Cato 04 - The Eagle and the Wolves (19 page)

Cato nudged Macro as he stood up. ‘I have to go. I can’t watch this.’

Macro turned towards him and Cato was surprised to see that even this hardened veteran had seen more than he could stomach.

‘Wait for me, lad.’

Macro heaved himself off the table, and struggled to find his legs under the influence of all the beer he had drunk that evening. ‘Give me a hand here. Tincommius, we’ll see you in the depot tomorrow.’

Without tearing his eyes away from the fate of the second man Tincommius nodded faintly.

Cato slipped Macro’s arm over his shoulder and made his way towards the main entrance, keeping as far from the dogs as possible, while the beasts tore into another victim. Outside the hall Macro could take it no more. He wrenched himself free, staggered a few steps away from his friend and doubled over, vomiting. While Cato waited for Macro to finish, a steady stream of Atrebatan nobles left the great hall, struggling to hide their feelings of horror and disgust as, behind them, fresh screams split the night air.

Chapter Sixteen

‘When did this arrive, exactly?’ General Plautius tossed the report on to the desk of his chief clerk. The man turned the scrolled parchment the right way up, and by the light of an oil lamp he ran his finger across the top until he found the index notation.

‘Just a moment, please, sir,’ the clerk said, rising from his chair.

The general nodded, and turned away to stare out through the tent flaps. The sky was overcast and even though the sun had only just set it was already quite dark. Dark and hot. The humid air was oppressively uncomfortable, and threatened a break in the good weather of the last few days. Much as a storm might clear the prickly discomfort in the atmosphere, the general dreaded the effect it would have on his transport vehicles. Of all the places he had fought in his career, this ghastly island had to be one of the worst as far as the weather went. Even though this land never knew the long savage cold of a German winter or the seething heat of the plains of Syria, it had a peculiar discomfort all of its own.

The problem with Britain was that the island was always more or less damp, the general decided. A few hours of rainfall left the ground slick with mud, and any attempt to move even a small force of men and vehicles across it soon churned up a glutinous bog, which sucked the army down and caked everything in filth. And this was on the good ground. Plautius had seen enough of the British marshes to know how impenetrable they could be to his forces. The natives, however, had made good use of their local knowledge and had sited a number of their forward camps on whatever firm ground existed in the vast spread of wetlands west of the upper reaches of the Tamesis. From these bases Caratacus was launching his raiding columns through the thin Roman screen of fortlets. They struck at the legions’ supply convoys, destroyed the farms and settlements of those tribes allied to Rome and, when ambition caused the warlike Celtic blood to rush to their heads, they even took on the odd Roman patrol or minor fortification.

The invaders were dying the death of a thousand cuts, and Plautius had used up all his political capital with the Emperor; there would be few reinforcements from now on. And those troops that were sent to Britain would be accompanied by the inevitable terse and sarcastic request from Narcissus for a speedy defeat of Caratacus. The last such message had left the general in an icy rage, with its politely worded sting: ‘My dear Aulus Plautius, if you are not using your army for the next few months would you mind awfully if I might borrow it awhile?’

The general ground his teeth in frustration at the easy manner in which those in the lofty marbled offices on the Palatine sent out their orders with no regard for the actual conditions in which their far-flung soldiers fought to defend or extend the Empire. Plautius tensed his shoulders and smacked his fist into the palm of the other hand.

A handful of clerks were still busy at desks placed along the side of the tent, and looked up as he gave vent to his frustration. Plautius glared at them.

‘Where the hell has that bloody clerk got to? You!’

‘Sir?’

‘Get off your arse and go and find him.’

‘Yes, sir.’

As the man hurried off to the staff tents Plautius rubbed his shoulder. The damp had got at his joints terribly over the winter and a nagging ache in his shoulders and knees still made itself felt at times. Plautius longed for the dependable heat and sunshine of his villa at Stabiae. Endless hot summer days spent with his wife and children by the sea. He smiled at the way nostalgia had worked its way with him. The last time he had spent a summer with them was nearly four years ago - a few days snatched after a brief trip to Rome to report on the situation on the Danube. The children had spent the time bickering endlessly, tormenting each other, and every adult in earshot, with shouts and screams of rage and injured indignation as they snatched toys from each other. Only when the children had been trusted to the care of a nurse had their parents had time to pay uninterrupted attention to each other. Plautius’ imminent return to his command lent a difficult poignancy to those few days and he had sworn to his wife that he would come home for good as soon as he was able.

Now he was still in the early stages of another campaign. Likely as not he’d die of old age before these Britons gave in. He would never see the children grow up, never grow old and grey with his wife.

The thought of his family filled him with an aching longing. At the start of the year his wife and children had attempted to join him on the campaign, but with such disastrous consequences that there was no possibility of them ever returning to Britain.

Plautius knew that he was close to the limit of his physical and mental endurance. A younger man was needed for this job, someone with enough energy to see the job through; to see Caratacus roundly defeated, the British army crushed and the tribes of this land cowed into submission to Rome. Someone like Legate Vespasian, the general reflected.

Although Vespasian had come to command a legion some years later than most of his peers, he had made up for the delay in his hard-driving style. That was why Plautius had singled Vespasian and the Second Legion out for detached duties across the southern sweep of Britain. So far the legate had proved more than worthy of his superior’s trust, smashing his way through a succession of hillforts. The trouble was that Vespasian was being rather too successful. Racing ahead of his supply columns the legate had risked exposing his slender lines of communication to enemy raids in force. Plautius had reined him in for a while, ordering him to finish off the remaining hillforts on the Atrebatan borderlands before the Second Legion struck south to seize the large island off the south coast. When the time came for Vespasian to move, the gap between the two Roman forces would widen. Vespasian was equally aware of the danger, and had voiced his concerns in the most recent report that he had sent to his superior. Everything hinged on the continued loyalty of the Atrebatans.

