‘That is very gratifying, brother; I’ll have a cage commissioned. Now all I’ve got to do is find him.’
‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll turn up; he hates us too much to stay away.’
PART II
CHAPTER VII
The bite of whips on the mud-grimed, bleeding shoulders of scores of manacled slaves caused the bireme to edge forward a further few paces, releasing four or five smooth, rounded logs from beneath its stern. Teams of slave boys, too young to be hauling on the four long ropes that powered the vessel overland, immediately lifted the freed rollers and ran with them up to the bow of the ship, taking licks from the whips of the legionary overseers they passed. They placed them ready for the ship to trundle onto after the next bout of exertion from the human beasts of burden treated no better than the bellowing oxen harnessed to great yokes in their midst.
The once-proud warriors of the Durotriges were using muscles more accustomed to martial exercise to power Roman ships towards the river estuary, now less than a ship’s length away. Had the slaves been able to register anything but pain and misery they would have smelt the salt-tanged air and heard the gulls overhead crying as they circled the four ships already floated and now moored in a line down the middle of the hundred-pace-wide estuary. Long, low, wide-bellied rowing boats travelled to and fro from a couple of wooden jetties on the eastern bank, ferrying oarsmen and marines with their provisions out to their vessels to make them fit for sea.
Along the bank, north of the jetties, lay the rib-like skeletons of four triremes in various stages of construction surrounded by yet more Britons working under the direction of Roman shipwrights and guarded by two centuries of Cogidubnus’ auxiliaries. Hammering, sawing, chiselling or carrying, these men were not manacled; they were free men having surrendered honourably to the II Augusta during its push westwards through the lands of the Durotriges over the last two campaigning seasons. Now as free subjects of Rome they were being given the chance to earn citizenship by building the ships in which they would serve as rowers for the next twenty-six years.
Standing with Magnus and Sabinus outside the gates of the II Augusta’s camp, overlooking the enterprise, Vespasian looked down the line of eight biremes still to be floated; in one huge convoy they had been hauled overland along the portage way from a river on the south coast of Britannia to this tidal estuary leading out to the sea on the northern coast of the peninsula running southwest out into the western ocean. The thirty-mile route was lined with crosses upon which were nailed those slaves who had fallen by the wayside too weak to carry on. They had been left to die in agony, as a warning to others, with their legs unbroken so that the instinct to survive would ensure that they would continually try to push up on the impaling nail through their feet in order to breathe, thus prolonging their death. The frequency of the crosses had increased as the days had gone by and although Vespasian regretted the financial loss he had condoned the executions in order to ensure that the operation was completed as quickly as possible.
‘Just eight days,’ Vespasian observed with satisfaction to Magnus next to him, ‘it shows what can be achieved if you put your mind to it.’
‘And if you’ve got the slaves to do it,’ Magnus pointed out, watching an older slave who had collapsed to the ground receiving a beating that would probably finish him. ‘I suppose he could be considered one of the lucky ones.’
‘What?’ Vespasian looked at the wretched slave; exhausted by his unremitting labours, he no longer cried out. ‘Yes, I suppose so; still, none of them would have been in this position had they been sensible and surrendered, like the men working on the triremes, rather than fighting on and becoming captives.’
‘You should be thankful that they weren’t sensible; if they had you wouldn’t have had the manpower to drag this squadron overland and then where would you be? Losing yet more vessels trying to sail hundreds of miles around this storm-riven island, rather than simply dragging them thirty miles to the north coast.’
‘No, I’d have had them built like the triremes; but you’re right, it’s much easier and less effort to bring them overland; not to mention the time it’s saved.’
‘And lives,’ Sabinus observed. He pointed to a smaller ship, a liburnian bobbing at anchor close to the shore, in which he had arrived the day before. He had sailed south from the XIIII Gemina’s base, at General Plautius’ orders, to take personal command of his half of the twelve biremes whose arduous overland journey was now coming to an end — he had only just recovered from two days’ stomach-straining seasickness that morning. ‘The trierarchus of my ship told me that he was the only one who made it round out of a flotilla of half a dozen. Apparently the tides and the wind are very rarely in the right conjunction; three of the ships were wrecked and two turned back.’
Magnus spat. ‘Tides! They ain’t natural.’
Vespasian chuckled. ‘I’m afraid they are, Magnus. Anyway the main thing is that despite the tides we now have a naval presence on both sides of the peninsula ready for our push further west into the Dumnonii lands next season.’
With a flurry of scourging and a rise in the cacophony of agonised cries and bellows, both bestial and human, the next bireme rolled down the bank, plunging into the water, dipping its bow with a phenomenal splash that submerged many of the slaves toiling at its ropes in the river. The great vessel bounced gracefully back up as its full length floated; the resultant wave swept many of the captives from their ropes, out into midstream where they floundered, drawn down by the weight of their manacles.
‘That’s just stupid!’ Vespasian exploded, striding forward with furious intent towards the nearest centurion commanding the legionary overseers. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing drowning decent livestock?’
The centurion snapped to attention in the face of his legate’s wrath. ‘We unhitched the oxen, sir!’
‘I’m not talking about the oxen; I’m talking about the slaves!’
The man looked nonplussed for a few moments. ‘It’s unavoidable, sir.’
‘Unavoidable! Do you have any idea how much each one of them is worth? Your annual pay, that’s how much.’ Vespasian gestured to a stoutly built, large stockade about a quarter of a mile away into which slaves who had completed their task were being led. ‘And I make sure that every legionary and auxiliary gets their fair share of the profits for each one sold so what you’re doing is throwing your money and mine away. I suggest that you find a way to make drowning them avoidable, centurion.’
‘Yes, sir!’ the centurion barked, snapping a crisp salute before turning and marching off to berate his men for bringing him to the attention of the legate.
‘A very commendable and remunerative piece of advice, if I may say, legate,’ a smooth voice observed from behind him.
Vespasian spun on his heel. He was in no mood for insolence. ‘Theron!’ he exclaimed, looking into the dark eyes of the Macedonian slave-trader from whom he had bought his body slave, Hormus. ‘What are you doing so close to where the fighting is?’
Theron, a man only in his mid-thirties but already running to fat, bowed, bringing a hand across his ample chest; his voluminous saffron cloak wafted in the slight breeze and pendulous golden earrings glistened next to his trimmed and oiled black beard, which failed to conceal the beginnings of a double chin. Behind him stood a retinue of a dozen bulky men; their age, scars and muscles placed them unmistakably as ex-gladiators. Despite the absence of sun or rain a smooth-skinned eastern youth held a parasol, fringed with golden-threaded tassels, over his head. He was, Vespasian thought, almost a parody of the image that he tried to portray: a man whose wealth was based upon the sweat of others.