Glory of Rome: (Gaius Valerius Verrens 8)

by Douglas Jackson

  Only the galley’s oarsmen breathed, fear and tension etched on their faces as they strained at the oars. Valerius stepped in front of the mast and turned, bringing the point of his sword level with Aurinia’s throat. Still she harangued the men on the shore. When he placed the point against her flesh she dropped her gaze from the height, her tiny dark eyes pinpoints of malice that never left his face. ‘This is your last chance, Roman,’ she spat. ‘Heed my warning or your gods will forsake you for all eternity. I will plant a plague of …’ Her words sent a shiver through Valerius and he pushed a little harder until the screeching ended with a sharp choke.

  He turned his attention back to the group on the headland. ‘If a single boat so much as stirs the only thing you will recover of your sorceress will be her head.’ The shouted threat echoed in the silence. Aurinia squirmed under the sword point and her mouth opened and closed, but no words emerged. ‘Continue, Antonius, but slowly.’

  They inched towards the barrier. Valerius’s eyes never left the man on the height. Had he even understood the words? Valerius suspected he had, but if not their import was clear enough. Fifty paces. Twenty. A shout from the bluff froze the blood of everyone in the galley.

  Valerius risked a glance towards the shore, but there was no sign of an impending attack. Instead, a single man ran towards the place where the barrier was anchored. So close that Valerius could make out every knot and splintered branch of the line of great logs, which he could now see were linked by inches-thick leather ropes. At the periphery of his vision the glint of an axe flashed in the dying sunlight. He heard the thud of the blade striking the rope. Once. Twice. Thrice. Slowly at first, but with ever-increasing speed, the barrier fell away like a door opening.

  ‘You may continue, Antonius.’ Valerius pulled his sword away from Aurinia’s throat as the galley surged ahead. Before her head dropped forward he could see where the blood had pooled in the hollow below her throat. Behind him he heard the sound of someone vomiting over the side.

  They pulled into the dock at Confluentes just before dawn and for a long time they sat slumped in their positions, too exhausted to move.

  Torches flared on the bank and Valerius heard an urgent voice call, ‘Quick. Fetch the commander.’ He forced himself to his feet as one of the crew leapt ashore and dragged a wooden gangway to link the galley to the landing.

  Julius Crescens caught up with him as he was halfway to the city gate. ‘I haven’t had the opportunity to thank you for coming for us, sir,’ he said.

  Valerius looked for some of the old mockery or condescension, but could find none. He smiled and shook his head. ‘Don’t thank me, boy; thank them.’ He waved his wooden fist to the straggling line of weary, blackened, red-eyed cavalrymen.

  Before he reached the gate Regulus burst through with two aides. ‘I thought you’d be dead by now.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  The tribune counted the men behind them. ‘You got them out?’ He noticed the tiny figure being handed over to his guards by Hilario. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘The Chatti witch.’ Valerius’s attention was caught by Tabitha as she appeared in the gateway. He began to walk towards her.

  ‘What am I supposed to do with her?’ Regulus demanded.

  Valerius stopped for a moment, remembering his words to the Chatti warrior chieftain. ‘Send her to the Emperor with my compliments. He’ll find a use for her.’

  Two slave boys were filling lamps outside the gate when one of them dropped the amphora they were using. An overseer snarled a rebuke for the carelessness that had left them standing in the midst of a spreading pool of oil. The guard leading Aurinia was ten feet short of the gate when chaos erupted. Without warning he reeled back, screaming and clutching his side. Aurinia’s bonds fell away beneath the knife she had somehow concealed and she ran towards the slave boys, snatching a flaming brand from its holder as she went. Before anyone could react she was standing in the middle of the viscous pool of oil with the torch held ready to drop.

  ‘It’s only olive oil. It will barely scorch her skirt,’ someone laughed as a group of guards ran towards her.

  ‘No,’ Regulus’s powerful voice halted the men in their tracks. ‘We get the oil for our lamps from the shale pits to the south.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Valerius demanded.

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough if she lowers that torch another inch.’

