Адриан Голдсуорти - The Encircling Sea

‘I owe the lady’s family, you know that,’ the trooper said. ‘And himself’ – he meant Cerialis – ‘is one of us, and king by rights, so it is my duty to help him.’

They left the harbour in bright sunshine, and were soon riding over fields rich with the greens of early summer.

‘Doesn’t look that different,’ Vindex said on the third day of their journey and the second day of unbroken drizzle. ‘Wetter, though.’

Ferox said nothing. It all reminded him of home, the rain as much as anything else, but that was what he had expected and other things occupied his thoughts. The night before, Ovidius had asked to speak to him and to Crispinus in the tribune’s tent. The guards were ordered to keep their distance, and make sure no one overheard anything.

‘It is a rare thing for a poet to boast more knowledge of the world than men of action such as yourselves, so please forgive me if I have been jealous in guarding it for as long as possible. I assume that you have long since concluded that I was not sent by the legate for my prowess as a warrior or experience of diplomacy.’

Crispinus smiled. ‘Or to see whales?’

‘Or that sadly. Before we came to Britannia, the legate and I went to the Lord Trajan on the Rhine and I bought a slave in the market. I did not particularly need one, and it was simply chance that took me past the auction, but the cries of the auctioneer pricked my interest.’ He paused, watching them for the moment.

‘Please go on,’ Crispinus said. ‘I presume there is a point to this homely anecdote.’

‘There is indeed, and at least you have not merely assumed that this was no more than the ramblings of an aged mind. The slave was called Felix, as so many are, though with heavy irony in his case. He was one of the Usipi, not that the name meant anything to me, but when the auctioneer called out that he was a cannibal and did his best to make the flesh of his audience creep, I became interested.’

‘Where is this Felix now?’ Ferox cut in.

‘Dead. But I shall come to that, my young friends, and you must be patient. They were trying to sell him as a brute who could be set to any unpleasant labour, or even trained to guard property, so were a little surprised to find a poet bidding. I was curious, as what poet or philosopher would not be? Here was a man said to have committed one of the greatest impieties, a sin so great that few save illicit love between parent and child could be worse, or consign a man to more terrible punishment in the Underworld – or to exactly the same nothingness as all the rest of us, depending on your viewpoint.

‘I bought him because I wanted to know his story and try to understand the evil he had done. He was one of the men conscripted by us to form the new cohort. As you know, the Usipi live beyond the Rhine and are not under our direct rule. They had raided our friends and murdered some traders and so were punished. However, it seems that their chieftains did not wish to provide us with their best warriors or most loyal men, and instead they picked on the poorest, the thieves, the lazy. On those they least wanted to keep, as it were. Felix claimed that he was chosen because one of a chieftain’s warriors wanted his wife. He had taken no part in the raids or other attacks and resented being chosen. There were others, he claimed, snatched from their families and sent away as prisoners. Still more were slaves and captives bought or snatched from other tribes. Including fifty or so from the Harii. You have not heard the name before?’ Ovidius looked pleased. ‘It is significant, I assure you.

‘They were all rounded up, treated as prisoners rather than honourable recruits, and eventually shipped over to Britannia to train. I am no historian, but it has always struck me how often the worst possible men are given an important task, and that was certainly true in this case. A centurion from Legio XX was put in charge of organising and training the new cohort. I am guessing he was also chosen because the legion did not want him around, but perhaps he had friends. He made few new ones. While I understand that disciplina is important as a great martial and Roman virtue, from what Felix told me this was not good discipline but blatant tyranny. The centurion flogged, starved, and executed men for slight infractions. He withheld pay from all of them, cut the rations to something barely short of starvation. Worse yet, he had many of the recruits stripped naked and brought to him at night, so that he could satisfy his lusts and his appetite for violence. More than one hanged himself after the experience.’

‘The official report was less detailed,’ Crispinus said, ‘but could not hide the gross abuse of power. If the outbreak had been less violent, most of the men might well have been pardoned.’

‘To Felix and the others it seemed that they were trapped, without any hope. Yet the rising started for another reason. The Harii kept to themselves most of the time, under three leaders whose word was law to them. No one in the cohort had been allowed to bring their families with them. That is the regulation, I understand.’ Ferox nodded. ‘But I also see women and children in most forts, especially with the auxilia , so I assume it is a regulation rarely enforced. Yes, I thought so. Well, it was imposed on the Usipi, and then suddenly, months later, seven women turn up at the fort where they were training. All of them were Harii, and the leaders were twin sisters. Felix never liked to talk about them. Even after all these years his fear was obvious. It took a while – and I fear some compulsion – to get him to say that their blood was special, that they came from a line of priests and priestesses, or perhaps witches would be a better word because he said they had power to heal and to hurt, power to see into the minds of others and know the future.

‘The twins were the lovers of the leaders of the Harii, all three of them, for it seems the customs of these folk are strange. Twice they were evicted from the fort along with the other five women, but within a week they reappeared. The centurion ordered that they be beaten this time if they had not left by the next dawn, and one of the witches cursed him and cursed any man who obeyed him.

‘That night the cohort turned on every Roman and every outsider they could find. Felix could not quite understand it, but afterwards he was told that the witches had put a potion into the men’s food. He just said that he found himself sword in hand, chasing after one of the legionaries who was training them. He said that he knew the man well, and liked him, for he was fair and taught them dodges as well as the regulations, but still he ran him down and hacked him to pieces, cutting down again and again long after the legionary was dead. It was the same for all of them, their rage was red and raw and they had no mercy, murdering even the young slaves who looked after the pack animals.

‘The Harii caught the centurion and killed him slowly. Then they ripped out his bowels and the witches bit into steaming entrails. Some of the warriors did the same and swore a horrible oath binding themselves together. It was the Harii who took the lead in all that happened later. The other men began to feel their rage subsiding. Felix thought it was the magic wearing off, but who can say. Instead they were overwhelmed by fear, for they knew that the army would have no mercy after what they had done, whatever the provocation. The Harii led them to the coast, where there was a station of the classis Britannica. On the way, they stumbled on a convoy carrying supplies and pay to the legion’s base at Deva. The escort was not large, or expecting an attack from hundreds of desperate mutineers, for word had not yet spread of the outbreak. They were caught by surprise and slaughtered to the last man. The witches performed the same rite on a badly wounded tribune who happened to be travelling with them, ripping out his guts while the poor fellow was still alive. The rest of the Harii ate of his flesh and took the oath.