The Wald (13 page)

Such were his thoughts as he watched Fabaria sink away into the horizon off his starboard stern.  He had felt bold after beating the Burchanians and order
ed much of his fleet to leave the shallows that were flanked by the string of islands and mainland.  The fleet snuck between two of the small, flat, sandy islands and immediately tasted the salt in the air from the winds and waves that forever raced across the surface to pound the shores.  More of the men became sick from the constant roll, but the general thought it good to get them acquainted with all manners of warfare.  He, too, felt queasy, but summoned enough will to appear strong.

His map told him
, and his Frisian guide confirmed that the main concentration of Chaucians, his next target, was a day away under full sail.  He had allowed his captains to raise their canvas once they left the shallows and the risk of those dreaded trees behind.  So they flew ahead of a brilliantly crisp breeze that blew from west to east, propelling them at a rate faster than any of the men had likely ever travelled.

Many of the officers relaxed and felt as if they were
wide-eyed children as they looked at the vastness of the sea to port.  Their hair whipped.  Spray from the prows which curved downward and forward into the water pelted their faces so that they instinctively blinked repeatedly.  The navy for Rome had never been immense, as they preferred to fight on dry land. The men of Drusus’ expedition were having a unique experience about which, should they survive, they would be able to tell their comrades and families one day.

Even Septimus tried his best to forget the terror he felt over every Roman foot of his body from his mind to his groin as the deck pushed up against his feet and then dropped away.  He leaned his arms on the port gunwale to steady himself while his men sharpened weapons or gambled.  It was only necessary to have a handful on duty at any given time
to help the gubernator control the ship while they were pushed by the wind.

He watched the endless sea disappear in
to the distance where it met the sky.  Occasionally he saw a creature from the dark break the surface and flop back into the water.  Each time this occurred he gave a nearly imperceptible start, fearing that each new sight brought about his panicked death.  Behind his ship and all the ships that sailed in the open waters, scores of seabirds, mostly gulls and terns, rattled and flapped above their wakes.  The birds glided with heads bent, eyes intent on the churning ocean beneath before they suddenly adjusted their wings for the plunge to retrieve some bit of food Septimus could never hope to see.

Soon he saw a small dark shape on the northern horizon.  It could have been a cloud, but it seemed stationary to his vessel
’s movement.  He squinted his eyes to see better and was certain he saw an island.  Septimus pulled out his map, but did not find any indication of his discovery.  The centurion wasn’t surprised since no Roman cartographer had ever travelled north of Lugdunum.  All of his and the legion’s maps were made by the army itself as they discovered new territory or spoke to local inhabitants.

As a sign of honor for Septimus’ actions on the beach
at Fabaria, Drusus had allowed the centurion’s ship to sail adjacent to his own.  This was highly irregular since the pecking order of centuries was well-established in the legion.  But the legate thought it best to offer this bit of temporary tribute to the young centurion rather than award him another medallion and risk further angering the obviously upset Manilius or the other more senior centurions.

Septimus cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted to the fine craft that carried the governor.  “Commander, Lord Drusus!”  The sea seemed to swallow his words so he repeated himself several times.  The men on his ship looked worried that he called the general’s attention to them.
  Typically, only bad could result when ordinary soldiers were noticed by their commanders.

At last Drusus heard him and turned to face him.  “Manilius,” the general said quietly.  “See what our man Septimus wants.  I’ll not be shouting over the waves like a common sailor.”

“Yes, lord,” nodded the camp prefect.  He had begrudgingly admitted that Septimus may have helped save Roman lives with his impetuous act on the Fabarian beach, but Manilius still found resentment in his heart every time he saw the man’s face.  The prefect held his hands up to his mouth. “Use the flags or horns if you’ve got something to convey regarding the fleet.  We are Roman legionaries.  We will not tolerate any more outbursts.”

