by Henry Treece
For a long time Marcus could not sleep. Boughs creaked all about him and the night was heavy with the rustling of leaves and the cries of hunting animals below. Once a great bird flapped close to him, then veered away on rattling wings, shrieking out a warning to the other birds.
Then in spite of the chilly breeze that shook the bough that supported him, and in spite of all the unknown sounds that filled his ears, he fell back against the fork of the tree into a dream in which he and Tigidius were running along that road again, out of Camulodunum. He saw that overgrown shrine set above the sunken lane and smelled the sacrificial meat burning on the altar fire. And in the dream, he went with the centurion to the hut and there found a table laden with good food. Set in silver dishes there were walnuts, plums in syrup, oysters, honey cakes, dates and golden figs. On wooden trenchers lay meats of all kinds; and the whitest crispest bread he had ever seen. In the dream Tigidius said to him, ‘I told you there would be something to eat there, Tribune. But you, with your thoughts of death, would not believe me. Now do you trust my word?’
Marcus nodded and slapped the centurion on the shoulder. They sat at the table and began to eat. The food was quite the finest they had ever tasted. Tigidius said, ‘If only your father were here now, boy!’ And just then Marcus looked up, and there at the head of the table sat Ostorius, looking just as he ever was, his face brown and wrinkled, his eyes gleaming and his mouth smiling. He said as he nibbled at a chicken leg, ‘Well, Marcus, this is the life, hey? When old comrades gather together for the feast, hey? That is the life!’ Then he began to tell a long story about a feast he had been to outside Damascus once, when he was a young soldier. He described all the coloured fruits and the syrups and the wine served with cream upon it from golden cups. And he was in the middle of his story when another voice spoke out of the darkness behind the smoking altar and said, ‘Rome is eating up the world. The world is Rome’s delicacy. All goes into Rome’s stomach and there is nothing left for the other folk.’
Marcus glanced round in annoyance that his father should be interrupted so. And standing behind the altar he saw a woman dressed in a grey robe, with a hood that mostly covered her face. But he knew who it was. He said to her, ‘If you have come for your brooch, you can have it, and welcome. Only let us get on with our feasting. I have not seen my father and my old comrade for long enough.’
The woman shook her head and said, ‘I have come for something else and it is not my brooch.’
In her right hand she held a stick that was a snake. Sometimes it wriggled and then it became stiff and straight. Marcus watched it with a plum in his mouth. He could taste the syrup quite clearly. He swallowed it and said, ‘I have never seen such a stick before. Is it from Egypt, woman? I hear they have such sticks there.’
But she did not answer him. Instead, she leaned across the altar, right through the flames of the fire, - and struck upon the table where the feasters sat. Then Marcus saw that the feast had gone, and in its, place lay a dead sheep with its wool charred and its yellow teeth showing between its grinning lips. The woman smiled and said, ‘Take, eat, Romans. This is your feasting now.’
Marcus turned round in fury to see what his father would think of such a thing; but his father had vanished, and so had Tigidius, and now he sat alone at the moss-covered board.
He looked again at the dead sheep and then saw that it wore his medallion about its burned neck, the one he had given to Aranrhod. Now the medallion was dull and scratched and not brightly-polished as he had always kept it. He said in anger, ‘There will be a price to pay for this. The legions will gather when they hear how my father has been dishonoured. Aye, they will gather, woman.’
She laughed at his words and stretched out her snake-stick towards him. At first he stood there, but then the flicking tongue came so close to his face that he drew back his head and struck at it.
He was still doing this when he saw that the snake was a green oak twig and that the woman who held it was Gerd. She was touching his face with it gently to waken him and putting her finger to her lips to warn him not to cry out.
He saw the billowing waves of the tree-tops all about him, as far as the eye could reach, and above them the blue sky and the white clouds. Gerd whispered, ‘Do not speak, Marcus. Look below us, but do not speak.’
