The Iron Hand of Mars mdf-4

by Lindsey Davis

  Perhaps the strategy had worked. The Batavians were a ruined people – temporarily at least – and their attitude to the prince who ruined them now appeared ambiguous. For the first time I began to doubt whether Civilis was still plotting. I wondered if he had simply fled in fear of the assassin's knife.

  We felt no danger while on The Island. The atmosphere was sullen, but the populace had accepted peace and the old alliance. Once again they were a free people within the Roman Empire, exempt from taxes in return for armed manpower – though we all knew Batavian auxiliaries would never again serve in Germany. They let us pass among them without insult. And when we left, they were restrained in showing their relief.

  By the Calends of November I was sick of searching, sick of crossing rivers on wobbly pontoons, and sick of half-submerged old roads on lurching wooden duckboards. I announced that we were moving out to seek dry toes and firmer ground.

  And so we set off across the territory of the Frisii.

  PART FIVE

  SWAMPS AND FORESTS

  GERMANIA LIBERA

  November, AD 71

  'The legionary commander Munius Lupercus had been sent along with other presents to Veleda, an unmarried woman who enjoyed wide influence over the tribe of the Bructeri.'

  Tacitus, Histories

  XLIII

  It was hard to believe that Rome had once laid claim almost as far as the River Elbe. Drusus, his brother Tiberius, and his son Germanicus, had slogged away for years, trying to enclose a huge bight of Free Germany. They had used a double-ended pincer movement, invading from Moguntiacum in the south, and across the northern delta flats. Varus and his ineptitude had ended that. Some traces still remained from when Rome had fooled herself that she controlled these wild wetlands. Instead of returning to Batavodurum, we took the Drusus Canal from the mouth of the Rhenus to Lake Flevo, partly because the old canal was a wonder we might have no other chance to see.

  We landed again. South of the lake there was little trace of the Roman occupation that had ended sixty years earlier. Lentullus, who was permanently impatient, asked when we would come to the first town. I explained, somewhat roughly, that there were no towns. It started raining. A horse stumbled and pulled a hamstring. We had to unpack and leave it, still within sight of the lake.

  'So what do we know about the Frisii, Marcus Didius?' Justinus chaffed, as we surreptitiously made our first camp.

  'Let's tell ourselves they are a placid, ranching, cereal- growing people with a yearning for the sea – and hope that their cattle are more dangerous than they are. The Frisii were conquered – no, I'll rephrase that tactfully – they were settled on Roman terms agreed by our esteemed Domitius Corbulo. That's quite recent history.' Corbulo was a real soldiers' general; one who made Petilius Cerialis look like a reject from the Roman fire brigade.

  'So where were they in the rebellion?'

  'Oh, keen supporters of Civilis, naturally!'

  We had not yet reached the forest and were still in flat coastal country. To us it seemed a low, drear, dull land, lacking features as much as it lacked warmth. But perhaps if you were born in a byre there, Batavia and Frisia were a challenge, with their endless fight against floods from rivers, lakes and seas, and their wide stirring vistas of open grey skies.

  Much of this region seemed deserted. There were few of the settlements that flourished in Gaul. Even Britain was a populous, companionable place apart from its wildest parts. Germany, however, wanted to be different. All we saw were a few isolated houses, or at best crude huddles of huts and byres.

  Here the people matched their reputation and lived a solitary life. If a tribesman could see his neighbour's smoke, he grew twitchy. He would want to ride over there, not for a meal and a game of dice, but to kill his neighbour, enslave his family, and plunder his goods. The presence of Romans just across the great river could only have made matters worse. Now the tribes had the decent excuse of trade to make warlike attacks on each other, seizing prisoners to meet the endless demand for slaves.

  'Sir, will they try and capture us, then?'

  'They know they can't sell Roman citizens back to Rome as slaves.'

  'So what, sir?'

  'They'll kill us, probably.'

  'Is it true the barbarians are all head-hunters?' jested Ascanius.

  'If it is, they'll have no trouble spotting your big noddle anyway.'

