Arthur Britannicus

by Paul Bannister

  The crisis to which the big smith alluded was serious. The imperial fleets, weakened by centuries of peace in their landlocked home sea had atrophied. Rome’s admirals had not developed their fleets’ technology or training, and now found themselves unable to handle the sea-wise marauders who were assaulting the empire. Picts from the north and Gaels from Hibernia in the west were raiding Britain. War Danes and Saxons from upper Germania had forced the Romans out of the chain of coastal islands north of the Rhine, while Goths and other tribesmen from the eastern forests and mountains were raiding across the Black Sea, capturing Roman ships and sailing as far as the Greek Sea to plunder Athens, Sparta and even Byzantium, the very gateway to the East.

  The insurgents and pirates were winning, and nowhere was worse than the Britannic Sea north of Gaul. Around the narrows of the 21-mile strait between Britain and Gaul, even under the nose of the Roman fleet’s headquarters at Bononia, traders were highly likely to find themselves boarded from rowboats that would put out from the land to loot their victims, then scuttle back to safety before they could be intercepted.

  Gimflod closed his eyes in thought as he worked the bellows of the shipyard forge. He had heard nothing in half a year, although he had paid a merchant to try to bring back information about the plundered village. He couldn’t afford to buy passage on a trading ship back to Britain, and anyway, the boy was sickly, and might not survive a harsh journey. If they attempted the cheaper, shorter crossing from Gaul in a fishing boat, the chances were high that they’d be caught and sold as slaves.

  “I might have well as been enslaved by the Gaels,” he thought. “I’m not even sure there is anything to go back for, anyway.” He resolved to stay put for another year, or at least until the boy’s health improved. There were too many unknowns. Unsuspected by the smith and Carausius, they could have strolled across the marketplace to the slave auction block and found answers to many of their questions, for the man who’d brought about their troubles had arrived in the town.

  After the raid on Carausius’ home village, Filwen put guards to watch his beached ships and the captives, then he and his raiders had marched west into Britain in search of plunder. They’d followed the track across the high wold, taking care to spit and make the sign against evil as they passed a monolith left by the ancient gods, They had sacked and burned several small settlements with profitable results in terms of goods and women. Mostly, they’d killed the men and the babies, but fair-skinned women and children, they knew, brought good prices from the slave traders of northern Africa who journeyed to visit the northern markets. It was worth the trouble of feeding such captives and keeping them alive for the few weeks it would take to get them to market.

  Captured soldiers were a different matter. They were usually strong and difficult to control once taken. Worse, they were liable to kill themselves, which took away all the profit, so the raiders preferred to just slaughter them on the spot if they were far from a dealer or a market. Babies were killed as a practical matter. Few would survive a march, and often a nursing mother would be weakened by her infant and a valuable prize would be lost if she died, too.

  Fortunately, wholesale slavers usually showed up if they knew of a skirmish, or else they would arrange to meet the Gael to take captives off his hands, and they were used to handling even reluctant slaves. This raid had been good, with plenty of females and older children and those twins, too, so Filwen was pleased. He sent back to his ships a coffle of weeping women, tied together at the neck, and planned to continue west to intercept the great north-south Roman road that linked Londinium to the garrisons at Lincoln and Eboracum and continued north to the Wall of Hadrian.

  When his scouts warned him that Roman infantry had been sighted, Filwen promptly doubled back to his ships, knowing his war band could not face organized troops. Before the legionaries reached the great white headland, the raider’s sails were to the south, vanishing in the haze.

  Over the next few days, auxiliary troops who had been called in by the signal station crew fruitlessly scoured the hinterland while the raiders sailed south to the great river Humber, turning into it around the narrow sand spit that curved like a bird’s bill.

