The Trumpets of Mars (Imperium #2) - Chapter 17

“Talogren, I need to speak with you,” she said, riding up to the chieftain and his advisors.

Although she’d left Ky’s lictore with him, Carus had asked to go with her. At first, she wanted to tell him to stay behind. Unlike a lot of the things she had been dealing with as Ky’s voice while he was gone, this was much closer to her area of expertise and what parts of it were unique were more areas for a Caledonian to advise her on than a Roman.

She’d finally relented since Carus had shown the rare ability to keep his mouth shut and let a woman take the lead in conversations, and because eventually Ky would wake up and he’d appreciate having a spymaster with as much first-hand knowledge of the situation as possible.

“You will not talk me out of teaching your people manners,” he said, correctly predicting what she had come to see him about, if not the particulars.

“I only wanted to know what you planned to do, specifically. Since Ky is currently unavailable, I thought you could use some counsel on what kind of ripple effect you might have from whatever punishment you decided to hand out to these men.”

“What I have to do is make sure we make it clear to everyone that we are equal partners in this alliance, and I can’t help but think the advice of the Roman emperor might not have the same goal of protecting Caledonian interests as I have.”

“I can see why you’d think that, and you of course don’t have to listen to anything I have to say, although I would point out that my father isn’t just the emperor of Rome, but of our entire new Empire. I only hope that the men you’ve had reporting to you about me have also reported that I have tried very hard to ensure all Caledonians are treated as equals.”

“There is a difference between arguing for one of the people who volunteered to serve you get equal treatment and counseling on the proper treatment under Caledonian law for Roman criminals.”

“If that’s all you think I’ve done, then you haven’t listened to your spy’s very well after all. I agree these men are criminals and should be treated harshly, and I’ve ordered men’s executions before, which I think you’ve been told. My concern is writing off the hostages in the name of Caledonian reputation.”

He gave her an appraising glanced and, after a beat, said, “What would your counsel be on how to treat them.”

“It would be to not play directly into their hands. The actual people behind this crime aren’t going to be at the site of the mine itself. They would have had lackeys and factotums doing that. If you plan on just seizing them and taking their heads, you might be playing right into their hands.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are plenty of people in Rome who want this alliance to fail and think they can use that failure to increase their own power. They look down on the Caledonians and find the entire idea of treating you like equals, appalling. I am not saying that they are doing this solely to provoke this kind of response from you, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It gives them a message they can take to the people who, if given time, might come over to think of you as real people and not caricatures.”

“What would their message be, exactly?”

“That you are primitives, who not only slaughter those you don’t agree with, but also write off your own children’s lives without trying to find a peaceful solution,” she said, and then held up a hand to forestall the obvious objection Talogren was drawing a breath to make. “I know that isn’t true; but we both know what is true, and what they can convince others of, is not the same thing. In time, as our people commingle, most Romans will get to know your people on a personal level and will know this is a lie, but that takes time. Till then, they can use unfamiliarity to paint you in whatever light they choose.”

“What do we care what you Romans think of us. They can believe whatever falsehoods they like, but when they see these men’s heads on pikes, all of your people will know without a doubt that we are not to be trifled with.”

“In the short term, yes, but it will make integration of our two peoples more difficult. I know you don’t see why that’s important, although I also know Ky has tried to convince you it was several times. Until Romans and Caledonians see each other as simply people of the Britannic Empire, we will never truly be one people. Yes, your people are great warriors and valued members of the alliance, but both militarily, technologically and economically, the Caledonians are the lesser of the two of us. I know that isn’t something you, as the leader of the Caledonians, would openly agree with, but I also know you’re smart enough to know it’s true. Merging our people won’t be an easy process and it will take more than either of our lifetimes for it to fully happen, but that process can’t start until both of us decide to see problems from either side and find solutions that work best for the Empire as a whole.”

“And what would that solution be?”

“I don’t know. It depends on what has been done on the ground and how much the people at the village are responsible and how much those who sent them there with orders to - in all but name - enslave your people. Beyond just making sure the children are returned safely, I want to make sure those ultimately responsible are punished just as much as those carrying out their orders are.”

She could see the chieftain weighing over her words, and didn’t envy him the position she’d put him in. Everything in his culture said the most important thing was to be independent, free from the constraints of others, which was why it had been so difficult to unify the north in the first time and why he’d only agreed to the alliance if the Caledonian’s maintained autonomy in their region. Now he was being asked to let a Roman decide how to best protect his people.

“Fine, but if I don’t find what you decide fair to my people, I will still carry out justice in my own way. You also only have five days, and then I will take care of matters myself. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Lucilla said, giving a slight bow of her head and pulling the reins of her horse, turning back towards the middle of the column where Ky’s wagon rode.

