Dreaming the Serpent Spear (48 page)

He waited a moment to see the other man’s smile grow deeper, then, with a sour eye to the tilt of water streaming over the lip of the awning, Theophilus of Athens and Cos, both of which were eternally blessed with dry weather, braced himself and stepped out into the ocean of mud that had been a grazing paddock for the horses of Lugdunum, and later for the port at Vespasian’s Bridge.

The rain cascaded down, sliding off his hair into his neck and onto his shoulders to soak further into the stuff of his cloak. For a moment, he did give serious thought to shedding his clothes and the indignity they had come to inflict on him, then he looked past Valerius and the sea of other, equally futile, awnings, past the miserable horses with their tails turned to the worst of the wet, past the naked warriors hunched in their shelter eating cold boiled mutton taken from the storehouses of the burned port, to the storm-swollen river where the bridge arced over the torrent.

The bridge commanded them all, now that the port at its feet had gone. Stark and black and proud against the mud and grey skies, it hung suspended in a lacework of geometric precision above all the chaos of rain and war.

Over the three days of the storm, Theophilus had come to identify with the bridge and its ability to endure all that had been thrown at it. It was the reason he was still clothed, and would remain so. It mattered to him that he keep faith with all that it held. Standing in the rain contemplating its destruction, he thought he might weep and then that he already was.

He caught up with Valerius. “It
is
beautiful, far more so than the forum at Camulodunum, or the theatre, or the grotesque monstrosity of Claudius’ temple. It’s perfect — a testament to the powers of men over the gods. Why must you destroy it?”

“For that reason, if no other; we are trying to restore the gods to the land that men have taken, that we may hold it in trust for them.”

Valerius was himself again, alive and buoyant as if the rain fed the core of his soul, or the battles did. He was not like Julius Caesar, catamite to kings, but he was very much like Vespasian, who saw layers of cause and event beyond and beneath the wars.

He was, quite clearly, a man who had grown very close to being all he could be. If Theophilus had been asked to put a finger on what was missing, he would have found it hard, only that there was a piece still required to make the mosaic whole, and that when it came, and was fitted, the result would be exceptional.

The result already was far from mundane. The assault on Lugdunum had been a model of intelligent use of resources, so that there had been almost no loss of life on the attacking side. Through it, Valerius had used Theophilus as a sounding board, when he had things to discuss that needed a more classical insight than could be offered by Madb of Hibernia, or Huw, or the boy Knife, who was proving an adept scout.

He used him as such now, walking across the paddocks with the rain cascading off his shoulders and the swept lines of his torso.

“There are strategic reasons for removing it too: as long
as Cunomar has wiped out Verulamium, then all of the land north of the river is with us as far as the Brigantes. The southwest has always been for us and against Rome. Down there…” he pointed across the river, “every tribe south of the river is loyal to Rome and will remain so. If Paullinus decides to run his army south, I would rather he were not able to cross the river into Atrebatan territory. We can harry a marching legion to destruction; we’ve proved that with the Ninth. We’ll be much harder pushed to attack them if they’re in allied territory.”

“Paullinus wouldn’t dare run now.” They had reached the north road, which had been made by the legions to speed the passage of men and provisions north to the war in the northwest. It had been paved and laid high on limestone rubble so that it was only awash with water, not thigh-deep in mud. Here, they could walk side by side and pretend to be civilized. Theophilus said, “The governor was sent here to succeed or die. Even if he didn’t have Nero behind him threatening death, he’s not the kind of man to walk away from a battle, still less to run.”

“But he may choose discretion over valour. If he marches the legions south across the bridge, he could over-winter in safety with Berikos of the Atrebates, or Cogidumnos of the Regni; both men are given heart and soul to Rome.”

They reached the paddock’s end. Valerius stepped over a fallen roof beam that had come, by accident, to mark the outer margins of the port. Rain flattened the stench of death, but not the sight of it. On either side, naked warriors and older children were still sorting through the debris of burned huts and merchants’ booths, taking metal that might be usefully made into weapons, or leather for
armour, or food that had not been spoiled by the fire or proximity to carrion.

