Hadrian's wall (30 page)

The Romans on the Wall were roaring encouragement and firing arrows. On both sides now the Roman cavalry was chopping up the split attack. Soon the Celts must surrender into slavery or be met with certain death. Some of the demoralized barbarians sought shelter toward the smoking ruins of the gate archway, only to meet Roman legionaries dropping down from the crest above.

"Victory, Marcus Flavius!" the centurion Longinus called. "We have them!"

And then Celtic horns sounded again.

More than a thousand men and women had followed Arden Caratacus in the first assault at what he'd been assured would be a weakly defended gate. It was this thousand that was in desperate straits, cut in two and fighting for their lives against a smaller but far more disciplined and better-positioned Roman force. Hundreds were already dead and wounded, and annihilation seemed a real possibility.

But a thousand more Celtic warriors had been secreted in a nearby ravine, including almost all the horsemen who represented the best and wealthiest of barbarian warriors. Galba hadn't told Arden of the ambush he'd meet after breaking through the Wall, but he had told the barbarian about the flanking attack by Marcus, explaining that the praefectus intended to fall upon their rear. The charge by that wing of the Petriana was no surprise.

This rear was bait, in other words, and the Celts were determined to make the Roman trap a trap of their own. Now out of the trees to the north came the barbarian horses in wild attack against the rear of the preoccupied Roman cavalry, followed by hundreds of additional infantry on foot. They were going to surround the Petriana as it had tried to surround them.

The soldiers on the Wall sent up shouts of warning at the approach of this new onslaught, but most of Marcus's cavalry were fighting too desperately to pay attention. There was a wild wavering cry, a call to their gods as chilling as death itself, and then the Celtic horses crashed into the Latins like an avalanche, toppling Romans from their mounts before they had a chance to turn or form or escape.

In an instant the barbarian foot soldiers, who'd been overmatched by Roman cavalry, turned on their dismounted foes and chopped in a frenzied spray of blood.

Marcus's own horse was driven into the bloody river Ilibrium by the impact of the attack. He was confused as to what was happening. Where had all the barbarians come from? At one moment victory had been in his grasp. A moment later his cavalry seemed mired in a sea of Celts, arrows and spears whistling past and horses screaming in terror as they were gutted. The barbarians who'd been demoralized only moments ago were now hoisting weapons for revenge. Even some of the wounded were picking themselves off the ground to fall on the Romans again.

"Marcus, we've got to retreat!" cried Longinus, hauling the head of his horse around to bolt. Yet even as he did so a red-haired chieftain in horned helmet galloped by and hit the centurion's horse with a two-bladed ax, knocking animal and rider into the cold water of the river. With a splash, they went under.

Longinus struggled to get out from under his dying horse, kicked free, and surged up onto the bank, sputtering. His spatha was gone. The barbarian came at him again, missing the centurion with his main blow but chopping into his foot, and so he screamed and went down once more, sliding into the water. A red plume ran off his wound.

Marcus rode up and took off the barbarian attacker's arm with his sword, its artery spewing like a fountain. The Celt bellowed, reeled, and lurched off his saddle.

Then the praefectus jumped off his horse into the icy river and seized the half-drowned centurion, pulling Longinus across the Ilibrium and onto the bank nearest the Wall. The battle had become a nightmare. His men were being unhorsed. The pennants and standards of the Petriana were falling like toppled trees into a mob of screaming, excited Celts. The tide of battle had reversed once more. Arrows were falling everywhere, each side hitting both foes and comrades in the confusion.

Then his own deserted horse was down, a spear in Homer's side, and any chance of escape was gone. "We need to get under the Wall! We'll seek protection there!"

He began dragging the wounded Longinus up the bloody slope. It was littered with bodies, Celtic and Roman, and the centurion left his own trail of blood from a foot half severed. A few Romans saw what their commander was doing and formed a protective ring around him to help, but this concentration only drew more enemy fire. The guards began to topple over as arrows struck home.

Marcus was dragging Longinus with one hand, hacking with another. There was a blow to his thigh, and he stumbled, dimly realizing that he was wounded. It was surprising that it didn't yet hurt. He panted from the labor.

