But Agrippina saw that among the gifts being offered to the river were Roman goods: Samian crockery, finely worked Gallic daggers and swords, even coins no doubt adorned with the invading Emperor's head. Even in this most sacred of British rituals, she thought, the Romans had already gained a foothold.
A runner approached Togodumnus, evidently bearing bad news. The prince swore, hurled away the last of his offerings, and stomped out of the water. His brother, Caratacus, continued with his patient ceremony.
Cunedda murmured, 'Togodumnus may pay for that. It doesn't do to turn your back on the gods.'
'Probably he's been told that the Dobunni have laid down their arms to the Romans,' Braint said laconically.
Nectovelin snapped, 'Gods, woman! If you were Greek I'd call you an oracle.'
Braint shrugged. 'I just listen to what people say.'
Cunedda asked Nectovelin, 'If things go badly today, what will become of everybody-the old people, the women and the children?'
Nectovelin grunted. 'The Romans haven't crossed an Ocean to be merciful. They'll be looking to strike a blow that will resound throughout the island. We may still be able to stop them doing that, even without the Dobunni. But it's in the hands of the gods.'
Agrippina asked softly, 'But, Nectovelin, your Prophecy-has it no news of what will happen today?'
He laid his fist over the chain mail covering his chest. 'The parchment is brief,' he said. 'Just a few lines. You can't expect it to list every little thing that will ever happen.'
'This isn't some "little thing", cousin!'
Nectovelin glared at her. 'No bit of parchment is going to help us here. Only iron and blood will shape our future now. Drop it, Agrippina.'
They were interrupted by cries of anger, coming from far off to the rear of the roughly assembled mass of Britons. Caratacus, his boots still wet, went running towards the commotion with a group of his allies, their swords already drawn.
Braint hopped onto a storm-smashed tree stump to see better. 'It's the chariots,' she called. 'Somebody's having a go at the horses.'
Nectovelin yelled, 'The Batavians!'
Agrippina asked, 'Who?'
He drew his sword. "Pina, find somewhere safe, and stay there. Braint-come on, you old boot, we've a few Roman skulls to crack before supper.' And he ran off, pushing through the jostling crowd of old women, children, goats and sheep.
'So it begins,' Cunedda said. With a last helpless glance back at Agrippina he followed Nectovelin.
XIII
Vespasian found his brother in the dark. The two of them met on horseback in a pocket of forest, close enough to the river for them to hear its murmur. They were alone save for their immediate staff officers, and a few burly legionaries as guards.
And, all around them in the blackness, more than ten thousand men were crossing the water.
'It's good fortune it's so dark,' Sabinus whispered to his brother.
'Yes.' So it was, though it was no accident that the night was moonless; the campaign's planning had taken the lunar phases into account. 'But I'm getting the feeling that even had we attempted the crossing in broad daylight the Britons might still not have spotted us.'
'It's hard to credit, isn't it? Wouldn't you post at least a few spies? It's not as if we've tried to conceal ourselves.'
Vespasian shrugged, his armour rustling as its banded plates scraped. 'I have a feeling these barbarians think it dishonourable to sneak around in the dark.'
'And it is more honourable to waste your life needlessly? Well, by this time tomorrow many of them will be able to debate the point with their gods. Come. Let's see how the crossing is going.'
They turned their horses' heads. A staff officer on foot led Vespasian's horse down the track cut out by the scouts earlier, and Sabinus's followed.
Flavius Sabinus, a few years older than Vespasian, had gone ahead of his brother into the army. His progress had been slower, and at one point Sabinus had actually served as staff officer to Vespasian. It had been a situation fraught with problems of rivalry, even though the brothers had always got along well. Thanks to Vespasian's links with Narcissus, though, Sabinus had now been elevated to an equal rank with his brother, and headed a legion of his own on this British adventure. And, as Vespasian had always known he would, Sabinus was proving effective in the field.
Certainly everything had gone well so far. The British had done nothing but sit on the bank opposite the marching camp, waiting for the Romans to hurl themselves on their rusty iron swords. Aulus Plautius's cold calculations concerning the minds of the British leaders seemed to be working out like a Greek mathematician's theorem, Vespasian thought-a simile he must remember for Narcissus and his letters to Claudius.
Meanwhile all eight of Plautius's cohorts of Batavians had slipped across the river, downstream of the marching camp. The Batavians were among the most useful of auxiliary troops, Vespasian had always thought, for they were specially trained to swim across even major rivers in full battle gear.
And, after shaking themselves dry like dogs, the Batavians had fallen on the rear of the British lines. Their purpose was to disable the British chariots.
The chariots had surprised Caesar when he had come across them a century before. They were terrifyingly fast, and would bear down on you with their occupants screaming and hurling their javelins. Even the noise of their wheels was enough to panic men and horses alike. The enemy could use the chariots as a weapon in themselves, and as a way to deliver his best troops to where they would be most effective. For Caesar the chariots were a nightmare from legends of the Trojan wars, and he had had trouble countering these fluid and mobile forces with his stolid legionaries. Even his cavalry had been put under threat.
But after Caesar's day other histories had been dusted off. It turned out that chariot-fighting had once been quite prevalent across much of northern Gaul and Germany, but it had died out in those lands centuries back. For all its mobility a chariot was vulnerable to toppling or breaking down, and its passengers spent more time riding around than in engaging the enemy. The outcome of a battle lay, as it always did, in the slow grind of infantry work. In this way as so many others, it seemed to Vespasian, the Britons on their island were out of step with developments on the continent-even with the practices of their barbarian neighbours, never mind the Romans.
That said, a chariot assault could be a distraction in the course of a battle. So, it was decided, the best way to deal with the threat was to eliminate it before the engagement even started. Hence the Batavians had been sent over to sort it out, which they had done most effectively.
Now it was the turn of the main body of the force to cross.
Vespasian emerged from the cover of the trees close to the river bank, at the place the scouts had picked out in the daylight. By starlight he could see the river's dappling surface-and a silhouetted line of men working their way down the bank, into the water, and, following a rope laid out by the scouts, wading all the way to the far side. The men had bundles tied to their heads and shoulders, and they whispered to each other as they strode through the silvery water. Like everything the Roman army did, even this cautious mass wading was planned and executed meticulously.