Hadrian's wall

by William Dietrich

  The ring and clang of drawn Celtic swords carried clearly up the hill, the barbarians banging their shields to drum warning and fortify their own courage. The Roman mounts checked at the rumbling, the animals remembering this noise and knowing it meant battle. There seemed to be two leaders of the Scotti war party, Galba saw: a redhead to the left, with drawn sword and restless manner, and a great hairy blond lout of a pirate on the right, lumbering in front of his men with shouldered ax. Both chieftains gestured and shouted and raised their middle finger in what they'd learned was the Roman gesture of contempt.

  Galba rested his own sword across the twin front pommels of his saddle in loose confidence. He'd ridden before he could walk, killed before he knew any woman, and could map his travels with scar tissue. Now came the anticipatory moment he liked best in life, that frozen time when the energy of warring men was coiled and almost breathless, the immortal pause before the practiced charge. He looked down the rank of men with whom he'd drilled and marched and shot and slept and shit, professionals all, and felt an intimacy with them that he'd never felt with any female. Each sitting high, his reins in the hand of his left shield arm, spear shouldered, helmet tight, legs dangling loose until the kick of the charge.

  He loved war and what it could win for a man.

  He loved the hunt.

  "An eagle, tribune," a centurion commented.

  Galba looked to where the man was pointing. The bird was riding the morning's rising tide of air, wings dipping as it rotated. The perfect sign.

  "Look how the gods favor us!" he roared to his men. "A bird of Rome!" Then his black warhorse, Imperiurm, jerked at his nudge. "Forward!" Heels dug, and the Roman cavalry started downhill with a sure, awful, accreting acceleration, the discipline of constant practice keeping the line abreast and the lances pivoting down in synchronization as steady as the drop of a drawbridge gate. Their mounts quickened into a trot, the very earth beginning to quake, and the men bent, shield high, thighs tightening, each picking a target as the thunder of the attack swelled until it filled their whole world. Against a more disciplined enemy they would have formed a wedge or diamond to pierce the line, but the Scotti were so disorganized that the barbarians had left gaps, some backing from the approaching Romans, others foolishly running ahead and shouting challenge. The Romans would shred them with line abreast. The cavalry didn't break into gallop until the last fifty paces, so their line could remain even, Galba signaling the final rush with a wave of his sword arm. Then their mounts burst forward in the final sprint. Grass rolled underneath the cavalry in a blur, clods of earth burst upward like sprayed water, the pennants rippled in the wind, and each of the cavalrymen took up the cry of their ancestral homeland, of Thrace and Syria and Iberia and Germania.

  "For the standards of the Petriana!"

  Arrows whizzed past like buzzing insects.

  There was a great crash as the lines met, a scream of horses and shout of men, and then the cavalry was over the barbarians and past them, their lances left upright in writhing, impaled bodies. The Romans slid free their long swords and turned.

  Galba's own sword had hit something solid in the initial collision, coming up red and glistening. Now he sawed with his reins, his horse's eyes rolling with the pain of the harsh cavalry bit, and charged toward the blond giant with the ax. The chieftain was whirling his weapon and singing a death song, his eyes opaque with wonder at that ghostly world he'd already half stepped into. "So shall I give it to you," the Roman promised. He cut with his sword to parry the ax shaft, used the heavy shoulder of his horse to knock his enemy over, and then leaped from his saddle to finish the pirate off. Strike fast, when they're down.

  Yet the butted chieftain kept rolling and so Galba's grunting stroke missed and struck turf, sticking there. It was an almost fatal mistake. The barbarian came up howling, covered in grass and dirt and the smoke and blood of his earlier pillage, his torso a topography of sinew, bone, and blue tattoo. When the warrior reared back to lift his ax, he was like some monstrous bear, and a newcomer to war might have been transfixed enough to let the Scotti strike.

