Sorry about the long silence, but I've been ill again, plus busy at writing for a living. All of a sudden the commissions are coming thick and fast, so, yay! Money! Plus I wrote a fanfiction story that crossed the Jedi Harris universe with Castle. Where the bleeping bleep did that come from? Anyway - Cato's Cavalry -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 Deva 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.”
Cato nodded shortly and then took the proffered goblet and sniffed the wine. “From Calleva Atrebatum?”
His friend grinned at him. “Indeed from there – a good wine, yes?”
He tasted it and then grinned back. “Very nice indeed.” Then he sobered slightly. “You want the West safe. I know that the North is safe as well – I could argue that it’s time to send the garrisons on the Wall North to the Antonine Wall, as Valentia is as much a part of Britannia now as any other area. The Painted People are fading fast and the Tribes of Valentia become more like us with every day that passes. But – you are still worried.”
Aemilianus smiled bitterly. “The East worries me. All of it. And the South. Hispania has been all but independent from Rome for a century or so. Tradition, loyalty and frankly stupidity has held them back from a formal split, but there is just enough of a sliver of legality to allow an idiot in Rome to claim that it should be a real part of the Western Empire again. And that worries me. Our new trade agreement with the Uí Néills doesn’t come close to replacing what we might lose if Hispania is lost to our traders. Or if Gaul is lost to us. Trade is important. No – trade is vital to us. Without it our cities will wither into nothing. We’ll become what Hibernia is – a land of farmers and a handful of our former numbers.”
Cato looked at his friend, who was staring at something that he could not see for a moment. “Are you well?”
The other man started slightly and then smiled. “Just a memory of a dream again. A long story. I’ll tell you one day.” He shook himself. “Well, I have no intention of letting us join the sad ghosts that litter the forests of Magna Germania. Have you ever talked to Silenus about that place?”
Cato blinked at this. “No. Why?”
“Ask him about the tale of the people in the village in the woods. It scares me every time he tells it.” Aemilianus shook himself slightly. “We’ll need people like Silenus and Ilerix if we are to navigate the shoals of the years ahead.” He looked at Cato. “I need a favour from you.”
“You have but to name it. What do you wish me to do?”
“Go to Eboracum for me and talk to Beliatrix. There is something about his letter that is making my thumb itch. I do not know why – it just does. I have a feeling that he was trying to say something but that he did not know how to word it.”
Cato suppressed a grimace at the thought of getting involved in what might turn out to be politics but then nodded slowly. “I can go. How ill is Beliatrix – or rather how long do I have before he falls on his sword?”
“He said that wants to spend a month or two putting his affairs in order. You should have time to get there to see him.”
Cato thought about matters for a moment. “Poplicala can deal with our Hibernian friends on their way back to Deva and the ships.” He smiled slightly. “Did you know that his wife has given him twin sons?”
“I did hear that,” Aemilianus grinned. “The mighty House of Poplicala is bursting at the seams.”
Cato smiled and suppressed the pain of the death of Julia again. What was done was done. But something of his pain must have leaked out somehow, because Aemilianus poured more wine into his goblet. “Do not dwell upon the past. You will marry again one day – I know it. And have many fine sons to carry on your name.”
He snorted slightly. “I am unlucky in many things. Finding a wife again is one of those things. God knows I’ve tried.”
“Try harder,” Aemilianus smiled at him, his eyebrows raised. “Or my Scribonia will try and matchmake for you again.”
He had been sipping from the goblet when those words left the mouth of his friend and he now breathed in at the wrong moment. “Oh please no!” he protested when he was at last able to, still slightly red-faced from coughing. “I respect your dear wife a great deal, but her last attempt was… unfortunate.”
“Yes, she did admit that afterwards. What was her name again?”
“Drusilla. Daughter of the ferociously socially ambitious Quintus Salerix.”
Aemilianus sighed. “The face of an angel. And the laugh of a mule. Did she ever marry?”
“I heard that there is a very lucky man in Glevum who has that honour.”
His friend coughed politely. “A lucky man indeed. Anyway – enough of this. We will have a banquet tonight for our friends from Hibernia - and then you must be on your way North.”
“Agreed.”
