Masters of Rome (14 page)

Vespasian put his arm around his friend's shoulders. ‘You're right of course; it's just that the shock hasn't quite worn off yet. I need to concentrate on what's important now: I'll send for Cogidubnus; I need to talk with him before we question his cousin.'

Alienus suppressed a scream and shook his head repeatedly, sending sweat arcing left and right in the brazier's glow; the stench of his scorched flesh filled the dim interior of the tent whose only piece of furniture was the wooden chair to which the naked spy was strapped.

‘I'll ask you again before the iron goes further up your thigh: who has my brother and where are they keeping him?'

‘I've told you, he's dead!'

‘Then tell me where his body is.'

‘I don't know!'

Vespasian nodded at the optio standing next to the brazier; with his hand protected by a thick leather glove the man pulled the iron from the fire, its tip glowing red. ‘Near the top of his thigh so that his cock and balls feel the heat; but don't touch them – yet.'

This time Alienus could not stifle the scream that pulsed through his whole body together with the searing agony of the burn; his wrists and ankles strained against the straps that bound them as his cry of torment wafted the smoke rising from the blackened flesh.

Both Magnus and Cogidubnus winced at the suffering but Vespasian remained resolute. ‘The next one will roast your genitals and you'll be pissing like a woman for the rest of your days.'

Alienus hyperventilated for a few moments after the iron was withdrawn and replaced in the brazier; blood had started to flow from beneath his bindings. ‘You're going to kill me anyway so that's no threat.'

‘Who said anything about killing you? How can I expect you to tell me the truth if you've nothing to gain by doing so? I'm going to let you live; Cogidubnus has agreed to vouch for you and keep you under house arrest in his kingdom. It's just up to you to decide in what condition you take up his generous offer: whole or with crucial bits missing?'

Alienus lifted his head; his mouth was set rigid with pain but his eyes narrowed in hatred as he regarded his cousin. ‘Live at the whim of that piece of filth? The man who, along with my grandfather, betrayed our people and sold our freedom to Rome.'

With one fluid motion, Cogidubnus stepped forward and slapped the flat of his palm across Alienus' face, jerking his head right in a spray of sweat and blood. ‘Now you listen to me and try to do so without your callow mind being clouded by the confused thinking of youth. For the last two years you have aided Caratacus, the man who supplanted your grandfather from his throne and forced your people, the confederation of the Atrebates and the Regni, to pay tribute and provide men to fight for him. Your grandfather freed them from that shame and I preserve that freedom, whereas you would hand us back into the thrall of Caratacus.'

‘I would free us from Rome! We pay tribute to the Emperor and our men fight in his auxiliary cohorts; what's the difference?'

Cogidubnus sneered, shaking his head, before carrying on slowly as if talking to a bright but misguided child. ‘The difference is that we get something for our money when we send it to Rome: we get peace and the chance to live on our own land under our own laws with our own king.'

‘You!'

‘Yes, me. But what did we get when we paid tribute to Caratacus? Poorer, whilst his tribe, the Catuvellauni, got richer. We had a king who did not live amongst us or even speak our dialect yet expected our men to fight and die for him in his
endless petty wars away to the north and west, waged solely for his own glory. Did our men get paid for fighting for him? No, yet they were forced to; however, Rome gives them silver and will give them citizenship when they finish their service and they fight as volunteers, not conscripts.'

‘But they fight their own countrymen.'

‘Countrymen who two years ago looked down on them as the spawn of a defeated kingdom and treated them little better than slaves.'

Vespasian stepped back into the light of the brazier. ‘Rome is here to stay, Alienus, and it makes no difference to us how harsh the terms of surrender are for each tribe or each individual; that's something that your cousin here has realised. Help me get my brother back and you can live under the supervision of Cogidubnus with the chance of reconciliation with Rome. Thwart me and I shall burn you bit by bit not for your submission but for the pleasure of doing it. You have my word on both of those assertions.'

Alienus glanced at Cogidubnus and then back at Vespasian. ‘Why should I trust you?'

