The Eagle and the Raven (101 page)

In the clearing a scout was waiting for her and she, Domnall, her bard, and her shield-bearer went wearily to the earth, taking the beer offered to them by Hulda and drinking thirstily.

“The Ninth is on the march from Lindum,” he said. “Cerealis has emptied the fort.”

“How far?”

“He had just arrived at Durobrivae when I left, but I do not think he will stay there long. He will rest the men for a few hours and then press on toward Colchester.”

She thought deeply, drank again, then drew up her knees and rested her arms across them. “Do we wait here for him or do we go out to meet him?” she asked herself aloud. “If we wait we will have time for preparation, but there are too many trees, it is too hard to fight a legion in the trees.” Her head went down but she raised it slowly. “We will move north and west to where the land is more open,” she decided. “A legion will not be hard to find, particularly if the scouts keep moving.”

“Colchester was no gamble,” Lovernius cut in. “It was like slaughtering sheep. But a legion will be a fitting test.”

She scrambled to her feet. “For the rest of this night we will eat and sleep. I want to change my clothes and wash.” They left her then and she began to strip off the crusted, foul tunic and breeches, not caring who passed in and out of the fire’s light. Her limbs shook with fatigue and her back was burning and sore. Stepping to the stream she lowered herself under the chill, chattering water and when she was clean she put on fresh clothes, drew her cloak around her, and lay with her head on her shield. The remains of the town burned all night, casting a lurid, dappled glow through the trees, and around her she could hear the sighings and mutterings of the thousands of people, and she could not sleep. She was afraid.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

P
AULINUS
removed his helmet and then lifted his arms so that his servant could unbuckle his breastplate. It was hot in the tent and the air was hazed with acrid blue smoke from burning wood and shriveling bodies. The sound of axes came to him clear and rhythmical and he heard the crisp shouted commands of his officer as they brought order into what had been a chaos of destruction. Yesterday Mona was an island seething with white-clad, raging priests and the screaming curses of incensed women brandishing swords and flaming torches. Today the sun poured over dismembered corpses, smashed altars, and the sweating work detail who were slinging the limp dead onto bonfires and chopping down the thick, vigorous oak groves. He moved his stiff shoulders under the soft leather jerkin, flung the plumed helmet onto his camp cot, and eased himself into his chair. The burn on his thigh tingled and he rubbed at it absently, his thoughts still entangled with the day before. It had been close. Not the battle, of course, if one could call chasing wildmen up the beach and slaughtering refugees under the trees a battle. There had been no element of surprise in his attack, not with his legions on the march for days through the embittered, hostile countryside, and every native for miles around knowing full well where he was bound. He had had his share of false alarms—wrong turnings under the blanket of the brooding mists, accidents with the baggage train on the narrow track be tween ocean and mountains, and then the swift burning of the village opposite the island that loomed dark from the beach, fogged with sea spume. A camp was built, boats and rafts were constructed, and the water was probed for shallows in order that the cavalry could cross. And all the time Mona sat there like a spell-hung monster of the depths, humping malignantly and filling the horizon. The officers had been worried, claiming that the soldiers felt the magic of the place and were afraid, though he himself could not catch so much as a whiff of this so-called spell. Indeed, when the time came for assault the men huddled in the rocking boats and on the rafts, cowed into immobility at the sight of a shore thronged with yelling, cursing Druids, and until he himself had leaped into the water and plunged for the beach they had been paralyzed with fear. He had led the charge, the men had responded, and no superstition had turned their lethal blades after all. Naturally. He grunted a thanks to his servant who had placed wine before him, and dismissed the past. Back to Colchester now, a message to the emperor, and peace for the province at last.

“Your second is here, sir,” the servant said respectfully, and Paulinus took off his arm bands and sipped gratefully from his cup.

“Show him in, then, and find me some good hot water. I need a bath.”

The tent flap was pushed aside and Agricola bent his head and came forward, saluting gravely. Paulinus smiled at him and indicated the little leather stool. “Sit down and have a drink, Julius. How goes it this morning?”

The younger man pulled the stool forward and sat, running a hand through his curly brown hair. “Very well, sir, but it will take quite a few days to fell all the oaks and burn them, and a detachment has gone after the natives who escaped us. There were not many and they will all be dealt with in a week. How hot it is today!”

“A welcome change after the mountains. Our losses?”

“A score or two, not enough to mention, and no officers. Some wounds, a few broken gladiae. What shall we do about the crops?”

“Crops?”

“Many of the fields had already been seeded. Shall we leave them?”

