‘I cannot do that either.’
‘You must do one or the other, Trebener, for no other course will make you friends, or reduce the number of your enemies.’
Brennos took the gold object in his hand, drawing Trebener’s eye towards what he knew to be the Druid shaman’s talisman. On a gold chain, shaped like an eagle in flight, it was recognised by those who saw him clutch it as a source of some kind of spiritual power. It had been in Brennos’s hand when he went amongst Trebener’s warriors and the ideas with which he seduced them were just as ambitious as those he had employed in the past; that Rome was mighty, but could be destroyed. It was twelve summers since Brennos had persuaded the tribes of the interior to combine against Rome and act like an army instead of a mob; twelve summers since they had so very nearly humbled a whole legionary army on the very plains they had just raided.
Had Brennos known this would happen, for he had the gift to foretell the future? It was telling that, even here, surrounded by the men of his own tribe, Trebener had too much fear of the power of Brennos to demand of him an answer to that question. He scanned the horizon to the east, seeking the tell-tale signs of the mass movement of men, a trail of dust that would signal a second pursuit. A wisp of a cloud was all he could see, a few miles distant, one caused by a small group, probably on horses given the speed of their movement — nothing for him to worry about. The Averici chief stepped forward and looked down at the Romans in the defile. Swords sheathed, spears and shields down, these legionaries knew that they faced death.
Damn them, he thought, why had they not stopped as they usually did; why did they have to face him with such a dilemma. ‘Get me the centurion.’
Brennos was looking at the dust cloud thrown up by the approaching horsemen, sure in his mind that he knew who led them, the son of the Roman general he had fought and so nearly beaten years before. Aulus Cornelius had been the name of the father, Titus was that of the son. Not that he had met either of them, but just as they spied on him, he sought information on them, as well as the wife of the enemy general, whom he had taken prisoner. Claudia Cornelia had been as haughty as only an aristocratic Roman lady could be, prepared to die rather than show fear, but two summers spent together, constantly on the move to avoid her husband and his soldiers had, gradually but inexorably, changed that. First had come respect, then friendship, until finally they had become lovers, and no woman Brennos had lain with since had come close to the passion she had aroused in him.
The last time he had seen her was when he sent her to a place of safety to bear the child of their union, escorted by the men he trusted most. All he knew was that they never reached their destination; the wagon in which she had been travelling had disappeared; he found the bones of his warriors where they had died trying to defend her. Claudia Cornelia and the child in her womb would be dead; Brennos could not believe that a proud Roman general, finding his wife with child by another man, would do anything other than kill her. It was something he himself would have done had the positions been reversed.
Titus Cornelius reined in his horse as soon as he saw the flashes from the Averici weapons and from that moment moved forward over the uneven ground with extreme caution; with an escort of a dozen men he was not keen to get too close. How could the fool of a centurion lead his whole command this far into the hills, in pursuit of a few tribesmen and a herd of cattle? It was a standing instruction never to pursue the tribes unless their raiding became too troublesome, and then the Romans would mount a punitive raid in force to subdue them. Most of the time a little judicious bribery kept them in the mountains. The hope that he would come up with the soldiers and turn them back had faded as soon as he saw the sun glinting on the tips of what he was sure were tribal spears.
He stopped his horse abruptly, so quickly that the men riding behind nearly collided with him. A thought came that made, if not sense, certainly provided a reason as to why the pursuit had come so far. ‘He’s here.’
‘Sir?’ asked the rider behind him.
‘Brennos. He’s here. I can feel it.’
Those cavalrymen he could not see pulled faces, for the tribune’s fixation with the Celtic chieftain Brennos was no secret. There had, it was true, been an increase in raids by the various tribes up and down the frontier, so many and so frequent that it hinted at some kind of coordination. No one doubted this Brennos character to be dangerous but the idea that he, who lived several weeks’ march away in the deep interior, would be here, leading a cattle raid, was a joke.
‘You mean that trickster, sir?’
‘He’s no trickster.’
‘Happen he is your honour, seeing as how, if’n you’re right, he has managed to disappear a hundred of our men.’
‘More likely we’ll find them up ahead, in a heap of splintered bones.’
Titus could feel the sentiment even if he was not looking at the cavalrymen; they had no desire to join that heap, nor had the man leading them, but he knew that he had to keep going forward, if only to find out what had happened. He held up a wetted finger to feel the wind, which with the heat of the day was in the west, coming off the land, then he dismounted.
‘Stay here and rest the mounts, but don’t let them feed.’ The cavalrymen nodded, it being a bad idea to let a horse graze if you might have to flee at a gallop; a full stomach slowed them down. ‘Gather some brushwood and tie it to their tails. If we have to run I want to set up a dust storm in our wake.’ Seeing a look of curiosity he added, ‘Only an idiot would ride flat out on rough terrain when he can’t see where he’s going.’
‘These are tribesmen, your honour,’ opined one horse soldier, in a voice that did nothing to hide his contempt.
‘And that is a ruse they taught me many years ago.’
‘Thinks he knows it all,’ said one soldier as Titus went forward on foot.
‘He knows a damn sight more than you or I, brother. He used to play with the buggers when he was a lad.’
That creepy feeling, that Brennos was close, grew more acute the closer he got to those flashing spears, but Titus was aware that he could be deluding himself. Part of it was the unusual situation; having spent a long time in Spain, both as a boy and a full grown soldier, he felt he knew the Celt-Iberians well, certainly better than most of his peers. They were excitable, boastful, warlike and drank like fish at the endless feasts which were the centrepiece of their existence. They sang, told endless stories and quite often fought bloody encounters if in receipt of anything perceived to be an insult, but Titus never thought of them as fools, which was why he had been surprised not to come across a hundred happy legionaries marching back to the coast. Raiding tribesmen would outrun infantry regardless of how many stolen livestock they were burdened with; if they had drawn that century on it could only have been as a deliberate ploy, but to what purpose?
Not to massacre them surely, for that would mean that they would be butchered in turn. They knew what Rome would and would not let pass. Steal cattle or pigs, but not too many; never kill a Roman farmer and leave their women alone. The rules were not written, but Titus knew they were understood because alone amongst his contemporaries, and because he had a smattering of the language, he had visited the encampments of the border tribes and had made sure that they did. Yet here he was, within a tenth of a league of this particular tribe who were stationary for a reason he dreaded, and the men he had trailed here were nowhere to be seen. It was unusual, and in his experience, every time something out of the ordinary happened in this part of the world the hand of Brennos was around somewhere.