Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [118]
It had the desired effect: the soldiers had pulled themselves together, and prepared to surge forward.
The battle was worse than anything he could have dreamed of. The disciplined Roman formations hacked their way through the native horde without difficulty. Men, priests and the women were butchered by the short broad Roman swords in ways that he did nor care to remember. The shallows were awash with bodies; the surf was red. After the fighting he had watched as two old Druids, toothless, with their long grey robes in shreds, but still screaming their useless curses, were tied together in one of their own wooden sacrificial cages and torched in front of him.
“It’s what they do to their own people,” a soldier shouted. He knew this was not true: the Celtic priests meted out this cruel death to criminals only; but one did not argue with soldiers after a victory, and the two old men died horribly while the Romans laughed:
“See them fry!”
He returned to his letter, preferring to put the scenes out of his mind.
I think the governor means to return to the new town of Londinium in a few days and I shall write to you next from there, no doubt.
He was tired; it was time to close his letter.
How grateful I am, dear parents, that Graccus the senator, whom I shall soon call my father-in-law, has made it possible for me to see these things and, I hope, to distinguish myself in some way.
As for my dear Lydia, I think of her each hour, and count the days until I may see her in the imperial city, once again.
Your son,
Caius Porteus Maximus.
Porteus sighed. Lydia – when would he see her again? In a year, perhaps. He thought of her as he often did, smiling and laughing with him: it seemed like a distant ray of sunshine in this cold northern place.
It was a remarkable circumstance that he should be betrothed to her at all. She was the third daughter of Graccus, a powerful senator of ancient family; whereas he was of the provincial nobility, belonging to the second, equestrian order of Roman society – respectable, entitled to enter a civil or military career and aim for high office, but hardly a good match for the daughter of a great aristocrat. Normally they should never have met at all; but by some stroke of good fortune – a distant cousin was a magistrate in Rome and had taken Porteus to the senator’s house – he had met the girl and for both of them it had been love at first sight. In such circumstances, a young man like Porteus could have expected to be thrown out of the senator’s house for his presumption – politely and with no hard feelings, but firmly and permanently; and that was exactly what Graccus had tried to do. But Lydia had fallen in love: it was not a thing well bred Roman girls were supposed to do. She had complained and moped incesssantly; and by the end of a month her father, who had two sons and two other daughters to think of, became bored with the whole business and gave way.
“There’s nothing against young Porteus,” the girl’s mother reminded him.
“And nothing for him either,” the heavy, grey-haired senator replied irritably. Which was perfectly true.
Young Porteus had vague aspirations towards a literary career, but these were based upon nothing more solid than some jejune epigrams that he had circulated amongst his friends and which Lydia thought wonderful. The income from the estates in southern Gaul was enough just to maintain the family’s modest social position, but no more; and although Porteus’s father had encouraged him to go into law as an advocate, so far his career in Rome had not been impressive.
“The daughter of a Graccus does not marry a nonentity,” the senator growled. “I suppose we shall have to make something of him.”
The solution he hit upon was sensible from every point of view. He had used his influence with the newly appointed governor of Britannia, Suetonius, to have the young man attached to his personal staff for three years.
“Give young Porteus a chance either to win distinction for himself, or to get killed,” he said to