Britannia: Part I: The Wall

by Richard Denham

  Nobody moved. Then Vitalis stuck his head up from under a pile of the injured and the dead. ‘Nice to see you proving useful,’ Maximus grunted to him. He grabbed Bishop Dalmatus by the cope, dark blood staining the gold cloth. ‘You’re lucky you’re alive, Christian,’ he said, although he didn’t care for the pallor of the man’s skin. ‘You,’ the general dragged another man to him. ‘You’re the priest of Mithras, yes?’

  Critus mumbled something, which was the best he could do with a broken jaw. He had hold of both of them by the scruffs of their necks and he banged their heads together. ‘If you two can't behave,’ he said, like a dominus telling off his pupils, ‘I shall have to take further steps. You, Mithras man, will have your throat cut. You, Christian, will be crucified. Right here. Right now. Do we understand each other?’

  Both men, numbed and in pain, nodded.

  Vitalis had found his sword under the debris of the fight. He walked over to Maximus, raised the weapon and broke it over his knee, before letting the pieces clatter to the ground.

  Pelagius, bruised and bloody, waited for the man to come back. ‘Was that wise?’ he said, ‘to make an enemy of him?’

  ‘It’s finished,’ Vitalis said. ‘Before, I asked if I could leave his bloody army. Now I have.’

  Maximus turned to the soldiers still lining the square as the water was thrown over the thatch with a hiss like a thousand snakes. ‘Has anybody seen the consul?’

  The consul dragged himself upright. Only three men still stood in the arena and the crowd had gone. Most of the torches had been abandoned as everybody had rushed away to save their homes. Fire in the city was the one dread they all shared. It caused panic like nothing else.

  ‘Here’s to the next time, Consul,’ the retiarius shook Leocadius’ hand, ‘and I should work on that wrist action if I were you.’

  ‘To the next time,’ Leocadius hauled off the helmet. Then he turned to the Aedile. ‘You still here, Hupo? Haven’t you got the odd silver-chest to save?’

  The Aedile scowled at him, threw off his red wig and strode to the west.

  On the platform high above the arena, old Proclinus Parbo woke up. His ivy wreath had fallen off and the girls had gone. He looked down at the solitary figure in gladiator’s armour in the centre of the ring.

  ‘Did I miss anything?’ he called.

  CHAPTER XX

  The message from Paternus arrived in the middle of the night and the circitor of the watch knew it was too important to wait for morning. The Votadini scout was exhausted and a horse had died under him as he thrashed the animal, galloping south. An army was coming out of Caledonia, an army perhaps ten thousand strong. It was the army of Valentinus.

  Justinus had yelled at his scribes to get up and in the flickering candlelight, ink flew and quills scratched. In the canabae below Aesica, riders from the Ala Victores were saddling their horses, fitting bits and tightening girths. They were to ride along the Wall in both directions, as far as their animals would take them. When the dumb beasts could go no further, they were to find new mounts and ride on. From Arbeia to Maia, every fort must be told because no one knew where Valentinus would strike.

  As the gallopers mounted, a day’s food and water in their saddlebags, Justinus ordered the beacons to be lit. He paced the wall-walk as the first light of dawn broke, and he watched the mountains to the north. The flames burst into light in the brazier overhead, the signal that would spread from milecastle to milecastle that there was trouble in the wind. The scouts could confirm what that trouble was but the flames themselves would give the warning.

  And Justinus sent gallopers north too, to the outlying forts of Blatobulgium and Banna. Their tiny garrisons were to pull back to the shelter of the Wall; now. There would be no surprise attacks this time, not if Justinus could help it. Valentinus was welcome to the stones of those forts, but he would not have its people; not this time. The tribune sent riders south that same morning. They were to ride to the Abus and take the fastest bireme south to Londinium. The Dux Britannorum was there and the Wall needed Magnus Maximus and his legions. The Ala Jovii were sent north, scattered into small patrols, watching every road and every area of open ground. They had orders not to engage the enemy but to watch which way they went and report back.

  Justinus stood on the ramparts of Aesica once all this flurry of activity was over. He could do no more for the moment. Now it was all about waiting.

