‘Run, my lord,’ Ferox said, and saw the legate frown. ‘What hound can resist a chase? If the right moment comes, order a retreat and they will follow. Then you can turn with the whole pack and tear them to shreds.’
‘We shall see. For the moment I am drafting an order placing you in command of the exploratores. You will be my eyes and ears.’
‘My lord.’ That was another reminder of Dacia, when he had had the same job. He clutched the bead of the necklace tightly and prayed that this army would march to better fortune. Back then no one had believed him when he had reported that the enemy had massed and was waiting in ambush. He hoped Neratius Marcellus was as shrewd as he seemed.
‘Let’s kill these bastards.’ The legate spoke with surprising vehemence. ‘The traitors and the ones who torture women to death. I hear she was a dancer.’ He shook his head. ‘Such a waste of life.’ Noticing the centurion looking at him he went on. ‘The Lady Sulpicia told me a little about the poor girl. She blames herself. Still, I think it better that the details of what happened be kept from her. At least I do not have to write a letter to my wife telling of the death of her niece. That is something. Do not blame yourself for what has happened. You saved the lady Sulpicia Lepidina and she is worth saving. No reward could be too high for that deed.’
Ferox was not sure whether there was a sparkle of amusement in the legate’s gaze.
‘Well then, get some rest and be ready to have no more for as long as this task takes.’
Ferox stood up. ‘My lord,’ he said, and saluted.
XXVI
IT TURNED COLD overnight, and the next morning the grass crunched underfoot from the heavy frost and the breath of men and beasts steamed as they tried to stamp life into their bones. That night the stars were a vast field of tiny lights, made more bright because there was no moon to challenge them. Far too many soldiers had gathered at Coria to fit into its fort, so the bulk of the army slept in a camp beyond the civilian buildings. Neratius Marcellus had concentrated almost four and a half thousand men – over five thousand including the servants – and planned to lead all save five hundred of them up the Eastern Road the next morning. That plan changed when late in the day a contingent marched up from Bremesio and reported seeing buildings burning and small groups of mounted British warriors shadowing them. Four hundred additional soldiers, half of them cavalry, were instructed to stay at Coria and be ready to confront any signs of trouble in the area in case this threatened communications with the main force.
‘The centurion in charge of the column coming up from Bremesio estimates the bands of horsemen as numbering several hundred,’ the provincial legate told Ferox late that night.
Ferox was tired, for he and Vindex had spent the day riding hard, marauding across the land, taking care to be seen on the tops of hills by the troops going up the road. The Brigantian scouts had acted the part of rebellious warriors, and the task had amused them, especially when they were told to set light to any abandoned buildings they found.
‘Imaginative fellow, that centurion,’ Ferox said. It had taken a good deal of effort to persuade the legate to release the scouts held under loose arrest at Vindolanda, but in the end he had had his way and with the other warriors who had come in time there had been twenty-three riders out in the hills. ‘Perhaps, my lord, it would be wise not to place him in charge of counting stores.’
The army marched an hour before dawn. Ferox and the advance guard of the exploratores set out two hours before that, although he left Vindex and his men behind to rest and catch up before the end of the day. The legate had given him eighty troopers detached from their units and it was a pleasant surprise to find Victor and the Thracian from his own burgus among them. They were good choices, active and intelligent, and his impression of the rest of his command was equally favourable. It seemed that Neratius Marcellus was a clever man, who liked to plan ahead and tried to prepare as well as possible. Ferox hoped that he was also lucky, for without that the odds were on a disaster and a wave of blood and ruin sweeping over the north.
Marker stones were already there warning of the approach of a large force. There were others put down by the Textoverdi, vaguer warnings of danger, and there was no hiding the wariness among the people they met. Ferox had already heard the rumours of a work of great magic made greater by the hideous sacrifice of a queen of the Romans and the killing of their king. It made little difference when he told them that neither had died, and that the actual victim was born a slave and not royal. People only shook their heads and talked of dark times and a blood-red winter.
For most of the first day Ferox stayed with his outposts. The men worked in pairs, spaced wide apart across the lands to either side of the road. He kept half a dozen troopers with him, half a mile back, and had similar groups on either flank. On the second day he was strengthened by Vindex and his men and placed patrols in the rear as well.
The army had made good progress, covering fifteen miles on the first day, helped by the frost-hardened ground and the restless energy of a provincial legate who rode up and down the columns, joking, encouraging and chivvying the men along. Nearly half the force were legionaries, and that was an unusual thing so far north. Marcellus had instructed both II Augusta and XX Valeria Victrix to provide a cohort each, led by their best centurions and reinforced with the fittest and ablest men so that each numbered over six hundred and fifty: VIIII Hispana contributed two cohorts who had spent the last year up on the frontier, but were reduced by sickness and other losses to some six hundred men between them. Marcellus told them to show the other legions what real veterans looked like, then he told the men of II Augusta that they were the emperor’s own, named by the divine Augustus, and must live up to their reputation as the finest legion anywhere, and afterwards he reminded the Victrix that they were ones who had beaten Boudicca all those years ago, and said that he expected them to win more glory in the next weeks.
Flavius Cerialis had three centuries of infantry, the same ones that had gone on the punitive expedition, but, in spite of the losses they had suffered, the rush of volunteers to avenge the attacks on the commander and his wife had boosted their numbers to some two hundred and fifty men – more than their proper compliment. Sulpicia Lepidina and the children had travelled by carriage with them as far as Coria. Ferox had not cared for the idea, but they would probably be safer there than anywhere else for the moment. There had been no chance to speak, but he had glimpsed her several times, because the legate believed it was important for her to be visible as proof of the failure of the attack. The Batavians cheered whenever they saw her, and several times he had only known she was about when he heard the great roar.
Cohors III Batavorum, their sister unit, shared their anger and longing for revenge. Whatever the Romans said, Cerialis was from their royal house, and she was his wife or queen, and they would die for them both. The cohort provided another three hundred men, formed into five centuries, and these men also began to cheer whenever the lady and her husband came in sight, swearing to make those who had threatened them pay. The mood spread. Cohors I Tungrorum had begged to be included in the expedition and made up a century of seventy men, attached for the moment to Rufinus and his Spaniards who mustered one hundred and eighty infantrymen. The Tungrians knew the lady, the Spanish knew her by reputation and they too raised a great cry when they saw her. Soon even the century of eighty archers detached from a cohort based far to the south took up the cry as well.