The Fort

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  ‘My men are warriors not labourers.’

  ‘They’ll be dead warriors if we don’t all work our hands to the bone.’ He sighed. ‘I will meet with your warriors as soon as I am able, but know that they must train as hard as the rest of us for the fight that is to come.’ Ferox noticed Sabinus’ doubt, but could deal with that later. ‘Tell them that this is now their dun. Here we will live or die, but I have no doubt that the blue shields of the Brigantes will ring with new honours whichever it is.’

  ‘We will serve the queen,’ Petrullus said, apparently sincere.

  ‘And she will be proud and generous,’ Ferox replied, knowing that the first was certainly true and wondering about the second. He left them and pressed on down the via praetoria. Ephippus was taking a reading from a groma, the staff resting on the road and one of the four arms with its lead plumb weights pointing at the left-hand tower of the gateway. He wondered what the Syracusan was up to, but there was no time for that. He nodded affably, and asked the engineer to see him in two hours’ time.

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Ferox was a little early reaching the praetorium. It still did not feel like his house, but at least now it felt and sounded like a home as he caught the excited shouts of the children, no doubt playing in the open garden in the centre. Philo was waiting for him, with that predatory look that suggested he was poised to brush at his clothes and make a fuss.

  ‘She’s seen me before,’ Ferox barked. ‘She isn’t about to be fooled if I’m clean.’

  ‘It cannot do any harm, my lord,’ Philo replied, and as expected raised a little brush.

  ‘No. And you do not have to call me, my lord. Sir will do, and none too often.’

  ‘It will not, my lord.’ Ferox had long since grown used to the boy’s disappointment in him. ‘The queen will see you in the afternoon room. You are a little early.’

  ‘This is my house – or was anyway. And I know the way, so be about your business.’ Ferox went through the porch, continued through the reception room and out into the garden. It was a glorious afternoon, the sun already warming up, so that the shade was welcome.

  An arrow whizzed noisily past his head. A second followed, wobbling in the air because it had a blunt tip and flights made deliberately too heavy. Ferox snatched it as it passed and pressed it to his chest before reeling in mock agony. A deluge of children swamped him, screeching with excitement. There were three boys, the youngest a dark-haired and blue-eyed ruffian, and all three grabbed him around the waist. Ferox staggered, taking them all with him and then let himself be borne down onto the ground.

  ‘You are a shockingly bad influence, Flavius Ferox, as I have said many times before.’ Sulpicia Lepidina had her hands on her hips, but was smiling. They had been lovers, briefly and secretly, years before and the dark-haired boy was her child and his, unlike the other step-children, although she loved them all. She was a senator’s daughter, beautiful and intelligent, as well as another man’s wife, so they had never had any future, and then later she had sent him to what could easily have been his death. None of that seemed to matter, and he felt her to be a true friend as well as the devoted mother to his son.

  ‘Better not linger,’ she said. ‘So you must all let him go until later!’ With some reluctance, the children broke free.

  Ferox stood up, brushing himself down and glad that Philo could not see. He looked at Lepidina, her hair gleaming in the sunlight and wearing one of the pale blue dresses she favoured. ‘What do you think are my chances?’ he asked.

  The clarissima femina held up her right arm, thumb outstretched and wavering like the president at the games deciding the fate of a fallen gladiator and trying to gauge the crowd’s mood. After a moment she spread fingers and thumb wide and smiled. ‘What do you think?’

  Ferox did not know, so with a mock scowl back at the children to make them giggle, he walked to the far side, under the veranda and found the room. Two low stools were in it as well as a little round table, and he was not sure whether or not this was an encouraging sign. This was one of the better decorated rooms, although the painter shared the obsession with fauns and nymphs and the rooftops of distant towns.

