Emperor

XI

'Let me get this straight,' said prefect Tullio. 'You want to build a wall.' A brisk, bustling man of about forty with a shock of bright red hair, he was clearly used to command, and he easily dominated his cluttered office in Eburacum's headquarters building.

Xander, his model set out on the floor of Tullio's office, sat more nervously, Brigonius thought, than in the presence of the Emperor himself. 'Yes, a wall,' he insisted.

'Seventy miles long.'

'Seventy-one actually.'

'With three legions.'

'Yes.'

'And you want to do this in three years.'

'Yes.'

Tullio's eyes bulged. 'Are you twisting my cock?' He leaned back and called through the door. 'Hey, Annius! Get in here and listen to this. You'll love it.'

Another soldier, evidently one of the prefect's aides, walked casually into the office, polishing a strip of breast-plate armour with a bit of leather. He was a muscular man whose head was shaped oddly like a bucket, Brigonius thought, with a narrow chin, protruding teeth, a broad forehead and a mass of black hair. 'What's up, Tullio?'

Tullio turned back to Xander. 'Go on, friend. Do your routine again. How many miles? How many forts and turrets?…' As Xander stammered out his plan once more, Tullio and his pal leaned back in fits of laughter.

To compound Xander's mortification two small boys came running into the room, squealing. They both had red hair as bright as Tullio's. They had been playing with short wooden swords, but when they saw Xander's toy wall with its tiny fortresses and plaster hills they fell on it with delight. Xander, in a fussy panic, tried to keep the boys away, but he only excited them further and made things worse.

Amid this chaos Brigonius glanced around at his companions. Karus looked as if he was having trouble not laughing himself. Severa, however, seemed ready to burst into flame.

Severa had been relatively happy here at Eburacum. Compared to the cities of the south, let alone Rome, it was a coarse, military-tinged place. But the officers of the sixth legion and their wives formed a seamless social circle with ties of patronage, obligation and letter-writing that stretched all the way back to Rome itself-a circle that excluded any British, of course. It was a circle Severa had immediately joined thanks to her friend Ceriala, and so she had restored contact with her own world. But now here she was enduring the goading of this buffoonish barbarian soldier, and her fury was obvious.

The trouble was, if the Wall was ever to get built they had to convince Tullio.

Tullio was prefect of the auxiliary troops stationed at the fort at Vindolanda, just south of the line of the proposed Wall. He was a Batavian, who had begun his career as commander of a unit of troops from that Germanic nation. Tullio had very visibly done well out of his career in the army. Through his service he had become a citizen, and a member of the equestrian class-Rome's highest below that of senator. He had a handsome apartment here in Eburacum. He had even taken a wife, a dark-haired British woman. He was a walking exemplar of the fact that the army was not just a tool for subjugation and control, it was a machine for processing barbarians into serving soldiers, useful veterans and loyal citizens. And as the officers, senatorial-class, were merely working through military postings en route to more glittering career destinations, Tullio was possibly the most experienced soldier at Vindolanda, or indeed in any of the northern postings.

Now Nepos, who as governor was commander-in-chief of the army in Britain, had given this solid man a peculiar commission.

The Wall would be built by the legions, which, descended from Rome's first soldiers, phalanxes of farmer-soldiers from the plains of Latium, remained the core of the army. All three of Britain's legions would send detachments. Legionaries were trained in construction work, and each legion had its own specialist teams of engineers, architects and master builders. There was probably no workforce in the world better suited to such a mighty task.

But once built the new Wall would be manned, not by legionaries, but by auxiliaries. Some auxiliaries were infantry like the legions, but many were specialists: cavalry, slingers, archers. These days many auxiliaries were provincials, co-opted into the army for their special prowess. Auxiliary units were more suited to the rapid-response policing operations of a frontier fortress than the legions, who were trained for set-piece battles in open countryside.

The governor, a practical man, saw the need for a 'foreman' accountable to Nepos himself to oversee the project. As an auxiliary commander Tullio would not command any of the legionary detachments who would build the Wall. But as it was his troops who would use the Wall, Tullio had a vested interest in making it work. And so, wise councils had agreed, Tullio was just the man for the job.

The trouble was, here was this competent, trusted man laughing Xander's precious scheme out of court.

Karus stood grandly. 'Gentlemen, this is an imperial commission. We all have an interest in fulfilling that commission. And you are scarcely being respectful to the lady. Let's have a little gravity, shall we?'

The ploy seemed to work, and Tullio calmed down. 'All right. And you, Butimas, if you swallow that fort you'll be for it!' Tullio aimed a kick at his sons, who fled, laughing at their own jokes. Tullio turned back to Xander. 'Sorry, friend. Try again. Sell me this Wall of yours.'

Trembling a little, Xander restored his increasingly battered model, and turned to a folio of sketches on parchment. 'Here is the Wall itself. Fifteen feet high, ten wide. A foundation of slabs in clay, then two courses of dressed sandstone around a core of clay or cement. In front of the Wall-that is, on the north side, facing the barbarians-you will have a berm eighteen feet wide, and then a ditch, shaped like a V, you see? Twenty-seven feet wide, ten deep, with a drainage channel cut into the bottom.'

'And this thing will cut right across the country, yes?'

'Yes. Local streams will be culverted through the Wall. Over significant river crossings we will need bridges.'

