Legatus Legionis: Book Two in the Gaius Claudius Scaevola Trilogy (27 page)

Plautius was less than happy, but he realized that if it came to a choice between him and his Legate, it was not clear what the outcome would be. As Gaius was about to leave, the same thought struck him, so he turned back towards Plautius, and said, "I apologize if you think I was going behind your back. I was not. You have my full support, and I have told that to Claudius." This was not exactly true, but it seemed the right thing to say.

"Well, thank you," Plautius said in a voice laden with sarcasm.

"The problem is," Gaius continued, "that having brought Claudius into this, it is imperative that the men board. If you wish, sir, I shall persuade the twentieth to board and lead the invasion."

"That will not be necessary," Plautius scowled.

In retrospect, Gaius conceded, that had not gone well. But why should he have to worry about the feelings of those who had failed to carry out the
Princeps
' orders? The short answer was, he did not need to, as long as he had Claudius' support, so he should focus on the real problem: how to get the men to board?

* * *

"The second seems too afraid to set sail," Gaius addressed a century from the eighth cohort of his legion, a century particularly rich in younger and inexperienced soldiers, and he was addressing them without the presence of a Centurion or any NCOs, "but I'm sure that when it is time for the twentieth to sail, there will be no problems, will there?"

"No sir," came the unenthusiastic response. Sailing last had its advantages, but the sailing order was hardly immutable.

"I offered to have the twentieth lead," Gaius continued, "but Vespasian thinks his legion is made of better stuff."

That generated some growls.

"If we have to go first," Gaius said firmly, "I expect you men to board. I shall be on the first ship, and I promise you, I have no intention of falling off the edge of the world."

"You mightn't intend to . . ." one started.

"That," Gaius said calmly, "is because there's no edge of the world."

"There has to be! Everything has an end," one of the soldiers said.

"Want a bet? How many denarii?" Gaius challenged.

"Just because I'm out of money doesn't mean . . ."

"You can pay with a week's fatigues. Want to bet?"

There was a dull silence. The man knew he would be on fatigues right then. The only question was, doing what for how long.

"Here," Gaius said, throwing a small leaden ball made for the sling. "Since you're so sure everything has an end, show me where the surface of the ball ends."

There were a few laughs at the man's discomfort.

"The great Aristotle," Gaius said as a challenge, "proved that the world is a ball, rounder than that, so I promise, there's no edge."

There were murmurs. People had heard of Aristotle, but none of the men knew or cared what he had written. Still, his reputation was such that . . .

"Julius Caesar's troops gave no problem," Gaius continued. "I trust you men are not less than Caesar's."

There was no response.

"I would hope there's no less discipline than with Caesar's men," Gaius continued coldly.

There was even less response. Caesar was known not to have been particularly forgiving, and word had started to spread about their new Legate. Stories were making the rounds that he had ordered many crucifixions without any particular authorization before he became a Legate. Also, irrespective of the stories, discipline in the twentieth had been very much more ruthlessly imposed since he had arrived.

"What I was thinking," Gaius continued slowly, "is that a local boat is going over to pick up some friendly Celts tomorrow and I think the Gallic sailors would be grateful for some men to protect them. I want some volunteers." He paused, then added, "Volunteers will get an extra cask of wine, they will immediately become
immunes
, and they will get a favour from me when they request it. If nobody volunteers, this century is all cleaning stables, and one in ten will wish they were cleaning stables."

A chill ran through the men. The implication was clear.

"I volunteer, sir," one man stepped forward, "if you can help me."

"You want?" Gaius asked impassively. This was the risk of his strategy.

"My brother has a farm near Ravenna, but there is a rich neighbour trying to . . ."

Gaius stared. Even this long after Gracchus . . . "Give me the details and I think you'll find your farm is secure," Gaius said coldly. "I give you my word as a Claudian." He would write to Claudius; if the success of Claudius' invasion depended on stopping some rich landowner extorting the poorer family of a soldier, on a good day the rich landowner could expect to join the poor.