  They gazed curiously at the abandoned jetties on the Ouse once occupied by Roman navy detachments, and three times a raiding party went ashore to pillage, plundering several villages and two fine villas. At the last, in the hamlet of Selletun, a house slave named Mullinus revealed the hiding place of his master’s hoard of silver rather than have his backside roasted on the glowing charcoal of the kitchen brazier. Filwen would have roasted the man anyway, but Mullinus claimed to be able to read and write. Filwen, unlettered, could not test the slave’s claim, but reasoned that if the man told the truth he could bring a price at auction.

  The Selletun mansion was the last place to burn, as the raider, conscious that the settlement was within a half day’s fast march of the provincial capital Eboracum, opted to retreat down river before troops came to investigate the smoke plumes. The two Gallic ships went out on that afternoon’s ebb tide, the Humber’s silty current rushing them past marshy shores and into the German Sea. Then the steersmen headed the heavily-loaded vessels east and south and so, in two more days, they fetched up across the sea, at the pharos whose light guided the way into Forum Hadriani, its slave market and shipyards.

  IV. Hadriani

  Filwen the Bastard liked the slave corrals. He liked to see the hatred, fear or despair with which once-proud freemen faced their futures, standing naked on the block as they were sold under the crown, the mocking wreath symbol of their status that showed they were for sale. In more impromptu markets, the official supervising the sale would set a spear in the ground, to signify that slaves were being sold under public authority.

  Because the sale was in a province, not in Italy itself, there was no need to whiten the slaves’ with chalk as a sign they had come across the sea and were liable to import taxes, but all wore a tablet around their neck describing their age, character and any defects or tendencies, such as theft, or readiness to run away. It also listed skills like carpentry or brick making, that the slave possessed, detailed his native country and name, and offered a six-month guarantee he was free of disease.

  Any slave without such a warranty was made to wear a cap for the auction. Filwen noted two captives marked with the shameful pierced ears of the Eastern slave, a sign that they humbly listened to their master. His slaves, he felt, compared well to the other humans on offer. The most prized, after beautiful females or handsome young males, were slaves who could act as jesters, jugglers or other entertainers, with dwarfs and hunchbacks having value as freaks for the amusement of a household.

  The Bastard sized up the offerings, watching amused as Clinia, the buxom wife of the dead chieftain Aulus, was stripped of the few scraps of clothing she’d retained before she was pulled out of the cage and onto the auction block. He chuckled at the raucous comments of the men gathered to buy the captives but grunted at the small price brought by his onetime bed mate. He ungraciously took the money the buyer, a shipwright, offered. “You got a bargain there,” he said. The man grinned at him. “She’ll keep my cabin clean and my bunk warm. I’m off to the northlands in a week or so and a well-padded woman will be useful.”

  Filwen grunted again. He didn’t see the anguished look Clinia cast backwards towards the corrals, searching for her sons, as she was led away by the shipwright’s bodyguard. He was looking at his other women captives, wondering if perhaps there were too many slaves on offer at one time, as the market seemed not as profitable as before.

  He sent Mullinus and a couple of other prime captives back to the ships without even showing them to the small crowd of buyers. “I’ll get more for them another time,” he thought. He surveyed the chatting crowd, spotted a couple of affluent-looking prospects, and on a whim, opted to put the twins up. At his nod, Domnal and Mael were pushed forward. “Might as well test the upscale market,” the raider thought, whispering to
the auctioneer that he had a high reserve price on these two. The man nodded, and appraised the youths. Carausius’ 16 years old brothers were identical twins, dark haired and handsome. Both boys were tall and promised to become prime specimens, but their real attraction for the buyers was their similarity, a novelty and a valuable asset for wealthy men who’d enjoy having matching bodyguards or personal slaves.

  The Bastard knew that a rich man with scores of slaves flaunted his wealth by having them perform useless or highly-personal tasks like taking care of the master’s sandals while he ate, or wiping him clean when he rose from the toilet. One slave might walk ahead on the street to point out obstacles, another’s sole task was to prompt his owner with the names of those greeting him. Matched slaves were especially valued, so the competition for these handsome twin slaves was gratifyingly intense and Filwen soon nodded his approval to the auctioneer at the price.

