Cato 04 - The Eagle and the Wolves (20 page)

‘You have something of a reputation as a smooth operator, Quintillus. That is precisely the skill I need for this task. I hope your reputation has been fully earned.’

The tribune nodded modestly.

‘Good. You only arrived a few days ago, I recall.’

‘Ten days ago, sir.’

‘Ten days. Not much time to familiarise yourself with our operations, then?’

‘No, sir,’ Quintillus admitted.

‘Well, never mind. Narcissus speaks highly of you.’

‘That’s uncommonly generous of him.’

‘Yes . . . very uncommon. That’s why I’ve chosen you. I need a good pair of eyes and ears on the ground in Calleva. Centurion Macro is understandably reticent in expressing his concern about the firmness of King Verica’s grip on his people. He’s enjoying his independent command and doesn’t want senior officers breathing down his neck. To be fair, he’s doing an excellent job. He’s raised a scratch force of Atrebatans, and they’ve already scored a victory over the Durotrigans. Quite an achievement.’

‘Yes, sir. Sounds like it.’ The tribune nodded at Macro’s report. ‘Must be a good officer, and the men he’s trained sound formidable, as natives go.’

The general fixed him with a cold stare. ‘Condescension is a dangerous luxury. That’s a hard lesson I’ve had to learn from these Britons.’

‘If you say so, sir.’

‘I do. And you should profit from my experience.’

‘But of course, sir.’ Quintillus bowed his head.

‘Very wise . . . Macro’s success has put me in something of a difficult situation. You see, King Verica is an old man. I doubt he’ll live through another winter. So far he’s managed to carry his people with him in making a treaty with Rome. But there are some in his tribe who are not so well disposed towards us.’

‘Ain’t that always the way?’

‘Sadly. The trouble is that these discontents are quite influential, and they might just put forward a candidate when the tribe’s council of elders meets to choose a successor to Verica. If that man is successful . . .’

‘Then we’d be in the ordure, sir.’

‘Right up to our necks. Not only will we have a hostile tribe to our rear, but Centurion Macro will have provided them with the wherewithal to cause a lot of damage to our supply lines.’

‘Did he exceed his orders in training and arming these cohorts, sir?’

‘Not at all. He was acting on Legate Vespasian’s orders.’

‘Then the legate is responsible.’

‘No, he sought and received my approval for the formation of the cohorts.’

‘I see,’ the tribune responded tactfully.

‘The trouble is that Centurion Macro has not been very forthcoming about the divided loyalties of our Atrebatan friends.’

‘You could order him to disband the cohorts, and confiscate their weapons.’

‘That’s not very practicable. You don’t know these Britons like I do. About the most disrespectful thing you could do to a British warrior is take his weapons away from him. They treat them as a birthright. If we seize their weapons then there’s every chance we’ll have a revolt on our hands. We might even lose Verica’s loyalty into the bargain.’

‘It’s quite a mess,’ the tribune replied thoughtfully. ‘One wonders why it was permitted to occur in the first place. Narcissus will want to know.’

Plautius leaned across the table. ‘Then you tell your friend Narcissus to send me more troops. If I’d been given enough auxiliary units in the first place, we’d never have had to rely on Verica, or raise those two cohorts.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ Quintillus replied calmly. ‘It was an observation, not a criticism. I apologise if I gave the wrong impression. It’s a complicated situation.’

‘To put it mildly. Now you can see why I need a clear picture of what is happening in Calleva. I need to know if we can risk keeping the cohorts in existence. If you judge that they might present a danger to us then we’ll have to disband them, and take the chance that we can deal with the consequences. At the same time, I need to know if the Atrebatans will honour their treaty with us under a new king. If there’s any question of the tribe going over to Caratacus then we will have to act at once.’

‘That’s quite a job for one man,’ Quintillus mused.

‘You won’t be entirely alone. One of the local nobles is on our payroll. He’s close to Verica and can provide you with whatever help you need. I’ll give you the details later.’

