The Furies of Rome (31 page)

As the ship backed oars and came to a gradual stop, twenty paces from the shore, the tribune took off his helmet.

‘Hello, Father,’ said Titus.

CHAPTER XVI

‘S
CRIBONIUS RUFUS, THE
Governor of Germania Inferior, allowed me to come with half an ala of Batavian auxiliary cavalry,’ Titus explained as he helped Vespasian aboard. Down the centre of the deck the hold was not covered over and it was filled with horses; their riders stood on the starboard rail watching Londinium burn. ‘He only granted that favour because I’m your son; he’s sent a letter to the Emperor asking permission to send more and it will, obviously, be at least fourteen days before he can expect the reply.’

‘The province may well be lost by then and every Roman butchered,’ Vespasian said as he landed on the deck; he indicated to the massacre upstream. ‘Just look at it.’

‘I know; we were in Camulodunum yesterday; there was no one left alive and not a complete building left intact. The Temple of Claudius had been stormed and everyone holding out in there massacred.’

Vespasian embraced his son.

Caenis kissed Vespasian as he let Titus go. ‘Titus came across us a few miles back; we’d had a terrible time fighting the tide both yesterday morning and this morning.’

Vespasian returned her kiss. ‘I’m glad to see you safe, my love.’

‘Why aren’t you with Cerialis?’ Sabinus asked, scratching at his stubble as Magnus began supervising the lifting of Castor and Pollux aboard; there were many volunteers to help Caenis’ girls and only Hormus seemed to be without aid.

‘Because his legion was wiped out yesterday morning.’

‘Wiped out?’

‘Pretty much so; all but the cavalry. Cerialis got away with them back to his camp and Magnus and I came to warn Paulinus here but there wasn’t much time to do anything because Boudicca has moved with frightening speed. He had to abandon Londinium and go north to tempt her into a battle in a place where her numbers will not be so significant. If we’re to join him we need to get upriver, otherwise we’ll find the rebels between us and Paulinus; and I was expecting to do it in a small fishing boat which could have slipped under the bridge on the southern side and not have to go through the gap.’

They all looked at the gap in the bridge; where the four piles had been torn down there was just enough room for a ship to pass through but, above on the remains of the north side of the bridge, the Iceni were rampant and would be able to hurl weapons and fire down on them as they negotiated the passage.

‘Ah!’ Titus exclaimed. ‘This is going to take careful timing. Jorik!’

An auxiliary decurion, young for his rank, stepped forward and saluted. ‘Your orders, sir?’ His Latin was accented in the manner that Vespasian recognised from his last dealings with the Batavians almost twenty years previously.

‘Have the lads fill all the buckets on board with water then put blankets and anything else that might help to protect them on the horses’ backs and relay that to the turmae on the other three ships.’

Jorik saluted and strode off.

Titus took another look at the gap. ‘Right. I’m going to speak to our trierarchus.’

The approach of four Roman vessels had not gone unnoticed, even by the most blood-crazed of the Iceni, and, as they neared the gap with the stroke-masters’ shrill pipes sounding a fast beat, many of the red-stained apparitions gathered on the bridge, well aware of the opportunity that was going to present itself should the ships be foolish enough to try for the gap.

‘Ramming speed!’ the trierarchus shouted from his position between the steering-oars.

The stroke increased to the fastest possible rate, maintainable only for a couple of hundred pulls.

On went the four ships in single file, headed straight for the gap, a hundred paces between each of them; on their decks knelt the sixty-four troopers of the two turmae they each carried, shields poised, javelins in right hands and a spare grasped in their shield hand.

The first arrows from the bridge slammed into the bow with vibrating reports and slingshot fizzed through the air and thwacked into the hull; on the shore the massacre continued with groups of victims now herded together, many accepting their fate, dully awaiting the inevitable as the warriors despatched them in batches with cold-blooded, methodical efficiency. Behind them the town burnt pumping thick smoke into the already laden sky.

The ships powered on and the missile hits increased, juddering into deck and shields and clinking off helms; in the hold the horses skitted, their nerves taut.

