That can't be right, he thought. Jupiter, we were engaged!
'You'll want to bury it in the cemetery,' Natalis was saying. 'I'll detail a couple of men.'
'No, sir.' Severinus shook his head. 'I'll take it to our villa. My mother's name can go on the stone, and they can have their offerings together.'
'As you please. You've been there already?'
'Not yet, sir. I've only just got back from Braniacum.' Severinus forced down the vision of what he had found there, when Paullinus had sent him with the Foxes' cavalry reinforced by a squadron of the Sabinians. 'It's out by the estuary.'
'It may not be there any more. Most of the villas were burned along with the port and everything else.' Natalis pushed his fingers through his greying hair. 'Holy gods, it'll take us years to rebuild. Years.' He paused. 'I hear London was bad.'
'Aye.' At least his father had died cleanly, and he would have made sure that the others did too. There had been nothing clean about London; it had been like Verulamium, a blood-soaked shambles. 'Aye. It was.'
Natalis grunted. 'A crying shame that bastard Catus got away,' he said. 'He has a lot to answer for. Did you see the new procurator?'
'Classicianus? No, he was expected but he hadn't arrived when I left. You know him, sir?'
'I know of him. One of the emperor's new administrative high-fliers, a Gaul, and as much Celt as Roman. More so. An interesting appointment, politically. And he's no friend to the governor. We'll see sparks fly shortly.'
'Paullinus certainly didn't seem too pleased.’
The cavalry commander pursed his lips.
'No, he wouldn't be,' he said. 'He and Classicianus have crossed swords before. Where natives are concerned our new procurator's for the soft approach, and the governor can be' – Natalis hesitated – 'well, let's say uncompromising. Especially now. Understandable, of course; the rebellion's finished him. Three cities destroyed, the gods know how much in trade goods and private property, the best part of a legion lost. Britain's a bloody shambles. And this punitive campaign isn't helping.'
'You don't approve.'
'I'm a soldier. I've lost friends in the massacres, good friends, and no soldier can see half his legion wiped out without hating the bastards who did it, let alone after he's given the job of clearing up the butcher's shop they left behind them. But as Jupiter's my witness if Britain's to have a future in the empire it has to end here, and it seems Paullinus can't see past revenge. No, I don't approve.'
Severinus looked down at the urn. 'My father would've agreed with you,' he said.
'Aye, I expect he would have, at that.' Natalis smiled. 'I only met Julius Aper the once, years ago, but I've always thought it a shame there weren't more like him. He was a good soldier, a good Roman, and a good man. He'll be missed.' He stood up. 'Now. You'll want to get on, and I'm afraid I have things to see to myself. I'm pleased to have met you.' He held out his hand and Severinus shook it. 'If you need any help call in at the Dun. We've manned the fort up there and the centurion in charge will be happy to let you have a squaddie or two.'
Severinus stared at him in surprise. 'You still expect trouble from the natives?' he said.
'Oh, there're no natives there now, boy. They've gone, what there was left of them, shipped to Itius and sold for slaves.' Natalis was frowning. 'I told you, the governor isn't one to do things by halves. We've had our instructions: the tribe's to be stamped out. Completely, one way or another, even the name. You'll see precious few Trinovantes now, living or dead.'
The Colony was a ghost of itself. Only the streets remained, and even they were piled with debris, so choked in places that he had to make wide detours round the heaps of rubble and charred timbers. Here and there, where the wind had carried the flames away from them, some buildings were still standing, but they served only to emphasise the scale of the destruction. The market square was a gutted shell where soldiers stripped to the waist were loading carts with half-burned beams and sections of wattle-and-daub walling, their kerchiefs wrapped across their mouths and noses against the lime-plaster dust that hung over everything.
Then there were the bodies; still and always, even after all this time, there were bodies. As he rode Tanet along what had been Praetorian Street a pair of legionaries stopped what they were doing to pull something from beneath a collapsed wall and bundle it into a blanket. It looked small, like a child, but then perhaps that had been all there was left.