There was more of that than there had been in Camulodunum: the storm had stopped the fires before they could cleanly burn everything, and there had been no final siege in a stone-built temple; Vespasian’s Bridge had nothing sufficiently substantial to be worthy of a siege and no veterans ready to organize a defence. The slaughter here had been fast and most of it by sword and spear, with the fire intended to clear everything after.

Seeing the storm coming, Valerius had ordered his warriors to form a three-quarters ring about the port, with a gap only at the river, and only at first, and had them close in on signalled commands so that there had been no unexpected break in the wall of iron. The fighting had been swift and disciplined. Near the centre, the last cram of defenders had died of breathing smoke. They lay there still, exactly as they had fallen, bloating now, with the gas of warmth and death.

The road was completely clear of bodies and burned wood; Valerius had ordered that as a first priority. They walked down it, towards the bridge.

Valerius asked, “In my place, what would you do?”

The rain eased a little. Theophilus’ mood lightened in proportion. He said, “Exactly what you are doing, only I would be more worried that Paullinus might order his client kings in the south to raise their sworn spears and send a war host north across the river to help him. And I agree with you: to prevent that alone, I would destroy the bridge. What will you do now that it’s too wet to burn?”

“I have Madb of Hibernia as my engineer. She understands
wood the way a smith understands iron. If you stay, you can see how the tribes take apart what Rome has made.”

The scout brought the news to Ulla who brought it to Cunomar who was with half a dozen others in a byre near the senior magistrate’s house in Verulamium trying to round up three blue roan cattle and their two heifer calves.

“Vespasian’s Bridge is down.”

Ulla stood in the doorway and shouted it, the better to be heard over the laughter and the lowing.

The laughter stopped. The lowing did not but grew less. Panting, Cunomar leaned on a tether post and swept a dank hand through his hair. The grin faded last from his face, after the rest of him had sobered, as if that part was least willing to let go of the game. He spat straw from his teeth and stared at the floor and made himself a leader of spears again.

“When did it fall?” he asked.

“Last night, just before dusk.” The morning’s drizzle had dried. Ulla stood in watery sunshine, shading her eyes. “Valerius made it a ceremony as it came down and gave half of the bridge as an offering to Nemain. The other half was burned at sunfall as a gift to Lugh of the shining spear, sun god of the ancestors. All of the warriors and refugees watched it. They say that the part of the war host that travels and fights with the Boudica’s brother is blessed by the old ones and has formed a shining army in its own right.”

Cunomar’s eyes grew tight at the margins. “Valerius says that?”

“Of course not. But the warriors of Mona who fight with him say it, and they are of the gods’ isle so everyone listens. He has more spears now than anyone: the Silures
have come from the west to join him and warriors of the Durotriges and Dumnonii loyal to Gunovar. They were looking for the Boudica but couldn’t find her and so have joined with her brother instead.” Cunomar was looking increasingly strained. Ulla said, “They’re with Valerius because they met him first. When they reach us here this evening, they may yet choose to join you.”

All traces of the boy who had enjoyed the morning’s game vanished. “Valerius and his host are coming north to meet us? Here?
Today?
”

The cattle fell silent at last. The youths of the she-bear glanced guardedly one to the other and began to ease themselves from the strawed slurry of the byre. They were brown to the ankles and stank of fresh manure. It had not mattered before; it mattered a great deal now if they were to rescue any honour at all from the task they had been set.

Unlike the battle for Lugdunum, the battle for Verulamium had not been glorious: there had been no ceremonial ending of a bridge, nor — yet — the burning of a city. The Boudica had given one-third of her war host to her son with a remit to crack open Rome’s second city in the province, in order that he might prove himself as a tactician and a leader of spears in a safe theatre, before any greater battles. To his enduring shame and that of his warriors, he had thus far proved nothing of the sort.

