Ian Ross - The War at the Edge of the World

‘We’re not going to be doing any fighting ,’ he said, with heavy emphasis. ‘Our job is to escort those two over there’ – he jutted his staff towards Strabo and Marcellinus, waiting with their horses on the far side of the road – ‘up to meet the Picts and talk things over with them in a peaceful and friendly way.’

A few more grins now, the men nudging each other.

‘So nobody’s getting chopped up and eaten, unless I give you permission. We just march up there, stand around looking Roman, then march back home.’

‘So long as we’re not expected to dance for the Picts, or sing…’

‘No, Atrectus, you’re not. That would be counted as a just cause for war.’

The grins broke to laughter, and Castus allowed himself to relax a little, the tension easing from his shoulders. They were fine now, but they had ten more days of marching ahead of them. He would talk to Timotheus and Evagrius. Important to keep the rumours and the muttering in check, or he would be leading a very unwilling set of soldiers north of the Wall.

‘That’s all. Get into line and let’s move – there’s another four hours yet till we reach Cataractonium.’

They marched for the rest of the day, the road reeling on ahead of them and falling away behind, still straight as an arrow-shot. After a while it become hypnotic, the stretch of packed gravel always ahead, never ending, and the eye came to hunger for a bend, a bridge, anything to break the monotony. Castus didn’t mind, though: easier to march steadily when you didn’t have to think.

But it was impossible to banish thought altogether. He had slept badly at the villa; the bed had been far more comfortable than he was used to, and after a few hours he had got out and stretched himself on the hard tiled floor. The image of Aelia Marcellina had haunted him, the girl’s pale face swimming in the darkness, the memory of her whispering voice, and the promise he had sworn to her. The lack of sleep was unsurprising.

Marcellinus and the secretary kept themselves apart, riding together along the verge of the road, often talking intently out of hearing of the soldiers. Good thing too, Castus thought: he had no wish to know any more about the mission than he had to. They were passing through farmland again now, and a group of field labourers straightened from their work and stood to watch as the soldiers went by. They’re like me , Castus thought: simple men with a simple job . Two generations back he would have been the same as them. That was his blood, his heritage. He had no time for the intrigues of diplomacy.

As they approached Cataractonium, the end of the day’s march, Marcellinus rode up alongside Castus. ‘I believe my daughter spoke to you last night,’ he said.

‘She did, dominus.’

‘I’m sorry about that. I had forbidden it. Oh, and you can drop the formal address now, brother!’

He slid down from the saddle and walked beside Castus with the reins looped over his arm. ‘My daughter is an intelligent girl,’ he said. ‘But she’s imaginative, and that isn’t a good thing in a female. They can become fearful so easily. We only received word from the governor about this… mission a few hours before you arrived, so my family were still rather shocked by the news. Please don’t let my daughter’s words shadow your mind.’

‘Of course not, domin… I mean, I’d forgotten them already.’

‘Good, good. Do you have a wife yourself?’

‘Never had the time.’

‘Probably wise. I feel as I get older that we should live without too many attachments. But I love my family – my wife and my children.’

‘You have other children?’ Castus almost choked on the words – he hoped that Marcellinus was not referring to the murdered boy.

‘Yes, I have a younger son in Eboracum. Didn’t you know?’

Castus shrugged and shook his head. They walked on for some time in silence, and Marcellinus took an apple from his haversack and fed it to his horse.

‘You served in the east, so Strabo tells me. With Galerius in the Persian campaign?’

‘I did,’ Castus told him.

‘That must have been something to experience. Galerius is quite the tactician, so I hear.’

‘I suppose so.’ Castus had little concern for tactics: going in hard and heavy, like a charging bull, was his favoured approach, and beating the enemy into the ground by brute force. But he had to admit that Galerius’s planning at Oxsa had been very clever. The emperor had scouted out the terrain himself the day before the battle, so the men had said afterwards, disguised as a cabbage-seller…

‘Tell me about it. It would pass the time.’

‘Well…’ Castus said. He had grown wary, since coming to Britain, of talking too much about his years in the Herculiani. Too many people seemed to think he was just boasting, or to feel lessened by the comparison with their own drab lives. Tentatively, he began to explain the positions at Oxsa, the night march that had brought them round the flank of the Persian royal camp, their battle line on the slopes above the valley. Then the Persian charge, the infantry taking the shock of it, the cavalry sweeping round from the wings… He was not a skilled speaker, and stumbled over the right words, but as he went on he saw the battle once more before him, heard the crash of impact as the cataphracts broke through the forward cohorts. Again he saw the horses rearing out of the dustcloud, over the bloodied wrack of bodies…

‘…then after that we stormed their camp and took the lot – even the ladies from the harem, although Galerius ordered them to be treated with honour. I didn’t see any of it, though. I’d passed out from injuries by then. But I heard about it later.’

‘Must have been a fine sight, a battle like that.’ Marcellinus tipped his head back and closed his eyes, as if he could scent the blood and dust and hear the clash of combat. ‘I would love to have been there.’

Castus glanced at him. His broad faced turned to the sun, his cropped iron-grey hair. This was a man who had commanded troops in battle, he reminded himself, and won great victories. It was strange to speak to him so frankly.

‘I’ve spent my whole life in the western provinces,’ Marcellinus said. ‘Half of it in this damp borderland. Oh, I don’t regret it – I’m rooted here now. But I wonder what I might have made of myself if I’d gone east. Another life, eh?’

‘I suppose so. But you’ve done well yourself, so I heard.’

‘Do you? And what exactly have you heard about me, centurion?’

Castus tightened his jaw, cursing his mistake. ‘Oh, this and that,’ he said. ‘You… won a few battles against the Picts. Strabo told me.’

‘Did he now?’ The envoy’s voice had dropped, grown colder. ‘And how does he know, I wonder? He was in Gaul until eighteen months ago!’

‘I suppose they told him, back at Eboracum.’

‘Yes. I’ll bet they did. Our friend Strabo seems very well briefed indeed.’

They were billeted that night at the town of Cataractonium, and then went on the next day to Vinovium fort. Soon afterwards they entered the hill country, and the road rose and fell across steep ridges and valleys. The sky was dull grey, spitting rain, but the troops marched with silent indifference. On the fifth day from Eboracum they arrived at the military supply depot of Coria, a few miles south of the Wall. Castus gave his men the following day to rest and resupply, and with a free evening ahead most of them filed off at once to the bath-house, the beer shops and the brothels.

The depot commander had allocated billets in a disused cavalry barracks inside the military compound. In his quarters, Castus pulled off his boots and lay on the bed. Evening light came in through the open window, and he closed his eyes and listened to the familiar sounds: soldiers arguing and laughing; the click and rattle of dice from the rough wooden portico; the creak of wagons; and the distant clatter from the armoury workshops. Almost like home, he thought.