Chapter 7

Devnum

“It’s cloudy,” Lucilla said. “I can’t really see anything.”

“Could you describe it being more specific please,” Sophus said.

They’d been back in Devnum for two days, and Hortensius had been a whirlwind since their return. He’d already begun working on all of the projects Ky had given him; he sent men out to collect the necessary supplies for the gunpowder, began the first casting tests on the canon, and started producing the semaphore stations.

Of all the tasks he’d been given, the semaphore stations were the easiest. Ky had already marked out on a map where he wanted the permanent stations to be built that would allow messages to be transmitted between the major cities and the capital. The stations themselves were pretty straightforward and could be built using “volunteer” labor from the prisoner of war camps. The height of each tower depended on the height of the land it was built on, calculated by Sophus so that each should be able to see the next tower in spite of trees and obstacles. Some were a mere thirty feet off the ground while the tallest reached as high as the top of the Coliseum, the wooden frame designed to be sturdy even in the face of strong winds. Ky had devised a series of cables using Roman wire, which he’d also given instructions on how to strengthen using the new steel, and would be used to brace the tallest towers in all directions.

Most of the towers themselves, with their enclosed cabins and pulleys for raising and lowering flags or lanterns, would be finished in just a few weeks. The slower part of the project would be training the men tasked with operating the stations to read the code that Ky had worked out for them. The actual messaging wasn’t hard since they could produce scrolls that identified what letter each flag combination or light sequence indicated. They’d also have to learn how to decode and encode those messages using ciphers. Lucilla’s people had already been using the idea of shifting letters for other letters in a pattern known only by the people sending the message, but Ky had introduced a much more complex algorithm, using simple mathematical formulas that could be changed quickly, even automatically, based on the season or day of the week.

The instructions to do this were fairly clear, but they’d need to train several hundred men who would then be scattered across the countryside to operate each station, and they had to do it well enough to not make errors in their communications. Simple things could be figured out, but things like troop movements or questions of a scientific nature would require exact figures that could be easily ruined if a number was shifted accidentally. To reduce the errors, they had procedures to repeat and confirm messages, but men in the field often looked for shortcuts in performing their daily work, and she had no illusions that this wouldn’t happen here.

The other, and more direct issue, was the looking glass that Ky had described. The stations were far enough apart that every station would need one, and more likely several, to see the message being sent. It was already clear the legions and most ship masters, as well as a large part of private industry, were going to be clamoring for these devices if they worked the way Ky said they would, so they needed to get into production right away. Unfortunately, this first attempt seemed completely worthless, which showed that even with specific instructions, creating things that none of the people working on it had seen before added new levels of challenge.

“I can see light through it, but not much else. It’s much more cloudy than the glass I have seen used to make vessels and in some temples.”

“I’m sorry, but for this to work, I need specifics.”

“I know, but I don’t know how to describe it in more detail for you.”

“I will try and walk you through it,” Sophus said.

The next two hours were some of the most frustrating of Lucilla’s life. Sophus had her perform dozens of experiments, giving the most precise answers she could, sometimes doing the experiment over and over to ensure her answers were correct.

Just about the time she was ready to pull the small transmitter out of her ear and chuck it into the street, Sophus said, “I believe I have deduced the problem with this run of glass.”

“Good, what is it?”

“The sand being melted down has too many impurities in it that are not being removed in the heating process. The instructions we’d originally given were in hopes that they could heat the furnaces to the point of removing impurities in the silica, enough that the lenses would be functional after grinding. That is what is used in more modern glass-making systems, but it requires the furnaces to have a stability in the heat that seems to not have been achieved yet. Since that isn’t working, there is another method that can be used, although it will take more time. I will give instructions where to mine the quartz needed for the alternate method of glass making, as well as instructions to recognize it and to grind it into grains that can be melted properly into transparent glass.”

Lucilla set down the cloudy glass and began writing down Sophus’s dictated notes. She understood the importance of getting them right, but this went much faster when Ky did it, or at least she preferred it when she wasn’t the one having to do the transcribing. She felt almost like a child again, doing her letters in front of her tutor, who would slap her knuckles every time she did something wrong. Thankfully, Sophus wasn’t able to perform that part when she wrote a word wrong and had to go back to correct her error.

It was still very early on their timetable, but she had been hopeful that Hortensius’s enthusiasm had put them ahead of schedule, and she was disheartened that this part of their work would be delayed.

Londinium

“Yes, Your Excellency,” Maharbaal’s aide said when he entered the room.

The man wore a close-fitting and highly adorned shendyt together with a tight-fitted inner rope making him seem impossibly thin. Maharbaal resisted the urge to roll his eyes, as he often did when dealing with his aide. The man was unfailingly loyal, which is why the governor had summoned him now, but his refusal to adapt to more lose fitting clothes and heavier outer garments that fit the dreary and cold weather of the Britannic isles had always baffled Maharbaal. The thin and tightly wound garments made sense in the hot African and Iberian sun, but here, it would leave a man shivering from the cold.

“I’ve prepared the message for the emperor. It is important you do not give it to any of his aides or lackeys. Find my agents there. They will ensure that, as my personal representative, you will be granted an audience to report on our dire situation. Some of my detractors might try to meet you at the docks to dissuade you or to convince you that they’re working for me and to hand this over to them. Be vigilant.”

“Yes, sire. I know the passcodes by heart. You can count on me.”

