped and sang from their own fires on the lower slopes of the hill.

  ‘Why are they going to the meeting too?’ Castus asked Marcellinus. They were sitting beside the fire in darkness, swatting at the insects. ‘The Votadini aren’t Picts, are they?’

  ‘No, but they have treaties with them, as do we,’ the envoy replied. ‘They’re brother peoples anyway – the Picts speak a dialect of the British language. They look different, but they have many links between them. Senomaglus is attending the meeting as a guest – he can’t vote on the high chieftainship, but he’s expected to approve it. As am I, of course.’

  ‘They vote for their chiefs?’ Castus asked. From the perimeter he heard the sentry’s cry. The smell of the sea, rich and exotic, rose on the night breeze.

  ‘Oh, yes. In fact, they have an odd system for it. A chief cannot be succeeded by his own son, only by a male relative from the female line. So a brother, for example, or a cousin on his mother’s side.’

  ‘Makes the women quite powerful, then?’

  ‘Very astute! Yes, it does. They can’t rule directly, but they have a lot of influence. But it’s a good system, if an odd one. The Picts claim it avoids dynasties – they’re very keen on their freedom, and don’t like monopolies of rule – but more importantly it gives them a large number of mature experienced candidates to choose from. Rome has often suffered from underage emperors succeeding their fathers.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Castus winged his shoulders. He remembered the governor, Arpagius, telling him that the barbarians may not understand the abdication of the old Augusti. Might take it as a sign of weakness. Perhaps they were more sophisticated than that after all?

  ‘So what have you learned from our allies then?’ he asked, poking at the fire with a stick. ‘About what’s going on. Did the old Pictish king die naturally, or what?’

  Sparks rose, lighting Marcellinus’s face. Since crossing the border, the envoy seemed to have shed part of himself – part of his Romanness. He looked more like one of the Votadini now than a former Roman military commander.

  ‘We know nothing certain,’ he said carefully. ‘But there are suspicions. Vepogenus was a strong man, an honourable man. He was my friend and my brother by pact, and the news of his death genuinely pained me. But he had a lot of enemies among the tribes. There are also some others among them who… make it their business to stir old animosities.’

  ‘The renegades.’ Castus scowled into the glow of the fire.

  ‘Yes. Strabo must have told you about them. There were three of them, but two killed each other and now only one lives that I know of. A former officer of mine, a Pannonian like you, I think. His name is Julius Decentius.’

  ‘Was it him that killed your boy?’

  Castus saw the envoy visibly flinch as his words registered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Marcellinus said quietly. ‘I don’t want to know either. But he could have been connected with the king’s death. Not alone, though – he would need to work through the ambitions of others. Personally, I believe that the news of Diocletian and Maximian’s abdication provided a spur to a plot against the king. This renegade convinced certain others that the empire would be weak, and this would be a good time to strike at us. Only Vepogenus’s loyalty to the treaty stood
in their way.’

  ‘Any idea who the others might be?’

  ‘Perhaps. A cousin of the king, named Talorcagus. I’ve met him, a very reckless man. He also has a nephew, Drustagnus, who if anything is worse. The king’s own nephew, Vendognus, is a weak and stupid young man, but he has a strong-willed wife, a cousin of his, who may have plans for her own son in the succession. Perhaps all of them are working together. We’ll soon find out.’

  The list of unfamiliar and barbarous names clotted in the air, and Castus doubted he would ever tell one from the others. Back at Eboracum, he had made a few attempts to pick up the local speech, but he had no skill with languages. Latin, a bit of Greek: that was all he had ever needed, and the gargling vowels and slippery-sounding consonants of the British tongue meant nothing to him. But he gave an understanding grunt. Treachery and backstabbing deceit took the same form all over the world, after all, in any language.

  The next morning Castus put his men through a full weapons drill on the grassy plain before the old fort, both to keep them in shape and to impress the watching barbarians. Formation march, shield wall, testudo and skirmish line, then dart and javelin release and charge in the wedge formation they called the boar’s head. The legionaries responded well, still sharp after twelve days on the road. The Votadini seemed impressed too, whooping and yelling their encouragement at first, then falling quiet when they saw the disciplined force of the Roman attack.

