On Hadrian's Secret Service

by Gavin Chappell

  Flaminius wheeled his horse. A warrior leapt off his pony straight at him and the tribune found himself grappling the stinking, tattooed attacker, who was a scrawny, wiry youth who fought like a trapped wild cat. Flaminius struggled to bring his longsword to bear as the youth wrapped his skinny arms round him in a bear hug and then head-butted him. Stars exploded across Flaminius’ vision and pain lanced through his body. With his left hand he scrabbled for his dagger. With his right he grabbed the frenzied warrior by the jaw and forced him backwards, holding him back as the ringing sang in his ears. Blood was sticky on his forehead, though whether it was his or the youth’s or someone else’s he didn’t know. Now he truly regretted losing his helmet.

  The youth snarled and struggled. He seemed to have no sword or spear, only a sling—useless this close—and a burning urge to murder the foreign invader, which seemed to be much more effective.

  At last Flaminius’s questing fingers closed round his dagger hilt, he tore it out of its sheath and sank its honed blade into the Selgovian youth’s kidneys. The youth spasmed with pain, seized hold of Flaminius’ right forearm, tried to wrestle him from the horse. Desperate, Flaminius sank the dagger into the youth’s ribs. Blood spurted hot and wet right across his wrist. Abruptly the youth slumped back, a dead weight. Literally, Flaminius realised with a wry, pale smile.

  He pushed the corpse away. It slithered over the pony’s back and hit the turf, taking the dagger with it. Flaminius turned in his saddle at a shout from Hrodmar and saw another warrior riding straight towards him, sword outstretched. Flaminius lifted up his own longsword and spurred his horse into a gallop. They closed. Flaminius swung his sword with all the strength he could muster. The warrior lifted his shield and deflected the blow, then swung his own blade in a high overhead blow at Flaminius’ unprotected head.

  Flaminius quailed, and tried to roll away, falling back onto his horse’s rump. It reared, and he plunged over the side, grabbing futilely at the creature’s hide. The warrior’s sword cut straight through the saddle and plunged meatily into the horse’s spine and as Flaminius hit the turf with a jarring thump, he heard it give a last piteous whinnying scream.

  The tribune rolled over, scrambling to his feet as a hundredweight of horseflesh crashed to the ground where he had lain. He examined his erstwhile steed cursorily and saw that the sword cut had broken its backbone. The turf thundered again as the warrior rode straight for him. Flaminius tensed, longsword extended (somehow he’d kept a hold of it this time) as the fight raged all around them.

  The air whirred as if a pigeon or woodcock were passing overhead, the warrior’s face exploded with gore and he fell backwards off his pony. Flaminius spun round in a complete circle, breathing harshly, his eyes darting all around him. Finally he saw Drustica nearby, gazing sphinx-like down at him from her own pony, reloading her sling.

  ‘Thank you, my lady!’ Flaminius called.

  Her lips pouted, and her eyes narrowed. Then as the turf thundered again, her eyes widened as she lifted her sling once again, whirling it round her head as another rider approached, lance pointed directly at her. She loosed. The slingshot missed and bounced off the turf beside Flaminius.

  Flaminius whirled round again, sword still in his hand, and leapt at the passing rider. He landed clumsily on the back of the Selgovian’s pony, which whinnied and threw them both. Rising from the wet ground, Flaminius flung himself at the rider. He lifted his sword, then brought it down again pommel first, panting wildly, and hit the back of the Selgovian’s unprotected head. The warrior went still.

  Flaminius turned to see Drustica staring down at him from her own pony. ‘It seems that I must thank you,’ she grunted.

  Flaminius gave her a charming smile that hid the horror that he felt. It had been a shocking few minutes. To his numb surprise, the fight seemed to be over. The few surviving Selgovians had ridden back up the slope, and several Carvettians were riding after them. He caught the reins that dangled from the pony and did his best to calm it.

