Arthur Britannicus

by Paul Bannister

  The inland waterway, ironically called the Caros Dyke by diggers who knew the emperor’s diminutive name, would supply the legions on the northern frontier. It would be used to transport heavy loads of wool for clothing, leather for shoes, shields and tents, lead and iron for the armourers, oil jars, salt, sacks of corn and barrels of salted beef and pork from the rich agricultural lands of the east and south. All of it would move by barge faster and safer than by it could go by road. It would need a handful of garrisons along the length of the canal to protect the precious cargoes from marauders and thieves, so the cargo barges’ first task was to carry building materials, and they were another of the emperor’s priorities.

  The forts of the Saxon Shore were being rebuilt and reinforced, too, because Carausius knew that Maximian, just a score of miles away across the narrows, was progressing with his plans. The junior Caesar’s fleet was nearly ready, and spies reported that he had been moving troops to the coast between Ostend and Bononia, readying them for invasion. The British fleet would have to stop them at sea, and Carausius was confident it was up to the task. Years of fighting piracy in the waters around Britain had given him a skilled, toughened navy. He knew that Maximian needed a covering fleet to protect his invasion barges, and he knew too that his old enemy had a weakness. He was blinded by hatred of the Briton and would not wait a moment longer than he must before attacking, even if it was not the cautious option. Maximian would know he could not face the British fleet ship for ship, but he would likely gamble on a swift crossing before the defenders’ squadrons could be brought into play. Carausius, however, had spent gold generously to monitor Maximian’s movements and was sure that he would have full warning from his spies of the emperor’s moves. There would be no surprise.

  The British ships, not the chalk ramparts of the southern sea cliffs, were the nation’s best defensive walls. So long as they were in place, they would dominate the Narrow Sea. Rome, Carausius knew, could not overcome his wooden walls, but it would not hurt to make a pre-emptive strike before any invader got close to the beaches under the white cliffs. That needed planning. Also to be considered was the matter of the devious Picts, who had treacherously broken their treaties after taking his silver. They’d long since crossed Antoninus’ wall, now they were in the buffer state, the land of the Four Kingdoms between the walls and threatened to breach Hadrian’s more southerly defences, too. Carausius had ordered troops mustered at Eboracum to prepare for a campaign against the northern raiders and was wondering if he could stretch his naval reserves enough to send an expedition up there to provide seaborne support. He felt he had a breathing space before he needed to face Maximian, as he knew the Roman was not yet ready for him, and he had a plan to set back that individual’s invasion timetable even more.

  Tomorrow, he’d begin the journey to Eboracum, get the legions organized himself and take them, under the sacred Eagle standards, to bring the Picts to heel. Get boots on the ground, he thought, it was necessary to mount another campaign to secure a kingdom. While he was up there, the tribunes Quirinus and Cragus would lead a surprise strike across the Narrow Sea against Maximian’s fleet.

  Similar thoughts of aggression were in Maximian’s mind. His shipbuilding program was moving along well, and almost too quickly. He had been forced to move a number of finished transports away from the crowded quays at Forum Hadriani because he needed the dock space. He’d started sending the vessels west a short distance to an anchorage in the outfall of the Scheldt river, using only skeleton crews because of his shortage of trained sailors. He mentally cursed Carausius again for stealing the whole damned British fleet and its valuable sailors, it was a setback to be overcome, and even if, during the invasion, he used only a handful of mariners on each loaded troopship to work the vessels across the straits, he still didn’t have enough trained sailors.

  So, he had to wait a while longer, until troop transporters from Rome could bring him some skilled mariners, Phoenicians and Egyptians, most likely, who should have been recruited in answer to his missives back to Milan.

  For now, Maximian’s newly-built invasion barges and their skeleton crews were using the summer’s fair weather to creep under their short sails down the Belgic coast and into haven in the estuary of the big river Scheldt. A temporary sail makers’ loft and makeshift shipyard was operating there, fitting cordage and doing all the dozens of commissioning jobs that a new ship needed.

  There were other things, though. With all the distractions of equipping an invasion force, it was understandable that Maximian had overlooked a few details, and the junior officers who’d noticed them were too afraid of his savage temper to bring up the matter. Maybe he’d decided things should be run this way, they told each other, best not to irritate the boss by questioning his actions. They told each other how, only a week ago he’d found that a slave had stolen one of the Caesar’s imported Syrian figs. Maximian’s response was to spear another fig on the end of his sword, force it between the man’s teeth and order him to eat it. As the trembling slave bit down on the fruit, the emperor thrust the blade deep into the back of his throat. The man took ten minutes to die, choking and drowning in his own blood. Maximian ordered the fig to be retrieved and nailed to the wall of his palace kitchen. “Better than a notice to the others,” he grunted, handing his sword to a slave to be cleaned.

  The message was not lost on the several troopers who saw that the new fleet anchored in the Scheldt was guarded only by soldiers on the river banks and a few watchmen on the vessels themselves. A waterborne attack would leave the land soldiers as mere spectators. Who’d tell the bad-tempered emperor? Not our job to incur the boss’ wrath, the legionaries muttered to each other. Let the Ruperts tell him, they get paid for it, it’s their responsibility. But the Ruperts didn’t notice.

