Britannia: Part I: The Wall

by Richard Denham

  It was not to be. One by one their names were read out as Justinus took his position in front of them, at the head of the legion. The praeses and the other tribunes watched from nearby, but there were no locals crowding in this day. This was not a day for celebration; not a day the legion wanted to share.

  ‘You have disgraced your legion,’ Justinus told them in a loud, clear voice that every cohort heard. ‘You have disgraced your Emperor and yourselves.’ He drew his sword and raised it aloft. ‘Jupiter, highest and best, have mercy on you,’ he said. The sword came down, slicing through air and six hooded men of the legion kicked the stools away. Only four of them rolled clear, the men above them twisting and writhing as the ropes bit into their necks and closed their windpipes.

  The man who had been crying died first, his sobbing ending in a spluttering choke as the piss rolled down his legs. The two remaining stools were kicked harder and the last two deserters danced in the wind. Some men looked away, sickened by the sight. Others shut their eyes, but the gnarled sticks of the centurions on their backs made them spring open again. Only Paternus was not patrolling with the others, checking morale, delivering a word here, a quick tap there. He stood like a statue with the Third Cohort, watching the bodies twitch and twitch again before they all hung still.

  Justinus sheathed his sword and gave the order for the legion to stand down. He heard them mutter and grumble as they marched away in columns of four. And he looked up at the sky. If the Emperor was coming, he had better make it soon. The VI Victrix were a legion on the edge and everyone knew that today’s trickle of deserters would become a torrent tomorrow.

  Dumno sat in his saddle on the edge of the canabae. He had not intended to stay this long and the tribune would have been furious had he found out, but the soft beds and the good food had held the arcanus like a comfortable vice. Now, though, it was time to go. There had been a hanging, he had been told, this very morning. Deserters. And there would be more. He trotted out from the little guarded gate to the south, shaking his head at what had become of the once invincible Roman army. Then he hauled on his rein and rode for the north.

  CHAPTER VI

  Eboracum, Ver

  In March the night was twelve hours long. So was the day. The goddess Minerva watched over Flavius Coelius and his slave as they propped the vines in their trenches in the fond hope that they might grow this year. They made their sacrifices to Mamurius, the shield-maker and hung the ivy in honour of Liberalis. What more could any farmer do?

  It was four days after the feast of Liber Pater that the guard at the south gate of the colonia heard it; the noise of an army. It was not yet noon and the spring dew still clung to the grass of the ramparts. It was too wet at this time of the year for the dust cloud that heralded the coming of troops. Vitalis was circitor of the watch and he tumbled out of the guard tower, buckling on his sword and yelling to his men.

  ‘Take post!’ he shouted. ‘Arellius, what do you see?’

  Arellius had the best eyes in the Third Cohort, some said the whole of the VI Victrix. The sky was bright overhead where a pale spring sun threatened to break through the clouds. ‘Archers,’ he called down to the circitor from his wooden turret. ‘Auxiliaries. Wait a minute. They’re ours, by Jupiter!’ He was jumping up and down as Vitalis’ unit ran along the ramparts, clapping each other on the back and cheering. ‘I don’t recognize their shields.’

  Vitalis and the others strained to make out the cohorts moving towards them. There were indeed archers at the front, four lines of grey-coated men with the recurved bows slung across their backs. On their wings the crossbowmen marched with their deadly weapons at the slope on their shoulders. In the centre, although they appeared unarmed, the slingers kept time, leather pouches and slingshots dangling from their hips. Beyond them, as the distance lessened and the braying of the cornicines drifted over the valley of the Ussos, solid phalanxes of infantry marched, singing the old songs the Roman army had sung for years, songs that spoke of all things soldiers love – victory, slaughter, wine and women. Every man wore a glittering coat of mail and carried a spear. Their helmets flashed in the sun that suddenly broke through.

  Vitalis did not recognize their shields either. They were blue with a leaping marten in red. But he recognized the next formation; the engineers and camp builders, sweating and grunting under their heavy equipment, the shovels and picks which made the Romans the master builders of the world. And he recognized too the single scarlet flag floating above and behind them. That was a general’s sign, a knot of horsemen with lances piercing the sky.

