Date: 2016-12-13 05:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Schlock! Publications

The Hadrian Legacy

GAVIN CHAPPELL

Copyright © Gavin Chappell 2016

Cover art by FollowingHadrian

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher and author, except where permitted by law.

The right of Gavin Chappell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Schlock! Publications 2016

ISBN-13: 978-1540537812

ISBN-10: 1540537811

This book is a work of fiction and any similarities to actual persons and/or places are purely coincidental.

Schlock! Publications
www.schlock.co.uk

In the same series:

On Hadrian’s Secret Service

Murder in Hadrian’s Villa

By the same author:

Crocodile and Leopard

The Man Who Sold the Roman Empire

A Song of the Legions

The crystal gong of the silence
Shivers in shattered shards;
And the marble hall re-echoes
To the tread of the crested guards.

Fingers pluck at the hangings,
White in the purple gloam;
Midnight lies with the sleepers
In the pulsing heart of Rome.

Rosy lips smile in slumber,
Arms nestle bodies white—
Rome in her silks and marbles
Sleeps through the soft-lipped night.

Echoing down the heather
The restless trumpets call,
Questioning each of the other
Down the line of the winding Wall.

Eyes strain hard in the darkness,
To the pulse of an echo blown—
Rome is of gold and iron
But a soldier is flesh and bone.

Fires in the hills are burning,
To the far off throb of a drum;
Through the ghostly waving heather
What phantom figures come?

Shadows or painted warriors?
The death drums never cease.
Stand to your watches, legion,
That Rome may sleep in peace.

Beacons burn in the towers,
Eyes straining hard beside,
Ears a-tune to the murmur,
The sigh of each changing tide.

Was that the shrill of a night bird
Where the waves are grey as steel,
Or the grind of a muffled oar-lock,
The wash of a prowling keel?

Driftwood or sword-fanged sea-wolves,
Not yours is rest or ease;
Stand to your watches, legion,
That Rome may sleep in peace.

- Robert E. Howard

—1—

Roman Province of Britain, 123 AD, 1 January

‘This whole enterprise is costing far too much.’

The procurator’s voice boomed from the stone walls of the gloomy, torch-lit staircase, audible despite the thump of booted feet on the steps as the guards followed close behind. The procurator’s clerk shot his superior a nervous look. Such talk could be considered critical of His Imperial Majesty; it wouldn’t do either of their careers any good if they were linked with sedition. There had been too much of that in this island.

‘The northern tribes have been pacified,’ the procurator continued peevishly as they started up the second flight of steps. ‘The emperor himself deems the province safe enough to leave it for warmer climes. He’s in the East now, negotiating with the Parthians.’ An overweight, red-faced man, he puffed and panted as they ascended.

The other end of the empire, the clerk thought. Hot, desert sands and bustling cities, not wet moorlands and rebellious tribes. How he had ended up with this posting he would never know, but he realised he needed to cultivate friends in high places when he got back to Rome. And how could he hope to, if his superior kept talking like this?

They turned up another flight. Now the clerk saw daylight through the door that led out into the parapet. With it came a bitterly cold draught. How he hated this climate!

‘The costs of construction alone are beggaring the province.’ The procurator was off again. ‘The forts to the south are seriously undermanned, what with so many cohorts involved in the building work. What if something happened in the south? It’s happened before; in the Emperor Nero’s day. What if…’

They came out into blinding daylight. A harsh cold winter wind seized the procurator’s equestrian toga and whipped it over his head. Seizing hold of both his toga and his dignity, the procurator led the clerk and the guards out onto the rampart. Auxiliaries of Dumnorix’s Troop stood waiting for them, the prefect and several troopers. The clerk saw the red tiled roofs of the barrack blocks below. And through a gap between two crenellations, the endless rolling heather stretched into the misty distance.

The auxiliary prefect, a bearded Gaul, held his hand out in greeting. Even as he did, one of the troopers, a decurion, drew a sword and slid it briskly into the unarmoured breast of the procurator.

Gasping, the clerk seized hold of the rampart for support, obstructing the guards as they dashed forwards to grab the assassin. While they tangled with the fainting clerk, the decurion turned to the bearded prefect. The prefect drew his own sword and cut him down. A look of shock on his face, the decurion fell, smearing blood across the stones as he rolled off the parapet.

He landed with a crash on the gravel pathway below. Shouting men ran to his side. One rolled him over but he did not move. The man looked upwards in perplexity.

The centurion in charge of the guards reached his master’s side. Sightless eyes stared up at the grey skies, chalk white hands felt at the wound, the freshly laundered toga suffused with crimson. ‘The cost,’ the procurator said clearly and distinctly. ‘It’s too much.’

He might have been talking about construction expenses, he might have been talking about his own death. The centurion would never know. The procurator’s head rolled back, a final gasp trailed from his lips, and he lay there, limbs awry, a lifeless, leaden weight, somehow diminished by his death. Softly the centurion laid him down and approached the auxiliary prefect.

‘You’re under arrest,’ he announced.

‘What’s this?’ the prefect said, his Gaulish accent thick. He put a hand to his ear. ‘I don’t understand your Latin.’

The centurion gave him a thin-lipped smile and nodded to his men, who seized the man. Incensed, the other auxiliaries surged forwards. The centurion turned around and barked, ‘Stand down! Your prefect is now under arrest!’

‘Under arrest?’ the prefect said. He gestured at the decurion’s body lying in a broken heap at the bottom of the wall, surrounded by scared looking men. ‘I killed the traitor who brought dishonour upon our troop!’

‘Yes,’ said the centurion, slipping his thumbs into his belt. ‘Very fucking convenient. Your chum kills the procurator of the province and you cut him down before he can be questioned.’ He gestured to his men. ‘My men will be taking over this fort until I get to the bottom of this. Tell them to stand down and accompany me to your quarters.’

The prefect led them back down to ground level, issuing orders to his men as he came out into the open. The centurion followed, scowling, while his men carried the procurator’s corpse. The clerk, who had recovered from his faint, came behind them, giving nervous looks as auxiliaries followed them into the courtyard.

The centurion didn’t believe the prefect was as stupid as he was acting. How had he been promoted if he was that thick? It was all very worrying.

The procurator’s body was laid out on the table of the prefect’s quarters, his dead assassin dumped on the paillasse. The centurion sat the prefect down on the only stool in the room and perched himself on the edge of the desk. Guards filled the room, more outside kept an eye on the auxiliaries. The clerk leaned against the wall, staring at the procurator’s corpse. The centurion’s optio examined the body of the assassin.

‘You must understand,’ the centurion told the prefect, ‘that you made yourself look like a suspect when you killed this man. Maybe it was a spur of the moment thing. Maybe you were angry about him shaming your troop. But it doesn’t look like that, does it, mate?’

The prefect put a hand to his mouth. The centurion frowned suddenly, and leaned forwards. The optio glanced up, and held out his hand.

‘Look, sir!’

The centurion turned irritably to him. His eyes widened. He snatched the object from the optio’s hand, and turned to the prefect, shaking it at him. It was a glassy stone as big as a crab apple, with a hole through the middle.

‘What in Hades is this?’ he barked.

The decurion’s eyes bulged. Abruptly, he pitched forward and fell to the ground at the centurion’s feet, frothing at the mouth. The centurion dropped the stone which rolled away towards the clerk, and grabbed the prefect’s arms.

‘What’s got into the man?’ the optio yelled.

The prefect stiffened suddenly, then slumped back.

‘Dead,’ said the centurion. He rose, and turned towards the clerk, who had picked up the stone. ‘Give me that,’ he commanded. ‘No word of this to anyone, got that? My report will be sent by imperial courier to the highest authorities. And this stone will be going with it. South. To Rome.’

—2—

Baiae, Italy, March 15

The sunlight danced on the waters of the Bay of Naples. High above, a bright sun blazed in a cloudless blue sky; in the town below, light glimmered dazzlingly from the domed roofs of temples. The streets were empty of shoppers, and barely a shadow was visible. Beggars and stray dogs lay curled up in what shade remained, twitching wearily at flies. It augured a hot summer.

The wine shop was cool and shaded. Gaius Flaminius Drusus sat propped against the bar, sipping at his wine and gazing downhill at the lazily lapping waters. Spring flowers filled the air with their scent, almost drowning out the rank smell of spilt wine and cooking food. But the wine this establishment sold was anything but rank when fresh. In Baiae, playground of the richest Romans, everything was of the finest.

And the girl who served behind the bar was not the usual bar slattern Flaminius was accustomed to, in the bars of Rome or those noxious stews he had patronised while with the legions. How could an auxiliary tribune, seconded to the Praetorians but drummed out within a year, now living off a few savings, get by in such an atmosphere?

During a lull in his career brought about by the displeasure of the emperor himself—all in the line of duty! —he had prevailed on the hospitality of an old acquaintance from his days in the legions. Lucius Aemilius Karus had also been a tribune back then, though commanding the first cohort, not a mere troop of auxiliary horse like Flaminius; it had been the first step in the direction of a still elusive career as a senator. Now he was hankering after some official post, and after a recent inheritance he was celebrating lavishly in the famous resort while cosying up to more powerful men. And Flaminius had come visiting.

Truth to tell, they’d not been best of friends back in the good ol’ days of the late lamented Ninth Legion. But after Flaminius’ elevation to hero status on rescuing the emperor (before he embarrassed Hadrian with word of his imperial wife’s intrigues) Karus had thought Flaminius a man whose hand it was good to grease, and accordingly invited him over for Saturnalia. Flaminius had stayed all winter, keeping recent events very much under the rose while he sponged off the chinless wonder. A man had to live. Right now, the only alternative was his father’s farm up in the hills. After a few years of high adventure among the barbarian nations, he couldn’t face that.

Flaminius smiled at the girl. ‘Another wine, if you’d be so good,’ he said. She poured him one from an amphora, mixing it with honey and water as he watched.

Karus was visiting the villa of an older man, a senator whose patronage he hoped to earn. Growing bored sitting in the atrium reading scrolls and getting under the slaves’ feet, Flaminius had strolled into town. Out of season, and at noon, Baiae proved was as dull.

With a sigh, he returned to his aimless perusal of the street. A man was dismounting from a horse, having just ridden in from out of town. He wore the plumed helmet and red cape of a centurion, and looked out of place in this sybaritic setting. After hitching the beast to a nearby post, he turned round.

A shock of recognition ran through Flaminius. Gasping for breath, he ducked behind the pillar and peered out. The centurion was walking up the main street in his direction. No, not here! He was on leave, indefinite leave. Compassionate leave, after what had happened. He wanted nothing more to do with…

Today was a black day in the Roman calendar. The Ides of March.

The girl was looking at him quizzically. Two old men drinking morosely together on the far side—the bar’s only other clientele—were also watching.

He went to the bar. ‘Is there another way out of here?’ he asked urgently.

‘Through the kitchens,’ the girl said in surprise, pointing. ‘But… oh! You can’t go through there!’

Moments later he was in the alleyway at the back, angry shouts of the wine shop’s owner ringing in his ears. He looked left and right, chose right. In a matter of moments, he was on the main street out of town, heading up into the hills.

By the time he reached Karus’ villa, his hair was wet with sweat and he had a headache, maybe sunstroke. Stupidly, he’d left his hat in the bar. At least he’d got away. He took a dip in the pool to wash away the grime of the road, then went to the library to find something to read.

Karus returned later that afternoon, when it was cooler, carried into the main courtyard in a litter by slaves. Flaminius sat in the library drooping over a scroll.

‘There you are, old man,’ Karus said in a subdued manner. ‘What’s that you’re reading? Oh—The Wonders Beyond Thule! Thank Jove, I was worried it was some philosophical text.’ He gestured at the pigeon holes that honeycombed one wall. ‘My late father collected masses of them. Fearful rubbish. I think he even read some.’ He clapped his hands and a slave silently appeared through a drape. ‘Wine, for me and my guest. And some snacks before dinner.’

The slave returned soon after, and Flaminius sipped his wine with relish. One thing to be said for Karus, he kept an excellent cellar—or his late father had.

‘And how did you spend your day?’ Karus asked. ‘I was brownnosing powerful senators. A certain old man old enough to know better was drooling over me like I was a pretty slave boy.’

‘I did nothing very much.’ Flaminius helped himself to a plate of honey cakes scattered with sesame seed. ‘In the morning I popped into town, and in the afternoon I came back.’

‘My slaves reported that you looked agitated on your return,’ Karus commented. ‘Did you not have your usual success amongst the local married women?’

Karus was making a clumsy reference to an episode a few years back. ‘The lady you’re thinking of wasn’t the governor’s wife, she was his dancing girl. Besides, she’s... not around anymore…’ That memory was another reason why Flaminius had run that afternoon.

The slave returned. Karus scowled. ‘I didn’t summon you! Get out!’

‘Apologies, master,’ the slave lisped. He was an easterner, a Greek or a Syrian. ‘There is a visitor.’

‘Who wants to see me at this hour?’ Karus asked. A thought struck him and he sat up. ‘It’s not Senator Balbilus and his ghastly entourage?’

‘No, master,’ said the slave blandly. ‘It was a military man, a centurion. He gave his name as Junius Italicus. He wants to see your guest.’

‘Well!’ said Karus testily. ‘You didn’t tell me you’d be expecting visitors, Flaminius, old fellow. Sit down, sit down! The slave will show him in.’

‘Sorry,’ said Flaminius, sinking back down on the couch. ‘I didn’t expect any visitors. I didn’t give my location to Junius Italicus or anyone else.’

‘I suppose you’d better show him in,’ Karus told the slave, looking put out.

The slave vanished again, and returned shortly after with the beefy, red faced centurion who Flaminius had evaded in town. Junius Italicus now carried his plumed helmet under one arm. He saluted Karus and Flaminius.

‘Not wishing to intrude, sir,’ Junius Italicus told Karus, ‘but your house guest is wanted in Rome.’

‘Wanted in Rome!’ Karus said. ‘By Jove, it seems you’ve had a more successful day than I have, Flaminius, old fellow. Wanted in Rome!’

Resentfully Flaminius looked at Junius Italicus. ‘Is it the Chief?’

Junius Italicus nodded. ‘He wants you as a matter of some urgency, sir,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got a fresh horse for you.’

‘Thank you, I’ve already eaten,’ said Flaminius wryly.

‘No you haven’t!’ Karus said. ‘Unless you count those honey cakes. My slaves are preparing dinner! I insist you stay, and the centurion can too, if he takes off those boots.’

Junius Italicus gave him a humourless smile. ‘Thank you, sir, but the Chief insisted. We ride at once.’

‘Surely you can stay for the night,’ Karus complained. ‘It’s a week’s journey to the City!’

Junius Italicus tapped the lance-head brooch he wore on his cloak. ‘Not for the Commissary,’ he said. ‘We go the fastest route, with fresh horses at every waystation.’

Flaminius rose. ‘I’d better go, old friend,’ he told Karus.

Karus lay back on his couch and waved a petulant hand. ‘Well, if that’s how you feel about my hospitality! All the more nosh for me. Goodbye.’

No doubt he was glad to see the back of him. Flaminius followed Junius Italicus out of the villa. ‘Sorry to break up the party, sir,’ the centurion said. ‘But the Chief says it’s urgent. The procurator of Britain’s been murdered.’

‘How tragic. But what’s it got to do with me?’ Flaminius said, mounting. ‘I’m on indefinite leave, aren’t I?’ He frowned as Junius Italicus swung into his own horse’s saddle. ‘I see you got your own job back easily enough.’

Junius Italicus smiled, and Flaminius mounted the other horse. ‘It wasn’t that easy, actually sir,’ he called as they rode off down the gravel drive, leaving Karus’ villa behind them. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem to be doing pretty well for yourself.’ He indicated the villas that rose from magnificent gardens on either side of the track.

‘I have powerful friends,’ Flaminius replied. ‘Or at least acquaintances. Karus and I were never that close, but he’s the best connected chum I could turn to after that bad business in Hadrian’s villa. You and me both came out of it badly.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Why does the Chief want me?’

‘Says you’ve got the right experience,’ Junius Italicus replied. ‘You know the country.’

Flaminius cast his mind back to his days in Britain.

He’d met the Chief there, although Probus hadn’t been chief of anything back then, just a Commissary centurion attached to the Ninth Legion. It was less innocuous than it sounded; the Commissary itself was a front for an empire-wide spy network reporting only to the emperor. Now Probus was the Chief, running the whole operation. Flaminius had seen little of him since he’d made the mistake of uncovering a plot against the emperor by his own wife.

He tried to sound Junius Italicus out as they proceeded north along the Appian Way. But the centurion was evasive, seeming to know little except that Britain and its procurator’s murder would be involved.

Britain had been a cold, harsh world far beyond the pleasant confines of Flaminius’ Roman upbringing. Life had been cheap, betrayal common. Painted savages had been his friends, distinguished Roman citizens had become fierce enemies. The tribune had developed a fondness for the natives, but it all seemed like a dream now, fading, hazy.

A dream or a nightmare.

—3—

Rome, Castra Peregrina, 21 March

On reaching the suburbs of Rome, they went on foot up the Caelian Hill to the Castra Peregrina, main base of the Commissary. The camp squatted amidst tenement flats across the street from a station of the Watch, foursquare, grey, and implacable, like an outpost on the edge of Empire, not an administrative centre at its pulsing heart.

Junius Italicus led Flaminius across the deserted parade ground and down the winding passageways of headquarters until they reached a small, undistinguished looking office door. Junius Italicus knocked on this respectfully and stepped back.

‘Come,’ came a gruff voice. Flaminius found himself grinning from ear to ear. Junius Italicus announced him and showed him into the simple office within where Probus sat at the desk, looking up impatiently from a sheaf of reports. The Chief straightened in his chair, bald head gleaming in the lantern light.

‘Tribune,’ he said. ‘Thought you’d never make it. Sit down. Pour us some wine, Italicus, and get out.’

As the door closed behind the centurion, Flaminius sipped at the wine and winced. The fermented grape juice Probus drank tasted particularly sour after he’d had his palate spoilt rotten by Karus’ cellar. It might come in handy if he wanted to polish his sword blade…

‘What’s all this about?’ Flaminius asked. ‘The procurator of Britain’s been killed…’

‘Murdered,’ Probus confirmed. ‘Assassinated by Gaulish auxiliaries. The one who killed him wore this about his neck.’

He produced a small, oddly shaped stone. Flaminius inspected it gingerly. He looked up, shrugging.

‘A serpent’s egg,’ said Probus, his tone loading the words with strange significance.

Flaminius knew little about natural history but he recognised a pebble when he saw one. ‘I’ve heard some tall stories about snakes,’ he said, ‘My nurse used to tell me a story about how they ate children whole, gave me nightmares…But hatching from stone?’

‘They’re also known as druid’s stones,’ Probus said. Flaminius felt a chill. The druids. Again, he was cast back to his time in Britain. ‘This was found on the body of the auxiliary who murdered the procurator.’

‘This stone was found on his body?’ Flaminius frowned. ‘But what does that mean? And how did he come to die? Overzealous legionaries?’

‘Overzealous auxiliaries,’ Probus said grimly. ‘His commanding officer cut him down straight after he had dealt the procurator a mortal blow.’

He explained the events in some detail.

‘Isn’t that all a little suspicious?’ Flaminius said when the Chief had finished. ‘And the prefect died of poison—killed himself? He must have been implicated!’

Probus clapped slowly. ‘I knew I could trust you to state the obvious,’ he said. ‘The medic suggested a massive dose of atropine poisoning. Atropine is easy to come by, even in Britain. This was a plot, and both the killer and the prefect who killed him were in on it…’

‘If they died straight after,’ said Flaminius, ‘what did they have to gain?’

‘Did you learn nothing of the druids while you were in Britain?’ Probus asked. ‘Or were you too busy hunting and wenching?’

‘I remember the druids,’ said Flaminius with a shudder. ‘One died at my feet. Your agent, as I recall.’

Probus nodded. ‘One of our few successful attempts to infiltrate the druids,’ he said. ‘We still have no idea of how far their network spreads—Lugutorix wasn’t that highly initiated—but now it seems that Gaulish auxiliaries are involved, a troop attached to the Twentieth. Dumnorix’s Troop. You realise the implications?’

‘With Gaulish troops guarding the frontier?’ Flaminius said. ‘This giant garden wall the emperor’s building to keep barbarians out of his empire? Obviously it could be disastrous. In the words of the poet, who watches the watchmen? What’s happened to the rest of Dumnorix’s Troop?’

‘Confined to quarters,’ Probus said. ‘For the moment the late procurator’s personal guard is controlling that section of the frontier. A new procurator will be sent to replace the old one, and the auxiliaries are going to be investigated. We can’t have traitors guarding our frontiers.’

Flaminius examined the serpent’s egg, the druid’s stone. ‘What’s the purpose of this object?’ he asked.

Probus grunted. ‘Druids wear them for magical purposes. They’re supposed to make them able to win legal cases, and to go invisible.’

‘Invisible!’ Flaminius commented. ‘You mean this assassin thought no one would see him? Are these people mad?’

Probus pursed his lips. ‘The druids have many strange and terrible beliefs,’ he said. ‘As well as invisibility, they believe in the efficacy of human sacrifice. They also say, like the Pythagoreans, that death is merely the turning point in a long life. That if they die here they will be reborn in the Otherworld, that if they die in the Otherworld they will be reborn here.’

‘They think they’re immortal,’ Flaminius murmured. ‘No wonder they’re so willing to die. But what could they achieve by killing the procurator? He’s just an official. He runs the finances of the province. Now, if it had been the governor…’

‘Platorius Nepos was in Eboracum at the time,’ Probus said. ‘That stickler won’t risk his neck on the frontier. Still, it was rash of the procurator to venture into dangerous territory. And yet no one would have expected the auxiliaries of all people to murder him.’

‘No one would expect Gaulish auxiliaries to be druids in disguise,’ Flaminius replied. ‘I don’t understand this. Surely the druids were all killed years ago? Apart from a few holdouts in Caledonia and the like…’

‘Druidic rites were forbidden under Roman law in Gaul long ago,’ Probus agreed. ‘Roman citizens were banned from participating in them at first, then they were made illegal even for Gauls. But Gaul was never the centre of the druid cult. That was always Britain, and the British druids stirred up the Gauls to rebel against Rome. Rome and druidry have always been at odds. There’s human sacrifice, for a start… We Romans made it illegal long ago.’

‘It’s still permissible, according to the Twelve Tablets.’ Flaminius had studied law when he was a youngster. ‘Practisers of witchcraft who hex farmers’ crops are supposed to be sacrificed to Ceres.’

‘That’s all forgotten about now,’ said Probus. ‘Few people practise witchcraft in Rome these days. The druids are another matter; they’re devoted to the dark arts.’

‘You say “are”,’ Flaminius said. ‘But I thought they were all wiped out. You said Britain was their centre, yes. Even while Boudicca was rebelling against Rome—and who stirred her up in the first place, I wonder? —the governor was in Mona, slaughtering them all. That was the end of the druids. The only place where they still make trouble is Caledonia, but that lot have been no trouble since Hadrian avenged the Ninth Legion. Until now, the frontier’s been quiet.’

Probus nodded. ‘It’s revealing that these assassins should be Gauls rather than Caledonians. But the druids were not all killed, even in Gaul. The word was that when Rome burned, in Nero’s reign—a few years after the druids were slaughtered in their centre at Mona—the druids of Gaul prophesied a Gaulish empire that would rule the world.’

Flaminius laughed. ‘That’ll be the day. But you mean there were still druids in Gaul in Nero’s day? That’s not what I’d heard.’

Probus grunted. ‘A poor shadow of their former selves, meeting in secret in caves and at the heart of forests. There never was a Gaulish empire and there never will be; the Gauls are too poorly organised. But it hasn’t stop them from trying. They made one attempt while the empire was in anarchy after Nero’s suicide.’

‘You mean Civilis? But aren’t the Batavians German?’

Flaminius had not spent all his time in Karus’ library reading trash like The Wonders beyond Thule; he’d also brushed up on recent history. As a boy, his tutor had gone no further than the fall of the Republic, and Flaminius had learnt little about what had happened since. Now he knew much more, including the rebellion of Julius Civilis, the Batavian who took advantage of the anarchy that followed the death of Nero to raise the standard of revolt, but it seemed that Probus was privy to secrets known to few.

The Chief nodded. ‘Civilis drove out the legions from his homeland, and other German tribes like the Frisians joined in, but Gaulish auxiliaries led the revolt in Gaul as a whole. Veleda the witch—or was she a druidess? —prophesised success. But Vespasian put down the revolt. It was a failure. Now Gauls guard the frontiers of the empire, in Britain. Yet what was that Horace said about those who cross the sea? They change their sky but not their soul?’

Flaminius’ eyes widened. Probus had also been reading! He took a sip of wine.

‘Don’t you think you’re making too much of this?’ he asked. ‘Murder, druids—maybe! —it doesn’t spell rebellion to me.’

Probus pounded the desk. ‘Britain lies in the balance,’ he said. ‘While Hadrian was there, everything was quiet. But now he’s moved on to deal with the troubles in the East—where the locals give the druids a run for their money—is the worst time for a rebellion. We don’t want to lose Britain!’

Flaminius grimaced. ‘What do we want to keep the place for anyway?’ he asked. ‘It rains all the time, and the natives are distinctly unfriendly.’ Not all, he told himself. He wondered how Drustica was bearing up these days. ‘Let the druids have it if they like it that much!’

Probus shook his head. ‘We’ve already given up Mesopotamia,’ he said. ‘If we were to abandon Britain, it would be seen as a sign of weakness. Our enemies would sweep in. We’re no longer on the attack, conquering here there and everywhere. We’re on the defensive now, building fortifications to keep the barbarians out. If we relent and let Britain go, Gaul would be next. This prophecy of a Gaulish empire, I’m sure that’s at the back of it all. And after Gaul, Hispania. Germania… Italy!’

Flaminius hadn’t been entirely serious. ‘But what are we going to do about this murder?’ he asked.

‘What you are going to do,’ Probus told him, ‘is attach yourself to the retinue of the new procurator and escort him to the province. There you will investigate the murder and find out how the druids fit in, and precisely what they are plotting. There’s already an agent in place, who’ll make contact if necessary. The password is Phlegethon. But to begin with, certainly, you’ll be on your own. I know you can solve this mystery, if anyone can.’ He returned his attention to the documents on his desk.

‘Send your reports by imperial courier, using our new variant on the Caesar cipher,’ he added. ‘Farewell.’

—4—

Lugdunum, Gaul, 11 April

Three weeks later, Flaminius and Junius Italicus rode into the Gaulish town of Lugdunum. The journey had been uneventful, but Flaminius was filled with foreboding. He had happy memories of Britain from his days as a young tribune, but it was also the scene of slaughter, massacre, and treachery. Due to his Commissary work he’d escaped the decimation of his legion, but what he had heard filled him with horror. As for the druids, he had tangled with them in the past, too, if only peripherally; he was not looking forward to meeting them again. But as he entered the town, something else was troubling him.

The two agents dismounted and led their horses into the waystation courtyard. ‘When we bring our message to this senator…’ Junius Italicus began.

‘Not a senator,’ said Flaminius, rubbing at the aches and pains engendered by the ride. ‘A procurator is always of equestrian rank. And Lucius Julius Corvus is an equestrian.’

‘Very good, sir,’ Junius Italicus said respectfully. He went on. ‘When we bring our message to this equestrian, what then? Do we go straight to Britain by the quickest route?’

Flaminius shook his head. ‘I need to learn more about the post of procurator. Corvus and his entourage will go to the town of Londinium, where the procurator has his palace. We’ll accompany them on the journey and try to find out more. Why should auxiliaries, even ones suborned by the druids, assassinate the chief financial officer of the province? He has no military status, other than commanding a unit of guards. He has no religious significance, nothing that I can imagine druids would find interesting—only money, and surely holy men such as they,’ he grimaced sardonically, ‘would have no interest in filthy lucre.’

Waystation attendants hurried from the stables. Flaminius showed them his lance-head brooch and they led the horses away while another attendant ushered the duo towards the waystation building. Over a glass of rough wine, Flaminius and Junius Italicus discussed their next move.

‘Lucius Julius Corvus’ villa is on the edge of town,’ Flaminius said, ‘on the banks of the river. After we’ve rested we’ll go there and bring him his message.’

‘Do you think he’ll be happy to be posted to Britain?’ Junius Italicus asked. ‘Particularly in light of recent events?’

Flaminius shrugged. ‘It’s none of our business,’ he said. ‘Even if he refuses to take up the post, that’s for the imperial bureaucrats to sort out, not us. We’re just the messenger boys.’

When they rode out to the new procurator’s opulent villa, they learnt from his supercilious major-domo that he was out hunting in the forest. Cooling their heels in the atrium the imperial agents awaited his return.

Two hours later, they heard the clatter of hoofs from the peristyle garden. Shortly afterwards, into the atrium strode a tall man with a beard that would put the emperor’s to shame, and a nose so long that it made Flaminius’ classically Roman proboscis seem modest. A short fat man and a tall Gaulish woman in traditional dress accompanied him.

‘Visitors!’ the tall man said. ‘And from the emperor himself, by the look of you. How is His Imperial Majesty?’

‘Oh, really Corvus,’ said the tall Gaulish woman impatiently. ‘Finish your business and let us retire to the dining chamber!’

‘No, wait,’ said Corvus. His eyes narrowed. ‘This could be the message I was waiting for.’

After giving the curt salute he felt was most suited to a civilian, Flaminius handed Lucius Julius Corvus the message he had been nursing all through the long journey. As he did, he heard a raucous cawing sound and turned to see a large black raven, apparently tame, sitting on a perch beside a statue of Mercury.

Corvus snapped the seal, flipped the tablet open and hastily scanned the wax within. His eyebrows lifted. ‘My powers of prophecy have not departed me,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I knew that something would come up.’ He saw Flaminius staring at the raven. ‘Ignore my little pet!’ he said, then added to the bird, ‘You’ll have your meat in a moment, my poppet. The juiciest morsels from the boar we caught. We have something to celebrate, you and I, Lugus.’ He stroked the raven’s feathers and it preened itself.

Flaminius noticed a small, curiously regular scar between the man’s brows. He’d seen the same scar on other men. Come to think of it, there was one on Junius Italicus’ forehead. He’d have to ask the centurion about it. It could be significant.

The fat man had sat down on a nearby couch and was fondling the ears of a hunting hound. ‘Come on, Corvus, what’s the message? Another posting for you? Let’s hope it’s somewhere better than that Syrian outpost you were sent to last time.’

‘Oh, much better,’ said Lucius Julius Corvus. He grew solemn. ‘But here also is tragic news. The procurator of the province of Britain, one Appius Accius Pulcher, has been murdered! By mutinous auxiliary troopers in the north of the province!’

‘O, the times, O, the customs,’ commented the fat little man acerbically. ‘And this is what will be giving you the leg-up? You’ve been appointed as his replacement?’

‘Very good, Marcius Magnus,’ said Corvus. ‘It’s almost as if you had read the message beforehand.’

‘The message was sealed in Rome,’ Flaminius snapped.

Corvus laughed. ‘Only my little joke,’ he reassured the tribune. ‘It comes as no surprise that I should be called upon. I am highly skilled and experienced in such a role, although work has been sadly scarce recently.’

The tall Gaulish woman laughed. ‘Everyone knows you would be called for if a vacancy came up, Corvus.’

‘We are instructed to accompany you to the province, sir,’ Flaminius said. ‘When will you be leaving?’

‘I’m sure there’s no hurry,’ said Corvus. ‘What’s yer name?’ Flaminius introduced himself and his centurion. ‘There’s no hurry, tribune,’ Corvus repeated. ‘But are we to be accompanied by two messengers? Do you have messages to deliver in Britain, too? My, the emperor keeps you busy.’

Flaminius resented the idea. ‘We’re with the Commissary.’

This was greeted by a silence, broken at last by an impatient caw from Lugus. Flaminius had not really been hoping to impress them; he doubted civilians would appreciate how much power the Commissary wielded as imperial agents, but put out by Corvus’ attitude he felt the need to assert himself.

‘So,’ purred the Gaulish woman, her bold gaze flickering up and down Flaminius’ armoured form. ‘We’re to be fellow travellers, are we?’

‘How delightful.’ Corvus’ demeanour had changed entirely. ‘Please, take a seat. Food must be served.’ He called for the major domo. ‘And make up two spare rooms for our guests. If we are to be travelling together, we must get to know each other. No, no, I won’t hear of you staying in a draughty waystation when you have my villa at your disposal.’

His sudden hospitality was overwhelming.

During the following meal, Flaminius tried to gauge his host, and the two with him; Marcius Magnus, who was Corvus’ amanuensis, and the mysterious Gaulish woman, Epasias. They all seemed to be trying too hard, to his mind, but he had met provincial gentry before. In the last year or two he’d become accustomed to the manners of the City.

Junius Italicus was silent through the meal, overawed. ‘With respect, sir,’ he said, as they retired for the night. ‘With respect, you shouldn’t have said we belonged to the Commissary.’

Flaminius shrugged. ‘The new procurator should know who we really are. I also intend to announce myself to the governor, Platorius Nepos.’

‘Tread carefully, sir,’ Junius Italicus warned him. ‘Don’t trust anyone, that’s my advice.’

Flaminius was tired. ‘I never do,’ he said firmly, and closed his bedchamber door behind him.

He had learned to distrust people in his line of work, it was true. He had known unexpected betrayals in the past. Lying on the soft bed beneath silken sheets, he tried to get to sleep, but it evaded him for many hours.

The following morning, Corvus had had a change of heart. The new procurator spent much of the day putting his effects into order and preparing for the journey, which would take the best part of a month. He left his new guests in the care of his friends, and just before noon Flaminius found himself walking in the gardens with Epasias and her maid, a silent, elderly Gaulish woman.

‘How long have you known the procurator?’ the tribune asked her, trying to find common ground for conversation.

‘Since childhood,’ she replied, exuding a most discreet scent of oil of myrtle. Telinine unguent, if Flaminius was any judge. ‘I was his sweetheart. Of course, he had to marry a Roman woman for the sake of his career, but his heart was always mine.’ Corvus’ wife had died of fever after she had served her purpose and borne her husband a son, Epasias went on to explain, who was now serving as tribune in Judaea. Flaminius realised that she and Corvus were lovers.

He disapproved, not on moral grounds, but political. Carrying out such liaisons so publically and shamelessly could put the procurator in an awkward situation; it made him open to manipulation, but it wasn’t Flaminius’ place to say so. Instead he found himself saying, ‘That was convenient.’

Epasias gave him a frosty look, and her Gaulish accent became more pronounced. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Sorry,’ he said, mentally kicking himself.

They halted at the edge of the lawn, where a half-ruined temple stood. Beyond it the meadows and woods of the estate rolled towards the horizon. Only the smokes of Lugdunum on the skyline troubled the tranquil scene.

Flaminius had been too long in this line of work. Not everyone spent all their time poisoning people or up to their necks in intrigue—these were good, respectable people, if a little eccentric in their ways.

On returning to the villa with Epasias he got a better idea of how eccentric. The Gaulish woman’s attitude towards him had thawed a little as she led him through the herb garden and she pointed out the various plants that grew there and told him their uses, picking several with her long nailed fingers. In the middle was a large columbarium whose occupants filled the air with their gentle coos.

They returned through the kitchens, Epasias pausing to hand over herbs to the slaves preparing dinner and to chivvy them on to fresh effort. In the atrium, Corvus stood with Marcius Magnus before the statue of Mercury. Junius Italicus skulked nearby, looking uncomfortable. As Epasias turned, Corvus swung around eagerly.

‘There you are, my dear!’ For a moment, Flaminius thought the procurator was talking to him. Then Corvus caught his eye. ‘And our martial guest! I have decided that the most important part of our preparations, ere we embark for Albion’s white cliffs, is to sacrifice to Mercury for a good journey.’

‘Albion?’ Flaminius said. ‘I thought we were going to Britain.’

Corvus gave him a kindly smile. ‘I was being poetic,’ he explained, and summoned a slave to provide them all with drinks. ‘Albion is an old name for the isle of the Painted People.’

‘I see. What sort of sacrifice were you thinking of?’ Flaminius envisaged a libation or two, or an offering of fruit at a wayside altar.

Corvus put his hands behind his back and strutted up and down, his face creased with thought. ‘We shall make the offering in the old temple. It shall be to Mercury, god of travellers but also god of financial gain, and Rosmerta, his beneficent consort.’

Flaminius shared a puzzled look with Junius Italicus. He’d never heard of any Rosmerta. As far as he recalled, Mercury’s wife was called Larunda.

‘After all,’ Corvus added, ‘I hope that at journey’s end, we will find our time in Britain profitable.’

Accepting a glass of wine from the slave, Flaminius put it to his lips, glad of some way to conceal his expression. Everyone knew that public officials often used their postings to feather their own nests, but it was bad taste to speak about it so openly—particularly on being appointed procurator of a province.

They spent the rest of the day in preparations under Corvus’ peevish direction. Late that afternoon, a solemn procession departed the main building of the villa. Corvus led it, clad in his equestrian toga, with Lugus perched on his shoulder, producing occasional caws as they crossed the lawn. Epasias swept along behind him, wearing a stola of red linen, gazing around her with an oddly belligerent air, while Marcius Magnus waddled beside her, almost tripping over the folds of a toga too big for him. Flaminius and Junius Italicus brought up the rear.

‘What are we sacrificing, sir?’ Junius Italicus whispered in Flaminius’ ear.

Flaminius grinned. ‘I don’t know, but the way they drink in this place I should think we’ll be making a few more libations.’

Corvus could certainly put it away, even when preparing for a month’s journey. He never seemed to get drunk, either. Flaminius had done his duty as a guest, accepting several sacksful of wine, it seemed, and he was not strictly sober. He’d not had so much to drink since leaving Baiae.

‘I will say this, sir,’ Junius Italicus replied, ‘if it turns into an orgy, I for one will leave this place and walk all the way to Britain.’

They walked up the steps of the ivy clad temple Once, when Flaminius had been a boy and the family was visiting cousins in Rome, they had attended a religious festival at the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. He remembered how the hecatomb of oxen had been led up the steps, hung with garlands of flowers, their heads held high and proud, and how upset he had been to learn their fate. It hadn’t stopped him from enjoying eating some of the cooked flesh that was shared out among the spectators, but it had seemed unfair to him that the oxen should step so proud up the steps unaware that they were strolling into the slaughterhouse.

They halted in front of the images of Mercury—shown per Roman convention as a man in a winged helmet carrying a caduceus—and Rosmerta, a Gaulish woman carrying a horn of plenty. One thing puzzled Flaminius. Corvus had spoken of making a sacrifice, but no cattle, no sheep, had been brought with them. Not so much as a dove. But hanging from Corvus’ girdle was a long, wicked looking knife.

The procurator placed the knife on the altar after Epasias took the raven from him and bound its legs, wings, and beak.

‘O Mercury Cissonius, and ye, his consort the bountiful Rosmerta, we will soon embark on a long journey. Grant it be successful and peaceful, let us not be robbed or murdered by enemies, and let us profit from our efforts. In return, I consecrate to you this sacrifice.’

Corvus took the pet raven from Epasias’ hands and placed it on the altar, put his hands around his pet’s neck and wrung it like a scullion wringing the neck of a chicken. He dropped the carcase on the altar and then used the knife to cut open a vein from which blood dripped onto the marble surface. Junius Italicus watched with a disgusted expression. Marcius Magnus was licking his lips as if they were dry, and wiping the palms of his hands on his toga as he watched with unholy glee.

It was a bit much, to Flaminius’ mind. Animal sacrifice was one thing, if you could afford it. And he had watched the bloody slaughter in the beast shows in the arena avidly until the time he’d found himself on the receiving end (all in the line of duty), after which they seemed rather less fun. But killing a creature you’d tamed and fed and made a pet of?

The ceremony complete, they returned to the villa for dinner. Corvus came alongside Flaminius.

‘You seem shocked,’ the man said. ‘Lugus was dear to me, of course. I raised him from the egg. But the gods know the hearts of men, and for a sacrifice to work, it must be sincere. It must truly be a sacrifice.’

Epasias laughed condescendingly. Corvus swept on. Flaminius shared another look with Junius Italicus.

As far as Flaminius was concerned, if the gods even existed, they dwelt on a far higher plane than this world. Epicurus said they lived in eternal bliss, far from the miseries of men, and paid not the slightest attention to the thoughts in his heart. Corvus’ religion seemed to belong to a less sophisticated age. Some Romans would love it, traditionalists like his father, but Flaminius found it just a little disturbing. He looked forward to bidding these strange civilians farewell and returning to the more wholesome world of intrigue that constituted his livelihood.

‘You didn’t seem to enjoy the sacrifice earlier,’ Epasias remarked, chewing on a wing of Numidian chicken during the evening meal. Her couch was near Flaminius,’ and she seemed determined to strike up a conversation.

‘I was surprised, that’s all,’ he told her. ‘I thought the procurator doted on the bird! I had a pet mouse when I was a small boy. The farmyard cat caught it, and I was very upset.’

‘You’re too soft hearted for a military man,’ Epasias said with a laugh. ‘But you seem confused about the nature of sacrifice. Unsurprising, coming from Rome as you do. There, I understand, people do little more than pay lip service to the gods. Here in Gaul we are more devout.’

‘People used to believe that a man’s life could be bought by the sacrifice of another’s,’ Corvus observed, picking at a dish of salmon cooked in cumin. ‘If someone was ill, or risked his life in combat, he would offer up another man in his place, and the gods contented themselves with the sacrifice.’

‘Of course, no one believes that these days.’ Flaminius laughed. ‘All that ended years ago—in Gaul, at least.’

‘Who knows what lurks in people’s minds, sir,’ Junius Italicus said, speaking for the first time. ‘When I was in the Dacian Wars, the Gaulish auxiliaries took up headhunting again, like their forefathers in Caesar’s day. Some of the legionaries took it up, too. My old mate Claudius Maximus took King Decebalus’ head…We exterminated the Dacians in the end, of course. Strange days. Though I saw stranger things in Mesopotamia.’ Absently he rubbed at the scar in his forehead.

Corvus leaned across to Flaminius, and asked in an undertone: ‘Are you a Persian, tribune?’

Flaminius stared at him. What his host talking about now? ‘No, procurator,’ he said. ‘I’m a Roman citizen.’

Corvus’ eyes dimmed with disappointment. He turned to Junius Italicus. ‘You, centurion—you’re a Persian?’

Junius Italicus stiffened on his couch. His eyes darted as if he thought this the wrong venue for such a conversation. ‘I’m a Lion, sir.’

The others were embarrassed by the enigmatic interchange. Not dinner party conversation at all, Flaminius thought; whatever it was they were talking about. He felt excluded. Very rude. Time to change the subject. But the conversation grew darker. At last he made his excuses and went to his bed.

The next day at dawn the journey began. The slaves must have been busy all night packing the carts and carriages with the new procurator’s impedimenta, little of which had anything to do with his official position. Flaminius was amused to see that the pigeons from the columbarium had been brought along in cages. Their coos filled the air as the journey progressed.

—5—

Forest of the Carnutes, 27 April

Two weeks later they were riding through a forest. Following this road—Corvus said it would be quieter than the main road from Lugdunum—would take them ultimately to Gesoriacum, where they would make the crossing to Britain.

It was blowing a gale and there seemed to be a dismal feeling in the air. Epasias sat in the carriage with Corvus while the others rode on horseback. She was talking teasingly to Flaminius, who rode nearby, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. To his relief, the conversation faltered when a slave at the front came galloping back.

‘Men on horseback among the trees, master,’ he announced.

Corvus thrust his head out and glared at the man. ‘What’s so strange about that?’ he asked. The air hummed. ‘Don’t trouble me with trifling...’ He broke off as the slave flung up his hands.

Flaminius’ hair stood on end. As the slave fell from his horse he saw that it an arrow protruded from his face. The slave had been shot.

‘Bagaudae!’ Epasias shrieked from within the carriage.

‘Bagaudae?’ Flaminius repeated the unfamiliar word.

‘Robbers,’ Junius Italicus translated it. ‘We’d better investigate.’ He loosened the sword in his sheath, although he would have to dismount before he could use it effectively. Flaminius rested his hand on the pommel of his cavalry longsword and trotted forward.

The wind moaned through the trees.

Corvus started getting down from his carriage. ‘Tribune!’ he called, hand raised, looking down at the arrow pierced slave at his feet.

