The Inquest (30 page)

Fabius shook his head. “Roman troops will only enter the forest when General Bassus gives the order,” he declared. “And General Bassus is currently indisposed.” There was a supercilious smile on Fabius’ lips.

Decurion Pompeius now found voice. “We have our orders, from Questor Varro.”

“I am giving you a new order,” Fabius retorted. “Do not enter the forest! I should not have to remind you that I am the senior officer here. And I say we shall await General Bassus’ instructions, whenever he is in a position to pass them on to us.” Roughly pulling the head of his horse around, Fabius galloped back the way he had come, to the head of the 10th Legion formation, with his escort flying after him.

Crispus, astounded, looked at Pompeius. “I don’t believe it! That swine!”

“We can’t leave the questor to his fate,” Pompeius returned.

Crispus made a spur of the moment decision. “Wait here!” he commanded. Throwing his legs over the horns of his saddle, he jumped down to the ground. Holding his scabbard at his side, the prefect ran back toward the camp gate.

Standing nearby in front of the 4th Scythica men, Centurion Gallo and Tribune Venerius had been witness to these exchanges. Now, as Crispus hurried back to the camp as fast as legs would carry him, Gallo saw a figure dash toward the general’s chariot. The man, wearing the red-striped tunic of a servant, leapt up into the chariot, freed the reins-in an instant, then lashed them along the backs of the pair of horses. The groom holding the bridle fearfully let go and jumped out of the way as the chariot lurched forward. Now Gallo recognized the driver. It was Hostilis, the questor s handservant. As the chariot came rolling along the front of the 4th Scythica formation, Gallo stepped out in front of the horses. Showing no fear, ignoring the risk of being run down, he grasped the bridles of both horses and planted his feet. The momentum of the animals’ progress dragged him a short distance until the chariot came to a halt.

“Let go, Centurion!” Hostilis called angrily. “The questor is in trouble!”

“What do you propose to do about it?”

“In my native Britain I was trained to drive the chariot,” Hostilis earnestly returned. “I know what in am doing, centurion. Stand aside!”

Gallo hesitated a moment. Then he turned to Venerius, standing just twenty feet away. “Get up in the chariot with the slave!” he called.

Venerius stared back at him, aghast. “What?”

“Get up in the chariot,” Gallo repeated. “The questor told me that he wanted you to lead any rescue effort if it became necessary.”

“He did?” Venerius went white with fear. “You’re sure? He said nothing to me.”

“You are wasting time, damn you, thin-stripe!” Gallo cursed. “Or do you propose to disobey the questor?”

Venerius gulped. Many times he had wished that he had not come on this expedition, but never more than now.

“Move, boy!” Gallo bellowed.

His legs feeling like lead weights, his mind numb with fear, Venerius walked to the back of the chariot then pulled himself up behind the standing driver.

Gallo let go of the bridles and quickly stepped back. “Go like the wind, slave!” he called up
to Hostilis.

With a slap of the reins and a cry of encouragement to his steeds, Hostilis set the vehicle in motion. The chariot went charging along behind the last line of the 10th Legion. When Hostilis saw an opening between cohorts which offered an avenue all the way to the front he tugged the reins to the right. The animals responded immediately. The chariot curved right, executed a bumping turn, then sped down the avenue.

As Gallo walked back to his place at the extreme left of his detachments front row, Optio Silius called out to him from the ranks. “Did the questor really say that, centurion? Did he really tell you he wanted Soupy Venerius to lead his rescue?”

“Something to that affect,” Gallo replied, unable to hold back a smile. “I can’t recollect his exact words, but I’m sure that was what the questor had in mind.” It had only taken Centurion Gallo a matter of weeks to have his revenge on Gaius Venerius.

In the chariot, Hostilis was learning on the run. Apart from the fact that they possessed two wheels and were drawn by two horses, the British war chariot and the Roman
biga
were quite dissimilar. The chariot that Hostilis had learned to master was open-ended. He had knelt to drive, with a warrior standing behind him, on a rectangular wooden floor suspended by pliable leather from the chariot sides. The Romans only employed chariots for racing and as the private conveyances of the rich. Open at the rear, with closed sides rising to a high, curved, closed front, Roman chariots had no suspension and were uncomfortable to ride in and difficult to manage.