  I was growing concerned about the pedlar. Dubnus appeared inexplicably restless. I had told him he could trade with the natives, yet he made no attempt to do so. When a man ignores a chance to pursue his living, I always deduce he has hopes of some bounty – and bounties are usually suspect in origin.

  On one of my turns to be kind to him, I asked about trade. I knew that the great routes into the interior of northern Europe ran along the River Moenus from Moguntiacum, up the Lupia, and around the Baltic amber coast.

  The Moenus and Lupia traders, along with others who came up from the Danube, tended to converge in a market among the Bructeri, where we ourselves were heading. 'I've done them all,' the pedlar said. 'All except the sea. I won't sail. I'm a loner. Sometimes I just prefer to wander on my own.' Was that why he hated being in our group?

  'Is there a good trade with the tribes, Dubnus? Do they buy or sell?'

  'Sell mostly. Converting their plunder.'

  'Which is what?'

  He was feeling uncooperative. 'Anything they may have snatched from someone else.'

  'All right. So what do they snatch?'

  'Oxhides and furs. Drinking-horns. Amber. Ironwork.' Dubnus must still be annoyed at being taken into custody and dragged along with us. He grinned evilly. 'In this area they still have a good stock of Roman armour and gold!'

  He was trying to rile me. I knew what he was getting at. Twenty thousand men had perished with Varus – along with the field army's complete equipment, the commander's personal treasure, and boxes of soldiers' pay. Every household between the Ems and the Weser must have been living comfortably for decades off pickings from the massacre. Every time they lost a calf, all they had had to do was brave the whitening stacks of bones and gather up a breastplate to use in barter for a new animal.

  I asked evenly, 'What do they like to buy? I've heard there's a fairly constant market for good Roman bronze and glass.'

  'No tribal chief who takes a pride in his reputation is buried without a silver tray by his head and a full formal Roman drinking set.'

  'I expect you can always find buyers for brooches or pins?'

  'Trinkets. They like silver. They love coins, though only the old ones with milled edges.' Nero had devalued the currency the year before the Great Fire of Rome. I preferred the old coins too – they felt more substantial. In Rome the State guarantee held just as good for the new adulterated sesterces, but out here the weight of the metal would count.

  'Do the German tribes use money?'

  'Only when they barter with traders.'

  'Coins are more for status and ornament? And is it true they ban imports of wine?'

  Dubnus inclined his head. Not completely. But this isn't Gaul, where they'd give you their mother in exchange for a drink. Fighting is the serious business.'

  'I thought they loved feasting. What do they drink?'

  'Mead. Fermented mixes of barley and wayside fruits.'

  'Pretty resistible! So, the German tribes tolerate our fancy goods, but Rome hasn't much else to offer them. They hate what we regard as civilised arts: conversation at the bathhouse, harmonious formality – a good binge on the Falernian.'

  'They just hate Rome,' said Dubnus.

  I gave him a sideways glance. 'You're a Ubian. Your tribe came from over the Rhenus once, so you have Germanic roots. What about you?'

  'A man has to earn a living.' He let me hear an undertone of contempt.

  But the conversation ended there, because we rode into our first group of Frisians. We drew to a halt like polite visitors. They approached us cautiously.

  They were bare-h
eaded – red-headed – blue-eyed, tunicked and cloaked in sombre wool, the way they were supposed to be. We had been telling ourselves that chroniclers exaggerated everything. Maybe it was the Germanic angry temperament they had chosen to misreport.

  'Step up, Falco!' Justinus commanded cheerfully. 'Time for this famous plan of yours.'

  We all breathed with more care than normal. I hauled Dubnus forwards. 'Please tell these gentlemen we are travelling to pay our respects to Veleda.' He scowled, then said something. I did catch Veleda's name.

  The tribune's dog proved our best ally. He rushed up to each Frisian, barking, wagging his rump and trying to lick faces joyfully. They could see that no one who brought such a hopeless hunting hound could have hostile intentions, and that claiming our scalps would be an insult to their manhood. Fortunately, the pup forgot to nip anyone that day.

