Masters of Rome (2 page)

A light breeze picked up, gusting east to west across their line of travel, swirling the mist and clearing a swathe off to Sabinus' right. He pulled himself up in his saddle, feeling a relief that visibility had cleared, if only by a few score paces in one direction. He began to mutter a prayer to Mithras to shine his light through the gloom of this fog-bound island and help him to … he caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of his eye, he turned to look but it was gone, the wind sucked the mist back in and doubt clouded his mind as to whether it was a movement he had seen or it was just his imagination feeding off the tales of horror that were hard to banish from his head. The stories could never be unheard.

During the two months that Plautius had been forced, for political reasons, to pause north of the Tamesis, waiting for the Emperor Claudius to arrive and take the credit and glory for the fall of Camulodunum, the XIIII Gemina had probed west along the river. It was at this time that Sabinus first began to hear reports from his officers of strange apparitions and unnatural occurrences: a legionary had been found, barely alive, flayed and yet still in uniform; his dying words had been of daemons that sucked the flesh from his limbs. Another had been found dead, drained of blood, and yet with no wound on his body or trace of the life-giving fluid seeping into the ground close by. Spectral figures in long, luminous robes that glowed with an unnatural fluorescence were sighted regularly, especially near to the mounds covering the tombs of the ancients and the many henges of both stone and wood that seemed to be, along with the sacred groves, centres for the Britons' barbarous religion.

At first Sabinus had put this down to the overactive imaginations of superstitious soldiers but, after Claudius' departure, he led his legion further inland for the final month of the campaigning season and had felt something that he had never been aware of anywhere else. He could only describe it as an ancient presence. That – and the disembodied howls and cries that plagued their nights – had convinced him that there was a power here that he did not understand; a power that was linked to the land where, no matter how strongly he was protected by the light of his lord Mithras, he was an interloper.

The following year they had carried on moving slowly inland, investing hill-forts one by one and fighting off raids on their supply lines and ambushes on their columns by Caratacus' warriors. The further they went the greater grew his feeling of unease and it was almost with relief that he withdrew his legion back south to their winter quarters on the Tamesis at the end of that season. He had brought up the subject with Vespasian last month, when the legates had met with Plautius at Camulodunum to discuss the next season's campaign, but his brother had dismissed his fears as soldiers' yarns; and yet there had been a look in his eyes that had led Sabinus to believe that he too felt a similar unease.

Sabinus tried to put his worries to one side as the column rode on slowly across the plain studded with tufts of rough grass. The breeze strengthened, shifting the fog, tugging it this way and that in wispy tendrils so that occasionally visibility improved enough to see the way ahead until, a few moments later, another gust would cause their view to be clouded again.

To force his mind away from the superstitious depths that the eerie conditions had taken it to, Sabinus glanced sidelong at Alienus and studied him. He noticed a ruddiness to his cheeks and a certain stubbiness to his nose and, although his face was quite slender, he thought that his family must have some Celtic blood. That would explain his cognomen, Alienus: foreigner. But then, he reflected, what family from northern or, for that matter, central Italia did not? His own roundish face and bulbous nose could hardly be described as classically Latin. ‘Are your people from the north of Italia, Alienus?'

‘Hmm?' The young tribune blinked his eyes as if emerging from a private reverie. ‘I'm sorry, sir, what did you say?'

Sabinus repeated the question.

‘No, sir; I'm from the south coast of Britannia. I'm the grandson of Verica, King of the confederated tribes of the Atrebates and the Regni. My Britannic name is also Verica after my grandfather.'

Sabinus was surprised. ‘Your Latin is excellent.'

‘Thank you, sir. My grandfather fled to Rome five years ago, after Caratacus had dispossessed him of his kingdom, and he took me with him. Like all Britannic princes in the south, I'd already had a good education in Latin and so I soon became fluent.'

‘And Claudius granted you citizenship?'

‘Yes, and equestrian rank. I took the name Tiberius Claudius and then added the cognomen Alienus because it amused me and so I became Roman as my grandfather wanted. General Plautius took me onto his staff as a favour to him so that I could begin to make my way up the various offices and perhaps even become a senator. I'd be the first Briton to do so.'

