Emperor

by Stephen Baxter

  It had been this way since the defeat at the river, forty days already since that disaster. They had been long days of anxiety and waiting for the final blow to fall, while the humid heat lay like a dome across the landscape.

  And all the while the Romans sat in their camp just half a day’s ride away from Camulodunum.

  Everybody had expected the Romans simply to march straight into Camulodunum. Who could have stopped them? The townsfolk whispered rumours from Gaul and Germany of Roman atrocities, of towns burned, babies disembowelled and women violated–men too, it was said of these decadent Latins. Certainly the Romans might wish to make an example of the town, the centre of the most significant resistance they were likely to face in the whole of Britain. At times Roman soldiers even came riding into Camulodunum itself, as if to inspect their property, their Latin harsh and unfamiliar, their cheek galling.

  But still they did not act, and as the days passed the tension of not knowing what was to come became ever harder to bear.

  Agrippina and Cunedda reached Braint’s house and pushed inside. Braint herself was out but Nectovelin was here, rummaging through a heap of armour and weaponry.

  It was hot enough inside the house for Nectovelin to have stripped to the waist; his tunic and cloak were heaped up against the wall behind him. Agrippina’s eye was caught by a slim leather folder among his effects. It looked like the kind of document case she had seen in Gaul carried by lawyers or moneylenders. She could only think of one document a Brigantian warrior like Nectovelin might carry in such a case.

  Cunedda had brought her here to see the weaponry, for much of it was Roman. ‘We managed to pinch all these pieces from a heap outside their fort. The Romans went out onto the battlefield after they routed us. They stripped the bodies of their fallen before taking them away.’

  Nectovelin grunted. ‘They reclaim the equipment of their dead for repair and reuse. Nothing if not thrifty, these Romans.’

  Cunedda said, ‘Look, Agrippina.’ He picked up shaped strips of iron.

  ‘A legionary’s armour,’ Nectovelin growled. ‘They call these plates lorica segmentata. The most advanced armour anybody knows about–twice as good as chain mail, and half as light.’

  ‘See, it’s shaped to your body,’ Cunedda said. ‘These bits go over your chest, these your shoulders and these over your upper back.’ The armour was damaged, and some of it was bloodstained, but Cunedda was able to show her how a legionary would join the strips together with metal hooks to make a flexible covering. ‘You can even bend down to clean your toes while wearing it. Even their shields aren’t simple.’ He picked up a fragment of a broken Roman shield, a section of a half-cylinder. Where it had been broken Agrippina could see layers of thin wood. ‘You see? They take the wooden plates, bend them into shape, then glue them together. Not only that, they lay the grain of the layers across each other, to give the whole greater strength.’

  ‘Strength maybe,’ Nectovelin said, ‘but in the end that didn’t protect this shield’s owner out on the field.’

  Agrippina asked, ‘Any news of Caratacus?’

  ‘Only that he flees ever west,’ Nectovelin said. ‘It’s said he’s hoping to find refuge among the Silures, or even the Ordovices.’

  Agrippina asked sceptically, ‘Would strangers of the west fight for a failed prince of the east?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Nectovelin snapped. ‘At least Caratacus stood up to the Romans. At least he didn’t just give up. People admire that, I think.’

  Cunedda asked, ‘And his brother—’

  ‘As far as we know Togodumnus is dead,’ Nectovelin said. ‘Although the battle was so confused it’s hard to say for sure. There is a rumour the Romans displayed his head.’ He shook his head. ‘He shouldn’t have turned his back on the gods of the river.’

  Braint came bustling into the house, laden with two limp chickens, their heads dangling from broken necks. She dumped the chickens near the hearth and slapped her hands to clean them of blood and feathers. ‘Still playing soldiers? Look at these men, Agrippina, picking over a dead Roman’s armour, while we get on with the business of staying alive. Maybe it will take a woman to really give the legionaries a fight–eh? And as for Togodumnus, if he was alive we’d know about it by now, for we’d have heard his cowardly scuttling as he ran away after his brother. The priests have scarpered too–funny, that!’