Uncomfortable they might be, but Roman chariots were fast, very fast, as Hostilis soon found to his satisfaction. As he raced out through a gap in the 10th Legion line, members of Tribune Fabius’ mounted escort attempted to cut him off. He charged by and left them in his wake. Rather than try to stop him, the men of the auxiliary line parted to let him pass through, some even raising their javelins in salute and cheering, thinking the uniformed officer in the chariot with the driver must be General Bassus.

Hostilis swiftly mastered the art of driving standing up. The techniques for turning horses were the same as he had learned back at home in the kingdom of the Iceni, although he realized after his first turn that in a Roman chariot the driver had also to lean well into the bend or risk taking the vehicle over on its opposite side. Balance; it was all a matter of balance. His passenger was not helping. Hostilis looked back over his shoulder. A white-faced Venerius was clinging onto the side rail. “Stand in the middle. Plant your feet either side,” Hostilis yelled to the junior tribune.

Venerius gingerly complied, securing new handholds to left and right.

“Have your sword ready!” Hostilis then called, focusing his attention on the fast approaching trees. He aimed for the same track that he had seen his master take only a short while before. He did not slacken speed, driving the chariot into the forest at full pace. The horses were fit, trained, and willing. They charged down the narrow thoroughfare between the trees, sending clods of earth flying from their pounding hooves. Hostilis glanced over his shoulder again, into the petrified eyes of the junior tribune. “Your sword! Your sword!” Both their lives might depend on Venerius’ swordsmanship.

Venerius nodded numbly, and drew his sword, before clutching at the rail once more with his free left hand.

The track inclined to a rise. At full pace, the chariot came up the gradient. At the summit, just where the track dipped on the other side and jagged away to the left, the vehicle became airborne. At the same time, Hostilis spotted the turn to the left. As he leaned hard left and drew on the reins, the chariot came back down, landing with a jolt on just its left wheel. The
concussion sent the chariot up on its side. In the back, with sword in his right hand and only holding on with his left, and unprepared for the crashing landing, Venerius was jolted free. As the chariot tipped over, the junior tribune was thrown out, ejected like a drunkard from a tavern. The chariot teetered on one wheel briefly, then, lightened by Venerius’ departure, dropped back down onto two wheels and went careering on its way.

Venerius turned over in the air, and landed heavily on his back. The wind was knocked out of him, the sword flew from his grip. Dazed, trying to catch his breath, he lay there in the middle of the grassy track. He heard the drumming of the chariot-horses’ hooves growing fainter. Rolling over, he looked down the track. There was no sign of the chariot. It occurred to him that Hostilis had been so engaged with the task of keeping the chariot upright that he had not even noticed that Venerius had been thrown out. Either that, or the slave had deliberately left him behind.

Fear gripping him, Venerius sat up. His head was spinning. He looked around. His sword lay ten feet away. Dragging himself to his feet, he stumbled the several paces to the weapon, stooped, and picked it up. He looked down the track, and then back the way he had come. He asked himself whether he should follow the chariot. It did offer a speedy means of escape. Then he told himself that the chariot had been heading into the forest, toward the enemy. Safety lay in the other direction, away from the enemy, toward the Roman lines. He took two steps back up the track, then stopped, wincing as pain shot from his right hip. He realized that he had probably dislocated or broken something in his fall. Cursing his luck, he resumed his progress, limping painfully up the track.

As he broached the rise, he stopped abruptly. Ahead, three hundred feet away, between him and safety, Jewish partisans were coming out of the trees and standing in his path. Hearing a noise in the trees beside him to his left, he spun about. Several partisans bearing spears were emerging from the foliage, leering at him. Venerius turned, and began to lope along the track, heading deeper into the forest, following the departed chariot. “Hostilis!” he bawled. “Hostilis, come back!” The trees absorbed his cries.

Then ahead, more partisans began to walk into the open. These men took up station in his path, smiling, and beckoning him to come to them. Venerius swiveled around, looking back up the track. The partisan’s he had first encountered were closing in on him from the east, closing the distance and picking up the pace of their steps. One Jew in the lead was energetically swinging a sword back and forth.

