Hammer of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  ‘Not even eye contact,’ the Pannonian muttered. ‘Lady.’ He waved a hand in the direction of the praetorium. Olwyn let out a growl of frustration and marched off, leaving him to catch up with her as he could.

  ‘What do you think’s going on?’ Naso asked.

  ‘I have a suspicion Calgacus wants his lady back.’

  ‘And will you assent? The governor will—’

  ‘Hear about it in good time, Quintus. We both know he has spies in this camp who will send him the news the first opportunity they get. But that will not be until a proper thaw. This decision is mine and mine alone. As to whether I’ll assent, that will depend on what King Cathal has to offer.’

  They passed the praetorium and entered the principia, the fort’s administrative centre. Flavinus had confirmed that their visitor spoke adequate Latin and no interpreter would be required. Naso called for the most competent clerk and Valerius took his place behind his portable campaign desk. To his right was the entrance to the sacellum where the Ninth’s eagle and the other unit standards were kept, along with the legion’s pay chest. To his left stood the large sand table Rufus had created with such painstaking care. A pair of crossed standards stood on display behind him, but the room’s only other decoration was a painted marble bust of Titus Flavius Vespasian.

  Four members of Valerius’s escort flanked the Selgovae ambassador as he entered the room. Colm had pushed back his cloak to display a thin gold torc at his neck that announced his status, and a finespun blue tunic. When they came to a halt a few paces before the desk the Celt thrust out his chest and glared at Valerius. Thick dark hair shot with hints of auburn hung to his shoulders and his moustaches reached below his chin.

  ‘You came here under a branch of peace. What is your business with us?’

  ‘Colm ap Gryffud ap Owain ap Gryffud seeks an audience with the commander of the Ninth legion on behalf of Cathal ap Dugald ap Donal ap Guidri, king of the Selgovae, and ruler of these lands.’

  ‘You have your audience, Colm ap Gryffud,’ Valerius said. ‘You may tell King Cathal that I will be happy to accept his surrender at any time and in any place of his choosing. And that I will give guarantees for the safety and security of his people under Roman rule.’

  Colm was perfectly accustomed to the ritual exchange of insults before a tribal battle and he cheerfully ignored the Roman version. ‘The offer I make on behalf of King Cathal is such that it might be better acknowledged in private.’ He allowed his eyes to linger ostentatiously on the clerk, before turning to the guards on either side. ‘Not for any dishonour it would bring my king, but to allow the legate of the Ninth legion, Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome and holder of the Corona Aurea, the opportunity to consider it at his leisure and without outward interference or pressure.’

  It occurred to Valerius that the use of his titles could indicate that Rufus might still be alive, but Naso bridled at once.

  ‘This barbarian insults Rome and the officers of this legion,’ he snapped. ‘Worse, he expects us to be stupid enough to leave you alone with him. Have him taken away and whipped, then throw him out in the snow.’

  ‘No, Quintus.’ Valerius saw the twitch of a smile on Colm’s thin lips. ‘King Cathal has left the choice to me. Let us humour him. You will of course stay. Clerk, you may leave us. He’s been searched, I take it? Then a single guard will suffice. Shabolz, I think.’ He waited until the others had left the tent before speaking again. ‘You should know that Shabolz is very quick and that I give him leave to kill you if you even think of moving in the wrong direction. Do you understand, Colm ap Gryffud?’

  ‘Of course, lord.’ Colm bowed. ‘You have made yourself very clear.’

  ‘Then make your king’s offer.’

  ‘Cathal ap Dugald thanks you for the care you have taken of Queen Olwyn and his daughter Princess Berta and asks you for their return. In compensation he offers the return unharmed to his legion of the scout Gaius Rufus, known as Arafa.’

  ‘A lowly scout for a queen and a princess?’ Valerius laughed to cover his relief at this confirmation that Rufus lived. ‘This bargain seems very one-sided to me. Perhaps we should ask for the return of the horses you stole from us at Brynmochdar to make it more equitable.’

