Red Queen, White Queen Page 4

  Then, with a start of fearful recognition, he heard the pulse of his own heart. And a tall tribesman called sharply, ‘On guard!’ For a moment, Gemellus wondered why he was there, fighting this young man whom he had only recently met. He wondered why his life should suddenly have become so difficult, when it had seemed so easy at last. He wondered what his dead father, the Centurion, would have said about a soldier who engaged himself to fight to the death on his first day at a new station.

  And as he thought these things, Duatha moved about him like a golden cat, feinting here and there with his short light-bladed sword, never coming within distance, but always about to do so, as tightly-wound as a spring, full of nervous energy and the threat of death.

  Gemellus held his ground, turning round and round, flat on his feet after the Roman manner, never taking his eyes off the Celt.

  Then suddenly, what Gemellus had feared happened.

  Duatha seemed to fall forward, as though he had lost his balance in a lunge. Gemellus struck sideways where the man’s head had been, and felt his blade sweep unsatisfied through the air. And before he could regain his stance, he saw the Gelt rise, under his guard, and cut upwards.

  Gemellus was conscious of a burning sensation in the right leg. He glanced down to see that his leather breeches were slit open from knee to groin. A razor-thin line of red gleamed against the pallor of his skin. But it was nothing; it did not really hurt.

  He grinned and said, ‘He who takes first blood, may not always live to take last.’

  Duatha laughed in his face and thrust forward viciously. But this time, Gemellus slipped away, ever so slightly, to the side and thrust up his own sword. The hilts came together, locked for an instant as the men faced each other closely.

  And Gemellus suddenly stood still, gazing in amazement at the sight which met his eyes. For his own hand lay next to that of Duatha, in that grim tableau, and the hands were the same hand. Though the hairs of one were golden, the other black, yet they were the same, in contour, bone and muscle.

  Gemellus thought, “This is my hand, the black one; and that is my hand, the golden one. Why is this?’

  And as his mind grappled with the question that had come to him so suddenly, Duatha gave a thin, high laugh and sliding his blade from the other, slashed downwards at the Roman’s arm.

  Gemellus thought, “May the Lord of Light watch over me. ” But his body worked so rapidly, trained as it was to combat, that he had acted even before his thought was complete.

  With the brutal routine side-kick of the legionary, he swept the Celt from his feet so that the blow fell, without causing hurt, a foot from his shoulder. And as Duatha rolled sideways on the tussocky grass, the Roman bent over him to give the finishing blow.

  His sword was poised, like the grim weapon of Fate, in the bloody sunset; his arm was about to fall; the men about him were silent, wide-eyed and fearful, when from behind them all came the high commanding voice of another man.

  ‘Stop! If you strike that blow, you shall be crucified on the highest tree of Glevum before the sun sets!’

  All turned to see an officer, standing on the hillock that overlooked that desolate spot, his blue cloak floating behind him in the breeze of evening, the red horsehair plumes of his helmet nodding like those of some avenging God.

  In that moment, even the Tribune, Gaius Flavius Cottus, looked spendid, his dark face lit by the dying rays, a sardonic smile fixed on his lean face, making it suddenly the mask of retribution.

  Gemellus lowered his sword and stood to attention. Duatha got up sullenly from the ground, muttering and shaking his head in anger.

  Then the Tribune came down the hill and stalked slowly towards them. And as he passed through the stockade, the men saw that a woman followed him closely. It was Lavinia, daughter of the Prefect of Glevum himself.

  Gemellus dared to look up, and observed the stiff cold smile on her face. She was a true Patrician, he felt, one who had five hundred years of nobility behind her, to justify all she did, all she said, all she thought; one whose face had been moulded from birth almost into certain expressions sanctioned by polite custom, by ritual. And now she assumed the mask-like expression of gravitas.

  But the Tribune knew no such training. His dark face was flushed with anger and contempt. His lips carried a white froth of rage, and he spat as he spoke.

