Arthur Britannicus

by Paul Bannister

  The victorious general Constantius stepped onto a wooden chest, the better to be seen. “This man broke the Sacramentum,” he bellowed. “He did not do as you did, and follow orders. He turned traitor to his emperor after taking a sacred oath to obey him. He must pay for that. You men, move on. Assemble over there, at the officers’ orders”. Minutes later, the general was speaking directly to the defeated commander. “We really can’t have someone like you walking away, can we?” Constantius used a reasonable tone as he addressed the ashen-faced Lucius. “The footsloggers were just obeying orders, but you and those five,” he pointed to five senior officers held at spear point, “Well, you should have known better.”

  He paused. “Old friend, be damned. You’re a cheap little chancing traitor.” The general spat on the ground and addressed the rigid centurion on his right. “Give them all a sample of the flagellum then nail them up, Romans or not. They’ve forfeited all privileges. And, I don’t want anybody breaking their legs for a day or two. Keep them alive. They can think about what they’ve done and take their time regretting it. Anyway, it will be something for their troops to look at.”

  News of the fall of Bononia came to Carausius just after he’d come out of the baths at Dover, still vaguely irritated because his ruminations had been disturbed by a couple of voluble merchants who seemed to be in love with the sound of their own voices and by the actions of several youths who’d been diving in and splashing rowdily. A slave was tying his sandals for him when a courier arrived, streaked with horse spume, road dust and sweat. The man stamped to attention and handed over a packet stitched into leather and sealed. “Urgent, Caesar,” he said. “From Londinium.”

  The emperor’s moodiness vanished like mist in the sun. He read the dispatch’s contents twice and chewed his lip in thought. He’d suspected the worst since the lighthouse across the narrows had been extinguished a couple of nights ago, but the wind was foul and the ships he’d sent to investigate had not yet returned. Word had arrived via a trader on the payroll of his spymaster, Allectus. Bononia was gone, and the troops had been pardoned and allowed to march out under full arms, so it was total surrender.

  Carausius calculated. He’d lost the 30th Ulpia, he supposed, scratch that legion off the army list. Summer was here, a good time for Maximian to send an invasion force, and he’d be better prepared for the sea crossing this time. He’d likely bring the force he already had in Bononia, 25 short miles away, and he’d quickly bring in more troops from the east, if he had not already started those movements. He’d only have to wait to bring invasion barges down from Ostend or wherever he’d stowed them. Say, three weeks… Best to move a readiness force south right away and make sure the coastal defences were truly prepared. The 2nd Augusta had been in place for a week or more, he could bring into play most of the 20th Valerian, plus what there was of the Ninth Spanish with their iconic Eagle, and hope the Picts up there beyond the Wall kept quiet for a while. The fleet was in reasonable shape, though he’d lost the squadron he’d stationed in Gaul. He commanded a sentry to fetch Allectus. “We’ll need more coin, for certain,” he thought grimly, tugging his big naval cloak around himself as he stepped into the sea wind.

  XXXI. Boadicea

  “I want the usual subjects covered, gentlemen,” the emperor told the commanders standing around a large table top map of the Narrow Sea and its hinterlands. “That’s objective, intelligence, personnel, communications, supply and transport. The objective is simple, and it’s as unadorned as nature intended. We must hold what we have and turn back any invader. Intelligence is next, a vital area that Allectus will oversee with his spies. As matters stand, our best course is to be readying for conflict right now. We don’t need to wait for more warnings, what’s happening is obvious enough and if things change, Allectus’ overpaid informants will keep us abreast. It looks like Maximian will be fully ready to move within a matter of weeks, while the weather’s good, so we know what we have to do in the meantime.