  ‘General officer!’ Vitalis sang out and his guard came to attention.

  ‘Gates!’ he roared and his men scurried in all directions, swinging timbers and clearing the way. About a hundred paces from the southern wall the army halted and the horns fell silent. Only a single muffled drum spoiled the stillness. The people of the canabae and the colonia, traders, craftsmen, women and children, had joined Vitalis’ guard at the gate, jabbering excitedly about the relief force that, thank Jupiter, had saved their lives. The drum suddenly doubled its speed and the archers and infantry slid to right and left to let the officers through. There were two of them, both bareheaded and wearing the lorica and sagum of a general. The man on the dappled grey reached the gateway first. He was older than the other one, with grey eyes and sandy-coloured hair. A huge brindled dog padded alongside the horse of the younger man.

  ‘I am Flavius Theodosius, circitor,’ he said to Vitalis. ‘Comes Rei Militaris. Any chance you can put us up for a night or two?’

  ‘Where did you see him last?’ Leocadius asked. It was raining that night as he and Vitalis hurried along the Via Flos, moving south.

  ‘In the Baths,’ Vitalis told him. ‘He looked like shit. I spoke to him and he didn’t seem to know me. Stared straight through me, as if I wasn’t there.’

  ‘Not like him,’ Leocadius muttered, but even as he said it he knew he was talking nonsense. The Paternus the lad once knew had gone into a world where they could not follow. The semisallis they had known, at Banna and Camboglanna, had been a man to be reckoned with. He always had a cheery word, a ready smile and his family were always with him. Vitalis had been a new recruit when little Quintillius was born and as such, he had given the baby a lucky charm on his ninth day, as tradition dictates. It was an eagle, tiny enough for the little one to hold, too big to end up in his mouth and it was carved from the jet the craftsmen of Eboracum made into beautiful shapes. Leocadius had known Paternus’ Flavia before that, but he understood, without being told, that this was one woman strictly off limits. Leocadius had no problem with that. There were plenty of other fish in the sea or any other body of water, come to that.

  But that was then and as the pair hurried through the Eboracum night, they both thought of the man Paternus had become. He went through the motions of his duties as centurion, but there was no joy in it. Occasionally they would see him striding along the north ramparts of the camp, looking out to the hills where his life had once been so sweet and where the bodies of his loved ones still lay, untended and alone. Increasingly, they had noticed him wandering the colonia, among the graves in the cemetery of the Blossom. That was where they were going now.

  The grave markers stood at rakish angles under the black of the night and the heavy raindrops bounced off the memorials to the great and good of Eboracum who mouldered there. It was barely possible to read the inscriptions now on the older tombs. But one man had read them. And that man sat, cross-legged on a plinth now, in full armour, the rain dripping off his helmet-rim and running down the naked blade of the sword in front of him. He rested both hands on the pommel and the tip rested on the cold, wet stone.

  Vitalis and Leocadius looked at each other. ‘Pat?’ the younger lad spoke first. ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘Yes, come on, Pat,’ Leocadius joined in. ‘It’s raining cats and dogs, man. You’ll catch your death …’ He stopped and wanted the ground to swallow him, even this gr
ound with its thousand silent dead.

  ‘Over there,’ Paternus said, nodding his head to the west, ‘lies Aurelia. I often wonder who she was. When the rain stops, when day breaks, have a look at it, Vit. It reads “My wife most sweet. I was not, I was, I am not, I have no more desires.”’

  There was a silence when even the sky stopped crying.

  ‘And there,’ Paternus went on, his voice choking with tears, nodding to the north, ‘the tomb of Cerellia Fortunata … happy Cerellia. I hope she was. Look at that one, Leo,’ he breathed in sharply, knowing they could not see, in the dark, his own tears where the rain had run. ‘“Do not pass by this epitaph, traveller,”’ he grunted, ‘“But stop, listen and learn, then go. There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon, no caretaker Aeacus, no Cerberus dog. All we dead below have become bones and ashes, nothing more.”’ Is that it, Vit?’ the centurion asked him. ‘Is that all we have and can hope to be? Bones and ashes?’ He looked at them, the two young men in their sodden cloaks, dripping on the sacred ground. ‘I want you to do something for me,’ he said.

