The Wolf of Britannia Part II

by Jess Steven Hughes

  “Then you keep promises to Sidhe folk?” the young, scraggly-bearded guide asked. His youthful assistant stood near with the same questioning look on his child-like face.

  “I keep my word. Your people will be freed.”

  “Good.” The Sidhe guide pulled a small, bronze dagger from inside his smelly, fox-skin cloak and deftly fingered its sharp edges. “My father say you be honorable man. We kill many tall folk tonight,” he said with a missing-tooth grin. The smiling, younger man nodded in agreement.

  Before the march, when Caratacus had contacted the Sidhe leader for guides, he was reminded that he had promised to pay back their favor. When Verica returned to Britannia and again became king under the Romans, he enslaved the Sidhe once again. The little people had originally been freed years ago by Caratacus’s uncle, Epaticcos. The Sidhe kept long memories.

  Caratacus turned to his warriors. “All right, spread out and rest until nightfall. No fires, and above all, silence.”

  Not everyone rested. Caratacus sent a small advance party that Venutios insisted on leading. Disguised as farmers, they set out to Noviomagnus to gather information about the size of the garrison and their positions. Caratacus was determined to prove a point. The Romans must know that he could strike anywhere at any time. No place was free from his havoc, and Verica must be the first to know.

  *

  The full moon was high, and the air was chilly when the advanced party returned. “What news do you bring, Venutios?” Caratacus asked.

  “The feasting and drinking are over. Only young people are out—rutting in the fields.”

  “Ah, youth,” Caratacus said with a grin. The Beltaine celebration had began early that morning with the solemn passage of cattle between purifying bonfires and continued with a big country fair and games. It was an evening of joyful feasting and drinking, ending with lovemaking in the fields, the symbolic planting of seed by young people.

  “What about the guards?” Caratacus asked. “Did you see any?”

  “If dogs can be called such,” Venutios snorted. “They’re Regni tribesmen. Most of them were celebrating with the people. I didn’t see one that wasn’t drunk.”

  “Ha! If their Roman masters could see them. Were there any Romans in the city?”

  “None.”

  “And the docks?”

  “Two merchantmen moored next to the warehouses. The crews are drinking and whoring. No guards about.”

  “Did you see any Sidhe slaves?”

  “No, probably chained in the barracks for the holiday.”

  “Is Verica there?”

  “Aye, his standard is planted in front of the Great Hall—in the Roman fashion.”

  “Good. His humiliation will be all the greater when we destroy his port and disappear like ghosts into the mist.”

  Caratacus’s men smeared their faces and bodies with mud from a nearby stream and covered their weapons with chalk dust to keep their iron blades from glistening in the moonlight. The warriors left their hiding place in the forest.

  As the band drew near the village at the fortress’s edge, they heard the last remnants of laughing and singing. Beltaine was drawing to a close. The light of a full moon guided Caratacus’s men as they quietly circled the many couples celebrating Beltaine’s fertility rites in the newly planted fields. In the distance Caratacus heard the mournful cry of a wolf. It was as if it were howling over the loss of its mate. How well I know the feeling. But he didn’t have time to dwell on that.

  When they crossed a dip in the rolling plain, the group stumbled on an amorous couple in one of the deep furrows. The young man’s heavy breathing and the woman’s groaning had been their salvation. Fortunately for the pair, they were on the brink of ecstasy, oblivious to surroundings. Caratacus’s men quietly backed away before the young people came out of their rapture.

  Caratacus’s men bypassed the dark fortress and its surrounding defensive ditches and parapets. They avoided the road from the garrison to the port. Instead, the warriors skirted numerous small streams and sandbars along the edge of Noviomagnus channel.

  The king motioned for a halt on the muddy flats directly east of the port. The fighters crouched as Caratacus searched for signs that they had been observed. Looming as black silhouettes in the moonlight less than five hundred yards away, he saw the docks and warehouses. Countless small fishing boats were beached along the muddy banks. A heavy scent of rotting fish and salt water lingered about the area.

