Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [117]
It was a somewhat crude document, but for the time being it would suffice. A more detailed and formal document could be drawn up later.
Suddenly a thought struck the legate.
“We must give this place a name. What do you call this fort?”
“The dune,” Tosutigus replied sullenly.
“And the stream below?”
“Afon.” This was the Celtic word which meant river.
“Avon?” He shook his head. The sound did not please him. “Sorvio,” he said finally. “Means a slow-moving stream. We shall call it Sorviodunum.”
A.D. 60
It seemed to Porteus, as the night deepened, that the waves crashing against the rocky Welsh shore nearby made a melancholy sound. But perhaps it was his mood.
The sharp, salty wind had just found a gap between the tent flaps and it burst in, causing the oil lamp to flicker violently. But the clean-shaven young Roman who sat motionless on the camp stool inside did not allow this interruption to distract his attention. He passed a hand through his unruly mop of black curly hair – never in all his twenty-one years had he ever completely managed to control it all – and, on a new piece of parchment he wrote down, slowly and carefully, the dangerous thought that had been troubling him for the past few months.
Privately, my dear father, I believe that we are administering the island badly and that there will be trouble. It’s the governor’s fault.
Having written this, he paused. Was it wise to express such ideas in a letter that was to travel all the way to his family’s estate in south east Gaul, and which might easily be opened by spies? He was attached to the governor’s staff, thanks to the influence of his prospective father-in-law. Wouldn’t he be accused of treachery? He shook his head sadly, put the parchment to one side, and returned to the safer narrative of the letter he had been composing before.
Two days ago, dear parents, we exterminated the last of the Druids: and a strange business it was, I can tell you. They and their followers had gathered on a small island called Mona, off the extreme west coast of Britannia, past the territory of the Deceangli tribe we have been fighting recently.
The governor was determined to crush them, and so we prepared to cross the narrow straits with the whole of the XIV Legion and most of the XX too.
They were burning fires all along the shoreline opposite, and what with the fires, and the shrieks they made, and the surf pounding, our troops hesitated for a moment. But not for long! The infantry crossed in boats and those of us who were mounted swam across on our horses; when we got over it wasn’t so bad. They fought well, but in the end they had to surrender and our own losses were not heavy.
He rested his hand. This account could safely be read out to his mother and his two sisters. The reality had been very different.
It had not been the lowering, overcast skies nor the crashing waves, nor the flickering fires along the shore that had made the legionaries hesitate; it had not been the native warriors banging their long shields with their spears to make a noise like thunder, nor the Druids in their robes shrieking the curses of their Celtic gods across the waters; it had not even been the sight of the naked sacrificial bodies the Druids threw into the hissing fires.
It had been the women.
They were a strange and terrifying sight: they were drawn up in front of their men, half naked but brightly painted and fully armed, their long hair streaming in the wind. They shook their knives and spears, they danced and gesticulated as though they were possessed; and – this was the worst of all, they uttered a high, piercing war cry, again and again, that came wailing over the water with a terrible, unearthly sound. He had never heard anything like that cry: it sent shivers down his spine.
A mutter arose amongst the men.
“It’s the Furies themselves,” they said. And for a moment, he had thought they would not fight, until a wise centurion shouted derisively: