‘And you know that it doesn’t work like that. Just let me in.’
‘You need to be careful, Brigius. The Numidians are out in force today.’
‘I know. I keep meeting the bastards, now will you kindly let me in before they join the party?’
‘I would like to, Brigius, but I can’t confirm your identity without a pass. Of course, the Brigius who serves with the Second in this fort would know exactly how much he owed me after that debacle with the loaded dice, wouldn’t he?’
Brigius sighed. ‘Alright, Strabo. I owe you twelve sesterces plus small change. Happy?’
‘Are you sure, Brigius?’
‘Yes I’m damned sure, Strabo, and no, I won’t up the offer. Let me in.’
He moved to pass through the gate, but Strabo stepped close and blocked him for a moment. ‘By the end of the day. All of it. Understand? Or this little exchange might become wider known.’
Grunting an inaudible reply, Brigius pushed past and into the fort. The men of the Second went about their sullen business in the gap between the walls and the cramped buildings. What the future held for Vindolanda was a common subject of conjecture for the men of its garrison these days. Only two years ago there had been a grand fort in the old style here, big enough to house a thousand men with ease. Then had come the emperor’s campaign and everything had changed. The stone fort had been levelled and a new, small and compact earth-bank fort formed out of part of the vicus, while the great wide, and now empty, platform was given over to the numerous round houses that played host to the Numidian cavalry. Many saw this shrinkage as the beginning of the end for the place. Once the lands north of the wall were finally settled, as seemed to be the goal of the emperor, the Second would probably be moved on and the fort abandoned altogether. At least, that seemed to be the most common theory. And that would mean uprooting Senna and moving on. Not a conversation he would look forward to, though unless he and Senna could do something, such a peaceful future seemed as unreachable as the stars anyway.
Nodding a greeting to a few friends as he passed, he shivered once more and hurried along the narrow way between houses. Would that he had the rank and authority to approach the Second’s prefect, but he would never get past the door. Instead, he made for the common hall at the fort’s centre where there would likely be at least one centurion. Pushing open the door, he stepped into the partitioned room at the end, which smelled of wet wool and sweat. Cloaks and scarves hung around the place on pegs, and he could hear discussion from the large hall beyond the next door. As he removed the mud from his boots on the scraper by the entrance, he caught the rasping tone of Centurion Buteo, apparently labouring a point within.
Buteo would be far from his first choice to bring delicate news to, given the man’s sour disposition and tendency to assign blame on a first-come, first-served basis, but beggars, as they said, could not be choosers, and he had to see someone with authority.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open and strode into the long room.
His heart lurched.
He had expected the hall to be occupied by perhaps a dozen veterans from the Second and a few officers. Instead, half a hundred dark, tanned faces turned to this new arrival. The Numidian cavalrymen. In the fort? Why couldn’t they keep to their damned little round houses outside and at least let the Second have somewhere of their own?
For a single heartbeat he considered backing out of the door, despite the impression that would give the visiting horsemen, but then the realisation hit him: half his job had been done for him! He had expected to have to pass the news on to his seniors and wait as it leached through to the Numidians who would naturally snatch control as always. But now they would hear it directly.
‘You,’ snapped Buteo, waving a hand at him. ‘Close the damn door. You’re letting in a draft.’
Brigius did so, hurriedly, and then shuffled over towards the centurion. There were a few men of the Second gathered nearby, as though preparing to defend their side of the room against the Numidians, who were spread out even into the gloomy corners. He felt a little relieved to see Centurion Scapula there too. Scapula was one of the more sympathetic among the officers, if such could ever be said of a centurion.
‘Brigius?’ Scapula said. ‘Are you not supposed to be in the workshops this morning?’
The shivering soldier hurried across the room, acutely aware of a hundred shining malevolent eyes following him, and stopped before the two centurions, straightening into a salute. His eyes dropped to Buteo’s dog, who lay next to the table with one eye open and glaring up at him as though a meal had just walked into his hungry canine existence.
