by Peter Tonkin
Nerio, however, retracted hers on Enobarbus’ third bellowed order. Still travelling at ramming speed, the trireme sped through the gap between the quadriremes, shattering the banks of oars on either side as she did so. The noise of the destruction was incredible – a combination of cracking wood and screaming men. More than just snapping the long wooden columns, Nerio’s sharp prow made the near ends of the breaking oars slam forward as the far ends pivoted on the rowing holes to slam back, smashing into the men who sat there, handles slamming into chests with incredible force, breaking arms, shattering ribs, bursting rowers’ breasts like blood-filled balloons. Turning the powerhouses of the two battleships’ oar decks into bloody butchers’ shops in mere moments.
Then she was through. ‘Oars out!’ bellowed Enobarbus. ‘Ramming speed until we’re clear.’ He looked back exultantly. The quadriremes were crippled; the attendant triremes milling around, uncertain how best to proceed. It seemed that there was no chance of pursuit. Nerio at least had escaped the blazing carnage.
Only now did he think to return to the forecastle, to congratulate the artillerymen manning the scorpions on a job well done. But for some reason they were not at their posts. Instead they were gathered in a group just aft of the stempost. As the tribune approached, they stepped back.
And there was Gaius Memmius, kneeling on wide-spread knees in a fast-growing puddle of blood. His face was white and wore an expression of absolute shock. Shock and surprise that he was still alive, thought the tribune grimly. The boy’s bloodstained fists were closed round the handle of his gladius, whose blade was buried deep within him. The pain had not come yet, Enobarbus realised. But it would unless he was quick.
He strode forward and knelt at the dying boy’s side. He put his left arm gently round the young centurion’s shoulders and reached down to close his fist over the boy’s fists. Suddenly Gaius Memmius, last survivor of the Legio Martia was speaking. ‘Tell them,’ he whispered. ‘Tell them that the Martia died well. Even though they did not die in battle, they died well.’
‘I’ll tell them,’ promised Enobarbus. The boy’s body tensed, trying to summon up enough strength to finish it. Enobarbus tensed as well adding his strength to young Gaius’. The sword moved up the last hand’s breadth. The hot blood rained over his fist and spattered onto the deck. The light in the centurion’s wide eyes went out. He rocked the dead boy back so he was looking at the sky, leaned forward and pressed his lips to the corpse’s catching his last breath as a grieving father might at the deathbed of a beloved child. He closed the wide eyes, climbed to his feet and stood looking down for a second. ‘His spirit is with the Martia now,’ he said. ‘Let his body be with theirs as well.’ He led the team from the scorpions in lifting the body gently and reverently easing it over the side to sink into the clear water.
Then, with his hands and knees still stained with the young soldier’s blood, he went to stand beside Calvinus in the dead captain’s place. ‘I’m going to have to break it to both Caesar and Antony,’ he said quietly to the still shaken legate, ‘that they’ve only got nineteen legions now.’
IX - The Road Back
i
‘There’s no doubt,’ said Felix, ‘that she complicates things, perhaps more than you realised she would.’
‘I have a name,’ snapped Voadicia. ‘And Septem says I’m not a slave any more, so I think you should use it.’
Felix looked at the woman from Albion, uncertain just how to react to her. Were she still a slave in his household, he would have had her whipped for speaking to him like that. Had a legionary in the Martia spoken to him like that he would have used his vinestock until the culprit pleaded for mercy. But Septem seemed to have taken a liking to her – so unless he wanted to start a fight with an old friend in the midst of a vital mission – and dangerously deep in enemy territory – he would just have to humour her.
They had agreed she should call Artemidorus by his code-name Septem because her strange northern tongue was having trouble pronouncing his Greek given name and he did not want her calling him Dominus. She could manage ‘Felix’ perfectly but was more or less spitting it out at the moment.
‘Why should I use your name?’ demanded Felix genuinely surprised.
