The Boat of Fate (36 page)

There were angry shouts. A score of voices proclaimed heatedly that the speaker had no business in the hall. Hands were laid on him; and Tammonius stilled the mob again, with a furious gesture. ‘Is this your courtesy?’ he asked bitterly. When they were quiet he spoke directly to the old man. ‘Who,’ he asked, ‘was your son?’

The ancient drew himself up. ‘Caius Julius Thiumpus,’ he said. ‘Centurion, Third Cohort, Sixth Legion ...’ His voice faltered. ‘One other son I had,’ he said, ‘but he was gathered to the Gods in the time of Theodosius. Now I have none to support me.’

The Duke spoke gently. ‘Where have you travelled from, Father?’

‘Luguvalium, by the Wall.’

‘You have had a long, difficult journey,’ said Tammonius. ‘You did well to come. It grieves me that I can offer so little comfort. But I can pray, as we can all pray, for your son’s safe return. For surely he will return, when the Legions return; in victory.’

There was a buzz of conversation.

‘You there,’ said Duke Marcus. ‘And you. Find him a seat by the wall.’

The old man, still protesting, was led to one side. ‘This is an agony of the people,’ said Tammonius quietly, when peace was once more restored. ‘We would do well to remember it. There can be few of us, in this hall, who have lost our sons to Rome. Let us think on this; for it is for the people’s sake that we are here.’

He was right, of course. For over three hundred years Legions had been quartered in Britannia. Now their last pitiful remnants were gone. What had been left, what could have been left, that was Roman? Families had grown up, whole little dynasties, each generation with its tradition of service to the Standards; these last troops to cross the narrow sea had been Britannic through and through. Over half the world the same thing must have been happening; men had been torn from their families, from all they knew and understood, to fight in a cause they could barely comprehend, against an enemy they had never heard of, on behalf of a sprawling, bawdy city they had never seen.

The crowd was thoughtful; and Tammonius was quick to seize his chance. ‘In the meantime,’ he said, ‘Rome has neither neglected nor forgotten us. For a little while it seems we must defend ourselves; and I call on her ambassador, the Palatine Praefect Caius Sergius Paullus, to outline the measures she wishes us to take. For our own good, for the Empire’s good, and for the continuation of the everlasting peace.’

I stood up, sweating. This was something I hadn’t expected. I had nothing prepared; I sent up a brief prayer to the memory of old Gellius, or to his shade if he no longer lived, and launched into an exposition. I repeated the main points made by the Duke, laying particular emphasis on the menace from the Danube; I reiterated my faith in Stilicho’s honour and ability as a soldier; sketched in as well as I was able the golden tide of peace and prosperity the returning armies would bring with them, and ended by pointing out the immediate need for confidence and self-help. ‘Your walls are strong,’ I said. ‘Such of your towns as I have seen are excellently defended. Hnaufridus, Count of the Saxon Shore, holds the south and east with an iron ring of fortresses; the narrow seas are safe; the Wall is manned; the noble Tammonius is in the north, between you and the barbarians. If to strong walls you add courage, patience and stout hearts, then Britannia will win the day. Enlarge your garrisons; see your young men are trained. In Rome, when she first grew to greatness, each citizen was a soldier at need. Let it be so with you; and the Emperor will honour you, speaking of you with pride.’

I sat down feeling well acquitted. Beside me Valerius was grinning broadly, but already a hubbub was rising. Fists waved again: and a man in a tunic of blue and yellow pushed his way to the front of the crowd. It seemed he carried some authority; they made way for him, and fell quiet to hear him speak.

‘We have heard the words of the noble Sergius Paullus,’ he said. ‘We doubt neither his valour nor his wisdom. Yet I, Gnaeus Claudius Felix, quinquennale of Lindum, ask him this. Who among us does not remember the times of Magnus Maximus? Or the words of Maximus, when he first crossed to Gaul? For he too promised us greatness. And who does not remember Catena, the Chain with which we were lashed? Is not the arm of Rome ...’ A roar interrupted him, but he rode it down. ‘Is not the arm of Rome long, her memory even longer?’ He looked for the first time directly at me. ‘We have paid the price for raising soldiers already,’ he said. ‘And that within the memory of our sons. The Roman Peace rules all; a man may not bear weapons; for generations this has been so. We hear, and we obey; we lay down our swords, in deference to Rome’s will.’ He raised his arms high.
‘Then let Rome protect us....’