“Good. They’d like nothing more than to see me fail, losing the island to the damned Romans and forced to scuttle back to court with my tail between my legs. You need to make it clear to the emperor and his generals how serious our situation is. Inform them that our final attempt to break out and take the attack to the Romans has failed. We are outnumbered and at the mercy of their new catapults, which outrange anything we have. Don’t, however, point out that we’ve lost all of our siege equipment. Make it clear we must have reinforcements if we are to survive and reestablish our base here. I know there is an army on Hibernia, but their governor claims to be preoccupied dealing with the primitives there and says he is unable to send us any soldiers. A full relief army from home would be good, but at the very least we need the emperor to order Aradus to send at least two thousand men to us so we can properly man our defenses as we wait for the relief army. If not, the city will fall and the empire will have to re-invade this island. Remind his generals that, with the current activity in the east, they can’t afford to divert the necessary men to retake the island and maintain our operations there.”

The governor had covered these items with his aide already, and it was all clearly spelled out, although more diplomatically, in his letter, but Maharbaal was desperate. This posting was supposed to be the steppingstone for his career, allowing him to one day govern a province with real wealth and an opportunity to make a name for himself. Everything had fallen apart at the hands of the incompetents sent to lead his armies. If he didn’t find a way to save the situation, he would be held responsible when he returned to Carthage.

He well knew how the emperor dealt with men that had failed. He’d thrown Bomilcar to the wolves, but that would not have been enough to appease the emperor.

“This next part is not in my letter. I need you to pass these instructions to my agents yourself. They are to begin spreading the word of the failure of the Roman traitor. They must tie his involvement to the emperor’s decree that we work with him, being careful to not implicate the emperor in any mistake or error himself. There needs to be enough doubt in Caesius that the emperor has no choice but to single him out for this failure and hold him personally responsible while avoiding having any of Caesius’s mistakes taint his own glory. I will make sure the coward stays and dies here at the hands of his people, which will make it easier to assign blame to him. It will take time for this to happen, so they need to start right away. If reinforcements don’t come and I am forced to flee, the campaign to disparage the Roman must be well underway so that I am not made an example of as soon as I step off the boat. Do you understand what you must do?”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

Fool that he was, the man had played the game for a long time and knew how to operate at court. It was still a risk, since any man’s loyalty had a price, one that was often paid by competitors, but Maharbaal couldn’t go himself, so this was his only option.

“Good. Prepare yourself. I’ve sent orders for our most seaworthy ship to travel south as soon as the last supply shipment arrives from Hibernia with their dispatches. The man has been well paid, but don’t trust him. Be wary of treachery.”

“I will, Your Excellency.”

“Then go. Prepare yourself. I think it is unlikely I shall see you before I return to Carthage.”

The man bowed and left, leaving Maharbaal to fret alone over his future.

Devnum

“I understand it’s how things are done in your village, but when in Roman territory, you must follow Roman laws, just like Roman citizens have to follow your laws when on Caledonian land,” Lucilla said to the Caledonian applicant, standing before her father’s throne, where she sat.

Ever since she returned, her father had been determined for her to throw herself back into the business of government. With her brother gone, she was the clear choice for his successor and he wanted her to have as much experience in the daily functions an Emperor had to deal with as possible.

True, it was out of the norm for a woman to inherit, but her marriage to Ky was a foregone conclusion at this point, at least to everyone but Ky, and his acting as consort would be enough to make her inheriting the position palatable to the majority of Romans. Besides, she wouldn’t be just the Emperor of the Romans, but of the entire Britannic Empire, and she was one of the few leaders that both the Romans and the Caledonians would support.

“But that field was unused,” the man said, not seeming to understand the problem.

“Because he was leaving it to lay fallow, but even if he decided to leave it unused for no reason, that’s up to him. You are not allowed to use someone else’s land without their permission. I understand this was an honest mistake and things are done differently up north, so I will limit your punishment to either paying for removing the planting or allowing the landowner to simply sell the harvest as his own, whichever the owner prefers.”

“To fine a man for using untilled land is an insult,” the man said, angrily.

To a degree, Lucilla understood his anger. For the Caledonians, at least before they came under the sway of the anti-slavery laws Ky had put into the foundations of the Britannic Empire, it was commonplace to sell anyone captured in a raid as property. As someone taken that very way and destined to be kept as a slave before Ky rode in and saved her, she was equally offended by their laws and traditions.

However, they’d agreed to let each people rule their own land as they saw fit, as long as it was within the limitations put in place by the Imperial Senate, and the average person who traveled north or south for profit needed to understand that. Their relationships with their neighbors would still be contentious until everyone got used to the idea of each member’s independent sovereignty.

“I understand how you feel, and I sympathize. Think of it like this. Imagine that a Roman man married a Caledonian woman and moved north to live in Caledonia. Years later they have a child who grows up to be rebellious. The father decides he will not tolerate the child and says the child cannot inherit any of his property or live on his land any longer, and instead gives the land to his wife’s sister’s children. The child is then cast out, and must live as a beggar on the streets, asking passers-by for money. This is allowed in Rome. Should his neighbors be forced to live next to someone who would deny kinship?”

One of the strongest things in Caledonian culture was its kinship laws, which predated any actual written laws and provided a firm stance on how families were expected to behave. For instance, it was expected that families would care for and support their kin, keeping them from being a burden on the rest of society. The only people seen on the street begging were the poor souls who’d lost all forms of kinship, usually when everyone they could possibly be related to had died off, leaving them as the sole surviving member of their family. Considering kinship stretched multiple generations, this took quite a run of bad luck to occur and was exceedingly rare.