The Pillars of Rome (43 page)

‘Stay here and rest the mounts, but don’t let them feed.’ The cavalrymen nodded, it being a bad idea to let a horse graze if you might have to flee at a gallop; a full stomach slowed them down. ‘Gather some brushwood and tie it to their tails. If we have to run I want to set up a dust storm in our wake.’ Seeing a look of curiosity he added, ‘Only an idiot would ride flat out on rough terrain when he can’t see where he’s going.’

‘These are tribesmen, your honour,’ opined one horse soldier, in a voice that did nothing to hide his contempt.

‘And that is a ruse they taught me many years ago.’

‘Thinks he knows it all,’ said one soldier as Titus went forward on foot.

‘He knows a damn sight more than you or I, brother. He used to play with the buggers when he was a lad.’

That creepy feeling, that Brennos was close, grew more acute the closer he got to those flashing spears, but Titus was aware that he could be deluding himself. Part of it was the unusual situation; having spent a long time in Spain, both as a boy and a full grown soldier, he felt he knew the Celt-Iberians well, certainly better than most of his peers. They were excitable, boastful, warlike and drank like fish at the endless feasts which were the centrepiece of their existence. They sang, told endless stories and quite often fought bloody encounters if in receipt of anything perceived to be an insult, but Titus never thought of them as fools, which was why he had been surprised not to come across a hundred happy legionaries marching back to the coast. Raiding tribesmen would outrun infantry regardless of how many stolen livestock they were burdened with; if they had drawn that century on it could only have been as a deliberate ploy, but to what purpose?

Not to massacre them surely, for that would mean that they would be butchered in turn. They knew what Rome would and would not let pass. Steal cattle or pigs, but not too many; never kill a
Roman farmer and leave their women alone. The rules were not written, but Titus knew they were understood because alone amongst his contemporaries, and because he had a smattering of the language, he had visited the encampments of the border tribes and had made sure that they did. Yet here he was, within a tenth of a league of this particular tribe who were stationary for a reason he dreaded, and the men he had trailed here were nowhere to be seen. It was unusual, and in his experience, every time something out of the ordinary happened in this part of the world the hand of Brennos was around somewhere.

It was almost a relief when Titus saw him, standing on the spur of a rock, looking straight at the spot where he himself stood. That it was Brennos he had no doubt even if he had never seen the man; the simplicity of the dress alone was nearly enough to identify him, but what was most telling was the feeling that he was subject to some outside influence, that the man staring at him was trying by the powerful exertion of a mystical force to crack his will, to make him turn and run away. Titus held the stare, and prayed with fierce determination to
Strenua
, the Goddess of strength and vigour. His will nearly cracked when he heard the first of the screams, horrible in themselves and made louder by the way they echoed off the surrounding hills.

They were still ringing out when the first of the
naked Romans came stumbling down the track, soon followed by another, both hunched over with one arm couching the other. When they got close Titus could hear the sobbing and it was only another moment before he saw the reason. Both had had their right hands hacked off, and when the first man came abreast the smell of cauterised flesh almost made Titus wretch. With that knowledge the screams made sense; first they had sliced of the hand, then plunged it into fire to stop the bleeding.

The next hour, as the sun fell in the sky, was mental torture, listening to the suffering of Roman soldiers as each was subjected to the same treatment. Sure that he was not going to be attacked, certain this was a demonstration of cruelty to distress him, he had his men tether their horses and give what succour they could to their wounded comrades. One rider was sent back to the settlements to fetch wagons, for these men, naked and in agony, could not walk back to safety. Then he took up station again, eyes locked with those of the man on the spur, determined to show that whatever he chose to do would not make Rome bow the knee to him.

It was hardest when, with the sun nearly gone and Brennos a silhouette against the western sky, a group of tribesmen brought forth the centurion. They had not stripped him, no doubt so that he would be recognised, but they had strapped him to
some kind of frame which almost crucified the poor fool, with his legs swinging loosely. Titus wondered if they were just going to throw him into the brushwood well below, where if he did not die he would be so broken as to do so soon. Within minutes the ridge was a mass of men, all seeming to look in his direction.

‘You see, Brennos,’ said Trebener, ‘there is always a middle way. The Romans are alive, but they will never be soldiers again.’

‘I would have killed them, you know that.’ His head jerked towards Titus Cornelius, wrapped in his red cloak, now barely visible as the gloom darkened the lower ground on which he stood. ‘Including him.’

‘And then you would be gone, Brennos.’

‘Yes. It was a Roman who said about one of their enemies, let them hate us as long as they fear us. It is one lesson I am happy to take from them.’

‘I am minded to grant to you the fate of our friend here. I had in mind to remove his legs so that he would remember, and perhaps pass on to others, that had he used them a little less he would still have them.’

Titus saw Brennos turn, lifting a heavy sword as he did so, recognisably a
falcata
, the most fearsome weapon in the armoury of the local tribes. Too unwieldy for most, it was carried only by those of great strength and martial skill. The shaman raised
it above his head and it took no great leap of imagination to envisage the fear in the victim’s eyes.

‘You are a fool, Trebener.’ Then he shouted, in a voice that Titus heard more than once as it bounced and echoed around the surrounding hills. ‘There is only one way to deal with Rome.’

With that he brought the blade down, striking at the join between neck and body, with such force that it crunched through bone and flesh as Brennos nearly cut the centurion in half. Another sweeping blow removed the lolling head, two more the legs twitching in the throes of death. Drenched in blood from the fountain that sprang from the victim’s jugular, Trebener cursed Brennos, but he could say nothing. Even if he had, it would not have been heard over the sound of his own men cheering a man they saw as a hero.