Finally he reached the south gate and the comparatively open country beyond. Digging his heels into Tanet's flanks, he brought her to the gallop and sent her along the coast road, allowing the wind blowing up from the marshes to clean him.
At first sight the villa looked untouched. The main block stood solid and familiar; it was only when he had dismounted and was leading the mare towards the stables round the side that he noticed the great black scar that had ripped through the east wing and the sag of the walls and roof.
Well, it was still better than he had hoped. The foundations could be reused. At least, unlike most, he still had a home to go back to.
Inside the stable, something moved. A cold finger touched Severinus's spine. Quietly, carefully, he let go of Tanet's rein. Setting the urn he was carrying on the ground, he drew his sword.
It was a horse; a white horse, smaller than Tanet but bigger than a pony. It stood in one of the stalls, a tether fastening it to the ring in the wall.
'Lacta?' Severinus said.
The mare turned her head, pulling at the tether as she blew through her nostrils. Severinus stepped forwards, hand outstretched, palm down. Warm lips nuzzled at his wrist. He looked around him, noticing the fresh straw on the floor, the water in the trough, and the half-filled manger. Patting the milk-white neck, he went back into the sunlight.
'I saw you ride up the path.' The words were Celtic. Severinus turned, his sword raised. 'She's been well cared for.'
The woman was standing among the birch trees that fringed the stable's outer wall.
'Aye. So I see.' Severinus put the sword back into its sheath. He had forgotten how bright her hair was, and how she drew herself up and stared straight at the person she was talking to. 'My thanks.'
'No thanks. I gave my word I'd keep her for you.' Senovara turned to go.
'Wait!' Severinus said. Her head swung round, as Lacta's had. 'You've been living here?'
'No.' Her voice was as level as her gaze. 'I am no thief, Julius Severinus, to take what does not belong to me. Lacta is different. She belongs here.'
'I was told the Dun was empty.'
'Aye, it is.'
'Your family?'
Her chin came up. 'My father and mother are dead. My sister...'She paused, her eyes hard. 'My sister died too.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Would you prefer them slaves?' The words slashed at him
Severinus waited. 'No,' he said at last, gently. 'I would not. But I'm still sorry they are dead.'
Senovara nodded. He saw her throat move, but there was no softness either in her face or her tone. She pointed to the urn that still lay on the ground between them. 'Your father?'
'Aye. My mother's dead as well. Her ashes are not here.' He forced himself to say the next words. 'Nor are Albilla's.'
Senovara turned her head towards the trees. She was silent for a long time. Then she turned back to face him.
'I am sorry too,' she said, more softly this time. 'They were good people. It was a waste. It was all a waste, a stupid, stupid waste.' She hesitated, then indicated the urn. 'You came here to bury it?'
'Aye.'
'Then if I may I will stay a little longer.'
Severinus had brought a spade with him. He dug a deep square hole beneath one of the apple trees, lowered the urn into it and replaced the earth. Then he said a silent prayer for all his dead and poured out the wine he had taken from Tanet's saddlebag. It was thin stuff, army issue, but they would understand.
Senovara had been watching him without speaking.
'Your f
ather was a fine man,' she said. 'He'll be reborn a warrior.'
Severinus put the stopper back in the flask. There would be a stone here before the autumn covered the place with leaves but for the present there was no more he could do. He felt as empty as the wine bottle.
'Aye,' he said. 'Maybe.'
'You don't believe it?'
He shook his head without looking at her. 'We believe that when a man is gone he's gone, Senovara. Or at least I do.'
'That is nonsense. Souls don't die. How can they? Where would the new people come from? Bodies die, but never souls. He will be back when he has rested.'
'Perhaps you're right.' Severinus was too tired to argue. He picked up the spade and walked towards the villa, pitching the empty wine flask into the midden beside it. 'Have you eaten?'
'Aye.' The stiffness had come back to her face and voice. 'This morning.'
She was lying; Severinus knew that. Now he saw her from close up her features were thin and pinched, and he could see the bones of her arms through the skin.
'Then eat again,' he said. 'I've plenty of flour in the saddlebags and some army bacon. And another flask of wine.'
