Deva Tales

by S. J. A. Turney

  The centurion trotted over and joined them, looking them up and down appraisingly.

  ‘Bad night to be out, even for men like you.’ If he recognised the pair, he didn’t say it, though there was something in his eyes that suggested suspicion. With a mix of relief and trepidation, Lupus realised that, armed as they were, and on the road in the dark, they resembled native bandits more than anything.

  ‘So we hear, officer,’ Leonidas replied in a passable local accent.

  ‘Valerius?’ the centurion said, looking at the legionary. ‘Why don’t you reward our friends here for capturing our runaway?’

  The legionary gave his commander the blackest look he dare, but proceeded to open the leather satchel over his shoulder and produced a bag of coins marked with the XXvv of the Twentieth Legion, weighing it regretfully, and then tossing it over to Lupus, who caught it with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘Do I know you?’ the one called Valerius asked suspiciously, eyeing Leonidas.

  ‘Maybe,’ the retiarius drawled in a near-Ordovice accent. ‘You get to Bovium often?’

  Valerius shook his head, his eyes still narrowed.

  ‘Where are you bound?’ the centurion asked quietly.

  ‘Levobrinta,’ Leonidas replied, giving Lupus a meaningful look that the German took to be a warning to avoid mentioning their intended destination.

  ‘We’ll keep you company for a mile or so,’ the centurion murmured. ‘But we’ll be stopping at the new fort. Keep your eyes open on the way to Levobrinta and if you’re camping, find somewhere defensible and well hidden. There’s trouble in these lands and it’s going to get worse before it gets any better.’

  Lupus looked down at the weighty bag of coins in his hands and then at Leonidas, who nodded. Steeling himself and keeping his fingers near the hilt of his sword, Lupus prepared to travel south into the valley between those black, brooding hills.

  11. THE FORTLET

  A little earlier.

  I stood and straightened, my back aching beyond belief. It had been a little over a week since we arrived at the place we had affectionately labelled Shit River, and the fortlet was progressing well. Not as well, of course, as it would have under the control of a whole cohort with master engineers, as was the norm. But we were just four companies of legionaries serving under an optio, and many of us still raw recruits or recovering sick-listers.

  And this was no marching camp. For all it was a fortlet designed to hold only a century of men, it was to be endowed with all the luxuries of a permanent installation. Had we just been raising a rampart and digging a ditch, we’d have been back in Deva days since.

  But no. The optio was determined to make it something to be proud of. With a high bank and timber wall, deep, perfectly-angled ditches around the outside, towers and gates and good timber internal buildings including a headquarters, officer’s house, granary and fabrica. He even wanted a bath house outside, down by Shit River, though that would be the last thing to go up, apart from the planned signal station up on the old hillfort, at least. Still, we had already cleared the ground down the slope ready for it. And just below that was the temporary structure where we all went to unburden ourselves into the water, and from which we had named the shallow flow.

  The first few days had seen the defences go up swiftly, and they were work of which we were proud. The rampart was good and high and solid, faced with the turf we removed from the twin ditches, which were shoulder-deep and steep, with narrow causeways remaining leading to the gates. Atop the rampart we constructed a timber wall with logs hewn in the woods all around and adzed on site, all nailed and bound with gear brought specially from the fabricae in Deva. The four corner towers were already up, with ladders into the tops, and we had the raised firing platforms above the south gate finished, with the north one in skeletal form, thus far. No artillery to put on them, of course, and no archers. But the platforms were there…

  Inside, we had the necessary buildings complete: Two barrack blocks in which we now slept, the granary to keep our food safe – and which currently also served as the optio’s office – and the fabrica in which to work on the smaller items. The optio maintained that we were on schedule to finish within the week. I was sceptical, myself, for I kept running through in my head what was still left to do, and the bathhouse alone would be a monstrous task, let alone the signal station.

