Адриан Голдсуорти - Brigantia

Fuscus stood up. He could only have been a few inches taller than the legate. That did not reduce the sense of immense physical power about the man. ‘Thank you for your time, my lord. I shall report that matters are in your safe hands.’

The legate’s smile became broader. ‘That is kind.’

‘Please know that I am sincere in my belief that there is considerable discontent throughout much of Britannia at present. The tribes complain of debt and struggle to pay their taxes.’

‘Which I am sure are collected with the utmost tact and kindness by your staff, who do everything in their power to make the burden as light as possible.’

Neratius Marcellus watched the procurator swagger across the polished plank floor. ‘Fat-arsed little shit,’ he muttered once the doors had closed behind the procurator and his attendants. ‘Hopefully one of you has news for me that will help roast the little pimp over a fire. No? Nothing?’ He sighed. ‘To business then.’

Crispinus gave a full report about the fires, by the end of which the legate was more himself, walking up and down as he interrupted with short, always pertinent, questions. Ferox went next, prompting amusement as well as interest in his description of the fight.

‘Somebody wants you dead! Splendid, splendid.’ The legate stopped pacing to roar with laughter. ‘Then we must be doing something right!’

At the end Ovidius repeated what was known about Domitius. ‘Very little, I am afraid. He appears to be an eques from Gaul, has considerable funds, interests in many businesses, is very free making loans, and brings impressive letters of recommendation with him. He has not been in Londinium long, but some of the merchants say they have run into him in other towns in the last month or so. Perhaps he is the Domitius whom Ferox heard about at Vindolanda. Perhaps not. Most likely he is the agent of a senator or senators, doing their work. The priests claim to be unable to remember the names on the letters he carried. One suspects all are in his debt in one way or another, and of course he is not yet openly accused of anything.’

‘Facts, gentlemen, facts are what we need. All of this merely assures us that we are right to be suspicious. There is some connection, I am sure, between all or most of what has happened and we need to understand it. But where are the facts?’ He stopped mid-stride and spun around. ‘How goes the search in our archives?’

‘I believed that I was onto something, but am not now so sure,’ Ovidius began, running a hand through the remnants of his hair as he scratched his head. ‘The Emperor Claudius sent a cloak to the temple set up in his honour in Colonia Camulodunum. Not only had he worn it in his triumph over Britannia, but it had been worn by Pompey Magnus in one of his triumphs. He brought it back from Asia and it was said to have once belonged to Alexander. For a while I thought it might have been our cloak, but the trail ran cold, as I believe you trackers say.’ He smiled at Ferox, who for the first time smiled in return.

‘It is our cloak. Kopros told me that it was rescued from Camulodunum before it fell to the rebels and eventually taken to the temple here. He only knew that it once belonged to the divine Claudius.’

‘The cloak of Alexander!’ Neratius Marcellus was grinning like a schoolboy given a tray of sweet cakes. ‘Here of all places. Shame it would be sacrilege to wear it.’

‘Who would know?’ Ovidius asked, but was silenced by the look of the legate. ‘Pity.’

Neratius Marcellus walked slowly to the chair and sat down. It was almost as if he was proving his self control to his own satisfaction. ‘A better question would be whether or not this Acco would know of Alexander?’

Ferox rubbed his chin, a scab from the night before feeling very large. ‘Probably.’

‘But would he value something the king of Macedon had possessed? Or the Emperor Claudius, for that matter.’

‘Hard to say. Perhaps.’

‘Well, earn your pay, and work it out. It is time you went back to the archives. You too, old friend.’

The old man stopped halfway towards the door and turned back. ‘Do I get paid as well?’

‘Only by my continuing patience, and I dread to think how much that costs. Now leave us. We must now consider again the question of Brigantia, and who will rule there. I understand you have an idea, nephew. Out with it, man.’

‘It occurred to me that the choice may be genuine after all…’ Ferox and Ovidius were outside and the double doors closed behind them before he could hear any more.

‘That is not a decision I envy making,’ the old man said as they walked down one of the long corridors. ‘To choose whether brother or sister should become high king – or high queen, I suppose, of one of the most populous tribes on this island. You have met Claudia, I believe.’

‘Claudia Enica? I have.’

Ovidius peered up at him. ‘Your silence speaks volumes. I take it you were not too impressed. Have you met her brother?’

Ferox shook his head.

‘He has charm, some intelligence, considerably more confidence, but his judgement…’

‘Enough eloquence, too little wisdom?’

‘Sallust? You continue to surprise me. Whether or not he is a Catiline, I do not know, but there are some people I find I just cannot trust, even when I do not really know them.’

‘You are turning barbarian in your old age, my lord, to trust instincts over reason.’

‘Oh I do hope so,’ Ovidius said happily. ‘Let us just put it this way. When you meet the brother, your esteem for the sister tends to grow. Sometimes I wonder whether she is a great loss to the theatre.’

Ferox wondered whether the mime was more fitting, with its dances and simple stories.

THE MORNING PASSED slowly, sitting on an uncomfortable stool in the archives, his sides, arms and back aching, sifting through the tablets brought by the clerk, who was enjoying himself.

‘Thought you might like these,’ he would say, ‘once you have finished with that lot.’ Soon there were stacks of tablets neatly laid out on and underneath the table, awaiting his attention. Ferox ploughed on, hour after hour, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. It was amazing just how dull reports written weeks or even days either side of battles and other great moments often were. That was the army for you, and sometimes he wondered whether its real purpose was to create these mountains of records, a task occasionally interrupted by having to fight someone.

By noon he was hungry. An hour later he was hungry, in some pain and fed up. Then he saw a simple entry in a strength return which the overeager exactus had brought him after a foolish comment about that being the last place to look.

escort to Prasto 28 including 2 centurions

He glanced at the top of the page. This was an entry in the return for Cohors IV Batavorum on the Ides of August in the consulship of Nero and Cossus Cornelius Lentulus. It was an odd thought that only in military archives did no one bother to erase the name of an emperor whose memory had been formally damned by the Senate. The army needed to keep its records straight and clear, politics or no politics.

Prasto? He had seen the name before, noted it as odd, but passed on without thinking any more about it. It was Celtic, and likely enough he was a Briton, but that was too early for Britons to be serving in the army, especially in a rank that warranted an escort. Two centurions was a lot for so few soldiers, but twenty-eight was more than most of the procurator’s staff or other officials would get.

Ferox realised that he was drumming his fingers on the table. He had heard the name before somewhere. It was not common. Then he remembered a boy a few years older than him at his grandfather’s dun all those years ago. A lean, fair-haired youth taken as a captive on a raid and raised as one of their own. He never quite fitted in among the dark Silures, but was always willing to follow someone else’s lead and beat up anyone who was smaller. In one of his visits, Acco the druid had dubbed the lad Prasto and the name had stuck. His grandfather used to make a sign to ward off evil whenever he heard the name spoken, but Acco was Acco, even then when he could not really have been so ancient. He had heard whispers, no more, about a druid who had aided the Romans.