There were more volunteers. A Legate who would go out of his way to help one of his men with problems back home was worth supporting.

"Good," Gaius nodded. "Now, one more thing. Don't tell the other legions you're going, and even more importantly, don't tell them it's safe after you get back."

The men nodded, and grinned. It was always good to show up the others.

It was later that day that Gaius met a distraught Vespasian.

"You seem quite satisfied with yourself," Vespasian growled. "Almost as if you don't wish to embark!"

"Actually," Gaius said flatly, "as long as we eventually embark, the current situation is remarkably fortunate." He had to restrain his sense of satisfaction.

"Oh?" Vespasian queried in an icy tone. "Why is sitting on your arse here fortunate?"

"Imagine the Britons?" Gaius smiled. "What will they be thinking?"

"They'll be laughing their heads off at the mighty Roman army, scared shitless by a channel of water," Vespasian growled bitterly. "Trouble is, they might be right."

"They'll probably think we'll end up collecting seashells, like we did a few years ago," Gaius added.

"So why's that so encouraging?"

"Because the Celts are not professional soldiers," Gaius reminded Vespasian. "The next thing they'll do is think of their crops. If we can delay sailing until harvest starts, most of their troops'll have gone home to bring in the harvest. That'll make things easier when we get there," Gaius nodded.

"So, the young Claudius doesn't want to fight?" Vespasian laughed.

"I want to win," Gaius responded coldly. "If the opposition want to be absent, so much the better. The object is to conquer Britain, and I have no particular desire to spill unnecessary blood."

"Neither do I," Vespasian agreed, although Gaius considered him to be not altogether convincing. As he departed he slapped Gaius on the shoulder, a gesture that annoyed Gaius for a moment. Vespasian was trying to be friendly, but not a friend. Vespasian had his own agenda and would go out of is way to see that agenda got done. But then, Gaius had to admit, both of them wanted this invasion to go well. While they had a common goal, they had to work together, and suddenly Gaius realized that he too had been overly aloof.

It might be a natural Claudian attribute, but not one that worked well right then. He had to do something about it, at least as far as Vespasian went.

* * *

Gaius could barely restrain grinning as a rather wistful Timothy took his seat. He had spent weeks down at the beach, studying the tides, and he had quite a compilation of data.

"Well?" Gaius asked softly, although he was beginning to be sure of the answer.

"You were correct," Timothy said, "although I don't understand what all this means. I fixed a marked post in the estuary as you said, and recorded the times as well as I could. The tides come at more or less opposite times, and the day to day difference for the same tide is about half an hour at new moon, and a bit over an hour at half moon. The intervening high tide is about half-way between the time difference, plus twelve hours, and the day and night high tide is very close to the same height. It seems to depend a little bit on the wind too. I don't know why you wanted to know this, but . . ."

"I win!" Gaius said triumphantly.

"I don't understand," Timothy said.

"Unless you can explain why the Moon would push water away from it on the far side, the Earth has to be moving," Gaius smiled. "That the sun does exactly the same thing proves that the Earth moves around the Sun. The reason is on the far side the water is being flung away because it is moving faster. It's all to do with your favourite geometry. Here, I'll show you." He took out a wax tablet, and began drawing.

"That's incredible," Timothy finally said.

"Concede the bet?" Gaius smiled.

"What do you want?" Timothy said suspiciously.

"Just your concession, old friend," Gaius replied.

"I think it's an extraordinary effort," Timothy said, then added with a grin, "but you can hardly expect me to concede without some effort. After all, you retreated to think, and you'd hardly expect me to counter that immediately."

"Of course you can have some time," Gaius said softly. "I just hoped you would see the overall beauty of it."

"I do," Timothy replied, "but that doesn't mean that that's the end of it. I must make sure you're right."

