Vindolanda

by Adrian Goldsworthy

  Then he turned to Britannia and most of all these lands in the north. Ferox was surprised to find great chunks of his own reports repeated, if admittedly in more rhetorical and elegant language. Some of this came from things he had written last year, a good deal from more recent reports, while some was astonishingly up to date.

  ‘Bet you thought no one was listening,’ Crispinus whispered.

  Marcellus paused. He had reached the aftermath of the punitive expedition against the Selgovae, and begun to speak of the embassy to Tincommius. He beckoned to Crispinus, asking the tribune if he would be kind enough to tell them the outcome. With feigned reluctance the young aristocrat went to the front, and was soon recounting their journey north and the encounter with the high king, explaining the agreement they had reached.

  ‘Good,’ the provincial legate declared once he had finished. ‘That is eminently sensible and I approve your decisions. I am sure that the princeps will confirm that judgement as soon as the matter is brought to him. Flavius Ferox,’ he said. ‘Stand up, sir.’

  He did so, feeling awkward and unkempt and aware that the rage was seething within him and could burst out at the slightest provocation. There was something about the manner of this new governor, the self-confidence exceptional even for a distinguished senator, that annoyed him.

  ‘Many of you know that the regionarius acted with the tribune on this mission. Do you have anything to add to his account?’

  ‘No, my lord.’ He wanted to shout out that a war had begun and that they should not be talking, but doing. Instead he said nothing.

  Marcellus arched one eyebrow to show his surprise. ‘Very well, perhaps as we proceed. Continue, my dear Crispinus, and tell us what happened after you left the king’s stronghold.’

  Ferox listened, and had to admit that the tribune gave an accurate report, including the provision of an escort and discovery of the murdered merchants. ‘The yew tree is sacred to druids,’ he said, and, if that was not quite the way Ferox would have explained it, it was good enough for this audience. The tribune spoke of how and why Ferox and Vindex left them, then described his journey to Trimontium, shadowed and then harassed by warriors on horseback. The garrison had lost a number of men to ambushes as detachments moved through the country. One wood-gathering party was long overdue and no news had come of them.

  ‘They are dead,’ Ferox cut in. ‘We found the bodies and the burned carts.’

  ‘I suspected as much,’ Marcellus said, his tone one of mild regret. ‘Continue please, Crispinus.’

  The tribune did not have much more to say. Trimontium’s garrison was well enough provisioned to survive a blockade for some time. At the moment the chieftain from the hill fort and other local elders were assuring the Romans of their goodwill. ‘It is hard to be sure how long that will last,’ he finished.

  ‘As long as we show ourselves to be strong, and good friends.’ Neratius Marcellus had forced himself to keep still while listening to the report, but once it was over he resumed his pacing. He spoke of the attack on the praetorium here at Vindolanda, ignoring the attempt to murder the trooper Longinus. Ferox wondered whether the provincial legate knew who the old soldier really was. As Marcellus told the story it was part of the greater conspiracy led by the two priests, men who wanted to rouse loyal provincials as well as allied tribes to turn against Rome. There were soldiers – or men dressed as soldiers – as well as some warriors among the attackers and they knew a lot about the fort. It was not known whether the Britons serving with the Tungrians were deserters, traitors or had been killed by the attackers and their bodies hidden.

  ‘The aim was to kill or take the prefect and his esteemed wife, the clarissima Sulpicia Lepidina,’ Marcellus said, his face grim. ‘This prophecy of theirs, which relied upon a disgusting sacrifice of a distinguished man and woman, led them to carry out this impudent and vicious raid.’

  Although he was used to it after all this time, Ferox was still surprised by the tendency of wealthy Romans to launch into rhetoric and turn everything into an oration.

  ‘They failed.’ Marcellus slapped his fist into his palm. ‘The prefect and his wife are safe due to the courage and quick thinking of the garrison and the timely warning of the Tribune Crispinus with the aid of the regionarius. Alas, an innocent woman was abducted. We suspect in error. May I presume, Flavius Ferox, that there is no good news of the unfortunate victim?’

