Part III - Chapter XXIV - 'Northward to Glevum'                                       .......continued

by Michael Wyndham Thomas

III

The days passed. Firmus pursued his voluntary patrols with all his old zeal. Marcus began to fear that, come the time of departure, he would declare that, weighing everything up, if it was all the same to his noble Tribune, he rather thought he'd stay put. But Firmus assured him otherwise:

'Like I said, sir, just keeping myself in good fettle.' He stroked his chin. 'The legionaries here tell me that things are much more settled in the land of the Dobunni--well, after all, the Roman Eagle's been there a generation, give or take. But it's hardly as still as a mill-pond up there, so you'll need someone in good shape to be Chief Watchman of the vineyards.' He tapped his nose. 'Remember the antics down south, sir.'

'Request granted,' replied Marcus, adding, 'Now you mention it, Firmus, we'd all do well to keep in trim. It wouldn't be a bad idea if we all took a turn as auxiliaries.'

He spoke with Salvius, emphasising Firmus's point about the vineyards. The next day, the whole party--including Prunec, fascinated and terrified by turns--joined a detachment on a freezing but uneventful patrol. For Currerus and Solatius, the patrol served a dual purpose. They'd already ventured out a time or two--armed with spades, axes and trowels, escorted by a bemused legionary. Now, they were more determined than ever to make the winter snows yield up some precious secrets. Both of them preferred to see the season in terms of dormancy rather than death--although, during the grim trek to Glevum, the latter had pressed itself more forcefully on their minds. On the present patrol, they started with the main detail, but their ramblings became ever more haphazard. Finally, concerned for Currerus's health, Marcus asked three legionaries to seek them out, insisting that they all rejoin the main patrol at an agreed time. When they did reappear, Currerus was holding his axe aloft and Solatius was gesturing at it, making Vectis wonder aloud if there was some Saturnalian ritual he'd missed out on all these years. Impaled on the axe was a shard of tree-bark bearing a clump of colourless moss. Currerus and Solatius were jubilation itself; their escorts, merely baffled and weary, their manner suggesting that they'd been led a right old dance by the naturalists. Sadly, if such was the case, Currerus paid for it later. Again his old injuries attacked, forcing him to spend a long, agonizing evening in the fort baths. But he did not complain. The mossy lump had clearly been worth it.

The party spent three weeks at the fort--understandably, given the handsome way in which they were treated. They also hoped that three weeks would bring some break in the weather. But, while the snows did ease--and while there were five days together without any snow at all--the icy cold persisted. Even so, Marcus and the others were restless. Their destination was close. If they were going to turn old stomping grounds into a permanent home, they wanted to do it as soon as possible.

Though reluctant to see them go, Salvius saw the sense in this, arranging for a detail to go ahead of them and notify Vertis and Salinae of their arrival in the region.

'Let me be certain, Marcus--it is Vertis, isn't it?' he asked Marcus on the last day of their stay. 'Your destination?'

'To begin with, at least,' replied Marcus. 'Till we get our old bearings back.'

Already, in the entrance to Glevum, the designated riders and scouts were set to bear the news. The rest of Marcus's party was indoors. He alone watched the advance guard's final preparations and sensed their horses' impatience.

'Yes!' called Salvius, walking towards them. 'Vertis first! May the gods attend you!' And the detail set out through a fresh fall of snow.

'Now,' said Salvius, turning, 'official scrolls call, Marcus. But I shall see you at mid-day.'

He disappeared, passing Vectis, who walked up to Marcus with a satisfied grin.

'Prunec,' said Vectis.

'What about him?'

'After our journey here--and Saturnalia--he's finally sober.'

Marcus shrugged: 'Admirable,' he hazarded.

Vectis looked knowing: 'An augury.'

'No, Vectis, just common sense. I know we don't have that far to go but, Roman or Belgae, we need our wits about us.'

Now it was the engineer's turn to contradict: 'Augury, Marcus. I've just been talking with him--in fact, I've just played midwife to something that popped into his Belgic head.'

Marcus opened his mouth, then, sighing indulgently, shut it again. He knew from long experience that a bouyant Vectis was not easily stopped.

'Prunec might never have ventured much beyond his own village,' continued Vectis, 'but he kept his ear to the ground while he was there. Traders, hawkers, farmers passing through--he seemed to pass the time of day with all of them.'

'I'm so pleased, Vectis, that our gardener was no prey to isolation. Now, what bearing does his sociability have on our plans?'

