'You can't defend Londinium and the bridge as well as crush the rebellion with this number of men; you can only do either or.'

Paulinus rubbed his chin. 'That's what I was thinking; I was just hoping that someone could see things differently. We either take our force into the town and defend it; if we started now, then by tomorrow afternoon, ten thousand should be able to make it defensible enough for the Iceni to move on after a couple of failed a.s.saults and we could stay holed up until help arrives. But, by that time, Boudicca would have raised the whole province: Venutius and Cartimandua in the north would have settled their differences and joined her, the Silures in the west would have overwhelmed the holding force of the remainder of the Twentieth that I was forced to leave there, the Second Augusta would be pinned down in the southwest and probably trounced and the only useful aid would be s.h.i.+ps to evacuate us.' He looked around the room at his officers. 'I think we can all agree that if we made it back to Rome, gentlemen, the Emperor would invite us to fall upon our swords only on the off-chance that he was feeling lenient.'

His men murmured their reluctant agreement.

'So therefore I have to do what good generals always do when faced with superior numbers: negate them as Alexander did at Issus or Leonidas at Thermopylae. I need to offer battle to Boudicca in a way that she won't be able to resist the opportunity given the odds; but I choose the ground. I believe I know the very place about fifty miles north of here, beyond the town of Verulamium; it'll suit our purposes well. Caninius, get a message to the camp. The legion is to strike and be ready to march upon my arrival by mid-morning.'

'Yes, sir,' Caninius, Paulinus' thick-stripe military tribune, said. 'And what about Londinium?'

'As soon as Cogidubnus and his auxiliaries have crossed the bridge we tear down a section making it impa.s.sable for the Britons, so they have to remain on the north bank, and then we abandon the town to its inevitable fate. All those fit enough to keep up with a legion's pace may seek our shelter; the rest ... well, I'm sorry, I can't wait for the young or the frail if we are going to reach the ground I've chosen and be ready for that Fury and her army. We inform the citizens at first light, destroy the bridge and then head north leaving a trail of stragglers for Boudicca to follow.'

'What if Sabinus and Caenis haven't arrived by the time Paulinus pulls out?' Magnus asked Vespasian as they stood, following dawn, on the bridge, staring downstream to the bend in the river, past Londinium's port; a single trireme was being loaded in the otherwise empty harbour.

'Then we wait here; they should arrive by mid-afternoon at the latest.'

Magnus pulled on his hounds' leads as they attempted to pounce, with a view to breakfast, on a pa.s.sing small child. 'Boudicca could arrive by mid-afternoon at the earliest; did you notice a similarity there?'

Vespasian shaded his eyes as the sun rose. 'What? The mid-afternoon bit?'

'Yes, that bit; the bit that puts us in the same vicinity as one hundred thousand or more hairy-a.r.s.e savages with a new-found taste for tearing out Roman hearts.'

Vespasian pointed down to the river. 'What's that?'

Magnus looked down at the murky brown water and frowned. 'It's a river.'

'Well done. And what floats on rivers?'

Magnus grinned, now playing along. 'Birds, logs and boats.'

'Excellent; and which one of those will Sabinus and Caenis be arriving in? I'll give you a clue: it's not a duck.'

Magnus pretended to think for a few moments as Pollux deposited a t.u.r.d of admirable proportions on the wooden road; it was immediately subjected to Castor's close and vigorous scrutiny. 'So we just jump on Sabinus and Caenis' log, carry on upstream until we are safe to land and then cut across country to rejoin Paulinus.'

'Exactly.'

'And what if the Britons start sacking Londinium before the rescue-log arrives? Do you think that we'll be able to explain nicely to them that we're just waiting for our log which will be along at any moment and would they mind ma.s.sacring someone else?'

'You could try doing that, if they could hear you.'

'What?'

Vespasian raised his voice. 'I said: You could try-'

'No, I meant: what do you mean?'

'Ah. I meant if they could hear you from the other side of the bridge over the gap that Paulinus is just about to make in it.'

Magnus looked south along the bridge. 'Of course; I'm a little slow this morning.' As he spoke a horse carrying a huge man in the uniform of a prefect of auxiliaries stepped onto the bridge: behind him marched rank after rank of auxiliaries in chainmail and with oval s.h.i.+elds. 'Here comes our royal mate.'

'What?' Vespasian took his attention away from the river. 'Cogidubnus; I knew he would remain loyal.'