  ‘We found Fortunata, the wife of the imperial freedman Vegetus, my lord.’ Ferox may not have liked her much, or thought about her at all, but the dismissal of her abduction as a small thing fed his anger. The dead slaves did not appear to matter to them at all.

  He took a deep breath. One of his tutors at Lugdunum had told him that the divine Augustus used to recite the alphabet in his head whenever he felt rage coming and did not wish to speak words he might regret. Ferox tried it now, and it did not help much. ‘Fortunata is dead, my lord.’

  Marcellus sighed. ‘I had little hope. Such murderous hate made mercy of any sort unlikely. The poor thing.’ He shook his head, his voice full of the well-practised sorrow of an orator. ‘All we can hope is that she did not suffer.’

  ‘It was a grim death, my lord,’ Ferox said, struggling not to shout. ‘A slow one and painful.’

  There were murmurs from the assembled officers. This was not how anyone, let alone a centurion, was supposed to address the legate of the province. Crispinus gestured for him to calm down.

  ‘The poor child.’ Marcellus showed no sign of surprise or offence.

  ‘They did to her what Boudicca’s men did to the aristocratic ladies they captured.’ There was a gasp of horror from the audience – someone who must have known the stories. ‘She will have screamed as they began to cut her,’ he went on, and took a step towards the small senator. ‘Screamed as they sliced the ends off her breasts. She would only have stopped screaming when they started to sew the pieces of flesh on to her lips. After that she could only have moaned as they took her to the sharpened stake. If you wish I shall draw you a picture.’ At that moment he hated them all, these great men who sat here secure in their power, worse than the crowd in the arena because at least spectators were interested in the fate of the people who died before their eyes.

  Marcellus’ skin was deeply tanned, and he had eyes so deep brown that they looked black. His dark hair was slicked down with oil so that not one strand was out of place. He looked up at the centurion as the big man loomed over him and he did not seem at all intimidated. Instead he reached out and patted Ferox on the arm, as a man would calm a horse.

  ‘This shows us the inhuman cruelty and evil of our enemies,’ the legate said, stepping past Ferox so that his audience could see him once again. ‘It is our duty to our Lord Trajan to defeat his enemies. It is our duty as pious men who fear the gods and the laws of heaven and this world to wash this evil from the earth.

  ‘Men always believe that a new governor will move slowly and be cautious. Today is the Kalends of November, and so men will also expect the campaigning season to be over until the spring. Most men will think these things and be wrong.’ The legate had stopped pacing and stood very still, his right hand clasping his left wrist. Only his head moved, scanning the audience, looking at each man directly and then moving to the next. Ferox was behind the governor and could see the faces all focused on the little man.

  ‘From the reports I received before I arrived I suspected that a show of force would prove necessary before the year was out. Therefore orders were sent to gather food and transport and to prepare a force to take the field.

  ‘If these fanatics appear to be winning then others will join them. We must strike quickly and with all the force we can command to show the tribes and our allies that the prophets are liars, and their magic a fraud. Tomorrow we go to Coria to join the rest of the army. I want as many men as can ride or march and can be stripped from the garrison to accompany us. Detailed orders to be issued in an hour. Gentlemen, there is much to do and to arra
nge and I shall not detain you any longer. Thank you for your attention. Let us prepare to scour the land clean of this sickness.’

  As the meeting broke up and the officers left the room, Neratius Marcellus pointed at Ferox, the gesture much like commanding a dog to stay. Crispinus glanced at the legate, looking puzzled, but the small man waved a hand for him to leave as well. Only one officer remained, a round-faced old man whose bronze cuirass did not fit him well and was traced with the lines of muscles that he clearly did not possess. His hair was white, but remained only as a thin fringe surrounding his dome-like bald head.

  ‘I wish to speak with you, centurion, and I wish you to speak to me frankly and conceal nothing.’

