Britannia: Part I: The Wall

by Richard Denham

  Stephanus ducked the slash of the Pictish sword and rammed home his own, driving the point of the blade through the man’s ribs and out through his back. He wrenched it free and hacked off the hand of another who was riding at him. The Ala Heruli were everywhere that day, driving the barbarian cavalry back, breaking their formation, scattering every attempt to stand against them. The German cursed under his breath, his spangelhelm sprayed with barbarian blood. He knew he could not reach the Jovii and Maximus was still a mile away, running forward with all speed, urging on his men and hitting them with his whip. As for Justinus, he was on his own.

  The tribune had lost sight of Leocadius but that was the least of his worries. He signalled to the Victores and the legion moved forward. He could hear, even above the cacophony of slaughter, the screams of the centurions. ‘Close up! Close up!’ The Jovii were crumbling. All four lines were engaged now, pushing and grunting with the exertion. Boots had churned the ground to a mass of slippery grass, mud and blood; and dead men were held up by the living, their limbs cooling, their eyes sightless.

  Valentinus was not sitting at the edge of the field now, watching like a spectator at the Games. He had brought his horsemen along the flank of the swine array and was hacking about him left and right, his murderous spatha drawing blood wherever it flashed.

  Justinus had no reserves left. His cavalry were committed to right and left although he could not see them. Behind the rear rank of the Victores, he had nothing else to stand between him and the Wall. The press had reached him now and the cornicen beside him went down, an arrow through his throat. The scarlet flag wavered as the signifer fell, blood spraying over his wolf’s skin headgear. An axe bounced off Justinus’ helmet and he parried for his life, dazed by the blow.

  All day, Vitalis had sat his horse in the middle of this mayhem. Now something shook him and he seemed to spring to life. He took the flat of a sword on his arm and lashed out with his right boot, knocking the attacker off balance. Then the press carried him away and Justinus could not see him any more. The commander of the Wall caught a sword blade on his own and scythed horizontally, slashing a scarlet line across the blue-painted chest ahead of him.

  Then, something happened. And it was difficult to see what it was. There was activity away to the west and the press was breaking. The swine array was falling back, the carynxes silent, the battle cries and the roars dying away. The only sound now was the barritus, deep from the bowels of hell, the death knell of many a barbarian from the Ister to the Wall. It came from the throats of the Batavi and the Heruli. General Maximus had arrived.

  Iron still rang around the field and battle-mad men who had not heard it, had no idea that the tide had turned. Vitalis was on his knees, an ugly gash across his forehead and the blood was dripping into his eyes. His lungs felt like broken bellows, wheezing and grinding, as he tried to make sense of what was happening. Then, suddenly, there he was, the rider still mounted on the black horse and yelling frantic commands in the eerie echo of the silver helmet. And in that moment, Vitalis knew what he had to do. The Christian who had sworn to kill no more, the soldier who had never killed, the child of the darkness, grabbed a broken sword lying beside him. He snatched the reins of the black horse, the animal whinnying and shying in panic in the middle of the chaos and he tugged hard. Valentinus lost his balance and pitched forward, the sword gone from his grasp. Vitalis stood over the man for a second, then lunged downwards. The broken blade sliced through the throat below that ghastly, immobile face. There was a gurgling sound and a bubbling of blood through the mouth of the mask. Valentinus’ limbs shook uncontrollably and he died.

  Vitalis dropped the sword. Axes and spears were clashing all around him but he knew peace in that moment, a peace he had not known in four years. He knelt beside the dead barbarian general and reached forward. He unhooked the little latch at the top of the mask and wrenched it open, staring at the dead face inside that stared back at him.

  Dumno.

  CHAPTER XXII

  The battle was over. The barbarian dead lay in heaps strewn across the valley floor, the Roman dead on the higher ground where Justinus’ line had held. For years, wherever soldiers met, in contuberniae or tabernae they would talk of this day and argue who had won. Was it the Batavi or the Heruli, running to the rescue? Or was it the Jovii and the Victores who had fought them to a standstill?