  But Galba was a veteran of a hundred fights and gave his opponent no time to set himself. Instead he saw opportunity. Yanking his blade clear in the time the Scotti took to raise his ax, he made a quick horizontal slash that opened the barbarian's stomach and then stepped smartly back as the ax whizzed by his ear. The shock of disembowelment caused the Scotti to let the heavy weapon thud all the way into the ground, and so the Roman swung again and heard an audible crack of bone as he took off the chieftain's hands. The Celt staggered, only dimly realizing what had happened to him, screamed to the gods who'd forsaken him this day, and held his bloody stumps to heaven. Then he crashed to earth.

  Galba whirled for another antagonist, but his men had already made short work of the rest who'd dared stand, the bravest already dying or enslaved. The Roman horses were prancing over the corpses as if uncertain where to put their hooves, and there was that familiar battlefield smell of urine, dung, hot blood, and fearful sweat, as bizarrely intoxicating as it was repulsive.

  Galba looked at his chipped blade tip. It was the first time he'd missed an enemy already down, and he couldn't make that mistake again. Grunting, he stooped and pried a severed hand off the ax handle to look for a ring. There was a fine golden one, he saw, with a red stone. Probably stolen from a Roman.

  "I'll take this back, boy." He used his dagger to saw the finger off.

  Victory!

  "They're getting away!" a decurion shouted.

  Galba stood and whistled for his horse, leaping agilely into the saddle and roaring his men into some kind of quick order. The redheaded chieftain had escaped and was leading twenty of his raiders into the trees toward the water.

  "Let them run!" he shouted to his men.

  The Romans pursued just out of bowshot, weaving through trees. As the barbarians ran they looked back at their seemingly wary pursuers and jeered, but Galba held his men in careful check. They came to a bluff in time to see the Scotti fling their weapons and helmets aside and spill like lemmings into the sea. The barbarians surfaced, wet and howling from the cold, and struck for longboats hidden among the reeds of an estuary.

  "Hold and watch!"

  The redhead who'd escaped turned in the water and taunted them in thick Latin, vowing revenge.

  "Hold, I say!"

  The Romans stood mute and winded, lining the bluff.

  The Scotti reached the reedy water on the far side of the inlet, some managing to stand in the shallows and others thrashing for their boats. They shouted for the comrades they'd left behind, gasping explanations, and anxiously grasped oar holes to lift themselves aboard.

  Then there was a Latin shout, Falco's command carrying across the inlet of water, and a row of helmeted heads rose from the bowels of the longboats.

  More Romans.

  Falco's wing had ridden around and already captured the craft, slaying their guards. Now they stood from the hulls where they'd been hiding and fell upon the unarmed barbarians trying to climb aboard.

  Galba's plan had worked.

  The red-haired one, half naked and weaponless now, saw the murder that was happening and thrashed his way to a muddy bank.

  Falco himself rode the man down.

  The bang and thud of weapons and the screams of the wounded echoed across the water for only moments and then it was done, the reeds stained red, bodies floating like logs.

  "Come," Galba said. "We meet Lucius Falco on the other side."

  The two wings of cavalry joined at the head of the inlet, the longboats already burning as fiercely as Cato's village. A handful of captured warriors would stay with the Romans as slaves. Some of the booty would be returned to their client, others kept as tax.

  One of them was the defiant red-haired chieftain: a rib cracked after being overridden by Falco's horse, head bloody, manner abject. In minutes he'd gone from conqueror to conquered, from lord to prisoner, and he stood trussed and nak
ed with that dull expression of shock and resignation that comes from enslavement.

  "I was hoping that one for my own, Falco," Galba congratulated.

  "He's a bit of a badger. Even after riding over the top of him, I had to club with my dagger. He'll be trouble, perhaps."

  "Or spirit. Get him home and make clear how things are."

  Falco nodded.

  "Let's find out who he is." Galba walked his horse up to the subdued barbarian. "What's your name, boy?" These Scotti were a last stubborn branch of those Celtic tribes the Romans had been fighting for eight centuries, their ferocity in battle and despair in defeat both as predictable as the tides. It might take a bit of whip and club to tame this one, but he, like them all, would submit. "What do they call you, stripling?"

