The Furies of Rome

by Robert Fabbri

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Put it this way: if Rome stays then all those estates and mines that I and others have bought back off Pallas for under twice what he paid us for them will be worth more than twice what we paid him. In just three months we would have doubled our money and my loan that the Cloelius Brothers called in last month will seem as nothing.’

  ‘Pallas sold you back his investments! He was going to send me to negotiate that with you the year Agrippina died; I have to say that I’m pleased he didn’t in the end.’

  ‘I might have given him a better deal had you been negotiating for him rather than Paelignus.’

  ‘Julius Paelignus?’

  ‘Yes, a horrible little crookback; do you know him?’

  ‘I did; the last time I saw him he was lying at the bottom of a latrine with his throat ripped out, being shat upon by a dozen of Boudicca’s men.’

  ‘How gratifying; I’m pleased to hear that the Iceni have done some good in amongst all this carnage.’

  ‘But what was Paelignus doing working for Pallas?’

  Cogidubnus shrugged. ‘I don’t know but you can be sure that he was getting a commission judging by his determined negotiation and bitter disappointment when I would go no higher than one and nine tenths of what Pallas had paid.’

  ‘That would explain his strongbox that he was trying to take with him,’ Magnus pointed out.

  ‘It would,’ Vespasian agreed, ‘and I suppose it would be cheaper for Pallas to get someone who was already here to negotiate for him for a smaller percentage than it would have cost him to persuade someone like me to go but still it—’

  ‘Prefect!’ Paulinus’ shout cut across Vespasian’s thoughts. The Governor came striding onto the bridge with a bodyguard of a dozen legionaries fending off desperate-looking citizens shouting pleas, weeping and tearing at their hair; Paulinus acted as if they were not there. ‘Welcome to you, indeed; your men are sorely needed.’

  Cogidubnus saluted. ‘The united tribes of the Regni and Atrebates will always be loyal to Rome, Governor.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. Now, I need your men to dismantle the bridge once they’ve crossed; it doesn’t have to be pretty, just effective. Get as far as you can with the job by the sixth hour and then follow us north up the road, which should mean that you will be at least four hours ahead of Boudicca. Keep going at night until you catch up with us; we won’t leave the road. I would hope to be—’ Paulinus stopped abruptly and stared down towards the port; the trireme was under oars and heading out into the river. ‘What the …? That’s the last ship; it’s not meant to sail until all my despatches are on board begging the Emperor and the Senate for help.’ He put his hand to his forehead, rubbing it. ‘And the letters to my wife and sons; how will they know if …? Who gave the order?’

  But the answer to that question was obvious as, in the stern looking back towards the bridge, stood a portly man in an equestrian toga; he had a bandage wrapped around his face, holding his jaw in place. Procurator Decianus raised an arm in a farewell wave to Paulinus and the chaos that he had caused.

  ‘I’ll eat his liver,’ Paulinus snarled.

  By the look on the Governor’s face, Vespasian could well believe he meant it.

  ‘Governor! Governor! Don’t abandon us!’

  The shouts from the citizens trying to petition him impinged on Paulinus’ conscience and he turned to vent his anger upon them. ‘I have told you: we cannot hope to defend Londinium and crush Boudicca, and if we don’t crush Boudicca, Londinium will fall eventually, so the logical thing to do is to let it fall now.’

  ‘And march north to save Verulamium?’

  ‘I will give the people of Verulamium the same choice as I’ve given you.’

  ‘But our livelihoods, our property, our wives and children!’ The shouts were mixed and emotional, growing in clamour; but they failed to move the pragmatic Governor.

  ‘Come with us, if you want to, or cross the bridge before it’s destroyed or stay here and defend yourselves; I don’t care what you do as long as you do it now and leave me alone.’ He turned back to Cogidubnus as the last of the auxiliaries left the bridge. ‘See that it’s done.’

  Cogidubnus pointed to a couple of centuries who were stripping off their chainmail at the middle of the bridge. ‘I’ve just given the order.’

