His son stood in silence, knowing that no response to his father’s musings was needed, and Lataz sighed deeply.
‘You’re wondering why I brought him up. It’s because seeing that fortress burn reminds me of something he said when he came back from Rome.’
It was a well-established family story that the youngest of the three brothers, having earned the singular honour after barely five years of service of having been selected to join the Corporis Custodes, the imperial bodyguard whose members had been the emperor’s protectors since the days of Augustus, had needed no longer than a month to decide that the routines and tedium of standing guard on the most powerful man in the world were not for him.
‘He strolled back up to his old tent party one day, almost a year after he’d left to go south to Rome mind you, told the man who’d replaced him to be on his way, then sat down by the fire like he’d just been down to the latrines for a piss rather than away for ten months, across the sea and over the mountains and all the way back again. I had no idea he was coming back, of course, so when I laid eyes on him I was speechless with amazement, although Frijaz called him all the names you can imagine for being such a fool. We sat him down for a beer or two and tried to understand how a man could be so stupid as to walk away from the Bodyguard, but all it came down to was that he was bored, and Wulfa didn’t handle boredom all that well, so that was that. But one thing he did say …’
Silence fell again, as the older man smiled at the memory.
‘He said that the only reason to stay would have been for the city itself. Not the taverns, not the whores, and you can imagine the names Frijaz started calling him when he said that, but rather the buildings. He told us that Rome was like a forest of stone, a city five hundred years in the building that would last forever. He loved walking the streets when he was off-duty, he said, staring up at the temples and arenas in wonder, but in the end his need to dance with his iron in the company of men overcame even that delight. That and his disdain for the men serving in Rome. He said that the men of the Bodyguard had grown fat and idle compared to us men of the cohorts, as if Rome got under their skin and made them soft as the men of the city. And one night, after Frijaz had got tired of abusing him and gone to bed, he shared his private thoughts with me, just once, serious as you like. Of course, he was the same old Wulfa the next day, but for a short time he showed me the man I knew was in him, beneath all that urge to fight.’
‘And?’
Lataz smiled at his son.
‘As you grew into manhood I saw that same man in you. Thoughtful and clever. Cleverer than Frijaz and me put together, I suspect. It was the only time he ever really opened his mind to me, may the gods grant his spirit peace, and he was dead inside the year, which meant I never got the chance to see that thinker again. He told me that Rome and the Batavi had what he called a relationship of opposites.’
‘What did he mean by that?’
‘I asked him the same question. And he told me that from what he’d seen of the Romans, the senators and equestrians who run the empire, he took them to be civilised men, men who think, and build, and create, but men who loved to play the barbarian when the opportunity presented itself, and who idolised the barbarian because he is everything that they are not, but would have secretly liked to be have been. Whereas we, he told me, are everything the Romans can never be. Where they create, we destroy. Where they are a disciplined people, we wear our discipline like a cloak we have chosen to put on for as long as it suits us, and cast it off when the chance for glory presents itself. We are little different from the tribes over the great river, but we chose to ally ourselves with Rome for the iron they gave us, and the glory we enjoyed as their hunting dogs. And for a long time, it seems, that was enough for both Rome and the Batavi.’
‘Until now.’
‘Yes. But now that friendship is at an end all we have left is our urge to destroy.’ Lataz gestured to the glowing remnants of the fortress. ‘They build, we burn.’
‘They build, we burn? I didn’t know you were a philosopher, Soldier Lataz?’ Both men snapped to attention as Alcaeus strolled out through the opening in the marching camp’s wall behind them. ‘At ease, I’m only taking the night air to put me back in the mood for sleep. I was woken by a dream.’
Egilhard and Lataz exchanged glances, the wolf-priest’s ability to see what was yet to happen in his dreams an article of faith among the soldiers of his century, who knew only too well the blow that had shaken him to the core when his presentiments of disaster had become reality in the battle they had fought close by the previous year. The bloody defeat at Gelduba that had resulted in the death of his friend and chosen man Banon, and caused Egilhard’s promotion to watch officer, seemed to have both strengthened his faith in the gift he had been granted by the gods and challenged his faith that those same gods viewed the Batavi with favour.
‘Off to your bed, Soldier Lataz, your son and I will serve the rest of this watch.’
Lataz saluted, nodded to Egilhard and disappeared into the camp, leaving centurion and watch officer standing in silence.
‘Your uncle Wulfa was right, of course. We were Rome’s hunting dogs, their bravest and best, but when a dog bites his master he can expect to pay the price, one way or another.’ The centurion looked at the fortress’s burning remnants for a moment before speaking again. ‘So, what was it that Draco found in there, before we put fire to timber?’
‘A writing tablet, Centurion. Bound in silver.’
‘A rich man’s possession. Did he open his find?’
Egilhard shook his head.
‘No. He looked over the rest of the building and then took his leave.’
‘And did he say anything to give any clue as to what it was that he thought he’d found?’
‘No sir. Although he did say something interesting before we entered the praetorium.’
Alcaeus regarded him levelly for a moment.