This was all they needed; a civilian thinking he could save the day. ‘Get back in the carriage, sir,’ he told the procurator. ‘We’ll deal with this problem. It’s our job.’

Flaminius gathered some of the more stalwart slaves and servants accompanying them, and gestured them to follow. They fanned out across the muddy track. Flaminius reached a turn where he could see deep into the forest.

The slave had been right. Visible in the green gloom, no more than two hundred yards from the edge of the track, armed men sat on pony back. They didn’t look like military men. The chances were high that they were robbers—bagaudae seemed to be the Gaulish word. But linguistics was not Flaminius’ chief preoccupation right now.

‘There!’ Junius Italicus pointed in the other direction. More dark mounted figures were waiting in the trees on the far side.

‘On both sides of the track,’ Flaminius commented. ‘If we continue, they’ll ride down on us.’

‘Why are they just waiting there?’ Junius Italicus said in frustration. ‘Why don’t they attack now? We could deal with them, you and me.’ He indicated the slaves at their back. ‘Even these lads can help.’

Flaminius was uneasy. ‘Don’t make any sudden moves. They’re just trying to intimidate us.’

‘Intimidate us!’ Junius Italicus snorted. ‘Them?’

‘Aren’t you going to do anything, master?’ asked one of the slaves, a Hispanian with dark, greasy hair and sallow skin.

‘If necessary,’ said Flaminius. He raised his voice. ‘No need for it to come to a fight if they’ll just go on their way quietly. They don’t want to meddle with two Praetorians.’

The slaves gazed at him and his companion. ‘You’re Praetorians, master?’ someone asked in awe.

Flaminius glanced at Junius Italicus. ‘Well, ex-Praetorians,’ honesty demanded he say.

Still the men stayed under the trees. They outnumbered Flaminius and his companions, and they were better armed than the slaves.

‘It’s as if they’re waiting for something,’ Junius Italicus remarked.

A shriek rang through the forest.

—6—

It came from back down the track, the direction of Corvus and the carriage. But it wasn’t Corvus shrieking. It sounded like a woman.

‘Epasias,’ he surmised.

Junius Italicus cursed. ‘These robbers were just here to distract us.’ The men among the trees were advancing at a walk. As another cry rang out, the centurion tugged at the reins of his horse. ‘We’d better get back!’

‘Alright, centurion,’ Flaminius said calmly. He turned to the frightened slaves. ‘Withdraw to the carriage. But no running!’ he added in a bellow as several slaves dropped the clubs they’d been carrying and sprinted back around the corner.

He sawed at his reins and followed by Junius Italicus, and the braver slaves including the Hispanian, keeping watch on the advancing bagaudae as they went.

They came around the corner to see the slaves who had run standing stock still. More scruffy men on ponies surrounded the rest of the cavalcade, and one of them—a man in a helmet—was threatening a terrified Marcius Magnus with a spear.

Even as Flaminius’ hoofs splashed through a muddy puddle, Corvus opened the door of the carriage, wearing the hood of his cloak up for warmth. Behind him Epasias sat, looking perfectly composed. Flaminius realised that the source of the high-pitched shrieking had been Marcius Magnus.

‘Corvus!’ the tribune shouted. ‘Get back in the carriage!’

But as Junius Italicus and the rest of the slaves joined Flaminius, the procurator stepped down from the carriage. He dropped his hood.

A murmur ran through the assembled bagaudae. The one with the spear snatched it back. Sawing at his reins, the bagauda rode from the scene so hastily his helmet fell from his head. It was ridden over by his fellows as they followed him into the trees.

The thudding of their hoofs died away. Only the moaning of the wind was audible. Distantly, like an echo, came the sound of the other bagaudae riding away.

Fastidiously, Corvus replaced his hood and retreated into the carriage, slamming the door behind him. Epasias spoke to him at length in what Flaminius took to be Gaulish. Marcius Magnus had fainted in his saddle, and two of the slaves went to revive him.

Dismounting, Junius Italicus went to investigate the mud where the riders had galloped off into the trees. He picked something up and placed it under his cloak.

Corvus thrust his head out of the window again. ‘Drive on,’ he told the slave who drove the carriage.

Flaminius rode alongside Junius Italicus.

‘That was a narrow escape,’ the centurion remarked.

Flaminius couldn’t work out if he was being sarcastic. ‘Looks like those bagaudae just didn’t like the procurator’s face. What was it that you picked up from the mud?’

Junius Italicus lifted his cloak to reveal the helmet the lead bagauda had been wearing. ‘Military issue,’ he said, ‘on the Gaulish pattern. This is the kind of helmet worn by Gaulish auxiliaries.’

They rode on in the direction of the Roman road.

Flaminius let the implications sink in. The previous procurator had been murdered by Gaulish auxiliaries. Now a murder attempt had been made on his replacement, by Gaulish bagaudae, at least one of whom was a Gaulish deserter, or had obtained his armour from an auxiliary quartermaster, one way or the other.

Or had he been a genuine auxiliary? Had they all been auxiliaries, disguised as bagaudae? In which case, whose orders were they acting on? Had the same mastermind been at the back of the murder of Appius Pulcher? Yet the evidence—the serpent’s egg—suggested that druids had been responsible. And that surely meant the Caledonians.

He remembered his earlier service in Britain. The Caledonian druids had been at the back of everything. But they had been conspiring with the governor, Quintus Pompeius Falco, aiding him in his attempt to seize the empire. Falco was now proconsul of Asia, having apparently renounced the conspiracy. He had only been a pawn, so it was unlikely he was connected with anything happening in Britain now. As for the other conspirators, whoever they really were, they seemed to have no real interest in Britain, only in the empire as a whole. No, this new business seemed to be confined to druids and Gaulish auxiliaries.

Gaul had once been under the sway of druidic superstation, but surely that was all in the past. Probus, though, had said something about druids meeting in forest groves. Had the bagaudae who’d attacked them been druids?

Coming out onto the Roman road they rode north, up a river valley.

Flaminius nervously studied the wooded heights on either side. After a quarter of a mile a patrol of legionaries marched past, going the other way. The centurion leading them returned Flaminius’ salute smartly, and also saluted Corvus. Although the latter was a civilian, only a man of high office would be travelling along a Roman road with a military escort.

Surely no bagaudae, druids, or deserters would be so bold as to attack them on a busy highway such as this. But Flaminius felt ill at ease until they rode into the courtyard of a waystation at the end of the day’s journey. He breathed a sigh of relief as the gates closed behind them.

Later, relaxing in the bathhouse of the waystation, he nerved himself to ask Corvus about the attack.

‘Why did they turn and run when you got out of the carriage?’ he asked.

Corvus was rising from the cold plunge bath when Flaminius addressed him. The new procurator was by no means a fine figure of a man, resembling a gladiator gone to seed. He smiled superciliously at Flaminius and led the tribune into the sauna. They sat down on a stone bench and allowed the steam to open their pores. Marcius Magnus was already there, sweating profusely. He greeted them with a flap of the hand but said nothing.

‘I suppose they simple recognised my authority,’ Corvus mused.

‘Who’s that?’ Marcius Magnus asked. Corvus explained. The clerk shuddered and his flaccid body wobbled. ‘The entire business was terrifying,’ he declared. ‘No wonder I prefer to stay in one place. Why can’t you get a more stable career, you old fool, instead of dragging me the length and breadth of the empire?’

Corvus laughed as if it was all a joke, and slapped the clerk on his flabby back, but Marcius Magnus looked indignant.

‘My centurion thinks they may have been deserters,’ Flaminius added.

Corvus’ head snapped up and he stared at Flaminius.

‘Deserters?’ he said. ‘You mean legionaries?’

Flaminius shrugged. ‘Or auxiliaries,’ he said. ‘Gaulish auxiliaries.’

‘Why would Gaulish auxiliaries, deserters or not, take to the forest and live as bagaudae?’ Marcius Magnus asked.

‘Why would Gaulish auxiliaries murder the procurator of the province of Britain?’ Flaminius countered.

Corvus’ eyes narrowed. ‘A good question, tribune,’ he said finally. ‘One I intend to ponder—in the hot baths.’

He strode from the sauna.

For the next few days travelled north across Gaul. The road took them into the heartland of the province, then down to the coast, which they reached after a little over a week of travelling. In Gesoriacum they took to the waters, crossing the ocean in a galley rowed by slaves. After a day’s sail they entered the estuary of the Tamesis, one of the three great rivers of Britain. The journey by ship was luxurious compared with any Flaminius had previously experienced, but as they disembarked in the rain soaked town of Londinium their reception was magnificent.

—7—

Londinium, Britain, 13 May

Flaminius stood in the prow with Corvus and his coterie—except for Epasias, who was below, still suffering from the seasickness that had assailed her when they came aboard. Pilot boats guided them to the wharf on the north bank. Through the rain that hissed down, he saw a sizeable settlement, above which curled smoke from many cooking fires and hearths. It was a few years since he had last been here, and signs of new building were on every side.

Although of lesser importance than the provincial capital, Camulodunum, Londinium was of tactical significance due to its central position in the road network; this was why the procurator’s palace had been built here, a short walk from the wharf where their galley moored. But to get there they had to pass a welcoming committee.

At the bottom of the gangplank, a fussy little man in a drenched equestrian toga came to meet Corvus and spoke to him earnestly in an undertone. As he led them all up from the muddy wharves, there was a flourish of trumpets. Legionaries in best dress uniform lined the street, their armour and weaponry gleaming despite the rain. Crowds of civilians stood outside the pillars and porticoes of a massive basilica.

A man in tribune’s uniform came forward and shook the procurator’s hand vigorously, shaking off drips as he did so.

‘Welcome to Londinium, sir,’ he said, wiping rain from his face. ‘I’m Vibius Metellus, newly promoted commander of your personal guard. We came down from the Wall when we heard you were on our way. You find the town amid renovation, as I’m sure your subordinate’—he glanced at the fussy little man— ‘has explained. Before he left, His Imperial Majesty initiated a series of important building programmes.’ Metellus’ face grew sombre. ‘I only wish I could greet you under happier circumstances.’

Corvus stared at him in puzzlement. ‘Oh! You mean the murder of my predecessor? Yes, a tragic event. Shall we go inside?’

Metellus went on, regardless of the rain. ‘Investigations are being made into the guards’ conduct. I may assure you that now I have taken command, after my predecessor’s dismissal, discipline is paramount. We still don’t know why the assassins struck. Dumnorix’s Troop has been confined to barracks for the moment, and the governor is awaiting the arrival of an official investigator from Rome.’

Flaminius saluted soggily. ‘Tribune Flaminius,’ he introduced himself, ‘of the Commissary.’

Metellus didn’t salute. The Commissary was feared and distrusted by the few Romans who had heard of it. No one liked a spy, Flaminius thought wryly.

‘Platorius Nepos is himself on his way south,’ Metellus said, returning his attention to Corvus, ‘to meet you, sir, and consult with you on your role in the province. In the meantime, I’m to take you to your palace. Please follow me.’

The guards fell into step behind the procurator as they passed down the street. Flaminius remembered Londinium as an undistinguished town, but everywhere they went he saw signs of the emperor’s renovations; new temples, new palaces—just like Augustus in Rome, Hadrian had found Londinium brick and left it marble.

They halted at the gates of a large palace on the banks of a stream. A huge column lifted high above the streets, bearing a bronze statue of Hadrian. Flaminius glanced up at the larger than life countenance, which stared coldly northwards over the sea of dripping red tiled roofs and shivered, remembering his only encounter with the most powerful man in the world. A crucified convict hung from a tall wooden cross, but his head was bowed, as if in reverence to the imperial statue. A crow stood at one end of the cross, speculatively eyeing its still living burden.

Metellus led them into the courtyard of the palace, where slaves greeted them and took them to quarters that had been prepared for them. A few hours later, dry, washed and refreshed, Flaminius joined the procurator and his entourage for dinner.

‘There you are, old fellow,’ said Corvus as Flaminius took his couch and washed his hands in ice water provided by a slave. ‘We were just discussing your investigation. I thought the Commissary concerned itself with nothing more exciting than procuring grain for the legions!’

Flaminius looked startled. ‘I’d prefer it if you’d not talk about it,’ he said. ‘Tongues wag and walls have ears.’

Epasias laughed throatily. ‘Such suspicious minds you must develop, working as an imperial agent.’

Corvus gnawed delicately at a fowl. ‘We have news of the governor. Platorius Nepos is at Camulodunum. No doubt he will reach Londinium presently. Once he has briefed me, you may return with him to the Wall and begin your hush-hush investigations.’

‘I’d like to speak with your guards first,’ Flaminius said. ‘Which of them was present when the murder took place?’

Corvus stared at him. ‘My dear fellow, it’s no use asking me,’ he said. ‘All I could tell you is that my predecessor left the accounts in an appalling state. Talk to Metellus. He’s just over there.’

The tribune looked up. ‘Ah, the Commissary agent,’ he said. ‘Speak to Centurion Aquila. He was present at the procurator’s death, and he questioned the auxiliaries, for all the good it’s done. None of them provided any useful intelligence even under torture.’

‘I hope to use more effective methods,’ Flaminius said.

Metellus shrugged. ‘They are under guard up in Onnum.’

‘On the Wall?’ Flaminius asked. ‘Very well, my centurion and I will accompany the governor when he returns.’ It would be quicker if he went north straightaway, but reporting to Platorius Nepos would be diplomatic.

‘Your centurion interests me strangely,’ Corvus commented.

‘Junius Italicus?’ Flaminius hadn’t thought the procurator deigned to notice non-commissioned officers. ‘Do you want to speak to him? I think he’s staying in the camp.’

There’d been no fortress in Londinium the last time he’d passed through; now there was one northwest of the stream. It lay beyond the amphitheatre, which had been rebuilt in stone since Flaminius’ last visit; both innovations were Hadrian’s work.

‘He and I have something in common,’ Corvus went on in mysterious tones. ‘We are both soldiers.’

Flaminius was baffled. Junius Italicus was a soldier, no doubt of it, but Corvus wouldn’t last ten seconds in the legions.

‘I see your confusion,’ Corvus added, with a laugh. ‘You’ve not been out East, unlike your centurion and me. There are mysteries out there. Mysteries I would wish to share with you.’

‘Do you think that’s wise?’ Epasias hissed.

Flaminius looked from one to the other. There was a mystery here, alright. And he was determined to fathom it. What connection it had with the death of the previous procurator he would only learn when he found the clue to lead him through the labyrinth. But what did Junius Italicus have to do with it? Probus trusted him. Flaminius trusted him. The centurion had nothing to do with Corvus and his eccentric coterie. Or had he?

‘I think it’s very wise,’ Corvus said. ‘I’m sure Flaminius would make a good soldier.’

‘I’ve been with the legions a few years now,’ Flaminius said. ‘I’ve had my ups and downs, but I think my commanding officer is the one to decide if I’m a good soldier or not.’

Corvus smiled. ‘A soldier,’ he said, eyes bright, ‘of the Lord.’

‘The Lord? Lord who?’

‘The Lord of Light, of course,’ said Metellus suddenly. He too had the same scar on his forehead—the one shared by Junius Italicus and the procurator. Were they all in on this, whatever it was? The tribune reached over and shook Corvus’ hand in a comradely manner.

‘I don’t understand,’ Flaminius said. He felt that they were making a fool of him, and he resented it.

Corvus laid a soft hand on his shoulder. ‘Very soon,’ he assured him in a murmur, ‘you will do. You’ll be sent for, in the first watch of the night, and all will become clear to you.’ He looked over at Metellus. ‘You will join us, Brother Soldier?’

The tribune of the guard nodded. ‘It’s time our brother was enlightened.’

For the rest of the meal Flaminius was silent. What was happening? Would he really have the secret divulged to him? He would learn why the last procurator had been murdered... or would he? As soon as possible, he made his excuses and retired to his chamber. Here he entertained himself with a copy of Petronius’ Satyricon which he’d found in the palace library misfiled under ‘Virgil.’ As he read it, he was filled with genuine regret for having left Baiae before the season started.

He woke suddenly. It was dark, and outside the rain still hissed down. He lay fully clothed across his bed, the scroll beside him. On his desk his candle had burnt down to the merest flicker. What had awoken him?

A dark shape momentarily blotted out the gleam from the shuttered window and crouched down at his side.

‘Sir?’ It was Junius Italicus’ hoarse voice. ‘Sir, I’ve been asked to take you there.’

‘Where?’ Flaminius said groggily. ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘The mystery, sir,’ the centurion whispered, rising as Flaminius sat up. ‘You’ve got to learn the truth. Come with me, sir.’

‘What’s going on?’ Flaminius demanded. The centurion’s face was grim in the guttering light.

‘I can’t say, sir,’ he said. ‘Put this on.’ He thrust something into Flaminius’ hands. It looked like a hood. Flaminius pulled it on to discover that it covered his eyes.

‘I can’t see,’ he objected.

‘I’ll guide you, sir,’ Junius Italicus promised.

The hood stank of stale vomit. Hands grasped him by the arms—not Junius Italicus, there must be someone else in the room—and he was urged down a flight of steps.

He stumbled blindly out into the cold, rain-soaked night, hearing his feet crunch on gravel and splash in puddles, feeling the rain drench his clothes. On either side and from up ahead, he heard splashing footsteps.

The voices echoed, the rain cut out, and the cold grew intense. They had gone indoors again—or underground.

They halted. Silence fell. In the distance, Flaminius heard a drip of water, a crackle of fire and muted chanting. A pungent, heady aroma drifted through the rough weave of the stinking hood. Where were they?

Someone tore the hood from his face. Blinking in the ruddy light of torches, Flaminius looked around him. He was standing in a cold, gloomy chamber. Starlight filtered in from behind him; ahead, seemingly down a long tunnel, yellow light was visible.

Dark figures surrounded Flaminius, each with a cowl covering its face. Another cowled figure beckoned to them, and Flaminius was bundled forward.

The figure led them down a stone stairway. They came out into a high-vaulted cave, its walls illuminated by many flickering candles. Cowled figures lined the walls. Distant sounds of chanting beat upon the tribune’s mind like surf on a desert shore. A short flight of steps led down to another level. Beyond this, a metal grille lay in the floor.

Flaminius heard a lowing sound, and turning he saw a bull snorting amidst a group of masked men in priest’s robes.

The cowled men urged Flaminius and his companions forward. Each was taken across the grille towards an altar on the far side of the subterranean chamber. Two men in gorgeous purple robes stood beside it. A statue of a young man wearing a Phrygian cap stood behind the altar, wrestling a bull to the ground.

The cowled figures chanted in some arcane tongue. A purple-robed man stepped forward, bearing a chalice. He put it to Flaminius’ lips.

‘Blood of Mithras,’ the high priest whispered.

Flaminius sipped, and tasted not blood but fine wine, spiced and strangely tangy. The high priest moved to each of the others, his companion following behind. This man handed Flaminius a small, flat, piece of unleavened bread.

‘Body of Mithras,’ he said in a hoarse voice, and moved on.

When all had been given the bread and wine, one of the cowled figures beckoned them forwards. Flaminius’ mind felt muzzy from the incense and the wine, and his head was pounding. His body was drenched in sweat, and the coppery scent of blood was rank in his nostrils. A warm, golden haze seemed to creep in on the edge of his vision.

Unresisting, he and the others followed the cowled man down the steps into a pit, lit only by light from the grille above. Here the cowled man took their cloaks and tunics from them, and they stood with their torsos bare.

The metal grille shuddered and creaked above them. Flaminius looked up to see the masked priests leading the bull onto the lattice. The purple clad man produced a pole axe and approached the beast. The next thing Flaminius knew, a rain of hot, sticky blood was pouring down through the grille.

It gushed down as the bull lurched to its knees, then toppled with a crash onto the metal grille. The blood bathed the unmoving men. They were drenched in gore now, and it mingled with their sweat to run in rivulets down their bare skin. The pounding in Flaminius’ head grew louder.

He seemed to glimpse a world beyond the darkness of the torch-lit pit. Superimposed on the gloom was a sea of trees, tossing and trembling in an unfelt breeze, extending on all sides. Figures moved among the trees, dark figures that turned to gaze towards Flaminius.

The pounding in his head grew beyond bearing…The distant chanting reached a crescendo…

The silence of early morning weighed down on Flaminius like an unbearable burden. He sat at the top of the steps to the palace cellars where he had been initiated into the cult of Mithras, the blood and sweat cooled and sticky on his skin. The raven brand in his forehead was now no more than a dull, throbbing ache. His mind was filled with images from the night, but now he gazed out at a brilliant new dawn, seeing for the first time the vibrant colours of the houses and the trees and the great blue vault of the heavens. He felt more at peace than he could remember being since early childhood.

He had thought that he was going to learn the truth about the assassination. He had only accompanied Junius Italicus with that in mind. But instead he had been initiated into a mystery cult. His father had always spoke against such things: What need had good Roman citizens for the mysteries of Eleusis, or to peer pruriently beneath the veil of Isis? It was positively indecent! Rome had the gods of Rome, and that was all it ever needed. This enthusiasm for the gods of the Greeks and the barbarians would only spell trouble.

Flaminius felt exhausted, and not just because he could hear his father’s carping voice in his mind. What had they put in that wine, hemp? Poppy juice? Absently he picked clots of oxblood from his hair.

‘Now you know.’ Junius Italicus sat down beside him. He grinned at his superior officer as if they were equals. ‘Now you’re one of us.’

‘I thought I was going to learn why Pulcher was killed,’ Flaminius said.

Junius Italicus laughed. His usually affable expression was replaced by one of zeal. ‘Something far more important,’ he said. ‘You’re one of us, now, even if you’re not a soldier yet. You’re still a Raven.’

Flaminius fingered the unhealed brand in the flesh of his forehead. Junius tutted like a nursemaid, pulled his hand away, and inspected it closely.

‘You’ll heal,’ he said. ‘Just don’t poke at it.’

Mithraism was a new cult in the west, having grown in popularity since Trajan’s abortive invasion of Mesopotamia. Although it had its roots in the dry desert soil of Persia, it preached manly virtues, and loyalty to the king of kings, or the emperor in their case.

Now Flaminius knew that his former suspicions about Corvus were wrong. The procurator could hardly belong to this cult and have seditious inclinations. In recent years Flaminius had learnt to suspect everyone. He’d had reason to. People he’d thought close to him had betrayed him. But now he was part of the cult, he had friends. He had a friend in Mithras. He had a friend in Junius Italicus, if he hadn’t before. He had a friend—Jove help him! —in Lucius Julius Corvus.

The mystery the procurator had hinted at was explained. Flaminius was enlightened. But the true mystery had yet to be solved.

He turned and, like Hadrian’s bronze statue, stared north.

—8—

‘This man Corvus,’ the governor barked, leaning back in his chair, ‘is he sound?’

Aulus Platorius Nepos was an intolerant man with a rasping voice. Black eyes glowered at Flaminius from beneath bushy eyebrows. He wore a silvered cuirass and military belt, and a serviceable-looking, unornamented short sword hung at his hip.

When the governor had arrived in Londinium that morning, he’d been closeted with Corvus for several hours. Now, when Flaminius was feeling like some lunch, he had summoned him to his office in the basilica and started questioning him closely.

‘I’m sure he has a fine financial mind,’ Flaminius replied blandly.

Thin-lipped, Platorius Nepos shook his head. ‘Not what I asked. Is the man sound? Never met him before. Seems an odd fish.’

Flaminius pursed his lips. ‘He has some eccentric ideas.’

‘In what way?’

Flaminius shrugged. ‘Obsessed with a foreign cult he took up with, out east.’

He stopped himself from rubbing the healing scar in his forehead. When the priest had pressed the metal brand with its raven shaped tip into Flaminius’ forehead, he’d felt no more than a brief sting. Now that it was scabbed over, it was quite painful.

Platorius Nepos grunted. ‘Fellow’s pious, that’s all. Should be more of it about. If fewer people ignored the laws of the gods, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

Flaminius forbore from asking which particular mess the governor meant. Platorius Nepos was one of the old guard, and saw anything new as a sign of terminal decadence. He reminded Flaminius of his father, although his attitude towards religion was more liberal.

‘Very well,’ Flaminius said, ‘but speaking as an imperial agent, cults are a worry. Too many of them are a front for political movements.’

Platorius Nepos laughed. ‘You think he’s got friends pulling the strings? That’s what all this piety’s about? Could be. But everyone needs friends in high places if they’re to get on; gods or consuls; that’s what politics is about. Must be the case with you, young fellow, to have got so far so fast.’

He peered thoughtfully at Flaminius’ raven brand.

‘I ought to be concentrating on what happened up by the Wall,’ Flaminius said. ‘When will you be returning?’

‘I’m not staying long,’ the governor said. ‘There’s nothing to concern me down here, now I’ve sounded out the new procurator. His Imperial Majesty left Britain very peaceful. What trouble there is is up north, and where trouble goes, there go I.’

He said the last in mock dramatic tones, and rose to shake Flaminius’ hand.

‘And will the procurator be accompanying us to the Wall?’ Flaminius asked.

Platorius Nepos puffed his cheeks out. ‘He’ll stay in the south, where it’s safe. The Wall’s a dangerous place—particularly for procurators, it seems,’ he added with a sardonic chuckle. Flaminius echoed it half-heartedly. ‘Glad to have had this chat,’ the governor added, showing him out.

Flaminius walked towards the camp gates. As he turned a corner, he met Junius Italicus with a group of centurions. He stopped him and as the other centurions walked on repeated what the governor had said.

‘So we’ll be heading north in the next few days.’

Junius Italicus leaned forward and examined the scab on Flaminius’ forehead.

‘Don’t do that,’ Flaminius snapped, uncomfortable.

‘Sorry sir,’ Junius Italicus said.

Flaminius frowned at him. ‘Walk with me,’ he said, and the centurion obeyed.

‘Do you really believe?’ he asked as they passed out of the gate and walked towards the town. Nearby, several buildings were under construction.

‘Sir?’ Junius Italicus said blankly.

Flaminius picked a clot of bull’s blood from the hair at the back of his neck. ‘Mithras.’

The centurion said nothing for a moment. Then he said, ‘Mithras has been a friend to me. I wouldn’t have got where I have in life if I hadn’t become his follower, out there, out in Syria during the Mesopotamian campaign.’

Flaminius had never had much time for religion. It was a part of daily life, but his experience of it mainly involved standing around until his feet hurt while some bigwig shed an animal’s blood.

‘It seems wrong to be following a god of the Parthians,’ he added. ‘They’re our enemies.’

Junius Italicus shook his head. ‘There’s only one god,’ he explained. ‘He’s higher than all nations and empires, though he has different names and different faces. All he asks is that men are men, and that they are loyal.’

‘Loyal to who?’

‘To each other,’ the centurion said. ‘To each other—and to the ruler, who is divinely appointed.’ He smiled. ‘You worry too much, sir. The cult of Mithras is on our side. It’s the druids we need to worry about.’

Junius Italicus was right. It was of little or no consequence that the legions were riddled with worshippers of this eastern god. But if the Gaulish auxiliaries were secretly followers of the druids, that mattered. They had killed the procurator.

Walking down the streets of this peaceful, thriving town, beneath the pillar bearing Hadrian’s statue, Flaminius knew that he would never find the answers here. As they crossed the stream on a wooden bridge, he followed the statue’s gaze.

To the north.

Two days later, as the rain fell again, the governor set out for the Wall. Flaminius and Junius Italicus joined the long cavalcade of legionaries, auxiliaries, and imperial personnel as they left the suburbs of Londinium and tramped out into the countryside.

Departing the procurator’s palace that morning, after a fulsome farewell from Corvus, the tribune had noticed a familiar female figure in the courtyard. Having seen nothing of Epasias over the last day or two, he’d been surprised that she was not with the procurator when he came to bid farewell.

‘You go to the North?’ she asked as he saluted her.

Flaminius nodded. ‘I may not see you again, ma’am,’ he said. ‘It’ll be strange after having spent so much time together on the journey, but duty calls.’

She caught his forearm and looked deep into his eyes. ‘And duty is very important to you.’ She reached out a gentle forefinger to touch the crusted scab on his forehead. Flaminius wished people would stop doing that. ‘I can see that. I can see you are… devoted.’

Flaminius frowned. ‘You shouldn’t know anything about that.’ The mysteries of Mithras were forbidden to women; he knew that much even as an initiate of only a few days’ standing.

She smiled mysteriously. ‘About what?’ she said. ‘All I know is that I see a man who is loyal to his superiors and follows orders. That’s good. That’s admirable. I hope that we will become better acquainted one of these days.’

‘I would enjoy that, ma’am,’ he said, thinking it unlikely.

He heard a noise from behind him and turned to see Marcius Magnus watching them both from a doorway. He turned and vanished inside.

‘Magnus has got the best idea,’ said Flaminius. He was trying to make light of it, although he didn’t much like being spied upon. No professional likes to see their work usurped by amateurs. ‘I must be leaving, and you’d better get inside. It looks like it’s going to rain.’

She lifted the hood of her Gaulish cloak and settled it more firmly over her face, so her features almost vanished. Then she turned and without speaking walked away.

Flaminius found Junius Italicus waiting for him on the parade ground where the rest of the governor’s staff were assembled. He had horses for both of them.

‘And Rome wants to keep hold of this country!’ Flaminius indicated the rainclouds. He mounted the horse and waited for the order to set out.

The journey took several days. Although they travelled by Roman road rather than native trackway, they were impeded by the weather, which did not improve, and had resulted in flooding in various parts of the country.

It was a week before they trotted into Eboracum, the camp at the heart of the Brigantian country. Here Platorius Nepos had business to attend to and court cases to hear, and they were delayed a couple of days.

—9—

Eboracum, Britain, 223 AD, June 1

On the morning of the second day, Flaminius decided that he and Junius Italicus would continue alone, and went down to the governor’s headquarters to communicate this. As he passed a small grove of crucified felons—he was starting to understand how the emperor had restored order to this province—he had a surprise encounter.

‘Gaius!’ said the stormy faced woman striding from the governor’s office. ‘By Taranis, is it you? You’ve changed!’

He stared at her, mouth open in amazement. ‘So have you!’ he said finally, not quite sure what he was saying.

The last time he’d seen Drustica was in this very camp, when she parted from him to return to her tribe, the Carvettians. He remembered the time they had shared together, how she and some of her tribesmen had accompanied him on the hectic journey to Hadrian’s villa. Here she was, only a few years older, but she had utterly changed.

She affected Roman clothes, a toga that she wore poorly (ladies back in Rome wore stolae), and a long cloak. Her fair hair was primped in a Roman hairstyle, as if she had just come from an upmarket hairdresser. She seemed somehow taller, prouder—she’d never been precisely humble—but angry. But not angry to see him. She spread her arms out to welcome him, but when he paused, a little embarrassed despite himself by this show of affection in the middle of a military establishment, she frowned.

‘I suppose you have a woman in Rome now,’ she said, her icily attractive face set in a disapproving scowl. ‘I know Romans take only one woman. A… wife, is it?’

Among the northern tribes, relations between men and women were openly scandalous (unlike Rome, where all the scandal went on in secret); men owning women in common was how one writer described it, but no one had ever owned Drustica. She had given Flaminius her heart, but he had tactfully avoided an entanglement that could have compromised his career.

He shook his head. ‘I have no wife. There was someone, but… She’s with the shades now.’

Drustica’s face softened. ‘I too have lost much since we last met,’ she told him. ‘And gained much too,’ she added with a nervous laugh, twirling coquettishly to show off her Roman outfit. ‘Does it suit me?’

‘I preferred the barbarian warrior woman,’ Flaminius said wryly. ‘Look, we can’t stand around here all day. I have temporary quarters nearby. Come back with me! Tell me about everything.’

Drustica folded her arms. ‘A Roman lady such as myself, go back to the quarters of a legionary?’ She laughed and he laughed with her and they walked back to his quarters. As they did, the rain eased off and the sun peeped out from behind the clouds.

‘How did you become a Roman citizen?’ he asked as they entered his vestibule.

She studied him in surprise. ‘It was my reward,’ she said. ‘For saving the emperor. You joined the Praetorians—I was made a Roman citizen. I donned the toga last year.’

Flaminius supressed a laugh. In Rome, ladies had not worn togas in a long time. They did things differently out in the provinces.

‘But it seems to count for nothing,’ she went on glumly. ‘That’s why I came south when I heard the governor was returning to Eboracum.’ She looked fondly at him. ‘I had not expected to see you again, Gaius.’

‘Being Roman seems to count for nothing?’ Flaminius echoed.

He had been going to tell Platorius Nepos he meant to go north to the Wall. Perhaps he could accompany Drustica.

‘You have heard of this Wall the emperor is building?’ Drustica asked. ‘They are building it straight through my people’s ancestral territory!’ she added angrily. ‘It will mean that we cannot drive our cattle to their summer pastures as we have done since the morning of the world. I have spoken to the governor on several occasions, but he refuses to listen to reason! This time he dismissed me irritably with a cold word and a shake of the head. I am a Roman citizen, Gaius, not the peregrine you remember!’

She was growing increasingly furious. Junius Italicus appeared in the doorway, gazing curiously at her. Drustica broke off abruptly.

‘This is Centurion Italicus,’ Flaminius hurried to explain. ‘He’s here with me on a mission. Centurion, this is Drustica…’

‘Publia Aelia Drustica,’ she corrected him. ‘I am a Roman citizen.’ Her British accent sounded thicker than ever.

‘So I heard,’ Junius Italicus said. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he added when Flaminius shot him a cold glance. ‘Ma’am.’

‘Drustica was of great help to me in rescuing the emperor from assassination,’ Flaminius explained.

‘What brings you here?’ she asked. Then she put a hand to her mouth. ‘No, I shouldn’t ask. It will be on a need to know basis.’

Flaminius studied her oddly.

‘There was a murder on Hadrian’s Wall,’ he said. ‘The procurator, Pulcher.’

‘You’re investigating?’ Drustica said. ‘Maybe I can be of some help. Contact me if I can aid you in any way.’ She paused. ‘In return, would you do something for me?’

Flaminius shrugged. ‘Anything. Name it!’

‘Talk to the governor,’ she said. ‘He will listen to you. Tell him he cannot split my tribal lands in two.’

Flaminius’s face fell. ‘I’ll talk to him,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything. It’s not his decision, it was decided by the emperor.’

Drustica studied him for a while. ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘Back to Luguvalium. My people need me.’

He followed her to the door then watched her walk down the lane between barracks blocks. At a corner, she met two tall, handsome looking men, neither of them Roman citizens—they wore the traditional clothes of Britons.

‘Must be some of her tribesfolk, sir,’ said Junius Italicus, who had followed him. ‘Anyone can tell she’s only become a citizen recently. A Roman woman would be more modest.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Flaminius muttered. ‘I’d better go and speak with the governor.’

‘You’ll do what she asked, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Flaminius, ‘but I doubt it’ll have any effect. I was going to speak with him anyway. We can’t stay here longer. We need to be on the trail while the scent is still fresh.’

Junius Italicus grunted. Flaminius walked back towards the headquarters building.

‘Very well,’ said Platorius Nepos testily. He looked harassed. ‘More than enough to do here without troubling myself with dead procurators. Corvus is perfectly able; his predecessor is no longer within my remit. If you wish to go, go!’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Flaminius. He considered explaining to the governor precisely what the implications of a druidic plot might be for the province, or for his senatorial career, but that would be undiplomatic. Instead he saluted Platorius Nepos and marched out.

Returning to his quarters he told Junius Italicus to get their horses ready.

‘We’re moving out, sir?’ Junius Italicus said.

‘We’re finally going to see this Wall everyone’s talking about.’ Flaminius produced a map and unrolled it. It was out of date, it didn’t show the wall, but it showed the places that mattered. ‘We’ll go to Coria first, then to Onnum.’

‘Onnum?’ Junius Italicus said.

Flaminius stabbed at a place on the Wall north of Corstopitum—Coria, to old Britain hands. ‘This is where Pulcher met his end,’ he said. ‘We’ll question the people who were present. Metellus said they were still confined to barracks.’

A quarter of an hour later and they were riding out of the north gate of Eboracum. A guard saluted them, and Flaminius returned the gesture. They rode through woodland that thinned while the land rose the further they went. Soon they were among the lonely hills.

Although they met regular patrols, whenever it was just him and Junius Italicus, Flaminius found himself looking at the heights on either side, imagining the vast numbers of enemies they might conceal. The terrain was not as wild as Caledonia, but he had met trouble not much further north in the old days.

All that must have reduced since Hadrian began the work on his wall. Caledonians come south to stir up trouble must find the going harder, unless they brought ladders. Perhaps that was why they had resorted to murder—surely it was they who were at the back of Pulcher’s death. The druids still reigned supreme in Caledonia, even if they had been extirpated elsewhere. And yet the murderers had been Gaulish troopers. That was the most disturbing part of the whole matter.

They passed through the tribal capital of the Brigantes, a federation of smaller tribes that included Drustica’s own people, the Carvetti. It was a bustling little place, the junction of two Roman roads, but beyond it the heather clad hills were bleak and lonely, with barely a tree. Flaminius hoped that he would catch up with Drustica, but the further he went the more convinced he became that she and her barbarian companions were returning to Luguvalium by native trackways through the hills, and had avoided the Roman road.

After a brief time at the auxiliary fort at Cataractonium—it was being refortified in stone, and Flaminius remembered it as wholly wood—they continued across the moors towards Coria.

At last they crested a rise and before them, snaking across the heather in either direction, was the Wall, the famous Wall of the emperor Hadrian. Flaminius felt a pang. Last time he’d passed this way, it had been open moorland. Now the Wall cut straight across it, blocking it off from the lands to the north.

The world had somehow grown narrower.

‘Is it to keep the barbarian out?’ Junius Italicus said thoughtfully. ‘Or to keep us in?’

Flaminius studied him. What was the centurion driving at? ‘Come on,’ he said impatiently, and rode down towards the smokes of Coria.

Coria was the chief town of the Lopocares, a local tribe of the Brigantes, just as Luguvalium, a day’s journey west of here, was the capital of Drustica’s people. It lay due south of the Wall at a crossing of the River Tinea, with Onnum its nearest fort on the Wall itself. But it was a Roman settlement, set out in ordered streets and blocks of buildings. Another fort stood nearby, and it was here that Flaminius reported.

Overawed by his rank as a Commissary agent, the fort’s commander—a tribune of infantry from the Twentieth Legion—provided him with an escort who guided them to Onnum.

The Wall wound along the ridge. Between them and it stretched a growing civilian town, the shops and stalls and forges, eateries and temples and bordellos that stretched the length of the Wall. The settlement vanished over the horizon in either direction, just like the military structure it followed.

At last they passed through its smokes and stinks, bawds, and beggars and found themselves outside the gates of Onnum.

—10—

Onnum, Hadrian’s Wall, 6 June

After an exchange of greetings with Aquila, the centurion in command, who affirmed to Flaminius that he had been on duty on the day when the procurator had been killed, they went up onto the Wall. It led to east and west of the fort. A gate stood at right angles to the Wall—the fort was built across the line of the great rampart, and the centurion led them up a stairway and out onto the parapet.

‘Here,’ said Aquila, a burly man with a broken nose and piggy eyes, ‘was where those Gaulish bastards killed Pulcher.’ He pointed at the flags. A black blood trail led over the side. Flaminius knelt down and touched it, then glanced up at the lowering grey clouds. It wasn’t raining right now, but this was Britain. It must have been raining some time recently. But the bloodstain remained.

Aquila moved past. ‘This is where the auxiliary prefect stood.’ He halted just by the crenellations. ‘Pulcher came forward to shake his hand. The decurion beside him produced a sword and stabbed him. Then the prefect cut the decurion down. I arrested the prefect on suspicion of complicity, but he took his own life.’

‘How?’ Junius Italicus said from the doorway to the gatehouse.

‘Poison,’ said Aquila.

‘Didn’t you search him when you took him prisoner?’

Aquila looked shamefaced. ‘It was all very confused. But yes, I should have done, I know. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t still be up here freezing my knackers off—oh, begging your pardon, sir,’ he said to Flaminius, who was still examining the bloodstain.

Flaminius rose.

‘That’s perfectly alright, centurion.’ Did the man truly think he’d be offended by some crude language? ‘Take us to the prisoners.’

A man in courier’s uniform rode in as they descended into the courtyard. He dismounted and approached Aquila, then gave a salute.

‘Sir, orders from your superior.’ He handed over a message tablet.

Aquila looked apologetically at his guests. Flaminius gave a lordly wave, and the centurion broke open the seal.

‘It’s himself,’ said Aquila, slightly awed. Flaminius supposed he meant the governor. ‘My men are to return to Londinium, and the troopers are to be freed and returned to normal duties pending further orders; a commanding officer has been assigned them and is on his way. They are under no suspicion of complicity in the assassination, and the Wall needs every man guarding it who can be spared. We can never know when the Caledonians will come south again.’

‘What’s that?’ Flaminius said. ‘Freed? But I’ve had no opportunity to question them yet! How can any conclusion be reached before the murder is properly investigated?’

Aquila shrugged. ‘Orders is orders. These men have been confined to barracks for a month. You took your time in getting here! You shouldn’t be surprised if the situation has changed. My men have also been here too long.’

Flaminius exchanged ugly looks with Junius Italicus. ‘Centurion Aquila, I’m an agent of the Commissary,’ he said. ‘I demand that those orders are countermanded.’

Aquila shook his head. ‘Sorry sir, but they come from my superior and he outranks you. You’ll have to take it up with him.’

He strode away.

—11—

Junius Italicus glanced enquiringly at Flaminius. Flaminius turned away, shaking with anger.

How could he be expected to complete his missions if decisions were made above his head like this? His next report to Probus would not sound good. He had half a mind to ride straight back to Eboracum and give Governor high and mighty Aulus Platorius Nepos a piece of his mind for this meddling. But Aquila was right about one thing, he had already taken too long getting here as it was.

‘What’s to stop us continuing the investigation, sir?’ Junius Italicus said after a moment.

Flaminius whirled round. ‘What?’ he said. Inarticulately he indicated the busy scene, legionaries and auxiliaries rushing about. ‘All… this! This interference!’

Junius Italicus shrugged. ‘You can still question the troopers,’ he said. ‘This hasn’t stopped the investigation.’

Flaminius stared at him. He beamed and clapped him on his brawny shoulder. Junius Italicus grinned back. ‘You’re right,’ Flaminius said. ‘Well, I’ve spoken to the centurion who was present. All that remains is to question the troopers.’

He looked about him thoughtfully.

‘But I think we’d better return to Coria until this fuss blows over. When things are back to normal and the Gauls think the suspicion’s lifted, we’ll come back and start asking questions. Go and find the men who came here with us. We’ll set up quarters in their fort. It will be quite the home from home.’

He’d spent time in Coria back when he’d been tribune commanding an auxiliary troop of Frisians, loyal men if a little rough around the edges. When Junius Italicus returned with the men who’d escorted them, he went to the harassed looking centurion and told him his intentions.

‘You’re leaving?’ Aquila asked. ‘Very well, sir. My men will follow directly, but I don’t suppose you’d want to accompany us.’

‘You’d only hold us up,’ Flaminius said, adding bitterly, ‘and there’ve been enough hold-ups as it is.’ He saluted the centurion, who returned it coldly, then strode towards the south gate where Junius Italicus and the legionaries waited.

As he did so, Flaminius passed some troopers discussing the promotion of one of their number to the rank of decurion. They didn’t seem to think anyone was suitable.

‘We need a more experienced man,’ one Gaul was saying. ‘We should recruit among the locals since the other forts can’t spare anyone. The Carvettians are said to be good fighters…’

Flaminius and Junius Italicus returned to Coria later that afternoon. Flaminius explained the situation to the tribune, who grudgingly assigned them temporary quarters in his fort. When they had settled in, Flaminius sent Junius Italicus to get an amphora of the vinegar that passed for wine in these parts, put his feet up on the unfamiliar desk and worked out his next move.

The next morning he busied himself with reports. Other than the procurator’s murder, all had been quiet. Not so much as a border skirmish had occurred the length and breadth of the Wall, and you didn’t have to go much further east before everything was still under construction.

Flaminius remembered the crucifixions he had seen during his journey. Whatever the emperor had done to quell the disturbances, it had impressed the Caledonians and their allies. Was that why they had turned their minds to assassination? Frustrated on the field, they had resorted to the poison in the drink, the dagger in the back—the way of the druid. But where did the Gauls fit in?

That evening Junius Italicus strode into the office. He’d spent the day getting to know people in the camp, trying to pick up what information he could.

