by Whyte, Jack
The Niger community had had no long sighted Caius Britannicus to prepare it in advance for such catastrophe, and no Publius Varrus to supply its people with the tools they would require in order to survive in harsher times. In spite of that, however, they had managed to adapt very quickly to their new circumstances. Soldiers and tacticians they had aplenty, for the Niger family had served the Empire well for centuries. Nero's grandfather, accurately gauging the extent and ramifications of the earliest changes—a drastic decrease in the quantity of crops being planted and raised and an equally radical increase in the amount of work necessary to protect those crops against depredation—had quickly directed his now idle farmers to the reclamation and refurbishment of an ancient Roman encampment near the home farm. The camp, a long disused marching camp, was situated more than a mile from the nearest road and had lain abandoned for more than a hundred years and probably closer to two hundred, but its outlines were classical and clearly marked, and in its day it had offered ample, if Spartan, accommodations for a transient cohort of five hundred men. The Appius farmers, glad of a purpose and a clear objective once again, had had the place rebuilt and strongly fortified within the year.
Then, realizing the strength and safety offered by the refurbished fort, they had moved their families and dependants within their newly raised walls and redefined their arable holdings, arranging them so that every field they fanned was defensible and within easy reach. That meant abandoning many outlying fields, as we had done in Camulod at first, and clearing new lands from the forest around their new fort, so that their collective farms came to form a broad, irregular circle, the extent of which was determined by the distance a column of men could march to its defense within half a day. That, too, stirred memories in me, for until the development of our cavalry strength, we in Camulod had been bound by the same constraints.
Since then, their entire community had adapted constantly, making adjustments and accommodations for a host of circumstances and events. Where every man had initially been a fanner, all were now soldiers or, at the very least, fighters, able to defend themselves individually and capable of joining together to form a united front should the need arise. They did not all drill regularly, every day, in the way of traditional soldiers, Nero said, but they learned the techniques and disciplines appropriate to the weapons they had, sufficient to enable them to, fight together as a group.
I interrupted to ask how many men they had currently under arms. His response was that they had a central core of a round hundred men, and they went to great lengths to keep that number whole. This central cadre was tightly disciplined and close to professional in its capabilities, according to the senior soldier in their ranks, a grizzled veteran of seventy years who had seen service with the legions. Nero's father had commanded the cadre before his death. Now it was Nero's charge.
In addition to that hundred, he told me, they had a fluctuating strength of perhaps sixty more, who trained irregularly and individually, and who were nominally kept in reserve, their primary duty being to the fields of grain, rather than the field of war. I could see from his tiny smile that Nero was quite pleased with his analogy.
I nodded, waiting for him to continue, but he had evidently said all he intended to say.
"So how often are you called upon to fight?"
"Not often, thank God. We discovered long ago that a good show of force is often a sufficient deterrent. That's why we keep our hundred on their toes and disciplined. Ten ten-man squads look impressive, when they form up quickly and appear to know what they're about. Nine times out of ten the opposition simply drifts away, in search of easier conquest."
'Then I must ask you this: how came you to be alone when our men found you?"
Nero shrugged. "Mere accident. I was hunting, and when first I saw your men, I hid, more out of curiosity than fear. Uniformed horsemen was a phenomenon I'd never seen before."
"Are you saying that you hunt in armour? What in God's name were you hunting?"
This time he laughed aloud. "No, no! Truth told, I had words with my wife this morning and stormed out in a rage, with no thought of where I was going. I was wearing my armour at the time, because I had been drilling with my men, and I took my bow and arrows with me merely because I had been carrying them when I went home. Denalda was out of sorts and angry at me for something I had not done—are you married?"
I shook my head. "Not yet."
"Don't do it, ever. Anyway, I was fuming—wives have more power to reduce a man to gibbering than any enemy— and I walked heedlessly for miles, until the weight of my armour told me I was tiring and had been stupid. I sat down under a tree—this must have been shortly after noon—and while I was sitting there, I saw a stag entering the woods in the distance. I shrugged out of my armour, gratefully enough, took up my bow and arrows, and went hunting.
"About an hour later, perhaps more, I saw the first of your men riding through our fields. As I said, I grew curious, and so I watched them for a while, trying to discover whether or not they might be hostile. My intelligence told me they must be, but their demeanour—simply the way they were riding—indicated otherwise. After a time, I crept away to where I had left my armour and put it on again, thinking to return home and alert my people. Only moments after that, your men changed direction and came straight towards where I was sitting. I tried to hide. The rest you know."
"Hmm. So you have, what? Five hundred people, more or less, living in your fort?"
"More than that. We're nigh unto a thousand nowadays, counting women and children. We outgrew the fort itself more than ten years ago, and there's a thriving community now, outside the walls. It was inevitable. There simply wasn't room for all the workshops we required—the pottery and the barrelmaker's shop, the cobbler's workshop and the tiler's yard, the alehouse and the bakery, not to mention the cattle pens and stock yards. Surely you must have those in Camulod?"
