Arthur Imperator

by Paul Bannister

  Nails, I thought. The nails that held Jesus on the crucifix. My executioner Davius had a stock of them, he sold used nails from executions as amulets, and made huge profits he thought I did not know about. All I’d need was a few bloodied nails, a rogue bishop and a convincing tale. I could recruit some new forces, if I had the right story, and they’d be eager to fight Romans who persecute them… I told Candless he was not to leave the confines of Caros’ Camp, but he was relieved from fieldwork duties. And, he was to find some better clerical clothes than the rags he was presently wearing. I gave him a piece of silver, told him to keep quiet about our conversation and went to find Guinevia for a talk.

  “You can’t become a Christian!” she was shouting at me. “You’re the emperor of Britain! Who would stand for it?”

  I was conciliatory. “I know it’s a shock,” I said, “but what if a miracle struck me and I saw my way clearly? What if the Jesus god wanted me to drive out the Romans, to make this place a haven for Christians? Let’s face it, the chieftains wouldn’t care. They regard the Jesus as just another god, and they have plenty of those already. The ordinary people wouldn’t care either,” I said. “They aren’t concerned with those things. You care because you’re a Druid and it might be difficult for you to have to deal with me having a different religion, in public at least.” Guinevia pouted a little, and turned away, but I caught the scent of the crocus oil she dabbed on herself, and, inspired, I began a more persuasive argument to placate her.

  XL Convert

  My enemy Maximian held Londinium and the south, and among his first acts he committed his greatest mistake. He too-quickly followed the dictates of his co-emperor and Serbian countryman, Diocletian and ordered the British Christians to be persecuted and their churches destroyed. The news went across the country like wildfire. After a period of relative calm, the Romans were back, rampant and brutal again. Maximian had even cruelly executed the few of my valiant Chevrons that he had captured. These were the elite guards who had been with me when we found the lost Eagle and the only reason he had for torturing and murdering those soldiers was to send a message to me of my fate should he ever capture me.

  I grieved for the men, but had no time for much else. I was busy readying for the invaders’ assaults on our strongholds, but the opportunity Maximian offered by persecuting Christians was so good and so obvious, I seized it. I called in as many of the Christian leaders as I could find at short notice and introduced them to ‘Bishop’ Candless, a Pict I told them who held high office in the one true church north of the Wall.

  We were in the hall of the stone-walled fort at Ilchester on an achingly beautiful summer’s day. Outside, the jingle of harness, stamp of nailed boots and shouted commands of the officers reminded us that this was an armed cavalry camp, and that war was coming even to this lovely part of our island. I looked around the sunlit hall at the ragged assembly of shabby, suspicious bishops, fat priors and anxious-looking canons, and thanked them politely for their attendance, noting privately that many had brought their drabs of wives, probably in hope of receiving gold from their emperor. I made a note to do just that. I needed them.

  I had dressed impressively for the day, a warlord and Imperator in white tunic with purple trim, silver and amber badge of British office, imperial circlet, segmentata armour and the huge sword Exalter at my hip. I explained to the clerics that we were meeting in the cavalry fort as a more convenient place for them, because of the difficulties and dangers of ascending the earthwork of Caros’ Camp through the defensive construction that was ongoing. In fact, I wanted none of that untrustworthy motley viewing the preparations I was readying for the Romans, and I certainly did not want them anywhere near Guinevia, who might turn them all into toads, or worse.

  An intelligent prefect had decorated the hall with Christian symbolism, including a red cross on a white banner which hung suspended below the tile roof. It served at least to keep the falling dust and insects off us. ‘Bishop’ Candless was enthroned next to me, wearing over his cowled habit a fine green and gold surplice looted from some northern abbey. Guinevia had insisted on a full report of the proceedings, so had sent her female slaves Jesla and Karay to monitor the meet. She had cleverly dressed them in flowing white linen to suggest angels and they formed an impressive presence, towering over the superstitious canons and shooing their wives like chickens out of the chamber.