‘Because I want Sabinus back more than I want you dead, and if giving you your life is the price that I have to pay then so be it. I won't go back on the bargain, as Mars is my witness, because to do so would put Sabinus' life in jeopardy.' Again he nodded at the optio who once more took up the glowing iron. ‘So, I'll ask you one final time as an intact man, who has my brother and where are they holding him?'

Alienus' eyes flashed around the room, looking at each man in turn; indecision played in them.

‘Take the hair,' Vespasian whispered to the optio, who smiled.

With a quick jab, the iron was thrust into the thick growth of pubic hair; with a flash it ignited, encircling Alienus' genitals with a brief ring of fire. The young man yelped, looking down at his burning crotch. ‘The druids! The druids have him!'

‘That's better. Where?'

‘I don't know!'

‘Of course you do. Optio.'

Alienus watched the iron being withdrawn from within the brightly burning charcoal and brought slowly towards his singed groin. He looked in terror at Vespasian who raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Alienus broke. ‘I left him with the druids at the Great Henge of Stone, up on the plain, east of here. They're keeping him for sacrifice at the summer solstice. I was meant to lure you after him to this place where we were going to crush your legion and capture you so that it could be a double sacrifice.'

‘Which druids did you give him to?' Cogidubnus demanded, stepping forward.

‘Druids from the sacred springs.'

‘Does that mean anything to you?' Vespasian asked Cogidubnus.

He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, they maintain the rituals of an ancient goddess, one our forefathers found already here when we arrived. She lives in a valley about thirty miles to the north and never leaves it; she constantly has to tend to her five hot springs and her sacred groves. She commands great power – she can heat water so that it's too hot to touch. Her name is Sullis.'

‘We could be there and back in two days; three at the most,' Vespasian said, holding his arms out for Hormus to untie the straps securing his back- and breastplates.

‘Assuming we don't run into the remnants of that army that fled in the same direction,' Magnus pointed out, slumping down on a couch.

Cogidubnus looked dubious. ‘It's one thing travelling to and fro; it's quite another snatching your brother, if he
is
there, from Sullis' valley. Who knows what powers protect it; you felt the malevolence that surrounded those druids last night.'

Vespasian rubbed his sore shoulders as Hormus bent to remove his greaves. ‘But you managed to break through whatever was shielding them.'

Cogidubnus pulled a pendant from under his tunic. ‘This is the Wheel of Taranis, god of thunder.' He held out a golden, four-spoked wheel, the size of his palm, which Vespasian recognised as having belonged to Verica. ‘Taranis is a true god of the
Celts; he rules the heavens and spins his celestial wheel to produce thunder and lightning. He has great power and my people have worshipped him since we came out of the east, long before we crossed the straits from Gaul to Britannia. My uncle gave me this on his deathbed; every king of the Atrebates and Regni who wears it can expect Taranis' protection, even against the dark gods that the druids awoke on this isle. So wearing this I had no fear when I attacked those druids; the power they wield is only effective if men are frozen by its malice and fear to oppose it.'

‘Frozen? That's exactly how it felt; it was a deep chill in the very marrow of my bones, creeping up me so that all I could think of was the horror of being engulfed by it. I was helpless. But tell me, is it a trick like their luminous robes or is it real?'

‘It's real, I can promise you that, but what dark gods they conjure to create it, I don't know; the druids keep the secrets of their lore buried deep.'

‘Next time I shall sacrifice to my guardian god before facing them.'

‘That might help against the power we experienced last night but against Sullis in her own valley? I don't know.'

Vespasian sat as Hormus took his armour away for cleaning. ‘What do you suggest then, Cogidubnus? I have no choice but to go; it's my brother.'

‘Firstly, if we go we can't take a large force; if they suspect we're trying to rescue Sabinus, they'll kill him. Ten men at the most; I'll pick the best of my auxiliaries and get some clothes stripped off the dead for us all. Secondly, we need to protect ourselves somehow. There is a man that I've heard about but never met; he came here from one of the eastern provinces of the Empire about eight years ago. I've been told that he has an understanding with the druids; for some reason they fear him. Perhaps he could help us.'

