Rumours drifted in, too, of the state of the Frontier hills left behind the fighting. The days of the outpost fort, it seemed, were over; from now on the Frontier would be held in a different way, with even the Frontier Wolves based on the forts of the Wall itself.
‘Another strategic rearrangement,’ Cunorix had said, on the day that Alexios had killed his wolf. The first day that ever they had hunted together.
And then, a full month after Alexios had marched his tattered little army back to the Wall, the Emperor was in Onnum again, on his way south to Eburacum, and the Dux Britanniarum with him; and the old sprawling fortress where the road ran through to the North, and the forts and mile-castles on either side were crowing with trumpet calls; bulging with over many troops and horses and officials like a grass-snake that has just swallowed a toad too large for it, lying out on a sunny bank.
And the day after the Emperor rode in, the purple and gold of the Imperial dragon now flying in the light east wind above the roof of the Commander’s quarters, Alexios, on his way back from the horse-lines, received a summons to the Imperial presence.
‘Have I time to clean up?’ he asked the young sprig with the purple crest of the Imperial Bodyguard in his helmet.
‘I am afraid not. The Emperor does not care to be kept waiting.’
So hurriedly straightening his worn and weather-stained leather tunic as he went, feeling that his belt buckle was central, and the brooch which held his wolfskin in its proper position on his shoulder – he still had his wounded arm in a sling, and that tended to make it slip crooked – he followed the Emperor’s messenger up to the Commandant’s quarters, past the young men with their purple shields propped beside them playing dice in the colonnade, up the stair to a big chamber full of low winter sunlight.
There were several high-ranking officers in the room; one lounging at a table on which were a great pile of papers, a dish of dried figs and a scatter of wine-cups; and among the rest, standing close by, the Dux Britanniarum. But in the first moment of entering, Alexios’s quick gaze picked out the figure standing in the furthest window; a figure sombre by contrast with the rest, in wolfskin and weather-worn leather like his own. Ducenarius Julius Gavros. Only of course it was Praepositus Julius Gavros, now. He was glad Gavros had got the Numerus in Montanus’s place. Glad for Gavros, and glad also for the Numerus. It would be good for the Frontier Wolves to have a Commander of their own kind again.
The young guardsman who had come up with him saluted. ‘Ducenarius Aquila, noble Caesar,’ and departed.
Alexios stood where he was, waiting; and the man at the table, the man whose face he had seen on coins, went on reading the document he held in one hand and eating the fig he held in the other. He finished the document and another fig at the same moment, and looked up, licking his fingers. Alexios was surprised to see how young he was. He knew of course that when he had originally been made Caesar by his father Constantine, he had been only seventeen and very much a younger son, but somehow when you came face to face with your Emperor you expected him to be more than six or seven years older than yourself. Constans’s face was narrow-boned and long-nosed, and would have been better with a beard, for his chin was his weakest feature, but his mouth was wide and wickedly amused at life, and his eyes alert and bright. Hunting, drinking and wenching were the three things everyone linked with the name of Constans; but his young Commander of Frontier Scouts, standing in the middle of the room and steadily meeting his gaze, judged that there was a good deal more than that to his Emperor, and rather liked what he saw.
‘Ah,’ said the Emperor of the West, after a long stare. ‘Ducenarius Aquila. You look somewhat changed since the last time I saw you.’
‘I have shaved, Sir,’ said Alexios, gravely, but with a glint.
‘It could be that, of course.’ The Emperor’s gaze dropped to the sling which showed at the parting of Alexios’s wolfskin. ‘I hear that I have to congratulate you on your swordsmanship – how does the arm?’
‘It will soon be as sound as ever, Sir.’
‘So, then allowing for a short spell of sick leave, you should soon be fit to return to duty; which brings us to the question of your future. It has come to my ears,’ Constans took up his wine cup and drank, then sat idly swirling the wine and looking down into the cup, ‘that your men are crowing it through all the wine shops in Onnum, that they are prepared to back you should you feel like promoting yourself to Emperor.’
