Arthur Imperator Read online

  My work chamber is a big, airy room with the Roman luxury of a hypocaust pumping steam heat through underfloor pipes so that even in winter chills, which are still some months away, it is a comfortable place. I have a fireplace and proper chimney for winter fires, and even a window made with small panes of greenish Italian glass, replaced where they have been broken with thin slices of horn, so that even on cold winter days, I have some daylight entering. Today the shutters are open and admit a breeze, which stirs the wool hangings that cloak the stone-chill of the walls. The place boasts windows that overlook the harbour, a long, polished mensa on which to spread my working papers, petitions, lists and decrees, and a handful of stools and chairs for my guests. I keep a military cot in one corner so that I can wrap myself in my red officer’s cloak and sleep if needed, while staying available at the heart of the garrison.

  Allectus stepped in, sketching a salute with a forearm across his chest. A tall man, though not as tall as I, he has a snakelike head, and eyes that constantly flicker watchfully. Physically, we could not differ much more. I am a bear-like person with a pelt of body hair, he is wolfish, smooth and spare. He seems electric with energy, nervous and pale, always hungry-looking. He is a man with ink-stained fingers and seems constantly to be carrying a bundle of scrolls. For several years, he has been my treasurer and has overseen my mints, coiners and strongboxes, and although I have not doubted his fiscal honesty, there is about him an uneasy element that warns my instincts to be wary.

  For all that, he has been my confidant and advisor. We together took the step of breaking away from Rome, knowing that a crucifix each and iron nails through the forearms to fasten us to it would be our reward if we failed, so we are partners in the business of creating and ruling an empire, even if I have that sense of unease about the man.

  On this day, I wanted a financial picture from him, as I need to know what expenditures I could make. I have conceived a strategy to strengthen the defences of my nation. “The Saxons are an increasing menace, Allectus,” I said, coming abruptly to the point. “They are swarming ashore in the south and east and although our coastal defences are enough to hold off the war bands, it’s hard to turn back the boatloads of peaceful settlers who sneak in, abandon ship and move inland to farm and forage. They are not yet a threat to our security, but if some Saxon warlord opts to seize and hold some of our land, he could have a sympathetic population already in place to help him do just that.”

  “And,” I added, “not all the settlers may intend to stay peaceful for long. The bold ones will soon enough realize they have increasing numbers, and they’ll push our people out of the best lands. We need to act.”

  “That, Lord, would mean turning back the settlers,” said Allectus. “It’s one thing to identify an invading force and meet it in arms, but we can’t build an impregnable wall along hundreds of miles of coastline.”

  IV Cavalry

  I knew the situation, and considered a solution. Our wooden walls, the fleet that had protected us from the Romans’ invasion attempts, could not be expected to intercept and turn back every boatload of farmers and herdsmen. Nor could we line the cliffs and beaches with soldiery to turn them back at spear point. What we could do was to build a mobile force that could be quickly moved in to flood an area if needed, either to turn back invaders or keep settlers under control and pacified.

  “Give me money for horses,” I told Allectus. “I want to start breeding horse herds from those on the downs near Aquae Sulis, where the ancient stone dances are sited. We can start with that stock, breed into it with heavy horses, and in a few years we’ll have built a proper cavalry force we can deploy quickly, anywhere in our island.”

  My reasoning was that neither the Saxons who were landing on our southern and eastern shores nor the Celts and Hibernians who raided the west much used mounted troops. Their battle tactics are similar: surprise and bare-chested fighting madness to overwhelm their opponents in a short, sharp encounter. We need to meet their threats with a force capable of resisting the initial impetus, and to create a prolonged battle in which the lightly-armoured enemy simply cannot prevail.

  We need power, but we also need mobility to face threats arriving from all directions. Horses provide the mobility to move troops fast and far. A chariot-borne force is one possibility, but I’d used chariots and wheeled warriors against the disciplined Romans, and found that those lightweight fighting platforms had some serious disadvantages.

