[Gaius Valerius Verrens 06] - Scourge of Rome (18 page)

‘Two thousand militia,’ Valerius corrected himself, ‘and a few hundred stragglers rounded up from the Londinium garrison. The militia were veterans of the battles against Caratacus and legionaries to their core; men past their prime, but their swords were sharp and they could still hold a shield. The rebels covered the entire north slope across the river, but we had left them only one bridge. The Colonia militia defended it to the last man and gave me a breathing space to retreat to the temple perimeter.’

‘Where you held them for three days.’

‘Just two,’ two days of stifling heat and all-pervading fear as the glow of the fire eating through the oak door grew ever brighter, ‘but every man who fought for the Temple of Claudius was a hero who deserved the Corona Aurea more than I, because it cost them far more than it cost Valerius Verrens. We beat off a dozen attacks before they swarmed across the walls, then the few of us who were left fought our way back to the temple. After that it was just a question of waiting.’

‘Yet you survived.’ Paternus glanced at the wooden hand.

‘Let us just say that the gods were kind to me that day.’

Paternus knew he would get no more. ‘I liked Britannia,’ he said, ‘apart from the weather. Good soil and lush pastures. I think I could have settled there.’

‘Even after what happened?’

‘This?’ Paternus laughed. ‘We were on patrol. Armed reconnaissance, Paulinus called it. Clever Ordovice swine managed to separate the head of the column and captured a few of us. Of course, we knew what was coming next. They strung a few poor bastards from the trees by their entrails, and got ready to burn the rest, but they wanted information from me. So they set this little fire, and forced my face closer and closer until my hair was burning and I thought my head was going to explode. When I wouldn’t say anything they pushed my face into the embers. Venus’ wilted tits, how I screamed. I would have told them anything, but I was fortunate. The cavalry arrived and a second later the fellow holding me down didn’t have a head. The
medicus
did what he could and treated my face with a salve, but when it came off I looked like a piece of roast pork, and here we are, ten years later and nothing has changed.’

‘Yet you’re on your way to be aide to one of the most powerful men in the eastern Empire,’ Valerius pointed out.

‘Ah,’ Paternus smiled knowingly, ‘but previously I had been destined for greatness. I had been promised a quaestorship and that was only to be the start. My family had influence, through my father, and money through my mother. Who knew what honours were to be mine?’

‘But?’

‘But when I went for my interview on the Palatine, the Emperor happened to catch a glimpse of me through a window.’ A shadow fell over the unravaged portion of his face. ‘Nero, as you know, had an eye for beauty and I must have been the least beautiful thing his eyes witnessed that day. He banished me from the palace and my hopes of advancement were gone. Fortunately, I had been a decent officer and in the legions there were plenty of men with worse injuries. I have been content enough, but I haven’t seen my family for five years.’

They rode in silence for a while before Valerius excused himself and dropped back to join Serpentius, who slipped away from the Chalcideans he’d been regaling with tales of his romantic triumphs.

Valerius drew the Spaniard to one side. ‘What happened back at the camp this morning?’

Serpentius shrugged. ‘When the first one came down the hill, I followed him, but I could tell he was unarmed. In any case I was sure you wouldn’t find him any trouble. The other one, the one with the killer’s eyes, was different. When I saw him slipping through the trees I decided he was the bigger threat and stayed with him.’

‘You’re sure he was following me?’

‘I can’t be certain,’ the Spaniard admitted. ‘He might have been going for a piss or down to the river to wash himself. But you’ve seen the way he moves, and all it would take was a half turn and he’d have been coming at you from behind with all your attention on the handsome one. It was only when the Emesan vixen …’

‘Lady Tabitha,’ Valerius corrected him.

‘… appeared from nowhere that he took himself off in a different direction. Then she saw you were occupied with your new friend and disappeared back up the hill.’

Valerius tried to visualize the scenario as Serpentius described it. Had Paternus been distracting him to allow Gavvo to surprise him from behind? But if he were going to do that surely he would have been armed as well. ‘Paternus didn’t have a hidden blade?’

Serpentius nodded. ‘He wore only a tunic. You know how a man carries himself a certain way if he’s armed.’

‘What about the servant?’

A shrug. ‘He was wrapped in a blanket so it was hard to tell, but I know the type and their hand seldom strays far from the knife hilt. For a servant, he moves like a soldier, but he’s too young to have been pensioned off.’

