'Or worms,' Longinus growled.
'How can we get at them?'
'Maybe we could use fire. Smoke them out.'
Marcus shook his head. 'It's almost certainly a burrow with more than one entrance. Besides, we've killed enough. The real danger isn't surviving Britlets but the grove itself. This is the source of their boldness. If we destroy it, they'll lose courage.'
'Destroy how?' asked the soldier.
Marcus looked up at the dark canopy. 'By burning. Not these holes but the entire forest. Longinus, bring the men back inside the dike. Half on watch in case they attack again. The other half I want destroying this place. The trees chopped down, the stones uprooted, the dike leveled. We'll switch the teams every hour. I want this grove obliterated. Do you understand?'
'If we start to do that, they may crawl out and attack again.'
'So much the better.' Their praefectus had a new crispness. 'We'll beat them again.'
There was no attack, however. The surviving barbarians either stayed hidden in their dark tunnels or crept out of the forest. The only sound was the ring of axes and the crash of trees. The largest and oldest were like iron, so the officers ordered their bark girdled and dry brushwood heaped around their bases. The forty enemy bodies were layered with more wood to form a pyre, their witch hurled onto its top.
The five Roman dead were wrapped in their cloaks and slung over their horses for transport back to the fort. Another dozen Romans were wounded.
The troopers dug to topple the standing stones but soon gave up. Their rock roots seemed endless, extending to the bottom of the earth, so they contented themselves with urinating on the monoliths and scrawling obscenities. The encircling mound was leveled in several places, but as the day went on and the scale of the work became apparent, Marcus ordered a halt. Nobody wanted to spend a night in the forest.
When the sun dipped below the valley ridge and the sky flushed red, the praefectus ordered the fires lit. 'Junior tribune, it's your honor. You've proved yourself this day.'
Clodius nodded tiredly, took a dry branch for a torch, and walked to the pyre of barbarian dead. Before he lit, he paused to examine the druidess he'd killed, and after studying her withered face he turned away with a troubled look before finally thrusting the torch home. The funeral construction began to burn, its inky smoke roiling into the sky. The soldiers held their noses and backed away.
Felled trees were lit, and then the mighty standing oaks. Fire licked at their feet, and then, as the branches dried, the blaze leaped into the crown and the sacred trees exploded, their blackening limbs looking like the outstretched arms of crucified criminals. The heat grew so intense that the Romans had to retreat to the half-ruined dike. Smoke and sparks wafted over their heads into the main forest beyond and started new fires. The air danced and became choking.
'We'd better leave,' Clodius said. He'd taken a neck torque from a warrior he'd killed, wiping it clean and putting it on to cover the scar on his own throat. Despite this trophy he was subdued.
The praefectus nodded. 'Yes. We've done what we came for.'
The Romans rode out of the burning forest and up to the grassy ridge beyond, pausing at its crest. It was dusk now, the first stars coming out, and the glowing pillar of smoke rose into a cobalt sky as a warning to all the tribes of Caledonia. Here was the price for threatening a bride of Rome! The central part of the grove throbbed red as a furnace, its standing stones like blackened teeth in a mouth of coals.
'You thirsted for revenge, Clodius, and now you've had it,' Marcus said. 'Does it salve your wound?'
The youth touched his neck. 'It's not that I feel better, it's that I finally feel nothing.' He hesitated.
'Nothing?'
'The witch. I don't feel proud riding down an old woman.'
'You faced brave warriors as well. She was the ant queen behind them.'
'Perhaps.' He watched plumes of sparks fountain into the night sky. 'When I went to light the fire, I had a shock of recognition.'
'What do you mean?'
'I'd seen that face before, I think. Seen her before. In Londinium, on the steps of the governor's palace. She was a blind old fortuneteller.'
'Fortune-teller!'
'She made a forecast that disturbed Valeria. I can't remember what it was.'
'And you as well?'
'She said I might not live long enough to justify a coin.'
'Surely you're mistaken. A beggar seer all the way up here?'
'It makes no sense, but I could swear it was her.'
Marcus put his hand on the boy's shoulder. 'Memory plays tricks when we're exhausted. Be proud of the duty you've done this day. Rome will read of your courage!'
'Killing isn't what I expected, praefectus. It leaves a taste like copper.'
'Then let's go home to wine.'
They rode southward in a long, weaving line, the Romans wrung out. Gray cloud ran across the stars.
Falco brought his horse up alongside his commander's in quiet companionship. They rode in silence for a time, the veteran centurion watching Marcus carefully. Finally he spoke. 'You're not smiling, praefectus.'
Marcus turned to look again at the glow behind them. 'No philosopher can be happy about such destruction, centurion. The praefectus in me ordered it, the husband in me desired it, and the soldier in me accomplished it, but the poet in me regrets it.'
'And the Celts?'
'They know they brought this on themselves. I feel regret, but not guilt.'
'Which is my feeling as well.'
Marcus looked down the long rank of tired cavalry. 'And there we have young Clodius, blooded and satiated, proving himself a Petriana but still accused of murdering Odo. What should we do about that?'
Falco watched the new hardness in his commander's face, realizing what his answer was supposed to be. 'Does it really matter? The man was a slave, praefectus.'
'It matters to his owner.'
The centurion bowed his head. 'Who can afford the loss.'
'And his commander can afford to reimburse him.'
'Thank you, praefectus. I'll let the issue drop. I only mention that the killing still matters to the Britons we rule. They want to see Roman justice.'
Marcus pointed back toward the burning valley. 'Then let them come here.'
XX
he kitchen slave Marta is prettier than the vague description I had from Savia. I should not he surprised by this disparity: the two women were rival powers in a single household and looked at each other with competitive eyes. Marta has none of the refinement of a free Roman woman, of course, but she's blond and buxom and has an unusually trim waist and fine hip for a cook, with blue eyes and generous mouth and a look adventurous enough to awaken any number of appetites-including mine. In other words, I suspect she made her way by more than merely cooking, and thus has old jealousies that might be put to use for my report.
She remained in the fortress household during the attack on the grove by Marcus and Clodius, so I am curious what she saw during that time. Curious whether there was more to this Galba, who stayed behind, than mere ambition.
Marta steps into my interrogation room as if onstage, conscious of her looks. She is a slave, Saxon, and thus as coarse as she is proud, but she's also used to drawing the glance of her betters. Slaves, owning nothing, fall back on wit, muscle, and beauty. Accordingly, I keep my gaze disciplined while I explain my purpose. Then:
'I understand you served in the household of Lucius Marcus Flavius, praefectus and commander of the Petriana cavalry?'
