‘Piss off, you little buggers!’ he shouted, and his savage face was enough to send them scampering back around a corner. The boldest peeked back to look at him, but fled again when the Brigantian snarled.
‘Alms for a blessing.’ The man seemed even more hunched than usual, staring down at the road as he held out his hand. His dog growled at them.
‘Here you are, Father,’ Vindex said, throwing down a couple of coins. ‘We won’t need it where we are going,’ he explained. ‘And I reckon we need all the blessings we can get.’
‘Strange how he seems to follow us around,’ Ferox said. ‘Or it would be if you didn’t keep paying him! Wonder why he’s here?’
Vindex frowned. ‘Everyone’s got to be somewhere. Just wish we weren’t going where we are going.’
‘A man cannot avoid his destiny. We go where we are meant to go.’
‘You saying all this is our fault?’ Vindex gave his leering grin.
‘Not mine – I reckon it’s all your fault. Usually is.’
Crispinus turned and stared at them when he heard the roar of laughter.
They went north along the road, making good progress on a day of clear sunshine. A thought nagged at Ferox as he rode, just in the back of his mind and too vague to pin down. Someone had just done or said something strange when they set out, but he had not really been paying attention and could not remember what. When the horses had warmed up they trotted for some time, but even the jogging motion failed to help his thoughts. After an hour they dismounted and marched. They halted twice to rest and water the animals, and to eat a meal of biscuit and salted bacon. Masclus was a quiet man who never seemed to need to shout, and although no more than twenty-five had the authority of a much older officer. Ferox felt that the decurion was a good choice to command the escort.
Even Vindex expressed grudging approval. He and his men spent most of the day riding ahead and behind the column. Not that there should be any danger yet, but Masclus had suggested without prompting that it was wise to get into good habits from the start. When Vindex came back to report that the road was clear and that they would reach Bremenium before sunset, the decurion beckoned to one of the slaves who had food to give to the scout and more bundles of biscuit and meat waiting for his men when they returned.
They reached the fort at Bremenium as the sun began to set and the western skies were ablaze with colour. Vindex and his men had closed with the column, and he reported to the three officers. Progress had been good, the day a pleasant one, and if they were tired all were united in a determination not to show it to the garrison of this base.
‘Good lad, that one,’ Vindex said as they watched Masclus and Crispinus ride forward to report to the commander of the guard at the towering porta praetoria. ‘Even if he is a bit oily.’
‘You like anyone who feeds you. Why oily?’
‘Well, smarmy then. Bit of a crawler. Remember how he called the prefect his king?’
‘Omnes ad stercus!’ Ferox spat the words with such violence that his horse shied. The troopers looked at him in surprise. That was it – that was what he had been trying to remember. Dark fear grew within him as he remembered the big German warrior demanding that he hand over the ‘queen’. He had a vague memory of something he had heard about the Batavians, but he needed to find a way to raise the subject with delicacy and wondered how to do it.
‘So is Prefect Cerialis your king or what?’ Vindex asked the decurion as they rode up the main street of the camp. Ferox sighed.
‘He could be,’ Masclus replied without any hint of awkwardness. ‘The prefect is from the royal house of our people. We are soldiers of the Ninth Cohort, sworn to Rome and to our emperor and we will die to keep that oath. He commands us because he is the prefect, but he also has our loyalty because we are Batavi and he is our lord. Do you not also have a king?’
‘Aye, several of ’em.’
‘And you obey them as well as serving the emperor.’
‘It’s my chief who sends me, and he does that because his king tells him.’
It was not until late in the evening that Ferox had a chance to talk to Crispinus privately. ‘“Blood of king, blood of queen,”’ he said. ‘I have been blind. Cerialis is the king they want and the Lady Sulpicia his queen. It’s their blood they want to make the priest’s miracle.’ He went through all that he had learned about the ambush, once again telling the tribune about the attack and how the raiders had ignored better targets and only seemed to want the lady.
Crispinus was unsure. ‘He’s not really a king. Just an aristocrat of one tribe.’
‘You are thinking like a Roman, and not like an ambitious priest wanting to proclaim a great magic through the shedding of special blood. How many kings of any sort can be found among the Romans in this part of the world? No emperor has come to Britannia since Claudius.’
The tribune made up his mind. ‘I’ll write a letter and send one of the troopers back to Vindolanda. We cannot do much, but at least we can remind Flavius Cerialis to take every precaution for his own and his wife’s safety. Doubt they can do more than they are already doing, but it will do no harm.’
‘The greatest danger will come as Samhain approaches.’
‘Hopefully we shall be back by then.’ Crispinus patted him on the shoulder. ‘Good work. It would never have occurred to me. The more we understand these murderous bastards the more chance we have of stopping them. Get some rest. It’s another long ride tomorrow. And don’t worry. I’ll send the letter.’
XVI
TRIMONTIUM TOOK ITS name from the three peaks on the ridgeline above the fort. It was twice the size of Vindolanda and these days the northernmost garrison in all Britannia. Lying in the circle of the river, the brown waters high from last month’s rain, it looked like a town, the neat rows of buildings rendered and whitewashed, roofs either red tile or dark shingle. Apart from the rectangular fort with its curved corners, other ramparts extended out on three sides to enclose the canabae, with numbers of thatched round houses dotted among the Roman-style buildings. There was a village within bowshot of the ditch, several more out on the plains to the west, and an earth-walled hill fort up on the high ground. This was the very edge of the empire, and the end of the Eastern Road, but on the whole the Romans and the allied Votadini tribe got on well with each other.
It was a long ride from Bremenium on a drab day with a sea of brooding grey clouds overhead, but Crispinus was determined to make the trip in one stage and not to stop at the smaller fort that lay in between the two. All twenty-four Batavian troopers rode with them, and the tribune explained to Ferox that he had sent his letter to Cerialis with the regular courier who had left in the early hours.
‘He’s well mounted, will get a fresh horse every time he stops at a garrison, and will do the trip much faster. Besides, we may need every man we can get.’
‘Sir.’
The tribune scented scepticism. ‘Hercules’ balls, you really should trust, man!’ There was anger in his voice.
‘Of course, my lord,’ Ferox said and remembered something his grandfather was fond of saying. ‘A man who keeps asking you to trust him is always hiding something.’
As they approached Trimontium the setting sun appeared beneath the clouds and shone a reddish light across the fort, casting long shadows, and they were all cheered by the sight.