Paulinus drank, considered, and answered bluntly. “No, not this year. Have them turned under. Next spring we can have them tended, for the soil seems incredibly fertile here, but the men will have enough to do on the island without becoming farmers. I don’t think the western tribes will attempt to take Mona again, but until they surrender I have no intention of inadvertently providing them with more food.”

“I’m surprised we got through with so little opposition.”

“So am I. Conditions must be very bad for them by now. Well, Julius, we can relax for a week or two in the sun before we wend our way back to civilization.” He picked up his cup, the gray eyes smiling into Agricola’s brown ones. “A toast. To the emperor, and our success.”

“The emperor.” They drank happily. Agricola rose to go, but before he could leave the tent, Paulinus’s servant pushed past him.

“There is a scout here, sir, from Deva, very upset. He will not give his message to a legate, he insists on speaking to you in person.”

“Let him come, then. Julius, you’d better stay. I hope that Brigantian woman isn’t in trouble again.” Agricola retired to the stool, the servant bowed and went out, and a moment later the scout came into the tent. He was splashed in mud from head to foot and limping but Paulinus did not at once notice these things. His eyes were on the man’s face. A thinly masked terror was there, veiled only by a soldier’s discipline, and the big jaw trembled as he tried not to vomit the words that for the last twelve days had whipped him all the way from Lindum as he rode alone. He came clumsily to attention, saluted with one weary arm, and Paulinus nodded. “What message do you bring, centurion?”

“Sir,” the man answered, his voice husky with fatigue, “the Iceni have risen. They have destroyed the garrison within their territory and they are headed for Colchester. Thousands of them. The whole of their country has emptied.”

Agricola left the stool and went to stand beside Paulinus, but the governor did not move. “Is this only a rumor?”

“No, sir. The speculator from Lindum saw the remains of the garrison himself, and said that he rode through countless deserted villages. The legate of the Ninth has taken the legion and left Lindum, marching south. He asks me to tell you that he will not arrive in time to save the city but will endeavor to engage the rebels as soon as possible. There is a rumor that the Trinovantes have joined the Iceni, but that is just a rumor.”

The governor’s hand came crashing down on the table, and he rose heavily. “The Iceni? It is not possible! We have had no stauncher allies than Prasutugas and his chiefs.” But then a memory stole into his mind, a dispatch from the command of the Icenian garrison, a dispatch from the procurator. He had glanced over them briefly and handed them to his secretary with a few absent-minded words of vague instruction, all his attention focused on Mona, but now snatches of them drifted back to him. “… the chieftain of these people having died, and his will having been made known, I intend to proceed at once to Icenia…” “I do not believe, sir, that rapine and murder can be considered to be a part of imperial policy or the procurator’s duty, and I respectfully request to be transferred from Icenia…” Icenia. Boudicca. Ah yes, Boudicca. A colorful, big, hoarse voiced woman, a joke to the occupying forces with her outdated ideas of loyalty and her rude but harmless insults against the emperor.

Dead silence had fallen inside the tent, but beyond it the axes rang cheerily and a shout of laughter rose as a group of officers passed by. Paulinus walked to the flap, lifted it, and stood looking out on the sparkling green of the ocean. The Iceni, and perhaps the Trinovantes. Say, certainly the Trinovantes. Better to err on the side of safety. How many people? Fifty thousand? More? Could the Ninth hold them off, let alone defeat them? Where would they go after they had sacked Colchester as they undoubtedly would, perhaps had already done so … Londinium, of course. A cold feeling of impotence began to steal over him. Londinium was defenceless. So was Verulamium, almost. So, he thought in resignation, is the whole of the damned lowlands. Ripe fruit waiting meekly to be picked and eaten. What was the matter with me? How is it that I did not put the pieces together and see the picture forming? If other tribes follow her lead, Britannia is finished as a province. If? Of course they would. He swung back into the stifling noon heat of the tent.

“Sir, there’s the Second at Glevum,” Agricola said, and Paulinus stood looking down at the table.

“I know,” he replied tersely. “Let me think, Julius. I have the Fourteenth here, on Mona. I have the Twentieth at Deva, sixty miles away. Two legions. It might as well be twenty for all the good they can do, stuck here over two hundred miles from Colchester. That leaves the Ninth, somewhere on the march, and the Second. The Second could reach Londinium in time, perhaps. Mithras! So many ifs and perhapses! I am responsible for this fearful mess. I should have read the dispatches with more care. I should have left at least half a legion in the south.

“Go and find something to eat,” he ordered the scout, and when the man had saluted and gone Paulinus turned to Agricola. “Send a speculator to Glevum and order the Second to Londinium.”

“The Second is divided, sir, and the legate is away. It will take the praefectus castra some time to mobilize the legion.”