"Aye, we do, but our fort stands on a hilltop. Have you enlarged your walls to protect your vicus?"
"No. We've been discussing it for years, and everyone agrees that something ought to be done. It's our greatest and most dangerous weakness. We know our situation is perilous, the way things stand today. Some day, someone is going to come marching—or riding—against us, and if we are as unprepared then as we are today, we will all suffer for it. The truth, though, incredible as it may seem when discussing it like this, is that when it comes to committing the real, sustained effort for what will be a long and difficult task, there always seems to be a more pressing need at hand, and the building is deferred yet again." He paused, considering, then added, "People are lazy when they don't feel threatened... or when they lack a decisive leader who will simply demand obedience."
"Are you indecisive?"
He looked at me, that wry half smile still in place. "No, but I'm young and too recently come to power. Too many interests, longer set than mine, take precedence."
"Then you must change that."
"I know that. What I don't know is how."
I grinned at him. "Would you like to hear my idea now? It's still a bit thin, but we might be able to expand it, working together."
"I think I might, now," he said, nodding his head. "Because I've just had an idea of my own."
"Good. No more mead, for now. Come, walk with me and meet some of my men while I show you how a cavalry encampment operates."
FOUR
Our ideas melded together very quickly, and Nero Niger threw himself wholeheartedly into the easy relationship that I had sensed might be possible between us. We had both had the same idea: that our presence in his territory, properly used, might convince his people of the need to improve their defences immediately. But our discussions went much further than that, towards an idea that made the lesson we would deliver to his people seem almost inconsequential by comparison.
As is so often the case with matters of real significance, the constituent parts came together very gradually at first, but then they fused together at
the end in a crescendo of insights and explosive recognition. I can clearly recall being genuinely surprised to discover, towards the end of our deliberations, that my problem with respect to the people in the lands beyond Camulod concerned nothing less than the goals of the original Colony founded by Caius Britannicus and Publius Varrus—adaptation and survival in the face of the unthinkable. My unexpected and intense involvement with Nero Niger and his Appius clan over the course of the ensuing few weeks provided the different perspective that stripped the shutters from my mind and allowed me to see the path I had been unaware of to so long.
I have resisted the temptation to describe what happened in those weeks as a beginning, because that would be inaccurate—the true beginnings had come decades earlier. Publius Varrus had witnessed the beginning of our Colony on his wedding night, before the birth of my own mother, and had described it as a birthing, the emergence of potential independence and self sufficiency in Britain. The Roman evacuations at the start of the new century had been another beginning: the beginning of vulnerability and uncertainty in what had been, for hundreds of years, a strong and vibrant outpost of the Empire; the beginning of the invasions that now threatened the very existence of the people who for centuries had called this country home. What happened during those few weeks with Nero Niger was more akin to the start of a new phase of progress.
The end of the first phase, I came to realize long afterward, had been initiated when the first, hundred plus strong detachment of Camulodian cavalry had been dispatched in support of Dergyll ap Griffyd's war in Cambria, years earlier. That force had remained in the field for nigh on two years, engaging in very little warfare and living in encampments the entire time. Because their movements had been constant and ranged the length and breadth of southern Cambria, it would never have occurred to anyone concerned to think of those troopers as garrison troops, but that is precisely what they were, although their role had been ambassadorial rather than purely military: a mobile, reinforcing presence, the potential force of which had kept the enemy from descending from the hills before Dergyll could crush them. That expedition, marking the first time a self sufficient corps of our troopers had sustained itself away from home, operating independently of Camulod, was a test of our Colony's ability to shape the events governing other, friendly groups.
Similarly, the establishment of a garrison in Mediobogdum, regularly supplied with reinforcements, replacement personnel, weapons, and horses from Camulod, had demonstrated that the Colony was now strong enough to be able to maintain its own forces plus another army, small as it might be, hundreds of miles distant, without major inconvenience. That we were now on our way home, having abandoned our briefly held outpost in the far northwest, was no reflection on the success of the garrison. What was important, what really mattered most, was that we had lived there for more than half a decade, and that the garrison we had installed there during that time had functioned with complete success, integrating itself seamlessly with the local inhabitants, coexisting with diem in harmony and to mutual benefit. Logic dictated, therefore, that a Camulodian garrison could conceivably flourish anywhere in Britain.
It was the seed of that realization that prompted me to consider the dilemma of the Appius clan and their small army and too small walls. And out of my solution to that dilemma, simple as it was, came progress.
We had decided, by the end of that first night, that Nero would return home the following day and say nothing of his encounter with us. The day after that, we would stage a mock attack on his holdings, with the object of frightening his people badly enough to make them see that, next time, such an attack might be real, and they had better be prepared. The plan, simple enough on the surface, required a full strategy session, attended by every officer we had, followed by a briefing of our entire complement. The last thing any of us wanted was for a single drop of blood to be spilled in the course of this demonstration. On the following morning, therefore, ! convened the officers' session, and then followed it up with a briefing to our troopers, outlining the objectives of the exercise, from their viewpoint, and introducing them in the process to Nero Niger.
