“Cut off my hair and shave my body.” he ordered.
“I’m not the barber, master. He will be here in the morning….”
“Cut off my hair and shave my body.”
There was not much body hair to remove and the attendant did as he was asked, very nervously; terrified that he would nick the very white skin of this young giant. Who knew how he would react if he was cut?
Otto looked down at the coil of his Suevian Knot lying at his feet.
“Burn it,” he said.
Otto had no money to pay the man for his service so next morning he cut a thick slice of beef from the hindquarters of a roasting ox and took a loaf of fresh bread. He gave them both to the bathhouse attendant who was ecstatic; never in his life had he held so much food in his hands.
He had not burned the long plait he had cut from the German’s head; he had sneaked out and sold it to a trader for a few coppers. Eventually it would make its way to Rome and be sold to a wigmaker who paid a premium for blond hair.
Chapter 13
Lucius looked at his shaven-headed and sullen companion the next morning and decided it was better not to ask. Martellus said he liked the new look.
“Much more Roman, Otto my lad; you look almost like one of us now.”
Otto tried to smile but it was more like an enraged beast raising its hackles. As Lucius before him, Martellus thought it better not to press the issue.
Aldermar came to visit Lucius.
“Tonight, my men are going outside the camp to feast the re-growth of the sun. Beer, roast pork and riotous behaviour; you’re invited, tribune ...” He held up one hand before Lucius could reply. “…Don’t think of saying no. You are honoured with this invitation because you have chosen a German as your war-companion. A refusal would be an insult only to be wiped with bloodshed. Otto would be forced to defend you; he would probably be killed as well and then I would be forced to hunt down and behead half a dozen of my men.”
“You are joking?”
“I may be but then again, perhaps not; you know how unpredictable and ferocious we Germans are …”
“I should be delighted to attend and my thanks to the auxiliary cavalry for their generous invitation.”
At midnight, Lucius sat on one of the log benches arranged in a circle, sweating in the light of an immense bonfire contemplating the huge hunk of roast pork in one hand and the horn of ale in the other. Aldermar sat on one side of him and a cavalryman on the other. A hand slapped him in the back, almost knocking him off his seat and a voice yelled in his ear, “Drink Roman, eat, be at home among us.” He smiled and waved his ale horn in acknowledgement. The beer seemed to fill his stomach and lie there, heavily. He belched loudly to relieve the tightness in his belly to the approval of the unknown man sitting beside him who gave him another slap on the back.
Once they had eaten their fill, drunk and drunk again, the Germans began to enjoy themselves in their own ways. Some used their long cavalry spears to pole-vault the bonfire with mixed success. Those who cleared it were cheered, those who fell in were dragged out to general laughter. One massive warrior swore he could lift a horse. He peered drunkenly around for a horse to prove it but there was none. He stripped to the waist flexing his muscles so his tattoos writhed in the dancing light then invited as many men as could to hang on to his back and he would march around the circle of the seated spectators. He staggered around as he had boasted he could with three men clinging to his neck and shoulders. There were wrestling matches, feats of strength and agility; high jumping and long jumping from a standing start. One man had been wiping the pork fat of his hands onto his plaits all night and when he leapt through the fire, they burst into flame. His friends dowsed them with ale before he was too badly burned. This was generally reckoned to be the highlight of the entertainment.
As the hours passed, the fire burned lower. The men sat in their rows drinking steadily as the old tales of gods and heroes were told. The mood, if not sober, became more reflective. Suddenly a man stood up and called out to Otto. There was a moment’s silence then nearly all of them shouted, as if demanding an answer.
“What’s he say?” Lucius asked Aldermar who was looking serious.
“He wants to know if Otto is ashamed of being a Suevian since he cut off his hair.”
Otto stood up and walked forward so that everyone could see him. He gave a short speech and sat down again as a roar of approval washed over him. Lucius looked enquiringly at Aldermar.
