cavalryman had disappeared into the crowded ranks of the baggage slaves.
It took them two hours to climb the hill by the road the engineers had cut through the trees. By the time they broke for camp there were still four hours until dark but Rufus was exhausted. He felt slightly guilty that others would have to dig the defensive ditch and build the parapet, but all he wanted to do was wrap himself in his blanket and sleep until dawn.
‘You, elephant man!’
He looked up and his heart sank. One-toothed Paullus. Now he’d have to explain to the legionary about Narcissus’s intervention with the legate and his exemption from digging. But Paullus already knew.
‘Think you can sit back and get screwed while the rest of us work? Well, think again. Old Paullus has been ordered to put together a foraging detail, and guess what?’ The sneer on his tormentor’s face told Rufus everything he needed to know. Reluctantly, he rose to his feet.
‘I’m on it?’
Paullus grinned. ‘That’s right, fancy boy, and I’ll make sure that if there’s anything heavy to carry, you’ll be the one with the aching back. Want to do anything about it?’
Rufus thought for a moment. He could argue that the exemption from digging freed him from all fatigues, but that would only make Paullus more of an enemy than he already was. There was no point in arguing. He shook his head. The soldier grunted and marched him off to join a party of about twenty baggage slaves and a dozen bullock carts outside the main entrance of the camp. Paullus was in command of an escort composed of twenty-four soldiers from the Augusta’s sixth cohort, which was largely made up of fresh-faced young men recruited just before the invasion. He lined them up within sight of the grinning guards leaning on the parapet beside the gateway and stood with his legs slightly apart and his hands on his hips.
‘Right, I’m only going to say this once, so pin your ears back and listen. Our scouts have identified a village less than two miles from here where they reckon the Celts have a hidden store of food and grain. There are reports of a lot of coming and going between the huts and a wood a few hundred yards away. Whatever’s in that wood we take and bring back to the column.
‘Now, there shouldn’t be any trouble, because there are only a few old men, women and children in the village, this whole area is crawling with our cavalry and there’s been no sign of enemy activity, but…’ he gave the final word an emphasis that had the escort leaning forward to listen to his next words, ‘but if anything does happen, you know what to do. You, fat boy in the rear rank,’ he barked at a sturdy youngster in a helmet that was too large for him, ‘what is it you do if there’s trouble?’
The soldier blinked and swallowed nervously. ‘W-we converge on you in defensive formation, sir, and wait until help arrives.’
‘And why will help arrive? Help will arrive because there’s a squadron of cavalry within trumpet distance, which is why we have Julius, the cornicen, along for the ride. Or if the cavalry are as cloth-eared as you lot, we will always be within view of that.’ He pointed to a signal tower the engineers of the Second had constructed on a hill overlooking the marching camp. ‘And don’t call me sir, son. I’m just a lowly single-pay man who must have offended Mithras because he’s been dumped with the job of wet-nursing you. Right, let’s march, and no straggling. Keep a tight formation beside the wagons and your eyes open. We don’t expect trouble, but we’re ready for it. That’s why we’re the best.’
Rufus listened from his place on one of the bullock carts. Despite himself, he was impressed. Paullus might be a bully, but he knew his business. The unsprung wagons creaked in protest and their wooden wheels squealed as they lumbered into motion and moved across the rough ground away from the camp. At first, the soldiers seemed cheerful enough, but once they were out of sight of the palisade Rufus noticed the mood change. He felt it too, and understood it for what it was. They had all been part of the invasion column for so long that there was something unnatural about being detached from it. The landscape around, for as far as he could see, was gently rolling heath-land — rough grass with a few clumps of trees dotted here and there — yet it was strangely threatening. It was all very well to invade Britain at the centre of an army of forty thousand soldiers, but to be part of this isolated little convoy made each man acutely aware of his own vulnerability, as if he were walking naked down a busy street. Even Paullus had gone quiet.
They marched beneath the smoke-black underbelly of a carpet of cloud that extended from one horizon to the other. The atmosphere was warm, almost liquid, and thick with the buzz of tiny insects. Soon everyone in the column was brushing sweat from their eyes or dashing at invisible tormentors. A dozen soldiers marched on each side of the carts, with Paullus leading the way, uncomfortable in the saddle of a chestnut mare whose temperament appeared to match his own. The horse twisted and stuttered beneath the Roman, and from his place in the second cart Rufus could hear the patrol commander muttering under his breath. He decided this wasn’t the day to fall foul of the man and vowed to keep his mouth shut.
They were an hour into the march when Paullus noticed the first faint trace of white woodsmoke against the leaden clouds and halted the column at the base of a gentle rise. He called his section leaders to him and together they crawled to the top of the hill.
When they returned a few minutes later Paullus squatted over a patch of raw earth dug up by a fox or a badger, and used the tip of his sword to draw a rough map in the dirt. ‘The village is here, overlooking the stream.’ He sketched a tight circle beside a line which snaked from one side of the patch to the other. ‘And this,’ another larger circle on the far side of the snaking line, ‘is the wood where the cavalry reports they’ve stored their food. First section will come in from the east, second section from the west.’ He drew what looked like a bull’s horns converging beyond the village circle from right and left. ‘We’ll give you to the count of one hundred to get into position before we move in. They’ll try to run when they see us coming. Your job is to make sure no one escapes. Understood? Nobody escapes.’
When the two sections had moved off at the trot, Paullus formed up the wagons just below the brow of the hill. Rufus saw him frowning with concentration as he counted off the numbers in his head. Eventually he nodded to himself and clumsily remounted the mare.
‘March,’ he shouted, and the column moved off to bring Rome’s bounty to a village that had lived happily without it for a thousand years.
X
In truth, it wasn’t much of a village. When Rufus’s wagon crested the hill behind Paullus he counted a dozen large huts and assorted out-buildings scattered haphazardly over a piece of raised ground perhaps two hundred paces across, which was half encircled by a loop of the stream. To his right was a network of cultivated fields and hedged trackways. To his left, beyond the river, a forest of mixed ash, birch and scrub oak stretched far into the distance. As the carts trundled down the shallow slope towards the village there was a flurry of movement on the river side of the compound, followed by a shrill cry that might have come from a woman.
Paullus grunted: ‘At least someone’s doing their job.’ He urged his mount forward and the cornicen and the eight remaining legionaries jogged after him.
By the time Rufus and the other wagon drivers reached the huts the legionaries were methodically searching each house and stacking anything of value in front of Paullus. It was the first time Rufus had seen British buildings at close quarters. He was surprised at how sturdily constructed the roundhouses were. Long poles a foot in diameter formed the framework for the conical roof, which was covered by a thick thatch. The walls were of wattle, woven through upright wooden stakes, and the gaps filled with dried mud which made the houses weather- and windproof. They were each capable of housing an extended family of a dozen or more people and it was clear from their state of repair that this was a thriving community. Paullus looked at the pathetic booty of well-used copper pans, cracked wooden spoons and small heaps of powdery flour and shook his head.
‘This isn’t what we came for. You.’ He pointed at the driver of the first bullock cart. ‘You’re the one who can understand their gibberish?’ The man nodded nervously. ‘Come with me.’
The prisoners had been placed under guard outside the largest hut. There were nine of them, not counting the plump woman, who reminded Rufus a little of Britte, lying crumpled in a pool of blood with a look of mild irritation on her face and a large wound between her breasts. The others were three elderly men, probably not fit to carry a sword, four terrified children of indeterminate sex, and two younger women who stood weeping quietly and