Fifty paces out, forty, thirty. Javelins began to hail down; a horse bucked and screeched with a sleek missile embedded in its rump. Panic spread amongst its neighbours to either side.

Twenty paces.

‘Loose!’ shouted Titus.

The troopers jumped to their feet, hurling their javelins in one fluid movement at the bridge and then, without pause, let fly with the second; many of the scores of missiles hit home, punching men back or sending them howling into the river below.

Ten paces.

‘Oars!’ the trierarchus roared.

With remarkable precision all sixty oars were brought inboard and the vessel glided on into the gap as missiles, fire and the mutilated bodies of the dead were hurled down onto the deck.

Shieldless, Vespasian crouched in the lee of the mast, his arms around Caenis, protecting her. A couple of the more reckless warriors jumped down onto the ship but were despatched as they tried to regain their footing. Half a dozen troopers dashed around with buckets, dousing flames before they could take hold. A trooper fell back, a javelin in his eye, the point, bloodied and brained, protruding out of the back of his helmet. A scream as another was crushed under the dead weight of a headless cadaver. More burning timber was hurled down and just above head height part of the bridge’s supports had caught fire.

Another hail of missiles from above and two more deaths, skewered to the deck, and then it stopped, suddenly. They were through and the warriors had turned their attention to the next ship.

Vespasian took his arms from around Caenis. ‘Are you all right, my love?’

She looked about and then back at the bridge as the order to reset the oars was shouted. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘Jorik!’ Titus shouted. ‘Calm the horses and then get this mess cleared up. I’ve never seen such an untidy deck; what are you thinking of?’

The decurion grinned and saluted. ‘Yes, sir!’

‘He’s got a good way with his men,’ Caenis commented.

Vespasian nodded thoughtfully. ‘I was just thinking that myself.’

Through came the next ship, its deck smouldering and stuck full of embedded arrows and javelins; and then the third appeared through what was now becoming thick smoke as the fire in the bridge supports had strengthened and it would only be a matter of time before what was left of the northern section of the bridge would collapse into the river and likely block it. Beyond the smoke the fourth ship could not be seen and Vespasian waited with drawn breath for its outline to materialise.

‘Come on,’ Titus urged in a tight whisper, peering into the pall as their ship gradually increased its speed now that it made its way upriver.

‘There she is,’ Vespasian said with relief as the bow of the vessel broke through the smoke.

But the further it came through the more it became obvious that all was not as it should be: the deck was a mass of combative figures all engaged in dispersed fights, some single duels and others in groups. There was no formation as the Britannic warriors had jumped, en masse, onto the deck as the ship had passed through the gap beneath them, so that they covered its full length. Fire had taken a firm hold amidships as the troopers were too busy trying to repel boarders to deal with it.

The oars were spread and the stroke began as the fighting grew in intensity in proportion to the fire.

In the chaos and thickening smoke it was impossible to make out who was getting the upper hand. Bodies fell to the deck or tumbled over the rail to bounce off the oars and down into the river. The clash of weapons, shrieks of agony and the bestial screeching of panicking horses drifted across the water, louder even than the clamour of the massacre that still continued on the shore, this side of the bridge. On the four ships went with the battle still raging in the rearmost; and then suddenly it slewed to the starboard as the larboard oars fouled and then were dropped. The fire had burnt through the deck and red-hot timbers were falling onto the rowers. The starboard oars ceased rowing and figures could be seen clambering out of the oar-ports. Above them, on the deck the fire had grown in intensity, fed by the sizzling bodies of the fallen.

The third ship had turned, ready to pick up survivors as the oarsmen, clad only in their tunics, thrashed in the water; those who could swam towards the returning ship, others just cried choking prayers to their gods as they tried to pull oars out of the floundering vessel in the hope that they would float well enough to support their weight.

