Hero of Rome (24 page)

‘But what if…’

Valerius understood his plan’s weakness. ‘The cavalry will patrol the near bank to ensure we are informed of any general crossing, but I do not think it will happen. If they want Colonia they must destroy us, Falco. By offering ourselves to Boudicca we can buy enough time for Paulinus to counter-march his legions from Mona. Failing that, the Ninth is only five days away in Lindum; it’s possible they are already on their way to join us. If we cannot save Colonia, at least we may be able to win time for Londinium.’

A shout from one of the legionaries working on the temple defences interrupted them. Valerius instinctively turned to the northeast and saw the flare as a beacon blazed at the signal tower on the ridge. He knew the men in the tower would also be straining their eyes to the north and that twenty miles away on the far horizon they could see a tiny echo of the flame they had just lit. It would only be seconds before it was extinguished, he was sure, but it had done its job. He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for the Tungrian auxiliaries at the station on the Venta road who had stayed at their posts to the end.

They would not be the last.

‘She is coming, then,’ Falco said solemnly.

‘Did you ever doubt it?’

The older man shook his head. ‘At least the women and children are safe.’

Bela rode in an hour later slumped over the neck of a blown horse near crippled by the vivid red slash where a sword had sliced its haunches and groaning with the agony of an iron spear point still embedded in his ribs. Two of the Thracians held their commander upright in the saddle long enough for him to make his report to Valerius.

‘Cowards. They ambushed us in a wood.’ Bela’s face shone with sweat and he flinched with the pain of each word. ‘They blocked the way with a felled tree and were on both sides of the road. Spears, arrows and slings out of hiding and we had no reply. At first our women stayed among the wagons, but what could they do when one after the other they saw their little ones spitted by arrows or spears? In their terror they sought any way out of the trap. But there was no way. We …’ His body shuddered at the memory. ‘We could hear the screams from among the trees.’ He raised his head to look Valerius in the eye. ‘They will have spared none.’

Valerius thought of all the escapees he had helped into the wagons less than twelve hours before. The sad, grateful smiles on the faces of mothers torn between the hurt of being separated from their husbands and gratitude that at least their children would be safe. He wondered about the fate of the blind old man and the whores who had given up their places in the cart. Were they picked off one by one by their faceless enemy? Did they rush into the woods to be butchered? It didn’t matter. He had failed them all. This was his fault, in his arrogance and his pride. But there were things he needed to know before he could mourn them.

‘Bela, who were they and how many were there?’ Was it possible Boudicca had already bypassed Colonia and was making for Londinium? The Thracian was on the point of collapse, but this was no time for pity. He had to know. He laid a hand on Bela’s shoulder and felt the two men holding him stiffen protectively. ‘Tell me,’ he demanded.

‘A few hundred, no more.’ The cavalryman coughed, and a thin line of blood ran from the corner of his lip to his chin. ‘Locals, I think, scum taking advantage of the chaos and lured by the prospect of blood and gold.’ His head slumped forward and Valerius released him.

In a flat voice the trooper on Bela’s left said, ‘We charged them six times, and six times they repulsed us. We are all that is left. He would have stayed and died with the rest if we had not carried him away.’

‘I know,’ Valerius said, patting him gently on the arm. ‘Take him to the infirmary and get some rest. Say nothing of this to anyone.’

He sent for Falco, who read the look on his face and turned pale.

‘All?’ he asked quietly.

Valerius nodded. ‘The Thracians did what they could, but there were not enough of them.’

Falco closed his eyes and swayed on his feet and Valerius knew he was thinking of his plump wife, as courageous as any soldier as she sat stiff and erect with their nine-year-old son in the first wagon. But he could not be allowed to think for too long.

‘Will your men fight better for knowing or not knowing?’

The wine merchant’s eyes snapped open and his nostrils flared. ‘You forget yourself, tribune,’ he rasped, and Valerius had a glimpse of the old Falco, who had terrorized the Twentieth legion for two decades. ‘The Colonia militia will fight and that is all
you
need to know.’

‘I need them to fight with fire in their bellies not tears in their eyes.’ Valerius kept his voice hard. This man was his friend, but he could not afford to show weakness.

