Hosker, G [Sword of Cartimandua 01] The Sword of Cartimandua (21 page)

“I have not served with him but Flavnius chose him because he is the most reliable centurion in Eboracum. He has served Rome for many years and risen in the ranks. His first action was against Boudicca and it is said that those who survived that war are the best of Rome. He was in command at Derventio. Fear not Marcus we can trust and rely on him and his men.”

Marcus nodded. Derventio was to the north east of Eboracum and whoever commanded there had a hard task. It was close to the sea and they had to contend not only with local brigands but pirates and robbers who came across the cold sea to raid.

Brigante royal tomb south of Stanwyck

The Brigante place of death was a large barrow in a gentle valley to the north west of Eboracum. It was cunningly hidden on a low crest of land jutting out from the valley sides. Unless you knew where to look it would appear natural.  The entrance looked like a small rock fall.  They arrived there towards sunset. All the omens looked propitious for the burial; the sun was slowly setting and the evening was as calm as it had been for many days.  Overhead the ravens and crows circled and called to each other, it seemed to be an omen from the gods. Macha and Lenta were in charge of this part of the ceremony. In the Brigante it was the women who buried the dead and said the holy words.  Ulpius had left the legionaries and his auxiliaries at the camp and he stood with Marcus and the last of the queen’s bodyguards as Lenta and Macha prepared her body for its final journey. The jewels and ornaments brought by Marcus from her capital were placed on her body. Her torc was fixed around her neck.

Marcus wondered how they would get the body into the barrow for they had no tools and there appeared to be no entrance. At last the women were finished and the bodyguards took up the body lifting it above their heads. Lenta and Macha led the way around the outside of the grass covered barrow. When there were at the western side they bent down and began to remove loose stones which appeared, to Marcus, to be a rock fall.  The auxiliary looked in amazement as he saw the entrance to the barrow.  The few stones had hidden an opening large enough for the funeral procession to walk down.  The guards had to bend slightly but it was still a dignified group who walked in torchlight into the bowels of the earth.  Inside it was not earthen walls but stone which was dressed and, from its look, ancient. This had been here since the time of the ancients and Marcus gripped his charm even tighter. The musty, damp smell was no surprise but it was the lack of a smell of rotting flesh which surprised him. It was not a straight path and when it turned he was plunged into darkness. When it straightened and lit by the torch he caught glimpses of bones in its flickering light as they went further into the grave.  Lenta and Macha stopped and Marcus could see recognisable bodies.  Each had jewels and weapons with them but none as fine and rich as those worn by the dead Queen. Now Marcus knew what had been in the box carried from the fortress of Stanwyck. In the tomb there were both men and women; the queen was joining her ancestors. The bodyguards laid the body gently onto the empty bier. Marcus could see others prepared deeper in the darkness. The Brigante all bowed their heads and Marcus sensed, rather than heard the low moaning which emanated from their lips.  He did not recognise any of the words but know that they were all saying the same thing. Suddenly there was silence and the torches were extinguished leaving them in darkness with only the faint light of the sunset coming through the entrance. It was Lenta who spoke the last words. “Allfather receive our queen and sister Cartimandua we honour her in death as we did in life.”

No-one spoke again even after they had replaced the stones and covered them with soil; after they had walked in solemn silence to the camp even then no-one spoke. Marcus glanced at Ulpius but he could have been the stone they had just to cover the grave for all the emotion he showed. He was beginning to realise that he did not know the decurion princeps as well as he had thought for he knew the man was mourning but he could not see a single sign.

Later Ulpius asked the question which had burning in his mind since they had laid the Queen’s body into the barrow. “When you spoke over the Queen you said sister. I thought you were her handmaidens?”

“We were handmaidens but we had the same father. He lay with our mother, one of his slaves and we were half sisters.”

“Doesn’t that make the elder the Queen?”

“No Roman. It is for the council to choose and Venutius is still King. He has been crowned. The Queen is dead and so he is the king. He now leads the Brigante.”