  Spies brought the news of the vulnerable fleet to Quirinus when he sailed into Bononia from Dover, and he acted quickly. By morning, he had mustered six of the nimble, 30 ft. sailboats the army used on the bigger rivers, and tied them off, a pair to each trireme, to be towed up the coast. Taking an idea from the great Julius, who’d employed the technique when he sent scout vessels to spy out Britain before his invasion, he ordered the ships, their rigging, masts and sails to be painted sea-green. Even the crews were ordered to wear green clothing and to smear their faces, too, camouflaging themselves as well as their ships. The slopped-on paint was hardly dry before they set sail at dusk, towing the still-tacky fire ships, which had been the last to be painted.

  The convoy made good time with the easterly flood of the Atlanticus and, near-invisible and unchallenged, were off the mouth of the Scheldt before the first of the wolf light. Then the sailors began to carry out the careful instructions they had been given, instructions that had been repeated until their officers were convinced they were understood. First, they sluiced inside the fire ships’ hulls with a highly-flammable distillation of pitch called Greek Fire. Next, they unwrapped lanolin-soaked wool and bundles of kindling that had been covered to keep them dry, and spread them along the length of the keel. When that was done, they stretched canvas tightly from gunwale to gunwale to cover it everything. Last, they poured oil over the sheets, which they kept furled, as the sailboats were being towed under bare poles.

  Quirinus stood the ships in as the gloom lifted. In the minutes while they closed on the new fleet that was anchored and lashed together just off the main channel, he ordered the six river boats’ oil-soaked sails hoisted to catch the breeze off the sea. The gleaming new wood of the anchored invasion barges showed clearly through the dawn gloom. Flames flared on the raiders’ ships as sailors lashed the steerboards in place, lit the canvas-covered fuel, and scrambled overboard to swim back to the triremes, which stayed cautiously upwind. The fire ship squadron were carried in on the tide, pushed by the breeze, and sailed like ghosts, the flames in their bellies not yet burned through the covering canvas. When it did, the breeze fanned the flames quickly, they licked upwards with hunger, the sails caught, and
moments later the fire ships were jostling the anchored fleet where a few drowsy watchmen were stumbling to find bailing pans to splash seawater on the fires.

  It was all too little, too late. One fire ship wedged itself between the bows of a tethered pair of transport barges, and the fire spread at the speed of a cantering horse. Other blazing vessels scraped down the clean new wooden sides of the targets, dropping deadly embers and tangling their blazing spars with the anchored barges’ rigging. A fire ship was caught in a line of wicker fish traps and stayed fast, a blazing beacon that illuminated the scene.

  One enterprising watchman found an axe and used it to chop the anchor ropes free on several tethered ships, but they simply drifted into the same long line of fish traps alongside the blazing fire ship blazed and were engulfed. From the shore, alarmed legionaries shouted and ineffectively fired arrows, until two small rowboats filled with archers pulled out to challenge the raiders. Quirinus ordered his trireme to row straight at them, and crushed one under his vessel’s iron-clad forefoot. The other hastily turned back to shore. On the smooth waters that mirrored the blazing destruction, there was no real resistance possible. Within an hour, when the retreating triremes had rounded the low Belgic shoreline, entered the open sea and caught the ebb tide west, most of Rome’s newest fleet had burned to the waterline and sunk, or was turned into beached, charred and ruined wrecks.

  The raid had its effects. Maximian was incensed and had two prefects executed for failing to protect his lost ships. The Saxons on the Rhine were cheered and began a new series of harassments that diverted the Caesar into retaliatory actions that cost him dearly when half a legion was isolated by the enemy and froze to death in a sudden winter storm. And the garrison in Bononia received an unexpected legation.

  The tribune Quirinus was at his writing table when the guard saluted and announced that there were visitors, lord. Probably they were local aldermen, the soldier thought, and they were waiting in the courtyard. The tribune assumed it was a local magistrate and deputation come to complain that the men had stolen chickens again, and impatiently told the man to show them in. Instead, three Gallic chieftains strode into the chamber.

  Briefly, they wanted a truce. They had, they indicated when a suitable interpreter could be fetched, been interested to hear that these soldiers of the emperor had destroyed the ships of those soldiers of the other emperor, his brother. One of the splendidly-moustached Gauls produced a coin to support what he said. ‘Carausius and his Brothers’ was the abbreviated legend over the images of the Briton, Diocletian and Maximian.

  “Family squabble,” said Quirinus hurriedly. “All is well. In fact,” he had an inspiration, ‘look at this.” He rummaged through his purse to find another of his emperor’s recent mintings. “Rome Renewed,” said the legend on the coin he handed to the puzzled chieftains. “It’s a new age of Saturn,” he explained to them. “Says it right here. The bad, old Rome is gone. The brother emperors are all in agreement, and they are changing the ways people have been treated. This will be a time of cooperation, prosperity, that sort of thing.”

