Glory of Rome: (Gaius Valerius Verrens 8)

by Douglas Jackson

  By the time Valerius had passed this second order back, Rufus had him by the reins and was hauling him forward. ‘Column of twos,’ he repeated to Felix.

  Within two paces the sand disappeared beneath them and his horse was swimming. The weight took the beast down to the shoulders and she gave a soft panicked whinny. Valerius gasped as the freezing water closed over his thighs. For a moment he thought his mount would founder, but her head came up and he could feel her legs pumping. He directed the animal along the thin sliver of light from the moon, cutting a wake through the still water. He felt a moment of doubt. Surely a direct crossing would have been quicker? No point questioning Rufus. The little man had led them here without incident and he knew his business. The scout, lighter and less heavily equipped, forged ahead. Valerius imagined he could hear a rushing sound and he glanced south. All he could see was darkness, but somewhere out there the tide was undoubtedly building. On and on and still no sign of land. The horse began to struggle, gasping for breath and snorting from her nostrils. He could feel her heart pounding against her ribs. Behind him he knew the others would be experiencing the same sense of frustration and growing despair. Should he call out to them to abandon their mail if they could? Would it make any difference? A sudden tension in his ears. A shout from ahead, Gaius Rufus urging him forward. He clapped his heels into the horse’s ribs. Yes, it was out there, a continuous rumble, growing like approaching thunder. He could feel the sweat running down his back, but his only thought was for Tabitha. If he died she died. A lurch and the horse almost threw him from the saddle. Another and she regained her feet. Land, or at least another sand spit. He pushed her on another few paces until he found Rufus. The scout stared into the darkness beyond him.

  ‘Names,’ Valerius hissed as a horse passed in the darkness.

  ‘Felix.’

  ‘Shabolz.’

  ‘Hilario.’

  ‘Nilus.’

  He counted them off two by two, trying to put the growing rush of water out of his mind.

  ‘Lord, we should go to higher ground,’ Rufus urged.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Metellus.’

  ‘Aper.’

  Bato, Sido, and two more Pannonians.

  ‘Paulus.’

  ‘Aurelius.’

  His mount shifted beneath him as another four files of two men forced their horses out of the water in a flurry of spray. Valerius looked down. Seconds ago the glittering surface had just covered hooves; now it had reached the animals’ fetlocks. Somewhere to the south the rush was building up to a roar. Two more files to go.

  Two more riders emerged from the darkness. A whispered gasp, barely audible now. ‘Candidus. Maternus.’

  ‘Lord!’

  ‘Go, all of you.’

  ‘Mars’ sacred arse.’ The shout came from the darkness to his left.

  ‘Get them out.’ Valerius rode towards the origin of the cry. The surface of the sand spit curved west then south, creating a giant fish hook. Gallus and Crescens must have mistaken their angle and made the longer crossing. Crescens was floundering in the shallows beside his horse and Gallus had stayed with him.

  ‘Ride.’ Valerius grabbed Crescens’s reins. Gallus hesitated for only a heartbeat before obeying the order. To the south the roar grew in volume and power and a glowing white line filled the entire horizon. The sight paralysed Crescens. ‘The tail,’ Valerius shouted. Cavalry troopers were proud of the long flowing tails on their horses, which they decorated with ribbons and bells for parades. Valerius was already kicking his horse into motion and dragging Crescens’s mount with him. Crescens just had the presence of mind to snatch at the thick horsehair, and he was almost jerked off his feet as the big animal hauled him bodily across the surface of the sand. Valerius didn’t dare look as he leaned across his mount’s neck and urged it into a gallop. Behind him Crescens was forced to take impossibly long strides, bounding like a frightened deer and trying to avoid flying hooves, whimpering in terror as the water grew deeper beneath his feet and the tidal surge sped closer, the thunder of its coming filling his ears. Valerius cursed as his horse began to struggle, then felt a jolt of exhilaration. It wasn’t exhaustion that slowed the animal but the slope of the beach. Another dozen strides took them clear just as the great wave swept the sands behind them, consuming everything in its path. Crescens collapsed in the sandy grass above the tideline, clutching at the stems as if he thought he’d never feel them again. Valerius’s horse stood on shaking legs and he squeezed at the reins until his left hand hurt.