  The note passed to him by Philo that morning had said the fifth hour of the day and he knew that he was a little early, so he sat on one of the stools, finding it too low for comfort. There were two doors in this room, one leading to the garden and the other to a corridor and he guessed that she would come that way. He also guessed that she would be late and make him wait, so he waited and wondered whether being treated in this way was another unexpected aspect of commanding a garrison. After a long while, he stood up, and studied the paintings as there was nothing else to do. He had never looked that closely before, and noticed for the first time that wherever there was a nymph or group of such beauties exercising, playing or bathing, they were always watched from cover by a satyr, just visible from his horns or hoof as he hid behind a bush, tree or wall.

  She came from the garden and at first he did not turn, wondering whether she would cough or speak, but she did not. Was this a test? He waited and the silence stretched on and on. The Silures raised a boy to cherish silence, but he doubted that his grandfather and the other elders had ever anticipated a situation like this one. Probably they would despise him for creating it.

  ‘You know,’ Ferox said at last and started to turn, ‘I’d never noticed…’ He stopped.

  Claudia Enica stood like the statue of a goddess. Memory is a fragile thing, often vague, and if he had known that she was beautiful that was not the same as seeing her just a few feet away. Her dress was green silk, shimmering in the light of the open door behind her and just hinting at the elegant lines of her legs and body. She liked green, feeling it set off the vivid red of her hair, which today was piled high and dotted with tiny pearls in what was no doubt her own adaptation of a current fashion. It suited her, as did the rouge on her lips and the gentle make-up. This was Claudia, the Roman lady, well educated, teasing and dignified as an equestrian should be. At other times this same woman became Enica, granddaughter of Cartimandua, the witch queen of the Brigantes, surrounded with the same awe. That person was wilder, a warrior trained to a high pitch, who killed readily if she felt the need and was as out of place at a sophisticated dinner party as a tiger.

  Ferox knew what it was like to have two souls in one body, with the prince of the Silures, the wolf people, living alongside the Roman centurion. Claudia Enica was so much younger and yet seemed to find the dual life more natural, perhaps through some magic inherited from her grandmother.

  The door closed, and he caught a glimpse of the dwarf Achilles, Claudia’s ‘whisperer’ when she was acting the part of the frivolous and fashionable lady. Still she stood, without a trace of a smile so that she was more than ever the perfect goddess, as cold as she was lovely.

  Ferox took a pace forward. ‘I am…’ The words trailed away and he stopped. What was there to say that would do any good? ‘You are so beautiful,’ he managed at last, and although he meant it the words sounded false, just what any man would say in flattery.

  Claudia moved quickly, one step, then another, the built-up heels of her light shoes tapping on the wooden floor boards. Her hand moved even faster and she slapped his left cheek, so hard that it stung. Still her face was rigid.

  Ferox flexed his jaw. Although tall like many Brigantes, she was shorter than him by a good few inches in spite of the extra height from her shoes. That meant staring up at him, her green eyes hard as flint. The last time they had met those eyes had blazed with anger.

  Claudia’s hand swept back and slammed into his other cheek so hard that his head jerked to the side. Ferox straightened up and stood absolutely still. He knew he deserved this and far more. Almost four years ago the army had given him six months furlough to be with his wife. She was busy, working as queen of the Brigantes to rule her people, and working even harder to persuade the Romans to make official and final acknowledgement that she was in
deed queen, recognised forever by the empire. There was not a lot for him to do and idleness never suited him. The fiery Enica was frustrated and short tempered, not helped by a difficult pregnancy, the result of a leave he had spent with her a few months earlier. He was bored and started to drink, and when she snapped at him once or twice he had snapped back, which led to fights. There was a little scar next to his eyebrow from where he had been hit by a nicely decorated Samian cup. Whether he was patient or argued back it only seemed to rile her all the more, but he had to admit that he might have done better had he found things to do rather than drink. As Vindex had so aptly put it, he had buggered it all up.

  She hit him a third time and then stepped back.

  ‘You look older,’ she said.