  ‘My lord.’ Ferox stiffened to attention.

  ‘Sit man, sit.’ The legate waited until he obeyed, placing himself on one of the folding camp chairs. ‘That is better,’ he went on. ‘This will take a while so you may as well be comfortable. Now Crispinus has told me about the gifts someone has been sending to Tincommius – the money and weapons. He suspects the same people encouraged the high king to lend his aid to this Stallion’ – he said the world with distaste – ‘and the druid. It was better that he not include such detail when he spoke to the other officers, but he told me the truth. It is also clear that the people who snatched that unfortunate lady and murdered her and the slaves – and who wanted to kill my wife’s cousin, the Lady Sulpicia, and her husband – knew a good deal more than they should have done about this garrison. Without your warning they might well have succeeded.’

  The legate paused and stared at his face. Ferox did not think that the man could have any idea that he and Sulpicia Lepidina were more than junior officer and commander’s wife, but the announcement of a family connection was a surprise. For all its size, for all that senators – and now the princeps himself – had origins all over the world, the aristocracy of Rome still lived in a village where everyone knew everyone else and was related to almost everyone.

  Ferox said nothing, and after a long silence Neratius Marcellus resumed.

  ‘This attack followed the one on her carriage, and all that your report said about that incident – as well as much it did not say – shows that our enemies know our every move even before we make it. The massacre of the men stationed at the beacon confirms it. Only someone of high rank would know enough to give them so much information. That means at least one traitor. Perhaps there are several, and certainly others who follow their orders. My nephew has spoken to you about this and says that you have told him most of what you know and some of what you think.’ The legate must have seen a trace of confusion. ‘The Tribune Crispinus is my nephew,’ he explained, and Ferox thought about the village again.

  ‘There are men who wish our princeps to fail. I am not one of them. He is a decent man and the empire needs stability above all else. I serve the good of Rome and so I shall do everything in my power to serve Rome and serve him. That means that I must prevent this traitor or traitors from doing any more harm, and I cannot do that without your help. We must find this man and punish him.’

  Ferox thought back to Domitian’s rage at the conspirators who had backed Saturninus, of that mottled red face ordering him to seek them out, and his soul shuddered at the memory of the trials and deaths that followed. The men he found were all guilty, all oath-breakers, but the cruelty of the emperor’s vengeance and the way it reached out to claim victims from the condemned’s families and friends haunted him. It made it hard to trust yet another Roman demanding the truth.

  The provincial legate seemed to sense his doubt, and again patted him on the arm. ‘You saw that poor girl and what they did to her. Whoever helped them needs to suffer.’

  The old man coughed. Ferox had almost forgotten that he was there for he had said nothing at all.

  ‘I have not forgotten,’ the legate said with a broad smile. ‘I do not believe you have met Quintus Ovidius. He’s a philosopher and a poet, but you must not hold that against him for he is a sensible enough fellow most of the time. He is also a very old friend of someone you know, whereas I can boast no more than acquaintance – if a very fond acquaintance, at least on my part.’

  ‘He asked me to give you this,’ Ovidius said, holding out his bony arm, his fingers enclosing a small leather bag. ‘There is a message as well, but he insisted that you first see this token. Even I do not know what it is.’

  There was something hard in the bag, but until Ferox opened it and tipped the contents on to the palm of his hand he could not guess what it was. When he saw it he gasped out loud, regretting it immediately and yet unable to restrain himself for he had not seen the necklace for many years. It was a simple leather thong with one stone hanging from it, a rich blue apart from a thick white stripe. A friend had worn it – a friend of his youth who had died in his arms, coughing up blood after a Sarmatian had run one of their great spears right through his body.

  ‘The “tall tree that sways in the wind, but does not break”’ – Ovidius intoned the phrase he must have practised – ‘sends his greetings and asks that you trust his friends as you trust him. He would have written, but his eyes are weak these days.’

