Emperor

XVII

Vespasian and Narcissus walked into the heart of Camulodunum-if you could call it a heart, for unlike the meanest Roman town there seemed to be no real centre to this barbarian heaping of midden-like roundhouses. Everything was mixed up, houses with cesspits and grain stores and animal pens, shrines with cemeteries, pottery and metal-working shops with houses and granaries. It was more like walking through a cluttered farmyard. And yet there was industry here. Peering curiously into the doorways of the houses Narcissus saw a potter at his wheel, a woman working an upright loom with weights and spindles of bone and clay.

Vespasian, decked out in his dress armour with its gold inlays, walked with a boldness suitable for a conquering Roman general. But Narcissus's only armour was his second-best toga, and while Vespasian may have been as fearless as he looked, Narcissus was anything but, despite a palisade of a dozen burly legionaries. After all, for all its rudeness they were walking into the capital of a barbarian people who could scarcely be called subdued.

Vespasian sensed his nervousness. 'Of course there is a slight risk, secretary. But the symbolism is all. The two of us walking here, unimpeded, going as we wish, with only a few men at our side-that will be as crushing for these wretched Britons as another lost battle. And speaking of wretched Britons-' He tapped Marcus Allius's shoulder. 'Decurion, assign a couple of men to rounding up some recruits for the Emperor's showpiece battle.'

Allius nodded and spoke to his men; three of them peeled off and walked through the town, peering at resentful, wary natives.

'Symbolism, yes,' Narcissus said dryly. 'Which brings us to the matter of the Emperor. He is now resting with Aulus Plautius by the Tamesis. Two more days and he will be here.'

'Then we must be ready,' Vespasian murmured. 'I hope Plautius doesn't wear him out.'

'Oh, I doubt that. But if I know the Emperor he will be astute enough to understand the wider significance of his location. The Tamesis drains the south-eastern corner of the island, and so is sure to be a key artery for trade and communications in the future. But the locals have made little of it.'

'In fact there is a small settlement by the river,' Vespasian pointed out. 'It's said to be where Caesar crossed the Tamesis, and so Plautius planted his camp there. It's actually quite charming. Fisherfolk go out onto the river in little round wicker boats. The place is dedicated to the local river god Lud.'

Narcissus smiled. 'Lud! Sounds like some riverine brute hawking up a fish bone. So in the future will these fisherfolk name their island's greatest city after this soggy deity?…'

Narcissus had come into Camulodunum to prepare for Claudius's glory. The invasion might have been Plautius's, but the victory had to be Claudius's own. So Plautius had loyally stalled his advance to wait for the Emperor.

The imperial party had been preparing to travel even before the first landing. The logistics of the journey had been largely Narcissus's responsibility, and he liked to complain to Vespasian that it was like mounting another invasion. Unlike his two predecessors this emperor was engagingly free of affectation, gluttony, debauchery and sloth; luxury for him was to be left alone with his library. But an emperor could not be seen to travel without a certain standard of magnificence. Then there were the huge (and hugely expensive) exotic beasts from Africa which Claudius had insisted be brought with him on his conquest of Britain. All this Narcissus had organised: special ships chartered, overnight accommodation set up, a small army of servants and artisans arranged. Much of this was paid for by hapless provincials en route.

At last Claudius had handed over control of Rome to his fellow consul Lucius Vitellius and had set off. He travelled with a section of the Praetorian Guard, and with a number of Romans of high rank, some of them friends and advisers who the Emperor liked to keep close-and, more significantly, enemies whom he needed to keep closer still. He had sailed down the Tiber to Rome's great port of Ostia, then by ship along the coast to Massilia, and through Gaul, partly overland and partly by boat along the rivers. Thanks to military despatches Narcissus had been kept aware of this caravan's progress, including alarming reports of a near shipwreck even before they reached Massilia.