Finally the stonework of Hadrian's Wall loomed above him. Cavalrymen were fighting desperately with Celts who'd taken their own shelter in the burnt passageway, both sides wrestling for the refuge.

Where was Galba? Why wasn't he helping?

Now the Celts were surging up the slope again, and it was time to make a stand. Marcus threw a protesting Longinus behind the broken gate in hopes he'd remain undetected, then turned to fight his enemies. Something clawed viciously at his side, the scrape of a spear. An arrow thudded into his shoulder. He staggered backward.

I'm dying, he thought dimly.

The thought gave him a surprising peace.

Suddenly he remembered the Celt in the grove, the one who'd tied his torso to a tree. The one who didn't want to die lying down.

Marcus battled his way forward to grasp a line hanging from a grappling hook and cut a length free. Then he backed to a blackened, smoldering post. He was losing blood, and his vision was beginning to blur. He didn't have much time.

"Someone tie me!" he roared. "Someone tie so I can die standing like a man!"

As if they understood what he was trying to do, the Celts hung back for a moment. Small hands seized the line, and the rope was tightened against his chest. Gratefully he sagged against it, letting his last strength flow to his arms. He glanced aside a moment to give a visual thanks to his benefactor and realized with a start it was a woman-not just surprisingly female, but a woman vaguely recognizable.

"Savia?"

It was his wife's maidservant, her eyes wide with fear but mouth set in determination and sympathy. What was she doing in the blood and filth?

"Good-bye, Marcus."

Was she a hallucination?

"Take him, Cassius!" Marcus heard barbarians shouting. "Finish the Roman and confirm your freedom!" Then something cold as fire pierced into his side, robbing him of air. A sword thrust.

"Valeria!" He didn't know he screamed it.

Would his father approve of him now?

Then more blows, and he was dead.

Trapped on the southern side of the Wall, Arden ducked beneath the jab of a cavalryman's lance and swung his own sword at the horse's knee. It chopped through and the animal went down in agony, falling on its rider. Before the man could pull himself out, the chieftain had shoved his sword through the Roman's throat, feeling the crush of neck cartilage. Then he whirled and chopped at the back of another rider, and that man fell too, roaring in pain. Two barbarian warriors stabbed at him with their spears until he, too, was still.

Then a Roman arrow took one of the warriors in the chest, freezing him in place, and a lancer rode down the other. Everywhere his men were stumbling under the onslaught of horse and falling like timber. Galba's cavalry had height and hundreds of pounds of rearing horse to their advantage, and arrows were decimating Arden's men from the stonework behind. It was as ruthless a massacre as it was rank treachery.

"Retreat! Form by the Wall!"

The barbarians backed toward the southern gate of the milecastle they'd surged through just half an hour before, but it was a ragged rout toward a rain of arrows. The gate had been shut against them. Man after man grunted and went over, shot before they could even match blades with the Roman cavalry. As the horses pressed, the Celts were squeezed so tightly that some couldn't raise their swords. They were stuck at with lances like squealing pigs, pinned by their own dying comrades. Some, preferring death to slavery, thrust daggers into their own hearts.

Yet no arrow grazed Arden, no spear came close. Did the gods protect him?

No, it was Galba, trying to get to him. "Remember, that one stays alive, or the man who kills him is himself dead!"

What confusing conspiracy had isolated him here? What had happened to the Attacotti and Picts on the other side of the Wall? Why weren't they pouring through in support? Why hadn't Galba turned on the Romans, as promised? Brassidias had betrayed him, just as the woman had! Were they working together? Arden desperately picked up a loose helmet and hurled it at the senior tribune, hitting his shoulder.

If nothing else, he'd take the damned Thracian with him. He charged.

Galba acknowledged the challenge, his black horse bucking toward Caratacus. The Celt planned to strike at the underbelly to dismount the tribune and kill him on the ground. Yet even as he crouched to attack, he noticed that Galba had sheathed his sword and drawn something else. What? Then there was a sizzling buzz, and a whip cracked and wrapped on Arden's forearm, jerking him to his knees. "Now! The net!" Something entangling fell to ensnare Arden's arms. Two troopers had hurled the gladiatorial prop as if he were in the arena. He tried to struggle upward, but they pulled on the netting and he lost his footing again.

"Give me a chance to fight!" he cried.

