The Iron Hand of Mars (37 page)

I made a small snort of annoyance. “
Eheu!
I meant to ask her about horses…”

Justinus laughed. “I asked her for what you wanted.”

She had agreed to my silly suggestion. “Quintus, you smooth-talking devil! I hope you never come to me trying to wheedle a loan … Right, I gather she needs more of your verbal fluency. Don't bite your tongue off chattering! She wants us to leave quickly, but we'll have to wait until first light…”

“I must do what I have to here, Marcus.” He looked strained.

“Too many good men have said that, then thrown away promising careers with no public thanks. Don't be a fool—or a dead hero. Tell her the exchange is off. I'm expecting to see you before we leave, tribune. I'll load up, then we'll sit it out and wait for you.” He and I were responsible for the lives of Helvetius and the recruits. We both knew what had to happen.

“Leave at dawn,” Justinus said tersely. He seized the old wooden newel post and swung back up the stairs.

I left him, uncertain whether he intended to come with us. I had a bad feeling that the tribune might not yet know himself.

However, I was damn sure that Veleda knew what
she
was intending for
him
.

*   *   *

Outside, I quietly roused everyone. They huddled round as I whispered what was happening.

“The witch is letting us steal away, but her colleagues may view it differently, so don't make a sound. Thanks to our fearsome negotiator, she's giving us new transport.” I paused. “So the question is, how many of you horrible seaside beach bums are at home on a Liburnian?”

As I had thought, for once we had no problem. After all, the legio I Adiutrix had been formed from discards of the Misenum fleet. These were the best troops I could have chosen for bringing the general's flagship home.

 

PART SIX

G
OING HOME (PERHAPS)

Germania Libera, Belgica and Upper Germany, November, AD 71

“After his first military action against the Romans, Civilis had sworn an oath, like the primitive savage he was, to dye his hair red and let it grow until such time as he had annihilated the legions…”

Tacitus,
The Histories

 

LIV

We managed to board without alerting the Bructeri. At first I refused to take the pedlar, then I relented, in order to make quite certain by keeping him with us that he could not inform on us again. The two mounts Justinus and Orosius had arrived on had been swiftly appropriated by our hosts, but we did tice our remaining four up the gangplank, probably because they could not see where we were leading them.

Fumbling in the dark we struggled in silence to untangle ropes and free wedged oars. Under way with an experienced crew the Liburnian would outstrip anything in these waters, but her condition was uncertain, we lacked manpower, and none of us knew the craft, let alone the river we were about to sail. A group of recruits slipped along the waterfront, putting a spike into boats that might pursue us, but the noise worried Helvetius and we recalled them.

The recruits were in their element. They could all sail and row. Well, all except Lentullus. Lentullus was still our problem boy who couldn't do anything.

The tone of the sky was lightening; I was starting to feel desperate. “Helvetius, if Camillus doesn't come soon, you take the lads and get out of here.”

“You're not going ashore again?”

“I won't leave him.”

“Forget the heroics. Here he is!”

I admit, I was amazed.

*   *   *

We had eased the ship from her moorings and re-anchored in the channel. Probus was waiting at the quay with a bumboat to row the tribune out to us. We already had the anchor up as we hauled them in.

“Is it war?”

“It's peace.”

It was too dark to see the tribune's face.

Justinus walked to the stern of the ship without another word. I looked at his set back, then signalled the others not to bother him. He settled himself in a black corner, leaning against the general's cabin and staring back towards the shore. His little dog lay down at his feet, whimpering as it recognised unhappiness. Seeing the tribune's despondent pose, my own heart sank.

We had plenty to do. We let the ship ride on the current at first, for quietness. As the light increased, the full extent of a year's neglect became obvious. Soon we had half our troops furiously bailing while Helvetius cursed and tried to fix a dried-out bilge pump. It had been a sophisticated apparatus once. So sophisticated, a period out of commission had left its wood and calfskin utterly defunct.

We drifted on, with no sign of pursuit. Ascanius and Sextus had found the sails. The leather had stiffened so much it was almost unmanageable, but we stamped it flat as best we could. The smaller triangular jib went up fairly soon, though the square sail took much longer to organise. Then we found our ship sheering too near the bank. A Liburnian is a big vessel to be manoeuvred by a band of novices, some of whom are also idiots, but I still shook my head when eyes were cast sternwards.

“The tribune could add his weight here!”

“The tribune's done enough.”

“Sir—”

“He wants to feel gloomy. Let him be!”

With all other hands assisting on the danger side, we just shipped the oars in time to avoid crashing them, then held our breath as the galley scraped and bumped along the shallows. Somehow we succeeded in turning her back into the channel. She limped on in the grey light of a cold November morning, while we spent another hour working on the sail. It finally jerked into position to a weary cheer. After that it was a mad rush back to bailing duty, then we took stock.

We had no weapons apart from the javelins, and little food. Only two of us had armour. We had salvaged four horses—who might well end up grilled. We no longer possessed cash for bartering. We had the Bructeri on the north bank, and the Tencteri on the south, both contemptuous of Romans in distress. Landing would be fatal until we came to the River Rhenus, which must be over a week away. The way our ship was listing and dragging foretold a week of hard work.

We were alive and free. That surprise was so pleasant we put half the recruits to rowing while the rest jettisoned lumber to lighten their burden, attended to the sails—and sang.

Helvetius screwed some thrust from the pump.

Then, at last, I let Ascanius take the rudder while I walked astern to investigate what Veleda had done to our boy.

 

LV

“What ho, Masinissa!” Justinus was too polite to tell me to remove my happy grin. “I'm glad the amulet worked.”

“Oh it worked!” He said it in an odd voice.

I assumed my sombre uncle attitude: “You look tired.”

“It's not serious.”