‘Because only people have names. Slaves are not people, they are things – possessions. Things do not have names. This dagger is a dagger – dagger is what it is not what it is named.’
‘Many soldiers give their swords names. My friends in the cavalry name their horses. Does that make them people too?’ wondered Felix.
‘No! At the bottom of things, the swords are still swords and the horses are still horses. My old dominus gave me a name Barbara Scortillum just as he might name his horse or his dog, as he called me his Barbarian Bitch, but I was still a thing to him. Slave is what I was. Voadicia is who I am.’
‘In the name of all the gods,’ said Felix. ‘I think she must have been reading Plato! But whether or not she is a great philosopher, she is still a problem and we have to solve her quickly.’
Yes, thought Artemidorus, Felix was right. They had fulfilled all the elements of the plan they made before setting out. In the minutes after sighting the enemy legions, they had reversed their course, looking for a good hiding place. They had driven the dung cart off the Via and hidden it in a convenient thicket close to the road. They had released the cart-horse from its traces and it was currently cropping the grass beside the fleet-footed thoroughbreds they had claimed belonged to Messalla Corvinus and Lucius Bibulus. Then they emptied the false bottom of everything they would need to make a speedy return to Amphipolis on the two stallions. They were two fast horses well suited to carrying the fully-armed legionary messengers they were now disguised as.
But at that point proceedings slowed. They could not leap astride and thunder off up the road with their news for Saxa and Norbanus about their enemies’ movements quite yet. Voadicia was the reason for their hesitation. She made a reasonably convincing companion clothed as a Gallic slave. Concealed by the baggy outfit, her slight, wiry figure made her look like a boy and as such she might not turn too many heads when she accompanied them. At her own suggestion they had invested a few further moments in hacking off her long black tresses. ‘It is slave hair,’ she announced. ‘Warrior hair is short.’ So the boyish effect of the clothing was enhanced by a jagged hairline that hung half way down her ears. But all she had to ride was the lumbering cart horse, which they had planned to leave – and which didn’t have a saddle. Always assuming she could stay astride riding bareback, the cart-horse would slow them dangerously – perhaps fatally – if they did take it.
On top of which, somewhere along their proposed route to Amphipolis they would have to cross the River Gangites and brazen their way through the enemy lines. ‘Which two military messengers with the correct papers might just do,’ persisted Felix. ‘Failing that we could swim over the river with our horses. But neither ploy works so well with a woman and a cart horse in tow. Especially with the guards on full alert,’ he emphasised. ‘As they will be with Saxa and Norbanus in Amphipolis and Antony expected to appear at any moment.’
‘Not to mention Brutus and Cassius coming so close as well,’ nodded Artemidorus. ‘That will make the Casca brothers and Labeo tighten everything up. As soon as Cassius has finished the donative ceremony, they’ll start sending messengers so everyone on the Libertores’ side will be pretty well briefed…’
*
Even as Artemidorus spoke, a horse went thundering by along the quiet Via which was invisible behind the trees. ‘Just as you predicted,’ said Felix. ‘That will be the first of many. We’re running out of time and the woma… Voadicia is just slowing us down...’
‘What we need to do before we worry about possible problems somewhere up ahead of us,’ interrupted Voadicia, ‘is stop the next messenger and take his horse. I’m sure I can ride one with a saddle.’
‘Easier said than done,’ observed Felix, his tone heavily ironic, ‘Even with the
help of an erudite philosopher and military strategist as brilliant as yourself.’
‘I don’t see why,’ she answered. ‘You have bows and arrows; slings...’
‘Shooting or stoning a rider galloping past is almost impossible,’ Artemidorus warned.
‘Then you need to slow him down,’ said the decisive young woman, put on her mettle by Felix’ irony. ‘Tie me to a tree beside the road.’
‘No courier is going to stop for a Gaulish slaveboy,’ Felix sneered.
‘Take my clothes off. Show him I’m not a boy at all. Then he’ll stop I bet.’