Chapter 22

The summer was almost over when the day for embarkation arrived. Representatives of each of the legions together with the entire cohorts that were scheduled to depart had been assembled before a large wooden platform. The
Princeps
himself would address them, or so the troops believed. There was an air of anticipation as Plautius took the stand. The favourable bubble burst when Plautius stated that the
Princeps
had sent Narcissus to speak on his behalf. A cacaphony of groans burst out, which became ruder and ruder. Narcissus stared at Plautius, who in turn was beginning to look afraid. This had all the makings of mutiny.

The ill temper culminated when one man from the
Augusta
climbed onto a rock and yelled out, "And since when do the men of the
Augusta
listen to a slave?"

"
Io, Saturnalia!
" yelled a wit from the twentieth.

There was a stunned silence for a second, then suddenly everyone burst out laughing at the look on the face of the man standing on the rock. Rhetorical questions were not supposed to be answered, particularly with a correct answer.

"That bugger just wants a cookie!" another yelled. It was common during the formalities for treats to be handed out after that chant.

"Then give him one of the Augusta's! One of their cooks makes 'em like rocks!"

"Bloody twentieth! Can't even tell the difference between winter and summer!"

Suddenly the whole assembly had broken down into an exchange of increasingly rude but ribald insults and attempted jokes at a different legion's expense. A pair of hands pulled the stunned protester down from his stone.

As the insults finally began to ebb, Narcissus took to the stand again. Rome, he said, could not have an enemy on its western flank that could come and raid as they wished, for they were not afraid of falling off the end of the world. The great Julius had crossed without difficulty, supplies had crossed for him several times, and nobody or no ship was lost other than in battle, or by storm. There would be no storms that day.

They were afraid of falling off the end of the world, were they? That would not happen. How did he know? Well, if the current was so strong that it would sweep a ship off the end of the world, a huge amount of water must be falling over continuously, right? There was a silence. The troops did not like the idea of sailing, but they had to admit that if ships were to be swept over, the water had to be going over all the time.

If seawater were falling off the end of the world, Narcissus continued, sooner or later even the sea would run out of water. The sea levels were as high now as in the times of Julius, or as in the times of the ancient Egyptians, thousands of years ago. Some fearsome loss! There was some laughter.

Then, Narcissus said, have a look at the local tides. Twice a day, the sea fell by up to thirty feet around here. Falling over the edge? Well, six hours later it all comes back again. If that's falling over the edge, it hasn't done the fish any harm! There was more laughter. Men had seen the tides, and they recognized that the water did come back, and the fish survived. Then, on top of that, Narcissus continued, look at how fast the sea comes back. If it is falling over the edge of the world, it's falling the wrong way! When was the last time any of you saw something fall up!

A barrage of rude but good-natured comments arose. The bubble of discontent had burst. Then on top of that, Narcissus added, one of the centuries had already been over there and back. And no cohort was missing a century. Rome required them to sail, and defeat these miserable Celts. Surely they were not afraid of battle?

When Narcissus stood down, Vespasian stepped forward with a small group of Praetorians. He pointed towards the first century of the first cohort, and ordered them to board before the other legions died of laughter at their spinelessness. The men felt decidedly uncomfortable, but while everyone else was laughing, there was little option. The next cohort followed, and before long boarding commenced.

When it was clear that the invasion was truly under way, Gaius sought out Timothy. "I want you to go back to Rome for a while, and travelling with Narcissus' party should be a safe way of getting there."

"You don't want me on campaign with you?" Timothy's eyes were a little downcast.

"Nothing like that at all, old friend," Gaius said as he gave Timothy's shoulder a reassuring grip. "There's something that needs to be done by someone I trust."

"That is?" his eyes lit up.

Gaius then explained the situation he was facing regarding Quintus and the corn. "The money isn't the issue," Gaius explained, "but the problem is I have left Vipsania a job, and Quintus is obviously not being cooperative. Again, by itself that's just a nuisance, but it's upsetting Vipsania, and she may not be feeling very secure, especially after what her father did."