‘If I can fight with both, they can fight with both,’ Falco said fiercely. ‘The answer is that I have served with these men for a lifetime, they are my comrades and they deserve to know. The veterans of the Colonia militia will stand, they will fight and they will die, tribune, and you will go on your knees and seek my forgiveness before the end.’ He turned and walked stiffly away, an old man carrying all the burdens of a life on the march on his shoulders in a single moment.

XXXII

Late in the afternoon, Valerius gathered his officers in the long room in the temple’s east wing – the one with the painting of Claudius accepting the surrender of Britain. He doubted whether they saw the irony of it. What wouldn’t he give now for even one of those four legions displayed there on the wall, their armour and their spear points glinting? With a full legion at his back he would have marched northwards to meet Boudicca and left the rebellion stillborn, her army either shattered or so mauled that she would have no choice but to turn back and regroup. But he didn’t have a full legion. He had two thousand of Falco’s veterans, the two hundred men he had brought from Londinium and a few hundred of Bela’s cavalry.

The young Thracian lay back stiffly on a padded couch recovered from the temple’s barricade with his chest heavily bandaged and his eyes fever bright with whatever drug he’d been given to ease the pain. He had insisted on attending the final briefing even though he could barely stand. Falco stood among his cohort commanders with his face set in a mask of grim intent and refused to meet Valerius’s eyes. The men surrounding him took their mood from their leader, but there were those who couldn’t hide the signs of their grief or their nervousness. He searched for any other suggestion of weakness, but found none. These men still had their pride, even though time had marked them as it had marked the uniforms they wore. He knew some resented his youth, but with Falco’s support he had no doubt they would accept his authority. Lunaris leaned against the side wall, his tall frame relaxed and his face expressionless.

‘I have had word from our scouts.’ Valerius’s voice silenced the subdued murmurs. ‘If the Britons march hard, their vanguard will be here well before dawn. It is difficult for one man to judge, but the trooper who carried the message believes that Petronius’s spy did not exaggerate their strength.’ He paused and waited to see if any of them reacted to that terrible truth. There were no doubts now. They would be enormously outnumbered. ‘Yet any man who has studied history knows that sheer numbers need not guarantee the outcome of a battle. Alexander had only half as many troops as the Persian Darius when he triumphed at Issus. Caesar himself defeated Pompey the Great at Pharsalus when he was outnumbered by more than two to one.’

‘Not twenty to one, though.’

Valerius was surprised at the intervention from Corvinus, whose support he had assumed. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Not twenty to one. But these were soldiers fighting soldiers. We are soldiers fighting barbarian warriors. Does any man here doubt that ten legionaries are worth a hundred of these Britons?’

‘No!’ At least half of them growled the reply, and Valerius smiled.

‘Two to one, then.’ To a man, they laughed, even Falco. He allowed them their moment and then continued seriously. ‘I do not intend us to fight fifty thousand or even ten thousand. We will burn every bridge but one and the rebels will be drawn to the remaining crossing like wasps to a rotting peach. Only a few thousand will be able to cross at one time and those thousands will die before our swords.’ He didn’t allow any arrogance to creep into his voice. These men were not fools. ‘No, I do not expect to win,’ he answered their unspoken question. ‘I am no Caesar or Alexander and there are too many of them. Even a veteran’s arm must tire. We will bleed, just as they do. That is why I have fortified the temple. At the last we will withdraw here.’ And here we will die. They all knew it. No one needed to say it.

‘Why not fight from the temple in the first place?’ Corvinus demanded, and was rewarded with a rumble of support. ‘With close to three thousand men and enough food and water we could hold the grounds for a month.’

Valerius shook his head. ‘And watch Boudicca burn your city to the ground around you?’

‘She will burn it in any case.’

‘Yes, but she won’t just leave a few thousand warriors to starve us out and march on Londinium with her army intact. If they are fifty thousand strong now, how many will rally to their cause if they destroy all that is best of Roman Britain? A hundred thousand, perhaps more. Enough even to overwhelm Paulinus and his force. It would be the end of the province. We cannot allow that. By forcing her to do battle we have the opportunity to tear the heart from the rebel army, here at Colonia.’