  The day was, thankfully, almost at an end. The late afternoon sun was now hovering behind the hills to the west, which cast the fortlet and the low vale in which it lay into deep, oppressive shadow. The ancient line of mystical stones the locals had set up across the shallow river centuries ago glared at us oppressively and we tried not to think too hard on what they might have been meant for. Shit River gurgled past, sounding almost quaint and pleasant in the dark. Only eight of us remained at the south ramparts, clearing up after the day, two of us lugging the freshly-cut timbers from the cart and across to the fabrica where they could be stored until we needed them. Each journey Fatalis and myself made shifted the product of an hour of hacking and sawing in the woods, and the view from the fortlet was now clear for some distance, unobstructed by the trees that had previously surrounded it.

  Another quarter hour to finish this, then the obligatory hour of weapon practice – the optio wasn’t about to let us stop training just because we were also busy building – and then finally we could make an evening meal and collapse into our blankets.

  I grasped one end of the plank bundle as Fatalis took the other and we heaved and began to move away from the gate towards the new storage building.

  ‘Did you hear that?’

  I turned and frowned at Fatalis. All I’d heard was the thumping of my own blood in my ears.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Thought I heard someone shout.’

  ‘Quintus has probably nailed himself to something again,’ I grinned, and Fatalis returned the smile as we heaved.

  Then we both heard it, and we stopped dead in our tracks.

  A cry in Latin. We hadn’t heard the words, but the tone of the call was clear. We exchanged a look and immediately dropped the planks to the grimy, muddy ground, running over to the gate and climbing to the upper platform. A lone figure was approaching, pounding along the track that ran up to the works in the hills – the very mining operations the fortlet was here to protect. As he closed on the defences, we could see that the man wore the tunic, belt and sword of a legionary, though without armour or helmet. He was familiar to me, tall and rangy and with a southern skin-tone, though what caught our attention most was the fact that he was waving his arms to attract attention and calling out a warning.

  About what?

  ‘I’ll go get the optio,’ muttered Fatalis and disappeared, leaving me alone on the gate, watching the man approach. Now the other six men, busy tidying away all the gear from the day’s work, had noticed that something was happening and were rushing over to the gate.

  I realised that I was effectively the fortlet’s entire wall-guard at this particular moment and had no idea of the procedure. I should challenge the approaching man to announce his identity and unit and to give the watchword, I supposed. But he was a legionary apparently in distress, and we didn’t have a watchword set for him to give.

  Thankfully, moments later others arrived at the gate beside me, and Quintus peered into the late gloom and frowned. ‘Facilis?’

  ‘You know him?’

  Quintus nodded, and I had to admit that he definitely looked familiar. I’d seen him during my brief time in Deva. ‘Facilis? What’s up?’ Quintus bellowed from the gate as the running legionary approached the outer ditch and the start of the causeway.

  ‘Trouble!’ the legionary managed, slowing and heaving in a deep breath.

  ‘What sort?’

  There was a pause as Facilis breathed deep again and again. ‘The sort with axes and spears and stuff.’

  We looked at one another. A fight?

  ‘The miners. They took down the procurator’s m
an and now they’re coming for the fortlet. I think the procurator’s pissed them off a bit too much with his tax hikes. From what I hear we could be looking at a major uprising.’

  ‘How many?’ I managed.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Facilis replied, crossing the causeway to the open gate. ‘Plenty, though. I saw the Censor’s records when we were on the way, and if it’s everyone from all three mines, there could be maybe a hundred and fifty of them. If the local loggers and charcoal burners have thrown in their lot with them, more like four hundred by now.’

  ‘They’re only peasants with sticks,’ sneered someone behind me.

  ‘With muscles like bloody bears. They’ve done nothing but swing picks at rock for years,’ Facilis reminded them, and we realised that he was busy beneath us, shutting the gate. Quickly, we scurried down and helped him close and bar it, By the time it was secure and we were turning to look at the others, the optio was on the way, the rest of the lads close behind.