‘I’ve been contacted by several Brothers,’ he said, fingering his forehead scar absently. ‘The organisation may be able to help us.’

‘Brothers?’ Flaminius said. ‘Organisation?’

‘Followers of Mithras!’ said Junius Italicus impatiently. He laid his hand on the desk. ‘I’ve been invited to a meeting of the local cult tonight. Want to come?’

‘No thanks,’ said Flaminius. Junius Italicus looked disappointed.

‘I’ll tell you if I learn anything important tomorrow,’ he said, and left shortly afterwards.

What Junius Italicus had to say in the morning had Flaminius sitting bolt upright.

‘I was passed this message by a trustworthy man in Coria, a soldier,’ the centurion said, handing over a wax tablet. ‘The original messenger said his lady sent him.’

‘His lady?’ Flaminius asked, cracking open the seal, which he didn’t recognise.

‘A lady called Publia Aelia,’ said Junius Italicus. ‘The tribune asked him what it was all about, but he said it was a day’s ride home and he needed to get going straightaway. He didn’t wait for an answer, just asked that it should be sent to you, apparently…’

Flaminius waved him to silence. He was reading the note.

‘Publia Aelia?’ he said. ‘This is from Drustica!’ He frowned. ‘She says she has important information for me, about the procurator’s murder. “I don’t want to write it down,” she says here. “We must speak. Meet me on the Via Agricola, the Vindolanda road.” He looked up. ‘That’s halfway between here and Luguvalium!’

‘Is it?’ said Junius Italicus. ‘I don’t know the vicinity.’

‘No,’ said Flaminius, ‘you’re a stranger here. I’ll go alone.’ He cursed. ‘I was hoping to start interrogating the troopers today. You’ll have to make a start. I want a full report when I return.’

Junius Italicus saluted smartly. ‘Sir.’

A quarter of an hour later Flaminius was riding away down the busy Via Agricola. This was the old road that led from Coria to Luguvalium, roughly following the line of the new Wall; it had been old when Flaminius first came to the province. The Wall itself curved away from the road, following the line of the hills.

Drustica’s village was a short way from the fort that bore the same name. But Flaminius would not have to ride that far; it would take him two days even if there were any waystations at which he as a Commissary agent could find fresh horses. She had arranged to meet on the Vindolanda road, so she must have sent her message after returning home—or had her discovery been made along the way? He understood why she hadn’t commit the intelligence to writing, in case it got into the wrong hands, but it had come at a bad time. He despaired of ever getting a chance to question the troopers. Maybe Drustica’s information would make that unnecessary.

A river flowed down from the ridge to join the larger river in the valley below. The road crossed it on a bridge.

Traffic on the road had become increasingly sparse. Dark clouds were building on the horizon, above the forested hills, and a mist was rising in the river valley. What a country! It was June.

Despite the modern roadway on which his horse’s hoofs clattered so loudly, he felt as if he was riding out of the present day and into some land of myth; one of the strange, vague, poetic, and bizarre stories that the Britons told each other as they sat around their smoking peat fires of an evening, drinking heather ale…

A horseman galloped down out from the trees on the far side of the river as Flaminius began to cross. He was clad in mail and had a Gaulish helmet, while in his hand, he bore an unsheathed sword. Flaminius sawed at his horse’s reins and the beast came snorting to a halt partway across the bridge. Its breath turned to smoke in the cold, dank air.

The rider reached the middle of the bridge and halted. Most of his face was concealed behind the cheek pieces of his helmet. Only two hate filled eyes were visible.

‘Get out of my way.’ Flaminius was not in the mood for parleying. ‘I’m on imperial business.’

The man glared venomously at him.

Flaminius twisted round in his saddle as he heard the thud of hoofs from behind. Three more horsemen cantered down from the treeline, fanning out as they reached the road, and riding for the bridge.

Flaminius stuck his heels in, urging the horse to gallop straight at the first man. Even as he did, he saw two more riding down. Too late, his horse had already brought him within sword’s reach of the first man. Belatedly Flaminius drew his own longsword, swung it up to meet the man’s attack.

The ring of steel echoed back from the trees. Bunching the reins in his left fist, Flaminius chopped at the man’s side. He bore no shield, but as Flaminius hacked at him, he rolled in the saddle and the blow went wide. The man recovered superbly and his blade flashed in the dim sunlight as he nicked Flaminius’ sword arm.

Cursing, Flaminius tried to ride around the man but the bridge was not wide enough. He had no time for bagaudae, deserters, conspirators or whatever they were. The two who had followed the first rode up, and Flaminius heard more than saw the arrival of the three behind him. Directly below the bridge foamed the waters of the river. The riders moved to surround him. Dropping his sword, Flaminius leapt from horseback.

He hit the foaming waters with a splash that winded him, and at once the weight of his clothes and his military belt dragged him down.

Gasping, he struck out for the side, hoping to get on to the bank and find somewhere to hide. It hadn’t been a well thought out plan; he’d seen no other escape and taken the only one on offer. As he made for the bank near the foot of the bridge, he saw that the horsemen were already riding down through the heather. He trod water.

The air whistled around him. A rain of stones pockmarked the water. His attackers were trying to shoot him with their slings. He struck out downstream, adding to the impetus provided by the current. Horsemen on either side kept pace with him. They began to fall back, or rather his progress down the river was faster.

He heard a splash, followed by another. Glancing over his shoulder he saw two or maybe three men had taken to the water and were swimming after him. He swam on, and the torrent took him around a bend in the river.

A tree drooped low into the river, its branches hanging over him. He reached up and hauled himself out of the water.

Hiding in the cover of the trunk he saw three bobbing heads float past. The river reached a set of rapids up ahead, beyond which it entered the larger river whose valley the Via Agricola followed. The water rushed joyfully ahead, drawing the three swimming men in its current. Soon they were out of sight.

But what about the ones who had remained on horseback? Three more men were out there somewhere, all intent on killing Flaminius. They were mounted and he was on foot. If he remained in hiding, they would start looking for him, quite possibly find him. If he broke cover, they might see him and pursue him.

He’d been riding to meet Drustica. Had she set him up? Why in Mithras’s name would she do that? It was incredible that bagaudae, deserters, whatever they were, could ambush imperial agents with impunity in such a highly militarised area. But no one else had been on the road when the attack was made.

His clothes were heavy with water, and he felt a head cold coming on. Time he got moving.

After crawling inland through the undergrowth, he peered out at the moor. Then he froze. He drew his head back into cover.

Two mounted men sat their horses up the slope, watching the river. Another rider trotted up from the bank and addressed them. They were too far away for Flaminius to make out the words fully, but it sounded like they were speaking a Gaulish dialect. After a brief discussion, they rode downstream, towards the water’s-meet.

Flaminius squeezed the water from his clothes as best he could, and when everything seemed quiet, he slipped out from cover and hurried across the springy heather towards the Via Agricola. It was a long way—the current had taken him half a mile downstream.

He was halfway up the slope, and the bridge had just come into sight again when he heard a distant shout from behind him. Looking back, he saw three horsemen at the bottom of the slope accompanied by three unmounted men. And even as he watched, the riders spurred their horses and began riding up the slope towards him, while the men on foot followed as best they could.

Flaminius ran on. No man could hope to outrun riders on the flat, and he was already tired from the climb. But terror gave him new energy and he leaped and bounded agilely up the heather slope towards the road. Why he ran in that direction he didn’t know. A small still voice inside told him that when they were all on the road, the horsemen would be able to ride him down without any trouble. But the road seemed to represent the security of civilisation in this great bowlful of wilderness.

Crags towered over him as he sprinted up a dry stream bed. Hoofs drummed behind him, growing closer. His heart pounded, he was exhausted. Before this journey he’d had a pretty easy few months, lounging around in Baiae, followed only by the journey north. The latter had seemed gruelling at the time, but although sitting on horseback was not what he’d prescribe as a rest cure, it beat running across moorland pursued by mounted assassins.

At last he reached the crest of the ride. Dead ahead lay the road, the bridge a little to the right. He ran straight forwards, then saw something that caused him to change his direction.

His own horse and those of the attackers stood in a little herd, placidly cropping grass at the side of the road. Flaminius raced up to them, and they lifted their heads to stare at him before returning their attention to the turf.

After unhitching the attackers’ horses, Flaminius came alongside his own, a stallion, patting him and soothing him. Hearing pounding hoofs from the heather he looked up to see the men riding towards the road. Immediately he jumped into the saddle, shouting and waving his arms at the other horses, which turned and stampeded back across the bridge.

He was tempted to ride back in the same direction, but he wanted to find Drustica, wherever she was. And wherever she was was likely to be in the opposite direction. Even as the three horsemen reached the road, Flaminius heard the tramping of military boots and a patrol of legionaries marched over the hill towards the bridge. The mounted men were between him and them, but on seeing the armoured figures, the riders turned and galloped back down the slope.

Grateful, Flaminius rode up to meet the patrol. Its leader, a nervous looking optio, saluted him. Flaminius showed the man his lance-head brooch and dismounted.

Impressed, the optio gulped. ‘Can we help you, sir?’ He noticed Flaminius’ wound, and directed one of his men to bandage him.

‘Those horsemen,’ Flaminius panted, ‘they’re bagaudae. They tried to kill me. Get after them! There’s three on foot, too.

‘Report to me in Coria,’ he added. ‘Ask for Tribune Flaminius. If possible, bring those men back alive.’

The optio looked as if he didn’t rate his chances very highly, but he saluted again and led his men across the heather. By now there was no sign of the horsemen.

Flaminius sighed, mopped his brow, and rode onwards.

The road grew busier the closer they came to the timber walls of Vindolanda, a fort about a third of the way between Coria and Luguvalium. He saw no sign of Drustica as he approached the east gate. He made inquiries in the fort, but although she was known to the commander, he had not seen her since the previous day when she had passed on her way to her settlement. Puzzled, and a little perturbed, but riding a fresh horse from the waystation, Flaminius took to the road again the following morning.

—12—

Luguvalium, Hadrian’s Wall, 8 June

It was getting dark when Luguvalium appeared on the horizon, and Flaminius left the military road for the dirt track leading to Drustica’s village. It was much as he remembered it, beehive huts surrounded by a wooden palisade, but outside the palisade was a building plot where a Roman-style house stood half built.

Stiffly Flaminius got down from his horse as a man came out to meet him, a man in traditional Carvettian plaid, carrying spear and shield.

‘I’m looking for your mistress,’ he said. ‘Drustica.’

‘Publia Aelia is within,’ the Carvettian warrior said. He led Flaminius across the muddy courtyard to the main hall.

Publia Aelia Drustica sat on a wooden chair, looking gloomily down at her household warriors as they lounged in the rushes. A fire blazed at the centre of the hut, its smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. It was dark in there, with little light except that of the fire. A smell of cooking met Flaminius’ nostrils as he entered. Joints of meat and freshly killed game animals hung from the beams and a stout woman was tending to a cauldron. Drustica wore her toga, but all else in the hut were clad in British clothes.

She looked up in surprise as the warrior announced the Roman tribune. Rising hastily, she brushed at the linen folds of her toga, her eyes wide.

‘Gaius!’ she said. ‘What brings you here?’

Flaminius frowned. ‘Your message!’ he said. ‘You told me to meet you on the Vindolanda road. What kept you?’ He was saddle-sore and weary, his fresh wound was playing up, and he was not in the mood for excuses.

‘Message?’ Drustica rose and clicked her finger at a youth who came forward with a stool for Flaminius to sit on. A girl scurried forwards with a horn of mead, the stout woman fished in the cauldron for a boiled ham. ‘I sent you no message.’

‘Don’t lie to me!’ Flaminius said. He gritted his teeth and waved away the girl and the youth. Tugging his cloak around him he looked in distaste at Drustica’s surroundings. ‘You sent a messenger. He had a tablet.’

He produced it from his satchel and thrust it at her. Drustica accepted it and opened it, staring in bewilderment at its contents. Flaminius was about to curse her for a bad actress when he saw that she was holding it upside down.

‘What does this say?’ she asked.

Flaminius frowned. ‘You can’t read?’

She flushed and shook her head. ‘I am learning,’ she insisted, ‘but I can’t find the time. I’m building a new farm, in the Roman style. If it wasn’t so dark I would show you. Will you stay the night? Then you could see it in the morning.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I sent you no messenger and no message.’

Red streaks had appeared in his bandage as the wound broke out afresh. ‘You’re wounded!’ she added in dismay. ‘What has happened to you?’

Flaminius sat down abruptly on the stool. ‘But… Junius Italicus…’

He looked up, his face softening. ‘Sorry I’ve been so…’ He gave her what he hoped was a charming smile. ‘I’ll have that mead now, if you don’t mind.’

The golden liquid restored him, aided by the boiled ham. Drustica sat down again and waited patiently to hear his story. The warriors watched silently from the floor. Flaminius told them everything that had happened to him.

Telling his story made him feel better somehow, unburdened. But seeing the look in Drustica’s eyes, he realised that all was not well. ‘And you say the governor was making things difficult for you?’ she asked quietly. ‘Your investigations?’

Flaminius shrugged. ‘That’s just bureaucracy,’ he said. ‘All part of civilisation. These men attacked me. They would have killed me. And yet your messenger said you would be on the road.’

‘My messenger,’ said Drustica.

‘Yes, a man in native garb, said my centurion.’

‘You didn’t see this messenger,’ Drustica suggested.

‘No, but here’s the message,’ Flaminius replied, showing the wax tablet.

‘Which I didn’t write,’ she said. ‘Which I couldn’t write.’

After a silence, Flaminius said, ‘So who was he? This messenger. Was he a Caledonian? An agent of the druids?’

Drustica tapped her lips with her long slim fingers. ‘Gaius, we don’t even know that he existed.’

Flaminius laughed. ‘What are you talking about? Here’s the message he brought me.’

‘You never saw him,’ she pointed out. ‘You got the message from your centurion. That’s all we know for certain. He said it was from a trustworthy man, but who? And the governor has been obstructive.’

Flaminius felt a cold wave rush over him. He stared wide eyed at Drustica. He tried to laugh again, but even in his own ears it sounded like the raucous cry of a crow.

‘Junius Italicus?’ he said. ‘You’re saying Junius Italicus is at the back of it?’

‘He could be working for them.’

‘He works for the Commissary,’ Flaminius objected.

‘He’s also part of this mysterious cult,’ she said. ‘And the procurator was murdered by legionaries—oh, no, not citizens, were they? They were auxiliaries. But everything points at an enemy within. And when you were sent to investigate, your own centurion gave you a bogus message from me that put you in a position to be attacked by bagaudae.’

‘…and the bagaudae looked like deserters,’ Flaminius said. ‘They were Gauls, I’m sure of it.’ He shook his head wretchedly. ‘But I can’t believe that Junius Italicus is involved. He’s always been so loyal.’

‘Now he has other loyalties,’ she said. ‘You said yourself that mystery cults can often be a front for political movements.’

Flaminius shuddered at a vision of the entire Roman army riddled with traitors. ‘But,’ he protested, ‘I’ve joined this cult myself. I really shouldn’t speak about it, but… Look, they preach loyalty to the emperor.’

‘Ah,’ said Drustica, ‘but which emperor?’

‘What do you mean?’ Flaminius demanded.

‘You remember last time,’ she said. ‘The governor wanted to make himself emperor. Maybe it’s happened again.’

Flaminius shook his head. ‘How do you explain the murder of Appius Pulcher? How’s killing a procurator going to help Platorius Nepos become emperor?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he found something out, became inconvenient. All I know is that you can trust no one. You can’t put your faith in anyone, least of all this alien god.’

‘Those legionaries. They may have caught some of the men who attacked me. If I could question even one of the bagaudae, it would help. They’re clearly involved. And I’m sure the druids are at the back of it… whatever it is.’

‘You came here openly,’ she said, ‘and already people have tried to have you killed. You will get nowhere like that.’

Flaminius looked searchingly at her. She seemed to have a clearer idea of the situation then he did, and frankly he was baffled. He could trust her, he was sure. Then again, he had been sure that he could trust Junius Italicus, and look where that had got him.

‘What are you suggesting?’

She looked him in the eye. ‘I think it’s time you joined the other side.’

—13—

Flaminius stared blankly at her. ‘Joined the other side?’

‘You need to drop out of view for a while,’ she told him, ‘while you continue your investigations. Like last time. The Chief told you to drop out of sight, remember? You went on the run, and came to find me, and we went to warn the emperor about the plot.’

‘I remember very clearly,’ said Flaminius, ‘but this is different. This time the traitor’s not the governor, but my own right hand man. What are you suggesting?’

Drustica looked pensive. ‘You said that the auxiliary troop at the fort where Pulcher was murdered is looking for recruits. They’re willing to take on locals. Who better to become a decurion than you? I’m sure they’ll recruit you.’

‘Me, pose as a Briton?’ Flaminius shook his head. ‘I don’t even look like a Briton. Very well, I speak the British tongue, several dialects. I can ride a horse and fight. I’ve been a leader of men…’ He paused. Maybe her idea had some merit… Then he shook his head. ‘But look at me! I’m a Roman, if ever there was one.’

Drustica ran her fingers through his hair. ‘This is too short,’ she agreed, ‘and the wrong hue. But the colour we can change with a lime wash. As for the face… tattoos. You need to cover that scar.’

‘I can’t have my face tattooed,’ he insisted. ‘By all the gods, I’m a secret agent. I can’t be conspicuous. Bad enough this brand, but tattoos…!’

She traced a finger over his shaven upper lip. ‘You should stop shaving this, too. Most Carvettians have moustaches; most auxiliaries have them too, beards as well. I’d grow one myself, but that’s not going to work!’

He gave a forced laugh. ‘I don’t know enough about local ways,’ he objected. ‘They’ll see I’m not from Britain.’

She shook her head. ‘They’re Gauls. What do they know? Besides…’ She smiled quietly. ‘I’ll be coming with you.’

Flaminius shook his head. ‘Your duty to your tribe…’

‘Can wait,’ she said. ‘This is more important—my duty to my city—to Rome. Besides, I am obliged to help you if things go wrong.’

Flaminius felt a chill, but not one of fear. ‘Probus told me he had agents in these parts,’ he said slowly. ‘… And you called him the Chief. Only agents call him that.’

Drustica nodded. ‘Who better than I?’ she said. ‘Both a Briton and a Roman, who has proved her loyalty to the emperor already. When Centurion Probus became the Chief, his agents approached me. I’ve been sending reports ever since.’

Flaminius leant forward, glancing sideways at her retainers. ‘Can they be trusted?’ he hissed. ‘I don’t want to discuss any more while ears are listening.’

Drustica looked offended. ‘They are loyal members of my household,’ she declared. ‘You may trust them—just as you may trust me.’

Flaminius apologised. ‘I’ve been betrayed too often. But you send reports to Rome? To the Chief?’

She nodded. ‘In cipher, aye, by imperial courier. Everything that happens in my district. Very dull reading it must make for someone in Rome, most of the time.’

Flaminius nodded drily. ‘I’ve read the same kind of reports. They take quite some sifting… now, before you start changing me into a Briton, I’d like a chance to write to Probus myself. It won’t reach him for a month, but at least he’ll know what’s happened. I was worried that he would be writing me off as another lost agent.’

Drustica rose. ‘I have writing tablets and styluses in my library.’

Flaminius looked askance, but Drustica affected not to have noticed. She led him out of the hut and into another one. In the middle of it was a writing desk, and to one side was a bookcase with serried ranks of compartments containing several scrolls. Writing tablets were piled up on the desk. The modern Roman furnishings seemed strange in the barbaric setting. No doubt Drustica would have them moved to her villa when it was built.

Flaminius thanked Drustica, sat down on a stool, took up a stylus, and began composing a suitably heartfelt report for Probus.

Later that evening, after Flaminius’ message had been placed securely with Drustica’s own report in a coffer for delivery to a courier the following morning, he was taken into the main hall. The floor had been cleared and the retainers were now waiting. Flaminius took his place on the guest seat and a woman approached carrying a leather bucket filled with a clear liquid that had a slightly earthy smell to it.

‘What’s that?’ he asked in alarm as the woman put the bucket down and plunged a cloth into it.

‘Lime water,’ said Drustica. ‘For your hair.’

‘For my hair?’ Flaminius repeated.

Before he could add anything else, the woman slapped the lime water onto his hair and started massaging it in. He normally washed it with lye soap, and lime water would ruin it. He’d not be able to hold his head up high in Baiae society again. Assuming he ever got back to Baiae.

One of the men came forward, bringing with him a pot containing something that stank much worse than the lime water. It smelt like manure. He also carried a leather pouch full of small bone needles, and a little hammer.

‘Now what?’ Flaminius asked.

Drustica laughed. ‘For the tattoos,’ she said. ‘Just think, while I’m turning into a proper Roman lady, you’re becoming a barbarian.’

Flaminius stood up, waving the man away. ‘No tattoos,’ he insisted. ‘Do Britons wear tattoos? I thought you just had war paint.’

‘Everyone in Britain has tattoos,’ Drustica said. ‘Apart from foreigners, of course.’ She seemed to have forgotten for the moment that she was a Roman citizen now. ‘They’re what sets us apart from other folk. The painted people, the tattooed nation.’

Flaminius thought they looked rather ugly. ‘Are you tattooed?’ he asked her curiously. He couldn’t see any on her skin.

‘Of course,’ she said with a smile. ‘One of these days, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to see them. Now sit down! Enough of your vanity, Gaius. You’re doing this for Rome, remember.’

‘Not on my face,’ he insisted. ‘Not something I can’t get rid of. Why can’t I just wear war paint? Would it wash off?’

‘Only if you scrubbed with soap,’ she admitted. ‘You could wear it for a long time before it faded, unless you insisted on attending the bathhouse. All the same—you must have a tattoo. Very well!’ she added as Flaminius looked about to argue, ‘not on your face. What about on your chest? A horse, I think. You’re a horseman. You’ll be a devotee of Epona.’

In the end, he accepted a horse tattoo on his chest and war paint on his face.

As the tattooist tapped bone needles into the skin of his chest and rubbed woad into the resulting nicks, Flaminius wondered if the City was truly worth it. He’d made his sacrifices to Rome—why, last year, at the newly rededicated temple of Venus and Rome, he’d offered up a sheep to the Goddess of the City. And that was by no means the only sacrifice he’d made.

Flaminius’ punctured chest was stinging all over. He reached up to rub at it and the man shook his head.

‘Honey,’ he said.

Flaminius was taken aback. ‘Really! We’re barely acquainted.’

‘It’ll help the tattoo heal,’ Drustica informed them. Directing the tattooist to put honey on his wounds as well, she stepped back and regarded him. ‘There. All you need is some suitable clothes; tunic, breeches even, if you want to make them think you come from a highborn family. Then you’ll be the image of a back-hills troublemaker come down to join the foreigners.’

‘And you think they’ll take me on?’ Flaminius said.

Drustica shrugged. ‘I’ve never been a tribune of auxiliary horse,’ she pointed out. ‘The only person round here who would know that question… is you.’

Flaminius shrugged. ‘I learnt not to ask questions,’ he said. ‘All that mattered was that the man could ride and fight.’

‘Aye,’ said Drustica. ‘And I know you can. Very well, as I remember.’

Flaminius shrugged, a little embarrassed. ‘I must be a bit rusty now,’ he said. ‘I’ve been with the Praetorians. Clodhopping spit and polish brigade, them.’ But he was pleased by Drustica’s commendation. A thought struck him. ‘You said you’d be coming…’

‘Aye,’ said Drustica. ‘I know these people’s ways better than you; I’m one of them, for all my Roman citizenship. I’ll be at your side. You can learn from me—and from them. We’ll both join up.’

Flaminius chose his words carefully. ‘One thing I have to say,’ he told her, ‘as tribune… when taking on new recruits… I never took on…’

‘Well?’ she said frostily.

He said in a rush, ‘I never took on any women.’

‘You never asked any questions,’ she said, ‘but you wouldn’t take on a woman?’

He shrugged, hoping he’d not offended her. ‘Never had the opportunity,’ he said.

‘You’d be surprised,’ she told him. ‘Women fight, even for the Romans. But you wouldn’t know.’

‘Eh?’ he said.

‘It’s not that hard to counterfeit masculinity,’ she said primly. ‘I’ve known girls join the auxiliaries, and the officers never guessed.’

‘And the men?’ Flaminius was horrified.

‘Wouldn’t touch them,’ Drustica assured him. ‘Too scared. Men who kill they can understand. Women who kill…’

‘Yes, I quite understand,’ said Flaminius. Drustica met his gaze and he flinched. He remembered how ferociously she had fought at his side in the slave tunnels under Hadrian’s villa.

Early the following morning, he was woken from sleep among the rushes with the other warriors by a friendly boot in the ribs. He saw a fierce helmeted warrior gazing down at him.

‘Your horse is saddled,’ came a booming voice. ‘Get up, chieftain. We’ve got hard riding ahead.’

‘What…?’ Flaminius said feebly. He rose on one elbow. The warrior opened the ear flaps of the helmet to revealing Drustica’s grinning face. She reached out her hand and helped him rise.

As soon as Flaminius was fully dressed in native garb—including trousers! How barbaric! — she led him out into the dewy dawn. Two well-equipped horses stood neighing and snorting in the middle of the courtyard, tended by a servant. Flaminius and Drustica both mounted. A quarter of an hour later they were riding down the Via Agricola in the direction of Coria and the fort of Onnum.

The journey went uneventfully, although they had to make way for several patrols, both riders and infantry. Civilians and provincials were tolerated on the Roman road, but impeding official or military progress was discouraged—often with steel.

—14—

Coria, Hadrian’s Wall, 10 June

They reached Coria in the late evening, rested their horses, and bought food and drink at a grubby eatery in the civilian settlement. The rate of progress frustrated Flaminius, who was accustomed to getting fresh horses at waystations. But if he was to go undercover, he had to forget all the privileges he had previously had as an agent of the Commissary. The conspirators were at all levels of Roman society. He could not draw attention to himself.

That said, he and Drustica had drawn plenty of attention during their journey, especially from the military. Both were the wildest looking barbarians imaginable, clad in bright coloured woollen breeches and tunics, with plaid cloaks fastened by silver brooches at the shoulder. Flaminius wore a bronze torque round his neck. It certainly looked the part, though it chafed. He wore a longsword at his hip and mail under his cloak. Drustica had a spear and shield as well as her helmet.

Flaminius’ head was uncovered, but this only drew attention to his wildly spiked hair—which had after the liming had turned blond overnight, much to his disconcertment. Roman ladies back home who could get them wore blonde wigs, scalped from Germanic maidens for the most part. Maybe when he got back—when, not if—he could introduce lime dyed hair into their lives. In return for certain favours…

‘Out of the way, barbarian!’

Flaminius saw a centurion glowering at him. He was going to bark at the man for his impudence when he realised he was standing in the way of the duckboards leading to the eatery. He was about to step aside when he remembered himself. Scornfully he met the centurion’s eyes, put a hand to his sword hilt and moved threateningly towards the man—then laughed uproariously and ushered him past with an elaborate bow.

Giving this barbarian a glare the centurion stomped into the eatery, shouting for wine. He brushed past Drustica as she came out with a jug of ale and a loaf of spelt bread. Giving him daggers over her shoulder, she joined Flaminius.

‘Well done, Gaius,’ she said. ‘You play your part very well.’

‘I’ve been studying the role,’ he replied. ‘But please, Drustica—call me Gaesorix.

She nodded. ‘I’d forgotten. And you must call me Drustanos.’

Squatting down in a corner near their resting horses they ate and drank and watched the world pass by. Despite the lateness of the hour Coria was still busy, with travellers, legionaries, and traders, passing in both directions.

After finishing his half of the loaf, Flaminius checked his moneybag. This was something else he’d become unused to; since his status as a Commissary agent gave him the right to requisition food and supplies everywhere (although strict accounts had to be kept).

‘We’ve got enough for a bed for the night,’ he told Drustica. ‘It’s too late to ride up to the fort. Let’s find stables, and bed and board.’ He wondered what sort of lodging two native warriors could expect at this late hour.

The next morning, as he scratched at fleabites on his ankles and peered at the downpour from the door of the hovel where they’d finally found shelter, he told himself that he had had his question answered. The rain hissed down in sheets. What was the matter with this country?

Drustica came to join him. With her helmet under har arm, it was clear that she had cut her naturally fair hair short before spiking it with lime. The only remaining femininity was in her eyes, which softened as they regarded him.

‘Pay the old crone,’ she said. ‘Then we’d better get our horses saddled and ride for Onnum.’

Flaminius woke the old woman who had been their host and handed her a denarius. She snatched it greedily and concealed in the folds of her rags. With uncharacteristic generosity, she handed them slabs of coarse barley bread. Flaminius breakfasted on this as they saddled the horses, and almost broke one of his teeth.

They rode north across the moors. Drizzle marched in serried ranks and Flaminius’ carefully limed coiffure drooped. He began to worry that by the time they got to Onnum he would have lost his barbarous appearance.

—15—

Onnum, Hadrian’s Wall, 11 June

‘You can stay out in the rain and prove your mettle,’ a Gaulish guard shouted from the headquarters building. Flaminius recognised the man as one of the veterans who had been discussing recruitment from local tribes the last time he’d been here.

The rain transformed the exercise yard into a morass. Flaminius and Drustica sat their horses in the middle as a few bedraggled sentries stood watch on the palisade. No doubt patrols were marching up and down the Wall, that stone serpent that wriggled away into the misty distance on either side. Otherwise the troopers seemed to have taken shelter in their barracks blocks.

Riding up the Via Agricola Flaminius and Drustica had practised a routine, horses caracoling, charging, circling, followed by a mock battle with flourished swords and shouts. In the pouring rain, it was difficult to perform well, but after a quarter of an hour he heard a shout from the Gaul to desist.

They ended their mock fight and reined their horses directly facing him. He folded his arms.

‘You’re taken on,’ the Gaul said. ‘Both of you. I’ve got my reservations about you,’ he said, pointing at Flaminius, ‘but you,’ he indicated Drustica, ‘will make a fine decurion, sir. Come inside, both of you, and make your marks.’

Panicked, Flaminius glanced at Drustica. She smiled quietly and shrugged. Flaminius scowled.

They dismounted and led their horses to a waiting auxiliary groom, who led them both out of the rain and into nearby stables. The Gaul who had spoken to them, a thickset, sour faced, red headed man in military uniform, led them inside out of the wet. They came down a passage into an office where he ordered them to make marks on a wax tablet. There was no sign of the prefect.

‘Where’s the commander?’ Flaminius asked.

‘Our new prefect is on his way from Londinium,’ the Gaul said. ‘Right now, the decurion here is the commanding officer. I’m his optio. You, though, will be taken on as a trooper, second class. What’s your name? Gaesorix? How did you get that wound?’

Flaminius glanced down at his bandage, which was spotted with red. ‘Fight in the hills,’ he said.

‘Escaping a blood feud?’ The Gaul softened slightly. ‘You’re alright now. Get down there and introduce yourself to the troop. Decurion Drustanos,’ he added, in a politer tone, ‘let me take you to your quarters.’

And he led Drustica from the office.

Flaminius dithered. Introduce himself to the troop? But where were they? He could hear rain hissing down outside. It didn’t mean going out in that, did it?

A clerk was looking warily at him. What was his problem? Flaminius was about to ask him when he recollected his role. With a snarl, at which the clerk hid his face behind a report, he turned and blundered from the room.

He found the troop in the mess, for the most part, those who were off duty. Entering with much braggadocio, he strode up to the first man he saw, an overweight Gaul with long moustaches, ‘Where can I get a drink, man?’ he said in thick British.

The Gaul studied him distastefully, and in his clearer Gaulish replied, ‘New here, are you?’

‘Aye,’ Flaminius barked. ‘Name’s Gaesorix. You?’ He thrust out a hand to shake the Gaul’s paw.

The Gaul looked down at it, then back up at Flaminius. ‘You a Brit?’

‘Aye.’ Flaminius wondered if he was overdoing his characterisation. ‘Carvettian.’

‘Who are the Carvettians?’ another Gaul sneered. ‘Never heard of them.’ He flexed his knuckles, and spat on the flagstones.

Flaminius wasn’t in the mood to give geography lessons; particularly not with his knuckles, which seemed to be what the man was asking for. Could the troopers be so ignorant they didn’t know the name of one of the native tribes? The locals were Lopocares, as far as he remembered, or maybe it was Corionototae country round here, but he supposed that to these Gauls they were all Brits. He knew that some of the auxiliaries were better educated—the ones he had overheard a few days earlier had heard of the Carvettians.

Another man came up, also a Gaul but less boastful. ‘You the new boy?’ he said. ‘Come with me. We’ll get you kitted up.’

The Gaul, Ambicatus, turned out to be the quartermaster’s clerk. As he led Flaminius down to the stores, eyed his tattoos and his bandage. ‘You a Caledonian?’

Flaminius shook his head. ‘Carvettian,’ he said. ‘Loyal Brit.’

Ambicatus looked a little disappointed. ‘Then you won’t know the Three Virtues.’

‘Three Virtues?’

Flaminius glanced at the man’s forehead. No, no Mithras brand. He wondered how well covered his own was, and if it would look a little strange on a warrior hailing from the back hills of the frontier. What was the man talking about?

‘Worship the gods, do no evil, be a man,’ Ambicatus explained as they entered the stores. Flaminius mulled it over. Nothing wrong with that in principle. Surely something so inoffensive wasn’t what the druids believed. All the same… He wanted to search the quartermaster’s clerk for a serpent’s egg, but doing that would blow his cover wide open.

Flaminius’ Carvettian tribal garb was whisked away and he was given red tunic and breeches, helmet, red woollen scarf, military belt, mail shirt and military boots, longsword, shield and lance, the latter of which were all locked away as soon as they were requisitioned. After a haircut from the troop barber—all that lime gone to waste! —Flaminius followed Ambicatus to the barracks block assigned him. It was ironic. He had gone full circle, from Roman soldier to tribal warrior to Roman soldier again, except this time his tunic was too big for him, and he had been demoted from tribune (late of the Praetorian Guard, dontcha know) to a common auxiliary trooper.

To his dismay, one of his bunkmates was the Gaul with the long moustaches.

‘Look here!’ Moustaches crowed as Flaminius entered. ‘The back hills barbarians playing warrior!’

Flaminius wasn’t sure how to take this ribbing. He decided to laugh with the Gaul and pound him on the back.

The Gaul leapt back, eyes wild. ‘See that?’ he shouted. Several heads bobbed up from the bunks where their owners had been lounging. ‘Tried to attack me!’

‘Kill him!’ someone shouted. ‘Cut his head off,’ someone else bellowed. ‘We need a mascot.’

Flaminius shoved Moustaches out of the way and went to find a free bunk. If he’d been in command of this troop, he’d have the men who weren’t on patrol duty out training, drilling, anything to keep them busy. They’d been confined to barracks for weeks then set free, but no one was keeping them occupied. Men left to their own devices got bored. And when men like these got bored, someone got hurt.

Just when he realised that there weren’t any free bunks, he got the push he’d been more than half anticipating. Turning on his heel he dealt the Gaul a swift uppercut to the jaw. Moustaches fell backwards and hit the barracks room floor with a thud. Flaminius crouched down to find that he was out cold.

Boxing wasn’t a sport known to the Gauls, but as a boy Flaminius had learnt the rudiments from a slave at his parents’ farm, a former gladiator. He was hardly Olympic Games standard, but he could throw a punch as well as swing a sword.

Looking up, he saw the eyes of all upon him.

‘You’ve killed him,’ said another Gaul, this one clean shaven, but with a long scar running down the right side of his face from brow to chin. ‘You bastard.’

Flaminius shook his head. ‘He’ll live,’ he grunted, and walked over to his bunk. Two of the Gauls jumped him, Scarface and another robust fellow. The latter got in a wild blow at his temple before Flaminius punched him in the throat—he was aiming for the jaw but missed—and head-butted Scarface in the nose.

Scarface sat down abruptly on one of his bunkmates, dabbing at his bloody nose. His burly friend gasped and choked in the middle of the room. Flaminius dusted his hands off. ‘Anyone else?’ he barked. They all stared at him in silence.

Then he realised that they weren’t staring at him, but instead behind him. He turned and saw two men, one in optio’s uniform, the other a decurion. The decurion pointed at him.

‘Out!’

Flaminius followed the two officers outside. The rain had died away and now the sun shone down, although a cold wind blew. ‘You knocked Segovesus out cold,’ said the optio admiringly. ‘He had it coming. He’s been trouble since he was recruited six months ago. He’s not been in the service long, none of them in there have.’

‘Dismiss!’ snapped the decurion. ‘Sort out that mess in there.’

As soon as the optio was gone, she took Flaminius over to the side of the yard near the stables.

‘I thought you were supposed to be undercover,’ Drustica hissed. ‘Not drawing attention to yourself!’

Flaminius grunted, then cleared his throat. He really was getting into his part. He rubbed his sore head. ‘I didn’t have much choice,’ he said.

‘The prefect is on his way,’ she told him. ‘I wish it wasn’t me who they chose as decurion. You could do it, you’re a Roman. I’m not.’ She lifted a hand to forestall him. ‘I’m a citizen, aye, but I wasn’t born to it. I haven’t trained for the army. I’m a warrior. There’s a difference. He’ll suspect me.’

Flaminius shushed her. ‘It looks like I’ll have to advise you, now.’

‘I’ll promote you,’ she offered, ‘to—what are they called? —optio.’

Flaminius shook his head. ‘Favouritism would alienate the men, not to mention the current optio, and he’s got influence over this gang of thugs. Anyway, I’m more likely to obtain information in my current position. Now I’ve asserted myself…’

‘I’m worried,’ she said. ‘What if…’ She looked around her and lowered her voice. ‘What if they learn that I’m a woman?’

Flaminius had not recognised her at first. ‘They’ll never guess,’ he reassured her.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ She bit her lip. ‘You’d better get back to your friends. The prefect will be here in a few days. I’ve got to get everything prepared. I don’t know what to do!’

‘Talk to the optio. What’s he called?’

‘Bellomarus.’

‘Talk to Bellomarus. He knows that you’ve just come down out of the hills. Keep him on your side, ask him for advice. There’s nothing strange about you not knowing your job. You’re a barbarian, right? Just be yourself. I’m the one who has to act here.’

‘I,’ she insisted, ‘am a Roman citizen.’

She turned on her heel and marched smartly away. Flaminius watched admiringly. She’d got that bit right, at least. He winced as she stumbled turning the corner, then he went back into the barracks block.

Bellomarus stood over the unconscious Segovesus as Scarface and another of his bunkmates lifted him onto a stretcher. The decurion glanced up at Flaminius.

‘Segovesus will be having a spell in the infirmary,’ he said. ‘You can sleep in his bunk in the meanwhile. And take over his duties.’

Flaminius stared uncertainly at him.

‘Say “yes sir”,’ the optio barked. ‘And salute.’

Flaminius did his best to bungle this, and the decurion sent him and Scarface—turned out his name was Urbogenos—to clean out the latrines.

He was on latrine duties for the next few days, but by the time the prefect rode into the fort, he had graduated to sentry duty, up on the ramparts. Despite the fact it was summer, the wind blew cold from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn, and the endless vista of rolling moors depressed Flaminius’ spirits. He’d used the opportunity to surreptitiously reinvestigate the spot where the procurator had been killed, but had found nothing of interest. The trail had gone cold.

He was marching towards the higher level of the gatehouse when he heard a drumming of hoofs from outside the fort. A guard on lookout duty scrambled down the ladder. Moments later the gates opened.

Flaminius leaned out over the parapet. Before he was told to haul his head back in, he saw a small contingent of mounted men. As the riders entered the main yard, he and his other patrollers stood to attention on the ramparts. As Drustica and Bellomarus came out of the headquarters building to greet the newcomers, Flaminius stared in surprise at the fat little man on the lead horse. He wore prefect’s uniform badly, which didn’t entirely surprise Flaminius. But when the man got down and wrested the helmet from his head he was truly astonished.

It was Marcius Magnus.

—16—

The prefect surveyed his new command. Judging by the expression on his face he couldn’t stand the sight of them. Lined up in the courtyard, the troopers were expressionless, but somehow gave the impression they didn’t think much of him, either.

He hobbled along the line, and very distantly, from somewhere, drifted the call of a grouse. Drustica, who was striding along behind him, looked sharply in that direction. Still up on the parapet, Flaminius tried hard not to laugh. Whoever had made the sound had got it perfect, and it was so apt. The procurator’s amanuensis walked like a red grouse strutting across the heather.

‘Men,’ Marcius Magnus said, his voice weak and strained, ‘I am your new commanding officer. I have heard all that has occurred in this fort in recent months and I can see that things have grown very lax. I come here to take over, and to bring you a message. In light of recent events, this troop will be withdrawn. You will be returning to base in Deva, from which place you will be sent on duties in the western mountains.’

Drustica’s bellow broke through the chatter that ran through the men at this announcement. ‘Silence! The next man to speak out of turn will receive twenty lashes!’ For a woman, she had a very compelling bellow. She made a very convincing man—did a better job than the new prefect, in fact.

Marcius Magnus glanced up at her. ‘Thank you, decurion,’ he said resentfully. ‘I’m perfectly capable of disciplining the men.’

Drustica snapped to attention. ‘Sir.’

She had her role perfectly. Flaminius looked on admiringly. It was a shame Marcius Magnus was so inept in his own part. And he was playing it for real. Or was he?

How had Corvus’ clerkly hanger-on been cast as prefect? Miscast! Surely it was a sign of the contempt in which Platorius Nepos held Dumnorix’s Troop. And now they were being withdrawn from the frontier, back to Deva, home base of the Twentieth, the legion with which the troop was affiliated.

Flaminius couldn’t tell if this new development would be a help or a hindrance to his mission. As the new prefect and his decurion entered the headquarters building followed by a few lesser officers and the troopers returned to their duties, he gave it some thought.

He had infiltrated Dumnorix’s Troop to find out what was going on. It seemed that the Caledonians were trying something—although there was little evidence of that apart from the druidic connection. The frontier was quiet. But if this troop was withdrawn, what would happen? Another troop or vexillation would take its place in the fort, obviously.

Should Flaminius and Drustica desert? He had dropped out of sight of his enemies now, surely, and was at the heart of the conspiracy. But if Dumnorix’s Troop was withdrawn, the conspirators, whoever they might be, would be forced to find other means of working their will. In the tranquil hills west of Deva, the troopers would be in a poor position to betray the province.

He and his comrades reached the parapet leading onto the Wall itself just as a patrol came in. Each group exchanged salutes, and the patrol went down into the fort while Flaminius’ group began marching along the parapet of the Wall.

This was Flaminius’ first time on the Wall itself. The rolling heather stretched for miles towards the horizon where dark clouds threatened rain. That way lay Caledonians, druids, barbarity. On the nearside of the Wall was an area filled with life, a seething mass of humanity, forts, towns, workshops, and temples. The contract couldn’t be starker. And yet, where did the threat lie? Out there, in the silence of the heather? Or within the Wall, within the empire? He had already been betrayed by his own centurion.

How in Pluto’s name had Marcius Magnus become prefect? Surely he had no military experience. Presumably it was the result of his friend Corvus pulling strings, but it was an uncomfortable coincidence. Flaminius was now glad he had joined the auxiliaries as a trooper and not as decurion. There was still a strong chance Marcius Magnus would recognise him.

When he returned to his barracks, he saw some of his bunkmates in a corner, their heads together. It was dusk and only one lamp was burning so he couldn’t make out details. But as he swaggered in, they looked up.

‘He’ll know,’ Urbogenos said. They beckoned him over. Flaminius flung himself down on the opposite bunk.

‘What?’ he asked truculently.

‘Is the decurion a woman?’

The question floored him. He stared at them open-mouthed. The speaker was not one of his bunkmates, but another Gaul.

‘We know you joined up at the same time,’ another man added.

‘It’s alright if she is,’ Urbogenos said generously. ‘She your sister, boy?’

‘Gaulish girls don’t fight no more,’ another one said. ‘It’s the old ways. We know you keep the old ways up in the hills.’

‘Not Roman ways,’ Urbogenos said slyly. ‘Not like this new prefect.’

Flaminius flushed hotly. ‘We’re civilised in the hills,’ he protested.

The first man lifted a hand. ‘Not saying you’re not, boy,’ he said. ‘But she’s a warrior woman, right?’

And Flaminius had been admiring her success in the role. He recognised the man as Bellomarus, the optio.