  The Frisians stared at us. Since they were doing nothing more dramatic, we smiled, saluted, and passed on our way. They followed us at first, like curious cattle, then drifted off.

  'Veleda seems to do the trick.'

  'You mean, they looked as if they'd never heard of her!' Helvetius scoffed.

  'Oh I think we can assume they had,' the tribune reproved him in his grave way. 'I believe that explains the pitying looks they all sent after us!'

  He rode on, petting the dog, which peered out from a fold of his cloak looking pleased with itself. It was small, smooth, white with black patches, constantly hungry, completely untrainable, and fond of exploring dung. Justinus called him Tigris. It was inappropriate. He was as much like a tiger as my left boot.

  Next day we began to encounter stretches of light woodland, and at nightfall we hit the real edge of the forest. From now on we would need all our skills to find paths and keep to the right direction. From here the tree cover continued unbroken across the whole of Europe. Frankly, as a town boy I had always felt the continental arboretum to be excessive. I like foliage – but I like it best when the greenery is leading to a pergola over a stone bench where a freelance wineseller is conveniently hanging about, and I have an appointment to meet my favourite girl under the pergola in about five minutes' time…

  Camping for the first night on the damp, prickly forest floor, knowing we now had to endure weeks of this, our spirits flagged and tempers rapidly coarsened.

  By now the recruits had worked through all the normal stages that afflict soft lads being taken out camping in rough country to harden their characters. We had run the full gamut of moans, theft of personal treasures, spoiling the evening meal, losing equipment, bedwetting and black eyes. Whatever the rough communal living was doing for them, the three of us in charge were exhausted, battered, and welded into a strong defensive team.

  One evening, after a particularly sour day and a fight where we had caught them with their daggers out, Helvetius laid about him so angrily that he broke his vine stick. Then Camillus Justinus lined them up for a strong dose of tribunal rhetoric.

  'Listen, you bastards!'

  'Good approach!' Helvetius muttered subversively to me.

  'I'm tired. I'm filthy. I'm sick of marching-biscuit and I'm sick of pissing under oak trees in the rain!' His unorthodox address had startled the group into silence. 'I hate this country just as much as you do. When you behave like this, I hate you too. I'd like to say that the next troublemaker will be sent straight home. Unhappily for all of us we have no convenient wagon going to headquarters, or I'd be first on it myself. Face facts. We all have to make the best of it, or none of us will be going home.' He let that sink in. 'Make up your minds. We all have to pull together – '

  'Even Lentullus?' cried Probus.

  Justinus scowled. 'Except for Lentullus. The rest of us will pull together – and we'll all look after him.'

  They laughed. We would spend a quiet night now, and next day everyone would be wonderful.

  'He'll do,' Helvetius decided.

  'Infinite patience with them,' I agreed.

  'Seen it before – they start off thinking he's a worthless snob, and end up dying for him.'

  'Camillus won't thank them for that,' I said. 'He'll be martyred if he goes home without a single one of them.'

  'Even Lentullus?'

  I groaned. 'Especially bloody Lentullus! So, the tribune's all right, is he?'

  'He'll probably keep us out of trouble.'

  'Thanks! What about me?'

  'Mithras, don't make me laugh, Falco. You'll be the one who gets us into it!'

  The next morning everyone was wonderful for about half an hour. Then Lentullus in his amiable way piped up, 'Sir, sir, where's Dubnus gone?'

  XLIV

  I drew a heavy breath. 'What's that, Lentullus?'

  'He's not here, sir. And his pony's gone.'

  Justinus sprang up, on the alert. 'Anybody know when he left?' No one did.

  I was on my feet too. 'First tent, come with me! Helvetius, you keep the second tent, pack the kit, then follow us…'

  Helvetius was running at my heels as I raced for a horse. 'What's the panic? I know the terrain. I can tell roughly where we are -'

  'Use your head! How are we going to converse with Veleda? Dubnus is our interpreter!'