  ‘You cattle! he stormed. ‘You cows! Who are you to kill each other on my duty-night? Why should I take the responsibility of your stinking hides? Who, by Mithras, are you, that you should spill your filthy blood on the ground at a time when I am in charge of this station?’

  Duatha shifted his feet on the ground, uncomfortably now. Gemellus saluted and stepped towards the Tribune one pace.

  I am Gemellus Ennius, Decurion, sir,’ he said. ‘I am posted here from Germany, to take up a command in the Second

  Legion. My father held the rank of Centurion with this Legion.’ The Tribune looked down his long nose at Gemellus and said, ‘Then you are a fool, a dolt and a gutter-brawler, unworthy of a fine father. But at least, God help you, you are a Roman. But this dog, this savage dung-eater, is not a Roman! He is a beast and a bastard!’

  The Tribune, Gaius Flavius Cottus, stepped towards Duatha and struck him again and again across the face with his riding-switch.

  And as he struck, the Celt stood stock-still, like a statue cut from alabaster, his face without expression, the red weals appearing as if by some supreme act of conjuring each second.

  The men in that green place of death stood silent as ghosts, each one afraid, each one suddenly dominated by the power of Rome.

  Gemellus noticed that as the Tribune struck and struck again, the woman still smiled coldly, watching all, not moving, her face set so stiffly in its mask of gravitas that nothing seemed to be happening in the world.

  Then he saluted again and said, ‘Sir, I am a Roman, as you say. I should not have accepted this man’s challenge. The fault is mine.’

  Gaius Flavius Cottus suddenly stopped striking the Celt and turned to the young Decurion. The Tribune’s face was creased in an expression of sly vengeance.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you intend to play the noble Roman, do you, you dog? You wish to gain the good opinion of this rubbish, these sun-begotten spawn of Europe? Very well, Gemellus Ennius, you who allege that your father was a Centurion with this Legion…. Very well, you shall be their brother! You shall taste what it is like to live with such scourings of the middens of civilisation!’

  Then he turned abruptly and strode towards the door in the stockade.

  ‘Guard,’ he shouted. ‘Take these two to the Prefect immediately. Say that I have sent them to carry out the task which was commanded. If they attempt to resist arrest, run them through the bowels with your spear. You need not report that occurrence to me. But see that it is entered in the Duty Book.’ He turned away from the guard who came running up, and took the lady by the arm, turning her away from the knot of men who stood silent behind the stables.

  Gemellus stared fixedly before him. Yet he saw the lady incline her fine head, ever so slightly towards him, before she allowed herself to go with the officer.

  It was as though she had signified her approval of his futile effort to help Duatha. Yet it was the merest movement, nothing more than a lowering of the eyes. The smile was still fixed on her finely chiselled features.

  As the guard took him by the arm, Duatha said to Gemellus, ‘Thank you, Roman. But keep your pity for yourself, you will need it now.’

  Gemellus began to stride out, in time with the soldiers who escorted them. He half-turned to the Celt and said, T do not pity you man. You are old enough to look after yourself. But one day I will rub that Tribune’s nose in the dirt where it belongs.’

  Duatha said quietly, ‘You will never live as long as that, my friend. You are a Roman, yes, but like me, you have no mastery over yourself. And like me, you are doomed.’

  5 : Task Force

  The Prefect’s room stank
with incense, stale wine and sweat. It was very aristocratic sweat, of course, because his assembled Tribunes all came from Patrician families. But to Gemellus and Duatha, it was still sweat, the sort they knew when their leather-clad footmen marched in the sun or their horsemen rode for a stretch over rough country.

  The Prefect was a man of sixty or more, lined and grey, worn thin and tender by ten years in an occupied country. His eyes were vacant and tired, his shoulders sagged, his waistline was too heavy to allow him to wear armour any longer, for the sheer discomfort of it all.

  The Prefect sat at the white marble table which he had had transported specially from Italy when he first took up his command. Before him lay many scrolls and maps of the eastern Province. An amphora of Samian wine stood beside his lionlegged chair, and a bowl of grapes was by his thin elbow.

