It seemed that what Firmus and others had long suspected was true: Caratacus's spirit was still alive. Not only that, but it was obviously capable of flying the breadth of Britannia in an instant. It must surely have gazed in sorrow at the defeat of its fellow-countrymen on Mona, the last (and most terrifying) Cambrian redoubt. But then it must have flown clear to the east of the country and offered its support and blessing to the peoples there. How else could anyone account for the latest, fiercest rebellion to test Rome's nerve?

Marcus and the rest had hardly stepped on to dry land when the news engulfed them. Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, had died, and the tribe's obedience to the Empire had died with him. The rebellion, according to the messengers swarming all over Canovium, was a clear-cut case of tribal ingratitude. Prasutagus had been a loyal client to Rome--alas, it now seemed that he was the only one among his kind. Before anyone had time to draw breath, Paullinus himself arrived, full of the highest praise for the Mona campaigners, but making clear that many of the cohorts in North Cambria would have to make the long south-eastern trek to Camoludonum to deal with this latest abuse of Roman goodwill. He appointed Benevolus as commander of the infantrymen who were to follow his cavalry immediately; Marcus and Spesis were entrusted with enforcing the Mona garrison, as well as maintaining a strong upper hand throughout North Cambria. At Marcus's request, Vectis, Firmus and the others were spared conscription into the southward force. Benevolus and his able-bodied Mona veterans were allowed six hours to feed and water themselves; then, joined by other coastal forces, they set off--choking, as it were, in the dust stirred up by Paullinus's grim determination.

'Well, I hope we see him again,' said Marcus as the Canovium forces watched them leave.

Spesis stared wide-eyed at him: 'Oh, Benevolus. Yes, indeed. A good man. And near the end of his time here, too. He deserves to see the forests of his home before long.'

Marcus looked puzzled: 'Whom did you think I meant?' But, uncharacteristically, Spesis was disinclined to say much else, either at that moment or until he was sure that the last messenger from the east had left Canovium.

The days passed and a comforting routine established itself along the coast. The wounded were properly tended, Marcus ensuring that Currerus received treatment which, while not preferential, was still especially thorough. Vectis inevitably shivered with anticipation at the prospect of the new garrison on Mona. And Spesis finally broke his silence.

'This Iceni rebellion down east,' he said to Marcus one evening, when they were alone in headquarters. 'I thought I'd put my own feelers out.'

'Your own?' said Marcus. 'It struck me that the messengers' news was comprehensive enough. Do you not trust it, Spesis?'

Spesis eyed him and smiled. In any other mouth, the Tribune's words would have sounded wilfully naive. But he knew that Marcus was nobody's fool. He expected those with whom he dealt to explain themselves completely--and mean what they said. 'Oh, it was comprehensive, Tribune. In that special way that Roman news tends to be nowadays--let us walk.'

The light was failing. Knots of legionaries passed them, some bearing torches, others, clean bedding for the Mona casualties in the small garrison hospital. Up ahead they saw Tignum, seeming to stagger with a weight of scrolls: good Vectis clearly had big plans for the island they had conquered; no doubt, at that very moment, he was bending his mind to some ingenious machine which would simultaneously store grain and winkle copper ore from Mona's rifts. Marcus noticed the way that Spesis looked upon everyone they saw. He was like a father, knowing that his children were being treated unjustly in some obscure way, but powerless to help.

'The new rebellion,' said Spesis when they were beyond earshot. 'I've learnt a thing or two.'

'More than that, I'd say, by the look on your face.'

And so it proved. The tale Spesis unfolded was to give Marcus food for many an hour's thought. Even as the commander spoke, a dark shadow lengthened itself over the triumph on Mona. Rome had decided, on the death of Prasutagus, to absorb the land of the Iceni, making it a full imperial province. The transition might have passed smoothly enough, with a few honeyed words from the agents of Rome and a renewal of promises that had obtained while the region was still a client-state. But the Imperial procurator, Decianus Catus ('a rat of a man,' whispered Spesis) had opted for force over reason. In fact, so Spesis's informants had told him, the worst felon in Rome would not have expected the kind of abuse the Iceni had suffered.

'I'm speaking of the Icenian leadership here, Marcus, not just some lummox with a strip of land and a hog or two--though that, the gods know, would be bad enough. Attacks on them, verbal and physical. Public floggings--for the benefit of Catus when in his cups, no doubt. Great Iuppiter, we'd never treat the furies of Mona in that fashion! Does the lunatic think that we've only just invaded Britannia, that every opponent is some wild animal to be speared?'

