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Authors: Edward Rutherfurd

BOOK: Sarum
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Suddenly a thought struck the legate.
“We must give this place a name. What do you call this fort?”
“The dune,” Tosutigus replied sullenly.
“And the stream below?”
“Afon.” This was the Celtic word which meant river.
“Avon?” He shook his head. The sound did not please him. “Sorvio,” he said finally. “Means a slow-moving stream. We shall call it Sorviodunum.”
 
A.D
. 60
 
It seemed to Porteus, as the night deepened, that the waves crashing against the rocky Welsh shore nearby made a melancholy sound. But perhaps it was his mood.
The sharp, salty wind had just found a gap between the tent flaps and it burst in, causing the oil lamp to flicker violently. But the clean-shaven young Roman who sat motionless on the camp stool inside did not allow this interruption to distract his attention. He passed a hand through his unruly mop of black curly hair – never in all his twenty-one years had he ever completely managed to control it all – and, on a new piece of parchment he wrote down, slowly and carefully, the dangerous thought that had been troubling him for the past few months.
 
Privately, my dear father, I believe that we are administering the island badly and that there will be trouble. It’s the governor’s fault.
 
Having written this, he paused. Was it wise to express such ideas in a letter that was to travel all the way to his family’s estate in south east Gaul, and which might easily be opened by spies? He was attached to the governor’s staff, thanks to the influence of his prospective father-in-law. Wouldn’t he be accused of treachery? He shook his head sadly, put the parchment to one side, and returned to the safer narrative of the letter he had been composing before.
 
Two days ago, dear parents, we exterminated the last of the Druids: and a strange business it was, I can tell you. They and their followers had gathered on a small island called Mona, off the extreme west coast of Britannia, past the territory of the Deceangli tribe we have been fighting recently.
The governor was determined to crush them, and so we prepared to cross the narrow straits with the whole of the XIV Legion and most of the XX too.
They were burning fires all along the shoreline opposite, and what with the fires, and the shrieks they made, and the surf pounding, our troops hesitated for a moment. But not for long! The infantry crossed in boats and those of us who were mounted swam across on our horses; when we got over it wasn’t so bad. They fought well, but in the end they had to surrender and our own losses were not heavy.
 
He rested his hand. This account could safely be read out to his mother and his two sisters. The reality had been very different.
It had not been the lowering, overcast skies nor the crashing waves, nor the flickering fires along the shore that had made the legionaries hesitate; it had not been the native warriors banging their long shields with their spears to make a noise like thunder, nor the Druids in their robes shrieking the curses of their Celtic gods across the waters; it had not even been the sight of the naked sacrificial bodies the Druids threw into the hissing fires.
It had been the women.
They were a strange and terrifying sight: they were drawn up in front of their men, half naked but brightly painted and fully armed, their long hair streaming in the wind. They shook their knives and spears, they danced and gesticulated as though they were possessed; and – this was the worst of all, they uttered a high, piercing war cry, again and again, that came wailing over the water with a terrible, unearthly sound. He had never heard anything like that cry: it sent shivers down his spine.
A mutter arose amongst the men.
“It’s the Furies themselves,” they said. And for a moment, he had thought they would not fight, until a wise centurion shouted derisively:
“What, are you afraid of women now?”
It had the desired effect: the soldiers had pulled themselves together, and prepared to surge forward.
The battle was worse than anything he could have dreamed of. The disciplined Roman formations hacked their way through the native horde without difficulty. Men, priests and the women were butchered by the short broad Roman swords in ways that he did nor care to remember. The shallows were awash with bodies; the surf was red. After the fighting he had watched as two old Druids, toothless, with their long grey robes in shreds, but still screaming their useless curses, were tied together in one of their own wooden sacrificial cages and torched in front of him.
“It’s what they do to their own people,” a soldier shouted. He knew this was not true: the Celtic priests meted out this cruel death to criminals only; but one did not argue with soldiers after a victory, and the two old men died horribly while the Romans laughed:
“See them fry!”
He returned to his letter, preferring to put the scenes out of his mind.
 
I think the governor means to return to the new town of Londinium in a few days and I shall write to you next from there, no doubt.
 
He was tired; it was time to close his letter.
 
How grateful I am, dear parents, that Graccus the senator, whom I shall soon call my father-in-law, has made it possible for me to see these things and, I hope, to distinguish myself in some way.
As for my dear Lydia, I think of her each hour, and count the days until I may see her in the imperial city, once again.
Your son,
 
Caius Porteus Maximus.
 