  ‘Gaius Valerius Verrens.’ Aurinia’s shriek and the shock of hearing his name from her lips froze Valerius in place. How could she know? ‘I warned you to turn back. I will not be put on display in Rome as some trophy of war. This curse I place upon you. An old enemy and an old friend will take from you that which you love most. A servant of the old gods will haunt your waking hours and occupy your nightmares.’ The torch flashed out to point directly towards him and the air above the oil seemed to shimmer in its light. ‘I have seen it. An eagle flies over you. The hand which has laid down the sword will raise it once more. You will fight your battle and taste your victory, but it will turn to ashes in your mouth. You will have your legion. But it will be the legion of the damned. All that awaits you in the end, Gaius Valerius Verrens, is darkness and death.’

  ‘Wait.’ Valerius raised his hands to show he was unarmed. He began walking slowly towards the sorceress. ‘There is no need for this. I spoke in haste when I talked of sending you to Rome. It was a mistake. You have served your purpose. Your people will ransom you and we will return you unharmed.’

  He stopped ten paces away, just outside the shallow circle of oil. The torch spluttered in the soft breeze and the flames were reflected on the surface of the pool.

  ‘Why should I trust a Roman?’ Aurinia’s voice dripped contempt.

  ‘If you know so much about me, you know I am a man of my word.’

  He saw the hesitation in Aurinia’s eyes and prepared to take the few steps that would allow him to remove the torch from her hand. His ears barely registered the movement of air as something passed a few inches from his head. The sorceress cried out as a stone struck her on the shoulder. It wasn’t a large stone, but the impact was enough to make her drop the torch. Valerius watched it fall.

  Flames reached up almost caressingly from the pool to meet the torch. In the same instant the oil exploded with a roar matched only by the power of Aurinia’s accompanying screams. For one heartbeat she was recognizable as a living, breathing entity in the centre of the inferno. The next transformed her into a writhing, twisting column of fire. Her filthy hair turned into a halo of orange and gold. Her plaid smock burned with a fierce intensity till it disintegrated and fell away from her thin form. Valerius stepped back from the wall of heat that scorched his face and singed his hair and eyebrows. He watched horrified as the skin melted from her body and her very flesh seemed to feed the flames. Her mouth hung open in a single endless shriek. And all the time her eyes never left his.

  Unseen hands dragged him away from the inferno as the pillar of flame that had been Aurinia finally collapsed, to be consumed in the conflagration. ‘Who was responsible?’ He turned on his men. ‘Who threw the stone?’ But all that confronted him was a wall of blank faces.

  He shook his head and walked to where Tabitha stood, her face pale and grim. ‘Did you see what happened?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was too busy watching you. Poor woman.’

  ‘Don’t waste your sympathy on her. She was a torturer and a murderess. A witch.’

  ‘And a prophet.’ Tabitha shivered. ‘All that awaits you is darkness and death.’

  A burst of scornful laughter interrupted the conversation. ‘You do not have to be a witch to predict darkness and death for Gaius Valerius Verrens,’ Ceris said. ‘In the end the only thing that awaits any of us is darkness and death.’

  XXII

  The brooding iron-grey clouds that hung over the port of Gesoriacum were a perfect match for Valerius’s mood as they waited for the ship that would carry them to Londinium. The witch had predicted
his days would be haunted by a servant of the old gods, and she was right. Yet it was no shadowy figure from the future who tormented him, but Aurinia herself. He would never forget the words of her prophecy or the fiery end she had failed to foresee. Ceris assured him the elements of the curse were mere word tricks. Of course she would want him to believe he would lose what he loved most, because that would strike fear into his heart. Darkness and death were life’s only certainty. The suggestion he would command a legion? The same conversation that had provided her with his name would also have given her his rank. He shook his head. Fool, to allow the words of a barbarian crone to dismay you.

  ‘Our ship is the Concordia, lord.’ Didius Gallus returned from the port office. ‘She’s being unloaded at the end of the wharf and will be ready to sail again on the morning tide.’

  ‘Very well, Didius. Go back to the mansio and inform the lady Tabitha. Tell Felix to bring the wagons down. In the meantime I’ll introduce myself to the captain.’