The reply was harsh laughter. "See his tattoo! We've caught a deserter!"

Through the mesh he could see the last of his men pushed against the inner stone of the Wall, lances impaling them, arrows cutting them down, stones dropping on them from above. Luca fell, bleeding from twenty wounds. The Celts were singing their death songs, trying to take as many Romans as they could with them.

Then something hit his own head, and everything went black.

Stillness settled over the battlefield. To the south of the Wall, the Romans had won. Galba's cavalry had overwhelmed the Celts who'd broken through the gate and killed or enslaved every one of them. Arden Caratacus was unconscious and in chains. They'd even bagged a lean and defiant druid, caught in the conspiracy he'd spun. Kalin, the barbarians called him, clubbed to the ground and hog-tied to corral his magic. A priest to minister to the dungeon of Eburacum! The Romans spat on him and jeered, in fear.

To the north of the Wall the Celtic cavalry had triumphed. Marcus's force had been overwhelmed by a flood of numbers, and he and all his men killed, except for a handful who fought their way to the burned-out gate archway and finally gotten reinforcements from the Romans above. Longinus had survived, but the heart and the flower of the Petriana had been destroyed. His companions were dead.

The Celts, howling with triumph and wailing with grief, had retreated into the trees a mile away, taking most of their dead with them.

The stripped bodies of the Romans were left lying in the trampled and frozen mud. It began to snow harder, fogging the field.

The inner gate of the milecastle had been slammed shut against Arden's column of warriors, denying escape, and their bodies were heaped against it like a windrow of leaves. The pile was prickled with arrows and leaking a delta of blood. Now Galba ordered the corpses dragged aside and the gate opened, its lower half mottled with the stain of the dead. Eventually the heavy door swung wide, revealing the carnage of the milecastle courtyard beyond. Galba strode through in gruesome triumph, the dead the price of his victory. He stepped around the Roman bodies. He trod on the Celtic ones.

From the archway of the other side came the stink of ashes and burned flesh. Its barrel roof framed the other battlefield and its scattering of dead Romans and horses. From far away, through the gauze of snow, came the mournful drumming of the Celts.

Galba's expression was one of tight satisfaction. Everything had happened as he'd planned. He was the savior of Rome.

Huddled against the stone were the surviving men who'd ridden with the Petriana's flanking attack-a dozen in all, muddy, spattered with blood, exhausted. They were his now.

"Marcus Flavius?" he asked no one in particular.

They pointed. "A hero's death. He died standing up."

The praefectus hung from a loop of rope around his chest, his chin down, eyes closed, bloody arms dangling, one foot turned abjectly inward. Galba's face betrayed no emotion. "Indeed. We'll burn him with honors."

The Celts wouldn't come again, the tribune judged. Not for a while, at least, giving him the time needed to complete his scheme. The barbarians were headless, their leader captured. He'd won. Won everything in a morning! The praefectus dead, Caratacus in chains, the woman imprisoned and helpless, the victory his to claim alone. Now he'd see to the Roman beauty, and-

A familiar voice spoke to him from the shadows. "What's become of Valeria?"

He started in surprise. It was her slave woman, Savia! Huddled like the others against the blackened stones of the archway, a cloak around her trembling shoulders, her face black with soot. What was the maidservant doing here?

"Stand up, woman."

The familiar figure stood. A bit leaner, perhaps, swaying with exhaustion, but the same kind, stupid, cowlike face. That doggish loyalty he despised. "I'm servant to the lady," she reminded unnecessarily.

"And what are you doing here, handmaid, in the dung of battle?"

"I followed the Celts in hopes of rejoining Valeria. I was swept up in the attack-"

"Valeria's in prison. Locked there by her dead husband for adultery."

Savia looked at him with sorrow but not surprise. She knew, he realized. Knew he'd planned it this way from the beginning. Maybe he should just run her through now and be done with it, but no, what did he care what a slave thought? Besides, this mother hen might help persuade Valeria what her only choice must be. Savia, like everyone, had her uses. "That means your future is in my hands."

"Are you going to kill Valeria, too?" The question was a quiet one.