Alexios’s breath caught for an instant, then he let it go carefully. He said nothing. He was not going to belittle or disclaim his own small disreputable band by saying that they made wild jests when the drink was in them, or hurriedly protesting that he had no knowledge of such foolish talk.
Then he saw the amusement glinting in the Emperor’s face as he looked up from his wine cup, and his heart gave a slight lurch and returned to normal.
‘What? No protests of innocence and undying loyalty?’ said Constans. ‘Wild talk in jest can be taken for treason – on the other hand, it can suggest a good Commander whose men find something in him worth their following . . . The state in which your men got back to Onnum suggests the second of these two things. They did not look perhaps in parade-ground trim, but their good discipline and good heart – obviously extremely good heart – were plain to see. I know that Praepositus Gavros, here, will forgive me if I say that marching behind the Habitancum troops, the Third Ordo Frontier Scouts had very much the air of the tail wagging behind the dog. For this, I offer you my congratulations.’
‘Thank you, Sir,’ Alexios said.
‘And for this, I feel also – these are very pippy figs – that you have earned something more than congratulations. A crown or a military bracelet is after all just one more thing to keep clean, which leaves us with promotion, eh, Marius?’
‘If you say so, Sir,’ said the Dux Britanniarum forbiddingly.
Alexios glanced quickly in his direction. Uncle Marius had had enough of trying to push his nephew up the ladder, but meeting the older man’s eyes, he was startled and a little shaken, to see something very like pride in them, all the same.
‘Oh I do say so; and not for his own sake alone. The army has need of the right men in the right places. So –’ The Emperor stuck out three bony fingers, and turned down one of them, ‘Did you hear that I had a brush with the Sea Wolves on the way over? The present coastal defences are as my dear elder brother left them, which is to say they’re a disgrace; and I have decided to leave the General Gratian here in Britain to take over the setting to rights of the Eastern shore forts and fleet. There’s a place for you on his staff, with the rank of Tribune.’ The Emperor turned down a second finger. ‘Alternatively I should be happy to receive you into my “Family”, my personal bodyguard – you will have seen some of them on the way up here. I daresay you will not really think of that as promotion; but they are officer cadets, and a place among them carries with it the almost certain prospect of commanding a crack field force one day. On the other hand –’ he turned down the third finger. ‘Go and look out of the window.’
Alexios had a feeling that the Emperor was playing a game he found amusing; playing with people as though they were pieces on a board, and watching the result. But he did not think that was all it was. He crossed to the window at the far end of the chamber, Gavros moving back a little to make room for him, and he looked out.
On that side the Praetorium faced towards the granaries, with a kind of yard between; and below in the yard, squatting on their heels or prowling to and fro or simply propping up the walls and staring straight in front of them, a couple playing knucklebones, one picking idly at a half-healed scar, one braiding his barley-pale hair as tenderly as a girl, another deep in conversation with a stray dog, were about a hundred of as wild looking tribesmen as Alexios had ever seen.
‘You see those men down there?’ said the Emperor’s curiously light voice behind him.
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘They’re Attacotti pri
soners. They were Attacotti prisoners. The Twentieth took a good many, and they seemed too good fighting material to waste on the slave market, so I offered them the choice between that and serving with the Eagles. Some five hundred of them chose the Eagles. The rest of them are at Cilurnum, and tomorrow they go down to Corstopitum to begin their six weeks’ foot drill. When that’s done, you can take them out to Belgica and make Frontier Wolves of them.’
For a moment Alexios remained standing very still. Two chances of a really brilliant career – or this. He went on looking down at the men in the yard below; strangers and enemies, and utterly familiar.
‘Do you wish for time to consider your choice?’ said the Emperor’s voice behind him.
He turned from the window, and for an instant caught the old Commander’s eye cocked upon him. ‘Once a Frontier Wolf, always a Frontier Wolf,’ Gavros had once said.