‘What if she is?’ he grunted.

‘Nothing,’ said Bellomarus. ‘Just means… you’re like us. We hoped we’d strike lucky.’

Flaminius scowled. ‘I’m a Briton, not a Gaul.’

Bellomarus smiled, rose, and patted Flaminius on the shoulder. ‘We’ll talk again.’ He shook hands with him, and brushed past him before leading a couple of other men from the room.

Right hand clenched in a fist, Flaminius went to his bunk and lay down, hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he was getting somewhere. If he could penetrate their druidic conspiracy, secret society, mystery cult, whatever it was, he might be able to find out what the plan was. Why the procurator had been murdered. And the significance of the stone Bellomarus had just slipped into his hand.

He peered at it. As he’d suspected, a serpent’s egg like the one Probus had shown him. Yes. Although Drustica’s disguise had fooled no one—except Flaminius himself, and hopefully Marcius Magnus—it had definitely led somewhere. But where?

What next? Would he be initiated at midnight, like he had been by the cult of Mithras?

He slipped the stone into a belt pouch, rolled over on his side facing the wall, and fell into a doze.

Preparations for the handover of the fort to a vexillation of legionaries filled the next few days. It was a while before Flaminius could speak with Drustica and tell him what he had learnt. He was also eager to find out what she knew about Marcius Magnus and his appointment as prefect.

They met in the mess, by chance. Previously the only time they had been in the same vicinity was on the parade ground, during drill, and there had been no chance of conversation. Drustica entered as Flaminius was leaving to turn in after a long patrol along the Wall, accompanied by his bunkmates. These included Segovesus, who had recently return from the hospital block, a chastened man.

Drustica made a sign to Flaminius to step aside as the others left. There was a muted cheer from them as they went out into the yard, the sort men would give when they saw a comrade with a particularly desirable whore.

She stared after the departing troopers.

‘What was that about?’ she asked.

‘I’ll explain later,’ he promised. ‘But what about Marcius Magnus? What have you learnt? Why’s he been appointed prefect?’

‘You know him?’

They went to sit at a trestle table. The mess was now deserted.

‘Yes, he’s a hanger-on of the new procurator,’ Flaminius said. ‘I escorted them to Londinium. Me and…’ He frowned.

‘You and your treacherous centurion,’ she completed his sentence. ‘I wonder where Italicus is now. Yes, it seemed strange that a man like Marcius Magnus was made prefect, he knows nothing of war. Now you tell me he has powerful friends it makes a kind of sense. Have you learnt anything?’

Flaminius produced the serpent stone from his belt pouch. She studied it warily but refused to take it when he offered it her. Her eyes were wide.

‘What has happened to you?’ she whispered. ‘That’s druidic. Get rid of it.’

‘No one’s offered you one?’ Flaminius ignored her superstitious fear and returned it to his belt pouch. ‘I got it—from your optio! —because they think we’re both followers of… the old ways.’

‘The old ways?’ Her eyes widened again. ‘The druids? But why?’

‘Because of you,’ he said. ‘We don’t have warrior women in the Roman army.’

‘They know I’m a woman?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Was that why…?’ She jerked her head at the doorway where the men had cheered Flaminius. Her cheeks reddened.

‘No,’ she added. ‘No one’s approached me. Not Bellomarus or anyone else. About the old ways or anything else. The old ways!’ she repeated in scorn. ‘My father the old chief had no sons who survived infancy. I was his eldest daughter, so he brought me up as his successor. He thought the gods hated him. There’ve been no warrior women in Britain since Boudicca’s day!’ She pursed her lips. ‘So they are indeed followers of the druids?’

‘It seems that way,’ said Flaminius. ‘And here’s a confirmed Mithraist leading the troop.’

‘Leading it away from trouble,’ Drustica corrected him. ‘That’s what the prefect told me. He’s been entrusted with removing them from this sensitive area. The governor doesn’t want potential traitors guarding the Wall. Without proof, he can’t take more serious action. So the prefect has come to take them back to base.’

‘I see.’ It was all becoming clear. ‘Makes me wonder if this investigation won’t prove a dead end. Even if they are part of the plot, what am I going to learn in Deva, so far from the Caledonians and the druids? I should leave, look for clues elsewhere. I just don’t know where.’

‘I think you should stay,’ Drustica said. ‘You stand more chance of learning something here.’ She shrugged. ‘If you were to desert, I’d have to send a patrol to hunt you down.’

Was she taking her role too seriously? ‘I was hoping you’d come with me,’ he was saying, when several auxiliaries entered the room.

‘Get along there, Gaesorix,’ said one. It was the optio, Bellomarus.

Flaminius rose, saluted, and strode out. The last he saw was Bellomarus crossing over to talk to Drustica.

Flaminius sat his horse, watching as the vexillation of legionaries marched in through the open south gate of the fort. The mounted troopers of the auxiliary unit were drawn up in serried ranks, almost filling the parade ground, leaving little room for the smaller number of infantry. At the head, facing the open gates, were Marcius Magnus, Drustica, Bellomarus, and a trumpeter. The trumpeter blew a blast on his instrument in greeting as the centurion in command saluted the prefect. They spoke a few words; then the legionaries took up positions and watched the prefect and his officers lead Dumnorix’s Troop outside.

A cold gust struck Flaminius in the face. Cloaks and banners waved wildly in the wind as they galloped down the road. Flaminius glanced back over his shoulder at the Wall and the fort sitting in the middle of it. It looked lonely and bleak, but in the past few days he had learnt to think of it as home.

He turned his eyes to the front. The mailed dragon that was the auxiliary troop snaked away across the heather. Where were they going? What would happen in Deva? Would Flaminius learn anything more? The evidence was that druidic sympathisers had infiltrated them. He felt in his belt pouch for the serpent’s egg. But now they were being withdrawn from the Wall, what harm could they do?

When they made camp for the night, he would go to the command tent and reveal his identity, then request dismissal so he could continue his investigations elsewhere. Where he would go he wasn’t sure. Plots could be brewing in auxiliary forts the length of the Wall. The Caledonians could be massing beyond it.

Was that where he should take his investigations? When he received dismissal from Marcius Magnus, should he ride north of the Wall?

That evening, in an old marching fort south of Coria where they had made camp, Flaminius strode towards Marcius Magnus’ tent. He was hailed by Drustica, coming the other way.

‘I’m leaving,’ he told her in an undertone. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not deserting! I’m going to reveal my identity to the prefect—confidentially, you understand—and then request dismissal so I can continue my investigations. Do you want to come with me?’

‘Are you sure about this, Gaius?’ she said urgently. ‘Can you trust Romans? Who was it who betrayed you in the first place?’

Segovesus sat by a nearby campfire, watching them talk.

‘Let’s take a walk,’ Flaminius said, and they moved away towards the horse piquets.

‘Wherever I go I’m in danger,’ he told her, as he curried his horse. ‘I’ve dragged you into this and I don’t want you to be associated with me any further...’ She protested but he shook his head. ‘I would appreciate your company, though.’

He sighed. ‘You’re right. This conspiracy goes further than a few mutinous Gauls. But where? My investigations were sabotaged by an order from the governor. Is he plotting with the Caledonians? It’s happened before, of course, but that was when the governor had a chance to make himself emperor. I can’t see that happening this time.’

He scratched tiredly at his chin. His beard was itching after a week’s growth.

‘I can’t see anything,’ he added. ‘I can’t make out anything, I mean. Nothing fits together. I think I should look for clues north of the Wall.’

‘We have a chance of learning something here,’ Drustica said. ‘Bellomarus has been speaking to me guardedly about the old ways, just as he spoke to you. He hinted at some kind of initiation when we go south.

Flaminius studied her. ‘An initiation? Into the old ways?’

She shrugged. ‘He wasn’t very forthcoming. I didn’t want to ask too many questions.’

‘Very wise.’ Flaminius brushed his horse’s mane. ‘Maybe I should stay here. It’s just that we seem to be moving further and further from the action. When I was in Britain last, Deva was as important a fort as Eboracum, but now the legions are concentrated on the Wall, it must be almost deserted. Hardly the centre of action. But if we can inveigle our way into their cult… we could find out what’s really going on in this province.’

‘Then you’ll stay?’ Drustica asked. ‘I’m glad. I would have had to have gone with you, I couldn’t let you go alone. But I wouldn’t want to become a deserter. I have sworn vows to serve the emperor.’

Flaminius patted her shoulder awkwardly. ‘We serve the emperor in other ways,’ he said. ‘No one could question our loyalty to Rome.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But maybe you’ll be safer here, with your barbarian enemies, than with the men you thought your friends.’

They went their separate ways, Flaminius to his tent and his bedroll, Drustica no doubt to her duties as an officer.

‘Are you fucking her?’

Flaminius had hardly crawled into the tent when he met the question. He looked up, peering into the stinking gloom at the figure sitting in the darkness. It sounded like Urbogenos. ‘What?’ he demanded.

‘The decurion,’ Urbogenos said. ‘Everyone knows she’s a warrior woman. You’re pretty pally with her. Are you fucking her?’

Jealousy, Flaminius thought. He lay down on his bedroll and turned his face away from his comrade.

‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Warrior women are all virgins, aren’t they?’ He was guessing; he’d got the idea from the Aeneid, not from any extensive knowledge of druidic culture.

Urbogenos was silent for a while. Just as Flaminius was falling asleep, he heard the man say, ‘When you meet Cucullata, you’ll meet a true woman of the old ways, Gaesorix. Then we’ll see what you’re made of…’

The words came back to him the following morning as they rode south, past Cataractonium’s walls. What could they mean? A woman of the old ways…

The next few days consisted of hard riding and driving rain. From Cataractonium they rode to Eboracum, where their route changed, taking them southwest across the mountains that formed the spine of Brigantia. Britain was prone to rainfall, but the high fells that marked the highest point on the Deva road were hidden in cloud, and the troopers rode through the rain. Flaminius was grateful for the thick woollen scarf that formed part of his auxiliary kit. He felt like a shade, riding forever across the Asphodel Fields in the underworld, as some kind of torment for a misspent life. The rest of the men were no happier, and there was little talking when they pitched their tents at night. He began to think he was wasting his time.

His spirits rose again when they came down into the lowlands again, the sunlit woodlands and lush meadows of the Cornavii country. Rivers snaked sluggishly through good farmland, winding towards the estuaries on the coast. They camped for the night in the ruins of a hillfort. In the morning, Flaminius saw a range of hills on the horizon.

—17—

Deva, June 25

They took to the road again. In a curve of the river, just before it entered an estuary, stood the fortified camp of Deva. Outside the fortress proper was a civilian settlement dominated by a large amphitheatre, and on the riverbank was a port where several ships rose and fell at anchor in the roadstead. Other sails were visible in the estuary, traders going to or from Hibernia.

The fort was dilapidated, half derelict, deserted apart from a few sentries on the walls. Something else seemed to be missing, too, though Flaminius couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

They rode in through the gates to be greeted by silence. The gravel between the barracks blocks was weedgrown, the terracotta tiles of the buildings had fallen in places. After some searching of the camp and the civilian settlement, Marcius Magnus found a tribune sitting with his men in the imperial box of the amphitheatre. The civilian settlement was rundown, inhabited mainly by stray dogs, and the amphitheatre’s seats were less than half filled, although the two gladiatrices who fought down in the arena would have been a draw even at the Colosseum.

‘The legate’s up on the Wall,’ the tribune said apologetically when Marcius Magnus had introduced himself. His name was Priscus. ‘We had no word of your coming.’

‘A message was sent from Eboracum,’ the prefect said peevishly. ‘Did you not receive it?’

The tribune called a clerk down from the cheap seats, a slovenly, half-shaven fellow. ‘Know anything of this?’ he inquired.

‘I’ll consult the records,’ the clerk said, left the amphitheatre heading in the direction of the fort and never returned.

‘Luckily, we’ve no lack of accommodation for you and your riders to station yourselves,’ said the tribune after an awkward moment. ‘You’ll have to do some cleaning out, of course… We’re undermanned here… But in the meantime, enjoy the show.’

Expressing regret, Marcius Magnus declined. After finding stabling for their horses, he led his men to a barracks block near the western wall, overlooking the port.

‘Get all this tidied up,’ he barked, glowering around the dusty, cobwebbed interior, unaware that a long strand of web had somehow attached it to his helmet plume. Hearing men returning to the camp from the amphitheatre, he stamped off to find the officers’ mess, and Drustica took over.

As Flaminius swept up one barracks room, he wondered just how his work for the emperor had brought him to such a backwater. If he had any enemies in the legions, they would never think to look for him here. But where was it all getting him?

The following night, he and some of the other troopers went down to the wine shops by the amphitheatre and drank deeply.

Flaminius’ head whirled with cheap wine and spelt beer, though he had tried to keep a hold on himself. After a while he found himself embroiled in a shouted conversation with Segovesus, who seemed to feel the need to tell him he wasn’t such a bad ’un after all. The noise of the drinking crowd—at night there were quite a few people about—the music from the bards to which half naked dancing girls cavorted inexpertly, the smoke from tarry torches stuck in the wattle and daub walls of the low dive, and the raging of wine in Flaminius’ blood rendered much of the conversation incomprehensible.

‘Shame we can’t go tonight,’ the drunken trooper added in a lull while the harpist retuned his instrument.

‘What was that?’ Flaminius shouted as the music began again. Segovesus shook his head and pointed to his own ear, then shouted something back. Flaminius realised he was saying he couldn’t hear.

Flaminius led Segovesus out into the street down to the amphitheatre. The trooper noisily emptied his bladder into a convenient horse trough. Flaminius leaned against the peeling plaster wall, feeling the cool breeze on his hot face, waiting for Segovesus to finish, then realised his bladder was also full. Segovesus waited politely.

‘What did you want to say?’ Segovesus asked finally, as he tied up the drawstring on his breeches.

Flaminius stared at him. ‘You were trying to tell me something.’

Segovesus shook his head, slapped his fellow trooper on the back and laughed. ‘No, it was you, Gaesorix. You said come out here.’ He looked alarmed. ‘You’re not gonna rob me! I’ll break yer neck first!’

‘What have you got worth robbing?’ Flaminius said. Segovesus burst out laughing.

‘Sa good un,’ he roared.

‘What did you say to me in there?’ Flaminius said. ‘You said it was a shame we couldn’t go…’

‘I said…’

Segovesus broke off. A crowd of men was coming out of the wine shop. Flaminius recognised men of his barracks, including the quartermaster, Ambicatus, and the ubiquitous Urbogenos. At their head was Bellomarus. Leaning drunkenly against him was a dancing girl from the wine shop. She was laughing wildly at something the optio had said.

Flaminius tried to follow, but Bellomarus thrust out the flat of his hand.

‘Not you,’ he said. ‘You’re not one of us yet. Neither of you is.’

With the dancing girl in their midst, one of them clumsily pouring wine from an amphora into her giggling mouth, they hastened up the road. Flaminius stood staring after them. Muttering, Segovesus stomped back into the wine shop. Flaminius ignored him.

Not one of us yet? What did the optio mean? A thought flashed through his mind. It sobered him as effectively as a faceful of river water. Not one of us yet. He took the serpent’s egg from his belt pouch and fingered it. Anxious, forgetting Segovesus, he hurried down the street after them.

Turning a corner, he was greeted by the amphitheatre, and the slope leading down to the open river. Of the troopers, there was no sign.

The slope came down to the riverbank some way from the camp walls. A few buildings stood on a small hill but for the most part the area was overgrown. Torchlight was moving among the willows on the bend of the river. He started picking his way through the vegetation.

Soon he was lost, forcing his way through stinking undergrowth in almost complete darkness. Behind him the glow from Deva lit up the sky, and he could hear a rumble from both the camp and the civilian settlement. Up ahead, all was dark and silent except for the hissing of the wind among the willows and occasional voices. Shrieks of laughter mingled with a deeper rumble—the dancing girl?

The night sky was clouded and moonless. A bitter wind hit him as he reached the top of the hill. Flaminius caught glimpses of torchlight in the darkness ahead but it seemed to vanish again

He found himself going downhill. From ahead he heard the rushing of water. The ground underfoot was boggy. It came onto rain, mizzling through the moonless sky. He plunged through a stand of willows and his feet sank into stinking mud.

He had come down to the riverside. On the far side of the mud flat, the water flowed past rapidly towards the bend in the river, beyond which were the wharves. On the other bank, he saw one of the quarries that had provided the stone for the rebuilding of the camp. What a waste that had been, now the camp was all but abandoned. The night wind blew, and the moon appeared from behind a cloud. It was full. Its silver light shone down on the river water

At a peal of giggles, he turned. In the moonlit distance was a small knot of torch carrying figures. Flaminius waded back onto the willow grown bank and began forcing his way along the bank, coming out onto a path that led along the bank and then back up the hillside.

Someone stood there, his back to Flaminius, holding a small terracotta lamp and watching the scene. Flaminius froze.

The giggles ended abruptly when the figures thrust one of their number into the water. The victim shrieked shrilly and struggled, trying to wade back out. Hissing in anger, the others forced it back into the deep water. Torchlight glinted on a blade. The victim sank beneath the water. Flaminius glimpsed a dark shape spinning away downstream before it finally sank from sight. Then he flinched back into the shadows when the watcher turned and strode back up the path.

Flaminius saw the man’s face. The light of the lamp transformed it into a hideous mask, but even without this, the expression of exultation was horrifying. It was Marcius Magnus.

The prefect vanished over the hill and darkness fell. Flaminius remembered the unholy delight he had seen on the man’s face when Corvus sacrificed his raven.

Red torchlight illuminated the gloom as the figures walked up from the bank. From the undergrowth, Flaminius watched them pass. He recognised Bellomarus, Urbogenos, and the rest of the troopers.

Of the dancing girl, there was no sign.

—18—

The following day, Dumnorix’s Troop was called out to the parade ground. Tribune Priscus joined an uncomfortable looking Marcius Magnus on the tribunal. He looked frankly round at the gathered men.

‘Now, I’m an easy going fellow,’ he told them in his cut glass Latin, ‘and I realise that everyone needs to unwind. But some things are simply unacceptable.’

He gazed at the assembled ranks and shook his head. Marcius Magnus glanced at him, and said quite audibly, ‘Get to the point, you little fool.’

Tribune Priscus crimsoned and looked as if he was about to strike the prefect. He controlled himself and continued speaking.

This was the most ill-disciplined camp Flaminius had ever known.

‘I’ve had a complaint from a respected member of the civilian community,’ Priscus explained. ‘Now, since most of our cohorts have been absent, and even the legate is on manoeuvres in the north, the civilian community that has grown up to serve our needs as legionaries—or even auxiliaries,’ he conceded, with an ill-judged twinkle, ‘has diminished. So, I think it’s in everyone’s interests to keep happy the few merchants and ship-owners who remain.’

He surveyed the ranks. An ugly murmur ran across the parade ground, going almost indiscernibly from man to man. Tribune Priscus looked terrified, but he plunged on.

‘Veollocatus the merchant,’ he said, ‘who owns the Inn of the Scarlet Lamps, one of the wine shops in the settlement frequented by off-duty legionaries and auxiliaries, came to me in my office earlier with a complaint. One of his girls is missing.’

Flaminius felt sick. He thought he knew what was coming.

Tribune Priscus looked sombrely round at the troopers, who had lapsed into a dangerous silence. ‘For Mercury’s sake, man,’ Marcius Magnus said irritably, ‘the whore’s probably run off. Tell him to report her to the slave catchers and don’t bother my men.’

The tribune looked angry, but ignored the prefect. ‘According to his staff who were on shift last night, the girl in question,’ he consulted his notes and added with an embarrassed cough, ‘one Juliana Meretrix, was seen leaving the establishment in the company of men from this troop. She has not returned to her place of work.’

He favoured the men with a forgiving expression. ‘Now I realise that sometimes… accidents can happen. Men can get… overenthusiastic. After all, the female in question was of a low-class profession. However, this sort of behaviour leads to friction with the civilian authorities, and we don’t really want that. We’re here to keep the peace in this province, not stir up hatred. This whole business will remain under the rose and there will be no official investigation. You can count yourselves lucky! In future I want no such reports. Dismiss.’

Walking back to the barracks, Flaminius fell in step with Drustica.

‘Fool of a tribune should have had a full investigation and executed everyone responsible,’ she growled. ‘The discipline in this place is shocking.’

It was then that Flaminius realised what had been missing from the camp. No crucifixions. All the way up north from Londinium he had seen crucifixions outside all major settlements, civil or military—the legacy of Hadrian, who had settled the province with his favourite tactic of peace through strength. Presumably Deva had been far enough from the action for such methods to be thought unnecessary.

‘No guesses why Tribune Priscus was left behind in base,’ he told Drustica. ‘He’s a few cohorts short of a maniple and no mistake. But I know who the culprits were.’

Drustica studied him with big eyes. In guarded whispers, Flaminius explained what he had seen.

‘They drowned a dancing girl?’ she said when he finished. ‘But why?’

‘Why indeed,’ said Flaminius. ‘And what was our commanding officer doing, lurking about on the riverbank?’

‘You should report it to Tribune Priscus,’ Drustica said seriously.

Flaminius grimaced. ‘I should, shouldn’t I? As a public-spirited citizen. But I rather think I won’t.’

‘Why not?’ Drustica hissed. ‘That poor girl.’

‘I imagine she’s beyond worrying about,’ Flaminius said, ‘in a better place, or wherever such people go. It’s the whoremaster I feel sorry for—Veollocatus has lost a real money-spinner.’ His expression belied his callous words. ‘But I think this was something more than simple murder. I told you what my fellow trooper had to say.’

‘Not one of us,’ repeated Drustica.

‘Not one of us yet,’ Flaminius corrected her. He halted. They had reached their barracks. ‘I think they sacrificed that girl when they drowned her in the river, though I don’t know who to.’

‘To the goddess,’ said Drustica, as if it was obvious. ‘To the goddess of the river. Deva herself.’

‘But who is Deva?’ he asked her. ‘What is she goddess of?’

‘There is another Deva in my own land, in Brigantia. The river is sacred to the same goddess. Her true name is seldom spoken, but she is goddess of war. My people say that in ancient times, before the coming of the Romans, human beings were cast into her waters at the beginning of any war, as a sacrifice. If the gods received a human sacrifice, the offeror of the sacrifice would not die; the gods would take a life for a life.’

Flaminius shuddered. Abstracted, he looked into the distance. Then his eyes narrowed as he noticed Segovesus watching them from the entrance to the barracks. The moment their eyes met, the Gaul turned away, and slipped inside.

Drustica had also seen him. She turned back to Flaminius. ‘A spy?’

‘There’s a lot of it about,’ Flaminius said. ‘I think we should terminate our little chat. I’ve got duties to perform and I’m sure you have. And we don’t want to attract too much suspicion.’

The following day, Flaminius was called into Marcius Magnus’ office in another part of the camp.

‘Ah, Gaesorix,’ the prefect said. ‘A Briton, aren’t we? Joined up after you heard there were vacancies? But you lack experience.’

Flaminius stood to attention and stared straight ahead. ‘Sir, I have experience, sir!’

‘Don’t contradict me,’ said the prefect peevishly. ‘I mean experience of military action, not cattle rustling…’ He paused.

Flaminius’ eyes travelled downwards. Marcius Magnus was peering at him. ‘Maybe you do,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before…’

Flaminius’ heart pounded. Had the prefect recognised him? Was it time to break cover, overawe him with his status as a Commissary agent?

‘No!’ the prefect said at last, with a patronising laugh. ‘Impossible. My circle of acquaintance isn’t so wide that it includes painted Britons. You say you have experience? What of?’

Flaminius snapped his heels together again. ‘Fighting, sir!’ he bellowed.

‘Don’t do that,’ Marcius Magnus insisted. ‘Fighting? But you’re new to the Roman army.’

‘Sir, the Carvettians fight the Selgovae,’ Flaminius said. ‘The Selgovae carry off Carvettian cattle, so we fight them.’

‘How admirable. Cattle raiding, the stuff of legends,’ said Marcius Magnus, and to Flaminius’ surprise the man didn’t appear to be being sarcastic. ‘But surely that’s all over now that the frontier’s been secured.’

‘Yes sir,’ said Flaminius. ‘So no more fighting. But I like fighting.’

‘Do you? Do you now?’ said Marcius Magnus admiringly. ‘Personally I find it most distasteful, at least if it involves me, but… Well, whatever noble savagery was part of your upbringing, you have little experience of modern military manoeuvres. I intend to rectify that.’

Military manoeuvers? What manoeuvres? Britain was at peace, wasn’t it? Or had the Caledonians invaded? Surely Flaminius would have heard. The legion would have been sent north.

‘Now, I can’t guarantee actual fighting,’ Marcius Magnus said, ‘but you’ll be accompanying better trained and more experienced men. Decurion Drustanos will be nominally in charge, although since I understand he is no more experience than you, I will send Bellomarus to advise him. I want both of you to get the most out of the experience as possible.’

‘Sir! What is this mission, sir?’ he asked.

‘You will be taking a message to an auxiliary fort in Ordovices country,’ said the prefect. ‘It’s a long way, through the western hills, if not nearly as long as the journey you took on your way to Deva. Through some hazardous terrain. The area is still unsettled in places, so there’s a possibility you will have to defend yourselves against bagaudae who infest the hills.’

He unrolled a detailed map of Britain. Flaminius stared at it stupidly, as if he had never seen a map before.

‘Here is the Segontium road. It leads from Deva across the river, and over the hills past Kanovium, which is where it enters the mountains. Here is Segontium, on the river Segonta, in Arvona.’

Arvona was the part of the mainland directly opposite the island of Mona.

‘Acquit yourself well in this mission,’ the fat little man said pompously, ‘and you may well face promotion to trooper (first class).’

‘Sir, thank you, sir!’ Flaminius bellowed. Marcius Magnus winced, and rubbed tenderly at his temples.

‘Dismissed, Trooper Gaesorix,’ he insisted. Flaminius saluted, turned on his heel, and marched out.

The following day they set out, riding from the camp’s south gate over the bridge across the river where Flaminius had seen his fellow troopers drown that poor dancing girl while Marcius Magnus watched with apparent approval. He wondered what hostilities they had been preparing for.

The province was quiet, the frontier unusually tranquil, and it seemed that Hadrian had left Britain well governed and at peace. Perhaps Probus had been starting at shadows. Yet men from this troop had murdered the former procurator. And they seemed to be followers of the old ways—of the druids. But what did Marcius Magnus have to do with it all? Why had he been watching the dancing girl’s murder? Why had he been out on the hillock at all?

They crossed the bridge and rode westwards across pleasant rolling countryside, the Deva estuary on their right, with several merchant ships visible in mid-stream; the hills of Deceangli country on their left. The plain was peaceful and industrious, the hills the scene of lead mining. On the latter Flaminius sometimes saw tumbledown ramparts and mouldering old palisades. At some point these hills had been fortified, but the hillforts he saw could not have been occupied since the days of Nero. Other than that, the rolling hills, the scattered homesteads, all reminded him of the remote Apennine valley where his parents had their farm. He could well understand why the locals might turn to brigandage, if only to relieve the monotony.

They halted for the night in Varae, a small fort near the coast. Higher peaks were visible in the distance, above the rolling hills. If Marcius Magnus truly expected Drustica and himself to get hard experience of fighting by taking this road, Flaminius thought, he would be sorely disappointed. But the centurion in command of the fort seemed to have other ideas.

‘It’s a difficult road ahead,’ he told them. ‘The mountains are thought to harbour bagaudae and rebels. Patrols that go Segontium way don’t always return.’

‘Why haven’t you reported this to Deva?’ Drustica inquired.

The chief centurion shrugged. ‘I’ve told that gladiator-obsessed fool Priscus,’ he said irritably, ‘but the fellow says he’s too undermanned to worry about these pinpricks, as he calls them. As you know, most of the legion’s strength is up in the north.’

‘We know,’ said Bellomarus. ‘That’s where we’ve come from. We had trouble up there. Maybe they hope to lose some troublesome men this way.’ He laughed.

Flaminius glanced at Drustica in alarm. Despite Bellomarus’ light-hearted tone, his words made sense.

‘We’re under orders, optio,’ she said. ‘What do you suggest? Mutiny?’

Bellomarus studied her for a moment. ‘I suppose that wouldn’t be acceptable,’ he said, and turned away.

‘No, it would not be acceptable,’ said the chief centurion hotly. ‘Dammit, decurion, your men need some discipline!’

‘Thank you for your input,’ said Drustica savagely. ‘Optio, report for discipline.’

Bellomarus gave her an angry look, but marched out. Flaminius glanced at the other troopers, who seemed angry. He gave Drustica a disapproving look, but she ignored it.

‘You did the right thing,’ the chief centurion assured her. ‘This rot is like rust in a sword blade. Removing it takes some work, but if you don’t, everything falls to pieces.’

It was a philosophy that Flaminius could sympathise with, although as a mere auxiliary trooper (second class) he couldn’t do so verbally. He studied Drustica in concern. She had little experience of real military discipline, even less of military diplomacy.

The following day they left Varae and rode on into the hills. After passing through oak woods that looked as if they were itching to produce robbers and bagaudae, then over windswept moors that reminded Flaminius ominously of Caledonia but were strangely missing the anticipated painted warriors, they came down into the valley of the Kanovia River.

After crossing the river and stopping to revictual in the civilian settlement outside the camp of Kanovium, they forged ahead. The ground grew steeper, the peaks loomed up on either side. The weather, which had been summery up until then, returned to its usual British rain as they rode into the heather clad hills. Upright stones stood to one side or other of the road, and stone cairns.

Bleak and desolate as it was, a strange atmosphere hung over the place, a sense of ancient ruin, as if they were crossing the heather drowned wreck of some ancient empire. The place looked like it had been uninhabited since the beginning of time and yet Flaminius felt as if they rode unwittingly through the overgrown ruins of a long-lost city, a Nineveh, a Babylon, a Thebes of the thousand gates.

Soon they were among the mountains. Walls of mist concealed the scree slopes on either side, rain sheeted down as the wind drove it along the valley. Still that sense of remote antiquity, a lost city, remained.

Flaminius’ horse trudged along disconsolately. The clip-clop of hoofs echoed back from the walls of mist, but muffled. Now and then Flaminius thought he heard noises from the hillsides. Imagination? He had heard enough rumours to justify the anxiety he felt as they made their way through the bleak landscape, but he saw nothing and neither did anyone else. At one point they disturbed a herd of wild ponies that galloped away from the road where they had been cropping grass that grew between the cracks of its paved surface.

It was poorly maintained. In places the neglect surely predated the building of the Wall, when the local legion had been sent north. In this cold, soggy, depressing environment, Flaminius thought fondly of Baiae and Karus’ villa. He was lulled into a dream by the plodding motion of the horse.

He woke from his doze. The horse had stopped without him tugging at the reins. He was about to dig in an irritable spur when he saw that all the horses had halted; his own steed had seen what had happened and copied the others. The drizzle had eased off but if anything, the mist was thicker.

Drustica and Bellomarus were at the front. Bellomarus sat stiffly in his saddle and gave short, sullen replies whenever Drustica addressed him. The chilling fog seemed to have deepened. Flaminius’ skin was clammy, drops of water stood out on his horse’s back. He could hear nothing. It was as if the world was holding its breath.

He looked up at a clatter of rock. Thudding of hoofs followed, receding into the distance as if someone was galloping away. At the same time, everyone’s heads turned as further sounds of movement filtered through the fog; pounding of hoofs on heather, muffled shouts. They drifted away, then started up again both ahead of them and behind.

‘It’s circling us,’ someone said hoarsely.

‘Quiet!’ said Bellomarus. He seemed unafraid. Drustica was looking around her. The optio turned to her. ‘What now, sir?’ he said, stressing the honorific mockingly. ‘Onward? Or do we retreat?’

‘Like whipped curs?’ Drustica said and he winced. ‘Forward,’ she commanded, and rode into the fog.

The troopers followed, Flaminius among them. The fog closed in until it was like a tunnel, and only the road was visible, stretching way into the distance. It was as if they were riding through the clouds on a great stone bridge.

Drustica’s mounted form came into view again. She had stopped, and Flaminius wondered why. Then he saw that several mounted forms were visible ahead, some on the road itself, others half discernible to one side. More forms swam up out of the mist.

Drustica sawed at her horse’s reins and rode back. ‘Ride,’ she called to them. ‘Retreat! They outnumber us!’

‘No!’ shouted Bellomarus. ‘It would be futile! They know these hills far better than we do.’

‘What do you suggest?’ Flaminius drew his sword and looked about him in concern. The mysterious riders encircled them.

‘Surrender!’ the optio said. ‘It’s that or die!’

‘No!’ said Drustica, but most of her men ignored her, casting down their weapons and lifting their hands in token of surrender. She glanced at Flaminius, who shook his head.

‘There’s nothing the two of us can do,’ he said.

‘We can’t just surrender like that,’ she insisted. ‘We’re Romans!’

‘Not yet we’re not,’ said Bellomarus. ‘And if you want to live until they grant you citizenship, you’d be better to surrender.’

‘I’ll fight first!’ Drustica said, and rode straight at the riders in the mist. Flaminius exchanged a glance with Bellomarus, then rode after her. The air whirred and something struck Drustica between the temples. She toppled off her horse and hit the road surface with a bone jarring thud.

Flaminius hauled on his horse’s reins. When it halted, he jumped down and went to investigate Drustica’s fallen form. Her own horse trotted away into the mist.

Seeing the rise and fall of her chest, he gathered that she was still alive, although unconscious from a glancing blow from a sling stone. As he studied her, he heard the clatter of more hoofs on the road and looked up to see that the dark riders had come out of the mist.

Over him loomed a horseman in mail and gilded Gaulish helmet with curled mustachios, who pointed down with a long lance.

‘Does your companion live, man?’ the horseman asked. Flaminius rose and nodded curtly. ‘Then throw him over the back of your horse and bring him with us. Aye, and give me your sword.’

Flaminius eyes narrowed as the horseman came closer. Around his neck, on a leather thong, hung a serpent’s egg.

Some of the other riders dismounted and gathered up the weapons the troopers had dropped. Flaminius flung his own down so the horseman had to dismount to get it. The man gave him a cold look but did not make any reprisal. He remounted his horse and directed Flaminius to get up on his own after draping Drustica’s unconscious body over his saddlebow.

‘Ride with us,’ the horseman directed. ‘It is a long journey over rough ground, and will be hard going if this mist doesn’t lift.’

Flaminius sat astride his horse and rode with the rest. Surely they could dispel the mist, send it back to the cauldrons in which they’d brewed it. Surely these bagaudae had magical powers—the powers of the druids. Or were they just robbers? The horseman who had spoken to him wore rich armour for a man who skulked in the hills, preying upon travellers. Perhaps he’d stolen it.

They left the road and rode due north over springy heather and boggy ground, between rocky crags. As they rode onwards, the mist began to disperse, but it did not fully lift until they were nearly at the end of their road.

By that time Drustica had recovered; she sat behind Flaminius peering muzzily about her. The riders surrounded the disarmed auxiliaries on every side. The chilling mist hung about them. Rocky crags echoed back the drumming of the horses’ hoofs. Otherwise all was uncanny silence, split only by the calls of ravens that circled in the mist.

‘What’s that!’ she said suddenly. ‘A city?’

A city, in this waste land? Flaminius remembered the strange atmosphere he had felt before. Surely she was hallucinating due to the slingshot wound to her head.

Following her pointing finger, he saw nothing but endless banks of fog. They were riding along a trackway that wound up the heathery slopes. Another crag rose at the head of the valley, grey and indistinct. But the fog was lifting, dispersed by warmer winds from the sea that came into sight beyond the distant ridge.

The sun was setting over the water.

They were so high up the bay was laid out before them like a map. He recognised the south-eastern coast of Mona, and on the other side of the bay was the great promontory where copper was mined; he’d seen the far side of it from Varae. This sea must be the Hibernian Ocean. In the distance, the small dot of a galley ploughed the waves, sailing in the direction of distant Hibernia.

They had ridden right through the mountains to the coast.

His eyes were drawn to the peak of the hill that lifted high above the valley, with crags that rose perpendicularly from the slopes. About halfway up it was ringed by high stone walls, drystone walls like those the Britons used to fence their fields, not the mortared walls the Romans built.

A single gateway was visible, with towers on either side, both of drystone. The crest of the hill was covered by dozens of small stone buildings, thatched with reeds. Two more irregular rings of walls crowned the hill, and at the top stood what looked like three cairns, topped by stone pillars. The trackway wound up the heathery slopes towards the stone gateway.

He exchanged glances with Drustica. It was more than the stronghold of robbers; it was indeed a city. Not a city like Rome, or even a town like Londinium. But a city that Aeneas would have recognised. Those beehive huts reminded Flaminius of the House of Romulus on the Palatine Hill in Rome, which his parents had taken him to see when he was a small child. It was a city whose construction Homer would have ascribed to the Cyclopes, one where warlords of the heroic age might have dwelt. How could such a place exist among the mountains of Britain?

As darkness fell, they reached the gateway. Now the mist had gone, Flaminius saw the rest of their captors. All were armed and armoured like the one he had spoken to; similar to himself and his fellow auxiliaries, but with the addition of bronze torques, gold arm rings and other accoutrements that he associated with the Caledonians. They also reminded him of those bagaudae he had met in Gaul, and the auxiliaries who had attacked him as he galloped down the Via Agricola.

But the ancient city towards which they were riding had nothing to do with Rome. He had never seen the like, he told Drustica. Hillforts, yes, but this was a city.

‘A city of the giants,’ Drustica replied. ‘I have heard of such places. Ancient stone cities stand in ruins on the islands of Hibernia, and stone towers in the Orcades. No one knows for sure who built them, but the stories say that giants inhabited Britain before Brutus the Trojan reached these shores and settled them. He was the ancestor of the Britons. My own people are descended from his companion, Corionos.’

Flaminius’ eyebrows rose. More history that his tutor had neglected to mention? Or was it legend? He had never dreamed that the Britons were of Trojan descent. That would mean they were more closely related to the Romans than he had ever believed. Gazing up at the cyclopean ramparts he could well believe it. Surely Troy had looked something like this. Surely he was riding into the world of Achilles, of Agamemnon.

The rider who had spoken to Flaminius led the first troop of bagaudae, another troop trotted at the rear. Between them rode the troopers, bedraggled, ill-at-ease. Only Bellomarus seemed untroubled. He rode at the front, talking with their captors.

Wickerwork gates creaked open in the stone archway. Guards stood there, more men in mail and helmets carrying spears and oblong shields. Through the open gates Flaminius saw several stone huts. As the riders led them through the archway, their hoof-steps echoed back from the lintel stones.

They rode out into a cold, windswept open space. Ahead of them stood the stone huts, but a muddy trackway, turned to sludge by many hoofs, snaked up the hillside. This was the way their captors led them.

‘We should try to get away,’ Drustica hissed.

‘You’re in no fit state to escape,’ Flaminius told her. ‘Besides, I think we’ll find out everything we want to know in this place.’

As shadows deepened, they rode onwards into the city, into the dark heart of mystery.

—19—

They dismounted in a stone walled yard, and were urged along on foot up the hill between walls of drystone.

‘What do you mean?’ Drustica asked in an undertone. ‘What will we find out here?’

Flaminius looked back over his shoulder, his eyes bright with exultation. ‘This must be it,’ he said, ‘the centre of it all. If we can join them…’

‘The druids?’ she said.

‘Yes. These aren’t any normal robbers. They’re the same kind who ambushed me in Gaul, and on the Via Agricola.’

‘They’ve taken us prisoner,’ she objected in a hiss.

Flaminius was complacent. ‘I think we’ve been recruited, conscripted. How else do they have so many auxiliaries already? This is why those patrols vanished.’

Drustica wasn’t so certain. ‘How could the druids persuade them to join their cause?’

‘I think we’re going to find out soon,’ Flaminius said. ‘What we need to do is to go along with it. Become trusted members of their conspiracy. Find out what they’re planning. As soon as we’re certain, one of us must escape with the information and take it to…’ He paused.

‘Even Commissary agents like your centurion have betrayed you,’ she said. ‘The governor himself may be implicated. Who will you notify? The emperor?’

‘Ideally Probus,’ he said. ‘But that would take too long, he’s too far away. We need action now. Maybe the procurator would be the one to contact… I don’t know. Depends on what the druids are planning. But as soon as we know what’s happening, we have to make sure that the information gets where it’s most needed…’

‘Silence!’ bellowed one of the guards. ‘Get in here, all of you.’ It was the man who had spoken to Flaminius in the mountain pass, the man with the gilded helmet. He indicated a stone walled hut with his lance. Above the lintel stone hung the skull of a sheep or goat.

‘What will become of us?’ Drustica asked him. ‘Are you going to rob us?’

Bellomarus turned to her grinning. ‘Don’t worry about the others, girl,’ he said. She looked at him in surprise. ‘They do what’s right and they’ll find themselves going places. But you—I’ve got a score to settle with you.’

He led them bent double under the lintel, into a fire-lit room. They sat around a fire in the centre. Acrid smoke drifted upwards through a hole in the reed thatched roof. It wasn’t unlike the hut where Drustica had grown up.

Flaminius was coughing and spluttering. ‘At least we’re out of the wind,’ Drustica said.

‘You’ve made an enemy there,’ he wheezed. ‘Sounds like Bellomarus is in with these people.’

‘He’s one of them, remember?’ Drustica said.

Bellomarus turned and struck her.

‘You’re in my world now!’

Universes exploded in her mind. She heard his words dimly as she sank to her knees, clutching her cheek. Flaminius rushed forwards but Drustica grabbed him with her left hand.

‘No!’ she cried. She turned to Bellomarus. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked him, dreading the answer.

‘You believed all that out there?’ Bellomarus sneered. ‘You think we just rode into the hills and were ambushed by bagaudae? This was all planned. You’re ours now. And you, bitch, have a lot to answer for.’

The man in the gilded helmet entered the hut. Drustica could see that he wore a serpent’s egg around his neck on a leather thong.

‘What’s going on here?’ he said. ‘Bellomarus, is this the warrior woman you spoke of? Looks like a lad.’

Bellomarus straightened up. ‘This “lad” caused me a lot of grief along the way,’ he said. ‘Now things are different, I’m evening up our score.’

‘You are not,’ said the man. ‘Stand down. You will leave this warrior woman alone. She’s a follower of the old ways like ourselves.’ He gestured to the assembled troopers. ‘Sit, all of you.’

Drustica squatted down on the packed earth floor, Flaminius next to her. The Roman’s face was calm, but Drustica knew that it must conceal the same excitement she felt. They had entered the city of the druids. All would soon become clear. But would either she or Flaminius live to tell the tale?

‘Let me introduce myself,’ said the man. ‘I’m Orgetorix. I will be overseeing your training and initiation into our warband. People like Bellomarus have been here in the past, and they know what you should expect. For the rest of you, it will be like when you joined the Romans. But there’s more. Not only will you learn our military tactics,’—he looked seriously round at them— ‘you will learn secrets known only to the wise.’

‘What about people who don’t want to learn?’ Segovesus said. ‘People who didn’t want to be hijacked and led here as prisoners?’

Orgetorix laughed. ‘Anyone who wants their freedom will do well to listen and learn. That’s the only way out. Join us, and you’ll be free to come and go as you please. Resist—and you’ll never leave alive.’

‘Doesn’t sound like much of a choice,’ Flaminius commented wryly.

‘You’ve had a long hard journey here,’ said Orgetorix. ‘Food will be brought and you can sleep. Tomorrow morning you will begin training. Tomorrow night I will speak with you again.’

‘Can’t wait,’ Flaminius said.

Orgetorix departed. In his place came several silent slave women, their eyes downcast, carrying a cauldron that brimmed with stew, mainly oats and peas but including some meat, and large ceramic beakers filled with what proved to be weak beer. After the troopers had eaten and drunk their fill, the slave women returned carrying bracken and heather for them to sleep on. As she shrugged out of her mail coat, Drustica tried to speak to one, but the slave left hastily without replying.

In the night, Drustica awoke to find furtive, groping paws upon her. Outside the wind howled, reminding her that they were on the top of a high hill. Otherwise all she could hear was a raucous chorus of snores. She lay rigid as the hands crept across her body.

Was it Flaminius? Long ago he had spurned her, but back then she had been a peregrine, a non-citizen—little better than a barbarian. When the emperor’s people asked her what reward she wanted for her part in rescuing His Imperial Majesty from the assassin’s blade, she had said ‘Citizenship’ with Flaminius in mind.