Her eyes flicked away.
'I'm not hungry.'
Severinus paused. 'You've brought me a gift, Senovara. If this had been your house and you were the host, what would you think of the guest who refused to sit at your table?'
'Very little.' For the first time, her mouth twisted in the ghost of a smile. 'And less because the offer was so politely made. My thanks, Julius Severinus.'
'There's no need of thanks,' he said.
They went inside.
44
The Colony was beginning to come alive again. In the five months since reoccupation the debris had been cleared and the ground surface levelled for building. Most of what Severinus could see as he walked Tanet down Ditch Street towards the Residence area was still wasteland, but the first of the time-served veterans and their families had already arrived and there were enough houses to establish the line of the road. Here and there, knots of women sat gossiping in the autumn sunshine while their children played around them. Many wore pinned British dresses and their hair was braided. Severinus thought of Senovara, waiting back at the villa, and the child she was carrying.
On the higher ground to the east, reroofed but with its walls still stained black from the burning, Claudius's temple stood encased in its new web of scaffolding. From it came the sounds of hammering. He shivered, remembering his dream, and nudged Tanet into a trot. It would have been better to have destroyed the place altogether, levelled it to the ground and built elsewhere or not at all. The temple and the Annexe around it had too many ghosts, British and Roman.
The whole province had too many ghosts.
Jupiter, what a waste! he thought savagely. What a godawful, bloody, senseless waste! A hundred and fifty thousand people dead, three cities burned and half the province devastated, all for nothing. And thanks to Paullinus the stupidity still went on. He had seen enough of it these past few months to last him a lifetime: the slave gangs, the gutted farmsteads, the fields stripped of their grain or burned to the stubble, the ragged skeletons who moved across them picking up what little the troops had left behind. What Paullinus was doing with Rome's blessing was as barbaric in its way as what the Iceni had left of London and Verulamium.
In the cleared ground behind Residence Road the first of the rebuilt government offices was already in use. Severinus dismounted in front of the porch and handed Tanet's rein to the waiting legionary.
'Marcus Julius Severinus,' he said. 'To see the procurator.'
The man saluted. 'Aye, sir,' he said. 'Just go in.'
As he passed through the open doorway Severinus realised that the neatness had been deceptive. Inside, the building was still incomplete, with the raw stone and timber joists showing. A bridge of wooden planks stretched across the half-laid floor of the entrance hall, men with bowls of fresh plaster were at work on the walls, and he could hear the sound of carpenters' hammers overhead.
A secretary sat behind a makeshift desk. He looked up and smiled.
'Julius Severinus?'
Severinus nodded.
The man stood. 'Follow me, please.' He led the way along a short corridor, opened a second door and stepped back. 'Commander Severinus, sir.'
The office was finished and furnished, but it still smelled of new-sawn wood and lime wash. Not an unpleasant smell, Severinus thought as he took off his helmet and saluted the man behind the desk. There were worse.
'Ah, Commander, you've arrived.' Julius Classicianus was a big man, late middle-aged but still muscular. He indicated the room's only other chair. 'Sit down, please. My apologies for the mess, and the informality. We're still at sixes and sevens as you can appreciate, but you have to work somewhere.'
'Thank you, sir.' Severinus put his helmet on the floor. He was feeling ill at ease, and puzzled. He had no idea why he had been ordered all the way from from Braniacum for this interview; as procurator Classicianus had no military authority and so, technically, no right to summon him at all. 'And most places are a bit of a mess at present, aren’t they?.' He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice.
Classicianus gave him a sharp look, then nodded.
'Yes, that's true,' he said. 'We've little to be proud of between us, have we, us and the British?'
Severinus was taken aback; he had not expected the procurator to agree, or even recognise the sarcasm.
'No, sir,' he said finally. 'I don't think we have.'
'Mmm.' Classicianus’s long, heavily jowled face was impassive. 'Well, let's leave that aside for the moment. I need some information from you, Commander, if you'll be so good. I understand that you were attached to the – to Suetonius Paullinus's staff throughout the recent troubles?'