  The man looked up sullenly and for just one moment Galba felt chilled. It was a blackly baleful look he got, the captive thinking no doubt of the hearth and woman and horse he'd never see again, but beyond that there was something in his sorrow that seemed to give a glimpse of a dim and troubled future. Let Falco keep him, indeed.

  "I am Odocullin of the Dal Riasta. Prince of the Scotti and a lord of Eiru."

  "Odocul-what? That's more mouthful than a Sicilian sweetcake. Repeat yourself, slave!"

  The man looked away.

  Galba's hand went to the pouch at his side. He could feel the severed finger of this man's dead compatriot and the hard curve of the barbarian's ring. None ever ignored Galba Brassidias for long, and someday this carrot-colored Hibernian would learn that too. In the meantime, who cared what the captive was called by his own people? "We'll name you Odo, then," he pronounced, "and the cost of your defeat will be slavery in the house of the soldier who defeated you, Lucius Falco."

  The Scotti still wouldn't look at his captors.

  "Odo," Falco repeated. "Even I can remember that."

  III

  So Odo became houseboy to the villa of Lucius Falco, and Galba Brassidias, forty rings now jangling from the waist chain of his armor, burst from the base of the watchtower to receive his reward from Rome.

  The courtyard of the fortress headquarters was lit with torches in the dusk, a turma of thirty-two men snapping to attention. "Straight ranks! Weapons high!" The butts of their lances banged smartly against paving stone. The courier who trotted through the barrel gate was another centurion, Longinus by name, his boots flecked with mud and the rim of his tunic sweaty.

  The choice was reassuring. The duke wouldn't have sent a man of this rank unless he bore the message Galba was waiting for.

  Longinus swung stiffly down, and his horse, hide steaming and muscles quivering, urinated in a great smoking hiss. The courier saluted. "Good news, commander!"

  Galba's heart leapt. Yes!

  "In recognition of your accomplished record, you've been named senior tribune of the Petriana cavalry!" His voice was loud enough to let others hear.

  There was a rustle in the ranks. Senior tribune! The news would fly through the fort in minutes. Galba had gotten what every man expected, and confirmation would be received with both satisfaction and regret. The new tribune was as stern as he was able.

  "Silence!" Galba shouted, in order to be able to shout something. He felt a flush of pride. Born a provincial, and now a Roman tribune. His eyes gleamed. "I'm unworthy of the honor."

  "We both know the honor is long overdue."

  Galba allowed himself a slight smile. False modesty was an affectation of weaklings. He lowered his voice. "For this long-awaited word I've saved Falernian wine, Longinus. Come into my new house and share it."

  The man nodded uncomfortably. "My thanks for the offer." He hesitated. "However, there's more, tribune."

  "More?" Galba's head was still churning with the new possibilities of command.

  "Complications."

  The soldier looked at Longinus uncertainly.

  "Considerations."

  Galba tried not to betray his unease. "I've waited twenty years for the news you've brought and prefer to savor it," he said slowly. "The rest can wait for the grape."

  "Yes." Longinus's tone was quiet. "Inside would be best."

  Orders were snapped, and the turma wheeled to disperse. The two senior men strode to the commander's house, its door swung open by slaves, their armor unhooked with silent efficiency, brass basins of warm water and towels offered to both. They went on to the warmth of the dining room and sprawled on couches in the Roman fashion. The vintage was as promised, transported in amphorae for a thousand miles and served in green glass with a painted frieze of gladiators battling around the rim. Longinus, parched from his hard ride, watered his and drank deeply. The new tribune sipped an unwatered serving and waited impatiently. "And this other news, centurion? Are we to start a campaign?"

  The messenger shook his head, wiping his mouth. "It has to do with the command of this cavalry. This part of my message isn't as happy, tribune."

  Galba hoisted himself on an elbow. "I've commanded as senior centurion already, since the transfer of the previous tribune. I've won a major action. Now I have his rank. The command is mine, isn't it?"

  "Were it simply up to the duke, it would be. You know that."

  Galba's eyes narrowed with that dark look men usually only saw in battle. He was being made a fool. "What are you telling me, Longinus, as you lie on my couch and sip my finest wine?"

