Britannia: Part I: The Wall

by Richard Denham

  He shook himself free of it and climbed to the top of the tower. The land stretched into the distance with the pale purple mountains of Caledonia fading into cloud as far as his eyes could see. Some movement caught his eye. Far below him, a stag and his does were moving over the heather, silent and free. There were no hunters here; no ravens wheeling in the sky.

  Justinus clattered down the steps and reached into his saddle-bag. He pulled out the phalera, the Medusa’s head he had once taken from the breastplate of Ulpius Piso and he buried it in the good earth, murmuring the old words, ‘Mithras, also a soldier, teach me to die aright.’ Almost without conscious thought, he pulled the black ring from his finger and dropped it into the hole with the Medusa. It lay there, a black hole into his past, pulling the brightness of the silver into its heart. He crumbled some earth over it, and the image faded. Then he realised the past could not be buried so easily. And scarcely looking at the ring, he snatched it up and replaced it on his finger.. He brushed the soil over the head until it was covered, patted the surface flat and strode to his horse. He did not look back.

  ‘You sent for me, sir,’ Justinus saluted in the general’s tent on the slope before Camboglanna. The fort was finished but there were far too many men to be accommodated within the stone and earth perimeter so the leather tents stretched over to the river bank.

  Maximus’ dog looked up from his morning nap and sniffed the air. He knew the smell of this one and went back to sleep with an approving whiffle.

  ‘A message from Theodosius,’ Maximus sat in front of his campaign table, the heavy one it took four slaves to carry. He was waving a piece of parchment, ‘We’re going to set up Valentia again.’

  ‘Valentia?’ Justinus smiled. ‘That would be good. Just like old times.’

  ‘Only more so,’ Maximus got up and stood at the tent entrance looking up to Rutilius’ new tower. ‘It’ll be a client kingdom again. The Votadini, the Selgovae. We’ll draw up a new treaty with them. In the meantime, you’re in command along the Wall.’

  ‘Sir?’ Justinus was astonished. Two summers ago he had been a circitor, with twenty men under him; now he led two legions.

  Maximus read the man’s face. ‘Oh, I know you don’t have seniority,’ he said, turning back to face the tribune, ‘and there are many good men I could give the job to. But you know the Wall, Justinus. You speak native and you have a feel for the country. You’ll have Paternus with you.’ He closed to the man until their noses almost touched, ‘And this time, hero of the Wall, you’ll hold it.’

  Justinus said nothing. Ever since the stupid bragging of Leocadius, all four of them had been haunted by this. It was something the tribune would have to live with. ‘Where will you be?’ he asked.

  ‘This will only work if the VIth can man the Wall again,’ the general told him. ‘My legions won't be here forever. I’m going to Eboracum to see the Praeses. If that man is looking for an early retirement, he can forget it.’

  While the tribune Justinus doubled the night guard at every fort and milecastle and kept four cohorts with him at Camboglanna, Magnus Maximus took a turmae of cavalry and rode south, the mastiff plodding along at his horse’s side, sniffing the ground and cocking his leg all over the territory of the Brigantes. It was four days’ ride to Eboracum and Maximus did it in three, his lathered horses wheezing their way towards the north wall of the city and the camp of the VI Victrix.

  The Praeses Decius Ammianus was glad to see the general, for all he was not overfond, and shook the man’s hand heartily. Maximus had kept him informed of progress along the Wall but even so, Ammianus had not relaxed or lowered his guard. There were patrols night and day, riding out in the noonday sun and every phase of the moon, quartering from east to west, south to north, keeping the Praeses informed. And still no strangers were allowed into the camp, the canabae or the colonia. Eboracum was still a military base under siege.

  After the officers had held their discussions and pored over their maps, a clerk inking in the re-occupied forts as they spoke, it was time for a bath and a change for dinner. Timing meant they had missed the late afternoon cena, so it was supper instead. Augusta Ammianus purred over the handsome general, who seemed to be even more rugged after his campaign in the north. But one who was not purring was Lavinia, the Praeses’ daughter. She entered the room on the arm of a civilian, and she wore the robes of a matron.