  “Cragus, you will handle personnel and communications. I’ve ordered the Valerian and the Spanish legions brought down from the north, sort them out, and see to it that the coast beacons are properly manned and on full standby. There’s a whole division of Germanic cavalry outside Londinium, so move them up as a swift response group. And, I want log booms chained and ready to be fixed across the Thames to stop any seaborne invasion coming that way.” He nodded to the other tribune. “Quirinus, you are in charge of equipment and supplies, and I’ll need provisions at once for three legions for a month. Get supply dumps set up in the coastal forts and make sure we have more dumps in the hinterland so we don’t have to drag everything with us and can move fast if we have to. Also, liaise with the Kentish ironworks and with the admirals in Dover and Portus Magnus over getting enough chains to them as protection for the ships’ cordage. We’ll need them made safe against cutting, the Romans have that tactic. I’ve had complaints from the shipyards over chain shortages, so give the appropriate people a kick up the arse.

  “That leaves Papinius to deal with the transport needs, so you work closely with Quirinus over those supplies. You’ll need to requisition animals and wagons from the locals, but don’t tread on the wrong toes, we want the chieftains’ cooperation not their moaning that all their draught animals have gone and they can’t get their crops in. Finally, I shall oversee the fleet. If we can send the bastards to the sea bed, we won’t need a land campaign”.

  Carausius did more than just ready the fleet, however. He used Britain’s good stone roads to travel rapidly around half of the country to impress the war lords with the urgency and importance of this campaign. Emissaries went ahead of him to arrange the councils and at his overnight stops the emperor met the jarls, bretwaldas, eorldormen, barons and lords of the British.

  Using the raised, paved highways, with relays of couriers’ horses exchanged at the frequent staging posts and sometimes employing a fast three or four-horse raeta carriage in which he could doze, the emperor moved from Dover to Londinium, to Colchester and Lincoln. He continued north after a council in Lincoln’s hilltop fortress to a conclave in the governor’s palace in Eboracum attended by the powerful lords of the Picts and Brigantes, Parisi and Coriani. Next, he crossed the high spine of Britain and across its rich north-western farmlands to meet the Welsh captains and kings at the 20th Valerian Legion’s red sandstone stronghold on the Dee at Chester.

  Those talks were successful, and Carausius was saddle-weary but satisfied as he turned southeast to traverse the limestone peaks of central Britain for a crucial meeting with the Catuvellauni. His message to them delivered and agreed, he next turned south down the arrow-straight Via Fossa that once marked Rome’s western frontier in Britannia, and crossed the brown River Severn. His destination was the vast military camp at Caerleon, a stop he hastily added to his journey after receiving a late dispatch from his scribe, the pagan sorceress Guinevia.

  The blunt, bluff soldier approached the citadel walls of the Legio II Augusta with some anxiety. His meeting, set up by the Druid’s adept, was with her mentor the great sorcerer Myrddin, He had agreed to sail from the sacred Druidic island in northern Wales to meet the emperor because he felt the hand of the gods was on Carausius and the nation would benefit. Guinevia had doubted the wisdom of travelling on the dangerous sea, but the tall Druid had waved aside her objections. “I am protected,” he told her loftily. “Anyway, it will be less tiring and much swifter than moving across the mountains. There is no danger to me. The gods will be with me. This soldier is their instrument in uniting Britain and in restoring them.”

  Certainly, Myrddin’s influence with Manannan mac Lir, deity of the waters, was obvious to the awed sailors who conducted the great sorcerer. They swore they had never made such a swift and perfect journey around the usually storm-wracked Welsh headlands, for they sailed on a sea mysteriously calm that took them with perfect winds into the tranquil, dun waters of the Severn Sea. From that wide channel, Myrddin’s ship was wafted effortle
ssly into the sparkling River Usk and smoothly up to the vast Roman castra of Caerleon, the military strongpoint that dominates the western lands.

  Carausius was escorted by one of his tribunes to the airy quarters assigned to the great Druid. He was unsurprised to find that Myrddin was exactly as Guinevia had described him, tall, with long dark hair neatly plaited, a hawk’s nose and piercing, crystal-blue eyes under shaggy dark brows. He moved quickly and with the grace of an athlete. Involuntarily, the autocratic emperor general deferred to him, so overwhelming was the aura of power that cloaked the wizard. Myrddin gestured aside the politeness’s and led Carausius to a tablum on which he had weighted down the corners of a vellum chart. The astonished emperor recognized it as a map of Britain, Hibernia and Gaul, but such a map! Instead of being the usual Roman linear list of way stations, with scale and distance incidental, this was the view that would have been shared by an eagle flying high above the land. Myrddin moved a long forefinger across the chart.