  Shadowy figures surrounded them. If they’d been enemy warriors the two men would have been slaughtered in a moment, but it was Rufus and the men of the escort. Hilario and another rider carried shapeless bundles across their mounts’ withers. As Valerius watched they pitched the loads to the ground with a pair of audible thuds.

  A hand reached up to take his reins and Didius Gallus helped him from the saddle. ‘I’m sorry, lord. We lost touch with the men in front. If we’d been another …’

  ‘All that matters is that you’re here, Didius.’ Valerius clapped him on the shoulder before he inspected the two still bundles.

  ‘Lookouts,’ Rufus said. ‘Fools were sleeping beside a fire behind one of the dunes.’ He turned one of the bodies over and in the gloom Valerius could just make out a pair of startled eyes and the dark slit beneath the chin. He couldn’t have been more than twelve years old.

  ‘Shabolz? Hilario? Crescens?’ Valerius called softly. The three men came forward and knelt close enough for him to make out their individual shapes.

  ‘You have your flints and iron and your tinder is dry?’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ Shabolz and Hilario said in unison. The men had carried their fire making equipment in leather bags tied beneath their chins.

  Crescens’s hand went to his throat where his leather bag dripped water. ‘I can borrow dry tinder from Didius, lord,’ he assured Valerius.

  ‘You know what to look for?’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘They’ll be directly opposite the Ninth and Twentieth and there may be a third in the centre. If you can’t find it follow your nose. Choose a man each as back-up and make sure he’s carrying spare tinder and iron.’ He looked up at the moon. ‘Give us an hour and half as much again.’ He knew the timings would be vague, but there was nothing he could do about that. ‘If we’re not in position by then we never will be. We will regroup at the stone circle east of the Hill of Goats.’

  They moved off, Shabolz calling softly for Bato, his fellow Pannonian. Hilario chose his tentmate Candidus, and Crescens paired up with Nilus. They would face a perilous mission to locate their targets in the dark in the midst of a host of enemies, but Valerius had faith in these men. If even one succeeded it would give him the chance he needed.

  ‘Mount up,’ he called. When they were all in the saddle he turned to the diminutive shadow that was Rufus. ‘Take me to the Hill of Goats.’

  XLIX

  ‘The stockade is three hundred paces to the west, beyond that wood,’ Rufus whispered. A smudge against the lighter darkness of the horizon seemed to indicate where Rufus meant. The twelve remaining riders sat their horses at the centre of a circle of eight great stones twice the height of a man. Rufus assured him no Ordovice would approach these ancient places because either the men believed them haunted or they were the province of the druids, who sometimes carried out their rituals amid the stones. Valerius sniffed. He fervently hoped it was the former, but the air had a taint that made him wonder.

  So close. They were so close.

  Since they’d left the sea he’d been assailed by a curious mixture of exhilaration and a feral savagery he’d never experienced before. Rufus guided them unerringly between the warrior camps that dotted Mona’s coastal hills and valleys, marked by the unconcealed fires that were clear evidence of confidence in victory. They’d walked the horses much of the way, to rest them, but also to avoid the distinctive silhouette of Roman cavalry which woul
d alert every sentry on the island. Valerius was conscious that each step they took and each moment they remained undiscovered brought him closer to Tabitha and Lucius. So close that he could almost taste their scent. They would not stop him now.

  ‘We’ll leave the horses here with one man to guard them,’ Valerius told Felix. ‘Rufus leads. When we reach the wood we’ll split into two groups. You take Metellus, Paulus, Maternus and Aper and cover the north side of the compound. I’ll take Gallus, Aurelius, and the Pannonians and cover the south. There should be a guard of ten men at most, all outside the walls. Once we get the signal from Shabolz and the others we’ll take them.’

  Rufus looked up to check the position of the moon. ‘We should start now.’