  As he formed up his men in line of march once more, Castus felt an enthusiastic energy charging his body. How many years had it been since this savage shore had witnessed Roman troops in battle order? Then he saw Marcellinus, watching from horseback with an appreciative smile, and remembered that this man too had brought an army into this land.

  All that day they marched west along the shore of the estuary. Everywhere the ground rose and knotted into the traces of old fortifications, the marks of Rome. All of it lost in a wilderness now, fallen and forgotten. It was awe-inspiring, and somehow deadening. Castus remembered what Strabo had said in the camp beneath the three peaks: all this great work, all this effort, counting for nothing. By late afternoon they had turned north again, and towards the day’s end they crossed a massive ditch and earth rampart, still clearly visible as it stretched away to the west.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’ Marcellinus called, sitting on his horse at the rampart’s crest. ‘This is the wall of Antoninus, or what’s left of it. The furthest limit of Roman power, about a century and a half ago. Beyond this we’re into Pictland!’

  That evening they camped in the open, and the scouts brought in an ox and a pair of rams they had caught wandering near the old wall. Castus formed the men up at sunset, and they built a rough altar and gave sacrifice to Mars, Jupiter and Sol. Marcellinus took the priestly role, despatching the victim animals with careful dignity, then Castus led the men in the shouted acclamations as the smoke of the altar swirled the smell of fresh blood and cooking meat around them.

  Strabo had not been present for the ceremony; Castus saw him shortly afterwards, wandering back into camp with a grave expression. He was angered by the man’s attitude: whatever his private beliefs, surely he could see the need for unity at a time like this? But the ceremony had done what he wanted. They had asked the gods’ permission to proceed, and no ill omens had been detected. The men’s spirits were better, with the end of the road in sight.

  ‘Roman friends!’ the Votadini chief cried the next morning in his terrible Latin. ‘You come! We go now. We meet Picti! Come – follow!’

  With a wide sweeping gesture he turned his horse northwards. It was misty, and the pack mules stamped and shivered as the slaves secured the tents and kit on their backs. To the east the first rays of the sun were breaking the grey line of the horizon.

  ‘Fall in – prepare to march,’ Castus called. Then the horn sounded and the last stage of their journey began.

  For six miles they followed a straight track across level country, water meadows and patches of forest. This was land long uncultivated, a true border. To the north and east the river looped and shone in the low sunlight, while to the west there were hills and high moorlands dark on the horizon. The Romans marched in close formation, weapons ready; even the Votadini had closed ranks, growing less boisterously confident now they had left their own territories and moved into the land of the Picts. Marcellinus was riding on ahead, tall and straight-backed on his black horse, with the Votadini chief riding at his side and his two slaves coming on behind with thick green branches raised over their heads. At Castus’s back, every soldier’s spear was tipped with a sprig of green leaves, the mark of peaceful intent.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ Timotheus said quietly as they approached a ford across the river.

  ‘I’ve seen them,’ Castus replied. For the last mile he had been noticing the figures among the trees lining the road: men in short tunics carrying spears, running. One of them dashed out onto the verge; for a moment Castus thought the man’s face was heavily scarred, then he saw that the marks were deliberate, dark lines scored into his cheeks and forehead. The effect was alien, even inhuman. Castus fought down a shiver of superstitious dread. They’re only men, he told himself. Nothing we can’t handle.

  The envoy splashed through the ford and rode up onto the track on the far side. A larger group of the tattooed men gathered on the road before him, parting as he approached. Where was Strabo? Castus wanted to look behind him, but feared that his men would notice his anxiety. Already they had begun bunching together, stumbling into each other.

  ‘Order your ranks!’ he called over his shoulder as they gained the dry ground on the other side of the river. ‘Keep formation back there!’