  The young cavalryman eyed the bustling quayside uncertainly. ‘Is that wise, lord?’

  Valerius smiled. ‘I’ll be safe enough. This isn’t Germania.’

  He was halfway to the wharf when he sensed someone taking step beside him. ‘You ought to be more careful,’ a hard-edged voice growled. ‘A port like this is full of hungry men who’d slit your throat for the price of a loaf.’

  Valerius turned to find himself the focus of a pair of deep-set blue eyes. A lived-in face, jaw like a shield boss, boxer’s crooked nose and a thin-lipped mouth given a permanent sardonic twist by twin scars from cheek to chin on the left side. Cropped grey hair and a bruiser’s solid body beneath the travel-stained tunic. ‘I’m grateful for your advice, friend.’ His eyes scanned their surroundings for possible accomplices, but everyone else seemed to be going about their business. Still, he allowed his left hand to creep towards his dagger. ‘But I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’ A grunt of laughter accompanied the words.

  ‘You can take it any way you like.’

  ‘They tell me you’re interested in jewellery.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I have this ring to sell.’ The man opened his fist to reveal the glint of gold in his palm. Valerius instantly recognized the design and the glittering green stone.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m definitely interested. Maybe we should find somewhere private to conduct our business?’

  ‘I know a place.’

  The darkest corner of a dockside bar whose only customers were a trio of prostitutes who left them alone when they declined the offer of a ‘quickie’ in the back room. The messenger pulled a scroll from the sleeve of his tunic and handed it to Valerius. ‘You know what it says?’ Valerius unrolled the single sheet of parchment.

  ‘Best not.’

  An unintelligible mass of numbers until you recognized the symbol that would allow you to unlock the code. A short letter, when you discarded the first two sentences.

  ‘I must get back to my rooms to decode this.’ Valerius reached for his purse.

  ‘There’s no need,’ the stranger insisted. ‘I serve our mutual friend and that is all the payment I need.’

  ‘Then you have my thanks, as does … our friend.’

  An hour later he had it. He keeps his business close these days, but know this. I have learned that the name of Verrens was mentioned in a dispatch to an official in Britannia with the rank of legatus. Beware, Valerius. Great danger may await you.

  Another dull, grey dawn when the only thing that separated ocean from sky were the white caps that flickered across the water’s surface like sea sprites riding the waves. Lucius, always curious, joined his father in the ship as a soft, misty rain combined with the salt spray to seep through the thick cloaks they wore.

  ‘So this is Britannia, Father?’ Lucius pointed to the soaring white cliffs a mile or so away off the port side.

  ‘Yes.’ Valerius smiled at his son. ‘But we still have far to go. Another half a day’s sailing north before we enter the river that will carry us to Londinium.’

  ‘Is it always this wet?’

  ‘I hope not.’ Tabitha’s voice came from behind them. ‘Or it will be a short visit.’

  She had her arms clasped around her waist against the cold and the hood of her cloak covered her hair. The unusual paleness of her features was evidence she’d been sick more than once during the crossing. Nothing to do with the sea, she insisted, but something that had to be borne along with the child she carried. The first thickening of her trim waist had become apparent in the last few days. In the night he’d placed his hand on her belly and she’d laughed. ‘You’ll be looking for another woman now that I’m old and fat.’

  The memory made Valerius smile and he put an arm round her shoulders. ‘What a bleak place,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I remember the sun shining once or twice in the time I was here.’

  ‘How long was that?’

  ‘About two years.’

  She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow.

  Valerius could hear Felix’s voice from the cargo hold where the cavalrymen had spent the night. Apart from Khamsin, they’d left the horses in Gaul, along with the Emperor’s carriage and Titus’s pavilion, but the young decurion was determined they should look their finest when they escorted Valerius from the ship to the governor’s palace. Valerius had used his influence to ensure the mail lost fleeing the Chatti was replaced from the armoury at Colonia Agrippinensis. From the muttered curses below he gathered they were polishing the close-knit mesh of hundreds of iron rings with fine sand collected from the beach at Gesoriacum.

