Masters of Rome (15 page)

‘I'm afraid so; only the Batavians came out of it relatively unscathed. They came back in about half an hour ago reporting the enemy scattered over a large area; most seem to be heading northwest. And there's no sign of Caratacus.'

Vespasian digested the information for a few moments. ‘Well, it's not as bad as it could have been, gentlemen. Tomorrow morning we'll probe northwest to make sure they don't regroup and double back. Then we'll head back down to the sea and rendezvous with the fleet to resupply before moving west along the coast to this season's objective. I'll leave Blassius here to garrison the fort with the badly mauled cohorts. Valens, you take five legionary cohorts, the Britons and Batavians and head northwest for a couple of days; I want every male of fighting age you come across in chains. Maximus, you take the other four fit legionary cohorts and the Hamians and the Gallic infantry and push north. There's a valley thirty miles in that direction – Cogidubnus will lend you some scouts to help find it. All being well I'll rendezvous with you there at dawn the day after tomorrow.'

‘May I ask where you're going, sir?'

‘I'm going to get my brother out of that valley and when I have done that we're going to destroy everything in it.'

‘That must be it,' Cogidubnus said as a high tor, devoid of trees, about three miles distant and standing apart from other hilly features, came into view as they crested a hill. ‘If we hurry we should be there well before sunset.'

‘Provided we don't run into any remnants of that army,' Magnus grumbled, adjusting his sore behind in the saddle of the
stocky native pony that had borne him, stoically, the last ten miles.

‘We're safe enough with the scouts ranging around us!' Vespasian snapped, fed up with Magnus' complaining, which had been going on ever since he had donned the chafing trousers four hours earlier.

During the course of the short journey they had seen a few groups of straggling warriors from the defeated army but had paid little heed to them other than to avoid them; dressed in their Britannic disguises, they passed as just another unremarkable band of fugitives heading home.

Having dismissed his officers that morning, Vespasian had prepared for the journey and the coming encounter with the druids with a carefully observed sacrifice to Mars of a young ram. The animal had willingly come to the altar and had not struggled unduly under the threat of the blade; its liver had been in perfect condition and there had been no tumours or unsightly blemishes on any of the other internal organs. It had been a perfect sacrifice and yet his unease at facing the strange power of the druids again had not abated; indeed it had grown with every mile they had travelled from the camp, hence his short temper. He looked sidelong at Magnus who sat hunched in his saddle scowling, refusing to meet his eyes, and he berated himself for taking out his nervousness on his friend. It was in sullen silence that the small column made the last part of the journey.

They ascended the tor from the less steep western side, passing through ancient abandoned earthworks, on up towards a rectangular wooden building perched right on the very summit; smoke spiralled up through a hole in the centre of its thatched roof. Whilst still fifty paces away from their destination the door opened and a middle-aged man with a greying beard and a black headdress stepped out; he wore a long white robe and had a black and white patterned mantle over his shoulders. In his left hand he bore a staff which he held up as a greeting. ‘Welcome, Legate Vespasian, I've been expecting you for some time now, but when I saw the fugitives from Caratacus' beaten army this morning I felt sure that you would be here by nightfall.'

Vespasian looked into Yosef's kindly dark eyes, dumbfounded; he had only been told of the man's presence in Britannia a few hours ago and yet he had been expected.

Yosef turned to Cogidubnus. ‘And welcome to you, King of the Atrebates and Regni; I am told that of all the kings on this isle you are the one that has your people's interests paramount in your heart. I pray to God that it is true because the Britons will have need of strong leaders if they are to submit to Rome and not be trodden under.'

‘You do me honour.'

‘No more than a man who stood up to Rome before bowing to her irresistible strength deserves.' Yosef held out his right hand to help Vespasian from his pony as he dismounted. ‘You look surprised that I knew you were coming; you shouldn't be. I've known that you and Sabinus were here in Britannia since the day you both landed at Rhudd yr epis, or Rutupiae as you Romans call it. I've watched your progress west with interest.'

‘Then you've heard about Sabinus?'