Galba walked close to her then so that the others couldn't hear. Spattered with blood and rank with sweat, he leaned close, the scar in his beard like a vast canyon. "Listen to me, slave," he whispered hoarsely. "Your mistress has one chance. One chance only. If you help me, then I can help you. If you oppose me, then I'll destroy you, just as I've destroyed everyone else who's ever challenged me. Do you understand?"

She nodded dumbly.

"Only I can save Valeria now. Do you agree?"

Savia said nothing, looking at him in wonder.

"Then come. We're going to see your mistress."

Galba burst through the entryway of the commander's house like a man who once more regards it as his, his black battle cape rippling behind to punctuate his urgency, Savia scuttling in his wake. "I'm here to see Valeria!" Slaves scurried out of his way and peered with apprehensive wonder from doorways. His skin was speckled with blood, hewn from his enemies. There was mud on his boots. Grim triumph on his face. And haste in his manner. He marched with a tramp as steady as a galley drum to the sleeping chamber where she was confined, the blood rings of his waist chain jangling of victory, his sheathed spatha rocking in rhythm. Two soldiers posted by the chamber's door snapped to attention.

"Unbolt the door!"

They did so, and it opened inward. Valeria stood at the sound, her back to the wall, unable to hide the worry on her face. She'd no idea who next would open that door, and thus who'd survived the battle. At the sight of Galba she tensed. He stepped inside.

His nostrils creased. The room had no window and was stuffy from the lack of air. Its lone oil lamp had created a haze of smoke, and its chamber pot added an acrid odor. Valeria hadn't been allowed to wash and again looked haggard, her eyes red from crying and her clothes sagging. She looked nothing like a Roman lady.

How he relished that fact.

"What news of the fighting?" she whispered.

"Shut the door," Galba told the sentries behind him.

It closed behind the tribune and Savia, leaving the trio in gloom. Valeria glanced past Galba for reassurance, but the maidservant leaned back against the door with her eyes shut in sorrow.

"Your husband is dead," Galba said.

Valeria groaned, bending as if punched.

"He died honorably, fighting the Celts. He'll join my fallen warriors in the pyre."

She drew breath. "His warriors."

Galba shook his head. "No, mine. They were never his, and he knew it."

"You're a cruel man to make such a remark, Galba Brassidias."

"And you're a faithless wife."

"You're the faithless one!"

"I'm a soldier, lady, who has won his campaign. Won everything."

She looked bleak. "The Celts lost, then?"

"Of course."

"And Arden?"

"Caratacus is in chains. He'll be executed when I order."

She slumped against the stucco. Just a few nights ago at Samhain, she'd known supreme happiness. In horrible payment ever since, her life had become a nightmare. She'd tried to save them all, and hadn't even saved herself.

"If I'd been given rightful command, this war would have never happened," Galba went on. "The Celts would never have dared rise, and hundreds of good men would be alive. It's you who put all this in motion, lady. You who almost destroyed the Wall."

Valeria looked bleakly past him to Savia. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't know. He found me among the survivors and brought me here."

"She's here to make you see reason," Galba said. "Your husband is dead and your lover captured, and because of that all protection has been stripped. Your family in Rome is a thousand miles away, and your usefulness to your father is at an end. I have it in my power to ruin you with scandal, a widow with no prospects, an adulteress who lay with a barbarian. You'll be disgraced and impoverished the rest of your life."

She looked at him in bewilderment. "Why do you hate me so?"

"I hate your class, lady. I hate its pretensions, I hate its unearned privileges, I hate its ignorance, I hate its joy. It lives behind my shield and gives no more thought to men like me than to a cur in an alley."

"Rome has rewarded you with career and station-"

"Rome has rewarded me with nothing! Nothing! I took what I have!"

"You'd never have had the opportunity-"

"Enough!" It was a shout. "From this moment forward you will speak to me only when I wish it, or I'll beat you within an inch of your life!"

Instead of cowing her, this sparked her own anger. "I'll speak to you as the provincial you are and will always remain-"

His blow cuffed her like that of a bear, slapping her back against the stucco. She bounced and slid down, mouth bloody and abruptly shut. Savia screamed but didn't move, fearing a beating herself.

"Listen to me," Galba growled, standing over Valeria. "You have one chance to regain your station. One chance to have a life! I can let the world know your sluttish ways; the humiliation of having coupled with a barbarian. Or… I can save and enhance your reputation in an instant."