  ‘Good. I shall see you later tonight.’ Paulinus nodded, satisfied, and then looked at Vespasian. ‘Are you coming, senator?’

  ‘No, Governor, not yet; I have to wait here for my brother and my … er … Antonia Caenis; they’ll be here soon in a boat. We’ll follow you as best we can.’

  ‘Well, good luck, Vespasian; may the gods of your family hold their hands over you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir; and I wish the same of yours.’

  Paulinus gave a curt nod and turned; his bodyguards ploughed into the crowd surrounding him and cast them aside, strewing them on the ground so that the Governor walked freely as if he were completely alone.

  ‘You had better get across,’ Cogidubnus suggested as the first planks were ripped up from the centre of the structure.

  Vespasian saw Hormus coming through the crowds, loaded with luggage, followed by Caenis’ two slave girls and the other slaves, equally as laden. ‘I’ll see you on the north road, my friend.’

  ‘I hope so; it’s been a while since we drew our swords together.’

  They grasped forearms again and then, once Magnus had said his farewell, they crossed the bridge, along with surprisingly few refugees, to wait for Sabinus and Caenis, praying they would arrive before Boudicca.

  Although the gods had, in the past, listened to many of Vespasian’s prayers, they did not listen to that particular one and by the time Cogidubnus had been gone for a couple of hours, having torn up fifty paces of the bridge and pulled four of the great piles from the riverbed, the first fires appeared on the northeast side of the town. Soon the screaming could be heard and the fires broadened. Vespasian sat with Magnus and his dogs on the southern bank of the Tamesis wondering at the folly of those who had chosen to stay in the town when to do so could only mean certain death.

  ‘I suppose they’ll have nothing if all their property is destroyed,’ Magnus opined after Vespasian had mentioned to him that one of the refugees had told Hormus that he thought that there were upwards of thirty thousand people who had decided to throw themselves on Boudicca’s mercy or just hide until the storm passed over.

  ‘They’ll have their lives,’ Vespasian said, still trying to get his head around the size of the massacre that was about to be perpetrated.

  ‘But what good is that if there is no way to feed and clothe yourself, let alone your wife and children? If you’ve got nothing you’ve really got nothing in this world and that includes chances; it’s something that people of your class find impossible to see the reality of and then comprehend it. Nothing is exactly what it says and it’s very bleak indeed.’

  Vespasian thought on that for some time as the people on the further bank who preferred to chance death rather than face the reality of nothing began to die in droves, judging from the clamour of death that floated across the river. And then they appeared, hundreds of them, running to the bridge to find that it really had been cut and it was not just some cruel joke being played upon them. More emerged on the shoreline along half a mile to either side of the useless structure as fires grew behind them so that a thick grey pall hung over the town as if put there by the gods so as to shield their eyes from the atrocities happening below. And Vespasian could see that what was happening below was truly terrible as the Iceni flooded in their hundreds through the streets and buildings down to the shore and trapped thousands of the populace between them and the river so that the massacre could really get under way.

  Pitiless they were as they turned the waters of the Tamesis red.

  In their thousands the Iceni butchered the citizens of Londinium, regardless of age or sex. Novel ways they found to massacre, so that it would
not become too repetitive for them. Vespasian watched with macabre curiosity as they nailed children to the bridge’s upright supports, hung old men from its beams, sliced off women’s breasts before impaling them on the water’s edge; they disembowelled, ran-through, bludgeoned, severed, strangled, flayed, hacked, ripped out hearts and then decapitated at will in an orgy of death that even the most avid fan of gladiatorial combat in the circus could not, for one moment, have imagined.