“I’ll give it to you as close to word for word as I can. He says he did not cut off his Suevian Knot willingly; this was forced on him and he feels the dishonour keenly. When he has avenged himself, everyone will know and he will not be ashamed to sit among such mighty warriors as the German cavalry.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Lucius said.
“There will be blood, without doubt,” Aldermar replied, cheerfully. “Let’s drink to it.”
December made way for January in bitter winds and falls of deep snow. There was little Titus Attius could do to keep the men active in such conditions. But their mood had changed. They were no longer bored and aggressive like they had been in November; they tended now to a morose state akin to depression. Orders were obeyed, kit kept in good order, fatigue parties accomplished their tasks but it was all done with no lightness of spirit. They were going through the motions with an unexpressed longing for spring.
Before he had arrived in the camp, Otto had never come across writing. Priests used runes for religious purposes but there was no place in his people’s world for the everyday skills of reading and writing. It intrigued him. He asked Martellus who said it was beyond his skill to teach him. However, once an idea entered his head, Otto would not let it go. He wandered the camp badgering whoever he could for help and he did pick up a certain amount. He could scratch his name and a few words on a wax tablet within weeks.
Lucius was pleased at his young companion’s new obsession. So far, Aldermar’s prediction of trouble had not come to pass and as time went by it faded from his mind. It had faded from Tubby’s as well. For days and weeks after he had attacked Otto, he was tense; expecting a move against him at any time but nothing came. When their paths crossed, Otto neither avoided his gaze nor showed any sign that there was anything lying between them. Tubby’s nervousness subsided and was replaced by contempt. For all the big talk about these Germans being so tough, when it came to it, they knew who was boss.
February’s weather was even worse than January’s. The snow fell thicker but soft and clinging. The prevalent wind had shifted to North-west so the temperature rose slightly and wet air blew in off the North Sea. The days seemed even shorter, although they were not, and it was very dark under the lowering skies as soon as the hidden sun sank in the afternoon.
Otto had been brought up to believe that there was no nobler way to fight an enemy than face to face in a clash of shield walls where strength, courage and skill combined to give victory. But his father had also taught him the value of ruse and subterfuge; the art of the ambush where a warrior became a ghost, laid his foe low unseen and was gone, leaving pain and terror behind him. He watched Tubby, learning his routines and searching out the weak point that would inevitably be revealed. His patience was rewarded. Tubby liked to go to the bathhouse as late as possible in the evening so he could scuttle across the camp swathed in two cloaks, carrying as much of the glow of the hot room as he could into the hut where he slept with thirty others. One night of swirling snow he trotted towards his billet and reached out a hand to the door latch when he felt a white-hot strike of pain lance down the right side of his head. Before he could instinctively clutch at it, a punch to the back of his neck drove him headfirst into the doorpost and he fell, stunned. He thought he heard the creak of boots in snow behind him but by the time he got to his knees and looked back, there was nothing to be seen in the blinding white flakes, falling and falling as if winter would never end.
At first light, an ear c
ould be seen displayed on the lintel of one of the latrines. It was fixed with a horseshoe nail. Beside it, “Io Saturnalia” was deeply scored into the wood in crude lettering. When Otto went over to Martellus’ workshop later the same morning, the auxiliary cavalrymen gathered and when they were all there, they shouted “Hail Otto!” three times then dispersed, joking and laughing.
Tubby was outraged and complained to his centurion.
“If you want to make a serious charge against anyone, you’ll have to see Camp Prefect Attius. Better get your story straight for your sake.”
It was a formal affair. Titus Attius sat behind his desk flanked on one side by Lucius and on the other by Aldermar who was there to translate if necessary. Otto stood to attention in front of the desk to the left and Centurion Lentus marched in Tubby, his head heavily bandaged. Lentus did a lot of stamping and saluting before leaving the wounded and aggrieved legionary at the right side of the desk.
“What is the nature of your complaint, soldier?” Attius asked.