  They collected the weapons and the armour that could be re-used and Stephanus’ exhausted cavalry spent two days rounding up the scattered horses. For two days and two nights the fires threw sparks into the sky, darkening the blue by day and lighting the darkness by night. The man called Valentinus was stripped of his armour and his little dumpy, naked body was rolled onto a common funeral pyre with his warriors. There would be no grave marker for him.

  ‘Dumno, eh?’ Leocadius was shaking his head as that first darkness descended. He had won back the vexillum from Camboglanna and vowed to return it to the fort on his way south. ‘Who would have thought it?’

  ‘We all should have,’ Maximus said. ‘He was just too ordinary to be true, wasn’t he? Turning up at Eboracum, bringing sad news for Paternus. When he started asking about my supply depots, I should have realised.’

  ‘What I can't get my head round,’ Leocadius said, ‘is that he was working with Paulinus Hupo as well, that far south. Are you sure that was the name he gave, general?’

  Maximus nodded. He stared out of the tent to where the dead were burning, their souls rising to the heavens or fragmenting as ash to the earth, depending on where a man’s gods lived.

  ‘I’m sending them home tomorrow,’ Maximus said, ‘the prisoners. He turned to the surprised faces. ‘Papa Theo’s way,’ he said, smiling. ‘Oh, we’ll escort them as far as Caledonia. And they’ll be unarmed. And on foot. But I don’t think there’ll be any more trouble.’

  ‘Who was it who said Valentinus was ten feet tall?’ Justinus asked.

  Maximus turned to him with a strange look on his face. ‘We all did, Justinus,’ he said. ‘That was what he relied on. In fact, he was just a man, like the rest of us.’

  Justinus walked out in the Selgovae night to where Vitalis stood alone, watching the flames. The gash across his forehead was bruised and both his eyes were swollen and dark. ‘Are you all right, Vit?’ the commander of the Wall asked.

  ‘No.’ Vitalis said after a while. ‘But I will be.’

  That had to be enough.

  In the days that followed, Leocadius Honorius went south with an escort of the Ala Heruli and laid the vexillum of the VI Victrix in its niche at Camboglanna. He stood with bowed head while the garrison officially welcomed it home and then he rode south. He had pressing business along the Thamesis that could not wait. It involved Paulinus Hupo, already a dead man.

  Justinus remained commander of the Wall, riding the cold ridges where the rooks and ravens wheeled. In the winter he went south to Eboracum and chopped wood with old Flavius Coelius, who clipped his son around the head when he called him old.

  Stephanus the German asked permission from the Dux Britannorum to leave the Britannia command and go east to Papa Theo. If truth be told, the country had become a little tame now that Valentinus was dead and a man like Stephanus longed for the sound of battle in his ears and the rush of blood through his veins.

  The winter became the summer and there was peace in Britannia. Far to the north, a woman and her two boys put flowers on a grave on the windswept heights of Din Paladyr. And the boys grew and the seasons turned. And all was well …

  The galloper thundered out of the east as dawn broke over Londinium. He clattered over the bridge, wreathed in river mist where the ships rode at anchor and the sails were lifting with the new day. The guard stood aside for him, recognizing the insignia of the younger Theodosius on his sleeve.

  Justinus had come south for the first time in his life. He had been born at Verulamium but had no memory of the place. Londinium however was new to him. He was not that sure he cared for it and
after a week or so was missing the cold and the winds of the Wall. Leocadius was the perfect host and Justinus had the run of the governor’s palace, except that newer bit, the area behind the wall. The gate to it was locked and Justinus heard laughter and merriment behind it occasionally, but it was none of his business and he left it alone. He never saw Honoria with her little dark-haired boy; Leocadius wanted it that way. Justinus was dutiful to the frigid Julia, the consul’s wife, making small talk with her while dutifully dandled her little golden-haired girl on his knee from time to time.