‘Sir, I have news. Important news.’
‘Well spit it out, then, man,’ Scapula said. ‘We haven’t got all day.’
‘Sir,’ he said, his voice quiet and only trembling slightly in a manner he hoped would seem natural in front of several officers. ‘The Maeatae are on the move.’
‘Rubbish,’ Buteo snapped. ‘The scouts we send up beyond the wall have had no such news.’
‘I swear on the name of Mars Cocidius and the honour of the Second, Centurion. The scouts only make cursory sweeps. They don’t delve into the activity of each settlement.’
Buteo sniffed and waved him away, but Scapula’s eyes narrowed. ‘Calm, Buteo. It’s worth listening to Brigius when he tells you things. He has… ears among the natives.’
‘You mean he beds a Maeatae whore? Hardly a reliable source.’
Brigius forced himself not to react, a tic beginning in the muscle at his jaw. Even at such an insult, one did not argued with a centurion.
‘It’s a little more than that,’ Scapula noted. ‘You remember the lad that got run down in the street by the prince’s horsemen? That’s Brigius’s boy, and he’s half Maeatae.’ He turned back to Brigius. ‘What’s your news? Come on.’
‘The Maeatae, sir. They’re forming a warband and preparing to launch an attack.’
‘They wouldn’t be so stupid,’ Buteo snorted. ‘Not with the peace as it is.’
‘Not everyone wants that peace, sir,’ Brigius replied quietly. ‘And the arrival of… certain new units has hardly eased the tensions. There are rumours among the local tribes of a campaign of suppression. They fear that the new granaries over at the wall’s end are destined to be filled with the tribes’ harvest. That they’ll starve to feed the emperor’s campaigns in the north.’
‘They should damn well be grateful if we just take their grain and leave them alone,’ Buteo grumbled.
‘You’re saying this Maeatae warband has set its sights on the new granaries at Horrea Classis?’ Scapula asked, his brow folded into a thoughtful frown.
‘That would be insane,’ Buteo put in. ‘They could never hope to succeed in an attack somewhere that high-profile. And they’re horse folk. What use are barbarian cavalry against a Roman fort?’
‘They might succeed,’ Scapula mused. ‘The fort there is still in a state of flux as they extend it for more granaries, and half the wall’s been pulled down temporarily. A bunch of drunks could get in there and burn down the granaries if they didn’t care too much for their own preservation.’
Brigius nodded his support, his eyes flicking around to the cavalry. ‘And their force will not be a cavalry one, sir. Only the nobles and the wealthy have horses to form their cavalry, and the nobles know better than to bite the hand that feeds them. It is the young and restless and those with something to prove who raise the standard of rebellion, and few of those can claim ownership of a horse.’
Come on. Take an interest. You’ve not let the Second do anything else these past months without interference…
‘You’re certain?’ the centurion asked.
‘Yes, sir. If you require confirmation, have the scouts check out the Maeatae settlements a day or two north of Brocolitia and Cilurnum,’ and anywhere else that’s not Senna’s family, ‘and they’ll discover few menfolk in residence of fighting age. Warriors are gathering fo
r the raid.’
‘Troubling news.’
‘It seems your men cannot keep your own cattle quiet,’ said a voice accented with that southern twang that seemed so prevalent at Vindolanda these days. Both centurions’ gazes shot past Brigius, who turned his head to see Vitalis, the Numidian senior officer, at a table with several of his brother officers in a gloomy corner. Brigius’s heart started to race. If he’d known that man was here…
‘It is in the nature of proud people to remain proud no matter how many men you garrison upon them,’ Scapula answered levelly. ‘I wonder how the Numidians felt when Jugurtha died and his sovereign land was carved up by Rome and her client kings?’
Vitalis rose slowly, gripping the back of his seat with whitening knuckles.
‘You forget your place and your rank, Centurion,’ the dark-skinned officer retorted, almost spitting the last word in distaste.