It wasn’t quite as simple as Voadicia made it sound but they soon sketched out a plan. Artemidorus was the archer; Felix the look-out and Voadicia was in charge of stripping and leaning back against the tree as though she had been tied there. But that was something she would only do if Felix signalled that a rider - and only one rider – was coming along the Via; which needed to be otherwise empty at the time.
Artemidorus took up one of the two bows they had brought with the saddles, tack, tunics, armour and other weapons packed in the wagon’s false bottom. It was a short, reticulated, composite weapon in the Parthian style – light and incredibly powerful.
They had to wait a surprisingly short time before Felix gave the warning – a whistle almost instantly drowned beneath oncoming hoofbeats. As the spy nocked his arrow, he caught a flash of white skin outlined against the roadside tree. He waited, breathing shallowly and steadily as the hoofbeats slowed, precisely as the woman from Albion had predicted. They stopped.
‘Well,’ said a surprisingly cultured voice in pristine Latin, ‘what have we here?’
‘My master is punishing me,’ said Voadicia, her tone trembling with apparent terror and just above a whisper. ‘I failed to satisfy him so he has tied me to this tree. Now I must satisfy any stranger coming past.’
‘Well then, today’s your lucky day. It may well be far below my dignitas even to touch you, and, indeed far from the objective of my current mission but with no-one nearby to see, how can I resist such a generous gift from the gods - and I’m sure you will enjoy my attentions too.’
ii
The unmistakable sound of a soldier sliding off a saddle to land on hobnailed caligae covered the rustle of leaves as Artemidorus stepped out of hiding, sighted and fired. The arrow took the legionary through the front of his throat above the neck of his armour and his scarf. The arrowhead cut through his spinal cord, effectively beheading him, so swiftly that his last expression was still one of lust rather than shock or surprise. He collapsed at once, face down. His horse shied and curvetted back, but Voadicia caught the reins and soothed the beast until Felix relieved her and she turned back to get dressed.
As she did so, Artemidorus took the opportunity to check in the rider’s saddle bags. After a moment, he caught his breath. ‘The gods appear to be with us rather than the messenger after all, Felix,’ he said. ‘These are letters from Brutus to Servilia his mother and from Cassius to his wife Junia. One letter would probably have done for both; they’re mother and daughter after all.’
‘Why is this such good news?’ asked Felix.
‘I’d bet that if you look in the pouch the courier’s got slung over his shoulder, you’ll find that the letters are accompanied by a pass that will get us into Neapolis and down to the docks – if we’re not recognised. Letters like these are supposed to go on the first ship heading for Italy. Indeed, if we actually wanted to go to Rome, this courier’s pass would almost certainly get us there.’
Felix straightened, holding the document pouch in one hand and the pass itself in the other. ‘It appears you’re right. Centurion Marcus Caldus here was indeed on his way to Rome. But we do not want to go to Rome; the docks at Neapolis will do us fine. If we can steal a vessel that we can control, we might be able to reach Amphipolis by sea, getting round the enemy lines by going back the same way as we came out.’
‘It’s a thought.’ Artemidorus agreed with a nod.
‘It might even be a plan. Do you think we should check it out with our senior strategist?’ He glanced across to where Voadicia was just pulling the plaid trousers up over the pale moons of her buttocks.
Within a very short time indeed, the dead messenger was stripped of everything they thought might be useful and hidden in the undergrowth. Voadicia was mounted on the steadiest of the three horses and the contents of the messenger’s saddlebag had been replaced - to be scrutinised wherever and whenever they stopped for the night. And his pouch with the vital passes was slung across Artemidorus’ chest, crossing the baldric that held his sword while the messenger’s own weapons hung from Voadicia’s saddle.
Neapolis was a three-day fast march away. That meant the better part of a full day’s ride with an overnight stop as it was mid-afternoon already. An opportunity to rest, regroup and reassess their plans would suit the secret agents admirably.