“What did he say,” Carus asked, riding up to meet her before she made it back to Ky’s wagon.

“He’s going to let me deal with it, although he made it clear he’ll do it his way if he doesn’t like my solution.”

“Do you know what you’re going to do?”

“Not yet. I need to see what exactly is going on and figure out the best way to get the children back safely. And for that, I’m going to need you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I know that, although you are officially one of his guard commanders, your main duty is to handle gathering and sifting of information for him, specifically about people and their activities in Rome and here. What I don’t know is what, exactly, you’ve been doing along those lines, which means I don’t know how to best use you to fix this current problem. You don’t have a problem working with me in the same capacity while Ky is recovering, do you?”

Although she’d asked the question straightforwardly, as if she didn’t particularly care what the answer was, inside she was metaphorically holding her breath. So far, her presence and even some authority over how to best move Ky had been accepted by his lictore, this was the first thing she’d asked of them outside of what would be her place as … whatever she was.

“No,” he said, without hesitation. “Besides the partnership between the two of you that we’ve all seen, this was one of the situations that he was specifically worried about when the alliance was signed. He’d already had me building as many contacts as possible and getting what agents I could into Roman businesses already operating along the border, since they were the most likely ones to cross over first.”

“Do you have anyone inside this group?”

“Unfortunately, no. Until news of this popped up, I hadn’t heard of them. I’ve already sent a messenger to some of my contacts to see what they might know, but none of their names are familiar to me.”

“So, they weren’t on your list of people most likely to abuse the alliance?”

“No.”

“If these are unknowns, I’m concerned what the groups you were tracking are planning.”

“Most of them are planning nothing, because the Consul had me preemptively pull the reigns on all of those we thought might be a problem. We let them know that we were watching them, and the full weight of Roman and Caledonian law would come down on them if they even stepped a toe out of line, and suggested they look elsewhere for their money-making opportunities. That doesn’t mean they won’t try something later, once they see how things shake up, but we had the praetorians make several visits to their residences and businesses, remaining as visible as possible, to help keep it in their minds.”

“I want you to find out who’s pulling the strings for this. I’ve dealt with these types of people before, and the ones behind it are rarely actually on the ground doing their own dirty work. I want to know what we’re dealing with before we get to the village.”

“Ma’am, it’s only a three-day ride to the village. I’m not sure I can get you what you need by then.”

“Ky has said multiple times how capable you are. I have faith you will prove him right.”

“But …”

“Although you should probably get started, if you’re going to make your deadline.”

Carus pursed his lips in frustration, nodded, and rode away from the line. She knew she was asking the impossible and pushing the man too hard, but she needed this to be a success. So far, she’d had a more or less passive role as Ky’s stand-in, and her primary move was to let people operate as they thought best, with only the occasional prod or redirection. This was the first real test of what she could do and this would be the thing that people would look to when deciding if she had the right capabilities for ruling.

Although her primary goal was to make sure the alliance held and protect the lives of these new citizens of the empire, she also had to think of her legacy. There had never been a female emperor, with her brother defecting to the Carthaginians, she would one day have to take up her father’s mantle and she knew that it would be a hard transition for many Romans, and Caledonians. She would need a fairly untarnished record of successes, and a fair number of them, to get over those fears.

She needed to not only succeed at this, but to do it quickly and spectacularly.

The Village of Mwynglawdd

The village of Mwynglawdd was similar to most of the other small villages in the north which Lucilla had seen since traveling across the border. A central wooden structure, probably used for gatherings, religious ceremonies and other community events, surrounded by a mismatch of temporary hide tents and more permanent mud and thatch huts.

The biggest difference between Mwynglawdd and other villages she’d visited, even ones recently defeated by Talogren’s forces, was the people. Caledonian villages might be primitive, by Roman standards, but they were still full bustling places with people always on the go. Maybe it was because there were fewer services so everyone had to carry out every function for themselves or maybe it was just a figment of her imagination, but in every village she’d been to, there were always people coming and going on some task.

Here, there were hardly any people on the muddy lanes between huts, and those she did see look downtrodden. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but they lacked that nobility of spirit that she had admired in the Caledonians she’d met.

“Ma’am,” Modius said from behind her, drawing her attention not towards the center of town, but the mountain looming over the village.

They’d noticed some buildings out in that direction, but had decided to head towards the village first, to see the situation there. While her attention had been diverted, a group of armed men had appeared from the buildings and were clearly headed to intercept them. Expecting trouble, Cynwrig and Modius had put together extra men, mostly made up of Picts who’d volunteered to help free the village. These men might have been a problem for her normal guard force, but she’d arrived with almost a hundred warriors under her command, well more than was needed to pacify the Romans currently lording over the Caledonians.

