Hero of Rome (23 page)

What followed was a night of chaos such as the province had never witnessed.

They poured into Colonia in their thousands. Bewildered families torn from the security of their homes, terrified of what might be to come. Rich or poor, they were all the same class now, homeless refugees fleeing before an avenging army which would show them no mercy.

Of course there were not enough carts to take them all. Valerius ordered that those available be used to transport the youngest children, the sick and the old who could hardly put one foot in front of the other. But what mother would willingly be separated from her child? What daughter from her aged father? In the midst of the pandemonium he came across Lunaris attempting to separate two women as they fought, screaming and cursing, for places on the transport for their children. At another time Valerius would have laughed at the look of bewilderment on the legionary’s face.

‘What am I supposed to do with them?’ Lunaris demanded, holding the pair at arm’s length as they tore at each other’s hair and ripped dresses from breast and shoulder.

‘Throw them in the river,’ Valerius suggested. He said it loud enough for the combatants to hear the real intent in his voice and the struggling subsided. Lunaris grinned and the two women separated, still spitting at each other, and retreated to opposite ends of the convoy. Valerius helped a blind man, separated from his carer for the first time in ten years, as he wandered along the line, arms outstretched, politely asking if anyone had seen Julia. A little later he witnessed two of Colonia’s hard-bitten prostitutes giving up the space they had paid for in gold to a distraught young mother with a squealing baby in her arms and a wide-eyed, snot-nosed infant pulling at the skirts of each leg.

But he couldn’t be everywhere. In the first of many accidents, a bewildered five-year-old girl, perched on the rim of an open wagon already doubly overburdened, tumbled into the path of an iron-shod wheel and shrieked as the bones of her legs were shattered. They did what they could to comfort her but she died within minutes, her eyes still wide with shock.

Three hours after midnight Luca, one of the young legionaries who formed his escort, called Valerius forward to where an angry crowd had gathered by one of the carts.

‘What’s happening here?’ he demanded. The wagon had a raised oilskin canvas secured so the contents were invisible, but the body was settled low over the axles and it was clearly heavily loaded. A bulky woman with her face hidden by a hood sat on the rim, holding the reins.

Luca shrugged at the suspicious faces around him. ‘They say something’s not right about this cart. They asked the woman to take one of their children, but she won’t let them near it. All she does is shake her head. Maybe she’s a mute?’

Valerius studied the figure at the reins and noticed that her hands shook as she held the leather straps. Noticed something else, too. By Mars’s sacred beard, didn’t he have enough to do? He reached out and pulled back the hood to reveal Bassus Atilius, one of Colonia’s most successful merchants, fat, unshaven and glaring in a woman’s grey dress. Sickened, Valerius took the terrified trader by the neck and threw him on to the ground.

‘Kill him.’ The shout came from the rear of the crowd.

‘Keep them back,’ Valerius ordered, untying the straps on the wagon to reveal Bassus’s wife huddled among several large boxes. He helped the woman down and picked up one of the boxes and tipped it over the side, where it burst open to reveal dozens of pieces of fine copperware. Other boxes followed, each filled with similar items, including silver plate and ornaments. Bassus grovelled among them as his wife hid her face.

‘Please, they are everything I have. I must save them.’

Valerius held up a sack, such as a farmworker might use to carry his midday meal, marvelling at the weight of it. He looked inside to see hundreds of gold
aurei
winking back at him, each coin glowing as if the owner spent long hours polishing them. When he saw the sack, Bassus cried out.

‘Kill him,’ the voice repeated.

Valerius drew his sword and stared in the direction of the voice. Now Bassus cowered at his feet, pleading for mercy. ‘If you want him dead, kill him yourself.’

A growl went up from the crowd, but no man moved.

‘At least take his gold.’

‘No, we are not thieves. Do you want to sink as low as this man, who would have sacrificed you and your children for a few pots and pans?’ He looked out over them, women and boys mostly, but a few older militia men. Not many would meet his eyes. ‘His is the greed that is bringing the Iceni to your door. The kind of greed that does not know the meaning of the word enough.’ He tossed the gold down at Bassus, where it landed with a hefty clink. The trader grasped the sack to him. ‘Luca, find a place in the wagons for the woman, then take this man to the bridge and set him over it. We’ll see how many gold pieces it takes to buy Boudicca’s mercy.’

For the rest of the night the legionaries were thrown about like dry leaves in an autumn gale, reassuring, bullying and pleading, sometimes lashing out with fist and boot, until the first purple hint of dawn bruised the ink-black sky above the city and a semblance of order appeared from the mayhem.

Bela, the Thracian cavalry commander, appeared with thirty of his troopers, who lined up on their big horses on each side of the convoy. It would be a frustrating journey for the men, restricted to the speed of the slowest ox cart, but at least, Valerius thought, it would spare their horses for what was to come.