  But Colm wasn’t finished. ‘In addition, when the exchange is made Cathal ap Dugald challenges Gaius Valerius Verrens, Hero of Rome,’ he allowed the final three words to drip sarcasm, ‘to resolve their differences in single combat at a place and a time of the legate’s choosing.’ Neither man reacted to Naso’s spluttered ‘No’ and Colm continued. ‘My king says there is no honour in the Roman way of fighting. A true warrior fights man against man and sword against sword and the greater champion wins. Should Gaius Valerius Verrens emerge the victor, Cathal ap Dugald pledges that his people will lay down their arms and submit to Roman rule. If Cathal wins he would expect nothing more than your promise that the Ninth legion Hispana will withdraw to Brynmochdar for a season.’

  Naso continued to fume, but Valerius tapped his lips with the middle finger of his left hand. ‘Am I to assume that this single combat will be to the death?’

  Naso produced a strangled croak. ‘Valerius, you can’t …’

  Valerius held his right hand up for silence. He saw Colm’s eyes widen slightly at the sight of the wooden fist and smiled.

  ‘Thank you, Colm ap Gryffud. Clearly this offer raises questions which require my deepest consideration. Shabolz, take King Cathal’s emissary to the tribunes’ quarters and offer him food and hospitality.’ The smile stayed in place, but the voice hardened. ‘He is to speak to no one, and what you have heard does not go beyond this tent.’

  ‘Of course, lord.’ Shabolz’s eyes had a strange glint that puzzled Valerius, but he didn’t have time to ponder it.

  ‘Then leave us. The camp prefect and I have much to discuss.’

  Naso waited until the two men had left. ‘You can’t be seriously considering this, Valerius,’ he exploded. ‘Calgacus would cut you to mincemeat before you got within a sword’s length of him.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Valerius said thoughtfully. ‘But he’s offered me what I’ve wanted all winter. The chance to end this without further bloodshed.’

  ‘But that isn’t what Agricola wants and we both know it. Even if you defeat this monster, Agricola wants a triumph and you aren’t awarded triumphs by conducting a successful negotiation. He’ll take as much bloodshed as we can give him.’

  ‘Do you think I should be afraid of Agricola, Quintus?’

  ‘No, of course not. Not when you have the support of the Emperor. But I’m asking you not to commit suicide, because that’s what it will be if you decide to accept Calgacus’s ludicrous challenge.’

  ‘You think I can’t beat him?’

  ‘I’ve seen him fight. I know you can’t beat him.’

  ‘Then what would you advise?’

  ‘By all means agree to a negotiated settlement, but agree it in exchange for Olwyn. If he accepts, Calgacus wouldn’t dare kill Rufus.’

  ‘But that still leaves Calgacus with ten thousand Selgovae and the gods only know how many Brigantes under his command.’ Valerius rose and went to the sand table, running his finger up the line of the river valley to the west. ‘Most of them are farmers, I know, but he has a core of seasoned warriors. Agricola would never leave them in his rear while he marches north. You know him as well as I do. One way or the other he’d break the truce.’

  ‘That may be true.’ Naso rubbed a hand across the iron-grey bristles on his chin. ‘Very well. Agree the exchange and demand the return of the horses to put a better face on it. We can do what we always planned to do and take care of the Selgovae in the spring.’

  ‘At what cost to my honour?’ Valerius marched to the doorway. ‘One way or the other it will become known that Calgacus issued this challenge and I refused it. The legion already believes it has been cursed by bad luck; would you also have them call their commander a coward? Think of it, Quintus. There is no o
ther leader capable of uniting the tribes of northern Britannia. Calgacus does not realize that yet. When he does, he will become ten times as great a danger to us.’

  ‘You are no coward, Valerius, and the men know it. There is no dishonour in refusing an insolent challenge from a painted barbarian. Even if there were I’d rather your precious honour was slightly tainted than carry the word to your family that you are dead.’

  Valerius closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, Quintus,’ he said. ‘I was being selfish. I’d forgotten this was about more than just me.’

  The words carried an apology, but Naso knew that tone. ‘But you mean to fight him anyway?’

  ‘What if, by allowing me to choose the place and the time of our meeting, Calgacus has given me a greater advantage than he realized? An advantage that could be the death of him?’