  "I'm sorry, but this part of the message isn't my choice to deliver. Rejoice in your promotion and new pay, Galba; you deserve it. But there are politics in Rome, of course, politics and more politics. A new alliance of families-and a position to be found for a new officer. A praefectus. He asked for the Petriana cavalry because of its reputation. He wanted this fort because word has reached all the way to Rome of what a job you've done. He wants to make his mark here. With you."

  The new tribune sat up in disbelief. "You're telling me I'm promoted, only to lose command? I've worked my whole career for this command!"

  Longinus looked at him with sympathy. "I'm sorry, it has nothing to do with you. It's simply preferment for an officer of the equestrian class. Unfair, I know."

  "What politics?"

  "The fellow is betrothed to a senator's daughter. It's as simple as that." He drank.

  "Dung of Pluto!" Galba was a big man, but incredibly swift. He sprang, cuffed, and the wine cup flew away, shattering against the wall. A spray of red drops made a bright crescent across the mosaic floor. Then Galba loomed like a father over a child, immense and shadowy. "You're telling me that some Roman snoblet is taking away the Petriana-the unit I built-because he married some ranking bitch in Rome?" The question was a roar.

  Longinus looked at his hand, stinging from the blow. "I'm only the messenger, Galba. And they're not married. Only betrothed."

  He took a breath. "There's hope then."

  "No. The wedding will occur here."

  The new tribune sat. "I won't tolerate this insult. Take that back to the duke."

  "I certainly will not. You're a soldier. You'll tolerate it because you must tolerate it. And you'll still be commander in all but name.

  This Lucius Marcus Flavius will serve a couple years and leave for higher things. The army remains ours."

  "That Roman aristocrat will take my new house. My credit. While I do the work."

  "So what else is new?" Longinus was becoming impatient. "Remember the way of things. Defy this Marcus, and you'll earn nothing but trouble. Flatter him, and he'll be of use. In the meantime, be grateful for what you have, like a well-deserved promotion- and that wine." He pointed with regret. "It was really quite good."

  "Second place to a highborn dabbler who won't know one end of a spatha from another. Beaten by an arranged marriage."

  "Never beaten in battle. Remember that."

  The reply was bitter. "Beaten by a woman."

  IV

  Many Romans believe slaves are morally unreliable, but I, Draco, regard them as the most observant of witnesses. True, they will steal. Yes, they will lie
. Of course they are lazy. They lack even the patient virtues of a domesticated, animal. Yet a careful listener can turn this lack of character to his advantage. Slaves are shameless eavesdroppers and tireless gossips, their primary entertainment the foibles of their betters. You can learn a lot from a smart slave. And this one, before me, is one of the smartest.

  She annoys me already.

  Her name is Savia. Wet nurse turned substitute mother. Servant turned handmaiden, scold, and chaperone. Every highborn Roman girl like the missing Valeria should have one, and most do. Savia is, of course, a Christian, like so many of the lower classes, but unlike some I cannot afford to be intolerant of naive beliefs in a peasant god and a happy death. I use every eye and ear I can recruit. A good Christian can be as upright as a good pagan, in my experience. Or as venal. There are scoundrels enough for all religions.

  So. Savia is well fed and plump, despite her present incarceration, and was probably not uncomely a score of years ago. She would still feel warm enough in any bed, I judge. Now her hair is streaked with gray, her face has the paleness of incarceration, and her look is quicker and more direct than is proper. That intelligence, again: it cannot be hidden. She is a survivor, too, having passed through the recent tumult entirely unscathed. Legend to the contrary, it is the rare slave willing to die for her mistress.

  So I have this image of brutally efficient Galba, the frustrated subordinate, but that's hardly enough to explain the catastrophe I am investigating. Something more happened on Hadrian's Wall, something that led to incaution and treason, and it appears to have centered on the owner of this slave, the lady Valeria. I've summoned Savia from prison to explain her mistress so I can understand a woman who is no longer here. The slave, in turn, looks upon me as a potential rescuer. She abhors confinement and has protested it loudly. "I am of the House of Valens!" The soldiers laugh at her.