  Cunedda was enough of a warrior now to be irritated by this. ‘I won’t have that, Braint. The priests may be able to help Caratacus put together a coalition among the nations in the west. They would be no use here–indeed they would only be meat for the Romans’ swords, for the Romans hate druidh. And as for Caratacus and his brother, the princes showed courage on the field. More than those Romans, who just stood there and let us come at them.’

  Nectovelin shook his head. ‘And you still lack wisdom. Can you not see it takes more courage to hold your position when under attack, until the right moment to strike?’

  Cunedda bristled. ‘Nectovelin, I know you saved my life. And you may think you’re special, armed with your famous Prophecy, which nobody has ever seen. But for all your prowess you’re just a man, just like the rest of us.’

  Nectovelin stared at him, like a wolf considering whether to teach a whelp a lesson. But the moment passed, and Nectovelin turned away.

  The mention of the Prophecy reminded Agrippina of Nectovelin’s cloak, and the leather document wallet still sticking out from under it. Curiosity stirred in her, an unfamiliar feeling for her in these dead times.

  She heard noise outside, and then the thin peal of a trumpet.

  Cunedda asked, ‘What’s going on out there?’

  ‘More Romans in town,’ Braint said. ‘Walking around the place as if they own it–which, of course, they almost do.’

  ‘Let’s go see what they’re up to,’ Cunedda said.

  Nectovelin said, ‘Not me. I’ve seen enough Romans for one summer.’

  Braint stood straight. ‘If you’re staying here, you miserable old man, you can do something useful for once and pluck these birds.’ And she kicked the chickens on the floor over to Nectovelin’s feet.

  Nectovelin rumbled, ‘All right, all right.’ He bent to pick up the chickens. He was several paces away from his clothes, with his back turned.

  The opportunity wasn’t to be resisted. As she walked towards Cunedda she brushed past Nectovelin’s clothes, and tucked the wallet into a fold of her tunic.

  Cunedda called, “Pina?’

  ‘Coming.’

  XVII

  Vespasian and Narcissus walked into the heart of Camulodunum–if you could call it a heart, for unlike the meanest Roman town there seemed to be no real centre to this barbarian heaping of midden-like roundhouses. Everything was mixed up, houses with cesspits and grain stores and animal pens, shrines with cemeteries, pottery and metalworking shops with houses and granaries. It was more like walking through a cluttered farmyard. And yet there was industry here. Peering curiously into the doorways of the houses Narcissus saw a potter at his wheel, a woman working an upright loom with weights and spindles of bone and clay.

  Vespasian, decked out in his dress armour with its gold inlays, walked with a boldness suitable for a conquering Roman general. But Narcissus’s only armour was his second-best toga, and while Vespasian may have been as fearless as he looked, Narcissus was anything but, despite a palisade of a dozen burly legionaries. After all, for all its rudeness they were walking into the capital of a barbarian people who could scarcely be called subdued.

  Vespasian sensed his nervousness. ‘Of course there is a slight risk, secretary. But the symbolism is all. The two of us walking here, unimpeded, going as we wish, with only a few men at our side–that will be as crushing for these wretched Britons as another lost battle. And speaking of wretched Britons—’ He tapped Marcus Allius’s shoulder. ‘Decurion, assign a couple of men to rounding up some recruits for the Emperor’s showpiece battle.’

  Allius nodded and s
poke to his men; three of them peeled off and walked through the town, peering at resentful, wary natives.

  ‘Symbolism, yes,’ Narcissus said dryly. ‘Which brings us to the matter of the Emperor. He is now resting with Aulus Plautius by the Tamesis. Two more days and he will be here.’

  ‘Then we must be ready,’ Vespasian murmured. ‘I hope Plautius doesn’t wear him out.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt that. But if I know the Emperor he will be astute enough to understand the wider significance of his location. The Tamesis drains the south-eastern corner of the island, and so is sure to be a key artery for trade and communications in the future. But the locals have made little of it.’

  ‘In fact there is a small settlement by the river,’ Vespasian pointed out. ‘It’s said to be where Caesar crossed the Tamesis, and so Plautius planted his camp there. It’s actually quite charming. Fisherfolk go out onto the river in little round wicker boats. The place is dedicated to the local river god Lud.’