Marcus looked down through the thick foliage. He saw that their oak tree was placed on the lip of a deep gully, and that now this gully was crowded with men. From their leather helmets and cuirasses he knew that they were auxiliaries of the legions. Many of them wore their fair hair long, on to the shoulders, and he guessed that they were a German contingent.
Then he turned in the fork of the tree and gazed in the other direction; men were there too, men with dark hair cropped short, squatting on the ground, their long javelins prodding up above them. These were Macedonians.
Gerd edged slowly along the bough and whispered, ‘They have been coming in for two hours, since before dawn. The wolves heard them and fled. These are fiercer wolves. We cannot go down now. They would spear us before we could say who we were.’
Marcus nodded. ‘I did not expect this,’ he said. ‘If they had been men of the legions proper, I could have gone to their Tribunes; but you are right, they would never let us set foot on the ground. The forest is alive with them. There must be thousands. They have gathered for a strange feasting. It is like a dream.’
[25]
Crab’s Claws
As the morning passed, Marcus made a small space among the leaves so that he could see before him. And then he said, ‘The Fourteenth and the Twentieth are set out ahead. I can recognize their Eagles.’
Cohort after cohort waited, formed into squares, lounging on their spears. At either side of them sat cavalrymen waiting with their long swords across their thighs.
Marcus said, half in pride, half in fear now, ‘Mithras, but they have come, the legions. They have come with a vengeance!’
Gerd whispered, ‘It is a fearsome thing to belong to such a people. You are so many and so unforgiving.’
Marcus said suddenly, ‘I had thought to have cheered when I saw my own folk again, but now I am almost afraid of them myself. These men have come from destroying Mona; they have marched across the land from one side to the other without resting. Someone will have to pay a high price for that marching. Look down at their faces. They are of iron, like their swords, these men.’ Then quite clearly in the morning air they heard a voice calling out through a trumpet to the assembled armies. Marcus said, ‘It is the General. It is old Death Bringer him-self. This must be the last battle of the world.’ The thin clear voice sounded through the forest, echoing off the trees, sending the creatures to their holes and lairs. ‘Romans,’ it said, ‘you stand in the cold morning winds now, but soon you will be warm. The riders have brought in news that they are coming, the Iceni and their hangers-on. You will not have long to wait.’
For a while below there was some chattering among the auxiliaries, but as the General’s voice grew more savage, even they fell silent. He spoke the words they had waited to hear.
‘Brothers, for we of Rome are all brothers, you have seen what they do, these British. Many of you have lost comrades and kinsmen. Today, unless you stand fast, you will lose your own lives. Yes, I tell you that because you are men, not children, and wish to know the truth. So I will tell you the truth, it is your right to know it. These British mean to frighten you out of this Province. They mean to send you scurrying like hares to the sea. They mean to make your name stink through the world as cowards. They mean to drag down the very walls of Rome. Of course, you will let them do that. Of course, you will let them do to you what they have done to your kinsmen and comrades. Of course you will. That is what Romans like, is it not, to be captured and spiked on sharp stakes? To be flung into vats of boiling water and watch their flesh melting? To be turned slowly on spits over charcoal fires? We like that, don’t we, lads? We thrive on it, don’t we?’
As he said this,
a great roar burst from the forest. It was as though the trees were shaken by an earthquake.
Suetonius went on, ‘Aye, we like it, I can tell. But we like it better when we are the victors. We like it better when we see the enemy turn and fling down their weapons and run screaming from us. And that is what they will do today, I promise you. I swear to almighty Jupiter, and on the bones of all my ancestors, the enemy will run today. I give you my solemn word, and I will fall on my sword here and now before you if you doubt it, that today you will wipe them out as though they had never been. Do you believe me, old friends? Do you believe Suetonius?’
Once again the trees rocked and the birds flew up crying into the air. Leaves fell to the earth in a green shower.
Then the great voice lost its passion and spoke sharply.