  The ground rose to the north-east, and a line of huge craggy hills sealed the horizon, brown and purple in the afternoon sun. From the woods to one side of the road dashed a small flimsy-looking two-wheeled cart of bent wood and wicker, drawn by a pair of shaggy ponies. A warrior stood upright in the back, brandishing a spear, his face fiercely scarred. There were more and more of these warriors now, lining the road, swirling around the marching column.

  ‘This is looking bad,’ Timotheus said through tight lips. Up ahead, Marcellinus was still riding forward, apparently unmoved by the Picts on all sides. Castus had assumed, back in Eboracum, that the tribal meeting would be a small gathering, a group of chieftains in a hut, or around some standing stone. Now things were beginning to look very different. The hills and woods to either side thronged with barbarians.

  They crested a rise, and a wide valley opened before them, below the craggy hills. A river lined with trees rushed along the valley floor, with open slopes to either side. And the valley was full of men.

  ‘Jupiter’s cock and balls!’ said Timotheus quietly. ‘There are thousands of them!’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  The column had drawn to a halt on the road, the legionaries shuffling together, muttering and exclaiming. Before them, the encampments of the Pictish chiefs appeared to cover the far side of the valley, knots of warriors everywhere across the hills and waiting beside the road.

  ‘We’ve got to stop Marcellinus,’ Castus said quickly, ‘before he leads us right into the middle of that lot… Culchianus! Jog on up to the envoy and tell him to wait. I need to speak to him.’

  Culchianus saluted and ran down the slope after Marcellinus.

  ‘Where’s Strabo got to?’ Castus demanded.

  ‘Back with the mules, centurion, walking beside his horse. Reckon he wants to keep his head down!’

  Up ahead, Castus saw the soldier catch up with Marcellinus. The envoy reined in his horse and looked back up the road.

  ‘Vincentius, run back to Strabo and request his pony off him. If he won’t ride, I will.’ Castus called over the two nearest mounted scouts. He remembered their names now, Buccus and Brigonius. ‘You two, stay with me. We’re going down to survey that valley. Timotheus, keep the men moving, but slowly as you can.’

  V
incentius came back with Strabo’s pony, and Castus swung himself up into the saddle. Like all legionaries, he had been trained to ride, but had never been much good at it. Heavy and clumsy, his toes dangling, he jogged the animal into motion. It was an effort to stay upright in the saddle – don’t slip now, he told himself, clinging grimly to the reins. Falling off his horse in full view of hundreds of barbarians would not be a good start.

  ‘Centurion, why have you halted your men?’ Marcellinus looked annoyed – Castus guessed that the delay did not suit his notion of diplomatic dignity.

  ‘We need to find a secure defensive position on this side of the Pictish camp.’ He was sweating heavily, struggling to stay on the pony as the animal tossed its head and tugged at the reins.

  ‘The Picts have already assigned us a camping ground, over there on the far slope. We risk giving offence if we refuse it. Order your men on.’

  Castus gritted his teeth, tried to keep his voice level. ‘Dominus, with respect, that isn’t a good idea. My responsibility is to the safety of my men. We need to keep them clear of the Picts and make sure we can hold our line of retreat.’

  Marcellinus gazed down at him from his high horse, his expression darkening. Clearly he was not used to taking directions from his subordinates. The Votadini chief was watching with a look of veiled amusement.

  ‘Very well,’ the envoy said. ‘You see to your men, and I will proceed into the camp and present myself to the chiefs of the assembly. I will rejoin you at your selected position before sundown.’

  He jerked the reins and kicked his horse forward into a trot. Castus motioned for one of the scouts to go with him, then jogged the pony after them, cursing under his breath.

  The track descended the flank of the hill and crossed the level ground before dipping again to a ford over the stream. Between the ford and the track there was a low steep-sided hillock, and Castus could make out what appeared to be a stone wall along the crest. Swinging his arm to the scout behind him, he urged his unwilling mount up the slope. At the top he slipped from the saddle and dropped heavily onto the springy turf.