  ‘Allow me to introduce,’ Ammianus beamed, ‘my son-in-law, Marcellus Musa – General Magnus Maximus.’ The men shook hands, but it was Lavinia who Maximus was looking at as he went on looking at her throughout the meal. There was small talk and there were speeches and then the party broke up. Not however before Maximus managed to catch Lavinia alone. The girl, it was true, was two years older than when they had last met and the silly little girl with the fluttering heart had become a woman, cold and aloof.

  ‘Not a soldier, then, your husband?’ he murmured as they found themselves together in the atrium of Ammianus’ private quarters.

  ‘No,’ she said, not looking him in the face. ‘He owns half the colonia and his money comes from wool. Not, sir, that it is any business of yours.’

  Maximus smiled. And he thought of what might have been. And what was. Lavinia was not the first girl to wave a teary goodbye to him on his way to the war. She would not be the last. He reached inside his tunic and pulled out a crumpled love-knot, made from the reeds of the Ussos. One end of it was brown with somebody else’s blood and he took her hand and pressed it into her palm. ‘It kept me safe,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  She turned and swept away. And he did not see her tears start to flow.

  ‘A marriage?’ Paternus frowned. He was standing in the barrack block at Aesica, duties over for the day and he was unbuckling his armour.

  ‘Best way, Maximus says, to cement an alliance,’ Justinus explained.

  ‘Why me?’ Paternus asked. ‘Doesn’t he know about my family?’

  ‘He knows,’ Justinus told him. ‘But he’s looking at the bigger picture.’

  ‘Bollocks to the bigger picture.’

  Justinus took his old friend firmly by the shoulders, the Wall ring glinting in the candlelight. ‘Pat, I saw the way she looked at you,’ he said. ‘The woman loves you.’

  Paternus said nothing, then, ‘I am grateful to her; she saved my life.’

  ‘This isn’t about feelings,’ Justinus said. ‘It’s about politics. It happens every day, all over the Empire. Money marries money. Senators get their ends away with other senators’ daughters. It’s the way of the world. You don’t have to love her. You don’t even have to stay under the same roof if you don’t want to. Maximus says …’

  ‘Well, you can tell General Maximus he can go to hell!’ Paternus yelled.

  ‘Why don’t you tell him yourself?’ Magnus Maximus strolled into the room and the candles guttered in the wind. There was an awkward silence. The general looked at Justinus. ‘I gather that didn’t go too well.’

  Justinus shrugged.

  ‘All right,’ Maximus said. ‘Justinus, give us a moment, will you?’ When the tribune had gone, the general turned to Paternus. ‘I asked him to talk to you first,’ he said, his face hard, his eyes cold, ‘because he is a friend and I know what you Wall men mean to each other. But if you’re not amenable to suggestions, Paternus, then it’s simply a matter of obeying orders.’

  ‘There’s nothing in the Emperor’s Regulations …’ the tribune began.

  'Don't talk to me about Regulations,’ Maximus snapped. ‘I wrote the bloody things! There are no regulations about what’s happening now, what we’re doing here. These are uncharted waters, Paternus, believe me. A year ago we had no forts on the Wall still standing. The Empire was crumbling like old rocks pounded by the sea. There may still be a bastard out there we can't catch and we can't second guess. My job is to rebuild the Wall and hold it, and by Jupiter Highest and Best, that is exactly what I’ll do. And if I have to lie, cheat, steal and kill to do it, then so be it. A
nd that includes telling you to marry a queen of the Votadini.’

  There was a silence. ‘I asked Justinus,’ Paternus said, ‘and now I’m asking you – why me?’

  ‘You know the woman. I understand she has feelings for you.’ Paternus turned away, but Maximus spun him back to face him. ‘Do you think you’re the only one who’s lost a family? The men who died on the Wall, at the mouth of hell, everywhere we’ve fought Valentinus, they had families too. And what about the villas and the villages these bastards have ransacked?’ Maximus let stillness fill the room, then he clapped a hand on Paternus’ shoulder. ‘Nothing,’ he said softly, ‘can ever replace your loved ones. And I’m not suggesting that you try. But it’s time for healing, Pat. There’s been too much blood on the Wall, for too long. You can help put that right. Bury the past as you were never able to bury your family.’

  Paternus looked into the general’s eyes. Could he read compassion there, after all? Was Sol Invictus smiling down on the two of them as they stood there in the glow of the candles?

