Arthur Britannicus

by Paul Bannister

  Rome’s politicians paraded themselves in togas dazzlingly whitened with chalk to stand out from the crowd’s dingier garments and here and there, slaves pushed wheeled cages as they delivered exotic animals recently arrived from Africa and India. Most, like the two Caledonian bears Carausius spotted, were destined for the bloodied sand of the arena, a few would become household adornments of the ultra-wealthy.

  As usual, the street was crowded and noisome, stinking from the sewage in the drains and cacophonous with the shouts of vendors and pedestrians, the clatter of hooves and the rumble of the iron-clad chariot wheels.

  Many in the crowds were purposeful scholars who hurried heedless past the glowing charcoal braziers of the food vendors. They ignored, too, the poultry and game hawkers and the tavern where men lolled over watered wine and a graffiti artist was defacing a wall with libels about his former lover. The academics were on their way to the great library, which was open from the first hour until the sixth. Carausius watched and marvelled. His eyes lit on the less purposeful in the throng, the matrons and their slaves. Those colourful, attractive Roman ladies wandered leisurely through the rows of awning-protected shops that were a part of the vast bath complex built by the tyrant Caracalla, the emperor they called the Enemy of Mankind, although people seemed to enjoy the facility he’d built.

  It was a place to linger, a natatorium where as many as 1,600 bathers could enjoy the temperature-controlled pools at one time, and emerge refreshed and cleansed to browse an array of displays of all the goods of the empire. The tribune’s eyes were everywhere, taking it in. The place was a wonder, and he’d heard that some nobleman called Maximian planned an even greater and more sumptuous water palace. The man must have some fabulous wealth to go with an ego to match, he thought.

  Carausius absently brushed away a swarm of the flies that plagued the city. His attention was on a Bactrian camel being led through the street until he spotted a woman walking unshaded by her attendant slaves and looked twice. Blonde, she wore a blue linen shift, and a fine wool cloak thrown back from the amber and silver brooch that clasped it at her shoulder. An alert sounded in his head and the Briton did a double-take. The brooch was similar to the one his father Aulus had worn nearly two decades before, the symbol of his nobleman’s status. Carausius’ breath caught and he urged his slaves after her.

  Sucia Silvestria was a Romano-British trader’s young widow who had maintained her late husband’s lucrative links with Rome and this day was enjoying the results of her efforts. She was shopping. Carausius had spotted her on her way to visit an Arab trader who had travelled the western half of the Silk Routes to bring exotic satins, silks, musk and spices to the marketplace of the rulers of the world. The tribune’s hurrying litter bearers caught sight of her as she turned onto the smooth flagstoned plaza that fronted the huge complex of the baths. Carausius urged the bearers on as they pushed through the crowds, and at last he came alongside Sucia.

  On impulse, he addressed her in British, not Latin. “Wait, please, my lady,” he said. Sucia turned, startled to hear her native tongue after so many weeks. She had recently made the long journey from Britain, braving the pirates of the Narrow Sea, descending the Loire and the Rhone rivers to the southern port of Massalia then shipping by galley to Ostia, sea gate to Rome. In all that time she had heard Latin, Greek and Gaulish, but only her personal slaves could converse in the language with which she was most comfortable. “You are British?” she asked the thick-necked, bearded military man with the bandaged cheek, who was so incongruously sitting in a litter. “Lady,” Carausius said, struggling to stand and bow, “I am so born, but it is a long time since I was there, and my command of my own language may be clumsy.”

  The pair waved their slaves aside and sat on a marble bench, out of the flow of foot traffic, content to talk comfortably. Carausius diffidently indicated the amber and silver brooch at her shoulder. “My father had such a badge,” he said quietly. Sucia heard the longing in the burly man’s voice. She nodded and, encouraged, Carausius’ sudden loneliness and sense of loss of his homeland caused him to indulge in an unusual opening of his heart. “I miss Britain,” he said simply. “I remember it only from the days when I was a boy, but it seems every day was summer, every place was green and fresh, with fields of honey-scented clover and trees burdened with apples that were warm from the sun. It seems like a faraway dream, when I had my brothers and my mother there and I was not concerned with war and hurt and killing.”