  Narcissus smiled. ‘Lud! Sounds like some riverine brute hawking up a fish bone. So in the future will these fisherfolk name their island’s greatest city after this soggy deity?…’

  Narcissus had come into Camulodunum to prepare for Claudius’s glory. The invasion might have been Plautius’s, but the victory had to be Claudius’s own. So Plautius had loyally stalled his advance to wait for the Emperor.

  The imperial party had been preparing to travel even before the first landing. The logistics of the journey had been largely Narcissus’s responsibility, and he liked to complain to Vespasian that it was like mounting another invasion. Unlike his two predecessors this emperor was engagingly free of affectation, gluttony, debauchery and sloth; luxury for him was to be left alone with his library. But an emperor could not be seen to travel without a certain standard of magnificence. Then there were the huge (and hugely expensive) exotic beasts from Africa which Claudius had insisted be brought with him on his conquest of Britain. All this Narcissus had organised: special ships chartered, overnight accommodation set up, a small army of servants and artisans arranged. Much of this was paid for by hapless provincials en route.

  At last Claudius had handed over control of Rome to his fellow consul Lucius Vitellius and had set off. He travelled with a section of the Praetorian Guard, and with a number of Romans of high rank, some of them friends and advisers who the Emperor liked to keep close–and, more significantly, enemies whom he needed to keep closer still. He had sailed down the Tiber to Rome’s great port of Ostia, then by ship along the coast to Massilia, and through Gaul, partly overland and partly by boat along the rivers. Thanks to military despatches Narcissus had been kept aware of this caravan’s progress, including alarming reports of a near shipwreck even before they reached Massilia.

  Meanwhile Plautius had not been idle. It was a wise commander who ensured that his emperor’s personal victory would be just that. Away from Camulodunum the campaign had been pressing deeper into the island. Vespasian himself had pushed to the west, supported by the fleet tracking his progress along the coast, though the legate had been recalled to take part in the imperial celebrations.

  And now it was time to make the final preparations for Claudius’s victory.

  ‘He’s going to need some kind of audience house straight away,’ Narcissus said. ‘We have a queue of local kings, eleven of them at last count, come here to pledge obedience.’

  ‘My soldiers are good engineers,’ Vespasian said smoothly. ‘We are prefabricating a suitable dwelling even now; with enough men we can have it built within a day. But it must not be erected before his arrival—’

  ‘Of course not! You can’t very well put up an audience chamber in a town you haven’t yet conquered; it would make a mockery of the whole thing.’

  They were approaching the grandest of the natives’ cowpat-shaped hovels of wood and mud. ‘I thought perhaps here,’ Vespasian said.

  Narcissus was shocked. ‘You expect an emperor to reside in this midden?’

  ‘Secretary, this was the, um, “palace” of the great king Cunobelin, and of his sons who followed him. This is how they live here.’

  ‘Well, no Roman does–or Greek, for that matter. Of course if it really is Cunobelin’s house we must be close to this dung-hill, but I won’t place Claudius inside it.’ Narcissus stalked around the big house until he came to a smaller building, more conventional to Mediterranean eyes, a low-roofed wooden hut on a rectangular plan. ‘How about this?’

  One of the soldiers coughed and looked away; he seemed to be trying not to laugh.

  ‘Secretary, this is a barn, I think. Or a granary. You can’t lodge an emperor in a granary.’

  Narcissus’s pride was pricked. ‘A good square plan will be much more to the Emperor’s taste. I have decided. Get it cleaned up, legate.’

  Vespasian bowed, his face expressionless. ‘As you wish. Ah, here is Marcus Allius with the recruits.’

  The three soldiers returned with some of the locals, around twenty of them, all men, none older than forty. Surely they could easily have overcome the three legionaries, but they came placidly, herded like sheep. Beyond them more townspeople drifted up to watch the spectacle.

  With a few barked words from Allius in the local argot, and a glint of sword steel, the men were soon arranged in a rough line. Vespasian stalked along the row in his glittering armour, his magnificence even more enhanced by contrast with these shabby locals. ‘By Jupiter but they’re a sorry lot. Well-fed I granted you, but knock-kneed, potbellied, slack-jawed.’

