Arthur Britannicus

by Paul Bannister

  XXVI. Aemelius

  Forum Hadriani was bustling with activity. The Belgic town was crowded, but its shipyard was frantic with activity, with all manner of men bustling, fetching and carrying. There were slaves moving timbers, carpenters sawing and shaping ships’ spars and ribs, and ropemakers working in their narrow ropewalks to twist hemp into the long lengths needed to run smooth and unspliced through pulleys and blocks. Smoke billowed where half-naked smiths glistened with sweat as they pumped bellows to blow charcoal to glowing heat and forge red-hot iron into blades and armour, barrel hoops, bolts and nails. Sail makers sat cross-legged like tailors to work their awls or stood over vast tables using cutting tools to shape wide spreads of canvas. Elsewhere, sweating riggers hauled upright then stepped ships’ masts, anxious sea captains viewed the progress critically, and list-bearing chandlers bustled to bring equipment and the thousand and one tools and fittings needed to create just one seaworthy vessel.

  The warship hulls were especially difficult to build, needing oak-built bows reinforced with bands of iron or brass, and double-planked hulls caulked with linen or animal hair before all was sealed with pitch. Then the whole hull had to be enveloped in lead sheeting carefully nailed with small copper fasteners that would not rust away, and everything, hull building, rigging, provisioning and arming, was done at forced, urgent pace.

  The emperor wanted an armada to invade Britain and destroy the stolen fleet, and he wanted it before the winter storms came that would pin his squadrons in harbour for months. He needed hundreds of flat-bottomed invasion barges and he needed to man them. Those thousands of men would require feeding and clothing, and specialist clothing at that. They would require supplies of grain to make bread, and cattle, sheep and pigs to provision them now and after the invasion. It would call for salt, wine and beer, olive oil, fish sauce and fresh greens. The quartermasters demanded iron hoops and staves for the barrels to store those supplies, draft animals to move them, warehouses to store them, and men to tally and guard the food, for the preparations had to be plentiful for a campaign that might take months.

  Maximian had his own priorities, of timber and pitch for the ships, steel for the weapons, cordage, leather, wool, canvas and iron for the men, their ships and their tents. The demands were endless. There were barracks and store rooms to be built, latrines to be dug and dumps of food and fuel created. Over it all, the officers had to drill and discipline their men, some of them raw recruits freshly marched in from the corners of the empire, an unpromising lot of untutored yokels awed and gaping at the novel sights, sounds and smells.

  So the shipwrights worked frantically, recruits were drilled, stores gathered, barracks built and reinforcements brought in by road and river. A procession of ox carts dragged by lowing cattle trundled into the Forum, some loaded high with grain, others bringing reeking piles of leather from the tanneries downstream. Shepherds mustered a bleating flock destined for the slaughterhouse as a half-legion of auxiliaries from faraway Macedonia, dusty and thirsty from the day’s march, tramped into town under the arch and square twin towers of the north gate.

  They passed two Thracian shipmasters who eyed their old rivals warily but the mercenaries didn’t notice. The soldiers’ eyes were searching eagerly under the principal street’s cloisters for the taverns and whorehouses they’d visit once the centurion fell them out. The concubine Laurea, wrapped in a russet-hued cloak that owed its colour to dye made from ironstone, watched from a window to assess the officers who marched at the head of the column. Black-bearded, olive-skinned Greeks; she’d heard they all liked boys best, but surely there were some among those handsome men who’d pay for her ash blonde assets, and not just for the dominatrix play-acting, either.

  She was tiring of the middle-aged, portly Roman officers who were her chief clients. These Greeks had bodies like gods, she thought. Maybe she could pretend to be a boy? Two houses further along the street, the pederast trader Gracilis, who had returned home from Britain gratefully still in possession of his head, was also assessing the incoming troops. They’d want boys, he thought, it was the Greek disease. There would be profit in them, not like the money he’d made off those slave twins, but good profits nonetheless.