I’d started to sweat again. I’d known this was coming sooner or later. Technically, he was right; under Roman law, civilians anywhere in the Empire were expressly forbidden to wear arms except for the purpose of going on a journey; and Britannia had in no way been released from the stricture. What I had been led to advocate was not so far removed from treason; or so it could be construed by the handful of Imperial spies who were no doubt present in the hall. I began to see why Tammonius had been so keen to make me speak. I thought quickly, and rose.

At least they quietened again to hear me. ‘I respect in my turn the wisdom of the noble Claudius,’ I said. ‘And, respecting his wisdom, this is how I answer him. And all of you.’ I raised my voice till it rang under the long, dim roof. ‘If a man takes up a sword, and goes with it to the market-place, and injures one of his fellows, then he will be punished; for that is right, and according to the Law. But if that same man wakes in the night, and hears thieves within his house, surely he will then arm himself to protect his property, and family. If he does not, will not his neighbours say, “See, he is either a coward or a fool”?’ I heard the din rising again, and beat it down. ‘Britannia is your house,’ I said. ‘And the thieves are at the gate. When, in all their past history, have Britons been either cowards or fools? I answer you myself. Never ... Let not such foolishness start now, in this place; and you yourselves its authors ...’

A rising gale of voices. But as many seemed to shout for me as against; and Tammonius, with excellent timing, put in the last word. ‘I myself, as you have heard, still hold the north,’ he said. ‘Hnaufridus holds the south and east. Over the months to come, the Praefect Sergius Paullus will travel among you. Where he sees your walls are weak he will call on you to strengthen them. Where he sees your young men ill-prepared for war he will correct their faults. Where he sees your vigilance and energy have borne fruit he will send good word for you to the Emperor. Meanwhile we will pray; for the success of Stilicho, and the deliverance of Rome.’ He inclined his head courteously towards the Bishop of Augusta. ‘We will pray as citizens and as Christians; and we will arm ourselves to fight. Now let us have an end to this; for we are weary, and wish to rest. We will talk again this afternoon, discussing the other things that have brought us all together.’

In that way I landed myself with an arduous and thankless task.

The Council dragged on for another week. I didn’t wait for the end; I took my leave of Tammonius and hurried south again. I was keen to implement a new idea. Along the coastline of Brigantia chains of semaphore towers had been established. I doubted whether Hnaufridus could spare the labour to copy them in the south, but there seemed no reason why strategically sited beacons couldn’t be used to direct fast-moving bodies of troops. In that at least the Count seemed only too willing to co-operate. The parties detailed for the work set to enthusiastically, piling up heaps of faggots in what I would have thought were the least likely places. It was all very encouraging; though as I remarked to Hnaufridus, there seemed little point in embarking on too ambitious a programme of bonfire building till there was somebody, or something, to which to signal. My notion of highly mobile units had so far made little headway, and, of course, I was scarcely in a position to instruct the Count on the organisation of his defences. I spent a week or so at Portus Adurni, trying generally to familiarise myself with the area, before deciding to move north once more.

I travelled by easy stages to Camulodunum. The Celts followed uncomplainingly, content it seemed to amble about the Province indefinitely. By August I was in Lindum. My first duty call was on Claudius Felix. Despite his former opposition I found him vigorously engaged in strengthening and reorganising the town’s defences. I stayed a fortnight, ostensibly overseeing the installation of catapults and ballistae. In fact the work was as new to me as most of the others. I could only try to recall and copy what I had seen in Gaul. The engines rested on platforms of brushwood and puddled clay, which serve to absorb the massive recoil shock. Their construction called for skills neither I nor the town aediles really possessed; we proceeded by trial and error, but the end results seemed fair. I wasn’t basically too concerned for the accuracy of the city artillery; in my experience I’d always found a strong circuit of walls to be deterrent enough for all but the most determined raiding party. If seaborne, barbarians are usually more concerned for the safety of their ships; they tend to bypass fortifications in search of easier plunder. However, an effort was at least being made; I complimented Claudius warmly on the work--how far that moved him I couldn’t say--and posted north again for Eburacum.