‘Calm yourself, Prefect,’ cut in a new voice from the same table in the shadowed corner of the room. To Brigius’s surprise, the cavalry officer subsided, sinking back into his seat, still trembling with indignation. The new speaker leaned forward, his face entering the gentle glow of light from the table’s oil lamp, and Brigius’s eyes widened in shock to see the clipped beard and curled hair of the prince they called Caracalla nursing a cup of wine, his permanent frown more pronounced than usual.
‘Highness,’ Scapula said, straightening, along with Buteo. Clearly neither of them had been aware of the prince’s presence among the Numidian officers who had been the first in the place, judging by the scattered empties on the table. Scapula’s face had drained of colour at the realisation that he had openly insulted the commander of the prince’s pet cavalry unit. Decisions like that could end both careers and lives in short order.
Caracalla waved the two men back down and steepled his fingers.
‘Am I led to understand that the Maeatae are rising against us?’
Brigius realised that the emperor’s son was looking directly at him, and not at the centurions. He felt himself starting to tremble. Suddenly, the whole idea he had cooked up with Senna seemed incredibly foolish. If there was one thing he didn’t want, it was the personal attention of this prince.
‘Not the Maeatae as a tribe, Highness,’ he replied quickly, his mouth going dry. Gods, but he didn’t want this vicious prince riding north with the intent of wiping out the Maeatae entire. ‘There are disaffected elements within the tribe. Most of the Maeatae are loyal subjects, Highness, but there are always troublemakers.’
‘There always are,’ the prince agreed in a flat tone that made Brigius swallow nervously.
‘The Second can put this trouble right swiftly, Highness,’ Buteo said confidently. ‘We know their settlements and their routes and our lads are familiar with the area and their tactics.’
The Numidians in the room narrowed their eyes almost to a man. Brigius felt the whole thing teetering. It had seemed such a natural assumption that the Numidians and their officer would take charge. Barely a patrol went out without the Numidians riding roughshod over the local garrison. And yet now, just when that was exactly what he wanted, it looked like the Second would be sent north instead.
‘Hardly,’ said the prince in leaden tones. ‘I am here in person to put the mark of Rome on the unruly inhabitants of the north who flaunt Roman peace. Did not the governor himself send for my father’s aid? And how would it appear if I sat here drinking wine with my riders while the Second supress trouble for me?’
‘Besides, Highness,’ Vitalis sneered, ‘half the Second are just barbarian Britons stuffed into a uniform anyway. I would hardly trust them not to just let their friends go free.’
Brigius could feel the centurions beside him bristling with anger, and each man of the Second in that small crowd fingered their dagger pommels as they glared at the Numidians. Had the prince not been in the room, there might well have been a repeat of the bar-room brawl, though this time initiated by the officers themselves.
‘No, Centurions,’ said Caracalla, rising slowly, ‘this is a task for my Numidians. I presume you have men who can guide us to where we might intercept and crush this warband?’
Brigius felt the world teeter. His heart was thundering. He had been expecting – hoping, even – to be the one to guide them, but that was before the prince had been involved. ‘I can do that, Highness,’ he found himself saying, surprised that his voice was not more shaky.
What are you doing, Brigius? The Numidians, yes, but the emperor’s son?
Disaster loomed, and he uttered a desperate prayer to Cocidius as Caracalla nodded his acceptance.
CHAPTER 7
Brigius sat on the horse uncomfortably, praying as he had never prayed before to every deity he could remember the name of, whether Roman or Votadini. His backside was sore from the journey, since he had rarely ridden a horse in his life; never for such a distance, and certainly not at the pace of the Numidian cavalry. But the pains in his gluteus maximus were nothing compared to the near panic that had filled him throughout the journey.
He had once seen a theatre group from somewhere down south perform at a festival in Coria and had wondered how a person could possibly maintain such a mask of fiction throughout the whole event as those actors. Now, he felt he could teach them a thing or two after the last few hours of seeming confident and keeping a straight face.