‘Fair enough, sir.’ Tribune Quintillus looked closely at the general. ‘What authority will you grant me for this mission?’

Plautius reached to the side of his chair and handed a scroll to the tribune. The scroll was wrapped around an ivory rod, touched by the hands of Emperor Claudius, and bore the seal of the general. ‘In the first instance you are to observe, and then report to me. If you deem it necessary to act then you may invoke the powers of procurator. All Atrebatan lands will be ceded to Rome and administered as a province. You are empowered to order Vespasian’s forces to annex and garrison Verica’s kingdom.’

‘That’s quite a responsibility,’ Quintillus mused. ‘The legate won’t be a happy man when he hears about this.’

‘If we’re lucky he won’t ever have to.’

Chapter Seventeen

A strained atmosphere filled the depot for several days after the banquet. The training continued under the disciplined eyes of the legionary instructors, and even Cato was pleased with the improvement in the recruits’ drill technique and weapons handling. But he was also aware of a general pall of distraction and tension that hung over the native levies like a black cloud. So Cato drove them on, keeping them as busy as possible in a bid to occupy their minds with something other than the terrible spectacle their king had provided for his guests at the banquet. To make matters worse, Verica had stuck his victims’ heads on posts either side of the track leading up to the main gateway into Calleva. The mangled remains of the bodies had been dumped, unceremoniously, in the defensive ditch beyond the palisade, where they were worried by wild animals.

The reminder of the grim price paid by those who defied the king stilled any open debate about the Atrebatans’ alliance with Rome. Instead, a few words were infrequently exchanged between those who still trusted each other, and men would fall silent at the approach of anyone else, watching them with mixed expressions of guilt and suspicion until they had passed by. As he walked through the muddy streets of Calleva, Cato came across this time after time, and where before there had only been a dim sense of resentment, now he read guarded hostility in many of the faces he encountered.

Nor was this confined to the townspeople. The men of the two cohorts were also divided between those who felt the traitors had deserved to be thrown to the dogs, and a sizeable minority who kept silent and thus made implicit their criticism of Verica. Not so implicit that it failed to draw the attention of some of their comrades. The drill instructors had already reported a number of fights that had broken out in the ranks. Mercifully most had occurred off duty and could be dismissed as minor disciplinary infractions. But one small fight had flared up during a weapons drill that had taken place under Macro. The five men involved had been punished before a special assembly in the depot.

The men of the Wolf and the Boar Cohorts were made to stand at attention on three sides of the parade ground to witness their comrades’ beating. Cato, standing stiffly beside Macro, clamped his teeth together to stop himself flinching as a pair of instructors rained their blows down on the backs and limbs of each man in turn, while they lay curled on the ground in the open space between the assembled ranks. Macro counted off the blows for each man in an even voice and called a halt when twenty had been received. A pair of medical orderlies quickly carried each victim off to the hospital.

As the third man was led forward Tincommius leaned towards Macro.

‘I don’t get it, sir,’ whispered Tincommius. ‘First you beat them, now they’re being given medical attention. So what’s the point of the punishment?’

‘The point?’ Macro’s eyebrows rose. ‘They have to be punished. But the army can’t afford to let that get in the way of their duty. Those men are still soldiers. We want them back in fighting condition as soon as possible.’

‘Sir?’ One of the legionaries nodded at the man curled up at his feet.

Macro stiffened his back and bellowed, ‘Proceed with the punishment!’

The two legionaries began to lay into the man on the ground, the sharp whack of their vine staffs driving the air from his lungs so that he grunted and gasped through gritted teeth. The gnarled surface of the canes began to tear at his exposed flesh, leaving bloody welts of gouged flesh. Macro counted the blows in a voice loud enough to be heard by all the men looking on in silence.

‘Twelve! . . . Thirteen! . . . Fourteen!’