  ‘My warriors will become the hunters now,’ Drustica added with a throaty laugh. She jumped down from her shaggy pony, approached him, and laughed again, as if she had said something witty. ‘Do you not know?’ she added in explanation. ‘In the British tongue, “Selgovae” means hunters.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Flaminius said, with a polite laugh. He had a smattering of her tongue, but this was new. ‘Then I owe you for slaying my foes, and for the language lesson too. I’m truly indebted to you.’ He knew he was laying it on thick, but he had heard that these barbarian women appreciated praise—as much as they could get.

  But Drustica shook her head. ‘It is I who owe you.’

  Hrodmar rode up at that moment, or their fencing might have gone further. Flaminius turned in his saddle and snapped out, ‘Report!’

  ‘The survivors have ridden off into the heather, sir,’ the little auxiliary trooper said. ‘We trailed them a long way but the trail went cold.’ He shrugged. ‘There weren’t many left, though, and they’re a long way from their own lands.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Drustica. ‘And my own village is much closer. Come! We shall ride there.’

  Flaminius nodded to Hrodmar. ‘Bring that,’ he said, indicating the unconscious Selgovian warrior.

  Drustica nodded, and turned to one of her warriors. ‘And also bring that,’ she said, indicating Flaminius’ dead horse. ‘We feast tonight.’

  Luguvalium, Carvetti territory

  The moon shone high above Drustica’s village, its silver light limning the turf outside the halls, bothies and granaries that lay within the palisade. It shone through the clouds that hid most of the stars. Silence hung heavy over the village, which had earlier rung with celebration on the return of the warrior woman.

  Flaminius stood with Drustica at an ancient, uncarved, standing stone that reared up from the midst of the turf. He had gathered that it was a holy object, of unbelievable antiquity if the Carvetti were to be believed. These people did not believe in making images of the gods, but perhaps this was their primitive equivalent of an idol. Drustica had offered a sheep to it, and the animal’s blood still stained the stone and the turf at its base. Her face was rapt.

  ‘… and I must thank you again, Roman,’ she told him. ‘I am a respected warrior woman amongst my people. You will be well rewarded.’

  ‘Just doing my duty!’ Flaminius told her with a self-effacing laugh. He repressed a belch. That horsemeat they would had at the feast had been filling. He had felt a little guilty eating his own steed, but after spending so much time out in the wilds it had been as good as a feast.

  No, it had been a feast!

  She shook her head. ‘You risked yourself for my people. It will not be forgotten.’ She looked at the blood smeared stone. ‘The one who you took prisoner…’

  He shuddered. The captive was under Hrodmar’s guard. ‘You can’t sacrifice him. He’s more valuable alive.’ If Flaminius returned with a prisoner, it might make up for the fact that he had lost most of his command.

  Drustica laughed. ‘I do not intend to sacrifice him,’ she murmured with a smile. ‘We Carvettians do not sacrifice men any more, you Romans taught us not to. I want merely to have speech with him!’

  ‘He will be questioned,’ Flaminius reassured her. ‘I’ll take him back to Eboracum where he will be grilled by the finest Roman interrogators the Ninth can supply.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the warrior woman submissively.

  She leaned closer to him. He tried not to gag; she still stank of the woad she had worn as war paint. It was no kind of perfume, unless hint of open sewer had caught on among the scent merchants since Flaminius had last been in Rome—and yet he found it oddly alluring.

  ‘We pay your people tribute, and we see the legions passing by, but I have never known a Roman like you.’ Flaminius felt a pleasurable tingle run uncontrollably through him. ‘Will you join me in my bothy?’

  Flaminius’ mouth was dry. He was tempted. There was someth
ing earthily fascinating about this woman, killer though she was, even with the rank odour of woad still hanging around her. But that was it. A Roman woman who offered herself to him—and there had been no few in the last few years—would be another matter. This barbarian lady was unpredictable. Besides, he had to get back to Eboracum, not indulge in affairs with the native women, who were notorious for their easy ways in love—it was even said that they happily coupled in public. Not his idea of fun.

  ‘Humble apologies, my lady,’ he said formally. ‘We Romans are forbidden such liaisons.’

  Drustica looked thwarted. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘You know where my bothy is, though, should you unbend.’

  She moved away into the night, leaving Flaminius standing in silence beside the bloody stone.