  Narcissus murmured, intrigued, ‘They watch us like cattle. They don’t know whether to fear us or to ask us for treats.’

  ‘Well, these will have to do,’ Vespasian said. ‘We can give them some basic training overnight, shape them up into a semblance of a force. Enough to give the Emperor’s chroniclers something to write about. Marcus Allius, do you know their jabber well enough to explain what is required of them? They will be paid for their part, but only if they fight reasonably well. We’ll try to minimise injury, and only a few will be killed.’

  ‘Tell them to paint their faces,’ Narcissus snapped.

  Vespasian pursed his lips. ‘We didn’t see any painted faces in the field, secretary.’

  ‘Caesar reported painted faces, so painted faces we will have. Blue, if possible.’ Narcissus, immersed now in the theatre of the Emperor’s victorious arrival, was dissatisfied by the array of specimens before him. ‘There were women in the field, weren’t there?’ He boldly walked to a knot of people, a girl with strawberry-blonde hair who might have been attractive if cleaned up, a dark, defiant-looking boy with a straggling beard–and a burly farmer’s wife of a woman, aged perhaps forty, whose cheek bore a scar from what might have been a blade. ‘This one, for instance. You. What’s your name?’

  Allius translated hurriedly. The woman replied, ‘Braint.’

  Narcissus flinched from the raw hostility of her expression, but stood his ground. ‘She looks savage enough to me. Decurion, explain what’s wanted of her. And find a few more, will you?’ He looked the woman up and down. ‘Oh, and tell her to bare her tits during the action. It will be a nice detail for the chroniclers.’

  He walked away from the woman. But with every step the space between his shoulder blades tingled, as if Braint’s gaze were a dagger being plunged there.

  XVIII

  Sheltered from view behind Braint’s broad back, with everybody watching the Romans as they strutted through Camulodunum, Agrippina examined the leather document wallet.

  After a lifetime pressed against Nectovelin’s chest, it was scuffed, battered, and stank of Nectovelin’s sweat and blood. The document within, carefully folded, was only a single page of cheap-looking parchment, yellowed with age. It was stamped with a broken seal. And just sixteen lines of Latin, she counted quickly, had been transcribed in a neat hand. Could this really be the hand of her grandfather Cunovic, was this his seal?

  She read the first lines feverishly:

  Ah
child! Bound in time’s tapestry, and yet you are born free Come, let me sing to you of what there is and what will be, Of all men and all gods, and of the mighty emperors three. Named with a German name, a man will come with eyes of glass Straddling horses large as houses bearing teeth like scimitars…

  If these were the words of a god, it was a literate god. The phrasing was elegant, the meter at least functional. She wondered if the transcript contained more information than apparent to a first reading; the Romans were famously fond of word play–compression, acrostics.

  But the lines were terse. After the salutation and that mention of ‘emperors three’, there followed a reference to an emperor who called himself a German, but who had, mysteriously, ‘eyes of glass’. The single other detail, about some kind of exotic beast, merely confused her further. Could these opaque hints have something to do with the invasion? After all, what use was a prophecy if it didn’t refer to such a calamity as this? But if so, what did it mean?

  She scanned on quickly. The further lines hinted at a ‘noose of stone’–some kind of huge building project?–and the elevation of an emperor in Brigantia. How could that ever be possible? The last few lines seemed to be given over to poetry, clumsy stuff that might have been translated from another language altogether, about freedom and happiness: unarguable, but not much use. That, though, was clearly the passage that had touched Nectovelin’s heart—

  ‘They took Braint.’ Cunedda was tense beside her, his right hand seeking a sword that he no longer carried.

  Hastily Agrippina tucked the document inside her tunic, hoping Cunedda wouldn’t notice she had it. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘They seem to be recruiting warriors. Some kind of display for the Emperor. Must they humiliate us? And I think I heard them talking about Cunobelin’s House.’ He pointed. ‘During his first night here the Emperor is to stay in the granary.’