Douglas Jackson - Hero of Rome

The legionary commander spat out his words like a volley of ballista bolts. ‘Discipline, Verrens, is what has allowed Rome to conquer every worthwhile part of this world and to dominate what’s left. Discipline. Not courage. Not organization. Not even the untold riches of the Empire. Discipline. The kind of discipline that will keep a legionary holding the line while his comrades fall one by one at his side. The discipline that will keep him in the fight until he has not another drop of blood to give. The kind of discipline which you, Gaius Valerius Verrens, by your childish desire to impress, are in danger of fatally weakening. Do you think you made yourself more popular by challenging Crespo? Do you want to be liked? Show me a legion whose officers are liked by their soldiers and I will show you a legion ripe for defeat. This is the Twentieth legion. This is my legion. And I will have discipline. The only thing you achieved, tribune, was to diminish a centurion’s authority.’

Without warning the tone softened. ‘You’re not a bad soldier, Valerius; one day you may become a very good one. Your father asked me to take you on my staff to provide the military experience you require to make a career in politics and I fulfilled my obligation because our families have been voting side by side on the Field of Mars for ten generations. But the one thing I have learned in our time together is that you are no politician. Flattery and dissembling are not in your nature, nor is a natural desire to curry favour. You lack true ambition, which is essential, and you are honest, which is most certainly not. If you follow the political path you will fail. I have already tried to tell your father this, but perhaps I was overly subtle for he still sees you in the Senate some day. What age are you? Twenty-two? Twenty-three? A quaestorship in three years, atop some desert dung heap. Twelve months spent attempting to prevent your rapacious governor or proconsul from ruining his province and its people.’ Valerius was surprised enough to allow his eyes to drop and meet the legate’s. ‘Oh, yes, tribune, I have been there. Counting every sestertius and gasping at the man’s greed, then counting them again just to be sure he hasn’t stolen a few more. And after that? A year back in Rome, perhaps with an appointment, perhaps not. That is when your future will be decided, and by then it will be in your hands.’

Valerius could see the two aides still staring at the model on the sand table and trying to look as if they weren’t listening. The legate followed his gaze.

‘Leave us.’ The two men saluted and hurriedly made for the door.

‘Come.’ Valerius followed his commander across the dirt floor towards the sand table. ‘There will be a day, Valerius, when your soldiers are mere coins to be spent. What will you do then, when you know you must order them into the abyss? The truth is that they do not seek your friendship, but your leadership. Here.’ He pointed at the sand table, which held a perfect miniature replica of the hill and the British fortress.

‘Sir?’

‘It is time to end this.’

The Silurian chieftain looked down from the wooden ramparts towards the symmetrical lines of the Roman encampment and fought back an unfamiliar panic. He was puzzled, and, yes, frightened. Not frightened for himself, or for the impetuous warriors who had brought this upon him, but for the people who had come to this place seeking sanctuary, but were instead facing annihilation. Within the walls of the fortress stood perhaps a hundred and fifty thatched roundhouses, clustered in the lee of the ramparts or around the little temple in the centre of the compound dedicated to the god Teutates. The inhabitants farmed the fields in the surrounding countryside, hunted and fished and traded the surplus to the less fortunate communities, of which he was also the overlord, in the rugged hills to the west. Normally the fort would support fewer than five hundred people — today all the warrior strength he could gather and an additional thousand refugees scrabbled for space among the huts and fought for water from the single well.

The ambush on the Roman cavalry patrol had been carried out at the orders of the High King of the Silures, who had in turn received ‘guidance’ from his druid, who had no doubt received similar guidance from the leaders of his sect in faraway Mona. He had been against it, but how could he, a lowly border chieftain, refuse his king? In any case his young men were eager to test their mettle against the enemy who paraded across their hills and their valleys as if they were their masters. But the High King was a long way from the soldiers who now threatened his fortress. One tribe would feel the power of the Romans’ revenge and it would be this one.

He had always intended to fight; his honour and his authority depended on it. But initially he had intended to fight and run. This was not the first time he had seen a Roman legion prepare for battle. Ten years before, in a valley not three days’ ride away, he had stood with the Catuvellauni war leader Caratacus when the long line of brightly painted shields crossed the river and the last great alliance of the British tribes had smashed itself against them the way a wave breaks against a rocky shoreline. He knew what the Romans were capable of. His puzzlement had begun when the legionaries started digging, and by the time he’d worked out why, his opportunity to run had gone. Now his people were in a fortress within a fortress. Trapped. But the puzzlement only turned to fear when the messengers he sent to ask for terms and offer hostages failed to return. Such offers had always been accepted in the past. The reason this one was not became clear when the leader of the ambush explained the fate of the Roman auxiliary cavalrymen, and clearer still when the heads of his two messengers were sent back by a Roman catapult.

‘Father?’ At first he didn’t acknowledge the melodious high-pitched cry because he needed every ounce of courage and he knew that even to look at her would weaken his resolve. ‘Please, Father.’ He turned at last. Gilda stood at her mother’s side: part child, part woman, liquid doe eyes beneath an untidy fringe of raven hair. For a moment their combined beauty cast aside the bleak shadow that blanketed his mind. But only for a moment. The thought of what might happen to them in the next few hours placed a lump of stone in his throat and he barely knew his own voice.

‘I told you to go to the temple,’ he said to his wife, who, for reasons only a woman would understand, wore her best grey dress on this of all days. ‘You will be safe there.’ He could see she didn’t believe him, but what could he tell her? Another man would have given her a dagger and instructed her to use it. But he wasn’t that man. He had spoken more sharply than he intended and Gilda gave him a look of reproach as they walked away hand in hand. When he turned back to the ramparts and the Roman preparations below, his vision was strangely blurred.

Valerius stared up at the fortress on the flat-topped hill. He had seen native oppida like it many times but this was by far the largest and the most skilfully constructed. He studied it carefully, impressed by the engineering. The approaches had been cunningly designed to force attackers to assault the palisaded walls from an angle, so that they would be more exposed to the slings and spears of the defenders. He could see those defenders now, a silent line of heads silhouetted against the sky above the first of the three ramparts that encompassed an area measuring as much as two legionary encampments.

The legate called for his chief engineer, who had been summoned from Glevum when a siege became inevitable. ‘It may look formidable,’ Livius growled. ‘But this place is no Alesia and I do not have Caesar’s patience. How long before the heavy weapons are ready?’