  The few who could swim managed to save themselves by taking to the river, others who could not tried anyway and drowned in the attempt for the tide was nearly at full height. Many chose this death in preference but the majority lacked the necessary strength to end their own lives and, instead, died screaming on the vengeful blades of the Iceni. As the piles of heads and hearts grew and grew so did the fires in the town strengthen, driving even more victims from their hiding places down to the shore that soon became the only place safe from the conflagration, for Boudicca had surrounded the entire town with the best part of her hordes so that none could escape by any other way. But death waited for them there as sure as it did in a cellar beneath the inferno and, for what seemed to be endless time, Vespasian and his companions watched the horror unfold on the north bank. Silent and grim they were, unable to take their eyes from the slaughter as the warriors of the Iceni stained themselves red with the blood of the Roman citizens of Londinium. For a whole mile along the river frontage of the town, red monsters roamed, killing at will, knowing that they would be punished for what they had done, for Rome would not forgive so great an outrage, so better, therefore, to make the crime as great as possible. And that they achieved in a spectacular manner and by the time the four transport vessels, under full oars, appeared around the river bend Vespasian had seen more death in one day than he felt he had ever seen in his whole life; he gazed at the ships for a while unable to register what they were and their significance, so full was his mind with the images and sounds of brutal murder.

  ‘Cavalry transports,’ Vespasian said eventually.

  ‘What?’ Magnus asked vaguely, unable to tear his eyes away from a screaming, naked girl as she sank lower and lower onto the upright stake between her legs.

  Vespasian repeated himself.

  Magnus turned his head as the girl lost her struggle against gravity. ‘So they are; what are they doing here?’

  ‘Don’t you see? They must be the first part of the reinforcements from the mainland. I sent the messages to Germania Inferior and Gallia Belgica five days ago; two days to get there, a day to react and then two days to get back. Come on.’ Vespasian began to walk at pace east, towards the ships that had begun to steer towards the south bank now that the crew had seen the situation in Londinium.

  For half a mile they walked until the ships were less than a hundred paces away and then they hailed them, proclaiming their Roman citizenship across the water that even here bore the unmistakeable hue of blood. But there was no need to stress who they were for they were recognised; the lead ship veered towards them and in the bow Vespasian saw Caenis standing between Sabinus and another man in the uniform of a military tribune, his helmet resplendent with its red horsetail plume.

  As the ship backed oars and came to a gradual stop, twenty paces from the shore, the tribune took off his helmet.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ said Titus.

  CHAPTER XVI

  ‘SCRIBONIUS RUFUS, THE Governor of Germania Inferior, allowed me to come with half an ala of Batavian auxiliary cavalry,’ Titus explained as he helped Vespasian aboard. Down the centre of the deck the hold was not covered over and it was filled with horses; their riders stood on the starboard rail watching Londinium burn. ‘He only granted that favour because I’m your son; he’s sent a letter to the Emperor asking permission to send more and it will, obviously, be at least fourteen days before he can expect the reply.’

  ‘The province may well be lost by then and every Roman butchered,’ Vespasian said as he landed on the deck; he indicated to the massacre upstream. ‘Just look at it.’

  ‘I know; we were in Camulodunum yesterday; there was no one left alive and not a complete building left intact. The Temple of Claudius had been stormed and everyone holding out in there massacred.’

  Vespasian embraced his son.

  Caenis kissed Vespasian as he let Titus go. ‘Titus came across us a few miles back; we’d had a terrible time fighting the tide both yesterday morning and this morning.’

  Vespasian returned her kiss. ‘I’m glad to see you safe, my love.’

  ‘Why aren’t you with Cerialis?’ Sabinus asked, scratching at his stubble as Magnus began supervising the lifting of Castor and Pollux aboard; there were many volunteers to help Caenis’ girls and only Hormus seemed to be without aid.

  ‘Because his legion was wiped out yesterday morning.’

  ‘Wiped out?’

  ‘Pretty much so; all but the cavalry. Cerialis got away with them back to his camp and Magnus and I came to warn Paulinus here but there wasn’t much time to do anything because Boudicca has moved with frightening speed. He had to abandon Londinium and go north to tempt her into a battle in a place where her numbers will not be so significant. If we’re to join him we need to get upriver, otherwise we’ll find the rebels between us and Paulinus; and I was expecting to do it in a small fishing boat which could have slipped under the bridge on the southern side and not have to go through the gap.’

  They all looked at the gap in the bridge; where the four piles had been torn down there was just enough room for a ship to pass through but, above on the remains of the north side of the bridge, the Iceni were rampant and would be able to hurl weapons and fire down on them as they negotiated the passage.