  Vitalis cleared his throat, struggling to keep his voice strong and firm, with no tremble or break in it. ‘Anything,’ he said.

  ‘When I have finished here,’ Paternus said calmly, unbuckling his tunic with one hand, ‘I want you to take me to the north. Anywhere will do. Somewhere on the moors. Bury me there, will you?’

  ‘Pat …’ Vitalis could not help himself now. He was crying, along with Paternus, along with the night.

  ‘Bury yourself!’ a harsh voice boomed from the darkness and a cowled figure sprang out of nowhere to stand on a gravestone. He flicked back the hood. It was a tribune of the VI Victrix, but no one snapped to attention or even moved.

  ‘Justinus …’ Leocadius started to say something but a glance from the man made him shut up.

  ‘Stow it, circitor,’ he barked and crossed to Paternus, still sitting cross-legged on the tomb, his chest naked now for the sword blade. Justinus looked down at him. ‘Well, go on,’ he said. ‘Do it.’

  Vitalis and Leocadius flinched.

  ‘I said “Do it”!’ the tribune repeated.

  There was no movement from anyone. Paternus could hear the blood rushing in his ears and the thump of his own heart – the heart he wanted to be still. Justinus hauled the blade away from him and held it with the tip probing the skin, just above the rib and over the flutter of his heart. ‘What’s fine, what’s Roman, remember,’ Justinus said. ‘It’s the way of our ancestors, Pat. It’s what we do, we Romans. When we’ve fouled up, when it’s all gone wrong, gone pear-shaped. We don’t say “I won't let the bastards grind me down”. We say “I can't handle this, can't cope. I’ll take the soft option. It’ll only hurt for a minute or two and then it’ll all be over. No more hurt. No more pain.” Well, go on!’ Justinus stepped forward, so the blade point drew a fine line of beading blood down Paternus’ chest. He gasped and collapsed sobbing on Justinus, who held him and then gently grabbed the nose piece of the helmet and turned his face to the sky. He leaned in to whisper into his friend’s ear. ‘Your family is dead, Paternus. But do you know how you can make them even more dead?’

  Paternus shook his head to release Justinus’ grip. ‘No,’ he said, his words coming thickly through the unshed tears in his throat.

  ‘You can kill yourself. When you are gone, who will talk of Flavia and Quin then? Who will remember the curl of her hair, how your boy was growing big and strong? Their ghosts are out there to the north and getting fainter by the day. But in your heart,’ and Justinus grabbed Paternus hand and pressed it to his bloody chest, ‘they are growing stronger. But only while it beats, Pat. Remember that. So!’ He stepped back from his friend and pulled his tunic together, then wiped a surreptitious hand across his eyes, ‘You had better get back to doing what you were trained to do. Fight back. Theodosius came today with a field army. Two legions. It’s time to make your dead proud.’ Justinus tore a bronze disc from his tunic. ‘I took this off the body of Piso at Banna. Oh, I can't say I liked him much. He was a bit of a bastard, actually. But he was our bastard. And when I took it, I made a vow to Mithras that I would cut out the entrails of the shit responsible. Well, that shit is Valentinus, Pat, and he’s still out there. He has destroyed the Wall and he’s killed your wife and child. Now …’ he stuffed the disc away and lifted the centurion’s sword out of his hand. ‘I want you to get that chest patched up. And I want you to pray to Sol Invictus and every other damned god in the heavens. And tomorrow, we’ll start to use that sword on somebody else. Right?’

  Paternus blinked through the rain, falling again with a steady persistence. He nodded. Suddenly, he could face the world again. The scar on his chest would be there to remind him for ever, as if he needed reminding.

  ‘Mars Ultor,’ he whispered to Justinus.

  The tribune nodded and smiled. ‘Mars the Avenger,’ he said. He turned to the others. ‘Lads,’ he held out a hand and pulled the centurion up off the gravestone, ‘see to it that the primus pilus gets home, will you? He’s had a rough night.’