  Sucia was touched, and she wove magic for the big soldier, spinning her words into a blanket of comfort and nostalgia as she spoke of their homeland, and how it was not just a faraway island in the northern mists, but was indeed a green and pleasant place. She told her own story, of losing her husband but keeping his trading business, she detailed how she had brought four couples of prized British hunting dogs to Rome, as well as a consignment of fine wool garments, Baltic amber and a quantity of jet mined from the north eastern coastal cliffs near Carausius’ old home. She did not mention the high-value goods she kept safely hidden: the blue crystal mined in the limestone peak country of central Britain, or the precious, prized sun stones that seemed to split the light and show sailors the way in sea fogs. These, she traded from Icelanders, just as she acquired mussel pearls from blue-tattooed natives of Britain’s lake land. The lake stones were exactly like those in the pearl-studded breast plate which Julius Caesar had brought back to votive at the temple of Venus.

  Responding to Sucia’s interested questions, Carausius outlined his military career, his wounds and now, his summons to the imperial court. “I have no real idea what the emperor wants with me, but as he’s just back from campaigning in the same part of the world as me, I expect it’s military matters,” he confided. Unseen by either of them, a white rat crouched in a shady corner, quietly watching, its glittering eyes fixed on Carausius. It was a portent he would have been comforted to know about the next day, when he limped hesitantly into the imperial palace.

  The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Carus Augustus, called Persicus, was a career cavalryman and former commander of the Praetorian Guard who couldn’t stand bullshit. When Carausius, patched and battered, hobbled painfully into his vast reception hall, the emperor roared at his praetorians to get the man a stool at once; couldn’t they see he was a fucking hero and had half his foot missing? “I’m a donkey walloper myself, don’t care for that marching stuff, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been in more tight places than a shepherd’s arm”, he bellowed at the new tribune cheerfully. He stepped off the dais where an artist had been painting his portrait. He took off the cap that covered his bald head, wiped his greasy hands carelessly on his fine tunic, ridding himself of the remains of the roast chicken and truffles he’d been eating, and came halfway down the room to sit next to the wounded Briton.

  “They tell me you’re called The Bear,” he said. “To you, I’m Persicus, so we are just soldiers together. Now, relax and be welcome. That fellow’s painting my grave portrait,” he said cheerfully. “I’m going with the new fashion, and getting buried, not climbing onto a pyre like the old Romans. My tomb will be right outside the gates where everyone will remember me. They won’t let even the emperor be buried inside the city walls, you know. Anyway, when I’m dead and in my very handsome stone coffin, they’ll put this picture over my face so everyone in future will know what I looked like.

  “My wife’s had about five marble wigs made so they can keep her statue looking fashionable. At least, portraits are easier, though I’ve had four made already, didn’t like any of them, or the damn artists. These two-beer queers know nothing, I don’t know why I don’t pack them all off to the Danube to be useful for once. I should put them with the army and let them learn a thing or two. Now, tell me about those Saxons and what’s happening in your sector of the frontier.”

  Over the next hour, as Carausius told of his legion’s daily trials and routines, Carus pumped the tribune for details about the troops’ morale, equipment and su
pplies. The Briton, who always made his soldiers’ welfare a priority, complained about the quality of the food he’d been obliged to give to his men. “Sir, I wouldn’t give some of it to a hungry dog. I’m speaking of filthy green pork and rancid cooking oil that would poison you.” Carus frowned. “We had problems with some of these provender merchants and their nasty little practices of providing stuff that should have been condemned,” he growled, “but after I had a crooked quartermaster or two and a few bent suppliers crucified, the quality suddenly improved. I’ll get a tribune onto that matter today and there will be a few more executions if what you report is still going on. Have you had any problems with supplies from the north?”