He waited until she asked it, mumbling past her pain and bleeding. "How?"

"By marrying you."

She gave a quick gasp. "You're joking!"

He shook his head. "I'm as earnest about this as any battle. Marry me, Valeria, and no scandal will be heard. Marry me, and you retain your status. Marry me, and bring no shame on your family or yourself."

"You're a provincial!"

"So, originally, were half the emperors of Rome. Marry me, and I have entry into the patrician class."

"For your own advancement!"

"You'll rise as I rise. Enjoy what I attain. Unlike your late husband, I have ability, and have only lacked birth. You have birth, but you're a woman. We're not as different as you think. Together we could triumph."

"This is insane."

"It's the only logical course for you now."

"I'd never go to bed with you! I told you that before!"

"It is I who may never bed you. I'm seeking marriage, not love. Alliance, not sex. I'll satisfy myself with other women. Only if the mood strikes me will I take you. But I will take you, if I wish, as a husband's right."

"So I refuse."

"You'd rather have public humiliation as adulteress and traitor?"

"I'd rather have self-respect and freedom."

"Not freedom, lady. I'll leave you here to rot."

"You wouldn't dare. I'm a senator's daughter!"

"If word reaches your father of your conduct across the border, he'll disown you to save his own position. You know that better than I do."

"You don't know my father!"

"I know he sold you to a mediocrity to advance his own career."

She shook her head with new determination. "The answer is no, Brassidias."

"So." He nodded. "The plaything has some fire after all. Did you find it north of the Wall?"

"Get out of here. Leave me alone."

"But if you refuse me, you doom Rome as well."

"Rome?"

"If you don't marry me, woman, and give me the chance at advancement I deserve, I'll throw open the gates to the Celts. You heard me promise that cretin Arden before. I'll do it this time for real, and throw in my lot with the barbarians. I'll watch Londinium burn and make myself a king."

"You'll be hunted down and hanged if you dare that."

"I'll be a little man with thwarted ambitions if I don't."

He'd take the gamble, she realized. He was insane with frustration. And yet that was Rome's issue, not her own. "I still don't care. I'm not going to marry you, Galba. I once married a man I didn't love. I'm not going to marry a man I hate."

"Yes, you will." His look was confident. "Because there's one more reason to seek my protection. If you don't marry me, Roman bitch, you doom the man you do love."

"What do you mean?" she whispered, knowing full well what he meant.

"Arden Caratacus is known, falsely or not, as an agent of Rome. He worked, in a sense, for me. He could, arguably, be spared. I will in fact spare him, if you consent to marry me. But if you don't-"

"You'll kill him." It was a whisper.

"He'll be crucified on the parapet of Petrianis."

"That's inhuman! It will infuriate the Christians! No one uses that method anymore!"

"I will, and in a way that will take him days to die. And I'll tie you to a catapult next to it so you can watch him suffer."

She covered her face with her hands.

"I don't love you, and I never will," he went on. "I simply require you. Marry me, Valeria, and both our problems are solved in an instant. Defy me, and I'll destroy you, Arden Caratacus, and Roman Britannia."

Savia was weeping.

Galba grinned at them. "Think of all the gods. Think of all the druids. Think of all the priests, and then think of me, who believes none of it, and consider that I'm the one who has won."

"Can't you just kill me and free him?" Her question was a whisper. "That would be too easy." He ran his hand along his waist chain, making it jingle.

Savia watched the rings of dead men dance at his stroke.

The home of Falco and Lucinda was in quiet turmoil, the slave saw to her surprise. It was midnight, the countryside of Roman Britannia dark, and yet here candles burned as household slaves ran back and forth to pile bundles of belongings on carts. Horses were being hitched to harnesses. Litter and garbage were feeding a fire burning incongruously in the garden courtyard. The family was packing to flee.

"Who goes there? What do you want?" It was Galen, Falco's servant. He blocked her entry to the villa with drawn sword.

"I come from the lady Valeria. I need to see centurion Falco."

"Savia?" He squinted at her in the dark. "I thought you prisoner in Caledonia."

"I got back in the fighting. I was in the battle at the Wall. Please! My mistress is in peril."

"As are we all. There's a war on. My master has no time to see you now."