Behind the Britons sprawled a careless jumble of campsites where levies from different tribes had parked just as they arrived, confident that their attackers would be caught fast in a bottleneck. Farther off still were their horses and chariots. Not until they heard the first screams from the hamstrung horses did they realize that the Romans' Batavian auxiliaries had already come across.

Silently and without fuss, almost unnoticed even by their own army, the Batavians had slipped down the north side of the escarpment, entered the deep water far away to the right, and swum to the western bank. They were attached to the Fourteenth Gemina; they were one of the many groups of native specialists who were taken into the Roman legions to give them a chance of achieving citizenship and to let the army exploit their unique skills. These Batavians came from the area around the estuary of the Rhine; they were famous boatmen and pilots—and this detachment had been trained to swim, with their horses alongside, in their full weight of equipment.

They went straight for the chariot park and put the British horses out of action. At the roar when the tribesmen realized what was happening, the Batavians melted away.

On the Roman bank it was the two legions commanded by the Flavian brothers, Sabinus and Vespasian, who then made the move. Order materialized from the diversionary exercise. Screened by mounted auxiliaries—a line of cavalry upstream to break the force of the water and another lower down to catch any baggage that floated off—the soldiers began to swarm across the march while the Britons were unscrambling their chariots. The Britons hurled themselves upon this bridgehead. Vespasian and Sabinus held them off until dusk.

The third legion under Hosidius Geta went across in the dark.

The battle continued almost all the next day. In the end, Hosidius Geta's legion forced a wedge into the crammed ranks of half-naked warriors. Geta himself was surrounded but cut a swath free and broke out. His legion wheeled around to encircle the enemy, and the day and the province were won. The British forces broke and galloped north. Picking off stragglers and gathering up their own casualties, the Romans made after them. But the Britons had crossed the river where it widened; by the time pursuit arrived the tide had turned and flooded back up the estuary to form an impassable brackish lake.

Some Batavians swam the river, but they grew careless, lost their way among the marshes, and were cut apart by Caratacus. The general Aulus Plautius pitched camp on the south bank of the Tamesis, while pontoons were towed from Rutupiae to build a temporary bridge. The legions waited two months for the Emperor and the elephants to come from Rome.

"That was when you went?" demanded Caenis triumphantly.

Narcissus confirmed at last, "That was when I went across."

"What was it like?"

"Densely populated farmland with some forest in between. Wattle huts, mostly round, surrounded by tiny square fields with built-up boundary banks. Cattle, dogs everywhere, the best wheat outside Africa."

"And the blue men?"

"Extraordinary!" Narcissus exclaimed.

"Are the women blue?"

"No. And really, not many of the men. The women," Narcissus thought it appropriate to tell her, "were very tall, tawny as lions, and apparently more outspoken and single-minded even than you. Thank the gods we couldn't understand them! The ones we met were of course mostly princesses and queens."

"I suppose," Caenis said, glowering, "commanding officers abroad may have to have a lot of dealings with fierce barbarian queens?"

"Not," commented Narcissus, "if they have any sense!"

* * *

From what he had been telling her she gathered that the eastern sector of the country was by now subdued. One of the chieftains was believed to have died of wounds after the Battle of the Medway, though his brother Caratacus escaped into the west. Claudius had entered the Catuvellaunian citadel at Camulodunum, which he inaugurated as the Roman provincial capital.

"Useless," Narcissus moaned. "Too far east. Have to change it when we can. Still, he enjoyed himself."

"How long did you stay?"

"Sixteen days."

"What happened then?"

"Various kings surrendered and were laden with loans and gifts. Aulus Plautius was named first provincial governor. We sailed home. I left my man pottering round Gaul on his own."

"And that's it?"

"No, woman," Narcissus rebuked her. "That is by no means it."

He reckoned it would take them fifty years. Aulus Plautius would start now, planting a network of military forts, graveling roads, opening the ironworks in the southeast. Wine, oil, glass, perishable goods, would all go north in massive quantities; hides, hunting dogs, jet, oysters, grain, start trickling south. The legions—the Twentieth, Ninth, and Fourteenth—would establish bases in the east, the north, the middle west. But so far they had barely scratched a toehold; that was clear. In the south the Second Legion faced a major task.

Narcissus asked dourly, "I suppose you want to hear about your man?"

"Is there," Caenis enquired innocently, "anything to hear?"

She must know, since she knew Vespasian, there would be.

"With that one"—Narcissus stretched—"it is entirely up to him."

She said baldly, "I always told him that."

* * *

"This is between the two of us." Narcissus loved his secrecy. It usually meant what he had to say would be astounding half the world within a week. "My man really takes to him. Sent him into the south on his own—a free hand. He reports to the Governor, but his orders come direct from Claudius. There's an odd friendly king, Cogidumnus, on the coast, who for some reason has offered the Second Augusta a safe base. From there they can have the run of the southwest: the most ferocious tribes; dozens of hill forts bristling with nasty-tempered settlers slinging stones; some of the most fabulous defensive earthworks in the world. Somewhere in all that is more iron, plus the silver, the copper, the tin, and possibly the gold. The southwest, you realize, is where Rome really wants to be. The Second Augusta, in the command of your man, will be there for three years. I think we can assume that if he manages this, Vespasian will be made."

"Will he manage?"

"What do you think?"

"I hope he does," taunted Caenis, with her occasional abrupt habit of not thinking before she spoke. "The old skinflint owes me ten thousand sesterces!"

It was Narcissus who blushed now. Vespasian was notorious for never having any money, but this glimpse of his bedroom habits was too startling to be believed.

"I had hoped," returned the freedman tartly, "I had taught you never to lend!" He was looking faintly worried as he tried to make her out. Since he had known her as a girl, someone, perhaps even Vespasian himself, had turned this one into a tease. "I would have found him myself in the end, you know, Caenis; he was always on my list."

"Does that mean you agree with me?"

"Oh, he's outstanding," said Narcissus tersely. Then, unable to resist his nagging anxiety, "I'll give you ten thousand; it seems fair, and that tightfisted miser will never pay you back." Curious, when she did not answer he felt compelled to insist, "You'll laugh if he does."

Caenis laughed now. " ‘Never lend if you need repayment; never give where you want a return.' Now who told me that? Oh, Narcissus, believe me, if ever he does repay me there is no question about it—I shall cry!"

TWENTY-TWO

By the time the last squadrons of auxiliary soldiers had left the Field of Mars, the magistrates were just approaching the Capitol. The long procession snaked through the Flaminian Circus, and entered the city through the Triumphal Gate, which was opened especially for the day. Following the Via Triumphalis, it wound past the theaters in the Ninth District to give as many folk as possible a decent view, made a complete circuit to the right around the Palatine, included the Circus Maximus, turned left at the Caelian Hill, took the Sacred Way into the Forum, passed along the southern side, then ascended Capitol Hill by the steep approach of the Clivus Capitolinus, up to the Temple of Jupiter at the heart of the Citadel. So Rome saw the army; the army saw most of Rome.