Hammer of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  ‘The Venicones king would not change his mind?’

  ‘Of course not. He’s not stupid. He did, however, agree that you and your men may stay here unmolested until Beltane.’

  ‘Beltane?’ It was almost a full year.

  ‘He will also provide you with three months’ supply of grain so that you do not go hungry. Are you not grateful to me, Cathal of the Selgovae? You do not seem so.’

  Cathal snorted. ‘My teeth are seeking the grit in the loaf.’

  ‘Is it not obvious,’ the druid crowed, almost as if he were enjoying himself. ‘He could leave you here to starve, but he provides you with sustenance, which gives—’

  ‘Strength. He wants us to be strong. Why?’

  ‘Why, he asks?’ Gwlym groaned. ‘A child would be quicker.’

  ‘Because he wants us to fight the Romans for him.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We stand between the Romans and the river. He expects us to fortify the high ground and defend it to the last, leaving the Romans so weakened that he can cross the river and either destroy them or drive them away.’

  ‘Can you fault his strategy?’

  ‘I cannot.’ Cathal laughed, a humourless bark. ‘But I would rather be a willing part of it than a sacrificial lamb. He sustains us through the fighting season, and if by some chance we survive, he will allow us to starve through the winter, before fattening us up for the next contest. He is using us as his guard dogs.’

  ‘Enough of this talk of starving,’ Olwyn snapped. ‘He has given you time, and with time anything is possible. Look around you. The hills are cloaked with timber we can use to build a fortress and more permanent huts. We do not have to use all the grain for food. If we plant now we will have a crop to harvest by Samhain. The river is filled with fish, the reeds swarm with ducks and the high ground with deer. There are beavers and otters to provide us with furs. You are the Selgovae – the Hunters of the Hills. Make good that boast.’

  ‘Ever practical Olwyn.’ Cathal treated his wife to a wry smile. ‘Always a solution to a problem.’

  ‘Oenghus, the Argento’s druid – a clever man for one so young – talked of a great bounty from the sky gods as summer wanes,’ Gwlym agreed.

  ‘Time and strength,’ Cathal mused. ‘A prudent man could make good use of such commodities.’

  ‘And cunning,’ Gwlym whispered. ‘There is much to be said for cunning.’

  ‘If only the Romans give us time.’

  XXXVI

  Londinium, October AD 80

  ‘So you think the governor’s plans have more to do with Domitia’s condition than high strategy?’ Tabitha gently stroked Olivia’s dark hair as the little girl slept with her head in her lap. Valerius had arrived that morning, five days after embarking at the mouth of the Thuaidh. Difficult to believe his daughter was almost two years old now. Valerius had been astonished at the progress she’d made, waddling around on her stubby little legs with an insatiable curiosity. The wet nurse had to watch her every moment, lest she wander out of the door to make another muddy exploration of the gardens. She had a smile that made his heart glow and a habit of shrieking her version of ‘Mother’ every time Tabitha walked into the room. He knew other men who believed girl children were an expensive waste of time until the day they could be married off for whatever benefits they could bring. All Valerius felt was a dull regret that he’d yet to hear the word ‘Father’ from her lips.

  ‘It’s difficult to know,’ he replied. ‘Every time we meet I see a different Agricola. Last year it was north, north, north, drive your troops until they drop and campaign through the winter. This year it’s as if he is challenging Titus to remove him if he dares. We could have advanced a hundred miles in the fine weather we’ve had this summer, but now it’s consolidate and resupply.’ He smiled. ‘Build, build, build. I can’t think of any other reason why he would risk Titus’s displeasure by losing a full campaigning season.’

  The flames of the fire flickered in a draught, sending ghostly patterns round the painted walls of the room and making the eyes of the marble busts gleam so they seemed to come alive. Below their feet lay a hypocaust system that circulated warm air beneath the floors and up the walls, but on chill afternoons like this Valerius preferred the physical comfort of an open fire.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Tabitha said. ‘There appear to be many different Julius Agricolas. One day he can be so calm and sensible, the next it’s as if he’s filled with some inner power. A light in his eyes like a candle that’s burning too brightly and about to explode.’