  The Tribunes who lounged here and there in the room chewed continuously, or picked their fine white teeth, or sang little snatches of whatever camp song they felt was current at the time.

  Gemellus and Duatha stood rigidly before the Prefect’s marble table, almost exhausted now as he came to the end of the indictments against them.

  Then suddenly Gemellus heard that old man say, as his summing up of the whole enormity, ‘And to think that you two, brothers, should allow yourselves to forget the dignity of your profession and the sacred bonds of blood—it is stupid, unRoman and unnatural!’

  When he had spoken, the Prefect waited, as though he wished his words to plough deep. Gemellus, accustomed to hearing such words, stood rigidly to attention, his eyes fixed a foot above those of the Commanding Officer. Duatha, his face now scarred and red from the thrashing it had received, swayed a little on his feet, his eyes half-closed.

  The Prefect spoke again, as though his words had not yet carried their sting into the hearts of the men before him.

  ‘Brothers, I said. You, Gemellus Ennius; and. you, also, Duatha Ennius, who sometimes call yourself, without claim,

  Ambrosius. Brothers of one father, I say. You did wrong to fight on that count alone.’

  Suddenly Gemellus recalled the sight of the two hands upon the swords, and his strange recognition of something beyond himself at that moment. He turned, half-amazed, half-aghast.

  Duatha looked back at him, his eyes still almost closed, but a wry little smile playing now about his lips.

  Gemellus said, ‘You knew, Celt? You knew?’

  Duatha Ennius nodded and made a sour grimace. ‘I knew and hated you for it. You are a Roman. I am what the Tribune called me, a bastard.’

  Then he turned back to the Prefect and said, ‘I am sorry, Prefect. But you will understand that we of an alien folk are hot-headed. You will understand that we act from the heart and not the head, as you true Romans do. You will understand, and I pray that you will pardon,’

  The bewildered Gemellus watched with contempt his half-brother fall to his knees in an attitude of abject defeat. This then was what he had heard about the Celts, that in battle they were like lions; but in defeat they were frightened children.

  But that this coward should be a brother of his, that the Centurion’s blood should flow in his veins…. That was humiliating, degrading, impossible to bear.

  Gemellus saluted and said, ‘Permission to speak, sir. I beg to be punished in accordance with the regulations of the Emperor, and then I beg that I may be posted to another Legion.’

  The young Tribunes stopped yawning and nudging each other. They stared at the young Decurion with curiosity now.

  The Prefect passed his hand tiredly through his thin hair and gave a small and bitter smile.

  ‘I will remind you, Decurion,’ he said tartly, ‘that you are a soldier. You will obey orders, not give them. You have been posted here, by chance, with a high reputation, both in Germany and in the Imperial Guard. It is not for me to ask myself whether there has been some mistake in the allocation of the small fame which you enjoy. I must accept it, as you must do, without question. So, you are a good soldier. That is understood. Your records state so much. And so is this—bastard, as he calls himself. A good soldier, in his own barbarian way. You are too good to cut each other to ribbons because of some foolish quarrel.’

  He stopped for a while and seemed to be reading a long scroll, written in a meticulous hand and sealed with a small purple signet.

  At last he seemed to come back from a long journey.

  ‘As for punishment,’ he almost whispered, ‘if this had happened at any other time, any other time at all, I should have bound you to posts in the middle of the parade ground, for three days and nights. And you would have been flogged, with thirty lashes, every hour - yes, dead on the hour. Yes, dead on the hour!’ Gemellus had seen this happen in Germany on two occasions, with legionaries who had raped local women. He knew that at the end of three days, no man who had suffered such punishment was ever anything but a brute imbecile again. He shuddered at the thoughts which the Prefect’s words flung up in his tired mind.

  Duatha shrugged his shoulders now, as though he had escaped and was satisfied. He was a Celt, half-savage, a child at heart; he sensed that he was not to suffer as the Prefect had threatened, therefore he was content.

  Then the old man stood up, a bent figure, without dignity. He came round the table and stood between the two soldiers, looking from one to the other, nodding all the time, as though weighing up their capabilities.

