In the Shadow of the Wall (9 page)

They were brought some food and water. A little while later a young soldier came in and spoke to them in a language they could make out though his accent was strange and some words were unfamiliar. He told them that he was called Carallus and they were now slaves of imperial
Rome
. Then he told them all they had to strip, bathe and have their hair shaved. “You may bring disease here,” he explained. So they were marched out, forced to strip naked and pile their clothes onto a fire which had been lit in an open space within the fort. Then they were given cold water and some hard, grainy soap to wash with, always under the eyes of the Romans. Many soldiers came along to watch in a disinterested sort of way. Brude saw some who wore fine red cloaks and solid breastplates. He could tell these were important men but he got a cuff on the back of his head from a soldier who barked at him in Latin. Carallus translated, “Keep your gaze lowered, slave.”

After they had washed, their heads were shaved which to most was the worst part of the day for the Pritani were proud of long, strong hair. It showed their virility and to lose it was a source of shame. “It will grow back,” Carallus reassured them. Once they had all been shaved, they were examined by a small man who was, according to Carallus, a doctor although he did little to help the wounds they had other than to wrap some linen bandages round them. Then they were given short tunics to wear before being taken back to their large cell room.

Another light meal of plain oatmeal gruel and some water was brought to them as evening came. There was barely enough to go around but one of the men, a large warrior called Drugh, one of Nechtan’s men, insisted that they all share the food equally. Nobody argued, despite the hunger; they were all in this together.

They had no blankets and nowhere to sleep except the hard, beaten earth floor so they lay down and tried to sleep, though some men whimpered because of the pain of their wounds or the loss of their freedom. Brude did not cry, not en when he remembered his father’s death. He wanted to, but no tears would come. Instead, he burned with a deep resolve that he would escape this captivity and return to Broch Tava to marry Mairead. It was the only thing he could think of that kept him feeling alive.

Brude soon learned that escape would not be easy. They spent a week cooped up in the fort, during which time two men died when their wounds became infected. They discovered that Carallus was a Pritani, from a tribe who lived far to the south, which was why he had the job of speaking to them. Drugh, the big man who had become their nominal leader, asked him once why one of the Pritani would fight for the Romans. Carallus just shrugged. “The pay’s good,” he said. “And you get regular meals.”

Then one morning they were taken outside, heavily guarded, and the Romans put them in a long coffle, iron rings fastened about their necks and linked together with long iron chains. They could move their arms and they could walk but they had to keep together for if any man did not keep pace or changed direction, his neighbours were dragged by the neck chains and choked.

So began the long years of Brude’s slavery.

They walked along the road behind the Wall, prodded by the guards if their pace flagged. At night they were taken inside the nearest fort and Brude began to realise just how many soldiers the Romans had. They had heard that most soldiers had gone away to fight in some other part of the empire but there were still hundreds of them in the forts along the Wall, every man armed and armoured with enough iron to make a Pritani a wealthy man.

They turned south, sometimes handed from one guard party to another. Some of them were now starting to pick up a few words of Latin. Brude was able to recognise the words for water, food, orders to get up, march, stop and rest. They all knew the word for slave, for they heard it constantly. They were just
serui
. They had no names as far as the Romans were concerned.

The roads ran straight across the countryside, passing through villages and even large towns, many of them with streets laid out in orderly, rectangular patterns and surrounded by high walls. Sometimes they spent the nights sheltered in barns but mostly they slept outside, shivering in their short tunics even though it was high summer. “Lughnasa today,” said Frual one morning as they sipped the small ration of water and ate the dried oatmeal biscuits they were becoming used to. “I don’t suppose we’ll be celebrating, though.”

Brude wondered how Frual knew it was Lughnasa; he had lost all track of time. He also wondered how Broch Tava would celebrate the summer festival this year when so many of their warriors were dead or captured.

The march went on, much further than the trek they had made from Broch Tava to the Wall, yet the going was faster for the Roman roads allowed them to cover long distances easily. Brude noticed small stone markers at the roadside every so often; strange, unfamiliar symbols scratched on them. He supposed they marked some sort of holy place but on a much smaller scale than the high-standing stones the Pritani used.

Day after day they marched, the Romans never allowing them any chance of escape. Brude whispered to Frual and some others that he thought they should try to overpower the guards one night, even if it meant all of them attacking in unison because of the restricting coffle. Nobody greeted his suggestion with any enthusiasm. “Where would you run to?” one man asked. “Even if you could get out of the chains, you’d soon get caught again.”

“I heard they kill runaway slaves,” said another man gloomily.

Drugh told Brude to forget his plan and the march went on.

As they travelled further south the towns grew larger and became more prosperous. Brude marvelled at the sight of enormous buildings built of stone and brick, or even gleaming marble; some with huge round columns supporting triangular cornices decorated with incredibly lifelike painted statues. They made Broch Tava seem crude in comparison. And as they were marched through the towns they heard the people muttering and pointing, calling them “Picti” when they saw the blue painted designs on their faces and bodies. The paint was fading, its bright colour lost, but was still clearly visible, still marking them as Pritani warriors.