  ‘How is Domitia?’

  ‘She is well, but very big and very worried. She had a difficult birth with Julia and lost a boy stillborn. It could be in the next two or three weeks. I’ve told the midwife who will attend her that I’m to be called at any time of the day or night. She is glad of the governor’s presence. It may have been she who persuaded him to pause. She thinks he works too hard.’

  ‘She may be right,’ Valerius conceded. ‘No detail is so small that it doesn’t require his personal attention. He wears out an aide every month with his constant planning and scheming. The last time I visited him he’d just returned from a trip to the coast and swore he’d been able to see Hibernia, though his aides told me it was more likely some smaller island or a distant peninsula that hasn’t been mapped yet. Now we must plan to invade it. All it would take is a single legion, he says, and I would be able to present the Emperor with an entirely new province. This at a time when Titus has no interest in expansion because he already has enough trouble on the Rhenus frontier.’ Tabitha yawned. ‘Am I boring you?’

  ‘Not at all.’ She smiled. ‘You know the sound of your voice makes me relax. We were parted so long and I have missed your presence so much I want to hear everything.’

  ‘And I.’

  ‘You first,’ Tabitha said. ‘All I have is domestic tittle-tattle about cats bringing in live rats and screaming maids leaping on couches and tables. How has it been for you?’

  ‘You might think it would be dull. An entire campaigning season without a single skirmish, never mind a proper battle. Your husband reduced from directing cohorts to chiding new recruits on the depth of their roadside ditch. Yet there was something idyllic about this summer. The sun on your back, barely a shower of rain, curlews and lapwings whirring and mewing in the still air on the high moors and the soporific buzz of insects in your ears; the men working hard, but happy and at ease in a land without threat, unless you happened to step on a sleeping adder, and swimming in the cool, clear waters of a river at the end of a long day sweating in the sun, with all around you a patchwork of green, more shades and tones of green than you could count. All that was missing was you.’ He grinned.

  ‘Enough of your flattery.’ She smiled back. ‘Six months without drawing a sword and Gaius Valerius Verrens was content?’

  ‘I was too tired to be anything else. It was relentless. The task Agricola allocated to the Ninth should have been impossible.’

  ‘And in all that time no word of this Calgacus?’ An innocent enough question on the face of it, but with just the faintest hint of something more hazardous.

  ‘You may have heard some outlandish stories,’ he ventured.

  ‘About a Roman hero who volunteered to sacrifice himself in single combat against a mighty barbarian giant as tall as an oak tree?’ she said with exaggerated sweetness. ‘Yes, husband, I have heard whispers of this tale.’

  ‘Events like that are often magnified in the minds of those who weren’t in attendance.’

  ‘Events like that?’

  ‘Fights.’ He tried to deflect whatever was coming with a laugh, but didn’t quite succeed. ‘Combat.’

  ‘Was he as tall as they say, and as broad?’

  ‘Probably. He was a big man, yes.’

  ‘And his sword?’

  ‘At the beginning it stretched, oh, from me to you.’

  ‘At the beginning.’ Two perfectly curved eyebrows ros
e in unison. ‘And in the end?’

  ‘Perhaps half that, a little more.’

  ‘But still dangerous. Some say …’ The correct words seemed to elude her, but she persisted and eventually they came. ‘Some say they fought for the heart of a lady?’

  The most dangerous question of all, but Valerius recognized that it provided his way out. ‘Then they say wrong.’ He laughed. ‘They fought for the life of a miserable little half-Celtic scout who’d been foolish enough to get himself captured.’

  Still she wasn’t entirely convinced. ‘Not to kill this giant, this Calgacus, and force the surrender of his tribe?’

  ‘That too,’ he could not lie to her, ‘but mostly it was to get Rufus back. Agricola was most put out.’

  ‘You shouldn’t do things like this, Valerius,’ Tabitha said seriously. ‘You’re too old to be making grand gestures. You’re a husband and a father. You must think of us.’

  ‘Too old, eh?’ he growled.

