He didn’t expect to sleep that night, but when he woke at dawn his head was clear and his mind sharp. Neither was matched by the day, which was a sulphurous, brooding trial of airless heat crushed beneath a blood-red ceiling of low cloud. Soldiers called days like these ominous, and with good reason; a sky the colour of new offal seemed to be filled with omens for a legionary on the eve of battle. It was the kind of day Rufus had learned promised rain, and plenty of it, but the rain never came and the heat never abated. Instead, the air crackled with an almost physical tension. Men who had never exchanged a sour word cursed each other as they worked. Centurions lashed out with the thick vine sticks of their office at the slightest provocation. And there was no lack of provocation.
It was clear by now that the Second’s preparations for the river crossing were close to culmination. The camp was abuzz with activity. Carpenters worked ceaselessly to ensure the great wooden catapults and the ballistae that could punch a heavy four-foot arrow a quarter of a mile through the air were in good order and ready for action. Armourers sharpened swords by the dozen and met last-minute promises to mend the weak points in legionary plate armour or auxiliary chain mail that might cost a man his life. Vespasian stalked the camp with his aides like a lion marking its territory, reassuring, checking, and repeating his orders again and again to his junior commanders. There was only one word on every man’s lips. Tomorrow.
XXII
On the far side of the river Caratacus was back at his station on the low hill at the first hint of daylight. There was something different about the Roman camps, a new intensity of purpose that wasn’t particularly visible, but was there all the same. The cavalry went through the same routines, but their formations were more compact; tight and efficient. The riders carrying dispatches and orders between the four camps seemed more numerous, while beyond, in the great supply compounds, it was as if he could sense the increased activity of thousands of soldiers and slaves, even if he couldn’t see it with his eyes. Nuada joined him at noon and together they considered the dread sky and brooding atmosphere. He hadn’t forgotten the Druid’s part in Togodumnus’s folly and Ballan had returned from patrol three days previously hinting there might be more he didn’t know. But on this of all days he needed Nuada’s support.
‘I want you to make a sacrifice to discover the meaning of this strange weather,’ he ordered.
Nuada sniffed the air. ‘I don’t need to sacrifice anything to understand the weather. A child could read the signs. It means rain tomorrow, or perhaps the day after. The clouds are heavy with moisture, the sun heats them and the gods stir the mixture. The clouds will give birth to a storm in their own good time. In any case, we have no prisoners. Your brother couldn’t achieve even that.’
‘Not prisoners. A goat.’
The Druid spluttered. ‘A goat! What good is a goat? A goat won’t win you the support of the gods. We should line the riverbank with Wicker Men, fill their bellies with slaves and send their souls to Taranis. That will bring you the gods’ favour and put terror in the heart of your enemies.’
Caratacus smiled grimly. ‘If the gods do not favour us now, Nuada, then they have deserted us for ever, and you and your kind have failed this land of Britain. There are many mere children in our army and I have seen the fear in their eyes when they look at that sky. You will sacrifice a goat and the portents will be favourable, and perhaps their bellies will be filled with courage instead of beer.’
‘And what if the omens are not favourable?’
‘If the omens are bad, I will fulfil my promise to sacrifice a Druid to ensure the gods’ favour.’
‘Then I will choose the goat with the utmost care.’
‘That would be wise.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes,’ Caratacus said quietly. ‘Tomorrow.’
If nothing else told him with certainty they would come tomorrow, the bridges did. Since dawn each of the three crossings had been an ants’ nest of activity, with Roman engineers scurrying back and forth along their length carrying the building materials which had now brought them close to halfway. This was the first time he had witnessed the true power of Roman ingenuity. A British bridge was a fragile, expendable affair of thin planks, supported by the closest available timber, jointed and held together by rope. It could — no, it was expected to — be swept away by the next flood. Romans built to last. They used small, tethered wooden boats which they must have carried in their long baggage trains to create the initial framework. When they were anchored in place, the legionaries swarmed over and among the pontoons, slipping in and out of the water like otters as they sited large baulks of timber cut days, perhaps even weeks, before for the bridge piles. These were then driven into the river bed by an ingenious weighted device like nothing he had ever seen. Even before the piles were properly set, engineers and carpenters were working among them, placing and testing the planks of each section. The result was a structure as sturdy as any he knew. Yet it was not the bridge that impressed him most, or was responsible for the chill that ate into him even on this thunder-hot summer’s afternoon. No, it was the way the men worked together, each knowing his place and his task, never obstructing or colliding. There were no screamed orders or wicked slaps of whips on idle backs. It was almost inhuman, this clinical control. For the first time he felt, low in his gut, the wolf-gnawing ache of doubt. Could his crude stratagems succeed against a people capable of all this?
Nuada was staring at him and he knew what he was thinking was written on his face. He forced a confident smile. ‘Don’t you have a goat to sacrifice?’
When he was alone, he went over the plan again in his mind.
The hill was the key. Here, in the centre, where the massed ranks of Plautius’s army would strike, the most fearsome warriors of the Catuvellauni, the Trinovantes and the Iceni, reinforced by Scarach’s Durotriges, would wait; the rock upon which the legions would break themselves.
On the far left, ready to fall on the Roman right flank, would stand the Atrebates of Epedos and Bodvoc’s battle-eager Regni. He had spent hours with the Regni king reinforcing the need for patience. Wait. Wait. Only when he was certain the Romans were exhausted and their line stretched thin as a butterfly’s wing along the river’s edge should he strike, but when he did strike it must be with the speed of a lightning bolt and the force of a hammer blow. There would be no second chance. When the warriors in the centre had sucked the power from the legions it was Bodvoc and Epedos who must destroy them. Utterly.
Togodumnus, naturally, had demanded this honour, but Caratacus knew his brother, and after the rout on the first river the kings and the chiefs of the army of Britain were no longer impressed with his bluster. He would hold the British right with his Dobunni and a coalition of the lesser tribes, convinced after hours of persuasion that it was the place of greatest danger. Here the ground was broken and wooded, less favourable for the attackers, but where Togodumnus would wait, ready to fall upon a routed enemy already defeated by the crushing flank attack.
Caratacus rubbed his forehead where it throbbed and bubbled as if his thoughts and his schemes were trying to escape from his head. There was so much to consider. So much at stake. Was there anything he had missed? He went over it again, was satisfied he had done all he could — apart from one nagging doubt.
‘Ballan.’
The squat Iceni horseman jogged up from where he had been waiting with his scouts on the rear slope of the hill. ‘Lord?’
‘About ten miles upstream, close to a place where the river passes below a ridge of yellow rock, there is a ford where a horseman might cross. Ride there and sweep for any signs of Roman cavalry. I think we would know by now if any major force had passed that way and got behind us, but I want to be certain.’