Hero of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  ‘The governor is not coming. Decianus will not disturb him.’

  Falco grimaced, and Petronius’s face went even whiter, if that were possible.

  ‘But why?’ Petronius asked. ‘My message was plain.’

  ‘He does not believe you.’

  While Petronius called a full meeting of the ordo and senior militia officers, Valerius walked a circuit of what remained of the walls with Lunaris. He’d learned that, only days before, the council had belatedly agreed the city defences were more important than the feelings of the property developers who had torn down the walls to make way for their villas and gardens. The duplicarius shook his head: ‘Too late. It would take a thousand men months to make this place defensible again. We’d have to tear down houses, rebuild the walls and demolish every hut for two hundred paces to give ourselves a clear field of fire. Even then I don’t think we’d have enough men to defend a perimeter of this size.’

  Valerius grunted agreement. ‘Falco reckons he can scrape together two thousand of his veterans and a few hundred able-bodied civilians who will be more trouble than they’re worth. Bela has had his cavalry patrolling the north road, but I’ve told him to pull back and form a screen ten miles north of here. They should give us a reasonable amount of warning of any attack and when they withdraw it will give us five hundred more, but I think they’ll be more useful on horseback than manning a wall.’

  ‘What about the signal station on the Venta road?’

  ‘They stay where they are and fight their way out at the first sign of trouble,’ Valerius said decisively.

  ‘We both know what that means.’

  Valerius nodded. He had just sentenced eight men to death. The Iceni would overwhelm them in minutes, but the warning they gave could be decisive. He tried to put the image of the disgruntled Tungrian commander out of his mind but he was haunted by the legate’s words of a few months before: There will be a day, Valerius, when your soldiers are mere coins to be spent. Well, the day had come sooner than he’d believed possible. ‘How are the men?’

  ‘Our people – Gracilis, Luca, Paulus, Messor and the rest – are good, and the lads from Londinium are prime soldiers, but … you’ve heard the stories?’

  ‘That rubbish about the sea turning red?’

  ‘And the statue on top of the temple falling over.’

  ‘Pushed over is more likely,’ Valerius said dismissively. ‘Most of the local Trinovantes may have disappeared to hide or join the rebellion, but there are enough left to cause trouble. It wouldn’t have taken more than two men with a couple of ropes.’

  Lunaris grinned. ‘You’re right, but you know what soldiers are like. Superstitious.’ His hand rose to touch the amulet at his neck.

  ‘Tell them what I said, and the next time someone whispers in their ear have them arrested for spreading rumour and dissent.’

  ‘It’s time,’ Lunaris reminded him.

  ‘Yes, it’s time.’

  They were too many even for the curia, so Colonia’s hundred leading citizens and a hundred more packed into the main meeting room of the temple precinct. Corvinus was there, his dark eyes concerned and seeking out Valerius; Didius, the moneylender, sleek and calculating, but nervous for once; and a dozen others he knew. The men who had driven the city’s development since Claudius agreed its foundation and the men who had profited from it since. Perhaps a third of them were in their militia uniforms, the rest in the purple-striped togas that marked their office. Valerius knew his message wouldn’t be palatable for any of them.

  ‘I am going to give up the city.’

  The announcement was greeted with uproar. Men clamoured to be allowed to speak, demanding precedence from Petronius who sat slumped in his seat looking bewildered and defeated. Even the veterans, conditioned to a lifetime of authority, appeared close to mutiny and Falco stood among them as grim-faced as any.

  Valerius raised his voice above the dissent. ‘There is no choice,’ he said. ‘We cannot defend this city against fifty thousand warriors, or even half that. If the walls were unbroken I would not attempt it with the force we have. You must prepare the old, the sick, and the women and children to leave at dawn tomorrow for Londinium. Provide them with enough food and water for four days. Requisition every cart and carriage in the city, but keep the baggage to a minimum. Lives are more valuable than treasure.’