Manilius looked to Drusus who nodded his approval and so they both returned to scanning th
e sea, confident they had expressed to the eager centurion the proper way to communicate.  They had not succeeded.  And since Septimus was certain that he had come to know Drusus, he shouted again.  “Lord Drusus.  Our emperor would be very pleased if you could discover new lands for him to rule.”  Septimus then pointed with a long, extended arm.  “It seems new lands lie out to sea.”

Both Drusus and Manilius gazed in the direction Septimus pointed.  So did all the men
who heard the exchange on both ships.  “Lord, I know the man has found favor in your eyes.  I know he fights well and courageously.  However, he skirts the military rules when it suits him.  It goes against order and protocol.  Ultimately, it will kill authority.  What would you have me do to him?”

Drusus, a head shorter than
the scarred Manilius, looked up at the old warrior before looking back out at the island.  “Manilius, you’ve dedicated your entire life to fighting for the emperor.  It appears that I’ll do the same.  Let’s accept Septimus as another man who does likewise.”  He could see that the camp prefect did not like his answer, but continued anyway.  “The man is correct that we should look at this journey as one with two goals.  We should conquer and explore – each for Rome’s glory.”

“New lands, l
ord.  History, lord,” Septimus added with his arm still pointing north.

Drusus smiled and put a hand on the shoulder of Manilius
, who stewed.  “Tell our excited officer that I mean to move north for discovery once we defeat the Chaucians.  Tell him, too, that his precious little island will be one of our sojourns.”

. . .

After testing the mettle of the ships and men in the open sea for a time, Drusus had the captains turn south into the large bay where the Visurgis River spilled her contents into the Mare Germanicum.  The fleet tarried there at the wide opening of the bay for nearly a full day while the Frisian and Roman foot soldiers who marched on the mainland caught up.  While they waited Drusus and a handful of officers explored some of the small uninhabited islands at the edge of the bay.  The interpreter told the general that when he was last in the area some of the islands had not been there.  Storms and currents had formed new ones and removed others just in the past several years.  No trees, their seeds dumped onto the sandy land in the droppings of a stray raven or other bird, larger than a sapling grew on any of the more recently built islands.  All had vast populations of all manners of seabirds, which the explorers shot with slings or arrows for a tasty dinner over a fire on the beach.  Soon word came that the infantrymen had rounded the blunt cape that guarded the west end of the bay. The fleet abandoned its time of leisure and departed to triumph over their next foe, the Chaucians.

It
quickly became apparent that the Chaucians were a widely dispersed people, exceptionally difficult to find, fight, or subdue in any great numbers.  They seemed even more independent-minded than the other tribes the Romans had encountered thus far.  It was not an independence born of stubbornness.  It was rather the liberty that came from living with few, if any, neighbors beyond the members of your clan.

Septimus
, whose ship had returned to its place in the pecking order of the fleet, shook his head whenever he saw frightened men scurry up their terpen hills into their stilted hovels. When the Chaucians laid eyes on the massive number of men and ships washing over terrain or seas they had thought of as their own for generations, they dropped whatever tool they carried and fled.  That the Chaucians thought that peeking out from a drafty home sitting on four upturned logs, which in turn sat atop a twenty foot mound of earth, would protect them from thousands of professional soldiers made him laugh out loud.  His men had been watching the same events and joined him once they saw from their centurion that it was alright to do so.

After another two days of skirting the shore looking for any sign that a true settlement existed, Drusus found his mark.  This was, instead of only the occasional, lone terpen they had seen so far, an entire community – three communities actually – situated atop three adjacent, extensive terpens.  Each terpen had a low wall of logs laced around the top like a snug necklace on a fat woman’s neck.

More and more dirty faces poked from behind the fence to watch as Drusus, on his horse, stamped through the marshy sand.  His tribunes, Frisian interpreter, and camp prefect rode next to him as the feet of their beasts splashed heavy, wet sand over every inch of clothing and skin.  The Frisian gripped the two front corner saddle horns until his grimy fingernails dug into the leather wrapped wood.  Behind these leaders, the legions marched in tight battle formation which was, no doubt, the most terrifying sight the people of this village had ever seen.

