Ian Ross - The War at the Edge of the World

‘Aren’t you afraid they’ll punish you?’ he said.

‘Who? The law, or your gods? I have no fear of either. Death is nothing to one who believes, centurion. The grave is merely a gateway to resurrection, and the bliss of the hereafter. But what about you – what do you think lies on the far side of death?’

‘Nothing much,’ Castus said. ‘Just darkness, forgetting. The end of light. It doesn’t matter – it’s what we do here that’s important.’ He stamped his foot on the turf. ‘That’s how people remember us, and that’s how we’re judged. Were we loyal and strong? Did we do our duty like men? Did we fight well when we had to? Anything else is vanity.’

‘You’re almost a philosopher, I think,’ Strabo said. Castus stared hard at him, eager that he should not be mocked. But now Marcellinus was approaching, riding across the meadow from the Votadini camp, and Strabo was smiling, getting up and smoothing his tunic.

‘I hope our talk has laid to rest any doubts you may have, anyway,’ he said. ‘My business is with the envoy, and the success of our mission. I hope we can strive together towards that end.’

Castus nodded, and the agent took his leave and walked away towards his tent. Night was falling, the perimeter of the camp lost in gathering gloom, and the smouldering fires were drawing masses of whirling insects. Timotheus would lead the first watch – Castus was glad of that. The talk of death, spirits, strange and secret beliefs had unsettled his mind, and the lonely darkness of the ruined fortification seemed a less comforting place now.

For two days more they crawled north through the hill country, still following the track of the old road. The men of the Sixth Legion marched in a compact mass, surrounding their baggage mules, with the scouts riding at the flanks. The Votadini warriors flowed around them in wild array, running on ahead and streaming to either side over the flanks of the hills. Some of them, mounted on their shaggy little ponies, rode alongside the Romans and called out to them; many of the soldiers knew the native British language, and some called back, but Castus soon ordered them to keep silence. The Votadini might be allies, but he didn’t want his men striking up bonds with them.

At the end of the second day they reached the sea, the water spreading a sheet of dull silver in the low light. It was the mouth of an estuary, Marcellinus said, leading to the river that would take them to the Pictish meeting place. Here too there were old fortifications on the hill above the shore – this whole country was scarred with the welts of Roman camps and forts and roads – and once again the legionaries camped within the circuit of the fallen walls. The Votadini host whooped and sang from their own fires on the lower slopes of the hill.

‘Why are they going to the meeting too?’ Castus asked Marcellinus. They were sitting beside the fire in darkness, swatting at the insects. ‘The Votadini aren’t Picts, are they?’

‘No, but they have treaties with them, as do we,’ the envoy replied. ‘They’re brother peoples anyway – the Picts speak a dialect of the British language. They look different, but they have many links between them. Senomaglus is attending the meeting as a guest – he can’t vote on the high chieftainship, but he’s expected to approve it. As am I, of course.’

‘They vote for their chiefs?’ Castus asked. From the perimeter he heard the sentry’s cry. The smell of the sea, rich and exotic, rose on the night breeze.

‘Oh, yes. In fact, they have an odd system for it. A chief cannot be succeeded by his own son, only by a male relative from the female line. So a brother, for example, or a cousin on his mother’s side.’

‘Makes the women quite powerful, then?’

‘Very astute! Yes, it does. They can’t rule directly, but they have a lot of influence. But it’s a good system, if an odd one. The Picts claim it avoids dynasties – they’re very keen on their freedom, and don’t like monopolies of rule – but more importantly it gives them a large number of mature experienced candidates to choose from. Rome has often suffered from underage emperors succeeding their fathers.’

‘I suppose so.’ Castus winged his shoulders. He remembered the governor, Arpagius, telling him that the barbarians may not understand the abdication of the old Augusti. Might take it as a sign of weakness. Perhaps they were more sophisticated than that after all?

‘So what have you learned from our allies then?’ he asked, poking at the fire with a stick. ‘About what’s going on. Did the old Pictish king die naturally, or what?’

Sparks rose, lighting Marcellinus’s face. Since crossing the border, the envoy seemed to have shed part of himself – part of his Romanness. He looked more like one of the Votadini now than a former Roman military commander.

‘We know nothing certain,’ he said carefully. ‘But there are suspicions. Vepogenus was a strong man, an honourable man. He was my friend and my brother by pact, and the news of his death genuinely pained me. But he had a lot of enemies among the tribes. There are also some others among them who… make it their business to stir old animosities.’

‘The renegades.’ Castus scowled into the glow of the fire.

‘Yes. Strabo must have told you about them. There were three of them, but two killed each other and now only one lives that I know of. A former officer of mine, a Pannonian like you, I think. His name is Julius Decentius.’

‘Was it him that killed your boy?’

Castus saw the envoy visibly flinch as his words registered.

‘I don’t know,’ Marcellinus said quietly. ‘I don’t want to know either. But he could have been connected with the king’s death. Not alone, though – he would need to work through the ambitions of others. Personally, I believe that the news of Diocletian and Maximian’s abdication provided a spur to a plot against the king. This renegade convinced certain others that the empire would be weak, and this would be a good time to strike at us. Only Vepogenus’s loyalty to the treaty stood in their way.’

‘Any idea who the others might be?’

‘Perhaps. A cousin of the king, named Talorcagus. I’ve met him, a very reckless man. He also has a nephew, Drustagnus, who if anything is worse. The king’s own nephew, Vendognus, is a weak and stupid young man, but he has a strong-willed wife, a cousin of his, who may have plans for her own son in the succession. Perhaps all of them are working together. We’ll soon find out.’

The list of unfamiliar and barbarous names clotted in the air, and Castus doubted he would ever tell one from the others. Back at Eboracum, he had made a few attempts to pick up the local speech, but he had no skill with languages. Latin, a bit of Greek: that was all he had ever needed, and the gargling vowels and slippery-sounding consonants of the British tongue meant nothing to him. But he gave an understanding grunt. Treachery and backstabbing deceit took the same form all over the world, after all, in any language.

The next morning Castus put his men through a full weapons drill on the grassy plain before the old fort, both to keep them in shape and to impress the watching barbarians. Formation march, shield wall, testudo and skirmish line, then dart and javelin release and charge in the wedge formation they called the boar’s head. The legionaries responded well, still sharp after twelve days on the road. The Votadini seemed impressed too, whooping and yelling their encouragement at first, then falling quiet when they saw the disciplined force of the Roman attack.

As he formed up his men in line of march once more, Castus felt an enthusiastic energy charging his body. How many years had it been since this savage shore had witnessed Roman troops in battle order? Then he saw Marcellinus, watching from horseback with an appreciative smile, and remembered that this man too had brought an army into this land.