He went back to his place before the Emperor. ‘No, Sir, I’ll take the Attacotti.’
‘So-o,’ Constans said, ‘well, there’s magnificent hunting in Belgica.’
Alexios looked at his uncle, ‘I’m sorry, Sir.’
‘Don’t apologize,’ said Uncle Marius. ‘After all, anybody can end up as Dux Britanniarum.’ And then he did a surprising thing. He came round the table and took Alexios’s free hand in both of his. ‘Your mother will cry again; but do you know, I believe your father would have been rather proud of you.’
In the first-fading of the short winter’s day, Alexios stood on the northern ramparts of Onnum, leaning his sound shoulder against the parapet, and looking out northward along the line of the road. He needed a little time to himself. A puddling of snow still lingered in the hollows; and far off, the higher hills of the Frontier country were still maned and crested with white; but nearer moors showed the sodden darkness of last year’s heather, and the wind that always harped along the Wall had gone round to the west, and the green plover were calling.
Alexios’s gaze followed the road that led on and on, out of sight and still on, through forts that were dead now, empty to the wolf and the raven. Habitancum and Bremenium, Trimontium that had died a long time ago; Castellum. The road and the hills . . . They had seemed so different the first time he had looked out over them, and assuredly not because of the fire of autumn burning in the gold of birch leaves and the russet of bracken had given them warmth. They had been the wilderness of desolation waiting for him, then. Now they were the hills of his lost wilderness among which he would not go again.
He remembered the Lady at the turn of the track by the ford, and the cold empty feel of the stone, the last time that he had leaned aside for that passing touch. The Lady had known. He remembered the babble of wildfowl along the estuary shores and the way the river crooned to itself on quiet nights. He remembered faces strung out along the way; men left behind, Lucius at the bridge over the Roaring-Water, the Quartermaster among the dark stone dancers of the Chieftains’ Death Place, Rufus and the Emperor’s hard bargain back at Castellum. His mind twisted away from the memory of Cunorix as he had last seen him, and when he tried to lay hold of the young Chieftain’s face in the light of a shared hunting fire, showed him instead the moment when he had held up his new son to show him to the Clan. Would the squalling and scarlet bundle be the new Chieftain one day, though his father would never be old and tired and full of sleep? Or did he and his mother with the gold drops torn from her ears lie now beneath the burned thatch of their hall? . . .
He remembered again the night the Frontier Wolves had danced the Bull Calves and fought a private war among themselves; and away back beyond that the grey autumn morning when he had walked with Julius Gavros up and down the lines of blank, guarded faces and looked each one of them in the eye as though he did not give a broken sandal-strap.
He had been so young then. It was he who had changed, and not the hills, after all. He was older now, and had wiped out the stain of that mistaken decision on the Danubius. He felt suddenly very tired, as though he had been on a long journey. He had got somewhere, but he was not quite sure where; only that he had learned a good few lessons and killed his closest friend along the way.
And now it was the start of another journey.
Footsteps came along the rampart walk, and he glanced round to see Hilarion strolling towards him.
‘It’s just as I always said,’ Hilarion draped himself against the parapet at his side. ‘No sooner do we get a Commander comfortably broken in to our ways than the higher command send him off somewhere else, and we have to start on some new cub, all over again.’
‘I was just discovering that it comes a bit hard on the Commander, too,’ Alexios said, not knowing it until the words were spoken.
‘Well, you’ll leave them in good hands, now that Gavros has the Numerus.’
Looking out along the road again, Alexios said, ‘I’m thinking you’ll get Number Three Ordo in my place.’
The silence beside him made him look round, and he saw with surprise that for the first time since they had known each other, Hilarion was looking not completely sure of himself. ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Hilarion after a moment, ‘I was thinking of trying for an Ordo in another Numerus – the old Third will be split up and re-made, anyhow.’
‘You mean –?’ Alexios said slowly.