But the smell was not that of a Roman citizen, accustomed to frequenting the bathhouse; there was a stink of tallow soap and breath foul with garlic. It was pitch black in the hut, except for the dying embers of the fire, and these did not shed much light.

She lashed out backhanded and connected with a bony projection that she took to be the man’s nose. The muffled howl from her would-be molester suggested she’d touched on a sensitive area. He blundered off into the darkness, and Drustica heard him stumble—over the bodies of sleeping men she guessed from the noises of complaint.

She sat up, outraged, her knuckles painful. She’d find her attacker and break his neck for him.

Something stirred in the bracken beside her and she heard Flaminius’ voice. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Go back to dreamland, hero. Nothing for you to worry about.’

‘Yes,’ he said drowsily. ‘We’d better sleep. Training tomorrow.’ She heard him roll over and within seconds he was snoring again. He’d sounded unusually eager.

Next morning dawned, with light slanting through the smoke hole in the roof. Dust motes danced in the beams that illuminated the packed earth floor, which was littered with slumbering forms. Propped on one elbow Drustica peered around, recalling a confused dream of being mauled by a wild dog.

Flaminius’ eyes flicked open, and he grinned. ‘Good morning.’

‘What’s good about it?’ she grumbled, and rose.

Stepping over several men, she bent down and crawled out into the yard. Sunlight flooded down from a blue sky without a hint of cloud, but the air was bitingly cold and she shivered. A smell of mud and sheep dung hung in the air. A wicker gate stood in the drystone wall. An armed guard stood there, glaring at her. She crawled back inside.

Flaminius was sitting up. When she joined him, his eyes fell on her skinned knuckles.

‘Who flattened the optio’s nose for him?’ he asked idly.

So it had been Bellomarus! She had made an enemy there, just as Flaminius had with Segovesus. They were drawing too much attention to themselves.

Orgetorix entered and told them to follow him to the training ground. Grumbling, the auxiliaries—or former auxiliaries; they seemed to have joined a different army—shuffled out into the sunlight of the yard.

Thickets of nettles grew on either side, the ground beneath her feet was muddy. The wickerwork gate stood open now, and two guards watched as Drustica’s force came out into the little cobbled lane beyond the yard, shivering in the wind. The guards fell into line behind them. Bellomarus walked at Orgetorix’s side at the front.

Flaminius nodded in their direction. ‘Thick as thieves,’ he commented.

They came out into a steeply sloping field within the second ring of walls. Goats cropping the grass galloped off as the troopers appeared. Also present were several bagaudae, mail clad and helmeted, and a herd of shaggy ponies. Several cloaked and cowled figures stood to one side.

‘Druids,’ Flaminius guessed. Somehow it was as if ancient, evil serpents had slithered up from the abyss to confront him.

‘But why the cowls?’ Drustica asked. It was impossible to see the men’s faces—if they were men! —since their cowls kept them in shadow.

‘The Mithraists covered their faces in the same way,’ Flaminius murmured. ‘That was because they were all important men, and they didn’t want to be recognised.’ He looked at her. ‘I can only assume the same applies here. The Chief said that the druids went underground after their religion was supressed. But he didn’t say what they do as a day job. These men could be anyone.’

Bellomarus barked at him to stop muttering.

Pondering Flaminius’ words, Drustica shivered. If these druids needed a disguise they were not Caledonians. For all she knew, they could be Carvettians!

Orgetorix presided over their training, which lasted most of the day, with occasional breaks when slave women brought them food. The auxiliaries practised charging, fighting—on foot and mounted—and ambush. As far as Drustica could see, they were concentrating on hit and run tactics. Her troopers needed little training in fighting in the open field, but the forces of the empire had no time for such cowardly attacks.

As the sun set over the waters of the Hibernian Ocean, its last light limning the distant shores of Mona, they were led to a hall over whose entrance hung the skull of a huge stag with magnificent sweeping antlers. Drustica had seen such skulls before, dug out of bogs in Hibernia. Within, however, the walls were lined with niches in which sat a different kind of skull—human. A few of the niches contained freshly severed heads. Some of these looked Roman.

In these grisly surroundings, they sat beside a roaring fire, plied with horns of mead and cuts of roast boar. Orgetorix, dressed now in a long dark robe, mounted a high seat and urged them to gather round. In his hands, he held a large harp.

He told them a tale, a story of invasion and betrayal, of heroism and villainy. He told them the saga of the peopling of Britain, but it was not the story of Brutus the Trojan that Drustica had learnt at her father’s knee. It was the tale of Heus the Mighty, he who led the Britons from the summer country to an island inhabited by giants, who seized power and made himself king. Who learnt to speak with a silver tongue from Ogmios, god of eloquence, learnt the secret of power from Taranis, god of the oak, and was taught all the arts and sciences by the goddess Briganta.

They heard of the circles of existence, of this world and the land of the young; of how the world and the soul was everlasting, although at times life and death, fire, and flood, prevailed. The immortal soul outlived death, dwelling upon islands in the Ocean from which it would be reborn in future times. Death was nothing to fear! They heard also of herbs and their uses, of the mistletoe that grew upon the oak, the stars in the heavens and the beasts of the fields.

Orgetorix’s fingers ran on across the harp strings and he spoke of ancient times, a golden age before the coming of Rome. Of how the teaching of Heus was heard the world over, until the envy of the Romans stamped it out in Gaul, and it faded to little more than a whisper even in Britain. How it was destined to live again.

Drustica had never thought much about the Romans and their rule of Britain, she had accepted it as a fact from the cradle. All that mattered to her was that they were her people’s allies against the tribes from the north, the real enemy. It had not occurred to her that they had stolen her country from under her people’s feet.

‘What did you think?’ she asked Flaminius as they were marched back to their own enclosure.

‘I was trying to place the fellow’s school of rhetoric,’ he said. ‘Rambling, I call it. The philosophy, though, that was easy. Metempsychosis, reincarnation. Pythagoras got there first. Yes, quite a curriculum. And there was the history… Not my subject. But I noticed a few discrepancies with the version you gave me. No Trojans.’

‘Aye,’ she said shortly. She hated it when he was pompous. All Romans were pompous. She was a Roman citizen too, of course. But she hadn’t been one long enough to become so pompous. ‘I noticed that.’

‘He’s a good rabble rouser, though,’ Flaminius added, nodding at their companions. They were talking angrily amongst themselves, all except for Bellomarus, who looked on smugly.

‘I understand how they feel,’ she said. ‘I realise he is trying to turn us against Rome. But… I’m also angry.’

‘Yes.’ He didn’t argue with her. ‘If what Orgetorix says is true, Rome has done some terrible things.’

That night Drustica was plagued by troubling dreams. Antlered figures pursued her across a landscape of primeval forests and hills, and she ran, ran and ran. But what she was running from, she couldn’t say. The horned men? Or herself?

The dreams seemed never-ending.

—20—

City of the Druids, 3 July

Each day went much the same as the last, training followed by indoctrination from Orgetorix in the evening. It proved to be gruelling, not because of the physical work of weapons practice, which came as second nature to most of them, but due to the teaching that followed.

After three or four days of the same regime, Drustica found it difficult to quell a burgeoning hatred of the Romans. It was only her own citizenship that kept her in check. She hoped it was the same with Flaminius, but she was concerned about him.

Each night would begin with stomping of feet on the hard-packed floor, and shouting of hateful slogans. Bellomarus led them, Segovesus and the others joined in with enthusiasm. Drustica did her best to copy them. Flaminius did so with more success, she thought. She felt frightened seeing his face as he shouted his hatred of the Romans. Either he was a consummate actor, or the druidic teaching was affecting him.

‘Good news, warriors,’ Orgetorix told them one evening. ‘The Archdruid is sending a representative to us.’

‘You’re not the Archdruid?’ Drustica asked.

Everyone laughed at her naivety. She flushed.

‘I’m nothing so important,’ Orgetorix assured her. ‘We have a rigid hierarchy. Many druids, more important than me, are hidden in positions of importance throughout the province. Even I don’t know where they all are, and I know the identity of but a few. Even when they visit us here, they wear cowled robes so they can’t be recognised. Our leader is the Archdruid. No one knows his name, or where he is. But we receive messages from time to time.’

He held up a length of wood. ‘This birch twig is carved with a message from the Archdruid,’ he added. ‘It was sent by a messenger not of human origin. When you are initiated, you too will learn how to decode the scratchings that reveal a wealth of information to the elect.’ He brushed his fingertips along its edge. ‘Yes, his envoy will come here to preside over your initiation and that of your comrades elsewhere in the city.’

So they weren’t the only recruits. Drustica was surprised. She’d got no idea that any troopers or warriors other than the bagaudae were to be found in the city. But the druids had been recruiting for a long time; that was why so many patrols had gone missing. With the Roman forces so heavily concentrated on the Wall, the rest of the province was going to wrack and ruin.

‘When will the Archdruid’s envoy get here?’ Flaminius asked.

‘Next week, Gaesorix, if the path is not blocked,’ said Orgetorix. ‘She has set out from her dwelling in the south but it will be a long journey.’

‘She?’ Drustica echoed.

‘Aye, decurion,’ Orgetorix said with a twinkle. ‘You will not be the only woman fighting for us. Not that druids or druidesses fight. They are forbidden from wielding weapons.’

‘You wield weapons,’ she said.

‘Oh, but I am but a simple bard,’ he said. And he explained the degrees of initiation through which it was possible to progress, from ovate to bard to druid.

‘So that’s what we can look forward to?’ Flaminius probed.

Orgetorix looked surprised. ‘You dream of becoming a druid?’

‘Is that so unlikely?’ Flaminius shrugged. ‘After all, why have we been brought here?’

Orgetorix laughed. ‘Not to become druids,’ he assured him. ‘You will be initiated, as I said, when Cucullata comes here from the Archdruid. As warriors of the druids. Once you have joined the elect, you will learn all there is to learn. That is,’ he added, ‘if Cucullata thinks you are suitable.’

‘And if she doesn’t?’ Flaminius asked.

Orgetorix looked away. ‘If not, you will be given to the gods.’

—21—

The following days continued as before, but a new tension hung over the windswept lanes of the drystone city. They were not the only ones to have heard of the imminent arrival of this druidess. Although they still had little contact with the citizens of the place, Drustica could tell that her companions were expectant.

‘Everyone knows something is about to happen,’ she told Flaminius one evening as they walked back from training.

He looked over at her. ‘So do we,’ he said, ‘but what?’

‘You know that,’ said Drustica in surprise. ‘This druidess, the envoy of the Archdruid. She will initiate us.’

‘If she thinks we’re worthy,’ Flaminius reminded her. ‘And then we’ll know what’s going on round here. But will she think we’re worthy? I don’t want to be given to the gods. I’ve seen human sacrifice recently and believe me, it’s not pleasant. I wouldn’t want it to happen to you.’

‘Nor would I want to see you sacrificed,’ she said, ‘but surely you’re not afraid?’

He looked at her, eyes hollow. ‘I’m afraid of many things,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid that whatever they’re planning spells no good for this province. I’m also afraid that Cucullata will not accept me as an initiate.’

Drustica had never thought that Flaminius was afraid of death.

‘Of course I am,’ he told her when she said this, ‘and so is any sane man. I’m also afraid for Britain. If we don’t learn what’s happening here and get that information to where it’s needed…’

He left the rest unfinished. After all, they still didn’t know what the druids planned. But he was right. It couldn’t mean anything good.

—22—

Deceangli country, 23 July

Junius Italicus rode from Deva into the western hills with an uneasy feeling.

Unable to think up a cover story, he had introduced himself to the tribune in charge of the camp as a Commissary centurion investigating the auxiliaries who had murdered the procurator. After all, Mithras expected his followers to tell the truth. The tribune had referred him to the prefect in charge of the auxiliaries, who he was surprised to recognise as a previous acquaintance. Marcius Magnus recognised him too.

Junius Italicus had twisted the man’s arm until he permitted him to question his men, but to little effect. None of the men who spoke to him seemed to have been present when the murder was carried out. Many denied that they had been part of the troop back then.

Marcius Magnus was little help. How he had become prefect of Dumnorix’s Troop was beyond Junius Italicus, although he strongly suspected strings had been pulled.

After days of fruitless investigation, the prefect had called Junius Italicus into his office.

‘You don’t seem to be getting very far,’ he said. Before Junius Italicus could reply, he added, ‘I’m sure that the murderers were one-offs, lone wolves.’ Two lone wolves, then? But a lifetime of loyal serviced to the legions stilled Junius Italicus’ tongue. ‘But since we returned to base, several patrols into the western hills have gone missing. Absent without leave or murdered by bagaudae, who knows. But men from my own troop have vanished. Perhaps this has some bearing on your case.’

‘Such as?’ Junius Italicus asked.

The prefect shrugged. ‘That’s not for me to decide,’ he said. ‘I’m not an imperial agent. But since you’ve achieved so little here, perhaps that is where you could direct your energies, centurion.’

Junius Italicus drew himself up. ‘Is that an order, sir?’

‘You’re damn right it’s an order,’ the prefect said. ‘I tire of you lounging about my barracks for weeks asking probing questions of innocent men. You would be better employed tracking down these bagaudae or deserters or whatever they transpire to be.’

‘You’re asking me to get out of your hair,’ Junius Italicus suggested.

‘Promptly,’ the prefect confirmed.

Junius Italicus set out the following day.

Speaking with the centurion commanding a fort in the foothills of the mountains, he learnt more about the desertions—although the man didn’t see them in those terms.

‘Those mountain valleys are a labyrinth,’ the centurion said. ‘Undermanned as we are, we can’t police them effectively. They’ve become a nest for bagaudae. That’s why patrols go missing, it’s no mystery.’

‘Have you ever seen these bagaudae?’ asked Junius Italicus. ‘Or spoken to anyone who has?’

The centurion shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But what other explanation can there be?’

‘A man I spoke to in Deva thought they were deserters,’ Junius Italicus replied.

The centurion scoffed. ‘Deserters? All of them? You don’t believe that, do you? They’d rather skulk in the hills than get paid, fed and have roofs over their heads?’

‘I’m a sceptic,’ Junius Italicus said. It was something he’d learnt from the Chief. ‘I believe nothing until I see the evidence.’

The centurion grunted. ‘If you mean to go up into the hills, I’d strongly suggest you don’t go on your own. Only recently a patrol passed through here, on their way to Segontium, and I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of them since. On your own, even a centurion of your standing couldn’t hope to prevail against bagaudae. Take some of my men.’

Junius Italicus thanked him, and next day he set out from the fort of Kanovium with an escort. Soon they were up among the peaks, proceeding north-west along a Roman road through the heather. His escort was made of six troopers—Kanovium was an auxiliary fort, of course—and he was worried when he realised that they were Gauls. But surely not all Gauls were traitors, deserters, or bagaudae!

An insolent bunch, though; surly with him, talking to each other in whispers throughout the journey. Junius Italicus wished he’d gone into the hills alone.

Things reached a head when they halted to water their horses and eat a midday meal. Nothing had happened so far. The closest to bagaudae Junius Italicus had seen were ravens circling above the crags. The moor was a vast, open, lonely wasteland. No sign of anyone, robber or deserter or shepherd or good honest Roman citizen. When Junius Italicus signalled his escorts to remount and continue, they refused.

‘What do you mean, no?’ the centurion said. ‘I’m going to report you all to your commanding officer the moment I get back to Kanovium!’

‘Are you sure about that, sir?’ asked a tall, gangling man with a thick beard.

‘Of course I’m sure.’ Junius Italicus remounted his own horse and glared down at them. ‘And if I had my vine staff with me, I’d be taking it to your back right now!’

‘Are you sure you’re getting back to Kanovium, sir, is what he means,’ said another, a burly fellow with a weaselly look to his eyes. Junius Italicus stared hard at him.

‘What do you mean?’

The man indicated the heather clad slopes on either side of the valley. They were lined with mounted warriors.

Keeping calm, Junius Italicus scanned the horizon. More riders trotted down to the road behind him, cutting off his retreat, even as he looked, but the way ahead stayed open. He dug his spurs into his horse’s flank and rode forwards, leaving the troopers behind.

More riders bolted down from the ridge to cut off his path. He drew his sword as they thundered towards him, then cursed. He was carrying his usual legionary short sword of Spanish pattern, not designed for fighting on horseback. The riders had longswords or lances, much like the troopers who had escorted him. On looking over his shoulder, he saw the latter galloping after him.

He spurred his beast onwards, trying to squeeze out of it the utmost speed. Still the riders cantered down the heathery slope. The rest, his erstwhile escort included, raced after him. Up ahead, the road vanished over a rise.

Now he streaked ahead of the riders. He grinned. Their ambush had gone very wrong.

He crested the rise, and saw a distant view of the sea. The wind whipped around him. Wooded valleys wound up from the coast, withering into moorland several miles away. Crags loomed on either side, buzzards circled high above. Down the valley he rode.

He glanced over his shoulder. No sign of his pursuers, except one horseman, unmoving on the crest of the rise, watching him.

The view of the sea vanished shortly afterwards when mist descended. He was still riding, though he had slowed his pace since there was no sign of pursuit. Hearing a clatter of rock from the scree above him, he glanced up, expecting to see sheep or even some of the wild ponies he had noticed earlier. To his dismay, more riders—or were they the same ones? —galloped out of the mist.

He recognised them from his earlier encounter—and his erstwhile auxiliary escort was riding with them. He tried to kick more speed out of his horse but it was close to foundering. Before he could get any further the riders were around him. One grabbed his reins. He cut wildly at the rawhide with his short sword. Another man hauled him from the saddle.

The next thing he knew, he was draped over the back of a horse, possibly his own. He tried to struggle but he had been bound hand and foot. His head was ringing. He must have blacked out when his skull hit the road surface. He wondered which was more dented.

Raising his head, he saw a familiar gangling figure watching him from horseback. They were riding through the mist.

‘What are you getting out of this?’ he asked the auxiliary leader. ‘You won’t be able to return to your troop after this, you fool. Let me free and nothing more will be said.’

‘We’re joining another army,’ said the trooper boastfully. ‘And we’ll pay our way with you.’

Junius Italicus glanced around at the riders. They looked much like the Gaulish bagaudae he had encountered in the forest of the Carnutes. ‘You’ve deserted? Left Roman service for this? Your decurion was right—but why? What has this gang of cattle rustlers got that’s better than serving Rome?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Wait. What do you mean, you’ll pay your way with me?’

The gangling man sawed at his reins and rode away into the mist. As Junius Italicus’ horse plodded after him, his words drifted back eerily, ‘The gods demand a sacrifice…’

—23—

City of the Druids, July 26

That night, a great commotion came from the walls of the city. The wind howled around the thatched roof of the hut where the troopers were incarcerated, and it was difficult to work out what was going on. Flaminius motioned for silence and they all listened.

Shouts, and cries, and bellowed orders floated thinly down the long wind. Then stamping feet, and a rumble of some wheeled vehicles crossing cobbles. The sounds died away, vanishing deeper into the city, but a hubbub remained for a while, before the wind grew too loud for any more to be heard. Presumably the people had returned to their huts.

‘What was all that about?’ Drustica said.

The city was usually quiet at night. Occasional sounds of feasting from the hall of skulls was about all that had disturbed their nights—that and the incessant moaning of the wind.

Bellomarus looked up. ‘You’ll find out,’ he said ominously, ‘soon enough.’

‘Sounds like we’ve got company,’ muttered Flaminius.

‘You mean…?’ Drustica said. Had Cucullata come, as promised?

‘I don’t know of anyone else likely to make such a dramatic entrance,’ Flaminius added as a guard crawled into the hut on hands and knees.

The newcomer crouched and looked hard at Bellomarus. ‘Bring them,’ he grunted. ‘Bring them to the stones.’

He shuffled back out again. Bellomarus looked around. ‘This is it, lads,’ he told them. ‘Time to meet our destiny.’

A small group of torch-bearing guards stood outside, their hair and Gaulish cloaks whipping in the wind, the one who had just spoken to the auxiliaries among them. The leader beckoned and led them out of the yard and into the cobbled lane that wound up the slope.

They trudged through the biting wind. The city was a scene of turmoil, torch bearing figures hurrying up the lanes towards the peak of the hill, where the three cairns stood. More figures stood up there, cowled figures—also holding torches, it transpired, as the troopers came out into the open space directly below the cairns.

The place was crowded with people, more people than Drustica had supposed lived in the city. Some were troopers; bagaudae, she supposed. Others she recognised as Caledonian warriors from beyond the Wall. All faced the cairns. Their excited mutterings died away into a silence broken only by the wind and the roar of the torches.

‘What are we waiting for?’ Drustica said.

Bellomarus caught her eye. ‘You’ll see,’ he repeated. ‘You’ll see.’

She looked questioningly at Flaminius, but he shook his head. ‘No doubt the optio knows what he’s talking about.’

She stood waiting with the others, shivering in the wind. This was a high, cold place. The sea reflected the stars. It was as if they stood on an island amid the night sky.

At a sigh from the crowd she looked up at the cairns. A figure stood in the shadow of the standing stone. It must have appeared from behind it, since there was no other way it could have appeared up there, but Drustica had not seen this happen. It was as if this figure, which now took a step forward into the guttering light of the torches, had appeared from nowhere.

It was tall but slender, like a sapling oak, but definitely human. A woman, from its curves. It wore a long Gaulish cloak that billowed out behind it, revealing dark clothes, and a glittering silver pectoral that emphasised its breasts.

Like the other druids, a cowl covered its face. The figure approached a robed druid and took the torch from the druid’s hand, raised the torch to its shadowed lips and to Drustica’s shock ate the flame whole. The figure flourished the blackened torch. Its flame was gone. Now she put it to her lips again and fire blazed forth from her mouth, reigniting the torch.

Another sigh came from the crowd and it was like the crashing of the sea upon a rocky shore.

Drustica saw Flaminius nodding wisely. ‘What is this trickery?’ she hissed.

A look was in his eyes that she had never seen before. ‘Magic,’ the Roman breathed. ‘She must be a magician.’

‘That is Cucullata,’ said Bellomarus from behind them. ‘Second only to the Archdruid himself.’

‘Who is the Archdruid?’ Drustica asked.

‘Nobody knows.’ Before Bellomarus could elaborate, another sigh throbbed from the crowd and Drustica saw Cucullata stride down from the cairn. The hooded woman stalked up and down the line, peering into the faces of her worshippers.

‘What is she doing now?’ Drustica asked.

‘Looking for traitors and spies.’

Drustica looked in alarm at Bellomarus, but the Gaul was intent on Cucullata, who was gliding up the line towards them. Flaminius watched her approach.

She stopped before him. ‘Who is this?’ Her voice boomed from beneath the cowl. Drustica’s heart pounded. Cucullata turned to regard her. ‘New recruits?’

‘We have been recruiting among the native Britons, my lady,’ said Bellomarus in a small voice. ‘As per orders.’

‘Silence!’ Cucullata said. ‘Let them speak. Do you know why you have been brought here? Any of you?’

‘For training,’ said Flaminius. ‘For initiation.’

‘For initiation,’ said Cucullata, ‘and much more. But can you be trusted? Britain has lain under the Roman yoke for many years, and what attempts have you made to free yourselves?’

Flaminius shrugged. ‘I believe that one Boudicca led a revolt. Later there was Arviragus, who caused the Romans some trouble in Vespasian’s day, not to mention Calgacos up north in Caledonia…’

‘Feeble!’ she boomed. ‘Pinpricks! Are you Britons so enervated you cannot throw off the yoke of the degenerate Romans?’

Drustica saw no reason to rebel against Rome, they had helped her people. But if they wanted to overthrow the Romans, she was sure they could do so with ease.

‘And what have the Gauls done for freedom?’ she demanded hotly. ‘You’ve been under the heel so long I’m surprised you remember what freedom smells like! You call Britons enervated, but I have been in Gaul, and I know what spineless wastrels the Gauls are.’

Cucullata drew close. ‘A hater!’ she said. ‘I like that. There’s spirit in you. But you’re a girl. What brings you here?’

‘Women still fight in the north, where we come from,’ Flaminius said. ‘Even if the Romans forbid it. We still hold true to the old ways.’

Cucullata laughed harshly. ‘Bitches and pups suckled at the teats of war,’ she purred. ‘You have promise, but a promise can be broken. You must prove yourselves.’ She stepped back and surveyed the lines of warriors.

‘You must all prove yourselves, new recruits,’ she added. ‘You must show that you hold true to the old ways. Women warriors, that is good. But the old ways hold so much more. Soon we shall bring them back everywhere. But those who fight for us must prove themselves before we make them privy to our mystery.’

‘So you say!’ Flaminius called out in a ringing voice. ‘But how will you bring back the old ways? And how can we prove ourselves?’

‘We will bring back the old ways in the old way,’ Cucullata said, undaunted by his challenge. ‘And it is by the old ways that you will prove yourselves. Gauls have joined us, aye, and Britons too. Both peoples followed the faith of the druids in the old days, just as folk still do in the islands of the west, and the countries north of the Wall. But what do you know of the old ways, you who have fought for the Romans? The ways of sacrifice!’

‘Sacrifice?’ said Flaminius. ‘We all must make our sacrifices.’

‘I don’t speak of sacrifices of wine,’ she said contemptuously, ‘or beasts even. I don’t speak of Roman ways of sacrifice. I speak of the sacrifices of yore, the sacrifices of the Gauls.

‘I speak of the sacrifice of men.’

Another sigh came from the crowd. Drustica was disturbed to see that the idea was so popular. ‘What men?’ she asked.

Ignoring her, Cucullata turned to the crowd. ‘Who among you has sacrificed men to the gods, in defiance of the Roman law? Who has brought death at midnight? Death beneath the moon?’

The roar from the men appalled Drustica. She wasn’t easily scared, but that roar was so primal and savage, it was like finding yourself in the amphitheatre facing wild beasts. She glanced at Flaminius, and remembered what he had said about Bellomarus and his men sacrificing that dancing girl. But he said nothing.

Cucullata made a cutting motion with her hand. As silence fell, she beckoned the robed druids to her side.

‘We have a spy in our midst,’ she told the crowd.

Cold sweat stood out on Drustica’s brow. The ugly muttering of the crowd made her shiver. How did the druidess know?

‘A prying, sneaking spy has come to learn our mysteries. The secrets of the druids are sacred. What is the penalty for those who spy upon the secrets of the druids?’

‘Death!’ shouted one of the warriors.

Drustica stepped close to Flaminius and brushed her knuckles against his surreptitiously. He glanced distractedly at her as other men echoed the first shout.

‘Death! Death at midnight! Death beneath the moon!’

‘Bring forth the captive!’ Cucullata cried.

Druids went to an enclosure and brought from it a bound, hooded, struggling form. Drustica stared uncomprehendingly. Who was this?

Cucullata stood beside the figure; a brawny man, it seemed, who strained against his bonds as the druids held him up.

‘Trailing us across the land came this fellow,’ she announced, hand on the hood that covered his face. ‘A spy who would learn our secrets, which are sacrosanct, inviolable, undisclosed to all but the initiated. You know what the old ways say must happen to those who spy.’

Drustica looked urgently at Flaminius. The druids had many secrets. Was that why Cucullata wore that cowl? It came as a relief that the druidess did not know that they were spies. This was some other spy. But who? Another Roman?

Cucullata tore the hood away. Blinking in the light of the torches, the man peered around him at the gathered warriors and druids. Drustica thought he looked familiar.

Flaminius gasped. ‘Junius Italicus.’

She looked at him. His face was blank. He was holding his emotions in check. ‘Your centurion?’ she whispered. ‘The one who betrayed you?’

‘Looks like he came in search of me.’

‘All spies must die,’ Cucullata declared. ‘It is the law of the druids. This one will die at midnight as a sacrifice to the gods.’

Junius Italicus’s eyes fixed on his tribune, but he showed no sign of recognition. Drustica felt strangely heartened; Flaminius’ disguise was good enough to fool a close colleague. Then the centurion looked at her, and his face purpled.

Then Cucullata turned and pointed a finger with a long nail-like a talon at Flaminius. ‘And it is this new recruit who will sacrifice him—at the culmination of his initiation into our mysteries.’

—24—

‘Very well,’ the Roman said. ‘I will sacrifice him.’

Flaminius had come here to learn what the druids were planning. Now he was to be initiated, the only thing standing in the way was an obligation to murder his colleague. This must be a difficult choice, even if the centurion had betrayed him—though why Junius Italicus had done this remained a mystery. But Flaminius’ response still came as a shock to Drustica.

Junius Italicus turned to stare at the speaker, but one of his guard clouted him, and his head drooped.

Cucullata studied the new recruit. ‘And once you have done so,’ the druidess said, ‘you will be accepted into the inner circle of our mystery.’ Flaminius nodded. ‘I see that you are eager to do this,’ she told him quietly, ‘but remember—there can be no going back. Once this man’s blood is on your hands, you are one of us. Never again can you return to the world of the Romans. You will be a servant of the druids.’ She turned in a flurry of cloak and went to talk with the druids. Guards hustled Junius Italicus back into his pen.

Bellomarus approached. He clapped Flaminius on the shoulder. ‘Good man, Gaesorix,’ he said, shaking his hand. The others surged around him enthusiastically, even Segovesus, although the latter looked glum.

‘Well done, lad,’ Segovesus said, though it clearly pained him to do it.

A feast was declared, while the slaves made the preparations for the sacrificial rites that would take place atop the highest cairn, under the eyes of all. Drustica went to stand by Flaminius’ side.

‘You can’t do this,’ she whispered.

He looked balefully at her. ‘I can and I will,’ he said.

‘You heard what she said,’ Drustica hissed. ‘You’ll no longer be a Roman, you’ll be one of them! And how could you murder a man who is your fellow officer?’

‘You heard what she said,’ Flaminius countered. ‘If I’m initiated, I’ll learn all their secrets.’

‘And for this, you’re willing to sacrifice your centurion?’

Flaminius turned his back. ‘He betrayed me anyway.’

If Junius Italicus had betrayed Flaminius to the druids, why was he now being sacrificed? ‘If it ever gets out that you murdered a fellow officer,’ she hissed, following Flaminius, ‘you’ll be executed yourself. If anyone finds out.’

Flaminius stopped and looked at her hard. ‘Who will tell them?’ he asked. ‘Will you?’

He walked away. Drustica followed him with her eyes, furious. ‘I might just do that,’ she spat. With no idea where she was going, she hurried away.

She found herself following a path up the side of the hill. The full moon hung over the waters of the Hibernian Ocean. Her heart was heavy in her breast. Flaminius seemed to be committed to this terrible course.

His desperation was understandable. She had been bewildered by what had been happening, but now Flaminius had put it into words, it was obvious. The druids were preparing an attack on the south. A revolt like the one in Gaul that followed on Civilis’ uprising. Did they hope to wrest the province from the empire? With the south up in flames, the Caledonians would gain fresh heart and the legions on the Wall would be caught between hammer and anvil. The massacre would be worse than the one that had decimated the Ninth Legion.

Everything was still and silent. A night bird’s croak broke the hush, but otherwise all she could hear was the wail of the wind and the distant crash of breakers on the shore. A clink of armour came from below, where moonlight glinted on the spears and helmets of patrolling warriors on the encircling walls. She was alone. In the confusion, in her own confusion, she had escaped from her captors. Could she get over the walls and away?

The moon vanished behind a cloud, and the darkness grew. She should wait until moonset, then make her breakout. And what then? Steal a horse, ride to the closest outpost, Segontium or Kanovium? A few cohorts of legionaries could crush this uprising before it had begun.

Except—she had no idea how far the conspiracy went. From what Flaminius said it seemed that it had supporters in Gaul. Did they meant to liberate Gaul as well? For all their dedication to the old ways of the druids, most them were foreigners, not Britons like herself.

And what about Flaminius? What about Junius Italicus? If she ran away, who would stop Flaminius? He was willing to sacrifice much more than the centurion; he would sacrifice himself—sacrifice himself for Rome. He had learnt his trade in a savage school. The Chief had schooled him well.

She couldn’t let him do this. What was happening here had to get to the ears of those in authority, and yet Drustica had to remain by Flaminius’ side—to save him from himself. But there was someone who could make the attempt, with help.

Stealthily she picked her way back down the hillside. Light spilled from the hall of skulls and she heard the clamour of jubilant feasters. Flaminius would be in there with the others, drinking heather ale and honey mead with his barbaric companions. Perhaps it would bring him the dark courage he needed. But if she was successful, Drustica’s actions would make that unnecessary. He would not be initiated into the inner circle of the druids’ mystery tonight. But that was a small matter. They had to find some better way of learning the enemy’s secrets.

Two guards stood before the pen where Junius Italicus lay. This duty was an honour, of course, but it was a cold night to be out in the wind of the cold hillside. Bored and frustrated, neither noticed the dark shape slinking up to them through the shadows. Just when Drustica positioned herself behind one, her leather belt wrapped round her hands as a garrotte to slip round his neck, the moon came out from behind the clouds.

Afraid she would be seen, she struck. The guard dropped his spear and shield with a gargling shout and scrabbled at his throat as she twisted the garrotte, her knee in the small of the man’s back. His comrade spun round, spear levelled, eyes wide. Drustica let go of the garrotte and shoved the guard straight onto his fellow’s spear.

It skewered him, sticking out of his back for a foot or more. Overborne by the unexpected weight, the second guard dropped the spear and his comrade’s body hit the ground with a thump. As the guard went to draw his sword, Drustica struck him across the eyes with her impromptu garrotte and he fell back, clutching at his face. She snatched the sword from his limp grasp and thrust it into his heart.

Looking round her—the grisly sounds could have attracted attention—she realised that the surrounding space was empty, as far as could be discerned in deceptive the moonlight. The bodies lay in contorted postures on either side of her.

The druids had their human sacrifice after all.

The pale oval of Junius Italicus’ face appeared at the bars of the pen. He looked as if he had awoken from nightmares to find the nightmares were real. Drustica went to the gate.

‘Who are you?’ the centurion hissed. ‘Wait—I know you! Even dressed as a man, I know you. You were with Flaminius. His Brit friend. So, you’re with the druids! I thought so.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ she said impatiently, studying the lock as she spoke. ‘I’m setting you free. Don’t talk so much.’

A thought struck her. She rose and looked him in the eye. ‘Besides, it was you who betrayed Gaius to the druids. Wasn’t it?’

‘Betrayed Flaminius?’ The centurion shook his head in wonder. ‘You sent him a message and then he vanished, Brit.’

‘I sent no message,’ she said, bending low again. She was having trouble with the lock, a sophisticated device of a kind she had not seen before. ‘Out of the way.’

She thrust the tip of her stolen sword into the keyhole and pushed. After a few tries, the lock broke into pieces, the sword-tip snapped off, the door sprang open, and Junius Italicus rushed out, hands outstretched to throttle her.

She fended him off with the broken sword. ‘What are you doing?’ she hissed. ‘You fool, you’ll attract attention. I’m trying to free you, not get both of us caught.’

He halted. ‘Why are you freeing me? This is some kind of trick.’

She scowled. ‘What do you mean, I sent Gaius a message? You told him I had asked him to meet me and he rode straight into an ambush. In fact, why am I setting you free? You’re in league with them!’ Confused, she lifted the broken sword again.

‘If I was in league with them,’ he reasoned, ‘why would they have locked me up? I was given a message. They said it was from you, that you had sent Flaminius a message…’

‘Who said I sent Gaius a message? How did you know you could trust them?’

‘It was the camp prefect,’ said Junius Italicus. ‘I had no reason to doubt him… Look, this is getting us nowhere, Brit. What’s happening in this place?’

Drustica explained as best she could. Junius Italicus was surprised to learn of Flaminius’s presence in the city. When she finished, he said, ‘The governor must be told. Let’s get out of here.’

Drustica shook her head. ‘We can’t both go. It will be difficult enough getting one of us out of here, but we can’t abandon Gaius. Besides, the governor sent the message telling Dumnorix’s Troop to move south, frustrating Gaius’ investigation. It would take too long to send a message to the Chief, even if we had a courier to send the message. Gaius suggested the procurator, but…’

‘You can trust Platorius Nepos,’ Junius Italicus assured her. ‘He didn’t send that message—although who did, I don’t know. He’s a good man, though no soldier. The procurator won’t be much use. He’s got no military power, except over his personal guard. We need someone who commands legions.’

Drustica was willing to trust his judgement. ‘Very well. I will help you get away so you can go and warn him. But I will stay here, and when we know the full story, the full extent of the conspiracy, we will escape with what we know.’

The centurion looked anguished. ‘Do you really think he meant to murder me?’

‘We can’t stand here talking,’ Drustica insisted. ‘You’re to be sacrificed at midnight. We’ve got to get you over the wall and out of here. It must be almost midnight now.’

‘You’re right, of course,’ said the centurion. ‘But how can we get out? You have a plan, Brit?’

‘My name is Drustica!’ she insisted.

‘What’s your plan, Drustica?’ he replied.

Drustica beckoned him to follow her. She didn’t want to tell him that everything she had done had been on an impulse. At least the city was deserted now, with the warriors in the hall and the slaves incarcerated in their own huts. She led the centurion at a crouching run from hut to hut until they reached the lane that wound down the hill. It ended at the wickerwork gate in the inner walls.

‘How are we supposed to get past that?’ Junius Italicus hissed.

She shook her head, gesturing him to get into the cover of a stand of nettles. Moonlight glinted on armour. Two sentries stood in the shadows beside the gate. As they crouched there, Drustica heard the clink of weapons from up on the parapet. A glow of torches came from the parapet as the patrol approached.

‘Back this way.’

She led him around the side of the hill, weaving through the shadows between stone walled huts. Now they stood at the foot of the wall, out of sight of the gate. The patrolling guards had passed.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘We climb over.’

‘Over that? We’ll be seen!’

‘Do you have a better idea?’

The centurion gave it some thought, then shook his head.

‘Right,’ said Drustica. ‘You first. Unless you’d rather be sacrificed.’

Junius Italicus gave her a look that she couldn’t quite see in the darkness, then began scaling the dank stone wall. Reaching the parapet, he paused, checking it in either direction. The wall wound along the side of the hill, and the patrols were all out of sight. It was now or never.

Drustica seized hold of a wet rock and hauled herself up. There were plenty of handholds but it was slippery with moss. When she reached the parapet, the centurion was already on the far side.

Drustica kept watch while he lowered himself out of sight. The drop was much further on this side. Junius Italicus landed with a thump in the shadows at the foot of the parapet, and Drustica heard a muffled curse.

She looked about her. The moon had gone behind a cloud but as she crouched there it appeared again, illuminating the dark night like a silver lantern. She dropped over the side and landed next to the centurion, losing balance and crashing into him.

He cursed through gritted teeth. ‘Clumsy barbarian bitch.’

Drustica was about to remind him she was a Roman citizen when she heard footsteps from the parapet and froze. The guards were coming back.

The centurion’s face was pale in the darkness. ‘We’re exposed here,’ he panted. ‘We need cover.’

‘If we move, they’ll see us,’ she said. ‘Stay still. Keep your face down.’

It wasn’t difficult to follow her own advice. She was frozen to the spot. Very slowly, she tucked her face into her chest and crouched into a foetal position. The footsteps grew louder, accompanied by talking. The red glow of torches flooded the shadows at the foot of the parapet.

‘They’ll see us!’ the centurion hissed, tensing to move.

‘Keep still!’ She lifted her head slightly. ‘It’s our only chance.’

‘You said you’d planned this,’ he said.

‘And keep quiet!’

He went silent. They stared at the muddy turf beneath them, kneeling, crouched. A grassy slope swept away towards more circular huts, whose roofs were dark cones in darkness. The red light from the parapet above grew brighter, as did the sound of approach.

Cold sweat broke out on Drustica’s body. She was going to die here. She heard more footsteps from the other direction. Out of the corner of her eye she saw more lights coming closer. The two patrols had walked the wall and were coming back again—or had they turned back? Turned back because they had been told that fugitives were at liberty in the city?

She crouched lower. Maybe they should have made a break for it when they had the chance. They might have been seen, they might not. But now, with two patrols sweeping up, torches blazing and lighting up the night, it was inevitable.

But if they ran they would also be seen. What chance would they have? She didn’t want to escape the city anyway, she wanted to stay and keep an eye on Flaminius. She couldn’t abandon him. But it was vital that the Romans learnt of what was happening in these western hills. All it would take would be for the garrison at Deva and the Second Legion’s camp at Isca to be reinforced, and these hills would become the druids’ death-trap. She remembered the bagaudae in the Gaulish forests and wondered again quite how far this conspiracy reached.

The mingled torchlight lit up the turf around her as bright as day. She could hear that the patrolling sentries had halted—directly above them! She tensed to run, then felt the centurion’s hand on her arm. She looked at him, eyes wide.

Junius Italicus shook his head shortly, rolled his eyes upwards. ‘Listen.’

She caught a few words of Gaulish followed by more from another speaker. Gaulish was like the British tongue but sloppier in pronunciation, and she had to strain her ears to understand it. The first few words sounded like challenge and response. Now the two patrols seemed to be talking. Had they not seen the two fugitives crouched at the base of the wall?

The sentries went silent and Drustica tensed again. They had seen her! Seen both of them! Maybe if they both ran now, one of them would survive. As long as someone got out of the city… And what then? Something else she hadn’t considered. Getting out of the mountains. They were still a long way from the road. Or would it be quicker to go down to the shore and steal a boat? Then where? Deva? Get a message to Eboracum…But they had to get away first.

She cocked her head, puzzled. Was that…? Yes. Footsteps up on the parapet, moving away. And the light was draining, leaving the two crouching figures in darkness again. They hadn’t been seen after all.

They remained unmoving for some time. At last, the centurion lifted his head. He gave a little whoop.

‘They didn’t look down,’ he said.

Drustica rose to her knees and stretched exultantly, her joints popping. She rubbed at her back and gazed up at the wall. Now she could see properly, she realised that although they had been hiding in plain sight it had worked—a sentry would have had to peer out over the edge of the parapet to notice them. As luck would have it, the luck of the gods, the two patrols had met directly above them, and the giving of challenge and response, and general gossip, had preoccupied them. Still, it had been a close-run thing.

‘Don’t get too jubilant,’ she whispered, leading him towards the huts down the slope. ‘We’ve still got another wall to cross.’

He grabbed her wrist and twisted her round to look at him. She stared into his urgent eyes.

‘You heard them talking,’ he said. ‘They gave a password and the response. I couldn’t understand the jabber. Was it British?’

She shook her head. ‘Gaulish. I didn’t follow all of it.’

His face fell. ‘But you heard the password?’

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘It sounded like “Gaesum.” And the response was “Isarno”.’

‘What in Hades does that mean?’ he demanded.

She shrugged. ‘Spear and iron.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Thanks for your help. I can make my own way out of here now. You get back to Flaminius, girl.’

‘What do you mean?’ she demanded.

‘I’m going to walk straight out of this place. The sentries say gay-some so I say sarnie, right?’

Despite herself, she laughed. ‘No! Listen to me.’

Crouching in the cover of the hut, speaking in whispers, she tried to teach the centurion basic Gaulish. It went badly.

‘No,’ she hissed, rising, and dusting off her clothes. ‘We’ll have to go together. I’ll give the response. Then we both walk out.’

‘And what about you?’ he wanted to know. ‘How will you get out?’

She noticed it was getting lighter.

‘Camulos!’ she swore tiredly ‘It’s almost dawn! They’ll be looking for you!’

A hubbub broke out from within the inner city. ‘They already are,’ said Junius Italicus grimly. ‘I’d better get going. You don’t want to be found with me.’ He rose.

‘No!’ she said, following him. ‘You’ll never get away without my help.’

‘Thanks, but better one of us dead than two.’

‘I don’t want either of us dead,’ she said.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m touched.’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve got to get that message to the governor!’

Guards were hurrying along the walls. The two of them ducked back into cover as warriors burst out of the gates.

‘It’s not looking good,’ the centurion muttered. ‘Any ideas?’

Something came to her. ‘When I was on the other side of the hill,’ she said slowly, ‘I saw another way out of the city. One that they would not expect.’

‘The other side of the hill?’ he said. ‘But there’s nothing that way except…’

‘Except a cliff overlooking the sea,’ she said. ‘It goes almost straight down. You could escape that way! If that part of the parapet is clear.’