  ‘You do not.’ Ferox meant it. Claudia smoothed her hands down her silk dress past her waist. Her figure was as lithe as it had ever been. ‘You truly do not.’ Years ago, when he had first started to learn about this strange young woman she had told him with absolute assurance that he was hers. Whether or not it was true then, it had become true. He belonged to her, to do with as she wished. ‘How are the children?’ he asked.

  ‘How should I know?’ Her head was slightly on one side, and Claudia was in charge, always ready to mock. ‘They are at home.’ She sighed as if in disappointment. ‘You have received the letters?’

  ‘Yes.’ Every month Claudia had one of her servants write to him to say that their twin girls were well, and list accomplishments such as the times they had learned to crawl and then walk.

  ‘I would guess that they are squealing and dirty, demanding food and attention and anything else that takes their fancy. That is how they usually behave.’

  ‘Would a mother’s guidance—’

  ‘Silures!’ Claudia interrupted. ‘They make their women work like slaves, whether they will or not. Brigantes and Romans alike are more enlightened.’ Her hands were on her hips now, and she snorted. ‘Huh! Your children are well, no thanks to you, that much I sense even from so far away. They are cared for and loved by women and a few men utterly devoted to them, rather than a mother who finds their bawling and self-absorption tiresome. That is a good deal more than most children get!’

  ‘How do they look?’ Ferox asked.

  Claudia smiled. ‘They take after their mother, thank the gods for great mercies. And so alike that I for one cannot tell the little mice apart. No wonder the Romans call them both Flavia.’ Her head went back on one side. ‘You are grinning like a halfwit, Flavius Ferox,’ she said. ‘They have each sent you a snail shell, and you can have them later. Why snail shells? Why indeed, but I understand the choice was between that and some leaves. They are as half-witted as their father, but at least have the excuse of being infants and may learn in time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and on instinct put his hands on her arms. She did not flinch, but did not respond either.

  ‘Your gifts for conversation have not improved, have they.’

  ‘Why are you here, my queen?’

  There was another smile. ‘At least you know your place, even if you speak like a surly brute and maul me about. Well, I could be here as the dutiful little wife, to help her husband in his many onerous tasks, could I not? Just as dear Lepidina follows her Cerialis half way across the empire.’

  ‘It seems unlikely.’

  ‘Pig.’ She pulled one arm free and reached up to her forehead as if wiping away tears. ‘I have missed you,’ she added, serious once again.

  ‘Not every time, but I am pretty good at ducking.’

  ‘Brute.’

  She did not pull free from his other hand and her skin was soft and warm. Her scent was all around him, and brought back memories of better times.

  ‘I am here to help,’ she said, and brushed his chin with her fingers. ‘Philo still does a good job, and more remarkably yet manages to restrain himself from slicing the razor through your throat. Remarkable fellow that.

  ‘And I am here because I am queen and my people are going to war.’

  ‘We are still at peace.’

  Another snort. ‘War is coming. You know it as well as I unless you have truly become a fool. So the commander’s wife has joined her husband as far as the Romans are concerned for there is much that they could not or would not understand. My warriors will know that their queen is here, her sword as sharp as any of theirs.’

  ‘Speaking of swords…’ Ferox pulled her towards him and kissed her. Her lips were soft, and her arms gripped onto him pressing their mouths ever closer. He was not thinking, not worrying, for the moment all that mattered was to be with her. She moaned very softly, and their bodies started to blend into one. Ferox reached for the shoulder of her dress, feeling the silk and trying to find the catch of the little brooch.

  Claudia Enica’s knee jerked up sharply and Ferox groaned with the pain, doubling up as she pulled away.

  ‘You have to earn more,’ his wife told him, her eyes bright. ‘Now sort yourself out and be off with you. I shall see you tomorrow, but not before. Still, it is good to see you, husband.’

  Ferox’s thoughts came slowly as he left the praetorium, for part of him was happy and the fears that now almost all that he cared for in the world had come to this place of danger could not yet drive the happiness away.

  ‘Did she hit you?’ Vindex was waiting for him.

  Ferox nodded.