  A damp cloudbank of fog squatted just off shore, illuminated by the moonlight. Huddled together like aliens in a foreign land sat five two-story warehouses built in the Roman manner, with wooden walls, double-shuttered doors, and tiled roofs. Gone were the rustic wattle-and- daub shacks with mildewed, thatched tops, leaving no doubt that Verica was trying to please his Roman masters.

  An icy breeze wafted in from the inlet carrying the reeking smell of dumped sewage from ships in the channel, nudging the fog closer. In nearby pens, the fetid smells of sleeping cattle, horses, and sheep added to the foul stench.

  “Look,” whispered Venutios, “there’s a warship.”

  “That changes things a bit,” Caratacus said in a flat voice. He eyed three ships moored dockside gently rocking on the current. Two merchantmen and one they hadn’t expected—a Roman trireme. The galley was ablaze with lamplights fore and aft. He could see the triple-banked set of gunnels that lined the side of the wooden hull and protective, overlapping shields straddling the length of the timbered deck. An iron ram, fixed to the red painted bow, protruded just above the water line. A limp streamer hung from the lone center mast.

  “It’s part of the channel fleet,” Caratacus said a moment later.

  “And fighting sailors,” Venutios said. “They’re reputed to be as fierce as the legionaries. If my sources are right, there are thirty marines and one hundred seventy oarsmen aboard.”

  Caratacus knew that most Roman marines and sailors were Egyptian, Greek, and Syrian.

  Venutios gestured. “There’s the watch—one sailor and one marine.”

  Caratacus gazed toward the ship and spotted both men standing next to the gangway. He looked back toward the hill fortress. “Most likely the rest are in town celebrating.”

  “May the whole lot be infected by the local whores,” Venutios growled.

  Caratacus grinned. “Aye, it would ease our task. But don’t underestimate those remaining. Be prepared to fight.”

  Torches lit the muddy street fronting the warehouses, illuminating the Regni sentries assigned to guard the five buildings.

  “Humph, ten Regni dogs to do one man’s work,” Venutios said.

  Instead of patrolling the area, the guards warmed themselves around a small fire at the end of the westernmost building. A long-stemmed amphora wine jug was passed among them. Caratacus understood. Was this not Beltaine, a night for celebration?

  Caratacus turned about and peered into the darkness hiding his men. “If we reach the road without being sighted, we’ll attack before they can sound the alarm.”

  “May the guards stay around the fire and get drunk,” Venutios said. “There’s nothing between us and them but the flats.”

  “Aye, but silence is a must. Pass the word. I will slay any man who gives away our position.” Caratacus tightly gripped the hilt of his sword.

  After what seemed an agonizingly long time, no more than an hour by the moon, the band reached the bank of the road. Suddenly, they heard a loud bellowing. Caratacus and his men froze.

  Out of the darkness a sailor appeared, staggering toward one of the merchantmen. He was singing at the top of his lungs a drunken ditty about the captain’s unchaste daughter. Then the seaman halted, stopped singing, and looked about.

  He rubbed his eyes, shook his head, and stumbled along again, shouting in a raspy voice something about seeing barbarian warriors. The Regni guards and Roman watch ignored him, but he kept complaining.

  “Shut up, you bloody drunk! Go sleep it off!” yelled t
he sailor on watch.

  “But I swear by the gods, I saw ‘em,” the drunk said.

  “Aye, you and Bacchus both!” the marine barked. “Get out of here!”

  “It’s true! They’re warriors—got shields and swords—on the flats!”

  “What goes here?” called the triarch, the commander of the ship, as he poked his bearded face through the hatchway of the small, stern cabin.

  The seaman on watch explained.

  “Send him to my quarters for questioning,” ordered the triarch, “no sense taking any chances.”

  Moments later the commander reappeared. “Wake the crew and arm yourselves. This man speaks true.”

  Within minutes, seventy chain-mailed marines and sailors clammered topside, armed with short swords. On the triarch’s command, they grabbed shields hooked to the deck railing and double-timed down the gangplank to shore.

  Caratacus passed the word to prepare for battle. As the Romans deployed in three columns in front of the main warehouse, Caratacus gave his men the command to attack.