Calming himself with an effort, he continued with his revelations. Prasutagus's widow and daughters had been the objects of especially vicious humiliation. 'And that, of course, is where friend Catus came unstuck,' said Spesis. 'You can see his thinking, if we can call it that: vulnerable, grieving widow, an easy target. He probably thought it would be like thumping a pillow. Well, the widow has set about changing his mind. I know the tales that have been flying around here--Caratacus lives, his spirit has flown to foment rebellion in the east, all of that. No disrespect to the great chief--but Boudica is obviously more than capable of managing her own revolt.'

'She certainly picked her moment,' said Marcus.

'Oh, indeed, indeed--as cunning as any Roman commander. That doubtless galls Catus no end as well. Yes, nearly everybody up here for the Mona campaign--Paullinus included, of course. Perfect moment to strike. I'm sure even Paullinus admires that, somewhere in the depths of his belligerent soul.'

Marcus turned and studied him: 'What do you really think of him, Spesis? I remember your reaction, you know, when it looked like he might arrive in Britannia instead of Veranius. And when I said I hoped we'd see Benevolus again. You thought I meant our Governor.'

Spesis waved a hand and shook his head: 'Paullinus is the right man for the times here, no doubt of it. But he eat, sleeps and thinks soldiering. His vision is only as wide as the Roman powers will allow. He has a job to do. He does it. He'll be doing it again, among the Icneni. He's the trained lion. The messages waiting when we returned from Mona were good enough for him: "Insolent barbarians running riot down east. Stamp them out!" Good enough for the men, too.' He looked back at the garrison, where indistinguishable figures were marching or lounging about in the chilly gloom. Again, that look Marcus had seen was on his face: the sorrowing, powerless father. 'If only they knew,' he added.

'Knew what, Spesis?' murmured Marcus.

'For pity's sake, Tribune!' Spesis erupted; suddenly he was another man altogether, not the droll observer of provincial life. 'It's not the Brigantes we're talking about--all for Rome one minute, backing Cambria the next! Though, the gods know, I wouldn't wish Boudica's tragedy on them, either. But Prasutagus was loyal--the Iceni were loyal! Is this how Rome repays loyalty nowadays? Chop up a tribal kingdom and shed a power of blood while you do it?' His tone suggested that he had answered his own question.

Marcus, however, was still thinking of the look on his face: 'What should the men know, then, Spesis?'

Spesis gave a wry chuckle, the sound of his old self: 'Fear not, Marcus. I'm not about to stir up mutiny. Though a far braver man than me might now be drawing attention to the patches of rust on the Great Roman Eagle.' He appeared now to be speaking to himself: 'Fine ruse, the cult of the Emperor. Nero revels in it. Our men think they are marching, fighting, building for Rome. That's what they're told--what Paullinus himself is told. And all the while they're actually feeding the pride of one man.'

'Is Nero so bad?'

Spesis looked sharply at him: 'Time was, I'd have said "no" without a thought, Tribune. But change is afoot; I feel it. The old Nero would not have allowed Catus to run amok with the Iceni.' Marcus sighed, and was about to speak, but Spesis seemed to read his mind and checked him: 'There's nothing we can do, Tribune. For the moment. Just obey orders, build forts, grade roads and soldier on. Oh, and quash rebellions. Not that Paullinus will have an easy time of it down east. The Trinovantes will see to that.'

Marcus looked puzzled. The name of the Iceni's neighbours had come up in the messages awaiting them; but here, too, Spesis's feelers had obviously met with discreet success. 'Tarred with the same brush as the Iceni,' said Spesis. 'Ingrates. Foes to Rome. Well, if I were treated in that fashion, I'd set my face against the Empire too.'

