On Hadrian's Secret Service

by Gavin Chappell

  Two days ago the tribune had ridden north into the heather at the head of a division of Frisian auxiliaries, but since then no word had returned to the fortress. Tribune Flaminius’ mission had been to speak with the northern Brigantes and their enemies in Selgovae territory, to palaver some sort of solution to the ceaseless raids between the two tribal groups. Was he laid up in some reed thatched hovel, perhaps wounded, perhaps a prisoner, perhaps with friend, perhaps with foe? Or had that young man of twenty summers—Probus had never met the lad but he knew his type only too well—ended a brief, promising life with a pool of blood drying black around him in a ditch somewhere, sightless eyes staring up at a sky where kites and ravens circled?

  Or worse… had Flaminius and his men been seized and taken north to the hill forts of the Caledonians, perhaps to be sacrificed on their unholy stone altars by the druids?

  Probus shook his head. He was a straightforward, practical minded Roman. His life was one of order and sanity, though he was often forced to fling conventional morality to the winds in the interests of his work, to further the wider interests of the empire. But the idea of the druids, and the superstitious Caledonian tribes who sheltered them, sent a thrill of horror down his spine.

  For the moment his hands were tied, and indeed the hands of the provincial governor were too, since Rome had yet to admit that the local troubles were anything more than traditional cattle raids. Perhaps the new provincial governor would be easier to persuade that something darker lurked behind these disturbances. Perhaps if Probus waited that long, he’d be able to proceed as he wished. But perhaps if he left it so long, he would find he had waited too long.

  There was no way of knowing what could be happening up there, among the mists and the heather. No way of knowing what thoughts were stewing in those twisted Caledonian minds, what plots they were hatching… or was there?

  He rose and went to the door. In the outer chamber, beneath a lantern identical to the one in Probus’ office, a legionary laboured away at a report written on a waxen tablet. He glanced up, then rose to attention. Like Probus, he wore a brooch on his tunic that took the form a lance-head.

  ‘Centurion?’

  ‘Take two men into the civilian settlement outside the walls,’ Probus said, ‘and bring me the Caledonian merchant Tigernos.’

  ‘Tigernos?’ The legionary stared. ‘It’s late. What if he doesn’t want to come?’

  ‘Then persuade him, legionary!’ Probus barked impatiently. ‘Persuade him! Now jump to it!’

  The legionary fled. Moments later, Probus heard the crunch of military sandals receding down the gravel roadway outside. Satisfied, he returned to his desk in the inner room and settled down to some serious brooding.

  After a while, he got out the calculi board. Tigernos was fascinated by this traditional Roman board game, and they would play every time they spoke. The Caledonian merchant was by no means free with his information, but in return for anything Probus could tell him—within reason, of course—he was willing to speak of what he had seen during his peregrinations between here and Caledonia. How much of it was true, Probus reflected, as he set up the stones on the calculi board, was always a difficult question, but the merchant was by no means the only informant available. Through careful and patient cross checking, it was possible to calculate the true state of play in those wild lands beyond the ambit of Rome’s influence.

  Two legionaries marched into the office, Tigernos held by his forearms between them. The tall Caledonian looked calm and collected, despite having no doubt been dragged from the arms of one of his cheap whores. He had even taken the time to struggle into the cut price linen toga which he wore in imitation of those Romans with whom he did business. His red hair was clipped short in Roman style, not spiked with lime like that of his fellow tribesmen. Only the labyrinthine knotwork of tattoos that crawled bluely around the base of his neck, and the way he loped into the room like a Caledonian wolf, not to mention the fire in his watery blue eyes, hinted at the spirit that lurked within his rangy frame.

  ‘You wanted to see me, commissary centurion?’ he said, speaking Latin well for a native, Probus nodded to the two legionaries to free him. ‘Always a pleasure at any hour.’ Without waiting to be invited, Tigernos pulled up a stool and seated himself on the other side of the desk. ‘I have a fresh consignment of oats that I am willing to sell at a competitive price.’

  Probus looked up at the legionaries. ‘Dismissed,’ he told them, and they marched out.