Eighteen-year-old Venerius dropped to his knees. Flinging away his sword, he burst into tears. His entire body shook with his sobs. “The gods help me!” he wailed. A Jew came to stand behind him. From the corner of his eye, Venerius saw the flash of a sword. He lowered his head, and closed his eyes, and tensed for the blow he expected to come at any moment. “Please, I mean you people no harm,” he sniveled. “I am Gaius Licinius Venerius. I am the nephew of Licinius Mucianus, the most powerful man at Rome beside Caesar himself. I can pay you.” He remembered the valuable Equestrian ring on his left hand. “Here, my gold ring…” He began tugging at the ring.

The sword, a former Roman sword, came down on the neck of Gaius Licinius Venerius, nephew of Licinius Mucianus. It cleaved the head of the boy named for Venus goddess of love from his shoulders. The decapitated body collapsed to one side. The head, still wearing a richly decorated helmet, toppled off and rolled down the track for several feet, over and over, before coming to rest. Venerius’ lips continued to move.

The trumpeter had sounded ‘To Arms’ a dozen times. Martius had rejoined Varro and the others. Both Martius and Varro had swords in one hand, daggers in the other. Artimedes and the
trumpeter stood behind them. The petrified trumpeter still had his instrument over his shoulder.

“I’ll take care of the boy,” Martius said to Varro, casting his eyes around the clearing as the partisans began to edge forward, slowly tightening the ring around them. “You look after your Greek.”

“I would prefer it if we had shields,” said Varro, carefully watching the nearest partisans, expecting them to dash forward to the attack at any moment.

“Are you ready to make a break for it?”

“Which direction?” Varro asked.

“Toward the horses,” Martius replied.

“They will expect that,” Varro came back.

“We ignore the horses, and in the confusion keep running, with the speed of Mercury, along the track. Agreed?”

Varro decided it was better than no plan at all, and the track would lead them out of the forest. “Agreed.”

“You other two, take hold of our belts,” Martius instructed, “and do not falter.”

Artimedes and the trumpeter took hold of the officers’ sword belts.

“On your word,” said Varro.

“Mars, Minerva and Fortuna, don’t desert us this day! Ready, Julius? Now!”

With Martius and Varro running side by side and dragging the two non-combatants along behind them, the quartet charged toward their horses, whose reins had been taken by rebels. Letting out a shout, the partisans of the ring ran forward, with several launching spears in the direction of the running Romans. Their hasty, poorly directed volley missed the Romans. Arrows whizzed by, too high to hit their targets.

Martius ran toward a Jew in front of the horses who jabbed a spear at him with an overhand thrust. Martius easily knocked aside the spear then brought his sword up into the man’s groin. The Jew went down, clutching at his groin and screaming. Martius and the trumpeter ran right over the top of the downed man.

A short, bare-headed partisan with a round shield and short sword came at Varro, swinging his weapon wildly. The sword swished past Varro’s nose; Varro felt the wind of its passing. As Varro’s running momentum carried him forward he crashed his own sword down onto the man’s head. It sliced into the partisan’s skull, split it, and exposed the brain matter. The man dropped. He was dead before he hit the ground.. This was the first time that Julius Varro had physically killed anyone. He had sent men to be executed by others, he had led auxiliary units which had killed German raiders, but he himself had never inflicted a lethal blow. As a youth, he had wondered what it would feel like to kill a man. Now he knew. It felt like nothing. He was so focused on staying alive that the act of homicide simply did not register. At that moment it held no more significance for him than the need to draw breath.

Martius swung at a teenaged partisan in his path who raised a wicker shield. The tribune’s blow shattered the wickerwork. The shield disintegrated. Martius swung again, and sliced off the man’s left arm at the shoulder. The limb fell to the ground. Blood gushed from the stump just below the man’s shoulder. Screaming with horror, the youth dropped his spear, grabbed at the stump of his arm with his right hand, and reeled away.

In the face of this fierce Roman onslaught, other partisans in their path fled to left and right, some throwing away their weapons to run unencumbered. Jews who had secured the five Roman horses quickly led them into the trees to prevent their riders from regaining them. This permitted a gap to suddenly open in the partisan line, as Martius had hoped. Martius and Varro dived
through the opening, dragging Artimedes and the young trumpeter with them. As they ran along the track, Varro, looking over his shoulder, past the panting Artimedes, could see Judas ben Jairus himself leading a group of ten or twelve determined and well armed pursuers.