*
The roadside mansione was larger than most simple way-stations. It seemed to be run by civilians rather than the military, and was consequently busier than the average. Many of its numerous clients were clearly from the legions, whether they were in armour or in their simple madder–dyed red tunics. It served food as well as drink and offered stabling for horses as well as accommodation for their riders. All it lacked was a decent set of baths.
Under the seemingly indifferent eyes of the host, his slaves and a crowd of itinerant clients, two armed and armoured messengers sat at a secluded table which seemed far too large for their needs. Their slave-boy stood behind them, helping the serving women serve the food they ordered. When he thought no-one was looking, the slave popped morsels of bread and sausage into his mouth and sipped the water with which he was diluting their wine. Neither messenger seemed to notice this, or if they did, to care enough about it to stop what was going on. Possibly because they were so preoccupied.
On the sizeable table between the two men lay three pairs of saddle-bags. As they sorted through the contents of these, it became obvious that the couriers had chosen a table large enough to make three piles beside the bags and amongst the platters and goblets containing their dinner. The first, bulkiest, pile was of dried and preserved food, mostly flat bread, meat and fruit, along with several small amphorae that clearly contained oil or drink. All of this was obviously destined to be consumed in places and at times where and when roadside mansiones or city hospitiae were in short supply: standard provisions for couriers on long journeys and suggested that they were bound for a distant destination.
Beside the food was a smaller pile of documents that had apparently stopped being of use or relevance. But the third pile, which the two men were poring over, their attention closely concentrated, consisted of scrolls and packages of papyrus and parchment, several with official-looking seals, which obviously explained why they were on the road – if not where their final destination might be. But anyone with sharp eyes and an equally sharp interest would have noted that there were contents which had not been removed from some still-bulky saddle-bags. This fourth, hidden, pile almost certainly consisted of travelling money – though the taller of the centurions had settled up the charges so far with sestertii from a wallet hung round his neck. The fact that two fully armed soldiers nevertheless kept their valuables hidden would have made them even more fascinating to anyone whose interest had been piqued by their choice of table size and position in the first place.
‘I’d have thought a mansione like this would have been quieter,’ said Felix glancing around. ‘The whole area is thick with soldiers who should really be in their castrae camps rather than out on the Via. Though I’d probably be expecting to see more merchants about, trying to turn a profit from them.’
‘A profit out of Brutus and Cassius? I’m not so sure.’ Artemidorus shook his head. ‘Imagine the conversation: “Good morning General Brutus, I’m a local merchant. I have here a wagonload of the finest millet very popular with legionary bakers and for sale at a very reasonable pr
ice…” “Good morning merchant. May I introduce you to my Quartermaster and half a dozen of his largest assistants? They will take your millet and we’ll arrange payment sometime soon after Tartarus freezes over…” It would almost certainly go like that no matter what the merchants were trying to sell. Not to mention that all the local towns will have closed their gates, manned their walls and brought in curfews to stop anyone – merchant, whore or farmer - arousing the interest of these dangerously greedy legions in case they cause Xanthus all over again.’
‘That’s why the Via’s been so quiet I suppose,’ nodded Felix. ‘Except for messengers. And the occasional wagon full of horseshit.’
‘And it’s not likely to get much busier until Cassius and Brutus have built their camps, drawn up their battle lines and established their secure supply routes through Neapolis,’ agreed Artemidorus. ‘Even then, only if Antony stays away, Saxa and Norbanus keep clear of trouble and everything settles down.’
‘None of which is likely to happen,’ said Felix.
‘Not if we have a hand in the matter,’ agreed Artemidorus. ‘Stopping things settling down, stirring up Saxa and Norbanus and smoothing Antony’s path are the very things that we are here to do.’
iii
Artemidorus sprang awake, automatically reaching for his dagger before he remembered that Voadicia still had it. A cool hand was sliding down his belly, its final destination beyond doubt. His eyes opened to absolute darkness; if he could see a slim shape kneeling beside his bed to reach beneath the thin blanket, it was as much to do with imagination as peripheral vision. ‘Stop!’ he spat.