  Around midday the waters around the ship turned from grey to a thick, murky brown. ‘The Tamesa,’ the Concordia’s captain announced. ‘You can smell her from a mile and more.’ He ordered the steersman to change course into the face of the flood and deployed his oars as they lost the following wind. Soon land became visible on either hand. Flat, treeless and unwelcoming, a sight so oppressive Tabitha wondered aloud that Claudius hadn’t turned back the moment he saw it. As they continued upstream the river narrowed and Lucius pointed excitedly to three dark mounds on one of the endless mudbanks. Soulful dark eyes turned to follow their progress and the mounds became a family of seals.

  In the estuary proper they met a steady flow of merchant vessels, from large ships like the Concordia to smaller coastal barges and even canoes filled to overflowing with sacks and packages. The occasional skeletal frame sticking from the mud was a reminder that these waters were far from benign, and the ship twisted and turned to follow the deepest channel and avoid native fish traps.

  As they wound their way inland, Valerius pointed to a haze of smoke in the distance.

  ‘Londinium.’

  Londinium. Seventeen years and more since he’d last seen the place, first as a bustling commercial and industrial township, a work in progress where every second building was roofless and surrounded by scaffolding. Later, Boudicca had turned those same buildings into blackened ruins and their inhabitants to mere piles of bones amongst the ashes. He remembered drinking wine with old Decimus Castus, commander of Londinium’s fort, and his warning never to underestimate the British tribesmen. ‘They can be subdued, but they can never be tamed,’ Castus had said. He’d given the same advice to the governor, but Suetonius Paulinus had laughed at the old soldier. Castus had died on a rebel spear before he had the opportunity to point out Paulinus’s error.

  Beneath her cloak Tabitha was already dressed in the finery that would be expected of a Roman lady of her class and status. Valerius went to the sleeping cabin and emerged in a fine white toga with the senatorial stripe and the scarlet sash of the legatus iuridicus knotted around his waist.

  The city came into view as they rounded a sharp bend in the river. Ahead of them an impressive wooden bridge stretched from one bank to the other, the massive supports creating dozens of arches. To their right, the eastern outskirts and, just sho
rt of the bridge, the city’s port, where several merchant ships were already moored.

  ‘At least it looks civilized,’ Tabitha whispered as a number of large stone-built buildings came into view, towering above the sea of red-tiled roofs.

  Valerius saw it at once. Nothing had changed, but everything had changed. All that Boudicca’s wrath had swept away had been replaced, but on an even greater scale. He felt an upsurge of excitement in the pit of his stomach. What challenges awaited him here? And what opportunities? He realized that getting to this point had been all that had absorbed him. What happened afterwards hadn’t seemed real, and therefore worth concerning himself with. Until now.

  How would Julius Agricola receive him? The last time they met, the governor had been a junior officer on the staff of Suetonius Paulinus, and Valerius, barely twenty-three, a shocked and damaged survivor of Boudicca’s destruction of Colonia Claudia Victricensis. Valerius knew the years had changed him almost beyond recognition, the young man replaced by a veteran soldier who had seen the very best and the very worst of the Empire. One who could be as hard as the iron of the sword he wielded. This Valerius had been forged in the fires of war and made wary by intrigue and conspiracy. Agricola, too, would have been altered by his experiences. He had lost his mother, butchered during the civil war. Vespasian had made the family patricians and rewarded Agricola for his loyalty with the province of Gallia Aquitania and a consulship. Now he’d been given the responsibility of governing a province notoriously difficult to rule, and, just as important, impossible to wring a profit from. The strain of running Britannia had killed one governor and ruined the careers of several more. From what Titus had said Agricola hadn’t asked for Valerius by name. It made the forthcoming meeting interesting.

  The Concordia manoeuvred into the dock and two deckhands threw ropes ashore where men waited to moor the ship. Valerius scanned the quayside, but he could see no sign of the reception committee a newly appointed official of his rank might expect. A mistake, or a deliberate omission to remind him of his place? The sailors ran out a gangplank and a centurion with a gleaming phalera that identified him as a customs officer marched aboard demanding to see the captain’s cargo manifest. A sailor took him aside and after a whispered conversation the centurion approached Valerius.