Vespasian felt a chill as he envisioned more fog-wreathed forests and strange gods; he looked at his brother. ‘I had a feeling that “honour” was coming and I’ve been dreading it.’
Sabinus was astounded. ‘It seems that Narcissus is determined to kill us one way or the other.’
Only Paetus looked pleased.
Magnus spat again on the deck. ‘Fucking great way to end the day.’
PART III
CHAPTER XIII
‘Brace yourselves, my lovelies!’ Primus Pilus Tatius roared at his double-strength century of a hundred and sixty men kneeling on one knee on the wet deck of a trireme hurtling towards the shore. The men immediately leant forward, thumping their right hands and the bases of their shields down onto the planking, their pila clasped in their left along with their shield grips. ‘That’s my boys; this won’t hurt — too much.’
Vespasian nodded to himself in satisfaction at the discipline of the first century of the first cohort of the II Augusta as he watched the oncoming beach, less than a hundred paces away, blinking his eyes against the sheeting rain. Next to him, in the bow of the ship, the aquilifer of the II Augusta held its Eagle aloft; beyond him, a line of ships with no sails set but each with oars dipping in unison as their stroke-masters piped out the same beat disappeared into the downpour. Vespasian cursed the weather in these northern climes and took a firm hold of the rail as two sailors ran forward to man the ropes holding upright the two twenty-foot-long, eight-foot-wide corvi, the ramps by which they would disembark.
‘Oars in,’ the trierarchus, who captained the trireme, called through a speaking trumpet at the stern.
A shrill, long call on the stroke-master’s pipe heralded the mass rasping of wood on wood as a hundred and twenty oars were drawn in through their ports; the beach was now less than fifty paces away. Again Vespasian nodded to himself in satisfaction: that was the prescribed distance to cease rowing so that the ship would be grounded but not beached. He checked his sword was loose in its scabbard and cast a glance along the line of triremes; only one still had its oars out. ‘Who the fuck’s that, Tatius?’
The primus pilus quickly counted off the ships. ‘Third and fourth centuries, second cohort, sir!’
Vespasian grunted and braced himself solidly against the ship’s side whilst Tatius did the same with one hand and with the other took a firm grip of the aquilifer’s shoulder so that the Eagle would not fall. With a slight upwards jolt and a grating of churning shingle the hull hit the sea bed; deceleration was immediate and swift, forcing Vespasian to tense his arm and leg muscles as he was propelled forward. The grating transformed into a tooth-aching screech as the speed of the vessel was checked until, with a groan of straining timber and a sudden lurch, the trireme came to a halt, resting — but not embedded — on the beach.
‘Up!’ Tatius cried.
As one the first century got to their feet, transferring their pila into their right hands; the corvi were released to fall with a descending creak to slam into the shingle.
‘The first century will disembark at double time,’ Tatius roared as he and the aquilifer stepped on to the ramp. Vespasian leapt onto the second ramp and jogged down, feeling the wood bounce slightly beneath his feet until he hit the shingle; the men raced down to the beach in groups of four behind him.
Bawled at by Tatius and his optio, they had formed up into four lines of forty by the time the last men had disembarked.
‘Advance quick time one hundred paces!’ Tatius bellowed once he was satisfied that the lines were straight.
Pounding over the shingle, the first century doubled up the sloping beach. Behind them the fifth century moved into place from their landing point to the right and from the left the rest of the first cohort came smartly up to form up next to them.
‘Halt!’ Tatius ordered from his place just in front of the aquilifer.
The first cohort came to a crunching stop.
Vespasian looked along the beach to see the other nine cohorts of the II Augusta dressed perfectly in two lines along the strand; it had taken little more than two hundred heartbeats. The ships that had disgorged them bobbed on the shallow water afloat once more now that their weight had been drastically reduced; except one: the third and forth centuries of the second cohort.
As Vespasian marched forward to his primus pilus a lone horseman appeared over the scraggy mounds at the top of the beach leading a spare horse; he squinted his eyes against the rain at the oncoming man.
‘Sir!’ Magnus shouted as he drove his horse down the beach.
Vespasian frowned in surprise to see his friend coming out of the rain.
‘What is it, Magnus?’
‘Aulus Plautius has called a meeting of all legates and auxiliary prefects, so I thought I’d bring you a horse. Narcissus has just arrived and my guess is something’s going on. I don’t think he’s come all this way for a cup of hot wine and a nice fireside chat, if you take my meaning?’
‘Can’t he ever stop meddling? All right, I’ll be there in a moment.’ Vespasian turned to Tatius. ‘Very good, primus pilus, apart from that arsehole trierarchus who doesn’t know when to stop rowing; go and shout at him for a while, would you?’
‘Sir!’
‘Get the men and ships back to Gesoriacum, give them something to eat and then do the whole thing again this afternoon with the tide out; and this time I want no mistakes. I’ll join you if I can.’
‘Sir!’ Tatius bellowed, snapping to attention.
Vespasian nodded, mounting the spare horse that Magnus had brought. ‘Right, let’s go and see what plans that oily Greek’s got to make our lives even harder.’
The rain whipped in relentlessly as Vespasian and Magnus made their way the ten miles to Aulus Plautius’ headquarters; these were based in the villa that Caligula had had constructed for himself on the coast just outside the walls of the port of Gesoriacum when he had come north to attempt the conquest of Britannia four years earlier. All the land around the port on the Gallic Straits, opposite the island of Britannia, had been either ploughed and sown with wheat or barley or had been fenced off into fields containing more pigs and mules than Vespasian had ever seen. They were riding through what was essentially a huge farm stretching, even on a clear day, as far as the eye could see and then further; much further.
The business of supplying the invasion force of four legions and a similar number of auxiliaries, a total of almost forty thousand men in all, plus all the ancillary personnel — cart drivers, muleteers, slaves and sailors crewing the thousand-strong fleet — had not shocked Vespasian with its magnitude when he had first approached Gesoriacum at the head of the II Augusta six months before; it had, rather, inspired him. The idea that every stomach, whether human or animal, had to be filled every day was a logistical problem of such vast mathematical proportions that it made his head spin just to think of the amount of fodder required to feed enough pigs to provide the entire force with a meat ration for one day, or of how many square miles of pasture the army’s five thousand mules would get through in a month. It made his problems of supply for the II Augusta seem trivial and petty in comparison, but they had been problems that he had thoroughly enjoyed tackling once he had returned to Argentoratum.
He and Sabinus had returned to the Empire with Gabinius’ fleet — much to Sabinus’ discomfort over the two-day voyage — and then made their way down the Rhenus back to their new legions; Paetus and his Batavians had accompanied them on their journey south. The voyage had been on calm seas, thanks, as Magnus had often commented, to Ansigar’s timely sacrifice to Nehalennia, the goddess of the Northern Sea.