Arthur Britannicus (13 page)

XVI
. Portland Bill

The vessels on the port flank of the Channel Fleet emerged from a small bank of sea fog to surprise the raiders, and the admiral’s plan to intercept the Franks had succeeded. The Roman flotilla, patrolling to catch pirates, had been carefully positioned near a great curving beach that jutted from the British shore like the bill of an ibis.  Four Frankish corsairs with their high prows, wide beams and shallow draughts were returning under full leather sails from a series of successful raids on the coast.  When they saw Carausius’ nine new warships, easily identified by their uniform blue canvas, they turned as one, sharply away.  The Romans held their line astride the pirates’ escape south to Gaul and contained the raiders like beaters driving partridge. A brisk south-westerly closed the seaway to the open ocean, and the loom of the land was hard under their larboard side. They could only sail forward and east. They did not know that the Roman fleet had them trapped like fish in a net.

A navigator wise in these waters had told the legate of the deadly three-mile bank of shingle that extended a murderous wall into the sea, and had brought the fleet to that killing station. “It has the name Portland Bill, lord,” he explained, “and it’s a ship wrecker. As the tide comes in or out, the swirls on both sides of the Bill crash straight into the flood going east to the German Sea, or the ebb going west into the Atlanticus,” the old sailor said. “It squeezes the tide, makes vast whirlpools, and it creates a sea-torrent as fast as a cantering horse. It’s all great waves and sea spouts where the currents clash.  Ships can’t live in that.  Worse for them, this wind has the pirates caught between the land and the race. They can’t go west against the blast, they can’t go east or north because of the Bill and the shore, and we’re here in the south.  When we close on them and the land, we just have to use our oars to drive them where their sails can’t help them. “

Carausius readied his fleet for the capture. He ordered the decks soused with water, and sand to be scattered over them, for better grip in the upcoming battle. He called for the long-poled, bladed hooks that could slash the enemy’s rigging to be broken loose, and oars to be shipped above the leather sheets that kept the waves from entering by the holes. The rowers were to rest as the galleys moved forward under sail only. “We have time. Feed the men. Get the cooks to bring bacon and beans,” he directed. “I want none of that admiral’s ham.” The aide grinned. Admiral’s ham was what sailors called fish, which few of them liked, even though there was usually a supply of cod drying on the bows of the ships as they sailed.

The ballistae and catapults were uncovered, rope-slung grappling hooks readied and the collapsible fighting towers quickly erected at bow and stern. “Bring up more javelins, and get three sheaves of arrows for each archer,” the legate commanded. “Pass that on down the fleet, and tell them: we want these ships captured, not sunk.” The orders went out through signallers using red flags and cloaks, or, if the vessels were close enough, were shouted through brass megaphones.  Carausius wanted captives and loot, as well as the vessels themselves. He reasoned that if he faced them with shipwreck and drowning, he might force the pirates’ surrender, so could take ships, slaves and cargo and increase both his war chest and the size of his fleet.

One of the corsairs broke from the others and in a desperate bid to escape, headed directly for the centre of the Roman line, the green sea foaming white under her bows. The others sailed closer to the coast and dropped their sails. Under bare poles, they watched to see what their opponents would do. Carausius’ captain used a speaking trumpet to relay the legate’s orders to the squadron. The three central galleys were to surround and take the fleeing pirate; the others were to maintain station.

The red tunics of the soldiers on the centre galleys, which had the names Concordia, Salamina and Minerva lettered across on their sterns, stood out from the blue-green dress of the sailors and an observer could discern the beehive of activity by following the swarm of colours. The infantrymen readied themselves, taking up throwing javelins, checking that their swords moved freely in their scabbards and looking to the fastenings of their armour. The sailors moving between them quickly erected the fighting towers, and wore their ships around to intercept the oncoming pirate. On the trireme Minerva, a blue-clad swarm lowered the boarding bridge at the prow, where the collapsible fighting tower had been left unassembled.

Carausius’ captain Cassius Sextus was a grizzled centurion with a transverse crest on his leather helmet and salt-stained segmented armour like his legate’s. He was squinting at the trireme where the great boarding bridge jutted forward. “I wouldn’t want one of those old ramps on my ship, lord,” he said. “They make the ship handle badly, and can sink you in rough seas. I thought they’d all been pensioned off, because they must have been around since Romulus.”  Carausius nodded. He recalled that the Greek mathematician Archimedes had devised something similar during the defence of Syracuse, centuries before. His war engines had been used to grapple and sink the
consul Marcellus’ warships. He’d also used great mirrors as burning glasses to focus the sun and set fire to the invaders’ ships. Not much opportunity for that in these gloomy northern climates, he thought.