Fighting back exhaustion, he walked along the line of carts, checking everything was in its place and that he’d dealt with all the tiny, niggling, dangerous problems which had arisen through the night. A well-dressed woman he thought might be Petronius’s wife glared at him as he passed, as if he was to blame for her plight, but many thanked him, and not just those he would necessarily have expected it from. Others still looked to him for some reassurance. They wanted to know that they would be coming back; that everything would be as it was before. He smiled and nodded, but it was a lie. These women were leaving their lives behind along with their husbands and nothing would ever be the same again. He watched a hundred last goodbyes. Longing kisses and unchecked tears. Heartbreaking pleas to be allowed to stay behind and brave whatever was to come together. A father clutched his newborn babe to his breast until his wife took it from his arms for fear he would hurt it. When the sun came up and he reached the front of the convoy where Bela waited, he knew the cries of the children would stay with him until he died.

The young Thracian stood at his horse’s neck, holding his burnished helmet carelessly in one hand, his shale-dark hair ruffled and untidy. Bela had the look of a young Alexander and the confidence to match, but his eyes were solemn and as Valerius approached he sniffed the air. The Roman shot him a questioning look.

‘Smoke,’ Bela explained. ‘But only the smoke of your cooking fires. When they come the smoke will be different because they will burn everything.’

Valerius nodded. ‘Your instructions are clear?’

The cavalryman smiled. ‘Of course. I deliver my precious cargo and then return, but not before making a personal visit to the procurator.’

‘Where you will forcefully express my concerns.’

‘Where I will forcefully express your concerns at the risk of my career.’

‘And the other messages I ordered to be sent?’

‘Janos will carry your personal letter direct to the governor, but it will take some days and I fear he is unlikely to be of help. Petur should reach the camp of the Ninth by tonight if they have not already marched.’

‘Let us pray they have. Go, then, and may Mars protect you.’

Bela took his hand and his gaze swept back over the mile-long line of wagons. ‘Yesterday we sacrificed a foal to Heros, the chief of our own gods. It was a good sacrifice – but I will accept any help I can get.’

XXXI

Valerius watched the tail of the convoy lumber down the hill towards the gap in the ancient Trinovante walls and the long journey to Londinium. When the road was finally empty he waited for a few moments before turning and walking slowly back through the arch into Colonia.

‘Will you inspect my men, tribune?’

Falco stood on the main street outside the goldsmith’s shop alongside Corvinus. Normally a hundred people would be in this section even at this hour, buying or selling or just looking. Now it was eerily silent. An empty wicker birdcage rolled back and forth outside one of the other shops and the curtain flapped in an empty doorway.

‘It would be my privilege, Primus Pilus.’ Valerius bowed. ‘And perhaps you would do me the honour of inspecting mine.’

The militia commander looked pleased at the compliment. Strange that the years seemed to have dropped away from him during the long, punishing night, while the goldsmith’s burden appeared to have doubled.

They walked towards the Forum past Lucullus’s townhouse and Valerius remembered the day he’d read his father’s letter pleading for his return to Rome. A shiver ran through him and he looked up at the sun rising strong and bright over the roof of the great temple. It brought back memories of other suns; fierce Tuscan suns and suns glittering on the azure sea at Neapolis, the sun on his back when he had made love to his first woman and the sun that had highlighted the stark bones on his mother’s face a week before she died. There had been so many suns. Would this be his last?

Falco said sadly, ‘My slaves buried the
amphorae
with my best wines in a pit outside the east gate. I didn’t have the heart to smash them and watch all those years of effort go to waste. A pity you didn’t arrive a few days earlier – we could have given them the send-off they deserved.’

‘Anything is better than leaving them for the Celts,’ Corvinus said bitterly, and Valerius wondered what he’d done with the accumulated treasures and profits of nine years. Buried, most likely, somewhere safe where he could recover them if … He realized he’d not seen the gold-smith’s wife among the women in the carts. But then there had been so many.

They reached the temple precinct where Lunaris and the soldiers from the Londinium garrison were already working to reinforce the main gateway.

‘I want every spare weapon brought here. Spears, swords, bows, even stones, anything that can stop a man.’

‘Petronius has the key to the armoury,’ Falco pointed out.

Valerius called for his clerk. He scrawled something quickly on a wax tablet and handed it to the wine merchant. ‘This is my order to open the armoury and empty it. If he refuses or attempts to delay, break down the doors. Lunaris!’ he roared.

The big man laid down the baulk of timber he was carrying towards the gate and jogged across to them. ‘Sir,’ he acknowledged, his broad face shining with sweat.

‘Water?’