  At last he sat down again with a little sigh, and said, ‘Your punishment shall perhaps be also your reward. You are fortunate in this, as you are fortunate in the moment you chose for your brawling. I have before me a report from the Procurator, Decianus Catus, of whom even you two must have heard.’

  Gemellus nodded vaguely, but the Celt shook his head contemptuously.

  The Prefect observed this with a slow smile, but went on.

  ‘On the orders of the Emperor himself, Decianus Catus has confiscated the kingdom of Boudicca, widow of Prasutagus, late king of the Iceni in the Eastern Province.’

  Duatha shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘She is a she-wolf, Prefect. She deserves flogging. Her two daughters are little better. They merit little more than any other whores of the streets.’

  The Prefect fingered the lobe of his right ear, ruminatively. Then he smiled and nodded.

  ‘How astute you are, Duatha Ennius,’he said. That is precisely the treatment which this Decianus Catus measured out to them, with a few extra trimmings for good measure. Yet, strangely enough, these Iceni do not seem to agree with the Emperor,

  Decianus—and you! Curious, isn’t it?’

  One of the Tribunes, a lad of good family from Ostia, giggled at the old man’s words. The Prefect half-turned and the officer was silent once again, his face red with shame.

  Then the Prefect said, ‘The Iceni and the Trinovantes have put on the war-paint, my wise young friend. Does that surprise you?’

  Duatha whistled between his teeth.

  ‘The Trinovantes!’ he said. ‘But that is different. They are killers, to a man.’

  The Prefect nodded. ‘I understand that well enough,’ he said, ‘without corroboration from a mere leader of Horse, and a Celt at that.’

  Duatha looked down at his feet. But Gemellus felt suddenly free to speak, for this was a situation which he understood.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘we are a western outpost. It will be some time before the eastern tribes turn in our direction. We shall have time to prepare and even to march to meet them. The Legate, Suetonius, will undoubtedly have crushed them before their rebellion can come to anything.’

  The Prefect looked down at the table, smiling bitterly, his shoulders hunched and tired.

  When he spoke, his voice was as weary as his body seemed.

  ‘What a thing it is to be young,’ he said. ‘To have all the movements worked out, as one might work out the shifts in a game of chess. But, alas, when one grows old, it is not like that at all. The game will play itself, the pieces will break the rules, whatever the fingers on
them decree.’

  He looked up at Gemellus as though the Decurion were a simple little child.

  ‘Decurion,’ he said, ‘the Legate, Suetonius, is away. I do not think I am violating any military secrets if I tell you that he has with him the whole of tire Fourteenth and part of the Twentieth, besides Auxiliaries enough to capture Persia! It appears that he needs to make a progress-through the West, to put the fear of Rome into a dozen tribes out there, and to clean up some of the religious beliefs of the area. So the Legate is not available now, you see. We are alone, my young friend.’

  Gemellus stared at him in amazement.

  ‘I can understand that, sir,’ he said. ‘The position is difficult. But though the Second Legion stands alone for the moment, we can more than hold these rebels. We can take the road through Corinium and on to Verulamium, and we can….

  A Tribune who stood behind Gemellus sniggered and said audibly, ‘This one has seen a map somewhere!’…

  The others laughed at this, but the Prefect cut short the laughter with a wave of his pale hand.

  ‘Gemellus Ennius,’ he almost whispered, ‘you are a Decurion, not a Legate, my friend. You may understand how to drill ten men—but you do not yet know how to put five thousand men in the field and keep them supplied on a campaign such as this.

  No, it is not easy. You see, a third of the men here are useless — yes, useless. Some of them are down with marsh sickness, some of them are old and should have been discharged five years ago, some of them have broken the regulations and have got themselves native wives and native bastards….’

  He looked away from Duatha as he said these words, then went on, a little more gently.

  ‘You see, Gemellus Ennius, we have been stationed here too long, watching for an uprising that never came from the West.

  Now that we are faced with one from the once-peaceful East, we are not ready, not able, hardly willing even to turn and face it.