“Sir, this German bastard…” Tubby pointed at Otto,”.…came up behind me in a snowstorm and cut off my ear. He nailed it up on the door of the jakes, sir; the door of the jakes!”
“I hear you,” Attius told him. “You say he came up behind you, did you see him?”
For a moment Tubby hesitated. His eyes flickered along the line of officers. He licked his lips and sighed. It would have to be the truth.
“No, sir, but it was him.”
Attius nodded.
“Do you have any witnesses?”
“Well, no sir, it was late on and like I said it was snowing really heavy and …no sir, no witnesses but after all, sir, I’m a serving Roman legionary. Who the fuck is he? Begging your pardon, sir,” said Tubby in a desperate attempt to be believed; all the more so since he was speaking the truth.
Attius ignored the outburst
“Were there any tracks or other evidence to point to this young man as your attacker?
“No sir, like I said…the snow…And…” Tubby’s voice trailed into nothing and he stood staring straight in front of him.
“To sum up, you say it was the German known as Otto but you did not see him, you have no witnesses and no evidence to support your claim, have I got it right?”
“I would like to speak if I may, Camp Prefect Attius,” Lucius intervened.
“Go ahead, Tribune Longius.”
Lucius turned to Lentus.
“Centurion Lentus, when we attacked that German village last year, a legionary engaged Otto as we now know him in combat. Is that correct?”
“Yes sir, it is.”
“Who was the legionary?”
“It was this man, sir,” Lentus confirmed gesturing to Tubby.
“What was the result of the duel between them?”
“The German lad whacked the man on the foot sir and he fell over a fence rail, as I recall. The other lads laughed sir; very funny it was.”
“Thank you Centurion Lentus,” Lucius said and turned to Attius. “That’s all I wanted to say, sir. I think it speaks for itself.”
“Speaks volumes, tribune, speaks volumes,” Attius replied and looked hard at Tubby. “This lad made you look a pillock and so when someone had a go at you, you blamed him. Case dismissed; now piss off out of my sight.” As Tubby marched to the door, he called after him “You’d better pray Otto doesn’t have an accident any time soon because if he does, you cop for it.”
He turned his glare on Otto.
“If Tubby had been invalided out after what you did to him, I’d have had you crucified. You can fuck off out of my sight and all.”
When the officers were alone and the wine cups had come out, Lucius mused aloud.
“I wonder what really happened.”
Aldermar, Lentus and Attius looked at each other and began to laugh.
“How do you all know and I don’t?” Lucius asked. “Why is it I never find out until it’s all over?”
“Youth and innocence,” Aldermar said. “Shall we tell him the story together or shall I do the honours?” he asked the others.
“Go ahead, Aldermar, light his lamp for him,” Attius replied.
“Very well, one of the latrines is found in a disgusting state with shitty footprints crossing the floor. The same night Otto is seen coming back in through the gate from the river soaking wet and smelling like a ripe turd. The next morning, Otto has no hair and is in a foul mood. Tubby is known to be a mean drunk and he had a skin-full that night. Otto tells the cavalrymen he did not cut off his Suevian Knot voluntarily. Tubby gets his ear sliced. It is nailed to the door of the same latrine which was found in a filthy condition. All the Germans hail Otto. Conclusion; Tubby shoved Otto into the latrine pit so Otto cut his ear off; probably using the dagger with which you presented him, sir,” Aldermar finished, smiling at Attius.
Attius grinned. “Tubby got what he deserved in my opinion which you never heard me say. Make sure Otto knows he won’t get away with it twice, Tribune Longius; for everyone’s sake,” he advised Lucius.
Tubby was passed fit for service as soon his wound had healed but had to wear a padded skull cap to stop his helmet wobbling due to the lack of his right ear.
