‘Why are they going to the meeting too?’ Castus asked Marcellinus. They were sitting beside the fire in darkness, swatting at the insects. ‘The Votadini aren’t Picts, are they?’
‘No, but they have treaties with them, as do we,’ the envoy replied. ‘They’re brother peoples anyway – the Picts speak a dialect of the British language. They look different, but they have many links between them. Senomaglus is attending the meeting as a guest – he can’t vote on the high chieftainship, but he’s expected to approve it. As am I, of course.’
‘They vote for their chiefs?’ Castus asked. From the perimeter he heard the sentry’s cry. The smell of the sea, rich and exotic, rose on the night breeze.
‘Oh, yes. In fact, they have an odd system for it. A chief cannot be succeeded by his own son, only by a male relative from the female line. So a brother, for example, or a cousin on his mother’s side.’
‘Makes the women quite powerful, then?’
‘Very astute! Yes, it does. They can’t rule directly, but they have a lot of influence. But it’s a good system, if an odd one. The Picts claim it avoids dynasties – they’re very keen on their freedom, and don’t like monopolies of rule – but more importantly it gives them a large number of mature experienced candidates to choose from. Rome has often suffered from underage emperors succeeding their fathers.’
‘I suppose so.’ Castus winged his shoulders. He remembered the governor, Arpagius, telling him that the barbarians may not understand the abdication of the old Augusti. Might take it as a sign of weakness. Perhaps they were more sophisticated than that after all?
‘So what have you learned from our allies then?’ he asked, poking at the fire with a stick. ‘About what’s going on. Did the old Pictish king die naturally, or what?’
Sparks rose, lighting Marcellinus’s face. Since crossing the border, the envoy seemed to have shed part of himself – part of his Romanness. He looked more like one of the Votadini now than a former Roman military commander.
‘We know nothing certain,’ he said carefully. ‘But there are suspicions. Vepogenus was a strong man, an honourable man. He was my friend and my brother by pact, and the news of his death genuinely pained me. But he had a lot of enemies among the tribes. There are also some others among them who… make it their business to stir old animosities.’
‘The renegades.’ Castus scowled into the glow of the fire.
‘Yes. Strabo must have told you about them. There were three of them, but two killed each other and now only one lives that I know of. A former officer of mine, a Pannonian like you, I think. His name is Julius Decentius.’
‘Was it him that killed your boy?’
Castus saw the envoy visibly flinch as his words registered.
‘I don’t know,’ Marcellinus said quietly. ‘I don’t want to know either. But he could have been connected with the king’s death. Not alone, though – he would need to work through the ambitions of others. Personally, I believe that the news of Diocletian and Maximian’s abdication provided a spur to a plot against the king. This renegade convinced certain others that the empire would be weak, and this would be a good time to strike at us. Only Vepogenus’s loyalty to the treaty stood in their way.’
‘Any idea who the others might be?’
‘Perhaps. A cousin of the king, named Talorcagus. I’ve met him, a very reckless man. He also has a nephew, Drustagnus, who if anything is worse. The king’s own nephew, Vendognus, is a weak and stupid young man, but he has a strong-willed wife, a cousin of his, who may have plans for her own son in the succession. Perhaps all of them are working together. We’ll soon find out.’
The list of unfamiliar and barbarous names clotted in the air, and Castus doubted he would ever tell one from the others. Back at Eboracum, he had made a few attempts to pick up the local speech, but he had no skill with languages. Latin, a bit of Greek: that was all he had ever needed, and the gargling vowels and slippery-sounding consonants of the British tongue meant nothing to him. But he gave an understanding grunt. Treachery and backstabbing deceit took the same form all over the world, after all, in any language.
The next morning Castus put his men through a full weapons drill on the grassy plain before the old fort, both to keep them in shape and to impress the watching barbarians. Formation march, shield wall, testudo and skirmish line, then dart and javelin release and charge in the wedge formation they called the boar’s head. The legionaries responded well, still sharp after twelve days on the road. The Votadini seemed impressed too, whooping and yelling their encouragement at first, then falling quiet when they saw the disciplined force of the Roman attack.
As he formed up his men in line of march once more, Castus felt an enthusiastic energy charging his body. How many years had it been since this savage shore had witnessed Roman troops in battle order? Then he saw Marcellinus, watching from horseback with an appreciative smile, and remembered that this man too had brought an army into this land.
All that day they marched west along the shore of the estuary. Everywhere the ground rose and knotted into the traces of old fortifications, the marks of Rome. All of it lost in a wilderness now, fallen and forgotten. It was awe-inspiring, and somehow deadening. Castus remembered what Strabo had said in the camp beneath the three peaks: all this great work, all this effort, counting for nothing. By late afternoon they had turned north again, and towards the day’s end they crossed a massive ditch and earth rampart, still clearly visible as it stretched away to the west.
‘Do you know what this is?’ Marcellinus called, sitting on his horse at the rampart’s crest. ‘This is the wall of Antoninus, or what’s left of it. The furthest limit of Roman power, about a century and a half ago. Beyond this we’re into Pictland!’
That evening they camped in the open, and the scouts brought in an ox and a pair of rams they had caught wandering near the old wall. Castus formed the men up at sunset, and they built a rough altar and gave sacrifice to Mars, Jupiter and Sol. Marcellinus took the priestly role, despatching the victim animals with careful dignity, then Castus led the men in the shouted acclamations as the smoke of the altar swirled the smell of fresh blood and cooking meat around them.
Strabo had not been present for the ceremony; Castus saw him shortly afterwards, wandering back into camp with a grave expression. He was angered by the man’s attitude: whatever his private beliefs, surely he could see the need for unity at a time like this? But the ceremony had done what he wanted. They had asked the gods’ permission to proceed, and no ill omens had been detected. The men’s spirits were better, with the end of the road in sight.
‘Roman friends!’ the Votadini chief cried the next morning in his terrible Latin. ‘You come! We go now. We meet Picti! Come – follow!’
With a wide sweeping gesture he turned his horse northwards. It was misty, and the pack mules stamped and shivered as the slaves secured the tents and kit on their backs. To the east the first rays of the sun were breaking the grey line of the horizon.
‘Fall in – prepare to march,’ Castus called. Then the horn sounded and the last stage of their journey began.
For six miles they followed a straight track across level country, water meadows and patches of forest. This was land long uncultivated, a true border. To the north and east the river looped and shone in the low sunlight, while to the west there were hills and high moorlands dark on the horizon. The Romans marched in close formation, weapons ready; even the Votadini had closed ranks, growing less boisterously confident now they had left their own territories and moved into the land of the Picts. Marcellinus was riding on ahead, tall and straight-backed on his black horse, with the Votadini chief riding at his side and his two slaves coming on behind with thick green branches raised over their heads. At Castus’s back, every soldier’s spear was tipped with a sprig of green leaves, the mark of peaceful intent.