Porteus sighed. Lydia – when would he see her again? In a year, perhaps. He thought of her as he often did, smiling and laughing with him: it seemed like a distant ray of sunshine in this cold northern place.
It was a remarkable circumstance that he should be betrothed to her at all. She was the third daughter of Graccus, a powerful senator of ancient family; whereas he was of the provincial nobility, belonging to the second, equestrian order of Roman society – respectable, entitled to enter a civil or military career and aim for high office, but hardly a good match for the daughter of a great aristocrat. Normally they should never have met at all; but by some stroke of good fortune – a distant cousin was a magistrate in Rome and had taken Porteus to the senator’s house – he had met the girl and for both of them it had been love at first sight. In such circumstances, a young man like Porteus could have expected to be thrown out of the senator’s house for his presumption – politely and with no hard feelings, but firmly and permanently; and that was exactly what Graccus had tried to do. But Lydia had fallen in love: it was not a thing well bred Roman girls were supposed to do. She had complained and moped incesssantly; and by the end of a month her father, who had two sons and two other daughters to think of, became bored with the whole business and gave way.
“There’s nothing against young Porteus,” the girl’s mother reminded him.
“And nothing for him either,” the heavy, grey-haired senator replied irritably. Which was perfectly true.
Young Porteus had vague aspirations towards a literary career, but these were based upon nothing more solid than some jejune epigrams that he had circulated amongst his friends and which Lydia thought wonderful. The income from the estates in southern Gaul was enough just to maintain the family’s modest social position, but no more; and although Porteus’s father had encouraged him to go into law as an advocate, so far his career in Rome had not been impressive.
“The daughter of a Graccus does not marry a nonentity,” the senator growled. “I suppose we shall have to make something of him.”
The solution he hit upon was sensible from every point of view. He had used his influence with the newly appointed governor of Britannia, Suetonius, to have the young man attached to his personal staff for three years.
“Give young Porteus a chance either to win distinction for himself, or to get killed,” he said to that crusty general. “I don’t mind which.”
It was an excellent opportunity. The
cohors amicorum
of a figure like Suetonius formed an informal staff around the governor: it often contained young men of aristocratic family who were being prepared for greater things, and by joining this elite group Porteus would have many chances to make important friends and to learn the inner workings of Roman administration. If the governor chose, he might appoint him to a temporary post in the new province, and at the end of his time there, the young equestrian would have fitted himself to hold important appointments in the future. Groomed for success, Graccus might be able to start him on a career worthy of a member of his family. In the meantime, he would at least be far away from Rome.
“With luck Lydia will forget him while he’s away,” the senator confided to his wife. “She’s thirteen now, but I dare say it wouldn’t be too late to find her a husband in two years’ time.”
“I’m sure he will do brilliantly and be a credit to us,” his wife encouraged.
To Porteus the senator said severely:
“You are betrothed to Lydia. If you want to marry her, make a success of this post. If you fail, I do not want to see you again.”
It was, when all was said and done, a generous bargain that the senator was making: for the governor of Britannia was a man of consequence.
Gaius Suetonius Paulinus was a pompous, red-faced and testy soldier who had distinguished himself in several campaigns, and most notably in the province of Mauretania where, as Praetorian legate, he had made a daring crossing of the mighty Atlas Mountains. War and mountains were what he understood and as soon as he had arrived in the island province he at once set out to find both.
His influence in Rome was considerable: he was a favourite of Emperor Nero.
For poor Claudius was now dead, poisoned six years before by his wife. It was his own fault: she was a young woman and the lame emperor was well into middle age: she had a young son from another marriage for whom she was ambitious and she persuaded Claudius to make the boy his successor. Once she had achieved that, she found little use for the ageing emperor. He should have realised this, and been on his guard. But Claudius had grown foolish – worse, he was even in love with his cruel young wife: she poisoned him, and young Nero succeeded.
Nero was unstable, though brilliant. Once he was emperor, he murdered the mother who had given him the throne and set out to rule in his own peculiar fashion. It soon became clear that he loved above all to appear on the stage: and with his grotesque and lewd performances he shocked the Senate far more than poor stammering Claudius had ever managed to do. Of his favourites, however, some were men of genuine merit: the philosopher Seneca was one; Suetonius the soldier was another.
Suetonius was a fine commander and he had collected about him a talented group. Amongst them was Agricola, the clear-eyed, hard-faced military tribune who had already shown early promise as a great military commander; several young bloods of the great senatorial families; and Marcus Marcellinus, the leader of this younger group. Marcus’s face was almost a perfect square; his features were strong and symmetrical, with a jutting nose and handsome jetblack eyes, over which the eyebrows met. He was twenty-four, but already bore himself like a man of thirty, and had carried out several civil and military assignments with distinction; it was clear that the soldiers, and even Suetonius respected him and that he would probably follow in the distinguished path of his senior, Agricola, and perhaps Suetonius himself one day. He was tall and powerfully built and Porteus was overawed by him.
At first his life was difficult. The governor had only accepted him on sufferance; he had neither attainments nor great family to recommend him to the young bloods. It was Marcus who, after Porteus had tried for over a month to make a place for himself in the group with little success, decided that something should be done.
“It’s time we welcomed young Porteus,” he announced to the others. “The poor fellow’s doing his best and there’s nothing against him. We should give him a chance.”
Thereafter life became easier. Suetonius, who had completely ignored him while they settled into their temporary quarters in the windy eastern colony at Camulodunum, now saw that the young officers were going about with him and started to give him small tasks to perform. Short as his temper was, he found nothing to complain of in the young man: he was industrious, eager to learn and not particularly stupid.
“He needs to be tested in battle,” he remarked to the legates one night as they chatted over their meal, “but he could be worse.” And the legates knew that, from the governor, this was as near to a compliment as anyone was likely to get.
“How did he come to be here?” one of them dared to ask him.
“I had to please his father-in-law, Graccus the Senator you know,” Suetonius candidly admitted. “Foolish to refuse a favour to a man like that who can always do you some good in Rome. His daughter’s going to marry young Porteus – I can’t think why.”

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