  The winning bidder was a swarthy local who did lucrative trade in Baltic amber. To the Gael’s satisfaction, the Belg paid with five golden Roman aureii, a gleaming pile of coins that he spilled from the large purse he wore alongside the knife in his belt. “Good currency, that, and not debased,” thought Filwen, “and those boys got about five times what a typical male slave fetches. It was a good day when we saw that village.”

  The twins hardly looked at each other as they were led away by their new master, although Mael could not resist glancing down at Domnal’s left sandal, where the scrap of lead given to him by their mother was sewn into the sole. They had puzzled over the marks and letters on the metal, but neither could read Latin and the scratched map meant nothing to them. One day it might, but first they had to keep it safe. All they knew was what their mother had whispered quickly before she was taken in the slave coffle with the other women. “Guard the map,” she’d said. “It tells where someone buried gold.” One day, the twins promised themselves, they’d find the treasure and buy all their freedoms.

  By the time the Gael left the slave market, the rain had begun and it was full dark. All trading was done and Filwen’s leather purse was heavy. Time for wine, food and a girl. He glanced at the rain swept square, flinched as a rat scuttled across his path and pulled a little tighter his wolf fur cloak, which was fastened at the shoulder with the heavy amber and silver brooch he’d taken from the dead Aulus.

  He glanced to make sure the two crewmen he’d brought as bodyguards stayed close. He saw they walked with their hands on their daggers. The thought made him reach inside his cloak, where he’d had a piece of horn sewn in, to attach his knife and purse. His fingers fumbled around. The scabbard was empty, his dirk was missing. “Where’s my short dagger?” he asked his servants. They fumbled at their own tunics. “I don’t have it, master,” said one. “Not me, master,” chimed the other. “Damn,” said the raider. “I must have dropped it somewhere.”

  He turned abruptly from the darkened square where two flickering rush lights advertised the wine shop, to go back into the auction hall, bumping against one of his bodyguards. The sailor murmured: ’No, you don’t,” and brushed aside Filwen’s thick cloak, opening it to the wool tunic underneath.

  The old raider knew at once what was happening, and reached again for his missing dagger. His fingers brushed on the empty scabbard just as the punch into his abdomen took the air from his lungs. The blow created a sharp, searing explosion that tore inside him. It hurt deeply as the sailor drove his long knife up and under the Gael’s ribcage, tearing through the fat and abdominal muscle, ripping past the lungs and stabbing cleanly into his heart.

  The force of the killer’s powerful arm lifted the raider to his toes and rocked him backwards. Filwen felt his short ponytail grasped from behind and his head was pulled painfully back. He tried to shove the second sailor aside but his arm was inexplicably weak and as his mind puzzled at the phenomenon, a rasping, sawing sensation stung his upturned throat. The Bastard sucked for air, and heard an odd whistling gurgle from his own slashed windpipe. The world was going dim. There was a gurgling noise like water draining, and a gout of warm blood splashed over the attackers, soaking them from wrist to elbow, spattering the first sailor’s face, but Filwen never knew it, nor would he ever know that the heavy purse of gold, the wolf fur and the big amber and silver brooch all had new owners now.

  Back at the jetty where Wavehorse and Fleetwing were tied, the two murderers scooped up a leather bucket of seawater to sluice away the blood from their hands and weapons, then went aboard to collect their possessions. No point staying with the ships, in case some officious busybody came asking questions, and although it was a pity to give up their share of the spoils from selling the few remaining captives, the gold they’d taken from the Bastard was plenty.

  “We should release these slaves”, said the first sailor, “It will give us time. People will think we’re hunting them.” The other agreed, and paced quietly up the deck to the high prow where the Britons were fastened. Mullinus, the house slave who could read and write, looked up questioningly as his hemp bonds were unfastened. “Go, get off the ship,” ordered his liberator.

  Mullinus began to move towards the gangplank and the sailor turned away. “I’ll take that wolf fur,” he told his accomplice. “Curse you, it’s mine,” was the snarled response. In seconds, the argument escalated and the sound of the scuffle drew a watchman from the dock. He ran up, his heavy stave raised, to stop the fight. Mullinus crouched in the shadows under the gunwale.