‘Lataz is right. There’s more of his younger brother in you than meets the eye. So tell me, Watch Officer, what was it that the tribe’s foremost elder had to say that caught your attention so much you feel the need to relate it to me?’
Egilhard thought for a moment, recalling the exact words Draco had used.
‘We were discussing Prince Kivilaz, Centurion. My uncle had told Prefect Draco that he remembered the Prefect leading the cohorts into battle at the Medui, and the Prefect replied that it had been Kivilaz who took our men up the hill.’
Alcaeus nodded.
‘That’s as I’ve heard the story told as well. Something possessed the prince that day, and he was invincible, driving the Britons back wherever he went, and Draco was at his side until he took the spear to the thigh that ended his career, and couldn’t fight any longer. It was Kivilaz, they say, who led the Batavi to rout the Britons, not Draco. But that’s old history.’
‘The prefect said something else as well. I only half heard it, as if he was speaking to himself, but it sounded like “and now he’s got us into a fight that we can never win”. He told Frijaz that he could question the prince’s methods but not his reasons for going to war, but it sounded to me like he was questioning both a moment before.’
‘I see. Well, Watch Officer, as you rise higher in the ranks of our army you will discover that what our leaders profess to believe is not always going to be what’s in their hearts. And the older you get, the more you will come to understand the reasons why they are not always as honest with us as we might like. In Prefect Draco’s case, I believe that he finds himself horrified at the losses we have taken, whilst of course remaining totally supportive of his prince, which is only right. And we must be the same, you and I, and give both men everything we have. So let this be between you and me, yes?’
Egilhard snapped to attention.
‘Of course, Centurion.’
The wolf-priest smiled, patting him on his mail-clad shoulder.
‘Good lad. Shall we take a turn down the rampart and back again
?’
The Winter Camp, Germania Superior, January AD 70
‘Legatus, you and the men of our legions are a very welcome sight!’
Vocula accepted the camp prefect’s welcome with a tired smile, watching as his Twenty-second Legion marched past them and in through the Winter Camp fortress’s main gate.
‘I wish we could have arrived sooner. The countryside seems to have suffered badly at the hands of the barbarians.’
The other man nodded, tight-lipped.
‘More than you might think, I’m afraid. They crossed the river in strength, more than ten thousand of them, and while they were careful not to come inside the range of our bolt throwers, they burned out every farm and township for miles. They clearly knew we were too weak to come out and challenge them, and I doubt they had much interest in this fortress when there were women and gold to be had elsewhere.’
The grim evidence of the tribes’ rampage had confronted the three legions as they had marched south along the river, in company with the Nervian auxiliaries commanded by their prince, Julius Classicus. The farms they passed had been reduced to blackened skeletons littered with the corpses of their occupants, while the stink of death from the settlement at Bingium, twelve miles distant from the impotent men inside the Winter Camp, powerless to intervene while it had been sacked, had turned stomachs in the column of legionaries before they had even got within sight of its ravaged buildings.
‘So we saw. And, sad to say, that’s all we saw. We snapped up a few dozen of them, men less wary than might have been wise, and crucified them by the roadside, but for the most part they seem to have melted away back over the river rather than face us, which is probably just as well given that our three legions don’t have very many more men than would be following a single eagle at full strength. And, to make things even worse, given their apparent state of mind.’
The older man nodded, casting a glance at the legionaries trudging in through the gate to occupy fortress barracks designed to accommodate the ten thousand men of two full-strength legions.
‘I knew the First and Sixteenth Legions had sent men south to fight for Vitellius, but I had no idea they were both so …’
Vocula’s lips twisted in a wry smile.
‘Disheartened? Demoralised?’
‘Well … yes. I’m sorry, Legatus, I meant no insult.’
‘None taken. The First was given a sound beating by the Batavians on their march north to rejoin their own people, and I don’t think they ever truly recovered from the experience. And the Sixteenth are little better. Weak leadership, the removal of too many of their best officers, coming so close to defeat in battle that only the intervention of some Hispanic auxiliaries saved them, it’s all added up to despair, I’m afraid. They’re beaten men, more or less, and it’s only my own Twenty-second Legion that’s kept the army intact all this time.’
The camp prefect nodded knowingly.
‘That’ll partly be down to your First Spear, I imagine. He was never showy in the days when I commanded him, but everything I ever asked of him always got done quickly, efficiently and with the minimum of shouting. Now you know why it was I recommended he replace me in command of the legion. So …’ he looked along the length of the column marching slowly through the fortress gates, ‘what now?’
The legion legates and their senior centurions gathered in the fortress headquarters that evening, once their men were settled into barracks and enjoying an evening without the tedious and tiring task of digging out a marching camp.
‘At least the local shopkeepers will get a small fillip from having three legions in camp, even if the legions in question are shadows of their former strength. What’s left of the local shopkeepers, that is. The whores have an uncanny ability to make themselves scarce when iron is bared, and then to pop up again the moment silver replaces it in men’s hands.’