'Well, you know how proud the Belgae are of their farms. Naturally, if strangers passed through, the talk turned to good land--not only in Prunec's part of the world but in all known regions.' A faraway look came into Vectis's eyes: 'Ah, picture it, Marcus. The good old gossip as the sun goes down. Elbows on tables, flagons emptied and replenished, the cheering flicker of torches upon faces young and old--'

Marcus saw that his engineer was off on one of his ruminative walkabouts. He pulled him back: 'And where is your augury, Vectis, in all this homestead cheer?'

'Profluenae, Marcus.' Vectis looked at him in triumph. 'Prunec remembered something a hawker had said, years ago now. Profluenae is one of the best regions for vines in these entire islands--better, even, than Belgic land. The hawker told Prunec that, in his opinion, it was a wonder the Belgae hadn't imitated Rome--gone adventuring northwards and snapped it up themselves.'

Marcus clapped a hand to his head: 'How long has he been with us? Why did he say nothing these three years past? Someone must have mentioned Profluenae in all that time.'

'Well, if they did, Marcus, nothing jogged his memory. And remember--as far as he was concerned, we were Romans down from the north. You might as well say, from the moon. Anywhere beyond his village and the vineyards made no sense to him.'

Trying another tack, Marcus said, 'Well, we've mentioned Profluenae often enough in the past month--'

'During which,' countered Vectis, 'Prunec's been either terrified or sozzled or overwhelmed--or all three at once.' His eyes gleamed: 'It's enough that we know now, Marcus. It was the right moment for his memory to wake. As I say, an augury.'

'What you mean, Vectis, is that pleasingly confirms your notions about Profluenae.'

Vectis shook his head rapidly: 'Not the same thing at all, Marcus.' But, after a pause, he gave a sly wink.

'Well--let it be an augury, then,' continued Marcus. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully: 'In fact, we could do with a few more . . . yes . . . I should have gone into all this as soon as we arrived.'

'Gone into what? About our prospects?'

'In the widest sense, Vectis. We've been away from that region for a long time. Now, from the general talk I've heard around Glevum, we can assume that things are more--well, stable there than they were. We can assume that the tribes accept Rome as a presence, even if they do so with clenched teeth--and, every so often, a spear in either hand. Salinae has expanded. We're pretty familiar with Vertis. But what of Profluenae? What is that region like now?' He sighed. 'I don't know about you, but I never had a clear sense of the place. What kind of welcome could we expect there?' After a moment's pause, he took Vectis's arm: 'Come on, oracle of nature.'

IV

As Marcus had hoped, it didn't take long to find a legionary with recent knowledge of Profluenae. He was the one remaining soldier from a cohort sent out on regional patrol the previous summer, just before Salvius had arrived at Glevum. The rest had been posted to Viroconium or Salinae.

'Bit of a misty place, sir, Profluenae.'

'Misty?' repeated Marcus.

'Well, sir, it's on the fringe of things there, if you see what I mean. There's Vertis, now, as you well know. The crossing, the garrison. Canabacus still in residence--looking marvellous for his age, I have to say--surveying all and sundry with his chieftain's eye. Roundhouses cheek by jowl, this way and that--probably more than when you were last there, sir. Anyway, Canabacus and the other locals rub along all right with us. Much the same story with Salinae. And of course trade and stuff goes on between tribes and Romans--brisker by the day, as far as I can tell. But southwards . . . the plain of Profluenae--'

'Yes?' prompted Marcus.

'Well, for all we've been knocking round the region for years, I still think of it as--well, unknown, really. That sort of misty.'

'I think I know what you mean,' said Marcus, recalling the depression that sometimes visited him on the occasions when he found himself there.

'Oh, it's not some eerie place of the dead, sir,' the legionary assured him. 'There's all the little-ish farms. Smallholdings. It's just that--I don't know--it's not got a heart, a centre. Even though Rome has been up and down through the whole region, Profluenae hasn't quite made it onto any map.'

Marcus shut his eyes, aware of the capital that Vectis would make on the man's words. Sure enough, 'That's where we come in, then,' crowed the engineer. 'That's our job. Fill the air of Profluenae with snaking vines and the clink of goblets.'

'Well, sir, if it makes the prospect brighter for you, you wouldn't be the first.'

Vectis started: 'No, legionary, it does not! Are you telling us that someone else has started cultivating--'

Marcus raised a silencing hand, then apologised to the legionary for Vectis's interruption: 'Unsurprising to those who know him,' he added quietly.