  ‘Are we cowards that we flee before a rabble of Celts whose arses we kicked twenty years ago?’ The voice came from the far end of the room and Valerius had to crane his neck to see who had spoken: a gnarled, grey-bearded farmer who had been a legionary officer and was now centurion of the Second cohort of the militia.

  ‘Not cowards, Marcus Saecularis, and I for one will not flee. If we run they will be on our necks like a pack of jackals. If we try to defend the city they will cut our little army into a hundred pieces and hunt us through the streets like rats.’

  ‘What, then?’ It was Falco.

  Valerius nodded acknowledgement. He needed this man’s help more than any other. Without Falco’s cooperation Colonia was doomed.

  ‘There is a chance we can convince them to bypass Colonia. If we make a show of force in the right place and appear to have enough strength they will be wary. The rebellion is in its infancy and its leaders need a quick victory to cement the loyalty of their followers. They won’t relish attacking what they believe is a full legion.’

  ‘And if that doesn’t work?’

  Valerius allowed his eyes to wander over the crowd of faces, so each man would believe he was speaking to him and him alone.

  ‘We will do what a legion does best,’ he said and he saw Falco’s eyes flash with comprehension. ‘We will fight them on our ground and our terms. When we receive word of the barbarians’ approach we will march out to meet them. I intend to use the river in place of the walls we do not have. Our greatest strength is our unity and our discipline. We will remind them of the price that must be paid for defying Rome.’

  ‘Are there enough of us?’ the militia commander asked. ‘Less than three thousand against fifty thousand?’

  Valerius hesitated, unsure of his next words. Then a familiar hard-edged voice from a few short weeks earlier gave him his answer. ‘If the militia cannot hold Colonia its people do not deserve to keep it.’

  The words were met with a disbelieving silence. He saw the shock on Falco’s face and a moment later a roar of fury filled the room. A militia centurion surged towards him and was only held back from physical assault by two of his compatriots. They hated him now. But that was good. If he could only channel that hatred against the Iceni, then, perhaps, they had a chance.

  Petronius called for order. They did not like it, but no one wanted a debate. Valerius carried the procurator’s authority and to disobey him meant mutiny.

  Still some argued against evacuation, those who wanted to stay with their wives and children and defend what was theirs, but they were in a minority. Everyone in the room knew of Celts no longer in Colonia who were now in the north, sharpening their swords. They remembered the humiliations that had been meted out to their neighbours; fear of their return and Valerius’s calm authority did the rest. When the issue was settled, he explained how the exodus must be organized, who would lead the convoy, who would command the escort, how much baggage would be allowed. When he had their agreement, Petronius issued his orders and they filed silently out of the room, each man considering how he would tell his wife, how much she would be able to carry and where he would bury what she could not.

  As they were leaving, Valerius drew Falco aside. ‘You were right,’ he apologized. ‘We do not have enough men. But that wasn’t what they needed to hear.’

  Falco studied him, his expression thoughtful. ‘I’ve heard many calls to arms, Valerius, but none quite so direct. Caligula could have learned much from you.’

  Valerius smiled. A double-edged compliment, if it was a compliment at all. But he sensed no lasting damage had been done.

  ‘T
here is one thing you should know, Primus Pilus,’ he said formally. ‘When we have fought them, and fought them again, when their bodies lie in heaps before our swords, but still they come at us, then I will retire here, to this temple precinct, to make a last stand. The priests will complain that it is sacrilege, but I am a practical man, and I believe I have the support of the gods. We will stock the temple with what supplies and water we can. If you or any of your men are isolated in the fighting make for the temple. You will be among friends. Now, we have much to do.’

  What followed was a night of chaos such as the province had never witnessed.

  They poured into Colonia in their thousands. Bewildered families torn from the security of their homes, terrified of what might be to come. Rich or poor, they were all the same class now, homeless refugees fleeing before an avenging army which would show them no mercy.

