‘Wedge formation.’ The centurion’s command was obeyed in three well-practised movements which turned the infantry line into four arrowheads. The legionaries used their shields to batter their way deep into the heart of the enemy ranks, destroying any remaining cohesion or illusion of command. Rufus saw the panic spread through the British force like a ripple on the surface of a wind-blown pool. There was no visible evidence of surrender, only a palpable recognition of defeat. It was accompanied by a sound like a snarling dog as the warriors realized they could no longer fight, but only die. Some of them would have given in to despair, but the trap was sealed so tight they did not even have the choice of falling on their swords. Only one among them retained his composure, on the far edge of the slaughter where the cavalry screen was lightest and the trees closest. Somehow he was able to organize a concerted assault against the weak point of the Roman line. Fifty warriors broke through the gap and sprinted for the wooded hillside and safety.
‘Let them go.’ The legate’s roar halted the cavalry pursuit. He turned to the tribune who was his closest aide. ‘You must always leave a few to tell the tale, Geta. They’ll think twice before they try to tickle us again.’
VIII
The taste of victory was the taste of blood.
Tiny droplets must have carried from the battleground on the breeze and settled on his thirst-dried lips, because when he licked them he could distinguish that unmistakable metallic tang.
Rufus hadn’t realized that the aftermath of a battle could be as terrible in its own way as the battle itself. But Narcissus insisted he see the enemy at close range to understand the primeval force which opposed them. Now they were walking among the dead and the dying, the severed heads and the gobbets of nameless flesh, and the sword-chopped hands that seemed to beckon their former owners. At first he had tried to avoid stepping in the blood, but he quickly realized how pointless it was. There was blood everywhere. Not an inch of the killing ground was unpolluted. It stank, too. There were two distinct varieties of dead, he noticed. Those in the rear had all suffered terrible wounds to the head and upper body as the long, heavy cavalry swords had chopped down on flesh unprotected by armour. In contrast, those who were closest to the shield line had mainly died of stomach wounds, where the three-foot gladius had punched into belly and groin. Some had been almost entirely eviscerated and it was their exposed entrails, lying in obscene heaps and twisted strings, which gave the battlefield the odour of a well-used open latrine. It was quieter now; the groans and whimpers of the wounded had faded as the legionaries moved among them, slitting throats as casually as if they were sacrificing chickens and surreptitiously pocketing the golden bracelets they found decorating the arms and necks of the richest corpses.
‘Magnificent, are they not?’
Magnificent? Rufus looked at Narcissus with puzzlement. An hour ago these had been vigorous, powerful young men full of the confidence that came with that stage of life when maturity of body and mind reached its pinnacle. The past was full of growing pains, the future an unavoidable fading. The present? It was for laughing and loving, and, yes, for fighting. But this? He had seen death before; in the arena and in the palace of Caligula how could one not? He had even killed a man, a man who might have been his friend. He remembered the feeling of having lost something for ever: an empty space deep at the heart of his being. This was different. The enormity of it, the scale of the suffering, numbed the mind and froze the body. It overwhelmed that part of him that cared, so he could stand here, in this obscene garden of the dead, and not go mad.
‘Why did they do it?’
‘They wanted Bersheba. They have never seen her like. She is a mystery to them. They fear her, so they must destroy her.’
‘But Bersheba is…’
‘Yes.’ Narcissus smiled. ‘We know that but they do not. We stumbled on their tracks about two days ago, when we were coming in from the north. They were shadowing the column, but keeping their distance; then a messenger came, and reinforcements. That was when they closed in and when I informed the legate. At first we weren’t sure where they would strike, but Bersheba drew them like wasps to rotting fruit.’
‘Will they come again?’
Narcissus cast a bleak eye across the sea of dead flesh surrounding them. His gaze settled on the big spearman with the blue boar tattoo who had almost killed Bersheba. The man’s head was cleaved in two from the dome of his skull to the bridge of his nose, with the soft pink of his brains spread under him like a pillow. The unseeing eyes were crossed in a way that was slightly comical.
‘Would you?’
Two marches took the legions through country where the land was gentler and progress more speedy, and Narcissus believed the Britons could not avoid battle for many days longer. ‘Their king, this Caratacus, is gathering his forces. He has the support of many of the tribes — not as many as he would like, but enough to provide him with forty thousand warriors. Once he has them together, he must use them quickly. They are a fractious people, the British, not really one people at alclass="underline" a hotch-potch of mongrel breeds, each claiming a more noble ancestry than the other. If he does not bring them to fight Plautius, they will begin to fight each other. Then his chance is gone.’
‘What is he like?’ Rufus asked, curious about this nemesis whose name was already legend among the invading army. ‘Have you seen him on your travels?’
‘Not seen him, no. I fear my first glimpse would have been my last. But I have heard much of him. If the tales are to be believed he is an eight-foot giant who eats Roman babies and slaughters Roman maidens for sport. He is said to have killed fifty men in single combat and used their heads to decorate the palisade of his capital at Camulodunum.’ Narcissus shook his head. ‘Just stories, but there are certain facts of which I can be sure. He has the support of the Druids, for without it he could not have brought the tribes together. He is a fighter, because no man who is not a warrior can rule in this land where a strong right arm and a well-whetted blade can win a kingdom. And he is clever. A fool would have thrown his forces at us in small packages and we would have crushed them one at a time.’
‘But that is exactly what happened in the valley.’
‘True, and I find it puzzling. There was no plan behind it that I could discern, just a simple launching of troops at the column. Bersheba was the target, but there are more certain ways to kill her. I believe one of the chiefs acted alone, thinking to please him, but he will have been far from pleased by the result.’
‘And now?’
Narcissus stared at the distant hills to the north. ‘Now this defeat will eat at his confidence and at his authority. Only one thing can wipe away the memory of it. Caratacus needs a victory, and he needs it soon.’
IX
‘So this is the great beast all the army has been boasting of. It is more fearsome even than I had imagined.’
Rufus turned, and discovered that the heavily accented Latin belonged to a tall man in the uniform of the Ala Gallorum Indiana, the Gaulish cavalry unit that had annihilated the barbarian attack a few days earlier. The cavalryman’s face was hidden behind the god-mask of an ornate parade helmet with horsehair plumes, which he must have donned for a ceremony earlier that day. Rufus knew that such helmets, cast from brass and iron, were only awarded to the squadron’s champions. He watched the soldier carefully remove the helmet’s visor, with its enigmatic all-seeing expression, to reveal handsome, weather-worn features. The visitor was clean-shaven, with penetrating brown eyes that radiated intelligence and a strong nose that had been badly broken at some point. The column had halted before a line of steep, tree-clad hills while the engineers of the leading legion, the Twentieth, cut a road that zig-zagged up the face of the slope. Normally, the army would have stopped for the day and set up camp, but the ground was rocky and gully-strewn, and provided a poor defensive position. Plautius planned to push beyond the obstacle and force the pace on the enemy.