‘Yes, I have and I know that's why you are here and what you require of me. And although I am well aware of how much I stand to lose, I will help you and honour the debts that I owe you both.' Yosef smiled at Vespasian and put his arm around his shoulder, as if he was an old friend, and led him to the door. ‘Righteous men like you and your brother can always expect help in the dark.'

Vespasian's eyes took a short while to get used to the gloom of the interior, which was lit solely by a fire burning in a hearth at its centre and a single oil lamp on a table next to it that was prepared for four people. The rest of the room was sparsely furnished: a couple of benches laid out opposite what looked to be an altar at one end and a curtained-off sleeping area at the other.

Yosef indicated the chairs around the table as Magnus and Cogidubnus followed them in. ‘Please sit, my friends.' As his guests took up his invitation, Yosef walked up to the altar and retrieved two jugs, a loaf of bread and a shallow earthenware cup. ‘If you would humour me, I'd like to offer a prayer for the safe return of Sabinus.' Yosef placed the items on the table and then poured
wine into the cup and mixed it, Roman style, with water from the second jug. He then picked up the loaf of bread and said a prayer over it in the language of the Jews before breaking it into four pieces and handing one each to his guests; he placed a morsel of his portion in his mouth. ‘Eat.'

Vespasian tore off a hunk and chewed on it as Yosef picked up the cup and raised it to eye-level whilst reciting another prayer; having finished he placed the cup to his lips and drank. ‘Share this with me,' he said, proffering the cup to Cogidubnus; the King took a sip and then gave it to Vespasian.

Vespasian took it; it felt rough to his touch and it had a dent in the rim as if the potter had mistakenly put too much pressure on it with his thumb as he placed it in the kiln. Vespasian drank and then passed the cup to a puzzled-looking Magnus who drained it in two mighty gulps; its residue dribbled down his chin, which he wiped with the back of his hand while handing the empty vessel back to Yosef.

Apparently satisfied with the ritual, Yosef sat down and poured wine into the cups placed in front of each of his guests while they ate their remaining bread. ‘We will sacrifice a lamb before we leave tomorrow at dawn. Yeshua has gone to fetch one.'

Vespasian recognised the name. ‘Yeshua? Wasn't he your kinsman who was crucified?'

‘Yes, you have a good memory, that was his name, but it's his son that I was speaking of. He and his mother and sister have been living with me here in Britannia for the past couple of years.'

Vespasian remembered the woman, Miriam, kneeling before him in gratitude after he had saved her and her children from the ravaging mob of Jews in Cyrene who had howled for their blood, urged on by the agitator, Paulus. ‘I thought she said that she was heading for southern Gaul?'

‘She did but even there it became too dangerous for her. You remember that Paulus of Tarsus was sent by the High Priest in Jerusalem to kill them in order to wipe out all trace of Yeshua's bloodline.'

‘Yeah, that was some riot the bow-legged little arsehole caused,' Magnus put in from behind his cup.

‘But we saw him four years later in Alexandria,' Vespasian said, ‘and he had become a follower of Yeshua's; he was preaching something about eating his body and drinking his blood to gain redemption and the kingdom of heaven through him. It seemed to be complete nonsense.'

‘It's not nonsense, he was talking figuratively; but as I told you back in Cyrenaica, Yeshua's message was for the Jews alone. He preached that to be seen as righteous in God's eyes a Jew should treat others as he would be treated himself. But Paulus has now corrupted that message; he claims that Yeshua was God's son and died on the cross to cleanse the world of sin for both Gentile and Jew alike, whether they follow the Torah and accept circumcision or not. Anyone who knew Yeshua would know that he was just a man, a good man, a prophet even, but nothing more; if he had been the Messiah he would have fulfilled his role. Obviously it's a blasphemy but it's a very powerful one. The idea that your sins are forgiven provided you follow Paulus' version of Yeshua and through him you will be allowed into God's presence in an afterlife that Paulus has invoked from nowhere is a message that sits well, with the poor especially. Those who have nothing in this world would dearly love to believe that they will have everything in another.'

Vespasian thought back to Hormus telling him that no god would even have noticed his existence. ‘Yes, I can see that being very attractive, especially to slaves.'