  That was not surprising, for Caratacus was well over ninety and he had seemed frail years ago when Ferox had met him in Rome. One-time king of the great tribes of the south, long-time enemy of Rome and ally and friend of his grandfather, the war leader had lost in the end and been betrayed. The divine Claudius had spared him, keeping him in comfortable captivity near Rome. His grandson was a citizen and a soldier just like Ferox, and they had become friends and comrades in those grim days on the Danube, when the Dacians and Sarmatians had cut an army to ribbons.

  Ferox began to talk. He could not refuse this request and no one else could have persuaded him so readily. ‘A man does not easily say no to Caratacus,’ his grandfather had often said. There was a power about the man that made anyone feel flattered to have his attention. Ferox told the legate and his friend everything, from the first doubts about the ambush, all that he had seen at the tower and everything that had happened since then. He talked for a long time and they did not interrupt, except once or twice when the legate asked short, direct questions to make matters clearer. Ferox spoke of Gannallius, his story and the man’s death, and of what had happened when he and Vindex had reached Vindolanda, of his regret at thinking all was over once he had made sure that Sulpicia Lepidina was safe.

  Most of the hour went as he told his story, and when he finished the legate asked his friend to fetch the sentry from outside the room. ‘Say that the orders will be delayed, but not by long,’ he told the man, and then asked Ovidius to stand by the door and make sure no one disturbed them.

  Neratius Marcellus began to pace up and down, and had crossed the room half a dozen times before he spun around. ‘A tribune?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. Or at least someone pretending to be one. My guess is that the soldiers who slaughtered the men at the tower were real soldiers. Perhaps deserters, but they sound too well equipped for that. No doubt they were bribed, but to commit so great a crime there must have been more. The man giving the orders was able to convince them that they were safe from arrest and execution. Must have made them think that they were on the winning side and that rewards would come, and that he was well enough connected for them to trust him.’

  The legate crossed to the wall and came back again. ‘Who?’ he asked, stopping and staring at the centurion, dark eyes hard.

  ‘The evidence points towards Legio II Augusta, and hence your nephew.’ Ferox had little doubt that the legate had already made the connection. ‘He was there or at least nearby every time something happened, even when the Tungrians were left stranded on the day Titus Annius was cut down.’

  ‘He is a man who will always want to be on the winning side.’ Neratius Marcellus gave a thin smile as he quoted the centurion, and did not dismiss the suggestion. ‘It is harder to say whether he thinks the tide has turned against our princeps.’


  ‘My lord, would it change your actions if it proved to be him?’

  ‘Not for a moment.’ The face was now as hard and cold as the legate’s black eyes.

  ‘It may be him. I cannot be sure, not yet. But any tracker worth the name will tell you that it is not always wise to follow so obvious a trail. The Tribune Flaccus of the Ninth Hispana is also well placed to be our man, and he has been here in the north longer.’

  ‘I hear he is a fool?’

  ‘My people have a saying that a foolish man will never be lonely,’ Ferox said and heard Ovidius laugh from the far side of the room. ‘How clever does a traitor have to be? Especially if he is not alone.’

  The legate came over to him and placed a hand on each shoulder. ‘Find out. Whoever it is I must know. Find out the truth and bring it to me. Will you do that, Flavius Ferox, centurion of Rome and Prince of the Silures?’

  ‘I will find him, my lord.’ Ferox meant it. No doubt men got away with far worse every day, but they did not do it on his patch.

  ‘Good.’ Marcellus smiled and stood back. ‘In the meantime we have a garrison to relieve and priests to hunt down. I need the rebels to fight me and fight me soon, and not fade into the hills and force me to chase them as the weather turns worse and my food runs out. What is the best way to make them risk battle?’

  ‘Give them a chance,’ Ferox said. ‘Make a mistake and let them scent victory.’

  ‘I am glad to see that honesty is becoming a habit in your speech with me. A mistake? Not too big a mistake, I assume.’ The legate’s eyes softened just a little. ‘I see we think alike. Well, let me explain that the force I plan to march north is not as big as it might be. Will that do the trick?’