  ‘Well.’ She studied him. ‘Perhaps not that old. You look leaner and fitter. Hard work seems to agree with you. I think I’ll make use of that. Tomorrow you can chop wood for the fire and harvest the last of the apples in the orchard, and when you’re finished outside perhaps you’d take a look at the hypocaust for me.’

  ‘Don’t we have slaves to do those things?’ Valerius protested.

  ‘When will you learn, Gaius Valerius Verrens? You are my slave.’ The way she looked at him when she said it made his throat go dry. ‘As I will prove tonight.’

  ‘I’m planning to take Lucius hunting tomorrow. He says he has found a coppice where a small herd hides during the day.’

  She smiled at his earnest tone. ‘Good. You should spend some time together.’

  ‘There is one other thing I must tell you.’ Valerius got up and went to the door, checking none of the slaves or servants was within hearing distance.

  ‘I’m intrigued.’ The tone was light, but her dark eyes told him she recognized the significance of his precautions. He dragged his couch towards hers so they could sit almost head to head and, in a low whisper, told her about Titus’s letter, the possibility he might make Lucius his heir and the threat that could pose. She listened without comment, but he could see she understood the danger they faced.

  ‘So that’s what your cryptic note about increased security was about?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Do you still have the letter?’

  ‘I burned it as soon as I’d read it.’

  ‘That was best,’ Tabitha said. No complaint, he noted, that he hadn’t tried to inform her of the true scale of the danger. She knew that such a message could have placed them all in even greater peril. ‘Domitian can’t be aware of his brother’s intentions or he would have acted by now.’

  ‘That’s my instinct.’

  ‘So we are safe for now. We also have time. Titus isn’t the kind of man to separate a child from his father. If, as he says, he plans to appoint you governor in Agricola’s place he won’t take Lucius until your period of office is over. Would it be acceptable in Rome for an emperor not to name his heir for so long?’

  ‘Titus is in his prime and in good health,’ Valerius said. ‘If the gods are kind he could rule for twenty years and more. He won’t be in any hurry and he’s not the type of man to be pushed.’

  ‘Good. How sad that the greatest honour Titus could do our son is also the greatest threat. There is no question of refusing the Emperor. In Rome there will be ways we can protect Lucius … or,’ her eyes turned dangerous, ‘to strike at the heart of the threat.’

  Valerius quailed at the thought of what Tabitha was suggesting. ‘We can make that decision when the time comes, but it would have to be a last resort.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘In the meantime I will make alternative plans as you suggested. We may not have time to warn you, but if we disappear without warning, follow us to Emesa.’

  They discussed other ideas, but came up with no answers. Eventually, they retired to the bedroom, where Tabitha fulfilled her earlier vow, and Valerius fell into an exhausted sleep. But it was not long before he was disturbed by a vision of a savage, grinning face and the glint of a sword edge slicing towards his throat at incredible speed.

  ‘Valerius?’

  He opened his eyes. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You cried out in your sleep,’ she said. ‘What were you dreaming about?’

  ‘Calgacus.’

  XXXVII

  The Romans gave Cathal the breathing space he’d prayed for, but he discovered trouble did not need to wear a red cloak and carry a short sword.

  At first everything went to plan. Men stripped the hillsides overlooking the river of timber to build the rough huts and shelters they would need to survive the winter. But before they began work on the houses the Selgovae dug a curving ditch from the edge of the marshes on the eastern side of the high ground to the top of the closest hill. Sweating warriors created a bank from the spoil and topped it with a palisade of newly hewn raw wood planks. Later they would dig a second ditch, Cathal decided, and perhaps a third.

  While they constructed the wall others planted a third of the mouldy grain grudgingly provided by the Venicones and stored the rest in raised granaries for rationing over the coming months. Of course, it would have to be supplemented by what nature could provide. And that was what brought the first clashes.