  Paternus held his little son in his arms, kissing his soft forehead and stroking his cheek. He had little curls that tangled at his neck and a little bubble burst on his lips. He never thought he could love another as he had loved his Quin, yet here he was and he had never been apart from the boy for the whole of his young life.

  Brenna hugged them both and Paternus turned to her. Her eyes were soft in the morning but she would not cry. For most of the night she had argued with him that she should ride out with him. She was queen of the Gododdyn, for Belatucadros’ sake. She should be leading her people. Paternus had been as stubborn as he had been right. She was a mother. Mother of the kings of the Votadini. If she was not there any more, what would happen to them?

  He kissed her deeply as he passed the baby back. The Votadini army, the men he had trained, sat their horses or stood silently in the ranks, the pale autumn sun gleaming on their armour and spear-points. He looked across to where Taran held his helmet and beckoned the boy over. He knelt down so that he was on the lad’s level. ‘Look after them for me,’ he said, as a tear rolled down the lad’s cheek. ‘And don’t take any lip from that little one. You’re the man now.’

  Taran flung his arms around Paternus, sobbing helplessly as he hugged his neck. Paternus squeezed him back, so hard he thought he might break. Then he snatched the helmet, touched Brenna’s cheek once and swung into the saddle. The Votadini marched south.

  As the last of the little column became blurs on the horizon, Brenna passed Edirne to her woman. Taran had run away, unable to watch any more. He too had argued, in his childish way. Why could he not go with Paternus? He could ride with the best of them, could shoot a dart and a bow. A sword was still quite hard for him, but with two hands … But it had not worked and Paternus had said no. The queen of the Votadini walked into her private quarters and opened an elm chest that stood in a corner. She lifted out a leather bag and carried it out beyond the ditches of the camp that Paternus had had dug for their protection. She dug into the soft earth with the broad blade of her dagger and dropped the bag into the hole, covering it over and replacing the turf. Through her tears she walked back. Paternus, the man she loved, had, over the last months, lost some of his demons of the night. Had his new family at last replaced the old? Could she hope for that? She had just buried one of those demons on the lonely hillside; that part of Paternus, at least, was behind him. It was the shrivelled head of the Pict, Talorc.

  The whole nightmare was starting again, as it must have started those long months ago when the barbarians had first banded together and Valentinus had come from the north, the general with no real name, the warrior without a face. Paternus watched the smoke drifting, casting shadows over the sunlit moors. He was half a day, he estimated, behind the barbarians. They had bypassed Trimontium, the old fort abandoned since Agricola’s time but were in no hurry to reach the Wall. A chill wind was blowing across the moors heralding the winter that was to come, but Valentinus was no respecter of seasons and that meant nothing to him.

  As they trailed his army, Paternus wondered whether the man knew the Wall had been rebuilt, that a welcome awaited him along that bloody ridge, a welcome made of Rutilius’ earth and stone and Justinus’ wild asses, archers and slingers. He had taken the Wall before because no one had been ready; no one could believe the sheer scale of the attack. This time it would be different. When Valentinus camped, Paternus camped. If he burnt a village, they let him. There would be no heroics in this war. But when it came to it, it would be a fight to the death.

  Order had been restored to Londinium. I
t was one of those things, people said. In a city as great and restless as that, things like that happened. All right, so a few Christians were knocked about – they used to be thrown to the lions. Some of the Mithras people had headaches – long overdue. Whatever happened, Londinium would go about its business, the usual dog-eat-dog business that made it the capital of Maxima Caesariensis and indeed, the whole of Britannia.

  Paulinus Hupo should have been a happy man. He was richer than any god in the pantheon now and people would talk of the Games for years to come. It was a shame there were no actual deaths in the arena, but you couldn’t have everything. Next time would be better. But Paulinus Hupo was not a happy man. That was because he was looking at his baby in a new light. Honoria was crooning to it, swaying around the atrium with the boy in her arms. He was heavy but she did not mind that. She looked at the drooping eyelids that were closing over eyes that had darkened from the bright blue of birth, to midnight and now to the moleskin depth of his father’s. She kissed the little ringlet curling over the ears, ringlets that looked so like the much longer ones of Leocadius. Hupo watched them in silence and they did not know he was there. He had seen, at the arena, how she had reacted when the consul was in the ring, when his life was on the line. He did not mind that; Honoria could give her heart to anyone she chose. But the boy. That was different. He vanished into the shadows.