After eighteen days they reached the biggest settlement Brude had ever seen. He heard the Roman soldiers call it Londinium although that meant nothing to him. After an overnight stay, locked in a large storehouse, they were shepherded out to the river where the wharves teemed with people and noise. They were marched onto a huge wooden boat, where they were shackled in the hold. Even Frual, who was a good sailor and knew his way round boats, had never seen a boat as large as this. Other slaves were brought in and shackled alongside them, including some women and children. When they thought the guards were far enough away, they exchanged whispered words and learned that most of the newcomers were of the tribe of the Brigantes who lived south of the Wall but had never sat easily under Roman rule. One of them whispered to Frual that the Romans were struggling to keep the Brigantes under control as most of their soldiers were across the sea, following the Governor of Britannia who had proclaimed himself emperor and gone off to fight the other claimant to the imperial throne. “It didn’t do us much good, though,” the man conceded. “They stomped on us pretty hard.”

“
Rome
has two emperors?” Brude asked him.

The man laughed. “Not for too long, I expect. One of them will kill the other one tually.”

The voyage was a misery of darkness and terror as the ship pitched and rolled its way down the wide river and out to sea. Brude, like many of the others, was sick but had no choice except to lie there, filthy and stinking, praying for the awful movement to stop. When it finally did, they were all led up on to the deck where they were told to clean themselves up as best they could before being led off through the busy harbour town and out again onto a road for yet more walking.

The summer sun was hot, hotter than the Boresti were used to. They suffered in the heat, as did some of the children who were treated no differently to the adults by the guards. These men were not dressed as soldiers but they were armed and just as harsh. They certainly watched the slaves just as closely as the soldiers had done and there was no chance of anyone escaping. Even if they could, the Boresti knew now that to get home they would have to cross the sea. What chance was there of that for an escaped slave?

It took another six days of walking before they were herded into a large wooden enclosure on the edge of a town, which boasted a massive wall and gate towers built from stone that looked almost black. That evening they were brought plenty of food, water to wash in and clean tunics. They were ordered to wash off as much of their body paint as they could, so Brude scraped and soaped and scraped again until his skin was pink and raw and the blue marks were faded almost to nothing, leaving only the small tattoo on his right forearm. For Brude, it was not too bad but for most of the older men who had used the blue paint for years, their skin remained stubbornly tinted even when the patterns could no longer be made out. Many had tattoos which would never come off.

There were other slaves already in the stockade. One of them, an older man with his hair starting to turn grey at the temples, approached Frual and asked which tribe he was from.

“Boresti,” said Frual.

“I knew you were from the north, from all that paint,” the man said. “Nobody but the northern Picti use that nowadays. I am Basillus of the Votadini.”

Brude eyed the man cautiously. He remembered his father talking about the Votadini who were said to be friends of the Romans. Frual didn’t seem to bother. He and Basillus exchanged what little news they had. Basillus, it turned out, had been a slave for over ten years. “It’s not so bad if you’re careful,” he told them. “Keep your mouth shut, your eyes averted, your expression blank. Don’t step out of line and you’ll be fine. The Romans work their slaves hard but you’ll get fed and watered and they even let you have the run of the women slaves.”

“I’ve got a wife back home,” said Frual.

Basillus laughed amiably. “You won’t see her again, my friend, not unless your master gives you your freedom.”

Brude was suddenly interested. “Slaves can be freed?”

Basillus looked at him sharply. “Yes. It happens quite a lot in the empire, lad.”

“How? How do we get free?” Some of the other slaves were listening in now.

Basillus held up his hands in front of his chest. “Don’t get too excited, my young friend. You’re just a boy and obviously impatient but look at me. I’ve been a slave for ten years and I’m not near getting my freedom.”

“But it is possible?” Frual asked.

“It’s possible,” Basillus conceded. “It’s easiest if you’re a house slave, of course. A field slave doesn’t get much chance to earn money or perform important services for their master.”

“Is that how you get your freedom?” Brude asked insistently. “You perform some service for a Roman?”

Basillus was the centre of attention now and he looked uncomfortable. He sighed. “All right, here is how it is,” he said. “There are a few ways it can happen. If you can save enough money, you can buy your freedom, but that can take a lot of years.”

Money. Brude had seen coins before. His father had once had a few silver coins. They had all been fascinated by the tiny pictures and strange symbols. They were a convenient way to carry silver around but quite prized. His father had exchanged them for some goats.

Basillus went on, “But getting money means you need to be in a place where you get the chance to earn some. Like I said, a house slave has a better chance. Or sometimes a master will free a slave who has given many years of service. Sometimes they have to wait for the master to die and he leaves a will, setting them free.”

Brude wasn’t sure what a will was but this didn’t seem like a quick option either. Unless… “So kill the master once he’s happy with you,” he suggested.

Basillus was horrified. “Whatever you do, you don’t do that. Look, I said it wasn’t so bad being a slave. You get food and shelter which is more than some people back home ever got, but if you so much as raise a finger to a Roman citizen you’ll get a whipping or a beating. If you strike a Roman, you’ll be killed. And if you kill one, every slave in the household is executed along with you.” He paused, looking round at their faces. “This is no game,” he said softly. “The Romans have no problem with a slave getting his freedom but they won’t stand for a slave who doesn’t know his place.”