  Olwyn had been right. The nearby marshes and the river at first supplied what appeared to be an endless bounty, but that was an illusion. Ten thousand mouths take a great deal of filling, as Cathal quickly discovered. At first the men came home carrying enormous nets of wildfowl, baskets of trout, eels, salmon and pike, and with roe deer stags and wild pigs slung across their shoulders. But the survivors of this initial slaughter soon became wary or moved elsewhere to safer ground where they would not be harassed by the newcomers. Inevitably, the Selgovae were forced to range further afield to provide meat and fish for the plate and the smokehouse. East, to the great wetland they’d skirted on the trek here, and the lower river, and west where the river narrowed and the marshland was even greater in extent and much more dense. Not quite impenetrable, however, as they discovered when the hunters began to probe its outer reaches. Cunningly concealed poles marked paths where a man could range deep into the reeds if he was prepared to be submerged to the chest on occasion. And elsewhere they discovered plank tracks that linked patches of open water and reed beds where the ducks gathered in the greatest numbers. But the Venicones had long regarded the reed beds and the pools as their own. Had they not marked the paths and their forefathers not built the wooden boardwalks? Hollowed out the log canoes moored ready to be paddled to the less accessible regions of the swamp?

  It started with a dispute over a starved otter caught in someone’s forgotten trap. A pair of Venicones hunters stumbled upon a lone Selgovae emptying the wicker tube and claimed ownership. Insults were exchanged and then stones, before the outnumbered Selgovae made his escape still laughing at his good fortune. But the next time he checked the trap four or five Venicones lay in ambush and gave him a salutary beating that left his ribs bruised and his nose bleeding. The assault in turn drove his outraged friends to plan their revenge, which resulted in a pitched battle on a sandbank and split heads on either side. Cathal heard rumours of friction between his people and those from across the river, but he was too busy planning his response to the inevitable Roman appearance to take much notice.

  It was only when they brought Ranal staggering into the camp with half his guts hanging out that he understood the dispute had escalated far beyond a few scuffles. They laid Cathal’s sword brother on a cot and covered him in a blanket. By the time the king reached him blood had soaked through the thick wool and Ranal’s flesh had taken on the dull yellow pallor unmistakable to anyone who had seen it. ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

  ‘There were twenty of them and we were about to set to,’ one of the warriors who’d accompanied the wounded man explained. �
��Ranal knew you’d disapprove.’ Cathal winced at that fatal truth, but he didn’t interrupt. ‘He challenged their leader to a fight. Man to man. The Venicones bastard drew a knife and the next thing we knew they were rolling around and the rest of us roaring Ranal on. There was this scream, like a woman with a baby stuck halfway, and the Venicones staggered back with the blood spraying from his neck. His mates took him away and it was only then we saw what he’d done to Ranal.’

  ‘Did I kill him?’ Ranal croaked.

  ‘That you did,’ his friend assured him. But Ranal’s eyes had already dulled.

  ‘We should slaughter the bastards.’ Another voice came from the rear of the hut. ‘There’s a gang of them camped on the far side of the big pool. We can burn them out tonight.’

  ‘There’ll be no burning and no slaughter.’ Cathal looked down at Ranal and closed the dead man’s eyes gently with his fingers. ‘Fetch Colm and tell him to bring a green branch. It is time I talked to the Silver King again.’

  When he went to meet Colm it was Olwyn who led his horse. ‘What will you do, Cathal?’

  ‘Make an agreement.’ He vaulted into the saddle. ‘What else? I should have foreseen this.’

  ‘Do not blame yourself, husband. You can’t be everywhere.’

  ‘See what happens when I’m not?’ He reached down and touched her cheek. ‘Whatever happens and whatever it takes, it stops here or we’ll have a war on our hands.’

  They rode down to the river with Colm in the lead, Cathal accompanied by ten of his bodyguard. The Venicones kept a guard of about fifty men on the ford and Colm advanced into the waters of the Abhainn dhub calling out the king’s name. A bearded young man with his dark hair coiled in a topknot emerged from one of the guard shelters. ‘You may advance, lord king, but the Argento Rìgh has decreed you may only be accompanied by four men.’

  Colm growled at the restriction, but Cathal waved the first four men forward and together they crossed and urged their horses out on the north bank. When they reached the huts the young warrior was already in the saddle with ten of his men. Cathal noticed the slim gold torc at his neck and the quality of his accoutrements and decided that, despite his age, he was a man of some consequence. ‘A single guide would have sufficed.’ Cathal nodded ruefully in the direction of the other riders.