  ‘They weren’t too rough, I hope,’ he added solicitously. Tigernos was rubbing his right arm as if it pained him, while he studied the calculi board. Probus poured him a goblet of wine, which the barbarian preferred unwatered.

  ‘Otherwise, I have little to interest the commissary centurion,’ Tigernos added, evading the enquiry but accepting the goblet. ‘Only a Caledonian bear to be sent south for the beast hunts in your amphitheatres… Ah, I see you have set up the game of stones,’ he observed.

  Probus gestured at the board invitingly. Tigernos made an opening move then sat back and sipped at his wine. ‘You didn’t just invite me here in the middle of the night to play games,’ he said. ‘Word has suddenly come to you of something. My glut of grain, perhaps. Or is that the problem? Are you still waiting for the whisper on the wind?’

  Probus made his counter move, blocking the Caledonian’s escape to the square on his right.

  ‘They tell me things are unsettled upcountry,’ the centurion commented. ‘It must be bad for trade. Grain… and other matters.’

  Tigernos moved another piece, adjacent to the first but in another direction.

  ‘Not particularly,’ he said. He sipped his wine. ‘Salt beef and hides are cheap, there’s a glut of slaves as well as grain. Otherwise matters remain as beforehand. Bears are hard to come by, so I hope to make quite a profit with this one. Perhaps even sell it on to an agent from the Colosseum.’

  ‘It must be hard going when you’re travelling north,’ Probus said, cutting off Tigernos’ new line. His own pieces were scattered about the board, he was scotching the Caledonian’s schemes but had achieved nothing lasting. ‘What with those marauding war bands on the prowl.’

  ‘They know not to tangle with my merchants,’ Tigernos said complacently, placing a new stone elsewhere on the board. ‘These piffling little hill tribes know better than to meddle with the people of the North. Good King Calgacos is not forgotten.’

  ‘Jupiter’s balls! Calgacos was no king,’ said Probus dismissively, joining up two of his stones with a third. ‘Just a war chief, a passing thing, a man thrown up by the times.’

  ‘Sister’s son of the high king,’ Tigernos corrected him calmly, adding a piece to the previous one, ‘he was given a realm of his own for his valiant deeds. He slew the warriors of the king of the world. He was the son of a god, some say. When he was mortally wounded, betrayed by his faithless men, three queens came from the Otherworld to escort him to the land of Summer where still he lives. Men sailing off the western isles say they have seen him.’

  ‘The heather ale must be strong in those parts!’ Probus growled, placing a stone in the way of the growing line. ‘Calgacos was defeated by the Roman provincial governor Agricola, when I was only a child.’ He frowned and caught Tigernos’ eye. ‘So you say a man could travel north and meet no opposition.’

  ‘A Caledonian, yes.’ Tigernos laughed. ‘A foreigner might find himself flayed, his tanned hide swaying in the breeze of a sacred grove.’

  He drank deeply from the wine beaker, then placed it back on the table. A red trickle ran from his mouth like blood. Absently he wiped it away.

  Probus’ skin crawled. ‘Are you saying that’s what’s happened?’

  ‘To whom, commissary centurion?’ Tigernos asked innocently. He moved another piece on the board. ‘Has one of your troops failed to return to Eboracum?’

  Probus did not reply. It had been neverending endemic warfare in the North ever since Agricola was recalled. There
simply wasn’t a large enough military presence in the province to police it properly, with only three legions, two guarding the western hills and a single one based up here in Brigantia. Not that anyone ever admitted that war existed, of course, but raids and reprisals occurred every year.

  Probus was certain that the Caledonians were at the back of the ongoing disturbances, them and their network of druids, squatting up there among their mists and mountains. And from what Tigernos had let slip, Gaius Flaminius was the latest casualty in this undeclared conflict.

  Or was he? The Caledonian’s words were difficult to interpret. What was certain was that Flaminius had ridden north with his men, up to the borders between the Brigantian confederation of tribes and the Selgovae, and he had never been heard of since then. What else could have happened other than his death and the loss of his entire command? Poor lad. The end of a promising career, no doubt.