  “Bononia,” he murmured, tapping the mapped markings of the Gallic coast. His digit moved across the Narrow Sea. “Dover, Winchester, Fishbourne. These places are ancient, and are connected by nature’s lines of power. They are not there by accident. Rivers, forests and mountains have powerful spirits, just as high places are sacred. The old gods had their reasons for establishing the places where they were worshipped, they are sites where power can be harnessed and nature can be co-opted. If you act as the gods wish, you will restore Britain. You will be Carausius of Britain.” The title resonated with Carausius, who was seeing clearly for the first time the geography he had previously had to imagine, and was studying the great chart, burning it into his memory. The map seemed to swell under his eyes as he heard the echo of the sorcerer’s words. ‘Carausius of Britain.’ “Your battle will come here,” Myrddin prophesied, tapping the line of the coast west of Dover. “Be prepared.”

  Carausius shook his head and prodded at the map. “London. It will be there. Maximian will try for the Thames and the capital,” he said shortly. “That is where I have to muster my forces.”

  The Druid, with secret amusement in his eyes, shook his head. “Manannan mac Lir can be persuaded. The gods want Britain to be saved by the sea and you must crush her enemies in the way they wish. Then you will be a great king. There is more. The gods are with you now, but you will one day not be with them.” Carausius shook his head. What was this nonsense? How he could ever turn his back on Mithras and Jupiter, on the spirits of Britain’s mountains and rivers and the whole pantheon of gods who protected him? The thoughts were unspoken, but the sorcerer understood them.

  “You will be Carausius of Britain; you will bring peace and fortune to your nation. When you are dead you will lie in one of its holiest places under its great mountain and in Britain’s true heart, but the price will be to deny your gods. It is an awful toll, and it is not one that will bring you happiness, but you must know it and you must accept it, even if you do not understand. Britain requires it.”

  A slave entered silently, carrying a flagon of mulled wine and two drinking glasses chased with hunting scenes. Myrddin turned, and in an instant the near-electric atmosphere in the chamber seemed to lift. “Take a glass of wine,” the seer said sociably. Carausius, shaken by the prophecies, shook his head to clear it. “Yes, yes,” he muttered, accepting the drink and turning to look out of the window. Myrddin, goblet in hand, stepped up beside him. “I have summoned the great chieftains of Gwent and Powys, the blood shield Gaels of Lleyn and, oh, enough warriors to make the difference. And I have spoken with the gods. Your course is to do what soldiers do. Mine is to shape matters to the will of the gods. If it is done properly, this nation can move into sunlit times again. Should you fail, there will indeed be darkness in the hearts of men.” The sorcerer put down his glass, turned to a slave who held his cloak and shrugged himself into its folds. He raised his long fingers in ironic blessing. “Do your duty, Arthur of Britain,” he said. He turned abruptly and was moving away before Carausius could even respond.

  The emperor brooded on the sorcerer’s words and tried to escape the feelings of doom that beset him when he analysed them. Finally, he took the pragmatic view. If he performed his military tasks, and Myrddin carried out his occult ones, the gods would support them. His spirits lifted as he continued his journey, stopping a night or two later at Bath to sacrifice at the great temple of Sulis Minerva. Under the symbols of the moon goddess Luna and her healer acolyte, he sacrificed a goat and prayed for his nation and its safety in the upcoming struggle.

  From Bath, he took a hard day’s ride south, following his soldier’s need to inspect the garrison on the commanding limestone hill at Cadbury. “This,” he told his guard captain, “could be the keystone that holds our kingdom. From here, we command the west and south, but more importantly, this is a place of the power of the gods. If we fight here, we will win, because Britain’s own deities will come to our assistance”.

  The ancient earthwork defences dug by a people whose bones had long since crumbled into the earth had recently been maintained and improved. The primary defences were four lines of ditch and bank topped at the summit by a tall stone wall 16 feet thick. The big soldier scanned it with a professional eye. It was dotted with fighting platforms, and was further guarded by timber palisades and watchtowers that the emperor had ordered built a few years before. The whole defensive girdle surrounded a vast plateau fully 18 acres broad, where sheep nibbled the turf.

