Festus preened at the praise of his men. ‘Good men, all of them. Sensible too. No sense in buggering off and losing that fat bounty they’ll get on discharge.’
‘And I take it their families were left back in Germania at the main castra?’ Ferox guessed at least half the men, and probably more, had ‘wives’ and children. Army regulation said that soldiers were not to marry, but men were men, and few wanted to wait out twenty-five years before finding the right woman and starting a family. The army turned a blind eye, knowing that it was better that way.
‘Well, it’s rough up here, the winters savage,’ Festus said.
‘And they were told that we would not be here long enough to make it worth putting the families through the hardships of the journey,’ Sabinus added, his tone dubious. ‘And…’ he trailed off, before rallying. ‘A few were allowed to come anyway, and a dozen or so more made it up here with the last big supply convoy.’
‘Soldiers’ women tend to be a tough bunch,’ Ferox said. He did not add what Sabinus, Dionysius and many of the veterans – if not perhaps Festus – understood. Fear of losing the discharge bonus due in a couple of years was one incentive to keep the legionaries away from the temptation of running. Even bigger for many was the knowledge that running meant that they would most likely never again see their families, and that these would be evicted by the army and sent away with nothing. Someone high up had worked this out, realised that I Minervia had more than its share of men nearing the end of their enlistment, and formed this vexillation – and another sent further to the east – to serve in this out of the way, bleak outpost in the belief that they were least likely to be lured away into Dacian service. The same was true of most of the auxiliaries, notably sixty men from cohors I Hispanorum veterana, whose main base was far away in Thrace, and all of whom had served at least twenty-three stipendia.
It was a bright, if cynical, idea, and had worked well, at the cost of creating a garrison of elderly soldiers, all of them, to quote Sabinus, ‘not happy’. There was almost none of the laughter and life that women and especially the children brought to most big army bases. Piroboridava was quiet, not helped by the fact that it had been built for a garrison twice the size of the one there now, even including the Brigantes.
The place of his men in this grand design still puzzled Ferox. If someone had decided that the old sweats sent to Piroboridava were the men least likely to desert, then why add the Brigantes, full of men almost bound to run, if they did not mutiny first. Were they seen as such a nuisance that senior officers wanted them to desert and rid the army of a problem? Or was this a test of him and the men, to see how they coped, challenging them to come to heel and redeem themselves. Then again, maybe someone judged that the veterans would keep the Brigantes in line. Ferox was not sure, and did not ignore the possibility that this was all a mistake, that a senior officer had written the wrong destination on the order and no one had dared correct him. He almost smiled at the thought – almost. With the army you could never quite be sure, but his instincts all still told him that somebody was playing games, and using them all as pieces on a board.
‘Well,’ he said and let himself smile. ‘That is the broad plan. Now let us see about the details.’
‘I can tell you one thing, sir,’ Sabinus announced after they had spent an hour drawing up lists and plans. ‘We are not going to be very popular.’
‘Just blame the new commander,’ Ferox told them. ‘I hear he’s half barbarian and a right tyrant!’
The garrison sweated. Ferox drove the officers hard to make them drive the men just as hard. All of the regulars, legionaries and auxiliaries alike, bitched and moaned, and the veterans, with all their long years of experience, were very good at it. They complained as they worked, and afterwards, and plenty of comments were just loud enough for Ferox and the other officers to hear, if never sufficiently clear to justify a formal charge.
To his surprise the Brigantes resented the labouring jobs less than he expected. The deserters and mutineers had done it before, if unwillingly, and the former prisoners had lost a fair bit of pride toiling in the mines. None were happy, but they did what they were told as long as someone was watching or there was fear of punishment. The rest of the men from the royal units, let alone those sent by willing chieftains, resented work fit for peasants not warriors. Vindex and the forty horsemen he had brought from his own clan, the Carvetii, were a rough and ready bunch, less sensitive about such matters.
‘We’re wondering how best to kill you,’ Vindex told him. ‘Don’t want to make it too quick, after all.’
‘I am sure it’s just talk, sir,’ Cunicius added. He seemed more worried with every passing day.
‘Tell them to wait their turn,’ Ferox said. He made them work, all of them, because he could not afford to have parts of the units seen as more favoured than the others. Most began cleaning the barracks allotted to them. The veterans had done a cursory job, once the roofs were decently repaired, afterwards justifying this as only for a mob of Britons. That meant the Brigantes had to scrub and paint, bring in new straw and rushes to cover the floors, and clean the little chimneys so that the smoke did not choke everyone inside. The nights stayed cold, giving them a more personal incentive, and that helped to speed the work. At the same time they all showed the tribe’s deep love of horses by working with even greater will on the boxes in the stables.
Then things started to vanish. The veterans liked their comforts, and had done their best to fit out their quarters with luxuries and ornaments. Some were stolen, then stolen back. Ferox gave orders that anyone caught was to suffer full punishment for robbing a comrade, but did not hold his breath waiting for arrests. There were a few more fights, and these had less venom than the earlier ones. They did not end the thefts, although they may have made some of those involved a little more careful. The centurion Sabinus had brought a bronze statue of Venus. It was about a foot high, had cost more than its modest aesthetic charm merited, and showed the goddess surprised while bathing, modestly crouching to cover her nudity with her hands to the small extent that this was possible. One morning the statuette was suspended by a little loop of rope from one of the stubby chimneys on the roof of a barrack block occupied by the Brigantes. Returned to its rightful owner, on the next morning it was atop the roof of another building, this time occupied by the legions. After that, the goddess travelled all over the camp, every day finding a new home. At least one of the thieves was a craftsman, for Venus also acquired a carefully made little helmet just like the ones worn by the legions, and later on a belt with a gladius in its scabbard hanging from her left hip. Whoever had made it must have decided that a deity ought to hold high rank, so had put it on the side where centurions and more senior officers wore their swords.
‘Where is Venus?’ became the first question most men asked in the morning, and bets were soon being placed on where the statuette would turn up next. Other thefts dropped off, and there was more laughter to be heard.
‘I can’t think how anyone knew I had it,’ Sabinus said.
‘Thrash your slaves,’ Festus advised, but could not convince his colleague.
‘I always heard that the Silures were the greatest thieves in the world,’ Vindex commented. The others were getting used to Ferox’s willingness to let decurions and other juniors speak out with some freedom, although neither man liked it.