  First, the chariots are unreliable for long-distance travel. They might not arrive in time to be effective, or might not arrive at all if they were shaken apart on the roads. Next and most critically, the chariots can only operate properly in open grassland, and just a few dozen well-placed stakes or ditches can thwart their attacks. Horse soldiers, on the other hand, can travel long distances quickly and operate almost anywhere, and cavalry will always prevail against foot soldiers. In confrontations where the horses could be at a disadvantage, my pony warriors can simply dismount and fight on foot.

  All I have to do is create a horse-borne army. It could be held centrally and could be deployed almost anywhere in the island in a few days. With the chain of fortifications I am building along the Saxon Shore allied to the naval patrols and lines of signal towers that cover much of the rest of Britain, a heavy cavalry force could be Britain’s land-based shield.

  “You’ll need a lot of coin,” said Allectus. “It isn’t just the horses that cost money. Each cavalryman will need a mail shirt, lance, sword, scabbard, shield and helmet. He’ll need to be fed and housed, he’ll need at least three horses.” He tapped his teeth thoughtfully. I asked him again about our treasury.

  He told me much of what I already knew. The gold mine in southern Wales was producing well, the mints in Londinium and Colchester had created fat reserves of coin and we had a considerable amount captured from the Roman pay chests after their defeat at Dungeness just a few weeks before. “It would be good to have Rouen still,” he said wistfully. That, I thought sourly, was whistling in the wind. Maximian had taken our Gallic possessions, including that mint and some considerable bullion before he sacked Bononia and drove us out of Gaul. One day, I thought grimly, he’ll pay for it.

  Allectus was talking again. “If we had to buy horse stock to start a breeding programme, we could manage with what coin and bullion we have. We’d need more as the thing went along. Maybe we could tax the Saxon settlers?” I nodded. Maybe, too, we could mount raids on Gaul and take bullion, slaves and horses. I’d robbed the pirates of the Narrow Sea in the past, maybe it was time to turn my fleet to some lawful piracy, but first, it was time to call in my officers and commence building a cavalry force, among other things.

  Allectus checked the scroll he was carrying, and looked up. He told me that the donatives I had commanded had been struck. “The Colchester mint is busy producing some fine coinage, Lord,” he said. “I should have samples here in the next day or so.” I nodded. I had to go to Londinium to parade the Eagles and oversee some executions to impress upon the populace that Arthur Britannicus had met and conquered the might of Rome. The troops would cheer for their victory and the populace would join in, but there would be more enthusiasm when we handed out gold and silver pieces with my image and some suitable inscriptions: ‘Rome conquered,’ ‘Restorer of Britain,’ and, I liked this touch: ‘Arthur and his Brothers,’ above the likenesses of myself, Maximian and Diocletian.

  The people knew we’d driven off the Romans, they had a vague idea that things might get better now they were rid of the absentee landlords, but to see their new emperor alongside the two masters of Rome, even if it was only on a coin, would validate my standing as rightful emperor. It would be good to have that validation, as I planned to have the losing general, the rogue general, as we would announce him, publicly executed.

  Constantius Chlorus, Constantius the Pale, was that general. Not only was he married to the daughter of Maximian, Augustus Caesar of the West, but also he was the junior Caesar, too, t
hird-highest official of the Roman Empire. In the weeks since we had butchered his invasion force on the shingle of Dungeness, and had chained Chlorus to the wall of his cell, I had daily been expecting a message from Maximian or his fellow Augustus, Diocletian offering ransom for the Caesar. None had come.

  “They must think we’ll just tamely send him home on his horse,” I mused to Allectus. “They will not believe we’d execute him, as they would execute us. Well, we have nothing to lose and a lot to gain when he’s dispatched. You have to behead a few, but only the right ones if you wish to make a statement. This will send a message to any possible British rebels and a shock wave through the Caesars’ palaces, all of them, Milan, Nicomedia, Antioch and Rome. They’ll be furious at the insult, but they’d cheerfully kill us anyway and a bold message might make them think again – if they lead an invasion that fails, they could be next. I’ll announce that I’m executing Chlorus as a rebel against Rome.”