  The twins were in Maximian’s mind, too. The Augustus had ordered him to bring them in with Carausius, and he hated to fail. All three had vanished. The Briton had escaped him, he knew. His spies in Bononia had reported Carausius’ safe return there, along with the upstart’s actions in ordering most of his fleet to transfer across the strait to Dover, and his further, lavish spending of coin to recruit more mercenaries. Readying for me, the Caesar thought sourly. He’d need plenty of bullion for that. But those twins? There were no reports of them in Bononia, there had been no sightings of them anywhere and they were not among the dead at the sack of King Mosae’s citadel. It was irritating, and he’d have to report failure to the Augustus but he had to focus on having this fleet built, and go through the tedious business of manning it with proper sailors, not Roman mariners who had few real sailing skills. He’d have to scour the slave pens for Greeks and Spaniards and Egyptians, he supposed, and he’d send word to the Roman governors in places like North Africa to find mariners for him. He called for Flavius and gave him some new orders.

  Carausius, too, had his headaches. News had come from Britain that the Picts had broken their treaty and were rampaging through the border country, burning and looting, and his stretched-thin forces were having a hard time attempting to contain them. It wasn’t much better in Gaul. Maximian’s troops had re-taken Rouen and its mint. Fortunately, spies had brought warning to Allectus, who’d decamped by the river just hours before the Romans arrived. He’d had time to empty the mint, loading ingots of bullion and a new supply of coins onto several swift cargo vessels and sailing away, but the city was now lost. In the west, Spanish and Frankish bandits were roaming the land, causing more problems. About the only good news on that front was that the British fleet had managed to get the Narrow Sea’s piracy problem mostly under control, so at least the emperor could concentrate his naval forces on readying for the threat from the flotilla Maximian was building.

  The Briton had tried a couple of sallies at the shipyards, hoping to destroy the Romans’ part-built fleet, but had been driven off by the shore batteries that commanded the entrances. He’d probably have to wait until Maximian sailed, and fight his battles at sea. A bustle at the west gate attracted his attention, and he saw that a courier had arrived on horseback. The news he brought required prompt action. Bandits and a strong force of deserters from Maximian’s legions were making major trouble along the coastlands of Gaul. He’d have to confront them before his small garrisons were ousted from the ports, which could lead to losing command of the Narrow Sea. Carausius called for his new aide, Aemilius, who’d once been a young recruit with him. His previous captain, Lycaon was either a slave or rotting on a Belgian crucifix, he supposed, taken captive or killed when King Mosae’s citadel fell. He wondered again what had happened to the twins. Probably enslaved once more, or maybe they too were crucifix decorations. Certainly, Maximian wouldn’t have been merciful. He sighed at having to deliver the news to their mother, then brought himself back to the present. Aemilius was waiting for orders and the emperor mentally shrugged. There was nothing he could do for his brothers right now, he thought, pragmatically.

  Scouts reported that a force of Bagudae bandits were camped with their wagons kraaled in a semi-orderly manner on both sides of a broad river and, to judge by the wagon ruts on either bank of it, they were protecting a ford. The spies reported the bandits at around 600 men, a manageable number for Carausius’ two centuries of disciplined troops and squadron of equestrians. The scouts also reported that they’d ridden both upstream and down, but had found no traces of another ford for some miles. The emperor nodded. The bandits probably had some locals in their ranks, and knew what they were doing. Camped as they were, they could use the river as protection if attacked from either direction
, simply by retreating across the ford, which would be relatively easy to defend.

  Carausius elected to camp for the night where he was, to rest his march-weary men and give him time to survey the killing field for himself. “Set up camp on that hill with quadruple sentries and put outposts there and there,” pointing, “so we have no surprises. And, I want a strong guard posted outside each gate.” In a few hours, while the emperor rode out to view the enemy, the ditch was dug, the rampart built, the palisade and sentry path were in place and most of the tents had been pitched in the usual places inside the temporary fort. Carausius and his entourage arrived at a low hilltop half a mile from the enemy.

  The bandits must have some military leadership, he thought as he viewed their position; the camp was well established. They’d dug some defensive ditches and had circled their supply wagons to provide cover from archers. They didn’t seem to have any cavalry, though. Carausius had heard from several drovers brought in by his scouts that the brigands were led by a couple of landowners who’d been crushed by taxes and the theft of their lands by predatory lawmakers in Rome. He thought sourly that they should have sided with him against Rome instead of causing him all this trouble, but whatever their cause, he couldn’t tolerate them doing the any more damage.

  Axis sniffed at the air and growled; Javelin stiffened. Carausius paid attention to his two big dogs, and scanned the bandit camp to see what had caught their attention. There was a wagon set off by itself and a pack of dogs was chained along a picket line from it. “War dogs, lord,” said Aemilius quietly. “They could be a problem.” The emperor grunted. The bandits were copying the tactics of the Romans. They liked to break the enemy ranks with half-starved, ferocious fighting dogs.