‘Very well then, my legions, remember your drill. Stand in close order, shield grating on shield. Throw your javelins true when your centurions give the word. Do not be put off your cast by blue-painted faces. Any fool can paint his face, but not any fool can cast a javelin. And when your officers give the advance, go forth in line with your swords. Poke at their blue faces, my brothers, that will make them skip. And when the horns blow, stand still. Do not move. For then the cavalry on either flank will take over from you to give you a breather. My fine cavalry will close on them like the claws of a crab, nipping them as they run. Ah, you will see, my brothers, you will see the pincers nipping hard.’
Again the earth shuddered with the stamping and spearthudding and shield-beating.
The voice broke through again in its last command: ‘But, one word of warning; your work today is to trap them and kill them. That is your task and no other. Do not think of plunder. Do not turn your minds to gold and pretty weapons. Every second that you pause to pick up such rubbish will kill a comrade for you, and could kill you too. Do as I say, and by this day’s end, my brothers, you shall have all the plunder you can carry. You shall be so rich that Nero himself will envy you. Old Stomach himself will envy you!’
As he finished and the legions howled again, Gerd closed her eyes, high in the oak tree, and whispered, ‘I am afraid. Even to be near a Roman, like you, I am afraid.’
Marcus bowed his head and said quietly, ‘I cannot believe that once my father spoke such words to his men. He was such a kind man. I cannot believe it.’
But Gerd had stopped listening. Pointing towards the little space in the leaves, she said, ‘Look, they are coming. Her folk are coming, and she is leading them.’
[26]
Kinsman of Caratacus
Across the shaggy moorland that lay at the beginning of the gully moved a great horde. The earth was black with them into the distance. Some were walking, some dancing, some riding gaily on unbroken ponies. Among them great wagons moved, decorated with coloured banners and with white skulls set on poles. Above them and behind them black ravens wheeled, hungry for the feasting. Hounds ran here and there, noses to the ground, seeking the prey they had been promised. Women strummed on lyres or blew down bone flutes, children ran in companies waving bright flags and laughing at the holiday.
From place to place chariots raced with gaunt chieftains in them, shepherding the tribes, giving messages and orders. One chieftain from the far west rode on a bull painted green to represent the old god Poseidon, and carrying a trident in his hand. His head-dress was not of bronze but of sea-weed. He tottered helplessly for a while and then fell to the ground among his laughing folk. He was laughing too.
Marcus said, ‘They do not need soldiers to kill them. They will kill themselves. Look, they are drawing the wagons across the mouth of the gully so that the Romans shall not escape. But before this day is out, they may regret they have shut the gate against themselves.’
But Gerd said sadly, ‘They outnumber the legions, ten to one. They have only to come forward as they are doing now to smother the men below us.’
And for a moment it seemed that the auxiliaries had thought of that, for their excited chattering had stopped and many of them were looking over their shoulders to see where they could run, if the worst came to the worst.
Then the Celtic battle-horde halted. And from her black wagon in the front rank, Boudicca stood up, her face painted white, her hair flying loose in the wind. And that wind blew her words into the ears of the waiting Romans. ‘My children,’ she called, ‘this will not take us long, then we can dance and sing at our leisure. Today you face creatures - I will not call them men - who bath in warm water, eat dainty food, sleep on feather beds, and scent themselves with myrrh. Creatures who have a fat old lute-player for their king. Creatures who think so much of their stomachs that they eat the oyster but throw away the pearl that is in the shell.’
Marcus did not hear what else she said, because suddenly he felt so hungry that he almost fell from the oak tree.
Then all at once he knew that she had stopped speaking, and saw that the tribes could wait no longer, but were running forward in a thick mass towards the legions.
Then he heard the hard-voiced decurion’s below going at their trade. ‘First rank, cast - kneel. Second rank, cast - kneel. Third rank, cast - kneel. Wait for it. Wait for it. Now, swords out! Forward!’
Everywhere this was being said, and always in the same voice, as though one man had said it all.