The Britannic King held his head high, his long moustaches fluttering in the river breeze, as he led his two cohorts, each eight hundred strong, across the Tamesis bridge. Centurions bawled out an order and the entire company broke step so that the wooden structure did not vibrate itself to destruction.

'Vespasian and Magnus, my friends,' Cogidubnus said, drawing near, his ruddy round face breaking into a broad smile. 'I wish it were in better circ.u.mstances that we meet again.'

'So do I, old friend,' Vespasian said, reaching up to grab the proffered, heavily muscled forearm; behind the King his men pa.s.sed by, Britons in the uniform of Rome. 'What will happen to your people if this goes badly for Rome?'

'We have no wish to go back to the old days of constantly fighting amongst ourselves; it's bad for business, and business is something that the Regni and the Atrebates are getting very good at.'

'Really?'

'Put it this way: if Rome stays then all those estates and mines that I and others have bought back off Pallas for under twice what he paid us for them will be worth more than twice what we paid him. In just three months we would have doubled our money and my loan that the Cloelius Brothers called in last month will seem as nothing.'

'Pallas sold you back his investments! He was going to send me to negotiate that with you the year Agrippina died; I have to say that I'm pleased he didn't in the end.'

'I might have given him a better deal had you been negotiating for him rather than Paelignus.'

'Julius Paelignus?'

'Yes, a horrible little crookback; do you know him?'

'I did; the last time I saw him he was lying at the bottom of a latrine with his throat ripped out, being shat upon by a dozen of Boudicca's men.'

'How gratifying; I'm pleased to hear that the Iceni have done some good in amongst all this carnage.'

'But what was Paelignus doing working for Pallas?'

Cogidubnus shrugged. 'I don't know but you can be sure that he was getting a commission judging by his determined negotiation and bitter disappointment when I would go no higher than one and nine tenths of what Pallas had paid.'

'That would explain his strongbox that he was trying to take with him,' Magnus pointed out.

'It would,' Vespasian agreed, 'and I suppose it would be cheaper for Pallas to get someone who was already here to negotiate for him for a smaller percentage than it would have cost him to persuade someone like me to go but still it-'

'Prefect!' Paulinus' shout cut across Vespasian's thoughts. The Governor came striding onto the bridge with a bodyguard of a dozen legionaries fending off desperate-looking citizens shouting pleas, weeping and tearing at their hair; Paulinus acted as if they were not there. 'Welcome to you, indeed; your men are sorely needed.'

Cogidubnus saluted. 'The united tribes of the Regni and Atrebates will always be loyal to Rome, Governor.'

'I'm pleased to hear it. Now, I need your men to dismantle the bridge once they've crossed; it doesn't have to be pretty, just effective. Get as far as you can with the job by the sixth hour and then follow us north up the road, which should mean that you will be at least four hours ahead of Boudicca. Keep going at night until you catch up with us; we won't leave the road. I would hope to be-' Paulinus stopped abruptly and stared down towards the port; the trireme was under oars and heading out into the river. 'What the ...? That's the last s.h.i.+p; it's not meant to sail until all my despatches are on board begging the Emperor and the Senate for help.' He put his hand to his forehead, rubbing it. 'And the letters to my wife and sons; how will they know if ...? Who gave the order?'

But the answer to that question was obvious as, in the stern looking back towards the bridge, stood a portly man in an equestrian toga; he had a bandage wrapped around his face, holding his jaw in place. Procurator Decia.n.u.s raised an arm in a farewell wave to Paulinus and the chaos that he had caused.

'I'll eat his liver,' Paulinus snarled.

By the look on the Governor's face, Vespasian could well believe he meant it.

'Governor! Governor! Don't abandon us!'

The shouts from the citizens trying to pet.i.tion him impinged on Paulinus' conscience and he turned to vent his anger upon them. 'I have told you: we cannot hope to defend Londinium and crush Boudicca, and if we don't crush Boudicca, Londinium will fall eventually, so the logical thing to do is to let it fall now.'

'And march north to save Verulamium?'

'I will give the people of Verulamium the same choice as I've given you.'

'But our livelihoods, our property, our wives and children!' The shouts were mixed and emotional, growing in clamour; but they failed to move the pragmatic Governor.

'Come with us, if you want to, or cross the bridge before it's destroyed or stay here and defend yourselves; I don't care what you do as long as you do it now and leave me alone.' He turned back to Cogidubnus as the last of the auxiliaries left the bridge. 'See that it's done.'

Cogidubnus pointed to a couple of centuries who were stripping off their chainmail at the middle of the bridge. 'I've just given the order.'