Valerius looked thoughtfully at the soaring hills to right and left and made his decision. ‘All right. Gavvo will never be far from his master, so keep your eyes open and don’t mention this to anybody.’

‘Not even …?’ Serpentius grinned.

Valerius allowed himself a smile. ‘I suspect she already knows more than we do.’

The road took them into the mountains and they spent two days on narrow, precipitous pathways before finally descending a long, gentle slope into a broad river valley where a paved road led south. Tabitha discussed the location with Gaulan and they agreed the column had at last reached Judaea. They identified the river as the Jordan, which dissected the country from north to south.

‘We are ten miles from Caesarea Philippi, according to the marker.’ Gaulan pointed to a crudely carved milestone half hidden by scrub and thorn. ‘But I would have expected the road to be busier. We haven’t seen a patrol or a wagon in the last hour.’

They turned south and soon the ground on both sides of the road became impassable. Dense reed beds alternated with dark pools surrounded by banks of black, glutinous mud, and occasional small islands colonized by scrubby, undersized trees clinging to survival. Every stretch of water teemed with ducks and wading birds. Gaulan had to issue orders to the Emesans not to waste arrows by trying their luck against the local wildlife. At intervals the birds would take to the air without warning in huge flocks, rising and falling in wide circles before settling on some favoured spot. Gradually, the road surface rose until it became a causeway dissecting broad wetlands to left and right.

Their tactical situation concerned Valerius more than the bird life. The causeway confined the entire column to this single road, with no space to deploy if the enemy attacked. Logic told him that any attacker would have to have webbed feet, but still … Gaulan wondered aloud if he should order his scouts into the swamp, but they knew the riders would have trouble keeping up with the main column. Besides, what would they find among the reeds and bulrushes apart from frogs?

During a rest halt the Chalcidean ordered a patrol to move ahead and check the length of the causeway and what lay ahead.

Shortly after they’d ridden off a skiff emerged from the wall of papyrus stems to the right of the road with a single man on board. The hunter, his nets crammed with dead birds, gaped at the soldiers long enough to be snatched by two cavalrymen who plunged their mounts into the waist-deep water.

‘A good catch,’ Valerius complimented him, hoping the man would provide more than just fowl to supplement the rations. At least now they might get some up-to-date information. ‘Tell him we’ll pay him well for his ducks and leave him enough to feed his family.’

The Chalcidean commander questioned the hunter in Hebrew, eliciting frowns, shrugs and a sideways glance at Valerius’s wooden fist. ‘He says the road has been quiet for three or four days,’ Gaulan reported. ‘But he doesn’t know why. He minds his own business, netting ducks and trapping eels to sell at the market at a place he calls Egret Hill. We are the first soldiers he’s seen for some time, but that means nothing. He was due to meet someone here and he’s wondering why they haven’t appeared. That’s the only reason he was coming ashore on the causeway.’

‘Which direction would they be arriving from?’

Gaulan repeated the question and the man pointed south. Valerius stared in the direction the scouts had disappeared. Some instinct reminded him of being young in Britannia, where a Celt could be hidden in every fold in the ground. He studied his surroundings and didn’t like what he saw.

‘Ask him how well he knows this swamp.’

‘Every bank and every pool and every stand of reeds, he claims. But he only hunts the northern part, because the governor’s licence gives him the right.’ Gaulan grinned. ‘I think he’s lying. He probably knows when and where his neighbours hunt at any given time and poaches on their territory whenever he gets the chance. But there’s something else. He’s frightened, and not just of us.’

The sound of galloping hooves distracted Valerius as the patrol galloped up the causeway, their horses blowing hard.

‘Rebels,’ the leader called as he reined in before Gaulan. ‘A mile ahead where the road crosses a piece of dry ground. They’ve barricaded the causeway and fortified a patch of land to the east within bowshot.’

‘How many?’ Gaulan demanded.

‘We counted at least a thousand, possibly more. They must have known we were coming.’

‘Two to one.’ Gaulan directed the words at Valerius, but the Chalcidean’s eyes were on the hooded figure beside the Roman. ‘Not bad odds for cavalry against infantry, especially mounted archers against untrained rebels.’