  As for Leocadius, Justinus saw little of him. The man had many duties that kept him in various parts of the city at all hours of the day and night. What about Paulinus Hupo, Justinus had asked, the man who had played the spy for Valentinus? Dead, Leocadius had told him. Knife, apparently. This was Londinium, one of the most dangerous cities in the Empire. What can you do?

  The messenger was told to ride west. He would find General Maximus in the camp beyond the western wall. The man lashed his lathered horse and clattered through the narrow streets, street-sellers scattering as he rode.

  ‘Dead?’ Magnus Maximus looked hard at the messenger. Sometimes, men died for news like this and the messenger knew it.

  ‘I don’t have details, sir.’ The man was still on one knee, head bowed.

  Maximus looked at Justinus. ‘Do you believe it?’ he said.

  ‘Sir,’ the messenger held something in his hand, outstretched to the general. ‘I was asked to give you this.’

  Maximus took it. It was a black ring, chased with gold and carved with four helmets. It was the ring of the late Count Theodosius, who had been executed at Carthago three weeks ago. With him had died a faithful warrior, Stephanus, but the messenger knew nothing of the whereabouts of Theodosius’ son.

  ‘Papa Theo,’ Maximus said grimly, squeezing the ring in his hand. He looked at Justinus. ‘This is the Emperor’s doing,’ he snapped. ‘The man never could abide successful generals. Well …’ he crossed to the window where a cohort of the Batavi were going through their paces, their boots crunching on the parade ground, their shields locking in the morning. ‘Well, he wasn’t the only successful general around.’ Maximus dismissed the messenger, who was only too glad that he still had his head and he slipped the Wall ring on his finger.

  ‘Call the tribunes for me, Justinus,’ he said. ‘All of them. I want the legions here, all four of them. As well as any of the limitanei you can spare.’

  ‘Why, sir?’ Justinus was afraid to hear the answer.

  ‘Because I want them to elect me as Emperor,’ he said. ‘It’s been done before. And here in Britannia. Here,’ he hauled off the eagle insignia he wore around his neck, ‘In my absence you will be Dux Britannorum.’

  ‘Me?’ Justinus could not take this in.

  Maximus clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘Some have greatness thrust upon them,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I’d like you with me in whatever adventures might befall me across the German Sea, but I need a man here I can trust.’

  ‘Sir, shouldn’t you consider …?’ But Justinus was not given the chance to finish the sentence.

  ‘Count Theodosius is dead, Justinus,’ Maximus said, ‘and it’s my guess, on the Emperor’s orders. Well, as of now, there is another Emperor in the West. And I need you here to hold the fort. Will you do that for me?’

  ‘I hear the legions have elected Maximus Emperor.’ Pelagius was weaving a basket in the dying light of the evening.

  ‘They have,’ Vitalis nodded, standing for a moment before hoisting the heavy kit-bag onto his shoulder.

  ‘Quo vadis, Vitale?’ Pelagius asked him. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Vitalis said. ‘But I can't stay here.’

  ‘Valentinus?’ Pelagius asked. ‘He’s still with you, isn’t he? His ghost?’

  Vitalis nodded. ‘That will always be,’ he said, ‘wherever I go.’

  ‘You could come with me,’ Pelagius said.

  ‘With you?’ Vitalis frowned. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Across the sea with Maximus. Not as part of his army, of course. He is looking for the man who killed his old friend, with murder in his heart. Mars Ultor sails with him.’

  ‘And Jesus sails with you,’ Vitalis smiled.

  ‘Always,’ said Pelagius.

  Justinus rode north that autumn, back to where it had all begun. It was cold on the heather ridges and the distant mountains stood like grey ghosts in the early morning. The only sound was the guttural scream of the rooks wheeling on the air currents. Their bright eyes saw everything; the rabbits darting in the tangled purple; the water, bright and babbling over the stones.