  A favourite technique was to strap a container of burning oil to the leather-clad dog’s back and send him into the enemy lines, where he’d especially disrupt the cavalry horses. Or, they’d send in whole attack formations of big mastiffs wearing armour that sprouted sharp blades and knife points. Some dogs were even trained to attack the bellies or hamstrings of horses, to bring down the riders.

  The troops hated the dogs, the biggest of which, the Molossian, was supposed to have descended from mastiffs which had mated with tigers. These ‘Samson Dogs’ needed two or three handlers to hold them, and when one launched itself at an infantryman with its great spiked collar and sharp-bladed ankle rings, the soldier was in real danger of being disembowelled. Carausius nodded at his aide’s remark, then turned and unexpectedly grinned at him. “Here’s something for you,” he said, “that shows the power of learning. Guinevia told me she had read of war dogs in ancient Persia, and she told me of a plan to deal with them. This is what you must do…”

  The British emperor’s troops stayed in camp for two days. The bandits sent spies to survey them, and the British scouts in turn watched their enemies, reporting that some had melted away during the night but there were still about 500 of the raiders, drinking and preparing their weapons. Carausius inspected the camp with his tribunes Quirinus and Cragus Grabelius, pausing to gesture at a grindstone on which the soldiers were sharpening their blades. “A Persian invention,” he said. “You make the wheel spin with that crank. It’s faster and gives a better edge than the old greased and sanded strickle stick.”

  Cragus, who came from Lycia, legendary home of the fire breathing female Chimerae, was making a small joke about the sparks that flew from the blade being sharpened when the trio were accosted by the baggage master. “Caesar,” he saluted the emperor, “am I to be responsible for all these scratching mongrels that Aemilius keeps bringing in? I don’t know how I can transport them.”

  Carausius shook his head. “They won’t be a problem after tomorrow. Just live with it for now, and keep the flea-ridden things away from my tent. Now, gentlemen,” he turned to his tribunes, “let’s see how the stores situation is being managed.”

  The wolf light of a dull dawn had broken, Carausius’ troops were formed in battle array, the emperor was in full war gear, and he rode his big Frisian horse down the armoured lines. He wore his golden crown of courage around the eagle-crested cavalryman’s parade helmet, a crest he’d once used to break a Saxon warrior’s nose, stunning him before administering the fatal sword thrust. This day, Carausius had thrown back his imperial purple cloak, fastened with the massive silver and amber badge of a British warlord, and displayed his gleaming hooped armour. He punched the sky with his sword Exalter to emphasize the words he delivered in a parade ground below.

  “I want these bastards ground into offal,” he said. “I don’t want to have the bother of crucifying them. They’re not soldiers, and they don’t have proper weapons. It will be like fighting nine year old girls, and you will crush them. When you’re ordered, and not before, launch the javelins and the darts. At my command, and in an orderly manner, move forward in wedge formation. Use your shield bosses to knock them down when we get close, then finish them off with your sword. Thrust, don’t slash. That’s the killing stroke, and remember that the point beats the edge. Above all, keep moving forward. If your man isn’t dead, stamp on his dirty black head as you go over him. The next rank will kill him. Stick together in formation, and you’re unbeatable. One last thing: we don’t stop to plunder. Do this as I tell you, and we will have everything.”

  He sent the cavalry to the British right wing and detailed the harried Aemilius and the 20 or so slaves who were holding a pack of barking, yelping mongrels off to the left to face the war dogs he could see the bandits had assembled. At his trumpeter’s signal, the emperor’s infantry knocked their shield edges together and began a steady tramp forward, the heavy scuta forming a moving wall of elm, leather and bronze. At 100 paces or so, as he’d anticipated, the enemy made the first move and released their attack dogs.

  Aemilius looked to his emperor, Carausius raised his arm, and the Britons’ ragged pack of mongrels was set free. Some ran at the oncoming fighting dogs, others simply stood and scratched, but the effect on the bandits’ canine corps was electric. In seconds, the war dogs had diverted their rush and were among the mongrels, snarling and snapping at their own pack-mates as they fought to mount the handful of bitches which were in heat. The emperor’s ranks tramped forward, past the humping, scrambling dogs, a ripple of laughter moving through the soldiers. They’d heard the story of the pagan priestess and her plan, and one wit shouted: “Tell Car the Bear that I’d sooner fuck than fight, too!”

