The Northern Conspiracy Read online

  Cato’s Cavalry

  Volume Three

  A novel of Alternate History

  By Marc Hywel Jones

  Kindle Edition

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  Copyright 2015 Marc H Jones

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  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Preface

  For Kathleen. Who continues to tell me to write, if only to get these stories out of my head.

  Introduction

  When I finished Volume Two of Cato’s Cavalry I really didn’t think that I’d write about the world that I’d created again. Then my imagination kicked in and I just had to write this book. Time has moved on, Britannia is a different place, but there is still a need for a Cato and his cavalry.

  For those who are unfamiliar with the world that Cato’s Cavalry is set in, a quick explanation. In early Fifth-Century Britannia a soldier called Cato invented what he called stapeda, which we now called stirrups. This changed cavalry warfare as the Romans knew it and started a chain of events that led to the defeat of the barbarian invasions of the Fifth Century and changes to the Western Roman Empire that allowed Flavius Stilicho to seize power and become Emperor.

  The year is now 540AD, the Western Empire still exists, but Gaul, Hispania and Britannia are effectively independent. And in the East the powerful Eastern Empire under the ambitious Emperor Justinian has been victorious in its war with the Persians… and has started to look West again.

  Place names

  Alt Clud – Dumbarton Rock

  Bononia – Boulogne

  Calleva Atrebatum – Silchester Roman Town

  Cambodunum – Slack, West Yorkshire

  Coccium – Wigan

  Deva – Chester

  Droim Meánach – Drumanagh

  Eboracum – York

  Great Bay – Bay of Cardigan

  Habitancium – Risingham, Northumbria

  Londinium – London

  Luguvalium – Carlisle

  Mænavia – Isle of Man

  Magna Germania – Germany East of the Rhine

  Mamucium – Manchester

  Ratae – Leicester

  Rhenus – Rhine

  Valentia – Southern Scotland, between Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall

  Chapter One

  Britannia, 540AD

  There was a repair party working on one side of the road as the little party of horsemen trotted up the hill. Durolitum was to the East, the northernmost place where ships could be brought up the river Rodinus, and that damn swampy valley was to the West. Lucius Tullius Cato looked at the work that the men were doing and nodded slightly. They seemed to be competent. The roads were the arteries of Britannia, as the line of waggons they had passed earlier had demonstrated. Trade. Trade was so important. He looked back to the road and flicked the reins.

  As they reached the summit they slowed to a halt. Cato leant on his pommel and surreptitiously looked at the other riders. Gaius Rubrios Corius, who had been up and down the road so many times that he had probably lost count, just looked bored. Optio Casca just looked like the stolid man that he was. The other Britannians around them also seemed unconcerned at the view.

  But the reaction of the men from Hibernia, the Uí Néills was… impressive. If they had gaped at the sight of Deva, the great stronghold of the Northwest, second only to Eboracum in the North, their reaction to the city that was spread out in front of them was nothing to that.

  “That’s… so big,” Túathal, the son of the High King of Hibernia, said eventually. “Men live there?”

  Cato smiled. “Oh men and woman and children live there. They eat there. They die there. But above all they trade there. And…” he paused and as if cued by an invisible hand the clouds parted for a moment and a gleam of sunshine sought out the red tiled roofs of the Basilica, the place where so many of Britannia’s decisions were made. “Some rule there as well. Londinium! Londinium the Great! Londinium, the place where men who have more money than I will ever earn in my life as a soldier decide the fate of these Islands.”

  His old friend Corius rolled his eyes a bit at this. He was waxing loquacious, he could tell. Well, the blood of his mother’s family did contain a lot of poetry. He wondered at times just how Roman they all were really. The old Empire still flickered with life on the other side of the Alps, but that was a long way away. No. He was Britannian. They all were really.

  The Hibernians were still gaping at the city and Cato cleared his throat loudly. The noise seemed to wake them from their stupor and they all started slightly and then tried to pretend that a city like Londinium was something that they saw every day. Well, every market interval. Perhaps every year?

  Cato flicked the reins and nudged at Hadrian’s ribs. The black-maned horse snorted and then started off down the hill, followed by the others. They had an appointment to keep in Londinium.

  The statues were still there in the Basilica. Corius led the Hibernians off to one side to explain more about the building whilst Cato tied his horse up to the usual place and then walked up to the nearest stone figure. Marcus Tullius Cato. The man who had invented the stapeda. The man who had beaten back one attack by the Sea Wolves, The man who was still a legend in the North. He smiled slightly and then touched the right foot of his ancestor for luck, before looking over at the other statues. Marcus Ambrosius Aurelianus the Younger, who had kept Britannia together through thick and thin. And of course the famous Arcturus, the man who had smashed the Hunnoi at the battle of Argentorate in Gaul.

  Cato sighed slightly and then walked on. As he reached the doorway he noted a figure that had been watching him from behind a pillar and stopped in his tracks. “Corsenius. How are you?”

  “I am well, thank you for asking. I returned from Bononia yesterday with the latest news from Gaul.” The sandy-haired little man shrugged. “And before you ask what the news was, I’ll just say that what there was of it was… bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad enough that Aemilianus wants to speak to you before he meets your friends from Hibernia.”