Carausius looked closer at the boarding ramp, which was hinged to the foot of the mast and was being lowered on pulleys to project over the Minerva’s prow. A long fang-like spike designed to snag the enemy deck projected from the underside at the front of the gangplank. “I suppose a heavier ship wouldn’t be too affected,” the legate mused. “Still, I wouldn’t want the great clumsy thing, lord,” said Cassius.

“Those,” he said, pointing where the other vessels had assembled their fighting towers at prow and stern and archers were already swarming, “are much more efficient. I say fire into the enemy, then go alongside. We shoot a few grappling hooks into them and haul them to us, and then we board, all along the side, all at once, and overwhelm them.” Cassius rapped his cudgel of office on the gunwale to attract the steersman’s attention. “Steer small,” he ordered, “and hold our station.”

The lighter biremes Concordia and Salamina were almost at the pirate ship, approaching from both sides. Minerva, heavier and less agile, had eased to go head-on at the corsair. The first flight of stones from the warships’ ballistae thumped into the pirate’s deck-less vessel, taking down several sailors,
then a shower of heavy darts from the catapults thudded in. The throwing crews abandoned their machines as the distance shortened, and the archers in the fighting towers began pouring their long, broadhead-tipped arrows into the mass of pirates cowering unprotected. At the same time, at twenty paces’ range, the soldiers at the gunwales hurled their weighted, iron-bladed javelins.

Moments later, the rowers on all three decks of the big trireme clattered their oars inboard. The four ships came grinding together. On the corsair, men were screaming, pierced and pinned by the missiles, but a few were running to the ship’s sides to fight off the boarders. It was a swift and bloody action. The first infantrymen were already over the ships’ sides and stabbing from behind their shields, and the pirate vessel shook under the impact of Minerva’s boarding bridge.

A score of nimble marines in leather helmets ran across the ramp shield less, with stabbing sword in one hand and leaf-shaped long knife in the other. The pirates were being assailed from three sides and couldn’t surrender fast enough, but the armoured soldiers at their flanks had their bloodlust roused. They battered their heavy knobbed shields forward, knocking aside the raiders’ swords, and thrust their stabbing gladii in, under rib cages and chins. They
stamped their nailed boots down on fallen, wounded men as they moved forward across the narrow deck, literally crushing the resistance. 

Carausius grinned as he watched from his flagship trireme, Isis. “Amazing how soft the human head is, eh?” he asked his centurion. “There’s a fellow there just put his sword through from the jaw to the top of that bastard’s skull. The point stuck right out. All right, sound the horn and call the dogs off. We can make some money from pirates as slaves, but not from them as dead men.”

To the north, the three other Frankish ships had re-hoisted their patched leather sails and were tacking in a desperate bid to gain sea room. The legate waved for his beaters’ line to close in. “If we get close, use the sharp hooks to grab the halyards,” he instructed his centurion, “then row like Pluto away.” The plan was simple. The Romans would slash the ropes that supported the yards and the raiders’ sails would fall, crippling the oar less ships. The ploy wasn’t needed. The hapless pirates saw their doom approaching, and turned for the shore. Two ran their ships up onto the limestone shingle and the raiders leaped overboard and stumbled ashore, to try an escape.

The third ship was handled badly. She turned broadside in the surf, rolled on her beam ends and foundered in the shallows. Her crew scrambled ashore and ran.   Carausius ordered two warships in close and set about releasing the 40 or so captives the pirates had taken.  All had come from southern Britain, all opted to stay ashore and make their way home. The marines relieved the swamped ship of what cargo they could salvage, then stove in her planking to cripple her. The other three ships were loaded with captives, and manned with prize crews. The legate ordered them to stand offshore until the wind eased, then to make their way back to Bononia, giving the deadly Bill plenty of sea room.  Satisfied, Carausius reformed his flotilla and set course for Gaul, to hunt down more raiders.