It took two days to get the wounded back to civilisation, two days in which Titus Cornelius planned the revenge he would take on those who had mutilated them. For once he would put aside any thought of humanity or understanding and react as a Roman. He would surpass his father in the way he chastised the tribes, wondering if, years ago, Aulus had been too lenient. Let him hear of this and the great Macedonicus would want to lead another army to this place to finish what he had failed to achieve ten years past.

In his mind Titus imagined himself riding at his father’s side again, saw slaughtered men and cattle, for no beast or man would live, and a line of slaves. The women and children they would march into captivity. If the enemy had fields of crops they would be sown with salt, if they had wells they would poison them, forests they would burn so that anyone surviving would freeze in winter for want of the means to make a fire. Each thought of retribution piled on each other, but at the head of it all was the image of that Druid shaman hacking the centurion to death. Brennos he and his father would burn, patiently, over charcoal, and watch as the flesh fell slowly in strips off his pain-wracked body.

His commander was waiting for him as he marched, tired, hungry and covered in dust, into the command tent. That he was standing was unusual, for he was a person to have a care that his rank should be recognised. Just about to make a report, a raised hand stopped him.

‘Titus Cornelius, I have for you some very sad news. Your father, the great Macedonicus, is no longer with us. You are to return to Rome immediately.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Fulmina rubbed her belly again, trying to ease the pain that had been with her for months, getting steadily worse as if some beast was inside her eating at her vitals. The visit to the local healer had done little good: it had cost her a big slice of her meagre savings to be told something she already knew; how to brew an infusion of herbs, something her mother had taught her when she was a slip of a girl. She had asked Drisia to cast her bones and look into the future, but the soothsayer had claimed she could not see anything. Fulmina knew, deep down, that Drisia was lying, though she did not say so since there was nothing to do about it; it would either get better or get worse.

She had a peasant woman’s attitude to life and death, accepting the one with little joy and the other as inevitable, but she had realised that she was lonely; for all his faults she missed Clodius. He was not much of a husband, but he had a good, if
wayward nature and he had never beaten her. She wanted him to come home, not just for herself but to take care of the boy if anything happened to her. As she cast her mind back over the last seven years she bitterly regretted the callous messages she had sent back to him. These had been carried by men who had had the money to buy their time off, unlike poor Clodius, who had forgotten to include that provision in his bargain with Dabo. Her mind turned to her own children. Demetrius, the eldest, had opened a bakery in Rome and was doing well.

‘That’s one in the eye to all those doubters,’ she said out loud, pulling herself to her feet. They had laughed at him when he said what he intended to do, but he had been right: city folk were sick of baking their own bread, so they flocked to his little shop, morning and afternoon, to buy it fresh. ‘Maybe Demetrius will take the boy in. He’s only got two of his own.’

There was no chance of her daughter taking care of him. She had eight children already and a constant struggle to feed them and the youngest son was worse than his father, Clodius. He was a true drunkard. Fulmina put her hands over her face, pressing hard. ‘Why don’t you come home, Clodius. Why?’

Aquila raced through the door, early for once, the huge dog Minca at his heels. ‘Guess what Gadoric taught me today, Mama,’ he yelled, and started spouting at her enthusiastically.

Not a single word made any sense, since he spoke in that gibberish she had been told was the shepherd’s native tongue, but it was some kind of poem. All this happened while he poured water over his head, which made it even harder to comprehend, then, in between mouthfuls of food, he was busy with the comb, Fulmina’s wedding present, slicking back his golden hair. The kiss he gave her barely touched her cheek, before he was gone. A stab of pain shot through her lower abdomen, and Fulmina worried over whether it was time for her to speak for it was something she dreaded, but also a matter she knew could not be left to anyone else. Should she wait up for him, or leave it till morning, when the sun was shining and the boy would go out to a day filled with lots to do? That was a way of avoiding endless questions, as well as a dark night for both of them, lots of time in which to feel miserable.

Barbinus’s overseer was not noted locally for his kind heart. He was, in fact, termed a miserable bastard by all and sundry. The fire iron he had in his hand, which was waving close to Aquila’s head, did nothing to dent that reputation.

‘Don’t you think the other female slaves knew what you two were about,’ Nicos yelled. ‘Mooning over each other behind that fence, sneaking off into the woods? I had it out of them at the threat of my
whip when I saw you hanging about.’

Aquila did not reply, since there was really nothing to say. Only his own impatience at not seeing Sosia for three whole days, with no response to his taps on her shutters, had caused him to flout the normal rules, and enter the compound to ask for her whereabouts.

‘Just you thank the gods that she was intact. If you’d laid a hand on her, Cassius Barbinus would have strung you up and me as well, for letting it happen.’

The look of incomprehension on Aquila’s face must have registered. The fire iron came down to chest level and the boy felt it nudge into his ribs. Nicos stopped shouting, and instead growled at him. ‘When Barbinus wants a virgin that’s just what he means. Not goods soiled by the likes of you.’

‘A virgin?’ asked Aquila, shaking his head.

‘That’s right, boy. He took her, as is his right, a couple of nights ago. And then, when he’d had her, he shipped her off to Rome. If Sosia’s lucky and does what her new master wants he’ll like as not keep her in comfort but if she weeps, the way she did when she left here, then he’ll send her to the slave market for some other bugger to try, or even flog her to a brothel.’

The overseer had turned away, shaking his head and murmuring to himself about ‘tears, never heard the like’. Aquila was rooted to the spot, his mind
and body churning, until he remembered the single piercing scream he had heard that night and realised that it had not, in fact, come from the throat of a terrified fox.