  Of course there were not enough carts to take them all. Valerius ordered that those available be used to transport the youngest children, the sick and the old who could hardly put one foot in front of the other. But what mother would willingly be separated from her child? What daughter from her aged father? In the midst of the pandemonium he came across Lunaris attempting to separate two women as they fought, screaming and cursing, for places on the transport for their children. At another time Valerius would have laughed at the look of bewilderment on the legionary’s face.

  ‘What am I supposed to do with them?’ Lunaris demanded, holding the pair at arm’s length as they tore at each other’s hair and ripped dresses from breast and shoulder.

  ‘Throw them in the river,’ Valerius suggested. He said it loud enough for the combatants to hear the real intent in his voice and the struggling subsided. Lunaris grinned and the two women separated, still spitting at each other, and retreated to opposite ends of the convoy. Valerius helped a blind man, separated from his carer for the first time in ten years, as he wandered along the line, arms outstretched, politely asking if anyone had seen Julia. A little later he witnessed two of Colonia’s hard-bitten prostitutes giving up the space they had paid for in gold to a distraught young mother with a squealing baby in her arms and a wide-eyed, snot-nosed infant pulling at the skirts of each leg.

  But he couldn’t be everywhere. In the first of many accidents, a bewildered five-year-old girl, perched on the rim of an open wagon already doubly overburdened, tumbled into the path of an iron-shod wheel and shrieked as the bones of her legs were shattered. They did what they could to comfort her but she died within minutes, her eyes still wide with shock.

  Three hours after midnight Luca, one of the young legionaries who formed his escort, called Valerius forward to where an angry crowd had gathered by one of the carts.

  ‘What’s happening here?’ he demanded. The wagon had a raised oilskin canvas secured so the contents were invisible, but the body was settled low over the axles and it was clearly heavily loaded. A bulky woman with her face hidden by a hood sat on the rim, holding the reins.

  Luca shrugged at the suspicious faces around him. ‘They say something’s not right about this cart. They asked the woman to take one of their children, but she won’t let them near it. All she does is shake her head. Maybe she’s a mute?’

  Valerius studied the figure at the reins and noticed that her hands shook as she held the leather straps. Noticed something else, too. By Mars’s sacred beard, didn’t he have enough to do? He reached out and pulled back the hood to reveal Bassus Atilius, one of Colonia’s most successful merchants, fat, unshaven and glaring in a woman’s grey dress. Sickened, Valerius took the terrified trader by the neck and threw him on to the ground.

  ‘Kill him.’ The shout came from the rear of the crowd.

  ‘Keep them back,’ Valerius ordered, untying the straps on the wagon to reveal Bassus’s wife huddled among several large boxes. He helped the woman down and picked up one of the boxes and tipped it over the side, where it burst open to reveal dozens of pieces of fine copperware. Other boxes followed, each filled with similar items, including silver plate and ornaments. Bassus grovelled among them as his wife hid her face.

  ‘Please, they are everything I have. I must save them.’

  Valerius held up a sack, such as a farmworker might use to carry his midday meal, marvelling at the weight of it. He looked inside to see hundreds of gold aurei winking back at him, each coin glowing as if the owner spent long hours polishing them. When he saw the sack, Bassus cried out.

  ‘Kill him,’ the voice repeated.

  Valerius drew his sword and stared in the direction of the voice. Now Bassus cowered at his feet, pleading for mercy. ‘If you want him dead, kill him yourself.’

  A growl went up from the crowd, but no man moved.

  ‘At least take his gold.’

  ‘No, we are not thieves. Do you want to sink as low as this man, who would have sacrificed you and your children for a few pots and pans?’ He looked out over them, women and boys mostly, but a few older militia men. Not many would meet his eyes. ‘His is the greed that is bringing the Iceni to your door. The kind of greed that does not know the meaning of the word enough.’ He tossed the gold down at Bassus, where it landed with a hefty clink. The trader grasped the sack to him. ‘Luca, find a place in the wagons for the woman, then take this man to the bridge and set him over it. We’ll see how many gold pieces it takes to buy Boudicca’s mercy.’