“Good. I was afraid it might be due to a broken heart.”

“How lucky we know that's not true,” he answered, much too quietly.

“She's too old for you, you have nothing in common, and your mother has enough to endure with Helena and me.”

“Of course,” he said. He might have argued the point about me and Helena.

“Well Quintus Camillus, I'm glad you can be philosophical. You're a decent lad and deserve some fun before you settle down to a dull old life as a senator, but we both know what happened back there had all the makings of a significant experience—the kind that has been known to bruise a thoughtful man's morale.”

“The Senate has been ruled out for me.”

“Wrong. You've rewritten that. I believe there are advantages, if you can tolerate the bores and hypocrites. You only have to attend the Curia once a month, and you get front-row seats in theatres.”

“Please don't jolly me along.”

“All right. As a matter of interest, did you escape or did the lady throw you out?”

“I meant my offer of an exchange. I said I had to stay.”

“Ah well. Some women can't stand pompous types who stick by their principles.”

He was silent.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“No,” he said.

We watched the river slipping away behind us. We were travelling slower than I liked for safety, but it was too fast for the tribune. He had been overwhelmed, then wrenched away before he could adjust. Now he felt racked by the scale of his feelings.

“Be prepared,” I advised. “People other than me will ask you—people in high positions. A junior officer who has talked to the enemy has a duty to explain.” I was turning to go.

Justinus asked suddenly in a wry voice, “What happened to Masinissa?”

I stopped. “After he threw away his princess? He lived with honour for many years, devoting himself to kingship and such.”

“Ah, yes of course!” I waited. He was forcing himself to complete the day's official business. “When I went back upstairs she had already decided. She will tell her people that a free Gallic Empire can never be established. That Rome will not in our lifetime lose the western Rhenus bank. That liberty in their own territory is worth more than pointless war … Can she make them listen?” He sounded desperate.

“She never uses compulsion. Leaving people free to choose sometimes pressures them into choosing the harder course.”

“Oh yes!” he said, rather heavily.

“Was she upset?” A fleeting thought assailed me that he might have been consoling her.

He did not answer my question but asked his own: “What will happen to her?”

“She'll either become a crazy wraith, or she'll marry some thickset red-haired hulk and have nine children in ten years.”

After a silence Justinus said, “She prophesied to me that if the eastern tribes resume their nomadic life, invading each other's territory, the Bructeri will be wiped out.”

“It's possible.”

For a long time neither of us spoke.

We heard Ascanius calling that he wanted a relief. I had ordered Helvetius to rest so that he could take a later watch; I had to go. “One thing puzzles me, Quintus. If Veleda had already decided, why did it take her until dawn to throw you out?”

His pause was almost undetectable. “She was desperate for some decent conversation, as you said. So was I,” he added.

I laughed, then said he had a subtle knack of being rude, and that I could take a hint.

I loped back to supervise Ascanius. When Ascanius demanded for everyone,
“Did he, or didn't he?”
, I confidently answered no.

Justinus never did return to me the quartermaster's amulet. I was rather surprised he kept it. In fact sometimes, especially when he was wearing that painful expression he had brought with him to the boat, I almost thought he looked like a man who had given it away as a love token to some girl.

Fortuna had protected him. He was not in love; he had told me so. Quintus Camillus Justinus, senior tribune of the I Adiutrix, had proved himself one of the Empire's natural diplomats. Diplomacy involves a certain amount of lying—but I could not believe that Helena's brother would hide the truth from me.

 

LVI

We soon found ourselves short of time for speculation.

The flagship of Petilius Cerialis was as impetuous and unreliable as the general himself. Apart from the sorry effects of neglect, her rudder must have taken a bad knock while the rebels were towing her away. She steered like a wilful camel and sailed with a high old lack of regard for wind or current. All her weight seemed to lean to one side for some reason, a problem which worsened by the day. We had slipped off in a vessel of character—the kind of riotous character my elder brother Festus used to bring home after a night he could not remember in a tavern a long way from home. Taking her downriver felt like riding a horse who wanted to go backwards. She drew water with all the grace of a sodden log.

Most of the trouble derived from our scanty crew. In the right hands she would have been wonderful. But she was meant to have her double banks of oars fully manned, rigging-hands, a master, his deputy, and a complement of marines—not to mention the general, who would no doubt have taken his shift on the oars in a tight corner. Twenty-five of us were simply not enough, and that was counting in Dubnus, who proved useless, and the centurion's servant, who made it plain he preferred to be counted out (the plea for a posting to Moesia had cropped up pathetically again). Then, as the days passed and the river grew wider and deeper, our food supplies dwindled. We were weakening when we most needed strength.

The Rhenus junction caught us unawares. The ship had been making water. We had hauled in her sails and many of us were below, frantically trying to stop the leaks. When Probus shouted, no one heard at first. When he threw back his head and roared, we floundered up on deck. There was some cheering before we realised our grave plight. The undertow had strengthened. The flagship, still trailing a wing to starboard, was now dangerously low in the water and nearly uncontrollable. We were in no condition to tackle turbulence.

I shouted to drop anchor, but it failed to hold.

Just as safety seemed to be in sight, it was being snatched from us. The grey skies made everything seem more ominous. A chill north wind brought the smell of the ocean, cruelly reminding us we wanted to turn our backs on it. We were hoping to pass out into the main river; we had always known that without trained oarsmen we would have to turn downstream. We needed to drift across the Rhenus to the Roman bank, then wind gently down to Vetera. Tackling the upriver current would be impossible. For amateurs who were fighting to stabilise an oversized and leaky galley, things would be delicate enough the other way. At least if we managed to join the Rhenus safely we might hail a fleet vessel to tow us—or even take us off, for we would happily have abandoned any kudos which attached to reclaiming the Liburnian in favour of a quick journey home.