Lunaris frowned. ‘There’s a well in the far corner and a tank in one of the buildings on the north side that’s fed by a bucket chain from the river. Only Mithras knows how long we can depend on them.’

‘Not for long. Get some men and gather every
amphora
you can find. I need them filled and sealed and then stored inside the temple with a guard over them. Food, too. Have every house searched and what food there is brought here.’ He studied the sun again. Its heat was already making the red-tiled roofs of the temple complex shimmer. ‘And make sure every man has a full water skin. I don’t mind if they die but I don’t want them dying of thirst.’ He saw Lunaris hesitate. ‘What?’

‘The temple. We’ve been having a problem with the priests. They don’t want to let us near the place and the Mules are frightened they offend the god. We can’t even get into the offices and stores.’ He nodded to the buildings of the east range, where two white-robed men stood outside a doorway watching the soldiers suspiciously. Something else he ought to have thought of, Valerius realized. He should have insisted the augurs and their masters were evacuated with the convoy.

‘Leave the priests to me,’ he said and marched off towards them.

Lunaris grinned. Suddenly he felt a little sorry for the bloodsucking chicken murderers who’d been making his life difficult all morning.

Valerius recognized the younger priest as the augur who had refused payment for telling his future seven months earlier. What was it the man had said?
You have much to gain but more to lose if you continue along the road you have chosen
. Well, he had gained Maeve and then lost her. He had followed his road here, where there was more to lose still. He knew the perils of meddling with the imperial cult. Retribution was more likely to be earthly than divine and the punishments were very specific, very painful and very permanent. But he had a more immediate concern. He had been ordered to defend Colonia, and defend it he would. Even if it was only this small portion of it. At any cost.

‘You are in charge of the temple?’ he asked the older of the two, a bulky man with thinning fair hair and frightened eyes that never stayed still.

‘Marcus Agrippa,’ the priest said, as if his name should be familiar. ‘I have responsibility for the temple of Divine Claudius and I must protest at the high-handed manner in which your soldiers are desecrating this sacred ground. I intend to write to Rome, sir,’ he blustered, ‘and I will mention your name.’

Valerius smiled coldly and looked around to where Lunaris was now jogging up the temple steps with an
amphora
under each arm. The younger priest recognized the dangerous change in the atmosphere and stepped away from his colleague.

‘By order of the governor, this temple and everything and everyone in it are now under military authority.’ He had no orders from the governor, but compared with sacrilege it seemed a minor offence. ‘I’m sure Divine Claudius as a military man will understand. You are obstructing a vital military operation and under military law may be subject to summary justice. What’s inside here?’ He pushed between the two men and shook the door, which was solid and obviously locked.

‘That is a private area,’ the older priest cried. ‘There is nothing of military value there.’

‘Let me be the judge of that.’ Valerius put his foot to the wooden panel and the lock snapped, allowing the door to swing open. He looked inside. ‘You will take every piece of furniture and every carpet, every statue and every wall hanging and carry them to the temple. Tell the tall soldier there that I want the area between the columns fortified around the area of the
pronaos
.’

‘But this is …’ the priest protested.

Valerius very deliberately slid his sword from its scabbard. The
gladius
came free with an ominous whisper and the edge glinted blue in the morning sunlight. ‘Perhaps you did not understand the meaning of summary justice.’

The priest’s mouth dropped open and he scuttled through the door, from where there came the satisfying sounds of furniture scraping on the mosaic floor.

‘What are you waiting for?’ he growled at the young augur.

‘I wondered where I could find a sword, sir,’ the boy said, nervously eyeing the
gladius
.

Valerius almost laughed, but he knew that would have shamed the lad. Courage could be found in the most unlikely places and he had need of all the courage he could get. He had another warrior. ‘Well…’

‘Fabius, sir,’ the boy volunteered.

‘Well, Fabius, when you’ve finished here talk to Lunaris at the temple. Tell him I said to station you in the
pronaos
.’

He walked the seventy paces back to the temple studying his surroundings, seeking out anything that could give the defenders an advantage, or any vulnerable point where the enemy could gain one in their turn. The front wall with the gateway in the centre was the most obvious weakness and therefore the most likely place the Britons would attack. So, when the time came, if he was still alive, that was where he would place his strongest force and he would use that wall to wear them down. He would keep a strong reserve – he shook his head. How could he use a word like strong in a situation like this? As strong as he could afford, then – by the temple steps ready to react if the barbarians broke through anywhere. Yes, he was satisfied he could make them pay dearly for the front wall.