  XXIX

  … take comfort from the fact that I died doing what I believed was right, and not in some vain quest for an illusory glory. Your loving husband, Valerius.

  Valerius blew on the parchment to dry the ink. He studied what he’d written to Tabitha. It was all wrong; how could it not be? But he didn’t have the words to convey what needed to be said any better.

  He laid the letter aside and sat back in his chair. No sleep tonight. The days when he could sleep soundly before a battle were long in the past. Too many memories. Too much knowledge and experience of what might happen and what could go wrong. He had made what preparations he could to give himself the best possible opportunity, but the truth was Calgacus was going to kill him. A memory of that great sweeping sword scything the air made him wince and he reached for the wine flask. No. The left hand froze in mid-air. Wine might still the voices in his head for a time, but they would not banish them for long. Wine slowed a man’s reactions and muddled a man’s mind long after he drank it, and Valerius would need all the wit and speed he could find tomorrow. Speed, stealth and subterfuge. Those were the only things that would save him.

  Man against man. Sword against sword. The only man he could remember facing in single combat was his friend, Serpentius of Avala, veteran of a hundred fights in the arena and the fastest, most skilful warrior with a sword Valerius had ever seen. He remembered the dusty arena at Cremona, the hot sand and the blazing sun, the ring of contorted faces screaming for more blood in a place already drowning in it. He had never had a chance against Serpentius and he knew it. His fate had been inevitable and so it proved. The former gladiator had killed him. And saved his life. There would be no such deceit in the morning.

  Serpentius would have told him he was a fool and he would have been right. He would have suggested posting a hidden archer to put an arrow through Calgacus’s throat before they first crossed swords. He would have been right about that too. But that wouldn’t be honourable and Valerius’s actions had been driven, for better or worse, by honour and duty since the first day he’d worn the toga of adulthood. They had brought him here. If he died, his son would be raised a patrician, the highest Roman class, and it was important that Lucius knew he had died an honourable death and a good one.

  Titus’s letter flashed through his mind. How could he have forgotten the offer? Would it still hold after he was dead? He prayed not, but there was nothing to be done about it now. Something coursed through him that was not excitement or anticipation, something that turned his guts to water and made his legs feel weak. He slammed the wooden fist on to the table to banish the jagged, corrosive edge of pure fear.

  ‘Lord?’ Felix, the commander of his escort, unusually tentative.

  ‘What is it?’ Valerius took a breath to regain his composure.

  ‘The lady … Queen Olwyn has asked to speak to you.’

  A moment of confusion. Why? What good did she hope to do? His mind agreed to the request, but the words that emerged from his mouth were ‘No. Send her my apologies’. Anything she had to say would do nothing to help. There was no turning back now.

  He noticed that Felix was still standing by the doorway. ‘I said no.’

  ‘Trooper Shabolz also begs an audience with you, legate.’

  Valerius closed his eyes. More nonsense. This Mithras thing raising its head again at the time when he least needed it, no doubt. But Shabolz was a comrade and a valued one. A wise commander did not alienate his best men, even when he was going to die when the sun came up. ‘Send him in.’

  Felix disappeared and a tall figure marched in wearing full ceremonial uniform, the chain armour polished to a gleaming silver that glinted yellow and gold in the shimmer of the oil lamps, and a long cavalry spatha sheathed on his hip. Shabolz held his iron helmet beneath his right arm, and the sidelock that distinguished the Pannonians from other men hung to his left shoulder. In the crook of his left arm he held a narrow bundle wrapped in leather.

  ‘You look well, soldier.’ Valerius managed a smile. ‘But I’m intrigued to know why you have gone to so much trouble.’

  Shabolz drew himself up to his full height. ‘We wished you to know that we have sacrificed to the god in your honour, lord. You cannot join us in the ceremonies, we understand that, but the warriors of Mithras hold you in their heart and know you are with us in spirit.’

  ‘I’m honoured.’ Valerius struggled with the words. ‘I had feared refusal might be taken as a slight. I am glad that’s not the case.’

