'So Galba proposed Clodius be transferred. What did Clodius say?'
'He was furious, of course. He disliked the Petriana cavalry until faced with the possibility of leaving it. Yet Galba wasn't so much making an enemy as setting Clodius up to make the suggestion.'
'Of attacking the grove. Of avenging Valeria's ambush.'
'You have to understand that Clodius represented everything that Galba resented: birth rank, preferment, arrogance, snobbery, incompetence, and even a measure of charm. The young tribune was actually somewhat likable in his eagerness, and when he wasn't drunk, he had manners. Even wit. Galba was forever serious because he couldn't forget his own humble beginnings, and he hated himself for it.'
'He wanted to pick a fight?'
'They both knew that Galba would win such a fight so easily that it was almost meaningless. Galba didn't want Clodius's life, he wanted his pride. He wanted to push Clodius, and through him Marcus, into failure. Make Galba the rescuer of success.'
'By getting Clodius to propose the attack. An attack that was dangerous.'
'Risky. Action that might stamp out rebellion can also ignite it. We were trusting the word of one rogue, Caratacus. Galba said he was willing to lead the attack, but he wanted the order in writing. This irritated Marcus, who felt the senior tribune was failing to support him. So he decided to lead the strike himself, with Clodius.'
'Which Galba intended all along.'
'He'd gotten the result he wanted.'
'To force a battle?'
Falco smiles thinly. 'To be alone with the bride of Marcus Flavius.'
XVIII
It was near dawn, time to strike. The grove of the druids was in a fog-shrouded hollow, the tops of the great oaks emergent islands in a gray sea. What secrets were hidden there? There was no sign of human movement. The guide who'd brought them here, a sour Celt of evasive manner, had taken their gold and slipped away in the night. Now a single wisp of smoke rose above the wood.
Marcus would look like a fool if there were no priests in the trees.
There'd been liberating joy when he began this expedition. He'd lain with Valeria the evening before his departure, anxious to test her fertility by seeding a child. He'd enjoyed their intimacy but didn't linger, as brisk and forthright in conjugal duty as in reviewing unit lists or a tally of provisions. Valeria had wanted more, like any woman, so he'd held her for as long as he could spare and then left to sleep alone so he could rise without disturbing her. It was so strange to be married! He wasn't used to lying all night with another person or having them constantly about, wanting to chat about everything and nothing. The girl asked a thousand questions, offered opinions he'd never asked for, and was even learning the barbarian tongue from the household slaves, which he considered undignified. Sometimes she'd even ask what he was thinking!
So it was a relief to don bright armor and gallop with his men. He'd ordered in Rome a lorica of the Eastern kind, each scale shaped and veined like a leaf and faced in gold, giving an effect far bolder and more resplendent than the gray and oily chain mail worn by men like Galba. Yes, it was ostentatious, calling attention to his wealth, but Marcus couldn't resist its splendor. It marked him as the commander! He'd dressed without his slaves, his armor over padded tunic, his belt and baldric holding sword and dagger, and his greaves strapped onto the banded leggings so necessary in this cold place. His high-crested helmet forced him to duck through the doorway as he emerged beneath the last stars to joke roughly with his centurions. When the assembly was ready, he'd led the way out the northern gate to a pink flush of dawn, riding hard through a long day and longer night to take the druids by surprise-and feeling better for it, despite the ache in his muscles. How freeing a campaign was! All the tedium and minutia of lists and logistics, petty rivalries and inadequate budgets, nagging repairs and missing equipment, could be momentarily left behind. In the field he was the spearhead of a military establishment that reached all the way to Rome. He was the bearer of tradition dating back a thousand years. A million Romans had marched and died before him, and so when he was tight in the saddle, sword slapping his thigh, reins gripped in gloved hands, Homer's muscles twitching beneath his own, the air fresh and the horizon beckoning… then he was brother to them all!
But now the long hours were catching up to him. The fog increased his doubt.
'We're sure this grove is the root of our troubles?' he asked the centurion Longinus, who lay on the crest of the ridge next to him.
'So our spy said. We're never sure of anything in life, praefectus.'
'I don't want to attack the wrong people.'
'Right and wrong aren't easily sorted north of the Wall. The tribesman who befriends you one day will slit your throat the next, and the tribe that pledges allegiance in summer will attack in winter. It's all blood feud, cattle raid, and magic to them. If druids are there, though, they're Rome's enemies: enemies for all time. They hate and fear us because we rob them of power.'
'I know all this. I just want to be certain.'
'Certainty is for the dead.' The centurion was impatient. None of the soldiers liked following a man who was indecisive. It created fear.
'I read they can foretell the future,' Marcus remarked. 'When he was just a soldier in the ranks, Diocletian once tried to shortchange a barmaid, and a druidess in the tavern chided him for being cheap. He joked that if he ever became emperor, he'd be more generous, and she scolded him for his jest and predicted he would become emperor-but only after he'd slain a boar.'
'So he went on a hunt?' Longinus had never heard this story.
'He forgot the prediction. But before he assumed the purple, he had to kill the prefect of the Praetorian Guard. The man's name was Aper: the boar.'
Longinus laughed. 'Maybe she was just lucky. If your druids are really so prescient, we'd see them running from the trees!'
So Marcus rolled away from the edge of the ridge and stood straight, a glittering, vengeful angel. As always, early morning in Britannia was crisp, the May grass high and green, the trees exploding with leaves. Everything was wet and silvered with dew. The cavalry had left their lances crisscrossed in the grass because they'd be useless in the trees, and they created a Euclidian geometry on the hill. It seemed a day for poetry, not war. But if Marcus were to prevail in his ambitions, he must prove himself on the Wall, and to do so would require action like today's, delivering a message that was clear and unmistakable. Here he would avenge the insult to his bride. Here he would prove himself to Galba Brassidias. To his father. To his uncles. To his young wife.
Would Clodius do his part?
'Let the boy command one wing,' Galba had privately advised. 'He'll either win or be killed, and solve the problem either way.'
It was the kind of brutal judgment the senior tribune seemed to make with ease. There seemed no philosophy to Galba, no hesitation, no remorse. No depth, no complexity. Yet the man exercised an influence over the soldiers that Marcus envied.
The praefectus waved, and they mounted, the horses snorting at this prospect of action, the rasping of drawn swords giving the praefectus a chill like fingernails drawn across a slate tablet. The automatic obedience to his orders still surprised him. No wonder Galba loved it! Longinus had suggested penetrating the grove on foot, given the difficulty cavalry had in dense forest, but Marcus was expecting a rout and a chase. Burdened by heavier armor, the army had long learned how useful the horse was in chasing down barbarians. The enemy, in turn, had learned the wisdom of skulking in forest or rock fields, where a cavalry charge couldn't overrun them. So be it: the druids would simply be either herded onto open ground, or trapped in their grove. Woods could be threaded. The Petriana trained weekly on negotiating thick ground.
'Signal to the other wing,' he ordered. 'Set the trap.'
A pennant waved from the crest of their hill and got its answer from the opposite side of the vale. A signaler pressed his lips to the long lituus horn, using his free hand on the back of his head to push his lips against the metal with the necessary force, blowing with cheeks inflated. Its call echoed across the valley, low and warning, and birds