  Carausius limped on his bad foot as he made his way up the steep road that pierced the ringed defences, passing through wooden towers with double gates and around turnbacks that would fatally trap an enemy. At last, he found himself on the hilltop, facing a large timber hall and a small palace. Over it all towered a signal station, its iron cage holding the lumber and protected dry kindling that would send a fiery message across the lowlands. That call to arms would start a chain of fires to set men hastening to rally against invaders. “The engineers have done a fine job,” he told his tribune.

  “The Romans, lord, left us some good stonework,” said the man, gesturing at the foot-square, tapered blocks that made such durable walls. “And the ancients made it spacious enough for a thousand fighting men.”

  Carausius nodded. “Keep this place strong, and well-supplied,” he ordered. “It is our bulwark in the west. I’ll send you more troops, but in time of emergency, you’ll have half the men of the region gathered here. Make sure the granaries are stocked, and get some cattle brought in, too. And get an extra well or two dug,” he added. The tribune nodded. Car the Bear knew his business all right, but there would be plenty of work to do. He just hoped they had time enough before the trouble started.

  For several more days, the emperor conferred with the region’s chieftains, impressing on them his needs and hopes for Britain, then took his leave on a foggy day to finish his journey. At long last, exhausted but satisfied his plans had been accepted, he finished his circuit of the island at the Great Port near Winchester. At stop after stop, he had outlined his strategy and made his promises to the tribes. He spoke to the Cantiaci who had fought Julius, to the wealthy Corieltauvi who grew the grain, and to the proud Iceni whom Boadicea once led to blood-reeking glory. He met with the Celtic Dobunni and red-haired Artebates, parlayed with the fearsome Brigantes of the brackened north moorlands, and outlined his plans to the seagoing, olive-complexioned Durotriges and the warrior Silures who had been led by Caratacus himself. Even some of the dark men of the west, Dumnonii whom the Romans had never been able to subdue, came to the councils and listened respectfully.

  At those meetings, Carausius, magnificent in his golden circlet and imperial purple robe pinned with the silver and amber brooch that proclaimed his bloodstock as a British noble, was met with courtesy and heard with ungrudging attention. He had long since proved his abilities as a sovereign and even to the diverse and independent lords of the land, he was an impressive figure. His listeners were all leaders of men, arrogant, proud
rulers in their own fiefs, unaccustomed to submission or even to hearing out another’s ideas. Some were moustached, long-haired and clad in furs, others were tonsured, clean-shaven and wearing togas or tunics, but the emperor with his scarred and battered face, bull neck, huge shoulders and curling beard was the imperious overlord of war who commanded their full attention.

  To them all, he gave the same message: Britain is our land. We can make it a good land, fat with sheep, grain and cattle, where men can sleep safe at night and women can walk unmolested. We need no longer be a place milked dry by distant tyrants who do not listen to our views. We can create our own kingdom, a place of peace, prosperity and justice. To attain this golden age, a state which Rome once maintained, now fallen into disarray, he told those gatherings of proud barons and jarls, we must crush the Romans this one time.

  In meeting after meeting, he used his impressive presence in an orator’s trick, standing suddenly to thunder at his listeners: “We must send them back to Gaul cringing and whimpering, with wounds to lick, and we will be free of their yoke for ever. They will not be able to return, because I will create wooden walls they cannot pass.” And he dropped his voice in the manner of a bard. This, he told them, is how we will do it, and this is how we will keep our freedom. And he outlined his plan.

  Within a week, the levies began arriving at the coastal forts, columns of long-haired warriors, tramping together, singing and chanting the infectious marching songs that made the miles flow past. The jarls had listened and called on their men. The proud princes had laid aside their differences, taken Carausius’ warnings to heart and had mustered their spearmen and the specialist equipment he’d urged them to bring. Tent camps sprang up along the springy, sheep-nibbled turf downs of the south coast.