‘You up for a ride?’
Vindex rolled his eyes. ‘Sits in a cart all day and now he wants to get on a horse. Do I get a choice?’
‘The usual. You know where we are?’
‘Yes.’ The tone was patient, since the question was such an obvious one.
‘Want to take a closer look?’
Vindex lifted the wheel of Taranis to his lips. ‘Aye, I do.’
Gannascus joined them as they went to the fort gate. ‘Too many people,’ was all he would say.
Ferox’s rank was sufficient to persuade the sentries to let them pass. He had donned his plumed helmet and was holding his vitis to make sure that no one could mistake him for anything else. ‘We will be back before sunset.’
Ferox was on an old gelding he knew to be well behaved and able to keep going all day. His thigh was still stiff at times, and after the jolting carriage ride, he decided to do without a saddle. Vindex merely shrugged.
‘Amazing how Silures think they can ride.’
They walked their horses through the settlement, still busy in the later afternoon.
‘Is this Rome?’ Gannascus asked.
‘No, brother, this place is tiny.’
‘The people are small,’ the big German conceded, ‘but there are a lot of them.’
Men were hard at work fixing the timbers to make a frame for a house near the bridge. A convoy of carts led by galearii, the slaves owned by the army, and a few tired and fed-up legionaries were approaching, so they urged their mounts to canter over the planking before it blocked their path. The slave leading the first cart had to hit the oxen and yell to stop them and let the riders past. A legionary screamed at the slave, cuffing him round the head until Ferox glared down. Once he had passed he just caught a string of muttered insults, but decided to ignore them.
There were only a few buildings on the south bank of the river and once they were past they left the road heading east into rolling hills. Ferox had a fair idea of where they were going. His horse, fresher than the others since it had not carried a rider all day, rushed at the first slope and he let it canter freely, heading for the marker at the top of the hill. As he reached it, the animal saw something it did not like in the grass and pulled to the side. Ferox slipped, knew his weight was dragging him down, so grabbed the mane and just managed to loop his left leg up so that he slid down to the ground almost under control.
Gannascus had a big grin, while Vindex simply nodded. ‘Guess you wanted a closer look?’
The figure was about four foot high, carved from dark oak and weathered by the years to be almost black. It was roughly human, with stubby arms and legs, and more obvious breasts and the V slit lower down. Such figures had marked the edge of clan and tribal lands for longer than anyone could remember. Some were truly ancient and over the years the carving faded as the wood rotted so that any detail was lost altogether. This one was newer, perhaps half a century old.
Ferox stared at it. They had come less than a mile from the road and yet he felt that the empire was fading away and they were walking into the old world. The Brigantes were the most northerly people to use such markers, keeping them a little away from the stamp of Rome, and it had been a while since he had seen one. He felt its draw, for these were more than simple statues, far more than the perfect yet somehow lifeless bronze and marble images beloved of Greeks and Romans alike. This had power, and he found his hand reaching forward.
‘Best not to touch, Silure,’ Vindex said with surprising sharpness. Ferox nodded and went over to the gelding.
‘Wooden tits not much use,’ Gannascus grumbled in a whisper that must have carried a hundred paces.
Ferox led them across the hilltop, down into a valley and up the other side, saw the willow trees by the bank of a stream and headed towards them. They found the stone monument on the far side of the water. It was on a little rise that may have been there forever or may have been crafted by hand. Three rusty spearheads were thrust into the earth around the stone, their shafts almost wholly rotted away apart from little stubs. Fresher were offerings, flowers, newly mown heads of wheat, eggs and little birds, their necks broken. The air was still and warm like a summer’s day, the murmur of the flowing brook fading to the very edge of sound.
The pillar was taller even than Gannascus, one of the most expensive tombstones made by a Roman mason anywhere in Britannia. On each of the narrow sides a tiny raven was carved, one with outstretched wings almost like the eagle of Jupiter and the other roosting. On the back was a larger carving of a broad oval with a short handle. The top was fringed with a curving pattern of lines and knots that seemed to cross over and through the oval. Ferox took a moment to see the shape of a mirror, and then could not understand why it had taken so long because it was obvious. On the front, in the very centre of the outlined rectangular panel prepared for a long inscription, was simply the letter C – Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes.
Hers had been a long life, coming to an end just seven years ago when she must have been almost eighty. She had been queen when Claudius sent the legions to Britannia and had from the start sought peace and become a loyal ally of Rome. Some called her wise and an oath keeper; others named her craven and traitor. The queen and her first husband never really got on. He was Venutius, the same war leader whose helmet and armour the freedman Vegetus had claimed to have found. There was trouble in Nero’s day when they argued and he led his warriors against her followers, attacking the Romans too when they came to help. Somehow there was a reconciliation and brief peace, until the queen took a second husband, a handsome lad from Venutius’ household. War broke out again, and once again she lost, until the legions intervened in real force. Cartimandua remained queen in name, although she was made to live in the south for many years, and the Brigantes were brought under the direct rule of the legate of Britannia. Venutius did peace a favour by falling from his horse while drunk and never waking up, and his followers never found another leader to unite them. They went back to bickering with each other, and it was easier to do that if they made friends with Rome so did not have to worry about the army turning up.
‘The Carvetii were always the queen’s folk, weren’t they?’ Ferox asked.
‘Aye. She was our high queen. Have more than once heard my chief say that Venutius was too clever a man to trust.’ That chief was also Vindex’s father, but his mother was simply a servant girl, and although he was treated with some favour he had never been acknowledged. It did not appear to bother him. ‘The queen was always there. You knew where you stood with her.’
Her name still commanded awe, and was rarely spoken aloud by the Brigantes or their kin. She was Goddess and witch, mother of life and carrion, one who peered into the souls of others to see their weakness and fear. Fifty years ago she had betrayed Caratacus, the greatest leader of the southern tribes in the war with Rome, handing him over as prisoner after she had given him hospitality. Caratacus was a great hero to the Silures, a friend of his grandfather, and Ferox had come to know the old man during his years in Rome. It always surprised him that there was no bitterness. ‘You never met her,’ Caratacus said when he had dared to ask. ‘She was special. You felt like a little boy when you were with her. She just had that power. It would be like hating the moon for its beauty. She just was what she was.’
Ferox realised that he had shaken his head as he remembered the strange words. He turned to Vindex. ‘Did you ever see her?’
‘My ma always told me that I did,’ the scout said, his voice unusually sad and serious. ‘But when I asked she said that she lifted me up high to see over the crowd as the queen went past in her chariot. I must have been a bairn and I don’t remember a thing. Ma said she was very beautiful, with hair like shining autumn leaves.’