  They came in all their splendour that Junius, as the Romans further south mowed their hay with their long, sweeping scythes and made sacrifices to Hercules and Fors Fortuna. Their drums announced their coming, marching for the Wall at Aesica. They were the Votadini and the Selgovae, the client tribes of Rome who had come to make their peace with Rome again.

  Maximus had no way of knowing how many of these people had remained loyal to Rome or how many of them had fallen to Valentinus’ sword or gone over to his promise of silver. But this was a fresh start, a new Wall and a new beginning. The Empire had stood for four hundred years; today was the time to drink to the next four hundred.

  The client kings and their huge entourages camped in the open facing the Wall, the sun above the clouds sending huge shadows moving slowly and silently over the tents and horse-lines. Women had built fires and children brought water. The smell of cooking wafted over the Wall and it was not long before the camps merged and Votadini drank with Selgovae and the legions joined in. Little boys ran about with Roman helmets on their heads and tried to lift Roman shields. Market traders set up on the camp’s perimeter, rivalling Londinium for the few days they were there, selling skins and piglets in exchange for grain and wine and the ever-welcome hard currency of the Jovii and the Victores.

  Lenumio of the Selgovae was in a particularly jovial mood when Magnus Maximus came to see him. He was an old man now, too fond of his wine and too fond of his fish sauce to be much of a general. But in his day, as he kept telling Maximus through the interpreter Justinus, he could have had him and the Count for breakfast. And talking of breakfast, was there any fish sauce in Aesica?

  ‘Paternus.’ Brenna, queen of the Votadini, had come with her people too and they had camped alongside the Selgovae and their women nattered like neighbours over a wall and their children kicked around a ball of rags, laughing and hooting with delight.

  ‘Paternus,’ she said again. He turned away from watching the children at play and looked at her. The warrior queen he had last seen at the holy pool was gone. Brenna’s hair trailed to her waist and her eyes were shining. ‘How are you?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Well, lady,’ he said. ‘Thanks to you.’

  She smiled and pushed a little boy forward who was trying to hide in her skirt. ‘Paternus, this is Taran, my son.’

  ‘Taran?’ Paternus had heard that name before.

  ‘Taranis,’ she explained. ‘Our god of the wheel.’

  ‘Our Jupiter,’ he said. ‘The sky god.’

  ‘His is a different sky,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t have to be. Taran, this is Paternus.’

  The little boy was perhaps six. He had seen the tribune before, outside a smoky hut near a grove of hanged men but he had no clear memory of it. Helmets frightened him. And snorting horses. And fire. But here was a tall man without armour and he had a kind face. Taran squared his shoulders and walked right up to him, extending his right hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ he said.

  Paternus blinked. If Quin were alive, he would be about this boy’s age now, practising with a little wooden spatha and learning to throw the legionary’s darts. He wanted to kneel down, sweep him up into his arms and bury his face into the boy’s neck. But that was not to be. He was not his Quin but a stranger’s child. He took the little fingers in his own right hand, careful not to squeeze too hard. ‘And you,’ he said.

  Taran decided he had been brave enough for one day and he dashed off, brushing past his mother to play with the others.

  ‘He’ll make a fine king one day,’ Paternus said.

  ‘If Rome will let him,’ Brenna watched him go.

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’ Paternus asked, pouring them both a cup of wine.

  A cold smile swept over Brenna’s face. ‘Oh, Paternus, are any of us free to do what we want? Not so long ago, I had a kingdom, whole and entire. Now my people are frightened. They say Valentinus is dead, yet everyone jumps at the sound of a closing door or the crowing of a cock. She looked at him and moved closer. ‘You had a wife and a son …’

  He turned away.

  ‘And now,’ she said, taking a deep breath, ‘Rome is back and the Wall is manned again … until the next time.’

  He turned back to her. ‘Will there be a next time?’ he asked her.

  ‘Taranis himself could answer that, but we can't. Not even your General Maximus. Isn’t that what this wedding is all about?’

  At last she had raised the subject. One of them had to and over the last few days, when they had avoided each other and in the last few moments while they made small talk, it had stood like a ghost between them.

  ‘Brenna …’ he tried to say something.