A muffled rumble of thunder rolled across the landscape and General Plautius looked out over the undulating lines of tents towards the horizon where a dull flash of light heralded a break in the weather. A cool light breeze suddenly sprang up and filled the folds of the tent flap with a soft rustling. Plautius would have a good view of the approaching storm. His headquarters had been erected on a slight rise at the centre of the camp. The engineers had protested that the site was not suitable, being some distance from the intersection of the two main thoroughfares, but Plautius wanted to be able to see out over his legions and, beyond them, the palisade and, beyond that, the fall of the downs leading away to the west. In the distance a cluster of tiny sparks of light were visible at one end of a heavily wooded hill.

That was the camp of the enemy, under their commander, Caratacus. For days now the two armies had sat several miles apart, their scouts sparring every so often across the ground that separated the two forces. Plautius knew that if he attempted to move in on the enemy the shrewd Caratacus would simply retreat and draw the legions after him again. So it would go on, and all the time Caratacus would be falling back on his supply lines, just as Plautius was stretching his even further. Accordingly Plautius had halted his advance for the moment and was busy consolidating the chain of forts protecting his flanks and rear. When that was done he would push his legions forward and force the Britons to give more ground. Eventually they must run out of land and would have to turn and fight. Then the Romans would crush them utterly.

That had been the plan, at least, Plautius smiled bitterly. But the plan was always the first casualty in any military operation. A few days ago he had received a worrying report from Vespasian about the presence of another British army forming up to the south of the Tamesis. It was possible that Caratacus intended to join the two armies, in which case he might attempt to steal a march on Plautius and rush south and destroy Vespasian. Alternatively, the Briton might feel strong enough to take on the main Roman force. That, Plautius chided himself, was purely wishful thinking, and he must pay more respect to Caratacus, particularly in the light of the document he had thrown down on his chief clerk’s desk: another report, this time from that centurion Vespasian had left in command of the tiny garrison at Calleva.

Centurion Macro detailed a recent skirmish he had won with one of the enemy raiding columns. That was fine, and the general had read through the account with some relish. Then he had reached the section where the centurion reported on the situation in Calleva. Despite Macro’s attempt to sound reassuring, by the time Plautius had finished the report his anxiety was fully aroused.

‘Sir!’

General Plautius turned round as the chief clerk entered through the entrance at the back of the tent.

‘Well?’

‘Five days ago, sir.’

‘Five days?’ Plautius said quietly. Behind him lightning flickered over the deserted farmland. Moments later the thunder cracked and the clerk flinched.

‘Quintus, would you mind explaining why this took five days to come to my attention?’

‘It seemed like a low-priority report, sir.’

‘Did you read it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘All of it?’

The clerk was silent for a moment. ‘I can’t remember, sir.’

‘I see. This isn’t very satisfactory, is it, Quintus?’

‘No, sir.’

The general stared at him a moment, until the clerk could no longer meet his eyes and looked down, shamed.

‘Make sure that every report is read in its entirety from now on. I will not tolerate this kind of cock-up again.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Now fetch me Tribune Quintillus.’

‘Tribune Quintillus, sir?’

‘Caius Quintillus. Joined the Ninth a few days ago. You should find him in their mess. I’ll speak to him in my private quarters at his earliest convenience. Go.’

The clerk turned and hurried out of the tent, keen to get away from his general as quickly as possible. As Plautius watched him disappear through the tent flaps he wondered at his leniency. A few years ago he’d have broken the man back to the ranks for that kind of error. He must be going soft. Further proof of his failings as a commander in the field.

The storm was right over the camp as Tribune Quintillus read through the report. Lightning flashed white at the gap in the curtains left open at the entrance to the general’s tent. For the instant of each burst of brilliant light the raindrops outside were held still like weightless shards of twinkling glass in a lurid white-washed world. Then the lightning was gone. At once thunder cracked and boomed, rattling the goblets resting on the table between the two officers. Then there was just the drumming of the rain on the leather tent and the moan of the wind.

General Plautius studied the man sitting opposite, head bowed over the scroll as the tribune scrutinised the report. Quintillus came from one of the older families that still owned several vast estates south of Rome. The tribune was the latest in a long line of aristocrats with distinguished careers in the senate. His appointment to the Ninth Legion was in return for a large interest-free loan Quintillus’ father had made to General Plautius some years earlier. But there was more to the appointment than the settling of an old debt. The tribune had connections to the Imperial Palace and the only reason why any aristocrat would cultivate such connections was because he was driven by ambition. Very well, Plautius reflected, an ambitious man was generally a ruthless man, and that would serve the general’s current purpose well.

‘Most interesting, I’m sure,’ Quintillus said, placing the scroll down on the table and gracefully sweeping up his goblet in the same gesture. ‘But might I ask what this has to do with me, sir?’

‘Everything. I’m sending you to Calleva at first light.’

‘Calleva?’ For the briefest instant a look of surprise flashed across the tribune’s fine features, and then the mask of supreme indifference dropped back in place. ‘Well, why not? It would be nice to take in some of the local culture, before we eradicate it . . .’

‘Quite,’ Plautius smiled. ‘But do try not to give the impression when you meet the natives that alliance with Rome is necessarily a euphemism for surrender. Tends not to go down very well.’

‘I’ll do my best . . .’

‘. . . Or be killed in the attempt.’ The general’s smile had disappeared and there was no mistaking the serious tenor their conversation had taken on. Quintillus took a sip and lowered his cup, watching his superior intently.