‘How?'

‘He preaches a new religion and is said to have great power; not the cold power of the dark gods of this land but power of a different sort, a power that helps him withstand malevolence.'

‘Is he a Jew?' Magnus asked.

‘A Jew? I don't know what that is but if it's someone who believes in just one god then he could be, for that's what I've heard about his beliefs. He prays to one god and believes that a crucified kinsman of his was that god's prophet.'

Vespasian looked at Magnus, understanding dawning on his face. ‘You don't think that it's him, do you?'

‘I certainly hope it is because he owes you a massive favour for freeing him from those slavers in Cyrenaica.'

‘And he owes my brother for releasing the body of his crucified kinsman to him and not the Temple Guards when Sabinus was a quaestor in Judaea. He's honour-bound to help us if he can. Where is he, Cogidubnus?'

‘I'm told that he was given land on a large tor by Budoc, King of the Dobunni, between here and Sullis' valley, about fifteen miles away. If we leave at midday, after a couple of hours' sleep, we could be there before dusk.'

‘Do you know this man's name?'

‘It was a name like I'd never heard before.'

‘Is it Yosef?'

The King thought for a few moments. ‘Yes, that sounds right, Yosef.'

Vespasian walked into his sleeping quarters to find Hormus still wiping the congealed blood from his armour with a damp cloth. ‘Leave it, I won't be needing it during the next couple of days; you can do it while I'm away.'

The slave rose, keeping his eyes to the ground. ‘Yes, master. Shall I prepare something to eat?'

‘Let me sleep for two hours first.'

With a deferential bow of the head, Hormus turned to leave.

‘Hormus,' Vespasian said softly, stopping his slave. ‘What's the greatest achievement in your life?'

‘I'm sorry, master, I don't understand the question.'

‘Yes you do; tell me what it is.'

‘I have never achieved anything other than to stay alive.'

Vespasian sat down on the low bed, undoing his belt. ‘And in
achieving that today you've also achieved much more, Hormus; it was your warning to me last night that saved almost five thousand legionaries and nearly the same number of auxiliaries. Although they don't know it, every man in this camp owes you his life. What do you think of that?'

Hormus looked baffled. ‘If what you say is true, then I don't know what to think.'

Vespasian smiled as he lay down and closed his eyes. ‘You've got a couple of days to think about it. Send a message for Maximus and Valens to report to me when I wake.'

Vespasian rubbed his temples, trying to alleviate the headache that had assailed him since waking as Maximus and Valens marched smartly up to his desk and saluted. ‘Sit down, gentlemen; some wine?' He indicated that they should help themselves from the earthenware jug on the desk. ‘What's our situation, Maximus?'

‘All but the fourth cohort from the legion could be considered combat ready,' the veteran replied, pouring a cup. ‘However, the auxiliaries are a different matter: the two Gallic cohorts you left with Caepio to guard the camp took a battering as they prevented a flanking move and then had a hard time of it removing a band of long-hairs that had broken into the camp. The damage wasn't as bad as it looked, it was mainly the palisade that was burning; the Gauls kicked them out before they got to the tents.'

‘I'm pleased to hear it; I shall personally commend Caepio and the two prefects.'

‘They'll be busy for the next day; between them they lost nearly a third of their centurions and nearly as many optios and standard-bearers. They could fight if pressed but the chain of command is fractured. Of the other two Gallic cohorts only the one that was with Valens here is fit for immediate action – the other one lost nearly fifty dead and almost two hundred wounded plugging that gap.'

Vespasian grimaced even though he had known that the toll would have been high. ‘What about Cogidubnus' Britannic auxiliaries?'

‘Minimal casualties; and I think they proved their willingness to fight for Rome.'

‘They certainly did; they have no love for Caratacus. And the Hamians?'

‘They're fine, better than the cavalry; the Gauls need a hundred and forty remounts to bring them up to just over half strength and the legionary cavalry are down to an effective force of two turmae.'

‘Just sixty-four left?'