  —4—

  Eboracum, Roman province of Britain

  Lucius Aninius Sextius Florentinus, the legate of the Ninth Legion, welcomed Britain’s new provincial governor to the fortress at a formal reception in the lavishly appointed headquarters. To the provincial governor’s mind, the main building of the fortress was more reminiscent of a luxury villa than a military command centre, with statues and furnishings and curios and a sizeable peristyle garden where Falco strolled with the legate.

  ‘And how was your journey north?’ Lucius Aninius asked solicitously as they passed a statue of Hercules slaying the hydra.

  Falco grunted. ‘I’m glad to have got here,’ he told the legate. His present environs presented a pleasant contrast to the drab, gloomy, lowering world of woods and heaths and rain soaked skies that had met him on arrival in his new province.

  ‘The countryside around Londinium shows pleasing signs of civilisation,’ he observed, making the best of things. It had been tolerably well farmed in places, studded with small villas and towns, one of which even had a theatre of sorts. ‘But I must go where the action is.’ That was here in the North, with Eboracum being the nerve centre.

  The function held by Lucius Aninius, a burly man in his forties, fashionably bearded, was likely to be a tedious affair, and Falco was doubly glad that he had not seen fit to drag his wife to Britain; she would not have been impressed. Over the next few days he intended to hold his own gatherings where he would really get to know all of the key players in the legion. It would be an opportunity to learn what was truly happening up here. He could see plenty of opportunities here in this forsaken land.

  One of the soldiers he decided to invite was a young equestrian tribune who Lucius Aninius said had made a name for himself upcountry.

  Flaminius had been closeted with Julius Probus, the commissary centurion, since his triumphant return from patrol with a barbarian prisoner. It turned out that the centurion’s commissary duties were only one aspect of his role, and the gathering of intelligence took precedence. How the grizzled middle aged soldier managed to carry out both duties so capably was a testament to the efficiency of the Roman military machine. The fact that this secret service was run so efficiently by centurions—men from the ranks—rather than senatorial fops such as Flaminius; odious, effeminate messmate Tribune Karus, or even the new provincial governor, was not lost on Flaminius. He mentioned his misgivings to the commissary centurion after he received his surprise invitation to the provincial governor’s little gathering.

  ‘The legions are run by self-serving politicians, eh?’ Probus had suggested. ‘A wonder that the empire still stands, with that gang of crooks in charge. Is that right?’

  Flaminius nodded nervously. ‘They do seem a bit soft,’ he said. ‘All that pleasure and wine bibbing. Not that I’m entirely opposed to it, mind, I’ll bib wine with the best of them off duty…’

  It was good to be back in the fortress, with running water and decent facilities, a complete contrast to the draughty, leaky, turf roofed bothies of the natives. All this and wine too, no more of the native beer!

  ‘But would your men allow themselves to be led by common soldiers?’ the centurion asked. ‘Folk like me, Roman citizens but from humble backgrounds? No. They need the mystique exuded by these soft pleasure loving senators, the poor saps. Senators give the orders, we enforce them, and the men follow them—sometimes to the death. It’s complicated, but it works. Coming from such a humble background yourself, perhaps you’re unfamiliar with Livy? The story about the body parts conspiring against the belly?’

  Flaminius flushed. Of course, he wasn’t from nearly such a humble origin as the centurion. He was siding with the men because he was envious of those on top. His family back in Italy was of equestrian status: middle class, not rich enough to be in the Senate, but better off than most.

  He’d read Livy as a boy. He’d read Aesop’s Fables, too, but he lacked the courage to tell Centurion Probus that the story originated with the latter… How the hands and feet had taken umbrage against the belly since it did nothing in their opinion except eat. So they stopped feeding it, only to find that they were growing weak themselves, and at last they learnt the belly’s purpose.

  ‘You see,’ Probus explained, ‘for the legions to function, to serve the people of Rome, they must be part of the system. Our purpose is political, therefore we need politicians. We may not like them, we may see them as greedy and soft, but that would be a mistake. They have that luxury because they’ve worked for it, and the way they’ve worked is through politics—a dirty business though it may be, and it hardly looks like work to the likes of you and me. They may seem soft, but as long as we are strong, that doesn’t matter. The skull is hard but the brain beneath is soft. You could see us as a wall, built to keep the barbarians out…’

  ‘I know nothing of politics,’ Flaminius protested, almost wishing he was back with the barbarians. Politics wasn’t something his family had ever discussed. Money and property, yes, if discreetly. But the running of the empire? His father wouldn’t presume!