And then the rushing Britons were down, men and horses, chariots. Some turned and fled, horses riderless, chariots banging about without drivers, all in confusion.
And through the confused air came the sound of the silver trumpets. The legions standing dead still. The riders coming out on either side from the woods, slashing down at everything moving. Then the trumpets again and the cavalry wheeling and going back under cover as though they were rehearsing manoeuvres on Mars’ Field in Rome.
And now the General once again: ‘Nicely nipped, my crabs. Oh, nicely nipped. But see if you can get more next time, boys. Just a few hundred more and I’ll be satisfied.’
The Iceni did not seem as though they believed what had happened to them, for they came again almost immediately. And once more the decurion’s chanted, once more the horse came out. Once more Suetonius spoke down the trumpet, always asking for more, for more. He was like a hungry god.
It was midday now and the sun stood overhead. Gerd said, ‘Surely they must stop and go away. It must be over.’
But Marcus did not answer. He knew that it would not be over until Suetonius stopped calling down the horn and that would mean there were no more to kill, that his hunger was satisfied at last.
Then in the middle afternoon, when the flies were swarming in the oak tree, a thing happened that held both armies silent. Down the trampled field towards the legions came a white-haired old chieftain sitting bolt-upright on a dappled pony. His long moustaches reached down to his breast in the Gallic style. The burnished bronze he wore belonged to a past generation. The gold about his neck and wrists glittered for a quarter of a mile. Before him on the red Spanish saddle sat a small boy no older than four, and wearing the same bronze and the same tartan cloak.
Marcus squinted at the man and said, ‘He is of the royal house of the Catuvellauni, some kinsman of Caratacus. I did not think we had left any of them alive. He must have come from far away, from across the sea, perhaps.’
Behind the dappled pony rode seven youths, on good horses, naked to the waist and shaking lances. All had the same look of the old man in front of them. Only the red bars of paint across their faces and bodies were different.
Gerd looked at them and said, ‘Woden, Woden! Not one but would be a king in my land. I pray for them.’
Suetonius let them come within a hundred paces before he called to the archers. And then the youths fell one by one. The youngest of them was dragged by his leather thongs almost to spear-thrust of the first ranks of the legions.
But still the old man rode on, never once looking back at the youths. And when he was up to the first stockade of pointing javelins, he cried out in perfect Latin, ‘Where is th
e Butcher? Let him come down and face me.’
For an instant, Roman heads turned to see if Suetonius would take the challenge. But no answer came, and then the spearmen began to thrust at the old man. Angrily he slashed out with his long sword and five men went down under him. Then a Balearic slinger stepped forward and taking aim knocked the chieftain off his saddle with the first stone. The spearmen shrugged their shoulders, then pinned him as he tried to rise.
By some strange chance the dappled horse broke free and turned back towards the wagons, with the little boy clinging to its mane unharmed.
Marcus said hoarsely, ‘They will let him go back. They are not monsters. It is their one salvation, they give honour where it is due.’
Just as he finished, the trumpets screamed again and from either side the whole cavalry came forward, as though they were called on to wipe out a whole contingent.
But when they reached the little boy on the dappled horse they reined in, making a guard of honour through which he must pass. He did not seem to notice them, but rode on, looking towards Boudicca.
Then almost wearily the captain of horse nodded to his squadron and they closed the funnel. They used their swords so reluctantly that it seemed as though they carried lead in their hands, not thin steel.
Afterwards they led the dappled horse back to Suetonius with silent mockery against their General.
Marcus leaned his head against the bough and wept. He was not the only Roman who wept that day.
Then the whole army moved, as though this had been the final signal for the destruction. And as the sun sank, the Britons, penned in by their own wagons, fell in great heaps upon the moorland. Families died together there, the children still playing with their garlands, the women still holding their babies, or with the flute at their lips.
And when dusk began to fall, Gerd said, ‘I have been sick, Marcus, I could not help it. I feel ill now and must get down this tree.’
