Lucullus’s rents. The house itself turned out to be a modest enough place, pleasingly bright with unpainted walls and comfortable, functional furniture, and decorated in the Roman fashion with a few busts of notables who were unlikely to be related to the Briton but had probably been bought as part of a job lot. Pride of place — as he suspected it always would in Colonia — went to a flattering, painted marble likeness of Claudius.
‘Your sleeping quarters are through here, and the latrine is beyond the courtyard.’ Falco apologized for the lack of a bathhouse, but Valerius said he was happy enough to use the public facility. His effects had already been delivered, so as soon as the militia commander left he settled down and retrieved the copy of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War he always carried. The Greek writer had served in the military, that was certain, but he was no soldier. Not quite Homer, on whose tales of Troy Valerius had been weaned, but an improvement on Herodotus, who was much too wordy for his taste. Later, he fell asleep haunted by a female face which never quite came into focus, and a sweet, tuneful voice he had never heard before.
VIII
It was the eyes, rather than the words, the chieftain thought. They made a man feel important, even a man who only held sway over a few farmsteads worked by his clan, a minor western sub-tribe of the Catuvellauni federation, and had little influence beyond his farthest field. The priest’s eyes were the colour of the old amber the chieftain’s wife coveted in the market down at Ratae, and hooded like a hawk’s. Not that the chief visited the place often. He preferred the smell of cowshit to the perfume of the Roman-lovers who lived there in their palaces. For the first time in a decade his fingers itched for a sword. He had once been a warrior. The amber eyes made him feel like a warrior again.
Gwlym studied the group around the fire. Most of them were too old or too young to be truly useful in a fight. But not too old or too young to hate or too old or too young to die. The old remembered the days before the Romans came, when any man with a shield and a spear was his own master. The young knew nothing beyond the boundaries of the little settlement but their minds were open to his subtle arguments and persuasion. He talked of life before the Romans: before the roads and the watchtowers and the cavalry patrols, and before the taxes which guaranteed that no matter how good the harvest their bellies would still be empty before winter’s end. He talked of the countless thousands marched off in chains to be worked to death in Roman mines, of the lands that had been stolen from them, and, to a growl of approval, of mighty Caratacus betrayed and brought low before being degraded for an emperor’s pleasure. By the end, their eyes blazed as bright as the flames of the council fire, and the young men — those few who could be forged into warriors fit to face a legion — clamoured for the weapons they needed to take their revenge.
They wanted to act now, but the time was not yet right. This was the art they had taught him on Mona. How to tend the fire and keep the flame burning until the moment it was needed. He looked at the faces round the fire again, seeking the man who would continue the work when he moved on. Not the chief; too many years at the plough and too ready to sacrifice himself and his people. No, he needed someone more subtle, more obedient. The quiet, dark-haired peasant three rows back. Young, but not too young. Watchful, intelligent eyes; determined, but not over-eager. Yes. He would talk to him later, alone.
‘Wait,’ he ordered. ‘Have patience. Organize. There will be a sign.’
And always they asked: what will be the sign?
And always he told them: the wrath of Andraste.
His mission had almost ended before it had begun, in the savage mountains of the Deceangli, for he could not risk contact with the people there lest word of his coming reach the Romans. Close to starvation, he had turned south and crossed into the country of the Cornovii just north of the Roman fortress at Viroconium, beyond the bend of the great river. There, he had forced himself to wait until he was beyond range of the daily cavalry patrols before begging food and shelter at a rough farmstead. Under the thatched roof, with the cattle lowing gently in the background, he had listened while the farmer, a man more used to conversing with his beasts, recounted news and rumour from a dozen miles around. Only when the tone and the manner had told him what he needed to know did he begin to talk.
The first farmer had passed him to another, and another, and from there he had reached the local lord, who told him of other lords of similar persuasion, with similar complaints and similar ambitions. He would arrive at a farm or a village after nightfall, gather those he could trust, and talk until it was time to sleep. The following day he would spend at the plough or the whetstone or gathering in the harvest. He used his skills as a healer to foster trust and to bind them to him, even though it placed his life in danger. Tales of a medicine man would spread and multiply where those of an itinerant farm labourer working for bread and beer would soon be forgotten. He was always at risk, but he was never betrayed.
By now he realized others followed the same path. Quite often he would arrive at a household to discover he had been preceded by another of his sect. No one said so aloud, but he could see it in the puzzled eyes, and in the answers they gave to his questions. All over southern Britain men like him were spreading a message: fanning the embers of an almost forgotten fire.
IX
Valerius spent his first few days in Colonia drawing up work schedules with Julius and directing squads of legionaries out into the network of roads around Colonia to identify the areas which required immediate attention and those which were less of a priority. Julius presented a local quarry-master with a warrant for the supply of the materials they would need and Valerius set himself the task of providing the wagons required to carry them. Which took him back to Lucullus.
The Trinovante welcomed him effusively to his office in the centre of town, apologizing for the humbleness of his surroundings. ‘Of course, I carry out most of my business at the temple or the baths, like a true Roman,’ he said.
When Valerius explained the reason for his visit, Lucullus was delighted to be of service. He asked for information on the quantities of material to be hauled and the distances they had to be carried and swiftly calculated the number of wagons needed and the teams of oxen to pull them. ‘You will need spare teams, of course. No point in having a wagon lying idle just because an ox needs to be rested.’ He named a price, a time and a place for delivery and Valerius presented his warrant. He noted that the figure Lucullus wrote down bore no relation to the one he had just given.
‘Now,’ the Briton said. ‘Do not think I have forgotten my invitation. I am holding a gathering a week today. Just a few people whose company I enjoy. I think you would find it interesting and perhaps illuminating. Would the fourth hour after noon be acceptable?’
Valerius agreed that it would, then asked the question that had been on his mind since he entered the room. ‘And is your family well?’
Lucullus’s face darkened. ‘Families are like taxes, a trial to be tolerated. A son, perhaps, I could have guided. His father’s success would have provided him with a path to follow. But I have no son. A daughter?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Of course, you have no children yourself?’
Valerius smiled at the unlikely thought. ‘I am not married.’
‘Then you are doubly welcome.’
When he returned to the cohort headquarters, Julius reminded him that the following day was Saturday, when he had agreed to watch the Colonia militia being exercised by Falco. Valerius grimaced. It had seemed a reasonable request at the time, but now there were so many other things requiring his attention. Still, it was a duty he couldn’t avoid, not least out of respect for Falco.
They gathered on the flat ground between the broken remnants of the city walls and the river to practise close-order drill and arms. Two thousand men, once the elite core of the legions of Rome, with battle honours that stretched from Scythia to the Silurian mountains.
‘Jupiter save us, will you look at them,’ grunted Lunaris, who had accompanied Valerius as part of his