Drusus called a halt some two hundred feet from the village, but ordered his outermost flanks, right and left, to continue on to envelop the lonely hills in the middle of the otherwise stark landscape. 
He would not accept a host of men and women fleeing from the villages.  The commander waited patiently while his wings marched on, trampling the scrub grasses and woody shrubs, the gorse, the heather that dominated what pitiful vegetation the poor soils could produce.  Septimus wondered how these people could sustain themselves with such apparent lack of resources as he led his century around the far right side of the terpens.

When the
legions were in place to his satisfaction, Drusus quickly did nothing.  He let the hollow wind swipe past his ears while he and his officers watched the small villages which held far more livestock than human beings.  All was silent except for the crack of the legions’ banners and the periodic tinkling of iron brushing against iron.  The sun seemed to rest in the sky while the village chieftains huddled, conferred, then shouted over the palisade walls to one another.

When they
finally accepted the inevitable truth that the vast sea of men at their doorstep would not leave, chieftains and low-level leaders congregated at the centermost terpen on horseback.  When they numbered ten, all rode down from the center hill past its walls where a thin young man with a wispy beard who served as a sentry left open the swinging gates in their wake.  The guard stared after his leaders, clearly forgetting every bit of his duty as he was captivated by what he saw.

“We bring tidings from Rome,” Drusus said through his interpreter
when the riders had stopped.  “We seek a faithful alliance with the Chaucian people and have been told that you most certainly speak for them.”  He had heard nothing of the sort, but flattery was often more effective than threat as an opening salvo in war.

“We’ve heard of you
Romans.  We do hold sway among our tribe,” the speaker boasted. “But why would we ever join with Rome when it is clear they have befriended the Frisian eelpouts?” continued the man with thick, charcoal grey hair and a mostly white beard who pointed at the interpreter.  A cow bellowed from the nearest terpen which started a chain reaction of other cows until a host of them bellowed over the air.

“Eelpout?” asked the general.

The interpreter answered without consulting the Chaucian chief.  “He calls my people bottom-dwellers, lord.”

“Yes, tribes act in the same manner always and everywhere, don’t they, Manilius?” Drusus huffed, immediately exhausted at having to negotiate the age-old troubles between the tribes like they were children.

“Yes, legate,” answered the camp prefect dutifully.

But
Drusus would not answer any of the Chaucian’s questions about the Frisian eelpouts that day.  He was the fighting general of Rome, the governor of Gaul, the son of the emperor.  “It seems your cattle call to you for their milking,” said Drusus.  “Tell me your name so that we may talk as friends, finish our work, and then you can continue on with the life of the farm.”

“I am Kai,” answered the man.  With his head he point
ed to the two nearest men. “This is Njord and he is Stigr.  We speak for our villages.”  Stigr appeared to be the youngest of the three, with Njord stuck somewhere in the middle.

“And I am Drusus, general of this army you see before you.  I am governor of Gaul.  I have led forces along with my brother Tiberius against the Raetia
who live south of the Danuvius.  The Raetia have been defeated.  We have fought the Sugambrians earlier this year.  Many of them have been killed.  In the past two weeks, we have confronted and killed many Burchanians as well.  But do not think we are blood thirsty animals.  My army has also entered into very peaceful relationships with the Ubians, the Batavians, and these Frisians.  In fact, the Ubians make up a core of our thriving new city of Oppidum Ubiorum.  It has always been up to those I meet whether they choose to fight or allow peace to flourish.”

As Drusus
spoke via the Frisian, Kai and his fellow leaders exchanged worried looks.  Stigr, the youngest, slowly moved his hand to the rusted sword at his side, but thought better of his actions when Manilius mirrored his act.  Stigr returned his free hand to rest upon his thigh.  Then, without speaking to one another, the Chaucian leaders gave a curt bob of their heads, agreeing to some plan they had previously discussed.