Sabinus nodded his approval at this thoroughly Roman ambition. ‘I was sorry to hear of Verica's death. Just last month, wasn't it?'

‘He was old and expected to die; he had no regrets. He'd reclaimed his kingdom, been made a formal client-king of Rome and had ensured a strong heir in his nephew, Cogidubnus.'

‘Why not his grandson?'

Alienus smiled. ‘He said I was too young, the people wouldn't accept me and I understand that: how could a nineteen-year-old who hasn't been seen by his people in five years rule? Cogidubnus is also seen as a man who stood up to Rome before he was subdued by her; I on the other hand am seen as a man who voluntarily joined Rome's legions.'

‘So you'll go to Rome after you've …' A freshening gust cleared the fog around them, momentarily unveiling a burial mound not ten paces away to the left; the words died in Sabinus' throat as the breeze blew the vapour back, shrouding the tomb once again but leaving its image burnt in his mind.

Dark murmurs and muttering came from the column behind – clearly he had not been the only one to witness the ill-omened sight. When he glanced back he saw more than a few of the troopers had their thumbs clutched in their right hands and were spitting on the ground to avert the evil-eye. A barked order from decurion Atilius brought his men back to order but the damage to their already fragile morale was done and they cast nervous looks to either side as the thinning fog billowed around them, fearful as to what it might reveal next. Amongst the Romans only Alienus seemed unruffled by travelling so close to the mound, which struck Sabinus as odd seeing as he had shown a natural disinclination to remain too long in the vicinity of the Lost Dead.

Another swirl in the fog, up ahead, drove that thought from Sabinus' mind; his heart skipped a beat. A giant's leg, solid and broad, appeared in their path as if the monster had taken a great step towards them and planted it there that instant – yet there had been no trembling of the earth and no booming report of the footstep. Then the second leg materialised through the miasma, equally silent. Shocked troopers hauled on their mounts' reins, causing many to rear and whinny, shattering the silence. Sabinus looked up in alarm; the lower torso was becoming visible but above the waist was still lost in the fog. Another leg on either side emerged; there were at least three of the monstrosities lined against them.

Sabinus drew his sword and glanced over his shoulder. ‘Atilius, form two lines. Stay together!' he bellowed at his escort as panic mounted. Turning back to face the threat, he gasped; the breeze stiffened; more legs appeared to either side and they were all connected by one long lower abdomen that was not flesh and bone but stone – cut and shaped stone slabs of great magnitude. Sabinus realised that he was gazing at a henge, a stone henge; the biggest that he had seen.

Calming his horse he turned to the guide to find him missing. ‘Shit! Alienus?' He could see no sign of the young tribune either. Behind him the decurion was managing to restore some order amongst the troopers. Then, to his left, Sabinus glimpsed two horses galloping away through the mist; as they disappeared,
spectral figures materialised, moving towards them, now visible, now not. He felt cold dread rise in his belly; that glimpse of movement had not been a figment of a wild imagination. He looked the other way; scores more of the ethereal shapes, indistinct in the eddying mist, seeming to glide over the veiled ground, were heading their way.

They were surrounded.

When the first slingshots cracked into the turma from both sides, Sabinus felt an illogical relief: it was not the Lost Dead that faced them but men, live men who could be fought and killed.

The screaming started; but it was bestial, not human. The slingers were aiming low, at the horses' legs; they had not come to deal out death, Sabinus realised, but to take captives.

‘Atilius!' Sabinus roared, pointing his sword north, back the way they came. ‘Our only chance is to ride through them together.'

Atilius yelled at his men to turn; the turma struggled to form line in the hail of shot thwacking in from both sides. Five horses were already down, writhing in shattered-bone agony, their dismounted riders, screaming, struggling to clamber up behind one of their comrades. Two more horses fell thrashing to the ground, hurling one trooper clear but crushing the other; he lay still, his head at an unnatural angle. The unseated man rose shakily to his feet to be punched back, with a sharp howl, arms flailing, body arced over buckled knees, crashing to the ground with a pulped hole where his nose had been.