  An idea occurred to him. It would mean a chance for Tigernos to make peace, assuming he wasn’t implicated in… in whatever it was that had happened.

  ‘You must have many agents in the field,’ he began slowly.

  ‘Agents?’ said Tigernos swiftly. ‘Surely you’re thinking of yourself.’

  He moved another piece. He had almost completed a line. Hurriedly, Probus moved a piece to cut him off. As he did so he saw that somehow, while he had been distracted, the Caledonian merchant had begun another line at right angles to the first. This was also near completion. His own pieces had no pattern and no more than two stood side by side.

  ‘Of course,’ the centurion grunted, ‘what I mean is merchants in your employ. Associates, you might say.’

  Tigernos placed another piece in one corner. Probus studied the move, scowling. What was the Caledonian trying to do now? Starting another line of attack?

  ‘I have friends plying their trade between here and the Orcades[5],’ Tigernos told him, and it didn’t sound like vain boasting.

  ‘One of our troops of auxiliary horse has indeed gone missing,’ Probus said frankly, deciding there was nothing to be gained by being evasive. ‘Including a young officer from a fairly influential family. It would be a goodwill gesture if we were to work together to establish his fate.’

  Tigernos looked astounded. Probus cut off the new piece’s line with one of his own.

  ‘Together?’ the Caledonian said. ‘You want my men to guide you through the debatable lands? It would endanger both my merchants and your men. The hill tribes are currently at war, as well you know.’

  ‘I know this,’ said Probus patiently. ‘I don’t ask you to guide my men, I ask you to put out feelers, to ask questions. Try to find out what has happened to Tribune Gaius Flaminius Drusus .’ Probus tried to conceal his desperation. ‘I could make it worth your while.’

  ‘Indeed!’ Tigernos scoffed. He shook his head. ‘It would be quite impossible. And I suggest you make no independent attempt to investigate. Another troop could also go… missing.’

  He completed his vertical row with a contemptuous flourish, drained the wine beaker, and rose.

  ‘Thank you, commissary centurion,’ he said with a slight yawn. ‘Very good of you to invite me to such a fascinating game. I assume you have no use for my grain. Shall I see myself out?’

  He turned but as he did so, the legionary from the outer office appeared.

  ‘Is the native gentleman leaving?’ the latter asked.

  Probus nodded. ‘See him to the main gate, soldier,’ he instructed. Smiling pleasantly, Tigernos followed the legionary from the office.

  Probus reached for his beaker of wine to find that he had already emptied it. He rose and poured himself another beakerful. Sitting back down, he sipped at it. All of a sudden he put his hands to his face.

  He was tired. Weighed down by his duties. Weighed down by the gloom of this land, with its bleak, windswept heather and its grey skies, its rainclouds half obscuring its mountain peaks. Its secrets and its mysteries, its woad painted warriors and its sinister cults. Its dark deities.

  He looked appealingly at the altar in the corner of the office containing his own household gods, but they gazed back in stony silence. The druids believed it to be wrong to carve representations of the gods, they said that the divine could not be represented. Perhaps they had some kind of wisdom.

  Wisdom? Pah! The wisdom that led to human sacrifice, of the kind that Rome and the rest of the civilised world had abolished over two hundred years ago. So much for their so-called wisdom! It was the wisdom of magic, of superstition, the wisdom of witchcraft. He drained the beaker, rose, snuffed out the lamp and quit the office.

  The moon had risen over the battlements since he had last been out, and its silver light flooded the gravel lanes between the buildings of the fortress, glimmered ghostly from the red tiled roofs. He gazed up at it, transfigured.

  The gravel spat and crunched under his military boots as he strode down the Praetorian Way, away from the headquarters building and towards the main gate to the north. On either side, the glow of lanterns glimmered from barracks blocks and he could hear the rough murmur of the men. A strange tension hung over everything, intensified by the gleam of the moonlight. At last he reached the ladder leading to the parapet. He began to ascend. The rungs were cold and silvered by the moon.