  Quirinus glanced around. The propaganda seemed to have been accepted at face value. He called his servant to bring some of that very good Rhenish wine, several flagons of it, and quickly. The chieftains looked at each other warily. They had received news of the slaughter of the bandits, they acknowledged. It was better for all, they said, if the brigandage was stopped. Now that they could see that Rome was having a change of heart, and the great Carausius was strong enough even to chastise his brother emperors, they would order a halt to the raids that reprehensible elements from Spain and Brittany had been conducting. Gaul would have peace, at least until the spring, if the legate agreed? The four men drank to the new order, and to peace. Quirinus sighed inwardly, relieved. The dispatch to his emperor arrived in Eboracum within five days. Carausius already knew of the damage to Maximian’s fleet, now he heard with pleasure and some surprise mixed with scepticism that Gaul would be quiet while he turned his attention north to put down those treacherous Picts.

  XXVIII. Stirling

  Hadrian’s famous Wall was Rome’s only stone frontier, and ran 74 miles from sea to sea, but for all of its short-lived useful life it was never intended to keep the Picts out, merely to deter raiders and control and tax travellers. The rampart that formed the spiritual and physical northern boundary of the empire began as a series of 15 forts that were gradually, through the efforts of three legions and part of the British fleet, linked by a high battlement right across the country. It was originally called ‘The Aelian Rampart’ after the Spaniard Hadrian’s family name, for he was properly called Publius Aelius Hadrianus and was heir to a fortune made from the clan’s Iberian olive groves. The family was important and influential enough that the emperor Trajan himself had been Hadrian’s guardian.

  Publius Aelius Hadrianus’ Wall stretched from the bridge named for him – Pons Aelius – in the east to Bowness, on the Solway Firth in the west, the latter short stretch made of turf and timber, not stone, but all of it boasted watchtowers every one-third of a mile, with fortified, manned gateways at every mile or so. The rampart itself was 15 Roman feet high, ten feet wide for much of its length and sat behind a wide berm that had forward of it a deep defensive ditch. Where possible, the builders used local landscape features to make it more formidable, building it, for example, along the crest of a ridge. When the legions had finished building the Wall itself, they turned their attention to the land south of it, and dug a parallel, 20 feet wide flat-bottomed ditch with earth ramparts on either side, to protect the rear and create a zone controlled by the military. In its glory, it was a wonder of the world. When Carausius came to inspect it, however, the legendary frontier barrier once simply called The Entrenchment was in a sorry, neglected state.

  “We just don’t have enough soldiers to man the whole thing properly, lord,” a harried cavalry commander told the emperor. “The fact is, the Wall was mostly abandoned after only a handful of years, when Antoninus built another wall of turf and timber about 100 miles further north of here. We did return to this as the frontier after a while, but it’s never really been a proper military fortification, more a customs barrier.” The emperor, standing in the wooden gateway of a mile-castle, could see for himself the outlines in the ground where a onetime fortification had been dismantled, the stone and timber removed for use elsewhere and the ground sealed with a layer of clean clay and turf, ready for rebuilding. Standard Operating Procedure, he thought. Army orders were that nothing was to be left for the enemy to use. He turned back to the equestrian. “We’re going north, beyond the Antonine, so we’ll take a look what’s there. I don’t suppose there’s much.”

  Two weeks later, Carausius found he was right. Antoninus’ timber palisade had gone, rotted into the ground in the two centuries since it had been abandoned and the turf walls had crumbled into the ditch. About all that was left were some gently-sloping old excavations with trees growing out of them. A grown man would hardly break stride as he crossed the onetime barrier that marked the high tide line of Roman conquest. Nothing here to use, thought the emperor, tapping his horse’s sides to move on, and glancing across to the raeda carriage where his mistress Guinevia and a wet-nurse tended his baby son. Carausius smiled to himself. She was so excited to be travelling back to her homeland, and to be taking their son Milo to meet his grandfather. Not many soldiers made a military expedition a family outing, he chuckled to himself. Well, I’m the emperor, and she’s my best advisor. So be it.

  The legion continued its march north behind its sacred gilded Eagle, along the old road of Dere Street, which was in fine condition even after a century without maintenance. The troops crossed the Forth River and turned north to the huge dolerite crag that outcropped steeply from the plain at Stirling. The old Romans had built a strongpoint there, on the site of a hill fort so ancient it had probably been built by the gods.

  A temple of good, square Roman stone still stood there, the stru
cture intact, roof a little damaged, the floor inches deep in animal droppings where it had been used as a byre. Its inscriptions showed it had been dedicated to Mithras, the legionaries’ god who was born from rock, so Guinevia, a pagan sorceress who had daily been growing more animated as they marched deeper into her native land, insisted on making sacrifice in the old place of worship. It was, she explained, a site of ancient magic, a perfect place to consult the auguries for the coming campaign. All she would need was a day or two to purify it first, and as she was in her homeland, the gods would hear her voice. The emperor shrugged. He and most of his legionaries worshipped Mithras. It was appropriate. He ordered detachments down into the plain and woods to forage for fresh beef and venison, and decided to spend a week or two on the natural fortification of the great rock while he sent out scouts in search of enemy war bands.