‘If I slipped, even once…’

‘It’s starting to get light,’ she said. ‘If you stay here, you’re risking your life. If you go that way, you’ll also be risking your life, but…’

‘And who else will be able to take the message to the governor? Assuming I can get to Deva, let alone Eboracum! I don’t even know where I am.’

‘It’s a risk,’ she agreed, ‘but you have to get out of here, and no one is going to let you through that gate even if you do know the password, not now it’s getting light. The place is up in arms. You’ll be sacrificed and my head will end up in a niche in the hall of skulls. Unless you get away.’

‘And you get back to Flaminius,’ the centurion said. ‘Very well, I’ll chance the sea cliff. You must show me the best place to climb down.’

They hurried down the overgrown back lanes of the city, keeping in cover as much as possible. A quarter of an hour later they both stood on the parapet overlooking the cliffs.

Far below, breakers crashed against the rocks. The wind howled around them, playing spiritedly with their hair and their garments. The cliff led straight down to the spreading waters of the Hibernian Ocean.

The centurion scrambled down the drystone wall onto the narrow ledge at its base. He looked back up at her.

‘Go!’ he instructed. ‘You’re needed here. Never mind me, I can make it.’

He started climbing down the cliff. Despite his words, Drustica stayed there, peering down to gauge his progress. The wind howled and moaned around the crags. The grey waters grew bluer as the sun rose from behind the hill of the city. Sea birds circled below her, wings stretched as they floated above the ocean.

The centurion’s descent was slow and painful. Several times he slipped and almost fell but saved himself by seizing a hardy shrub or jutting outcrop. Each time Drustica’s heart leapt within her as if it wanted to join him. But he never fell.

He passed around a great beetling crag. The wind plucked and tore at his distant figure. He had no ropes, no help. He must be very cold, so cold his fingers would be turning numb. He would fall to his doom on the sea rocks far below, and with him would go any chance of alerting Platorius Nepos.

When he had finally vanished from sight, Drustica turned to go.

Two guards stood there, watching her in silence.

—25—

‘What are you doing?’ the taller of the two guards demanded.

Drustica stared at him. ‘I was looking for the escaped prisoner,’ she blurted. ‘Did you not know? There’s a prisoner on the loose.’

‘Yes, we’re looking for him.’ The second guard glanced over the side. ‘Epona help him if he tried to escape that way.’

‘People have tried before,’ said the first guard as they led Drustica down off the walls. ‘There’s a sheer cliff halfway down. You fall, and there’s nothing to stop you before you hit the rocks. Hey, what’s up? You’re looking pale.’

The place bustled with patrols and crowds of slave women, busier than she had seen it before. She hadn’t realised that so many people lived here.

‘We’ve got to continue the search,’ said the second guard. ‘You’d be best returning to your troop. You’re one of the new recruits, aren’t you? Trying to curry favour with the druids, eh?’

Drustica hurried away, grateful that she had escaped suspicion, but their earlier words rang in her skull. Had the centurion fallen to his doom? She’d heard nothing, but with the wail of the wind and the crashing of the breakers far below, a cry, or the sound of him hitting the rocks, would be inaudible.

She found Flaminius outside the hall of skulls.

‘Where did you get to last night?’ he asked. Bellomarus and Segovesus came up, with a few others. ‘Do you know what happened?’

‘I was tired,’ she said. ‘I went back to the hut. When I woke up, there was a lot of noise so I came out to see what was happening.’

‘You don’t look like you’ve had a night’s sleep,’ said Bellomarus suspiciously. ‘Besides, we had an important ceremony at dawn. Why did you not attend it?’

‘We would have had an important ceremony,’ Flaminius corrected him. ‘But the victim escaped.’

‘The victim?’ she said. ‘You mean that centurion?’

A group of bagaudae marched in. Cucullata and several other cowled druids came to meet them.

‘We’ve searched the entire city,’ said the bagaudae leader. ‘No sign. He must have escaped in the night.’

‘Slaughtering two men with his bare hands?’ Cucullata said.

‘It seems he had a confederate,’ said the leader. Drustica tensed. ‘No doubt they both escaped. Shall I despatch patrols?’

Cucullata nodded. ‘Yes. They’ll have been heading for the road. By now they could be half way to Kanovium.’

‘If he lives,’ Drustica murmured.

They’d be better searching for a broken body on the seashore. He was as dead as he would have been had Flaminius gone through with the ceremony. In many ways, she was glad. Flaminius would not have the crime of murder, of participating in druidic rites, on his conscience. But the centurion was dead—there was no hope he could have survived the fall—and they were no closer to fathoming the conspiracy.

Riders were mustered and they rode off into the moors beyond. Drustica took little comfort in the knowledge that their search would be fruitless. Cucullata turned to Bellomarus.

‘Your new recruits must still be blooded,’ she intoned.

Bellomarus shook his head. ‘Find them another sacrifice.’

Cucullata eyed Flaminius in a way that Drustica did not relish. ‘The moon is no longer full, the time is no longer ripe,’ she said. ‘No, it is time they proved their devotion in more immediate ways. Only then will they be allowed to enter the inner circle of our mysteries.’

‘A headhunting raid? But that would mean initiating the final phase sooner than was planned. Have you the permission of the Archdruid?’

‘I received word from him at dawn. Our allies in the North are ready to make an attack on enemy positions, and all our bagaudae across the province are now at full strength. He has determined the best target. It will surprise you, I think. But before the main push, we will soften up our enemies with surprise attacks, hit and run raids going far into the province, returning to the safety of the hills as soon as enough damage is done. This will be a brief phase. Before the Romans can react, we will carry out our main strike.’

Flaminius’ face was blank, but Drustica knew he was listening as closely as she. So this was the druids’ plan—to attack the province, beginning with a series of raids. If only she had known this before she helped the centurion escape. Even if he lived, which seemed unlikely, he would have only the vaguest of stories to tell to Platorius Nepos. And if the Caledonians were preparing an attack on the Wall, which seemed to be what Cucullata was saying, the governor would be too busy fighting to concern himself with vague rumours of enemies at his back.

Cucullata decided that the recruits would be accompanied by one of their toughest Caledonian contingents, on the understanding that the recruits would be expected to do most of the killing. Soon Drustica and Flaminius were fully armoured and mounted, drilling on the open patch of turf that functioned as a parade ground.

Drill continued for much of the day, but they finished early and returned to their hut for food and rest. Bellomarus took Drustica to one side.

‘I know we don’t see eye to eye, you and me, decurion,’ he said. ‘But I want you to fight your best fight. We’ll be riding down into the lowlands, the hinterland of Viriconium. As soon as we come to an outlying farm, we will attack, burning rick and cot, and cutting down anyone who shows fight. No prisoners, understood? But everyone must bring back heads if they want to prove themselves. Tell the others.’

If Drustica was ever to learn the druids’ battle plans, she had to show her dedication to the cause. But it went against the grain, attacking peaceful farms and villas owned by Roman citizens.

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘When do we leave?’

‘At midnight,’ said Bellomarus.

‘This will be a preliminary to the campaign?’ He nodded. ‘What position will we attack when the campaign proper begins?’

‘I can’t tell you that. It’s known only to Cucullata and the Archdruid, and their closest confidantes. You know better than to ask questions. You’ll be told when you’re initiated. Now get some sleep.’

He went to find his own bedroll. Drustica passed on the information to the others and then lay down to rest. But she couldn’t sleep.

Half a watch before midnight they were awoken by messengers from Cucullata. Bellomarus took them to the hut that doubled as an armoury where they were equipped with mail, helmets, shields, lances, and longswords. The city was almost silent, and it was pitch black, but the messengers, bagaudae by the look of them, carried torches.

Next trip was to a stable, where they chose horses for the raid, study creatures since they would be seeing a fair bit of riding. Mounting them, they rode out into the field at the centre of the inner city, where more men sat their horses waiting.

These were Caledonians, blue painted warriors with spears and swords on shaggy ponies who eyed the troopers with insolence and truculence. A pair of cowled druids waited beside them, shivering in the night air. These gave Bellomarus his orders, and the two troops to ride for the gates.

They rode down the winding lanes of the outer city. The gates stood open. Guards stood on either side, and torches blazed on the walls. The massive stones of the gateway resounded as the raiders rode out. In the light of the waning moon they galloped across the heather.

Mountains bulked blackly against the starry sky, dark against darkness. They rode down muddy hill paths flanked by scrub. The moon passed behind clouds and their progress continued through an almost impenetrable darkness. The stars vanished, and all was dark. It began to rain.

Drustica was weary, reduced to a trance by the monotony of the journey, by the time they reached the Roman road. They followed it eastwards, passing Kanovium’s walls without incident—the sentries were sleeping on duty, it seemed; things were very lax—as dawn was breaking.

Crossing the river by the bridge they soon left the road itself and took to tracks that led through the dank woods and out over the purple heather. Here were few signs of life other than circling ravens and occasional herdsmen.

Near noon they camped deep in a wooded valley. Bellomarus posted scouts on the edge of the camp. Flaminius was one of them. Drustica joined him where he stood beside a tree overlooking the main path.

‘How long do you suppose we’ll be riding?’ he asked her. ‘Where is our target?’

‘Bellomarus tells us we will be attacking a farm outside a town called Viriconium,’ she told him. ‘I don’t know these southern places.’

‘It’s the tribal capital of the Cornavii people,’ Flaminius informed her. He would know, of course. ‘Deva is in their territory.’

‘We’re returning to Deva?’

He shook his head. ‘Viriconium is further south. I doubt many farms in its vicinity belong to Romans.’

That evening, as shadows fell, the raiders continued their journey. They rode on into the night, down ancient trackways far from the Roman roads, through the hills and out into the plains beyond. Finally, Bellomarus called a halt and they gathered in a grove of oaks. Smoke drifted into the night sky from a large clearing.

Caledonians went to scout, and soon returned with reports of a middling sized farm surrounded by tumbledown outbuildings and several fields of spelt.

‘Built in the Roman style,’ the lead scout said, and he spat on the ground. ‘Maybe Romans, maybe Britons, but no friends of ours.’

‘I’ve heard that some folk in Britain have taken to Roman ways,’ said Bellomarus, ‘even as they have in Gaul.’

‘Not the Caledonians,’ said the scout defiantly. ‘We never gave up the old ways.’

‘Soon all of us will follow them,’ Bellomarus promised. ‘But we must first make a strike for freedom.’ He gestured to the gathered troopers and Caledonians. ‘Fan out until we surround the place on three sides. Keep in cover until I give the sign on this.’

He produced a horn of the type used by Roman trumpeters. Drustica, smarting from the scorn they had shown for Romanised Britons, was amused that their hatred of Rome did not extend to a rejection of its military equipment.

She rode through the trees, ducking low to ensure her helmet was not knocked off by stray branches; it was difficult to make them out in the darkness. On the edge of the woods she reined her horse, gazing out at the deserted fields. All around, the wood was alive with the padding of horse hoofs, the jingle of equipment, whispered orders.

The farm was visible across the fields, low rectangular humps of shadow. Although it was hard to make out anything, she could tell from the angular lines that these buildings were indeed constructed on a Roman pattern.

She sat her horse, sweating under her armour, Flaminius in brooding silence on his own mount nearby. Soon she would be attacking this farm, killing people like her, Britons who had taken on the ways of the Romans. Maybe the Romans had protected them from local tribes who had been their traditional enemies, maybe that was the source of their loyalty. And now men who once fought for Rome would be killing them.

Flames blossomed in the darkness on the far side of the fields and the air hissed and roared with fire arrows that swooped down on the tiled roofs of the farm buildings. A horn note belled out through the trees.

‘That’s the sign for attack,’ said Flaminius grimly. She glanced at him, hearing the scrape as he drew his longsword from its sheath, but it was too dark to see his expression.

Yelling cries to split the heavens, riders burst out of the trees on either side, wild Caledonians on shaggy horses. ‘Move!’ came Segovesus’ voice from behind them. ‘What are you waiting for? We must attack!’

He shot past them on his horse. Flaminius spurred his own steed into action. Heart heavy, Drustica followed them both.

Riding figures thundered across the fields, churning the mud into a morass. Some bore flaming torches. Others brandished lances or longswords. At once they were leaping the hurdle gates of the farmyard.

Even as Drustica and Flaminius clattered across the cobbles of the courtyard, lit as it was by flames curling up from the burning roof of the main farmhouse, the doors burst open and out rushed several figures. Some were small enough to be children, others were adults, both women and men. At the head of the crowd was a big old fellow who brandished what looked like a legionary short sword.

Horses reared and screamed. A smaller figure, a youth—the man’s son? —ran up with a spear. As he tried to stab Flaminius’ horse, the tribune cut him down with his longsword.

Screaming and shouting rent the air as the raiders flung themselves upon the defenders.

Drustica found herself attacked by a farmhand who wielded a mattock. Hauling at her reins with her left hand, she spitted him with her sword. He fell like a poleaxed ox.

These farmers were no fighters, none except the big man. The raiders cut several down in the first few seconds, and now while some forced the remnant into retreat, others dismounted and took heads.

The farmhouse was a blazing furnace, and the defenders had no choice but to fight their attackers. The big man dragged one man from the back of his horse, braining him despite his helmet on the cobbles. Drustica was about to cut him down when Bellomarus rode past, followed by Caledonians herding a flock of frenziedly bleating sheep. All around them buildings were burning.

‘Ride!’ the auxiliary leader shouted. ‘We’ve got the heads. Ride!’

‘Come on!’ Segovesus cried. ‘We’re pulling back.’ He turned and galloped from the yard. Flaminius and the others followed him.

Drustica had yet to take a head. She looked about her for an opportunity; she could take one and then ride after the others.

The big man turned on his heel, longsword glittering in the starlight. The blade sliced at her horse’s hocks and it went down with a terrified whinny.

Drustica was flung free but her helmeted head smashed into a stone coping and her vision filled with exploding stars. Something dropped to the earth nearby and went rolling away. She tried to move but couldn’t summon up the will.

Flaminius rode grimly amidst the troopers, glancing back over his shoulder. The boy’s head hung from his saddlebow; he had sawed it off during the lull in the fighting. Grisly work.

He had not enjoyed the attack on the farmers. Though they hadn’t been entirely defenceless, their livestock had been stampeded, their crops trampled or burnt, their buildings destroyed. And all for what? Not that Romans were opposed to such hit and run attacks, but that was in time of war or rebellion. This attack—what had motivated it? All it was was a proving ground for him and his comrades, to show that they were indeed bagaudae. So they could be initiated into the secrets of the druids. So they would learn the rebels’ plans.

Unless Flaminius could find out what they planned and betray them, the entire province was doomed to uprising, war—perhaps it would even be detached from the empire and revert to the barbarism of the old days, the barbarism that persisted north of the Wall. If he could prevent that, it justified anything—even killing that youth, whose only crime had been defending his kith and kin from night raiders.

They rode on. When they halted in a remote valley in the hills, he went to look for Drustica to speak with her, but he couldn’t find her.

Drustica awoke to the drip of rain on her face and a smell of wood ash in her nostrils. She lay on her face on hard ground. The cold grey light of morning oozed over the stones as rain hissed down. She tried to roll over but realised that her arms were bound.

Panicking, she increased her efforts. A rough voice barked something derisive and she was picked up and sat against a half-burnt wall. The yard was filled with men. Bodies lay in coagulating pools of blood that even the heavy rain could not wash from the cobbles.

Standing over her was the big man. The farmer, she realised. Nearby clustered some of his farm workers while a stout woman clutched a little girl to her shapeless form. The other people in the yard wore armour. For a moment Drustica thought they were bagaudae. Then she saw they were legionaries, wearing thick woollen cloaks over their armour to keep out the rain and cold.

Her own armour was gone, and a pile of mail topped by a helmet lay nearby. A sword and shield lay propped against the wall. Her own clothes were in rags.

‘The Amazon has woken!’

The farmer struck her across the face. She endured it, and the following kicks and punches too, until the centurion in charge of the legionaries stepped up.

‘That’s enough,’ he said firmly. ‘She’ll be wanted for questioning. Alive.’

The farmer gave the centurion a salute that seemed incongruous in a civilian. ‘Very well, sir,’ he replied, ‘but when you’ve finished with her, bring her back. My people have a score to settle with her.’ His face puckered. ‘She killed my boy. Cut his head off. Where’s his head now? And other people were beheaded. Their heads have been taken…’

‘That wasn’t me.’

‘She speaks! What do you have to say for yourself, Amazon?’ the farmer said, glaring down at her.

‘I didn’t kill your son,’ Drustica said. ‘That was…’ She halted. ‘It was one of my comrades. Where are they?’

‘Rode off like cowards, taking the heads as trophies,’ said the centurion. ‘Who are you? Tiberius here says his attackers were Caledonians. Are you a Caledonian?’

‘I am a Roman citizen!’ When the centurion laughed, she realised how foolish it sounded. She added, ‘Of the Carvettian people.’

‘Carvetti?’ the centurion said. ‘They’re up round Luguvalium, by the Wall. Are you a renegade? Why were you riding with a Caledonian war party, and how did they get so far south?’

‘It’s confidential,’ Drustica insisted. ‘I have to speak with someone in authority.’

‘You talk pretty big for a raider,’ said the farmer resentfully. ‘You’ll say a lot more when I’ve finished with you.’ He picked up a stick from the ground and raised it above his head.

‘You’ve searched me.’ Drustica ignored him and addressed the centurion. ‘Did you not find a brooch?’

‘A brooch?’ said the centurion. ‘We found no whorish jewellery.’

Drustica’s breath came rapidly. She’d lost her lance-head brooch that marked her as a Commissary agent. It came back to her: the sound of something rolling away from her when she fell. How could she hope to get away now? These people would never believe that she wasn’t a raider. She doubted many of them would recognise the brooch, but the centurion should be aware of the Commissary, if he wanted promotion one day.

‘Search the yard,’ she commanded. ‘I lost it when I was flung from my horse.’

The centurion gripped his belt with two big hands and regarded her contemptuously. ‘Are you giving me orders?’ He looked at the vengeful farmer. ‘I’ll leave this insolent whore with you. I want her alive when I come back—I’m taking her back to headquarters for questioning—but she doesn’t have to be in one piece.’ He signalled to his men and they marched from the yard.

Face red with fury, the farmer brought the stick cracking down on Drustica’s helpless form.

Dispirited by the rain, the raiders trotted across the moors. Flaminius rode hunched in on himself, soaked through and miserable to the core. They had lost several during the attack, two more troopers as well as Drustica. But only Drustica filled his thoughts. Drustica and remorse.

Desperately he tried to picture the hot sun, the blue skies, the sea at Baiae; an utter contrast to rain soaked reality. He should never have left Italy. When Junius Italicus had come to find him, he should have run and kept running. He swore to himself by all the infernal gods that if he survived he would tender his resignation to Probus as soon as he returned to Rome.

But now Junius Italicus had gone. Flaminius had been willing to sacrifice him if it meant becoming privy to the druids’ secrets, but in a way, he was glad his centurion had escaped, even if he had fallen to his doom.

He had been angry with the man for betraying him. That, and the days of training and indoctrination with the bagaudae—he hadn’t been in his right mind. But now Drustica was gone too.

‘Bellomarus chose badly when he picked that place,’ Segovesus confided in Flaminius. They had halted in a stand of trees. Rain hissed down beyond the dripping eaves.

Flaminius wondered why the man was talking to him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Looks like the farmer was an ex-legionary,’ Segovesus said. ‘The farm was better protected than we’d expected.’ He touched Flaminius’ arm. ‘I’m sorry about the decurion. I know you were sweet on her.’ Flaminius nodded wordlessly. He wanted to say something but he was all choked up inside. ‘She’ll be waiting for you on the far side of Phlegethon,’ he added.

Segovesus turned and walked away.

—26—

Phlegethon was a river in Hades. Everyone knew that. Everyone with a classical education, that was—but auxiliary troopers? Literary tradition and the flowerier sort of contemporary poetry would suggest that Drustica’s shade wandered the banks of that mythical fiery river. But somehow Flaminius didn’t reckon Segovesus was much of a scholar.

Phlegethon was also the password Probus had said his agent would use to make contact—if necessary. Flaminius had thought that Drustica was that agent. She certainly had been employed by the Commissary, but now he came to think of it, she’d never given him the password. In which case was she not the one Probus had meant? It made a lot more sense that the agent in question was already undercover as a member of the auxiliary troop.

Probus had never suggested Flaminius go undercover, that had been his own idea, a reaction to circumstances. No, in fact, it had been Drustica who had suggested it. Was Segovesus the agent in question? In which case, now that Flaminius was very much alone, now that both Junius Italicus and Drustica were dead, contact was very necessary indeed.

Flaminius hurried after Segovesus, but before he could find the trooper, the rain eased and Bellomarus issued the order for them all to remount. Flaminius found his horse and straddled it. He searched his comrades for Segovesus. There the Gaul was, mounting his horse on the far side of the little wood.

When all were mounted, they rode out of the valley and across another stretch of bleak, rolling moorland.

The sun shone down on the desolation, like an omen of better things to come. Flaminius kept his eye on Segovesus, but the trooper kept away from him, riding at the head when Flaminius was at the back, riding at the back when Flaminius was at the front. Soon Flaminius stopped trying to get close to him.

After all, what could they discuss out here, amongst so many enemies? Assuming Segovesus really was an agent. Maybe he’d been a private tutor for a rich family before he joined up. Maybe he’d been a clerk or librarian. Plenty of slaves worked in libraries. Perhaps he’d been emancipated and gone on to join an auxiliary troop.

No, that made no sense. A freed slave became a Roman citizen. Only officers were citizens in the auxiliaries, and not always then—the rest were peregrines, non-citizens from within the empire, or barbarians from beyond its limits. Segovesus was a Gaul, so a peregrine. What education he had had would have been rudimentary, if that. It was unlikely that he could write, let alone read or understand Greek.

They rode on across the moors and through the forests. As they galloped down towards the Kanovia valley, a patrol of legionaries was seen marching down the road. The auxiliaries took cover in the deep forest. There were too Romans for Bellomarus to chance an ambush by men tired and wounded. Besides, they didn’t want to attract too much attention yet, he explained. Attacking isolated farmsteads was one thing. If a Roman patrol went missing in the hills, more would be sent to investigate.

Flaminius wondered if any patrols had been sent to investigate his own disappearance. ‘But we are going to attack the Romans at some point?’ he said.

‘Of course we are,’ Bellomarus replied. ‘We’re going to raise the standard of revolt and force those bastards into the sea.’

‘When?’ Flaminius said. ‘How? We went through that’—he gestured to indicate the headhunting raid, and its attendant horrors— ‘so we could prove ourselves.’ He tried to forget the staring eyes of the boy he had killed, the severed head on his saddlebow now attracting flies. ‘Isn’t it about time you told us a bit more?’

Segovesus was behind Bellomarus. Very quietly the trooper caught his attention with his eyes, and shook his head warningly.

Bellomarus didn’t notice. He scowled at Flaminius. ‘You’ll learn everything, you’ll sit in on our war councils, all but the most secret—after your initiation. Yes, you’ve proved yourself, hill-man. Everyone saw you kill that boy. His head hangs from your saddle. You can’t get away from that. You’re in too deep; now you must fight for us. I’ll be promoting you to decurion. And now you can be initiated.’

Was that how they had turned Bellomarus? Did he have a blood guilt that the druids played upon? How long had all this been going on? Since the procurator’s murder? Or longer? Bellomarus was part of the same troop as Segovesus, but he was deep in the druids’ councils.

Flaminius sat back, disconsolate, haunted by guilt. He’d killed men before, but not boys, not untutored, unskilled farm boys. It had been necessary, of course. He had to convince the druids and bagaudae that he was one of them. But it was difficult to justify the murder of innocents. Only if he could save the province from druidic revolt could he ever justify what he had done. Even then, how could he get the information out without exposing himself?

His eyes met those of Segovesus again. The Gaul was expressionless. Flaminius was about to ask Bellomarus a question when a scout scrambled down to join them.

‘They’ve moved on,’ he reported.

Bellomarus rose, and gestured for the other troopers and the Caledonians to do the same. ‘We’ll wait half an hour longer,’ he said. He told the scout to keep watching, and added, ‘Then we will cross the valley and ride over the moors to the city.’

It began raining again as they entered the high hills. They were going a different way through the maze of peaks from previously, coming up from further south. Flaminius recognised nothing until they crossed a Roman road and he saw that it was the one from Kanovium to Segontium. But their hoofs clip-clopped on the stone surface only briefly, and then they were crossing the purple heather once more. A few more miles brought them into the hidden valley dominated by the city on the peak.

That evening there was feasting and drinking in the hall of skulls to welcome the freshly blooded warriors back to the fold. Niches were found in the stone walls where the new heads were laid to rest. The eyes of the boy he had killed seemed to follow Flaminius around the hall.

Cucullata joined them. From under her cowl she gazed admiringly at her freshly blooded new warriors. ‘Tonight you will be initiated into our mysteries,’ she breathed.

The troopers, led by Bellomarus, staggered from the hall packed with meat and full of drink, and were led up the winding path to the central of the three cairns on the hilltop. A wind howled in from the sea and the distant waves foamed white in the cold light of the stars. As he left the hall, Flaminius felt the cold night air on his flushed face like a warning, an omen. This night he would descend into the Underworld.

He had not drunk as much as his fellow troopers, but he was still unsteady on his feet as he walked at their head, behind Bellomarus. The wind howled like a great wolf, and their long hair and capes whipped back and forth. Despite the wind, firelight blazed up ahead.

As they drew closer he saw two druids beside an opening in the cairn, holding torches that roared in the wind but showed no signs of being extinguished. They welcomed the men and indicated the entrance. Taking a torch from one of the druids, Bellomarus led the troopers within.

Out of the wind all was quiet except for the thudding echo of booted feet, but the air was stifling, cold and dank and stale. Flaminius began wondering if they were truly going to enter the Underworld—and meet Drustica on the banks of the Phlegethon? —when the passage opened out into a larger chamber, walled with stones. In the centre was what looked like a roughhewn stone altar.

Within stood Cucullata, holding a harp. At her side was another figure which wore an iron mask in the form of a stag’s head. It held a torch in one hand and a drinking goblet in the other. It spoke, and its voice was that of Orgetorix.

‘Welcome to the world of the dead. You are all dead men, but tonight you will learn that death is only the midpoint in life. All who die will return after a spell in the Otherworld. Death is not to be feared.’

And he took the harp from Cucullata, who took in return the torch and the goblet, and he strummed while he sang the tale of a long-ago hero. This hero was mortally wounded in battle with his enemies but three goddesses took him away in a coracle to a mysterious land in the West where his wounds were healed. He returned to the world only to find many generations had passed.

As the bard spoke, Cucullata passed around the assembled initiates, giving them sips from the goblet. Flaminius drank to find that it tasted strange, not very pleasant, and left him feeling as if all the blood had rushed to his head. As Orgetorix’s voice boomed on, his words seemed to take on a deeper significance. Visions surged into Flaminius’ mind, visions of tossing seas of leaves, wide forests where waterfalls thundered and deer cropped grass beneath the trees.

It reminded him of the other initiation he had been through recently, into the cult of Mithras. Were all mysteries the same? Were all religions one? Were all gods one God? His head ached, and he sank down into the corner to vomit.

But the poison would not leave his system.

He looked up to see a boy had been brought out from somewhere. Cucullata took him to the altar and he knelt behind it, resting his head on the stone. He was a boy of eight or nine summers, with fair curling hair and a face like a young Apollo. Where he had been dragged from Flaminius didn’t know. He didn’t know what was happening. He caught only glimpses through the crowd.

Now Orgetorix approached, a bronze axe in his hand. He lifted it high. The crowd surged forward as he brought it down. Next Flaminius saw Orgetorix standing in front of the altar. He lifted something up and carried it to the far end. Behind him lay the boy’s body, headless.

Orgetorix turned to the crowd. On the altar sat the boy’s head, surrounded by a pool of blood. Its eyes flicked open, and it grinned.

As Flaminius vomited again, he heard Cucullata pronounce, ‘Death is but the mid-point in a long life. We will all live again.’

Orgetorix went to the altar again. Next thing Flaminius saw, the head was no longer there. Orgetorix returned to the headless body, and then the boy was on his feet again, his head miraculously restored.

The rest of the night was a phantasmagoric hell, of which Flaminius remembered little, a descent into animalistic savagery. It passed like a dream, lingering uneasily in his memories only to vanish like cobwebs in the wind if he tried to remember more. But that was later.

Now he lay against the drystone wall, body soaked with sweat. The torches had burnt down, and all was darkness except a shaft of light from the tunnel. He crawled towards it. Outside he found some of his fellow initiates there already, lying on the turf watching the sun rise over the mountains.

The next day, he and his fellow troopers were presented with serpent stones and told they had the freedom of the city. They were now allowed to come and go as they pleased among those winding lanes. Since they could not go beyond its gates, and any attempts to leave without permission were punishable by death, Flaminius concluded that they were still prisoners. Not that he had any wish to leave yet; he knew nothing. But it was a relief to walk around the city, such as it was, without trouble, rather than to be herded from place to place like cattle.

The stone walled place was little more than a fortified village. Clusters of circular huts were dotted about the slope, while other areas were uninhabited due to the steepness of the rock. The inner city was similar, although most of it was uninhabited, apart from the hall area. The top of the hill was empty of all except the cairns that topped its three summits. Short tough grass grew in the less stony areas, and heather was in bloom. There were no trees, but windblown gorse bushes lifted withered branches skywards, some reaching higher than head height.

Freedom of movement had other benefits. After training, he could walk alongside Segovesus and speak to him. They discussed trivia until they managed to get away from the main group of men.

‘Last night,’ he commented as they walked down the hill path, ‘I thought it was us who were going to end up on the banks of Phlegethon.’

‘We can’t talk here.’ Segovesus played nervously with his serpent stone.

‘Where can we talk?’ Flaminius was impatient. ‘You’re the agent. The Chief said you’d make yourself known when necessary. Well, you’ve made yourself known, and it’s necessary. What do you know?’

They took a short path between a group of huts where Caledonians lounged or squabbled or polished their weapons, out into a little sloping field between clusters of huts.

‘You were there last night,’ Segovesus said. ‘You saw what the druids can do. They’re magicians. Who knows what uncanny powers they have? They could be…listening.’

‘Trickery,’ said Flaminius dismissively. ‘I’ve seen it in the theatre. That altar was hollow. Probably wood and dyed cloth. There were two boys, one inside, one outside, twins, perhaps—and two holes. When Orgetorix swung the axe, the boy thrust his head inside of the first head. When Orgetorix went to the other end, the other boy popped his head out of the other…’

Understanding dawned on the Gaul’s face. For a while they were both silent.

‘I joined just before the procurator was murdered,’ Segovesus said at last. ‘They respected me. I’m a bit of a bruiser. I made my mark on them with my fists.’

‘Yes,’ said Flaminius with feeling. ‘On me, too.’

‘I didn’t know who you were back then,’ Segovesus apologised. ‘I had a role to maintain. You were the new boy, even newer than me, you needed taking down a peg…’

‘Never mind that now,’ said Flaminius. ‘Do you know what the druids are planning?’

The Gaul shook his head. ‘I know little more than you,’ he said. ‘What I do know is that this is not the only group. Other bagaudae are located across Britain and Gaul. They will rise at a given signal. The druids have a secret way of communicating, and they all communicate with the Archdruid, who is coordinating the whole uprising…’

‘Who is the Archdruid?’ Flaminius interrupted. ‘Where is he?’

‘He’s in Britain,’ said Segovesus, with a shrug. ‘I overheard some of the initiates talking when I was in Onnum, before you turned up. The Archdruid has come to Britain, they were saying. Then they saw me and shut up. But who he is, I don’t know.’

‘How do they communicate?’ Flaminius asked. ‘Cucullata says she’s received messages from the Archdruid when there’s been no messenger. Drustica’—his face clouded— ‘thought the Archdruid was an invention of hers; that she was in charge and no one else.’

Segovesus shook his head. ‘There is an Archdruid,’ he asserted, ‘although no one’s seen him as far as I know. He sends Cucullata messages using homing birds. You must have seen them.’

‘I see,’ said Flaminius. Something stirred in his memory, the cooing of pigeons. ‘Have you reported all of this? To the Chief?’

‘I reported everything I learnt while we were in Onnum, when I still had Commissary agents to send my reports. In Deva, I had no one, and of course it was impossible here.’

‘You’ve done a good job of intelligence gathering. Now that we’re initiates we should soon gather more. As soon as we have enough, I want you to escape the city and take the information to the governor.’

Segovesus shook his head. ‘Getting out will be impossible. They’ve doubled the patrols. And if I did manage to get away, I’d be missed. They would know that I was a traitor. Besides, the governor is a long way away, in Eboracum or on the Wall.’

Flaminius scowled. ‘I’m not asking you to go to Eboracum, only to Kanovium. Get your report there, use your authority to get it sent post haste to Platorius Nepos. Understand?’

Segovesus looked doubtful. ‘It might work,’ he said. ‘If I’m quick. You’ll have to cover for me in my absence.’

‘All that matters,’ Flaminius said ruthlessly, ‘is that you get that information where it will do the most good.’

A thought struck Segovesus. ‘We know this is not the only area where the bagaudae are based,’ he said. ‘The troop in Onnum had already been infiltrated when Pulcher was murdered. Who knows how many auxiliary troops are part of the conspiracy? Maybe even the one in Kanovium.’ When Flaminius stayed silent, Segovesus added, ‘It’s likely! Theirs is the closest auxiliary fort to this city, which is the centre of it all.’

‘The centurion in charge is unlikely to be in on it,’ Flaminius said. ‘He’s a Roman citizen. No Roman citizen would join the conspiracy.’

‘I see!’ said Segovesus. ‘It’s only Gauls that can’t be trusted?’

‘You know I don’t mean that,’ Flaminius replied. ‘But the conspiracy intends to “free” Gaul from the empire, Gaul and Britain. Why would any Roman become involved? What’s in it for them?’

‘Many Gauls have become Roman citizens,’ Segovesus said. ‘But some may retain loyalties to the old order.’

That evening, the newly initiated bagaudae were admitted to a conference in the hall of skulls. As recent initiates, they were forbidden from making any contribution to the discussion, and it was made clear that they were there very much on sufferance. They squatted in the rushes alongside one wall, in the shadows, while Cucullata, Orgetorix, and various nameless druids and Caledonian chieftains sat on the far side of a sea of hairy heads. These latter were other rank and file bagaudae, less recently initiated, perhaps, but of equally low status.

‘My fellow countrymen grow restless,’ one of the Caledonian chieftains began. ‘We will wait no longer. The Romans have the island in a stranglehold, with this great wall of stone choking the life out. Our attack will begin as soon as we have marched south.’

‘This is against the Archdruid’s wishes.’ Cucullata’s soft voice resounded through the stone hall. ‘He would have us wait until the optimum moment. Our forces in the south are not fully prepared. Many need to re-infiltrate the Roman forces.’

The Caledonian shook his head. ‘My people were putting on their war paint when I took ship for this place. By now they will be wheeling out their chariots. If you do not rise in the south, our waves will break on the rock that is the Wall.’

‘The Archdruid…’ Cucullata began.

Another Caledonian broke in. ‘The Archdruid is a foreigner. All of you are foreigners, Romans or Gauls. We do not need you. This is our island.’

Orgetorix gave him a patronising smile. ‘Which you Britons have defended valiantly,’ he said. ‘We revere the island of the painted people, though half of it is under the heel of the Romans—oh, as is Gaul, I’ll admit. But you need us. We are all followers of the druids. That should unite our peoples, even if the seas divide us.’

The first Caledonian shook his head. ‘The wheels of our chariots are rolling. If we are to strike, we must strike now, and you in the south must back us.’

A druid shook his cowled head. ‘Gaul is not ready to rise. This province could manage it at a pinch, but Gaul must be freed as well.’

Down in the shadows, Flaminius and Segovesus exchanged glances. As the bickering continued between the Gauls and Caledonians, Flaminius felt hope.

It seemed the rebellion was scotched before it was begun. If the Caledonians made an attack on the Wall, the Romans would be waiting for them. Most of the military presence in the province was concentrated in that area. Unless the bagaudae and their allies could settle their differences, the Caledonian attack would founder, and the bagaudae could be rooted out as soon as was expedient. As soon as Platorius Nepos was alerted to their threat. Then Flaminius could go home and forget what had happened here. Forget what he had done.

Segovesus leaned forward. ‘Divided we fall?’ he whispered.

Flaminius remembered the fables of Aesop he had read as a boy. The Four Oxen and the Lion had been one of his favourites. He shook his head. He needed to wake up. He was in deep. Dreaming might well cost him his life.

The argument amongst the leaders stuttered to an end. ‘Very well,’ said Cucullata wearily. ‘We will consult the Archdruid. I do not have the authority to say that we will begin our attack now. It is up to the Archdruid. Your leaders would do well to remember that,’ she told the Caledonians.

‘Regardless of when we begin the war,’ said the Caledonian chief, ‘how will we fight? Where will we march? My fellow tribesmen will attack the Wall. That will draw the attention of the foreigners. Those reserves they have as far south as this will be sent to help the main force. That is when we should strike, and I tell you it will be soon! We can’t afford to miss this chance.’

‘We are not ready,’ Cucullata insisted. She paused. ‘Nevertheless, it is time you knew the main thrust of our campaign plans. We shall march on Eboracum as soon as the garrison departs to defend the Wall.’

Orgetorix’s voice split the ensuing hubbub.

‘Where else?’ he demanded of the warriors. ‘Eboracum is where the governor has his main base, and it is the central garrison of the Sixth Legion. The legion will not be there, of course, barring a few guards—they will be defending the Wall against the Caledonians, assuming King Brennos plays wisely. We shall seize that central point and defend it against all comers, then ride out and oust the foreigners from the north of the province.’

‘What about the south?’ a bagauda asked. ‘What of Gaul?’

‘That can come later,’ Cucullata said. ‘If Brennos is to force our hand, we must concentrate our forces where they are most needed. Then spread out. Once we hold Eboracum, we hold Britain.’

‘And when you attack Eboracum,’ said the Caledonian chieftain, ‘the governor of the foreigners will be caught between hammer and anvil. We can break him as a thrush smashes a snail on a stone.’ He nodded wisely. ‘My people’s fight will not be so one sided. You do not intend to abandon us.’

‘We never did,’ said Cucullata smoothly. ‘We are all equals under the gods. Together, we shall liberate our peoples from the hated foreigners.’

‘I thought you hoped to betray us,’ said the Caledonian, ‘to leave us and the foreigners to slaughter each other. Then you would move in and wipe out the weakened survivor. So I suspected.’

Orgetorix laughed. ‘Why would we wish that, friend? We are all followers of the old ways. And it is we who will forge that Celtic Empire foretold by the druids of Gaul.’

The Caledonian sat back. He exchanged glances with his fellow tribesmen. None of them spoke.

‘Very well,’ said the Caledonian at last. ‘We shall send a message to our king.’

‘Do not trouble yourself,’ said Cucullata, with a high laugh. ‘A message has already been sent. Your king’s druid will be delivering it tomorrow at noon.’

‘So now we know,’ said Flaminius.

‘Aye,’ said Segovesus.

‘Now we have something to tell Platorius Nepos,’ Flaminius said.

Segovesus nodded wordlessly. As they walked down the hill, they could see across the city; warriors were flocking among its drystone lanes.

The waning moon hung in the sky above the mountains.

‘One of us should remain here,’ Flaminius added. ‘The other must escape and make his way to Kanovium, and return as soon as possible.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Segovesus. ‘We already decided that. You cover for me. If I don’t return, do what you can to sabotage the attack.’

‘You’d better return,’ said Flaminius. ‘And you’d better get going now. If you go now you have a chance of returning before first light. After making your report requisition a horse from Kanovium and ride back as fast as you can. You mustn’t be missed or they’ll realise you were a spy. Then they’ll change their plans.’

‘What if I don’t make it back in time?’

‘I’ll think of something,’ said Flaminius, although his mind was empty of ideas. ‘We’ve got to get down to the lower wall and wait for a chance. Head out onto the moors and find the road as soon as you can. Then get to Kanovium.’

A quarter of an hour later, Flaminius watched from the wall as Segovesus’ figure vanished into the darkness of the moor. Would the Gaul return? Would he get to Kanovium? The moors were dangerous enough in daylight, let alone at night-time. It had taken about three hours to get from Kanovium to the city the first time. Six hours there and back. Add another hour for Segovesus making his report and requisitioning a horse. The horse would shave something off it…

Flaminius glanced up from his calculations when he heard booted footsteps from the parapet. Grateful for the darkness, he slithered down into the muddy wallow at the bottom of the wall and floundered back up the hill to the hut. Six hours’ time, and he’d go looking for Segovesus.

Until then, all Flaminius could do was wait.

—27—

Deva, July 30

Drustica was in agony. After the vengeful farmer had beaten her soundly, she had been bundled onto a pack horse and taken across country by the legionaries. Now she was in a prison cell in Deva.

She seemed to have been forgotten about. The camp was in its usual shambles, from what little she had seen; Tribune Priscus had not improved since her patrol vanished into the hills. She had no idea where in the fortress she was imprisoned, but wherever it was, there seemed to be some excitement up top, with much shouting and chanting from a large crowd.

The cell door opened. Silhouetted in torchlight was a small, portly figure. Was this the torturer?

It waddled inside, lit a lamp, and closed the door. Drustica sat up, although pain shot through her as she did so. ‘Sir!’ she hissed, recognising her visitor. ‘You’ve got to get me out of here!’

The man sat down heavily on the opposite paillasse. In the light of the lamp he held, Marcius Magnus’ face was wreathed eerily in shadows.

‘The legionaries who brought you in said you had attacked a civilian farm,’ he wheezed.

‘Sir, I have to see someone in authority,’ Drustica said urgently. ‘I have important information.’

Marcius Magnus frowned. ‘I came here tonight because Tribune Priscus is busy. A wild boar has been captured and it’s scheduled to be let loose on prisoners in the arena tonight. The bookmakers are giving it very good odds. Organisation of the show is occupying the tribune’s time. But I thought I’d pop in to see my old decurion.’

Drustica shook her head, confused. ‘Why didn’t you do anything before?’

Marcius Magnus leered. ‘I can hardly be seen associating with raiders from the hills. Your comrades took several heads. Quite the stuff of ancient legend. The old ways are returning, it seems.’

Roman citizens were supposed to enjoy gory public execution. But warrior woman though she was, Drustica had no stomach for it. Watching wretches mauled by beasts seemed too unmanly for her. But Marcius Magnus had been raised in a different school.

‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I must report that when my patrol reached the hills, we were set upon by bagaudae. Since then we have been held captive in an old hillfort in the mountains overlooking the Hibernian Ocean…’

‘Captive?’ Marcius Magnus said laughing. ‘Of bagaudae? And yet when you were taken prisoner by men of the Twentieth, you were running free on a headhunting raid. Can you explain that?’

Drustica swallowed. ‘I realise what it looks like,’ she said. ‘It’s difficult to explain.’

‘What you tell me,’ Marcius Magnus added, ‘may well save you.’ Seeing her confusion, he added, ‘From sharing top billing with the wild boar.’

Drustica looked blindly about her. This wasn’t a cell in the barracks, she suddenly realised. It was a holding cell for the arena.

—28—

City of the Druids, July 31

Flaminius was woken by a kick. Rolling over, he saw light filtering in through the smoke hole. He realised he would have to get down to the wall and wait for Segovesus. All around, men were stirring. He blinked up at the figure who stood over him.

‘Get up, decurion!’ Bellomarus barked. ‘Get up, all of you! Shame has fallen on this band of men. Shame! And right after you did me proud on that raid!’

‘What’s happened?’ Flaminius said.

‘You’ll find out,’ said Bellomarus. ‘Cucullata will speak to you.’

They were herded from the hut. Armed men led them up the winding lanes, as they had done before the auxiliaries were given freedom of the city. In the hall of skulls Flaminius and the rest were dragged before Cucullata and several druids, who sat on the dais looking disapprovingly down at them.

Bellomarus stepped forward. ‘Here they are,’ he said, ‘though it shames me to bring my own men to you under guard.’

‘Enough, Bellomarus.’ Cucullata was cradling a bundle of rags in her lap. She looked at the gathered troopers. ‘You will see that one of your number is not with you.’

The troopers looked around them. ‘Aye,’ said one. ‘Segovesus isn’t here. Where is he?’

With a dramatic flourish, Cucullata lifted the bundle.