But there were four walls. What about the east, west and north? He considered the east first. Sturdy single-storey offices and storerooms beneath a tiled roof that pitched upwards and ended where it met the wall, which on the sheer outer face was higher by far than the combined height of two men. The north? He realized there was a gap in his knowledge and abruptly changed direction and marched out of the front gate to make a circuit of the outer walls. The inner wall was a continuation of the covered walkway which also included the west side of the precinct but outside, he noted with satisfaction, it backed directly on to the slope which fell away to the flat meadows that edged the river. An enemy without siege equipment would have to be very determined to climb the slope and then take on a surface without the slightest hold for hand or foot. He gazed down towards the meadow, where the thick, sweet grass ended so abruptly against the silver ribbon of the water. That was the key. This was an enemy without climbing ladders and siege towers or the knowledge to manufacture them. An enemy who favoured frontal attack above all else. Yes, it would do. But when he rounded the corner he discovered something that wouldn’t do at all. Along the outer west wall an almost continuous line of crude lean-to shacks had been built, which, on closer inspection, were being used to store building materials. Any of them could make a ready platform for an enemy assault.

He stopped at the gate on his way back to the temple, where Gracilis, the Twentieth’s hard-case wolf hunter from the Campanian mountains, was supervising the strengthening of the defences.

‘Take some men and tear down the huts along the west wall. And while you’re at it, clear everything for a javelin throw in front of this gate. I want a killing ground from there to about there.’

Gracilis grinned and saluted. Like all legionaries, the only thing he liked better than fighting and drinking was destroying someone else’s property. ‘Should we burn them, sir?’ he said hopefully.

Valerius shook his head. No point in creating smoke to warn the enemy. ‘Just break them up and add them to the barriers.’

A line of legionaries passed water jars into the interior of the temple as Lunaris watched the final pieces of the barricade around the
pronaos
being put into place between the massive pillars. The
pronaos
formed the outer area of the temple and behind it lay the
cella
, the inner sanctum of the cult of Claudius. ‘Kind of you to send me the reinforcements,’ the big man said. Valerius was puzzled, until Lunaris pointed to where Fabius peered from behind a padded couch propped against one of the columns. Someone had provided him with a helmet several sizes too large and it sat on his head like a cooking pot.

‘You may thank me for him later.’

Lunaris looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe they won’t come.’

Valerius stood back as one of his men carelessly threw a bust of the Emperor Augustus on to the top of the barricade. ‘In that case you can join me in the sack when they throw me into the Tiber.’ He looked up at the temple above them. ‘Do we have any archers?’

‘Not among our lot that I know of. A few of the veterans may be hunters and I’ve seen some of the auxiliary cavalry practising with bows. Why?’

Valerius pointed to the temple roof. ‘If we can get a dozen men up there they could cover the whole perimeter. I don’t see how the Britons can make a direct assault anywhere but the southern wall, but—’

He was interrupted by a shout from the direction of the gate and turned to see Falco at the head of a line of veteran militia, each with a bundle of
pila
in his arms. The wine merchant’s round face glowed pink with indignation.

‘Enough to supply an army,’ he fumed. ‘That damned man. Enough spears for every soldier and this is what’s left. Shields and swords too, bright as when they were forged. And for years we have made do with…’

‘And how is our good
quaestor
?’ Valerius asked mildly. ‘Will he take his place in the line?’

‘Vanished. He hasn’t been seen since the meeting. Just as well. If I could lay my hands on him he’d wish he was with the rebels.’

‘I doubt we’ll miss his presence. Come. We need a stockpile of spears thirty paces behind the south wall, and another by the steps.’

Falco looked at the bustle of preparations going on around him. ‘So, you mean to defend the temple. I thought—’

‘No, we will fight them first beyond the walls. I am sorry,’ Valerius apologized. ‘I should have kept you better informed.’

The wine merchant shook his head. ‘The last of the militia won’t come in from the outlying farms for a few hours yet. Time enough then. We would have heard from the cavalry pickets if there was any immediate threat.’

‘We will place any civilians who are willing to fight here, in the temple, with a stiffening of my men. I want only hardened soldiers in our battle line.’ Valerius imagined the terrified merchants, craftsmen and servants facing battle-crazed British champions, the bloody chaos of a splintered shield wall. ‘I doubt they’d stand for long and who could blame them. If the Britons do not take fright at the sight of us…’

Falco laughed. ‘That was a pretty fantasy you spun for the council. I almost believed it myself.’

They walked from the temple precinct back to where the ground fell away towards the river. Below them was the meadow where Valerius had inspected Falco’s militia during his first week in Colonia. It seemed a lifetime ago. The river encircled it in a long curve, wide and deep enough thanks to the recent rains to provide an effective barrier against an advancing enemy with a need to move fast.

‘I will burn the bridges, all but one.’ He pointed to the main crossing that carried the road from Colonia north to Venta. ‘That will be our bait. They are fighters, the Britons, but not soldiers. They will be drawn to the bridge because behind the bridge is where we will make our stand and their first instinct will be to annihilate us. Utterly.’