XVII. Colosseum

In Rome, the general Maximian was administering a savage beating to a house slave who’d spilled his cup of spiced wine. He battered the man with his big fists, knocking him to the ground, then ordered him to stand, before pounding him again, bloodying the man’s face as the slave cowered, mute and terrified. “You clumsy ninny, I’ll flog you and send you to the Colosseum for the bears,” he roared.  Maximian’s wife Eutropia came into the atrium to see what was happening. “Leave him, darling,” she pleaded. “Just have him chained up for a day or two without water. The steward will see to it.  Let me look at your poor hands.” She gestured to a slave to bring water and a towel, gently eased the brutish soldier onto a stool and knelt to wash and salve his bruises. Two male slaves hauled their battered companion out as the steward shooed them from the master’s presence.

“He’s lucky I’m not Pollio,” grumbled her husband. “He throws slaves to his moray eels to be eaten alive.  Anyway, you’d be in a bad mood if you hadn’t had a bullion train for months. I have no idea what that swine Carausius is doing up there in Gaul, but the emperor’s been asking me some awkward questions about him. We haven’t been getting any slaves or silver from up north for months. I’ve sent messages to the bastard but there’s been no response. It puts you on edge.”

The butler eased his way into the room. “My lord,” he said timidly, “there is unfortunate news about the slave who spilled your wine; he is drunk, my lord. It seems he has been stealing from you, helping himself to the wine.” Maximian swore furiously, his wife ended her ministrations and silently exited. “Send the thief to the arena,” the general said, shortly. “I’ll watch the beasts tear him apart.”

Two days later Maximian was entering the Colosseum, a place where hundreds of thousands had died for the amusement of the mob. He passed the arcaded fornices where prostitutes both male and female gathered to offer their bodies in the dens they’d made in the arches of the great edifice. It was long past the ninth hour, the official opening time, after which prostitution was legal. He glanced over the chattering crowd of pimped-out boys, dancers and tavern girls in braided wigs made from Celt or German hair. The law said that prostitutes must dye their hair blonde or wear blonde wigs to signify their legal, but disreputable, trade. High-class women in search of sexual thrills were in the habit of stealing
out at night in such wigs, he mused, which rather undermined the lawmakers’ intent to stigmatize and humiliate the whores. Another failure of the high-minded, he thought.

His eyes rested on a slender Sarmatian whose gilded nipples showed through her filmy tunic. He glanced at the tariff board above her den, and was tempted, but he hurried on, brushing impatiently at the flying insects that sought his sweat, even as he saw his own name painted in red on several walls, official graffiti that advertised his political standing. Soon, he was taking his privileged seat just above the sand of the arena where he caught the familiar stench of dung and blood. The nervousness many people harboured about sitting too near the front wasn’t about the smell, he thought. That caution followed the action of the crazed emperor Caligula, who had once ordered his guards to thrust a whole section of the crowd into the arena to be killed by wild beasts, because he was bored and there were insufficient criminal victims to provide a suitably gory spectacle.

Maximian’s reserved section occupied the first rows above the sand, a highly prestigious place designed to display the great and good to the public. It was also conveniently close to one of the vomitoria, those cleverly-designed exits that allowed the crowds to leave quickly and easily. An outpouring of people was moving through it at the moment, having just turned their thumbs upwards like a drawn sword, to vote for the death of the losing gladiator. Now they were headed for the latrines and the food vendors.

Maximian approved. Too often, he reflected sourly, the sponsors tucked their thumbs in, symbolically sheathing a sword, to spare the fighters. He preferred to see gladiators fight to the death, but the people who put on the shows didn’t want to waste money, and training a fighting man was expensive.  Below him, a slave dressed as Charon, boatman of the
Underworld, was loading the body of the slaughtered slave onto a small cart as the other gladiator, bloodied and limping, moved out of the arena, which was buzzing with talk and boos.

An overweight senator in a freshly-chalked, gleaming white toga nodded to him from along the row. Maximian returned the greeting, noting with amusement that the man was wearing an obvious, glossy black wig. Probably hair from India, he mused. People did the damnedest things to be fashionable. Old Pliny had once declared that using leeches left to rot in red wine for six weeks or so would make your hair black, and half of Rome had tried it. Probably turn your scalp black, too, thought Maximian. No wonder people wore wigs instead. He became aware that the man in the shiny hairpiece seemed to want to talk. He moved closer. “Did you see that?” the politician asked. “Quite scandalous, I think.”