Nero left to return home as soon as the assembly had been dismissed, and Dedalus and I accompanied him to the outskirts of our camp. On the way back, Dedalus was unusually quiet, and I asked him what was on his mind. He walked on for a few paces without answering, then looked up at me from beneath lowered brows.
"You want this make believe raid to work, don't you? I
can see that, but I don't like it. It's as dangerous as a sharp toothed whore. Why run the risk of having any of these know nothings panic and let fly with a lucky arrow or two and do us damage before we can reveal that it's all just mummery, an exercise in preparedness? One of our men dead ? would be too high a price to pay, it seems to me, for whatever might be achieved here. What does it matter if they're prepared or unprepared? There's not enough of them to makea difference either way. A hundred men they have? That's not a garrison, it's a holding force, and a skeletal one at that. "
I made no effort to respond until we had regained the centre of the camp, then I nodded towards the headquarters tent and suggested we talk in there. He followed me wordlessly and settled into the only comfortable chair, at the table assigned to the Officer of the Watch. He sat back and I folded his arms across his chest, hooking his fingers into the armholes of his cuirass, clearly waiting for me to speak. Dedalus possessed the sharpest tongue, and perhaps the sharpest wits, of all of us. He had impressed me so many times in the past with his insight and his ability to cut right to the heart of troublesome things that I had come to expect nothing less of him. I perched on the edge of the table in front of him. .
"You're right, Ded," I conceded. "It is dangerous. But I've considered the risk, and I think it will be worthwhile. If we can convince these people to build stronger defences, then we'll have created an island of strength in this region. I agree that a hundred men is not a garrison, but it could be the start of one. Camulod once had no more than a hundred trained men under arms, and look at our strength today."
"Aye, but we've had how long? Sixty five years? Sixty five years to build our strength up to this point These people don't have anything like that. And why would you want to create an island out here? What difference could it make to anything? These people could be wiped out tomorrow or next week."
"True, but perhaps not if they had help."
He stiffened very slightly and his eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "Help from where, from Camulod?"
"Why not?"
He looked away, as I had expected him to, his face going sombre as he chased and enumerated the thoughts going through his head. Finally he looked back into my eyes.
"Are you considering keeping our lads here, to help these people?"
"No, not at all."
"Well, thank the Christ for that! Our troopers are looking forward to going home, and they've earned that right."
"They have, indeed. But I would like to dispatch another force, once we are home, to serve the same purpose. Perhaps a hundred men."
"Merlyn, we won't have a hundred men for that kind of luxury. We're going to be at war, at least in Cambria, and possibly against the Danes from Northumbria as well."
"It's not a luxury, Ded, it's a necessity. We're going to need the strength of people like the Appius clan some day. And there must scores, perhaps hundreds, of similar settlements all over this territory. Even a score of diem, fielding a hundred men apiece, would give us a force of two thousand men."
"No, Merlyn, use your head! Where's your logic? Half a score of similar settlements would leave us short a thousand men, spread out in ten separate, piddly little garrisons."
My shoulders slumped as I digested the incontrovertible truth of what he had said, and yet...
"Damnation, Ded, I know I'm right. You read Ambrose's last letter, where he talked about the problems facing them in Camulod. Even with much of our force quartered now in Ilchester, and the fields
we've added to our granaries there, we have almost too many mouths to feed, and too few roofs to cover all their heads. Here could be a way to relieve the congestion, temporarily at least, and to feed everyone better!
"Look at the fertile fields here, going to waste, lying unused, and tell my why that must be so! There is a wealth of manpower lying idle around here, and I'm not just speaking of fighting men. I'm thinking about the farmers—the homeless people living on the edges of the forest, the people living in temporary huts on the outskirts of the ruined towns, the people, helpless thousands of them, who subsist alone, because they're all afraid to gather into numbers worth slaughtering. If there are enough of them out there, and if they can be rallied and joined together for their own good, their own protection and welfare—if they can be taught, somehow, to believe in the mere possibility of that— then they would be invincible in their number.
"But I know you're right, as well. The logistics would be next to impossible, and there's no getting around that. We can't establish garrisons in every place that begs for help. We lack the strength in men, strong as we are. It was wishful thinking on my part, that's all. Forgive me for tugging at your ears."
Dedalus sat silent for a while longer, plucking at his lip and surprising me by not bounding to his feet and congratulating me on my openness to argument. "Well," he drawled, his tone speculative, "having heard what you've just said, if I look at this thing from a slightly different line of sight, I don't know how far off balance your thinking is. You do have a point worth making. There's a lot of sound sense in the idea. Hmm..." I waited as his voice tailed into a long silence. Finally he grunted again. "Y'know, I really think the only thing that's wrong with it is the scope."