'Good. I shall see you later tonight.' Paulinus nodded, satisfied, and then looked at Vespasian. 'Are you coming, senator?'

'No, Governor, not yet; I have to wait here for my brother and my ... er ... Antonia Caenis; they'll be here soon in a boat. We'll follow you as best we can.'

'Well, good luck, Vespasian; may the G.o.ds of your family hold their hands over you.'

'Thank you, sir; and I wish the same of yours.'

Paulinus gave a curt nod and turned; his bodyguards ploughed into the crowd surrounding him and cast them aside, strewing them on the ground so that the Governor walked freely as if he were completely alone.

'You had better get across,' Cogidubnus suggested as the first planks were ripped up from the centre of the structure.

Vespasian saw Hormus coming through the crowds, loaded with luggage, followed by Caenis' two slave girls and the other slaves, equally as laden. 'I'll see you on the north road, my friend.'

'I hope so; it's been a while since we drew our swords together.'

They grasped forearms again and then, once Magnus had said his farewell, they crossed the bridge, along with surprisingly few refugees, to wait for Sabinus and Caenis, praying they would arrive before Boudicca.

Although the G.o.ds had, in the past, listened to many of Vespasian's prayers, they did not listen to that particular one and by the time Cogidubnus had been gone for a couple of hours, having torn up fifty paces of the bridge and pulled four of the great piles from the riverbed, the first fires appeared on the northeast side of the town. Soon the screaming could be heard and the fires broadened. Vespasian sat with Magnus and his dogs on the southern bank of the Tamesis wondering at the folly of those who had chosen to stay in the town when to do so could only mean certain death.

'I suppose they'll have nothing if all their property is destroyed,' Magnus opined after Vespasian had mentioned to him that one of the refugees had told Hormus that he thought that there were upwards of thirty thousand people who had decided to throw themselves on Boudicca's mercy or just hide until the storm pa.s.sed over.

'They'll have their lives,' Vespasian said, still trying to get his head around the size of the ma.s.sacre that was about to be perpetrated.

'But what good is that if there is no way to feed and clothe yourself, let alone your wife and children? If you've got nothing you've really got nothing in this world and that includes chances; it's something that people of your cla.s.s find impossible to see the reality of and then comprehend it. Nothing is exactly what it says and it's very bleak indeed.'

Vespasian thought on that for some time as the people on the further bank who preferred to chance death rather than face the reality of nothing began to die in droves, judging from the clamour of death that floated across the river. And then they appeared, hundreds of them, running to the bridge to find that it really had been cut and it was not just some cruel joke being played upon them. More emerged on the sh.o.r.eline along half a mile to either side of the useless structure as fires grew behind them so that a thick grey pall hung over the town as if put there by the G.o.ds so as to s.h.i.+eld their eyes from the atrocities happening below. And Vespasian could see that what was happening below was truly terrible as the Iceni flooded in their hundreds through the streets and buildings down to the sh.o.r.e and trapped thousands of the populace between them and the river so that the ma.s.sacre could really get under way.

Pitiless they were as they turned the waters of the Tamesis red.

In their thousands the Iceni butchered the citizens of Londinium, regardless of age or s.e.x. Novel ways they found to ma.s.sacre, so that it would not become too repet.i.tive for them. Vespasian watched with macabre curiosity as they nailed children to the bridge's upright supports, hung old men from its beams, sliced off women's b.r.e.a.s.t.s before impaling them on the water's edge; they disembowelled, ran-through, bludgeoned, severed, strangled, flayed, hacked, ripped out hearts and then decapitated at will in an orgy of death that even the most avid fan of gladiatorial combat in the circus could not, for one moment, have imagined.

The few who could swim managed to save themselves by taking to the river, others who could not tried anyway and drowned in the attempt for the tide was nearly at full height. Many chose this death in preference but the majority lacked the necessary strength to end their own lives and, instead, died screaming on the vengeful blades of the Iceni. As the piles of heads and hearts grew and grew so did the fires in the town strengthen, driving even more victims from their hiding places down to the sh.o.r.e that soon became the only place safe from the conflagration, for Boudicca had surrounded the entire town with the best part of her hordes so that none could escape by any other way. But death waited for them there as sure as it did in a cellar beneath the inferno and, for what seemed to be endless time, Vespasian and his companions watched the horror unfold on the north bank. Silent and grim they were, unable to take their eyes from the slaughter as the warriors of the Iceni stained themselves red with the blood of the Roman citizens of Londinium. For a whole mile along the river frontage of the town, red monsters roamed, killing at will, knowing that they would be punished for what they had done, for Rome would not forgive so great an outrage, so better, therefore, to make the crime as great as possible. And that they achieved in a spectacular manner and by the time the four transport vessels, under full oars, appeared around the river bend Vespasian had seen more death in one day than he felt he had ever seen in his whole life; he gazed at the s.h.i.+ps for a while unable to register what they were and their significance, so full was his mind with the images and sounds of brutal murder.