  She closed to him and pressed her fingers to his lips. ‘I don’t ask you to love me,’ she said. ‘Not as I love you.’

  Paternus looked into those sad, dark eyes. So Justinus had been right and Maximus had been right. He wanted to tell her that it was hopeless, that he would never love another woman, that the spirit of his Flavia would always be there between them. He could not tell her that. He could not tell her anything. In the end, he pulled her to him and held her tight, looking out over the sunlit field where the Votadini and the Selgovae children played; and she buried her face into his chest and cried softly to herself.

  ‘Brings tears to your eyes, doesn’t it?’ the scruffy little man said, wiping his face with his rabbit-skin cuffs.

  ‘Dumno!’ Justinus turned to see who was talking to him. ‘You little shit, I thought you were dead.’

  ‘Me, tribune? Never. My, but they make a handsome couple, don’t they?’

  Justinus had to agree they did. The wedding of Brenna, queen of the Gododdyn called the Votadini, to Paternus, tribune of the VI Victrix, was happening under a smiling sky, the clouds gone and the crickets, assuming they could be heard under the thud of drums and tabors and crackle of the shell rattles of the children, sang their approval too. The only nod in the direction of Rome was the scarlet awning under which the couples stood. And the wall of shields of the Victores to the west and the Jovii to the east.

  The ceremony was taking place on the vallum below the Wall at Aesica, on the lands of the Votadini that were, once again, from today, Valentia, the land of the Emperor Valentinian, all power to him. Brenna wore a long dress of green and gold, the snow white of virginity long behind her. Her veil, of translucent cloth, covered her face and her train was held by a little boy, determined not to stumble or drop the precious load his mother wore. Paternus wore the parade armour of a tribune, the bronze breastplate curved and oiled like muscles and with a scarlet cloak that swept the ground.

  Brenna’s women, dressed in a simpler version of her robes, formed a circle around the pair and, singing one of their strange songs, of the stream and the heather, they wove white ropes of soft cloth around them both. When they had finished, the music of the harps stopped and Paternus held out his right hand. In a clear voice, he said, ‘Hand on my hand in the m
orning,’ and Brenna clasped her fingers to his. ‘Hand on my hand in the night’ she said.

  ‘Touch to my touch in the dawning,’ he chanted.

  ‘Walk with me to the light,’ they both intoned, their voices together in the new beginning that was Valentia.

  There was an audible ‘Aah,’ from the crowd, even Dumno and he nudged Justinus again. Then the drums struck up and the ropes were unwound and the time was right for music and dancing and, Lenumio hoped fervently, serious drinking into the night.

  ‘Well, well,’ Dumno said, striding alongside Justinus. ‘I never thought I’d see the day.’

  ‘It’s been a long time coming,’ the tribune said. ‘What news from you, arcanus?’ Justinus picked up a goblet and nodded to Dumno to help himself.

  ‘Well,’ the man gulped the wine gratefully. ‘It hasn’t been easy, I can tell you. I’ve been in the west for a while.’

  ‘The west?’

  ‘The islands. I thought it would be safer there.’

  ‘Any news of Valentinus?’

  ‘Ah,’ Dumno took another quick swig and checked before and behind to make sure the coast was clear. ‘Somebody told me he was dead.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘But then somebody told me he was in Gaul, causing havoc over there.’

  ‘I just wish he was in hell,’ Justinus sipped his wine. ‘Then he could cause as much havoc as his liked. Excuse me, I must go and congratulate the happy couple.’

  But the tribune never reached Brenna and Paternus under their different skies. He was crossing the vallum, weaving in and out of the dancers and the children and the drunks when he stopped dead in his tracks. A tall, dark man was looking at him, blinking in the sunlight. He had a sword at his hip and a goblet in his hand. Justinus was unarmed, but this was no time to let that bother him. He threw his own cup to the ground and made for him, but the man had vanished. A dancer caught him, her hair flying, her breasts bare and she swung him round. No sooner had he extricated himself from her but another one grabbed his hand and rubbed herself sensuously against his groin. He pushed her aside and tried to find his quarry again, only to be offered a goatskin of wine by a drunk Selgovae. By the time Justinus had shaken him off the tall dark man was no longer at the feast.