The man indicated with a bow that he felt no slight, then continued: 'What I meant, sir, was that--well, maybe I've done the place some injustice. You see, some of us have already settled thereabouts. Old lads from here and Salinae. Retired--long time in Britannia, not up to shifting back to Rome--making a go of it up there. Now you could say, fair enough, a few old geezers, what harm could they do? But if the Dobunni and Silures wanted to score a point or two, they could have bundled 'em off to the hereafter long before now.' He paused and shook his head. 'They haven't. Our pensioners are still there, sir--looking more hale and hearty than in their route-march days.'

For a moment, Vectis looked as though he'd swell and burst: 'Ah, you see!' he cried, jabbing a finger at Marcus. 'Another augury!'

'Indeed, engineer,' sighed Marcus. 'Well, thank you . . . ah . . . .'

'Certus, sir,' said the legionary.

'Certus. And I trust you'll come and sample our wine.'

'You may watch for me after your second season, sir.' Certus saluted and was about to leave when a thought struck him: 'Begging your pardon, sir.'

'Yes?' said Marcus.

'Well, all the garrisons will know you're there, so that's a great help to you. But you're not a gaggle of pensioners. You'll be the newcomers at Profluenae, buying up land, bustling about, in plain view of everyone. With respect, sir, just . . . just--'

'Watch our backs?' supplied Marcus.

Certus nodded and, saluting both of them, he turned on his heel.

V

Next morning, at first light, Salvius and Certus helped the party to load up. Olus, the fort apothecary, was also in attendance. Glevum's herbal beds were his creation, and he'd been delighted by the interest shown in them by Currerus and Solatius. Like Certus, he had an open invitation to visit the vineyards once they began to flourish, and he promised to accompany the legionary to see--and taste--their efforts: a promise which Marcus also extracted from Salvius.

As the fort diminished behind the party, and they gave themselves up again to the busy snow, they decided that brisk talk was the best shield against biting weather. For the umpteenth time, they pondered Certus's information on Profluenae, along with Prunec's timely recollection of the hawker's words.

'Well,' said Marcus. 'Three good omens.'

A pause followed this, broken at last, inevitably, by Vectis: 'Er, I think you'll find that's two, Marcus.'

'Really, engineer.' Bestowing smiles all round, Marcus told them of Salvius's revelation:

'Alacer's alive???' Now, at last, Vectis was dumbstruck--until a long, loud cheer went up from the rest and he joined in the tail-end. 'But why have you told us nothing of this before?'

'I wanted,' said Marcus, 'to reserve it until there was just the seven of us--as there has been these three years gone. Besides, Vectis, you are not the only one with a player's sense of occasion.' And he returned Vectis's sly wink of the day before.

'I don't wish to outdo you, sir,' said Firmus then, 'but one of the lads mentioned Spesis--your oppo from when we were in Canovium.'

'Ah, the legend,' said Vectis.

'Living legend,' replied Firmus, happy at trumping the engineer. 'Word is, he's in Gaul too--with that whale of an emissary who dragged him down from Mona.'

'Balatrus!' Aside from Prunec, all the others chorused his name. The Belgic gardener simply gazed, nonplussed, at one face after another.

Firmus turned to Marcus and Vectis: 'Remember when we saw them? At Vertis? All the talk we had about it? It must have been a set-up job all round--for Balatrus too.'

'Well, I remember our the talk,' said Scapha. 'But it all seemed pretty earnest to me when the whale turned up and lumbered off to Mona for him. I mean, we'd all thought for ages that Spesis was for the Imperial chop.'

'Indeed we did,' said Marcus. 'But if this legionary's right--if all the stories we've heard about Spesis are right--then my theory didn't quite measure up.'

'Your theory?' said Solatius.

'I said at the time: Spesis might have waited until Vertis was behind him and then vanished on his own. Seems improbable, given the man's girth, but Balatrus must have vanished with him.'

'Hmmm,' said Vectis, 'but Balatrus was still the governor's emissary. All right, so perhaps Spesis wasn't shaking like a leaf when we saw him at the bridge. Perhaps he was calling in a favour--but surely Balatrus wouldn't have compromised his position by--'

'His position, Vectis? Perhaps that was already slipping away. Rome had called "time" on Spesis. Perhaps Balatrus had discovered that his call would ring out next.' He lowered his voice. 'Uncertainty, engineer. When you're a Roman of some rank, it's the air you breathe. And, dear friend, when you're kin to such a Roman.' For a long moment, both men shared again their silent grief at the fate of their families. Then, their communion over, Vectis straightened up on his horse and raised an imaginary goblet:

'To Alacer, Spesis and Balatrus! To a sky full of snow and auguries!'

Again, the cheering was long and loud.

End of Chapter XXIV

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The Plain of Profluenae: a ficitional name for the area around Upton-upon-Severn in Worcestershire.

© Worcester City Museums