  Up on the parapet, the wind was bitter, blowing down from the North, chilling him to the bone. It was all pitch black out there, beyond the ruddy light cast by the sprawling civilian slums that nestled outside Eboracum’s fosse. Among those winding little lanes dwelt a heterogeneous population of camp followers and merchants, whores and tavern keepers, quack doctors and hedge priests and astrologers, parasites living off the soldiery. And among them, Tigernos, merchant, smuggler, spy of the Caledonian druids who were sworn to rid the land of the invader.

  Could the word of such a man be believed? Could the slightest crumb he let slip be taken seriously? It could be that he was willing to taunt Probus with the truth, or it could be he knew no better than the Romans what had happened to Flaminius.

  He heard the tramp of military boots and turned to see a sentry approaching.

  ‘Who goes there?’ the man barked. He wore full armour, carried a rectangular shield and a spear, but beneath his helmet his pimply face was that of a young man, almost a boy. A stripling like the missing tribune Flaminius, if not of such high rank.

  ‘Commissary Centurion Julius Probus,’ he replied, with a weary salute.

  The sentry’s face whitened in the pale moonlight. ‘Sir!’ he stammered. ‘I hadn’t recognised you. I thought you might be an intruder! I heard something before…’

  It was Probus’ turn for his face to fall. Even before realisation had fully dawned, he had whirled on his heel and taken the ladder two rungs at a time. As he reached the bottom he heard the sentry hurrying clumsily after him.

  ‘Sir? Sir! What is it?’ the man called as Probus raced back down the gravel lane towards his office.

  The reports! So preoccupied had he been with Gaius Flaminius’s fate, he had entirely forgotten to file the reports. Oh, he’d destroyed the confidential one, as per regulations, but the rest still lay scattered on his desk. He could see them in his mind’s eye, just as the lantern had been extinguished. He had seen them but they had not registered with him. He had just left them lying there. Jupiter’s balls, he must be slipping! And he was certainly in breach of regulations.

  ‘Sir! Sir!’ the sentry was bleating. Ignoring him, Probus sprinted onwards. The office building appeared as he turned a corner. His window was visible. A dim yellow glow peeped through the shutters. His worst fears were realised. Somebody was in there!

  Gesturing to the sentry to follow, he drew his sword and advanced on the otherwise deserted blockhouse. Quietly he unlocked the main door. How had the intruder got in?

  ‘Sir?’

  He spun round, and clutched at his chest gasping. The sentry had crept up on him.

  ‘You almost sent me off to join the shades, you asinine young id
iot,’ Probus hissed. ‘Be quiet! There’s an intruder in my office. Follow me.’

  He turned and pushed the door open, slipped inside, sword at the ready. The sentry blundered enthusiastically after him, like the pup he was.

  As Probus thrust open his own door, the light within was abruptly extinguished. He rushed inside. Something moved on the edge of his vision. The centurion whirled round but as he did so the sentry was there, his own sword flashing in the gloom. A figure dropped to the floor, spilling as it did so a stack of reports that clattered across the tessellated tiles. Probus caught a brief glimpse of a man with a Thesean tonsure, the front part of his scalp shaved like a charioteer’s. Like a druid’s. Probus, trembling despite himself, went to the lamp and relit it.

  In the flickering yellow glow, he saw the sentry standing over a pool of blood that oozed across the tiles. The window swung open, showing how the tonsured man had escaped.

  The man Probus had seen so briefly was a tattooed Briton, quite possibly a druid. For a moment, Probus wondered if it had been Tigernos himself. Impossible, of course, the merchant had gone. But Probus was sure that this was a spy of the Caledonian. How had he gained entry to the fortress? Had he slipped in while Tigernos had been here?

  ‘Call out the guard. He could still be within the fortress,’ he ordered breathlessly. ‘I’m going to speak with the legate.’

  Grimly, he swept back out of the office.

  —3—

  Carvetti territory, edges of Roman Britain

  Through a dripping, lichen hung wood Gaius Flaminius Drusus rode with the survivors of the Brigantian war band. He cast a glance over his armoured shoulder as they reined their steeds deep within the spinney of beeches. Far behind him now was his slaughtered troop, miles away, days ago. For the moment there was no sign of pursuit.