“It can’t be helped, there is no closer assistance. I want you to get half the Fourteenth off the island, march it to Deva, and join with the Twentieth. Then bring them both to Londinium. How long will that take you?”

“Forced marching? Two weeks.”

Paulinus rubbed at the black stubble on his chin and sighed. “Again, there is no quicker solution. With luck, the Second will meet up with the Ninth and keep the rebels contained until you arrive. Has it occurred to you, Julius, that in conquering the island of Mona I may well have lost the island of Albion?”

“Not even Julius Caesar himself could have foreseen the revolt of a tribe such as the Iceni, sir,” the younger man protested. “The greatest strategist in the world cannot predict all eventualities. What are you yourself going to do?”

“Take the cavalry and head for Londinium. The road is not completed, I know, but once we strike it we can make good speed. By the time we reach the city the Second should be there and the panic will be over.” He spoke confidently, but a depression settled over the two men, and his words sounded shrill and boastful. Agricola found himself thinking of Veranius, of Gallus, even of poor Scapula, and his doubts found voice.

“This land is cursed, Paulinus. I sometimes think that even the ground under our feet hates us.”

“Nonsense!” Paulinus dismissed him testily. “This is no time to be vainly imagining nonexistent perils. The real ones are bad enough. Send for the tribunes and my legates. We can surely hope that through the years of peace the tribesmen have forgotten how to fight.”

Agricola saluted and hurried out and the governor put his hands behind his back and gazed at the gently sloping walls of the tent. I must retrieve this situation or fall on my sword, he knew suddenly, with no doubts at all. I am fighting not only for my career, I am fighting for my life.

As he stepped out into the full glare of the noon sun, the primipilus of the Fourteenth hurried to him and saluted. Paulinus was so preoccupied that he brushed by the man without seeing him, but the primipilus matched his stride.

“Sir,” he said. “Forgive me for troubling you, but there is a small problem.”

Paulinus stopped. “What problem?” he snapped, dragging his mind from the memory of his own triclinium at Colchester where Boudicca had reclined opposite him, drinking the mead he had ordered especially for her, smiling at him with mingled familiarity and impudence. “What are you talking about?”

“There is a body in under the trees that no man will touch,” the primipilus answered almost apologetically. “Will you come, sir?

“Go to your legate,” Paulinus said brusquely. “Don’t bother me with such a nonsensical detail.”

“I cannot find him, sir, and the men refuse to return to work until this body is dealt with.”

I have no time to give you! Paulinus wanted to shout at his senior centurion, but he controlled himself. His officers would be gathering, but it would be some minutes before he could address them. Take one step at a time, he thought. To run will be to awaken panic, and then disaster.

“Very well,” he grunted. “Show me this thing.”

The primipilus led him back behind his tent, past the roaring fires piled with bodies, which gave off a suffocating black smoke, and into the wood. It was cooler under the trees, and as they received the salute of the men hewing the oaks, Paulinus became aware of the breeze that stirred the upper branches and made the green leaves quiver. The drowsy sound served to calm him a little. The path curved, and as he and the primipilus rounded it they came upon a group of legionaries clustered a respectful distance from a huddle on the ground under a tree. When they saw Paulinus they broke apart and saluted, but one man stayed sitting on the ground, his arms about his bare knees, rocking back and forth. Paulinus strode to him.

“Get up!” he shouted. “On your feet, you cowardly young bastard!”

He looked up at the governor. His face was gray, and sweat stood out along his upper lip, and as he struggled to his feet two of his fellows bent to help him. Shakily, he gave the salute but he seemed dazed.

“What ails you, man?” Paulinus pressed.

The soldier swallowed. “I killed him, sir,” he croaked.

“In other words, you did your duty,” Paulinus rapped tartly. “Are you ill?”

“I killed him,” the soldier repeated, as Paulinus turned in disgust to the primipilus.

“What is going on here?”

“These men have been detailed to collect bodies for the fires,” the centurion replied. “They had been working well all morning, but then this body was found.” He indicated the quiet form. “The legionary you just spoke to took one look at its face and would not touch it, and the other men refused also.”

“I killed him,” the young man said again, beginning to recover his balance. “As soon as I saw the body, I remembered, and then when I bent to lift him, and looked into his eyes…”

“Well? What? Hurry up!”

“I saw myself.”

“Of course you saw yourself! What else would you see reflected in the eyes?”

“No, sir, not like that. I saw myself lying dead, my breastplate gone and my chest an open wound.”

Paulinus grunted, a sound of impatient exasperation. “You are a fanciful young idiot who will have to be disciplined for disobeying orders and spreading superstitious rubbish.”