  Recounting the meeting is tedious, as the wrangling and counter-offers went on all day, but eventually, the bishops accepted matters, as they must. They knew that the Romans would crucify them, and had already begun their oppression; we needed the clerics to rouse the Jesus followers to our cause. In return, we would guarantee their safety and uphold their right to practise their faith. I did not foresee that one day they would deny us good pagans the right to practise ours, but that was in the future.

  I would publicly become a Christian because we needed the new Christian army to be led by one of their own, so I agreed to be baptized and was duly dunked in the willow-lined River Cam, which runs just outside the fort, while Candless droned some nonsense pig Latin over me. At least, standing waist-deep, he got his fine surplice wet. I also saw to it that my chief officers got a dunking, to share the grace, though I noticed that the Suehan sailor Grimr covered up the amulet of Thor he had around his neck before he went under, so I didn’t consider him as enthusiastic a convert as we all pretended to be.

  Back inside, with meat and mead filling and warming their bellies and softening their resistance, the bishops were given the knockout blow. Candless was superb. He stood, his tau-rho cross glinting in the firelight, and delivered a sermon of hope.

  “Now that we have a Christian king,” he intoned, “I can reveal the secret that will carry us to success over these invaders. I can show you the Precious Artefacts that guarantee the Hand of God is with us.” I could almost see the capital letters emerging from his mouth. At a signal, my tribune Cragus, still steaming damply from his immersion in the Cam, entered carrying a linen-wrapped silver casket.

  Candless opened it reverently, with a fair display of showmanship. Inside, carefully wrapped in embroidered linen, were four bloodstained, nine-inch iron nails that he’d obtained from my executioner Davius. “These are the very nails with which our Lord Jesus was fastened to the Holy Cross,” he declared. “His Holy Blood is on them, the blood He shed for us and all mankind.” My fake bishop was so impressive that even I gaped in awe, and most of those in the room fell to their knees, praising and praying aloud and calling out churchly phrases. Candless next spun an involved story of how the nails had been saved by a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin religious court who had taken down Jesus’ body from the Cross.

  He told at length a story involving the burial sheet, a palace called Britio Edessa and wise men from Mesopotamia who had brought the relics to Wales. An angel, and he glanced meaningfully at the two tall Celt women, an angel had come to him in a dream to tell him where to find the nails in their casket, safe in the fastness of Yr Wyddfa, Britain’s sacred mountain. I was stifling my yawns but the audience was rapt, and I noticed that one of Candless’ angels was blushing, which intrigued me. Then Candless reverently held up the nails. “Four,” he was saying, “four, like the gospel writers.” The assembly of churchmen nodded and muttered to each other.

  Of course, there’s a doubter in every group, and Cragus had seen to it that one of his officers was it. He called out: “Four nails? Four?”

  Candless was expecting the interruption and silenced those who hissed at the officer. “One through each forearm, one through each heel. Our Blessed Lord was nailed with his holy feet fastened to the sides of the upright, in the Roman manner,” he intoned. “The angel showed me, in the dream.”

  I thought it was time to get away from nebulous dreams and on to military matters, so I coughed meaningfully, silenced Candless with a look, and announced my plan. The four sacred nails would go out to be shown to the faithful in Britain’s north, south, east and west. The
y would be used to raise a Christian army, and I would supply spears and equipment from the armories in Eboracum, Caerleon, and Chester, where captured Pictish weapons were stored. The bishops, who received gifts of gold from the Ilchester mint, were to persuade their followers to gather at those three centres for training, and soon, under the holy banner of the cross of Christ, we would defeat the pagan Romans.

  Then we all knelt while Candless mumbled prayers and blessed us. Somewhere, Guinevia was spitting in fury, I knew, but now I had the promise of an army and a chance to save Britain. I’d done it once with an Eagle, now I had to do it again, with four bits of old iron. I glanced around the chamber and sure enough, a white Rat was sitting upright in the corner, cleaning its whiskers. Mithras didn’t, then, take my ‘conversion’ too seriously.