  ‘The bastard’s yours, isn’t he?’ the Aedile-for-life yelled across the landing of the basilica.

  Leocadius looked furious and swept up the curtain to his private apartments. Albinus and the other slaves were suddenly nowhere in sight. ‘Do you mind keeping your voice down?’ Leocadius hissed.

  Hupo looked at him and burst out laughing. ‘Listen to you,’ he said. ‘You even sound like Julius Longinus. I thought with you in the corridor of power I might at least get some honest dishonesty.’

  Leocadius looked at the man with a new loathing. ‘Yes,’ he said, with a certain smugness. ‘Honoria’s boy is mine. Can that matter so much to you?’

  Hupo closed to him. ‘From now on,’ he said, ‘You’d better watch your back, consul. You won't always have Magnus Maximus to wipe your arse for you.’

  ‘Consul! Consul!’ It was something Albinus had been shouting now for years. The slave had suddenly materialised from nowhere and was on the steps that led to the courtyard. ‘General Maximus is at the gate, sir. There’s news from the north.’

  Decius Ammianus, praeses of the VI Victrix, had been closeted away all morning with his tribunes and his staff. He had, it was true, been counting down the days to his retirement and dreaming of those vine-clad slopes below Vesuvius where the mountains ran down to a sun-kissed sea. And now, this. But Decius Ammianus knew the score; into every life a little rain must fall. And once again, it was pouring cats and dogs.

  On the way out, as he was on his way to join Augusta for their prandium, a grizzled out warrior of the VI stopped him.

  ‘Any news, sir?’ he asked, ‘of my boy Justinus?’

  ‘None of him specifically, Coelius,’ the praeses said, ‘but don’t you worry. He can handle himself.’

  ‘Oh, I know he can, sir,’ Flavius said. ‘I taught him. I just thought …’

  The praeses looked up at the man. ‘Well, out with it. What’s on your mind?’

  The weapons master drew himself up to his full height. ‘I’d like to volunteer, sir,’ he said. ‘Go north to the Wall … you know, help out a little.’

  Ammianus smiled. ‘Come here,’ he said, and doubled back into the principia to his wall map. ‘Valentinus’ army was sighted by the Votadini here. He’s marching south and if it was a Roman army it would take him four days. But it’s not a Roman army; those barbarian bastards will loot and pillage and sacrifice to whatever gods they have to their hearts’ content. Justinus will be ready for them.’

  The weapons master did not seem convinced. ‘Flavius,’ the praeses said, clapping his arm around the man’s shoulder. ‘We’re too old for all this, you and I. Better let the lads handle it, eh? Besides, I have it on good authority that General Maximus is on his way north. All Justinus has to do is to hold until then.’

  ‘Maximus?’ Flavius smiled. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ He flicked a coin out of his purse and it glinted in the light from the window. ‘I once bet the man that one of our contubernae would make fifteen circuits of the parade ground in full pack.’ He winked at his commanding officer. ‘Like taking honeycomb from a baby.’

  Vitalis took some finding. Leocadius had sent his people out to all quarters of the city. Critus, the priest of Mithras, would have spat at the mention of his name, except that his jaw was not working well enough. Bishop Dalmatius was not receiving visitors at all but he had called upon his God to send his thunderbolts against the man. In the city’s barracks and Maximus’ camp to the west, it was the same story and an adjutant had pointed to the tribune’s name on the army roster; it had been struck off.

  When Leocadius finally found his man he was sitting in the forum, of all places, a spear’s throw from the consul’s offices in the basilica. Pelagius was with him.

  ‘Could you leave us, Christian?’ the consul asked.

  Pelagius got up, bowed slightly and left. Leocadius did not sit down because he had not been invited to sit. ‘I hear you’ve left the army,’ he said.

  ‘You hear right,’ Vitalis told him.

  ‘Why?’

  Vitalis looked up at him. To be honest, he did not know where to start. ‘Do you know, Leo,’ he said, ‘in the time I’ve served the eagles, I’ve never actually killed anybody.’