  Cato frowned slightly. “Why does he want to speak to me?”

  “He values your counsel.” Corsenius squinted at him and then sighed. “Cato, I know that you do not think that you are as brilliant as any of your famous ancestors and I certainly know that you are not a man who likes to puff himself up based on their fame. But you need to stop staring at your boots and start looking at the horizon better. There are storms ahead.”

  He smiled sourly at the other man. “Thank you for your counsel. But I am not my ancestors. I’m just a soldier. A cavalryman.”

  “And the boyhood friend of Aemilianus AND the commander of a Turmae of cavalry. You didn’t get that last part based on your name.”

  Cato looked at Corsenius and felt his lips twist into a bitter smile. “Are you sure about that last part?” And then, without waiting for an answer, he strode through the door.

  He found Lucius Ambrosius Aurelianus Aemilianus at his desk in his office and he could tell at a glance that his old friend was in a very bad mood. He knocked politely at the door and then pointed at the piece of parchment that the Dux of Lower Britannia was glowering at. “Bad news?”

  Aemilianus sighed. “Ter
rible news. Marcus Junius Beliatrix is dying. He wrote from Eboracum that his physician has diagnosed a growth in his stomach. Knowing him, he’ll fall on his sword soon – you know what he’s like.”

  “Oh, not Beliatrix,” Cato muttered in anguish as he walked into the room. “I thought that that old man was going to live for ever.”

  “Sadly not.” Aemilianus dropped the parchment and leant back in his chair, before drumming his fingers on the desk. “That old man has dropped a surprise on my lap. He’s transferring his duties to me. He wants me to be Dux of Upper Britannia. No – he wants me to be Dux of ALL of Britannia.”

  A silence fell as Cato looked at his old friend. “This can’t have come as a total surprise to you,” he said eventually with a wince. “He did hint at it before.”

  Aemilianus stood abruptly and then strode over to the window. “He did. I hoped that he would change his mind. That the Council would persuade him to nominate his son or someone else. Tortorius perhaps, before he died.”

  “His son is a shallow, vapid, idiot. You know it, as do I. And Tortorius would have been an excellent choice – but as you said, he is dead.”

  A long moment of silence fell – and then Aemilianus thumped his fist against the wall. “I do NOT want to be the sole Dux in Britannia. I don’t want to be…” His mouth worked soundlessly for a long moment. “There is a word that I do not want to use, Lucius! I will not use it!”

  Cato pulled a face. “I know,” he said gently. “I know how reluctant you are to even think about it. But… there are times when you are too Roman. Too… reluctant to think of such absolutes. I know that you hate the word, that you think that it is unRoman – but we are no longer of Rome. We have not been for a long time. We are… Britannian. You do not want to use the word ‘king’, I understand that. Perhaps you should just stick to Dux. The sole Dux.”

  For a long moment Aemilianus stared bleakly out of the window, before his shoulders finally slumped. “I’ll think about it,” he said in a voice filled with ashes. “The only reason why I don’t want to refuse it at once is that… we are facing some troubling times, my friend. Troubling times indeed.”

  “How so?”

  The Dux of Britannia walked back to his desk and looked at the parchments that were neatly stacked there. “There is division in Rome. Again. Constantius is being undermined by his younger brother Marcus. Who is, according to Corsenius, an idiot. But unhappily an idiot who has connections with other idiots who dream of restoring the glory of Rome. Of crossing the Alps, of retaking Gaul, of re-establishing hegemony over Hispania.”

  Cato blinked. “But that’s insane,” he said bluntly. “Constantius has built on the work of his forefather Stilicho. The Western Empire is safe and stable and can feed itself! So what if it doesn’t have us and the Hispanians and the Gauls and…” He stopped speaking and then groaned. “Let me guess – powerful dreaming idiots? Again?”

  “Again.” Aemilianus grated. “But this time they have Marcus. Who has a very small brain and a very large ego.” He sighed again. “People are starting to… flock around such idiocy, for various reasons. Constantine of Gaul is worried enough to be talking to Sulpicius of Hispania. And Justinian, fresh from his triumphs over the Persians, is… getting ambitious I think. He’s eyeing Rome the way that a vulture looks at a staggering deer.”

  Cato frowned. “You think that there could be a war ahead?”

  “Maybe.” Aemilianus pulled out a piece of parchment and then glared at it. “This is a message from Justinian. He has written to us to ask… about if we have ever formally split away from the Western Empire.”

  Cato blinked. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. We didn’t leave the Empire, the Empire left us. They abandoned us. Stilicho crossed the Alps and stayed there after the Battle of Lugdunum.”

  Aemilianus smiled coldly. “That’s besides the fact. I fear that Justinian isn’t interested in the practical facts, he’s dreaming about being the second Constantine the Great. And for all we know this message could soon be followed by another one asking if we would swear allegiance to the Eastern Empire. I don’t know. I just know this – there are clouds on the horizon and I can smell the rain in the air. And so I have to accept the title that I don’t want, which will anger people that I have never met and who might wish me ill, and then I have to prepare these islands for a potential war between Rome and Constantinople that could tear up the map and change everything at a time when Magna Germania is roiling yet again from more barbarians arriving out of nowhere. Oh – and there’s yet another religious dispute breaking out over doctrine.”