Marcus raised an eyebrow, and Spesis continued. It seemed that, if one word were needed to explain the ire of the Trinovantes, it was Camoludunum. The Roman colony had existed for over ten years, in the heart of what was the Trinovantian state. Marcus himself remembered its creation, not long after his arrival in Britannia. But now, said Spesis--now more than ever--the Trinovantes saw it as a huge, imperial leech, steadily sucking away at their lands to fatten its own boundaries. For more than a decade they had lived with land confiscation as a fact of tribal life: 'Catus and his cronies have been busy there, too,' said Spesis. 'Lecturing Trinovantian chiefs on the need for Romanisation. Spurring them on to build new residences for themselves, each more opulent than the last--show-homes, Marcus, proclaiming that Rome has gifted Britannia with civilisation.' His mouth twisted on that last word. 'And where does the money come from? The Trinovantes themselves? How? Their land is vanishing before their eyes. How do you profit from stolen assets? So--enter Catus's cronies. Usurers, every last one. Funding these wonderful improvements in the Trinovantes' lives, paving their path to true civilisation. Not just those show-homes, either. The Emperor's temple at Camoludunum. Trinovantian money again--or rather, Trinovantian in name--in reality, another category of debt.'

'I knew some of it was tribal money,' said Marcus.

'Pretty near all of it, Marcus. Money they don't have. Now, of course, our usurous compatriots have been calling in their debts. You can see the plan. If the Trinovantes can't pay, and they can't, their kingdom gets the chop as well.'

'So they're fighting alongside the Iceni.'

Spesis gave him a level stare: 'Wouldn't you, Tribune?' Suddenly, his whole manner changed, as though an unseen dagger had been pressed against the small of his back. 'I've said enough, Marcus. I know you well--but still I hope I've said it to the right person.'

Marcus stood for a moment in silence: 'You have,' he said at last. 'But let us assume that we are soldiering for our ideal Rome alone. We can live with ourselves that way.'

Spesis smiled: 'I was about to advise the very same, Tribune. And now--we have the not inconsiderable tracts of northern Cambria to manage.'

'And I can't keep the good Vectis from his Mona projects,' added Marcus. Silently and slowly, they walked back to headquarters.

AD 60 wore on. In the name of Rome, Mona was made irreversibly secure. Vectis remembered what Tignum had told him about the business at Vertis, all those years before--the legionaries' complaints, increasingly vocal, about having to wait for good Roman accommodation at Canabac's Crossing. He ensured that the Mona garrison was completed in short order; at the same time, he instituted operations for mining copper ore which everyone, even the reluctant Firmus, regarded as the last word in efficiency. Marcus and Spesis found themselves on a circuit of duty, to and from the island and around northern Cambria--now singly, now together. And all the while news reached them of the widow whose character Decianus Catus had so misread. It arrived piecemeal, so that--like children listening to a long story over several bedtimes--Marcus and the others had to wait to learn whether Paullinus's intervention had been a success. First they learned that Camulodunum had fallen, thanks largely to another wrongheaded move by the Imperial procurator. The Roman soldiery holed up there had appealed to Catus for reinforcements; his response had been to 'spare' (his apparent word) a mere two hundred men from a neighbouring fort. A detachment of the IX Legion, under Petillius Cerialis, attempted to augment the niggardly force; but Cerialis lost his entire infantry in an ambush and was lucky to escape with his life (and any men at all) back to his base at Durobrivae. As a result, two thousand soldiers had to be drafted in from Germania to make good Cerialis's losses.

The more Marcus pondered each twist and turn of events, the more he realised that Boudica was not merely acting out of love for her husband's memory. Nor, it seemed, did she have any need of Caratacus's spirit-blessing, welcome though that may be. The very name of her tribe was at stake. Politically and physically abused by Rome, her nobles and people deserved better than to moulder as slaves in an Imperial suburb. The Trinovantian chiefs clearly felt the same. Spesis' informants remained as busy as ever. Ahead of anyone else in Cambria, he and Marcus learned Boudica's full intention: to take rebellion far and wide across the country. For her, then, the war went beyond local unrest, beyond specific grievances. It seemed that, to her mind, the fate of the Iceni was a mirror in which every native kingdom, however well disposed towards Rome, ought to see itself reflected.

'Good news,' said Spesis one day in early autumn. He and Marcus, having been on separate tours of duty, had just met up at Varis. 'Decianus Catus. Gone.'

'Gone?'

'Not to Diabolus, sad to say. No, back over the water. Gaul, maybe, or Germania.'

'Or the Emperor's bosom?'

'Ooh, I doubt it. He'll find only serpents there.'

'But why is that good news, Spesis? A man like him, free, on the loose?'

'Folk on the loose can be--bumped into, shall we say? You never know--arrangements can easily be made.' And he mimed the steady progress of a knife across his throat.

End of Chapter XI

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