Lucilla, however, did not want to just start with bloodshed. Attacking the first group of Romans at the village they found was precisely the kind of behavior she was hoping to avoid when she’d talked Talogren into letting her take care of the situation.

Holding up an arm, she said to Modius, “Hold back for now. I don’t think they’ll make a move on us, considering the numbers, and I’d rather talk than fight, if possible.”

Modus and Cynwrig had spent three days traveling getting some semblance of control over the men who’d volunteered to go with them. Considering how many men they had, he’d decided to use all of her Caledonian guards as commanders of the volunteers. They weren’t exactly cohesive units, but they at least had enough communication and control that simple commands like ‘don’t attack’ seemed to work. Or so Lucilla hoped as she spurred her horse forward, breaking off from the group with only Modius and Cynwrig supporting her.

“What’s your business?” one of the armed men said as Lucilla got near.

“Do you know who I am?” Lucilla asked in a neutral tone.

For some, that statement was a way to point out a power imbalance between two people, but Lucilla meant it as an honest question. Although her likeness was occasionally reproduced on some coins and art, it was never flattering or even that recognizable. In Devnum, she could assume everyone knew who she was, but the further away from the confines of the capital she got, the fewer people recognized her, making it a legitimate way to start the negotiations.

“Should I care?”

Of course, the small army she’d brought with her suggested they should care. By the way the man occasionally looked past her to the armed horde she’d just ridden away from, he was very aware of his uneven position, showing the lie to his attitude.

“I am Lucilla Germanicus, daughter of the emperor of Rome and the Britannic empire, and named representative of the Sword of Jupiter, who is currently the Consul of Rome. You would do well to know your place.”

She could see him process the information as his strong facade faded and visible fear began to creep in. These were hired toughs. Men experienced in threatening and intimidating farmers and peasants. They weren’t used to facing trained soldiers and seasoned warriors, and definitely weren’t used to dealing with real authority. They were a scourge on civilized society, although one her father had tolerated, since men like this sometimes hired themselves out as guards to legitimate merchants for protection as they traveled between towns.

“My lady,” he said, his hand coming off of his weapon. “I … forgive me, I didn’t know who you were.”

“And now you do. Where are the Roman overlords of this village?”

Her choice of words had been deliberate, and had the desired effect. Although they probably called themselves businessmen or investors, these guards were smart enough to recognize what they really were, and the penalty they would face under Roman law for doing what they’d done. Their masters had probably convinced them it was different, since they weren’t in Rome, but Lucilla’s sudden presence, and choice of words, would have made it equally clear they’d been mistaken.

His eyes darted around, looking for someone else to handle the situation, “The supervisors are at the mine. We were simply hired as guards, to protect the mining operation.”

“If I were to ask the villagers if that was all you were doing, what would they say? We are detaining you and your men until we have investigated this situation. You will show me to these supervisors while you’re men are held by my soldiers. Throw down your weapons.”

For a moment she thought they might try to fight their way out. It was clearly hopeless, and tantamount to suicide, but cornered men often make rash decisions. After a beat, however, the lead guard threw his gladius into the mud, followed by the rest of his men.

“We aren’t in Rome and so we haven’t broken any Roman laws.”

“You’re right, you aren’t in Rome. You’re on Caledonian land and, by the terms of the Alliance between our people, subject to Caledonian laws. Do you know the penalty for what you’ve done under Caledonian law?”

They didn’t but it was clear from their reaction that they could imagine what that penalty might be.

“I am here to find a more peaceful resolution to this situation, but if you’d prefer, I can hand you over to the Caledonians and be done with that.”

“Uhh, we, of course, intend to follow any commands you have. I’ll show you to the supervisors.”

His men, eyeing the Caledonians fifty feet behind her, seemed less sure of his guarantee.

“For now, you will only be held under guard,” she reassured them. “Until we can determine what, exactly, has happened here and the best resolution to the situation. If you try to run or resist, they will deal with you, otherwise, you will remain unharmed while we conduct our investigation.”

She waved for some of the Caledonians to come and retrieve the men, who allowed themselves to be herded away. Lucilla only hoped that the warriors who’d come with her continued to hold to their assurances that they would not do anything without her say so. It would be harder to get other Romans she encountered to surrender as bloodlessly if they massacred the first group of men put in their care.

One of the men cast a hopeless glance towards the weapon he’d thrown on the ground, but he and the rest let themselves be led off towards the waiting warriors while the spokesman turned and led them towards the mountain and the mining operations. Modius had already worked out possible scenarios and pre-arranged with the men how to handle them, which is why half of the mounted warriors remained at the village while the other half followed behind Lucilla and her two guards, in case a visual reminder of what the roman supervisors faced was needed.