  Allectus nodded. “That’s wise. You announce that Chlorus acted without permission of his Augustus, and they save face. They might even thank their new brother emperor for saving Rome’s colonia. Of course, should they ever get the chance, we’ll lose our heads, but that was long ago decided. I think they’ll publicly castigate poor old Chlorus because they’re too busy elsewhere. Just handling the Alemanni on the Rhine and Danube has them stretched. They won’t want to divert forces for another invasion attempt that could end up on the sea bed like the last one.”

  A slave poured for us from a flagon of Rhenish wine. “Here’s to a good parade, and better donatives,” I said. “Polish your best helmet,” I teased him, knowing he never wore armour. “We should be in Londinium in a week or so for Chlorus’ final performance. You want to look warlike for that. By the way, brace yourself.” He looked nervous. “It’s eels for dinner.”

  V Sentenced

  Davius Perseqius Ansonii was lolling in a wineshop, enthralling a handful of young soldiers with gory tales of his occupation. They pressed leather cups of rough red Gallic wine on him, and in return, he recounted the death struggles of the mad, the bad and the unlucky. For Davius was an official carnifex, crucifixioner to the emperor, and he’d nailed up, chopped up, sawed up, burned up, strangled or bled out hundreds of the doomed during his career.

  He’d come close to adorning a crucifix himself a few months before, and he inwardly shuddered to consider that. Davius had been sent out from the port of Bononia, which was then held by Arthur, to execute a score of Bagaudae bandits captured further along the coast of northern Gaul. During his absence, the emperor Maximian’s forces had unexpectedly struck and laid siege to the citadel.

  The general Constantius had ringed the whole of Bononia with palisades, blocked the harbour entrance and trapped the garrison without hope of relief. Davius and his escorting troops had returned, cautiously come close, seen the impassable siegeworks and quietly slipped away again, knowing that they would join those selected for painful death once the Romans breached the walls.

  The platoon moved steadily west, commandeered a fishing boat and crew at spear point and sailed across the Narrow Sea to Britain, a reunion with their legion, and safety.

  This day, Davius was in a tavern in London, readying for the execution of a Caesar, and he was explaining some of the finer points of his craft to the open-mouthed soldiers. “Crucifixion hurts a lot,” he said. “You flog the perp with a metal-tipped flagellum to bleed him, weaken him a bit, then you make him carry the crosspiece to the execution place. There, you already have an upright waiting. It has a squared end at the top, and there’s a squared hole cut in the middle of the crosspiece, so they fit together nicely, like a big letter ‘T.’

  “You fasten the perp naked to the crosspiece. You can rope him to it, but it’s better to use nine inch nails and you knock them in either through the forearms or just under the fleshy bit of the thumbs, angling them through the wrist. If you just nail straight through the palms, the perp’s weight pulls the fingers off and you have to do it again. Keep the nails straight so you can re-use them, or sell them: people use them as charms if someone’s died on those nails.

  “When you have him snugged on the crosspiece, you haul him up and drop it onto the squared end of the upright. Then you nail his feet to the sides of the upright, nailing through the heels sideways. It’s best to put the nail through a little block of wood first so the heel can’t be jerked loose.

  “If you want the perp to last longer, you can fasten a block of wood near his feet for him to take his weight. You can also make him sit on a spike, to make the blood and crap run. That brings the insects and adds to his punishment with a bit more humiliation. The whole point of crucifixion is to provide a long and painful death, to encourage the others not to do whatever the perp did. Do it right, and he can last two or three days, and the sight concentrates the minds of the onlookers wonderfully. Of course, if someone gives you a small incentive to be kind, you can break his legs so the weight goes on his arms and chest and he’ll suffocate in an hour or so.”

  One of the young legionaries licked his lips and asked: “Will this be how you do the Roman general?”