  ‘What is it?’ the officer demanded, and Facilis quickly repeated his news.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘They won’t be far behind me, sir. Quarter hour, perhaps. Half at the most.’ In a breathless monologue, Facilis went on to explain to the optio the situation and the consequences building in the Deva region.

  When he fell silent, the optio nodded. ‘We have thirty four men, including Facilis and myself. It’s not a lot. Plus no archers, no horses, no artillery and precious few supplies of things like pila.’ He sucked air through his teeth and his face hardened. ‘Alright. Split into your eight-man contubernia. Each unit takes one wall and one gate until we know what we’re up against. Four men from each company get onto the walls and watch. The rest get into the fabrica and barracks, grab all the equipment and rush it back to your mates. We don’t have much time to waste.’

  We all saluted, hovering uncertainly.

  ‘Well, get going!’ he bellowed, gesturing threateningly with his long staff bearing the bronze sphere at the top for clouting erring soldiers.

  ‘Sir,’ Quintus asked quietly, ‘why don’t we pull out and move back to Deva?’

  The optio gave him a look that carried the threat of a beating. ‘I’ve not even finished building the damn place. I’m not about to abandon it and scarper from a bunch of miners, no matter how many of them there are.’

  ‘But maybe we should send a message to Deva?’ Brave, that. We all stepped back out of staff range, but the optio’s swing never came. Instead he took a deep breath. ‘I can’t afford to spare a man. Besides, if this isn’t limited to the miners, anyone making for the north might just be running into another bunch of locals the procurator’s annoyed. No. We hold. Now get moving!’

  Most of my contubernium were already at the south rampart, so we stayed there, while Fatalis took three others and ran off into the buildings to fetch our gear. Facilis followed the optio at his signal, and the pair disappeared into the granary-office.

  We stood tense as we waited, and felt greatly relieved when our friends returned carrying our helmets, shields and pila. Another trip, and the spare kit was placed close behind us, meagre though it was.

  I was, I’m sure, more nervous than anyone else on the walls. Apart from twelve of us, everyone else had served long enough with the Twentieth that they had seen action at the very least under Agricola or Lucullus in the north. And even those other eleven recruits had had more training than I, who had spent much of my first three weeks at Deva cleaning latrines.

  My first fight. And very likely, given our poor situation, my last, too.

  Quickly I donned my helmet and Fatalis and I helped each other into our armour, then hoisted our shields and gripped our pila. The timing of the whole thing was dreadful. Yes, we had managed to get the defences in place, but the fortlet was under-strength and badly supplied. Another week or so and this place would have been filled with a veteran century, with scorpions on the upper platforms and everything ready.

  As we stood there, sweating and wishing we’d been down to the river to void ourselves, the optio and Facilis reappeared and began to move around the walls distributing torches, which were jammed into place ready to light when it got truly dark. And that would be in just an hour or so, what with the hills hiding the late sun from view.

  Half an hour had passed in total when we first saw them. Half an hour since Facilis had brought his breathless news. It seemed as though his upper estimate of numbers had been pretty accurate, too, from what we could see. I quickly lost count of the ragged natives with their makeshift weapons as they spilled out from that track and flowed around the fort in both directions, staying back away from the ditches. I said something to the effect that I thought they must be nervous and staying out of the range of missiles, despite the fact that we didn’t really have any. Facilis, who was on the wall with us now, corrected me, pointing out that they were surrounding the fortlet to make sure we were cut off and couldn’t send for help.

  We should obviously have done that beforehand, whatever the optio had said.

  We watched well over two hundred of them filter out, and knew that we were in trouble. The numbers were at least six to one, and Facilis had been right about their muscles. They didn’t look short of courage or determination, either.

  The light was becoming far too dim now. The sky was dark purple-blue, streaked with golden cloud as the day’s overcast melted off in the evening sun, but down here in the shadowed vale, all was dim and indistinct. In response, the optio gave the order and the torches were lit along the rampart, behind us so as not to impede our vision, and throwing our shapes into nightmare silhouettes for the enemy, for all the harm that might do their morale.

