‘Then you’ll be there, ready and waiting, when the invasion fleet finally arrives.’
Sabinus looked sourly at Thumelicus. ‘Is that another German joke because I didn’t find that one particularly funny either?’ His sense of humour was not helped by contemplating a sea voyage; he was not the best of sailors.
‘No, merely an observation. But that’s the deaclass="underline" horses for boats and you’ll be in the Chauci’s lands tomorrow.’
Vespasian pulled Sabinus and Magnus aside. ‘We’ve got no choice but to take it; if Gabinius beats us to that Eagle then Callistus will take the credit and Narcissus could easily say that Sabinus didn’t keep his end of the bargain and his life is still forfeit. Besides, it will be a lot easier trying to get back by sea rather than overland with Chauci cavalry chasing us all the way.’
‘But at the least the contents of my stomach will be staying where they belong.’
‘Not if you get gutted by a Chauci spear,’ Vespasian observed.
Sabinus paused to reflect upon this detail. ‘Well, brother, I suppose you’ve got a point. Boats it is, then.’
Vespasian looked at Thumelicus. ‘It’s a deal.’
‘But what about my horses?’ Paetus asked through clenched teeth. ‘It takes months to train them and-’
‘And you’ll do as you’re told, prefect,’ Vespasian snapped before turning back to Thumelicus again. ‘But we keep the saddles and bridles.’
‘Agreed.’
Paetus relaxed somewhat but still did not look happy. ‘I’ll get the men dismounted and start the embarkation.’
‘I think that’s a very good idea, prefect,’ Vespasian said, slipping off his horse.
‘I think it’s a shit idea,’ Magnus mumbled, staying put on his.
‘Oh, so you like being a cavalry trooper now all of a sudden, do you?’
‘It’s better than having to swim home.’
The Batavians sang low and melancholically, with a slow beat to match the rhythm of the stroke, as they rowed the longboats downstream; their shields were slung over the sides next to them to afford some protection against a surprise arrow attack. Birds flitted in the still air, replaying spring mating rituals over the smooth surface of the river and in amongst the trees, fresh with new leaves, overhanging its banks. The sweet smells of the new season occasionally broke through the musky tang of the Batavians as they sweated at the oars, stripped to the waist, their arm, chest and stomach muscles toned, squinting into the midday sun as they glided northwards through mainly flat lands towards the sea.
Vespasian and Magnus stood at the stern of the second ship, on a small fighting platform, next to Ansigar at the steering oar who kept a course directly down the middle of the hundredpaces-wide river; ahead of them Thumelicus commanded the lead vessel with one of his men as the steersman.
The current was sluggish and their pace was not quick, despite the crews’ exertions; Vespasian was growing impatient. He glanced at Magnus, next to him, who had not said a word since reluctantly getting off his horse and coming aboard once it had become apparent that he had no choice other than to be left behind. ‘You said that you knew how the Germans hid the Eagles.’
Magnus looked glumly ahead as if he had not heard.
‘Oh, come on, Magnus, this boat isn’t that bad.’
Magnus roused himself from his gloom. ‘It ain’t that, sir. It’s just that Germania seems to bring nothing but bad luck. When you look at all those Roman bones just lying there it makes you think that there’s some sort of curse against us in this land. Somewhere around here we fought Arminius’ army at a place called Idistavisus; the Germans withdrew with heavy casualties and Germanicus claimed a victory, but it weren’t so straight forward. I lost a good few mates that day.’ He looked to the east bank. ‘They’re lying out there somewhere, just like Ziri is lying at the bottom of a river; all of them dead in a land with different gods.’
‘Surely your gods follow you wherever you go if you believe in them and worship them.’
‘Perhaps they do, but their power gets weaker the further they get from their homeland. Here in Germania the power of Wotan and Donar and whatever other gods they have is strong, you can tell. You saw that grove on the way to Thumelicus’ tent; those heads didn’t just grow on the trees, they were put there after being sacrificed. We ain’t had nothing but trouble since we crossed the Rhenus and now we’re sailing into a whole lot more; even if we sacrifice a whole herd of white bulls to Neptune to keep us safe on the Northern Sea how’s he going to hear us and help us if the local gods are getting human victims?’
‘Human sacrifice is abominable.’
‘You tell that to the German gods; I don’t think that they’ll agree with you judging by how well they look after their people. I don’t like the idea of stealing back the Eagle and then going to sea with it with the wrath of the German gods following us.’
‘Why should they be angry with us? We won’t be taking it from them, we’ll be taking it from the tribe.’
Magnus looked at his friend with an expression of incredulous amazement. ‘Of course we’ll be stealing it from the gods; I told you that I’ve seen how the Germans hide an Eagle. It’ll be in one of their sacred groves dedicated to whichever one of their bloodthirsty gods they think can best protect it and they won’t be too pleased with us when we take it; if we take it, for that matter, because it ain’t as simple as walking through the trees into the clearing and pulling the Eagle’s pole out of the ground. Oh no, they make traps.’
‘What sort of traps?’
‘Nasty fucking traps.’
‘How nasty?’
‘Put it this way; when we found the Nineteenth’s Eagle in the Marsi’s territory the young tribune who tried to lift from the altar that it was laid upon ended up in a pit ten foot below the ground, with a stake so far up his arse that his last sensation was the taste of his own shit.’
‘That is nasty.’
‘Yeah, tell me about it. Then the lads that went to try and help him got smashed to a pulp by two swinging boulders that came out of the trees. You saw how the Chatti got those corpses to swing down on us; they’re good at that sort of thing here.’
‘Then we’ll just have to be very careful. Anyway, they got the Eagle in the end.’
‘But that’s just my point, they did get the Eagle but they took it straight back across the Rhenus; if we find this Eagle then we’re going to take it back by sea. When Germanicus took us back by that route after his victories here the German gods sent the storm after us in vengeance and you know the rest. And we’re about to do the very same thing.’
‘Then we shall make sure that we sacrifice to the right gods. The Batavians worship them after all.’ Vespasian turned to Ansigar who looked concerned; he had evidently been listening to the conversation. ‘Who is your god of the sea, Ansigar?’
‘There’s a few who could help but I think we should be specific in this case and sacrifice to Nehalennia, the goddess of the Northern Sea. We always call on her before a voyage; if anyone can help us she can.’
‘What does she require?’
The decurion scratched his beard. ‘The more that we can give her the more she’ll help us.’
A pale mist had settled as dawn broke the following morning and a thin layer of snow lay on the ground, making the flat countryside seem monochrome; trees and other natural features in the distance were just two-dimensional, slightly darker shades of grey. As Vespasian sat up blinking his eyes, the troopers were rousing themselves from their damp blankets, their breath steaming in the cold air, complaining about their stiff and aching limbs. Apart from a couple of hours in the late afternoon when there had been enough of a breeze to warrant the hoisting of the sails — emblazoned with the boar’s head emblem of the Cherusci — they had rowed constantly until nearly midnight with the almost full, waning moon, sparkling on the river’s surface, guiding them; their arms and legs were now suffering after a chill few hours sleeping on hard ground, dusted white.