Vespasian nodded. His face tensed as he contemplated what might have happened.
‘And stop looking so strained; it’s not good for the legate to appear as if he’s struggling with a solid stool.’
‘I nearly lost the legion last night because I marched into a trap! I’m not surprised that I look shaken; even had I survived, it would have been the end of my career, and everything that I’ve worked for would have disappeared.’
‘But you didn’t lose it, did you? You saw the trap just before it was sprung and it was your actions that turned what would have been a crushing defeat into some sort of victory. Now whether you want my advice or not, you’re going to have it. Put last night behind you, stop feeling sorry for yourself because a few people died and look instead at what you gained: another hill-fort garrisoned, a demoralising and humiliating repulse of Caratacus’ best move so far that may well make a few more chieftains question his leadership, and, above all, on a personal level, you can claim the glory of another victory, not to mention the fact that you have Alienus who may well hold the information that will help you find Sabinus.’
Vespasian put his arm around his friend’s shoulders. ‘You’re right of course; it’s just that the shock hasn’t quite worn off yet. I need to concentrate on what’s important now: I’ll send for Cogidubnus; I need to talk with him before we question his cousin.’
Alienus suppressed a scream and shook his head repeatedly, sending sweat arcing left and right in the brazier’s glow; the stench of his scorched flesh filled the dim interior of the tent whose only piece of furniture was the wooden chair to which the naked spy was strapped.
‘I’ll ask you again before the iron goes further up your thigh: who has my brother and where are they keeping him?’
‘I’ve told you, he’s dead!’
‘Then tell me where his body is.’
‘I don’t know!’
Vespasian nodded at the optio standing next to the brazier; with his hand protected by a thick leather glove the man pulled the iron from the fire, its tip glowing red. ‘Near the top of his thigh so that his cock and balls feel the heat; but don’t touch them — yet.’
This time Alienus could not stifle the scream that pulsed through his whole body together with the searing agony of the burn; his wrists and ankles strained against the straps that bound them as his cry of torment wafted the smoke rising from the blackened flesh.
Both Magnus and Cogidubnus winced at the suffering but Vespasian remained resolute. ‘The next one will roast your genitals and you’ll be pissing like a woman for the rest of your days.’
Alienus hyperventilated for a few moments after the iron was withdrawn and replaced in the brazier; blood had started to flow from beneath his bindings. ‘You’re going to kill me anyway so that’s no threat.’
‘Who said anything about killing you? How can I expect you to tell me the truth if you’ve nothing to gain by doing so? I’m going to let you live; Cogidubnus has agreed to vouch for you and keep you under house arrest in his kingdom. It’s just up to you to decide in what condition you take up his generous offer: whole or with crucial bits missing?’
Alienus lifted his head; his mouth was set rigid with pain but his eyes narrowed in hatred as he regarded his cousin. ‘Live at the whim of that piece of filth? The man who, along with my grandfather, betrayed our people and sold our freedom to Rome.’
With one fluid motion, Cogidubnus stepped forward and slapped the flat of his palm across Alienus’ face, jerking his head right in a spray of sweat and blood. ‘Now you listen to me and try to do so without your callow mind being clouded by the confused thinking of youth. For the last two years you have aided Caratacus, the man who supplanted your grandfather from his throne and forced your people, the confederation of the Atrebates and the Regni, to pay tribute and provide men to fight for him. Your grandfather freed them from that shame and I preserve that freedom, whereas you would hand us back into the thrall of Caratacus.’
‘I would free us from Rome! We pay tribute to the Emperor and our men fight in his auxiliary cohorts; what’s the difference?’
Cogidubnus sneered, shaking his head, before carrying on slowly as if talking to a bright but misguided child. ‘The difference is that we get something for our money when we send it to Rome: we get peace and the chance to live on our own land under our own laws with our own king.’
‘You!’
‘Yes, me. But what did we get when we paid tribute to Caratacus? Poorer, whilst his tribe, the Catuvellauni, got richer. We had a king who did not live amongst us or even speak our dialect yet expected our men to fight and die for him in his endless petty wars away to the north and west, waged solely for his own glory. Did our men get paid for fighting for him? No, yet they were forced to; however, Rome gives them silver and will give them citizenship when they finish their service and they fight as volunteers, not conscripts.’
‘But they fight their own countrymen.’
‘Countrymen who two years ago looked down on them as the spawn of a defeated kingdom and treated them little better than slaves.’
Vespasian stepped back into the light of the brazier. ‘Rome is here to stay, Alienus, and it makes no difference to us how harsh the terms of surrender are for each tribe or each individual; that’s something that your cousin here has realised. Help me get my brother back and you can live under the supervision of Cogidubnus with the chance of reconciliation with Rome. Thwart me and I shall burn you bit by bit not for your submission but for the pleasure of doing it. You have my word on both of those assertions.’
Alienus glanced at Cogidubnus and then back at Vespasian. ‘Why should I trust you?’
‘Because I want Sabinus back more than I want you dead, and if giving you your life is the price that I have to pay then so be it. I won’t go back on the bargain, as Mars is my witness, because to do so would put Sabinus’ life in jeopardy.’ Again he nodded at the optio who once more took up the glowing iron. ‘So, I’ll ask you one final time as an intact man, who has my brother and where are they holding him?’
Alienus’ eyes flashed around the room, looking at each man in turn; indecision played in them.
‘Take the hair,’ Vespasian whispered to the optio, who smiled.
With a quick jab, the iron was thrust into the thick growth of pubic hair; with a flash it ignited, encircling Alienus’ genitals with a brief ring of fire. The young man yelped, looking down at his burning crotch. ‘The druids! The druids have him!’
‘That’s better. Where?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Of course you do. Optio.’
Alienus watched the iron being withdrawn from within the brightly burning charcoal and brought slowly towards his singed groin. He looked in terror at Vespasian who raised his eyebrows questioningly.
Alienus broke. ‘I left him with the druids at the Great Henge of Stone, up on the plain, east of here. They’re keeping him for sacrifice at the summer solstice. I was meant to lure you after him to this place where we were going to crush your legion and capture you so that it could be a double sacrifice.’
‘Which druids did you give him to?’ Cogidubnus demanded, stepping forward.
‘Druids from the sacred springs.’
‘Does that mean anything to you?’ Vespasian asked Cogidubnus.
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, they maintain the rituals of an ancient goddess, one our forefathers found already here when we arrived. She lives in a valley about thirty miles to the north and never leaves it; she constantly has to tend to her five hot springs and her sacred groves. She commands great power — she can heat water so that it’s too hot to touch. Her name is Sullis.’
‘We could be there and back in two days; three at the most,’ Vespasian said, holding his arms out for Hormus to untie the straps securing his back- and breastplates.
‘Assuming we don’t run into the remnants of that army that fled in the same direction,’ Magnus pointed out, slumping down on a couch.