  A mile away, so close to the shore he could hear the waves hissing through the pebbles on the beach, Shabolz crouched in a dense clump of bushes and waited. The distinctive tang Valerius had spoken of was thick in his nostrils. He’d already visited his target to check and his fingers were still sticky from the residue of what he’d confirmed. Reaching his position had been one of the most difficult tasks he’d ever attempted. The Celts were thick as fleas on a dog’s bedding this close to the shore. He’d been forced to squirm on his stomach only a few paces from them, his gut tight with the knowledge that a single sound would condemn him to a lingering and painful death. On the way he heard strange mutters and groans that puzzled him, but he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. The key to the island’s defences had been the last thing Valerius had wrung from the Celt with the shattered face, but his suspicions had been alerted on the ride to see Agricola two days earlier. A great trench deep enough to swallow the tallest man and filled with layer upon layer of pitch soaked wood and hay. It was designed to be fired as the first Roman set foot on the beach, trapping the invaders where they could be slaughtered at leisure.

  Shabolz smiled. A truly fiendish weapon. He hadn’t thought the Celts were capable of such sophistication. Perhaps he’d underestimated them. Never again. If things had gone to plan Bato would be in a similar position at the far end of the beach opposite where Agricola’s dismounted cavalry would make their demonstration in less than two hours’ time. Only one of them needed to get it right. They’d left Crescens and Nilus where the Ninth would land. Hilario and Candidus had the furthest to travel, but they should have reached their position by the narrows now. In any case – he looked up at the moon – Valerius would be waiting. A shadow moved across his vision and he dropped down and froze. Not yet. He looked at the moon again. Did he have any choice? He slid through the undergrowth and slipped from cover to the edge of the trench.

  It took seconds to retrieve flint and iron. He prayed his sweat hadn’t made the tinder damp. He would have one chance. He placed the fluffy mass on the ground and took flint in his left hand and struck with the iron with his right. A glowing spark fell on to the tinder but didn’t catch. He hissed and struck again. This time a glow appeared in the dried rush head and he blew gently on it. A tiny flame appeared and he took a deep breath and lowered the burning material cautiously into the trench, immediately slithering back into the bushes.

  At first nothing happened, then he saw a soft orange glow above the trench and a billow of black smoke. Suddenly flames were leaping high and charging south, like a burning sword blade plunging into the heart of the enemy, consuming and feeding off what was below, uniting to climb to the height of a double-storey house. Shabolz saw a flicker at the far end of the beach followed a heartbeat later by a similar racing inferno. The roar of the flames dampened any noise and Celts were charging this way and that crying out in consternation and confusion. The Pannonian wrapped his cloak tight around his mail and simply walked away from the flames into the darkness.

  Ceris crept close to Tabitha. ‘I have a gift,’ she whispered. The Corieltauvi girl had been gone for so long Tabitha wondered if she’d somehow found a way to escape. Now she understood why. Her fingers explored the slim contours of a small knife. Rough wooden hilt and a short but lethally sharp blade that tapered to a point.

  ‘Where …?’

  ‘I heard a rumour that the Trinovante woman had one, but was too frightened to use it. I persuaded her our need was greater than hers. It’s not much, but at least it gives us a choice.’

  She was close enough for Tabitha to see the gleam of her eyes in the darkness of the hut. Valerius’s wife reached out and ran her free hand through Lucius’s hair, allowing her fingers to drift down to his neck and the life force pulsing just below the soft skin. A choice. A choice between a swift, clean death and the abomination the druid planned for them. Given the opportunity she doubted any woman in the compound would choose otherwise.

  But it was also a surrender, and Tabitha was not prepared to admit defeat just yet. She released her son and ran her thumb along the edge of the blade. A good edge, and, she sensed, a good solid knife, made of decent iron. She sat with her back against the wall of the hut. It was constructed of hazel sticks woven around stout wooden posts and coated with mud on the outside to keep out draughts. Perhaps …‘Help me, Ceris,’ she whispered.

  Ceris didn’t fully understand what was happening, but she heard Tabitha grunt and the sound of wood creaking. She moved in beside her mistress and realized the Emesan was hauling at one of the hazel branches. Ceris grasped the same branch and after a few minutes they managed to work it out of position and pull it clear. Still she was unsure of what was happening, but Tabitha ran her hands along the length of the branch until she found an end. ‘Five feet,’ she murmured, and began to work at the wood with her knife.