The entire affair had been a wallowing anticlimax. It had not occurred to any of them that the town against whom they marched might not wish to be cracked open, but might instead greet the warriors with barely a fight.

In the event, the rising smoke of Camulodunum had told its own story and the inhabitants of Verulamium who
had sold themselves most assiduously to Rome for the prize of citizenship were gone or dead by the time the Boudica’s son and his warriors had arrived.

Several thousand old men, women and children had been left in the undefended town. At the sight of Cunomar’s front runners, they had changed into un-Roman dress, or as near as they could find, and had swung open the gates, inviting the Boudica’s son to enter with fulsome protestations of gratitude and great joy at his arrival.

Against a desperate wish to kill without cease, Cunomar had given orders that none of them must be slain and that instead they be given food and wagons with which they might leave if they wished before the municipium was burned.

Surprisingly few had departed, and so overnight Cunomar had found himself organizing the feeding of the extra thousands, which meant that the town had to be emptied of all possible food before it could be burned, which was why he was in the cow byre, chasing a skinny roan heifer with a group of friends, as if there were no war to be won and the worst that could happen was that they be covered in filth to the ankles and have to jump in the river to be clean.

The warriors in the byre were calmer now, and serious, awaiting his order. Cunomar surveyed them, making sure that his gaze met each and they could see that his gratitude was sincere.

“Thank you all. We should perhaps forget about trying to halter these and herd them out to the rest. They can be milked later, when we have more time. If you three” — he swung his arm and they swayed apart from it, dividing into two groups — “could take care of that and the rest of you
come with me? It seems we have a city to burn and not long in which to do it.”

The elders of the she-bear had warned against the intoxication of leadership. Taking care not to revel in the strength of their devotion, Cunomar watched the first half of his group move with commendable purpose to herd the cattle and then led the rest out to the alleyways of the town where the thin sun took the chill off the wind and dried out the building for burning.

Wagons stood outside the gates, surrounded by relays of other, similar youths who filled them with bushels of corn from the city’s tax granaries and staves of straw and smoked meats and fish and jars of olives and figs in wine that were the gift of a grateful emperor to those among the natives who had given him the closest and most unequivocal support. Even more than Camulodunum, Verulamium had worked to make itself and so the province fully Roman.

Cunomar found work for those who followed him, and for himself, and sent out more scouts to assess Valerius’ progress and made sure that he was in a place where they could find him first when they came to report.

It was not a scout who sought him out when he was holding the corner of a laden cart that the split axle might be repaired, but Braint, Warrior of Mona.

Her hair was black, streaked with grey and a little mud. Her eyebrows were incised black lines above raven-hard eyes that pierced friend and enemy equally, with little warmth for either. She loomed over Cunomar, lean and angry and fired by something beyond the necessities of the day, even this day.

The axle was mended. The wheel was put back on and the pin hammered into place. He let go of the corner and flexed his fingers and led the Warrior of Mona out to the horse paddocks where there were fewer listening ears.

A wall-eyed chestnut mare stood in the far corner watching him warily. Cunomar had been trying intermittently to catch her for three days. He walked towards her now, with Braint at his side.

“I thought you were with Valerius?” he said.

“I was.” Her eyes were bright and cold as she said it. Cygfa might have placed her trust in Valerius, but it was widely known that her lover, the Warrior of Mona, hated the Boudica’s brother almost as much as she hated the legions.

The fine margin between the greater hate and the smaller had let Braint carry Valerius’ message. “He sent me back with half of my warriors, bringing news to cheer your day: Suetonius Paullinus is coming south towards you, bringing whatever is left of his legions after the gods of Mona spat them out of the straits.”

Cunomar’s guts lurched alarmingly. “How does he know?” he asked. “Our scouts have been out for half a day’s ride in all directions and have seen nothing of the enemy.”

Braint said, “Valerius saw Corvus and the governor with a group of other officers in the hills above Lugdunum. He thinks they had come to arrange a defence, but saw it was indefensible and left it for him to burn.”