  'We'll get by.'

  'It's more than that,' I gasped, bridling up frantically. 'So far we've been unobtrusive. No unfriendly groups have spotted us. But Dubnus seemed broody. He was plotting, I'm sure of it. We don't want him bringing a war party on our heads!'

  'Falco, maybe he just wants to get on with his trade.'

  'I told him he could do that…' Now, however, I was afraid the pedlar was hoping to make a packet from a new line: selling hostages. 'We can't take the risk that what he's intending to trade with may be us!'

  We tracked him northwards for a long way. It was the wrong direction for us; perhaps he was using that knowledge in the belief we would give up, though it only made me stubborn. I hoped he would grow careless. I hoped he might think we were so single-minded about our mission that he was free from pursuit altogether.

  My party was the slower of our two tracking groups. We were trying to pick out just one set of hooves among the litter on the forest floor, whereas Helvetius was following our great swathe. He soon caught up with us, and we all went on together, first bending east, then south again. 'What's he up to?'

  'Mithras, I don't know.'

  'I'm not sure I care.'

  Dubnus must have left us early and travelled by night. His start was too great. I decided we would follow until the evening, and then abandon it. We lost the trail by the afternoon.

  We were among taller, more thickly growing trees than ever before, in the dense silence of truly ancient woods. A huge horned insect glared at us from the curl of a dead leaf, outraged at this intrusion. There was no other sign of life.

  Taking stock, we agreed that the one certainty about our present location was that we had never expected to be in this area. With good luck, no one hostile would expect us here either. Bad luck meant none of our friends would know where to bring a rescue force – but we had ruled that out, anyway. Justinus and I had left behind instructions that if anything went wrong there would be no point in a rescue attempt, so no one was to try.

  Our journey from The Island had brought us across most of southern Frisia, but by now we had to be in Bructian territory. Coming this way had been unorthodox, but less exposed. We were a long way from normal trading routes. We were also a long way from both the Roman fieldworks that still survived in the delta area and the old forts that I knew had been planted along the River Lupia. We were approaching the famously hostile Bructeri not from where they were always watching for strangers – along their home river – but by surprise from the north.

  During much of our trip we had been about a hundred Roman miles, give or take forty or fifty in this endless hardwood wilderness, above the Lupia's course. That offered some safety, but we had to turn south eventually. The place to change our present easterly direction would be marked by the heights of th
e Teutoburger ridge. We knew the famous escarpment curved down to the sources of the Lupia. All we had to do was find the northern end, then follow the hills. Helvetius had mentioned an ancient track, but none of us relished taking it. Once there, we would have another forty-mile trip before the heights petered out at the river. By now we had come far enough to be keeping our eyes peeled for the high ground whenever the forest allowed us to scan the countryside.

  We began turning south.

  Our detour to look for the pedlar had disorientated us slightly. This was easy country in which to lose your way. There were certainly no roads, and forest ways are notoriously aimless. Sometimes the one we took petered out altogether, so that we had to batter through brushwood, perhaps for hours, until we reached a new path. The trees crowded so thickly that though there could have been a much better track only a few strides away, we stood no chance of finding it. Helvetius, who had been near here before for his historical research, reckoned we were still some way from the topmost end of the Teutoburger escarpment, though had we not been in deep forest, the heights might have been visible in the distance. We hacked on through the dismal woods, believing him because we had no choice. Anyway, going south could never be entirely wrong. We would come to the Lupia eventually.

  At dusk we stopped. While the tents were pitched, various members of the party vanished on their own for the oak- tree routine. It was cold. The light had sunk but not gone entirely. We were heating mess tins for each tent, but they were nowhere near ready. Helvetius named the night's sentries, whilst his servant groomed his horse. Justinus had a conversation going with Sextus and one of the other lads. They were teaching him some dialect words from the Adriatic coast, since he seemed interested in languages. I was just worried and miserable as usual.

  I saw Lentullus creep back after his pee in the woods. He looked furtive, which was nothing unusual. He also looked frightened.