  Next, the emperor turned to the action that had brought the Briton his wounds and gave him news of the commander who had led his legion into ambush. “I’ve had Gaius Utrius busted, and he’s lucky to have kept his head”, he said bluntly. “The useless bastard made a right shit dinner out of the situation. He should never have been made tribune in the first place. If he’d paid any attention at all, instead of strutting about smelling his own musk, he’d have seen he was doing exactly what Varus did at the Teutoburger forest. He’s just lucky it didn’t turn out the same way.”

  The old cavalryman was speaking of an ambush engineered by a Germanic chieftain who’d lured three legions into a trap. Almost all, including women and children who’d been allowed to accompany the troops, had been slaughtered in the forest or taken for horrific sacrifice to the Teutons’ gods. Rome never forgot, but Carausius’ commander did. He simply had not learned the lesson, and only the Briton’s diversion and delay of the enemy by challenging one of their chieftains to personal combat had bought time and turned a near-certain massacre into a victory. An aide appeared at the emperor’s elbow and whispered in his ear. Carus nodded. “Yes, right now. This fellow Carausius will appreciate seeing a real man getting his reward. He’s like me; he has a deep affection for his troops.”

  The courtier returned in moments with a nervous-looking individual with a broken nose, cauliflower ears and battered, scarred cheekbones. He walked with a slight limp, his eyes casting around warily. On balance, he looked like a well-used and inexpert prize-fighter. “This, lord,” the aide bowed to the emperor, “is Timminus Radclifori, a gladiator of the Penninus stable who was also trained here in Rome at the Ludus Magnus.” “Ah, yes, and is it thirty or is it six?” Carus asked, beaming amiably at the old gladiator. Carausius raised an eyebrow, but the emperor anticipated the question and turned to him. “Gladiators who survive for six years or thirty bouts are freed,” he explained. “I retire them myself, and award them a rudis as token of their honourable service.” Leaning towards Carausius so the creased, weathered old fighter would not hear, the emperor said out of the side of his mouth, ”Few survive more than six bouts, so this is a lucky one.”

  He turned back to Timminus, who was nodding his head and smiling vacantly, eyes shifting from side to side. “I see,” said the emperor, handing over a wooden sword as symbol that from now on, the man’s arena days were ended. He patted the fellow on the shoulder. “Enjoy your peaceful years. Go and grow vegetables on your farm and sire a score of children on a fat wife.” The gladiator nodded wordlessly, the aide tugged at the man’s sleeve and the pair backed away, bowing. “Poor bastard,” said the emperor. “We usually keep them on as instructors, but too often they’re like him and are brain damaged.”

  Carus switched his attention to Carausius. “Now, for you my ursine friend, it’s the day the Eagle shits, and I have a reward for you. Kneel down there.” The emperor motioned for an aide, who brought a cushion holding a small gold crown. “This is the corona aurea,” Carus said as he ceremoniously placed the crown on Carausius’ head. “We give it to iron-balled bastards like you for victory in single combat, but only if you hold the ground until the fighting’s done. You did more than that, and there’s a lot of Saxons gone toes-up to prove it. This crown is to show that Rome thanks you, as would the legionaries whose lives you preserved.

  “Now, I have a reward of my own for you. I want you in northern Gaul, and you’ll command a couple of legions there. I want those fucking pirates, rebels and brigands cleaned out, and I think you’re the fellow to do it.” The emperor waved a hand and another aide brought him a fustis, the legate’s baton of office, resting on a folded white robe with purple stripes. “Here’s the whole kit,” Carus grinned at the astonished Briton. “You might not be one of those patrician bastards who think they’re the only ones fit to command, but you’ve earned the broad stripes and I can notify the senate that you are noble born.” He paused, then added: “In Britannia, anyway. I suppose that will do, and as I’m the emperor now, it fucking well will have to.”