“But,” added Lenta, “Many of our people will not follow him as he tried to kill our Queen, our sister.”

“Which doesn’t help us for that means any Brigante could be a friend or a foe?” He gestured at the Brigante warriors sharpening their weapons.

“These men are oathsworn to protect the Queen. As her family they are oathsworn to protect us.  But you are right we will have to be careful as there are as many untrustworthy Brigante as there are Romans. For was not Gaius Cresens a Roman?” There was a mischief in her voice which reminded Ulpius of her half sister.

“Then it is fortunate for you that I am Pannonian by birth and we are the most trustworthy of warriors.”

Laughing the two sisters left the decurion princeps to ponder his next dilemma, how to survive in a land where an enemy could be hiding behind every tree, in every gully and in every hut. He would need all his wits about him. As soon as it was convenient he needed to sit down with the Brigante warriors and Decius Brutus for they needed a plan which, at the moment was beyond his ability.

The party returned to Eboracum in silence each one wrapped in their own thoughts. For Ulpius he was reflecting on the changes the queen had wrought in him. He was gentler with women, he was less mercenary, he thought more of the future at least he had thought on the future until it was robbed from him. She had brought hope into a hopeless, loveless life. He did not know if it was love he had had with the queen but to his unsophisticated mind if it was not love it was the nearest he would experience.

The two half sisters were also musing on their parlous future. Now that Venutius was king, although in truth he had been king for some time, they were in constant danger.  He could pay many murderers to kill them and they were not safe at the fort, as their sister had discovered. The only people they could rely on were not Brigante but Roman and they were the warriors who now rode at their side. Macha determined that, when they left for their new fort, they would be with them. Despite any hardships on the road they would be as nothing compared with the dangers of Eboracum where every hand could wield a killer’s blade.

The day they left Eboracum was both cold and frosty. Rising early Ulpius looked around the fort. It was now taking shape and life would be more comfortable now but even so he was glad that Marcus Bolanus was sending them away. He knew that the man had his own reasons and those reasons were not thoughtful in any way shape or form. He was an embarrassment and he wanted him away to, preferably, die on a forlorn hillside away to the west. He saw the governor emerge from the Praetorium a thin hard smile upon his face. For him the world would become safer with each step the vexillation took away from Eboracum.The days were now longer but the wind was still bitingly cold. It was as though winter had lulled them into sense of false security and descended a savage, second time.

Ulpius called over Marcus to join the Brigante warriors and Lenta and Macha.  He looked at each of the warriors. “You have served the queen to the end and now you are released from the vows you took. We are taking her sisters west to build a fort in her honour.  You are welcome to join us there but some of you may wish to rejoin your own people. If that is so then go with honour for you have all served the queen loyally and well.”

It was the senior warrior, Orrick who spoke. He was a powerful warrior and his skill was shown by the bracelets and amulets he wore. The scars on his face and chest ably demonstrated that he faced and fought his enemies fearlessly and never turned his back. When he spoke the emotion rang through his words.  “Our oath to the queen means that we cannot rest until her murderer is found and killed. We would have died to protect her and we failed. We will find the man who ordered her death. We believe it to be Venutius who did not have the courage to face the Queen and end her life by his own hand. He paid someone and that is base and dishonourable. For that alone he should die.” The men murmured their agreement and Ulpius nodded.

“Are you going after him then? For if so it would be a glorious death, futile but glorious.”

“We hold our lives cheaply and would gladly pay with our lives to avenge the queen but you are right.  We were known as the protectors of the queen and Venutius would have us slaughtered as soon as we appeared. We would not get close enough to him and we will no kill in the night. When he dies at our hands he will see who it is and know why we do it.  No we will continue to travel with you and we will protect the Princesses.” He smiled. “We believe that Venutius will pay a visit to this new fort of yours and so he will come to us.”

Ulpius nodded. “That is well but if you travel with us then you obey my orders. You will be as Romans with the same discipline. Is that clear?”