‘Why do we exist if not to fight, Corvinus?’ Falco agreed. His voice was tight with emotion. ‘Were all those days on the exercise ground just for sweat? No. I have lost everything I loved today and I will not watch idly as the woman responsible marches past to bring the pain I feel to thousands more.’

Valerius knew Falco’s was the decisive opinion. Time was running out. There could be no more debate. ‘Send engineers to burn the bridges. Prepare your cohorts. We will move into position before dark.’ He had deliberated long and hard whether it was better to subject the veterans to a night in the open and the stiffening of ageing limbs, or risk the confusion of deploying in the darkness an hour or two before dawn. ‘Bela?’ The cavalry commander raised his head with a grimace of pain. ‘Pull your horse soldiers back. They can do no more now.’

As the officers filed out he called Lunaris across. ‘I want you in the temple and you are promoted to decurion.’ The big legionary opened his mouth to protest, but Valerius raised a hand. ‘No arguments. I need a man I can trust in command of the place where we will make our stand. We don’t know how things will be when we fight our way back here.’ He smiled sadly. ‘At least with you in command I know I will have somewhere to run.’

As dusk fell, he stood by Colonia’s north gate listening to the evening sounds and staring north. It was a blessing to have time to stop and think after a day of constant decision. The night was warm and the air still, and pairs of bats chased unseen insects between the buildings and the trees down by the river. He heard the unmistakable shriek of an owl and felt a sudden deep melancholy. Where was she now? He remembered the sweet scent of her silken hair and the softness of her flesh, the tenderness of lips he had never had the opportunity to kiss often enough, and dark eyes that flashed like wildfire; the wonder of a knowing like no other. She would support the rebellion, he guessed; her father’s death had given her enough reason to hate. But would she join it? No. Cearan would keep her safe; honest, dependable Cearan who would now be torn between his duty to his queen and his determination to prevent his people from suffering. How different things would have been if he had taken the throne for himself. With a conscious effort he put the Iceni nobleman from his mind. This was no time to be feeling sympathy for a warrior he might face on the battlefield in a few hours. Had he done enough? That was the question he must ask himself. Was there any detail, however small, he had not considered that might save one legionary’s life or cost one of Boudicca’s warriors theirs? He felt a twinge of doubt boring into his left temple like a carpenter’s drill. Doubts? Of course he had doubts. Even Caesar must have had doubts on the night before a decisive battle, but like Caesar he had to hide his doubts from everyone. He could have withdrawn the veterans back to Londinium with the convoy of women and children and saved thousands of innocent lives. It would have cost him his career and his honour, but that would have been a small price to pay. Was that why he didn’t do it, to save his honour? He shook his head. No. Boudicca had to be stopped, or at the very least tested. If he could stop her here, or even make her check for a day, Londinium might be saved, and with it the entire province. He was right to fight here. Right to leave the town and the temple and make her attack him on his own ground and his own terms.

He looked at the sky: the light was dying.
Soon
.

The sound of marching feet on the metalled road behind him echoed from the houses lining the street, iron nails crunching on the compacted surface. He turned to watch them pass. The veterans of Colonia, each one a son of Empire. First Falco, at the head of his command, his sturdy figure hidden beneath a scarlet cloak and his eyes lost in the shadow of his helmet brim. At the last moment the proud head turned and the chin lifted and the old soldier gave Valerius a nod that told him more than any words. He answered the gesture with a salute, his fist clashing against his armour, and he saw Falco smile. Behind their standard-bearers five militia cohorts followed him, parading down the slope with their
pila
on their shoulders and a precision that would have graced an emperor’s triumph. Each of them had lost a loved one today and he felt shame that he’d believed they would be diminished by it. Everything about the way they marched could be encapsulated in a single word. Resolve.

Behind the veterans came the bulk of the men he had brought from Londinium, minus the fifty who remained with Lunaris at the temple complex to strengthen the garrison of civilian volunteers. They must be wondering what gods had brought them to this place and this fate when they could still be back in their barracks. And what of himself? Did Neptune laugh when he called up the storm that delayed the ship carrying his replacement? If things had been different he would have been halfway home by now and, Maeve apart, would he have given the island another thought?

