Vindex sniffed. ‘Doesn’t look very cosy,’ he decided. ‘Bet it’s cold too.’
‘Doesn’t worry us,’ Ferox said, before dismounting and going through the high archway into the principia to report his presence. He was soon back. Men came to take the horses, and another to show them to a couple of rooms at the end of a barrack block. The rest of the block was empty at the moment.
‘It’s allocated to part of the vexillation away at Coria,’ the soldier explained. They were given a pair of rooms in the apartment at the end of the block, which accommodated the centurion and provided some office space for the administration of the century. No one had used the rooms for months, and layers of dust were heavy, even if Philo was too cold, wet and tired to register his horror. The soldier got a fire going, provided a pair of lamps and some oil for light, and then left them to it.
Two hours later, at noon, the parade was held to honour the emperor. The rain had slackened, becoming no more than a fine drizzle, and this had no doubt encouraged someone – presumably Cerialis – to hold the ceremony on the drill-ground as planned. About four hundred men from cohors VIIII Batavorum stood in three ranks, forming one side and the base of a U-shape. The other long side was composed of one hundred and seventy men of cohors I Tungrorum and a mixed bag of individuals from other units who were at the fort at the moment. None of the men carried shields or spears and they stood with their hands straight down at their sides. They were permitted to have cloaks – Ferox noticed that the Batavians’ were uniform in colour, with the infantry in dark green and the cavalry troopers in dark blue, whereas the Tungrians, let alone the detachments, were in a broad rainbow of colours. He suspected that someone was making a point. All the men wore armour and helmets and had belts around the waist and over the shoulder supporting the scabbards of their swords. There was little to choose between the two cohorts in the state of their equipment, everything polished as brightly as possible.
Cerialis stood with the officers of his cohort in front of the standards. Ferox and the others present, including the staff of the Tungrians, stood to the side, watching as the prefect covered his head with a fold of his white cloak and poured a libation on a stone altar inscribed to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. He prayed aloud to Rome’s great god and to the other gods of the city for the health and success of their beloved Caesar. A round cake, specially baked from flour of the finest wheat, was offered and another long prayer recited. The rain was getting heavier all the time. Ferox could almost hear the equipment of nearly six hundred men tarnishing and rusting as they stood and watched. The hours spent preparing for this parade would be nothing compared to the days spent restoring everything to order.
Ferox let the words roll past him without paying much attention. Trajan had become emperor when the elderly Nerva had fallen ill and died. A brass image of his face mounted on a silver disc replaced that of Nerva on the imago, the image of the emperor carried with the other standards. It was the first time Ferox had seen a picture of the man, although past experience suggested that it would not look too much like him. Trajan came from the city of Italica in Baetican Spain, and his family had done well by backing the Emperor Domitian’s family in the civil war thirty years ago.
A garlanded bull was led forward. This last part of the ceremony was probably the only good reason for holding it outside rather than in the covered hall in the principia. The bull was docile, no doubt drugged, and stood dumbly waiting in front of the altar. Most legions had professional priests and assistants and some auxiliary units copied them, but the Batavians did things their own way, in this as in so many other matters. A massive soldier, almost as big as the warrior Ferox had faced, stood in just his tunic, the wool plastered to his skin. He carried a dolabra, the army’s pickaxe, but this was a special one, carefully forged, sharpened to a razor’s edge and with a longer wooden shaft. The man waited, his great chest and heavily muscled arms tensed, and then swung once just where the bull’s head met its spine. The animal grunted and dropped on to its knees, tongue lolling out. Blood was pouring from the wound, great pools forming around the beast as it fell over on its side.
‘Good luck for the cohort, he did it in one.’ Ferox heard a standard-bearer whisper the words to the man next to him.
Cerialis uncovered his head and called on the men to salute the emperor.
‘Long life and good fortune to the Lord Trajan!’ the men shouted, raising their right arms up straight in salute and holding them rigid as they repeated the phrase twice.
‘Tomorrow you shall parade to receive the gift he promised you on his proclamation – a donative of three aurei per man!’ Cerialis’ voice carried well in spite of the wind and rain. ‘The parade will be at noon in the principia!’
‘Long life and good fortune to the Lord Trajan!’ The cheers were more enthusiastic this time, whether at the money – a quarter of a year’s pay – or the prospect of being in the dry.
Cerialis let them repeat the chant three times.
‘Tomorrow is also the anniversary of our great victory at Mons Graupius.’ He paused, looking along the lines of soldiers. ‘This will be commemorated in the usual way!’
The cheers and chants were almost ecstatic in their enthusiasm. Ferox had heard that the anniversary was the time for eating and drinking to excess.
As the units were marched back to the fort to be dismissed, Cerialis passed him.
‘Centurion, my wife the Lady Sulpicia Lepidina and I are entertaining friends to dinner this evening. I do hope that you will join us.’
‘Thank you, my lord. That is most kind.’ A hope from a senior officer was an order in all but name, though this one surprised him, as he would have thought that he was beneath their social circle.
‘Wonderful. At the start of the second hour of the night watch. We shall look forward to seeing you there. It will not be anything special, I am afraid, but at least it will be warm and dry!’ Cerialis grinned and patted the centurion on the shoulder.
VII
FEROX STRUGGLED TO keep pace. It was an hour into the dinner and he felt bloated and his elbow ached from supporting his weight. The borrowed toga was stiff and uncomfortable, and every time he shifted on the couch there was tightly bunched-up wool underneath him. He hoped that Philo had not lied when he assured him that the garment was on loan from the slave of one of the centurions in the garrison, and that everything had been properly arranged. The little Alexandrian had been delighted when he heard of the invitation. In moments it revived him from a bedraggled wreck into a whirlwind of excited activity. ‘A pity it is not a symposium,’ he kept saying, but that disappointment aside, the slave was happier than he had seen him for years. Much to Ferox’s surprise, he produced the centurion’s best tunic, cleaned to an almost dazzling whiteness, and his best shoes, free of any speck of dirt. ‘I had hoped for some invitation of this kind,’ Philo confessed, as if he were going to the meal, but had worried that the senior officers would fail to realise the true importance of his master. The lack of a toga caused panic, and the slave vanished for nearly two hours before returning in triumph, then fussed until the centurion was ready. Philo inspected him, walking all around, with less of an air of disappointment than usual.