  IX. Claria

  For Carausius, the next month in Rome went by in a blur of preparations as he readied to take up his new command. He called for several trusted officers from his old legion to be transferred to his new headquarters, or ‘hindquarters,’ as he privately called it, in the northern Gaul port of Bononia. He met Sucia again, pleased at the opportunity to speak in British, and she presented him with a gift. “Caros, my dear, I saw how you admired my brooch,” she told him, “and it means much to me, as it is a symbol of my father’s family, as was yours. I went to the silversmiths, took some Baltic amber and had this made for you.” It was a surprisingly-close replica of his father’s badge of office, and Carausius realized he must have spoken of it in such detail that the astute businesswoman had accurately pictured it. It warmed the new legate so much that he embraced and kissed the young widow. She returned his affection with a warmth that surprised them both. In a swamping rush of physical desire, and before either could consider what was happening, he was slipping her robe from her shoulders to cup her breasts and was lifting her kirtle; she was tugging at the belt of his tunic, and their garments were sliding to the floor. Sucia knelt before the big soldier. “I have another gift for you,” she smiled up, before she bowed her head and took him into her mouth. The hours passed in passion and two independent souls sealed a friendship that would last for a lifetime.

  “I don’t have room now for a woman in my life,” Carausius told her cautiously but firmly the next morning. “I would want it to be a woman just like you if I had the means and time, but right now, I want all my energy and attention to go to my soldiering. “ She raised an eyebrow, meaningfully. Carausius felt a blush rising. “I can get by with visits to the camp concubines,” he muttered.

  Sucia was not offended. “I hope you find me better than that,” she teased him.

  “You are wonderfully better, and you are my friend”, the young officer said solemnly. “I will kill anyone who offends you, and I will be there whenever and wherever you need me. That is my oath.”

  The widow smiled. She liked the man’s earnest honesty, and although she was not deeply attracted to him, she was flattered by his attention and decided that a close friendship would be acceptable. She had other thoughts about physical relationships, and they involved soft, perfumed female flesh and gentle, caressing hands and lips.

  As they spoke of Britain and the brooch, Sucia remembered a chance meeting. “I was at my friend Cassandra’s house a few days ago and I met two very pleasing British men. They were slaves, but such slaves! They were handsome, identical twins in their mid-twenties, and they had been taken from their home on the German Sea by Gael raiders. It was horrible. They told me of being sold at auction, and how they’ve spent more than a decade in service to their masters, when they used to be nobles themselves.”

  Carausius went as pale as his weather-beaten face allowed. “Did you hear their names?” he asked. “Whose slaves are they?” Sucia flinched as the powerful soldier grasped her wrist, and she understood this was important, urgent to him.

  “One was Dominus or some such,” she struggled to recall the name. “The other was, err, Baal?”

  “Domtal and Mael, by Mithras!” Carausius was on his feet, pacing. “Are you sure? They
’re my good brothers, and they’re here?” Within the hour, Carausius had chivvied a reluctant Sucia across the Palatine Hill to Cassandra’s house.

  “It’s late, we should leave this until morning. The streets are dangerous,” she protested.

  “I have a sword,” said Carausius grimly, moving fast despite his limp, his hurts forgotten. But the quest was fruitless.

  Cassandra’s guest, the twins’ wealthy master, was already at sea with his entourage, on his way back to Belgica and the Rhine estuary. “He would have sailed from Ostia the day before yesterday,” Cassandra, obviously intimidated by the big man’s urgent questions, told him. All the soldier could do was to get the trader’s name and hope to send a messenger and enough gold to buy his brothers’ release. “The general Maximian is a soldier I’ve met. He has connections in Forum Hadriani, that’s up there,” Cassandra offered. “Perhaps he could help.” The next noon, Carausius went to meet the wealthy noble who one day would be emperor, and whose fate was tied to his own, though neither yet knew it.

  Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus, or simply Maximian, was younger by a few years than Carausius, but was a big man, too, and they stood eye to eye. They regarded each other warily, assessing their similarities. Both soldiers came from non-patrician backgrounds, one a minor noble’s son from provincial Britain, the other the offspring of Illyrian storekeepers. Both were energetic and aggressive but Maximian was utterly, selfishly ruthless.