Narcissus withdrew the knife from Rufus’s neck. ‘May I introduce Epedos, now undisputed and unchallenged king of the Atrebates?’ The noble nodded gravely at the sound of his name. ‘And this, lest I miss my guess, is Gavan, his bodyguard, or perhaps his executioner.’ The brute’s sneer turned into an evil gap-toothed grin. Narcissus added something in the sing-song language of the Britons, and Epedos replied in the same tongue.
‘King Epedos and his people have lately become allies of the Emperor and friends of Rome. He tells me he has decided to take a Roman name, Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus, in honour of his meeting with the Emperor.’ Narcissus smiled. ‘He is certain of great rewards for his remarkable diplomatic gifts and his even more finely honed sense of timing.’
Epedos/Cogidubnus stared at Rufus. When he spoke again, the melodic rhythms of his native tongue took on a harder edge and Gavan’s grin grew broader.
‘The king believes we should kill you,’ Narcissus explained, before replying with a similarly jagged-edged burst of incomprehensible syllables. Rufus tensed and allowed his fingers to drop towards the hilt of his sword, which drew a barking laugh from the bodyguard. Narcissus laid a hand on Rufus’s arm. ‘I have said no.’
With a last suspicious look, the warrior and the king of the Atrebates withdrew into the cover of the trees, still carrying Verica’s severed head. Rufus allowed his shoulders to slump. ‘Why?’
‘Why did I bring you here? It’s quite simple. Verica was becoming suspicious. He would never have accompanied me into a darkened battleground alone. He only agreed when I told him you would be with us. He thought you were his friend, you see.’
Rufus resisted the urge to vomit. ‘No. I meant why did he have to die? Epedos was not the only… friend of Rome.’ He heard the Greek’s feet shuffling among the fallen leaves and turned round. Was Narcissus feeling guilty? No, he was kicking piles of leaves together to camouflage Verica’s headless corpse.
‘There was always a price for our commitment to Verica, he understood that. He told you himself he was prepared to sacrifice anything for what he wanted. The truth is that Verica had become an embarrassment. Rome needs strong allies. He would never have been able to hold his kingdom against men like Epedos and Adminius. Better a dead hero than a live problem — and what is another body on a battlefield? In any case, King Cogidubnus insisted.’
Rufus took a deep breath. Just for a moment Verica’s laughter filled his ears, the arrogant, smiling face taunted him, and he felt a compelling need to kill Narcissus. It didn’t last, as he knew it wouldn’t. He would fight for his life — give his life even — for his son. But he was no executioner. Somehow that knowledge made him feel cleaner. He turned, and he could see in Narcissus’s face that he knew.
The Greek waved a languid hand and two more dark figures separated themselves from the shelter of the rowans. Each held a short bow with a notched arrow at the ready and Rufus recognized one of them as Hanno, the Syrian archer who had saved him from Dafyd. The little man grinned, showing white teeth against the brown of his skin.
‘I never like to take chances,’ Narcissus said enigmatically. ‘We have work to do, you and I — and the Emperor’s elephant. Tomorrow we will honour the living and the dead. The following day we will fight another battle.’
He turned away, and the two Syrians trotted close behind, leaving Rufus alone with Verica’s body. He said a silent prayer to whichever gods would listen, to carry the Briton’s spirit to the Otherworld. When he was done, he walked into the night with his mind in shadow and his heart filled with dread. He was to fight another battle. Bersheba’s battle.
XXXVI
‘The enemy are destroyed?’
‘They are, Caesar.’ Narcissus noticed a bloom in Claudius’s cheeks that had never been apparent in Rome. Campaigning — and victory — obviously agreed with him. Even his habitual stutter had gone. The Emperor sat upright in a cushioned chair in the private quarters of his tented palace.
‘And this Caratacus? Dead?’
‘It can only be a matter of time, Caesar. He flees as a hare before the hounds, but General Vespasian and the Second are close on his scent. You will have his head within the week.’
Claudius nodded as if it were his right. It had not been a joyful reunion, but meetings between the two men had never been joyful. Businesslike, yes. That was what characterized their relationship, even before he had given Narcissus his freedom. In the dangerous years with Caligula, and before, Claudius had depended on Narcissus’s wiles to keep him alive and the Greek had been so successful that he had placed his master on the throne of the world’s greatest Empire. Now the Emperor needed him even more — to keep him there. He had always admired Narcissus’s enormous intellect — even when it was accompanied by an enormous conceit — but he had never been comfortable with it. What was going on behind those hypnotic, azure eyes? What schemes was that fertile mind concocting that he wasn’t aware of? Yet, if he needed Narcissus, did the Greek not need him too? Imperial patronage could be a profitable commodity and none had used it with more aptitude. Narcissus had grown so rich that he now depended on Claudius’s protection to keep his enemies at a safe distance and to retain the fortune that had been won at the cost of so much effort. Claudius swept the thought from his head. He was being ungrateful. Narcissus had given him his victory. The barbarians were routed and their army slaughtered. The bodies strewn across the river-side battlefield were already beginning to rot beneath the summer sun. The stink of decaying flesh had been thick in the air when he crossed the centre bridge at the head of the Eighth legion, and they had set up camp well upwind to the north of where the wreckage of the barbarian roundhouses still smouldered.
Victory. It should have been enough. But for Narcissus there was never enough. On this occasion, however, he was right. The Emperor allowed his expression to soften. ‘You have made the arrangements for the next phase of the campaign?’
The bald Greek smiled. ‘The venue is chosen. The stage is set. All that is required is that the players know their parts.’ He knew the statement was evidence of conceit, arrogance even, but it was he, and no one else, who had directed this piece of theatre, and none other could have achieved it. Claudius caught his mood.
‘Then let the play begin.’
It was time. ‘The Emperor will require his elephant at dawn,’ Narcissus announced. ‘You know what to do. This is your day, Rufus, yours and Bersheba’s. Garb her in her armour of gold. It is time these barbarians witnessed the Emperor’s elephant in her true splendour.’
Its presence in the bottom of the cart hidden beneath Bersheba’s hay had gnawed at Rufus every hour of every day since they had left Rome. It was an enormous responsibility, a vast treasure in any man’s currency; an Emperor’s ransom. Of course it should have been guarded. That was the first question he had put to Narcissus when the Greek had supervised the carpenters who cut the hidden compartment in the base of the cart. But the imperial aide had already made his decision. ‘Once its presence was known it would take a full legion to guard a prize of this magnitude, and our legions have more pressing duties. It would also send out a certain signal — one which I have good reason for not wanting to send.’
Rufus completed his preparations as the first smear of dawn dusted the horizon and consigned the fading stars to oblivion amidst a dense blanket of misty blue. Narcissus had at last allocated an honour guard of Praetorians, and their help proved invaluable. First Rufus had fitted the great headdress with the perforated eye coverings that gave Bersheba the look of a bug-eyed Babylonian monster. A lethal golden sting in the shape of a two-foot spike jutted from her forehead. Even her foot-long tusks were tipped with gold. The great mantle, which would have covered the floor of a small house, would have been too heavy to move without help. Not as heavy as pure gold, it had to be admitted, but heavy enough. The elephant armour had been manufactured from silver and each piece then plated with a thin layer of gold, but the effect was the same. Under Britte’s eagle eye the vast metal blanket and the intricately carved wooden howdah that would seat the Emperor were hoisted on to Bersheba’s back and buckled firmly into place.