  Davius looked pointedly at his wine cup, which was hastily refilled. “No,” he said, morosely. “Most Roman citizens don’t usually get crucifixion, it’s generally reserved for slaves, rebels, traitors. Romans get strangulation or a slit throat, but nobles get it even easier, and I expect that’s what I’ll be told to do to Constantius: lop off his head.”

  Decapitation was regarded as a relatively painless exit, he said. The eyes of the detached head sometimes moved and blinked for as long as a half minute, maybe indicating that the brain lived, but it was still a lot better than the other death throes he’d seen… the problems came if the executioner didn’t get the first blow right and had to hack at the neck to sever it. In the early days, he said, carnifexes had used an axe, but it was now regarded as more honourable to use a sword, which was trickier. You had to hit hard and exactly to sever the spine, and not just anyone could do it, he said, puffing out his chest a little.

  “One fellow, a big Saxon, fought his bindings, and I had to run around the scaffold after him, whacking away at his head and back with my sword until he collapsed and I could take off his nut,” he grumbled. “Since then, I usually have an assistant to hold the perp by his hair to keep his neck still, and I also make sure they’re blindfolded so they can’t flinch away when they see I’m about to strike.”

  Davius was settling more comfortably in his corner of the tavern when a passing centurion spotted the group. “All right, you lot,” he shouted, “ ’aven’t you got no work to do?”

  One of the soldiers turned nervously and replied: “We’re waiting for orders, sarge.”

  “Never mind that, fall in behind me, I’ve got something for you,” said the officer.

  Davius sighed. He’d have to buy his own wine now. Funny though, it was Constantius who would have ordered him executed in Bononia. In a day or so, it would be him who was executing Constantius… better go, he wanted to grind a really sharp edge to his sword.

  At that moment, the defeated Caesar was having his shackles removed, preparatory to be taken out of his cell to meet his conqueror. His escort took him from the underground strong room in the old castrum of Londinium and walked him, shuffling stiffly, across the parade ground to the administration building where Allectus and I were conferring with several senior officers.

  “Ah, Constantius,” my greeting must have sounded almost cordial, as his head came up in surprise. “How are you being treated?” The Caesar - I spat inwardly at the title - shook his head, uncertain. “Look,” I told him, my voice even to me sounding a tone of false bonhomie, “I won’t keep you long, just wanted to go over a couple of things with you before, er, well, before. You know.” Then I let loose. “I hear you gave my commander Lucius Cornelius a good flogging before you shamefully crucified him, and that all came after you’d given him assurances of safety if he saved his soldiers’
lives.

  “Is that true, Caesar? Is that true? And did you,” I continued without waiting, “did you also execute five other of my officers of the Bononia garrison after they had agreed to lay down arms? Is that true, too?”

  Constantius was no coward, but the natural pallor that gave him the nickname ‘Chlorus,’ or ‘Pale’ had been enhanced by his sunless incarceration and he stared back at me completely white-faced, then dropped his eyes. His voice was almost inaudible. “I did my duty, Lord.” He looked like a dog about to be dropped in the pit with a bear.

  I felt fighting anger rising in me. “You treacherously murdered those good men, and I’m going to have you punished. There will be no ransom for you, no return to your corrupt Augustus. You will be flogged like a criminal and then beheaded. I’m giving you a painful punishment, then swift death as a Roman even though you do not deserve it. You gave my officers a long and ugly death, but I am showing the world that what you get is just, not revenge. Now, know this: throughout your empire, you will be reviled as a traitor. I am telling the world that you acted against the orders of the Augustus and invaded Britain to make yourself emperor.

  “The Augusti, both Maximian and his countryman Diocletian will publicly agree because they cannot be seen to ignore my liberation of Britain from them, but they are powerless to act. However, by declaring you a traitor, they will save their face, and hail me as their brother emperor who put down the treacherous Chlorus while they defended the empire from the Alemanni hordes in the east. Your family will be disgraced, your name expunged.”