  Cato winced. “So I see. Is today the wrong day for you to see the Hibernians?”

  His friend sighed and then smiled slightly. “No, I’ll talk to them. Talking about trade reassures me oddly enough. It might not be particularly glorious, but without trade we are nothing.”

  “Then I shall return with the Uí Néills so that you can talk about matters of trade and be reassured.”

  “Before you do, have you thought about what we spoke of the last time you were here?”

  Ah. Cato sighed slightly. He had been afraid that his friend would bring that up. “I am not the man you need to lead the First Cavalry Legion. I have told you this before – I am not my father. I am not a Legatus Legionis. I’m just a Centurion.”

  Aemilianus gazed at him levelly. “No,” he said quietly. You are not. You are more than that. I do not know why you underestimate yourself so much, I really do not.”

  “I am not my father,” Cato repeated with a touch of bitterness.

  “I did not say that you were. Your father is still a legend in the West. You have done excellent work in the North – and I know that you will do better. I cannot lead the Legion from down here for much longer – most of the men are in the North now. We have new Turmae being raised in Dumnonia, which is changing every year.”

  “Then appoint someone else,” Cato said stubbornly. “Give it to Poplicala.”

  “Who is better in front of infantry, training them and leading them!”

  “Then give it to Corius.”

  Aemilianus threw his hands up in frustration. “Who isn’t as good as you are! Cato, I need you to lead the legion, not manage it. Much as I like him, Corius is an administrator, not a fighter. You are a fighter.”

  Cato set his chin mulishly. “I will follow whoever you select. But I will not accept the post if you offer it to me.”

  His friend sat down heavily and then stared at him. Finally he leant forwards and grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill and ink. As he wrote on it he sighed. “This,” he said firmly, “Will be waiting for you when you get back to Deva. And no, I am not telling you what it is.” He finished writing, sanded it and then rolled it up, before pouring a little hot wax onto the middle from a small container that was standing over a candle and then sealing it with his signet ring. “You will read it then. Now – send in the Uí Néills.”

  Cato eyed him warily and then he left with a shake of his head. Stubborn. The man was so stubborn.

  The horseman rode in through the great gates of the fortress, nodding absently to the salutes of the guards. Ah, home again. Hopefully he would be moving on to a more… illustrious… location in a few years. Maybe even a few months. It all depending on how the dice fell. So much work, so much time and yes so much coin had led to this moment. He could feel it in the air now. Everything was ready.

  Chapter Two

  When Cato re-entered the study he blinked slightly. Aemilianus looked a little more relaxed than he had been before and was carefully studying a map of…. Hibernia? Hearing his footsteps the Dux looked up at him and then smiled. “You were right – interesting people. Especially Túathal. Did you know that the Uí Néills can claim influence via family connections over most of Hibernia?”

  “I had heard that,” Cato admitted. “I did wonder how much was bluster though. There is nothing like Londinium or even Dev
a in Hibernia, and Túathal was keen to stress how influential his family is as a reaction to seeing those cities. Understandable.”

  Aemilianus smiled slightly and then beckoned him closer. “Behold the work of Quintus Ilerix, who has been travelling in Hibernia for these many years without getting his head cut off for being a spy.”

  “I did wonder where he had gone to,” Cato muttered as he looked down at the map. It had been carefully drawn onto a piece of parchment – and by a very steady hand who had known what they were doing. “Interesting.”

  “Oh yes. Our friends across the Narrow Sea are very keen on staying on our good side these days. The Uí Néills have long since known that any raids that try to make their way Eastwards tend to meet a watery grave thanks to our marines in the Great Bay. Especially now that we hold the isle of Mænavia. So – trade. They have barley and oats, they have cattle. We can pay them for these things. We have wheat, we have wine, we have a pottery industry that they can only dream of.” He drummed his fingers fitfully on the desk. “And they want to be our friends.”

  Cato looked at him sardonically. “What do they need our help with?”

  “Oh, so cynical, my friend, so cynical.” He smirked slightly. “And how accurate. The Uí Néills have their own enemies to the South. And to the West. People who…. are not under the best of control, shall we say, who want to raid, even though that is not a good idea, who want to establish themselves as a greater power in Hibernia.” He laughed softly. “The Uí Néills need money and they need swords. Or spears. Or axes. Anything really.”

  “So what do we get from Hibernia?”

  Aemilianus stood and walked over to the nearby table, where a pair of plain metal goblets and a jug of wine were waiting. “Oh,” he smiled as he poured the rich red liquid into the goblets, “We get trade agreements that just might result in something, we get yet more promises of no raids – although I’ll still alert the marines of Dumnonia to keep a sharp eye out for raiders – and we get permission to reoccupy the old fort at Droim Meánach. Well – the old trading post there at least. I’ve heard three separate tales about place this week and none of them can agree on what it was. We’ll make it a damn fort though. Hibernia is a place that we need to be stable. The last thing we need is for our Western flank to go to pieces.”