  By now a restless murmur had rippled through the occupants of the hut. Not one of them had slept, their minds tormented by the thought of the agonies that awaited them. They knew something was happening, but not what, and the lack of knowledge provoked fear and alarm. Tabitha ignored them and sliced at the hazel until she was happy with the result. ‘Here.’ She handed the stick to Ceris and the Celtic girl felt a surge of hope as she tested the point. What she held in her hands was not just a slightly warped piece of ancient hazel. It was a weapon.

  ‘If we work together we can arm every woman in the compound.’ Urgency gave Tabitha’s voice a brittle edge. Ceris passed the hazel spear around the women.

  ‘What good is a piece of wood against seasoned warriors?’ one demanded. Tabitha ignored her, because for every dissenting voice there were ten growls of determination.

  ‘Organize yourselves into pairs and tear two sticks from the walls. Bring them to me to be sharpened. Work as quietly as you can. Ceris, can you pass word to the other huts?’

  ‘Yes, lady.’ The guards never came into the compound at night. Gwlym had ordered that the prisoners should remain unviolated, on pain of death. She lowered her voice. ‘But she has a point. Women with sticks against warriors armed with swords and spears?’

  ‘You told me yourself that the original guards have been replaced with old men and boys.’ Tabitha spoke so every woman in the hut could hear her. ‘We are fifty. They are ten or twelve. They will come to bind us before they take us. That must not be allowed to happen. We will be ready for them and they won’t expect us to fight. Thrust for the throat, the stomach or the soft parts.’ Her words aroused a murmur of savage approval. ‘If we cannot escape at least we can make them kill us.’

  Ceris disappeared from the hut and a steady stream of women approached to have their hazel branches sharpened. Some were too long and Tabitha insisted they be snapped in half – a difficult process with such a supple wood – or better still replaced. She was working on one of the final lengths of hazel when she heard a hiss from the doorway.

  ‘Mistress, you should see this.’

  She joined Ceris outside in the darkness. At least what should have been darkness. The entire eastern horizon was filled with an eerie blood-red glow that pulsated and flickered as they watched.

  ‘Some druid’s sorcery?’ Tabitha couldn’t keep the anxiety from her voice.

  ‘Or pe
rhaps Agricola is coming? They would not expect a night attack.’ Ceris sounded torn between hope and consternation. ‘Whatever the reason it will draw the attention of the guards.’

  ‘But not enough of them.’ Tabitha pointed to the silhouettes of two men on the wooden platform the Celts had built by the gate. She turned away. ‘Whatever it is all we can do is prepare, and wait.’

  L

  Gwlym felt the blood drain from his face and he put a hand out to steady himself as his acolyte Bedwr described the scene unfolding opposite the Roman cavalry feint. First, a seemingly innocuous pinprick of light had raced south with the speed of a charging horse to become a mile-long inferno as the centre trench, the product of months of work, ignited prematurely. Individually, it meant little – the centre trench lay opposite the dismounted cavalry and its purpose had been to announce to Agricola that his diversion had worked – but the improbability of the event sent a shiver through Gwlym. His suspicions were instantly confirmed when he heard Bedwr gasp.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

  ‘The north and south trenches, arch-druid.’ Bedwr’s voice shook with emotion. In his mind Gwlym pictured the ribbon of fire to his front, and the second far away to his left. The foundations of his defensive strategy knocked away at a single stroke. His orders had been to delay firing the two outer trenches until the first Roman soldier stepped on to the beach. He tried to still his whirling emotions. Had it happened by accident or design?

  ‘Find out who is responsible,’ he ordered. ‘When they have confessed all they know cast them into the flames. The prisoners from Canovium are in position?’

  ‘Yes, lord, the men only await your word.’

  ‘Then make it so. The flames will burn all the higher for consuming their flesh.’ For a moment he considered the implications of what he had just ordered. ‘And have the women brought to their places of sacrifice.’