The big soldier shook his head. “I’ve only just arrived,” he said.

“Oh,” said the senator. “Well, that prick of a referee effectively killed the winner.” 

Maximian angled his head questioningly, and raised an eyebrow.  The summa rudis refereed gladiatorial bouts, and the rules were many and detailed, making for bouts that were only rarely fights to the death. If the gladiator had put up a good fight, he was even honoured in defeat. It was all in the rules. Only once, at the pleasure of the emperor Titus, had both gladiators been declared victors, after an epic and long drawn-out duel. Otherwise, the rules were strictly obeyed. One of the key conditions allowed a beaten gladiator to submit, and his life would be spared if the munerarius who’d paid for the bout approved it and was popular enough to sway the crowd’s verdict.

One common rule allowed a fighter who’d slipped and fallen but had not been floored by his opponent to get up, retrieve his weapons and continue combat.  The referee in the arena would wave away the standing gladiator until this happened. He controlled the fight, and this was what had annoyed the senator. 

“That fellow Diodorus,” he said, gesturing at the corpse now being wheeled out by slaves dressed as Pluto, lord of the dead, and Mercury, escorter of souls to the Underworld, “had won the fight. He’d flattened the Greek Demetrius, knocked away his shield and grabbed his sword. Demetrius was down, lying bleeding on the sand. He managed to raise his forefinger to submit, and Diodorus did the correct thing and stepped back. He was waiting with both their swords in his hands to see if the thumbs went up, telling him to kill his opponent, but the referee must have had a bet on the fight. He made the most amazing ruling, signalled that Demetrius fell accidentally, and ordered Diodorus away. Then he kicked the Greek’s sword back to him.  Diodorus turned to protest to the referee, and didn’t see the Greek advance and cut him down. The referee quickly signalled that the bout was ended and nodded to Demetrius to finish the man off.”

The crowd, said the irate senator, booed the decision, but it was too late for the dying gladiator. The referee had handed the palm leaf of victory to the surviving fighter and didn’t even wait for the slave dressed as Mercury to test the defeated man’s body with a white-hot iron to see that he wasn’t faking death.  He briskly strode out, off the sand. “Daylight robbery,” agreed Maximian to the sputtering senator. “They’ll probably put that on his tombstone.”

He nodded again to the senator, and turned back to his seat, then glanced up at the glare of the sun. Too hot, too bright, he thought. He spotted a rigging crew working, and motioned for a slave. “Get those people to pull the awning forward, give me more shade,” he commanded.  The man hurried off to carry out the instruction and Maximian settled in his seat, thinking with satisfaction how he’d enjoy witnessing his thieving slave’s painful end, even though it was against the law to send a slave to death in the arena.  “If the magistrates find out, they’ll not dare to censure me,” he thought grimly, “I’d have them on the sand, too.”

Over his head, a handful of mariners skilled in handling large sails were working the rigging to move the vast canvas awnings that protected the crowd from the afternoon sun. It was a cushy job to be one of those chosen to come to Rome and serve out your time, the nobleman thought, considering the hardships of life at sea.  He watched with interest as the sailors swung around in the rigging and the shade they created moved across him.  One of the sailors approached, knuckling his forehead. “Is that sufficient, lord?” he asked, obviously seeking a reward.

“Fine,” the general grunted, then a thought struck him. “Where is your accent from?” he demanded.

“I’m British, lord,” said the man.

“Were you serving there?”

“No, lord, I was in Gaul.  I sailed with the Classis Britannica, under the lord Carausius.” 

Maximian leaned forward, and caught the man’s blue tunic, getting a smear of tallow on his fingers from its waterproofing. “And how,” he said dangerously, “has my lord Carausius been keeping?”  What the frightened sailor told the menacing big nobleman about the captured raiders and their siphoned-off loot sent Maximian striding out of the arena in a fury. He headed for the Senate house to find the jurist Marcus Vettius.  “That bastard legate Carausius has been making himself rich at my expense. He’s got his own mint up there in Gaul, melting down the bullion that should be in my damned coffers,” he stormed. “Get him brought back here. I’ll court martial the swine, then I’ll personally strangle him. Car the thieving Bear! I’ll put him in the arena with real bloody bears!” He kicked at an ivory-inlaid stool in rage. Robbed, by that insolent Briton! And, he’d missed seeing that clumsy thieving slave torn apart. What a bloody day!