‘You’ll need a couple of good experienced Ordo officers,’ his centenarius told him, ‘and the gods know what you’ll get if you leave it to the authorities. Up here we break in our own officers as we go along, but now it won’t be so simple; and this new lot of yours – they’re not even from inside the Empire, they’re barbarians from beyond the pale. We shall have to do all the training.’
‘We?’ said Alexios.
‘We,’ said Hilarion.
There was a sudden warmth in Alexios. The tall mocking man beside him would never fill the place that Cunorix had left empty and aching, but the startled warmth felt good, all the same. ‘Hilarion, do you want to come with me?’
‘Well if I don’t, I really can’t think what this conversation is all about,’ said the centenarius.
‘Then go you and put in your application, and I’ll back it.’
His slow lazy smile drifted over Hilarion’s freckled face. ‘I already have,’ he said.
They looked at each other a long moment, and then laughter took them both.
From below came a ragged tramping and a snatch of wild and mournful song. And still laughing, the two young men on the rampart turned, each with a hand on the other’s shoulder, and stood looking down. The last slate grey of the daylight was fading, blending away into the red-flaked smoke of unseen fires where they were burning rubbish down beyond the horse-lines, and along the open space below the Wall, the men of the First Attacotti Frontier Scouts were being marched back to barracks for the night.
Alexios wondered how often, round how many camp fires in Belgica, he would hear that wild lament out of Hibernia when the native beer went round and it had long since ceased to be truly a lament and become something that one sang for the memory of old griefs and old longings and the pleasure of twisting one’s own heartstrings.
‘There goes your new command,’ said Hilarion, ‘and to think there are rising four hundred more of them at Cilurnum! Mother of Mares, what a pack! What a rabble! I wish us joy of them!’
‘I wish us joy of them!’ said Alexios Flavius Aquila, their new Commanding Officer.
Author’s Note
Almost in the fringes of Edinburgh, where the River Almond joins the Firth of Forth, there is a village called Cramond; and where the village now stands, there was once a Roman fort. Its Roman name is lost, and so I have called it Castellum, which is simply the Latin word for a fort. When I first wanted to write a story about a unit of Frontier Scouts based here, I learned from the archaeologists who had excavated the site that there was no trace of any Roman military occupation at the date that I needed it – AD 343 – or for nearly a hundred years before. So, sadly, I put the whole idea aside.
But twenty-five years ago, when The Eagle of the Ninth was just published and it was too late to do anything about it, I found to my horror that there was no trace of any Roman military occupation at Exeter. And now, twenty-five years later, traces of the Second Legion are being dug up all over the city! So maybe in twenty-five years’ time they will be digging up traces of the Third Ordo, Frontier Wolves, all over Cramond!
Anyhow, after thinking it over for a long while, I decided to go ahead with the story I wanted to tell, playing fair with you who read it, by telling you that up to now, no traces have been found.
According to the Notitia Dignitatum, which lists the whereabouts of every unit of the Roman Army around AD 420, a crack light infantry unit of Attacotti was part of the Field Army in Gaul at that time. It would be hard to think of anything much more unlikely than a force of Irishmen serving in the Roman Army, and it seems to me that, allowing for the changes of frontiers and military needs over eighty years or so, they might well be descended from the First Attacotti Frontier Scouts of this story.
About the Author
Rosemary Sutcliff was born in 1920 in West Clanden, Surrey.
With over 40 books to her credit, Rosemary Sutcliff is now universally considered one of the finest writers of historical novels for children. Her first novel, The Queen Elizabeth Story was published in 1950. In 1959 her book The Lantern Bearers won the Carnegie Medal. In 1974 she was highly commended for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and in 1978 her book, Song for a Dark Queen was commended for the Other Award.
In 1975, Rosemary was awarded the OBE for services to Children’s Literature and the CBE in 1992. Unfortunately Rosemary passed away in July 1992 and will be much missed by her many fans.