Emperor

VI

While the legionaries constructed their camp, Vespasian entertained Narcissus in a small tent pitched close enough to the water that the secretary could hear the lapping of the waves, close enough to the landing boats for a fast escape if trouble should unexpectedly appear. They drank wine and ate fruit and watched the sea, talking softly. Some of the guard detail took the chance to bathe their feet in the Ocean, letting its salt cleanse them of fungi and other blights. Soldiers always took care of their feet.

After some hours the camp was ready. As Vespasian escorted him through it, Narcissus was struck by the calm, almost cheerful orderliness of it all. Huddled against the natural cover of a river bank, it was like a little town, an array of leather tents enclosed by neatly cut ditches. Sentries were posted around the perimeter, and Narcissus knew that scouts would be working further out in the countryside, operating a deep defensive system.

Unexpectedly the freedman felt a touch of pride swelling his chest. He dared believe there wasn't so orderly a community on this whole blighted island as this place, though this was just a marching camp and just hours old. You could say what you liked about Roman soldiers, and Narcissus wouldn't have wanted one as a neighbour, but they knew their business.

And the camp was proof that the Romans were serious, that they were here to see through this great project, here to stay. Everybody was here to further his own ambition, of course, from Vespasian and himself down to the lowliest auxiliary. Even the Emperor, already wending his own slow way from Rome, was out for what he could get. But the sum of all their individual ambitions was a dream of empire.

Vespasian brought Narcissus to a tent of his own. A legionary was stationed outside, a brute of a man who seemed suspicious of Narcissus himself. The interior of the leather tent, lugged across the Ocean on the back of some other hairy soldier, was musty, and smelled vaguely of the sea. But it contained a pallet, a bowl of dried meat and fruit, pouches of water and wine, and a small oil lantern that burned fitfully. Vespasian offered Narcissus company, but the secretary declined. It would soon be dawn, and he felt he needed time for sleep and reflection.

At last alone, Narcissus loosened his tunic and lay down on the pallet. He felt tension in his body-the clenched fists, the trembling in his gut. Resorting to a mental discipline taught him in his slave days by a captive brought from beyond the Indus, he allowed his consciousness to float around his body, soothing the tension in each finger, each toe, each muscle.

He tried to focus his mind on the needs of the coming day. He had no doubt that the subjugation of Britain would take months, years perhaps. But in the morning, when Aulus Plautius's exuberant legates refined their plans for the first stage of their campaign, he had to be sharp. These first few hours were crucial to the realisation of the Emperor's schemes-and his own.

It was Caesar who had first brought Britain into the consciousness of the Roman world, but of course Caesar had had his own ambitions to pursue. It was a time when the mechanisms of the Republic were creaking under the pressure of Rome's great expansion of territory, and the Roman world was torn apart by the mutual antipathy of strong men. The invasion of Britain, a place of mystery across the terrifying Ocean, would add hugely to Caesar's lustre.

Caesar struck at Britain twice, penetrating deep inland. But his over-extended supply lines were always vulnerable. And, as every superstitious soldier in Aulus Plautius's four legions knew very well, Caesar's ambitions had foundered when the Ocean's moody weather damaged his ships. After his second withdrawal, Caesar planned to return once again. But in the next campaigning season rebellions in Gaul occupied his energies, and after that he was distracted by the turmoil that overwhelmed the Republic in its final days-turmoil that cost Caesar his own life.

Not that Caesar's achievements were insignificant. He had greatly increased the Romans' knowledge of Britain. He polarised the British, especially those in the south, as pro- or anti-Rome, a division which suited Rome's diplomats and traders very well.

Under the first emperors, however, Britain's isolation continued. Augustus, conservative, consolidating and reforming, did not have ambitions that stretched so far-and the loss of three of his legions in a dark German forest did nothing to spur him on. In the reigns of Augustus's successors peaceful contact between the empire and Britain was assisted by the calming, pragmatic policies of Cunobelin, a local king the Romans called Cymbelinus. Even in these times, however, tentative plans for the invasion of Britain had been drawn up. Caligula, though unstable, was certainly no fool, and nor were his generals. He had got as far a building a harbour with a lighthouse at Gesoriacum for the purpose.

But now Cunobelin and Caligula were dead, and a new generation on both sides of the Ocean had new ambitions.

It was only two years ago, in the chaos following the murder of Caligula, that Claudius had been raised to the throne by the Praetorian Guard, bodyguards of the Emperor. Since then, despite proving a surprisingly competent ruler and a fast learner, Claudius had faced opposition from the army, the Senate, equestrians and citizens alike. Military power was the key, as always, and what Claudius needed above all was a military triumph-and all the better if he could be seen to outdo even the exploits of Caesar himself. The predatory antics of the Catuvellaunian princes in Britain gave him the perfect pretext.

As for Narcissus, he would survive only so long as he served his Emperor's ambitions, even while furthering his own.

Narcissus had been born a slave. With time, relying on his wits and his charm, he had made himself so invaluable to a succession of masters that he had been able to work his way into the households of the emperors themselves-and in Claudius, first emperor since Augustus able to recognise a sharp intellect as the most valuable weapon of all, he had found a true patron. It was Claudius who had freed him. Under Claudius, though his title was merely correspondence secretary, epistula, Narcissus had been able to use his position between Emperor and subjects to accrue power. He had amassed wealth of his own. He had even become a player in the most dangerous game of all, the domestic politics of the Emperor's household, allying himself with Claudius's latest wife, Messalina, in the endless intrigues of the court.

In Rome Narcissus was a powerful man, then. But now fate had brought him across the Ocean, beyond civilisation altogether. And, worse than that, it had cast him alone among soldiers.

He hated being with soldiers. There was a brutal clarity in their gaze, and he knew that when they looked at him they saw, not the freedman, not the powerful ally of the Emperor, but the former slave. Of course the officers had a duty of protection-and Vespasian especially, who owed Narcissus many favours. But Narcissus knew that in the end he had only himself to rely on-only himself, and the sharp wit which had kept him alive, and raised him so far.

Alone in the alien dark he pressed his eyes tight shut. Even a little sleep would serve him well in the complex hours to come.