  ‘There could be no refusal because no offer was made, lord,’ Shabolz said. ‘The god is all-seeing. He took no slight. Tomorrow you fight Calgacus.’

  Valerius froze at the abrupt change of course. ‘It seems the whole world knows.’

  ‘He is a great swordsman, worthy of our respect,’ Shabolz continued. Valerius nodded slowly, wondering where the conversation was going. ‘It seemed to us that a man facing a great swordsman should carry a great sword.’ He placed his helmet on the table and flicked the leather so it unrolled to reveal the contents. ‘A warrior’s sword.’

  Valerius looked down at the gleaming object on the table. ‘It is beautiful.’ He heard something like reverence in his voice. Almost involuntarily, the fingers of his left hand closed on the hilt and he rose to his feet, staring at the culmination of the armourer’s skills. A deft flick told him instantly how perfectly balanced it was. His own gladius was a ceremonial affair, hilt-heavy and clumsy in the hand, and he’d borrowed Naso’s sword for the morrow’s combat; a workmanlike weapon, but one that did him no dishonour. This was different. A double cut, backhand then fore. The edge hissed through the air like a whispered endearment. It felt like a living thing in his hand. A living thing that had always belonged there. As long as his forearm and with a blade that shone blue in a way he associated with only the finest of swords. The grip beneath the soft leather had been carved from bone or antler, and the pommel was a latticework of spun gold worked in the shape of a bull’s head. He knew immediately it was too much. Too valuable. A commander couldn’t accept such a gift from a single faction among his soldiers. Yet to refuse it would be the ultimate insult to the men who chose to honour him like this. It was a great sword. Such a sword as the world seldom saw. The kind of sword a man deserved to take into battle against a warrior like Calgacus.

  ‘A gift fit for an emperor,’ he said quietly, still taking in the fine lines and the razor edge. He looked up into Shabolz’s eyes. ‘I will carry it with pride and try to do those who presented it honour.’

  ‘That is all we ask, lord.’

  ‘Once again your commander shows he is no fool, Gaius Rufus.’ Cathal squinted into the low morning sun across the fractured, buckled river surface, frozen and refrozen countless times over the winter. The Meeting, where the waters of Thuaidh and Etryk mingled and became one. Sunlight glistened on shallow pools of water where the ice had melted. Treacherous, the Selgovae mused: a leveller. In the still air they could hear the measured trudge of nailed boots carving a path through the foot-deep compacted falls of the previous months. A column of legionaries six broad emerged from the trees on the far side of the river, armour
and spear points glittering, their breath clouding the chilly air around them. Two officers on horseback led them, followed by an escort of cavalrymen, and Cathal’s heart stuttered as he recognized the two diminutive figures in their midst. He smiled down at the little man. ‘Prepare yourself.’

  ‘You do not have to do this, lord king.’ His prisoner’s voice was so low only the two men could hear. ‘I have formed an affection for you. I do not wish to see you die.’

  ‘And I for you, Arafa. Only one man will die today, and it will not be Cathal of the Selgovae.’

  They turned at the brittle clatter of hooves on the ice. One of the Roman officers had broken away from the column and spurred his way across the frozen river. It was broad here, a hundred paces and more, and his mount’s hooves skidded on the treacherous surface, so he had to slow his showy gallop. He reined in below the raised bank where Cathal stood. Rufus recognized Quintus Naso.

  ‘My commander asks if you wish to withdraw your challenge?’

  Rufus looked expectantly up at the giant Selgovae, but Cathal stared across the river and said: ‘Translate.’

  Rufus repeated the words in the Celtic tongue and Cathal laughed. ‘Why? Is he frightened of me?’

  The men around him joined in the laughter. Naso’s horse fidgeted nervously. ‘Stay still, damn you,’ the Roman muttered. ‘Our prisoners will cross to the west; your prisoner,’ he nodded to Rufus, ‘to the east. We will have arrows trained on them. If there are any tricks they will be killed.’

  ‘I too have archers,’ Cathal said after Rufus had translated. ‘I would regret killing you, Roman,’ he said to the little scout.

  ‘That is very reassuring, lord king.’