  ‘Romans!’ one of them bellowed, stepping out a few paces in front of the rest.

  The optio, away a little to my left, cleared his throat. ‘You are presenting an armed threat to the legions of Rome and of the Emperor Domitian. You are hereby ordered to lower your weapons and disperse peacefully, lest we be required to compel you to do so by force.’

  To their credit, the entire enemy mob gave off the distinct aura of people who would much rather be somewhere else... anywhere else. These were not warriors of the Ordovices, or a Caledonian warband. These were ordinary people; workers. What had driven them to this? Could it be simply taxes? It seemed unthinkable. But then, I thought back mere months to my days sweeping the floor of a dirty caupona in Verulamium. The suppliers there argued over every copper as, claiming their livelihood was a precarious thing. I could imagine all too easily what those men would do when presented with a four percent tax rise.

  The enemy spokesman cleared his throat. ‘We are unable to disperse, Roman commander. Your procurator seeks to overburden us with his taxes, and is set to break us. Within a week, your tax collectors will expect the new, crippling figures to be paid, and we cannot do that without starving our children. You will be ordered to rough us up and to drag the money from us any way you can. We take action now to prevent that, or you will be threatening our families instead in a matter of days.’

  I frowned at the thought, but in truth that was exactly what would happen. The Twentieth would move in, place a nailed boot on the throat of any dissenter’s wife and child and threaten to press down unless the taxes appeared. I wanted to shout that it wasn’t true.

  But I couldn’t.

  Because it was.

  And while no one in the Twentieth would relish the thought of being the man to do it, and the commanders might disagree, it was the procurator’s right to set taxes, and our duty to support him. Sometimes the army’s adherence to rules, even when they are clearly poorly-thought out rules, sickens me.

  Off to my left, Facilis passed something to the optio, who nodded and raised a scroll, waving it to get the man’s attention.

  ‘I have here a letter of authority from the legate of the Twentieth Legion in Deva. It gives me the right to speak in his name. I can come to an arrangement with you, and you know therefore you have the ear of the legate. Sen
d a deputation to the gate and we can discuss this like civilised men.

  I blinked. Where had Facilis acquired the authority of the legate?

  ‘Your commander does not have the authority to reverse the decisions of the procurator. Even the governor cannot do that without Imperial consent, soldier. You cannot trick us into submission with hollow promises.’

  ‘There goes my only idea,’ sighed the optio.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Facilis suddenly, squinting into the gloom. We all followed his example and were somewhat surprised to see another small party emerge from the path behind the miners. Three people, two of them big men, and armed, too, the other a woman in an expensive stola and palla. They were striding purposefully towards the miners, and the optio was shaking his head. ‘What in Hades do they think they’re doing?’

  And yet they strode straight into the enemy crowd, up to the miners’ spokesman, where the woman engaged him in a short, heated debate, involving a lot of arm-waving and finger-pointing. Then, when the argument ended abruptly and seemingly unsuccessfully, with the miners’ leader raging at her, the woman gestured to her two guards and strode across the causeway towards the fortlet.

  ‘Let them in,’ the optio shouted, and Fatalis and two others disappeared below, opening the gate long enough to allow the three new arrivals into the fortlet. The two guards remained below, but the woman climbed quickly up the rampart steps and joined us on the gate top.

  ‘Identify yourself, lady,’ the optio said, quietly.

  ‘Curatia Dionysia, widow of Gaius Abucinus, centurion of the Twentieth and resident of Deva. I am also the owner of the mines atop that hill.’

  ‘Then could you kindly tell your workers to disperse.’

  Curatia narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Do you think I’ve not tried that, Optio? Things appear to have progressed beyond that point, now. And from what I understand, this is only the start of things. You could be looking at a region-wide revolt soon, especially from the salt workers towards Condate. The procurator’s new taxes stand to ruin many people from peasant worker to Roman businesswoman, myself included.’