Adrian Goldsworthy - Vindolanda

The watching soldiers sighed in disappointment, until someone started laughing and the rest joined in. The Textoverdi who had started to come to watch just stayed wrapped tight in the cloaks, their faces expressionless, after the manner of the clan.

‘Time!’ called the man on sentry duty in the gate-tower of Syracuse.

‘Nearly, but not quite,’ Ferox said, reaching his left hand down to pull the Thracian up. He had promised any man five denarii and an amphora of good wine if they could put him on his back. This was the fourth day, and so far he had not had to pay, although Victor had come close more than once, as had this Thracian. They were the pick of the bunch, the rest solid enough and stubborn, but too tied to the drill book to be really good. It was good training for them, and even better for him. Ferox was worried and drove himself hard to prepare for whatever was coming. He spent an hour each day working at the fencing post outside Syracuse, using the regulation wooden swords and wickerwork practice shields to go through the fighting drills the army had copied from the gladiatorial schools. Sword and shield were heavier than the real things, to strengthen the arms and make it easier when a man was given proper equipment. For the same reason he wore helmet and mail, and strapped iron greaves on to his lower legs. He had never liked greaves, clumsy things that made a man slow, and rarely wore them even in battle, but the weight made every drill harder and that helped. Once that was done he let three of the stationarii challenge him, each bout lasting a tenth of an hour measured by the water clock. Nothing matched facing a real opponent, and they had landed quite a few good blows and surprised him plenty of times. It reminded him of how rusty he had become, letting himself become lazy because things were quiet and no one believed him when he claimed that trouble was brewing.

When there was time he ran – at least three miles a day, choosing routes that forced him to drive himself up steep hillsides. There was no need to look for opportunities to get on a horse, for each day he rode many miles. He went to Vindolanda several times and to Magna, the next garrison to the west, up to the watchtower again, and all the while did his own job of going to villages and farms and meetings with chieftains. He spent most of his time listening to the usual grievances. With harvest done, taxes were due and the procurator’s men were out collecting the empire’s share of grain, livestock or hides, and sometimes money, although few in this part of the world paid levies in coin.

Ferox drove himself hard and, as always when he was kept busy, had no urge to drink more than was needed to slake a thirst. Her face still came to him, hazier now after all these years, but still with the dark eyes, olive skin and raven-black hair. The memories made him sad, but sometimes he pictured another woman, blonde, fair-skinned and blue-eyed, and there was little similarity in looks but something akin in their essence, that sense of life and joy. Sulpicia Lepidina puzzled him, not least because if all Crispinus had said was true then it was odd to find so distinguished a lady married to a mere equestrian.

That was one mystery, but not the foremost in his mind. Cerialis had chased the raiders for two days before losing their trail altogether. By then his Batavians were running short of hard tack and salted bacon for the men and barley for the horses, so they returned to Vindolanda with nothing to show for their pains. The detachment from Coria was better prepared to take the field and had gone further, pushing well north into the lands of the Selgovae and Votadini. Even so they had not caught up with any of the raiders and had ended up coming back down the Eastern Road with nothing to show for all their hard riding. No word had yet come from the Brigantian scouts, although Vindex had ridden after them in spite of his injuries.

‘Go on then and kill yourself,’ Ferox told him as he left. ‘At least it will save me the trouble.’ The Brigantian had kept the poultice damp and tied on tightly and claimed that he felt fine.

The raiders had got away, avoiding roads and outstripping the pursuit. They were well mounted – even bringing spare horses – and well prepared. They had also taken nothing that might slow them down. All they had looted was some weapons, some horses and a few heads as trophies. It was not much of a haul, and Claudius Super was hailing the raid’s repulse as a great victory, ignoring the dead Batavians – and the men at the tower.

By the time Ferox had returned to the tower in daylight a party had come to clear up and the ground was even more disturbed. Even so he was sure that there were no tracks from a group like the raiders they had followed on the day of the ambush. There were prints from half a dozen or so army horses, heavily burdened with their riders and gear. Whoever had killed the little garrison had not had to force their way in. Everything pointed to the killers being soldiers – or looking the part of soldiers – and being let inside to unleash sudden violence. The seventh man from the tower was still missing. Four of the corpses had been recognised, and the Briton was not among them, nor was he thought likely to be either of the remaining corpses, given that they were dark-skinned and stocky. They should know soon when men came from his unit to look at the remains.

Ferox had not been able to find the track made by the horsemen as they left the tower because there were too many trails from the frequent patrols passing this place. In spite of a careful search he could see no sign that they had gone east to join the raiders. Yet a coincidence was hard to accept. Someone had slaughtered the men at the beacon on the very day that the raiders struck. Only Victor’s quick thinking and some luck had allowed the alarm to be raised at all.

It all looked very deliberate and well planned, for these were not normal raiders. They had disguised their numbers coming south, moving stealthily past the garrisons, and would have escaped notice altogether if it had not been for Vindex and his men finding their trail and then coming across the two corpses. From the beginning the aim was surely to attack the road at that one spot between Vindolanda and Coria. Ferox could not believe that the raiders were trusting to luck, relying on something worth attacking to come along at the right moment. They were waiting for Sulpicia Lepidina and her escort, waiting just for her. He thought of the big warrior demanding that they hand over the queen.

Raiders liked to take women. Seizing a woman from an enemy and forcing her gave a warrior power, strengthening his spirit and proving his might, as much or even more than killing a man and taking his head as trophy. Yet rape of an officer’s wife and her maid hardly justified the scale of the attack. They could be sold as slaves, it was true, or ransomed, although this was likely to provoke a major response by the army rather than payment. Perhaps whoever was behind this wanted war, but again it seemed an unnecessarily complicated way to go about it.

Ferox had not yet spoken again about the tattooed priest who had led the raiders, for Romans tended to become hysterical when they heard words like priest or druid, and Claudius Super would once again dismiss him as alarmist and certainly would not understand. Lots of men and some women called themselves druids these days, and most were wandering healers and magicians of no importance, preying on the superstitious, but without real power or any reputation. This one was bold, daring to break the sign at the Mother and Daughter and scratch the images on to the stones. Then there were warriors, each tattooed on forehead and left hand. They were not marks he had seen or heard of before among the tribes – and neither had Vindex, who knew the peoples to the north well. Warriors liked to look different, not the same, and he had never heard of any people marking themselves with such prominent and identical symbols. That meant that they must mean something, and he wondered about oaths to gods or to follow their servant on earth. Yet alongside these fierce but inexperienced followers there had been other warriors, not marked in the same way, as well as the big man. Ferox was still convinced that the giant was a German, and was equally sure that he was not a deserter. That begged many questions that he could not answer.