That night Gaius lay listening to other men’s breathing and wondering why sleep came so hard. This was a drier bed than any he had slept in for some time, and he had been in battles before. But his other fights, he reflected, had been unexpected skirmishes that were over almost as soon as they had begun.
He sought for some distraction, and suddenly found himself remembering Eilan. During the journey north it had been Julia he thought of, imagining her amusement at some bit of odd gossip or army tale. But he could never admit to Julia the things that in this moment of darkness were haunting him—
Surrounded by all these men I feel alone…I want to lay my head on your breast and feel your arms around me…I am alone, Eilan, and I am afraid!
Finally he passed at last into an uneasy slumber, and in his dreaming it seemed to him that he and Eilan were together in a hut in the midst of the forest. He kissed her, and realized that her body was rounding with his child. She smiled at him and pulled her gown tight over her belly so that he could see; he laid his hand upon the hard curve and felt the child move within and thought that she had never been so beautiful. She opened her arms to him and drew him down beside her, murmuring words of love.
Gaius fell into a deeper sleep then. When he woke, men were stirring around him, pulling on their tunics and fumbling to lace their armor in the dim gray hour before the dawn.
“Why isn’t he putting the Legions in the battle line?” Gaius asked Tacitus in an undertone.
They sat their horses with the rest of the General’s personal staff on a little hill, watching the light infantry spread out in a long line below the mountain with the cavalry to either side. The pale light gleamed on the smooth tops of their bronze helmets and their spear points, and glinted on their mail. Rough pasture rose towards the lower slopes beyond them, where the dry grass gave way to broad swathes of garnet-brown bracken and the paler purple of heather. But much of the topography of Graupius could only be guessed at, for the lower part of the mountain was hidden by armed men.
“Because they’re under strength,” the answer came. “The Emperor siphoned off men from all four Legions, remember, for his German campaign. As a result, three thousand of our crack troops are kicking their heels in Germania while the Chatti and the Sugambri laugh at them, and Agricola will have to use every trick he knows to compensate. He’s got the Legions formed up in front of the entrenchments where they can support us if we fall back, but he hopes it won’t come to that.”
“But it was the Emperor who ordered the Governor to secure northern Caledonia, wasn’t it?” Gaius asked. “Domitian is a soldier. Wouldn’t he know—？”
Tacitus smiled, and Gaius felt suddenly like a child.
“Some would say,” he answered softly, “that he knows all too well. Titus gave our Governor a hero’s honors for his successes in Britannia, and when this campaign is over Agricola’s term as Governor will be done. Perhaps the Emperor feels there is not room for two victorious generals in Rome.”
Gaius looked towards their Commander, who was watching the deployment of his troops with grave attention. His armor, of dagged scale over mail, glittered in the growing light, and the horse-hair crest of his helmet stirred slightly in the breeze. Beneath the mail, tunic and breeches were snowy white, but in the early morning light his crimson cloak glowed balefully.
Years later, on a visit to Rome, Gaius read the passage from the biography of Agricola in which Tacitus described that day. He had to smile at the speeches, which had been elaborated for literary effect in the best rhetorical tradition, for while they had both heard the General’s words, the wind brought them only fragments of the harangue of Calgacus, which Gaius no doubt understood much better than Tacitus.
Calgacus had begun first; at least they could see a tall man with hair the color of a fox-pelt striding back and forth before the most richly dressed of the enemy, and assumed it must be he. Echoing from the slopes behind him, phrases drifted across the open ground.
“…they have eaten the land, and behind us remains only the sea!” Calgacus gestured northward. “…let us destroy these monsters who would sell our children into slavery!” The Caledonians began to roar approval, and the next words were lost. When Gaius could hear again, the enemy leader seemed to be talking about the Iceni rebellion.