The rags fell to reveal Segovesus’ severed head. Flaminius winced. The Gaul’s blue eyes rolled in his horrified face. From the red, ragged stub of his neck, it looked as if removing his head had taken several cuts. Whether it had been while he was alive or after death, Flaminius couldn’t guess.

‘This trooper was found outside the city during the night,’ Cucullata said. ‘We have patrols on the moors as well as the walls. One found him.’ Flaminius pictured Segovesus wandering the moors, lost and alone.

‘He couldn’t give a good account of himself, so they tortured him and beheaded him. But they got this much out of him. His mission was to betray our secrets to the enemy. Unfortunately the men were too enthusiastic in their questioning and he died before they could learn more.’

She brandished Segovesus’ head again. ‘A spy! This time not an interloper, like the centurion who we captured. An adder in our bosom. A man who had been initiated! And you’—her accusing finger seemed to be pointing straight at Flaminius’ heart— ‘were his comrades!’

‘Nobody liked him much,’ said one of the troopers.

‘No,’ said another, hastily. ‘He joined just before the procurator was murdered. He was a bully. People thought he was a spy even then. For the emperor.’

‘You were seen talking to him yesterday, decurion,’ Cucullata told Flaminius. ‘What was the subject of your discussion?’

Flaminius regarded the other troopers. ‘I agree Segovesus was a bully,’ he said. ‘I knew it as well as anyone in the troop, having met his fists when I was a raw recruit. I fought back, though.’ He shrugged. ‘Since I had become decurion, I couldn’t leave bad blood between us. I was making peace. How was I supposed to know he was a spy?’

Cucullata conferred with her fellow druids. The troopers stood in anxious silence.

Finally, she said, ‘Very well. We accept that none of you were implicated. But this changes everything. We must move quickly. We know what the spy was to report, but not if he reported it—the men who caught him killed him before they thought to find that out. No matter. We must assume that he betrayed our plans. I shall send out the messenger birds. We march tomorrow. Return to your hut and prepare.’

They marched hastily from the hall, Bellomarus at the front. He fell into step with Flaminius.

‘You may have convinced Cucullata,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got my eye on you, decurion.’

Flaminius watched a pigeon fly off into the blue. Segovesus had been their last hope, unless Flaminius himself could escape. Security would be a lot stronger now. Junius Italicus had died trying to get information out, Drustica was probably dead, and now the only other agent Flaminius had had to work with was also dead.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘I know you were getting friendly with that traitor,’ Bellomarus said. ‘For all I know, he turned you, made you an agent of the Romans. But you’ll stay in sight and fight for the druids, or I’ll kill you myself.’

Perhaps it was just as well. Even if he got away, Flaminius was back to square one. The plans had been changed. He didn’t know when they would get to Eboracum. He couldn’t warn the governor. His only hope was to escape the bagaudae during the march and get to Platorius Nepos ahead of them. If he could steal a march on them—steal a horse, more likely. With luck, it would be before the Caledonian attack on the Wall. But how could he get away with Bellomarus watching him?

The preparations took all day. They were hasty; if Flaminius had been in command of an army, even an unofficial, rebel army, he would not have expected his fighters to get ready in so short a time. By the crack of dawn the following day, they and their fellow troops and the Caledonian warriors were mustered and massing in the outer city. Cucullata, Orgetorix and the druids rode at the fore.

The gates creaked open. The advance guard galloped out onto the moor. The army streamed out behind them.

Bellomarus’ troop came at the rear, relegated to guarding the baggage train. It made no sense to Flaminius. If he had a group of men he didn’t trust, he’d place them on the front line, get them killed as soon as possible, not put them in a position of responsibility. But the bagaudae and the druids did not think in terms of responsibility, only of glory. Perhaps that would be their downfall.

Flaminius was afraid. Afraid for himself—he had to escape, but when would he have the opportunity? Afraid for the province. Britain was delicately balanced. It had never been fully conquered; what the Romans ruled represented an uncertain toehold in this mysterious fastness of barbarians and druids. They thought they had conquered the island, but they never had. Perhaps they never would.

And since the retreat from Mesopotamia that had begun Hadrian’s reign, the entire empire had been similarly balanced; a balance between civilisation, with all its decadence, and barbarism, with its savagery. And that was the fight that was being fought in this province. Flaminius did not know which side would win. If Britain was lost, it would be no great loss—this rain-soaked rock in the ocean that had always been trouble—but it would set a dire precedent.

The sun was still rising over the peaks, and the mountains flung long shadows across their path over the heather as their hoofs churned the thin highland mud. At last they reached the Roman road. How ironic, Flaminius thought, that the barbarian rebels would use the empire’s own skilfully contrived infrastructure against it.

They rode for Kanovium. This gave Flaminius hope. The centurion at Kanovium had kept his wits about him, not like his fellow officer in Deva. He’d block their path, send word to where it was needed.

But when the rebel force rode down out of the hills into the Kanovia Valley, they found Kanovium with its gates standing open, auxiliary troopers lifting their lances in welcome, and a pile of fly circled bodies lying in the parade ground, one of them that self-same centurion, his sightless eyes gazing up at a sky that threatened rain.

It was the same story at Varae.

The Archdruid’s net was drawing tight, his treacherous confederates were everywhere. The city of the druids had been its heart, but as Flaminius rode down from the hills with the rebels, he realised that Gaulish auxiliary troops were everywhere. How many had been turned? Eight months had passed since Pulcher had been murdered. Even before then, the mutiny must have been simmering. And now it was spilling over to drown the province in a deluge of blood.

They rode down the coast to the legionary camp at Deva. To Flaminius’ horror, the auxiliaries had risen even here. Tribune Priscus had been sacrificed to dark druidic gods in the amphitheatre he had been so proud of. The mutinous auxiliaries joined the bagaudae and rode onwards, ever onwards into the heart of the helpless province.

Flaminius wondered what had become of Marcius Magnus. He had seen no sign of him in the amphitheatre, but presumably the auxiliaries had slaughtered him, along with the legionaries in Deva. Some of his own troop must be among them, as well as the vexillation that had gone with Flaminius into the hills. But he saw no sign of them, only an ill-disciplined mass of auxiliary troopers, many with severed heads bobbing at their saddlebow.

They left Deva and went south. This seemed odd to him. When he’d come here from Eboracum, over the high hills via Mamucium, he had ridden up to the east gate, by the parade ground. Instead they were going south, on the Roman road that led through Cornavii country and into the lands of the Catavellauni, once the most powerful people in these islands.

It was the height of impudence for these bagaudae to use Roman military roads, but they met no opposition while they approached Viriconium. Somewhere to the west was the farm where he had lost Drustica. Where were the legionaries? Were they all in the north? Had the Caledonian attack come already? The rebels seemed to have free rein.

Then that would be why they were going south. This road crossed the Lindum road south east of Viriconium. They could take the latter road north to Lindum, and then Eboracum. It would not be as straightforward as the road over the hills, but perhaps it would be quicker. Did the druids expect resistance on the hill road?

There was certainly none here in Cornavii country.

—29—

Brigantia, August 4

Drustica rode desperately along the Roman road. The countryside was calm, tranquil, but she knew war was brewing in every quarter. The revolt of the auxiliaries in Deva had taken her by surprise. If it hadn’t come just as Marcius Magnus was visiting her in her cell beneath the amphitheatre, things could well have turned out differently.

What had happened to the fat, waddling little man, she didn’t know. As the auxiliaries dragged Tribune Priscus and several of his officers into the centre of the arena to butcher them with relentless savagery she had hidden in an alcove containing an image of the goddess Nemesis. Escaping as they dragged in another batch of loyalists, she had stolen a horse and ridden away.

Ever since, she had been riding almost continuously, barring occasional pauses for rest. The horse was close to foundering, and she herself was exhausted. As she rode along the Roman road, she had found it almost empty of traffic. Once a patrol of legionaries had tried to stop her, but having no time to explain herself, she had ridden straight through them.

Now the peaks filled the skyline. But her destination was on their far side. She had no food except some basic rations in one of the saddlebags and a water skin. And that was running out fast.

Neither patrols nor bagaudae were at large. It seemed she had left the danger zone for now. But the entire province was going up in flames. Where was Flaminius?

What Marcius Magnus had told her had shocked her. What she had seen in the arena had shocked her even more. As a child, she had heard songs of the uprising of Arviragus, the chieftain who had brought the Brigantian confederation eternal shame by leading his men to slaughter Romans. Shame to those tribes of the confederation loyal to Rome. But other tribes had seen things differently.

Perhaps they still did. Perhaps they would take this opportunity to rise again.

If Britain lost Rome’s protection, tribes like Drustica’s would suffer most. They had profited from Rome’s rule; the empire had defended them from their enemies. In return, the Carvetti had remained loyal, even now the Wall was being built straight across their herding grounds.

Drustica and her fellow chiefs had weighed up their chances between Rome and the Caledonians, and they had chosen what they thought was the right side. Should it all go down in flames, should the legions be massacred, the Carvetti would bear the brunt of their enemies’ success.

Her horse was staggering. Well trained, it showed no resistance to Drustica’s commands—it was as loyal and obedient just as the Carvetti were. She tugged at the reins and the horse halted, shuddering and foaming.

Drustica swung down from the saddle and went to stroke the beast’s sweating forehead. She took oats from the saddlebag and let the horse munch them, then led it to the stream at the side of the road.

As it slurped greedily, she sat down on a stone on the bank and warmed herself in the sun. for now, the journey must wait.

—30—

Cornavii country, 6 August

The rebels rode on through peaceful farmlands and woodlands. On the morning of the third day, when the roofs of Viriconium were visible on the horizon, a patrol from the Second Legion detained their advance scouts. There was a brief, inconclusive skirmish that broke off when the legionaries saw the full scale of the rebel army, and withdrew promptly and prudently.

‘So may the enemies of the druids flee, wherever we go!’ Cucullata crowed. Flaminius had a feeling that it wouldn’t be so easy.

His suspicions were confirmed as they approached the suburbs of Viriconium.

Auxiliaries rode out from behind a small wood, and asked to speak with their leaders. ‘We wish to join you,’ said their decurion, but it was a trap.

Legionaries marched from out of cover and struck the bagaudae host a blow to the centre of its column, almost splitting the rebel force in two. As his horse reared, Flaminius sawed at the reins. This druid-raised rabble would be no match for the iron discipline of Rome.

More loyalist auxiliaries appeared from another quarter and soon the bagaudae and their Caledonian allies were fighting on all sides. Flaminius drew his sword and swung it to block the attack of a loyalist cavalryman. He saw the man was a German, a Batavian or Frisian. The troop of which he was tribune in his early days in Britain had been Frisian. Perhaps this was the same troop, he thought as they fought. Or maybe not. His own troop had been with the Ninth Legion when the Caledonians slaughtered it. And now here he was fighting alongside Caledonians.

A surge of the battle sent Flaminius’ horse staggering to one side and then he was no longer fighting the Frisian, but surrounded by armoured legionaries. He swung his longsword in a figure of eight and men fell. It was self-defence. He was killing men of his own side, but it was self-defence.

Yet what was he defending other than himself? He was a traitor. He was fighting his own side. Spying on the enemy was one thing, going undercover was all part of the job, but this was sheer treachery. His horse screamed as if in horror. He found himself surrounded by auxiliaries.

He glared about him, his armour and shield splashed with blood. At the last moment, the auxiliaries turned aside and charged at a group of legionaries. They died where they stood. Flaminius watched in horrified surprise. He was not the only traitor here today.

He reined his horse as his own comrades formed up.

‘Decurion!’ Bellomarus shouted. ‘What are you doing?’ Legionaries were being cut down on all sides, some of them ridden down.

‘Fighting my enemy!’ Flaminius shouted back.

‘Do you know who your enemy is?’ Bellomarus cried. ‘You’re one of us! You’ve taken heads! You can’t join the Romans!’

The auxiliaries who had been with the Romans were attacking the legionaries. It was mutiny. Flaminius watched in sick horror.

At last the leader of the auxiliaries trotted forwards. Fallen bodies covered the road. The Roman force had been mainly auxiliaries, only a few legionaries from the Second Legion.

‘Hail!’ said the auxiliary, a bearded Gaul. All the Frisians and Batavians had been killed. ‘We received word of your approach.’

‘We ride to glory!’ said Cucullata, riding forwards. ‘Those of us who die will be reborn in another world! You have been initiated?’

The auxiliary leader nodded. ‘In the forest of the Carnutes, in Gaul,’ he said. ‘I’ve been a follower of the druids since before I joined the Romans. I was waiting for my chance. But I brought these men with me.’

Flaminius had not realised that the net spread so wide. Were any auxiliaries to be trusted? He stared at his comrades, and they all looked back blankly. This was worse than he had thought.

They galloped through Viriconium at midnight, cutting down anyone rash enough to stand in their way. Most people were still in their beds, and Flaminius wondered how many realised how close they had come to being killed.

They pitched camp in grain fields some way south, off the main road. Flaminius’ duties as decurion kept him busy. Other warriors from Dumnorix’s Troop were in the disorganised army, and he tried to gather them together in one place. He didn’t know why. It was more in his interest to sabotage the druidic efforts, but having spent some years as a tribune of auxiliaries before joining the Commissary, he itched to the fingertips to see such disorder.

As he searched among the warriors for his comrades, he saw something that shocked him. Sitting his horse amid the Caledonian and druidic commanders near the centre of the army was the small, tubby figure of Marcius Magnus. Flaminius stared at him from a distance, seeing that he seemed quite at ease among these barbarians and mutineers.

Flaminius rode away, dazed. How had a Roman officer, a Roman citizen, so successfully thrown his lot in with the rebels? It didn’t surprise him that Marcius Magnus had turned his coat—after all, the alternative would have been to be sacrificed to the gods alongside Tribune Priscus. But that Cucullata and the druids had accepted him so readily was what shocked Flaminius the most.

They passed on south, meeting very little resistance. Most of the legionary cohorts and whatever loyal auxiliary troops remained were in the north, no doubt fighting off the Caledonian attack even as the bagaudae rode south. They passed town after town. Flaminius began to lose sense of direction.

Early one morning he was sitting his horse, ready for the next leg of the journey, when Bellomarus approached him.

‘Decurion!’ the bagauda said. ‘Are you ready?’

Flaminius looked up. ‘We’re going the wrong way.’

Bellomarus shook his head. ‘We’re not. Get the men together. We ride in half an hour.’

‘We must be going the wrong way,’ Flaminius insisted. ‘We’re still going south.’ He indicated the first light of dawn, the sun rising over the edge of the world in the east—to the left of their line of march.

‘What are you talking about?’ Bellomarus demanded. ‘Obey orders! We ride south!’

‘Eboracum—and the governor—is north,’ Flaminius insisted. ‘We took a wrong turn at Venonis. We should have followed the Lindum road. This is the road to Verulamium.’

‘Aye,’ said Bellomarus impatiently. ‘The road to Verulamium—and Londinium. We’re not going to Eboracum! The druids said that to fool the spies among us. We caught one.’ He hauled at his reins. ‘Maybe we’ll catch more before we reach journey’s end.’

He trotted off into the morning light.

Londinium! Then all their reports to the governor were worthless. Even if word reached him, Platorius Nepos would withdraw troops to Eboracum for an attack that never came, weakening the Wall without saving the province from the bagaudae.

—31—

Catavellauni country, 13 August

Verulamium capitulated without a fight.

Cucullata had the chief magistrates of the town beheaded in their own forum, and the severed heads were strung up from the sides of a racing chariot that was found on a nearby estate; the Caledonian leader claimed the vehicle as his own for the rest of the march. Later that day scouts rode in with the news that Roman legionaries were marching out from the fort at Londinium.

‘This was always the druids’ intention,’ Bellomarus told the troopers. ‘We will winkle them out from their fort and slaughter them on the road to Londinium. This will save the need for a lengthy siege of the fort when we seize the town. Once we gain control of Londinium, we also control the road network, and we will use it to fan out across the province and seize key positions. Meanwhile, the Caledonian tribes will attack the Wall from the north, keeping the governor occupied up there. By the time we have control the south, we will have a much weaker enemy.’

Flaminius had done all he could here. Nothing would be achieved by staying with the bagaudae. He had made enough mistakes already. Now he could see only one way to redemption.

From what he’d seen of the garrison, even if it was at full strength and had not sent vexillations up north to the aid of the governor, the legionaries would find it difficult to prevail against the bagaudae in the open field. If, however, they were to retreat within their fort and sit it out, the bagaudae would indeed have problems. They might even be seriously weakened, and when—if! —Platorius Nepos turned his attention to the situation in the south, they would pose less of a threat. That hinged on a successful campaign against the Caledonians now attacking the Wall.

Flaminius rose. He was achieving nothing here; the sooner he got away the better. The situation in Verulamium was chaotic. He was confident that he could get out without any serious problem. But he reckoned without Bellomarus’ vigilance.

‘Where do you think you’re going, decurion?’

The Gaul’s voice came from the darkness just as Flaminius was tightening his saddle girths. The Roman spun round. Bellomarus stood at the other end of the line of horses picketed in the field outside the town.

‘Getting ready for a little journey?’ he added, drawing closer. ‘The fight’s not until tomorrow.’ He shook his head. ‘Another man might think you were riding out on us. That’s the trouble with you Britons, you’re cowards, not like the Gauls. You’re showing a bad example to the men.’

‘I’m going nowhere,’ Flaminius said. ‘I just…’

Bellomarus drew his sword and brandished it. ‘That’s it. You’re going nowhere. Not until I say so. Then you ride and you fight and you win. Now get back to the men. We’ll say no more of this. Move!’

The following morning, they took the Londinium road. Coming down out of the hills they found their path blocked by several cohorts whose burnished cuirasses winked in the noontime sun.

A tribune came forward, accompanied by several other officers, but the bagaudae were not willing to parley. Frenzy rushed through their ranks like wildfire in a wheat field but the legionaries formed a shield wall to resist them. Javelins flew, troopers fell as their mounts were killed beneath them. More orders were shouted. Flaminius was surprised to see the troops in the centre turning tail and fleeing. Confidently, the legionaries pursued.

‘Now!’ shouted Bellomarus, and he led his troopers, followed by other troops on either side of the road, down onto the legionaries either flank. Flaminius remembered his tutor telling him about Hannibal and the battle of Cannae. A feigned retreat, drawing the enemy within the horns of a crescent—or the jaws of a trap. And now the trap was closing.

Swords and spears flashed in the sun. Men shouted, horses screamed. The legionaries’ armour glittered, then ran red with blood. The fight went first one way then another. Divided into several units, the legionaries tried to fight their way out but more bagaudae rode up to surround them.

Flaminius’s troop was somewhere in the midst of the chaos, Bellomarus dealing death on either side with his longsword. Flaminius galloped at his right hand. The rest of the troopers rode on either side.

The legionaries put up a grim resistance, cutting down horses and men with their short swords, falling one by one but paying the ferryman a heavy toll. Javelins hurtled through the air. Bellomarus shouted encouragement. Flaminius’ sword rose and fell. He was, after all, fighting for his life. But his morale was low, his spirits lower. The only chance he had of redeeming himself had come and gone.

Bellomarus rode at the forefront. His eyes were wild, his face war-painted with gore. He resembled nothing so much as one of the wild warriors of Vercingetorix, fighting Caesar’s legions. But now it seemed the roles had reversed as the blood-spattered Gaul slew on either hand.

Then an arrow grew from his chest. He swung round in his saddle, and his accusing eyes locked onto Flaminius’. The Roman wanted to deny responsibility. It had been a legionary archer, not him.

But before he could say this, Bellomarus fell from his horse’s back, to vanish out of sight among his fellow troopers’ steeds.

Ignoring the looks of his comrades, Flaminius rode for the edge of the battle. The sun vanished behind clouds, which disgorged rain on the scene. The field of battle was churned up by struggling fighters and horses.

Legionaries attacked Flaminius. He sustained a nasty gash to the thigh from one man’s sword, after he turned and aimed a savage cut at the horse. The blow missed its target but it shot across Flaminius’ upper thigh like a bolt of fire.

Then he was out on the other side, riding down the road. The battle receded into the distance behind him. He was past it. Bellomarus was dead, with any luck, and while the fate of the battle was uncertain, at least Flaminius was out on the other side.

The rain eased, and he saw he was crossing farmlands. He was glad to escape the bagaudae, but where he would go now he didn’t know. Now the bagaudae and the legionaries from Londinium were fighting, there was no one he could warn. Except—he knew the druids’ plans! He knew they intended to seize the town and hold it against their enemies.

He should ride to warn the procurator. Corvus could command the civilians of Londinium to take refuge behind the bastions of the fort. No walls surrounded Londinium, and the newly rebuilt town, dominated by that massive bronze statue of the emperor, would be an obvious target for looters. But there was room enough inside the fort for the citizens, and if they brought enough supplies they could sit out a siege. He galloped faster.

He hadn’t been able to redeem himself by warning the legionaries, but he could wring some credit from the whole disaster by warning the citizens. The bagaudae were going to win, he saw that. Londinium would be seized. But the people needn’t suffer unduly.

A day later, he had reached the woods at the edge of the Tamesis valley. A weak sun shone. The last time he had been here had been in driving rain. Farmers and labourers limped along the road, pushing handcarts full of their belongings; people from outlying settlements who had heard news of the attack. Seeing Flaminius riding towards them, a woman screamed out in panic. People turned, horror on their faces. Flaminius wanted to stop, to tell them he was a friend, he was in disguise. But the little crowd scattered, fleeing into the hedges and trees on either side.

He rode through the litter of their abandoned belongings and vanished over the ridge.

The smokes of Londinium appeared. The silvery line of the Tamesis wound through the wide valley. Now the town grew clearer. Everything seemed quiet and dreamlike in those streets. Had no word of the attackers reached them?

He saw the fort on one side, the palace of the procurator on the banks of the stream. Flashes of silver showed that some of the legionaries remained in the fort, patrolling its walls.

The road ahead was deserted. He rode towards the edge of town, flogging his horse onwards. Soon he was riding through deserted streets. The fort loomed on one side, the stream wound through the town ahead of him. Figures peered at him from alleyways. He heard shouts and cries, then running feet. More shouts came from the ramparts of the fort.

The air hissed. Arrows studded the ground. He glanced back to see the archers on the walls reloading. His disguise was strong enough to fool anyone, but he didn’t have enough time to change. He had to get to Corvus.

He spurred his horse into cover. A deserted street led to a bridge over the stream and on the far side the road to the forum. In the distance, the vast statue of Hadrian stared blindly northwards from atop his column. Unless Fate smiled today, the statue would witness the end of the province.

Flaminius galloped down the bank of the stream. The blue waters of the Tamesis glimmered up ahead. From a cross hung a few arm- and leg-bones to which clung blackened fragments of flesh.

Shouts came from behind. Legionaries from the fort raced after him. He saw the gates of the procurator’s palace ahead. More armoured men raced out to intercept him—men of the procurator’s personal guard, spears levelled.

‘I must speak with the procurator!’ he yelled. ‘I must speak with Lucius Julius Corvus!’ A guard flung a spear.

Screaming, Flaminius’ faithful horse, which he had ridden down from the western hills, collapsed under him. Flaminius rolled free but the guards ran to surround him. Legionaries from the fort joined them. At bay, Flaminius snarled, and drew his sword.

‘I don’t want to fight you,’ he called, ‘but I will if I have to. I have to get to the procurator.’ He had no time to waste on explanations.

‘You won’t get near him, barbarian,’ said a guard in centurion’s uniform, shouldering his way forward. ‘Leave the fucking scum to me,’ he told the other guards.

The centurion came at Flaminius, sword swinging. Flaminius recognised him. It was Centurion Aquila, who had been on duty when Pulcher was murdered! Flaminius met the attack, great swashing blows that resounded the length of his blade. ‘Let me pass, you fool. I’m no barbarian. I’m a Roman tribune.’

Aquila didn’t reply. The other guards watched grim-faced as their leader dealt with the interloper, this tattooed Briton in auxiliary armour. The legionaries from the fort lounged against the wall or sat on kerbing stones, laying bets. The desperate clang of blade on blade, steel on steel, came back from the marble walls of the palace.

Flaminius was panting. He had ridden a long way in a state of terror. The bagaudae were close behind him, this town was doomed to destruction, its people would be put to the sword if he didn’t get to someone in authority. But the disguise that had worked so well among bagaudae had become his downfall. Nothing he did or said could persuade these guards, already on tenterhooks from news of revolt, that he was on their side.

Aquila feinted, then brought his short sword down on Flaminius’ guard hard enough to numb his fingers. Flaminius cursed and dropped the sword. The centurion lunged. Flaminius sprang forward, gripping the man in a wrestler’s hold. Aquila stamped down on Flaminius’ instep with a sandaled foot.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Flaminius wrapped his other leg around Aquila’s, then shoved his armoured chest forward. In a swirl of red cloak, the centurion fell back, dropping his short sword. But as he did he grabbed Flaminius’ scarf and hauled him off balance. They fell over the carcase of Flaminius’ horse and rolled across the ground, kicking and punching.

Aquila was an older and heavier man than Flaminius, and he used his weight to good effect. Their fighting style would have won no credit at the Olympic Games. Flaminius was desperate. He got the man in a headlock and kept him there, despite several kicks to the shins.

‘Don’t you remember me? Flaminius. I’m an agent,’ he panted. ‘A Commissary agent. It was you who alerted us! I need to see your superior…!’

He broke off in surprise at a kick from behind. It sent him sprawling, and Aquila rolled away to one side. Flaminius half rose to see one of the legionaries behind him. The man was red faced and angry.

‘Not very sporting,’ Flaminius said through gritted teeth, getting to his feet. Another kick caught him in the chest and he fell flat on his back. The legionary grabbed him by the links of his mail coat and hauled him to his feet.

‘We’ve heard enough about you rebels,’ he snarled in Flaminius’ face. ‘Beheading magistrates, raping children. Now we’ve got one of you in our power, we’ll have a bit of fun.’

‘Let me go!’ the tribune said, clutching his aching head. ‘I must get to the procurator!’

He felt in his belt pouch for his lance-head brooch, but as he did, the legionary hit him in the face. Flaminius fell to his knees, hands raised to cover his face. The legionary doubled his fist to punch him again. Flaminius’ sword lay on the ground near Aquila, who was sitting up, clutching at his belly.

The legionary swung another punch and Flaminius rolled to the side. The move brought him closer to his longsword.

‘He’s going for his weapon!’ someone shouted.

The fingers of Flaminius’ right hand closed around the hilt and he pushed himself up from the ground. Then he circled, facing the surrounding guards, sword at the ready, a resolute expression on his face. He beckoned.

‘Come on,’ he panted. ‘You want to fight!’

The legionary drew his short sword and ran at him. Flaminius watched the man’s approach contemptuously. The legionary threw himself at him and he brought the sword up to stab him clinically in the throat. The legionary fell backwards, blood spurting.

Flaminius turned to face the others, but a growing din from the direction of the fort had distracted them; shouting voices, marching feet, whinnying horses, screams of the dying, and the crackle of flames. Smoke billowed above the red tiled rooftops, thick black oily smoke. The air was alive with tension. Forgotten, Flaminius watched with the others as Londinium began to burn.

‘Get him!’ shouted one of the legionaries. ‘We’ll get one of them at least!’

They surrounded him. His longsword was knocked from his hands. He found himself ringed by angry faces. The Londinium skyline blazed; the pillar of Hadrian shook, then fell to vanish from sight with a crash. A legionary placed the tip of his spear to Flaminius’ throat.

Footsteps came from the colonnade. A voice barked, ‘What’s going on here?’

‘Sir,’ said a guard to someone Flaminius couldn’t see. ‘We’ve caught one of them. One of them rebels.’

Flaminius heard the newcomer stepping around the group of guards. His voice seemed familiar. When he came into sight, Flaminius recognised him. It was Tribune Metellus, commander of Corvus’ guards.

‘Metellus!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t be a fool. Help me!’

‘Silence!’ a guard barked, and struck him across the face. Weeping blood, Flaminius subsided.

Metellus peered at him. ‘Is he the only one? He seems to know me!’

‘Sir, there’s a fucking army out there!’ the centurion reported. ‘They’re burning the town.’

‘I thought the fort sent out a vexillation to deal with them,’ Metellus said.

‘The rebels must have defeated them, sir,’ said Aquila. ‘They’re almost here!’

Grimacing, Metellus reached out and hauled Flaminius’ head back by its spiky hair. Flaminius stared into his eyes but saw no recognition then, only a growing puzzlement.

‘What brings him here?’ Metellus asked.

‘I...’ Flaminius got no further before a guard punched him in the belly.

‘Enough!’ Metellus shouted. ‘Answer my question!’ He seemed oddly nervous.

‘Sir,’ the centurion said, ‘he had some bullshit story about being here to see the procurator. Obviously a lie—or else he’s here to murder him.’

Metellus swung to face Aquila. He let go of Flaminius’ hair and Flaminius did his best to keep his head up.

‘You think it’s your place to decide what’s true and what’s a lie?’ Metellus demanded. ‘These legionaries from the garrison—what are they doing here?’

‘Sir, they were pursuing the prisoner.’

‘Get back to your fort!’ Metellus barked.

‘But the rebels…’

‘Don’t question a superior office!’ the tribune shouted. ‘I’d order you to be flogged, but you’ll be stiff and dead by morning. Get back to your fort and die there. What are you here for, except to die for Rome?’

Eyes wide, the legionaries departed the colonnade. Metellus turned to face Flaminius.

‘You’re here to see the procurator? You have a message for him?’

Flaminius gaped at him, still winded from the legionary’s blow.

‘Yes,’ he wheezed at last.

‘Come with me,’ Metellus said.

‘Sir!’ said Aquila anxiously. ‘I must protest. You’re not going to go alone with the prisoner to the procurator’s office!’

Metellus pursed his lips. ‘Indeed no. Two of you, come with me. And you—’ he addressed Aquila— ‘if you survive the battle, don’t forget to report for a flogging in the morning.’

As Metellus led them up the steps and through the palace doors, two guards fell into step on either side of Flaminius. Gratitude filled him; he had thought he was going to die there.

The man didn’t seem to recognise him in this getup. What had persuaded him that Flaminius was a messenger? Had he noticed his raven brand under his fading war paint? That must be it. Metellus was a Mithraist, like Corvus.

‘Thanks,’ he said as they strode along the immense corridors. This deep in the palace, the sound of the fighting was almost inaudible. Slaves in the garb of clerks passed by, showing no fear, only devotion to duty. As if the entire province outside was not gripped by war and rebellion.

‘Thanks? For what?’ Metellus said.

‘Getting me out of that jam,’ Flaminius said. Metellus looked at him oddly.

‘Naturally,’ he said. ‘If you have a message for the procurator, it must be of the utmost importance.’

‘Of course it is,’ said Flaminius, ‘under the circumstances. You seem very calm considering the barbarians are at the gate.’

Again, Metellus looked at him strangely. ‘You seem familiar,’ he commented. ‘Have we met before?’

‘Yes,’ said Flaminius. ‘Last time we met was at my initiation into the cult of Mithras.’

‘Of course,’ said Metellus. ‘You’re in disguise? That would explain it, I suppose.’

‘Yes, I’m in disguise,’ said Flaminius, unbuckling his helmet and placing it under his arm. He was not sure what the man was getting at. ‘It’s the only way to travel right now. You thought I was really a Gaul?’

‘Don’t trouble yourself over it,’ Metellus replied. They had reached a large and impressive set of doors. Two guards saluted Metellus as he approached.

‘Messenger for the procurator,’ said Metellus. They saluted again and opened one of the doors. Beckoning, Metellus led Flaminius into Corvus’s office.

—32—

The procurator sat at his desk in the middle of a vast, marble walled office, writing quietly on a leaf of papyrus while sipping from a wine glass. The walls were lined with the busts of his predecessors; other busts stood on freestanding columns, Julius Caesar, the Emperor Claudius, Hadrian himself. Drapes hung from the walls, the floor was a mosaic showing Aeneas escaping the burning Troy with his father on his shoulders. On the desk in front of Corvus, incongruous in the opulent surroundings, a pigeon perched.

A hush hung in the air, broke only by gentle coos from the pigeon and the plaintive notes of a lute played by a Hispanian slave who sat on a stool in the corner. Only the very distant sound of fighting and destruction troubled Flaminius’ ears, and Lucius Julius Corvus seemed oblivious.

He put down his pen, rolled up the papyrus and sealed it using an ornate seal ring, and looked up as Metellus approached, the wild, battered figure of Flaminius at his side. Corvus’ long nose glinted in the lamplight.

‘Ah, tribune,’ he said. ‘You wished to see me?’ He glanced curiously at Flaminius.

‘Yes, I do!’ Flaminius said, taking a step forward. ‘Don’t you know what’s going on outside? Londinium has been attacked! You should be arranging a retreat of citizens into the fort…!’

‘Too late for that, I think,’ said Metellus.

Corvus looked from one to the other, puzzled. ‘Who is this fellow, tribune?’ he said. Flaminius realised that he had been addressing Metellus. The procurator hadn’t recognised him due to his disguise.

‘He says he brings you a message, sir,’ said Metellus with a grin.

The procurator looked sternly at Flaminius. ‘A message?’ His gaze took in Flaminius’ auxiliary armour and barbarous ornaments, blue painted face and lime washed hair. ‘Well, what is it? Are our enemies defeated? Is the province secure?’

‘Hardly!’ said Flaminius. ‘It’s chaos out there.’

Corvus glanced meaningfully at Metellus, who struck Flaminius. Flaminius grunted with pain. He’d taken a lot of punishment recently. ‘What was that for?’

‘You’ll make your report in a seemlier fashion!’ Metellus’ raven brand blazing fiercely. ‘This is our leader!’

Flaminius drew himself up and saluted the procurator. Standing on ceremony while Londinium burned. These civilian administrators were all fools.

‘Permission to speak, sir,’ he bellowed.

Corvus flapped a hand. ‘Speak, man, speak.’

‘Sir, the town of Londinium has been attacked by bagaudae,’ Flaminius said. ‘They are mutinous auxiliaries who fight in concert with Caledonians, while druids lead them.’

‘Yes,’ said Corvus wearily. ‘We know all that. Do get on with it.’

Flaminius paused, frowning. ‘My advice is to gather together the civilians and lead them to safety. I would have said the fort, but the bagaudae are probably in control of it by now. I recommend you send scouts out to ascertain the situation.’

Corvus sat up and exchanged looks with Metellus. Metellus swung a blow at Flaminius, who dodged it, and looked in puzzlement from one to the other.

‘You make recommendations, do you?’ Corvus said. He peered at Flaminius thoughtfully. ‘Have we met?’

Flaminius wrenched off his helmet and tapped the raven brand on his forehead now it would be easier for Corvus to see. ‘Ignore the hair—it’s lime washed. Ignore the woad. And for Jove’s sake, ignore the moustache. Remember this brand? I got it at your instigation.’

‘That could have been anyone…’ Corvus began,

‘I’m Tribune Gaius Flaminius Drusus! The Commissary agent who came with you from Gaul.’

Corvus’ expression changed. He sat back in his chair. He pursed his lips. He steepled his fingers and put them to those lips.

Outside, the roar of the fighting grew louder.

Corvus pointed his fingers at Flaminius. ‘Yes, I remember you now. I heard a rumour that you were dead, or had deserted. And now you turn up in my office on the eve of war.’

Flaminius lost his temper. ‘It’s not the eve of war, it’s blackest midnight! Out there is a rebel force that will torch Hadrian’s Londinium just as Boudicca burned the old one. Roman citizens are being killed right now and you’re doing nothing!’

Corvus rubbed at his nose with one finger. ‘You seem to misunderstand my power,’ he said. ‘My remit is not military. I’m purely involved with finance.’

‘You have authority,’ Flaminius raged. ‘You can organise a retreat. Requisition boats to take the people out of here.’ He paced up and down. Metellus was staring at him in astonishment. ‘It’s too late for many. The legionaries from Londinium were slaughtered on the Verulamium road and the bagaudae got here shortly after I did…’

‘What were you doing?’ Corvus asked. ‘What brought you here, tribune?’

Flaminius turned. The man was taking old fashioned Roman gravitas just a bit too far, but he felt ashamed of himself, shouting like a barbarian housewife. He calmed down.

‘For three months, I’ve been undercover. You’re right, I dropped out of sight. I didn’t know who to trust anymore. I infiltrated Dumnorix’s Troop. And I kept my eyes open.’

Metellus frowned. ‘You infiltrated Dumnorix’s Troop?’

Flaminius nodded. ‘All part of the service.’ He gave them a quick summary of what he had learnt in the city of the druids, though he felt mounting impatience as he did. What atrocities were being committed beyond the palace walls?

‘So,’ said Corvus. ‘After this mysterious attempt on your life you were worried that the governor or someone on his staff was a traitor, so you dropped out of sight from both sides. Went rogue, you might say.’ He gave a thin smile.

‘After I joined the bagaudae,’ Flaminius went on, ‘I realised that the governor couldn’t be at the back of all this. These Gauls and Caledonians and druids were plotting something. The druids prophesied a Gaulish empire, you know.’

‘Is that so?’ said Corvus.

‘They suborned the auxiliaries,’ Flaminius went on. He shrugged. ‘These won’t be the first auxiliaries to mutiny.’

Corvus nodded. ‘Julius Civilis, for example.’

Flaminius nodded impatiently. ‘There was no reason to suspect the governor…’

‘But you had evidence,’ said Metellus, frowning, ‘that someone was working on the inside. That message you received…’

‘If the plot had worked,’ Corvus pointed out, ‘you would be a dead man by now. The druidic mysteries would never have been infiltrated.’

Flaminius nodded. ‘But it’s futile, unless you do something about it. Once I’d realised the governor couldn’t be involved, I tried to get a message out. My Commissary centurion made the first attempt…’

‘You said he was a traitor.’

‘I thought so,’ said Flaminius, ‘but he said he received a message…’ He halted.

‘Go on,’ said Corvus.

‘He received a message from a man he trusted because he was a soldier.’ Flaminius rubbed at the scar on his forehead. He looked at Metellus’ forehead. He looked at Corvus’ forehead. ‘A soldier,’ he repeated absently. He looked at the pigeon on the desk. It cooed innocently.

‘They told him to give me the message,’ he added. ‘He didn’t know it was a trap.’ He rubbed at his brow furiously. ‘So, some Roman was involved in the plot. Which means…’

The clamour from outside grew suddenly. Flaminius ran to the door. The guards outside were looking worriedly down the passage. From the direction of the courtyard came the grisly sounds of slaughter.

‘They’ve got in,’ one of the guards said in a whisper. ‘What should we do, sir?’

Metellus had appeared at Flaminius’ side. ‘Go to the defence of your master,’ he said. ‘You’re achieving nothing here.’

‘But we can’t abandon the procurator…!’ the guard said.

‘I will guard him!’ Metellus said. ‘Myself and the Commissary officer with me. Go out there and die for your master!’

‘Sir,’ said the guard resignedly. He led his colleagues down the vast passageway.

Metellus gestured Flaminius back inside. He sat down on a couch near the procurator’s desk.

‘Well, I’ve listened to your account,’ said Corvus, playing idly with his pen. ‘Do you think it changes anything?’

Flaminius was uncomfortable on the couch. He’d not been used to such luxury recently. He sat up.

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘The barbarians are at the gate—past it! I suggest you get up off your fat behind and get yourself and any survivors into the ships and out of this province. Send for reinforcements the moment you get to Gesoriacum!’ What was wrong with the fool?

Corvus raised an eyebrow. ‘Your status as imperial agent permits you some latitude,’ he said, ‘but it doesn’t give you the right to talk to me like that. Metellus!’

The tribune of the guard saluted. ‘Deal with this impudent fellow, Metellus,’ the procurator said.

‘Sir!’ said Metellus. He rounded on Flaminius.

Flaminius shot up. He looked wildly from the tribune to the procurator and back again. ‘Don’t you think there are more important things to deal with?’

Metellus menaced him. Flaminius put a hand to his hilt and faced him down. When he drew his sword, Corvus put down the pen.

‘Very well,’ he said calculatingly. ‘I have no intention of seeing Metellus perforated. Put your sword away, tribune, and let me explain a few things.’

‘Explain?’ Flaminius shouted. ‘The bagaudae are in this building! Get up, get moving. There’s no time for explanations!’

‘I rather think there is,’ said Corvus told him, rising to his feet as the sound of fighting grew nearer, flooding through the building. The slave stopped playing. At a look from Corvus, he carefully placed his harp in a case, came to the desk and picked up the papyrus and the pigeon, then vanished with them under a drape, no doubt down a service corridor. Flaminius turned on the procurator again. ‘Don’t you think it’s us who should be escaping?’ he said. ‘Never mind the slave.’

The main doors burst open. Two guards staggered in, fighting men Flaminius recognised as bagaudae. Even as the guards entered the room, they were both cut down. Pools of blood spread across the mosaic, obscuring Anchises’ face.

More bagaudae and woad painted Caledonians swaggered inside, forming a ragged line on either side of the doorway. The procurator watched in silence. Footsteps came from outside.

Cucullata entered, swaggering like a man, flanked by more bagaudae, their armour rusty with blood. She stood in the entrance surveying the room. Her eyes, half hidden by that cowl, fell upon Flaminius.

‘Gaesorix!’

He looked at his sword, then at the procurator, then at Cucullata again.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘They said that you had ridden away in terror during the battle. Now I find you here, sword drawn, threatening the procurator of the province.’

Flaminius seized the only chance that presented itself to him. ‘I didn’t ride away in terror,’ he said. ‘I saw the way the battle was going—that it would be a victory for you and the druids. I realised I had a chance to truly prove myself.’

Sitting there in silence, Corvus lifted an ironic eyebrow. Metellus gave Flaminius a disbelieving look.

‘Go on,’ Cucullata purred. ‘This is very interesting.’

Flaminius swallowed. ‘I fought my way here,’ he said, indicating his fresh bruises with his left hand. ‘Finally I reached the procurator’s office and took him prisoner.’

‘Is this true?’ Cucullata asked Corvus.

‘What can I say?’ the procurator asked. ‘Here we are; Gaesorix, as you call him, is standing over me with drawn sword.’ He laughed. ‘I simply must surrender.’

Cucullata stepped close to Flaminius. She had never been so close to him before. He could smell her scent. The coppery stench of freshly spilt blood overlaid something else. Telinine unguent. Rather classy for a Gaulish rebel leader, a druidess.

‘You are a fool, Gaesorix,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

A fussy little voice came from the corridor, and an armoured man waddled in followed by rebel auxiliaries. ‘We’ve finished slitting the guards’ throats. I enjoyed that. I don’t get much of a chance to really spill blood, not even in this job you landed me, Corvus.’

Marcius Magnus reached a halt, looking curiously at the scene in the room. Flaminius looked back in horror.

‘Do you know nothing?’ Cucullata added, paying no attention to the way Flaminius was looking at his erstwhile commanding officer. She gestured at Corvus. ‘Do you not know who you have taken prisoner? This is no enemy.’

Flaminius looked from her to Corvus. ‘I think he is,’ he said quietly. ‘I think I’ve worked out exactly who he is.’

‘I believe we have a case of mistaken identities,’ Corvus said ‘The lady here seems to believe you are a Gaul or Briton named Gaesorix. This is Flaminius, dear. You remember him? He’s an imperial agent. Oh, please, take that cowl down.’

Cucullata drew back the cowl. She looked quizzically at Flaminius and he recognised her as Corvus’ lover, Epasias.

‘That rather gauche fellow who joined us on the journey?’ she asked. ‘So I see. His centurion penetrated the city of the druids. We took him prisoner but he escaped. Of course!’ she added. ‘Gaesorix was the one intended to sacrifice him.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Took some heads later on, as I remember.’

Corvus looked at Flaminius wonderingly. ‘This imperial agent, a head-hunter?’ He laughed uproariously. ‘Whatever will your emperor think! Perhaps we’ll keep you on once Britain is part of our own empire—the empire of the druids.’

‘Your security is useless,’ said Flaminius. ‘Several of our agents penetrated it. Sadly, Junius Italicus died while escaping, or word of your plans would have reached the authorities a long time ago.’

But he sounded cooler than he felt.

‘Kill him,’ Marcius Magnus said. ‘He’s a spy. Slit his throat. Here, I’ll do it.’

Flaminius heard running footsteps from the passage. Three Caledonians sprinted in. They halted before Epasias.