Severinus felt the muscles of his jaw tighten.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘That's quite correct.'
'But that this is no longer the case?'
'No.'
'Would you care to explain why?'
'It was a temporary appointment, sir, and the emergency is over. I was returned to my normal duties.'
Classicianus pulled at his ear-lobe. 'This...return to normal duties. It was at Paullinus's order, naturally.'
Severinus hesitated. 'Not altogether, sir.'
'Indeed?' Classicianus's eyes had widened, although Severinus had the impression the information had come as no real surprise. 'You requested it?'
'I...yes, sir.'
'Would you mind giving me your reasons?' Classicianus paused. 'Commander, you're an intelligent man. You must be aware, as I am, that an appointment to the governor's staff is a career opportunity not to be thrown away lightly, especially – forgive me – by such a junior officer as yourself. I really must insist on an answer.'
Severinus kept his voice neutral. 'I'm sorry, sir. The reasons were personal. I simply felt that I could no longer continue as a member of the governor's immediate staff.'
'I see.' Classicianus frowned. He half-raised his hand to his ear, then stopped and lowered it to the desk. 'Yes. Well. We'll leave that aside, too, if we may. Second. I understand that you have contracted a...liaison with a British woman.'
Severinus flushed. 'We're married, sir, if that's what you mean,' he said. 'Two months ago.'
'Roman law, Commander, does not recognise marriage between a citizen and a non-citizen. You're aware of that?'
'Naturally, but –'
'Also that possession of a native wife, especially the daughter of an active rebel, will prejudice your future army career?'
Severinus felt the anger rise to his face. 'With respect, sir,' he said, 'I don't see what concern any of this is of yours.'
Classicianus held up a hand. 'Don't get on your high horse, young man. As I said, I'm interested only in information. I'm merely checking the facts as I know them at present, although I do admit that personally I find them a little puzzling. So. Let's recap, shall we? You giv
e up a staff posting of your own free will and compound this sin by a spurious marriage – spurious in our terms – to a native woman of doubtful loyalty. These are both unusual actions, to say the least.' Severinus said nothing. 'Your family, I understand, died in the massacre.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And this had no bearing on your behaviour? You didn't feel, perhaps, that –?'
'Procurator.' Severinus stood up. 'I'm sorry, but I think we should terminate this interview now.'
'Sit down, Julius Severinus.' Classicianus had not raised his voice, but the order was unmistakable. 'Please. It's certainly not my intention to insult you. If I seem to be doing so, then forgive me. These questions are necessary, and they serve a purpose.'
Severinus sat. 'Then could I ask you, sir,' he said, 'before we go any further, to tell me what that purpose is?'
'Not yet, no. Or not wholly.' Classicianus hesitated. 'Commander, I have been in Britain for what still seems to me a very short time, and I'm still feeling my way. Very much so. One of my tasks, not the least of them, is to talk to people and gather their views on the province's past, present and future. Please look on this interview in that light. I am no soldier, nor would I wish to be one; however, I do represent the emperor and from him I have received specific instructions' – he paused – ‘specific instructions, to form an assessment. I would appreciate any help that anyone can give me.' He smiled. 'Even when it comes from a very junior officer who seems to have all the wits and tact of a rhino.'
Severinus did not smile back. 'Very well, sir.'
'Good. Then tell me your opinion – your honest opinion, please – of our policy so far.'
Severinus took a deep breath. 'I think it's been short-sighted, sir. There would've been no revolt at all if we'd been less greedy and made some attempt, at least, to take local conditions and sensibilities into account. Now the revolt is over and Boudica is dead, I think the authorities are confusing punishment with revenge. The result may be a peaceful province, but it's peaceful only because what natives there are who are not either dead in battle or have been sold as slaves are too starved to resist; in which case we're storing up trouble for the future. When that trouble breaks we'll have only ourselves to blame, and next time may be just as bad, or even worse.' There was silence. 'My apologies, Procurator. You asked for my honest opinion.'
The Horse Coin Page 27