  While the new legions bedded down as best they could in the rectangle of the camp, the praeses Decius Ammianus entertained their commanders in his private quarters. He did not know either of them, but he knew the reputation of them both. Theodosius, the Count, came from the town of Corduba, that part of Iberia known as Baetica where the olive oil was to die for and the sun always shone. The Count was civilization itself, urbane, witty, charming. And the praeses’ own wife, Augustina, clucked around him over dinner as he admired her Damascus silks, her silver, her Samian ware. She, on her part, lapped it up. It was not often that a famous Iberian general came for supper. As soon as she heard the Count was at the south gate she had galvanized her household. When Decius had arrived for his prandium she told him to get out – the place was off-limits until the Count arrived. Her army of slaves had set to work, cooking snails, slicing eggs, roasting the best hare, lamb and kid Eboracum could provide. Then her guests all dented cushions and ate and drank and flattered as if there were no tomorrow.

  It was the other man that Decius Ammianus did not exactly take to. He too was from Iberia, but the cold, wet mountains of Tarraconensis were his home, near the city of Caesaraugusta. The rumour ran throughout the Empire – that on the first day of the life of Magnus Maximus he had swum the River Iberus and flown to the sun to count its rays at close hand. That seemed even less likely now that Ammianus had met him. The man ate with his fingers like an oaf and seemed to have no table manners at all. Any scraps of food the general did not take a liking to, he threw to the mastiff that lolled in the corner, slobbering on the mosaic. It had not helped that whereas the charming Theodosius was content to purr around his hostess, which was no more than polite society demanded, his second-in-command was positively leering at the praeses’ daughter, not yet seventeen and hardly schooled in the ways of the world. Lavina, of course, saw the legendary general differently. His eyes were a bottomless brown and his jaw was square and Roman. He wore his hair short and combed forward, like a soldier, like an Emperor. The touch of his hand on hers as he took the wine ewer from a slave and refilled her cup for her, sent magic chills along her spine and she did not notice the disapproving looks of her mama and papa. Even the man’s dog was delightful.

  Decius Ammianus was glad when the ladies retired and the men could get on to more pressing business than the flirting of goats. The praeses was well aware how vulnerable his command had been all winter and he suspected that little snippets of information had been flying with the snowflakes to the barbarians in the north. Accordingly he dismissed the slaves and leaned back on his couch.

  ‘Actually,’ Theodosius said, ‘They’re to the west of you, too.’

  ‘Who are?’ Ammianus asked.

  ‘The barbarians,’ the Count said, swilling his greasy fingers in a bowl. ‘You were speaking a moment ago of the barbarians to the north. They’re also in the west.’

  ‘You’ve been coope
d up here too long, praeses,’ Maximus said, demolishing what was left of the dates. ‘You’ve lost touch.’

  ‘My first priority,’ Ammianus said, feeling as though he were on the receiving end of a court martial, ‘was to hold my command. My second was to get a message to the Emperor.’

  ‘Which he got at Augusta Treverorum,’ Theodosius nodded, replenishing his wine. ‘Do you know it? Impressive gate, the biggest in Gaul, they say.’

  Ammianus had heard that too, but he had never been there.

  ‘Unfortunately, the Emperor has his share of problems in the east at the moment. He hasn’t been well and then there’s his brother …’

  ‘Man’s a vegetable,’ Maximus grunted.

  ‘As you say, Magnus,’ Theodosius smiled. ‘As you say. The point is we’re the best the Emperor could spare at the moment.’

  ‘What’s your plan?’ the praeses asked.

  ‘To beat the enemy,’ Maximus said. ‘Grind his face in the mud.’ He looked up at the horrified faces of the other two and laughed. ‘Well, that’s the shortened overview,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Papa Theo has it rather more structured than that.’

  Theodosius laughed too but the praeses did not feel inclined to join in. ‘As you know, we have with us eight thousand men – I could have done with a bigger barracks, Ammianus – the Jovii and the Victores. They’re mostly Gauls and Alamanni; a few Iberians – and they’re all good men, tried and tested. I’ve got cavalry and siege equipment. In short, a field army, which, I appreciate, you’ve been without.’ Theodosius looked at the praeses. ‘You look a little dubious, Ammianus,’ he said.