Nine hundred miles to the north, in Forum Hadriani, the twins’ master was viewing them with an evil eye. “We’re going to Britain, and you had better lead me straight to that treasure. If you’re lying, you’ll have your backs opened and I’ll show the world your spines before I have you crucified. And if you try to run again, I’ll have you hanged upside down over a fire before you’re flogged and crucified. Am I clear?”  The twins looked back at Gracilis and he was shocked to see hate, not fear, blazing in their eyes. Infuriated, he cudgelled Domnal across the side of the head, flooring him. Mael dropped to his brother’s side and looked up. “If you want the treasure, you do not hit him again,” he said quietly. “I’m telling you this,
listen and learn or you will be a poorer man. We’ll go to Britain and we won’t run, we’ll lead you to the treasure and you’ll release us. If you don’t agree, we’ll find a way, despite you, to kill ourselves and you’ll be missing two valuable slaves as well as an emperor’s bullion.”

Gracilis stared into the slave’s level, cold eyes, turned abruptly, dropped his cudgel and walked away. Two days later, with the twins collared, chained, and locked in a wooden cage on the deck of Gracilis’ trading ship Venta, the merchant ordered his captain to set course for Londinium.  He sailed just a day before Mullinus and Clinia arrived at the same dockside in a litter, with a small entourage of slaves. The couple were there to board a Frankish trader’s stout vessel, and they were bound for Colchester. In Britannia’s civil service headquarters, they knew they’d find a library and archive of tax rolls for British towns.

In the east, Maximian was still simmering. Carausius had ignored Maximian’s summons and the general had been forced to bottle his rage at insolently being ignored because he had major concerns of his own. He’d been sent to the Danube to turn back the rising tide of Goths, Vandals, and assorted barbarians who were pushing at the eastern borders of the empire, and it was a close-run thing. His campaign in Moesia had been a success, but he was chronically short of manpower, and he felt he was merely filling holes in an ever-weakening dyke. He had a burning hatred for Carausius by now, as the flow from Britain and north Gaul of trained soldiers as well as of needed currency had totally dried up and his reputation and career were jeopardised. “With those resources, I could put down these insurgents once and for all, secure this border and clean up the bandits in Gaul and Spain, including that poxed whore’s son thief Carausius,” he told his battle group commander.

“There’s something else,” he told his subordinate, recalling what his spymaster had told him. “I heard a story from Darius of a treasure and a lost Eagle that is hidden in Britain. Talk to him, get someone with a brain onto it, find out the truth and report back. I have others working on this, but we might need to send a few trusted men to finish off the job. I don’t want some superstition being used to rally a rabble, and I certainly don’t want that prick Carausius waving an Eagle he’s recovered like he’s the new Messiah.”

The ‘new Messiah’ admiral by now held a large swathe of northern Gaul and his fleet and war chest had steadily grown as he captured and crucified or sold into slavery the Gaels, Franks and Bagaudae marauders who infested the northern territory and sea coasts. Their freedom to prey on traders or to raid the coast to loot anything they could have been severely curtailed by Carausius’ ever-more-efficient naval force. He had been less successful at holding back the German and Danish invaders, and they had seized the Frisian Islands, driving out Rome’s soldiers and settlers, but Carausius’ primary mission was to keep open the trade routes from Our Sea to northern Gaul and Britain. And, he privately thought, to build up his forces to sustain his political ambitions. Britain, he thought was ripe for a new emperor who would treat them as a nation, not as a milk cow to be drained for rapacious nobles back in Italy or to fund military expeditions on the Rhine. He mused on another idea that had been implanted in his mind by Allectus. “You know, lord,” the smooth-tongued treasurer had murmured, “how soldiers take a Latin name when they swear fealty to the emperor? It might be provident to assume a more British name to underscore your ties to the nation.” At first, Carausius had dismissed the idea, but on balance, he thought it a sound idea.  A week or two after the germ was implanted, he overheard two sentries refer to him as ‘The Bear,’ a nickname he knew was respectful enough. ‘Ursus the bear,’ he thought, or ‘Arth,’ as ‘bear’ was in the British tongue.  “Artorius’ was still too Roman, but maybe ‘Arthur?’  It would fit well enough with his string of names…