The fighting had suddenly ceased on the deck as both sides realised that the ship was doomed. The horses had realised it too and their terrified screeching rose in intensity as the gate at the top of the ramp to the hold was hauled open. Up they streamed onto the deck and then, seeing the flames, made the easy choice of clearing the rail; the first few crashed into oars, breaking them off and clearing the way for their fellows behind as, with mighty splashes, they hit the water. With them came their riders, expert swimmers as Vespasian knew from the early days of the invasion when Aulus Plautus had used Batavians to swim a river in order to take a hill; a feat they had accomplished despite being in full armour. Man and beast now swam together, making for the south bank and relative safety as the Britons left on the burning deck now faced a choice between immolation and taking their chances in the river; in they went as the rescue ship neared. Vengeful troopers hurled javelins at the floundering warriors, picking them off with ease as others reached down with boat hooks to haul rowers to safety.

‘They’ll be able to keep pace with us on the south bank,’ Vespasian said as he and Titus watched the forty or so surviving troopers swimming to safety with their mounts. ‘If I remember rightly the terrain is mainly flat. They can swim over to us when we land on the north bank.’

Titus looked over his shoulder at the north bank; the fire raged in all parts of the town and on the shore bloody murder was still being done, but the ships were now pulling away from the carnage and were in full view of the main part of Boudicca’s army camped outside Londinium, sealing off all chance of escape. ‘I believe that’ll be harder than you think, Father.’

Vespasian turned; a large war band of warriors, over three hundred of them, all mounted on their shaggy ponies had detached itself from the main army and was now keeping pace with the ships. ‘Ah! I see. It looks as if they want to discourage us from landing on the northern bank.’

‘In which case we’ll oblige them.’

The horses’ hoofs made a hollow clatter as they were led down the ramp onto the southern shore and Vespasian was certain that it would be audible in the night air to the Britons if they were indeed just over a quarter of a mile away on the north bank. But no one knew for sure whether they were or not.

Titus had ordered the ships to press on under sail and oars as fast as the exhausted rowers could manage for as long as possible in order to tire the Britons’ ponies as they struggled to keep up. Then, as dusk fell, he ordered the oars in so that the vessels carried on under sail in relative silence; with no lights burning and staying as far as possible from the northern bank, the ships were almost invisible in the night with thick cloud overhead. Sharp-eyed lookouts were stationed in the bows but the river was wide and the speed of the ships under sail slow. For five hours of the night they had edged forward in silence with no idea whether or not the Britons still tracked them until Titus ordered the disembarkation.

‘You and your girls are going to have to stay on the ship, my love,’ Vespasian said to Caenis as the last few horses were led down the gangplank.

‘I know,’ Caenis replied, taking his arm. ‘There is no way that I’ll be able to swim the river, even if I’m holding onto a horse’s saddle.’

‘It’s not so much that; we could find a way of getting you across.’

‘A woman’s place is not in a battle?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think Boudicca might have a different opinion on the subject. But I saw enough in Camulodunum to know that I don’t want to see more so I won’t argue this time.’ She grinned up at him. ‘Besides, I’ve killed my man. What are the ships going to do?’

‘They’ll wait until the Britons pull out of Londinium and then sail back through the bridge and on to Germania Inferior. That’s the reason why you can’t come with us: I need you to go to Germania Inferior and emphasise the gravity of the situation here to Governor Rufus; your eyewitness account may be the difference between him waiting for orders from Rome or acting on his own initiative. It’s so vitally important that you make him do that, my love, if we’re to stand any chance of retrieving the situation.’

‘Now, that is something I can do, if he’s prepared to listen to a woman’s assessment of a military situation.’

‘He’d better for all our sakes. Even if Paulinus does manage to defeat Boudicca in one set-piece battle we’d still find ourselves in a precarious position in a partially conquered and restless province with a population that has now witnessed the destruction of a legion and knows that it could be done again. We need reinforcements soon and the nearest legions are on the Rhenus. You must make him act.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘I’m sure you will; I’ve seen how persuasive you can be with Burrus. I’ve ordered Hormus to stay with you for protection; he can be very handy if he needs to be. I’ll see you in Germania Inferior once this business is done and we can get back to Rome.’

‘Why don’t you come with me now? This is not your fight and surely Rufus would be more persuaded by your word rather than a woman’s?’

‘And not go to war with my son? What would he think of me?’

Caenis pursed her lips, shaking her head slowly. ‘I hadn’t looked at it that way; you’re right, you have to go.’ She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. ‘May Mars Victorious hold his hands over you; both of you.’