  ‘Oh, you’ve not been invited there to discuss politics,’ Probus reassured him. ‘You’re the hero of the hour, a swashbuckling escapee from the baby eating barbarians. You’re there to entertain the provincial governor and his guests. There’s not a lot of culture in Eboracum, so Falco must content himself with a ripping yarn or two from a junior officer. But mind you, don’t get too contemptuous,’ the centurion added; ‘he’s no fool, for all his airs and graces. He’ll be assessing you, just like everyone else he’s invited. Weighing you up. Wanting to know how the men under him really feel about recent events.’

  Flaminius nodded wisely. ‘So—how do we feel?’ he asked. ‘What’s the official take?’

  Probus shrugged. ‘What d’you think about the situation? Surely you’ve got an opinion. Lads your age always do.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that Rome paid me to have an opinion,’ Flaminius said, with a grin, ‘but from what I’ve gathered listening to my messmates, we’re here to civilise the Britons, bring them the benefit of our superior culture, our bath houses and our banqueting halls and our hypocausts and villas and roads. Quite how we’re to do that when we don’t have enough legions to police the province, I don’t have a clue. None of this would have happened if our victory over the Caledonians had been followed up by decisive conquest, my messmate Postumus says. Maybe now the Dacian wars are over…’ He shrugged. ‘But quite frankly, I don’t see what Rome wants with this country. It rains all the time! You can’t walk anywhere without the mud squelching over your sandals. And the natives aren’t exactly what you’d call friendly.’

  Drustica excepted, he had added to himself.

  Probus gave a wry smile. ‘Truth be told, we’re still looking for something to justify Claudius’ invasion[7],’ he said. ‘If it were left up to me, I’d say let the Caledonians and their chums have the place and welcome to it, but it would be humiliating for Rome to run away, tails between our legs. We’ve already abandoned Mesopotamia[8] after holding it only a short time. Another loss like that and the barbarians of the outlands might start thinking Rome is weak…’

  Flaminius departed the office deep in t
hought.

  ‘You’re going to see the new provincial governor?’ Tribune Postumus lounged on his bunk and looked sardonically at Flaminius when he returned. ‘How did you wangle that one, me laddo? You’re nothing but a tribune of auxiliary horse.’

  ‘You’re a tribune yourself, friend,’ Flaminius said, brushing dust off his dress uniform.

  ‘At least my troops are Roman citizens, even if most of them did crawl out of a Subura[9] sewer,’ Postumus said snidely. ‘And I’m not the one who lost an entire troop. They should put you on a charge for that, not invite you to fancy dos.’

  ‘You’re not a hero either,’ Flaminius mocked, although he was secretly wounded by the comment. ‘You should try losing a few men yourself, see what it does to your standing. You know they serve the finest vintages at the provincial governor’s parties, not this horse’s piss we get in the tribune’s mess…’ He sipped at his beaker and pulled a face.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Postumus adopted a serious tone and Flaminius groaned. ‘Speaking of which,’ the tribune insisted, ‘odds are that they’ll be drinking the finest Caecuban wines. That’s what Karus said when he drank when he was at one of the provincial governor’s receptions the other night. You can’t smuggle out an amphora, can you? I’ll split the profits with you when I sell it to a man I know in the civilian settlement.’

  ‘Lucius Aemilianus Karus is a pipsqueak patrician with bum fluff,’ Flaminius said. He knew all about the man who Postumus knew in the civilian settlement, even if he’d never met him. And as for Tribune Karus! ‘His word isn’t worth a straw in the wind. He’s going to be a senator one of these days, for Jove’s sake! Believe me, Postumus, even a senator straight from Rome does not serve Caecuban wine at a bash like this.’

  ‘Karus said the provincial governor had them practically bathing in the stuff! He got pretty drunk, I can tell you that much.’