Sabinus urged his mount forward. ‘With me!' Risking the uneven ground he drove his horse into a canter; the surviving troopers followed, unsheathing their cavalry
spathae
ready to cleave their way through their tormentors, who were now less than fifty paces away.

Another hail of slingshot scythed through their ranks, bringing down six horses, head first, their muzzles ploughing into the grass as their splintered forelegs collapsed beneath them; the riders cried to their comrades not to leave them behind. But their pleas were in vain.

A shot fizzed past Sabinus' knee; the slingers were still aiming low. He kicked his heels and slapped the flat of his blade hard on
his mount's rump; the beast burst into a gallop. The slingers turned and fled. Sabinus' heart raced, stimulated by hope. But in the instant that he thought they would run their attackers down a new terror sprang from the ground: a double line of spearmen, concealed until now, raised themselves up to kneel on one leg; each supported a long, ash-shafted boar-hunting spear, their butts wedged in the turf and the leaf-shaped, iron heads aimed at the horses' chests.

With no time to react, the turma ploughed into the bristling hedge of honed iron. The blades sliced into taut equine muscle, crunched through bone to burst into the cavity housing vital organs beyond. Blood, pressurised by huge hearts working to the limit, exploded from the ghastly rents in the beasts' chests as they impaled themselves, their momentum forcing in the spearheads until they came to a juddering, haft-bending halt on the iron crosspieces at their base.

Sabinus was flung forward onto his mount's neck, his red-plumed helmet spinning away over the enemy line. An instant later he was hurled back as the stricken animal reared, shrieking in agony, yanking the embedded spear from the grip of its blood-spattered wielder and cracking the skull of the man next to him as the beast twisted in its torment.

Landing with a lung-emptying crunch on his back, Sabinus just had the presence of mind to roll to one side as the dying horse crumpled onto its rump and then tumbled backwards, its legs scrabbling weakly in the air as if it were trying to canter its last.

Sabinus pulled himself to his knees, gasping for breath, and felt his head crack; a white light streaked across his vision. As he faded into unconsciousness he realised the bitter irony of being led into a trap by a spy passing himself off as a Roman called ‘Alienus'.

It was a scream that brought Sabinus back to consciousness: a scream of fear, not of pain. He opened his eyes but could see only thick stems of rough grass; he was on his belly, his hands fastened behind his back. His head throbbed. The scream stopped and he could hear a low chanting.

Trying to ease himself over, he felt his stomach churn and then convulse. A gush of thin vomit sprayed onto the grass; its sour taste lingered on his tongue and its reek, as it dribbled out of his nostrils, turned his insides again, forcing him to heave once more.

Breathing fast and shallow he forced himself onto his back, spitting out the residue of the noisome fluid. The fog had lifted and the sun was setting. He raised his head; he was within the henge. Blurred figures were moving around. The scream resumed, drowning the chant. One of the figures raised an arm, paused, and then brought it crashing down; the scream was abruptly curtailed, replaced by a long croaking gurgle and then silence.

He felt the temperature suddenly drop. Now his eyes had begun to focus he could make out the figures. They were filthy. Their hair, dishevelled and matted into clumps, fell halfway down their backs; their beards, twisted into strands, were equally long. They each wore a single, long-sleeved garment, belted at the waist and reaching their ankles, that may have at one time been white but now looked as if patches of mould and mildew had been allowed to fester on them for years.

Sabinus shivered and let his head slump back onto the grass with a groan; if there was one thing that he feared more than the spirits of this land, it was their servants: the druids.

‘You're awake then, legate,' a voice said with remarkable cheerfulness.

Sabinus turned to see Alienus walking towards him. ‘You treacherous little cunt!'

‘Hardly; to be treacherous you have to betray your own people. You can't accuse me of that; I'm a prince of the Atrebates.' Alienus squatted down next to him. ‘Not all of us have bowed the knee to Rome like my cowardly grandfather or my vainglorious cousin who has stolen my birthright and now rules in my place; they've brought shame to my people. Caradoc, or Caratacus as you call him, may have been my people's enemy but he at least stands up to the invaders. He's of our blood and would preserve our ways and our gods, and for that he deserves our support to throw you back into the sea.'