Vocula nodded absent-mindedly at his colleague Gallus’s opinion, still finding it difficult to meet the eye of a man who had so comprehensively lost control of his First Legion.
‘True. Not that we’ll be able to stay here for long. Now that the Germans have retreated across the river our duty lies to the north again. I left the Old Camp’s garrison to continue resisting the Batavian siege when I should really have withdrawn them as soon as we had temporarily lifted that siege back in December. I felt it necessary to keep a foothold close to the enemy homeland, and to deny Civilis the prestige of having destroyed a legion fortress, and I promised Munius Lupercus that I would relieve him permanently as soon as I felt able to do so. Now I need to make good on my promise not to leave those good men to their fate.’
The camp prefect raised a hand to speak, but the Nervian prince Julius Classicus got to his feet and strode into the middle of the room in a preemptory manner that had every man staring at him. Unabashed, he addressed Vocula directly.
‘My duty, Legatus, is not simply to the empire, but to my own people as well, and those of the other allied tribes. And the news from our neighbours the Treveri is not as happy as I might have wished. Their warriors, those men not sworn to the service of Rome, armed themselves to resist the German tribes’ attempts to push west onto their land, in search of yet more wealth to loot and defenceless people to despoil. The fighting that resulted was bloody on both sides, and while they managed to repel their attempts to pillage their land, a good many of their men gave their lives to make that victory possible. I understand that you must take your legions back to rejoin the fight against the traitor Civilis, but I cannot abandon the peoples of Gaul to the fate that must be theirs if the German tribes are allowed to cross the river again. If I am to accompany you in this mission to retake the Old Camp once again, then I must insist that the garrison of this fortress be reinforced, and the enemy across the river deterred from making any further attempt to spread their destruction into the homelands of your loyal allies.’
Vocula looked up at him.
‘It seems that you’re in luck, Prefect Classicus. While I would have been minded to refuse your request, given that it will yet further weaken my army at a time when more strength, rather than less, is what I need to bolster legions so weakened by loss of men and adversity that I can barely keep them operational, my orders state otherwise.’
He held up a message scroll.
‘From Rome, dispatched a week ago by the new emperor’s ruling council. I am ordered to detach the Twenty-second Legion from my army and use it to reinforce the defence of the Winter Camp and, thereby, both provide a more effective defence of our Gallic allies and safeguard the integrity of Germania Superior. Or, reading between the lines, Rome realises that Germania Inferior is lost and is determined not to allow Germania Superior to be jeopardised. What we have, we hold, it seems, at least until such time as an army can be mustered to cross the Alps and put down this rebellion. It seems that Vitellius’s original decision to send me north with the Twenty-second is being viewed as too much of a risk to our grasp of the land north of the mountains, and that the empire now intends to minimise that risk and make sure that we don’t lose this fortress as well.’
Classicus stared at him for a moment.
‘I see. And your own orders, Legatus?’
‘I am allowed the tactical freedom to do whatever I feel appropriate with my remaining force, Prefect Classicus. And I feel it appropriate to march north at my remaining legions’ best speed, relieve the Old Camp for a second time and bring my colleague Munius Lupercus and his men to safety. We will consolidate our combined strength at whichever of the fortresses along the Rhenus feels appropriate and then decide whether to stand and fight or withdraw back here and await the inevitable flood of reinforcements, now that the civil war is ended and Vespasianus has a firm grip on Rome.’
The Nervian officer smiled slowly.
‘And I, Legatus, applaud your commitment to your fellow officer and his men. My soldiers will march north alongside yours and assist you in the task of liberating the Old Camp’s legions from their siege
.’
Vocula stared at him for a moment before replying.
‘Thank you, Prefect. We’ll start planning and preparing for the march north in the morning, with the intention of leaving here in two days. The legions need a little time to replace their worn-out hobnails and for their feet to recover from the march south, and I will use the time to put my affairs in order before putting my head back into the lion’s mouth. That will be all.’
He waited for them to leave the room, signalling to Antonius to remain behind.
‘This is, of course, perfect for Classicus and his allies. If our spy among the Batavians is right in his belief that they are in league with the Nervians, Ubians, Trevirans and Lingones, then the removal of my only effective legion will leave the remainder of my army incapable of resisting them. And so I have a favour to ask of you – a century or two of your men to act as my bodyguard.’
The first spear raised his hand.
‘You have no need to ask, Legatus. I’ve already spoken with the Fourth Macedonica’s first spear and told him that he’ll be taking command of the Twenty-second as well as his own men. It’ll give him the best part of a legion in total, less my first cohort.’
‘You mean …?’
‘I mean, Legatus, that I plan to march north alongside you, and to bring my most loyal men with me.’
Vocula stared at him for a moment in silence.
‘I’m humbled, Antonius. You’re sure about this? You know as well as I do that if the Gauls revolt we’ll be a few hundred men in a sea of enemies with only the disaffected at our backs?’
Antonius shrugged.
‘Having come to know you, Legatus, I do not believe that I could look myself in the face were I to allow you to embark upon such a dangerous course of action without having at least one friend at your side.’
RETRIBUTION Page 8