Cato questioned how Macro could be so untroubled as the naked men grunted or cried out as they lay on the blood-flecked ground, arms wrapped over their heads. The young centurion had often wondered at the harshness of army discipline, with its emphasis on excessive pain and humiliation for almost any infraction that occurred within duty hours. There were few fines or fatigues, and many brutal punishments. Yet to Cato it seemed that men might respond more willingly to a system that treated them as more than mere beasts of burden, driven to war. Men could be reasoned with, after all, and could be encouraged to perform as much by a considerate form of leadership as by cruelty.

He had suggested as much to Macro once, over a jug of wine. The veteran had laughed at the idea. For Macro it was simple. Discipline was tough in order to make the men tough, to give them a fighting chance against the enemy. If the lads were treated kindly it would kill them in the end. If they were treated cruelly, it would keep them hard, and give them a decent chance of surviving their long years of service in the legions.

Macro’s words came back to him vividly as Cato watched the third man being led away by the medics. The fourth man was hauled forward to take his place and Cato felt his blood chill as Bedriacus was flung down at the feet of the two legionaries and their bloodstained vine canes. The hunter raised his head and smiled as his eyes found those of his commander. For an instant the corners of Cato’s mouth flickered. It was an automatic response, but thankfully for Cato he was quickly able to fix his face in a cold, austere expression. Bedriacus frowned for a moment before the first blow landed across his shoulders. Instantly his ugly weathered features twisted in agony as he let out a shrill cry. Cato flinched.

‘Keep still,’ Macro said quietly. ‘You’re a fucking officer. So act like one . . . Three! . . . Four!’

Cato clamped his arms to his sides and forced himself to watch as the blows continued to land on bare flesh in a steady rhythm. A knotty lump in one of the vine staffs split open the skin above a shoulder blade and the blood flowed from the mangled flesh. Cato felt his throat tighten as the desire to be sick welled up from deep down in his guts. On the tenth stroke Bedriacus was staring at Cato wide-eyed, his mouth hanging half open and uttering a horrible high-pitched whine. The noise was punctuated by a short gasp as each blow drove the air from his lungs. At last Macro counted twenty. Cato sensed a pain in his palms and, glancing down, he saw his hands balled into fists so tightly that the knuckles were white. He forced himself to relax and watched two medics bend over the prostrate Briton. Bedriacus had gone totally limp and they struggled awkwardly to raise him from the ground and start making their way over to the hospital block. His eyes remained wide open, staring like a wild animal as the awful strained whine continued from deep in his throat.

The last offender was led out from the ranks. Tincommius started, and quickly turned towards Macro.

‘Not him. You can’t have him beaten!’

‘Shut up!’

‘Sir, I beg you! He’s a blood relation of the king.’

‘Shut your mouth! Get back in position.’

‘You can’t-’

‘Do it, or I swear you’ll join him.’

Tincommius sensed the gravity of the centurion’s threat and stood back a pace. In front of the officers Artax was unceremoniously dumped on the ground. He looked up, eyes gleaming in bitter defiance. Before Macro could order the punishment to start Artax spat in the direction of the two centurions. Macro calmly glanced down at the damp, dark stain in the dust.

‘Thirty strokes for this one. Begin punishment!’

Unlike Bedriacus, Artax took his beating without a murmur. His lips were clamped shut and his eyes bulged with the effort of resisting the waves of pain. He never once shifted his gaze from Macro and breathed in sharp explosive snorts through his flared nostrils. At the end, he rose stiffly to his feet, angrily shaking off the helping hands of the two medics. He glared once at Cato, then back at Macro. The veteran returned his gaze with cold, expressionless eyes. Artax turned away and walked unsteadily towards the hospital block.

‘Punishment is over!’ Macro bellowed. ‘Return to training duties!’

The two cohorts were dismissed by centuries and marched off by their Roman instructors, back to the endless regime of drilling and weapons training. Cato watched them closely, his keen senses aware of a subtle change in their mood; a kind of quiet automation of bearing where before there had been a contained flow of energy.