  The assassins were already in combat, slashing at each other with their knives. The discarded cloak lay a few feet from the slave, who cautiously dragged it to cover himself. The watchman, shouting for support, laid into both men with his stout stave. He knocked one unconscious and found himself in a desperate struggle with the enraged other. Mullinus saw his chance. Wrapped in the heavy, dark cloak, he fled down the gangplank and into the night. Only when he’d run a distance from the riverside jetty did he stop, gasping, to take stock.

  The weight that had banged against his shoulder as he ran was a large amber and spiralled-silver brooch pinned to the fur, and the weight inside the cloak that was fastened to a bit of sewn-on horn and had thumped against his thigh was a soft leather purse full of gold aureii. He was free, he was far from his former master, and he was rich.

  V. Cenhud

  Carausius was 14 now. In the years he’d been away from his native island, he’d turned from stocky boy to burly young man, made strong by the unremitting exercise of working on a transport scow on the Rhine and Meuse rivers, and nourished with good food by his master’s wife, who treated the young Briton as the son she’d never had. Cait of Rodda was soft-spoken and as soft-hearted as her husband Cenhud, shipmaster and river pilot, was tough and wary. They had no children, so when Cenhud had been approached by Gimflod the smith about finding better care for the ten years old Carausius, the sailor had seen an opportunity to please his wife. She’d agreed to take on the boy, and had brought him back to health in short order.

  Next, she took pride, as a gentle-born woman with some education, in tutoring him in the Frankish and Belgic tongues, and especially in the Latin he’d need as a trader and navigator. Cait called on a friend, a young Celtic matron teasingly known as Celea Altissima because as a child she’d declared she would grow to be very tall, to help her tutor the boy.

  Celea worked with Carausius to teach him the principles of geometry laid down by the Greeks. This was a new discipline of earth measurements invaluable to any skilled sailor. Carausius soaked it up like a Kalymnos sponge, just as he did when she taught him his letters. “Lege feliciter,” she’d smile at him, ‘Read happily.” But, for all his new life and activities, he never forgot his homeland and his heritage as the son of a British chieftain, and promised the god Mithras that he’d return and that one day he would avenge his father’s death and the disaster that had befallen his family. Yet, even as the boy mourned for his lost parents and his twin brothers, he took on his shipboard duties with the relish and energy of a bright youth
enjoying the physical life, clean salt air and stimulation of the Roman port.

  And the port was busier than ever before. That year, a dozen years after Rome had celebrated its millennium, Germanic tribes in the forests across the Rhine were contesting for land and the emperors needed to send ever more legions, even while unrest was surging in other provinces. The shifting power brought a spate of new rulers, frontier generals who had the legions to support their imperial ambitions. Senators from patrician clans contemptuously called them ‘barracks emperors’ for their lack of distinguished family history, but were powerless against them.

  Some of the barracks emperors had learned the lessons of Gaius Julius Caesar, from the old days of the Republic. Caesar had paid his legions out of his own fortune, and kept his men loyal. The ones who took note amassed plunder to boost the public funds with which they rewarded the spears that sustained them. Fifteen times in 43 years, usurpers had donned the imperial purple robes, but none had enjoyed lasting success, and all but one had been killed. The sole exception had committed suicide after ruling for a single month, in a year when six different emperors held the throne.

  And, the turmoil went on. Only last year the latest candidate, Postumus had seized power over Britain, Gaul and Germany to create his own Gallic Empire based on Cologne and create more headaches for Rome. Adding to all this instability was a mass bloodlust to persecute the treasonous followers of the Jesus god. Their refusal to acknowledge the deity of the Augustus Caesar, a shocking denial they made worse by saying the Jesus was the only god, had kept the empire’s executioners busy for a decade, lining the roads with the crucified and creating in the arenas the great spectacles of blood and death that delighted the mob.