  They stormed out of the darkness, their fury and momentum catching the Romans before they could lock their shields into a defensive wall. The Britons hacked and chopped through their ranks with lightning speed. The Romans fought bravely, never giving a foot. But they were no match for Caratacus’s select band of fighters and died fighting where they stood.

  “Look, the Regni guards are running away!” Venutios shouted.

  “Take your men and hunt them down,” Caratacus ordered. “The cowards mustn’t warn the garrison.”

  Within minutes, after the last Roman was slain and the warehouses torched, Caratacus’s warriors set the ships ablaze. Moments later, storage bins of wheat and ship stores of cut wood, pinetar, pitch, and resin lit the late-night sky like a hail of exploding meteorites.

  A detail of men scattered livestock from the pens. Next to the warehouses sat the slave barracks—a dirty, vermin-infested quarter. The warriors then freed sixty Sidhe slaves, including six women used as kitchen help and whores. The Sidhe guides jabbered for them to do as they were told.

  “Once we reach woods,” the older guide said, “we remove your slave collars, and you be free to go where you want.” The little people shouted for joy, hugged one another, and began dancing and singing.

  The moon was setting when Venutios and his men returned from the chase. “We got all but one,” he reported to Caratacus.

  “By now they’ve seen the fires from the fortress, and the guards will be alerted.” Caratacus looked about and surveyed the destruction. The burning ships were sinking, and the warehouses had collapsed in the flaming inferno. He looked to the sky. These drunken sots must think they’ve been overrun by a hoard of barbarians—we’ve caused enough chaos for it.

  “Perhaps Taranis, the thunder god, will be kind. Look Venutios.” Caratacus pointed to the black clouds, silver-rimmed by the moon it now cloaked, drifting across the harbor. “I may be wrong, but even in the fading moonlight those look like rain clouds.”

  “That’s what I pray they are,” Venutios said. “May it come soon and slow down the enemy.”

  The fogbank rolled in over the harbor, masking their escape. Caratacus looked back. The burning ships and warehouses were engulfed in a glowing halo of orange fog, which muffled distant shouts.

  The scent of rain tickled Caratacus’s nose, and he knew they must race onward, hoping to stay just ahead of the rain now pelting the flames.

  “Round up the men. Let’s go home!”

  Less than a half hour later, a torrential rainstorm poured across the coast and Noviomagnus. The hungover Regni garrison was seriously bogged down by heavy mud, and Caratacus’s men made good their escape.

  Even as he and his men made their way back to their holdings, Caratacus knew he must keep the pressure on the Romans. It’s time to trap and destroy another Roman cohort.

  Chapter 13

  Rome - July, AD 47

  Porcius shook his head when recalling how quickly the last three years had flown since returning from Britannia to Rome. He paced impatiently about the colonnaded garden of Plautius’s mansion awaiting the general’s appearance. He occasionally paused to examine one of the costly, flesh-colored, marble busts lining the outside corridor. The general’s ancestors were a grim-faced lot. Porcius took a two-handled, silver cup of expensive Alexandrian Mareotian wine from a passing slave and swilled its contents.

  He wiped his hands on a corner of his toga and admired the grounds, leaving purple-red stains. Gilded, lion-head chairs lined the green, marble floor, and intricate frescoes covered the upper half of the adjoining walls. Every doorway was framed with curtains woven in silk and gold, and pillars carved from pink, striated Numidian marble lined the corridor. Scrolled, marble columns guarded the giant courtyard seemingly bearing the weight of a brilliant, blue sky. The fragrance of red, violet, and yellow flowers filled the huge garden in the center of the court. Nearby dwelled a tranquil pond stocked with exotic oriental fish and tamed fresh-water eels.

  Rome was a stifling place on a hot afternoon in July. Why couldn’t Plautius be like other decent aristocrats and buy a villa on the coast at Antium where the shoreline basked in soothing winds? Porcius thought. The crafty veteran soldier probably loved the excitement of the ancient city, stench and heat notwithstanding.