‘Romans!’ one barked. ‘They’re coming! We secured the town and got the foreigners penned up in that fort. I don’t know how the fire started, but… we heard horns blowing on the wind, and down from the hills came a vast force. They’re advancing through the streets even now. They outnumber us. What do we do?’

‘For Taranis’ sake, fight them!’ Corvus barked. ‘Take men, get out there and fight them!’

‘I don’t take orders from Romans,’ the Caledonian growled.

‘Do as he says!’ Epasias told him. ‘This is the Archdruid!’

—33—

As the Caledonians ran from the room, taking several bagaudae with them, Corvus turned to look at Epasias.

‘Keeping a low profile has its disadvantages,’ he told her with a wry smile.

‘How did you win over so many Gauls and Britons?’ Flaminius asked. ‘You’re Roman citizens, all of you. Oh, except you, madam,’ he added with an ironic little bow to Epasias. But he kept his sword steady in his hand. No one was going to get near him without a fight.

‘We’re all Gauls,’ said Corvus. ‘Roman citizens, too, in the case of myself and Magnus here. But Gauls in blood and bone. My family have held Roman citizenship since Caesar’s day, when one of our ancestors was a senator. Sadly, the rest have not held such high posts, what with one thing and another, but we have owned land in Gaul for generations.’

‘Long before they were Romans, eh, Corvus?’ said Marcius Magnus. ‘I can’t count my ancestors like Corvus here can, but like him, my bloodline goes back to the tribes of old.’

‘And my family were always druids,’ Corvus said. ‘When druidry was persecuted following the Roman conquest, it seemed best to publically renounce our heritage, but to continue the old ways in secret. Yet always we looked forward to a time, as prophesied, when the druids would regain their power and Gaul would be free. We almost succeeded in Civilis’ day…’

‘But you’re Mithraists,’ Flaminius said. ‘You converted me to Mithraism. Mithras is a god of light, not some dark god of the druids.’

‘Perhaps all gods are one,’ said Corvus dreamily. ‘No matter—I have always worshipped the gods of the land wherever I have gone. That is the way of the druids. And when I was initiated into the cult of Mithras in Syria, I saw how the cult could be used, a cult that was rapidly growing throughout the empire, especially among the legions, a cult that required unquestioning loyalty and obedience from its initiates. I rose in the ranks, became a power to be reckoned with, reached the grade of Father, and ultimately became Patriarch of the cult in Gaul and Britain. Then I used my influence.

‘I used my status as hereditary Archdruid to suborn the Gaulish auxiliaries who killed Pulcher, the previous procurator. I used my influence amongst Mithraists to get myself the new post. I was expecting trouble with imperial agents, but when I met you I realised you would be easy to deal with. Your centurion was a Mithraist, of course, so putty in my hands, although you as a recent convert were less amenable. When I heard your investigations on the Wall were getting too close, I spoke words, sent messages—my birds, which I brought north from Gaul, took many messages for me—and had you done away with. Or so I believed. The men reported it done.’

‘They deceived you just as you’ve deceived yourself,’ said Flaminius. ‘I escaped, and went undercover. Joined the very auxiliary group that had murdered your predecessor. Who very mysteriously received orders to move south to Deva. Then sent a patrol of recruits into the hills that wound up joining the bagaudae—if not entirely willingly.’

‘I had no idea,’ Corvus replied. ‘It was necessary to remove them from the area of the Wall. I gave orders for several troops to move to tactical positions—the orders came from the highest authorities, of course, and were obeyed as if the governor himself had given them. My attack was always intended to hit the south hardest, the soft underbelly, so the troopers needed to be moved away from the Wall. They had taken on new recruits, I knew, and they needed the training their veteran companions had undergone back in Gaul, in the forest of the Carnutes, before they were posted to Britain. I did not realise you were among their number.’

By now the sound of fighting was again audible outside. ‘Listen to that, Corvus,’ said Flaminius. ‘That’s your nemesis. That’s the sound of Romans taking back their province.’

‘Britain never really interested me,’ Corvus said gloomily. ‘Only that it had been the origin of the druidic religion, and it had been here once that people went to learn the deepest mysteries. But the druids of Britain were dead and gone, all but those of Caledonia and Hibernia. And they are a poor, ignorant lot these days, the ones I’ve spoken to.

‘My father laid a compulsion upon me on his death bed to revive the fortunes of the druids, make real the prophesied Gaulish Empire. He had sent me to Britain as a young man to learn druidry from its masters, but those who professed the vocation presented me with nothing more than a jumble of herbalism, folklore and superstition.’

‘Was it ever anything else?’ Flaminius went unheard as the roar of combat grew ever louder.

‘Folk in Gaul such as my father remembered even less,’ the Archdruid went on, heedless of the clamour, ‘nothing more than a holy duty to liberate our people from Roman rule. Even in Caledonia and Hibernia, when my travels as a youth got me that far, druidry had diminished to become little more than a political force, a secret society more than anything interested in preserving the status quo. But everywhere I went, although I learnt more of the druidic mysteries from the writings of Caesar and Posidonius than in Britain and Gaul, there lived that burning desire for revolt—for revenge!

‘For sentimental reasons, it seemed right to train the men who would conquer our empire near those druidic groves once cut down by conquering Romans, so I sent Epasias to oversee the proceedings. But once we are secure in Britain we will cross to Gaul and rule over it.’

‘You’re living in a dream,’ Flaminius shouted. ‘Go out there and surrender yourself to the legions. Why should the war continue any longer? Why should people who have no interest in your fantasies suffer? You’ve lost, Corvus. You’ve lost. Face up to it.’

Corvus shook his head. ‘This is a setback,’ he confessed, ‘but not the end. We still have the Caledonians in the north.’

‘Who you were dismissing a moment ago as ignorant,’ Flaminius said. ‘Just as before you were talking about retreating. You don’t know what you’re doing, Corvus. I can’t understand how you got this far. You, a provincial, of equestrian rank! How could you pull so many strings?’

‘Well,’ said Corvus, modestly. ‘I did have help. Sometimes friends in high places can work wonders.’

‘What friends?’ Flaminius barked. ‘What are you talking about, you madman?’

‘Speak more respectfully to the Patriarch of Mithras,’ Metellus barked.

Flaminius turned to him and brandished his sword.

‘You’re in no position to give me orders, tribune,’ he said. ‘What’s in it for you, anyway? You’re no Gaul, surely?’

‘I’m loyal to Mithras,’ said Metellus. ‘I do what my Patriarch tells me to do.’

‘Knowing what he was up to?’ Flaminius demanded, although he could see from the tribune’s expression that he’d had no idea. ‘Would Mithras want this? Where does your true loyalty lie, to the Patriarch here, or to Rome, to the emperor?’

‘Really, it is starting to sound dangerous out there,’ said Corvus suddenly. ‘I think we should start making plans for escape.’

‘The slaves’ tunnels?’ suggested Marcius Magnus.

‘Certainly,’ said Corvus. ‘We can hardly leave by the main courtyard.’

He rose. Flaminius was with him in a flash. He seized the procurator tight with his left arm, and placed the blade of his longsword to his neck. He looked warningly at the other men and women in the room. As well as Corvus and his immediate entourage, two bagaudae remained.

‘You’re going nowhere except where I say,’ he said. ‘The lot of you, against the wall. Your Archdruid is coming with me. Anyone trying to follow and he’s dead.’ He surveyed them as they obeyed, and his lip curled. ‘If there was anyone to help me, I’d take you all into custody. But as it stands, I’ll hook the biggest fish. Turn around! Face the wall.’

Like naughty children punished by their tutor, the rebels did as he commanded.

Flaminius pushed Corvus towards the doors, and the procurator went without a struggle. As they passed down the passage, stepping over the huddled bodies of dead guards—presumably they couldn’t be won over to his side, unlike Metellus—the Archdruid said, ‘What do you hope to achieve by this?’

‘I’m going to make sure you face justice,’ Flaminius told him.

Corvus laughed. ‘How pompous you sound. How Roman. You like things to be simple, don’t you, Roman? Straight lines. Straight walls, to keep out the world you don’t understand, the world of chaos. We druids know the secret of chaos. The world endures, though at times fire and water prevail. The soul is eternal. Chaos is an illusion. Accept it, don’t fight against it or try to fence it out…!’

Flaminius didn’t need marketplace philosophy from the son of a druid. They were not far from the exit into the courtyard. More bodies of guards lay on the ground. The sound of fighting was getting louder, if not loud enough to drown out Corvus’ interminable monologue.

‘Keep your mouth shut,’ he said, ‘or I’ll cut your tongue out.’

He shoved the man ahead of him. They continued the journey, Corvus in silence, but casting looks in Flaminius’ direction as the tribune, brows furrowed, approached the great doors to the colonnade. Outside was a scene of chaos to warm any Archdruid’s heart.

Struggling figures were locked in a death struggle. Caledonians and bagaudae fought legionaries. The tides of the dead lapped as far as the steps to the colonnade. Londinium as far as Flaminius could see was the scene of fierce fighting. He could see no one he recognised, and in his current apparel there was a high risk of people getting the wrong idea. On the face of it, a wild Briton was holding hostage a toga-clad Roman citizen. He had to get the Archdruid to whoever was in command of this force, someone he could speak to.

The tides of fighting ebbed now as the legionaries retreated through the gates. The surviving rebels, howling excitedly, rushed after them. Flaminius led Corvus down the corpse littered steps. The air was rank with blood and shit. In the middle of the courtyard he halted. The fight continued along the banks of the stream. He glanced down to see Centurion Aquila’s huddled form. The rebels must have killed him.

‘Why did you sacrifice your own guard?’ he asked.

‘The gods are hungry,’ Corvus replied.

Flaminius stared at him, speechless.

‘What now, tribune?’ Corvus added mockingly.

‘I’m going to take you to whoever’s in command of these legionaries. They’re of the Sixth, from what I’ve seen. Down from Eboracum—or the Wall…’

‘If Platorius Nepos has withdrawn men from the Wall,’ Corvus said, ‘what’s to stop the Caledonians coming south?’

Flaminius glared at him. All he needed at a time like this was a civilian who had read Caesar’s Gallic War one evening and decided he was a born general. What made it worse was the fact that Flaminius had no very good answer.

‘Never mind that,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take you to the tribune or legate in command. Get moving.’

‘Certainly,’ said Corvus, ‘since you frame your request so gracefully.’

He turned, tucked up the skirts of his toga, and ran for the colonnade. Angry, Flaminius raced after him.

As he did so, figures appeared from the main doors. Metellus and the bagaudae. Metellus grabbed Corvus and hauled him inside. Flaminius ran up the steps. He heard a whizzing sound from the air, saw one bagauda with a sling. Something connected with his skull in an explosion of light.

He knew no more.

—34—

‘This one’s still alive.’

It was good to know. Where he lay in his haze of pain, he didn’t feel so certain. He winced as rough hands seized him and carried him somewhere, but he couldn’t summon up the energy to complain. Even when he did, when they dumped him on the painful ground, his words came out in a jumble.

‘What’s that he’s speaking? Gaulish?’

‘Nah, it’ll be Caledonian. See that blue on his face.’

He tried to tell them he was neither Gaul nor Caledonian, but a good Roman citizen, and spoke better Latin then either of them did. But he still couldn’t summon up the energy. He did manage to open his eyes, though.

He lay on the banks of the stream that ran through the middle of Londinium. Nearby, equally supine, was Hadrian’s column. The massive bronze statue lay only a few yards away, but rather ghoulishly, it had no head. Axe marks on the neck that showed where some highly-motivated individuals had worked very hard to separate head from body. The head itself was nowhere to be found.

He remembered the heads he had taken during the attack on the farm near Viriconium.

That brought it all back to him. He was Gaius Flaminius Drusus, tribune, of the Commissary, late of the Praetorian Guard, currently serving undercover… as a rebel auxiliary trooper. He struggled to rise, but he was a mass of agony. Lying in the shadow of the toppled statue he listened to the pandemonium.

The skies overhead were grey and cloudy, and the sun was invisible except for a glow in the clouds that said it was a little past noon. Clearly a summer day. At least it wasn’t raining, but in Britain it was always either raining or about to rain. He hoped it would, and wash away the pain, and the noise and the confusion in his head. Or outside it. What was going on?

He heard cries for mercy, screams, then grisly hacking sounds followed by splashing sounds. And again. And again. And again. Uneasy, he lifted his head, glimpsing the full scene on the stream bank before falling back again.

He stared blindly up at the sky. All along the bank, men in the same garb as himself, Gauls and Caledonians, knelt, many of them, some of them bound. Going from captive to captive were small groups of legionaries. Even in that short time that Flaminius had kept his head lifted, he had seen a glittering sword swoop down like a hawk, blood spraying, and a Gaul’s head falling from his shoulders to go rolling down the bank.

Again he remembered the heads he had taken. The heads the whole rebel army had taken. Now it looked like the tables had turned. Now the legionaries were taking heads. They had defeated the bagaudae and retaken Londinium. Now they were sending out a clear message—atrocities the rebels would never forget. Quite rightly, to Flaminius’ mind.

‘Headhunting bastard deserves it. Justice, isn’t it? Two sesterces that he removes it in one blow.’

‘Three.’

‘Done.’

He heard the clink of coins. Someone grabbed his shoulder and hauled him to his knees. He saw the stream rushing past. It was red with blood.

‘I’m a Roman citizen.’

‘He’s speaking Caledonian again.’

‘I’m a Roman citizen!’ He tried a second time.

‘What was that? That wasn’t Caledonian. Sounded like Greek.’

Clearly and distinctly, despite the pain and ringing in his head, he said, ‘I’m a Roman citizen, Jove curse you!’

Three grim faced legionaries were looking down at him. One bore an unsheathed sword.

‘You don’t look like a Roman, mate,’ said the sword bearer.

Another reached forward and tugged disrespectfully at Flaminius’ lime washed hair. ‘Romans don’t have hair like that,’ he said.

‘Or moustaches,’ added the third.

‘And what’s all that blue dye on yer face?’ said the first.

‘Take me to your superior officer,’ Flaminius said, as authoritatively as he could manage. ‘I’m an imperial agent.’ He searched the folds of his clothes for his lance-head brooch. The legionaries tried to grab him. Flaminius jerked himself back out of the way, and produced the ornament.

‘An imperial agent, he said!’ hissed the first legionary.

‘How do we know he is?’ said the second legionary. ‘Just because he shows us a brooch?’

‘Do you want to risk it?’ Flaminius said. ‘Take me to your centurion and see what he says.’

‘He is an imperial agent, I’m sure of it,’ said the third of the men, who wore on his helmet the abbreviated crest of an optio. ‘What are you doing here, sir? We found you with a lot of other wounded men. We had orders to behead you all.’ Even as he spoke, another Gaul was decapitated on the edge of the stream.

‘That’s on a need to know basis, optio,’ Flaminius said. ‘Now take me to your centurion.’

The legionaries helped him up. They aided Flaminius’ unsteady progress across a landscape out of Tartarus. Bodies seemed to lie everywhere, many of them headless. The streets were littered with them. Half the proud new buildings of Hadrian’s proud new town were charred ruins. Some were still burning despite the best efforts of legionaries. A scene of worse horror than anything he had witnessed in the city of the druids, it looked like Flaminius imagined the aftermath of the Boudiccan revolt. At last they reached the fort.

The sentries were unimpressed by Flaminius’ claims, ready to thrust their spears into anyone vaguely resembling a Gaul or Briton, and the three legionaries didn’t seem willing to contest the issue. Flaminius was getting heated when an armoured figure rushed up.

‘Gaius!’ it cried. ‘Gaius! It’s you! You’re not dead!’

‘Not for want of several people trying,’ he said, feeling as if he was in a dream. ‘But maybe I am, and this is Elysium. I thought it was you who was dead! What happened at the farm?’

Drustica glanced at the legionaries who were listening agog. ‘That’s classified,’ she said importantly, ‘as you ought to appreciate. It’s alright,’ she told the men on duty, ‘you can let my colleague enter.’

With some muttering the sentries allowed Flaminius to enter the fort.

He walked alongside Drustica down the Praetorian Way. ‘We’re both something the governor doesn’t want people talking about,’ she told him in an undertone as several legionaries passed by.

‘Platorius Nepos?’ he asked. ‘You got through to him? How? I thought you were dead,’ he added. ‘Why didn’t you join us in the retreat from the farm?’

‘I was thrown from my horse,’ she said, ‘and I woke to find myself a prisoner. I was taken to Deva, where I met an old friend who turned out to be a rebel commander.’

‘Marcius Magnus?’ Flaminius said.

‘Yes,’ said Drustica, ‘how did you know?’

‘I met him,’ Flaminius said, ‘in that particular role. But go on.’

‘I realised he was a rebel,’ she said, ‘when he oversaw a mutiny that resulted in the murder of Tribune Priscus and several of his cronies. He thought I was on his side. I did nothing to persuade him otherwise. In the confusion, I stole a horse and rode for Eboracum.

‘I found the fort almost deserted. The Caledonians were attacking the Wall, as we knew was the plan, but word of attack from the west had been received—you’ll never guess where from! —and a sizeable vexillation had been sent south to Lindum. At that point no one knew where the attack was going to strike, and vexillations had also been sent to Deva to find the place deserted. But the legionaries met a messenger from Kanovium, and learnt that it was Londinium we needed to protect.’

‘We must have just missed each other in Deva. I passed through it after the mutiny. Nasty. I suppose Marcius Magnus joined us there, but I didn’t see him until later, and it wasn’t until he turned up in the procurator’s office that everything fell into place. So you got word from Kanovium! That must mean Segovesus got through. They killed him, you know, caught him and killed him, the bastards. But you said word of attack had been received, and I’ll never guess who from. Well, I’m no good a guessing games. Tell me!’

‘He can tell you himself,’ Drustica said.

They had reached the headquarters building and she took him through to the commander’s quarters, where the guards let them into the midst of a heated discussion. Platorius Nepos was there, surrounded by several officers, the presiding figure over a massacre which had almost claimed Flaminius’ own life. Speaking to him impatiently was a familiar bluff figure.

‘…would never have received word of this rising if it hadn’t been for the Commissary,’ Junius Italicus was saying. ‘Besides, we answer only to the emperor. You can’t kick us out of the province!’

‘I’m requesting that you leave,’ the governor replied. ‘You’ve done your job. Now it’s the responsibility of the legions to clean up your mess.’

Flaminius was incensed. ‘That’s a little harsh, governor,’ he said coldly. ‘We did our best. The rebellion would have been a lot worse if you hadn’t had word of it beforehand.’

‘Who in Hades are you?’ Platorius Nepos demanded. ‘One of the rebels?’ He looked Flaminius up and down in horror, lip curling. ‘Guards! Have this barbarian removed!’

Flaminius showed him his brooch. ‘Tribune Gaius Flaminius Drusus reporting, sir.’ He tore the serpent stone from round his neck, and flung it away. ‘And what I said is true.’

‘Tell that to the men, women and children beheaded or violated by the rebels,’ said Platorius Nepos. ‘While you and your colleagues were playing cloak and dagger without reference to me, the supreme representative of the emperor in this province, the rebels and the Caledonians were planning wide scale slaughter. When I left the Wall to come to Londinium’s defence, the Caledonian attack was still being supressed, though they’ve since been chased back into the heather. If you knew all about their plans, as Centurion Italicus says, why didn’t you warn me sooner?’

Flaminius was tired, and he had only recently narrowly avoided death—not for the first time in recent weeks. Manfully, he kept his patience.

‘We had nothing to tell you except vague rumblings of rebellion,’ he said. ‘We infiltrated Dumnorix’s Troop, the troop that had murdered Pulcher, and waited until we were able to find out the facts. That took time. And when we knew what was happening, getting the information to the right sources was difficult. Besides, I no longer knew who to trust.’

‘So you went rogue,’ said the governor. ‘Didn’t discuss it with me, man to man, you just joined the rebels.’ He grunted. ‘Heard some very strange rumours about you, tribune.’

Flaminius sighed. ‘All this is of no consequence. The fact is, the men responsible for the rebellion are getting away.’ He rubbed his bruised head. ‘They may already have got away. I had the Archdruid himself as my prisoner until he escaped.’

The governor stared at him. So did Drustica and Junius Italicus.

‘The Archdruid?’ Drustica asked.

‘When was this?’ asked Platorius Nepos. ‘How did he get away? Where is he now?’

‘I was knocked unconscious by some of his men,’ Flaminius said. ‘Some time afterwards I awoke only to find myself about to be decapitated. Poetic justice, I suppose, or it would be, had I been a headhunting bagauda’—he thought it better not to mention that he had indeed been one for a while— ‘I don’t know how long I was unconscious. As for the Archdruid—or Lucius Julius Corvus, as we knew him better—I should think he’s at sea by now.’

Half an hour later they were all aboard a ship sailing downstream. ‘We should be looking for a galley with red sails emblazoned with a golden lion,’ Flaminius said.

The procurator’s galley had been missing from the wharf when they reached the riverbank, and Flaminius had used his powers as a Commissary agent to commandeer the nearest vessel. The skipper had looked about to argue when he saw Platorius Nepos himself had joined them.

Now Londinium was far behind. The river had less traffic than Flaminius remembered from his previous journeys. Word of the revolt had spread, discouraging potential visitors.

Platorius Nepos came down from the stern where he had been talking to the helmsman. ‘Feller’s counselling caution,’ the governor said, disappointedly. ‘We’re entering an area of dangerous shoals as we reached the mouth of the estuary. We don’t want to run aground.’

‘If we waste time we’ll not catch up with the man,’ said Drustica, scowling at the passing waters.

‘If we hit a sandbank we’ll never catch up with him,’ said Junius Italicus. ‘We don’t want to end up like that ship.’ He pointed at a galley that seemed to have run aground near the north bank of the estuary. Its sails were furled and its crew were trying to push it off using the oars. Even as they watched, escaping galley slaves flooded over the side and began swimming for shore. Crewmen started shooting arrows at the fugitives.

‘Quite right!’ Platorius Nepos said.

Flaminius went astern and spoke with the helmsman. The ship approached the stranded galley.

‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ the governor asked, as the crew weighed anchor a little way off. ‘We want to be after that Archdruid.’

‘I think we should see what’s happening here.’ Flaminius led them to a boat. Accompanied by legionaries, they rowed across to the stranded vessel.

Flaminius, first to climb aboard, found a scene of confusion. Galley slaves were fighting their way up from below while men in auxiliary uniforms were fending them off. At the stern stood a small group looking despairingly at the chaos.

Flaminius recognised Metellus first; to his surprise the man was leading the rebellious galley slaves against the auxiliaries. Watching him in horror was Marcius Magnus, Epasias—and Corvus. Flaminius was not entirely surprised. He had recognised the ship itself from his earlier voyage to Londinium.

Corvus had caught sight of them. ‘Never mind the slaves—’ware boarders!’

A decurion saw Flaminius and the others coming over the side and shouted orders. Several of the bagaudae broke off from the fight with Metellus and the escaping slaves and turned to face the legionaries. One of them ran straight for Flaminius. He recognised Bellomarus, his face seamed with new scars, but having survived the fall from his horse at the battle on the Verulamium road.

‘Traitor!’ The man swung a blow at Flaminius with a blood-spattered sword. Flaminius forced the bagauda back in a hail of blows.

‘I’m no traitor,’ he spat. ‘You served Rome, and you betrayed her.’ He cut in low but Bellomarus parried the attack. By now they were in the waist of the ship. All around them figures were fighting. Escaping slaves continued to leap over the side.

‘I served my people.’ Bellomarus thrust his sword at Flaminius’ throat. Flaminius parried. ‘My people! Who you Romans have crushed beneath your heels for generations!’

‘To the strong belong all things,’ Flaminius replied.

‘Typical Roman sentiment,’ Bellomarus snarled.

‘I was quoting the Gauls who sacked Rome,’ Flaminius replied. Bellomarus opened his mouth to speak and Flaminius cut in low, hacking through the man’s knee. Bellomarus fell to the deck.

Flaminius stepped over him. Passing the furled sails, he reached the stern, where Corvus was surveying the fight with horror on his face, Epasias and Marcius Magnus beside him. Flaminius brandished his sword and pointed.

‘Archdruid!’ he shouted. ‘We’re coming for you!’

Corvus turned and ran to the rail. Epasias tried to seize hold of him. As Flaminius approached, he shrugged her off and leapt overboard.

Flaminius reached the stern. Epasias turned to look coolly at him. Marcius Magnus sprang away from his bloody blade. ‘I had nothing to do with any of it,’ the fat little man wailed. ‘They forced me to join them. I’m a loyal citizen!’

‘Silence, Magnus,’ said Epasias. ‘The tribune doesn’t wish to hear your screeching.’ She approached Flaminius, eyeing him boldly. ‘Such a strong man,’ she breathed. ‘A conqueror.’

She locked her eyes with his. ‘You don’t need that sword,’ she said. ‘We’re all friends here. Corvus has gone to the Otherworld, we can forget what has passed. Let us depart in peace.’

Her eyes seemed to grow larger. The noise of the fight receded into the mists of Flaminius’ mind. He felt the soft touch of her hand on the inside of his elbow and involuntarily he lowered his sword. Still those eyes gazed into his.

‘You are our friend,’ she breathed. ‘You will assist us in our departure. We do not wish to throw ourselves to our deaths like Corvus. You will take us to the shore in your little boat.’

‘But the governor,’ he began.

‘The governor need not know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’s our friend.’

Flaminius was no longer sure who she meant by “we.” He had a feeling that Marcius Magnus had left, but everything beyond the druidess’ eyes was hazy and uncertain.

‘You are our friend,’ she went on. ‘I knew it from that first time we walked together in the villa gardens.’ She touched his cheek, his brow, his neck. He couldn’t move. His head felt heavy. What was she doing to him? He tried to struggle, but couldn’t persuade his muscles to work.

‘You will be well rewarded when we return,’ she added. ‘We will live there safe, in the depths of the forest. Safe. Safe. Safe like in the old times, when the forest was our home. Give me the sword.’ Flaminius’ arm moved without his volition, extending the sword hilt first to the woman.

He heard a thunder of feet on the deck, another blade flashed, then Epasias jerked, choked, and vomited blood, staring down in wonder at the sword that had pinned her to the stern post.

‘What were you doing?’ Drustica demanded.

Flaminius turned slowly to look at her as she tried to tug the sword back out of Epasias’ limp body.

‘What’s happened to the procurator?’ asked Junius Italicus’ voice. ‘Sir, we’ve taken control of the vessel. Now I’m aboard, I recognise it as the procurator’s galley. Tribune Metellus here, he says he freed the galley slaves and steered it onto the sandbank deliberately so Corvus would get caught. But where’s Corvus?’

Flaminius shook his head, cleared the cobwebs from his mind. He looked up from Epasias’ corpse and said, ‘He jumped ship.’

Junius Italicus stood there, Metellus at his side, the tribune looking both exultant and fearful. Flaminius gave him a weary look. The man had seen which way the wind blew.

They went to the rail. Drustica peered over the side. She gave a low laugh.

Flaminius leaned over to see a figure floundering desperately in the mud below them. Looking up, it revealed the angry face of Lucius Julius Corvus, procurator of the province of Britain. The Archdruid.

‘Help me!’ he shouted up at them. ‘Help me!’ It was not a request. Even in this direst of straits, Corvus did not beg. It was an order.

—35—

The following day they were all present in what had been the procurator’s office. Platorius Nepos sat behind the desk.

‘The Caledonians are routed, and now their leader has been taken from them, the rebel auxiliaries are directionless,’ the governor told them. ‘Men of the Sixth, the Second and the Twentieth are combining to hunt down the remaining rebels. The Wall will remain heavily garrisoned, but I intend to strengthen positions in the south.’

‘Good,’ said Flaminius. ‘Hadrian’s legacy to this province was strong defences but a soft underbelly. Keep the underbelly protected as well, and peace will prevail.’

‘After all, sir, lose Britain and you might lose Gaul,’ Junius Italicus said, ‘as Corvus intended. And that would be a loss too close to Rome.’

Platorius Nepos nodded complacently.

‘If you want to keep a hold of Britain,’ Drustica interrupted, ‘you would do well to listen to the concerns of Britons. Last time I spoke to you, governor, I told you of my people’s plight.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Platorius Nepos. ‘I remember your petition. I’ll consider it. Some arrangement whereby you may pasture your flocks north of the Wall. We intend to re-establish forts that far as soon as we can. The plan is to move the frontier north if we can hold it there…’

‘Then my peoples’ lands will come back into the empire?’ said Drustica. ‘That is good.’

‘What about Corvus?’ Flaminius asked. The governor had pardoned Metellus for his involvement in the conspiracy, since he had been instrumental in defeating it, but the fate of the other plotters had not yet been made public.

Platorius Nepos gave a satisfied smile. ‘He will be exhibited in the amphitheatre,’ he said. ‘Then he will be executed. I have something special planned for him. I think Caledonian bears would make for a fitting end.’

Flaminius grunted. Finding himself fleeing a lion in Hadrian’s own personal amphitheatre had jaundiced his view of such performances.

‘And Marcius Magnus?’ he added.

‘I hope you have something even worse prepared for him,’ said Drustica. Junius Italicus nodded his agreement.

‘Rest assured, they shall both be despatched in suitably spectacular fashion,’ Platorius Nepos told them. ‘Marcius Magnus will be crucified on the Londinium road. We need to make an example of him to any potential rebels of the future. The rule of Rome will not be overthrown. Her justice cannot be flouted.’ He hammered at the desk with his fist. ‘Peace, yes, but peace through strength. That is the new policy. We’re no longer searching after glory—we have all the glory we need. Now we need to hold onto it all. Barbarians and rebels will not be tolerated. Those druids shall be extirpated.’

‘What of the cult of Mithras?’ Flaminius rubbed unconsciously at the raven brand in his forehead. Junius Italicus glanced over at him, unhappy. The governor looked away.

‘We don’t need foreign cults,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t say this in front of his agents, but the emperor’s interest in eastern religions has encouraged others to take up with some very strange beliefs. I see nothing wrong with the gods of Rome. We need no strange foreign deities or absurd cults. We should preserve our time-hallowed traditions.’

‘The old ways,’ said Drustica laconically.

‘Sir, I must protest,’ Junius Italicus began.

‘Centurion!’ Platorius Nepos barked. ‘I am a provincial governor, and you are a centurion, and you will remember that.’ He scowled. ‘I want you all out of my province at once.’

‘I live here.’ Drustica was outraged. ‘I am a Roman citizen. The people of my tribe need me.’

Platorius Nepos pinched his nose with thumb and forefinger. Without looking at her, he waved a hand. ‘Very well—return to your people. Your intelligence activities must cease, however. As for you, tribune...’ He looked up and gave Flaminius a hard stare. ‘And your insubordinate comrade…’ He gave Junius Italicus an even harder stare. ‘You both leave on the morning tide. I don’t want you in my province a moment longer.’

A guard marched in. ‘Sir, you have a messenger.’

‘Show him in. Get out, all three of you! Ah, you have a message for me?’

The messenger was an optio of the Second Legion. He had the raven brand of Mithras between his brows.

‘Sir, your prisoners have escaped,’ the optio reported.

‘What?’ Platorius Nepos shouted as the three agents left the room. ‘How did that happen?’

‘A door was left unlocked, sir. Both prisoners were at liberty by the time the duty guard came round again. They have not been seen since.’

‘Call out the guard!’ the governor was bellowing as Flaminius and his two friends walked away down the corridor. ‘I want them found…!’

‘Corvus lives,’ Drustica commented. ‘I wonder how he escaped.’

‘The messenger was a Mithraist,’ said Flaminius. ‘No doubt the duty guard was too. Corvus still wields some influence, even if his bagaudae have been crushed.’

Junius Italicus shook his head as they walked down to the wharves. It was raining again.

‘The cult’s not like that, sir,’ he said. ‘Cultists swear loyalty; to Mithras, to each other, but most of all to the emperor. It’s not a conspiracy against society.’ He shook his head. ‘Corvus did something very warped to the local temples. If I get my hands on him…’

Flaminius was looking for a ship that seemed likely to take on passengers. The governor wanted to see the back of them and the feeling was mutual as far as he was concerned.

‘I think he’s long gone. Whether he’s gone back into the hills or if he’d heading for Gaul, who knows. I don’t doubt we’ll hear from him again, sooner or later.’ Flaminius looked at Drustica, then spoke to Junius Italicus. ‘Go and see if you can find us a ship, centurion,’ he said.

‘Sir.’ Junius Italicus marched off, leaving Flaminius and Drustica alone in the rain.

‘You’re going back to your own people?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘I have no choice. They need me. Most of them can’t understand this modern Roman world. I need to stand between them and Roman citizens who would walk roughshod over their rights.’ Her eyes softened. ‘Stay with me, Gaius.’

Flaminius brushed the water from his hair. The first barbers he got to, he was going to get these lime-washed locks hacked off, even if it left him balder than a priest of Sarapis. And this woad had better come off soon.

But the raven brand was indelible.

‘I wish I could,’ he said. ‘But I have matters to settle in Rome. Besides, the governor has made it clear I’m not welcome in your land.’

‘Rome.’ Water trickled down her face and dripped from her eyes. ‘That’s where she is, isn’t she? The governor’s girl.’

‘Medea?’ He thought he’d kept all knowledge of his lover from Drustica. ‘No. Medea’s dead.’ I killed her, he thought but didn’t say.

‘Then what is waiting for you in Rome?’ she asked.

Flaminius looked out across the river. The rain lashed the turbulent waters. There was nothing he could think of that wouldn’t sound pompous. He remembered the days, not so long ago, when he’d been a happy-go-lucky tribune of auxiliary cavalry. Before he joined the Commissary. It would be good to settle down somewhere, be someone, with someone.

‘I have to make my report to Probus,’ he said at last. ‘He’ll want to know all that has happened here. I’ll tender my resignation. Then, well—Platorius Nepos won’t be governor forever. I can come back here once he’s gone.’

‘Will you do that?’ she asked. ‘Will you promise me that’s what you’ll do?’

Junius Italicus loomed out of the rain.

‘I’ve got us passage on a ship bound for Burdigala,’ he reported. ‘From there we can ride to Narbo, then cross over to Ostia by sea. But we’ve got to be quick, they sail in a couple of minutes.’

‘Thanks, centurion,’ Flaminius said. He turned back to Drustica to add something. To his surprise, she leaned over and kissed him.

She looked from him to Junius Italicus, seemed about to say something, then walked away up the wharf steps without looking back.

The rain washed the taste of her lips from Flaminius’ mouth.

Epilogue

Rome, 15 October

Two months later, Flaminius climbed the winding streets of the Caelian Hill to pass through the grim gateway of the Castra Peregrina. It had been a long journey by land and sea, at a busy time of year.

But the empire was at peace. The rebellion in Britain was over, while news from the east of the emperor’s truce with the Parthians was on everyone’s lips.

In his office, Probus listened carefully to Flaminius’ report.

‘These mystery cults can be a menace,’ he said, ‘but going by the other reports I have had on Mithraism, it has more potential to benefit us. We must keep an eye on it, though. There are other cults in the empire that pose a genuine threat to the Roman way of life. The druids, however, are a thing of the past. From what you say, it was only Corvus that welded them into a force once more to be reckoned with.’

Probus looked older, greyer around the temples. Flaminius wondered what had happened in Rome while he had been gallivanting about Gaul and Britain, but he was tactful enough not to ask.

‘One way or another, they seem to be settled,’ he said, ‘for now. But Corvus got away. Who knows where he’s gone? He may well be planning another attempt. Why was Corvus never picked up in the first place? High profile man like that with seditious tendencies. Isn’t he just what we’re supposed to sort out? And he suggested that someone else was behind him. A bigger fish?’

Probus looked irritable. ‘The problem with this empire,’ he said, as if it was only one of several he was responsible for, ‘is it’s just too damn big. Until every man in every province is spying on everyone else and until we have enough clerical slaves in Rome to process their reports effectively, a few will inevitably slip through the net. But that’s where you come in.’

Flaminius preened himself.

‘Despite your tendency for dramatics,’ Probus went on, ‘and for romantic entanglements with exotic barbarian maidens... You made quite a hash of things this time. What possessed you to go undercover? Segovesus was far better placed. He was a Gaul, for a start.’ He gave Flaminius’ hair a stare. The tribune had indeed shaved his head during the southward journey, moustache as well, and his scalp still looked like a recently mowed meadow. ‘I told you I had an agent up there. After your last report, I wrote back to you telling you to desist from this absurd course, but clearly you didn’t get my reply. The next I knew, Junius Italicus was reporting you missing.’

‘I didn’t know who I could trust,’ Flaminius confessed. ‘I thought I’d met your agent. Drustica. Going undercover was her suggestion.’

‘Ah,’ said Probus. ‘One of your many followers. Yes, I’ve been employing her. She’s ideally placed up there by the Wall, to gather tittle-tattle. But she’s a woman. Not temperamentally suited to be a real spy.’

‘Some of the best spies I’ve known were women,’ Flaminius said, and looked away. ‘I want to go back,’ he added.

‘Back to Britain?’ said Probus. ‘Oh no. You’ve made yourself distinctly unpopular in those parts, you have. I’ve read the letters of complaint, not to mention hearing Centurion Italicus’ account.’

Junius Italicus reported in on returning to Rome. Flaminius had spent last night in several Subura bars, waking that morning in the bed of a somewhat elderly whore, from whose importunate demands for remuneration he had escaped out of a second storey window. But it had been a tame affair compared with his adventures that summer.

‘Have you now?’ he said in reply to the Chief’s grumbling. ‘When I file my written report, I’ll be making a few complaints myself. Mass decapitations, Roman citizens condemned to be torn apart by wild beasts…’

‘You’re only angry because one of those decapitations was almost you,’ Probus said.

‘Yes I am angry,’ Flaminius said. ‘And I still want to go back to Britain.’

‘To your barbarian mistress?’ Probus asked. ‘Oh no. You’re more use to me elsewhere.’

Flaminius rose to his feet. ‘I wish to resign.’

‘No you don’t,’ said Probus. ‘Sit down. That’s an order.’

Flaminius remained standing. ‘Technically, centurion,’ he said, stressing the last word, ‘I outrank you.’

Probus gazed up at him levelly. ‘Technically, yes. In actuality, you are the apprentice, I am the master. Now sit down and don’t let me hear any more of this nonsense about resigning, you young pup.’

Flaminius did not sit down. He felt like crying, and he hadn’t done that since his first night in the legions. He’d been very young then. Now, only a few action-packed years later, he was a fully-grown man, and he didn’t intend to let old Probus tell him what to do. ‘You’ll receive my official letter of resignation tomorrow at cockcrow.’

‘I won’t,’ Probus told him, ‘I’ll still be in bed. And if I receive any such document, I’ll tear it into tiny pieces and feed them to the cock.’ He pounded the table. ‘You are not resigning, do you hear me, lad?

‘You’ve made yourself unwelcome in Britain. A shame. You had some good contacts in those parts, even if you would insist on getting into bed with half of them. But I’m going to find a new field for your undoubted skills.’

Flaminius sat down and leaned across the table. ‘A new field? Not Britain?’

Probus looked pained. ‘We may be above the law in the Commissary,’ he said. ‘We may answer only to the emperor. But Platorius Nepos is a senator of some eminence. Cross him, and your career has got problems.’

Flaminius sat back. ‘I don’t care about my career.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Probus snapped.

‘You keep calling me a fool,’ Flaminius grizzled, ‘and then you tell me that you need my skills!’

‘I need your skills,’ Probus reiterated, ‘and I need to nurture them. You’ve got a lot of promise, young feller. Shame you keep making such empire-shaking mistakes.’

Flaminius’ eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not the one responsible for the annihilation of an entire legion.’

Probus sighed irritably, as if Flaminius had reminded him of a minor indiscretion. ‘The Ninth still exists,’ he said. ‘Some cohorts are currently garrisoned in Batavia.’

‘Really?’ said Flaminius, intrigued despite himself. ‘I thought the whole legion had been annihilated.’ He scowled. ‘Anyway, most of the cohorts were slaughtered. And you and I know exactly how that came about.’

Probus waved an airy hand. ‘His Imperial Majesty also knows. He considers it to be regrettable, but still recognises that I am worth keeping on. And that’s exactly how I see you. You made some mistakes in Britain, just as I did. And just as the emperor kept me on regardless, I’m keeping you. But not in Britain.’

Flaminius sighed. Fighting Probus was like wrestling the Tarpeian Rock. ‘Where, then?’ he said. ‘Gaul? Corvus is still at large. I’ll bet he’s somewhere in Gaul or Germania. Have you sent men to his estates?’

‘His estates have been sequestered,’ Probus replied. ‘And Corvus himself has been proscribed.’ Flaminius was reminded of Corvus’ own words: How pompous! And how Roman! ‘But I’m not sending you to Gaul or Britain,’ Probus added. ‘Now that Britain seems to be at peace again, the centre of attention is where it always has been—where the emperor is. The East.’

‘The East?’ Flaminius wrinkled his nose. ‘Greece?’

‘Further east than that,’ Probus said. ‘His Imperial Majesty is currently in talks with the Parthians. You’ve heard of the Parthian Empire, have you?’

‘Of course I have!’ said Flaminius, stung. ‘They’re our main rival in the East. A barbarian empire, steppe nomads ruling the lands that Alexander conquered. Trajan defeated them, didn’t he?’

‘Not decisively,’ Probus said. ‘Shortly after Trajan’s death, Hadrian retreated from Mesopotamia, that running sore of a province. Quite rightly, in my opinion. But the whole area is in chaos, and not just because of the machinations of the Parthians themselves. The stiff-necked natives resist Roman rule for the most obscure of reasons, religion being one of them. Some of them are more obdurate than the druids.’

Flaminius had trouble imagining that, but he let Probus continue.

‘I’m having you assigned to the Twenty Second Legion, currently based in Alexandria. They need a new Commissary officer, since the last one has vanished without trace while investigating one of those aforementioned religions. Your first duties will be to learn what has happened to him, if he is alive or dead, and if the latter, to ensure those responsible are brought to justice.’

Flaminius’ mind was in a whirl. ‘You’re sending me to Egypt?’

He knew little about that ancient country, but a voice at the back of his mind whispered intimations of dry desert winds, vast, cyclopean architecture, and the long dead sitting in state beneath the sand, plotting a terrible vengeance on the living. The gods of the Egyptians had the bodies of men and the heads of beasts; he’d seen the temples of Isis and Sarapis in Rome. Their cults were wilder and weirder and far older than even the beliefs of the druids.

‘But what about Britain?’ he added. ‘What about Drustica?’

‘She’ll keep, lad,’ Probus assured him gruffly. ‘If she truly loves you, she’ll wait.’

The story continues in

OUR MAN IN ALEXANDRIA

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gavin Chappell has been involved in writing and editing for the last decade. He has written numerous short stories, translations, poetry, novels, and non-fiction.

Also a qualified teacher of further education, Gavin taught English and Creative Writing for many years. He has been published by various publishers including Penguin, and is a member of the Society of Authors.

Druidsa group of philosopher priests among the ancient Celts. Practised human sacrifice and encouraged resistance to Rome.

Gaulthe main Celtic province of the Roman Empire; roughly equivalent to modern France

CaledoniaBritain north of the Roman province; equivalent to Scotland

LondiniumLondon

DevaChester; also the original name for the various rivers in the British Isles called the Dee; means 'Goddess' in Celtic

EboracumYork

Mithrasa Persian deity whose cult became popular among Roman legionaries

KanoviumCaerhun, North Wales

Carvettia Celtic tribe in what is now Cumbria

CoriaCorbridge, Northumberland

OnnumHalton Chesters, Northumberland (Kipling's Hunnum)

HiberniaIreland

BaiaeRoman resort on the Bay of Naples

Praetoriansthe emperor's guards

LuguvaliumCarlisle

ViriconiumWroxeter

Via Agricolathe Stanegate

City Of The DruidsBraich-y-dinas, North Wales; a large, stone walled hillfort with signs of occupation after the Roman conquest; destroyed in the early twentieth century by quarrying

SegontiumCaernarvon, North Wales

MonaAnglesey

Brigantiaconfederation of Celtic tribes in Northern England

Cornavii Celtic tribe in Cheshire and Shropshire

Hibernian Oceanthe Irish Sea

LugdunumLyons, France

CarnutesCeltic tribe in central Gaul

Tamesisthe Thames
peregrinea non-Roman inhabitant of the empire, a provincial

VindolandaRoman auxiliary fort near Bardon Mill, Northumberland

VaraeSt Asaph, North Wales

GesoriacumBoulogne, France