Meanwhile Plautius had not been idle. It was a wise commander who ensured that his emperor's personal victory would be just that. Away from Camulodunum the campaign had been pressing deeper into the island. Vespasian himself had pushed to the west, supported by the fleet tracking his progress along the coast, though the legate had been recalled to take part in the imperial celebrations.

And now it was time to make the final preparations for Claudius's victory.

'He's going to need some kind of audience house straight away,' Narcissus said. 'We have a queue of local kings, eleven of them at last count, come here to pledge obedience.'

'My soldiers are good engineers,' Vespasian said smoothly. 'We are prefabricating a suitable dwelling even now; with enough men we can have it built within a day. But it must not be erected before his arrival-'

'Of course not! You can't very well put up an audience chamber in a town you haven't yet conquered; it would make a mockery of the whole thing.'

They were approaching the grandest of the natives' cowpat-shaped hovels of wood and mud. 'I thought perhaps here,' Vespasian said.

Narcissus was shocked. 'You expect an emperor to reside in this midden?'

'Secretary, this was the, um, "palace" of the great king Cunobelin, and of his sons who followed him. This is how they live here.'

'Well, no Roman does-or Greek, for that matter. Of course if it really is Cunobelin's house we must be close to this dung-hill, but I won't place Claudius inside it.' Narcissus stalked around the big house until he came to a smaller building, more conventional to Mediterranean eyes, a low-roofed wooden hut on a rectangular plan. 'How about this?'

One of the soldiers coughed and looked away; he seemed to be trying not to laugh.

'Secretary, this is a barn, I think. Or a granary. You can't lodge an emperor in a granary.'

Narcissus's pride was pricked. 'A good square plan will be much more to the Emperor's taste. I have decided. Get it cleaned up, legate.'

Vespasian bowed, his face expressionless. 'As you wish. Ah, here is Marcus Allius with the recruits.'

The three soldiers returned with some of the locals, around twenty of them, all men, none older than forty. Surely they could easily have overcome the three legionaries, but they came placidly, herded like sheep. Beyond them more townspeople drifted up to watch the spectacle.

With a few barked words from Allius in the local argot, and a glint of sword steel, the men were soon arranged in a rough line. Vespasian stalked along the row in his glittering armour, his magnificence even more enhanced by contrast with these shabby locals. 'By Jupiter but they're a sorry lot. Well-fed I granted you, but knock-kneed, potbellied, slack-jawed.'

Narcissus murmured, intrigued, 'They watch us like cattle. They don't know whether to fear us or to ask us for treats.'

'Well, these will have to do,' Vespasian said. 'We can give them some basic training overnight, shape them up into a semblance of a force. Enough to give the Emperor's chroniclers something to write about. Marcus Allius, do you know their jabber well enough to explain what is required of them? They will be paid for their part, but only if they fight reasonably well. We'll try to minimise injury, and only a few will be killed.'

'Tell them to paint their faces,' Narcissus snapped.

Vespasian pursed his lips. 'We didn't see any painted faces in the field, secretary.'

'Caesar reported painted faces, so painted faces we will have. Blue, if possible.' Narcissus, immersed now in the theatre of the Emperor's victorious arrival, was dissatisfied by the array of specimens before him. 'There were women in the field, weren't there?' He boldly walked to a knot of people, a girl with strawberry-blonde hair who might have been attractive if cleaned up, a dark, defiant-looking boy with a straggling beard-and a burly farmer's wife of a woman, aged perhaps forty, whose cheek bore a scar from what might have been a blade. 'This one, for instance. You. What's your name?'

Allius translated hurriedly. The woman replied, 'Braint.'

Narcissus flinched from the raw hostility of her expression, but stood his ground. 'She looks savage enough to me. Decurion, explain what's wanted of her. And find a few more, will you?' He looked the woman up and down. 'Oh, and tell her to bare her tits during the action. It will be a nice detail for the chroniclers.'

He walked away from the woman. But with every step the space between his shoulder blades tingled, as if Braint's gaze were a dagger being plunged there.