'Bridges, of course,' Tullio said, still mocking.

The aide, Annius, said cheerfully, 'And on top of this you want forts and turrets, I suppose.'

'A fort every mile, with a gate, and two turrets set into the curtain wall between each pair of forts. I have the drawings here…The Wall will be plastered and painted white.'

'Oh, very nice,' said Annius.

'Such an edifice laid across the neck of the country will be an imposing statement.'

Tullio growled, 'My cock is an imposing statement, but that won't stretch from sea to sea, and neither will this Wall. Look, friend, let me put you out of your misery.' He took a notebook, a fat block of wood, and shook it out into a strip of leaves hinged at their edges. He dipped a pen in ink and briskly began to scribble numbers. 'Seventy-one miles, you say? Ten feet by fifteen? If there are, um, so many feet to the mile…The point is, friend, I've worked with legionaries. I know how much stone or earth a man can shift in a day…' He came to a result; he tapped the wood leaf with his pen. 'To haul all that stone from the quarries to the Wall line will add up to about twenty million legionary work-days. We'll have fifteen thousand legionaries at most, and each man can manage perhaps two hundred days per year-less this year, as it's June already. And if you divide one number by the other-yes, here we are-you'll find it is going to take you over six years to build this Wall. Not three!'

'But-'

'No buts. Look at the numbers!' Tullio threw his notebook at the architect. 'Oh, it's always possible to shave off a bit. Use only local stone. Push the legionaries that bit harder. Maybe make some use of local labour or slaves, but if they're untrained they won't be useful for much. But none of that will make any real difference. No, I'm saying you simply can't do it, friend.'

Old Xander seemed about to burst into tears.

Severa glared at Tullio. 'I don't know why we're even having this debate. The command for this Wall comes from the Emperor Hadrian himself.'

Tullio sat back and folded his massive arms. 'I don't care whether he's the Emperor of the Romans or the King of the Bog People. You can't build a six-year Wall in three years, love.'

Severa's fury was cold. 'Don't you call me "love", you fur-backed-'

'Severa!' Karus snapped.

Annius was studying the model. 'Tell you what. Why not build it in turf? Just as good at keeping out the hairy lads from the north, and be done in less than half the time.'

'Turf? Turf?' Severa said menacingly. 'Why, you insolent fool, if I had a clod of turf in my hand right now, I would gladly shove it down your throat-'

Brigonius touched her arm. 'Wait,' he whispered. 'I'm a quarryman. I deal with fellows like this all the time. It's all a game. Just give us some time.'

Karus stood hastily. 'Quite right. Let's sleep on it, shall we?' He stood massively over Severa until she allowed herself to be escorted from the room. Then he sat down, blowing out his jowled cheeks with relief.

'Feisty piece, isn't she?' Tullio said.

'You don't know the half of it,' Karus said dryly.

Brigonius faced Tullio. 'Let's get down to business, shall we? You heard her, prefect. This is the Emperor we're dealing with. And the Emperor wants a stone wall.'

Tullio said heavily, 'Listen, black-beard, the Emperor can want to build his Wall on the moon, but that doesn't mean it can be done.'

'Then what can you do?'

Annius was pulling his lip. In his dull way he seemed the more creative of the two, Brigonius thought, and was at least trying to come up with solutions. 'Tell you what,' he said slowly. 'How about half in turf and half stone? You could probably manage that in the time. Then you get the best of all worlds, a complete defensive barrier in three years and a nice bit of stonework to impress the boss.'

Brigonius was about to reject this out of hand, but Xander said wearily, 'Four-tenths.'

Brigonius turned to him. 'What?'

'Not half. Four-tenths in turf, the rest stone according to the plan.' He tapped Tullio's notebook. 'That is feasible from the figures, if you are honest in your calculations, prefect. Besides I worked it out for myself earlier.'

Tullio took back the notebook and revised his figures quickly. 'All right. Yes, four-tenths turf, six-tenths stone. Yes, you could do that.'

Xander turned to Brigonius. 'This is the best we can do in the time.'

Karus said darkly, 'And you knew this before we came in here? Why didn't you say something when we put the plan before the Emperor?'

'Because I didn't know we would only have three years,' Xander said. He sounded exhausted. 'Severa didn't let slip that little detail until the audience. What could I do, argue with her before Hadrian himself?'

'It's not so bad,' Annius said cheerfully. 'Everybody goes away happy. And you could always replace your turf with stone later.'

Karus growled, but subsided.

Brigonius glanced around. 'All right,' he said cautiously, not wishing to overstretch the consensus. 'Then the question is, which half will be turf?'

After another hour's discussion, and after a tankard or two of Tullio's coarse German beer, they came a conclusion. From Segedunum at its eastern extremity, the Wall would run west as stone for forty-five miles, and then turf the rest of the way to the western coast. The eastern half of the Wall was closer to local sources of good stone-not least Brigonius's own quarry-and the two soldiers regarded the security situation along this part of the border as more critical, so stone was appropriate for this stretch.

'And besides,' as Tullio pointed out, 'the eastern half is where the Emperor is. He's going to want to lay a foundation stone, not dig a lump of sod.'

The four of them stood up and shook hands. 'Then we have a plan,' Brigonius said, weary but relieved. 'Now all we've got to do is sell it to the Emperor.'

'That's the easy part,' Karus muttered. 'It's Severa I'm frightened of…'