Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [134]
“They tried to break into our camp and loot the stores,” the soldier in charge explained to him. “They’re bound for Londinium, to be sold as slaves.”
The party rested there the night, and while the soldiers rested, Tosutigus went to inspect the prisoners. One of them, he noticed, was only a boy of ten, and as he drew close he recognised the son of one of the Durotrigan chiefs. Feeling sorry for the boy, he approached him.
“I know your father and I am sad to see you like this,” he said.
But the boy only scowled at him.
“Better a slave than a traitor like you,” he cried bitterly. “Tosutigus the Liar.” And he spat on the ground to show his contempt.
Tosutigus turned and walked away. So that was to be his reputation – just as the Druid Aflek had warned him. He told himself that he did not care.
“The Durotriges may hate me; but it’s from the emperor that I shall get my reward,” he reasoned.
The autumn passed and no word came.
The snows fell; Sarum was silent. The huge gaping circle of the dune stood frozen and empty. Each day, Tosutigus would climb its high walls and pace about on the great rim of ice, scouring the horizon for signs of the Roman messengers he hoped for. Sometimes Numex and Balba accompanied him, waddling at his side, their red faces shining in the cold air, peering with him across the snow-covered wastes – but as the months passed, he had little conviction that anything would come out of them.
Throughout the long winter, the landscape remained empty. When the snows departed, Tosutigus noticed that the chalk sides of the dunes were sprouting tufts of new grass.
As the river grew to its full spate, and spring began, the people of Sarum went about their business quietly. The young chief guessed that they despised him for surrendering the dune, and compared him unfavourably with the Durotriges; already, while Vespasian’s troops were busy occupying their territory, they had begun to compose songs about the feats of bravery of their chiefs who had fallen in battle. But he was not discouraged.
“You will see,” he told Numex and his brother. “I have done well for Sarum.”
It was a full year after Vespasian’s visit that a little group of men was seen approaching across the high ground from the north east. It consisted of a tall, sallow, middle-aged man on a small horse, six slaves and six legionaries; the group came across the high ground towards the dune slowly, pausing frequently.
Eagerly, Tosutigus rode out to meet them. When he reached them, he saw that two of the slaves carried posts, on top of which rested a pair of crossed wooden bars, from the four ends of which hung small plumb lines.
“We’re surveyors,” the sallow man told him. “There are important roads coming through here.”
When the surveyors reached the dune, they inspected it carefully, and then went down the slope to the river below.
“There’s to be a road across the river,” the sallow man said, “and a new settlement.” He indicated a modest rectangular site by the bank.
A new settlement! The young chiefs eyes lit up. So the Romans had important plans for the place.
“Just a staging pose, a mansio,” the surveyor went on. But Tosutigus was not listening. Already he had visions of an extensive town under his control.
They came to build the roads two months later: this time a whole century of eighty men with their centurion swung over the high ground, each man carrying a spade on his back in addition to his other equipment.
They began with the settlement, and they worked with astonishing speed. On the site by the river that the surveyor had marked out, they threw upa bank of earth, just as though they were building one of their walled military camps. Down the centre they laid out a single small street, with three square plots on each side of it, making a grid. And that was all. There was no forum, no space for any large official building, no temple: just a few