Duke Marcus welcomed me enthusiastically. The news from Gaul, he told me, was generally good. The present location of the British troops was uncertain, but the enemy were being contained on all major fronts. Stilicho was in Italia; I was more concerned with the whereabouts of Alaric and his Goths, but on that point no exact information was available. Sooner or later a confrontation seemed inevitable; from my point of view it couldn’t happen quickly enough. Britannia’s walls might be strong, but I’d seen at first hand how completely her emergency forces lacked cohesion. All that was needed was another concerted barbarian attack, such as had already taken place in the time of Maximus. We would be defeated in detail, and pushed into the sea.

I was particularly keen to see the Wall, still reckoned by many the greatest of Hadrian’s achievements. The Duke rode with me himself on a short tour of the outposts of his command. Until then I hadn’t appreciated the size of Brigantia. From Eburacum we rode two days north, for the most part across sweeping, desolate moorland, before finally coming in sight of the straggling township that runs almost without a break from one side of Britannia to the other. Beyond was the Wall itself. By nightfall we were at Segedenum; the following day we started west, along the huge fortification.

I rode in silence for the most part, absorbed by new impressions. Milecastle after milecastle was passed and still the great barrier climbed and soared ahead, clinging to the faces of precipitous slopes, climbing to cross crag after lonely crag. The smoke from many cooking fires threaded into the sky; high above, hawks hung motionless, mere dots against an immensity of blue. Beyond was the heather, purple-gold with the first glow of autumn; beyond again, shadowy and vague, the hills that ring Caledonia. The air was clean and rushing, sweet as wine.

Tammonius finally called me from my reverie with a remark about the defences. Resting each end on the sea, the Wall was easy enough to outflank; any determined force, well equipped with boats, could force a passage to the south. It had happened in the past times enough, and would certainly happen again. Some such thought had occurred to me; but, of course, the Wall had never been conceived as an impregnable barrier.

Rather it had been a line of demarcation, splitting the perennially unstable Brigantes from their northern allies. The great ditch that had guarded it to the south was for the most part filled in now; causeways had been built across it at innumerable points, to give access to the Wall and Military Way. I threw a casual question about the current loyalty of the north Britons. Tammonius answered with a shrug.

As we moved west the Wall grew lower and broader, and signs of past destruction were more frequent; tower after tower had been roughly overthrown, even more crudely rebuilt. Here too I was surprised to see civilian traffic moving unconcernedly to the north. The Duke explained that the tribes immediately beyond the Wall were well disposed towards the Empire, having been bound by treaty alliances to keep the peace. An annual allowance of grain was made to them; their Kings wore purple, as befitted Roman generals, and were very proud. It seemed a precarious arrangement to me, but better, I supposed, than none.

At Luguvalium the Duke turned back. I pressed on south, for Deva. The weather held; mornings were misty, the days still and warm. We came in sight of the town, the old headquarters of the Twentieth, late one afternoon. The barracks, workshops and massive granaries still stood as they had been left, but Deva had held no troops now for many years.

The Celts disposed themselves in one of the disused barrack blocks, piling in five or six men to a cubicle, though God knew there was room enough to spare. I carried my gear to the centurion’s quarters at the end; the empty, echoing Praetorium was altogether too much of a mockery. Towards evening, impelled by a restlessness I could no longer control, I made a tour of the place. I think it was then for the first time a real sense of desolation came over me. I climbed finally to the empty rampart walk, stood staring west towards the distant mountains of Siluria. Below me, closer at hand, was the harbour, still with a gaggle of shipping, the sandy estuary stretching away into the dusk; at my back were the long clusterings of roofs, the parade ground deserted and quiet. Across it the last of the light lay calm and golden. Beyond the nearest of the barracks smoke rose from where the Celts prepared their evening meal. Other blocks already housed families of squatters, wandering tinkers, peasants and the like; and a mule train, headed south, was resting for the night. As I watched, a stray dog loped from somewhere, turned into the shadows of the huts and was gone. A door banged, raised a little clapping echo. A man passed, trudging below me; he didn’t look up, and I found myself toying with the odd idea that I was invisible, a ghost returned from some sad Hell to the scene of former triumphs. For three hundred years the men of the Twentieth, and their families and wives, had lived here and had their being. Now they were gone. Momentarily it seemed I heard the jingle of harness, the rising tramp and clatter of feet; but it was only the wind.