  For the rest of the night the legionaries were thrown about like dry leaves in an autumn gale, reassuring, bullying and pleading, sometimes lashing out with fist and boot, until the first purple hint of dawn bruised the ink-black sky above the city and a semblance of order appeared from the mayhem.

  Bela, the Thracian cavalry commander, appeared with thirty of his troopers, who lined up on their big horses on each side of the convoy. It would be a frustrating journey for the men, restricted to the speed of the slowest ox cart, but at least, Valerius thought, it would spare their horses for what was to come.

  Fighting back exhaustion, he walked along the line of carts, checking everything was in its place and that he’d dealt with all the tiny, niggling, dangerous problems which had arisen through the night. A well-dressed woman he thought might be Petronius’s wife glared at him as he passed, as if he was to blame for her plight, but many thanked him, and not just those he would necessarily have expected it from. Others still looked to him for some reassurance. They wanted to know that they would be coming back; that everything would be as it was before. He smiled and nodded, but it was a lie. These women were leaving their lives behind along with their husbands and nothing would ever be the same again. He watched a hundred last goodbyes. Longing kisses and unchecked tears. Heartbreaking pleas to be allowed to stay behind and brave whatever was to come together. A father clutched his newborn babe to his breast until his wife took it from his arms for fear he would hurt it. When the sun came up and he reached the front of the convoy where Bela waited, he knew the cries of the children would stay with him until he died.

  The young Thracian stood at his horse’s neck, holding his burnished helmet carelessly in one hand, his shale-dark hair ruffled and untidy. Bela had the look of a young Alexander and the confidence to match, but his eyes were solemn and as Valerius approached he sniffed the air. The Roman shot him a questioning look.

  ‘Smoke,’ Bela explained. ‘But only the smoke of your cooking fires. When they come the smoke will be different because they will burn everything.’

  Valerius nodded. ‘Your instructions are clear?’

  The cavalryman smiled. ‘Of course. I deliver my precious cargo and then return, but not before making a personal visit to the procurator.’

  ‘Where you will forcefully express my concerns.’

  ‘Where I will forcefully express your concerns at the risk of my career.’

  ‘And the other messages I ordered to be sent?’

  ‘Janos will carry your personal letter direct to the governor, but it will take some days and I fear he is unlikely to be of help. Petur sho
uld reach the camp of the Ninth by tonight if they have not already marched.’

  ‘Let us pray they have. Go, then, and may Mars protect you.’

  Bela took his hand and his gaze swept back over the mile-long line of wagons. ‘Yesterday we sacrificed a foal to Heros, the chief of our own gods. It was a good sacrifice – but I will accept any help I can get.’

  XXXI

  Valerius watched the tail of the convoy lumber down the hill towards the gap in the ancient Trinovante walls and the long journey to Londinium. When the road was finally empty he waited for a few moments before turning and walking slowly back through the arch into Colonia.

  ‘Will you inspect my men, tribune?’

  Falco stood on the main street outside the goldsmith’s shop alongside Corvinus. Normally a hundred people would be in this section even at this hour, buying or selling or just looking. Now it was eerily silent. An empty wicker birdcage rolled back and forth outside one of the other shops and the curtain flapped in an empty doorway.

  ‘It would be my privilege, Primus Pilus.’ Valerius bowed. ‘And perhaps you would do me the honour of inspecting mine.’

  The militia commander looked pleased at the compliment. Strange that the years seemed to have dropped away from him during the long, punishing night, while the goldsmith’s burden appeared to have doubled.

  They walked towards the Forum past Lucullus’s townhouse and Valerius remembered the day he’d read his father’s letter pleading for his return to Rome. A shiver ran through him and he looked up at the sun rising strong and bright over the roof of the great temple. It brought back memories of other suns; fierce Tuscan suns and suns glittering on the azure sea at Neapolis, the sun on his back when he had made love to his first woman and the sun that had highlighted the stark bones on his mother’s face a week before she died. There had been so many suns. Would this be his last?