Adrian Goldsworthy - Vindolanda

‘It was not your fault,’ he said. ‘Never your fault.’

Sulpicia Lepidina lifted her head and he kissed her on the cheek and soothed her. ‘It’s all right, it was not your fault,’ he repeated over and over again. Ferox still could not tell just what this clever aristocrat wanted, or what she really thought of him, but she was in his arms and at that moment all he wanted was to comfort her and make her smile again. ‘It was not your fault. I am to blame.’

She stared at him, puzzled and unconvinced.

‘I should have thought more clearly. They were looking for you, and all I wished to do was save you. Your husband as well, for that is my duty, but I could not bear the thought of them taking you, of them…’

‘My husband told me why you think they attacked me in my carriage,’ she said. ‘I assumed they just wanted my jewels – and perhaps my aged body.’ The tears had stopped, and she tried to laugh at her poor joke.

‘Then you know the horror of it all,’ Ferox said. ‘I thought only of stopping them, and when we arrived last night and found the praetorium raided all that mattered was to see you safe. It was my only thought.’

Her smile was a little warmer this time. ‘You had other thoughts once you found me.’

‘Yes, and while we…’ He trailed off for the guilt engulfed him. ‘I should have gone back to the fort. Checked that all was well. Instead I did not and they got away.’

‘How could you have known?’ She reached up and stroked his cheek.

‘It’s my job to know, and my job to think. I am tasked with keeping the peace in this region and I have failed. Do you not understand?’ He was surprised at how much this wounded him, striking at a pride he thought long gone.

She gave a slight shake of her head.

‘They thought they had you. It is the only explanation. Here is a big room, with a rich woman in it. They were sent to snatch the prefect’s wife and they found a lady in a big bed in his house. “Blood of king, blood of queen.” Just because you were safe did not mean that there was no more danger.’

She pulled free, as if to think more clearly. ‘There was no attack on my husband.’

‘There was on Longinus.’ It all seemed so simple. ‘If they knew who he really is then that is their king’s blood – though in truth he was too dangerous for them.’ One thought followed another. ‘The mongrel!’ he said angrily. ‘It was him.’

‘I do not follow.’

‘Longinus, or Civilis, or whoever the rogue is. He knew what was happening, got you to safety, protected the children and your husband, but sacrificed the others.’

‘He is a fine man and we owe him much.’

Perhaps the lady had known what he was doing? The idea certainly did not appear to disturb her. Ferox stared into her eyes, but could not read what was behind them.

‘That fine man also staked out Fortunata as a decoy,’ he said. ‘Made sure Privatus forgot to take her to safety, knew your husband would be too careless and then too drunk to bother. He used her to save you.’

‘It is all because of me.’ The tears came again.

‘No, for you. Perhaps I would have done the same if I had to make the choice,’ he said in grudging admiration. ‘It was not your fault or his fault, but mine, to be so besotted that I failed everyone last night.’

A knock on the door ended the conversation. They spoke to the slaves, but learned little more and Ferox remained convinced that he was right. Prolonged searching discovered the remaining maid fast asleep and snoring in an empty box in one of the stables. There was no trace of Fortunata.

‘How could they have got her out past the guards?’ Cerialis asked of no one in particular.

‘Easier last night than almost any other in the year,’ Ferox said. ‘No one saw a cart or anyone carrying something bulky in a sack, so my guess is that she was inside one of the straw figures.’

The prefect went even paler and sent men to look at the remains – before dawn all the effigies were burned as part of the ritual. He was relieved when the men returned to say that there was no sign of anyone hidden within the burned figures, but then another party arrived and said that they had found a big figure of a cow tipped on its side near the edge of the canabae. Ferox remembered it, which made him think that they had got away even earlier than he had guessed.

‘I need to see if they left a trail,’ he told them, but there were more delays before he set out with Vindex and half a dozen Batavian troopers who looked almost sober. They had to wait to leave the main gate as an officer and his escort clattered through into the fort. It was Flaccus and he gave a friendly wave as he passed.

The trail was easy to follow and it took them westwards.

Vindex was not happy. ‘Ten of my lads were at the fort waiting for us to come back, just as you ordered,’ he explained. ‘Now they are told that they cannot leave Vindolanda until the details of the attack are established. What’s up? Are they prisoners?’

Ferox had been afraid of this. He had not yet mentioned to anyone else the potion of mistletoe and nightshade or the double death inflicted on the slave girl. He wondered why they had not added the third death of strangulation to make this a proper sacrifice, but then these people were druids and many other things as well, who invoked Isis and used magic from the east and not everything they did followed the old rules.

‘We really are humped, aren’t we?’ Vindex said when he told him.

Half an hour before they got there Ferox knew where the trail was heading. At last they saw the two standing stones, and between the Mother and Daughter there was a woman.

‘Bastards,’ Vindex gasped when they first saw her, and his anger grew as they came close. ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards.’

Two of the Batavians vomited there and then, and another did the same thing a moment later. The soldiers cursed and swore and screamed out the vengeance they would wreak.

‘Bastards,’ Vindex said again.

Ferox said nothing. This was his failure and his fault. If the thought of this being done to Sulpicia Lepidina was a nightmare too appalling to admit, that was little consolation. He had let this happen. Samhain was not yet done, but he felt as if hope was slipping back to the Otherworld with the rest of the spirits. He had failed. These swine were butchering victims in his territory and he was not stopping them. One hand gripped the handle of his sword and he itched to use it.

FOR ONCE, CAVALRYMEN did not object to digging. Ferox rode to a farm half a mile away and borrowed two spades and a pick because they had no tools. The family living there were nervous, and happy to hand over anything as long as it made him leave. When he got back every man took off his cloak and they wrapped the mutilated body round tightly and buried Fortunata in a deep grave. Such sights needed to be buried away, out of sight. They gathered the local grey stones and piled them over the grave, while one soldier found a fallen tree trunk and carved her name into the wood. They dug another pit, and raised the wooden monument at her head. Vegetus would be able to find his wife’s resting place with ease. Ferox hoped that he could be persuaded not to unearth the body for cremation. Better that he never know what they had done.

It took them several hours and barely a word was said as they all took turns working. It was almost sunset by the time they returned to Vindolanda and still no one spoke. Ferox tried not to imagine the freedwoman’s screams, for she would not have lost consciousness for some time.

The fort was busier than when they had left, with working parties labouring away so that there was already little trace of the previous night’s festivities. A long convoy of ox carts and pack mules was going through the main gate, so they went around through the canabae to find another way in. Sentries at the western gateway, the porta principalis sinistra , challenged them, accepted the password and then saluted with fervent precision, and Ferox had the sense of children caught out in mischief and now hoping to make amends. He began to understand when he saw the soldiers standing guard in front of the principia. Twenty of them were horsemen in highly polished scale armour and plumed helmets. Their shields were mixed – oval, hexagonal and rectangular side by side – and carried the symbols of half a dozen different units. They had on matching dark blue cloaks and this marked them as the governor’s singulares , his bodyguard of picked cavalrymen drawn from the best of the army in the province. Alongside them stood a similar number of Batavians, who for all their size could not match the splendour of the governor’s men.