He followed in the column’s wake as Falco dispersed his men, and then wrapped his cloak around him and lay down among the Londinium vexillation on the damp grass beside Gracilis, who had marched with him all the way from Glevum. There had never been much likelihood he would sleep but his choice of partner guaranteed wakefulness. The Campanian muttered unintelligibly through clenched teeth and from time to time he cried out as if he were already fighting the battle that would come in the morning. Eventually, Valerius could take no more and wandered in the dark down towards the bridge.

The last of Bela’s saddle-weary cavalry troops rode across from the north bank as he reached it, guided by the torches of two of Falco’s veterans. The unit’s commander rode with his head bowed and looked to be almost asleep in his saddle.

‘What is the latest news of the rebels?’ Valerius reached up and shook the rider’s arm, taking in the rank scent of hard-ridden horse. The eyes snapped open and the man stared down at him. He had been one of those who had helped rescue Maeve from Crespo but for a few seconds there was no recognition in his eyes. ‘The rebels?’ Valerius repeated.

‘When we left them they were six miles away, beyond the ridge yonder. I think we were on the army’s right flank, but it was impossible to say for certain. They are like a swarm of bees: just when you think you understand their route and their purpose a section will break away for no good reason and march off in a completely different direction. We lost two good men that way, trapped when they got too close.’

‘Their numbers?’

The cavalryman shook his head. ‘I can give you no numbers. All I can say is they are too many.’ Valerius frowned. Insubordination or just plain truth? The horse shook its head, spraying him with sweat, and he caught the bridle to steady it. The troop commander leaned low to retrieve his reins, so there could be no mistaking his whispered words. ‘Take your little army away, tribune. If you stand against them they will crush you into the dust and not even notice.’

Valerius looked round to see if anyone else had heard. ‘A man could be whipped for saying such things,’ he said.

The Thracian smiled wearily. ‘A man does not need to fear the whip when he will be dead tomorrow.’

‘Will you fight?’

‘That is what you Romans pay us for.’

‘Then take your troop and spread them out along the bank to the east. Get what rest you can, but I need to know if the enemy plans a crossing elsewhere. Wait until an hour past first light and return here. Bela will have further orders for you.’

The cavalryman held out his hand. ‘Matykas, decurion of the first squadron. It was good advice, tribune; at least you’re a Roman worth dying beside.’

A few minutes after the Thracians had ridden away Valerius noticed a glow in the sky above the ridge. As he puzzled over it, Falco joined him at the bridge.

‘The rebels?’ the militia commander asked.

‘Perhaps they’ve camped for the night.’

‘A small cooking fire for a large army.’

Valerius grunted noncommittally. He was remembering the two lost Thracian cavalrymen and the tales he had heard of the Wicker Men, the great human-shaped baskets Caesar had written of, into which the Celts threw their sacrifices to be burned alive. He hoped the two troopers were already dead.

They waited, and Valerius knew without looking round that every eye in the meadow by the river was focused on the ridge to the north.

‘There,’ a voice cried.

The first was to the east, just a dot of flame that, as they watched, flared into something much larger. A moment later it was followed by a second, further west this time, and a third, lower down the slope. Within minutes the dark blanket of the slope was dotted with flames like fireflies on a Neapolitan night.

‘They’re burning the farms,’ Falco said unnecessarily.

Valerius didn’t reply, but kept his eye on one particular spark at the top of the slope and to his left, where Lucullus’s farm – Maeve’s home – was blazing. The fact that it now belonged to Petronius and had been stripped of everything she owned provided only a small consolation.

‘Thank you,’ Falco said suddenly.

Valerius looked at him in surprise, and shook his head. ‘You have nothing to thank me for. If I had done things differently, perhaps…’ He thought again of the scared faces and the crying children.

‘What’s done is done,’ the militia commander said. ‘If they had stayed they would have died in any case. You came to our aid when no one else would help us. Catus Decianus,’ he spat, ‘set a flame to a tinder-dry thicket and left his people to burn. Paulinus, too. Where is our governor when we need him? Or the Ninth legion, who could have been here now if our warnings had been heeded? They thought we were just panicking old men. But you came, Valerius, and even when you saw your commission was impossible you stayed. We are grateful.