  XLI Siege

  Maximian was in full vengeful mode, and he was impatient to take Arthur and aware that the winter was approaching. In his haste, he did not first establish supply dumps or short, defendable supply lines, and that later told heavily against him.

  The Romans arrived in force at the foot of Caros’ Camp, made a series of unsuccessful attempts to storm it, then settled in for a siege. They threw up a double palisade to trap the besieged and to protect their rear, and began the slow process of building a ramp of rocks and packed dirt, planning to drag a tower up it as an archers’ platform to fire down into the fortress.

  At the same time, Maximian’s engineers began mining through the earthwork walls to breach them from the opposite side of the hill. Arthur, however, had anticipated his rival’s moves, and fought off the engineers and miners. He also had expected a long siege and had scorched the earth for miles around, destroying crops and driving off beasts so the Romans could not live off the land, and the loss of the cargo fleet Grimr had burned meant he could not supply from Gaul.

  Additionally, the British cavalry forces in nearby Ilchester raided widely, cutting Roman communications, intercepting their supply trains and keeping the Romans largely confined to their own siege camp. On occasion, a British infantry force supported by the heavy cavalry would sally out to disrupt the siege, damage artillery and engines and undermine the semi-starved Romans’ morale. Even when it was not a military skirmish or other action, the constant knifing of sentries and deadly arrows from the dark kept the invaders on edge, and it all had a cumulative effect.

  Maximian was also unable to prevent the British from restoring their light cavalry from the horse herds of their southern plains, and as the autumn days shortened into winter, found himself increasingly in the role of being the besieged, subject to harassing cavalry raids, while he was himself sitting frustratedly waiting for Arthur to descend from his impregnable hilltop. Maximian made several attempts to reduce the fort at Ilchester whose cavalry was such a thorn in his side, but there was little possibility of a surprise attack, overlooked as they were from the hillfort, and the approaches to Ilchester were over ground ideal for cavalry, so the British horsemen were able to ensure that each incursion resulted in heavy losses on the Roman foot soldiers.

  By Michaelmas, in mid-October, the first frosts were biting, the auxiliaries were slipping away to ready their homesteads for winter and Maximian was being forced to bow to the inevitable. He withdrew his hungry legions to winter quarters and returned himself to Londinium in frustrated fury. Arthur’s head would not be adorning any pike shaft before the spring. Maximian sent Allectus to parlay again with the Saxons, who were settling into their winter camp outside ruined Colchester and prepared for another campaign when the snow and ice was ended.

  Meanwhile, Bishop Candless’ crusade was having an effect. In town, church and village, hedge priests and consecrated canons eager to enhance their spiritual standing by displaying the True Nails of the Cross to their congregations were recruiting for Christ’s army. Through the autumn and early days of winter, a steady trickle of men were arriving at the old legionary fortresses in the north and west, some drawn by faith, some by the promise of loot, others from simple allegiance to their Imperator, who was now a Christian with the cross of Christ on his shield.

  Candless was thriving. He enjoyed the prestige of being guardian of the Holy Nails, he had quietly salted away considerable coin given as offertories, he offered discreet confessions and absolution to the prettiest wives and to the angel in white who occasionally slipped into his quarters, and, as God’s Gatekeeper, he was eating and drinking like a lord at the tables of the faithful who wanted access to heaven.

  Arthur had no qualms about him. The cheerful rogue bishop knew which side of the trencher held the gravy and the trickle of recruits was increasing to a stream, so he was doing his job. The only constraint Arthur put on his military missionary was to keep him on the south side of the Wall.

  “If you go back to Dunpelder or wherever and are recognised as no bishop at all, you could undermine the credibility of the whole miracle. I’ve already told Davius about keeping his mouth closed, you know how critical this is, too,” he said.

  Candless nodded. “Aye,” he said, chewing thoughtfully on a hazelnut, “aye, it would be a pity to disillusion those poor wee souls.” And he took another draught of wine.