One or two of the warriors looked a little unhappy at the implications of that but Orrick silenced them with a wave of his arm. “You are a warrior; you are the warrior chosen by our queen.  You ride with the sword of Cartimandua. We will follow you.”

“Good then let us get over these hills before the snows come a second time.  This land appears to be in the group of some monster who makes the weather as a weapon to punish strangers such as us. I hope that the place we seek is less unpredictable. Your queen promised much. I long to see this Elysium in Britannia which holds so much hope.” He turned to the two Brigante princesses. “I still cannot persuade you to stay.”

Lenta smiled at the word persuade for, in the week they had been back in Eboracum Ulpius had ranted, raved, bullied, pleaded and at times almost screamed to make them stay behind the safety of Eboracum’s wooden walls. Persuade had not been a word she would have chosen. They had both been resolute in their arguments and, in the end, Ulpius had seen that perhaps they were right and they would be safer away from intrigue. “No decurion princeps, we will not be persuaded besides we know the land as well as the warriors and we know the place you seek.  We will not be baggage for we are Brigante and we will do our share we will help to build this shrine to the memory of our queen.”

Nodding Ulpius turned to Marcus. “We leave as soon as the pack horses and wagon are ready. Remember it is only a handful of us who know where we are going. Let us keep it so.”

Chapter 12

Brocavum

Venutius was drunk and his warriors were drunk. His official coronation had been some weeks before but the celebrations seemed to go on endlessly. He was now King Venutius even though he had been king before he had not been crowned and acclaimed by his people. This made it easier for him to summon the war host for to refuse would be refusing the king. True, there were still those who were unhappy with the death of Cartimandua but, apart from the handful still with the Romans the bulk to the Brigante supported him. He had had the acknowledgement of all the neighbouring tribes and their kings.  As the king with the largest tribal area in Britannia this made Venutius the king who exerted the most influence. Secretly he was pleased that Cartimandua had betrayed Caractacus for had she not that young man would have grown to be a warrior king with a legitimate claim to be king of Britannia.

He looked out of the gates towards the rising sun in the east, the steam from his piss rising like early morning fog. This was the time of the long nights and short days.  It was a time to drink and tell tales of great deeds. His men were drunk because they believed they had freed themselves from the shackles of Rome and were following a leader who had rid himself of a tiresome, meddling woman. Venutius was drunk because he had failed. He had failed to capture and kill his queen; the poison which had killed her was on his orders but not by his hand and he had wanted to see her suffer and die. He had failed, despite what his men believed, because the Romans had not been weakened by him; they had absorbed the Brigante and now controlled much of their territory. It galled him to think that he was depending upon the Silures and Deceangli to defeat the Romans and draw off their strength. His pleasure at becoming the official king was soured by the knowledge that he had failed in his first attempt to rid his land of the Romans. He had hoped that the disarray in Rome when they had four Emperors in one year would have distracted them enough to defeat demoralised Romans. The Roman troops appeared to care more about the way they fought than who was Emperor. It was a salutatory lesson. He angrily turned back, threw his goblet to smash on the wall of the fire lit hut and his men cheered believing it to be a sign that their leader was showing his anger to his enemies when in reality it was a frustration that he had failed.  He was angry with himself and with his spies. The information given to him by Fainch had proved false.  He had gathered his forces near to the place the Romans called Morbium for it was not far from Stanwyck.  He had prepared a trap and his men had waited through the long, dark winter nights but the Roman incursion had not taken place.  He was angry with himself for, despite the fact that the information was wrong, he did not know if the Romans had tricked him just to make his men wait needlessly in the cold or if it was a ruse to draw his men away from his capital. He now knew it was not the latter for he had brought all his forces into his stronghold in case the Roman invasion came in the winter, it was unlikely but these Romans did not fight in the way of the tribes. He allowed himself a smile perhaps the information had been true and the Romans had perished in this cold northern land far away from their warm homeland.