  The ranks roared, and the raiders’ horde, many of whom were half-drunk on honey wine or had heads spinning from the forest mushrooms they’d used to dull their fears, looked on in dismay. Their big attacking plan had been effortlessly frustrated. They muttered in anger and rattled their weapons. Then the soldiers were close, the centurions waved for the missiles to be launched, and the screaming started as the first javelins began thumping down on the unprotected bandits.

  Most of the Bagudae were opportunist marauders capable only of taking on unarmed villagers. Lacking proper armour, with few shields, no training and little discipline, they could never successfully face professional soldiers. Not even their superior numbers could save them, and the predictable butchery began.

  The weighted javelins came battering in, spearing and pinning the bandits, who howled and flinched away. A wave of movement started on their left side as a group of Gauls began to run for the ford, thinking to put the river between themselves and the bloody ruin they saw approaching. The soldiers came closer, and launched another volley of javelins, piling up Frankish wounded and dead and obstructing the struggling mob. As the infantry got closer yet, they began hurling the heavy darts they carried clipped behind their shields. The retreating marauders seemed to swirl in confusion, uncertain where to turn to escape the deadly missiles. The decisive moment was now.

  Carausius’ cavalry tribune waved his horsemen forward, and they swept in from the right in two waves, crouched over their horses, long lances levelled, boots dangling, swords still scabbarded and banging at the
horses’ sides. The first surge crashed into the panicked mass of bandits, parting them like a wagon through a wheat field. The second wave, arriving moments later, brought with them infantry who clung to the cavalrymen’s pommels as they raced in. The initial impact of the battle-trained fighting stallions with their slashing hooves and snapping teeth allied to their riders’ spears and heavy swords shattered the mob. Then the second wave of foot soldiers crashed onto the panicked Franks like an Atlantic roller pounding on a rocky shoreline. The thumping impact of the infantry shook the marauders’ flank and the enveloping attackers cut off their retreat towards the ford. In moments, the action turned into a heaving slaughter.

  As the bandits reacted to the flank attack, the shield wall of Carausius’ first rank arrived on their front in a wedge array that was shaped like the teeth of a handsaw. The piercing formation let the legionaries penetrate and break the ragged Frankish defences, and the bandits were cut down where they stood, backed up against the river. Lashed by the flail of a blizzard of arrows, forced into shrinking clusters of desperate men by the slashing, stabbing thrusts that came from the pressing shield wall, the Franks could hardly even see to fight as they flinched away from the horrors of death-dealing missiles and swords. The river was streaked pink with skeins of blood by the time the survivors began throwing down their weapons and wading in surrender back to the riverbanks. Soon, the armourers were working with chains, and the ravens were gathering to feast on the dead.

  XXVII. Dover

  Axis the dog, leg cocked, was marking a stack of red clay roof tiles stamped with the ‘CLBR” of the Classis Britannica, the quartermaster’s mark for all British Fleet possessions, when Carausius came out of the barracks at Dover. “Good thing I’m the emperor, boy,” he grumbled. “That’s probably dumb insolence.” The emperor was in a good mood. Guinevia was well pregnant and had assured him that the child would be a boy. She had cast rune stones and consulted an oracle, and the omens were excellent. “Caros,” she had told him, “this child will be an emperor, too. He will make this nation even greater.” A man needed to hear that; a son, and one with a destiny. Life was good. The pity was he was so busy he hardly had time to take it all in. Just look at all this muddle. Building materials were everywhere, he thought, great piles of squared stone, heavy timbers, kiln-fired bricks and corrugated roof tiles. Well, he’d ordered huge construction works done all along the coast, and the troops were getting on with it. It wasn’t just roads and bridges, either. Carausius had been pondering the problem of supplying the garrisons along northern frontier, or at least creating a secure, speedy pipeline for heavy supplies, and remembered his youthful days on the great rivers of Europe, and how efficient it was to use waterways. The obvious need was for a river that ran north from Londinium to Eboracum, but they all seemed to run east and west. Then, inspiration struck, and he decided to build a canal. The idea was hardly conceived before he acted, and dispatched a full legion plus three times as many slaves to dig a ditch, a 130 mile canal that would run from Cambridge to Eboracum.