Valerius felt Tabitha’s eyes on him. Despite Gaulan’s rank he knew the final decision was to be his. ‘Not bad odds in the open,’ he agreed. ‘But these rebels are behind walls and you’ll have no room for manoeuvre. If I read it right you’ll charge the barrier and when you’re trying to tear your way through they’ll be slaughtering you from the flank with spears and slingshots. There’s a possibility you’ll succeed, but no guarantee. No matter what happens you’ll lose soldiers, and Titus needs those men.’

‘Then we stay out of range and kill them from a distance. My men can put an arrow through a sparrow’s rearmost orifice at a hundred paces.’

‘You can’t kill what you can’t see,’ Valerius persevered. ‘You’d just be wasting ammunition and you’d still have to take the barricade.’

‘You think we should retreat?’ Gaulan’s outraged tone said more than his words.

A commotion on the road behind interrupted the discussion. Valerius glanced back to where a member of Gaulan’s rearguard was forcing his way through the column towards them. ‘I have a feeling that may not be an option.’

‘What would you suggest?’ Tabitha asked.

Valerius pointed to the duck hunter. ‘Ask him if he can lead us through the swamp and past the rebel lines.’

‘He will betray us.’ Gaulan looked dubious. ‘He must have known the Judaeans were close.’

‘That’s true,’ Valerius conceded. ‘But perhaps he is as afraid of them as he is of us. We can’t go forward so we have to find another way. There must be deer tracks through the swamp we can follow. Ask him.’ He stared hard at the man. ‘But in such a way that he understands if he refuses we’ll cut his throat and give the eels something to chew on.’

Gaulan spat the question at the Judaean hunter and the man swallowed and went pale. He shook his head, but when the Chalcidean commander snarled another barrage of Hebrew he started to babble in the same language, pointing to the reeds.

‘He said it was too dangerous, but when I pointed out the alternative he changed his mind. There are paths through the shallows and some from island to island, but the way is often unclear. To miss a step could take a horse into quicksand or send it to the depths. He said he would lead us in the skiff, which means he’d give us the slip the first chance he had.’ He smiled at the man, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. ‘I told him we’ll give him a horse and he’ll have a sword at his back every step of the way. I don’t want him leading us to some watery dead end and paddling off into the distance.’

A thought occurred to Valerius. ‘What about the camels? Will they go through the water?’

‘I think so, as long as they are led.’ The Chalcidean frowned. ‘We’ll double up the drivers behind my archers. Any animals that refuse we’ll slaughter and distribute the baggage between the rest.’

‘We will need a rearguard.’ Tabitha pointed out what neither man had considered. ‘Enough men to make a demonstration to those in front and behind and convince them we are still trapped. Otherwise …’

‘Otherwise they’ll be waiting for us when we reach land.’ Valerius completed her thought.

‘I will command the rearguard,’ Gaulan said in a tone that allowed no argument. ‘You deal with this fellow.’

‘Very well,’ Valerius agreed. ‘Give us to the count of a thousand after the last man is out of sight before you follow. We’ll mark the trail where we can and leave men to provide a guide where it’s not possible.’ Gaulan nodded and went off calling for his officers, leaving Valerius and Tabitha alone with the hunter. He turned to her. ‘Even if Gaulan succeeds, it’s possible they’ll be waiting for us when we try to leave the swamp. If that happens, stay close to Serpentius. If there’s a way out he’ll find it.’

She shook her head. ‘You do not know me very well, Valerius. I will stay with you, and if necessary I will fight and die alongside you.’

The decision to flee into the swamp didn’t meet with universal approval. Most of the Emesan archers would have preferred to fight on dry land. But they were soldiers and soldiers obey orders. The cavalrymen urged their horses down the bank of the causeway and pushed their way into the reeds in twos, churning the water a muddy brown. Valerius rode at the front of the vanguard, his sword blade only a flick of the wrist from the hunter’s throat. The man sat rigid in the unfamiliar saddle of a horse led by a Chalcidean trooper, his hands hooked like claws on the leather pommel. Tabitha took her position just behind Valerius, beside Serpentius and ahead of Paternus and his servant. It clearly irritated the tribune that he hadn’t been consulted before the decision, but this was no time for argument. The first hundred Emesans rode with their bows strung and at the ready, but in the ranks behind each horse bore a camel driver as well as its rider. The drivers sat facing their charges and linked to them by a length of rope. It was an uncomfortable position, but better than wading through water of uncertain depth, and preferable by far to being left to the tender mercies of the Judaean rebels.