Douglas Jackson - Hero of Rome

‘He raped-’

‘I know what you say he did, but where is your evidence? The two soldiers you say watched him claim they saw nothing.’

‘The girl-’

‘Is dead.’

Valerius remembered the helpless, sobbing figure being led from the hut. Of course. The legate was right. He’d been a fool.

‘Even if what you say is true — and I don’t doubt that it is — I would remind you that this is a punishment expedition. The men of this tribe murdered twenty of my cavalry and they have paid the price for it. Some would say the price was light and that centurion Crespo was only carrying out the punishment in his own fashion. He may have overstepped his orders but I’m too short of experienced officers to lose him. Tribunes come and tribunes go but our centurions are the backbone of the legion.’

‘But the law,’ Valerius protested. ‘We came here to bring these people under the protection of the Empire. Are they to be denied that protection? Allowing Crespo to do what he did and go free makes us as much barbarians as the Celts.’

A spark of anger flared in the legate’s eyes. ‘Do not try my patience, tribune. Not only are you a fool, but you are a naive fool. There is no law on the battlefield. Keep your high-minded arguments for the courts. You talk of civilization, but you cannot have civilization without order. We came to this island to bring order and order can only be achieved by the use of force. Rome has decided the tribes are a resource to be harvested. If we must flatter their kings to get the best crop, we will do so. If flattery fails, I am prepared to exterminate as many as it takes to ensure the message is heard and understood. If you do not have the stomach for the work say so, and I will have you on the first ship home.

‘It is important that we demonstrate to the Silurians who rule here. The scouting party they ambushed was no ordinary patrol. It included a metallurgist sent directly from Rome. Somewhere out there,’ he waved a hand to indicate the hills to the west, ‘is the primary source of British gold. It was his job to find it. Instead, he ended up with his head on a pole.’ He paused and stared out of the tent to where the legionaries and auxiliaries were busy dismantling the camp around them. ‘I had intended to continue this demonstration, but that is no longer possible. I have received orders to retire to Glevum and prepare for a major campaign next year. We will march on Mona.’

The name sent a shiver through Valerius. Every Roman had heard of the blood-soaked Druids’ Isle and the terrible rites that took place there.

‘The druids are at the heart of every obstacle we face in Britain,’ the legate continued. ‘But by the time next year’s harvest ripens there will be no more druids. Governor Paulinus intends to attack the sect’s stronghold with two legions, including the Twentieth. We will wipe the island clean of the vermin priests and every Briton who follows them, and when that phase is completed we will turn south and destroy the power of the Ordovices and Silures once and for all.’

He turned to face Valerius. ‘You will take the First cohort to winter at Colonia Claudia Victricensis. A season repairing roads in the snow is just what they need to keep them battle-ready. Work them hard and, when they’re not working, train them hard. They are my best fighting troops and you are my best fighting officer. Do not let me down.’ Valerius opened his mouth to protest. Colonia, Claudius’s ‘City of Victory’, lay a hundred miles to the east and was the last place he wanted to be posted when the legion was preparing for an important campaign. It had been the site of the British surrender to the Emperor, when it was known as Camulodunum, and was the first Roman city created in Britain, although it was becoming increasingly over-shadowed by the new port and administrative centre at Londinium. Livius continued before he could interrupt. ‘Centurion Crespo will only be fit for light duties for some weeks.’ The legate suppressed a smile, remembering the battered face and outraged protestations of innocence. ‘He will accompany the main unit to Glevum where he will be given duties commensurate with his standing and his rank. Under normal circumstances he would take over the First cohort when you return to Rome, but that may not be ideal. I will think on it.’

For a moment Valerius thought he had misheard: he’d been certain the summer campaign meant a reprieve. The legate read the look on his face.

‘Oh, yes, Valerius, you cannot escape your destiny. In the spring you will return the First to Glevum and then await a ship to take you back to Rome. I will be sorry to lose you, my boy. I did try to intercede on your behalf but it would take more than a legate and an impending battle to alter what is written on a bureaucrat’s scroll.’

Four days later Valerius led his men in full marching order past the wooden walls of Londinium, and smiled as he heard the subdued muttering behind him. The city called to him just as loudly as it did to his soldiers, but where the legionaries heard the siren sound of the inns and the brothels along the quay, Valerius craved only his first proper bath in three months.

‘They’re restless.’ His second in command, Julius, a twenty-year veteran who had replaced Crespo as the unit’s senior centurion, rode at his side. Auxiliary cavalry scouts ranged ahead and on the flanks, and behind the two commanders the cohort marched in its centuries.

‘They’re not alone,’ Valerius agreed. The men knew that the slaves captured at the hill fort would bring them a month’s pay each and a soldier never liked to keep money in his purse for long. ‘But we’ve been ordered directly to Colonia and that means another two hours on the road and two more with a shovel before we can rest. A pity; I’d have liked to visit Londinium again. It’s surprising how the place has grown in only a year.’

Julius followed his gaze. From behind the wooden palisade the smoke from hundreds of cooking fires hazed the sky. But Londinium had already overflowed the boundaries set by the engineers who had sited the port and the fortress which guarded it. Upstream and down, new buildings of wood and stone fringed the bank of the broad River Tamesa. Where once only willows had grown now stood the homes and the workshops of merchants of every sort, drawn to the town by the scent of profit. At each of the three gates a settlement of huts and shops clung to the edges of roads along which the bounty of an Empire passed each day. It must have been close to here that Claudius had fought the decisive battle which destroyed the might of the southern tribes. Valerius had heard fifty thousand men died that day, but he knew the figure would be exaggerated. Soldiers always inflated their successes and then the politicians inflated them a little more. No matter, it had been a great victory, one which had won Claudius the triumph that cemented his next dozen years on the throne. Now he was dead, and the Emperor was Nero, a man just a year younger than Valerius. Nero’s mother, Agrippina, had died only a few months earlier. He’d heard whispers she had been murdered, but that wasn’t something a lowly tribune dwelt upon if he valued his career.

The cohort had marched from the Silurian border on the military road through the Corinium gap, then on to the easier going of the gentle rolling downlands inhabited by the Atrebates, most romanized of all the British tribes. Military roads were designed to allow the legions swift passage, elevated on a bed of earth and compacted stone, and paralleled by two deep ditches. You knew Rome was here to stay when such roads spread their tentacles across the land. They were the ropes that bound a vanquished nation; ropes that could become a noose if circumstances required it. A legion in a hurry could march twenty miles a day along these roads, but Valerius had set a more leisurely pace. The men deserved some rest after their efforts in taking the Silurian fort.