'Cavalry transports,' Vespasian said eventually.

'What?' Magnus asked vaguely, unable to tear his eyes away from a screaming, naked girl as she sank lower and lower onto the upright stake between her legs.

Vespasian repeated himself.

Magnus turned his head as the girl lost her struggle against gravity. 'So they are; what are they doing here?'

'Don't you see? They must be the first part of the reinforcements from the mainland. I sent the messages to Germania Inferior and Gallia Belgica five days ago; two days to get there, a day to react and then two days to get back. Come on.' Vespasian began to walk at pace east, towards the s.h.i.+ps that had begun to steer towards the south bank now that the crew had seen the situation in Londinium.

For half a mile they walked until the s.h.i.+ps were less than a hundred paces away and then they hailed them, proclaiming their Roman citizens.h.i.+p across the water that even here bore the unmistakeable hue of blood. But there was no need to stress who they were for they were recognised; the lead s.h.i.+p veered towards them and in the bow Vespasian saw Caenis standing between Sabinus and another man in the uniform of a military tribune, his helmet resplendent with its red horsetail plume.

As the s.h.i.+p backed oars and came to a gradual stop, twenty paces from the sh.o.r.e, the tribune took off his helmet.

'h.e.l.lo, Father,' said t.i.tus.

CHAPTER XVI.

'SCRIBONIUS RUFUS, THE Governor of Germania Inferior, allowed me to come with half an ala of Batavian auxiliary cavalry,' t.i.tus explained as he helped Vespasian aboard. Down the centre of the deck the hold was not covered over and it was filled with horses; their riders stood on the starboard rail watching Londinium burn. 'He only granted that favour because I'm your son; he's sent a letter to the Emperor asking permission to send more and it will, obviously, be at least fourteen days before he can expect the reply.'

'The province may well be lost by then and every Roman butchered,' Vespasian said as he landed on the deck; he indicated to the ma.s.sacre upstream. 'Just look at it.'

'I know; we were in Camulodunum yesterday; there was no one left alive and not a complete building left intact. The Temple of Claudius had been stormed and everyone holding out in there ma.s.sacred.'

Vespasian embraced his son.

Caenis kissed Vespasian as he let t.i.tus go. 't.i.tus came across us a few miles back; we'd had a terrible time fighting the tide both yesterday morning and this morning.'

Vespasian returned her kiss. 'I'm glad to see you safe, my love.'

'Why aren't you with Cerialis?' Sabinus asked, scratching at his stubble as Magnus began supervising the lifting of Castor and Pollux aboard; there were many volunteers to help Caenis' girls and only Hormus seemed to be without aid.

'Because his legion was wiped out yesterday morning.'

'Wiped out?'

'Pretty much so; all but the cavalry. Cerialis got away with them back to his camp and Magnus and I came to warn Paulinus here but there wasn't much time to do anything because Boudicca has moved with frightening speed. He had to abandon Londinium and go north to tempt her into a battle in a place where her numbers will not be so significant. If we're to join him we need to get upriver, otherwise we'll find the rebels between us and Paulinus; and I was expecting to do it in a small fis.h.i.+ng boat which could have slipped under the bridge on the southern side and not have to go through the gap.'

They all looked at the gap in the bridge; where the four piles had been torn down there was just enough room for a s.h.i.+p to pa.s.s through but, above on the remains of the north side of the bridge, the Iceni were rampant and would be able to hurl weapons and fire down on them as they negotiated the pa.s.sage.

'Ah!' t.i.tus exclaimed. 'This is going to take careful timing. Jorik!'

An auxiliary decurion, young for his rank, stepped forward and saluted. 'Your orders, sir?' His Latin was accented in the manner that Vespasian recognised from his last dealings with the Batavians almost twenty years previously.

'Have the lads fill all the buckets on board with water then put blankets and anything else that might help to protect them on the horses' backs and relay that to the turmae on the other three s.h.i.+ps.'

Jorik saluted and strode off.