He had ridden out with the cavalry in the company of prince Caracalla, the bitter-faced Numidian prefect, and a small unit of the prince’s own praetorian cavalry. He had guided them to the site upon which he and Senna had agreed, and now they were here the longer they waited, the more nervous he became.
What if he and Senna had been wrong and there was another, more obvious, route? What if she had not spoken to her cousin’s idiot husband? What if they hadn’t believed her and had decided to change their plan? What if they had believed her but had ignored her anyway? What if they had managed to attract the nobles and field active cavalry? What if they’d got lost? Decided not to move? Fallen ill? So many reasons this might all go wrong, and only one way it could go right. And even if it all went according to plan, who won when you set a wolf and a bear to fighting? The answer was almost certainly not ‘you’.
And to have the emperor’s son present did little to calm his twanging nerves. That was not in the plan, and would need working out when his mind was less filled with whirling panic.
They were two full days’ ride north of the wall now, a day south of the once-powerful fortress at which the Maeatae warband had planned to gather, and on the very same day that supposed assembly of warriors was due to move through here, if their estimates had been correct. Senna, stronger than he had ever thought possible, had passed on to him the salient points: when, where and who, and Brigius, almost as familiar with the region as her, had seen the sense in the rebels’ decisions. He had also been able to mentally track their route south and east the same as she, noting the places through which they would naturally pass. It had taken little imagination to see Twin Rivers as the best site for this meeting. Unless the Maeatae wanted to climb every ridge and hill on their journey south, they would have to either come either this way or down past Bremenium, and only an idiot would try and take a surprise raiding party along the busiest Roman road in the north. And to use the coastal route would be to pass through Votadini lands, where Rome’s rule still held strong. No. The Maeatae would definitely pass through Twin Rivers, then along the natural defile to the Valley of the Stag Spirits and on south towards the wall. That latter valley, the one where Senna had been so worried about him carrying Atto on his shoulders, would make an ideal site for some sort of ambush, but not for a cavalry strike, being such a deep defile. No. Twin Rivers was the place.
For now…
And so Brigius had guided the Numidians and their dour prince north to this place, praying all the way that this truly was the route the warband would take. Senna had gone north, ostensibly to try and talk her cousin’s idiot hothead husba
nd out of his suicidal decision, but in truth to ascertain that the troublemakers who would so insist on stirring up her tribe were definitely planning on using that very route, and to nudge them towards it somehow if they were not.
There was, of course, every chance that the Maeatae warband had gone an entirely different way and even Senna, who could talk most people into doing what she needed, would find it difficult to steer an entire rebellion by herself.
He was just wondering how he would explain such a failure to the son of the emperor when there was a strange warbling noise up ahead.
The bulk of the cavalry was split into halves, with one prong of the proposed attack hidden behind a screen of unhealthy looking trees atop this blasted heath and the other just over the crest of the hill opposite. Ahead, at the end of the valley, two rivers met at a place where inter-tribal markets were held, in a wide basin of a valley. Only the scouts could see down there, of course, to keep the enemy unaware of the ambush awaiting them, but now one of those same scouts was warbling back at them and making strange, arcane gestures with his hands.
‘It would seem that your intelligence was correct, soldier,’ Prefect Vitalis hissed. ‘A sizeable warband, almost all on foot and without support, are moving across the dip and heading for the valley below us. You have my thanks and my congratulations on information that will lead to a most satisfactory victory for the prince.’
Brigius simply grunted his reply, uncaring about the difference in their ranks.
‘I do wonder how they operate,’ the dark-skinned officer mused, ‘without beasts or vehicles or other support, I mean.’
‘They can rely on sympathetic locals in many lands north of the wall,’ Brigius replied bitterly. ‘Few of these people have been treated well by Rome over the years. Even my own tribe, who were once called friend and ally, are now little more than a name on a Roman map.’
‘You sound sour over the matter,’ Vitalis replied, his lip curling. ‘Are you certain you are standing with the correct army this day?’
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