  ‘Good lass. Kick in the balls?’

  ‘Used her knee.’

  ‘Aye, well enough. She’s a queen and no mistake.’

  XIV

  Sarmizegethusa

  The tenth day before the Kalends of May

  THE STRONGHOLD OF the Dacian king was a remarkable place, and not for the first time on this journey Hadrian had thought of all those mountain cities stormed by Alexander and his men on their long road to India. As he understood it, those were made from mud brick, as brown as the land around them, whereas the Dacians built mainly in stone, and built well. In one sense it was a pity that he had left Ephippus behind, for he had wanted the engineer to examine the towers, walls and temples, and sketch as many as he could. There was never any harm in learning from others, and indeed the Romans boasted of their willingness to copy even from enemies, which was one of the few ways they showed themselves more rational than the Greeks.

  Whoever had built this fortress had understood how to use the land itself, for its walls dipped and rose over the ridges, so that slopes added to the height of the defences. Merely approaching it would be hard for a tower or ram, the assault ramps having to be made very large or precariously steep, and then there were the walls themselves. Hadrian had been told – and had glimpsed in a small outpost – of the timber boxes within the stone, stronger even than the Gallic framing that had so impressed Julius Caesar. The Dacians were no simple barbarians, and they were not afraid to learn from others any more than the Romans. Greek influence was plain, most of all in the well-cut masonry and the square towers, but here and there the curve of an arch or the tiled roof of a turret showed the work of an army engineer, whether a renegade deserter or one of the men sent by Domitian at the time of the treaty. The same was true of the artillery, well maintained and cleaned – and indeed of the soldiers, all in mail, with bronze helmets, matching oval shields and spears, guarding the fortress. At any distance they were hard to tell apart from regular auxiliaries, and only closer did the untamed beards, cloaks of all shades and patterns, and long trousers stand out.

  The Roman garrison was separate, uphill of the main royal compound, not that this advantage would make any difference if there was trouble. There were just under six hundred men in the garrison, more than a third of them from I Minervia and the rest picked men from equally good units. Yet they were stale. Hadrian could tell that from the first glance and nothing he learned subsequently did anything to change his mind. By army standards the fort was crowded, partly so that it was entirely on the hillock above the royal fortress. Even though from the rampart and towers the Romans
could look down on the Dacians as they went about their business, somehow this only reinforced the sense of being isolated and surrounded. Beyond the fortress there was peak after peak, some with smaller Dacian towers and forts, and the nearest help was a long way away. There was nowhere to drill or train, unless the garrison commander sought permission from the king and that always took a long time to be granted. When permission finally came it meant a long march to find a decently open and level patch of ground among all these rugged slopes and deep valleys.

  By all accounts the winter had been savage up here, so bad that legionaries lost fingers and noses after standing guard on some of the worst nights and several had died. That had meant even more time inside the barracks, huddled around their fires to fight the chill in their bones. Decebalus had been generous in sending up plenty of wood to burn, as well as food and drink, even arranging with traders to buy wine that neither he nor many of his aristocrats were willing to drink. They had managed, but all the while it was a reminder that they were dependent on the king’s goodwill. There was no well or spring in the Roman fort, and little space in the modest granary. They lived at the king’s pleasure, and if ever he chose he could snuff them as easily as a slave doing the rounds of a house at night extinguishing all the lamps and torches. The men of the garrison all knew this and all lived with the knowledge and with the dullest of routines even by army standards, so that it was not surprising if they lacked spirit. They were a symbol of peace and nothing more.

  ‘Decebalus does not want more trouble,’ the narrow stripe tribune in command had assured him. The man was from Legio VII Claudia pia fidelis, and was supposed to be junior to a senatorial tribune from his legion, but that man had done a year and departed for home. Piso was supposed to have replaced him in the job, but now Piso was not coming and that left the equestrian tribune all the more nervous because not only had Hadrian arrived, but so had the legatus Augusti in charge of all forces in Dacia.