‘Thank you once again, trooper.’
Ferox wondered what the old soldier had meant, but did not doubt the conviction or the shrewd mind in that battered, one-eyed face. He also wondered why the man had not been promoted after all these years. Drink perhaps, or insubordination, or perhaps for all his sharp mind Longinus could not read and write well enough.
Yet others sensed something similar. It had been growing for a while, but since the raid he noticed a dark mood among the Textoverdi. ‘Bad times,’ men said to him over and over again. ‘There’s a storm coming and a cruel winter.’ People were worried and they would not tell him why, or perhaps they could not explain, something they sniffed in the wind like the one-eyed Batavian. ‘Bad times.’
Ferox launched a fresh assault on the post, hacking with more fury than skill until he was pouring with sweat. He had seen horsemen coming down the valley, but knew he could not hurry them so kept at his exercises.
‘I’ll give you five to four on the post,’ Vindex announced as he reined in.
Ferox nodded, breathing heavily. ‘Well, it is a very good post.’
‘Got good news and bad,’ the Brigantian continued, his skull-like face serious even by his standards.
‘Let’s have the bad news.’
‘No, let’s have a drink and then all the news.’ Vindex sprang down and walked with him into the outpost.
‘We found the Goat Man’s boy,’ he said, staring down into his flagon of beer, sitting on a three-legged stool in the centurion’s quarters. The room still showed the damage from the struggle to rouse him all those days ago, in spite of Philo’s best efforts. Ferox was sticking to well-watered posca but was thirsty after his exercise and glad to have it.
‘He is dead?’
Vindex nodded and there were tears in his eyes. ‘The bastards buried him.’ He could see that the centurion did not understand. ‘He wasn’t dead. They just trussed him up and buried him on a mound beside a stream.’
He drank for a while, brooding and angry, and Ferox thought it better to let him. He knew that his own rage would grow. People did not come and do this on his patch.
‘We caught one,’ Vindex said after a long wait, the silence only broken by the crackling of the fire. ‘One of the mad buggers with the horse on his head. He was Hibernian, came across the water to follow the Stallion, the seer blessed by Cocidius and the Morrigan to lead the peoples in the war that will end the world. Reckon that’s the lad we saw at the ambush, waving them on. This boy swore that this Stallion has powerful medicine, and is blessed by the gods, who want him to purge the whole island of the corruption of Rome.’
‘Nice names and nice ambition,’ Ferox said. ‘But you said “was”?’
‘We didn’t do it – not that we didn’t want to after finding the boy. He strayed from the rest. Told us a dream told him to look for a sacred oak and cut a branch from it. He left a track a blind man could follow and we took him by surprise. Knocked him around a bit to get answers, though in truth he talked readily, boasting almost, so knocking him about was more for fun.
‘The next day we had him with hands tied behind his back and a man leading his horse, when he just starts chanting. On and on he went in a nasty, high-pitched voice. Then all of a sudden his horse gallops off and he flings himself down. Head hit a stone, lights out forever. Think it was deliberate, but can’t be sure.’
‘That is a pity.’
‘Aye. Still, he told us a lot. The Stallion and his men set out from the far north-east, sent by a high king of the Vacomagi. Said he didn’t know his name.’
Ferox whistled through his teeth. ‘Didn’t know the Vacomagi had a high king.’
‘Well, that’s what he said, and from the way they were going they were heading that way. The lad claimed this king realised the truth of the gods’ purpose for this great Stallion or horse’s arse or whatever he’s called and gave him warriors and horses to help in his quest. Some of the warriors were from deep beneath the sea, summoned to help by the great druid.’
‘Not horse’s arse?’ Ferox asked.
‘No, this one is different, much more powerful. The lad said something about the Stallion being a great storm to sweep the land clean, while this great druid is part of the land itself. Old and wise, he is able to change his shape and work even greater magic. They say he walks among the Romans when he wants and they do not see him. That he can make them turn their swords on each other. He wasn’t with the raiders, but they saw him now and again, shaped like a raven and flying above them.’
Ferox listened as the Brigantian continued, telling everything he had learned about the Stallion and this carefully planned raid..
‘What did they want to do?’
When Vindex told him the room turned cold, even on this bright day and with a good fire burning.
‘Bad times,’ he muttered.
‘Aye.’
VI
IT WAS THE sixth day after the Ides of September and the birthday of the new Caesar, Marcus Ulpius Trajan, adopted son of the deified Caesar Nerva who had ascended to the imperial purple on the same day. It was also raining steadily, had been raining since before dawn and showed every sign of raining for the rest of the long day. Ferox hoped it was not an omen, although if every drab, dank and windy morning in these parts were a bad omen, then the world would be a grim place indeed.
Bad times. A storm coming. The phrases kept going through his head.
Vindex was unhappy, although not for that reason. ‘Do I have to go?’
‘Yes.’
Both men wore hooded Gallic cloaks, drawn tight around them. The hood shadowed the Brigantian’s face and made his expression especially bleak and sinister.
‘I do not like crowds,’ he said, in the tone of a man announcing that he did not care to have his feet roasted over an open fire, but was resigned to the ordeal. They were riding to Vindolanda to witness the sacrifices to mark the occasion and the festivities to follow. There was also to be a meeting of senior officers on the following day and Ferox was required to be present to explain what he had learned about the ambush and report on the mood in his region. He wanted the Brigantian to be there if this was permitted, or at least be on hand in case he needed to ask him about anything. For all that Ferox remained unsure how much he would reveal. He feared treachery, probably by someone of high rank, and knew none of the men well enough to trust.
Behind the two horsemen trailed an unhappy Philo, riding a borrowed army mule. The Alexandrian had insisted on accompanying his master to make sure that Ferox was turned out respectably. No doubt the boy had long since begun regretting his persistence.
‘There it is.’ Ferox did not bother to point as the fort was barely a quarter of a mile in front of them. On a clear day they would have seen it long ago, not least when they crossed the ridge to the north, but today the mist and rain had hidden the base until the last minute.
‘Too big,’ Vindex muttered. ‘They must live like rats down there.’
There were dozens of buildings in front of the fort – houses, shops and bars. Wherever the army stopped, such settlements or canabae grew up, filled with people wishing to take on contracts for the army or sell things to the soldiers. It was a safer place to live in wilder country, governed by law – if a law that usually favoured the state and the army.
‘You have been to Eboracum.’
‘Aye,’ Vindex admitted. ‘Once.’ He thought for a while. ‘It stank.’
Eboracum was the depot for Legio IX Hispana – or VIIII as the legionaries usually insisted just to show that they were different. The Batavians here at Vindolanda had campaigned alongside the legion when they were first formed and had picked up this affectation.