  ‘So?’ the consul shrugged.

  ‘So, I’ve found myself, Leo,’ Vitalis said. ‘Ever since the Wall, I’ve been … lost, looking for … and I didn’t even know what. Now, I do. I’ve found the Christ. And that means no killing. Young Theodosius does not have an issue with that, but I do. The way he looks at it, a Christian soldier is killing the enemies of Christ. I can't believe that.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ Leocadius said.

  Vitalis shrugged. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That’s just the way it is.’

  The consul sat down. There were no flunkies with him now, no purple-shirts concerned with protocol and politics. It was just Leo and Vit, the lads from Banna with all their lives before them. ‘No, I mean it’s a pity because Valentinus is back; that mad bastard who murdered Paternus’ family and the gods know how many more north of the Wall and south of it. He’s back and Maximus is marching to meet him. And I’m going with him.’

  ‘You are?’ Vitalis frowned. ‘But I thought …’

  ‘What, this?’ Leocadius flicked the gold fringes of his pallium, waved his arm over his forum, his basilica. ‘This is nothing, Vit. Nothing. Your God is nothing, too.’ He grabbed his friend’s arm and forced his hand into a fist, clunking their Wall rings together. ‘That’s what matters,’ he said. ‘Before everything else and after it, we’re heroes of the Wall. And we’ve got some unfinished business.’

  Magnus Maximus did not have enough transports to ship his legions north, so he stripped the camp completely, leaving Londinium to its garrison. He marched by road, the columns of Heruli and Batavi singing as they marched and the less-than-delicate refrains of the Girl from Clusium echoed in the valleys of the Catuvellauni as they trekked north. Eight thousand men, six hundred horses, three dozen ballistae and wild asses, two silver eagles and a mastiff, all on the road to the Wall.

  Bremenium had been abandoned long before anyone had heard of Valentinus. It lay forty miles northwest of Arbeia and the thistles grew in the crevices and the rooks wheeled overhead. They were watching two armies far below them through the broken cloud. One was huge and loud, with laughing, tumbling horsemen and foot-soldiers, some painted like the sky, some carrying the hacked-off heads of their enemies at their belts and from their saddlebows. The other was far smaller and silent, trailing the others with a sparse handful of miles between them.

  Paternus could move faster than Valentinus
with his wild, unruly mob but the tribune had over-reached himself that day and had got too close. The Wall was still a day and a half’s march to the south and if the Votadini got too close, they would get a bloody nose for their pains.

  It was late afternoon when the solitary horseman trotted over the rise. Paternus halted the column and gave the old command, ‘Skirmish order!’ He had trained his men well and they broke into groups of five, each band with an archer and crouched in the heather. Beyond them lines of archers stood three deep, ready to fire in volley and the horsemen had cantered to the flanks. The solitary rider coming towards them was one of Paternus’ own scouts. He was not returning with a message, at least not one he could deliver himself, because he had no head. He had been propped into the saddle with a broken spear strapped to his shoulders and his coat of scales was dark brown with his blood.

  There was no sound on that hillside below the old fort, just the wind singing in the stones and the steady hoof-falls of the horse. One of the Votadini ran forward to catch the animal’s reins and bring it to a halt. Paternus was not looking at the headless scout; he was looking at his men. Their eyes were wide in horror and the cavalry on the wings were calming their skittish horses. The tribune barked an order. ‘Get that out of sight,’ he said. ‘The rest of you; fall back. On the fort.’

  While the Votadini formations broke up and made for the higher ground, Paternus kept his place, watching the horizon ahead. He felt his throat tighten as he saw, coming over the ridge, a silver helmet on the head of a man on a black horse. At first, he was alone, as though he was offering a challenge to the tribune, man to man between their two armies.

  ‘Are you the one they call Valentinus?’ Paternus called. He had never seen the man in the flesh before and his skin prickled. Now he knew what Fullofaudes had seen; and Ulpius Piso and Nectaridus; every man who had faced this faceless demon. Even he had begun to wonder whether the man was real; and yet here he was. He was not as tall as he had expected and there were no thunderbolts flashing from his eyes.