Lucilla was glad to find that they didn’t need to travel far up the mountain to find the Roman operation. This being the early stages of the large-scale excavation, the Roman operation had started with the untouched but fairly accessible lower points of the mountain to begin mining, rather than going after the smaller and harder-to-reach veins of ore higher up. It took less than five minutes before the small column entered a naturally occurring flat area where the Romans had set up, their tents becoming visible as they cleared the intact tree line lower down.

There were only a handful of Romans on site as Lucilla’s group came into view, and all fell back towards the largest tent, as soon as Lucilla and her men came into sight. By the time they rode up to the center tent, a fairly large man in a traditional, and somewhat gaudy, toga waddled his way out of the tent, an expression of annoyance on his face. He wore enough jewelry to be considered garish even by Devnum standards and his toga was hemmed with purple cloth that, by tradition, was reserved for those in the Senatorial class. She’d met his type before. Men from the merchant class who came into wealth and put on airs of Roman society without ever actually meeting anyone born into high society.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

“In the name of the Britannic empire, you are under arrest pending investigations into your crimes against citizens of the empire,” Lucilla said, her hand on the hilt of the gladius she kept sheathed against the saddle.

“What crimes?”

“Kidnapping, forced labor, and slavery for starters.”

“We didn’t …”

“Your, or the men you serve, did. The children of the village below were taken from them to another location as hostages to force their parents to work, without payment and without a chance to regain their children.”

“Under Caledonian law, the taking of hostages …”

“Under Caledonian tradition, not law, hostage-taking has been allowed in limited circumstances, and those hostages were returned when the agreed conditions were met. Your masters change the conditions of their agreement after the children were handed over, and have refused to return them or even give a hint as to when they would be returned. Although not outlawed by Caledonian law directly, Caledonian law does make the penalties for changing agreements clear. Worse, the Caledonians have agreed to change their laws to match those of the new Roman laws regarding slavery, and you have made these people slaves in all but name. The penalty in either of our cultures is the same, however. Death.”

“I … We … I’m only following orders,” The man said, tears starting as his facade of strength crumbled. “Oppius Plautius Dama. He’s the one you want. He set this up and left us to run things. This is his.”

“And yet you’re here carrying out his orders. Taking children from their families. Forcing men to work under the eye of guards. Forcing the women to provide you food and comfort, even though they themselves are starving. You are no innocent. Take him. Take them all.” she said, waving the Caledonians with her to arrest the men.

She had instructed all of them before they arrived at the village that they weren’t to harm the prisoners unless they resisted. She wanted a public trial followed by a public verdict. She’d decided that this was the opportunity she’d needed, and she was pretty sure Ky wanted, to begin setting a precedence for a less arbitrary system of justice closer to the one Ky had described when he talked about his home. Even in Rome, justice tended to be whatever the person with the most power said it was, and even when they were right, it was arbitrary, based as much on who the person committing the crime was as what the crime was. In Caledonia, there was even less structure.

Ky had described a world where people got a chance to defend themselves and officials whose sole job it was to be neutral judged their crimes and handed out punishment solely on what the law specified, rather than what they felt at the moment. Of course, she wasn’t certain the ideal he described was actually achieved, even where he was from. She knew people and she doubted any, no matter how advanced, could separate their emotions from their decisions. That being said, striving for that level of perfection would lead to better outcomes even when the person judging the accused tried and failed in their impartiality than it went now, where the goal seemed to be biased from the start.

One or two of the guards did try to resist, a grave mistake considering how high the tempers of the men with her were running. Once two were brutally cut down on the spot, the rest gave up without a fight, allowing themselves to be led meekly away. As soon as the guards were taken away, men began pouring out of the mine, running back towards their village. For the moment, they were free, although she was sure most of them were just living in the moment, enjoying their first taste of freedom since the Romans had arrived, and hadn’t worked out the full extent of what had happened.

They might be free, but their children were still gone and the threats to those children should they disobey their new masters still existed. In a day or maybe a few hours, the first of the villagers would realize that her arresting the men guarding them could mean the death of their children, and would start asking for reassurances, which she would be unable to give.

She had some time, since they’d taken the Romans by surprise and she already had her men questioning the villagers, making sure all of the Romans who were normally here were accounted for. That meant word wouldn’t get to the guards’ masters right away, but eventually a messenger or someone would come to check on the operation and news of her arrests would get out.

Now all she had to do was find the men ultimately responsible, get to them, and seize them before they knew what was happening and before they could harm the children.

Which was easier said than done.