At the beginning of the last week in February, as if a switch had been thrown, the snow turned to rain overnight. The gravel-filled drainage trenches the engineers had constructed when the camp was built carried the excess water away from inside the palisade and for the first time in months the parade ground looked evenly brown, not dirty white. The Rhine swelled and roared, bursting its backs at points and carrying whole trees and swollen-bellied dead animals spinning down to the sea at its mouth. The bridge vanished under the floodwaters. Everyone hoped it would survive the battering it was getting but it was obvious that large scale repairs would be required, at the least. The fort at the bridgehead had to be evacuated because water was coming in under the gates. After three weeks, the rains abated and the river level fell but it still flowed at the furious rate of a galloping horse.
By mid-March what was left of the bridge was clearly visible. Whole lengths were untouched but there were substantial gaps between them. The chief engineer went out in a boat with a long pole and sounded the bottom. He came back to report to the camp prefect.
“Not too bad; we need to sink forty new piles into the riverbed. Once that’s done, it’s just a matter of constructing the cross braces and covering them with planks. You’ll have to give me a wood-cutting party and enough oxen or mules to haul the timber.”
“How many men will it take?”
“Two centuries worth plus as many extra as necessary to protect them in case of trouble, I should say.”
“Seems a lot for a few bridge piles….”
The engineer took out a wax tablet and scribbled some calculations on it.
“Twelve hundred feet of trimmed heavy timber for the piles themselves, twice the length of lighter wood for bracing plus planks to lay across plus enough to build a couple of piling barges and drop-hammers; it’s a fair old amount when everything is taken into account…. better have the carpenters along as well…”
“You can have all the men you want as long as our bridge is back in commission before the legate returns,” Attius told him.
The works began. They identified one hundred suitable trees in the nearby forest; oaks for piling, pines for the rest. But it was not simply a case of the legion’s experts walking into the skirts of the forest and marking the timber they wanted to cut. Danger lurked out of sight of the camp. Twenty specialists in four parties made the selection but each of them was accompanied by a full century of infantry and ten missile troops. No group strayed beyond horn call of the others so they could quickly assemble in numbers to defend against any attack. Within six days, men with adzes, saws and axes swarmed over a pile of tree-trunks at the riverside trimming and shaping them. Two square rafts were moored out on the water. Each of them held a gantry from which a heavy, stone-ballasted log fell, end-on
, to hammer the thirty-foot piles into the riverbed. After each blow, punctuated by a reverberating thud, straining legionaries winched it up and let it fall again. Inch by inch the piles were pounded into the silt, mud and shingle to form the firm supports on which all depended. It rained, a watery sun shone, it rained again but the construction teams laboured unceasingly. The bank was trampled into ankle deep mud which made the work heavier and more dangerous. At least getting the timbers into the river where they were needed was easy enough; they were simply floated out attached to a series of ropes.
Two rowing boats were anchored, one upstream and the other downstream of the bridge where the works were underway. They carried archers and slingers to protect the toiling legionaries. Onshore, two scorpions and two ballistae covered the far bank. Lucius shared the command of the battery with Cestus Valens. He was praying for some movement across the river during his spells of duty so that he could give the order to fire but none came.
The morose lethargy that had overtaken the legion after Saturnalia was gone. There was a sense of busy purpose about the camp. It was as if the bridge repairs had shaken everyone out of a walking sleep and they were now hurrying to catch up in all sorts of ways. Attius ran the quartermasters and clerks ragged counting and recording stores and drawing up accounts of what had been used and what remained. Equipment was checked and repaired or replaced as necessary. Weapons were polished and sharpened or new ones forged. During this period Otto had gone into the forest and returned with two long, straight branches cut from a fallen ash tree. He peeled away the loose, dried bark and spent several days smoothing and shaping them. When he was satisfied, he heated them in a fire and slathered them with beeswax he had begged off Centurion Corvo. He ended up with two perfectly balanced and straight six-foot poles which he took to Martellus.
“These are my spear shafts; I made them,” he said.
“And I can see what a good job you’ve done,” the farrier replied.
“But they don’t have blades….”
Knight of Rome Part I Page 14