  ‘Ah!’ Titus exclaimed. ‘This is going to take careful timing. Jorik!’

  An auxiliary decurion, young for his rank, stepped forward and saluted. ‘Your orders, sir?’ His Latin was accented in the manner that Vespasian recognised from his last dealings with the Batavians almost twenty years previously.

  ‘Have the lads fill all the buckets on board with water then put blankets and anything else that might help to protect them on the horses’ backs and relay that to the turmae on the other three ships.’

  Jorik saluted and strode off.

  Titus took another look at the gap. ‘Right. I’m going to speak to our trierarchus.’

  The approach of four Roman vessels had not gone unnoticed, even by the most blood-crazed of the Iceni, and, as they neared the gap with the stroke-masters’ shrill pipes sounding a fast beat, many of the red-stained apparitions gathered on the bridge, well aware of the opportunity that was going to present itself should the ships be foolish enough to try for the gap.

  ‘Ramming speed!’ the trierarchus shouted from his position between the steering-oars.

  The stroke increased to the fastest possible rate, maintainable only for a couple of hundred pulls.

  On went the four ships in single file, headed straight for the gap, a hundred paces between each of them; on their decks knelt the sixty-four troopers of the two turmae they each carried, shields poised, javelins in right hands and a spare grasped in their shield hand.

  The first arrows from the bridge slammed into the bow with vibrating reports and slingshot fizzed through the air and thwacked into the hull; on the shore the massacre continued with groups of victims now herded together, many accepting their fate, dully awaiting the inevitable as the warriors despatched them in batches with cold-blooded, methodical efficiency. Behind them the town burnt pumping thick smoke into the already laden sky.

  The ships powered on and the missile hits increased, juddering into deck and shields and clinking off helms; in the hold the horses skitted, their nerves taut.

  Fifty paces out, forty, thirty. Javelins began to hail down; a horse bucked and screeched with a sleek missile embedded in its rump. Panic spread amongst its neighbours to either side.

  Twenty paces.

  ‘Loose!’ shouted Titus.

&nb
sp; The troopers jumped to their feet, hurling their javelins in one fluid movement at the bridge and then, without pause, let fly with the second; many of the scores of missiles hit home, punching men back or sending them howling into the river below.

  Ten paces.

  ‘Oars!’ the trierarchus roared.

  With remarkable precision all sixty oars were brought inboard and the vessel glided on into the gap as missiles, fire and the mutilated bodies of the dead were hurled down onto the deck.

  Shieldless, Vespasian crouched in the lee of the mast, his arms around Caenis, protecting her. A couple of the more reckless warriors jumped down onto the ship but were despatched as they tried to regain their footing. Half a dozen troopers dashed around with buckets, dousing flames before they could take hold. A trooper fell back, a javelin in his eye, the point, bloodied and brained, protruding out of the back of his helmet. A scream as another was crushed under the dead weight of a headless cadaver. More burning timber was hurled down and just above head height part of the bridge’s supports had caught fire.

  Another hail of missiles from above and two more deaths, skewered to the deck, and then it stopped, suddenly. They were through and the warriors had turned their attention to the next ship.

  Vespasian took his arms from around Caenis. ‘Are you all right, my love?’

  She looked about and then back at the bridge as the order to reset the oars was shouted. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘Jorik!’ Titus shouted. ‘Calm the horses and then get this mess cleared up. I’ve never seen such an untidy deck; what are you thinking of?’

  The decurion grinned and saluted. ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘He’s got a good way with his men,’ Caenis commented.

  Vespasian nodded thoughtfully. ‘I was just thinking that myself.’

  Through came the next ship, its deck smouldering and stuck full of embedded arrows and javelins; and then the third appeared through what was now becoming thick smoke as the fire in the bridge supports had strengthened and it would only be a matter of time before what was left of the northern section of the bridge would collapse into the river and likely block it. Beyond the smoke the fourth ship could not be seen and Vespasian waited with drawn breath for its outline to materialise.