  We spent that long hard winter in preparations. I calculated that Maximian would be reluctant to repeat his fruitless siege of Caros’ Camp, so would try to tempt us out with an attack elsewhere, an assault maybe on a garrison town. He likely would not want to bring us to battle in a place favourable to our cavalry, as his own mounted troops were few, and he had seen the killing efficiency of our heavy horsemen. He had a new fleet stationed at Dover and Port Chester, making my title of Lord of the Narrow Sea a hollow one, as my best admiral, Grimr could no longer match the new Roman war galleys who guarded the seaway between Bononia and Dover, so it was they who controlled the straits, although they did not yet venture west.

  Spies had brought me news of Allectus, who had been negotiating with the Saxons and, word had it, with the Catuvellauni whose lands in eastern Britain were most under Saxon threat. If the Romans, through my treacherous former lieutenant made agreements with the Saxon invaders and the Britons who felt most likely to be enslaved by them, I would face a doubled threat. I knew that any pledge Maximian made with the Saxons would be broken in time, but that would come long after my defeat and the enslavement of my troops and my country. Perhaps, just perhaps, I should do again what we had done last year, and make a winter sortie.

  The Christians had been alternately praying and doing arms drills all winter and Candless, fierce in breastplate and helmet over his cowled habit, seemed to be everywhere. He had marched most of the recruits from Eboracum over the snowy backbone of England, through Mancunium whose name I recalled from a long-ago treasure map that had started me on this journey to be imperator. The shivering raw soldiers found themselves in the vast citadel of Chester, with new drillmasters, new quarters and a new mission.

  They would train with the elements of the 2nd and 3rd Parthian legion, the 2nd and 8th Augusta and the 1st Minerva who were the professional backbone of my legions. And, before the frosts of February had properly ended, they would move south to join my heavy cavalry and the rest of the Christian recruits at Caerleon, where they had been wintering.

  My plans were not fully formed, but I expected Maximian to bring enough of his forces to Caros’ Camp to push me back up to my hilltop while he sent the main body elsewhere to do damage. So, I intended to create the impression I was in the ancient camp, but I would not be on that hilltop. I would hold my forces in Caerleon, then move them as Maximian left his winter quarters.

  If I could conceal my legions and cavalry in a place some discreet distance along the Fosse Way, we could use that ancient road to could strike fast and hard at his marching columns. If I could reduce his numbers by crushing his expeditionary force, I could then deploy my new Christian legions to seek the rest of the Romans.

  We prepared our weapons, we readied our horses and our marching supplies. The troops were drilled, we had
a strong contingent of archers and we had during the winter developed some lighter weight ballistae that we could move quickly on paved roads. We were as ready as we could be with a mobile force capable of a hard strike, although I knew we could not take on a prolonged ground campaign. It would only be a matter of a few weeks before Maximian would be moving and that was when we would try to surprise him. What I did not know was where he would march, and when I discovered his destination, I was in shock.

  The Romans were pulling their troops out of Britain. Diocletian in his palace in Split had called his fellow emperor back to the Danube, where the barbarians were seriously threatening the empire. Britain was no longer important. The safety of Rome was at stake, and the legions sailed away from our northern island in their blue-sailed galleys with their frustrated emperor.

  We got roaring drunk that night, and even the Christians joined in. We had created an army and to the ignorant foot soldiers, the Romans’ retreat meant we had defeated them. I knew better. Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus would not be deflected from his purpose. He had attained his high rank through menaces both personal and political. He was energetic, ruthless, aggressive and coarse.

  It was a mark of the man that, when he was charged with violating an elderly Vestal virgin, his accuser was found strangled on the steps of the Temple of Mithras. As for the Vestal herself, who faced being buried alive outside Rome’s Collina Gate, she had somehow obtained and evidently taken poison despite being under close guard to ensure she didn’t do just that. Maximian had escaped unpunished because lawmakers nervous of his powers had agreed the Vestal must have imagined it all.