  Porcius had read the reports. At the end of three years, Caratacus was still waging a murderous guerrilla campaign. Rome had lost thousands of troops. He had raided the Port of Noviomagnus, taking Verica by complete surprise, and burned every warehouse and ship dockside. In another raid, he destroyed an entire cohort from Legion Twentieth Velaria, five hundred brave Romans. Porcius shook his head. The Britons swarmed like clouds of gnats. A person could clap hands and kill hundreds, but the cloud never seemed to thin. Warriors flocked to Caratacus’s standards from as far away as Germania and Scandia. General Vespasian, leading Legion Second Augusta, may have conquered much of western Britannia, but only because Caratacus was more interested in harassing Plautius’s forces along the northwestern frontier.

  In the last year, Plautius had been recalled to Rome after three years of campaigning and given an honorary triumph. His replacement was Publius Ostorius Scapula, a competent general, but known for his impatience and ill temper.

  If Scapula expects to capture the Briton leader, he will have to fight Caratacus on his terms.

  Porcius had developed a grudging respect for General Plautius. Although he knew little about Scapula, what he had heard he didn’t like.

  “Ah, Porcius my friend, welcome!” came a familiar voice.

  Startled, he turned to see a grinning Plautius standing at the edge of the pond. Attired in the same fashion as Porcius, the stout, balding general wore a flowing white toga with wide, purple trim denoting the rank of senator. Porcius quickly regained his wits, but was puzzled. Never had the general greeted him in such a comradely fashion.

  “I’m flattered that you invited me to your home, General,” Porcius said.

  “Another diplomatic lie—no matter—I don’t take offense.”

  “None intended, I assure you.”

  “I’d wager you’re wondering why I’ve asked you here.”

  “I am curious, yes.”

  “Let’s be honest, we’ve never been real friends. You sent secret letters to the emperor, which I hated. There were other differences, but despite all of that, I respect you. Do you know why?”

  “No, not really.”

  He gestured toward Porcius. “It’s your ability to manipulate the Britons. Since returning to Rome, I have realized the wisdom in trying to get them to ally with us.”

  Porcius nodded, feeling a little smug, but still wondered why the general invited him.

  “I never told you, but my reports to the emperor described the brilliant way you and Centurion Bassus persuaded the eleven petty kings to swear allegiance to Claudius. Damndest thing I’ve ever seen.” The general seemed sincere.

  “I ap
preciate your confidence.”

  Plautius looked about and then motioned to him. “Let’s walk through the garden.” After a few moments, they halted near the center. The general kneeled to examine one of the purple violets.

  “The insects ate this one,” he said in a loud voice. “My gardener has to take better care of them if he doesn’t want a flogging.” He slowly stood, favoring a knee, and whispered, “That was for the benefit of my nosy slaves. I didn’t ask you to my house to smell the flowers.”

  “I didn’t think so, but they are lovely. I must make time to work in my own garden. Believe it or not, I enjoy working with the soil.”

  The general’s alert, green eyes flicked to the surrounding shrubs and bushes and back to Porcius. “Do you have any plans to return to Britannia?” he asked, his voice low.

  “Not at this time, although I admit I still have a great fondness for the wretched land.”

  “Then find some reason to return—anything.”

  Sensing his concern, Porcius searched the old general’s eyes. “Why? Obviously, I’m missing something.”

  “In a word, Agrippina.” There was a long pause. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

  Agrippina, Claudius’s niece and fourth wife, had married the aging emperor less than a year before. He executed his libertine wife, Messalina, for treason after she and her latest lover, Gaius Silius, made an illfated attempt to take the throne.

  “But why are you warning me?” Porcius asked. “Wouldn’t it be in your interests to see me dead?”

  General Plautius shook his balding head. “No, it would not. Despite our differences, you and I have two important things in common. Loyalty to the emperor and the best interests of Rome, which Agrippina lacks.”

  As the men strolled leisurely through rows of blooming roses, Porcius looked about the grounds. He eyed the curtained doors of the hallways, which surrounded three sides of the garden, and viewed the frescoed wall at the end. No one was about.

  “Now do you understand?” Plautius inquired, his firm mouth set below his wide nose, as if challenging Porcius. “Agrippina will have your head if you don’t leave.”