‘Quite so. And to make it more appealing and easier to understand for the better-off, Paulus has added facets of Mithraism. He is very well acquainted with it, having been brought up in Tarsus, one of the biggest Mithraic cities in the Empire. He has created a virgin birth for Yeshua, which would make his mother laugh if she still lived, and, like Mithras, has it witnessed by shepherds. He's also encouraging the Mithraic hierarchy of priests even though Yeshua rejected priests and temples, arguing that no man should have dominion over another when it came to understanding and worshipping God. But Paulus calculates that the educated classes will be attracted to the power that priesthoods would give them. Paulus knows that a new movement consisting
only of the meek will get nowhere; he needs the wealthy and the powerful. But the worst thing that he has done is to create the idea that Yeshua was pure, almost as if sex was a sin, and should only be performed for procreation. So now, instead of wanting to kill Miriam and her children in order to wipe out Yeshua's bloodline, he now wants to kill them because they are proof that his version of Yeshua is nothing like the real man. His lies would be undone and this new religion that he is trying to create would fall apart if his followers knew of Miriam's existence.'

‘But surely all those who knew him in Judaea knew that he was married and had children?'

‘Oh, yes, but it is not them that Paulus is preaching to. Yeshua's other disciples preach his real words to the Jews in order to make them better Jews; but Paulus travels all over the East preaching his lies to people who never knew Yeshua and therefore can be made to believe anything about him. Paulus is afraid of Miriam and calls her a whore; he sent men to Gaul to murder her, young Yeshua and young Miriam. They nearly succeeded but she managed to escape and fled to take refuge with me here, out of the Empire.'

‘But now the Empire has come to find you?'

‘Exactly. Where can she and the children be safe now? But that's a problem I'll address after I've helped you retrieve Sabinus.'

‘Cogidubnus tells me that the druids fear you.'

Yosef chuckled softly into his beard, lines creased around his eyes. ‘I wouldn't put it that strongly but, yes, they are certainly wary of me. The powers of their supposed gods cannot affect me because I know them for what they really are: lesser daemons; angels that fell from God's grace with their master, Heylel, the Son of the Morning. These daemons who masquerade as gods are pale shadows of their master; what power they do have is in their malice, but that is also their weakness because they cannot use it to do Good. The power to do Good is the greatest force in this world; it is a God-given power. Yeshua had it and through his teachings I have learnt how to use it.'

Magnus looked unimpressed. ‘What are you going to do then, walk into their valley, do them a couple of favours and say nice things to them?'

Vespasian shot his friend a venomous glance. ‘That's not helpful.' However, he could not help but sympathise with Magnus' cynicism. ‘But I have to admit, Yosef, that I don't understand what you're talking about.'

Yosef put up a conciliatory hand. ‘That's all right; I can see how strange it must sound to someone who does not believe in the one true God. I cannot explain it to you; you'll just have to trust me and see for yourselves. The daemon that they will conjure is known as Sullis. She is full of wrath and her anger heats the springs. Heylel, her master, dragged her down with him against her will when God expelled him from His presence. He keeps her locked in that valley and she cannot escape, however much she would like to. That will be the key to it; I know, I have been there. We will rest tonight and then travel to the valley tomorrow. To have our best chance of success we must go in at the dead of night, once the moon has set but before the morning star rises, which is, as his name suggests, the embodiment of Heylel or, as you could say in Latin, Lucifer.'

Vespasian stared at Yosef, trying to decide if the man was in earnest. As when he had first met him all those years ago, he could find no guile in his eyes; he quite evidently believed what he had said. It now came down to whether Vespasian felt that he could put his faith in this strange mystic. He turned to Cogidubnus. ‘What do you think? Can we really defeat the power of Sullis as Yosef says?'

Cogidubnus pulled on his moustache for a few moments, observing Yosef, who returned his look with a serene smile. He reached into his tunic and pulled out the Wheel of Taranis. ‘If faith in this sign can work for the Kings of the Atrebates then I see no reason why this man cannot do as he claims if he has equal faith in his god.'